Holiday Blues Check-In - Clouds building - let the LIGHT shine IN !!!

[FirstLight]

I don't know about you all...but I am in the dumps today. Christmas Sucks.

Went to the kids school program this morning, it was adorable.
Went to Kmart this afternoon and got their presents out of layaway, still gotta figure out stockings (maybe $20 and the dollar store can save me on that...if I can find $20 by next week)

But i am just NOT feeling it.

This time of year is sucking the life out of me. I was feeling icky because of being single at the kids school event, watching the families all there and taking pictures...and I had nobody to share it with.
The presents are fine, family game night stuff and even a couple things for mommy so that nobody notices that Santa didn;t give me anything...but I am still feeling the lonliness like a hollow ache. Those stupid jewelry store commercials - nobody ever gave ME something romantic for Christmas or my Bday. (... and the recent breakup of what I 'thought' was a relationship makes me feel even more lonely) It isn't about just "having a boyfriend" but my soul aches for a Real Partner, to share this time with, to share the kids with... and someone to know ME and care about ME... it gets hard flying solo for such a long time.

The news and stuff flying around in GD/GDP is so dark and angry and depressing, we may as well have voted for McCain last year. I swear, the job situation is not getting any better. I am personally coming up on a year of unemployment and living on welfare & food stamps with no relief in sight. Copenhagen was a flop and the planet is continuing to spiral into the darknes and environmental disaster... ya, "joy to the world" my ARSE!

ugh...I just wanna crawl in bed till 2015!!!
Trying to look to the light and read Matthew Messages, etc...and as much as i wish they are speaking truth and there is something to look forward to... at this point I am tried of hearing about it and ready to freaking SEE it already!! Sheesh!

Is it just this time of year and my impending Birthday doom that has me in an uproar, or is it collective...??? :wtf:

[FirstLight]

1. ...am I just bumming you all out or what...?

sorry to be a scrooge.

I am getting the kids to bed early and attempting to clean house in preparation for cookie baking this weekend, and make a list of cards to send, etc...I also called a friend to see if they wanna go karaoke at 11. TRY to cultivate a "life" too ;)

perhaps just 'going through the motions' is what is required at times such as these..?

[bigmonkey]

2. I'm thinking about you.

I envy you your kids at at this time of year. I've got no family nearby, and wish I did. All the dark coming out right now is kind of depressing, but I have a lot to be grateful for, my health and so forth in my case.

From the traditional pagan point-of-view, this is the last couple of days of the darkest period of the year, things start getting brighter soon.

[FirstLight]

3. Solstice is definately nigh....

Thanks for reminding me....maybe that's why i have been sleeping alot too!
Sunday evening is a drumming and light ceremony at a friend's house, I plan on going too... need to choose some new things to create for next spring, etc so i can feel like I have something to look forward to!

Now is a good time to get out the sketchbook and plot out my seeds/garden for next year too ;)

[FirstLight]

4. Here's a little tidbit i just found about 12:21 and the new year

http://lightworkers.org/channeling/95156/1221-out-old-new

Very good info about our next wave...and the crud we're feeling now...

[OneGrassRoot]

7. Wow, this is GREAT!

Lots of synchronicity and mirrors in there, and I need to re-read this a few times.

Thanks for finding it, FirstLight.

Again, I do so hope the pain in your heart dissipates soon. I see it going *poof*...yes, magically going *poof* -- and you're moving forward once again with that delightfully optimistic, go-getter goddess persona you radiate.

:hug: :hug: :hug:

[u4ic]

5. I understand, all too well

and hope that you find what you are looking for. I'm sorry you had a recent breakup. :hug:

Xmas always gets me down, too. I can get in the spirit around others, but personally, it's usually been a downer for most of my life. Seeing what others have - and I don't. Not envious or wishing badly on others, just wish my life were different, and there are issues where I can only do so much (ie disability).

I don't know if it helps at all - but those media creations are doing their job, unfortunately. They create an idealized version of Xmas or Valentine's or whatever holiday, creating want in one party and guilt that if I don't do this, I don't love him/her in the other. There's nothing wrong with wanting love and gifts, but they want to equate the gift with love. I hope I'm explaining this correctly...

