Flow
Category: Life

Friend went to look at a small casita for me.   He sent me pictures and told me I'd love it.   Spoke to the landlord who wanted to meet me.   This was going to involve 12+ hours of travel in a 24 hour time period, financial expenditures and getting time off work.

I was figuring out how I could make this work - when I stopped and said to myself  "No. I'm forcing this- if it's meant to be it will flow"   E-mailed friend to tell him my decision.  He gave me the speech about all of life involves struggle etc. etc. etc.   I kept repeating No- if it's meant to be etc. etc.  Finally I said we are just going to have to disagree on this.   Did state I have nothing against doing the work to make something happen.   Like when I got the L.A. show.  The flow part was I got the show quite easily but then did my time raising money to print, mat, frame, ship, get myself to L.A. etc.   Not anti-work but am not investing energy in 'forcing' anymore.

I called up the landlady and stated that I was going to have to pass, thanked her for her time, assured her it sounded like they would have no trouble renting place.  Within hours she called me back to tell me if I wanted it- it was mine.

Love when things like that happen- and they happen a lot.

4:27 PM - 2 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

Whenever I need to laugh I go to BOCL
Category: Life

You were being shoved into a Dallas Police car. - m4w

5:06 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Gathering of the Allies
Category: Life

6:31 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Oneness
Category: Religion and Philosophy

I have been receiving Deeksha aka Oneness Blessings sporadically over the past few months.   I had been going regularly but then they switched to a day and time where it's harder for me to go because of the overnight gig.

I went last night because I knew it would be a beautiful way to celebrate both the Moon Festival and my birthday eve.  We had a very small group which turned out to be fabulous because we each received nine blessings.   Deeksha begins with chanting to cleanse and balance each chakra.  I love chanting with a group of people.  As we began I felt how out of whack I was because I could barely sustain the syllable for a couple seconds.   As my body and heart and breath opened I sank into it.

Had a very profound experience in which I could feel the love surrounding me.  And thought here I am moving cities and now I can feel all this love.   Has it always been surrounding me and I was just too closed down to let it in?  I was honestly flooded with love to the point where I could not stop beaming.   If I had shot a photo of myself right when I got home from the blessing you would have been able to see it.

Afterwards I was talking to one of my spiritual community members who was there and relayed that experience to her.   Even as I was telling it-  I had a sense that for now-  I am someone who has been drawn to five cities in a little over five years because there are people I need(ed) to meet in each of these places.  Doesn't minus from the love at all- just because I am not staying 'put'

Just like leaving things that don't feel 'right' at this stage in my life is not 'quitting' it's more of a sense of 'nah, this not fulfilling I don't have time for it'.  As 50 approached and is now here- it seems the beauty of being at 50 is paring away the non-essentials.

I am seeing a lot more clearly now.  

Thank you for the birthday wishes and for being in my life whether in person or in the ether.

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Small Deaths or Silent Screams

Or just pick 9 of these that would look good hanging together

http://www.pbase.com/denisedee/small_deaths

If you want to give your thoughts-  I'm here to listen

Thanks!

d

10:41 PM - 3 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

Altared/Altered
Category: Life

Made an altar yesterday in honor of the Venus/Mars conjunction.   I am a bit embarassed to say I have not meditated regularly since May.  Truly this overnight work schedule has whacked me out and as much as I know meditating would help-  have not done it.

Laid out the altar using the corners and points of Feng Shui.   As soon as I starting pondering each of the directions and what object or symbol I would place in each spot-  I felt calmer.

When I finished I lit incense and set intentions for myself and for the general good of partnerships (love, creative, financial) of friends that I know are seeking new partnerships or have established one.

I did a brief chant of Love is all there is and then did God is all there is.  Some of you will laugh at this I know- but I am trying to remember those two things more frequently as I go about my everyday 'routines'.   It never ceases to amaze me how quickly mantras and/or chants can center me.    Felt like I had never stopped meditating.

Will be adding to the altar this week as we have the Moon Festival on Sunday and the Full Moon and my birthday on Monday.

Glad to be back 'home'.

4:28 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

my interior american
Category: Life

Talking to one of the young women in the group home this morning- I asked her how long her family had been in America.   She said "What do you mean?"   I said "My Grandma was born in Poland and my mother was the first person on that side of the family born in America".   She was truly puzzled by this. 

Somehow we got to talking about brothers and sisters.   She has a sister who's younger than her.  I asked her if she remembered K. coming home as a baby.   She replied  "What do you mean?"   I said "Sometimes when people first get a younger brother or sister they are jealous of them"    Sometimes I wonder when I'm talking to her if it would be a relief to not have pondered such thoughts.  I clearly remember trying to rock my brother out of a second story window.   Decided not to share that at this moment.

