The Glass Bead Game

Make for yourself a world you can believe in.

2009-04-08T22:27:00.000-07:00

"It sounds simple, I know. But it's not. Listen, there are a million worlds you could make for yourself. Everyone you know has a completely different one - the woman in 5G, that cab driver over these, you. Sure, there are overlaps, but only in the details. Some people make their worlds around what they think reality is like. They convince themselves that they had nothing to do with their worlds' creations and continuations. Some make their worlds without knowing it. Their universes are just sesame seeds and three-day weekends and dial tones and skinned knees and physics and driftwood and emerald earrings and books dropped in bathtubs and holes in guitars and plastic and empathy and hardwood and heavy water and high black stockings and the history of the Vikings and brass and obsolescence and burnt hair and collapsed soufflés and the impossibility of not falling in love in an art museum with the person standing next to you looking at the same painting and all the other things that just happen and are. But you want to make for yourself a world that is deliberately and meticulously personalized. A theater for your life, if I could put it like that. Don't live an accident. Don't call a knife a knife. Live a life that has never been lived before, in which everything you experience is yours and only yours. Make accidents on purpose. Call a knife a name by which only you will recognize it. Now I'm not a very smart man, but I'm not a dumb one, either. So listen: If you can manage what I've told you, as I was never able to, you will give your life meaning."

A Convergence Of Birds
Jonathan Safran Foer

***
I've been gone from here forever, I know. But now I'm back again! For now!

The same face shows youth and old age.

2009-01-17T20:10:00.000-08:00

"When I was alive, I believed--as you do--that time was at least as real and solid as myself, and probably more so. I said 'one o'clock' as though I could see it, and 'Monday' as though I could find it on the map; and I let myself be hurried along from minute to minute, day to day, year to year, as though I were actually moving from one place to another. Like everyone else, I lived in a house bricked up with seconds and minutes, weekends and New Year's Days, and I never went outside until I died, because there was no other door. Now I know that I could have walked through the walls."

The Last Unicorn
by Peter S. Beagle

Consciousness is the ability to see the whole of our lives in each moment.

Precede each significant choice of the day, my dears, with the words, what is my purpose here?

Happy New Year!

2009-01-04T10:54:00.000-08:00

"Barely four months total I had known Astrid and I felt like I had crossed over. Sometimes when I opened my mouth I felt like I could breathe fire.

Now I knew you could be in control like that. Anything could be yours, you could take it and all you had to do was ask. At the Coffee Trader, Metro, wherever. One minute you're stirring sugar into your coffee, the next you're flying through the night beside some hot guy with a pierced lip who whistles through his teeth and calls you darlin', just a little bit shy.

'Isn't it wild?' Astrid said after we'd picked up a cuple of punk rockers on Downer, all of us crammed into Juli's car, sitting on laps and laughing, heading for a garage party on the Southside.

'Wish I'd met you sooner,' I told her.

'Don't wish.' Astrid grinned. 'Just enjoy it.'

So we drove on, the three of us, young and glorious, fierce eyed and smoking, blazing though the night."

Whores on the Hill
by Colleen Curran

The ship travels dangerously at night.

2008-07-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

Showing the outside and not the inside is self-deceiving, my dear.

Very often when you just can't decide between two or more options... it's because the answer that would most give you peace, is actually, "None of the above."

But not always.

Claim the fact you are choosing where and where not to put your energy, and make choices, darlings, which bridge inner and outer.

The house burns while the neighbors watch.

2008-07-11T10:41:00.000-07:00

Whenever bumped off course, darlings, it's often wise to pause and ascertain whether or not you've really been dealt a setback, or if it was in fact a little nudge from 'the Universe' designed to subtly prepare you for something even better.

Because I'm sure you'll see, if you want to, it was the latter.

We seldom choose when something is to go, my dears, but we can most certainly choose how we give it up.

***

And just for you, sweetie:

Apologize to an old soul, and your gesture will be honored.

Apologize to a young soul and matters may become extremely complicated.

Apologize anyway.

Happily, hanging around afterwards is always purely optional!

Hanging out at the coffee shop.

2008-06-05T19:14:00.000-07:00

"And so, standing before the aforesaid officiator, the two swore that at every other time of their lives till death took them, they would assuredly believe, feel, and desire precisely as they had believed, felt, and desired during the few preceding weeks. What was as remarkable as the undertaking itself was the fact that nobody seemed at all surprised at what they swore."

-- Jude the Obscure
Thomas Hardy

On the trail of Jesse James

2008-06-03T13:25:00.000-07:00

In virtually all person-to-person relationships, my dears, disappointments can be lessened, setbacks can be regained, and little annoyances can be brushed off, when one stops and realizes that such relationships are always temporary.

Physically speaking.

And it's not that folks act a certain way around you, but that you attract certain types of folks based upon your thoughts, beliefs and expectations.

The number one reason most people don't start what they want to start? Because they think their simple, little efforts won't even dent the mountain they wish to move.

But little do they know, darlings, that's exactly how the mountain was formed.

And speaking of mountains, moving and folks, I'm off for some weeks of travelling, talking to strangers, and spelunking my way across the U.S.

In a minivan!

Roller coasters, too. A lot of them.

***
There's so much time in a day, lovers. You could have breakfast, lunch and dinner on 3 different continents. You could outline the book you're going to write, start the screenplay adaptation, and watch "Gone With The Wind," before the sun even sets. Spend a day at work, and still have 16 hours left over. Or you could just think 10,000 different thoughts as you tool all over town. The record for climbing Mt. Everest is under 9 hours, leaving 15 to nap and go Yeti searching.

There's so much time in a day, my dears. So much.

Especially when one stops claiming there's so little of it, no?

She takes notes with her eyes closed.

2008-02-10T08:56:00.000-08:00

Distilling the essence of experience is what starts the next event.

Take time daily, my dears, to reflect on what is happening so you can choose what needs to happen.

The only way to truly learn from interventions is through acceptances.

Are you remembering to tell yourself that you are open to whatever happens today?

We're going to take turns painting each other's toenails.

2008-02-09T16:54:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't caught on, my dears...

You are not where you now think you are.

You are not what you now think you are.

You are not even who you now think you are.

Because even to think, in spite of its fantastic power to manifest, is to limit.

Makes the brain hurt, dudnnit?

Impatience is a sign that one has temporarily forgotten, darlings, to behave at all times, as if their dreams have already come true.

Pulling petals off the roses through the fence.

2008-02-08T18:11:00.000-08:00

Having preferences doesn't mean you're "judgmental", darlings; whether they're likes or dislikes.

Preferences just ensure that as the winds of divinity are blown through your heart, the melody is unlike any other.

So have them, my dears. Have them BIG time. Without remorse and with ownership.

The musicians play, blending their parts.

2008-01-30T09:32:00.000-08:00

What makes something real, darlings, is the focus you give to it. And encompassing means to take all of life in: because there is center, there is what includes it.

Every time we are surrounded by something we are placed near the center to come back into ourselves. Why break out of what would have you focus more on yourself? You are included in the bowl of life, my dears, so stop escaping and accept reality as it is.

This is the place of the known, the possible, the arena within which to live.

Your task, my friends, is to face all those things which would pull you away from your own center. Have you made a commitment to be here and nowhere else?

Practice being present, no matter what your fears.

2008-01-26T18:52:00.000-08:00

Fingers entwined,
we trace the line of my jaw,
the curve of my lip.

yours mine yours mine yours mine yours
together, one hand.

Seeker and child hold hands by the seashore.

2008-01-23T08:40:00.000-08:00

Remember, darlings, the illusions in your life - good, bad and even neutral - thrive on attention.

