Horoscope~week of 12/01-12/07

One of my Gemini acquaintances, Tara, has been playing a slow-moving game of tag with three friends since they were all in second grade together. They're 27 years old now, and still live in the same city. Currently, Tara is "It," and has been so for quite some time. But she confided in me that she plans to make a move this week. She says she'll sneak up on one of the other players during his lunch break at work, tag him, and run away before he can tag her back. I told her she's likely to meet with success, since this is an excellent time for you Geminis to gain an advantage in pretty much any kind of game you're playing. 

Jasper Francisco Bodhi Groves

I want to tell you a story
The story of a mama
The story of a baby
The story of a family 
and 2 very long, but amazing days in November...


So, at 35 years old, i found myself pregnant with a 3rd child.  I already had 2 boys, ages 7 & 9, and thought we would just be a family of 4. 
But....sometimes, the universe has other ideas for us......
Since i'm writing this from the heart and the place of wonderful, yet very real memories, i must insert here, that this was a time during which, my children's father and i were in the midst of a wave of one of our "difficult few months".
So, when my body began to change, and my boobs began to ache and fall out of my bra, i knew i was expecting.  
After a heartfelt conversation with Josh, we decided to "give our marriage another try" and welcome another addition to the family.
After i hit the 6 week mark, i began to feel that oh, so wonderful thing called morning sickness.  Only with this child, it was NOT just morning, it was 24 hours a day.  Throwing up only twice a day was a good day.  This went on for about 4 months.  Well into my 2nd trimester.  Then, it finally wore off and i was able to ease into being pregnant~*~

The remainder of the pregnancy was seeming ly normal.  Having been a vegetarian for the majority of my adult life though, toward the end of my pregnancy, i had become so low on iron, that i devoloped something called Pica

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pica_(disorder)

I was literallly craving dirt~i wanted to smell wet dirt so bad i bought a bag of potting soil to sniff.  

Come to find out, my blood count was severely low and as a result, i was told by my midwife that unless i brought it up over 7 points, she would not be attending my home birth because if i bled out, she would loose her license.  Well, i'm a stubborn little chica, and i refuse to give birth to my children at a hospital, so, for the sake of my baby and a healthy homebirth, i began to eat meat.  Not only did i eat meat, but i had friends bringing me high iron snacks and meals, such as bone marrow stew.  Josh decided to grill a steak for me for dinner every night untill the baby came.  i was cooking everything on my iron skillet and juicing beets and greens like they were going out of style.  

It all paid off and a week later, i got bloodwork done and i had brought my blood count up to a safe number.

The morning of Saturday, November 29th, i woke up around 4 am and knew that that was the day.  i began to get things ready, get out baby blankets, pull out the kit for the midwife, make sure sheets were clean and the bath tub was clean because i had planned to have him in water like i had his brothers.

Around 7 or 8, i began to have very slight contractions, more like menstrual cramps, about every 20 minutes or so.  We had been invited to a birthday party that day, so i figured i'd take the boys.  We went, and i remember that everytime i'd laugh, the contractions would increase, which was difficult to not do around this group of friends.

That evening, things had not progressed, so, i took the boys to the light parade downtown.  just having to stand still every 10 minutes or so to move through a contraction.  I figured the more walking and staying in an upright position i did, the easier the birth would be.  I'd studied and worked as a doula for a few years and would recommend this to my clients.

Well, that night came and went.  Contractions about every 10 minutes, and absolutely no sleep.  

The next morning, josh came home from work and my midwife and doula showed up.  They checked me and figured i still a way to go.  by late morning, the contractions had progressed to about every 3 to 5 minutes and were getting too intense to stand through.  Thank goodness for yoga balls.  i spent the majority of the day between sitting and rocking on the yoga ball and soaking in a warm bath.  