Anyhow, after a brief conversation about voting for Barack Obama and christian music  (both initiated by her perhaps thinking my soul needed some work) I started thinking about Michelle Obama's supposed comment about this being one of the rare times she was proud of America.

Most of the times I've been proud of America have been associated with protests and speeches and actions from before I was twenty.    I'm thrilled by some of the art and movies and music coming from the U.S. but I have never felt patriotic and I would be hard pressed to have to stand anywhere and declare my love of 'my' country.  That made me kind of sad on the DNC to see Michelle and Barack doing the God Bless America thing.

At those times I remember being incredibly moved and crying in the late 60's and early 70's it seemed America had soul.   It was the kind of soul Woody Guthrie conveyed singing Tom Joad's lines from Grapes of Wrath-   "Everybody might be part of one big soul- well it looks that way to me" 

Is there anyone if they died now that I would line up near the railroad tracks to watch the car with their coffin go by?  Actually I probably would for Studs Terkel- he is one person in my adult life that inspired me to stand for and with people. How about you?  Is there anyone you would do that for?   Would there be a huge national mourning for any political figure? 

I want that sense of connection.  I want someone in office so huge and inspiring that it would be devastating to think of losing them.   Is that horrible?

7:01 AM - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Top of the Morning to yeh- O’Bama?

1:38 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Scratch a liberal find a
Category: Life

Well after watching many speeches at the DNC and Romney, Guiliani, Huckabee, and part of Palin at the RNC.   I decided to resume my pre-convention stance of not watching the news or reading newspapers.  Many people will say I have my head in the sand- but I am going to follow my heart and my own inner guidance.   I do not need 'analysts' analzying for me- I have that capability within me.

I found it mostly depressing and somewhat agitating that people are fighting over 'opinions' and 'perceptions' and 'personality'.   I can see how watching t.v. and reading news could subtly (or not so subtly) convince you that 'they' know what they are talking about.

Shockingly I watched RNC speeches- which I have never done in my life.  But in a spirit of 'Look for the Good' as put forth by Unity churches in this election season- I thought I'd give it a shot.

The RNC did not stir me emotionally as the DNC did.  Probably because the democratic vision is what I grew up as the grandchild of Eastern European immigants 'helping other people out' is in my blood.   When Huckabee said something about making people 'dependent' on government- I was kind of surprised to find myself nodding in agreement.  Please friends, I am not advocating cutting off or ceasing any kind of services.   But I am seeing from working in this group home that people seeing themselves as helpless and dependent is a hopeless, infantilizing place to be.  It reaffirmed to me that people need to be in the cycle of 'giving and receiving' as that is the flow of life.  To only be on one end of that equation- in my opinion is cutting you off from seeing the possiblities for changing your own life.

I'm voting Obama no question about that.   But I will continue to question my own beliefs and mindset.   And I'm not going to engage in making fun of McCain or Palin.   I know that will make some people think that I'm not any 'fun' but so it is.

One thing I am grateful that I found out during my stint of watching CNN and Larry King is that the next President could appoint up to 6 Supreme Court Justices.  That's my talking point.

4:13 PM - 3 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

My Red Brick Blood
Category: Life

After Joe Biden spoke last night one of the political pundits said 'He spoke like a cross between a steel worker and a ____ '    I forgot what the second half of the statment was because I was thrown back in time to growing up in Pittsburgh.   And the thought that you can be identified by how you talk. 

I spent a lot of time over these past few days crying at parts of speeches by Michelle Obama,  HRC (who I don't even like),  John Kerry, and Joe Biden.   The thread which ran through the parts I cried at were parts about working class people.    Realized again how deep my upbringing runs through my blood- even if it is not in my 'conscious' mind most of the time.   And even though my reaction to that upbringing was to want to run as far away from it as I could.

I had no dreams of marriage, working in a factory, children, a life in church, drinking, being rooted to a place and connected to a family, fitting into a man's idea of what was attractive.   And yet here I am 30 years later crying my eyes out at the mention of statements like "God doesn't give you a cross heavier than you an bear" and  MO's father getting up an hour early to button his shirt because work and providing for a family were so important to him.  And crying at and for everyday heroes.

You know I don't even really believe in work.   But that work ethic was so imbued in me it must be the small child in me crying perhaps equally for not living like my clan and crying for the simplicity of something like 'there are 'rules' and that playing by them would surely result in 'getting ahead' and 'fairness' 

So here I am still connected by my tears and emotions to all these people I don't even know by virtue of my factory lungs and my red brick blood.

10:06 AM - 7 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment