Magical Home/Magical Life

The Commute of the Crows

2011-12-29T20:50:00.000-08:00

Since my household move I have a long commute to work. About an hour going; an hour or more coming home again. Hey, it’s the economy. Over the months I’ve fallen in to a nomadic routine, and have come to appreciate the time I get to myself zipping down the freeway and back again. I’ve come to appreciate that my trip has a rhythm of its own, and this appreciation instructs me to see other rhythms that play out near by.

One of my favorites is The Commute of the Crows.

Each morning as I head out at dawn and leap on the freeway I see a huge murder of crows also taking flight for the day. They rise in masses of at least several hundred and circle as they gather their bearings and then split off in to squadrons of smaller numbers. Each squadron takes off in its own direction. So as we car-bound humans wait in line at the meter to get down the ramp and on the thoroughfare, so the crows circle and establish their pecking order, organize, align, and head out in all directions.

I think the birds gather some sort of altitude advantage from the warmer air over the interstate. In some odd way the exhaust from thousands of cars gives them that boost they crave. At least I can’t think of any other reason they’d always be there, rising up over the road, and circling, circling, ranking, ordering, and then pulling off in their many separate groups for a day of hunting and whatever it is that crows do. I’ve taken to calling Good Morning to them and wishing them well.

Returning home at dusk I witness the reverse happen. I see the crows again, only now massing together and coalescing. They come in from all directions to the same space at the same place on the highway and swirl together and head off again. They rise and fall and gain in number and then traject to wherever they spend their evenings and sleep.

What is this? Is it some great crow party? Do they mass for society? For protection? For warmth? Do they have a culture? Do they tell stories of what they did all day; the adventures they had and the sights they saw? Do they remark on the cars on the road? Do they notice us at all? The gridlock, the speeders, the crashes, the arrogance, the close calls?

As I commute to and from my day, so do they. As I rise each morning, shamble out the door and get to work with thousands of my fellow humans , several thousand crows get about their day and apparently conclude and come home the same time I do. What an odd parallel. Yet their commute is more dimensional than mine. I inch forward in a straight line with glazed over weary workers in line with me. They rise and fall and move in all directions: high, low, side to side. They have energy and agility. We hunch over our steering wheels and listen to subscription radio.

I call Good Evening to them at dusk and wonder whether any of my fellow travelers notice them. How could they not? They are beautiful. My fellow commuters in the sky. I’m in good company.

Cricket Intentions

2011-08-13T16:06:00.000-07:00

Over the past month and a half I’ve been moving my household and my office. Didn’t intend for it to fall that way, but Life does move quickly sometimes. I’ve been very preoccupied. Haven’t been writing much, which is very unlike me. A great many things have changed. I’m exhausted but it’s all working out and my life is starting to feel normal again. A little bit anyway.

The other day though, I witnessed the most amazing change in another being’s life, and so I want to write about it now.

I purchased a pot of greens and a pot of catnip at the local pet supply store, and brought them to my new home for the cats. These pots and all the routine groceries were set down by the front door while I dealt with putting chilled items away. Out of the corner of my eye I spied my younger cat intently fixed on trying to catch something in the pile of groceries. Oh dear, I wondered. What did I bring in with me?

A cricket was barely eluding my cat’s pounce. It was only a matter of time before cat would triumph so I intervened and inverted a glass jar over the cricket and took him out to the patio to release him, from whence he rapidly hopped over to the edge of the woods and away.

My cat glared at me and walked away to start munching on the catnip. Then it struck me. What that cricket had achieved.

Only a few hours before he was sitting in a pet supply store, seemingly doomed to be sold to someone with a large hungry pet reptile. They don’t call them Feeder Crickets for nothing.

But no. That isn’t what happened. This cricket managed to hop out of the enclosure. Or maybe he fell out of a bag on the way to the check out. Point being, he made it from the Feeder Cricket Container all the way to the Catnip display. He sat in a catnip plant. Then I brought the catnip plant home. He hopped off. He was then menaced by a fierce predator but once again Deus Ex Machina swooped in and poof! He’s outside in nature, living his life as a free cricket.

What an incredible series of events! Was it random? Did the cricket set up an intention to get to the wild somehow? I’m put in mind of the Chilean Miners (all respect; I’m not comparing them to crickets directly!) and how the one miner dreamt of running in a marathon and then did it.

However it happened it was great. It reminded me to not worry so much about how things are going to get accomplished. It reminded me that the important thing, from an energy standpoint, is to set the intention. “I will be free and in the wild once more; I am transcending the Feeder Cricket Container”. Or something. I do not know how crickets think.

I think the magical lesson in this little drama I watched unfold is to set our intentions, and then relax, stay alert, and when you see the time is right to act, well then act. And when you see the time is right to perch in the catnip, well then perch in the catnip. And if a large predator menaces you, well you never know what may swoop in and in a twinkling of an eye, set you free.

Raven Gifts

2011-06-04T08:59:00.000-07:00

Ah my Darlings I’ve been so busy that I let the blog slip a bit. My apologies. Going to try and keep on task now and continue to pen some thoughts and fling them in your general direction (thanks, Monty Python!).

This morning I’m seated at my desk in the window, where I’ve been cranking out legal papers nonstop for a few days. I’ve also gotten in the habit of putting bread out for the ravens, who come land just outside. They are huge, and the cats crouch down and get so excited when they arrive!

The giant birds flap in and land on a wrought iron railing, survey the bread, and then hop down and get what they want. I regard them as I tap on the keyboard here, and my indoor cats turn themselves inside out and cackle at them. The ravens are bigger than the cats! I am put in mind of Antonio Banderas in his cinematic portrayal of Armand, the great vampire from long ago. Large, powerful, wise, and wonderful.

This morning my ravens gave me this blog post.

A young one arrived and lit on the railing. He saw the bread and I could tell he wanted it. He looked at the bread. He looked around. He saw me in the window. He hopped up and down the railing. He turned around. He looked at the bread. He dithered. He wanted the bread, but something was holding him back. He wasn’t sure it was safe. He wanted assurances. Hop, regard, turn, hop, regard, incline, hop… fly off. Return, hop, regard… this went on and on.

I mentally told him: it’s ok ! You can take the bread! It’s my gift to you! And I thought of how this is so like the gifts we are given here on Earth. Some people just come take the gifts and others are afraid and consider the details so much that they don’t take the gifts.

Somewhere between foolhardy and frozen we have to know when to act and take the offerings. I felt bad for this young raven, and immediately thought of the times I have hesitated too long and lost the gift proffered me. But then there were other times I leapt in without thinking and THAT was the wrong thing to do too. So I felt for this young raven and his dilemma.

He flew off. And I thought Oh! You didn’t take the gift.

And then it hit me. The lesson. The gift was still there. The bread remained. It didn’t go anywhere. He could come back when he was ready. Heaven doesn’t dangle gifts and then swipe them away. (I would have put out more bread had others taken it). The gifts are there for us when we are ready to take them! They are there just for us. And our guides are patient, they are! They will make sure the bread is there for us.

And I smiled and returned to typing, thanking my guides for the lesson.

Then the young raven returned with a great raucous cry. He had a friend. Two ravens now graced my railing. And they hopped down and took the bread and flew off. But not before the young one paused with bread in his mouth and looked at me directly as I sat in the window.

And I fancied that young raven winked at me.

Raven Wind

2011-05-21T16:39:00.000-07:00

Sat and watched a raven fly against the wind of the outgoing storm front. He made small steady progress. "How do you do it?" I asked. "I find the spaces between the winds" he replied.

Sea Witch

2011-03-27T17:10:00.001-07:00

Today I’m a right proper sea witch. Down to the water go I, wild of hair, entangled in kelp, and dripping with salt. I’m searching for moonstones cast up by the incoming tide, and instead find jaspers and shells, and no moonstones until I stop looking for them and then they come rolling in. Isn’t that just the way of life?

The pelicans fly overhead in great flocks. They proceed both north and south so I know they are not in migration, but scope for schools of fish to eat. I spread my arms wide as they fly over. I am not the only human doing this. It is a good beach, this one. No tourists. Just lone walkers and the flirts of surfers.

So, I marvel at the moonstones rolling in at the last few moments of my walk and I laugh. For the moonstones are like life. You don’t know where they are going to be or when they are going to roll in, but you know that it’s your job to go down to the beach and look. And they’ll find you. The right ones. The ones meant for you. I pause at the base of the cliffs and near a spray of ice plant flowers to pen these words.

Gulls stand on rocks as the water comes in providing them with their supper. As with the moonstones, they don’t know exactly what is coming to them, but they know that it will, and they wait on the rocks.

So what is the use of worry?

Sparrow

2011-03-02T18:40:00.000-08:00

Yesterday a sparrow flew into a window inside one of the places I work. I didn’t see this accident; this confusion of egress. A colleague did, and said she just flew into the window frantically and fell to the floor.

Against all the protests of No! Don’t Touch Her! I picked her up. There is nothing to fear in nature such as her. What was she going to do? Peck me? That would be a minor injury. She was motionless, and made no effort to escape my intrusion. Her eyes were bright. She was warm, and a soft thrill met the finger I placed on her chest. She was paralyzed and alive. My heart bled.

I took her back to my office and regarded her closely. Her eyes remained bright and her body remained warm. At first I thought there was nothing I could do. And then I realized that I could be with her while she passed. No one should be alone in either birth or death. That was what I could do for her. I could send her love.

Fortunately I had set aside a few hours to work at my desk on some projects, so I could easily accommodate this small creature in her dying hours. If I held my hands in a slightly convex Namaste/Prayer position, she completely fit. I offered her Reiki twice over the next hour and a half and twice she took it. I prayed for her safe journey, whether it be to recovery or to leave. She remained warm and motionless. Her eyes continued bright. The chest thrill began to fade ever so slightly. Any thought I had that she was merely stunned and would make a theatrical recovery to suddenly rouse and fly away left me.

I held her in the crook of my arm, and checked on her between drafting pages on the computer. Another hour went by. Finally I held her in my hands and felt her pass. The energy left her and the light in her eyes extinguished. Slowly she cooled, and then her nits and fleas left her. It was at that exodus of parasites that I knew it was time to wrap her body; she had gone and flown to the light.

At the end of my workday I regarded this slight corpse that was next to my purse. I took her on my evening walk and adjusted my route to take me to a very happy park that is out of the way and known to only a few people. I left the path and made my way to an out of the way copse of trees. I unwrapped her and laid her to rest nestled in some sweet grass under a pile of dry leaves. It would have been wrong to bury her; that is not the way of birds. There she can gently return to the earth undisturbed.

At home later I felt a gentle release in my heart, and I let the tears flow. I cried for the honor of having been with her at her passing; at being permitted to share such elegant tragedy. I wept for my own past traumas, and maybe resolved them just a little further. I cried for reasons I couldn’t even articulate. I had experienced something profound. This little sparrow had taught me so much.

Tonight I went out of my way to drive by the park and stopped. I did not get out; she did not need me poking at her resting place. I looked in her general direction, about half a mile in from where I was. It felt peaceful. I knew she was free.

Valentine's Day Trees

2011-02-14T09:22:00.000-08:00

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.- St Augustine

High Tide

2011-01-23T14:14:00.000-08:00

If you go to the beach at high tide, you are going to get wet. Know that.

At high tide you aren’t going to find crystals. Those are for low tide. But you are going to get wet. You are going to get slammed by incoming waves and you are going to learn things you wouldn’t have learned otherwise and see things you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. You’ll learn where to step and when the waves are coming for you. It’s a great metaphor for Life.

Today I went to the beach at high tide. A narrow strip of sand called me, and the sea chased me into the rocks and pushed me in to quicksand and uncertain footing. I am like a mountain goat in the shore rocks.

I met many ladybugs who landed on me without hesitation. They stretched their wings and had a sniff of me and took off once more.

I met flocks of shorebirds who paid me little mind as they chased the water line back and forth seeking their Sunday brunch.

I saw where others had come before me and left their mark.

And of course my flirt of surfers.

I was surprised by a wave, and called it Thigh Tide, as I was unintentionally soaked to the waist. Silly ocean. Yes, it has the last word on these matters.

I found a rock as speckled as an egg, and full of magic. The cats have it now, and won’t relinquish it back to me yet. They can keep it. The ocean took my cares, and replaced them with calm.

Crystals in the tide

2011-01-16T20:31:00.001-08:00

Went to the beach today to gather crystals left by the tide and to restore my mind. I accomplished both.

The sky was streaked with clouds which looked like two angels in flight. Or maybe a giant gerbil. I'm not sure.

One of the angels cast off a feather.

The birds studied their reflections in the sand.

And Ginger Cat enjoyed the day's haul of moonstones, prehnite, quartz, and agates.

Looking Forward

2011-01-01T11:56:00.000-08:00

Wow the holidays are here and have really taken up my time. I’ve been totally preoccupied with work, with year-end business, with the business of the holidays, and parties, and people, and obligations, and…. Oh wait, aren’t we supposed to be having fun?

I got a great lesson the other day. I ran out at lunch to purchase some last minute New Year’s supplies and found myself in the local drugstore. Ahead of me in line was an older lady.

She was immaculately dressed: well done wig, sparkly scarf, boiled wool coat, dark stockings, and low heels. She was pushing a cart with three huge mechanical Santa Clauses on post Christmas sale – these fellows were about three feet tall each, with zombie like movements, flashing lights, and sang with a definite Asian accent. These Santas were great. You don’t get better kitsch that this.

As it turns out, the lady was 89 years old. She was buying the Santas for NEXT Christmas. And in addition, her birthday party was that night – she was having friends in and planning a great time.

That, my friends, is the secret to longevity. To be 89 and planning (and taking action toward) next Christmas.

I raise my New Year’s toast to her. And to her zombie men in red.

Treasure

2010-12-13T19:08:00.000-08:00

Today I was helping a young man organize his legal research. He initially seemed an unlikely candidate: heavily inked, nervous affect, blunt and taciturn. He displayed all the classic signs of a tweaker who had been up for several days. He was, however, polite and appropriate with me, and as his story slowly unfolded he found his way into increasingly heavy legal materials.

He sat at a large table in the reading room and spent several hours in the material, and occasionally would ask me for another reference. Finally he asked for a dictionary. And then came up to me, confounded because he could not find a particular word. A really basic, non-legal word. The word was one ending in –ed. I found the primary word for him, which he had identified and explained that the word he was studying was the past tense of the primary word. He looked puzzled. I pointed at the word in the dictionary. ‘This is the present tense word’ I explained. ‘The word in the book you are studying is written in the past tense’. He looked up at me, still puzzled. ‘Present tense? Is that, like, the now?’ he asked. Yes, I assured him, and explained how the definition showed the various tense forms for the word.

I went back to my work marveling at how a young man, presumably educated in our society, could not know what the present tense and past tense of a pretty basic word was. And then it struck me how this was a metaphor for how many of us live. We don’t know how to distinguish the present from the past.

We dwell in past anguish; in memories, guilt, delusion, or pain. We dwell in denial, or we hold on to attitudes or thought patterns that no longer serve us, or have any use for us. In other words, we don’t let go.

