Thursday, December 16, 2010

Sunday, December 12, 2010

"Baby Drugs!" by Tristen (w/Larissa Maestro) at Toad, Cambridge 6/18/09

Friday, December 10, 2010

The Fourteenth Dalai Lama
His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso
In one way - in material terms - this present generation has reached a high level of development. Yet at the same time, we human beings are facing many problems. Some are due to external events or causes, such as natural disasters. These we cannot avoid.
However, many problems are created by our own mental defects; we suffer due to an internal lack. I call these problems unnecessary ones, for if we adopt a right mental attitude, these man-made problems need not arise.
Often they are due to differences in ideology, and unfortunately different religious faiths are also sometimes involved. Hence it is very important that we have a right attitude. There are many different philosophies, but what is of basic importance is compassion, love for others, concern for others' suffering, and reduction of selfishness. I feel that compassionate thought is the most precious thing there is. It is something that only we human beings can develop. And if we have a good heart, a warm heart, warm feelings, we will be happy and satisfied ourselves, and our friends will experience a friendly and peaceful atmosphere as well. This can be experienced nation to nation, country to country, continent to continent.
The basic principle is compassion, love for others. Underlying all is the valid feeling of 'I', and on a conventional level, there is an I- "I want this," "I do not want that." We experience this feeling naturally, and naturally we want happiness- "I want happiness," "I do not want suffering." Not only is it natural, it is right. It needs no further justification; it is a natural feeling validated simply by the fact that we naturally and correctly want happiness and do not want suffering.
Based on that feeling, we have the right to obtain happiness and the right to get rid of suffering. Further, just as I myself have this feeling and this right, so others equally have the same feeling and the same right. The difference is that when you say 'I', you are speaking of just one single person, one soul. Others are limitless. Thus, one should visualize the following: On one side imagine your own I which so far has just concentrated on selfish aims. On the other side imagine others - limitless, infinite beings. You yourself are a third person, in the middle, looking at those on either side. As far as the feeling of wanting happiness and not wanting suffering, the two sides are equal, absolutely the same. Also with regard to the right to obtain happiness they are exactly the same. However, no matter how important the selfishly motivated person is, he or she is only one single person; no matter how poor the others are, they are limitless, infinite. The unbiased third person naturally can see that the many are more important than the one. Through this, we can experience, can feel, that the majority-the other limitless beings-are more important than the single person 'I'.
Thus, the question is: Should everyone be used for my attainment of happiness, or should I be used to gain happiness for others?
If I am used for these infinite beings, it is right. If others are used for this single I, it is absolutely wrong. Even if you can use these others, you will not be happy, whereas if this one single one contributes, serves as much as he or she can, that is a source of great joy. It is in terms of this attitude that real compassion and love for others can be developed.
Compassion which is based on such reasoning and feelings can be extended even to one's enemies. Our ordinary sense of love and compassion is actually very much involved with attachment. For your own wife or husband, your parents, your children, you have a feeling of compassion and love. But because it is in fact related with attachment, it cannot include your enemies. Again it is centered on a selfish motivation - because these are my mother, my father, my children, I love them. In contrast to this is a clear recognition of the importance and rights of others. If compassion is developed from that viewpoint, it will reach even to enemies.
In order to develop such a motivation of compassion, we must have tolerance, patience. In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher. Your enemy can teach you tolerance whereas your teacher or parents cannot. Thus from this viewpoint, an enemy is actually very helpful - the best of friends, the best of teachers.
In my own experience, the period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period in one's life. If you go along in an easy way, with everything okay, you feel everything is just fine. Then one day when you encounter problems, you feel depressed and hopeless. Through a difficult period you can learn, you can develop inner strength, determination, and courage to face the problem. Who gives you this chance? Your enemy.
This does not mean that you obey or bow down to your enemy. In fact, sometimes, according to the enemy's attitude, you may have to react strongly - but, deep down, calmness and compassion must not be lost. This is possible. Some people may think, "Now the Dalai Lama is talking nonsense," but I am not. If you practice this, if you test it in your own experience, you can feel it yourself.
The development of love and compassion is basic, and I usually say that this is a main message of religion. When we speak of religion, we need not refer to deeper philosophical issues. Compassion is the real essence of religion.

(First section of an essay, for the full essay follow this link)  

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Beautiful Nature

It's been a long couple of days with the Moon square Chiron yesterday and then into Aquarius today.... how much do I love understanding nature? THIS MUCH! But finally after a nighttime walk with my dogs and laying on my new rug that looks like a giant version of one of them, the ick is starting to flake off my mood and the old me is literally unfurling (I swear I can feel it like petals popping gently away from the center of a blooming flower bud). And what a relief because I spent all day trying to get back to feeling like this. Like me.
I just heard this evening that in 2011 Uranus squares Pluto and half of me is absolutely dreading it and the other half can't freakin' wait. Who will I be next!


‎"My soul can find no staircase to heaven unless it be through Earth's loveliness." - Michaelangelo

Sunday, December 5, 2010

I had a dream the other night that I was driving on the freeway. I wanted to take the lane to the right that was an interchange to another freeway but for some reason my car was pulling so strongly to the left that it was all I could do to hold it in the lane. It was trying to go down a different interchange or maybe just stay on the road it was on. But I knew I had to go the other way and so even though I missed my ramp I pulled over onto the shoulder to get things straightened out. I'd put a back pillow in my seat and seemed to think that this had thrown me off balance and made me drive crooked for some reason so I took it away and felt that I had too much space around me, couldn't lean back comfortably to drive. I needed to readjust everything and then I would get off the freeway and get back on the freeway I wanted.
Driving a car in a dream is all about how much control you feel you have over your life. I've had driving dreams my entire life. This is one of the few in which I was completely in control and able to stop and turn things around when I felt the car trying to take control, or the road -whatever it was.
When I woke up that morning I felt a little weird about the dream. I thought, is this a message that I'm not doing as well as I thought I was? But I decided to believe that it was a message that I am doing an amazing job at transforming my life to be more the way I want it to be. And at the end of this week, this now seems very true.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Saturday Love


I was just wondering if it's a huge act of faith to not have tags on my dogs. One because I keep forgetting to have one made, the other because I took off her collar a few weeks ago for a bath and for some reason don't want to put it back on. Like I know she's not going anywhere. And I kind of do. But I just went and put it on her again anyway. 
I've cats all my life and I don't think even one ever wore a collar. And I never lost one. But cats are different, more independent and smart and calm -they don't get overly excited when they've realized they're outside their comfort zone. Actually, sometimes they do but in such a more knowing way. They simply don't get lost. Some dogs are like this, too. Dogs who have freedom. When they know that you'll let them go they always come back. People are like that, too. But we underestimate them the same way we underestimate our dogs. Ok, there are cars, too. It's all this dangerous man made crap that screws up freedom, isn't it?


So I'm trying like crazy to figure out what color and style couch to buy. What says "me" better than a thoroughly puppy chewed ugly yellow leather with funny feet couch? And I honestly don't know. It turns into what do I want the whole living room to look like if I can have it perfectly my way someday. But right now I'm just trying to get started. What freaking color couch. I can only buy one thing and everything else can be decided later. The possibilities are infinite. But I think I'm getting it narrowed down.






I must be the slowest decorator ever. Last Christmas I wanted to paint the living room but I didn't know what color I wanted. I painted it in June when I didn't have a car. I've been looking for a couch at least as long. 
A minute ago I was up on a chair slightly toasted, changing a light bulb thinking, someone should really stop me.