[FirstLight]

6. I just canceled my attempt at having a Birthday Party, too

My heart is too hollow and I can't afford the champagne anyway....and what's the frickin point of celebrating this crap of a year?

:cry:
I was hoping today would be better... dammitt!

[northernlights]

8. {{{hugs}}}

FirstLight, holidays sometimes seem designed to point out what's not working in our lives, instead of what is. They're all about expectations (it's *supposed* to be this way) and not meeting them (so why isn't it the way it's *supposed* to be for me, when it looks like it is for everybody else). Looking at one issue at a time...

When I was a couple years younger than you, I felt that same longing for my "soul mate" that you've described, and increasing frustration, fear, unhappiness that I wasn't meeting him. And then I realized that -- for me anyway -- if it hasn't happened yet, it's not going to. I was getting too old to ever have kids. And so I changed my thinking just the slightest bit. Instead of *me* not being good enough for them, I concluded that maybe, just maybe, *they* weren't good enough for me. Letting go of the hope, dream, and desire of meeting "mr. right" was the biggest gift I could give myself. Just like that, it didn't matter any more. Apparently I was meant to be alone in this lifetime, and to learn to embrace it. In my case, to also defend my turf...my right to privacy, to my own space, and my right to choose who I share that space with.

Maybe you're meant to be alone for a different purpose, but maybe there is a purpose other than torturing you (or you torturing yourself about it).

It's been many years since I've let go of expectations around holidays and turned them into my private celebrations. I celebrate what I believe, in the way I want. This time of year is about the solstice for me. The rest of would be an imposition except I get the gift of some time off. I'm sure it's harder with kids, with all the hype and hoopla around Christmas. But try to just keep it around the spiritual and the bigger picture. The birthday will come when you realize each one brings you closer to the end...less to celebrate, lol, or maybe more depending on your outlook.

I had wanted to post the following in a previous thread of yours, but all my time in here has been stolen time for the last few months, and I just couldn't pilfer any more. You live in an area with something like 30% real unemployment. 1 in 3 unemployed is not a statement about you...it's a statement about the current state of our culture -- a co-created larger reality that reflects society's values, not your worth.

I had suggested before that welfare has given you the gift of *time.* Whoopi Goldberg spent some time on welfare...and look where she ended up. She was given that same gift of time while raising her kid(s) and used a significant chunk of it to hone her craft.

You are a writer and designer, are you not? It's so hard on us writers, who can slide from introspection into depression and self-absorption in a heartbeat. Especially when single, in a rural, isolated area. But I seem to remember the beginnings of a lovely blog or website that you'd started some time ago. Can you give yourself a big (or numerous small) writing assignment(s) to get that going?

Now is the time, FirstLight. Go for it...:hug:

[FirstLight]

9. There's so much good in your reply

I understand and am grateful for much of what you say...except the alone thing. I have spent far too long in life alone, and it no longer feels like it is 'good for me'

I'm not getting any younger and neither are the kids and the little ones ask for a daddy sometimes because they get teased at school or just wish they had that balance in their own lives. THEY know it isn't right to have a family that is so out of balance...not that we aren;t happy, just not 'normal' i guess, whatever that is...

I have spent plenty of time alone in this life, as queen of my own castle and being the one to "handle" everything. And i have handled it all like a trooper. (I am a capricorn after all) I don't want someone to "take care of me" I JUST want to be cared for and loved and valued. I can value myself all i want, but it still doesn't buy me roses and stroke my hair back from my face and tell me I am pretty, etc...


meanwhile i *do* have a ton of work and need to get cracking and just knuckle uner and make it happen. Motivation comes in waves.
and i have a hard time thinking about blogging when i am feeling like this, i don;t even like journaling when i feel bad because it seems like i am complaining too much. I just have to move into "productive" mode - distraction is all i have to help me at this point!