And this is so silly and unproductive. Because all we have is the present. The past is beyond us, and the future not yet in grasp. All we have is this moment; this very second of our existence. And in this present moment we have the ability to create our reality and affect not only the future, but also the past.

The quantum physicists assure us that thoughts become things, and can alter the very DNA of our being. These concepts, well-known millennia ago and then forgotten, are now being proven in laboratories all over the world. What we do in the present matters. It’s our workbench. It’s the place from which we design our life, and our very world.

The past is history; the future is mystery. This moment is a gift. That is why it is called The Present.

So take this moment; this gift, and look at it. See the beauty you have within you. See the beauty in every moment and regard the treasures in the every day things. Don’t confuse the present with the past. The past is gone. Right now is the treasure. Don’t let it slip away from you. Use it well.

Gratitude

2010-11-20T09:19:00.000-08:00

Once again the feasting season is upon us and we scurry around preoccupied with party and meal preparations, gift giving, and the logistics of fitting all the holiday gatherings in to an already full schedule. So many times in the past we were left feeling washed up in January with swollen charge cards, a depleted constitution, and a feeling of bereft emptiness.

But: not this year. The most marvelous thing is happening. The most wonderful shift in consciousness is moving in. As we approach that emblematic year 2012 we all of us feel it, if even a little. There is enough whispers in our ear.

For the longest time in our collective memories it seems we have battled with the notion that there is “not enough”. The idea that in order for us to “have”, we must wrest ‘it’ from someone else, and deprive others of “it” has dominated. The traditional concept: that there is a finite amount of raw material and our gain must perforce represent someone else’s loss.

By extension this philosophy led to us looking at those who had a lot of material wealth with feelings of envy and resentment. And with the current economic struggles in the world, I see a lot of envy and resentment. The media certainly doesn’t help: how many of us can afford all the baubles and delights we see paraded in front of us; paraded in a manner to suggest that having them is normal, and if you don’t have them, then you are a sad deprived creature.

But what if that ancient concept were flawed? What if the reality were that there is more than enough? That there is infinite supply, and that all we need do, should we desire something, is to intend it, believe it, and then act as though it were here? What if the energetic conditions were shifting, and we were entering a new age? What if we were evolving as a species? How would that shape our day-to-day actions and undertakings?

I suppose it might mean that we no longer felt we had to club someone else in order to take their stuff. What if we let them have their stuff, and instead created our own? What if we stopped focusing on them, and instead focused on our own actions in the world?

The other day I was walking on the beach and a gleam caught my eye: the most beautiful moonstone was shimmering in a pool of water. I scooped it up and brought it home. I have wanted a nice moonstone for some time. And there it was, just waiting for me.

I suggest that this Thanksgiving we look around us, each of us, at our situations. And regardless of our situation, we find what it is that we have that we are grateful for. And focus on that for a time. And experience gratitude. This beautiful thing we are grateful for, whatever it is, came to us out of the ether. Everything else will, too.

The struggle is not ‘us vs them’. It is us vs ourselves as we learn to get out of our own way, and allow the grace of That Which is Greater Than Us provide all the elements we need to fashion our own sparkling reality.

When you focus on gratitude, an incredible thing happens. You become more dynamic, and you become better able to help other people in addition to yourself. I think it’s because you shift out of negative desperation, and into positive appreciation. And, funny thing, once you are shifted into gratitude, you get more to be grateful for. Law of Attraction demands it. What you focus on increases.

So whether you are at a family gathering of all the oddball relatives, whether you are dining a deux with a lover, whether you are at a party with friends, or eating a frozen dinner on your own: find that which you are grateful for this feasting season. Focus on that, and notice the energy associated with that feeling. And then do whatever you can do to stay in that energy.

And watch the magic unfold.

Happy Feasting.

Encouragement

2010-11-09T15:01:00.000-08:00

All of us have read endless writings on the power of intention, and we all know the value of visualization and believing in ourselves, no matter what. Sometimes though, when results are slow to manifest, we get discouraged. I was having one of those episodes of feeling discouraged, and then I saw the headlines about the Chilean miner who ran in the New York Marathon over the weekend.

I read about how, while locked deep under the earth, he visualized running in the marathon, and even practiced working out to get ready.

Imagine that. Imagine being buried deep under the earth, every logical indication being that you would either starve or suffocate in a matter of weeks, and rather than give up or resign yourself to a dark end, you start to train for a world famous marathon in a country far away. Did his companions think him mad? I hear they encouraged him! Imagine the visualization process, and the determination and optimism. “I will run in the New York marathon”. He saw it. He felt it. And he took all the steps he could to get ready for it.

And for me, here’s the key part. He did what he could, and he knew that others on the outside were doing what needed to be done to get him to the point where he could run in that marathon. Hundreds of people from all over the world were digging that tunnel and devising that life-saving pod and all the mechanisms necessary to bring those lads to the surface. And what a surfacing it was. It was like watching each one of them be reborn. The long, slow, dangerous ascent through the tunnel; the claustrophobia; the bright light; the embrace and back slapping.

Did this Chilean miner ever get discouraged? I’m sure he did. It can’t have been easy to be buried deep in the earth and be told that no one knew how to get him out, but that they’d sure try. But he obviously didn’t let his discouragement remain for too long.

The word courage has its roots in the Latin word for heart. To be encouraged is to be strengthened in the heart. To be discouraged is the opposite.

I think intention and manifestation are exercises of the heart. Sure the brain plays a role too. And the other sentient areas of our body assist. But I feel it is of the heart. My heart swelled as I watched those miners surface. My heart rose in my throat and I was empathing so hard I had to take a couple of breaks.

Fast forward to the Marathon. He ran. He did it. That dream, conceived in the womb of the earth at a time of great uncertainty, manifested in great glory this weekend.

So who am I to be discouraged? Who are any of us to doubt the power we have to achieve all we dream of?

Busy Bees

2010-11-06T13:03:00.000-07:00

It’s hard for me to believe an entire month has gone by since I last blogged here. So much is going on in my life, both with my “normal” career and with MHML. I’m happy and thrilled with both.

One lesson, which has been presenting repeatedly to me during this past month, is a lesson in versatility and expectation. Sometimes we think a process is going to open up in one particular way, and then Spirit shows us a different way! We have to be open to the signals and the cues and adapt to what Spirit gives us.

Take these beautiful honeybees. They recently discovered the hummingbird feeder in my garden. And they love it! They always leave a port open for the birds, but they have been commandeering the other ports for themselves. And they love my homemade sugar syrup! (4 parts water to 1 part sugar, bring to a simmer and DON’T allow it to reach a full boil; for some reason cheap white granulated sugar is what they love most of all).

Me? I’m thrilled they are here. With the worldwide hive collapse tragedy still in full throe, I’m happy any time I see honeybees at work.

So I put the feeder out expecting exclusively hummingbirds. I get hummingbirds and bees. The bees head out looking for flowers and they stumble in to this plastic delivery system. Nothing any of us expect, but it works for us all. Even the hummingbirds, who look askance at the bees, are able to dodge them and get their slurps in too.

The bees are so beautiful. Their gossamer wings, and fur like shoulder ‘shrugs’ have always reminded me of 1920’s fashion. And like the birds, the bees move away when I arrive to replenish the feeder; they don’t sting me or bother me. The hummers back away and chit-chit at me to hurry up; the bees buzz at low timbre and hover at a polite distance. I am the large creature who brings the syrup.

I could ask for no finer reputation.

Dancing with Luna and Hares

2010-10-03T19:25:00.000-07:00

Today was a rare day of solitude and leisure for me. Reading, painting. I went over to Lisa's site (http://www.lisawilliams.com/) and found myself writing in response to a question about moon phases. So I thought I'd make that subject my blog post today.

For some reason today I was once again pulled to painting hares and the full moon. I am not a skilled painter but I do have fun with it, and am starting to share a bit of it. This is one of the hares I painted today; a burly fellow with a kick in his step:

As I type this we are winding down to a New Moon around the 7th of October. So start clearing out. Remember the New Moon is a time to bring things to conclusion. Wrap it up and let it go! Clear out a cabinet or two, get rid of unwanted emotional baggage, resolve to conclude a project if the time is right, or just take some time to meditate and bring to an end negative ways of thinking. Take the remaining days and mentally cocoon. Draw energy IN, and formulate your plans.

Then... once the New Moon is here, around the 7th, start sending your energy OUT. After the New Moon period is concluded, start putting those plans in action, and start implementing those new attitudes and resolutions. The New Moon = New Beginnings. And as the moon waxes to full, so let your ideas and plans bloom and grow.

And remember, this is all about your energy. It's not the moon; it's you. Nature is helping you and giving you props and symbolism and energy, but it's really you doing this. You are a powerful being, and humans are able to channel and direct energy far more than we typically realize.

Then the next Full is around Oct 23. There is an old tradition of sitting out in the moon's glow during this time, and meditating, and soaking up some good energy. It is a great way to center and focus for the planning that comes.

Do you see the rhythm? Two weeks of planning, two weeks of doing... over and over; a divine balance which enables you to progress in life. We do not have to solve all our problems at once. But we can establish a rhythm that moves us forward.

Sea Gifts

2010-09-26T17:47:00.000-07:00

It is a hot September Sunday here in SoCal. So hot that when I went to my car it was covered in ravens, mouths open with the heat, seeking shade. I drove to the water for restoration and was presented with many gifts. Much to the delight of the cats, four came home: a feather, rock, crystal, and shell.

The other gifts stayed at the shore, as they should. The tide was full out and I spent time peering in the tide pools, tickling anemones and watching the limpets and other barnacles blink in the sunlight. The water was clear and cold and took away the stress of the week as it grabbed my legs and pulled the sand out from under my feet.

Fall Cleaning

2010-09-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

For the past few months I’ve been really busy with work. Between my work at the local law library, my law office, and my intuitive work, I have been straight out. Whenever I can take a breath I run to the beach. And as I look around this morning, I can see my home really demonstrates this preoccupation.

What at one time might be excused as ‘creative clutter’ has morphed into menacing dust bunnies and worse. So it’s time for a clear out and what better time than the autumnal equinox of this past week to accomplish a good fall cleaning?

Today I grab the sponges, water, and cleanser. I grab the dust cloth, the vacuum, and large bags for discarding ‘stuff’. It’s amazing how much ‘stuff’ accumulates. Do I want this stuff? Do I need this stuff? Why is it here? Do I keep it, toss it, or file it and deal with it at the next big clear out? Ha!

I use cleanser and salt and vinegar. Cellulose sponges and cotton rags. Moon water from the last Full. I refuse to buy those toxic chemicals in environmentally irresponsible containers. Those foul things don’t make the work any easier, and they sure are harder on the Earth. Makes no sense. I’d rather use a salt-based bleachy cleanser in a cardboard canister that costs $2, than drop $10 on poison in an aerosol plastic abomination.

I reflect on times gone by when people either had house servants or were themselves house servants. That must have been rather nice. For each, I mean. To be the master and have a house with several families living there to take care of it while you went out and hauled in the money or managed the estate to generate the money. To be a servant and know the shelter and food would be there and you took care of your part of it, whether you were a cook, or a cleaner, or a grounds man or a general manager /butler. Everyone had a home and made a contribution to the home. Reminds me of those great lines from the film The Birdcage: Who cares whether you say I can stay or I say you can stay? It’s home. Or words to that effect.

Hmmm. I shake the cleanser on the white porcelain of the sink and rub it around. Gleaming once more. Am I really advocating feudalism? Or baronial whatever you call it from the 18th century?

What if I didn’t regard all this cleaning as a chore? What if I recognized it for what it really is? Some time away from the cares of work, away from the cares of clients, away from the worldly concerns that rattle around in my head? A meditation. A way to send love to my home. A way to send intentions of peace, of well being, of gratitude to my abode? A way to honor those who share this dwelling place with me?

And all of a sudden I started to enjoy it; this dusting of green powder on my tee shirt, and puckering of my fingers from the warm soapy water. My knees, wet and sliding across the kitchen vinyl floor as I kneel and scrub are now humorous and not inconvenient.

The dryer tumbles. Guitar music wafts in from the living room. Coffee scent lingers from the French press carafe of earlier. Cats stretch to unbelievable length and sleep in the hot sunbeams of September in SoCal. This is real. This is my life.

I think I’ll go tackle the bathrooms next.

Awash in Emotion

2010-09-19T10:14:00.000-07:00

Lately it seems I’ve been hearing a lot about emotions and how they are purportedly evidence of frailty and lack of control. What hogwash.

Emotions are every bit as valuable and critical as Intellect. Yet they come from a different place.

Our western society places great emphasis and gives great deference to Intellect. And it is generally acknowledged that Intellect is wisdom that issues from the brain. Intellect is very important it is true. But the brain is not the only sentient organ in our bodies. Today I present to you for your consideration the heart; another sentient organ. One of several sentient organs you possess in your marvelous body.

The heart is a repository of knowledge every bit as potent as the brain. The energies that swirl in us as the heart chakras are just as wise as those swirling in our brain. The wisdom that flows from the heart is known as Emotion.

E-Motion. Energy in motion. The words we so often use to describe Emotion are almost always action words. My heart soars. My fancy flies. I feel uplifted. I sink in despair. I writhe in agony. My heart freezes in terror. My soul crashes in sorrow. I was pulled out of pain by my love. My heart sings. My sorrow weeps.

Emotion must flow in order to be healthy. If we get stuck in one Emotion then illness and dis-ease come in and sets up housekeeping. Have you ever been lost in despair; so lost that you ignored the beauty in your life? Have you ever been so intoxicated with love that you ignored the practicalities and duties of your life? If you reflect you will recognize how being stuck did not serve you.

Emotion must swirl and flow. It analyzes by movement. When we are in despair, we often seek the comfort of our bed or metaphoric cave, but we must not remain there overly long. After we have had our think, and let Intellect have a go at the situation we must move and take up action in order to fully find our way through the situation. We must engage Emotion. Intellect sits. Emotion moves.

This is why we instinctively go to water when our heart aches. The water is a mirror and teaches us about flow. As we watch the water flow, and we reflect in the mirror of it, we understand that our emotions must flow as well. Water teaches us how to move, how to escape being trapped in negative emotions, and how to elevate positive emotions to new heights.

The next time you are near water, whether it be an ocean, a river, a stream, or a pond, watch it. Watch how it moves. How it adapts, and flows and never loses itself yet becomes what it must become.

When you feel an emotion, let it flow over you. Analyze it just as the water analyzes the rocks and creek bed, the seafloor, and sea creatures. Caress it and see what wisdom it has for you, and utilize it. I don’t write of gut instinct; that is another wisdom, another chakra for another discussion. I refer to feeling, of the clarity of knowing and incorporating what cannot be put into intellectual words and phrases. Intellect has its lexicon. Emotions have their feelings. You know what it is; you feel what it is. And thereby you gain in understanding. Yes, let Intellect have a go; it too is valuable. But do not exclude Emotion.

Emotions wash over you. Revel. Feel them, the good and the bad. You are alive. This is a temporary situation for you. So enjoy it all: the ups and downs, the pain and the joy. Welcome the giddiness of laughter, the release of tears. They all serve you. They are you.