I'm feeling kind of like this today.


...and a lot like this.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

I Love

I love my puppies and my kitty and my few good friends.
Life is about triumphing over challenges. Once you've overcome them a new opportunity will appear. And a new challenge.
Love is challenging. Once you've overcome it, a new love will appear. And it will challenge you.
I love to grow and learn. Every. Day.

Saturday, November 27, 2010


I've been dancing since I was three years old. For the last few years I've been trying to get back to it being a regular thing for me, at least one or two classes a week. Gone are the days when I didn't have to work and could dance every day. One of my happiest times was when it seemed I did nothing but dance everyday, all day.
This time around I've finally realized that I'm really over ballet. These days when I find myself in a ballet class I immediately feel myself tense up. It just doesn't represent relaxation anymore. All I can think is to stand up straight! Tighten all my muscles and get ready to work really hard. The hard work is the good part but the rest...? I want to feel happy moving. But I don't, I get really serious and rigid. So I stopped taking ballet classes and started taking contemporary classes. They're something more along the lines of jazz-African-world-folk-hip-hop. And I love them.
Everything about dancing this way is new to me. In comparison to ballet it's totally unstructured and free and fun and sometimes even kind of silly and it's awesome. But without that vocabulary of movements that I've stored for years (which is probably another reason ballet bores me to tears) I sometimes feel like it's more difficult for me to link it all together, to remember the right thing to do with my arms, to miss the right beat where there's a missed beat. I suddenly feel like a mediocre dancer and I'm not used to it. I certainly haven't been at my best for a while now but changing to a completely new style has dropped me back considerably. Every week I mildly dread it and every week I have the best time. I know I'm not the best dancer in class and I know that I often miss one tiny step lose track of the entire combination but I'm not going to stop and one of these days I know that I'm going to do a perfect combination and it's going to feel easy and natural, the way it used to. And then I'll try something new.

Friday, November 26, 2010



I wonder sometimes if maybe I don't take things seriously enough. I mean, not serious things, but seemingly small things. Like a compliment from a stranger. And I don't mean a wolf whistle from a passing car, I mean a kind and genuine compliment. When it happens I definitely accept it at full weight but I realize suddenly, months later that it seemed to just slip away. I should try harder to make it last.

Just went to look for a picture and saw the quote, "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." -Dr. Seuss

I also just thought: it is an average expectation, to believe you deserve respect.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Scorping

I had an astrological reading by an evolutionary astrologer once. This means that what he includes in the way that he reads someone's charts is their past lives, karma, and tries to help us understand our dharma. It was very interesting and because, he said, it was easiest for him to explain by making it into a story, that's what he did. And he referred to influential people in my charts as different royal figures -to express how much influence they may have in my life. This was also one of the most accurate readings I've ever had. He taped it for me and every so often I would listen to it and become focused on some part that seemed to actually have come into play in my life. At the time I got this reading I could barely understand any of the events he was seeing because they were explained in such a general way: 'There's a man in your life. He has a lot of power -we'll call him the king- he has some level of control over some part of your life. This is going to change. It will end somehow and when it does you'll be in the spotlight, in a good way. It'll be a time when you get to show people who you really are.' Interestingly enough this did happen and by no means was it: A) anything I'd ever have believed would happen and B) anything I could have consciously made happen.He also explained to me that my North Node is in Scorpio which means that my dharma will be to go with inclinations to act on Scorpio-like characteristics. This is how I'll achieve happiness.
This was baffling. It was soooo vague, "Go toward Scorpio." he kept saying. It's the thing that always stood out the most and has absolutely haunted me. I've spent hours reading all different explanations of what Scorpio is and how someone who is not a Scorpio could be very like a Scorpio. There are pages of this online. Add to that the pages on what it means to have a Scorpio North Node, what it means in a particular house, etc., etc. I've been sure I had it all figured out only to feel myself baffling all over again a million times.
I lost track of that guy but not too long ago I got a simple tarot reading in which the reader used my birth chart and probably other charts to tell me what the past present and future look like and she got the past dead right. Like crazy dead right. Again, all in metaphors and general because this was by email actually, and I hadn't told her anything but when and where I was born. But even in a generalized story book way the details were uncanny. So the future is looking bright. But I can't tell you what it is yet because it hasn't happened.
And tonight I just read this: "Scorpio, which likes to hold on dearly to the end, and then releases fully and with determination" and I thought: that is EXACTLY how I am. So I guess I've got it even if I can't understand it or detect it, but it sure is easy to recognize when someone puts it in the right words.
I'm realizing that I use this as sort of a public journal. Sort of the technological version of an artists book where you keep ideas and things that you're learning and inspiration. I've just begun a course on Kabbalah conducted online and am sure that I'll start to refer to things that I'm learning there the same way I refer to astrology and dreams. Another piece of my life that I find connected to all these others is acupuncture. It still surprises me that while one day I'll read about the Sun passing through the sign of Scorpio being about cleansing and being somewhat exhausting, the next day when I visit my doctor and tell her how I'm feeling she'll tell me that this is because of the season. In Fall we need to cleanse and detox, we get worn out, it's a transition period. And I think how fascinating it is that all of these systems based in nature have the same understanding of the seasons. How interesting it is that all of these practices of following nature have observed the same things.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

My Free Will Astrology horoscope for this week:

The Sanskrit word buddhi refers to the part of us that adores the truth. It's good at distinguishing between what's real and what's false, and is passionately attracted to liberation. Although it may go into long periods of dormancy in some of us, buddhi never falls asleep completely. It's always ready to jump into action if we call on it. According to my reading of the astrological omens, Aquarius, the buddhi aspect of your psyche will be extra special big strong and bright in the coming week. In my opinion, that's better than winning the lottery.
What I need to work on in life is momentum.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Saturday Love

Ugh, Moon passing over Chiron / Neptune conjunction is UNCOMFORTABLE. Am cranky and unsatisfied. All I want is to break all these lame habits and be FREEEEEEE! But that number one habit of self doubt has a tiny voice embedded in my head that keeps telling I may not succeed and whether I do or don't, will I even know? How? When? This is happening for everyone somewhere in their life. Somewhere you want something that seems so important that you feel like it might take a miracle. But really, it's not a miracle it's just REAL and you just have to accept that it's TRUE. It can happen, it is happening. Big love to everyone struggling with something today.