Dani, my midwife, Meg, my doula, and josh were all very attentive and helpful.  They brought me small protien filled snacks, rubbed my back and put cool clothes on my face.  By nightfall, i still had not had this baby.  In fact, my water had not even broken.  i was tired and frustrated and in pain.

i believe that around 6:30 or so, my midwife decided to go ahead and manually break my water.  After this, i went to my bed, and decided i was not going to get out of it again.  i had become somewhat delirious from the length of this birth and the lack of rest.  I remember crying and telling my midwife to just "get this damn baby out of me"

Finally at around 7:35 or so, i had the urge to push.  I sat up in my bed and josh and meg held me upright in an almost squatting postion and then finally, after about 10 minutes, the sweetest little fuzzy baby boy made his way into the world, "sunny side up" and open eyed.  His big brothers even got to watch the phenomenal experience of this little child coming into the world.  

He was handed to me immediately, and i layed his naked, fuzzy, vernex covered little body on my naked chest and smelled his sweet little head for the first time.  Smelling your babies freshly born little heads is like taking an amazing drug for the very first time.  I still get dizzy just thinking about the intoxicating qualities of it~*~

And that is the story of how Jasper came to be.

30 November 2011 7:48 pm

Jasper Francisco Bodhi Groves, You are, simply put, one of the most amazing people i have ever known.  You challenge my brain, you make me laugh, you give the best smooches and you warm my heart every single day.  Your personality can fill an entire room and your smile can light up the night sky.  My heart grows everyday because you are in the world.  Thank you for being in my life.

I love you baby boy, punkin head, cupcake, beetlebug and bugaboo!!!!!!

One Autumn day in the land of daydreams~

"It might be possible to lasso the wind.
It might be possible for sandalwood to have warmth.
It might be possible for light to turn into darkness.
It is impossible for bodhicitta to ever betray you."

--Khunu Lama, "Vast as the Heavens, Deep as the Sea"

I have been blessed to have live near a very spiritual and magical place~

~Garchen Institue~

i spent a few hours there one Saturday to recieve the Vadrakalaya Empowerment

As i walked the grounds afterward the beauty and magic seemed to just jump in front of my camera lens.

In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.

Buddha

Blue mind

Beautiful song with a visually pleasing video to match~

Someone very special sent this to me during the beginning of our time together~

I am thankful for him and for that time....

Sometimes it's important to just let go, even if it's hard~*~

Horoscope~week of 11/24-11/30

from Rob Brezny's Free Will Astrology


"When I see your face, the stones start spinning!" wrote the poet Rumi, as translated by Coleman Barks. "Water turns pearly. Fire dies down and doesn't destroy. In your presence I don't want what I thought I wanted." I think you need to be in the presence of a face like that, Gemini. You've got to get your fixations scrambled by an arresting vision of soulful authenticity. You need your colors transposed and your fire and water reconfigured. Most of all, it's crucial that you get nudged into transforming your ideas about what you really want. So go find that healingly disruptive prod, please. It's not necessarily the face of a gorgeous icon. It could be the face of a whisperer in the darkness or of a humble hero who's skilled in the art of surrender. Do you know where to look? 

Flogging Molly - Never Met A Girl Like You Before

I long to be someone's poetic muse....

This sort of song would make my heart race and my soul fly up in the clouds.....yes, it actually would...if i were the muse of someones words....even a punk rock wild man.....

a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson

The following mermaid poem was written in 1830.

The Mermaid

WHO would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?II.
I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb’d I would sing and say,
“Who is it loves me? who loves not me?”
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall,
Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown
Low adown and around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
Springing alone
With a shrill inner sound,
Over the throne
In the midst of the hall;
Till that great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate
With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their immortality
Die in their hearts for the love of me.
III.
But at night I would wander away, away,
I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks,
And lightly vault from the throne and play
With the mermen in and out of the rocks;
We would run to and fro, and hide and seek,
On the broad sea-wolds in the crimson shells,
Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea.
But if any came near I would call, and shriek,
And adown the steep like a wave I would leap
From the diamond-ledges that jut from the dells;
For I would not be kiss’d by all who would list,
Of the bold merry mermen under the sea;
They would sue me, and woo me, and flatter me,
In the purple twilights under the sea;
But the king of them all would carry me,
Woo me, and win me, and marry me,
In the branching jaspers under the sea;
Then all the dry pied things that be
In the hueless mosses under the sea
Would curl round my silver feet silently,
All looking up for the love of me.
And if I should carol aloud, from aloft
All things that are forked, and horned, and soft
Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea,
All looking down for the love of me.