Bringing in the Sheaves

2010-09-06T09:29:00.000-07:00

The dawn rose misty and cool this morning; a rare gift in SoCal in September. I have had my head in several wrongful death cases for the past month and needed balance this morning. So off I went to the beach, arriving long before the Labor Day revelers; when only the surfers were there. I walked hip high in the incoming surf and then sat, and dug my feet deep in the sand for grounding and clearing. I sat there until the tide overcame me and kelp swirled in entreating tendrils around my ankles. I am MerCrone.

I felt solitary. And started to muse on helpmates and partners and how these tend to emerge from the ether when we call for them. I ascended the cliff to head home to the piles of medical files that await me.

And suddenly I started noticing all the help that spontaneously arrives. Upon reaching the chairs at the top of the stairs I saw a policewoman and some bicyclists petting the local cat and inquiring whether she belongs to anyone. She has a collar and tags, and is well cared for. But people were asking and would have intervened had she needed them.

I saw a pair of ancient pug dogs with gray faces being pushed along in a pram, like the enfants terrible I am sure they are. The pram was pink and had satin blankets in it for their aged rumps. They looked content and entitled and they wheezed as the pram passed me, their two daddies in close attention.

I saw a greyhound of tremendously regal build, no doubt rescued from that dreadful race industry, walking alongside a very portly couple. I laughed at how fate intervened to take him away from that cruel land of forced exertion and placed him in a world no doubt full of soft cushions and good fatty cuts of meat.

And I realized that no matter where you are in life, you can always call for help, the siren song will go out, and the perfect answer will always arrive in perfect time. If you look the signs are all around you that all you need to do is call, and the way there will emerge.

I looked across the highway and saw the pumpkin patch. Large orange orbs ripening and almost ready for the children to come seize them for All Hallows Eve. I saw all the future pies, and breads, and pumpkin butter. I thought of that old hymn Bringing in the Sheaves and how as children we used to sing Bringing in the Sheets… an ode to laundry. And laughed.

Harvest is coming. All hands to the field. I flew home, stopping at Peet's to get caffeine and a smile, and now face the sheaves of medical files. Time to bring them home. Loreena McKennitt serenades me from the living room sound system. The sheaves are lining up perfectly.

Selkie Summer Night

2010-08-09T20:18:00.000-07:00

Went to the beach tonight in search of my skin and eventually found it tucked under a pile of leafy kelp fronds. Guising myself I dove into the water. It was clearer and lighter than it has been in months.

No resistance. I glided through the surf effortlessly. Water is my element and I recall eons past when it was our home and we lived in the surf and rocks. This night I swam in the shallows until the sun was past the horizon, the New Moon rose, and the water became inky black like the seals. In the pitch I arose Melusina, and know who I am.

Scarabs and Second Chances

2010-07-30T21:17:00.000-07:00

This evening the beach was cool and overcast; just the way I love it the most. While walking in the surf I spied a scarab beetle on his back, in the wet sand, about to get overwhelmed with an incoming wave. I plucked him up and he grabbed on to me for dear life. His six tiny feet clutched me with gentle desperation, and I wondered what he thought of this giant looming over him, delivering him from certain death. It’s not often you get to play deus ex machina to another being.

He was so beautiful; an iridescent soft green covered with sand. I took him away from the roar and breeze of the surf to the soft sand near the base of the cliff. We had a visit while I brushed the wet sand off him and he started to revive. He began by waving his right front leg about and slowly began to groom the sand from his face.

He continued to cling strenuously to my hand and slowly became more animated. I think the warmth from my skin helped him recover from his ordeal. I sat down in the sand and talked with him a bit. He would stop his grooming and look at me, and for a brief moment I fancied we understood each other and the moment we shared. Endoskeleton and Exoskeleton. How often do we commune? Not so much I’m thinking. (but see another scarab entry August 29, 2009).

Once I was certain he was all right again I put him on a bamboo leaf, out of the wind and away from predators. Perhaps he is spending the night there. Good camouflage; fine shelter.

Many traditions hold that scarab beetles are symbols of rebirth and regeneration. Timely, my wee, emerald portend. Earlier this week the mother of a dear friend passed this Earth plane. I was honored to have been there for her passing and see her into the Light.

This little beetle reminds me that, no matter what our circumstance, we should never give up and never assume an outcome. We might be toes up wriggling in the wet quicksand with an advancing wave mere inches away, and something that wasn’t there thirty seconds before can pick us up, dust us off, and put us on a nice soft tree.

I had gone to the beach searching rocks and crystals. Turns out it was an evening for jewels; a beautiful jeweled insect who had a lot to show me about life and fate and making a difference.

Two Crows

2010-07-17T20:28:00.000-07:00

The animal world is amazing. They share our planet with us, and are ever our teachers if we open to their lessons. Last week I received a good lesson from the crows who live by me.

I love crows. And they seem to love me, too, as they have always allowed me to get close to them. On a misty morning I left early for work and encountered one of my regulars out scavenging for breakfast. She was striding through the dewy grass searching out worms and grubs and insects, and doing a fair job of finding them. We regarded each other as we do. She gave a low crawk of greeting and cocked her head to look at me closely. I told her, in low tones, how beautiful she was. She crawked more words to me. I watched her as she resumed her rustling for food, and then I turned to continue to my car.

After buckling in I stopped to marvel at how beautiful life is and how privileged I am to relate to these crows. I put the car in gear and headed out of my little housing development to the main street.

Just at the corner to the bustling main street I saw a fledgling crow smashed in the gutter, apparently hit by a car in the late evening or the early dawn. Clearly dead. And I could tell he was a fledgling by the color of his beak, still so bright to make it easier for parents to find to place food in. This young one had not judged traffic accurately, and thereby paid the price. It is a too frequent occurrence of late and always puts a lump in my throat. A few weeks ago I witnessed a crow being run over by an SUV that never stopped and it affected me deeply. How can people be so clueless and callous?

After my instant of adrenalin and horror passed I did what I do for animals who are killed by cars, and continued on the way to work, but remained shaken. As I was accelerating on the freeway ramp a gentle voice asked me: Which crow are you going to focus on now?

I thought about it. I had done what I could for the dead one. The live one was still there grubbing out her meal. Which crow would haunt me for the morning? It was then I realized I had a choice.

I could continue to feel shock and pain about the dead crow, taken too early, and too violently. I could continue to mentally image his poor broken wing at its dreadful angle from the road, feathers rustling in the morning air. I could continue to feel that pain all morning and stay in that vibration. And believe me it was tempting to stay there. I was still shaking with the emotion of the encounter.

Or I could remember the incredible honor and communication with the live crow, her words of greeting, her focus on her meal, and how that encounter raised my vibration to soaring heights.

The two encounters happened within ten minutes of each other. And each so different, and so polar opposite, vibrationally. I had to smile. Because of course I chose to stay vibrationally with the live crow.

In life we must make a conscious choice to keep our eye on the prize and our mind and body in alignment with positive vibrations. Of course sadness and low vibration events will come and we must attend to these situations. We must do what we must do. But then we need to wrap it up, conclude it, and…here’s the trick… Let. It. Go.

How often do we stay with the dead crow? How often do we hang on to something that is painful, and ignore or minimize the positive things coming in to our lives? I am not suggesting we abandon these painful situations, or ignore them, but we must keep our emphasis and our focus on the positive. The positive must be our default vibration. It is the only way we can continue to progess in our lives. By staying in the positive we can better do what we came here to do.

And so every time that morning, when the image of that sad, broken wing came into my head, I sent that crow a blessing and shifted to the image of the breakfast seeker and her low crawking greeting to me. And I marveled at the entire sequence.

My work day was very busy and full of a lot of negative and some positive and ended with my long drive home. I finally got in just before dusk, pulling up the drive quite tired and cringing at seeing some feathers still in the road as I approached. I turned off the ignition and sighed with letting the day go. I thought of the dead crow, blessed it, and refocused. I gathered my purse and tote and stepped out. And looked up. There, greeting me, were two live crows walking in the grass looking for dinner.

Two crows. One, my morning companion, looked up and crawed at me and resumed beaking about the blades of grass. The other merely regarded me mutely and picked up a beetle. Tears stung my eyes at the beauty.

Mitaku Oyasin is Lakota for ‘all my relations’ but it means so much more than just those words. It has no complete translation, but encompasses everything as one family and as one learning spirit. We have so much to learn, and the world has so much it can teach us. Watch for the crows in your life. Take the lessons they offer.

Carefree Summer Days

2010-07-01T20:18:00.000-07:00

A Summer Weekend looms – a long holiday one here in the States as we celebrate July 4. Puts me in mind of a particular childhood summer in Pennsylvania. That was the summer I essentially lived with a British family and it was the start of my funny way of slipping into an accent that defies localization. My Brit friends know well that I get “a case of the Madonnas” when I’m around them; the timbre of my voice changes and I start saying GARE-age instead of gar-AHJuh. I go on holiday, not vacation, and everything comes out of my mouth a wee bit more English sounding.

That magical summer during my youth was one of great creativity. Kids were given free rein to create. There was a mad cacophony of projects: a toothpick Eiffel Tower in one corner; painting canvases in another; and game boards for never ending Monopoly games, some kind of farm game, and Battleship were always set up in the caravan /travel trailer. In the back room we spent hours assembling bones from animal skeletons we found in the woods and we played museum keepers trying to put them together. It looked like some grisly experiment of cat, gopher, and rat bones. The great Golden Labrador named Costas spent his days flaked out on a frayed Persian rug, smiling, and thumping his tail whenever we walked by, no doubt because we dropped bits of food everywhere. There was endless food in the kitchen. It was HEAVEN!

I staged plays and radio shows. My Grandfather had given me a reel-to-reel tape recorder and I would interview anyone and everyone, and then would edit and present it ‘radio style’ from a booth I rigged in the GARE-age. We hung sheets and staged plays of our own imagination. We were kings and queens and ace fighter pilots and intrepid explorers. We wrote plots of murder, betrayal, and revenge and – since it was the cold war in those days – intrigue involving Russian spies.

Sean Connery was James Bond then and the local bakery, Bond Bread, took advantage of the coincidence of name and sold loaves with end wrappers featuring photos from the movies. We collected them all into a mad collage of black and white stills from spy films and put them up on our theatre walls. We bragged about how when we each grew up we would have Aston Martins and speed around the countryside saving the free world.

We trooped down to the creek with Costas in the evening and sailed boats made of plywood with ripped sheet sails. We built dams and temporarily incarcerated frogs and toads, always freeing them at night to return to their lives on the banks of the stream. At night we lay on the grass, got devoured by mosquitoes, and stared up at the constellations, making charts of the stars and sneaking them to bed with us so we could sit under blankets with our flashlights and compare them to the star charts in our books. We captured fireflies and put them in bottles and watched the fluorescence. We let them go after a few hours. Unless we forgot. And if we did and they died we buried them with honors worthy of Egyptian pharaohs in the morning.

Crystals were everywhere, or so it seemed to me. I collected them all summer and put them in boxes by category and pulled them out late at night in bed and held them, felt their power and compared how different ones buzzed in different ways. We passed them around and felt their energy.

All summer long we created and laughed and learned about life and the environment.

And yet we attended no summer camps, participated in no programs or classes, and had no formal structure to our days. We had neither teachers nor seminars, and days would go by without us ever getting in a car or going anywhere other than where we went on foot. The only television I recall us watching was Gilligan’s Island, which we would sit and sing to and mock endlessly with our own lyrics.

Yet somehow this summer of our imaginations was one of the best of my life. It was a magical time of friendships, of exploration, and of self-realization. Adults served merely to provide us with food and - as I look back on it – overall protection from the elements. The odd scraped knee was bandaged and kissed. Bad language was sharply reprimanded. Laundry was ordered picked up. Other than that, it was Lord of the Flies without the bad bits and with gentle structure. We were kings and queens and we found our very essence that year.

It was not all jolly for me that summer. There was some ugliness on another front. But while I was in this household I learned what it was to be myself, and unleash the creative person unafraid. And I knew what it was to be free and to be loved and to be embraced for who I was.

What a blessing. I wish all children such summers. I wish it for all adults, too.

Pause

2010-06-27T11:26:00.000-07:00

Our Western society is all about rushing and achieving something immediately measurable. And this has value. It’s nice to accomplish things and build a society. One needs a certain drive in order to create things.

I think, though, that our society has forgotten how to pause. I think that in this rush to surpass and build and make the latest, greatest thing and to keep up with other nations who are surpassing and building too – whew!- our society has forgotten to balance by taking a pause.

And we have totally blocked the notion that it is in the pause that the magic really happens. It’s in the reflection, and in the moment of cessation of forward motion, that the ideas flow and the spark that is the very essence of creativity can find its way into our minds.

The great inventors and artists know this. But I think that generally the everyday person forgets, because they are so busy they feel they can’t pause. Even our days off have a tendency to become over scheduled with activity because the media suggests we have to have these elaborate social lives in order to keep up. But the trick of it all is that in the pausing, we become more productive overall. Funny, that.

Did you pause to look up this past week? We had a very beautiful Full Moon. My friends from all over the world have remarked on this particular Moon. Very lovely. Very nice energy.

I stepped out on a second floor balcony and photographed it just as the coastal fog was moving in with clouds and mist. The effect was beautiful – as if the Moon were being held aloft by celestial hands.

I sat for a bit and the clouds dissipated and made their way into other shapes and forms. I was so fortunate to be there for the moment of the clasped hands formation.

For some reason this Moon encouraged me to take out my paints and start pushing color around on paper (as Jackie would say;
Jackie of the magical paintings I adore and admire so much: http://drawingalineintime.blogspot.com)

I am not a graphic artist. It’s not how I make my living. My work is for my eyes and for my soul and will never be displayed or sold anywhere. For me pushing the colors around gives me a chance to put my shoulders down and it’s then that stuff starts appearing in my mind and suddenly problems are in perspective and solutions and plans and ideas are all lined up ready for action. If I hadn’t paused to paint, well then I’d still be churning with the problem.

As I write this we are still in the influence of the Full Moon. If you go outside tonight she will still be very round and very sweet, this Strawberry Moon.

I encourage you to take a moment and go outside and look up for a few minutes. And get still and let the calm wash over you as you realize the infinity that surrounds you and further realize that, like the moon in the photo, you are indeed supported by unseen hands. And that you do matter and that you are important and that indeed all will be well. No matter what you have to accomplish.

It’s ok to pause. I give you permission.

Summer Solstice 2010

2010-06-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

Happy Summer Solstice, Everyone. I hope you’re noting or observing it in some fashion.

Whether you sit back with a glass of sweet tea and watch fireflies; Whether you lie on the grass and listen to Paul Winter Consort perform their magnificent music; Whether you go for a swim and feel the water on your body on a summer afternoon; Whether you sit and look at the stars and marvel at our place in the universe, and wonder at how our planet wobbles around our own star and how the wobbling creates our seasons; However you do it, do pause. Take a moment and feel the change in the season. We are literally tipping in a different direction. Stop and take a few minutes and center yourself in the place that is our Earth; the place that is ours in the middle of this vast universe.

Because, if we each pause, we will remember to send love to the Earth. And that is part of how the Earth heals.