[northernlights]

11. let distraction be your motivation to write, then

:D: And give yourself something fun to write about. Romance novel? In the 30s, romantic comedies flourished...a break from the dreariness of poverty and fear.

I understand about having spent too much of life alone. It wears you down being both parents, without a break. You aren't alone in this, FirstLight. It's really about our whole society falling apart. No community, single-parent, "broken" families *are* the norm now.

I was thinking this morning, too, that one of the fallouts of the "convenience" and "efficiency" of having unemployment (and presumably welfare too) direct deposit or mail or however it is they distribute it these days, is that it's another way to separate people. If there aren't long lines of people collecting their unemployment or welfare checks, then there aren't long lines to be photographed, to document, to publish what is happening all around the country. And there aren't long lines to be standing in to meet up with various and sundry neighbors and realize they're in the same boat. Because then they (we) might be able to start pulling together and form a new society.

This way it is much easier to look the other way and forget or ignore the suffering.

[conscious evolution]

26. Great observation

I was thinking this morning, too, that one of the fallouts of the "convenience" and "efficiency" of having unemployment (and presumably welfare too) direct deposit or mail or however it is they distribute it these days, is that it's another way to separate people. If there aren't long lines of people collecting their unemployment or welfare checks, then there aren't long lines to be photographed, to document, to publish what is happening all around the country. And there aren't long lines to be standing in to meet up with various and sundry neighbors and realize they're in the same boat. Because then they (we) might be able to start pulling together and form a new society.

You should post this as an OP over in GD.

[Tumbulu]

10. Sending hugs to you

I just don't watch tv at all, it brings me so so down. Plus my mother used to say " it's just these capitalists trying to guilt us all into buying presents when we can't afford them so that they will make money" . She was always against presents. So, I never really learned to give them or get them gracefully. But I still want them and not getting any brings me down. That is what the advertisers are paid so much to do to us- get us to crave presents. And they get paid the big bucks because they succeed. So, stay away from tv and every form of advertising.

Another thing I work on is being grateful for the things I do have- running water- now that is a really big deal for me. Lights that turn on when you flip a switch. A working refrigerator- that is so huge. I lived a year without water, electricity, refrigeration, a toilet or windows. I remain thrilled to have them now. I have more these days than those- a barn without leaks that my animals can go under in the rain. An old tractor that works, healthy animals and food for them all.

McCain would have been bush II with Palin on TV 24/7. Now that is something I could not have stood. Yes, Obama is far more to the wrong way that I would like, but remember what the Psychic Consortium had posted and try to not get blown around by all these negative winds.

Try not to fall for the capitalists propaganda and try to focus on the loves in your life and the marvelous world around us- we only get maybe 25,000 sunrises in our life- try to look at as many of them as you can.

[LiberalEsto]

12. I was doing okay for the most part

but then we got close to 2 feet of snow, and it's still coming down. :(

[Fire Walk With Me]

13. Your soul burns for you to find...yourself.

Self-worth and self-love are not to be overlooked. Notice how the monk is in bliss, even while eschewing traditional worldly sense-gratification.

You have to love yourself, before you can ask someone to love you. You have to know that you are worth something, and in knowing that you are worthy, attract someone who is also both worthy of themself and has that to share with another.

Prince Charming cannot make you love yourself. Cannot make you value yourself, cannot make your walk and talk be brimming with self-enjoyment. Truly, if you are in love with yourself, someone will come along and see that you are something to be loved.

Truly, what part of you is not worthy of being loved? You just have to remember that at a root level :hug:

Praying for you and yours...

[FirstLight]

15. You can love yourself and still be LONELY

I am sorry but the whole idea that somehow I am not giving enough to myself is not there for me.

I can still be a work in progres and yearn for tenderness in another adult's touch
I can still be a strong woman and yearn for romance


It isn't that i am not grateful for what we have or that i haven't come a hell of a long way...
And there is a good chance that alot of this is residual cellular memory that I've been purging for years.
(6 years have come & gone since I was a battered housewife with 2 babies and a wayward tween, and that horrible marriage came to a head and blew up right at Christmas and New Years)..lots of energy work, therapy, and more have gone into this process of healing a lifetime of issues.