Horoscope~week of 11/17-11-23

In Santa Cruz there used to be a nightclub that featured live rock bands on a big stage but enforced a strict policy forbidding its patrons from dancing. The one time I went there, the music was loud and infectious, and I naturally felt the urge to move in vigorous rhythm. Moments after I launched into my groove, a bouncer accosted me and forced me to stop. I think this situation has certain resemblances to the one you're in now, Gemini. Some natural response mechanism in you is being unduly inhibited; some organic inclination is being unreasonably restrained or dampened. Why should you continue to accept this? 

Bob Marley

~"Many of us spend our lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain but you've already borne the pain.  What you have not done is feel all you are beyond the pain"~

Billie Holiday - What A Little Moonlight Can Do - 1958 LIVE.avi

~*~AAAAHHHHH.....

Miss Holiday,

You move me~*~

111111

~"A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes"~
Pinnochio

When we were little, we all believed magic was possible~then we grew up, had the stark reality of jobs and bills and heartbreak~When is it okay to believe in magic again though?  i say NOW!!!! 
We can create magical situations within the mundane if we just believe in ourselves and our own hearts~
When we wake up early and watch the sun come up, it is magic~
When we happen to run into an old friend at the grocery store at just the right moment we needed to see them, it is magic~
The first snowfall of the season, that is magic~
A silent moment in your house after all the children are safely tucked away in bed, that is magic~
Finding a little bit of sand left in your suitcase from a trip to the beach a few months earlier, that is magic~
I could go on and on...
I have found magic in such things as...
The first time i was to meet my ex-husbands new girlfriend, i was nervous as i drove to the house and just as i entered the neighborhood, The Cult's Fire Woman came on the radio...THAT was magic, it got me pumped and totally in my power!
A few weeks a ago i met a woman for tea that i'd been trying to connect with, and it turns out she's the ex girlfriend of my best friend in Albuquerque's boyfriend! WOW!!! THAT was magic~
I had met a beautiful, spiritual man last spring and after the usual dance of two people who are attracted to one another, we had two VERY magical nights together before we embarked on a lovely summer romance, one was the 1st night we spent  after a fun day together, where we never physically touched, but we connected on some other plain....the next was the follwing night when we spent the enitre night drinking each other in and making love on my roof under the stars....THAT was magic~*~
When my 3 year old child is asleep next to me and he reaches over and touches my nose with his nose and whispers "i love you mama"~THAT is magic~*~
Most people get so stuck in the day to day that the magic of these sort of sweet situations passes them by~
So, today....
I implore you...
Find magic in something and carry it in your heart~*~
Then, pass it along~*~
Give a wish up to the moon and see where it lands~*~
Today is 11/11/11~
At 11:11:11,
MAKE A WISH
I will sprinkle Pixie dust on you as you do~*~

Nevermore

To go along with the post below, here are a few pics of me this past All Hallow's as Edgar Allan Poe's Raven.... Coincidence???

EERIE!!!!!

'The Raven' Trailer

Being as how i am a longtime lover of the works of Poe, this has me very excited~i remember the movie The Pit and the Pendulum with Vincent Price from the 60's~it was dark and haunting~I hope this is as good as i'd like it to be~

Strip - Adam Ant

This came up on my player today and i remembered how much i crush on Adam Ant and love the whole "New Romantic" movement of the 80's~*~a man who's not afraid to wear a little eyeliner, ruffles and tart it up.......yes, please~*~

Horoscope~week of 11/10-11/16~

~Ahhh...much better than last week...

...seeking, seeking.....

Funky pagan scientists at Zen State University have found that the regular consumption of Free Will Astrology can be effective in smoothing unsightly wrinkles on your attitude, scouring away stains on your courage, and disposing of old garbage stuck to your karma. They've also gathered testimony from people who claim to have experienced spontaneous healings of nagging ailments and chronic suffering while under the influence of these oracles. If I were you, I'd try to take advantage of such benefits right now. You could really use some healing. Luckily, it looks like there'll be an array of other curative options available to you as well. Be aggressive about seeking them out. 