Something to consider when choosing which to keep and which to Kung Fu.

And the great perfection lies in the fact that no matter what happens next, you'll be richer for it.

Did you know, my dears, that you can interpret any and all of the past events of your life as ones that have unfolded in your greatest favor?

I say do.

On hope and doubt.

2008-01-23T01:19:00.000-08:00

Well, since these strange almost-forgotten bedfellows have made themselves recently relevant, what can I say about them?

...

On hope and doubt, I have this to say:

No thought, no reflection, no analysis, no cultivation, no intention; let it settle itself.

Anticlimactic, I know, but I don't have a flare for drama and, besides, anticlimactic does not make it less true.

So, let's tie them together, this bundles of nerves and sleeplessness and disorientation and grasping touch; let's see what we have made of this handholding of hope and doubt and uncertainty and certainty and love:

If you understand, things are just as they are... If you do not understand? Things are just as they are.

Good morning, my dears.

In each other's arms, they release the life force.

2008-01-22T21:41:00.000-08:00

Let's talk about sex, darlings, and love, I suppose. Or what is commonly considered those things. Or, better yet, what is *not* commonly considered those things.

Sex in whatever form it takes, is expression, is revelation, is liberation.

Release is the break-out of energy from the form which contains it. And doesn't that sound sexual right there?

All life generates energy as part of its essential vitality. The pressures of coping with the world evoke repression or release. What you do not express gets pushed under, building the unbearable tensions which, in my opinion, cause compulsive living.

The key, in my opinion, to sexuality is to use it for renewal and expression of the life force. Learn to both go with the energy and to direct it. We increase the intensity until the quickening explodes in a great release, destroying the old, creating the new.

So it is for me. So I would wish it for everyone.

Which brings us to love, doesn't it? Or, so it does for me.

Which is also ultimately about release.

And, darlings, we release by letting go, not by force.

And if you don't understand how that relates to love, then you didn't read to the end of my ankles post!

There can be no desire, or control, or conditions. Those are the Ego's logistics of relating. And, yes, I project, wanting things not realizable, wanting what I imagined, wanting what I didn't know I wanted until you didn't have it anymore -- and all those things hurt my acceptance of you as are. And we've already talked about relating to be related to. But love is a commitment to the integration of what is evoked in our relating, because ultimately it is my way of affirming your being as I affirm my own.

Love because you love, darlings. That's enough. Because that's everything.

And when you don't love? Integrate that, too. Because that is also enough.

"Though I’m past one hundred thousand miles, I'm feeling very still."

2008-01-22T17:32:00.000-08:00

for the boy

Sometimes, between beats,
a black hole returns something.
And free fall resumes.

I do not need oxygen,
no tethers to your support.

***
Sometimes all it takes is "cheer up chica" via buzz in your pocket, and you remember you are really real and somewhere, someplace, someone walking their own world, doing their own thing, really knows that. That's all it takes to highlight that it is always here and now. Everywhere. At the same time.

Followed a few hours later by the effective avenue for resolution that I had wanted, as referenced in last comments. My judgement is confirmed as bad as I had thought, but I find now that most of my struggle was with *believing* that. The removal of hope provides the removal of doubt, and I'm sure I'll have a blog about that later tonight.

But, now: out the door to buy Heelys, because all children should have the ability to go zoom before falling and cracking their skulls!

She holds the snake in her mouth.

2008-01-22T12:12:00.000-08:00

Conflict. Tension. Testing.

Crisis is unbalanced power in extreme. It exists when opposing factors seek their own direction and the structures containing them will not hold the energies being released. But, of course, we know that for illusion brought on by the attempt to hold.

So we are left with an individual who feels split between feelings and beliefs, between differing attitudes and world views. Dangers and demand enact such a tremendous test, my dears and how do you continue when have already failed one? ::waving hand dismissively:: I *know* the answer of course: all crisis is a breakdown of control, and it's important to meet the necessity by yielding control, not consciousness -- breakdowns are breakthroughs if we change, and if we choose.

::resting head on desk::

Ah, my dears, who knew I needed so much practice not blaming others in conflict situations. Conflict should be used to bring out personal and objective issues and to make choices which resolve them; that's what I'm always reminding all of *you*, at any rate. But, I need help right now, remembering what it is I've forgotten, because the only choice I keep returning to is pain and that is resolving nothing.

But then, you know, we wiped our eyes and blew our noses and had some tea, burning our fingers and tongues.

2008-01-21T20:19:00.000-08:00

Outside before bed,
we run to defeat the cold.
Win - warm and breathless.

Watery eyes blur the stars,
reduce trees to their essence.

She runs to the attack beside her guardian lion. Today, at least.

2008-01-21T16:52:00.000-08:00

The forceful express power effectively, compelled to achieve their goals by inner necessity.

How is power an issue for you, darlings? Are you going after power without values to focus its use? Or are you denying yourself power because you have not committed to taking full responsibility for your life? It is important to take initiative, using force and effectiveness to settle things in your life.

There are no "mistakes", my dears, only things to deal with. If you accept whatever is happening to you, you may then work your will. Whether you "win" or "lose", you do the moment a disservice if you do not enter it with everything you have.

Choose now to access what power you have and use it effectively to enhance your own values, and those of others you believe in.

Your lips have touched the insides of my wrists.

2008-01-20T19:23:00.000-08:00

I have written you again and again today, and yesterday. Emails that I never send. Emails that are always only one word, or two, or five at the most.

And they have all started with the word "Please."

We let the olive tree scrape up the roof, so that we can always hear the wind.

2008-01-19T19:07:00.000-08:00

Fevered now.
Smooth smooth still and calm.
She said, I was feeling peaceful
She reflected tranquility
She reflected quiet
Still still quiet and smooth
She was so tranquil.
I reflected peaceful.

A child's lips pressed against an eyelid
small fingers splayed against temples
and the smell of strawberry shampoo.

It even hurts my fingers to type this.

2008-01-19T12:34:00.000-08:00

“A person, who no matter how desperate the situation, gives others hope, is a true leader.”

-- Daisaku Ikeda

I cannot seem to get my hands warm today. Not for anything. It's like that last bit of energy required to move the blood to those extremes, just isn't there. And I can't help occasionally touching myself on the neck, on the belly, on the calf, on the ankle -- can't help feeling the temperatures change and feeling myself shiver.

El Nino said (after saying "gah! don't touch me!") while watching me press back of fingers to neck: *Oh*, are you trying to make your hands *warm*?

I said: *No*, I am trying to make my *neck* cold.

He said: *Ah*

I said: *Ah*

****
I would very much like to be tucked into bed. And to fall asleep hearing my child's laughter in the other room.

Language is a virus.

2008-01-17T23:52:00.000-08:00

Contre toute la sagesse, je souhaite que vous ayez été ici, avec votre main sur mon visage.

Je suis heureux que je ne sois pas sage, parce que la douleur est douce dans son affirmation de joie.

****

So still behind the fire
I poke angry toads before the sky.
Repent! The sin will vanish.
All huge within the dream,
You expel misty keys beyond the trees.
Whoa! The vision will vanish.
Weird and happy on the rain,
We dispel dark diamonds above the shadows.
Be transparent. The birth never ends.
Shadowed hesitant
out of control
an old passport
in whose eyes
the lost man
loses his way
Be watchful. The inspiration will come again.
So sticky among the ground
darkening awake
on the edge of the world,
memories of water
and dreams from which
our neighbours
go without luggage
not knowing why,
unable to stop.

Kneeling In The Wrong Direction.

2008-01-17T19:13:00.000-08:00

Booked my hotel, Ladarna -> L.A. January 31st - February 4th. I will need time, I already know, both before and after the memorial.