...and noone can understand the hole in my heart - it sucks to have so much to give and noone to give it to.
My children are a diferent kind of relationship for me, they can't fill the space that a true partner can... and yes, i feel the brokenness of our family very poingniantly at times like this. But in no way do i believe that I am at fault for feeling grief at being alone...or that I am lacking in some way and that is why i don't have that relationship, i think that is bullshit. It perpetuates that whle thing of not being good enough on some level...and what i seem to have found is that no MAN i have met has held their integrity or their own spirit in a higher place to be able to show up for a REAL relationship...

So whatever, I am just doing the best i can with the cards I am dealt at this point.
...and right now, i just have to go and take care of my kids...make dinner, etc...


(FWWM, this is not a direct lashing out at you - but to all those who posted something of that nature here, too... )

[Fire Walk With Me]

20. Thanks, I do not take it as lashing out, glad that I could provide a space for you to

vent in a positive, self-affirming manner.

I hear you, and understand you a bit better now. And you are not alone, regarding having so much to offer and having none with whom to share. Worse, having your open heart met with torches and pitchforks...

Have you seen this? I would imagine so:

The Invitation by Oriah

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.


It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.


I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.


I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.


It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.


I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.


I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”


It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.


It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.


It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.


I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.


By Oriah © Mountain Dreaming,
from the book The Invitation
published by HarperONE, San Francisco,
1999 All rights reserved

[FirstLight]

21. LOVE that poem

...of course, if i handed that to someone on a first date, they would likely run! :rofl:


thanks for the comfort and understanding...i just LOVE my ASAH tribe! :grouphug:

[Kind of Blue]

22. FWWM, thank you.

I don't know why I'm so weepy but this breaks my heart and uplifts me at the same time :hug: :hug: and one more :hug: because that's what it's all about, isn't it.

[OneGrassRoot]

23. Oh my, I haven't read that in a while!

I ADORE that poem.

Thank you. :)

[Sweet Freedom]

24. Ohmigosh. Thank you for posting this.

I love it. It is beautiful. :hug:

[southerncrone]

14. Remember....your thoughts become your reality.

Those thoughts of "not having anyone" & "I have a pathetic life." are keeping those manifestations alive.

Be thankful.
Your life COULD be worse. There have always been, & will always be, those better off & those worse off than yourself.

REAL LIFE is not a fairy-tale commercial. The marketing, which is in it's highest gear this time of year, is all about psychology...manipulating your emotions against you so you feel "unworthy" if you don't have THEIR idealized idea of a "perfect" life. (I know this....I have a marketing degree.)
You are now enlightened. See through their BS.

Dwell on the good things in your life & they will grow--you are fertilizing them with your energy.
Banish the negative thoughts from your mind & they have no fertilizer, & therefore die.
When we look at the world through our negative thoughts, we cannot see the good that abounds there.
You do not lack in your life, you have a multitude of blessings. Celebrate them. Follow your kids' lead....children automatically know how to enjoy life! Children are not just our future because they will carry on our species in a physical plane. They are our future because they keep us in the realm of wonder & joy. THAT is what advances humanity.

May you allow yourself to be JOYOUS!:hug:

[FirstLight]

16. OooooH! ....BREAKTHROUGH!!!!

Check out the Dichotomy:

The Festivals of Light are during the Darkest time of Year

We Know that going into the Dark cave is the Dreamtime and is where we are Reborn and revisioned to what we will manifest in the next cycle...

We all have this False Agreement that this is when everything is supposed to be "perfect"
...and yet this is the time of year we choose to bring together family (uh, WHERE do ALL the issues build from...? ) who may have no other contact than once a year or so...and put them at a dinner table and expect it to go off without a hitch.


Build into that ALL the other expectations we have for ourselves and the time of year
and how OPPOSITE that is to the true meaning of the return of the light

this is when we are supposed to look INTO the Dark, not DENY it's existence
This is when we are to sacrifice our combined sufferings of the year into the fire and then extinguish it...