Siouxsie & the Banshees - Kiss Them For Me [480p]

Just a little kissin'

A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.  ~Ingrid Bergman

~Oh how i love smooching~it's true~it's one of my very favorite things~especially when it's being done with someone you're completely connected with~THIS i miss SO very much, not being in a relationship~

Last night however, i had a very yummy dream~it was me, and someone, couldn't tell who, in a beautiful interlock of lips and tongues~it seemed long and luscious and fluid~as if the world had stopped going by and we were floating~Although i don't recall a face, the way my heart was beating when i woke up and the feeling left behind from the kissing, i have a pretty good idea about who it may have been~

I've kissed many boys, (and a few girls), true story~some are sloppy kissers, some don't know how to use their tongue, some only stay on the mouth and don't explore your face and neck....

and then there are those rare few who kiss exactly how it's meant to be done~sometimes this also goes along with a soul connection~i love being kissed by someone who has just looked lovingly into my eyes, who has just told me how beautiful i am and who can softly hold me close in just a way that our faces and bodies sort of fit together~

This is so rare that when it happens, it's a precious gift~

Le Sigh....

The sweetness of kissing....

i hope it's not just meant for my dreams for too long.....

http://youtu.be/4A-5hyKaITQ

"A taste of Honey" The Beatles

http://youtu.be/uIQMTo6ryh8

"Lips Like Sugar" Echo and the Bunnymen

How did it happen that their lips came together?  How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill?  A kiss, and all was said.  ~Victor Hugo

Pronoia Therapy

~Taken from a Rob Brezny's Free Will Astrology~
I'm particularly fond of #'s 2, 5 and 11~*~

In my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, I offer an extensive array of experiments, games, rituals, and meditations you can use to boost your levels of ingenious happiness. Below is an excerpt of a few of those exercises. If you feel so moved, send your responses and testimony to me atbeautyandtruth@freewillastrology.com. * TORRENTIAL PRONOIA THERAPY Experiments and exercises in becoming a blasphemously reverent, lustfully compassionate, eternally changing Master of Transgressive Beauty 1. Take inventory of the extent to which your "No" reflex dominates your life. Notice for 24 hours (even in your dreams) how often you say or think: "No." "That's not right." "I don't like them." "I don't agree with that." "They don't like me." "That should be different from what it is." Then retrain yourself to say "YES" at least 51 percent of the time. Start the transformation by saying "YES" aloud 22 times right now. 2. Go to the ugliest or most forlorn place you know -- a drugstore parking lot, the front porch of a crack house, a toxic waste dump, or the place that symbolizes your secret shame -- and build a shrine devoted to beauty, truth, and love. Here are some suggestions about what to put in your shrine: a silk scarf; a smooth rock on which you've inscribed a haiku or joke with a felt-tip pen; coconut cookies or ginger candy; pumpkin seeds and an origami crane; a green kite shaped like a dragon; a music CD you love; a photo of your hero; a votive candle carved with your word of power; a rubber ducky; a bouquet of fresh beets; a print of Van Gogh's Starry Night. 3. Late at night when there's no traffic, stride down the middle of an empty road that by day is crawling with cars. Dance, careen, and sing songs that fill you with pleasurable emotions. Splay your arms triumphantly as you extemporize prayers in which you make extravagant demands and promises. Give pet names to the trees you pass, declare your admiration for the workers who made the road, and celebrate your sovereignty over a territory that usually belongs to heavy machines and their operators. 4. What causes happiness? Brainstorm about it. Map out the foundations of your personal science of joy. Get serious about defining what makes you feel good. To get you started, I'll name some experiences that might rouse your gratification: engaging in sensual pleasure; seeking the truth; being kind and moral; contemplating the meaning of life; escaping your routine; purging pent-up emotions. Do any of these work for you? Name at least ten more. 5. Have you ever seen the game called "Playing the Dozens"? Participants compete in the exercise of hurling witty insults at each other. Here are some examples: "You're so dumb, if you spoke your mind you'd be speechless." "Your mother is so old, she was a waitress at the Last Supper." "You're so ugly, you couldn't get laid if you were a brick." I invite you to rebel against any impulse in you that resonates with the spirit of "Playing the Dozens." Instead, try a new game, "Paying the Tributes." Choose worthy targets and ransack your imagination to come up with smart, true, and amusing praise about them. The best stuff will be specific to the person you're addressing, not generic, but here are some prototypes: "You're so far-seeing, you can probably catch a glimpse of the back of your own head." "You're so ingenious, you could use your nightmares to get rich and famous." "Your mastery of pronoia is so artful, you could convince me to love my worst enemy." 6. Salvador Dalí once staged a party in which guests were told to come disguised as characters from their nightmares. Do the reverse. Throw a bash in which everyone is invited to arrive dressed as a character from the most glorious dream they remember. 7. On a big piece of cardboard, make a sign that says, "I love to help; I need to give; please take some money." Then go out and stand on a traffic island while wearing your best clothes, and give away money to passing motorists. Offer a little more to drivers in rusty brown Pinto station wagons and 1976 El Camino Classics than those in a late-model Lexus or Jaguar. 8. In response to our culture's ever-rising levels of noise and frenzy, rites of purification have become more popular. Many people now recognize the value of taking periodic retreats. Withdrawing from their usual compulsions, they go on fasts, avoid mass media, practice celibacy, or even abstain from speaking. While we applaud cleansing ceremonies like this, we recommend balancing them with periodic outbreaks of an equal and opposite custom: the Bliss Blitz. During this celebration, you tune out the numbing banality of the daily grind. But instead of shrinking into asceticism, you indulge in uninhibited explorations of joy, release, and expansion. Turning away from the mildly stimulating distractions you seek out when you're bored or worried, you become inexhaustibly resourceful as you search for unsurpassable sources of cathartic pleasure. Try it for a day or a week: the Bliss Blitz. 9. When many people talk about their childhoods, they emphasize the alienating, traumatic experiences they had, and fail to report the good times. This seems dishonest—a testament to the popularity of cynicism rather than a reflection of objective truth. I don't mean to downplay the way your early encounters with pain demoralized your spirit. But as you reconnoiter the promise of pronoia, it's crucial for you to extol the gifts you were given in your early years: all the helpful encounters, kind teachings, and simple acts of grace that helped you bloom. In Homer's epic tale The Odyssey, he described nepenthe, a mythical drug that induced the forgetfulness of pain and trouble. I'd like to imagine, in contrast, a potion that stirs up memories of delight, serenity, and fulfillment. Fantasize that you have taken such a tonic. Spend an hour or two remembering the glorious moments from your past. 10. "You can't wait for inspiration," proclaimed writer Jack London. "You have to go after it with a club." That sounds too violent to me, though I agree in principle that aggressiveness is the best policy in one's relationship with inspiration. Try this: Don't wait for inspiration. Go after it with a butterfly net, lasso, sweet treats, fishing rod, court orders, beguiling smells, and sincere flattery. 