More driving across the desert. More sleep gone missing. More tears, for sure.

I will likely come alone. Or, you know, alone with el nino, which is like being alone but with more responsibility.

::resting head on knees::

In response to that comment (which I will likely address more fully in another post), right now, no one takes care of me. And, yes, I cry.

"The sun doesn't go down. That's just an illusion caused by the world spinning around."

2008-01-17T14:27:00.000-08:00

I was thinking, not that long ago, about the intensity of female hatred and I had told someone that I had been the receptacle for more female spite and hatred than they likely had the ability to conceive of. And I ran out of time to finish that story, but the moral of it is that I would have it that way always, simply because I believe better me than anyone else. And better me than it not finding expression at all. Not because I believe I deserve it, but because I know that I don't.

And that sounds arrogant, perhaps, to the kind of ears which never understand me, but it is simply reality, no different than someone physically stronger than someone else wishing to carry that person's physical burden down the street or up the stairs.

When A once punched me in the eye at a party because she was drunk (and she was not the first nor the last drunk girl to punch me), it took me just a fraction of a second to resist the urge to go upside her head with my bottle of bud or tegatana right through her throat. Instead, I stood up and put my bottle down and asked her if she really wanted to go there. If going there with me now was the conscious choice she wanted to make. And she didn't, of course; they never have yet. But had she, I would have kicked her ass or gotten my ass kicked trying.

Instead she cried a lot and let go of a lot of pain and a lot of frustration, at least for then. Because hatred and spite and anger is almost always pain. And it is almost always hurt. And it is often sorrow. And it is a crude, common, ugly way to release those things but it is a release and I will continue to believe that is a good thing. Too much self-restriction causes extreme urges and while of course I can think of what I believe to be healthier expressions, that has little bearing on what exists then and there.

I will continue to believe that throwing that anger and hatred on me is better than throwing it on most everyone else I've ever met or than continuing to carry it yourself.

Because I know how to put it down.

Think of me like a lightening rod, darlings. That energy must go somewhere -- it always does -- and maybe, in my small way, I am sparing some trees.

****
Malibu and I once lay on the beach talking about wishes. Not the "i'd like a million dollars" or the "to be amazingly beautiful" type of wishes because, pffft, we already know those are already obtainable and not really wishes at all. But the *real* wishes. The real impossible wishes. And Malibu said that his wish would be to live the rest of his life never harming any being, either by word or deed. My wish? The power to heal the harm done by others, especially that which they do to themselves.

Of course we debated it through many bottles of wine, whether one was ultimately avoidant and the other ultimately enabling, and I think ultimately it is the difference between the masculine principle -- the creative, outgoing -- and the feminine principle -- the receptive, sensitive.

To never throw a punch and to take every punch thrown.

Is there life better than that? Is there even life *more* than that?

I think not.

What happens to us is reality, my dears, and neither good nor bad: always allow part of your energy and income for loss.

2008-01-17T06:38:00.000-08:00

Boots on pavement
at 5 a.m.
echo louder than they do
in day light.

And they offer a secret reminder,
that would go unheard if you were still asleep:
even in apparent solitude,
every step you take
bounces back to you
off of something else.

All Stories Are About Love. Even When They Are About Sluts.

2008-01-16T21:04:00.000-08:00

Because your comments made me smile, and confirmed how at peace I have become with things, I will requote as you asked:

"Maybe years later the slut has the look of a woman who has lived somewhere before. She now knows the words for certain things, is familiar with three-day winds, the roads of Morocco, the strongholds of the British, the uses of kohl, the laying and folding styles of napkins for all sorts of tables, has heard music from instruments deep-bellied and two-stringed, cries that were songs, waves washing on rock, coral, and sand. She has pens filled with ink and some that are plumed. Slippers sewn with gold thread and pointed toes. Gum smelling of leaves. Oil in wax-sealed jars. Says "no" as a question after her sentences. Pedals backward to brake on a bike that only brakes by hand. Eats steak with a knife like it was a fork. Looks skyward for the grace of God. Digs in a garden with shards of broken bowl. Calls dogs with the clap of her hands. Trims her nail with a blade. Twists her hair and burns the broken, frayed ends. Rubs her teeth with hollow grass blades in the morning and night. Wears skirts that are scarves knotted at the hip. Writes in a leather-bound book. Totes a cat on her shoulder... Joins children at games on the street, throwing off her shoes and hiking up her dress, letting the girls try her perfume kept in a vial, applied with a stick to the small beating veins at their necks. She gives them names they have never heard before and tells them they are the words for tree, sky and lake in a country where the girls never bathe but are licked clean by cows."

-- Here They Come
Yannick Murphy

The Whore Stands on the Street Corner. Can You See Here There, Under the Rainbow?

2008-01-16T17:29:00.000-08:00

Under how many circumstances are you inclined to hold yourself back, limiting your probability of success in a relationship? How strong is that tendency to use your current station in life as an excuse to hold yourself back from taking a relationship deeper? And you should know that, in spite of this, your ability to contribute is a platform for all kinds of growth if that's what you want -- but with a negative attitude you can certainly turn it into a dead end.

If you take that route, doors and windows begin to slam shut around you. So why slow yourself down with excuses? Why cling to limited thinking about your relationships or their potential? When you are able to answer these questions, you will break through what has been holding you back.

So, my dears, throw off the tyranny of ego and meditate on your relationships.

Practice: serenity and inner peace come from stilling the waters of the emotions and expanding the mind as large as Nature itself.

By opening yourself to the great mysteries, you can air out your friend the ego and let go of narcissistic tendencies, which, I assure you, do nothing to enhance relationship growth.

I must warn you, though, that this requires laying aside outworn roles and trusting the arrival of new and improved ones.

Some part of you may experience this as a death, an irreparable loss of something that will be mourned and missed -- I understand that. But believe me when I tell you: you will know this change as a rebirth, a transformation into a larger framework, a broader scope of identity.

Don't fear it as the loss of someone dear to you; you're more likely to lose an outdated identity. Drop that disguise, the mask you wear in this story, and step more realistically into the future. Be willing to expose your true self.

If you need encouragement to do so, then I will tell you this: Know that this true self is not your social role, net worth, or relationship, although each of these offers you a reflection of your truth. If you do not resist this fierce and revealing transformation, what you'll be left with on the other side will prove priceless.

Your task, loves? Show me the source of earth, wind, fire, and water.

::rubbing tired eyes::

But since I am here and you are all there and everywhere else, that is impossible. Instead, show yourselves.

May I be a medicine for the sick and weary, Nursing their afflictions until they are cured.

2008-01-15T21:48:00.000-08:00

We know, darlings, that only one state of consciousness can occur at a time and that states of consciousness with mutually opposed ethical qualities cannot coexist. We seem faster to forget that the factors of consciousness -- feeling, perception, volition and all the rest -- must partake of the same ethical quality as the consciousness itself. Thereby experience is colored with the ethical quality of the consciousness it is part of and one moment of wholesome thought, speech or action produces a moment of purification.

And we are silly, indeed, if we forget -- as we often do -- that repetition confers strength.

Or, maybe it is not that we forget, but that we willfully deny. Thinking always that one day more, one experience more, one thought more, one moment more ... will not make a difference.

Because in the *next* moment we will ... in the *next* thought, the next experience, the next day.

Aversion binds.

****

Now, at 2300, I am finally "done" with this 18 hour day. I realized at 1900 that I had until tomorrow evening to complete my case, so I postponed three pages of drawings until then. I went and spent extra time breathing in the warmth of cat fur. And then I came home (because how adverse have I been to calling this home and why didn't you, lovie, remind me of what I told you when I first spoke to you years ago: the secret they never tell you is to take your home with you.). And I have done an hour and a half of yoga and it has been the first time in months that I have allowed myself the time to feel every muscle I am, and every joint.