I sit on the cliffs and watch the pristine blue of the Pacific. How clear and clean it is. I see the kelp wash up and birds hunting in the surf. I see people and dolphins playing. Elsewhere in different waters this Solstice it is not thus. Humans have done a bad thing and the Earth hurts. We have to fix it.

Happy Summer Solstice, Everyone.

Wind Shaping

2010-05-31T10:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I spent time meditating at the gardens of the ashram. It was a holiday Sunday so lots of tourists were present snapping camera shutters at everything, even me. I know how an animal in a zoo must feel. Oh look: a pale bellied middle-aged contemplator! Just sitting there on a bench facing the ocean! How unusual!

At first these tourists were distracting. And then I realized that this place blessed all of them, whether they understood the full special-ness of it, or whether this was just a place some family member made them walk through on the way to the surfing beach, because it is in the brochure of Things To Do.

I saw a man in his forties regard an oncoming flock of pelicans in full V formation. The man spread his arms wide toward them and threw his head back as they flew over him. He got it.

I saw a small family break out a wind instrument and start to softly sing and dance together as they faced the ocean. They got it.

I saw a sullen faced pair of young men, faces down as they scowled along behind a couple of older parental looking types. One spied the otherworldly bloom of the proteus bush and said “Gnarly”. The other replied, “Kewl”. They were opening up to get it.

I changed benches to get out of the sun for a bit. Once established in the shade I saw before me a beautiful bottlebrush tree. Its crown was polished by the ocean wind.

Oh how our lives are like this. We are shaped by our environment. Each of us is unique because of our life path. We are all beautiful. We come from different places, and we are shaped by those places and the experiences we have there. Just like those tourists I saw who had never seen a palmetto scrub and were so moved they were snapping photos. Beautiful. Welcome.

Sand Pose

2010-05-25T20:29:00.000-07:00

The beach is my work out gym; no member fee required. Here I find healing and exercise and peace of mind. Today I went at highest tide, with barely a skirt of sand between the surf and the cliffs. I nestled in to the rocks at the base of the wall and did stretches, yoga, and chants, with the sea rushing around my ankles with each pulse of ebb and flow. My private room on the Pacific.

Such energy! Such power! All negativity pulled away from me. My chants are carried away in the strong onshore wind. My shoulders slowly come down. My heart slowly opens once more.

Crow is here again. He sits on the cliff and turns his head upside down regarding me as I do downward facing dog. He must wonder at my awkward gyrations. Egret flies over and rolls her eyes at me.

I am alone but not alone. A dozen yards to either side of me are other humans in a similar self -absorbed ritual. No tourists here today. The tide and the location baffle all but locals. Even my flirt of surfers is tavern-side, awaiting less rip current and chop.

Sunday Sea

2010-05-23T17:55:00.000-07:00

More ocean today. Gold sparkles in the wet sand. White caps and violent waves even at ebb tide. Sand slipping out from under my feet as the surf retreats. I charge crystals in the swirling water and receive multiple drenching ‘blessings’ (!) by rogue waves.

Great piles of kelp swarming with flies and tickled by scurrying sand crabs. Cold clear wind. Sweet masculine flirt of surfers who wink by with a toss of bleached hair and ripple of wetsuit. Belly laughs grabbed by the wind and taken around the world. Shadows of spirit on the cliffs, and echos of chants in my head. My rucksack is heavy with treasures. The crystals are charged and giggling. An altogether beautiful day. I am most fortunate.

Crows and Mother Water

2010-05-22T19:02:00.000-07:00

Lots of strife going on right now. Friends are ill and in hospital. There is nasty conflict and betrayal in certain arenas I must frequent. Other friends are grieving and require support. I feel the need to ground and recharge. Big time. So off I go to the Water, which for me is the Pacific Ocean.

Water helps us navigate between the two worlds: the World of Form, and the World of the Invisible (well, invisible to us, generally speaking). We live in the World of Form. The World of the Invisible is everything else. And there is a lot of it, that invisible world. It is in the invisible world that we gain energy and wisdom.

Society does not encourage us to explore the World of the Invisible. For that we need guides, both human and spirit. Elements such as Water. Shamans. Navigators. Teachers. Mediums. These help us explore. They cannot do the exploration for us. But they can guide us, and reinforce the way.

And that’s where the crow comes in. They know well both worlds and travel easily between them. They are the original: the best shape shifters of all. I love them. They are one of my totems. They seem to like me, too.

One day last week I went out of my door and found a feather laying there for me. It was a coal black feather from a fledging crow. Still had fluff and scaling around the shaft. That baby is just learning to fly. I looked up to see several crows sitting in the eucalyptus tree, regarding me. We have an agreement, they and I. We stared at each other in silence for a few moments. “Fly” they seemed to say. The oldest one turned her head to look at me from several angles. I told her she was beautiful. She gave a soft caw. It was a caress.

Later that same day I went to walk at the water’s edge and beheld a crow at a pile of kelp. While not unheard of this is rather unusual. Typically we see gulls and varieties of surf running birds on the beach. But this day it was a crow, feasting on kelp flies. Seeing him made me smile.

The crows are with me. All is well.

A Wing and a Prayer

2010-05-18T19:25:00.000-07:00

Well, My Darlings, I’ve been a bit MIA lately and I apologize for that. So much has been going on. And it’s been an emotional roller coaster. But on balance a good one.

First (the challenging part): Two close friends were hospitalized with scary maladies and accordingly lots of psychic energy and time went to them (they are well). Second: (the fascinating but tiring part): the forensic medium-ship aspect of my life has been extremely busy with a lot of medical record reviews and reports.

Then (the raucous and loving part): the ICDI convention was in town. I got to take class with incredibly gifted people and see and play with friends I only get to visit in person a few times a year. And it isn't everyday you get to see Louise Hay come onstage wearing a flowing golden cowl and announce she was just awarded a doctoral degree at age 83. And (the joyful part): I’ve been working on the book; in general staying in a very positive flow of joy and happy-ness.

The final thing taking my attention (the obsessive part): Molly’s owlets ( ref: March 15) are now fledging. Nightly thousands of us orb in via the internet and watch as the teenagers take their tentative first steps outside the owl box, sit on the fledging shelf and contemplate the mechanics of flight and rodenticide.

Watching these beautiful young birds puts me in thought about the emotion and fear associated with life path actions. Nightly the owlets poke their bobbing heads out of the door, regard the sky, stare at the trees, poke a foot out, step out, and step back in. They will sit on the perch for thirty minutes at a time and flap their wings, never letting go of the perch with their feet. The younger ones remain in the box and stare out at their older siblings in wonder and encouragement. OMG! They seem to say. Whatcha doing? OMG! Look at you!

They are testing their wings and building strength. They are feeling the air in their feathers and smelling the night sky. They are learning the sounds of squeaks that signal a meal is near, and as well the sounds of the soft pant and tread of coyotes, signaling a time of danger.

The chat room streams with human emotion wishing them safety and strength. When will they take flight? When will they complete their first hunt? Anxiety and anticipation! Such human qualities. We are a frail, fearful species. And we have such anxiety about the future!

The owls know. They will know when to let go of the perch. They aren’t fearful. They are discerning. They understand the time of testing, the time of contemplation. They do sufficient of that to gain understanding and strength and then they act. They leap into the night sky with the faith that this is life, and it is time to let go and take themselves into an unknown; an unknown that holds the future. No anxiety. Just confidence, exploration, and action.

We humans can take such lessons from the owls. We tend to hold on to the perch past the point of learning. We hold on when we should be taking flight. I suppose we do it out of fear. How silly. How wasteful.

It’s time for flight. Let go.

[photo by Carlos Royal]

How Now Brown Cow

2010-04-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the simplest things can hurl you back in time to a memory from long ago. This morning while I was driving on a SoCal freeway, a truck pulled in front of me. It was a dairy truck and painted on the back was a picture of a smiling brown cow, winking at me from over a fence.

Immediately I was flung back to a childhood memory of My Brown Cow. I called her Bess; a more elegant version of "Bossy". She was a Brown Swiss, and she grazed in the field in back of my parents’ home. She lived in a barn that was one of the last rural farms in that part of Pennsylvania. The suburbs of Philadelphia had all but crowded out the cows at that point in time.
Bess knew I would bring her an apple and a face rub. Every day I would come home from grade school, enter my parents’ front door and race through the kitchen and out the back door, and every day there she would be, standing at the corner of the yard, on the other side of the fence, waiting for me. Every day. She was there. Every day I would hug her and kiss her nose, wet though it was, and talk to her and tell her about my day. And every day those immense liquid brown eyes would take in the stories of my triumphs and failures, my proud achievements and my abject disappointments. She’d crunch her apple. I’d comb her soft coat. I’d braid her tail hair. Once I put ribbons in it.

One day when I ran out, she wasn’t there. I waited and finally left the apple on the fence post. I never saw her again.

A few years later we moved to the farm in Maine. My father had determined he wanted to ‘go back to the earth’ and so bought a small dairy farm that had a herd of about forty cows. It was there I learned the composition of a good dairy herd; the mix needed to produce the best overall butterfat content: Holstein for volume, Guernsey and Jersey for high butterfat, Brown Swiss for balance. We also had a magnificent Ayreshire, resplendent with horns, for character. Her name was Ramona.

Cherie was the Grande Dame of the herd. An older lady, she had reached the age where she could no longer be bred, and her milk production was diminished. My tender heart wanted to keep her as a pet. I flashed back to Bess and poured out my love on Cherie. I pleaded with my father not to sell Cherie and screamed and clung to her when the slaughter wagon came and the butcher put a rope around her neck to take her away. I still have a photograph in my mind of her huge wise eyes as they regarded my father pulling me off her as I hit him and tried vainly to bargain: I would pay for her feed, I would make sure she was not a burden. Promising, promising, but to no use. Cherie knew full well what was happening. She was more resigned than I and went calmly to her fate. She understood she had no options. I did not yet accept that I too had no options at that point in my life. So I fought. She accepted. I never saw her again.

Rebecca was a small Jersey. Every day in the summer I would go out to the field to call in the herd, and as she was heavily pregnant she was reluctant to get up and walk back to the barn. Every day I would go and sit down and cajole her to move. And finally she would, slowly and with great effort, get up making soft sounds of protest and woofs of exertion. I would nestle myself against her hip, with her swollen belly in front of me and my arm flung over her soft back. We would slowly walk back to the barn each night that way.

I went away to college and one day I came home and all the cows were gone. My father had wearied of dairy farming. Another phase over; another hobby discarded. I never saw them again.

My memories of cows are warm and wonderful. The feel of their soft hair. The snorfting sound they make when they breathe. The gentle nuzzle of their head as they ask for a treat or a hug. They are sweet, pacific creatures who possess wisdom and emotion, and who form attachments as we do. And I just love them.

So you’ll excuse me when I decline to go with you to the steak house. Or refuse to eat a fast food burger. Yes, I know it’s the cycle of life, but it’s no longer the cycle of my life. The mass production of beef is immoral and cruel. And I owe it to Bess and Cherie and Rebecca and the others.

By the Dark of the Moon

2010-04-11T09:28:00.000-07:00

We are within the influence of New Moon for the next few days: a time to conclude and prepare.

The New Moon energy is wonderfully suited to clearing out, making room, and formulating plans. Wrap up the work that you have been laboring on for the past four weeks. Look forward to what is coming and plan what you shall accomplish or achieve in the next four weeks. Gather up that which must leave your life and set it free – and this especially means energetic junk that has no use for you. Let pain and resentment go away in a little pink bubble or something – just let it go. Clear away the detritus that has attached itself to you in the past lunar cycle, so that you can enter the next all clean and shiny. With ongoing projects, make note of your accomplishments, and gauge what you can make progress on in the next month. Give thanks for guidance and resources received.

The Time of the Dark is also useful for time dimension work. History reveals itself more easily during this moon energy. Take time to meditate on your life events, and see what lessons and knowledge reveal that you have not yet understood regarding your life path. I like to sit outside when I do this, and dig my feet into the earth. But you can do it in your 20th floor condo if you like. Just do it.

And consider too, what I call the ‘backwards casting spell’. What you think and intend in the present can affect the past. Think back and intend accordingly. If only you send soothing comforting energy to a past difficult time, that is a help. For many, this is a strange and advanced concept. I assure you: it is not only possible, it is remarkable.

Moon work typically makes use of lunar energy for three days before, and three days after the actual moment of a moon phase. We’re in the New Moon influence now. So take some time now to balance your life and you will benefit from the harmony you create.

Crystal Charging 101

2010-03-30T19:42:00.000-07:00

As I write it’s a beautiful springtime Full Moon; perfect for charging crystals and setting your house in order for the coming season. In the past week I’ve had no less than five people ask about charging crystals, so here we go. Crash course Crystal Charging 101. Take advantage of the conditions; we won’t have them again for another 28 days.

Crystals? Charging? Does this require donning a long cloak, walking around your house aiming large quartz points in the air, muttering arcane chants, and having cats ‘twining round your ankles? Hmmmm. Well it could…sounds like fun, actually... but no, we are above all else, practical people leading practical lives and that sort of ‘in a hood in a wood’ theatrical display just isn’t part of most people’s lives. Besides the neighbors will stare. Even here in SoCal.

If you are new to all this you might also imagine you don’t have any crystals lying about in need of charging but I’ll bet you do. Remember that gemstones are crystals. I’ll bet you have some of those. A diamond ring? An amethyst brooch? A tiger’s eye pendant? Some topaz earrings? An emerald bracelet? An onyx bangle? All crystals. Why do you think humankind started mining and polishing and faceting these stones? Because they have power. Because they channel and direct power. And that can be useful in many, many ways.

Think I’m a kook? Well, you wouldn’t be the first! But think about it. In Judeo-Christian lore, the breastplate of the priests of Levi was chock full of crystals, arranged in a very deliberate manner. Think about how every monarch of ancient times encircled their head with crystals mounted in gold, and held scepters and orbs encrusted with crystals. They still do. Google the Opening of Parliament in Britain and watch Her Majesty enter with her crown and scepter. Why? Symbols of wealth and power. Read it clearly: Power. Esoteric knowledge and power.

In ancient times people were more fluent in crystal use, and employed them in healing, in spiritual ritual, and in meditation. A lot of people still do, but it has fallen away from the mainstream. Some of us are working to bring back this information for everyday use. It’s being well received, because it’s natural, and it’s common to all faiths and cultures. This is not scary stuff. This is just working with nature and physics.

But I digress. Charging crystals. Over time and with use, crystals drain of energy, and the ability to direct energy. They need charging, just like a battery. That’s where the moon comes in. Luna, when full, has a great ability to charge things with energy. I don’t know why. I’m not a physicist or astronomer. I just know it’s true. The energy can be accessed whether you can see the moon or not; whether it’s a clear night or cloudy or a downpour. Moonlight is merely a tracer, like the color of a laser is not the laser itself. The energy is there regardless of the atmospheric conditions. If you can see the moonglow, that’s lovely. It sure feels good to sit out in it and have a good think.

In order to charge up crystals, they’ll need to be set out in reach of this energy. And they have to be clean, or they can’t take it in. With use, crystals pick up negative energy, and get waterlogged, if you will, with it. If you don’t clean them, it would be like taking a cloth that’s sodden with mud, and setting it in a champagne bath and wondering why it isn’t all beautiful and sparkly.