11. Become a rapturist, which is the opposite of a terrorist: Conspire to unleash blessings on unsuspecting recipients, causing them to feel good. Before bringing your work as a rapturist to strangers, practice with two close companions. Offer them each a gift that fires up their ambitions. It should not be a practical necessity or consumer fetish, but rather a provocative tool or toy. Give them an imaginative boon they've been hesitant to ask for, a beautiful thing that expands their self-image, a surprising intervention that says, "I love the way you move me." 12. "There are two ways for a person to look for adventure," said the Lone Ranger, an old TV character. "By tearing everything down, or building everything up." Give an example of each from your own life. 13. To many people, "sacrifice" is a demoralizing word that connotes deprivation. Is that how you feel? Do you make sacrifices because you're forced to, or maybe because your generosity prompts you to incur a loss in order to further a good cause? Originally, "sacrifice" had a different meaning: to give up something valuable in order that something even more valuable might be obtained. Carry out an action that embodies this definition. For instance, sacrifice a mediocre pleasure so as to free yourself to pursue a more exalted pleasure. 14. What is the holiest river in the world? Some might say the Ganges in India. Others would propose the Jordan River or the River Nile. But I say the holiest river is the one that's closest to where you are right now. Go to that river and commune with it. Throw a small treasure into it as an offering. Next, find a holy sidewalk to walk on, praise the holiness in a bus driver, kiss a holy tree, and shop at a holy store. 15. Are other people luckier than you? If so, psychologist Richard Wiseman says you can do something about it. His book The Luck Factor presents research that proves you can learn to be lucky. It's not a mystical force you're born with, he says, but a habit you can develop. How? For starters, be open to new experiences, trust your gut wisdom, expect good fortune, see the bright side of challenging events, and master the art of maximizing serendipitous opportunities. Name three specific actions you'll try in order to improve your luck. 16. Entomologist Justin O. Schmidt drew up an index to categorize the discomfort caused by stinging insects. The attack of the bald-faced hornet is "rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door." A paper wasp delivers pain that's "caustic and burning," with a "distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut." The sweat bee, on the other hand, can hurt you in a way that's "light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm." In bringing this to your attention, I want to inspire the pronoiac rebel in you. Your homework is to create an equally nuanced and precise index of three experiences that feel really good. 17. Some scholars believe the original Garden of Eden was where Iraq stands today. Though remnants of that ancient paradise survived into modern times, many were obliterated during the American war on Iraq. A Beauty and Truth Lab researcher who lives near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers kept us posted on the fate of the most famous remnant: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Until the invasion, it was a gnarled stump near Nasiriyah. But today it's gone; only a crater remains. Let this serve as an evocative symbol for you as you demolish your old ideas about paradise, freeing you up to conjure a fresh vision of your ideal realm. 18. "Two chemicals called actin and myosin evolved eons ago to allow the muscles in insect wings to contract and relax," writes Deepak Chopra in The Book of Secrets. "Today, the same two proteins are responsible for the beating of the human heart." If you use your imagination, you can sense the connection between the flight of a dragonfly and the intelligent organ that renews its commitment to ­keeping you alive every second of your life. So use your imagination. 19. Is the world a dangerous, chaotic place with no inherent purpose, running on automatic like a malfunctioning machine and fundamentally inimical to your happiness? Or are you surrounded by helpers in a friendly universe that gives you challenges in order to make you smarter and wilder and kinder and trickier? Trick questions! The answers may depend, at least to some degree, on what you believe is true. Formulate a series of experiments that will allow you to objectively test the hypothesis that the universe is conspiring to help you. 20. The primary meaning of the word "healing" is "to cure what's diseased or broken." Medical practitioners focus on sick people. Philanthropists donate their money and social workers contribute their time to helping the underprivileged. Psychotherapists wrestle with their clients' traumas and neuroses. I'm in awe of them all. The level of one's spiritual wisdom, I believe, is more accurately measured by helping people in need than by meditation skills, shamanic shapeshifting, supernatural powers, or esoteric knowledge. But I also believe in a second kind of healing that is largely unrecognized: to supercharge what is already healthy; to lift up what's merely sufficient to a sublime state. Using this definition, describe two acts of healing: one you would enjoy performing on yourself and another you'd like to provide for someone you love. P.S. What would the world look like if there were doctors who specialized in fostering robust health in their patients? What if the textbooks that psychotherapists used to evaluate their clients were crammed not just with descriptions of pathological states, but also with a catalogue of every variety of bliss, integrity, magnanimity, eros, and wisdom? Imagine how odd and wonderful it would be if universities began turning out professionals in a brand new field, the science of happiness. 21. Those who explore pronoia often find they have a growing capacity to help people laugh at themselves. While few arbiters of morality recognize this skill as a mark of high character, I put it near the top of my list. In my view, inducing people to take themselves less seriously is a supreme virtue. Do you have any interest in cultivating it? How might you go about it? 22 "Creativity is like driving a car at night," said E. L. Doctorow. "You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." I would add that life itself is like driving a car at night. You're often in the dark except for what's right in front of you. At least that's usually the case. But for a few shining hours sometime soon, I predict you'll be able to see the big picture of where you're headed. It will be as if the whole world is suddenly illuminated by a prolonged burst of light; as if you're both driving your car and also watching your journey from high above. Write about what you see.