This is when we are to kindle a NEW FLAME and make our intentions for a Different Tomorrow, with eyes wide open as to our failings of the years past and the pain of our lives...

The HOPE for things to get better is actually the true reason for the season...

(and with that comes allowing for our grief, anger dissapointment and whatnot...because that is where we push PAST the darkness and experience the shining NEW DAWN...)

[northernlights]

17. FABULOUS INSIGHTS!!! Can you do the world a favor

expand on the theme...and share it in your blog? I mean it :hug:

[OneGrassRoot]

18. I second that request. :)

:hug:

[FirstLight]

19. Going to Solstice celebration this evening...

Drumming down the Sun and lighting a candle for the intention to hold for next Year...

mine is: "Releasing Expectation & Choosing to allow for the Real Beauty of the MOMENT, all it's Light, lessons, grief, and glory"

blog to follow, i promise :hug: thanks you guys for just hearing me out as i grow through the process...it may take a few days to get through it, but it DOES happen! :rofl:

[elleng]

25. I'm with you, kind of.

Christmas has been bad news for me for some years, and now its worse as I don't even have the old reasons about which to complain! husb has a need to buy and give extravagantly for our daughters, he and I are separated and he seems to have usurped all the girls' attention. They don't even inform me where they are and what doing. I'm physically unsettled. Tho not Christian, I feel lousy. AND as he's not providing $ for me (he WILL, but had to sue him) I can't even afford to gift. That's my rant of the a.m.

[FirstLight]

27. The SECOND Wave...

I think i am slipping back into it again.