There are a number of ways to cleanse crystals, but since this is Charging 101 and we’re sticking to basics I won’t get into detail other than to say if the crystal can withstand water (like your gemstones can) just rinse them off under running water and send intention that any negative energy that has attached to the stone flow away and down the drain. If they aren’t waterproof (like kyanite for example) you can use other means, the easiest of which is to pass it through incense smoke and again, intend that any negative energy leave it. If you are digging out ancient jewelry you haven’t worn in ages, take a soft toothbrush and a little mild dish soap to it, and shine it up. That’s just being polite. You’ve ignored it for years; show that crystal you care. I love to take my crystals down to the ocean and swish them in the surf. Do that and watch them sparkle!

Then, once they are clean, place your crystals out where they can get the night air, and where the neighbors, human or otherwise, won’t make off with them. (Skunks and raccoons and crows are notorious thieves of crystals - they love their gleam and energy). You can set them inside on a windowsill; you can put them out on a patio, or on anywhere they can get the air. I love to place mine right in the beam of the rising moon. I have a friend who puts his on the roof of his house. I met a masseuse in Las Vegas who always took his hot stone massage stones to the roof of Bellagio each Full Moon. Get them out there!

And leave them as long as you feel is appropriate. I leave them out all night. I don’t have any gems that have monetary value, so it’s easy for me. If I had a large diamond, though, I’d take precautions! And we can discuss ‘between charging’ techniques another time. Tonight is just Charging 101.

Traditional wisdom has it that you can access this energy for three days before and three days after the actual Full. So there is no need to stress! You’ll know when to do it. After a little experience, you’ll feel a tug when the time is just right.

So go through your drawers and find that jewelry. Find those crystals you bought at the Renaissance Faire. Give them a swish in water and set them out. Bring them in around dawn, or before the sun gets too high in the sky. I guarantee that if you charge up your jewelry, you will notice a difference in their appearance, and the way they feel when you wear them.

There’s so much more to crystals, and I am in the process of writing all sorts of things for you. I am blessed to have been taught by the best: some information I got from Judy Hall through her books, some from studying under my beloved teacher Lisa Williams, and some is channeled from Spirit. Tonight, though, it’s about getting those of you who have crystals languishing away in drawers to get them out, polish them up and start using them again. Good for you; good for the crystal; good for the planet.

Enjoy! And when you place your crystals out, look up at Luna. And know that all over the world, people are doing the same thing. It’s beautiful. It’s of the Light. It’s Positive.

And we can all use more of that!

Owl

2010-03-15T19:15:00.000-07:00

In a nearby town we have a young owl who has taken up her nest in an owl box that has a camera in it. We are all mesmerized. Soon there will be five hatchlings.

Her mate rests near by in a palm tree and brings her take-out of rabbit and squirrel and rat. She fluffs her down, and coos to her unborn owlets.

She is Raptor Madonna. She is the most beautiful creature in the world.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-owl-box

photo by Carlos Royal

Crystals in the Fountain

2010-03-13T19:46:00.001-08:00

These crystals were formed long before I walked this Earth, in any of my incarnations. And now they sit in my garden fountain; a delight to the birds and all who glimpse them.

Where will they go when I am gone from this plane? And by what marvelous route will they get there? What other lives will they charm with their energy and focused vibration?

Crow

2010-03-09T20:17:00.000-08:00

It’s been a grim couple of weeks since I last wrote. Chelsea, a young woman in our neighborhood, was raped, murdered, and discarded in a marsh. The man who stands accused is additionally implicated in the rape and murder of another young woman; Amber: who disappeared a year ago and whose remains have now finally been located. It has been a busy, busy, sad time.

Interesting, how Amber’s remains have been found within a week of this man being incarcerated and left alone in a room with police.

As I take my evening walk tonight I see my crows: the large murder of crows who nightly hunt along my route. Each evening they mass, take reconnaissance, and scavenge the area. These wise creatures: these messengers from Spirit. They caw to me and permit me to approach. I walk amongst them, several dozen of them and they regard me without fear. I draw close and feel their energy. There is respect, I for them and they for me.

Crow energy has always felt close to me, and tonight more so. They know. Surely they saw what happened. They fly these skies each night. They see all. They know what happened to Chelsea. They know what happened to Amber. These percipient Corvidae know.

Hawk

2010-02-21T17:08:00.000-08:00

Today I’m led to relate a tale of something that happened to me years ago. It involves a hawk, disability, community, and fear.

One day I was out walking the canyon in back of my home. It’s a long shallow canyon that follows a creek path. People have lived along this creek for hundreds of years; there are always artifacts to find from native populations of centuries past. Indeed, I have the occasional citizen from those days pass through my house. I’m now used to the sight of an older Native American man who stops by from time to time. “Hi!” I wave. He has taken to waving back before dissolving into mist. He used to startle me. Now I just wave. “Hi!”

Anyway, back to the canyon. I was walking along the top rim and approaching the gate at which one enters to descend to the creek level and a path that proceeds along the creek bank. People were flowing up and out and admonished me not to go down – there was danger! One was holding a small dog and couldn’t move quickly enough. “What is going on?” I asked. “There’s a hawk down there!” someone answered. Well, I thought that unless it was some were-hawk from a fantasy movie I was hardly in any real danger so of course I went against the flow of people and hurried down the canyon slope to the grassy stretch that preceded the creek. My friends will hardly be surprised at this.

And sure enough there he was. A magnificent young hawk, just sitting in the path. His feathers gleamed in the sun, and his gaze was steady and sharp. He was incredible! And about ten feet away from him stood two people as rapt in admiration as was I. They related that the hawk had been sitting there for over an hour. Well something was clearly wrong. I went over to him and crouched down, respectfully. He glared at me with his sharp eyes. I reached over ever so slowly and he allowed me to touch his head feathers. His eyes never left me, and I lowered my gaze to reduce the threat he may have felt. I took off my sunglasses to reduce the Big Eye appearance. I narrowed my own eyes, well aware that this young hawk could have blinded me in a second. But he didn’t. I will never forget his energy and his soul. It was indescribable and magnificent.

The three of us humans started phoning every agency we could think of. Finally the Harbor Police referred us to a raptor rescue organization and one more phone call led to the assurance that a hawk whisperer was being dispatched. By now it was getting dark. As twilight descended the hawk loped off, trotting with his wings outstretched. We attempted to follow him, but lost him in the tall grasses. So we climbed up to the road and shortly the Hawk Whisperer arrived.

“We lost him!” we mourned.

“Where did you last see him?” the Hawk Whisperer asked.

“There” we pointed in the darkness. The Hawk Whisperer donned a pair of heavy leather gloves, scanned the pitch-dark canyon for a moment and walked out. Within a few minutes he returned carrying the hawk. How he found him in that tall grass and the pitch dark I do not know. That is his wisdom. He gently placed the hawk into a large animal transport crate and left.

A day later the raptor rescue organization called with an update. He was young and unskilled they told me. He was starving and had no strength left. Had we not rescued him the coyotes would have killed him that night. It happens a lot, they told me, with hawks and eagles and falcons. The raptor rescue people were teaching him to hunt, and planned to release him into the wild in a few weeks. That was the last I heard.

These events caused me to reflect on a number of things. Of fear, for one. Why were the people scrambling up the canyon wall afraid? They were actually the ones who endangered the hawk. He was nearly powerless against them, had they chosen to engage him. Yet they did not know that. They ran in blind fear. I also reflected on community. It took the three of us strangers calling around on our cell phones to find the necessary help. I never saw those two people again.

And then there came the Hawk Whisperer. He came from where I do not know to help that young hawk. He came because a message went out over invisible pathways, summoning him. Did the hawk, once disabled, ever conceive of him? Or in what form, or indeed whether help would come? Did the young hawk know Hawk Whisperers exist? Or did he just send out a message of despair and hope? And, perhaps, of expectation?

To this day when a raptor cries to me from the sky I wonder whether it is My Hawk. And whether he remembers.

And I am reassured that Angels exist. That help is always at the ready. Help that we cannot conceive of in our little imaginations. And that all we need to do is put the message out.

The Quiet Valentine

2010-02-12T20:55:00.001-08:00

Here’s to the ones who are no longer here. Here’s to those who are passed from this life but who still live in our hearts and minds. Here’s to those who continue to guide us with love (and great humor) from the ineffable beyond; the place from which we all come and shall one day return.

On this Valentine’s Day, so many of my friends remember holidays past with lovers and loves who are no longer here in tangible form. Chocolates. Kisses. Hand in hand walks on sugar sand beaches. The glance that needs no words to explain it. The soft smile that says what no glib phrase could ever express.

Today I walked the water’s edge at my beloved cove and saw the skeletons of sea creatures passed. Life is fleeting. Love is eternal.

Happy Valentine’s Day. Don't hesitate.

Listen to Your Own Wisdom

2010-02-04T05:57:00.001-08:00

This morning it is all over the news that James Arthur Ray has been arrested on manslaughter charges for his role in the Sweat Lodge Deaths last year. The superficial story is that he had organized a sweat lodge experience near Sedona, a number of people were overcome with heat stroke and three died. Some witnesses are saying that when people fell ill James refused to let them leave the hut.

Such a tragedy. And it seems to me that fear is involved all around.

Imagine being so enthralled with a teacher that you ignore your own internal warning system, and persist in an environment that your body is screaming at you is dangerous and harmful. People must have set aside the urge to leave in order to stay, either out of fear that the group or James himself would ridicule them, or that they would be failing some test.

I can’t know what James was thinking, of course, but I wonder whether he was so caught up in an ego state that he denied to himself that the whole thing was going very badly and should be stopped. That he for a moment believed his own hype and urged people to remain in the heat, even as they were dying, in order to establish himself as a leader. Fear of failure. Of public failure.

Such a sad, sad business. Fear has been well described as False Evidence Appearing Real. I think today we might each observe our own experiences and see where fear plays a role. When do we act contrary to internal wisdom in order to satisfy something external which has no basis in reality; some fear based delusion that only works to harm us?

Be brave, my darlings, be brave. Listen to your heart. And act according to the magical guidance of Source, which is always true, and always wise. And remember the old saying: If you knew for one moment, who walked beside you every minute of every day of your life, you would never again know fear.

Storms and Love and Cameras

2010-01-23T20:37:00.000-08:00

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." – Nelson Mandela

Last Wednesday these words played out for me in vivid experience. I had the immense good fortune to be photographed by Adam Bouska for the NOH8 Campaign.

In case you don’t know: NOH8 is a silent, non-violent protest against Proposition 8, using the medium of photography. Prop 8 is the referendum that, by a narrow margin, struck down marriage equality in California, and made it illegal for gay people to marry; a right they had enjoyed previously,albeit briefly.

I’m straight, and support the rights of all people to marry. To me it’s not appropriate that the State discriminates in this way. Churches can do whatever they want; it isn’t my place to comment on them. But it is my place to speak out when I see State action that goes against the nature of my work of helping people to heal and nurture their spirituality and thereby lead more fulfilled lives of love and productivity. Adam and his partner Jeff are speaking out through their art. They are not playing small. Their idea has grown from a 2:00 am whimsy to an incredible project with thousands of people presenting to become a part of this growing art piece.

So after a long day of work, errands, and appointments, I headed to a rendezvous with Adam and Jeff. There was a violent storm raging that night with torrential rain, winds, and even hail. Accompanied by my friend Laura and her daughter Kat, I arrived a block away from the venue, scampered down the alley and ducked into the entrance of one of the fabulous old offices in the Hillcrest area of San Diego. Little hallways and stairs slowly led back to Old Spanish style rooms that were absolutely fabulous in spite of the wear and tear of decades of use. As we wended our way up and down and all around the puddle soaked path we met people leaving the shoot; every one of them in jubilant spirits, and all wearing the proscribed white shirts and face paint. Even though we were strangers we’d smile conspiratorially at each other and say warm words of greeting. And then…we were in the offices and part of the shoot.

It was magical. There was so much love in that room. While Laura and Kat were being photographed I noticed a lovely man and his partner in the next room, cooing to their toddler and playing with him. They were a family in all but the State’s eyes. People were happy and laughing and making conversations with new acquaintances. Everyone was of one accord. There was great diversity in the room; diversity of age ( I may have been the oldest, though!), of race, of economics, and yet we were all one group. And there was nothing but love. And as the flash bulbs popped, the Lady Gaga music played, and Adam directed my every twitch for an amazing few minutes, I felt overwhelmed and almost started to cry, because the energy in the room was so intensely positive and beautiful. I had come from an exhausting workday, a week of tonsillitis, and a missed stylist appointment from the previous night. I looked like a wookie from being out in the rain, and yet I felt beloved and welcome. The storm raged overhead, yet we were warm and in the heart of love. I felt like I was at home. I didn’t want the feeling to end; I didn’t want the experience to stop.

And it didn’t, because later, after more driving in the continuing storm, I finally arrived to my snug home and to the above Mandela quote, provided by my friend Taylor in stunning synchronicity to my witnessing of Adam and Jeff’s work. (Taylor has a knack for this with me). I laughed and cried at the flow and amazing serendipity of the entire evening. Bless you Taylor, Adam, Jeff, Laura, Kat, and the people whose names I never got.

I wish you all evenings like this, whatever the origin of the flow, and however the company comes about. The more we can stay in love; the more we can stay in joy and happiness, and at time silliness; the more we keep our lives magical. And by staying in that energy, we can create anything.

Vital Signs

2010-01-14T15:38:00.000-08:00

Having been felled by an upper respiratory bug, I’m home watching coverage of the earthquake in Haiti. Devastation. Pain. Destruction. More pain. It’s almost too heart wrenching to watch. I sent my money to my favorite charity (who arrived within hours and are working furiously). I sent off prayers and energy. What else can one do, when one is far removed geographically?

I grabbed another hot toddy for my throat and pulled up the blanket and kept watching the telly. Watched CNN’s Dr Sanjay Gupta tenderly triage a days-old baby. The baby’s mum had died in the ‘quake and this little one had a head laceration but otherwise seemed ok. How random. If this little one had delayed her birth; had lingered in her mum’s warm body for a few days longer, this little one would be dead too. But she had emerged days, possibly hours before the tragedy, and as a result she lived, and her mum is dead. And she is broadcast all over the world; her little face scrunched up in indignation at Dr Gupta’s inquiry.

The one thread of beauty in all this is almost lost in the horror. From all over the world, help is pouring in. From China. From Iceland. From Venezuela. From Spain, Belgium, Canada they come. From Fairfax Virginia USA they come. So many planes. So many planes they had to halt landing on the damaged runways of Port au Prince. All those planes.

I had a vision of the planes; their landing gear extending as one by one they landed. Appearing out of the clouds. The clunk of landing gear. Touching down with a bump and a braking. Taxi to the edge. Help pouring off. And then another plane. More landing gear. Touching down. Landing gear. Landing gear. And in my vision I heard the Foo Fighters’ song: Wheels. And the whole vision was so beautiful my sore throat choked on tears. Plane after plane emerging and landing. From the clouds. Like the angels. Their wheels came down and they landed. When the wheels come down. When the wheels touch down..

From all over the world they come. We all come. Part of us is hurting.

We are one planet. We are one people. And it frequently takes tragedies like this to evidence it.

Godspeed the helpers. Godspeed the Lightworkers, whatever form they take.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c47fuMxVnBQ

Cold Dawn

2010-01-09T05:50:00.000-08:00

Seated in the dawn am I this morning. The air is crisp and cold, but not overly so. The sky is clear and a crescent Moon sparkles, blazing in the sky above me. It is more dark than light and Moon dominates the sky. Am blessed to live in SoCal, where we shall see 70 degrees F today. So much of this hemisphere elsewhere is locked in cold. Stay snug, everyone.

There is energy shifting like mad right now. Can you feel it? The optimism of the New Year remains, and yet there is a difficulty welling up too, trying to poke through the happiness. Is it all Mercury, which is currently in a retrograde? Is it our collective unconsciousness shambling towards the coming shift of 2012? Is it simply random, free flying negativity?

Seems the positive people in my life have been very positive. And the negative people in my life have been exceptionally dark. Polar extremes.

Celebrity astrologer and friend Adam Eliot (who is brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, by the way – do check him out) relates that we have eight more days of retrograde, and then a pause. Hmmm… don’t like the pause.

It seems to me that in these vexing retrograde times, the difficulties increase just toward the end of the retrograde progression, and that pause is a real…. Er… bear.

But knowing this; knowing that it’s nothing personal, it’s just conditions; that helps us maintain perspective. Like a choppy sea, or a windy day, it’s merely something to cope with as we go about our business. We don’t stop our lives because it’s cold outside. We bundle up, we heat the house, and we eat soup instead of ice cream. We deal. We face it headon and we deal.

So buckle up. We may be in for a bumpy ride (apologies to Bette Davis). But it’s just the road. Stay positive. Stay in magic. Stay in the Light.

(these images are from the Queen Calipha's Sculpture Garden in Escondido, California; the artist who did these magnificent sculptures and mosaics is Nikki St Phalle)

Gift of a Feather

2010-01-02T10:48:00.000-08:00

New Year’s Weekend. Bright and sunny. SoCal Perfection. Perfect for meditating, reading, catching up with friends and family, planning, surrendering, looking at the account books, scrubbing floors and walls, clearing out cupboards, cooking black eyed-peas, baking lemon cake.

I went out to the patio to feed some plants and replenish the hummingbird feeders. And there it was: a single hummingbird feather. Sitting on the large meditation stone as if delicately and purposefully placed there.

And all of a sudden I stopped. And grew calm. And a feeling of peace came over me. And I considered hummingbirds and their beauty. Their fragility. How they symbolize love as well as industry. Emotion and intellect.

And I considered how perhaps I have done sufficient planning and thought for one weekend. And now maybe now it would be best to just feel. Sit in the morning sun and experience the change of year and just experience how that feels. Out of my head and into my heart.

Maybe we all need to do that. Stop. Go and sit in a sunbeam. In a raincloud. On the sand. In the wood. Breathe. Experience how you feel. And what’s important. And what you really wish in the New Year.

Golden Orange Ginger Christmas

2009-12-25T10:27:00.000-08:00

With the magick of Christmas we are finally able to sneak on to Her keyboard – the thing that distracts Her from us so much of the time – and add our own thoughts to this thing She calls a ‘blog’.

She tells us that Jackie in Wales has a dedicated blog all for her cats and that they write on it daily. We wonder why She does not do this for us. But we so enjoy hearing the tales from Wales and all the mystery and magic that swirl around the House of Ginger in that realm.

Today our SoCal House is full of golden sunshine and tissue paper and magic as well. The sunbeams illume them like a stained glass window. People are always giving Her rocks, and today She has a rock with a bee inscribed on it.

And now the sunbeams call and we must answer in our meditative nap. And yield the laptop back to Her, for She has work to do.

Winter Solstice is Almost Here

2009-12-19T08:04:00.000-08:00

Wishing you a beautiful, light-filled Winter Solstice. May 2010 bring us all increased love, prosperity, peace, and magic.

Sourdough!

2009-12-17T16:48:00.000-08:00

OMG I can't believe how STUPID I have been!

Last night I dumped the starter down the drain as the bowl was resembling a pot of cheese. But it did not smell rotten; it smelled organic and somehow good in a weird, fermented old feet kind of way. So I thought: OK, I'll save a tablespoon of it and start again with that.

So I took the spoonful of stuff, which resembled sour cream in texture, and slopped it in a ramikin, and added some water and flour. And stared at it, thinking; I can't do the same thing again. What am I doing wrong? I want to see that hootch after a few days. Hootch. Alcohol as the byproduct of fermentation.... alcohol... alcohol.. OMG! It wants flour and SUGAR!

Gimme some sugar, baby! [said in manner of large voluptuous woman]

So I stirred in just a dusting of the cheap cane sugar I use to make the hummingbird nectar (C&H by the carton - it's great and the hummers prefer it to anything more exotic). Covered the ramikin and set it in a warm corner near the stove.

This morning: a thin layer of hootch! That's the ticket!

Seal Heal

2009-12-15T16:11:00.001-08:00

Today I required healing. So down to my favorite beach I went to find my Selkie Sisters and look for my long lost skin. Today I came close to finding it. Tucked in the rocks. Tucked in the seaweed. Tucked away in the crevasses of the shoreline where the gulls laugh and the squirrels chitter and play. Gran-mere Mellie whistles me along and I go to the water. The water. Where the healing happens.

Musings on cleaning the cat litter

2009-12-13T20:27:00.000-08:00

Ok so my stupid lupus is flaring and all I wanted to do today was to lie face down and drool and take painkillers, but that seemed like a defeatist attitude so I got up and cleaned the cats’ bathroom. They have the en suite bathroom in a spare bedroom and it tends to get hazy from litter. Clay dust gets kicked in the corners and clings to the fabric shower curtain. In his excitement at being alive, the young one sometimes misses and hits the puppy pads under the trays. In other words, it’s a barn if I don’t tend it every once and a while.

So I creaked and groaned as I leaned down to muck out litter boxes and scrub the floor in spite of my inflamed extremities. I also got to thinking about the scientific method. Why cat litter brought this about is a mystery, but there you have it. And I wondered when did we, as a society of humans, decide that the scientific method was the be-all end-all of analysis? When did it become the mock-able thing to do to listen to your intuition, your gut, that little voice in your head that warns in a very visceral way?

Everybody always says to listen to your gut, but then when you do, you often get chided. Try not taking a plane because you have a gut feeling. Everyone thinks you’re a nutter, especially when the plane later arrives without a hitch. Well, true, the rest of the passengers got there, but maybe you would have tripped in the jetway and broken your leg or something. It’s not always an air disaster that you get warned about.

I think intuitive knowledge got shoved aside when so-called modern medicine came into being, and medieval physicians did away with their main competition, the local wise woman, by burning them as witches. Away with herbalism and energy healing. In with medicine and the industry it became. Away with anyone who had intuitive abilities. In with those who embraced legalism and evidentiary proof.

It became unsafe and dangerous to profess any intuitive ability or inherent knowledge of healing or counsel. It could literally get you killed.

It still can in certain cultures.

There needs to be a balance. Sure, we can make good use of the scientific method of empirical evidence and logic when we seek certain information. But as a culture we’ve almost totally lost sight of intuitive knowledge. We’ve lost sight of ‘just knowing’. I think when we access both methods, and blend them all up, we really get information.

And I think that as we near 2012, the tipping point in our civilization’s evolution, we are starting to open up to using intuitive information once more. Thank God.

Digging out the winter socks

2009-12-06T20:38:00.000-08:00

The weather has gone all cold here in the past few days. It doesn’t go much above fifty degrees and at night there is a risk of frost. A storm is moving in. It feels wonderful. I’ve been tucked in reading, baking, and doing home office work. Yum. Sometimes you’ve just got to go quiet. And I’ve enjoyed that this weekend.

Attitude of Gratitude

2009-11-27T09:33:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is sweeter than bounty itself.

One who cherishes gratitude does not cling to the gift!

Thanksgiving is the true meat of God’s bounty;

The bounty is its shell,

For thanksgiving carries you to the hearth of the Beloved.

Abundance alone brings heedlessness,

Thanksgiving gives birth to alertness.

The bounty of thanksgiving will satisfy and elevate you,

And you will bestow a hundred bounties in return.

Eat your fill of God’s delicacies,

And you will be freed from hunger and begging.

- Rumi

(the photo is Del Mar California at sunset, Thanksgiving Day 2009)

A whole lotta feeding going on....

2009-11-26T07:35:00.000-08:00

It’s Thanksgiving holiday here in the States. It’s a day for reflection, giving of thanks, and eating to the point of unconsciousness. How wonderful it is to live in a society that, generally, has plenty of food. How remarkable it is that we can regularly count on being able to feast in some form on this day. We truly do live in a time of bounty, in spite of all the gloom out there. We are a protected, fat society.

Yet to listen to the news broadcasts we are in dire straits, and there is want and despair and fear everywhere. We are instructed that we must be afraid of almost everything. Fear, fear, fear. And then, almost simultaneously, we are urged to buy or consume something which will purportedly alleviate this fear. The latest pharmaceutical. The latest electronic toy to distract us. Clothes to make us look better. Gifts to make others think better of us. Or we are urged to fund something that will supposedly take the fear away. Fund a war. Fund a campaign. But there is always another fear put in our minds, another fear to be fed and assuaged by another thing we must consume. Fear is fed to us, and we feed the fear back again…. A vicious cycle. We are a fearful, fat society.

For the past few days I’ve been put in mind of a Native American parable about the two wolves. You know this one; here’s my paraphrase: the Old One is teaching the Young One, and instructs that in each person’s life there are two wolves. Each wolf is magnificent and strong, full of powerful energy and very fierce.

One wolf is the doer of good; the one who fights for right; who defends and champions those unable to help themselves, and embodies all that is Good. This wolf is a careful mother to her pups, defends the pack, and maintains happy order. This wolf keeps us in positive thoughts and actions.

The other wolf is sinister and dark; this wolf preys on bad thoughts, exploits negative impulses and encourages us to go down the road of wrong action and negative intention. This second wolf embodies all that is Wrong. This wolf nips at the pups and takes food away from the pack without sharing.

The Old One further instructs that in our lives, these two wolves are in a constant, mortal struggle for our minds and souls, and fighting, snarling, and biting occurs often.

Wide eyed, the Young One asks: Which one wins? Which one lives? And the Old One smiles, responding “The one you feed.”.

So I ask you, Gentle Reader: who are you feeding? At any given moment, ask yourself: which wolf am I feeding?

When you have a choice of action, consider the likely results; consider the wolves. Every word you speak, every action you make, feeds one or the other wolf. It may not be dramatic; it may be a subtle thing. But every scrap ultimately feeds one or the other.

The quantum physicists dance and wave their arms (they are an animated lot) as they describe how each thought sends out an energy beam that ultimately takes form as a particle. Thoughts do become things. They really do. Each thought will manifest as something somewhere.

Today is a great day of eating and happiness. Whether you are with family, with friends, or curled up relishing a quiet day away from it all, take a moment and reflect on all that you have to be thankful for, and do a status check on those two wolves. Which one is more robust? Which one are you feeding more?

And is it really necessary to be so afraid as a society? Yes, there are negative forces and things to recognize, resolve, and with which to deal. It’s not all sparkly unicorns and happy dancing. But we do not need to be afraid. We need to take positive action.

Right now I’m hearing a wolf howling. Do you hear it? A proud, victorious wolf howling that she is alive and well and Being. Which one do you hear?

Some days you have to flip a lot of crepes...

2009-11-22T12:12:00.000-08:00

Those of you who are my Facebook friends know I went to a crepe making demonstration yesterday with the Legal Baker (http://www.legalbaker.blogspot.com/). It all looked so effortless and fun. The venue was very generous with freebie gifts. I wound up buying a Scanpan brand crepe pan and resolved to finally learn how to make the delectable thin pancake I have enjoyed for years.

Armed with recipe cards from the venue I headed home and once there I looked up Julia Child’s crepe recipe. Looks straightforward enough, I thought. To make it even better I already had all the ingredients on my shelf.

This morning I awoke to Gesine having blogged about crepes:(http://www.confectionsofamasterbaker.blogspot.com/ker.blogspot.com). Kismet! Have to make crepes! I am totally in the flow! The zeitgeist! The quantum reality! It’s total crepe energy this weekend! As Deepak Chopra is fond of saying: “I got your message in the field” (insider quantum reality joke: nyuk nyuk nyuk).

It was rapidly made clear to me that I am no Julia Child. I am no Gesine Bullock-Prado. I am no Legal Baker.

Such a comedy! Even the cats were laughing their furballs off. I mixed up the batter (easy!) and set it in the fridge to settle out for an hour. Returned, fired up the miraculous Scanpan, and commenced to pouring batter.

Well, it takes a certain touch. And I realized after the first pancake came out thick as an IHOP griddlecake that I lacked the touch. I recall the instructor yesterday just grabbed the edges of the thing and flipped it over. She must have long ago killed off the nerve endings of her fingers because that sucker is way too hot to flip that way!

I tried the old Julia Child flip-it-in-the-air technique. Ah, no. By now the cats were snorting milk out their noses it was so funny. The pancakes had the right flavor (I was using Gesine’s recipe) but the texture and thickness and shape were all wrong!

Finally I got it right. Figured out how much batter to put in the pan; when to nudge it with the spatula, and how to get it to slap over to cook on the reverse side. Finally! Wafer thin pancakes! And it only took me an entire bowl of batter to figure it out.

I immediately stuffed one with cherries and ladled on some lemon curd (making do with what was on the shelf – I hadn’t thought through the filling bit too thoroughly). Sweet. I filled another one with spinach soufflé from last night. Savory.

So… other than the magic of laughter, where’s the household magic in all this? Oh, to be sure, I did laugh the entire way through the experiment – those crappy crepes were too funny. But other than that…

I think the lesson is somewhere in the notion that: In life some of our initial attempts at whatever we are meant to do may be a little unlike what we might have originally intended. It’s up to us as individuals to regard the result, compare it to what we intended, and then fine-tune our actions to try again. And again. And again. And finally it will come out as you wish it to be

And what really helps is to have friends to laugh with and at you (with love!) and stay with you on along the way.

Now…. Maybe I’ll make some hollandaise for that spinach crepe….

Late Night Rumi-nations

2009-11-21T21:31:00.000-08:00

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

-Rumi

Ripple Effect

2009-11-15T12:09:00.000-08:00

Saturday I went to a local beach clean up with some friends. We were part of a greater pick up effort organized by a coastal conservancy group. It was good exercise, lots of fresh air, and a good deed done as we picked up ciggie butts, fishing line, endless quantities of styrofoam and plastic, and the occasional mylar balloon (why oh why do people get them? And why do they let them loose into the air? ).

It occurs to me that there are two kinds of people: those who litter, and those who pick up the litter.