Sisters of the Black Moon

http://sistersoftheblackmoon.com/shop/viewcategory.php?groupid=2

I've always been fond of vintage~i go through phases as to which time period best suites me, but all in all, a good  day at a thrift store is coming home with a great piece, doesn't matter which time period it came from~i have something from almost every decade in my collection starting with 1890's~
I love the way these gals showcase their items
So creative and inventive, it inspires me so do more fabric art, thrift store shopping and photography~*~

Khalil Gibran

~Life without LOVE is like a tree without blossoms or 


fruit~

Amma quote

"In this universe it is love that binds everything together. Love is the very foundation, beauty and fulfillment of life"

The girl on the flying trapeze

"Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Please direct your attention upward! That's right, look up, above your heads! There she is! The Girl on the flying trapeze~Such balance! Such grace! Such beauty!~is it real? how does she do it? How does she remain so calm? Watch as flies through the air from her swing, and is caught by someone awaiting her on the oncoming swing!
Here she goes.......
WAIT!!!!!!! 
There is noone there to catch her!!!......

Ooooooh!!!! Nooooo!!!!!............

How does one remain authentic when there are so many things pulling and tugging in so many different directions? How is one able to hold on to the ability to LOVE when it seems like a useless emotion at times?  
When i lay awake at 3 am because i'm too dizzy and sick to my stomach to rest, when my mind it in a million places, i have these thoughts~
Mostly, i feel i live in this strange, ethereal realm~floating above, not allowing my feet to touch the ground~from up here, i can hold on better, it's true~i can usually hold that wall up, keep it strong for when the waves hit~but there are those times that they all come crashing down so hard and fast i have difficulty~
An old friend reminded me today to remember to breath~he said "breathing is best, takes care of everything if you really commit"~ Truth is, lately, i feel like i'm in a constant state of hyper ventilation!  i used to feel like this when i was married to josh.  i would wake up in a panic every morning, wondering what i'd done that would piss him off, or what i'd forgotten to do or put away or clean that would cause him to yell.  What josh i'd get that day...angry, pissed off or oddly mellow~
The past year, i still panic about which josh i'll have to deal with, but at least i can walk away from his unhappy ass and deal with it on a different level~
The past few weeks, aside from being my busiest time of year, i've been mending a broken heart~i knew it was coming, i saw it long before it happened, i thought i'd braced myself for it, but in the end.....i've allowed more pain in than i thought i would~rhe unfortunate part of it all right now, what's got me in my head tonight is that i really thought i had an idea about what it was about...why i met him, why we had a beautiful romance, what i may have meant to him~but, i've had that carpet sort of pulled out from underneath me and i'm once again left flailing~wondering if it was all a facade.....
Now, i have my teenage son to try to reel back in~keeping him on solid ground is my main priority at the moment, and coming from someone who does not spend much time on solid ground....this is not an easy task~he's been so hurt and upset by his father's and my split, he's become very angry and bitter.  I know my little boy is still in there, i catch a glimpse every now and again, but, he has put up a wall that will only get bigger if i don't start chipping away at it now~he and i used to be so close~he use to process everything with me~now, i can't even get a straight answer from him about his homework~all of his teachers say he's a good kid, very sweet and polite and a hard worker~all of these things i know~he's wonderful and talented and has an amazing heart~but, he's in pain and has been profoundly affected by the damage his father and i have inflicted on one another and he's been caught in many lies and unfortunate situations lately.  All i can do is allow him to express himself with out stifling his growth, but how do i do this and not let him continue to drift out to sea with out a way to get back???  i know if i hold on too tight, heal kick and scream like a caged animal, but, i don't want to see this amazing being fall into a hole noone can dig him out of.....
My heart aches and i can't sleep and it's 4:30 am~
Dear Divine Mother,
please guide me
please allow me the strength i need
please remind me to breath
please allow my heart to continue to love and to be loved in return
please remain within me and bless me always
For this i am thankful
~OM SHANTI~