spent the past 2 days trying to hold my integrity and professionalism as a 'non-client' (friend of a client, who asked me to do some work...talked real big, then flipped) raked me over the coals and got excessively verbally abusive - she put down my work, my ethics and everything else she could make up...all so she could fight over a $45 invoice...and she is still not paying me until some erroneous paperwork for the domain name goes through.
I tried not to take it personally but it hurts when someone says you are basically a loser and they aren't impressed and you overbilled because it "shouldn't have taken so long to do that" (when i was setting up a brand new webhost and transfering info and pages that were NOT saved...) etc. There is no way she will EVER see it any way but her own, and it STILL made me cry. Thank god the confrontations were all via email, so not only is MY integrity documented, but I didn't have to try and talk to her and show weakness by getting angry or crying in front of her...
~~~
And now as I get the presents out of the garage and the last things out of the car...and spread it out to se who has what to be wrapped. I se we are really poor in the sense that we have barely anything...2 presents per kid and that's it. I only have a chapstick and a couple things to put in the stocking...maybe i just won't DO stockings so it isn't so obvious...
I know i am lucky to be able to borrow the money from my mom to even DO any layaway this year. It just LOOKS so weird when you look at the piles and see the BIG difference between this year and years past. It isn't about the 'things,' but those piles are symbols of our struggle...
and there is that part of me that is struggling NOT to think it is my failure to provide
I don't want to let my ego GO there

*sigh*
so yea, back to hating Christmas... we're having mac & cheese for dinner tomorrow... at least i was able to get some frosting and let the kids decorate cookies for Santa.

[northernlights]

28. sounds like "non-client" is broke

and trying to get something for nothing...and from somebody else who is broke. As long as you haven't spent your own money, but only time and talent, then remember if worst comes to worst you can always chalk this one up to experience. Freelancers always face the prospect of getting stiffed on individual jobs. If it helps, I remember when my former mentor was stiffed to the tune of $10K by my former boss at the multi-billion dollar multi-national... :hug:

In the past, FL, each of my critters got presents. This year, it's recycled and hand made toys. Cody Carrottops destroyed her favorite corner heavy rope perch/hangout. I can't complain; it held up for many years of chewing pleasure. I couldn't find a replacement for sale, even if I could have afforded it. So instead she got a clean apple tree branch with the remains of the old rope wrapped around it. She still is afraid of the new thing lurking in the corner of her cage, lol. Sooner or later, she'll investigate, adopt it, and then chew it apart. Luckily I still have several apple trees in dire need of pruning. :rofl:

All of Luna's toys are chewed up hand-me-downs from Jake except a $1 frisbee. But since Luna didn't have any toys or playmates or freedom or even a decent bed when he was on death row, he's easy to please. Luna's gift was a trip to the vet for his rabies shot. Poor baby was terrified. I've taken his socialization very slowly due initially to him and then to my lack of time. As soon as he realized he was going in the car, he started shaking and tried to run away. And then hit the ground and rolled onto his back, begging and shaking :cry: :hug: Poor guy...everytime he's gone in a car, he's lost the home he'd come to know. Whether his place of birth, the tiny cell on death row, the quarantine kennel, whoever used to hit him in the head, or wherever else he'd been before he came here. At the vet, he broke his leash collar, squeezed out between my legs while I was scrambling to fix the collar and leash him, and bolted toward the highway. I lunged onto him and left my purse in the snow while wrestling him to the ground to try and collar him. I had to carry 50 pounds of terrified, struggling doggie to the door, cajoling to no effect. When I tried to close the vet's door behind us, he bolted again and was again loose by the highway. I yelled LUNA NO! and he hit the ground, rolled onto his back, again shaking and begging. I picked him up a 2nd time and struggled to carry him in. This time the vet's son was at the door and he close it behind us.

This may not seem like much of a gift, but by the end of the visit Luna realized he wasn't going to be either hurt by the strange man or abandoned by me. He was petted and loved on and given treats. He met and made 2 new friends...a pair of cocker spaniels. While I was paying the bill (which was a gift to me! -- no extras tacked on) a strange lady patted him and complimented his *smile.* I still had to pick him up to put him in the car, but he was no longer terrified. We stopped by the post office and then the food store, and he waited patiently and confidently.

His gift was a real home, and now riding in a car is no longer a terror -- it's a potential adventure. At night, I stroke his face and remind him of the wonder of his life. "There once was a very poor doggie; he lost his home. He wandered the streets til he was picked up for loitering, and sent to jail. Day after day, he waited for someone to get him. But nobody did. And then his jailers said, "Nobody is coming for you. We'll have to send you away forever. 2 times, his LAST DAY approached, and 2 times he was given a reprieve. And then just before his 3rd LAST DAY, his jailer said 'There will be no reprieve for you this time.' And then a Christmas miracle happened, and instead of being put to sleep for his LAST DAY, he was taken off death row and readied for his new home.

"Luna, you have a name. You have your very own whistle you run to. You have a mommie who calls and whistles your whistle for you, so you can come running. You have a big brother to play with and protect you. You have a bone. You have cookies. You have a warm soft bed. You have plenty to eat. You have a kitty and two ponies to play with. You have a yard. You have a ball. You have a frisbee. You have a home. Once you were a very poor doggie. And now you are a very wealthy doggie."

Love is what matters, FL. It is what we are here to learn and to teach. Material gifts do not equal love. Home equals love. Warmth, enough to eat, hugs and caring for each other. :hug: :hug: :hug:

[OneGrassRoot]

29. Dear Goddess.....

that just brought me to tears. I am so very, very, very happy for Luna!!!!!!! What a blessed soul he is -- and I know he blesses all who encounter him in return.

What a WONDERFUL gift you both received with the vet trip. O8) :hug:

Just wonderful! :bounce:

FirstLight, I continue to hold your hand from afar. I pray something happens to lift your spirits soon. It could happen. It could happen in an instant, out of the clear blue.

I wish that for you.

:hug: :hug: :hug: :hug: :hug:

[FirstLight]

30. Last paragraph...

Amen! We say our thanks before bed for a soft pillow, full belly and a warm home every night :hug:

[japple]

31. Thank you, northernlights, for this posting. It speaks to the true

meaning of love. I read through tears about Luna's transformation. Thank you for sharing this wonderful story.

Love and peace,

judith

[Mist]

32. Wonderful Yule story, NL! Thanks for that, and goddess bless Luna, and you!