Get Out of Your Mind

This is so awesome I'm not even going to tell you what it is except that it's about your perception. Go watch it now.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Chinese Grocery & Destiny



The Chinese grocery store by my house has the black rubber flip-flops that I wear year round for $1.49. This is a third the price they are elsewhere (i.e. Target). They also have black rice macaroni which is, as the name suggests, black. I think it'll look amazing with veggies and olive oil. There's an entire aisle of packaged instant ramen soup in a rainbow of flavors (except "Oriental" as Top Ramen, the prevalent "regular" store, brand calls it) and a whole 'nother aisle of noodles. Seaweed is also a fraction of the price you'd pay at Whole Foods -which is the only "regular" grocery store I've been able to find it in. The only thing I couldn't find was Miso paste and this was particularly surprising as there was yet a whole aisle of soup broth and other pastes including quite a few Indian curry pastes. But then I didn't look for tofu and they could have been together.... The fruit on special was Jujube which is small and sort of like a very sweet, but bland, apple in flavor and texture with a seed in the middle like an olive. It's used, dried and ground, in herbal remedies to alleviate anxiety. It is also said to make people fall in love. How interesting for those two to be used as sort of opposites. Either you can cure your anxiety so that you can fall in love or you can attract love that will cure your anxiety.
I also remembered why I haven't been in there in nearly ten years. That smell will follow you around for the rest of the day -what is that, fish?
In other news I met one of those people today that make you remember that everything happens for a reason. A character. For some reason these people are always dancers these days. That shouldn't seem the least bit odd to me, as a dancer, that I should be most enthralled with other dancers -as artists I admire, mentors. For years I was surrounded by musicians. This is not bad, either, but it's like I was just out of stride with myself by one step. People who are necessary to my art but can't really teach me much. And then there were the visual artists -even further from what I'm about but still so interesting. I feel that if there's anything I can make in the world it's a figure or a motion. I even enjoy walking and have been told I do that well, too. Anyway, I keep meeting these people lately who all happen to be amazing dancers. And as I have temporarily given up ballet, each of these people is asking me to do something outside of my vocabulary. There's something I'm really loving about being told to do all of these things that would have been really weird in ballet.
Back to the original point. I feel almost daily that I'm not in the right world. There are a million ways to do anything including live a life and I'm still trying to figure out how to live mine better. In harmony with what I need and love. The parts of it that I'm finding particularly challenging are figuring out the little bits that others are doing differently and with success. And every time I come across one of these people who's lives I see a bit of (and then fill in the gaping holes in my head with lovely, happy playdough) I think: this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Dancing in unusual ways and spending a month in Brazil and wearing a haircut no one would take seriously in a bank. Supposedly I work in the arts, too, but it certainly isn't the same.
So when i come across someone I feel bizarrely attracted to (where there's something about it you feel in your bones) lately, I think: this is an opportunity to learn how to live. And it seems so far away now that I tell myself: maybe not until your next life will you live as a mostly unemployed dancer, happily and with grace, but you've got to stick around now and soak it up and make life bearable until then.

Please Help

I have a dear friend who is an amazing dancer and athlete and has been suffering with a spinal injury for quite some time now. She desperately needs surgery she cannot afford and friends have set up a ChipIn fund to help. If you'd like to contribute please use the widget below or go here to read more about her story.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Fortified

I just remembered this and absolutely had to share it. For as many dreams as I've had about people breaking into my house the other night I had a dream about preventative measures. I don't remember it very well but I remember things like having a handyman come over and together we inspected window latches and door locks, etc. and he advised what was strong and what needed work. For some reason it didn't immediately spark anything for me but when I remembered it just now I thought how poignant it was. And for all my over-empathizing, this last week or two I have been pretty impressed with myself for not allowing other peoples energy to wreak havoc on me. Many a touchy situation has come and gone without my being riddled with someone else's fear and anxiety (only my own, but that I can handle). It was a strange thing to realize and has been an even stranger thing to learn to handle.

Monday, November 1, 2010

This is beautiful

Untitled

If it were left to me to love myself

I would surely perish;

if you had no other mirror but your face

you would never believe how beautiful you are.

In this way of loving we are like little replicas of God

who loves us no matter how we present ourselves.

Slowly I am coming to believe that love is a kind of calling,

that God underlies this anguished design.

When I walk in the village these days

I have taken to putting my hands in the hands of beggars—

and secretly I bless the strangers I come across.

Could it be that all my life I have been preparing to love you

and through you to love?

– Tom Absher

Thursday, October 21, 2010

"An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind." -Buddha

"The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly."
Henry David Thoreau

"It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive." Henry David Thoreau

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Beautiful Bits

"Russian scientists have discovered gold deposits in the dust of decayed tree stumps. The phenomenon occurs in forests growing in ground where there is gold ore. Over the course of centuries, the trees' roots suck in minute quantities of the precious metal, eventually accumulating nuggets." -Jeff Jawer

So obviously I love alchemy. This bit of info makes me think of nature putting one over on nature by just throwing the two together skipping all the stages in between: from clay to gold. Or just: some clay with gold in it.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Fantasy and Being Real

Cecilia Dean does an awesome post for V Magazine every week called Look of the Week. It's a photo of her standing in the same spot every week wearing her favorite outfit of the week. I love it more than it probably deserves. First of all I have a serious photo diary fetish. And a photo fetish. And a diary fetish. And a fashion fetish. (And in many ways these are all of the things that I'm missing doing lately...) Anyway, moving on.
A few things I've noticed are making me really like her. First of all, in many of the photos she doesn't look as beautiful as she is. Why do I always find it surprising that a woman (read: a woman in fashion, especially) might actually not care about posting a very honest photo in a forum available to millions of viewers? Perhaps I've had too many Southern women in my life... Anyway, in truth I think she's beautiful due in large part to that. I like that she let's us see what she "really" looks like in a fashion magazine full of models spackled into disguise. And that she seems not to notice or care. Anyway, here is one of my very favorites -the first one I saw, too:

(Alright, long story short: go to this link to see my favorite outfit of hers.)

While we're on fashion, I've already written about Tavi at style rookie. This is a lovely neighbor of mine. She has crazy awesome style and is very creative. She gives the definition of a word (usually adjective or adverb) at the start of each post which is where I learned this awesome word "Limerance; An emotional state in which a person feels an intense romantic desire for another person." and many more. I seriously need to ask her if she just sits around paging through the dictionary or what. While I do so love Cecilia's honesty I have always loved a fantasy, too.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Game Called Life

The last bit of the theme song for the show The Big C is "Tell me this was just a game to play, called life."
Right now my inner life feels way richer than my outer life. I feel like inside me there are a million more possibilities than outside. There's a lot of fun and happiness. A sense of vast open places and good company to fill up the emptiness. Everything is skipping where outside it's still or scuttling around. This is the kind of day when I need only as much as is in my lone life. It's a cocooning day.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

I'm Confused

I hate to be a big complainer, I really do, but this is bugging me. Lately there have been a lot of street party events in my neighborhood and neighboring hoods and they seem to all be nothing but yet another opportunity to shop and eat. Am I the only person this doesn't appeal to? And not that there aren't plenty of other things going on, there certainly are many. I'm just dumbfounded as to how shopping and eating have become such major attractions that people will turn out in droves and even sometimes pay entry fees in order to have a chance to buy stuff and eat. I kind of get the whole food truck phenomenon as the availability is so limited. It's not a restaurant that you can eat at any time the whim strikes so if you like their food you've got to keep track of where they're going to be and be ready to show up. I'm not too into it myself as most of them don't cater (ha-ha, I know, it works on two levels) to vegetarians. And those that do are either greasy (all about melted cheese which I totally love) or are deserts (which I also totally love) and to me those things are a treat, not to be consumed on an as available basis -if that were the case I'd live on grilled cheese, waffles and doughnuts. So the food thing aside, because I kind of get it even though I still think the obsession level is way out of proportion. Anyway, the food thing aside. These "street party's", or whatever they're usually called, where you go and there are a bunch of vendors set up. Now, again, I get that a lot of these are featuring independent crafts-peoples' wares and that they may not be available in stores or even online, sometimes. But really, when did shopping become the main event for Americans? Don't we already have enough opportunities to spend money? Aren't we in need of learning to outgrow consumption and possession? It's like the backlash of the green movement. Oh, and anyone who's trying to sell anything these days will try their best to make it recycled, upcycled, renewable, biodegradable, etc. Here's a thought: do we really need any of that stuff? Do we even want it? Aren't we in the middle of a recession brought on by outrageous overindulgence, being brainwashed into believing that our self worth is a reflection of our possessions and corporations allowing us to believe that we can all "live large" on credit?
Did anyone else see No Impact Man? It was awesome. Bizarre, but awesome. I like how cool his wife is when he's washing clothes in the tub and telling her about how he's going to make shampoo for them. I seriously thought she was going to lose it but she held it together. Really though, it was great to see them become so conscious of what they were doing. Yes, it was way over the top and the compost bin in the kitchen was a really bad idea and I'm really impressed they didn't end up getting divorced because of the project. But by the end of it they had realized a lot of alternatives to their previous lifestyle that were really very practical and seemed to actually improve their quality of life. And one of the big messages in the whole thing was to be aware of consumption. How much you buy, what you buy and why. So why do I feel like there's a bigger push than ever to keep people buying stuff? Keep buying!!! We can't seem to think of any other way to make this work! We're trying so hard to make it sound like a good idea: it's green, it's local, it's organic, it's independent, it's reused and most importantly it's for SALE!