And moreover, in our lives we are, each of us, at any given moment both of those types of people. Sometimes we make a mess and leave it for someone else. Sometimes we clean up a mess we didn’t make. It might be a physical mess, like not bussing your table at a fast food restaurant, or it might be emotional, like a careless, hurtful comment hurled without editorial thought or reason.

Perhaps the trick of it is to recognize this and to be conscious of what we do each day. Are we leaving a mess for someone else? What impact are we having? And then act in a way consistent with your consciousness.

Our actions ripple out from us energetically like the water radiating in tiny waves from an object thrown in the ocean. What we do matters, even on a small scale.

Roar!

2009-11-08T09:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I spent time at the local Wild Animal Park. It is so soothing to walk in nature and see and hear the animals. True they are captive, and I ‘get’ the arguments against animal captivity, but the WAP is a fairly tranquil place and the animals are in natural surroundings with plenty of room and socialization. Even the elephants, who start their day in their dormitory, have their gates opened and they can roam all day on the acreage the WAP provides. It’s a beautiful sight to see them head out in the morning: the Grande Dames with their babies carefully sheltered in the middle of the group.

Yesterday I received two messages while walking. The animals teach us by their example.

The first was at the aforementioned elephant enclosure. We always beeline there as soon as we enter the Park, in order to watch the elephants come out, stretch, have some hay, have a piddle and a poo, and then head out for their day on the savannah. Frequently the keepers ‘wrangle’ them by preoccupying some of them with hand fed treats to distract while others of their group are moved around and by this corralling all personalities are indulged.

One of the wranglers had an elephant at the edge of the enclosure just where we were standing and was feeding him pellets, which must be delicious Ganeshe versions of chocolate truffles or something. Up would come the trunk, in the most supplicating manner: the edges of his moist snout undulating in sheer ‘Gimme, Gimme’ wriggling. Pellets produced. Pellets ingested. Up comes the trunk again: Gimme, Gimme. More pellets produced. The elephant endlessly asked; the keeper endlessly provided. No games; no ‘qualifying’ for the treat.

Elephant Asks. Elephant Gets.

Eventually, after about ten minutes, the episode concluded and the elephant stopped asking and ambled out toward the fields.

Note: it was the elephant who stopped asking; not the keeper who stopped giving.

I think we must keep this in mind as to the Universe. If we ask, we get. We don’t have to justify. We don’t have to feel bad or undeserving. And we don’t have to feel as though the supply is limited. Just ask. Ask with total confidence. Know that the response will come (therein lies the challenge for most of us). Those so-called sages who sell a lot of product by writing that you have to ask in a certain way are a little skewed. You’ll get what you ask for, so be mindful of what you ask for…. But that’s about it in the direction department.

The second message was at the lion enclosure. We were walking about a quarter mile away and heard the most immense ROARING. It was deafening and certainly caught our attention in an awe inspiring way. ROAR!

We went trotting over to the window that looks out to where the lions live, and there was a young male.

He was sitting there roaring. Just roaring. He didn’t seem remotely upset. He was just roaring. Then he would sit and look at the crowd and pose for pictures. He really would pose – he was smiling and would turn his head here and there just as surely as if he were a young star emerging from dinner at Mr. Chow’s in Los Angeles to face the paparazzi. And then he would sit down and ROAR some more. This was not a pacing, sad lion. This was a proud personality who was having a bit of fun with the humans who had gathered to look at his wonderfulness.

He put me in mind of my old cat Radames, now passed, who lived with me for twenty-one years. He roared every morning. He would get up, stretch, grab a bite, and then walk around the house roaring before settling down in a sunbeam. I think it was just love of life he was expressing.

The message I got from this young lion was that it doesn’t matter where you are. It doesn’t matter whether you are in your natural environment in Africa or in an artificial construct in North America. You Are. You Matter. And you can roar. You can be yourself and do your thing- and indeed you should do your thing-no matter where life, circumstances, or you have placed yourself.

So it doesn’t matter that you have lost resources in this current depression. It doesn’t matter if you are weakened with injury or chronic illness. You Are. You Matter. It’s important to roar and to smile at those who appreciate your wonderfulness.

Ask. Roar. See what happens.

Yeastie Beasties

2009-11-01T16:33:00.000-08:00

Today is a sunny, bright, autumn day; not too hot and not too cold. I can feel the change of the season and it feels wonderful. Am just going with the flow this weekend and the flow pulls me to baking. Something about hearth and home. Likely some primal urge that has to do with putting away food for a long cold winter housebound.

Yesterday I had company and so mixed up some starter to bubble and froth. Today that yeasty beastie joined up to make the dough for some olive bread sandwich rolls for use next week. Lovely artisan dough… salty kalamatas….the house is filled with the aroma of bread.

I saved some of the starter and will feed it daily until the next round of bread making. I want to get back into the rhythm of making all the household bread once more. That crock of starter will serve me well, and I shall call it… Sidonie. Yes – am feeling my Celtic roots so shall call it Sidonie the Starter...it is alive after all; it should have a name. Sidonie lives on the kitchen counter and makes the whole room smell wonderful. I am put in mind of Anthony Bourdain's wonderful book: Kitchen Confidential. In it he describes his baker who would frequently call in sick, actually on a bender, and yell at the staff to feed the starter: "Feed the bitch! Feed her or she'll die!" Sidonie shall never go wanting.

Couldn’t stop the kitchen energy so boiled up a fresh batch of hummingbird nectar for the week ahead, and made frosting for some vanilla bundtlets I’d made earlier in the weekend. They aren’t the most aesthetically pleasing looking baked goods in the world, but they sure are yummy.

Paired with coffee, they are perfect for early afternoon knoshing on a Sunday.

The Full Moon is coming, too and I’ve been hauling crystals outside to get charged up. Every evening a fresh rotation. Last night I put out my bag of crystals that I use for chakra healing work. They have a lot of reiki energy on them already in addition to their own little buzz, but Luna adds to the mix and now the sack fairly giggles with good vibes. Slipped them under my pillow but the cats hauled them out to nap with. Smart kitties. I tried to photograph the stones but they kept whiting out the camera. Powerful little buggers.

Yeah, just domestic today. A good fall day.

Lemons and Lemoncake

2009-10-28T21:30:00.000-07:00

There’s an old expression: when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. These wise words are sometimes mistaken to mean an improbable optimism, denial of reality, or Pollyanna-ism. Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of pessimistic naysayers who chide optimists that they are living in a delusion, and admonish them to stop wasting time pretending nothing bad is happening. They assert that those who glaze everything with sugar would do more to improve their situation if they would just embrace the doom and gloom and stop with the damn singing already.

I think those naysayers have got it a little skewed. Yet, it’s true that it takes more than just ladling sweetness onto a sour situation to make things better.

The world is not full of sparkly unicorns and harp playing forest creatures. Anyone who sits still and ignores a bad situation will only sink deeper, no matter how many affirmations they chatter and how hard they focus on wanting a better world. Some people claim they know a secret and assert mere visualization of what they want will change everything. Here’s a newsflash: Chattering and wanting and denial are not the ways to change things. Done with desperation, these techniques actually reinforce a negative situation. The chatterer is so focused on their desperation that they create an energy/vibration that attracts more of the same.

I think that changing a situation takes a number of simultaneous approaches. And I think these simultaneous approaches work no matter whether the problem is health, finances, love, or employment.

First, know that anger has its uses. Sometimes you have to smash those lemons to kingdom come and yell a little.

Anyone fighting cancer or other illness knows this. If you merely smile sweetly and murmur that things will get better and otherwise act accepting of the way things are now, guess what? More illness.

Get mad. Pitch a fit. Meditate at least daily and tell the illness that it is not welcome, has no part of you, and must leave. I have seen a friend with cancer literally yell at her illness. No comfort here, you damn cancer. No solace here, you damn illness. Get the hell out. If you are scared about finances then take a moment and state out loud what it is you are afraid of and what you want help with. It’s really important to say it out loud. And express your anger about it. You may have done this to yourself; it may have been done to you. You’re mad. It’s OK. Be mad. I had someone dear to me die suddenly and horribly and I yelled a lot. A lot. I still yell sometimes. (FYI: You can scream in your car if you are going down the freeway at 70 mph and no one will hear you).

There have been times when I have been clearing a house of negative spirit and I have had to get really angry and firm and yell at it to leave. Then, and only then would the bastard leave. Roar at the damn thing. You are powerful. You have the upper hand. The vibration you create is one that repels cancer as surely as sage clears out a room.

Second, take positive action. Ask for guidance: what can you do today that will effect your situation? Eat nutritious food? Take a walk? Take a nap? Organize your bank accounts? Write a better resume or CV? Distract yourself and laugh with a comedy film? Listen to music and soak in a tub? After you are done yelling at whatever is causing you discomfort it’s important to take positive forward action. If you are physically struggling, take measures to support your body and healing (eat good food, rest, walk, laugh, hug puppies). If you are dealing with finances, take measures to fix things (send out resumes, call in debts from friends, hug more puppies) or live within the situation (ooh, rice and beans are a balanced protein source!). When you vent your anger and then shift to a proactive state, you direct your energies in a forward motion without denying your pain.

For reasons too deep to get into in this post, when you acknowledge your pain and then shift to proactive forward motion you do your heart a great service. Your heart houses an energy center that reconciles your body's upper and lower energy centers. Your heart works hard for you at the best of times, and in times of stress even more so. So help it out. Vent the negative. Direct it away from you. If you just choke it back down your throat and deny it, the pain literally kills your heart. Is there any wonder we have so much heart disease in this country? Yell. Get it out. Then after you’ve sent the negative away from you, take positive steps forward.

Third, don’t do it alone. Involve a confidant. Ask a friend to be there with you. Now here’s some magic: this is really great if the confidant can physically be next to you, but it works via phone and via social media. And it’s the same for every religion and faith I know: two or more of us together has a synergistic effect on situations. Sit with your friend, literally or virtually, and intend wellness. If you can hold hands or bump foreheads or have physical contact, all the better. And know: Whatever it takes; however it happens; whatever is needed; you will know how, you will recognize what, and you will effect the change you want. Health. Income. Situation change. It’s a bit of a mystery, but doing this exercise with someone else really, really works. Solutions present. Doors open. Paths become clear and less scary.

Fourth (and this is key), be grateful. Be sincerely grateful for what you do have. It might not be what you want for the future but it sure as heck is your present and it’s what you have to work with so be grateful you have the tools you have. The universe loves gratitude. It rejects those who are ungrateful.

1-2-3-4. Wash, rinse, repeat. Do this routine as often as you need to. I think performing this little ritual at least daily when in crisis is optimal.

Will your world change immediately? Well, it could; it might. More likely change will be a process. But every process requires a start. And you can only start from where you are presently.

See you on the road.

The Rock We Eat

2009-10-20T21:08:00.000-07:00

Salt. It’s the rock we eat. It’s the crystal everyone uses every day. Most people don’t think about it as a crystal, but of course it is. It comes in all colors, all textures, and all prices. And in the 21st century, we are fortunate because it’s so plentiful that we take it for granted. Salt is vital to our human health and society. But there’s a lot more you can do with salt than sprinkle it on food.

It has been used as currency and paid as wages (the origin of the word salary). It was regularly mixed with green vegetables (leading to the word salad). It has been carved out of mountains, evaporated from rivers, scraped off dry lakebeds, and boiled out of brine. It has preserved mummies, provided a tax base, cured meats, manipulated economies, been used as building materials, inspired a Bible story, and influenced trade routes.

Too much salt in your diet will kill you; too little and you’ll die as well. Just as the ocean is balanced in its salinity, so are our bodies. We have to take it in with our meals. We love the taste it gives food. Eat a high meat diet and you won’t have to add much to your plate to get enough. Eat a vegetarian diet and you’ll have to add more than the meat eaters require.

Any magical housekeeper worth her salt (pun intended!) will be versed in the many other, metaphysical, uses for salt. Here are a few. I’d love to hear yours.

Adding salt to bath water makes a soak that not only soothes sore muscles, but draws out impurities, negative energy, and restores vitality. A cup or two in a typical bathtub of water and a twenty-minute soak will change your outlook. Taken four or more times per week and it will change your life. This is especially true if you suffer from any chronic disease such as arthritis, experience muscle fatigue from overuse, or are tense from stress or depression. It’s lovely to use fragrant salts and exotic grains from faraway lands (I’m addicted to Dead Sea Salts and Utah Salt Flat Salts), but the truth of it is, any table salt will do the trick and do it on a budget. When I’m low on cash I get a canister of Morton’s. It’s good for about two baths. Take your soak consciously. It’s a healing calm time for you.

Mix essential oils such as lavender or geranium with some canola oil and pour into a jar full of medium salt crystals. Voila! You’ve got a salt scrub to rival the ones at the expensive spas. (These also make excellent gifts). Use it regularly and you’ll have the skin of a baby.

Salt water is excellent for cleansing most crystals (obviously not the friable ones, or ones set in metal that will pit easily). Placed in the corners of your house, it will dispel negative energy. Sprinkled across your threshold and no negative entities will cross. Several Texas friends of mine maintain a circle of salt around their homes at all times. They swear by it for protection. A Beverly Hills friend sprinkles salt in all the rooms of her house at the edges of the walls, to the detriment of her carpeting. Hey, it’s priorities.

Salt lamps are easily found in shops for not much money now and, in addition to a hypnotic and calming glow, emit negative ions that are very healthful. Placed near a computer, a salt lamp will help counteract some of the electromagnetic smog that is now recognized as causing subtle negative health changes. I have salt lamps in every room of my house, and I will often find my cats dozing in front of one, paws folded in under their chins, in feline meditation.

I have lumps and bricks of salt in various locations of my house as well. I’ve noticed the house has better energy since placing them. Occasionally the cats lick them. You can find bricks of salt in gourmet cooking shops. They are as heavy as marble and have a gorgeous look and feel.

I’m reading a fantastic book on salt’s history. If you’re as curious as me, give it a read: It’s entitled Salt: A World History, by Mark Kurlansky. The book is riveting to any history buff.

And yes, I’ve been to the salt mines. While in the Salzburg region with my friend Doug years ago I donned a silly outfit and descended into the Salzkammergut, a mother lode of salt that fueled entire societies in the middle ages. The atmosphere in that underground cavern was mystical and intoxicating. As we glided on a barge onto a subterranean lake I felt a stillness I’ve not felt since.

So when you next pick up your saltshaker, take a moment. Pour some into your hand and examine it. This is the stuff of stars. This is one of the primary crystals on Planet Earth. You owe your life to it. Use it consciously. Use it magically. Use it gratefully.

Synergy

2009-10-17T23:58:00.000-07:00

I'm at a weekend long workshop on mediumship taught by the incomparable Lisa Williams. OMG what a gift that woman has! There are 300 of us assembled here, and I can only imagine what the rest of the hotel is feeling emanating from our ballroom in the way of vibrations!

There is much for me to process and I'll relate a lot of it here in posts this week, but tonight I'm intoxicated on the energy of my many friends. Some I have met before through Lisa, and many I'm meeting in person for the first time after a year or more of online friendship through Lisa's site and through Facebook. Our little community of witchy woos is a good one and I have never felt as much love in one room as I experienced today.