And I breathed.

Not as necessity, as my breathing has seemed of late, but of choice. And of affirmation.

Someone spoke awhile ago about no matter how much noise there is, silence is always there. The noise doesn't break the silence. Noise isn't separate from silence. And I was not in a good place to hear that then because it was too *loud* for me to hear that then and do you remember what I said about aversion binding?

Tonight, in pigeon pose, I realized again that I was the storm. And everything around me was a symphony, because I was that, too. And I almost lost my breathing, being struck nearly breathless by the realization of how unified it was. And I buried into the pose, and into the floor, and let go of that story that it was ever discordant and inharmonious jangle. And it's not that tonight the slamming doors and competing musics and shouted calls and squealing tires somehow found their rhythm. It was that I was again awake to the reality of there never having been any rhythm that was losable.

That said, and speaking of rhythm, I'm off to press some tea and then listen to my play list while lying on tummy, full of joy.

Drinking out of four cups. And holding my own hand.

2008-01-15T14:32:00.000-08:00

I have been up and out of the house, more often than not, since 0500 this morning. And now, 10 hours later, it is only 1500 and I still have hours of work to do, but I can at least do it lying here, with the laptop. My eyes are gritty and I felt a stupid sense of loss that there is nothing to read, nothing for me to refresh and refresh and refresh. Email is still 'vacationed' off as well. And it is *quiet*. But, as I assumed it would, it has made making other things a priority easier. There is much to catch up on and I have continually denied myself breaks and time outs, when I needed them. There are practical reasons that has occurred, of course, given my change in habits; and then there are some less than practical reasons: some inner tyrant compels me to wear myself to a frazzle, to justify my existence with continuous action.

Compulsion! *Me*, darlings!

I am giving myself some time off for good behavior, with an emphasis on feeling rather than doing. The weekend, at the least of it, has finally opened me up to that. The racking sobs of despair that have come forth then, and then again today, have not been for nothing.

Thank the gods, but for the time being, I've remembered what it is like to not expect anything particular from myself -- to not try to produce anything. Aspyre correctly named this confusing and ensnaring wall I have been feeling as my trying to force the manifestation. And i hated to realize she was right. And I hated that there can be no answer other than I have indeed forgotten and remembered and forgotten and remembered and forgotten *again* something so simple.

If I don't retire willingly -- as an act of personal choice -- downtime will undoubtedly be imposed upon me by some kind of setback. Assuming that hasn't happened already, which it may have: I have lost my ability to understand, today, how A got to B, and my role in that journey. Or maybe I have lost the ability to understand that I *have* no role in that.

Fortunately, I *have* retained my ability to remember *this*:

All you ever have to do, darlings, to change absolutely everything, is think differently.

But this you have to do.

"And a wham-bam, Merci, Danke, thank 'a you ma'm"

2008-01-15T10:56:00.000-08:00

Alright, I stole the title from Aspyre. Although *now* might be the time to whip out with my "I Could Spit in Your Eye Even Easier if my Mouth was Full of Blood" title!

I need to do a better job of reading my own notes to myself because I give myself uncommonly good advice. Wasn't I supposed to be wary of haste? Wasn't I supposed to avoid that beguiling enticing illusion of urgency? Even if the quote I posted was my ding dingity dong horoscope, hadn't I just told myself the same thing that very morning? The fact that it resonated should have been enough. The fact that it was *true* should have been enough. And it was enough.

Until I forgot.

::stretching::

Can it be only the 15th of January? I feel further unspeakably aged and this month has been grueling even in it's brevity. There's been too little sleep, there's been death, which I have not yet fully processed, there's been love, which I no longer need to process, there've been exquisite gains and, now, piercing losses, and all that last bit is illusion, is it not?

And if you ask me if there is anything you should know, the answer is usually "no", because it's not about you, it's about me. But sometimes, the answer is "yes", there *is* some thing, above all other things, that I feel you "should" know. And if that is the case, I will always tell you. But that telling -- that "should", that wanting it known -- that's only about me, too, isn't it?

Today is grueling, too, especially physically, and it is not even noon. I don't have words eloquent enough for the constant challenge that has been this year to date. It's been all *these* words:

and you should listen to them.

(And you should note that this playlist is dynamic, so it may be different every time you listen.)

"Everything you touch, you don't feel. Do not know, what you steal."

2008-01-14T22:21:00.000-08:00

But, once, you did.

It's late late late late at night, so late. And still it is loud.

Shih-t'ou kicked me out of school because he thought I wasn't a peasant, but that's only because the silly man was blind to my ankles.

2008-01-14T11:52:00.000-08:00

Although I'd maybe be better off actually calling this post "I Would Untie Your Sandals With my Teeth" because, really, my ankles do not bear discussion. And I also considered "Thanatos' Hetairai Rides a Pale Horse of Her Own" as a title, but dismissed that one in case it was the universe sneakily planting it in my head, what with this week of wind horses and the like. Then I was quite enamored with "I Can Spit in Your Eye Even Easier if my Mouth is Full of Blood" but didn't want to *waste* such an awesome title. So, I think we should just call this post "Harmony of Difference and Sameness" because that's really what it's all about. Everything. Always.

And since my hair is making me feel very Vonnegut-ish today, I will officially start this post with this one word:

Listen:

****
There are many things I was going to say, but saying more about having wished I had never said at all, is silly, lovies, and today I do not feel silly. And I still can feel scalded and sullied and that is a story. And having made a whole into encapsulated parts -- a large story into smaller stories -- is a story in and of itself. And making more of the story of how I made a story into stories is a story even now. And they are all stories about wishes, but aren't they always?

So I was going to say all that, in a horrid ripping rending tearing with nails and egorrific outpouring of, to repeat myself repeating Sue Monk Kidd, essentially this:

"It felt cruel and and astonishing to realize our relationship had never belonged out there in the world, in a real house where you wash socks and slice onions. It belonged in the shadowed linings of the soul."

But the cruelty and the astonishment accompanied the realization years ago and that's not a story for now. And if I had a soul, it would have many shadows, and one of them would be burst to overflowing with the VeryTrueStoryAboutHowStoriesAreNeverTrueEvenWhenTheyAre -- but knowing that is knowing that you don't know that, which is being nothing to know because you are knowledge and knower both. Pffft -- True? Not true? Both of those are stories as well.

And the space between one heart beat and the next: Is.

Listen:

****
"The mind of the great sage of India is
intimately transmitted from west to east.
While human faculties are sharp or dull,
the Way has no northern or southern ancestors.
The True source shines clear in the light; the
branching streams flow on in the dark.
Grasping at things is surely delusion;
according with sameness is still not enlightenment.
All the objects of the senses interact
and yet do not.
Interacting brings involvement.
Otherwise, each keeps its place.
Sights vary in quality and form, sounds
differ as pleasing or harsh
Refined and common speech
come together in the dark,
Clear and murky phrases
are distinguished in the light.
The four elements return to their
natures just as a child turns to its mother;
Fire heats, wind moves, water wets,
earth is solid.
Eye and sight, ear and sound, nose and
smell, tongue and taste;
Thus with each and every thing,
depending on these roots, the leaves spread forth.
Trunk and branches share the essence
revered and common, each has its speech.
In the light there is darkness, but
don't take it as darkness;
In the dark there is light, but don't
see it as light.
Light and dark oppose one another
like the front and back foot in walking.
Each of the myriad things has its
merit, expressed according to function and place.
Phenomena exist; box and lid fit;
principle responds; arrow points meet.
Hearing the words, understand the meaning;
don't set up standards of your own.
If you don't understand the Way right before you,
how will you know the path as you walk?
Progress is not a matter of far or near, but
if you are confused, mountains and rivers block your way.
I respectfully urge you who study the
mystery, do not pass your days and nights in vain."