Friday, October 1, 2010

Not the Adventure I Was Hoping For

I went to see a band tonight. This used to be one of my favorite things to do. Tonight everything seemed so ordinary, nothing was exciting: not being out at night, not the venue, not the crowd or any of the individual people. The idea of fame has become irrelevant to me. No one seems somehow "bigger" than me, they're just the ordinary (though talented) people on the stage rather than the ordinary people not on the stage. I think I miss being naive. I think I need drugs.
This also led me to think about this whole mad craze called "The Law of Attraction". On my way to the concert I was totally excited, envisioning a much more fabulous time -I have a super imagination. Now according to what I've read about the Power of Attraction, your world is created by your imagination. Your thoughts create a vibe and this is what draws experiences to you. Let me assure you that I absolutely did not vibe this into my world. I was vibing let's-meet-a-cute-guy-who-has-weed-with-him, trust me. What I got was a pack of teenagers and the one old dude (much, much older than me) hitting on me while I smoked a cigarette outside. And this in particular annoys me because that has been a lifelong curse and I thought I'd broken that curse a while ago, if nothing else I had at least totally forgotten the tradition. But here he comes again, every damn place I go some old pervie guy turns up. Should this at least flatter me as it hasn't changed since I was a teenager and most women tell me this stops happening to them in their 20's? I guess that's something at least.

Update: Oh what a relief? I just checked my personal daily chart and it looks like the Sun is squaring my natal Venus -fresh hell, I tell you! At least this explains why nothing seems as beautiful as it should be and yet my imagine is in overdrive. Also makes some sense why I have to deal with the old man nonsense again.....

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Wow

Alright, today is freaking weird. Sun conjunct Saturn (this means they're in the same degree of Libra) and then something about Sun or Moon (I should go look it up agin, I know) squaring the South Node (karma) and something else.... Whatever it is it's freaking me out. I'm dying for it to be tomorrow because this is the kind of feeling that only goes away after you sleep it off. I'm definitely feeling a sense of three simultaneous realities, everyone I know is actually someone else, and its really bothering me that the days are getting so short. Arriving home from work today it was already dark out and I feel myself straining my eyes to see things you can really only see in the daylight. It's as if something in me hasn't yet accepted that the sun has set.
In other news, suddenly my blog is being read and the really fascinating (yet terrifying) thing about this is that I can see all the countries from which people are reading this. The last two days it's totally blown up and my first thought was, "What's so interesting about me?" My second thought was, "Did I accidentally post something really offensive?!" Since I'm pretty sure I didn't I'll just try to carry on but ofcourse now I have a tad bit of stage fright, the feeling of a million eyes watching me tap away at the keyboard while I'm pretty sure I'm alone in the house. I don't know why I'm suddenly getting so much attention but thank you anyway!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Transformation

I've been having vivid dreams for over a week now, every single night. All of them interesting and I wake up feeling like just finished a great movie. Most have faded a bit by now and for whatever reason I didn't really feel like writing about them this week. Last nights dream had an element of something that has been in my dreams before. I was living in the same apartment that I live in now and the part of the dream that really made an impact on me is this:
I had just taken a shower and came out of the bathroom and went into the kitchen. The back door was wide open and for a second I thought, "Good lord, am I so absent minded that I left that open when I went to take a shower?!" And there, a few feet inside the doorway was a chair that hadn't been there before. It was just one of those molded plastic outdoor chairs. Ofcourse in the dream I figured up some weird reason for the whole thing: the door being opened, the chair someone had brought and left there. In the dream I was so struck by this that I absolutely had to look it up this morning.
So first, the chair. It symbolizes authority, 'to offer somebody a chair is to recognize his or her authority or prestige' and the kitchen is symbolic of alchemical transmutations or psychic transformations, 'a moment in inner development'. To have just come from the shower expresses that I'd just gone through the process of purification. What a great sequence to dream!

Monday, September 6, 2010

Today there's some kind of dialogue between the retrograde north node in Capricorn and retrograde Mercury in Virgo. As I read it, this is an opportunity (without stress, not a forced opportunity like a square or opposition) for us to make decisions about what our futures should be. It's mellow enough that we don't have to do it but as I've been so obsessed with creating my future I want to do it. So far I'm not getting an signals on this.
I was just cleaning (Mercury retro in Virgo makes me a much better housekeeper) and am desperate to change my bedroom. This is the room that has changed the least in the ten years I've lived here. The whole problem seems to be the dresser. There's only one place for it and it occupies one of the only two options for placement of the bed which means neither of these has moved since I got here. I don't know about everyone else but things like that drive me nuts. I like flexibility in my furniture. If I can't move house (or don't want to because I have a hell of a lot of space and privacy and crazy low rent) I want to be able to rearrange the furniture every so often so that it feels like a new place.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

One of the qualities I most admire in other people is the ability to be shamelessly honest about things that many would consider embarrassing or personally diminishing. It's a quality few people truly possess and in order to be admired for it you can't also be trying to shock people, that's a different quality entirely and I find it repellant. It's a casual, off the cuff way of sharing things like hideous pictures of yourself or wondering aloud if you're a terrible person for some completely unexpected and offensive reaction you had to a delicate situation without appearing to be fishing for reassurance. The unusual ability to expose your flaws in a completely innocent way without sounding self deprecating or insecure. In a way I strive to share this quality because I feel it rounds out the inherent spontaneity of personal expression -the source of many of our embarrassments, no?
What with being on such a strict budget these days (new car and computer, yay!) I'm feeling somewhat limited in ways to entertain and stimulate my brain.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Who are you really? What are you here to do? How much longer are you going to wait?

This is the message this autumn with Saturn in Libra, or rather he question. I'm wondering it every day lately, it seems. Happier than I have been in years I'm wondering what is the big leap I'm anticipating? Is it really so big, even, or does it only seem that way. There's a quote from some Native American tribe that says (something something...) "... you will come upon a great chasm. Leap. It is not as wide as you think."

