I was thinking of the metaphors playing out the past couple of weeks in my life, in terms of energy leakage.  I don’t mean spending time with people who sap my energy, I have very little of that in my life.  I’m pretty disciplined that way.  And I don’t mean getting caught up watching tv, because anything I ever turn on, I can turn right back off and not wonder what comes next or what I’m missing.  I’m talking about ways I let my energy drip, drip, drip away as a new rut begins to settle in.

My appliances here talk to me.  Yep, they always have but I wasn’t always listening.  My garage door opening sings to me like angels whispering (it’s the sound of freedom).  So about a month ago, the guest bathroom toilet began running, signalling a leak that needed tending to.  It was only a couple of years old, so I knew it was nothing major, and it wasn’t too bad, so I put it off.  After all, I had several other things going on at the same time.  I was in final layout for the January Horizons, so I back burnered it.  I tabled the topic for later thought.

Then the light went out in the guest bath,  and I had to bring a lamp in, which was barely a night light.  No big deal, that room is rarely used anyway.  But the water was running more, so I began closing the door so I couldn’t hear it.  After all, I was going to call as soon as the January magazine was at the printer.  After a few days of still hearing it, I decided to turn the water off altogether.  Or that was the plan.  Instead, I stripped the fixture which meant I then HAD to call the plumber.

Since the plumber was coming out, I had to clear out that room and get a light in there.  I shut off the main power to the guest bath and opened the light switch and pulled the wires out to look at them to see if anything looked loose.  Nothing did.  I left the light switch wires pulled out, then turned the power back on to that room.  The lights came on!  They go off when I try to stuff the wires back in the switchbox, so I just left them out.

So now with full light in the room for the first time in a week, I decide to clean everything real good before the plumber gets here.  And that’s when I see the big lesson of letting the water run and staying in the dark.  I have well water and although it goes through a water softener, if water is dripping, it leaves a nice orange glow from the high iron content.  Everyone in old Palm Bay knows that orange glow.  And now, from almost 2 weeks’ constant water running, there were deep dark orange grooves in the porcelain of the toilet.  Grooves I had not noticed  gradually happening, since I had not been using that room, and had no effective lighting in there.  Once everything was illuminated, however, it was clear that it was time to replace the toilet, and the flooring as well.

Just as I’d kept myself in the dark for almost a month about the water I was wasting, I was also in the dark about letting my eating habits slip.  I still eat far healthier than most, but it’s not about me compared to anyone else; it’s about me doing what I know makes my brain and body perform at the optimum.  I’d begun eating bread and sandwiches a few times a week.  Not bad, just kinda heavy for me and I barely noticed it was making me sluggish.  But bite by bite, I was letting it weigh me down energetically.  And it was easy to stay in the dark about it.

It was far easier to pick up a sandwich than it was to make that extra salad, and I began to let myself sink into the rut of having a sandwich every other day or so.  And that rut carved deeply with each heavy bite.  I had begun using regular mayonaisse on occasion.  I couldn’t pretend that buying it was not pre-meditation.  Why was I going lax on something as important as my nutritional input?  Why was I letting myself stay in the dark and letting my energy run in that direction despite what I knew?

Hindsight being 20/20, I laugh now to think of how I missed that big giant signal the Universe was sending me via my guest bath… When I miss a metaphor like that, it always reminds me in the Steve Martin movie, The Man With Two Brains, where he’s speaking to a large wall portrait of his deceased mother, asking whether he should marry a rather unsuitable woman, and he asks the portrait, “Mom, give me a sign, should I or shouldn’t I?”

Suddenly a dark storm comes up, hurricane-like wind rushes through the house sending papers flying and the wall portrait begins spinning crazily on the wall, while a disembodied voice shreiks “Nooooo!!!!!!!”    Steve Martin looks again at the portrait and says, “Just a sign, Mom, any kind of sign.”   We laugh, but we’ve all experienced it, being blindly oblivious to messages and guidance, since in retrospect they loom so large.

So now, having done several home repairs and upgrades, I am feeing like all energy leakages are under control.  And having just purged my system with a good week’s flu, I can once again decide what energetic imprint I want my foods to have and why.  I’ll be more vigilant from now on.  And I’ll be careful what kind of ruts I’m carving myself into.