Listen:

****
And at the risk of being lazy by repeating myself twice in one post, I would have you remember this:

Love relationships should never be more, or less, than growing separately together. We relate to be related to. It has always been thus.

We bond with another to bond with ourselves and always do I seek in you what is hard to find within. Love is our contact with ourselves through another.

The biggest commitment I can make to my lovers is to my integrating what is evoked in our relating.

Lines in the sand.

2008-01-12T12:43:00.000-08:00

My horoscope today says this:

"You don't need to be overly serious today, for too much worry can turn an opportunity for fun into a real mess. It's not necessary to justify your actions or prove your worth. Enjoyment doesn't need to be earned, only experienced. It's okay to flirt with the edge of acceptability as you seek new sources of pleasure. This kind of play is harmless as long as you have the sense to know where to draw the line."

Thanks to Harriet Beacher Stow (and Celestial Seasonings) I will choose to believe that the tide will turn and erase any lines I should be foolish enough to draw at the exact time and place that they should be erased.

Breathe.

2008-01-11T16:35:00.000-08:00

"Oh my life is changing everyday
Every possible way
Though my dreams, it’s never quite as it seems
Never quite as it seems

I know I felt like this before
But now I’m feeling it even more
Because it came from you

Then I open up and see
The person fumbling here is me"

****
“There was a moment during this time, when his face was on hers, cheek on cheek, brow on brow, heavy skull on skull, through soft skin and softer flesh. He thought: skulls separate people. In this one sense, I could say, they would say, I lose myself in her. But in that bone box, she thinks and thinks. As I think in mine, things the other won’t hear, can’t hear, though we may go on like this for sixty years. What does she think I am? He had no idea. He had no idea what she was.”

-- A.S. Byatt
The Virgin in the Garden

I think it's strange you never knew.

2008-01-10T09:59:00.000-08:00

"I want to hold the hand inside you
I want to take a breath thats true
I look to you and I see nothing
I look to you to see the truth
You live your life
You go in shadows
Youll come apart and youll go black
Some kind of night into your darkness
Colors your eyes with whats not there."

Her closed eyes reveal an inner opening.

2008-01-09T17:59:00.000-08:00

The true essence of mysticism lies in visitation through opening.

The borderlines between the mystic and the mentally imbalanced easily blur. The crucial difference may be that one is devotional while the other has chosen to merge with the archetype. Is the key to preserving identity the ability to relate to mystery rather than merging with it?

How vital it seems to remember to ground yourself by turning transcendent experiences into inner knowing. Because it is never the energy itself, but how we choose to live it.

Ce soir, je dois atteindre un objectif plus grand que mon désir.

A ray of amusement, piercing through my self-imposed gloom.

2008-01-09T10:15:00.000-08:00

(my freewill astrology horoscope)

"The Wind Horse is a mythical creature in Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Symbolizing vigorous life force, it embodies the quick, cleansing power of the wind and the primal vitality of the horse. In accordance with your astrological omens, Capricorn, I nominate this archetype to be your ruling metaphor in the coming weeks. Visualize yourself being accompanied by a Wind Horse everywhere you go. See yourself riding it, feeding it, playing with it. Call on its inspiring presence as you align yourself with the natural beneficence of the universe. Ask it to help you sweep obstacles out of the way as you attract a flow of opportunities to open your mind and heart."

With her eyes she sees through to worlds beyond.

2008-01-08T17:34:00.000-08:00

There are those who inspire us to be other than we thought we can be. They come, hardly staying long enough to be tangible, and leave us never the same again. Many barely survive the encounter with such a person. A few transform their lives as a result.

Today I learned of the passing of one of the greatest teachers I have ever had, even though he never meant to teach me deliberately but did so through our daily contact for many years. In fact, he used to used to laugh at the idea of teaching me, assuring me that I already knew all I needed to know if I were only to choose to see that. And not only did he show me that I need not wait for doors to open because I was my own door, but he taught me to be as he was, and as it is in all of us to be. And much of my service to others began as payments of gratitude for his, by his very presence, awakening me to the reality that every moment is perfect, not because you choose it so -- although you do -- but because it can be no other way.

He lost a swift and sudden battle with a brain tumor, that began manifesting itself by symptoms only a few months ago.

The real endings are ones that precede death itself and the most common mistake is in not knowing to end things when they end, not later.

The life the departed have is in how we live their essence. I would turn, if I could, this post into a reminder to face finality: your turn will also come to be no more.

The highest honor I can pay him now, after I spend the rest of the night on my knees sobbing out my grief in the full body passions essential to my own nature, is for me to then let go of wanting him to have stayed alive, and for me to continue live his essence myself in my own way.

RIP L.

The best shortcut of all, to the life of your dreams, is knowing that you've already arrived.

Because you have.

If you want me, you can find me, left of center, wondering about you.

2008-01-08T10:55:00.000-08:00

The best way to find "love," which, incidentally, is just as true for finding money, is to focus less on these by-products of a life well lived and more on a life well lived.

Simple is as simple does, darlings, and disappointment over any affair in life, turn of events, or twist of "fate," always reveals that the affair, event, or occurrence was viewed as a "how" towards achieving something greater like love, joy, or a new "something better" with bells and whistles, which now seems even further out of reach.

Both profound misunderstandings.

And as an aside, in case we've forgotten: The need to clarify, explain, or justify oneself in personal relationships, is always self-serving.

And, yes, that's okay. What's important, though, is knowing the truth about why you felt the need, because it often points to insecurities that could be dealt with in more effective ways.

Tooth and Nail.

2008-01-07T12:24:00.000-08:00

Ironically, I had just made all these same decisions this morning, before having read this, my horoscope for tomorrow:

"It will be easy for you to accomplish your goals this month as long as you keep your wits about you. The more methodical you are now, the better. With the New Moon in your own sign the cosmos is leaning on you. Whatever setbacks you might need to face should be considered as opportunities to learn something new. The illusion of urgency may be your greatest enemy, so take your sweet time."

There can be no more eloquent or piercing line to my ears now than "the illusion of urgency may be your greatest enemy, so take your sweet time." It is something I would have said to myself right now, in fact did, and it's nice to see that I once again somehow manipulated the space time continuum in order to muck about with my horoscope as well.

The illusion of urgency is my current challenge and it is strong. My will to power, my will to pleasure, my desire, is capable of vibration at such a fever pitch. But I must be wary, lest the illusion of urgency cause me to follow my feet instead of deliberately placing them.

I would not have the illusion of urgency cause me to trample the path as I journey it.

The seeker climbs up in the mountains.

2007-12-27T09:09:00.000-08:00

Transition is the point between one place and another.

Most people appear to either want to stay where they are or leap into the next event without resolving what they left behind. We make transition when we bring closure where we can, taking time to reflect on who we now are, and who we can become. We have ourselves -- unbonded from what went before and not yet attached to what is to come.

To make transition is to re-find oneself in the now.

I'd advise you allow pauses between tings throughout your day, so you may practice also taking time for the major transitions in your life.

2007-12-18T20:34:00.000-08:00

"And I wonder now if anything would have been different had she not been so pretty, had her body not been young and healthy and strong but ugly, fat, and flabby. Possibly not. Possibly it would have happened anyway. The inevitable punishment of the outsider.

But it seems to me more likely that it was precisely because she was beautiful and strong, and we were not, that Ruth and the rest of us had done this to her. To make a sort of judgment on that beauty, on what it meant and didn't mean to us."