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Here's A Weird One

Ok. Wackiest dream last night. I'm driving my car -which in the dream is an orange Bug, the newer model. And it's pouring rain. I'm trying to find a parking space on my street which can be hard sometimes. At first everything is fairly average: I'm just driving. But as I start trying to park a bunch of things start happening. The first space is at the end so there's plenty of room to back up and pull up to the curb but I'm wearing these platform sandals and I can't seem to work the pedals very well in them. I hit the gas to back up just a little and zoom back much further than I need to, same going forward again. The unexpected speed throws me off and I don't have time to steer quite right. At the same time my eyes are getting blurry. At first I think it's just that there's so much rain that I can't see well through the windows but I'm blinking and rubbing my eyes and feeling like I'm going blind. I try again and my feet are now getting tangled up under the clunky platforms of the shoes and getting caught under the pedals. The car is moving and I'm worried I won't be able to get my feet untangled quickly enough to hit the brakes. Finally I pull into the space and realize that I don't fit. At this point I get out of the car for a moment and the rain seems to have let up. One of my neighbors has a folding table set up in the street and seems to be promoting her art work. I walk over and watch as she signs posters for someone. They're for the Wizard of Oz and Alice In Wonderland and it's odd to me because they aren't her work and as far as I can tell she has nothing to do with the movies. She also has a sack of pencil drawings on lined notebook paper that she's leafing through and showing people in a very formal way.
I'm back in the car moving to a new space and it's pouring again and really dark. I find a spot and pull in -still having some of the maneuvering issues and partial blindness, but it goes a little smoother. I get out of the car and see that I'm not really fitting there either. So I pick up the car under my arm as it is now the size of a childs toy car (the type that they can get inside and drive). I ant to get back in and adjust my placement but the car has now become even smaller and I open the door and it's as if it's a plastic covered collapsible frame, I stretch it out and pop the frame into place. I then crawl back in to retrieve my purse and some groceries. Each thing I touch, a bagged loaf of bread and a block of cheese, is a cloth sandbag item of toy food.
What the hell?!

Friday, August 20, 2010

Friday Love

Here's an early Friday love posting, maybe I'll have more to add later. Starting from today, all the way back to last Friday:
Today a car was leaving a meter every place I arrived and always with enough time paid for to cover me, as well.
I managed to scrape together enough cash to make it the rest of the week until payday (more on why I had to do that coming up...).
It's finally feeling like summertime.
Work went by faster than it seems to have in a while despite being my first week back from vacation.
I started parting my hair in the middle (a few weeks ago, really) and everyone's still telling me it looks great.
I got a used MacBook Pro at less than a quarter of it's original price. (!!!!!!! -why I'm now kind of broke, see above)

As for last weekend and even last week, as I didn't post anything. Delayed Friday love:
I did whatever I wanted all day everyday and it was amazing.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Aha! I realized today why capitalism is failing. The trends that have been created in the name of saving the planet we live on and its resources have encouraged recycling and reusing. Sustainability. And buying locally produced whenever possible. All of these things point to huge changes in how money flows and how much money flows. The internet that allows us to purchase more from all over the world has also created a place to find free or used (and less expensive) things locally. People are getting together to trade clothes they've outgrown. I've been to a few of many markets that are for locally made goods only. I am supporting my community! I am reducing my footprint! But I wonder, with so many of us making these decisions, what is the economy we're creating?
I like my stuff as much as the next guy, within reason, but have never felt that most new items are worth the pricetags they wear. I have just made my second large purchase this summer. I first bought a car and now have a newer, nicer computer. Both were bought used and locally. Both are quality and far less expensive than they would have been brand new. And I couldn't be happier. But I wonder what impact my choices have on the economy? In my mind I'm being practical and living within my means but I'm wondering if I've disappointed the experts who would've thought I'd be buying a brand new car every ten years. A brand new computer when the next generation comes out. A new phone every year. I'm still only thinking about getting an iPhone 3G, as the new ones are a mess and sound like a foolish waste of money.
More extreme than my savvy shopping is he Freegan movement. I read an article recently about a group of people living together in an abandoned house that they've all worked together to fix up. They have pirated utilities, collect food that was thrown away because it had passed it's sell by date and get their clothes from unclaimed lost and founds. They've set out to live without need for money and seem to be accomplishing it quite well. It's brilliant! I almost wish I'd gotten in on the idea before I got used to a steady income and the privacy of my own home.
Another thing I just learned by chance is that I have a job that pays generally the average wage someone with a Bachelors degree can expect to earn. As I don't have a degree myself I'm wondering if someone out there is feeling the loss of the thousands of dollars I was expected to pay for an education I obviously didn't need? I wonder if someone else is feeling the loss of the position I hold that could have allowed them to repay their student loan? Look at me beating the system every which way! And I couldn't be happier with my ten year old Honda, reconditioned iPod and three year old MacBook bought at about 20% of the price it was new. Yes, I'm bragging. And I'm carrying far less debt than the average American. And despite what people may think, I'm happier with what I have than I would be with what I don't have.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

If you stay somewhere long enough it feels like home. Especially if it is home. You forgive it's flaws, no matter how many or severe they may be and you get attached to it's charms. Even if there might be something much better, the good qualities of what you've got have their claws in you and it's hard to extract them. Part of me wants a new home, something better without crumbly walls and more dust than you can shake a broom at. I want to walk into a new place and feel immediately soothed and at the same time I'm afraid that's exactly what will happen and then I'll have to move.
A private yard that isn't full of loose dirt and broken glass. Bigger closets, a laundry room. Walls without bulges from poorly hung drywall and water damage. But it wouldn't be home yet and it might take a few years before it is. Would I feel happy driving toward it or just sad not to be here?

Thursday, August 12, 2010

It's been a long time since I finished a dance class feeling kind of lame. It must be good, I thought, challenges make us learn and get better at things. But it's left a web of confusion over my evening. Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Where am I?! Jupiter is opposing Saturn "you will feel psychologically that you are shrinking and expanding at the same time". Yes, it's a freaky Alice in Wonderland taking all the drugs at the same time feeling.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010



I have a mad girl crush on Tavi of style rookie. She's wicked smart, self aware and obsessed with fashion and style. I'm sure the boys are swooning and terrified.
I was watching a video she and her sister made and realized that funny colored hair really looks best on young people. And it made me a little sad. I must have already realized this as it's been years since I even dared to try to make mine more interesting. I simply don't want to look like a "fun" secretary. I prefer more of a slightly ferrel aesthetic which is not an adjective you would generally use next to "secretary". But happily, I also remembered that this is one of the many things I did at the right time. I did have a few years when my hair was bright red, blue and turquoise and I loved it and I'm happy now that I did those things that seem so silly and irrelevant.
It also made me realize that maybe I am just like everyone else, not wanting to grow up and get old. I am always the one to tell people: you can be whoever you want to be at any time in your life. But as an adult you do lose freedoms (yes, plural).
I do not want to look "appropriate" or go to work. I want to stay home and clean my whimsical house in a pretty silk camisole (yes, I did that this morning). I want to talk to my dogs and play on the beach (yesterday). And dance, and put on another silly outfit to sit around in and watch shows whose content is unimportant to educated adults. I want to write a silly blog that is generally irrelevant and somewhat directionless (I"m working on concepts, I am). And stay up late to watch meteor showers. And most of all I don't want any part of anyone else's "agenda".
This, I think, is my big grown up "problem". Resistance to other's agendas. They are the antitheses of what it is to be free and adult life is full of them.
I'm getting now why I resisted the practical car, the nicer apartment, the stable job that I have, the serious boyfriend I don't have, the idea of children (adorable and fun but aren't I too messy to be a mother?). I liked my jalopy and working for hourly plus tips and living in a shacky apartment that I can paint and change as I like. I like my funny clothes and my silly hair-do's and sometimes even blue eyeshadow.
Reading the thoughts of a 13 year old girl who is going through the same angst I still feel sometimes in my 30's and wears bright red hair reminds me that it's still me in here. Even she is beginning to question the personal impact of the outside world. I hope it doesn't get her either.