-- Jack Ketchum
The Girl Next Door

Take that, you happy ruffians you!

2007-12-17T02:41:00.000-08:00

"...the manner in which you present this particular idea, which I've seen you express, with slight variation, on numerous occasions, is one that reads like a paraphrase of the central argument in Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil and Genealogy of Morals."

Ahahahahahaha. And boo to you, lover, for stealing my Kant quote, just when I feel the need to follow one paraphraser with another!

I'll instead substitute this;

"Man is still in his childhood; for he cannot respect an ideal which is not imposed on him against his will, nor can he find satisfaction in a good created by his own action. He is afraid of a universe that leaves him alone. Freedom appalls him."
-- George Santayana

I'm only good for quotes, which is quite good enough, but bear with me anyway.

2007-12-15T18:27:00.000-08:00

"...it's time for the day to be over. We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live alone in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extravagant hopes. We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep - it's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out of windows or drown themselves or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us, the vast majority, are slowly devoured by some disease or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) know their hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more."

-- Michael Cunningham
The Hours

The seeker swims in the clear water.

2007-12-14T13:28:00.001-08:00

We do not perfect ourselves, we complete ourselves in each moment. The goal is to sense that we are totally one with the life force, not just in some great ecstasy but in the daily round -- thus reaching a vital state of conscious harmony.

The practice of wholeness neglects nothing, neither good nor bad, weak nor strong, ugly nor the ideal.

Center is found both within and without.

Each moment has richness for those who choose life, so my advice, darling? Live yourself the energy you feel in the situation; you don't need anything more than that to affirm that you exist.

2007-12-07T13:53:00.000-08:00

"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

-- Flannery O'Connor
A Good Man is Hard to Find

"I bet you think this song is about you, don't you?"

2007-12-06T20:47:00.000-08:00

"I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear."

-- Joan Didion

The waves come in to overwhelm the seeker.

2007-12-05T09:34:00.000-08:00

One of the hardest things for people to accept, darlings, seems to be the reality that not everyone or everything is meant to make it in this life. How few people, it seems, understand how to accept their losses, expressing grief, but then let them go. Too many, I think, never make it to acceptance; too many more never make it out of grief. I know few to none who actually make it to letting go. And when they do, that becomes their sticking point. The endless gloficiation and homage to the process of letting go, in all it's glorification of the past and glorification fo the future. "Letting go" as hobby, pursuit, active engagement ... can you not see the contradiction in how much *energy* you are applying to this "letting go".

This is the reality: Ending is irreversible change. A true end is never a beginning.

Perhaps people have trouble letting go because it requires giving up ties to the past -- in ending, not even memory can serve as a guide. Letting go requires you release what was and what never again can be. It requires you live what you have now without putting energy into what could have been. And, here's the tricky bit, without putting energy into what may come.

So often, when I see this achieved, I then see it responded to negatively. Lack of understanding leads to the misinterpretation of acceptance and grief and letting go as lack of feeling. Lack of investment. Lack of involvement. Lack of, at the very least, *caring*.

How to express how opposite it is? That acceptance and grief and letting go require passion and commitment and investment so whole and complete that it's a wonder the body can bear such intensity.

You delude yourself if you think your attachment to grief and your attachment to the past, or the future, indicates your commitment to anything but continuing your Ego's ability to soothe itself with stories of it's own importance. The Ego is the only one impressed with the depth of it's own suffering. Or, for that matter, it's own 'noble' searching. You think incorrectly if you think you are "honoring" the past. And you think incorrectly if you are "honoring" the future.

And you would understand everything I ever say if you fully understood this: Redemption is in the present moment. Only there do we have the choice to live differently.

He is sure to let you know that he is never quite at home anywhere.

2007-11-07T19:18:00.000-08:00

Solitude must never be an escape from the world but a means of going through it unattached.

You never connect with someone who does not reveal themselves. The solitary must reach out to people to share what is achieved through reflection. Despite what you may think, without confirmation in sharing, we remain lonely, not whole. Or so I believe.

I would wish you to learn, my dear, to be alone with your deepest thoughts and feelings, not in alienation but with values achieved along the way of life's journey.

My advice? Take the time frequently to stop to find out whether you are having your feelings or your feelings are having you.

2007-11-06T22:13:00.000-08:00

"Those who think that the mundane is a hindrance to practice only understand that in the mundane nothing is sacred. They have not yet understood that in the sacred nothing is mundane."

-Dogen

A Love Letter.

2007-10-23T12:36:00.001-07:00

“What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.”

- Herman Hesse

2007-10-08T22:05:00.000-07:00

"The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly."

- Nietzsche

2007-10-05T11:38:00.000-07:00

What if, darlings, instead of waiting for everything to be perfect, you start living your dreams this week, to any degree you can?

His face is approachable though not safe.

2007-09-20T12:55:00.000-07:00

Wisdom is the essence of experiences, the right principle at the right time.

All truth is relative to the context within which it exists. Yet for perspective we must see things as outside ourselves. The seer will not tell us what to believe, but lead us to our own truth.

My task? Reflecting on this situation, looking for the pattern which shows it as one whole.

***
To the shoreline for Equinox this year, darlings, to prepare myself for the growing dark. Remember your thanks for your harvest and do not blame your sowing, or lack there of, on anyone but yourself.

Namaste

Bitter Poetry Much, Eh?

2007-09-20T10:26:00.001-07:00

Oh, Think Not I Am Faithful
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!
Faithless am I save to love's self alone.

Were you not lovely I would leave you now:
After the feet of beauty fly my own.

Were you not still my hunger's rarest food,
And water ever to my wildest thirst,
I would desert you -- think not but I would! --
And seek another as I sought you first.

But you are mobile as the veering air,
And all your charms more changeful than the tide,
Wherefore to be inconstant is no care:
I have but to continue at your side.

So wanton, light and false, my love, are you,
I am most faithless when I most am true.

****
Mortal Enemy
by Dorothy Parker

Let another cross his way-
She's the one will do the weeping!
Little need I fear he'll stray
Since I have his heart in keeping-

Let another hail him dear-
Little chance that he'll forget me!
Only need I curse and fear
Her he loved before he met me.

2007-09-19T18:16:00.000-07:00

Some days I am so aware that there is a danger of my being influenced by an inner weakness. The only thing temporarily preventing it? Circumstances.

As much as I might like to indulge a certain petty desire, I know I must not do so, at least not right now.

Indecision, in such a situation, can actually be helpful: lets hope it leads to insight and proper action in the long run.

2007-08-27T16:31:00.000-07:00

Don't forget the total lunar eclipse tonight.

You've missed me, I know it.

2007-08-24T19:44:00.000-07:00

"In any case, that's me in the dark. I have designs on you, I'm plotting my sinister crime, my hands are reaching for your neck or perhaps, by mistake, your thigh. You can hear my footsteps approaching, I wear boots and carry a knife, or maybe it's a pearl-handled revolver, in any case I wear boots with very soft soles, you can see the cinematic glow of my cigarette, waxing and waning in the fog of the room, the street, the room, even though I don't smoke. Just remember this, when the scream at last has ended and you've turned on the lights: by the rules of the game, I must always lie.

Now: do you believe me?"

-- "Murder in the Dark", from Good Bones & Simple Murders by Margaret Atwood

The seeker is tied to tree by leather thongs.

2007-06-04T20:45:00.000-07:00

How many times must we relearn it, darlings? How many times will we forget what we have already written here month after month after month: We reject only ourselves. No one can reject us, though they can say No to us. To avoid losing, we lose. To escape punishment, we punish ourselves. To invite rejection we act worthless. They key to change, of course, is to express vulnerability directly rather than making others suffer for it through our blaming tactics.