Friday, July 30, 2010

It's Already Friday Again

Oh look, now I have a reason to post at least once a week. It's Friday!!!! And as you can see from just below I'm joining in on Positive Friday, whether or not that's official is beyond me.
This week was kind of awesome just because I feel so changed. Really. I can't quite explain it all but I'm noticing that I've finally outgrown some stuff and maybe reconditioned myself well. I'm dealing with stressful people and situations better and avoiding the fallout of what happens when you don't know how to do deal with these things. That alone is worth a Positive Friday post, isn't it?
Additionally I seem to have learned how better to motivate myself and I made it to dance class yesterday after work. (I'm working on re-motivating myself to get to a dance class tonight, too.) This would have been really great had it not been canceled. But whatever, I came home and ran with my dogs -another thing I'm not very good at, motivating myself to run instead of walk.
Technically a lot of things have not worked out so well this week and many people were telling me the same. One of my examples would have been making it to dance class only to find it was canceled. But that's been another of my pleasantly surprising changes: I just keep going. Something breaks, I clean it up. Something falls through, I move on. I'm liking it.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Friday Love

I just read about Positive Friday's on Urban Casita. Which is bloggers posting on Friday all the positive things that happened to them this week. It ties in nicely with what I was planning to write today, anyway, so I thought I might as well.
Today in particular was great. The sun is out and it's just less than 80 degrees. My favorite. I woke up feeling rested and relaxed and, best of all, it's my first day off. Aaahhhhhhh. Found a comfy little gold velveteen upholstered armchair at St. Vincent's (for only $20) where a man was playing the piano (quite well) the whole time I was there. It was the perfect backdrop for the big, airy, low lit warehouse thrift store and at the end of the second song of my visit he had a small audience gathered around the cluster of piano's and organ's for sale who applauded him. Lovely. I love when things like this wander into my day.
I came home and rearranged my living room so that I could put the chair in a good spot and make everything work and now it looks better than it has in months. (Now for a couch...)
Earlier in the week Saturn changed signs into Libra and I really do feel different, and better.
I'm sure there are more things I could include in my Positive Friday post but if you know me at all you know I have a lousy memory. Did that happen yesterday or was it last month?

Friday, July 16, 2010

I'll Try Anything

I just came across a free trial for a software called Subliminal Flash. You can choose as many categories as you like and it makes affirmative phrases on those topics flash on your screen at lightning speed in a very pale color. It's intended to imprint a more positive attitude on the topics in your brain so that you learn to naturally think this way, allowing your life to improve with virtually no "work" on your part. My life is already improving. Although I think I'm feeling a little nauseous...

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

I am definitely more like seven tenths reborn now. Let's wait and see what happens next week when Saturn finally moves into Libra and out of Virgo for good.
When I was about 13 I used to sleep over at my best friend's house and we would sneak out for a long walk in the middle of the night. This is one of those random things I never really tried to keep a secret as an adult but I've somehow never told anyone.
It seems small now but for 13 year old girls to be out walking miles from home in the middle of the night is not approved of. This became a tradition with me and each consecutive friend. It always felt very freeing. There's nothing like late night air of any season and the stillness when everyone else has gone to bed and there are few if any cars passing. Maybe I was a coyote in my last life. I don't know but this was something I couldn't not do.
Later this became a real talent when there were parties and boyfriends that kept us out after curfew.
This message to me keeps coming up in readings I've gotten: there's some part of me from my much younger self that I must have lost at some point. Over the last few years I was supposed to take it back. I think maybe it was my love of adventure. I'm thinking to myself now: it's no wonder I ended up with these dogs, we have the same need. The recent vacation from having a car reminded me that not only do I need to walk, I need to go out and really move further out in the world. I have not taken it for granted one day since I got my new car. I drive new routes for the scenery, I never choose not to go to a place or event that occurs to me. I do whatever I want. And that has always been my favorite bratty phrase: I can do whatever I want.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Seems like the most prominent element of my dreams for a while now has been colors. Vivid, saturated, gorgeous colors. The other night I dreamed that my floor had been re-tiled with linoleum of the most amazing speckled blues. It was like living on top of the ocean but prettier.
Color is the mainstay of symbolic thought. I read something about blue representing the state of gold. Gold comes after the peak of death. It's the height of alchemy. today we had the second eclipse of the season. You were intended to dive into your fear and transform. Soon Saturn moves into Libra and the Aquarians are reborn. I feel like I'm half way there already.

Saturday, July 10, 2010



Dennis Hopper is a phenomenal photographer. I've seen his black and white work before and had forgotten how much I love everything about it. This is one I don't remember having seen before. I'm using it because it so well illustrates how I felt tonight at the opening party for the MOCA show of his work. (Little bit of a headache, girly in my blue eyeshadow and slightly weird outfit. I should have, perhaps, drawn on a sloppy mustachio.) What I did not know before tonight is that he was also a really skilled painter and that he made some recent photographs that are completely different and amazing. There was a series in color that are all very motion blurred and abstract and saturated color and a few others that were not blurred at all but reminded me a bit of my own photos. They were of things like cement and seemed to be all about the colors and textures. I always liked him for no reason in particular. He seemed like a "character" and that's good enough for me. Now I like him even more and feel like I should have known him.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Venus Trined Jupiter and All I Got Was Good Hair Days

Venus is in Leo right now: sign of the mane-like hair and my relationship house. Jupiter is the planet of luck and expansion. Three different people predicted that I would fall in love this summer. All separate people, all different times. It seems somehow profound. How can three people be wrong? I know, doesn't that sound funny? I love to say it.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Maybe I'm the Big Bad Wolf



Where did I even see it first? I can't remember now even though it was just a minute ago. Some astrology page I've never read before. Everything happens for a reason. They keep saying that with all this planetary action and Uranus into Aries people who've been abused in some way are about to blow their lids. And yours. I just found (this is what I was talking about) that in August of 1999 there was a similar event to what is brewing now. A solar eclipse (this one in Leo and Aquarius) and a T-square between mars in Scorpio and Saturn in Taurus. The breakdown they gave was: Sun and Moon conjunct in Leo and Aquarius, respectively, opposing Uranus, also in Aquarius (I believe) while squaring both Mars in Scorpio ad Saturn in Taurus. Mercury, Neptune and Jupiter forming a fixed t-square in Leo, Aquarius and Taurus. I flipped. That's all over the important parts of my chart. I'm thinking, what the hell was going on with me in August 1999?! I read some archived monthly horoscopes and got a bit of a clue. A bunch of stuff I wish I'd had more insight into at the time, wish I'd had better friends in my life back then, too. Wish I'd learned more from it. But now... here we are again. It's not so powerful for me anymore except it is. I'm surrounded by people who are in the tough seats for this one. And maybe this time I'm not a little pig in a straw house. Maybe I'm the big bad wolf.
With the cardinal square and the lunar eclipse approaching this weekend I see a lot of people struggling around me. With themselves, with the people in their lives, with situations beyond their control. Some people are experiencing furious flashpoints over nothing, really. Some people are flowing despite the friction. The moon right now is 98% full. We're not even there yet. Everything is about to change. I don't know about you but I'm certainly ready.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Spring, Late


I so love being outside and the particular green of plants which you simply cannot reproduce because of how it is made up of water and light. For awhile I have been planning and researching how to make my own string garden and fully intend to begin it once I finish painting my living room. I even chose a light blue so that it would seem more like being outdoors on a clear day, and will provide the perfect backdrop for my new garden.