She said today "it is insane. It's not even normal. ... it opens you up to so much emotion and reactive feelings" and had I not already been planning to write of it this morning, that would have spurred me. Because again I am reminded of how easily our choices and attitudes thwart that which wants to move through us. Suffering is resistance to the life force, and that's that.

The best cure for suffering is to allow its intense energy to crack open resistances to reality. We've proven this true in all areas. Resisting pain makes it worse, we've studied that. How often have I advised you use the pain to teach you lessons that pleasure never could? Let go to the energy of challenge, stay present, process, and let tension purge you, causing breakthroughs to new life and consciousness.

Yes, that we know.

*Your* task remains to give up attachments to yourself which make you defensive and resistant to life's challenges, causing pain.

Mine? So it remains: To remember that grounding lies in balancing, not in seeking certainty.

2007-05-29T17:57:00.001-07:00

Comme une forêt antique de vieille croissance - où le jeu de la lumière, de la texture et des nuances est le produit d'un processus mesuré en siècles et pouces - la plupart des choses de valeur se développent graduellement, à leur propre rythme. La capacité d'apprendre de l'expérience - un des plus grands trésors de l'humanité - implique constante progrès progressif. La combinaison du calme dedans et détermination en dehors sont l'esprit de cette condition. Les bonnes choses fleurissent rapidement parfois ; la véritablement délicieuses plus longtemps.

Vous ne pouvez pas espérer avoir tout immédiatement. Si vous m'avez enseigné quelque chose, vous m'avez enseigné cela.

Et vous savez, la seule manière de comprendre la profondeur de mon amour est intuitivement.

Mes bénédictions pour votre jour, et pour le peuple vous incluez dans il.

Watch the moon.

2007-05-01T14:04:00.000-07:00

Happy Bealtaine, lovies.

Watch out for Sidhe!

"Blah, blah, blah. Aren't you tired of making the same speech every time you're faced with a challenge?"

2007-04-26T22:51:00.000-07:00

"Listen to people's stories and they could all be entitled 'Why I Cannot Be At Peace Now'. The ego doesn't know that your only opportunity for being at peace is now. Or maybe it does know and is afraid you may find this out. Peace, after all, is the end of the ego.

...

To become free of the ego is not really a big job but a very small one. All you need to do is be aware of your thoughts and emotions - as they happen. This is not really a 'doing' but an alert 'seeing'. In that sense, it is true that there is nothing you can do to become free of the ego. When that shift happens, which is the shift from thinking to awareness, an intelligence far greater than the ego's cleverness begins to operate in your life. Emotions and even thoughts become depersonalized through awareness. Their impersonal nature is recognized. There is no longer a self in them. They are just human emotions, human thoughts. Your entire personal history, which is ultimately no more than a story, a bundle of thoughts and emotions, becomes of secondary importance and no longer occupies the forefront of your consciousness. It no longer forms the basis for your sense of identity. You are the light of Presence, the awareness that is prior to and deeper than any thoughts and emotions."

--Eckhart Tolle

The seeker receives a magnificent sword from the sword master.

2007-04-17T12:20:00.000-07:00

To act decisively is to act with certainty from inner knowing, destroying what is past for what can be.

Discrimination should be a sword to cut through blocks and ambivalence, separating out the possible from the impossible. Know when the time is right, darlings, to use the sword of action and when to keep it sheathed. Too much cutting destroys the ground up on which the new must exist. Yet once you have drawn the blade of choice, act with no turning back.

What we chose is what we become and we shall always be known far more by our choices than by what we say. Are you using your choicemaking power just for yourself or for a greater purpose? Are you using choicemaking to break your compulsions, in order to free life energy? What is the one choice you make in each everyday choice?

Your task is to commit fully to dealing with the consequences of your choices. Choose a purpose greater than what you have so far achieved, and serve it.

2007-04-11T08:51:00.000-07:00

The journey combines what happens to us with what we do about it.

Always, my dears, act more from inner knowing than anxiety: to keep moving is not in itself a direction but a distraction. Stop yourself long enough to choose where you are going.

Clearing obstacles is only the first step to finding purpose. Learn from everything which does not go your way until you no longer want only your way.

Pasta!

2007-03-18T10:31:00.000-07:00

In every single section of dream last night! Thin Spaghetti. That I either broke before cooking myself or broke for someone else who was cooking it. No matter what other landscape, that uncooked pasta was there.

Pour some analysis on me, darlings.

::head bowed::

2007-03-10T11:42:00.000-08:00

"She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on... far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day."

-- Mrs. Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf

*Unspeakably* aged.

2007-03-09T11:39:00.001-08:00

Slow and steady. So easy to feel intimidated and overwhelmed by your perceived failure to measure up to your personal aspirations. Perception of how far you have come will always come up short if you focus on the immensity of what is yet to be done in your quest. Remember that.

It does me no good to dwell on the gap between where I stand and where I would like to be. Please understand that I need to focus on what is possible today and that I can do that while still holding on to a dream of growth and expanded consciousness. It's a matter of remembering to take one step at a time, and one day you will notice, darling, that the chasm has been bridged. But the steps must be taken.

His face says touch me and die.

2007-03-02T17:23:00.000-08:00

Everyone dies at the hands of something that is out of their control.

What horrifies us is the terror of dying when it is not yet inevitable. To murder someone takes years away from them and stops them from following a natural journey of fullfillment: watch that you are not the murderer of your own best potential.

Use what most frightens you as a lesson in self-discovery of what you do to defeat yourself.

2007-03-01T08:21:00.000-08:00

Yes, I intend to start posting again regularly, as of today.

The stranger's leg looks unusable.

2007-02-27T22:23:00.000-08:00

Despite what you might tell yourself when you deliberately change your focus, freedom is not in breaking out, but in not needing to be contained.

You could be so very wise, my dear, if you would just recognize that you need to form structures for creative expression, not perpetuate attitudes for repression.

It's elementary and you know it: Not functioning as one whole jeopardizes each part. No matter how much you think you are acting on their behalf.

The solution? Sacrifice what no longer contributes to the whole.

This, lover, means even the fear-based actions you rationalize as "self-control".

2007-02-27T17:00:00.000-08:00

I'm alright with the concept of Karma as it's generally understood, darlings, kind-of, sort-of.

The idea of spiritual contracts is pretty nifty, too. I've always been a wheeler-dealer.

Except, of course, if either were laws, you wouldn't be unlimited.

Not even a little.

Oh well, they were cute ideas for awhile.

Karma, destiny, or the power-to-have-it-all, my dears?

Remember.

2007-02-23T10:50:00.001-08:00

Letting the opinions of others dampen your enthusiasm, restrain your joy, and stifle your creativity, sweatheart, is often exactly what they were after.

Pity for them, huh?

2007-02-15T20:15:00.000-08:00

Remember: A reassuring glance, darling, to an unsuspecting stranger across a room, down a hallway, or through a windshield, can literally change the world, forever.

2007-02-13T09:24:00.000-08:00

The long and short of it goes something like this...

When one stops looking for the quick and easy way, darlings, and just deals with what's already on their plate, the quick and easy way soon finds them.

Because actually, what could be quicker than beginning with where you are, or easier than starting with what you've got?

2007-01-20T20:01:00.000-08:00

If you hold it clearly enough in mind; if you physically anticipate it, steadily, day by day, darlings, there are no earthly hands, nor heavenly for that matter, that can halt its subsequent manifestation into your life.

Just be really, really sure you want it.

In one word, my dears, "EXPECTATION" is the sole difference between "have" and "have not." And this, you have total control over.

2006-12-07T08:09:00.000-08:00

Often, darlings, simply showing up is enough.

Because the friends, abundance and health you now dream of possessing, have long been in place.

Because the coincidences, surprises, and serendipities that will transform your life, already lie in wait for your passing.

And because little else could speak louder of your belief in success, than physically putting yourself in a position to receive.

You and Your Own Shadows.

2006-11-03T10:16:00.000-08:00

How often does a part of you want to believe the universe is conspiring against you -- everyone gets what they want and need but you. Your rational mind may tell you that such a thing is not so, but that matters not during periods when emotions and feelings rule.

When you sit there, and it feels as if there is an invisible barrier between you and the happiness you imagine that everyone else is enjoying, how often do you ask yourself who built this wall, you or them?

It may be that the person on the other side would be happy to include you if you could just imagine yourself being included.

It is oh so simple darling: Try to see the situation from the other side.

You won't have given up anything but your isolation.

Like a shadow boxer, you are in reaction to your own projections.

2006-11-02T10:08:00.000-08:00

Why is it only at night, my dear, that your concept of the unknown factors in potential relationships frightens you? At night you seem to forget that this is a paradox, because what is truly unknown couldn't possibly resemble what your ego can project, either optimistically or pessimistically. It would totally confound your categories and definitions.

As you know, when you get stuck on what you think you have to worry about, the truth of the situation goes unnoticed. Refrain from obsessing on negative assumptions, doubts and fears and take a clear look at what is actually happening and what you are feeling.

Feel it fully, so it can pass.

2006-11-01T14:23:00.000-08:00

If you are looking for a way to judge the quality of the decisions you are making in living your life, darlings, it's as easy as, well, looking at the quality of the life you are living.

2006-09-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

While it's often fashionable to dwell upon what might have been, what's usually overlooked, is that really and truly, it couldn't have.

Because, invariably, any romanticized versions of how things "might have been," are based upon fictionalized versions of the past.

You see, darlings, most of the time when people think the present could have been different than it is, it's because they think the past was different than it was. Happily, the future can still be anything.

2006-09-06T11:03:00.000-07:00

An end result, imagined clearly and acted upon with expectation, will always force the circumstances necessary to bring about its own manifestation, no matter how unpredictable, unlikely or even impossible those circumstances may have previously seemed.

Like clockwork, darlings.

At which point, of course, the one who did the imagining and expecting will be said to have "lucked out royally" by all those who don't yet know how life really works.

Consider it flattery, my dears.

2006-09-05T11:37:00.000-07:00

When someone can say, without doubt or equivocation, that, "My life today is entirely the result of my prior decisions, focus and understandings," I would then say, without doubt or equivocation, that it's only a matter of time before their every cup is overflowing.

It's simply unavoidable, darlings.

2006-08-19T07:16:00.000-07:00

Odd, isn't it, how people will look back to great milestones in their life - to when they met someone, fortuitously changed careers, or were somehow found to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time - and consider such incidents turning points?

Because actually, my dears, the real turning points in any life always occur well before such manifestations, in the moments when they finally began thinking, speaking and behaving like never before.

And you know that. You've just forgotten.

2006-08-18T07:28:00.000-07:00

There will always be people, darlings, who think you're a target, who wish you'd be satisfied, or who want you to control you.

But, at least they had the wisdom, my dears, to choose to be near you.

Choose Consciously

2006-08-11T20:40:00.000-07:00

"The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention."

--Alan Watts

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

A Note to a Stranger

2006-07-27T14:40:00.000-07:00

"You sleep, too deep, one week is another world.
Big mouth, big mouth, drop out, drop out
You get what you deserve.
You're stange, insane, one thing you can never change."?

Regret

2006-07-26T16:26:00.000-07:00

"when I am alone, I remember so well, how merrily I tripped a boy so he fell."

Oh, I could have been wrong.

2006-07-25T11:15:00.000-07:00

No matter what you do, darling, no matter where you go - just so you do, just so you go.

That you do something, my dear, is quite often far more important than what you do.

One of today's horoscopes:

2006-07-21T08:11:00.000-07:00

"You must make a decision now about what role to play. Do you want to be the responsible and serious person who tries to control others just to get the job done? Or will you downplay your authoritative tendency and try to go along with the external flow, even if it's not as efficient as you desire? You cannot play both sides, so make a choice and move on."

That about sums it up. Which side to choose?

2006-07-21T07:29:00.000-07:00

"Miracles" don't really require a belief in magic, just a disbelief in limits.

At which point there's little you can do to stem their tide.

2006-07-20T08:49:00.000-07:00

Do you think most realize that what they're really after is more "living," not more rewards? Yet by conditioning the former upon the latter, they have a tough time with both?

Yeah, probably not yet darlings. But one day they will.

Sometimes, not realizing what you have, means not knowing what you want.

2006-07-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

"It felt cruel and and astonishing to realize our relationship had never belonged out there in the world, in a real house where you wash socks and slice onions. It belonged in the shadowed linings of the soul."

***

"I felt amazed at the choosing one had to do, over and over, a million times daily - choosing love, then choosing it again, how loving and being in love could be so different."

-- The Mermaid Chair
Sue Monk Kidd

2006-07-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

You know, it's totally possible to have big, huge, gigantic dreams, yet still be deliriously happy with today.

I think it is some sort of built-in double-happiness redundancy factor.

And darlin', don't fret that some seem not to notice your refinement, enlightenment, and -- dare I say it? -- sashay. They're still learning from you in their own way.

No matter what they say or don't say, my dear, they chose to know you because it would make them more.

2006-07-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

Je tout seul voyage trop souvent, toute la responsabilité dans des mes mains. Et je suis fatigué.

2006-06-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

You need to look much more deeply within if you are going to understand what motivates your more than occasional tendency to be pessimistic or depressed about your current or desired relationship. Can I give you more answer than that?

If you require more, than I would say you need to see if there is a part of you that still nurses a grudge from a past injury. I know, I know, it is impossible to injure you, but perhaps you can try the experiment of stopping teling yourself that and actualy *looking*. For the most part, your forward-looking self is getting on with your life pretty well, but my opinion is that part of you may be holding back, still nursing old wounds from painful abuses of trust. It's time to let those wounds heal. There may be scars, but you don't have to let old wounds impact your current relationship in ways that are uncomfortable for everybody.

In a nutshell? Stop. Projecting.

Healing always begins by scrutinizing your current motives and attitude. Are you exercising the forgiving part of your nature? Who's winning on the inside -- your optimistic and trusting impulses, or fear and resentment? I understand that such a pessimistic tendency is sometimes learned through experience and can feel like the truth but now is the time time to reprogram your beliefs so that things can work out.

Leave old negative feelings in the past where they belong, my dear.

::mirth::

2006-06-23T08:25:00.000-07:00

One of the funniest things I've read this morning:

"You still must face the intense emotional processing that goes along with the dance, unless, however, you use that ancient spiritual technique of denial."

I know a lot of people who subscribe to that sort of ancient spirituality.

2006-06-18T21:29:00.000-07:00

Believing you can, you can. Though you might not.

Believing you can't, won't change that you can. It just hides it.

Whereas simply getting started, however timid your first steps are, and consistently moving in the direction of your dreams day after day, will eventually create such unstoppable momentum, you'll find it nearly impossible to believe that there was ever a time when you wavered.

2006-06-18T21:27:00.000-07:00

If you really think about it, you can always know what's going to happen next: the universe is going to be there. It's going to help. And there will be miracles.

And there will always be those who wonder, darlings, where you've been all their life.

2006-06-17T15:18:00.000-07:00

If you change your thinking, darlings, but not your behavior, you haven't really changed your thinking.