I also love to have lots of potted plants but am afraid that my dog will one of these days tear them up which is not only disappointing but also very messy. To avoid this, and because I love the unusual, my new second favorite indoor gardens are these beautiful little homemade terrariums in which even I should be able to sustain some delicate ferns.

In the Beanfields



Saturn at the end of Virgo leaves Aquarians hanging between two lives. I don't remember which astrologer wrote this before Saturn first ingressed Libra last fall but since it retrograded back into Virgo for a while and is now working it's way back toward Libra again it must still be true. Or is true again. No wonder all the dreams of death.
Last night I dreamed I was in someone else's house. Presumably the house of the guy I seemed to be involved with in the dream. It seemed to be kind of the party house among the group of friends and it was a mess. I was trying to get some sleep and was disgusted at the mess throughout the house. I can't remember exactly what drove me from the bed I was trying to sleep in but it was probably that the whole place seemed to be filthy and dark and there were people in the next room making too much noise. I got up and went to where everyone was and everywhere I went the floor was dirty with black beans. The kind that come already cooked in a can with sauce. In the next room are a bunch of people hanging out and a few dogs and this guy who is supposed to be my boyfriend. I go take a shower and come back and he takes me to another bedroom that is immaculate and light and there's a nice clean bed but the shape is like an upside down L. The space for pillows across the top is there but the area for your body to rest is only the space of one person, not even as wide as a twin bed. It's my boyfriends bed and seems to have been designed so that no one can share it with him.
Bathing is baptism, to cleanse and make new. Also associated with *'fasting in the heart' (from The Secret of the Golden Flower), washing is to remove all mental activities and achieve emptiness.
Dogs are our companions through the underworld. Beds the symbol of rest and love. I think the bed missing space for anyone but the person it belongs to must mean that he is incapable of loving anyone. (Great guy.)
But here's the best: Beans are the first of the gifts of the Underworld for the rites of Spring. The first offering from the dead to the living representing their fertility, their incarnation. In Ancient Egypt the beanfields are where the dead await their reincarnation. "Just before the beginning of Spring, on the evening of the 3 of February, the Japanese scattered beans on the floor, shouting as they did so 'Out with the demons and in with good fortune!'" (* all from the Penguin Dictionary of Symbolism) This must be what I'm doing. Saturn moves back into Libra July 21, 2010 and stays until October 5, 2012.

Friday, June 11, 2010

I Do Not Heart the Dark of the Moon

One of these days I'm going to write a book called How My Youth Was Ruined by Neptune Transiting My First House. It's going to require the naming of a new genre, maybe something like Horrific Biographical Real Fantasy. You will repeatedly gasp and say, "No way!" as you turn the pages hungry for the next beautiful day and dreading the day after that when the illusion of goodness is shattered. Neptune is, in my experience, a total jackass. They try to give him credit saying that he forces us into ourselves to transform and once he finally moves on we emerge like phoenixes, beautiful and rare and breathing fire. And when that day comes, let me tell you, I'm going to burn down the freaking house.
It's the dark of the Moon and we're all supposed to be napping like babies so that we can be fresh and rested and reborn when the Moon is new. Until then it's moody, wacky, crappy.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Still Scorping



Roberto Dutesco

So! Finally some interesting dreams! After two dreams in a row of people breaking into my house (basically). The first one being really odd as whoever was breaking in was leaving graffitti tags in green (Spring -rebirth) paint on the floor each time and removing the door that had been there. A weird dream with a depressing tone, living in a weird rundown basement level (the unconscious) apartment. But many good elements to it as the removal of doors seems to represent moving from the known to the unknown, light to darkness, etc. which can only mean -to me- newness, discovery. In this first one I also climbed stairs (good) and found at the top only blackness which I could not go through -weird and I couldn't decipher it. The next night it was a different and not so deep in the earth seeming basement apartment. My ex-crazy neighbor was trying to come through the window and I was pissed. I think I pulled him through by the feet so that I could beat him and throw him out again through the door. I've had dreams sort of like this before: people trying to break in, people having keys and coming in and insisting that it was their house, suddenly finding people asleep in a bedroom I didn't know was there as if my roommates, the most comical was the one where a really fat guy was trying to squeeze through a six inch opening in the window and I was pushing him back outside. I wish I could remember the interpretation I found for this before. Anyway, overall those two were kind of depressing and too similar even with the good bits they were too weird to make a decent story but I kind of got the gist.
Then last night I have another weird dream. I'm now living in yet another apartment, at first it's really dark inside but I can see clouds through the window (clouds: instruments of epiphany, transformation that sages must undergo to 'annihilate' themselves, surrender. More specifically, rain clouds: fertility, manifestations of heavenly activity, prophetic revelation, metamorphosis.) and when I pass into the next room there are huge windows and I can see that this place is way up high. Through the windows I can see in the distance a small herd of horses galloping toward me from the horizon.
I had a dream about a horse before. It was awesome. I was riding it, not so weird, but it had a steering wheel growing out of its back where the saddle horn should have been and I was out in the city but we were on the sidewalk waiting for the crosswalk to turn green for us. WHAT?!
Anyway, how did I not look up horses before this? Horse: associated with the beginning of time, female mythology -linked both to death and birth. And yes for a second I freaked because I thought maybe I just had a premonition that someone would die but representation of death isn't usually literal. Death is simply what allows rebirth. But seriously, how the hell Scorpionic am I? I always dream of death omens! I am always being reborn!
So, alright, definitely indications of a major metamorphosis. And yesterday was the first of the Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions, this time in Aries, propelling us forward on the evolutionary path (Molly Hall says). From what I can see this is spelling out a very personal, "Look out world!"

FYI: the photo is by Roberto Dutesco who has been photographing the wild horses of Sable Island. There seems to be a new documentary about him out, I saw a clip of it where he's trying to photograph a horse that keeps trying to cuddle with him instead. Very sweet.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Just also wanted to post that I have just gotten my new (super awesome) cellphone with a waaaaay better camera and video camera than was on my last phone so hopefully soon will have some new videos and photo's to post. (Since this blog isn't attached to a social network sometimes I forget that it's personal and not some kind of job?...)

Closing the Gap

This is what blogging is all about. I just saw on someone else's blog a cell phone video of a woman at the local market smashing thousands of dollars worth of booze. When I read the caption in my head and waited for the video to load I pictured it in my head but it was nothing like he real image of a later middle aged blond woman who seemed slightly haggard sweeping a shelf's worth of bottles of wine at a time onto the floor of the grocery store aisle. Repeat, walk a few feet calmly. Sweep, crash, repeat. Sweep, crash, repeat. Sweep, crash, repeat. And so on all the way down the aisle. She didn't seem crazy, quite. And all the time a small crowd is gathering in the frame between the scene down the aisle, complete with absolute lakes of wine on the floor, and the camera. And then the old lady watching the scenes pulls out *her* cellphone and starts filming, too! And I was like: omg, even the old lady has a freaking cellphone with a video camera. AND SHE KNOWS HOW TO USE IT! Neither one of my grandma's can do that! And I think: Dang! Everybody does that now! It's like we're reporting our own news!!! It's kind of hilarious and kind of crazy and kind of freaking AWESOME! Almost anything worth knowing about is bound to be on the internet, along with a bjillion other things. And we're seeing more and more of our "news" this way without the gloss of commercialization. Imagine what this is doing for humanity after years and years of the distance of fame? In some ways fame boils down to having a face that will be recognized by many people.
I was getting my lunch today and at the register there were two men ahead of me. One of them was an employee and the other a visitor. The employee recognized the visitor and acknowledged him fairly casually (I can't remember exactly because I wasn't paying attention at first) and the other guy said something like, "Here I am trying to hide behind my sunglasses..." And after a minute I caught on that this guy must be famous and here he is out trying to just be a normal guy, dressed so casually that he looks nice but absolutely nothing stands out. No labels, nothing. And yes, I'm in Los Angeles where a LOT of people are wearing flashy labels and just as many dream of being so famous they would be recognizable.
But the world has gotten smaller and there are a lot more faces in it. It's unlikely anyone could ever even achieve that romanticized level of stardom again where fame is absolutely worshiped. And at the same all our behavior is free game to the world. We can just as easily be recognized for an injury as for a victory. It's like the first talkie where the screen goddess turns out to have a sqwauky voice and bad grammar.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010




I love love love wood grain. And so, it seems, does Audrey Kawasaki. (Yay, I just learned how to insert the link!) Besides incorporating the color and grain of the wood, I love how delicate her paintings are and all of the references to nature.

Monday, May 31, 2010

Here's How To Open This Thing



I hear a lot about "taking advantage of opportunities" and I see a couple of things. Some opportunities are effortless, they are spelled out and laid out and nearly shoved down your throat. That's where it can be said: you have been given the opportunity. And then there are all these other opportunities. They're obscure and obscured and enigmatic and you can't quite tell what it's the opportunity for but there's a certain magnetism, they stick around and vibe you for a while so you can sense them. There's this cliche about opportunities like these, that you should grab on and see where it drags you. And now that I've noticed this I'd like to meet someone who could say, "Here's how to open this thing, climb in this way". I think some people can do this. I think sometimes people mistake it for luck but I think that luck is far more profound, like lightning striking. I think the rest of it is opportunity and you just have to learn how to use the handle.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Astro Geek Out



No way!!! Before anybody made a movie or the rest of the world started talking about it astrologers were writing about 2012 and the Mayan calendar. Generally they all seem to have some variation of a theory about a major shift of consciousness. The planets are moving into alignments that haven't been seen since the 60's and we all know what went down back then. If you've been following along with any decent astrologer you've already seen how current and historical events line up to major planetary alignments and, like me, you're fascinated. So I'm pretty excited about what may actually come through in 2012. I have no belief in any ideas of the end of the world, but how awesome will it be to experience a new beginning of humanity?
So I was just about to skip over yet another post about 2012 because, honestly, I've read enough the last few years and I'm kind of sick of it already. But then! But then I started to skim this post and there was a piece of information that I had never seen before, or just didn't notice. It's that at the end of the Mayan calendar our solar system and our Sun will align with a huge black hole in the center of the Milky Way. Now, I'm not scientist so I don't know things like how far away our solar system actually is from this black hole -in alignment or not, or what the gravitational pull of a black hole actually is but for a second I did think, "What if we get sucked in!" but then I kept reading. Our Sun aligns with this black hole annually (oh....) on the Winter Solstice. But for both the Sun and our solar system to align simultaneously like this happens only once every 26,125 years (does anyone remember how old the Earth is? I just checked and got 4.54 billion years, ok). That's pretty significant. Also, this black hole is called the "dark road" to Xibalba, the underworld, by the Maya.
Makes perfect sense to me for this to be part of the Winter Solstice, Winter is the season of death -the necessary precursor to rebirth (Spring). So basically the Winter Solstice of 2012 is going to be powerful, the implication is that it will be the "death" of all that we know. And the really cool part is how we will be reborn, on a massive scale. It's not just me changing, and not just you it's everyone and everything. I can't even begin to try to illustrate the concept. It may mean the end of life as we know it but it doesn't mean it's the end of the world. It's not OVER over, just reeeally different.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Somebody Send Me a Dream!



I can't remember my dreams lately. Or sometimes I do just after I wake up but then they're gone. One favorite things to do is interpret them. It's amazing what you don't know you know and what you tell yourself while you're sleeping. Straightforward as reality may seem to some -driving a car from the back seat, climbing a giant chandelier of tiered glass plates with my eyes closed, slip 'n slide bathing on all lanes of the 134 freeway- this is how I know what's going on with me. I'm really missing them lately. I'm pretty sure I've got some backed up messages for myself that aren't getting through for one reason or another. I'm pretty sure I could have it all figured out for a day or two if I had one good dream.
I once had a boyfriend who asked me one morning what I had dreampt. I told him it was strange because it was really washed out, visually kind of transparent, but it seemed to be something like model T Fords drag racing in the desert.... "It worked!" he said, "When I was falling asleep last night I concentrated really hard to send you my dreams!" That's what I call a romantic gift. If anybody out there wouldn't mind sharing until mine come back, that would be great.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Not Since 1935


Funny I should be at a loss for words today... For the first time in 7 years Uranus (my ruling planet) has changed signs. It's moved into Aries which, apparently, is in the house that deals with the way I communicate. Funny thing. I made no connection to this when starting this blog, it was just something I'd been thinking about doing for a while. With almost 5000 hits to my myspace blog I thought it seemed worthwhile. (Unless it is only YOU reading that.) So, I thought if you all are so amused by my weird dreams, ramblings on astrology and stories about weed whacking... knock yourselves out: Here I am.
So back to the point, Uranus enters Aries today (woohooo!!!!) and yes, it's a big deal. EVERYBODY's gonna feel it somewhere. In case you're behind on this Uranus is the planet of unpredictable change, intuition, genius, individualism, independence, freedom, social reform, rebels, inventions, electricity, and joining of the personal to the collective consciousness. Put all that energy into Aries -the first sign of the zodiac personifying the phrase "I am", full of energy, courageous and self directed, and for me (with it being in the 3rd house): communication. I have a feeling I'm about to get loud. I'm a little afraid it's going to come out more like the way a toddler talks, which means no one will understand what the hell I'm saying.
Uranus was last in Aries 1927 - 1935. I found a cool little history timeline for this period and some of the notable events are during this time were the first appearance of Mickey Mouse, the first talking movie the Jazz Singer was made, British women were granted electoral equality with men, the Great Depression, Hitler came into power, the beginning of construction of both the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate bridge and I think everyone's pretty aware of the cultural revolution of the 20's and 30's. So once again: wheeeeee! It might be rough at times but it won't be boring!


If you want to see what this means to you more specifically, look here: http://www.astrobarry.com/horoscopes.php (in the week of May 24-30, 2010).

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Manifestation Manifesto

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits
in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
- Helen Keller

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Climbing the Urban Waterfall 2



I took these videos on my phone one morning when I went down the hill for a cup of coffee. It was barely raining on my way down but when I came out it started to pour. I stood under the awning and watched it for a while. Across the street people were ducking under the islands at the gas station. It was raining so hard it looked like sheets and sheets of water falling. It was loud as hell and beautiful. I stayed until it slowed down quite a bit and when I headed back to the stairs I found water rushing down making the lovliest plinking waterfall sounds.

Climbing the Urban Waterfall

Urban Waterfall