Which brings me to the notion of synergy. Today we were much more than the sum of our parts. No matter anyone's individual ability, everyone was encouraging and sustaining of an environment in which it was safe to express feelings and beliefs. To look into the accepting eyes of someone who "gets it" is a precious thing.

I'm exhausted and falling into bed now, but had to leave you with this image: Lisa was reading for a lady named Justine, who was in the back of the room. The air conditioner was on the blink and it was stifling in the ballroom. Those of us who were in the path between Lisa and Justine were treated to great whooshes of cold spirit energy racing down the aisle, and this was most welcome!

I write about spiritual based living and use 'magic' as a metaphor for that; today we really had magic racing about - at one point I caught sight of a swoop of energy, sparkles and all. It truly is a magical world we live in; being aware of energy and incorporating it into your life and home makes it more worthwhile.

It's the New Moon, and an appropriate time to start work on projects. It's been the perfect time for this workshop as so many of us seek to sharpen our clairvoyant skills. Here, at the moment of the New Moon, Lisa has given us many new tools with which to work in the coming weeks and months. Thank you Lisa! Thank you, Stephen, for the reading. Thank you my many friends!

Siren Calls

2009-10-10T14:39:00.001-07:00

Today I want the ocean.

I’ve successfully battled an upper respiratory virus this week. Did the prudent thing and stayed home and as a result I’m now pressed up against some work deadlines. So I must attend to those tasks.

But I want the ocean. I want her messy fish bits and kelp filled brine to wash over me and take away the last of this little illness. I want to smell the marine essence and hear the scolding gulls. I want to sit in the breeze at the foot of the cliffs, read Julia Child’s My Life in France, and fantasize I’m on the Gallic coast. I want the damp air to seep into my skin and I want sand to scrape against my toes and get stuck in every crevice of my surf slippers. I want to watch the long legged birds race up and back at the water’s edge as they dig out hapless crustaceans from the surf line with their long bills. I want a cold salty face and black sand under my fingernails. I want all these things and yet I sit in my home and take care of business.

So I do what any magical homemaker would do. I take a short break and sit with my bowl of shells and look at them, hold them, and feel their energy. The pyrite sand dollar has a gurgling blurb of peacefulness. I remember each shell and where I got it: Coronado, Playa del Carmen, Carlsbad, Catalina, Grand Cayman, Cabo, Tulum, Marco Island, Cape Cod, Jekyll Island, Old Orchard. I reach in to the jar of Clearwater Florida sand… the beach of my toddling childhood. I press my finger into the granules and feel their roughness. I remember Nana and Great -grandmere Mellie.

And I get up with a sigh, refreshed, and get back to work.

The Full Pull

2009-10-04T15:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I know Luna was Full, from an astronomical and astrological view, at some point mid- yesterday, but I didn't feel the Full Pull until very early this morning. I went outside at 3 AM and felt the moonglow on my skin and sat very still and soaked up the energy for about an hour. Very peaceful and beneficent. The autumn air was perfect and there was just enough of a breeze to demonstrate how the Earth has tilted and everything is different. I had my Stillpoint blanket with me, and I know it's just wool and silk but it seems to make a difference. It's a great blanket.

I went back inside just as the visiting Chinese parents of some neighbors were headed out to do their predawn tai chi. They have been signalling the dawn here for about a month now; outside doing a true sun salutation like mystic statues in the dawn air. Their ritual is oddly comforting to me each workday morning as I move around my kitchen at o-dark hundred feeding cats and getting ready for the commute. Their shadows play against my windows and imprint good energy. I'll miss them when they head home again.

Tonight - going to make more moonwater. Going to recharge crystals. Going to head out again, but earlier tonight.

Time to Ourselves

2009-10-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

My Nana was a wonderful woman. As a child I thought she was the source of all happy things. Whenever Nana could be with me she was, and she always made life seem magical. We baked cookies. We wore aprons and she let me sift the flour, spoon the dough onto the baking sheet, and then lick the bowl. She brought me any stuffed animal I asked for, even when I requested a kangaroo with a little joey. My favorite thing of all though was when she spread a bed sheet on the carpet of her parlor and brought me her train case of costume jewelry. I could play with the jewels as long as they and I stayed on the sheet. I stuck her clip-on earrings on my baby earlobes and looped strands of costume pearls around my neck. I remember marcasite brooches and enamel pins. Clunky bracelets of gold and glass would slip off my hands and if any rolled off the sheet, her dog Mitzi would always nose them back on again, as if in some conspiracy with me to keep the magic there.

Even at the tender age of seven months I could already feel the intoxication of crystal energy...

Nana died when I was around five years old. My last living memory of her is of me standing in the parking lot of the hospital and watching her wave to me from a window. She remains my most steadfast spirit guide, and helps me daily.

Back in the time I describe, the time when I was little, Nana would tell me stories. She would pull me, crinoline and all, onto her lap, and smooth my hair and talk in low tones and we would giggle together. One of my favorite tales was of Gran-mere Mellie. Nana told me that Gran-mere Mellie was a beautiful powerful woman who was one of my great grandmothers from long ago. Gran-mere Mellie lived with her husband, my Great Granpa, and they were very happy. She told me how Gran-mere Mellie loved to take baths and always had the finest salts and talcum powders. Through Nana I developed an appreciation for the art of bathing not just for cleanliness, but for relaxation and rejuvenation. Since those childhood times the water and especially the salts have brought me back from the brink time and time again.

Nana told me it was always important that I remember to take long soaks when life was challenging. She would draw me a bath and sit by the tub while I soaked and played with float toys. We laughed at my conjoined toes and she told me that my little webbers were Gran-mere Mellie giving me a sign that I was one of her daughters.

Nana and my Grandpa had separate bedrooms and I remember once I asked Nana why they didn’t share a room. She laughed and told me that all women need their own room and some time for themselves. She told me that she loved my Grandpa, and that he loved her. In fact, she said, he loved her so much that he gave her a room of her own. This struck me as the height of romantic love. I adored her room. She had a collection of porcelain figurines and statues of men and women from the eighteenth century, Louis Quinze stuff I later learned. She had perfume and face cream and dressing gowns and all sorts of pretty feminine, girly things. Her room was in French provincial, while Grandpa’s was in heavy dark oak. She loved anything French. Images of Chanticleer dominated that kitchen we baked in. He now dominates mine.

Nana and Gran-mere Mellie knew what all wise women know: that we women give so much to others that we need regular time to ourselves to restore our energy and our magic.

So this weekend of the Full Moon, I’m going to set my crystals out to recharge. And I’m also going to retreat for a day of silence (and yes, ritual bathing) to rejuvenate.

See you later.

Crystal, crystal on the wall...

2009-09-27T12:16:00.000-07:00

Earlier today I was posting on Lisa’s site (http://www.lisawilliamsmedium.com/) about the virtues of iron pyrite, and was reminded how wonderfully varied crystals are in their appearance and presentation. Since I was a little girl and had my shoebox full of minerals found on walks in the woodlands outside Philadelphia I’ve been fascinated by the variety, the colors, and of course, the energy of crystals. Every type of crystal is different, and even within the same type each “individual” has a different energetic quality to it. Yum. Kid in a candy store.

I remember my favorites from those childhood days were mica, milk quartz, and something I labeled talc but was likely actually some form of yellow jasper. I had no access to witchy woos then. My Nana who had the sight had passed, and so I was on my own for the next twenty odd years. Now I work with crystals to heal people. It’s always magical to see the results. And Nana is around me now (well, she always has been, but now I know it).

So today while waiting for bread to rise (it’s still all Gesine, Gesine, Gesine and yeast and flour in my household) and listening to Paris Combo and Ute Lemper CDs, I’m sorting crystals and saying hello to some that have been tucked away unused for a little while.

Here are some small slabs of purple amethyst, and some chunks of green fluorite:

Here, clockwise from 11:00 are: brecchiated jasper, clear quartz, desert rose selenite, blue kyanite, laboradorite. Sorry for the over exposed images of the desert rose balls and the kyanite blades - they are super charged with energy and I can't get the camera to shade it. This is more a comment on my photography than the energy, but there you have it.

And here's pyrite in three forms; all spiky and crystally and shiny, tumbled and smooth, and a pyrite sand dollar:

If you are interested in learning more about crystals, I can’t recommend Judy Hall’s books enough. They are the witchy woo standard (as well as the novelty collector’s standard) and sell for about $20 each. And of course stay tuned here. I like to yammer on about them.

Oops. The bread dough needs a good punching down. Gotta run.

Baking, baking....

2009-09-26T09:51:00.000-07:00

It's fun being enchanted. I'm still under the floury spell of Gesine Bullock-Prado and am baking today.....I have bags of King Arthur Flour flung all over my small galley kitchen, and Pink Martini on the CD player (yes, am anachronism and still use CD player). Some yeast is bubbling up over by the window. Today's projects are scones and French bread...... and maybe olive bread.

The cats are completely stunned at this revival of baking. They sit at the edge of my kitchen and stare at me like I've gone mad. It's going to be 100 degrees today. So I'm clearly possessed to be firing up the oven. But yeast and dough and butter and sugar calls me today. And I must obey the siren song....

Wanna get enchanted?

New Confections of a Closet Master Baker Trailer from Raymond Prado on Vimeo.

A Beautiful and Magical Evening

2009-09-23T22:36:00.000-07:00

Tonight I met a woman who understands magic. Her name is Gesine Bullock-Prado and she is a baker. Actually she’s a Master Baker. But not just any Master Baker. I think she is an enchanted baker.

She probably knew this all along, but like many of us, she first set aside her passions and inclinations in order to fulfill a socially conventional role. I think we all do this; it must be part of the Earth Education. She became an attorney laboring in entertainment law in Los Angeles. SoCal is a cruel place, and The Industry particularly so. Accordingly, she started baking “in search of balance and hope”.

I’ve been pulled back in to cooking and baking lately. When I was married to Mike years ago I baked all the household breads several times a week and pretty much made all meals and desserts from scratch. After our divorce I got away from that and for several very distracted years essentially nuked everything. A new frugality along with an urge to once again eat more healthfully brings me back to my kitchen. When I heard about Gesine and her book Confections of a Closet Master Baker, I leapt at the chance to meet her.

What a friendly and engaging woman! Ours was an intimate gathering of bibliophiles at a local beachside cantina. Gesine spoke of how she moved with her husband and dogs to Vermont, how she started Gesine Confectionary and launched a neighborhood business. A bright warmth and love of life radiated from her as she described that she would rather feed people and teach people than sell product. In her book she describes herself as a misanthrope. I sure didn’t see that.

Her hands moved as she described the flours and chocolates of her childhood Germany; I could smell the cocoa and taste the butter in the croissants and breads she described. She made me remember the feel of kneading yeast dough, and the satisfaction of a cupboard full of homemade rolls, breads, cakes, and biscuits. She made me remember Germany, and walking around Heidelberg with Doug one night, slightly tipsy on wine, as we searched restaurant after restaurant until we found the perfect chocolate mousse. I remembered stopping in German and Austrian pastry shops and seeing the bees buzzing, no one shooing them away, on the rolls drizzled with honey. How the flour tasted unlike anything I’d ever had before. How the chocolate was the best I’d ever experienced.

I didn’t have to search for chocolate tonight. We each had our own dessert plate. Yum.

It seems to me that for Gesine baking is meditation. She writes: “As I mix butter, flour, and sugar, I’m relaxed and accepting. I can see all those parts of my mother, my father, my grandmother, and my sister, all mixed up to make me.” She’s right. Cooking and baking with love. Feeding your loved ones. Nourishing them. Sharing food. That’s what makes a home magical.

I admire Gesine. I aspire to her self-realization. Of her personal journey she writes: “ I didn’t want more stuff. I wanted to be more happy. I wanted to be good. I wanted to stop hating people and start understanding. And the only way I knew how to feel like a good and kind person was through baking.”

Perhaps, if we each listened to the small voice inside of us as Gesine did, we could become who we have been trying to be all along. We could be happier. We could (apologies to Mr. Gandhi) be the magic we want to see in the world. She and I spoke briefly of magic. She gets it. She lives it.

Gesine has another book in the works. I can hardly wait. She also mentioned that in her new house she has various ovens and a... cauldron (!). That makes me gleeful. Now, whenever I see her sister Sandy in one of my favorite movies, Practical Magic, I shall in my mind’s eye see instead Gesine with her own particular brand of magic, and I'll smile. And then probably go bake something.

Harvest Home

2009-09-21T19:06:00.000-07:00

Now we pass into the Autumnal Equinox, or Mabon: the time when the day is as long as the night. The light looks different. There is a different feel in the air. It is a wonderful time well spent in reflection and re-dedication. I love the fall. I love the crisp feel and the cast of the light.

It comes this year at an interesting time: Rosh Hashanah… Eid al Fitr… the New Moon… Michaelmas… each within days of this astronomical shift. Clearly all cultures can agree that this is a special time; one in which we might all pause and notice.

Here in the Northern Hemisphere harvests are coming in and being tucked away for the winter. A cycle is concluding. In Triple Goddess lore the Goddess now passes from Mother to Crone, offering wisdom, healing, and succor to all in need: the pillowy grandmotherly bosom of rest and sanctuary.

Druids observed this time by honoring trees and offering libations to The Green Man of forest lore. This is a special time of year for trees. Watch them and see.

Take a moment to feel the energy in the air. Think of what in your life is ending. What is coming to fruition? What is dying? What is evolving? What wisdom have you gained in the past year? Reflect. What is your personal harvest? Bring in your nets and take account of all you have received. Even in this tough year I’ll bet you are surprised at all you have. And then, after reflection, do something to mark this time. Make a ceremony of your own devise. Meditate. Sage and re-dedicate your house to your family’s well being. Decorate with symbols of harvest. Observe this seasonal shift through your temple or mosque or coven or church. Mark it. Notice it. Feel the Earth rhythm in your energy field. That’s where the magic is.

New Moon Coming

2009-09-17T06:03:00.000-07:00

The New Moon is almost here. Can you feel it?

What are you going to relinquish or give up or set aside? What needs to stop in your life? What do you stubbornly continue to do that no longer serves you and can be let go?

What plans can you focus on and polish up so you can spring into action when the Moon starts to wax? Crouch down; it’s almost time to act.

I’m making my list. Going to go sit under the pine tree tonight and release some stuff while Owl calls in the night. He is the muezzin to my prayers.

How to Make Magical Air Freshener

2009-09-14T06:42:00.000-07:00

Use this air freshener to clear the air in a room and for energetic maintenance of your home environment. Can also be used as a counter and cabinet wash.

Ingredients:

Moon water or other energized water (See earlier Full Moon blog)
Crystals of your choosing (try quartz, obsidian, amethyst)
Essential oils of your choosing (try mixing lavender and clary sage together! Or rose and chamomile!)
Glass bottle for fixing
Spray bottle for dispensing

Combine all ingredients in a glass bottle. You’ll only need a few drops of the essential oils. Place in sunlight for a few days. Remove crystals, cleanse them, and set them aside. Place resulting liquid in spray bottle and keep in cool dark place.

Spritz the liquid in any room to give it a natural lift of energy. Remember to get the corners, where negative energy can hold itself. As you spray, set your intention to banish any negative energy or entity from the environment.

Clean it out with the waning moon

2009-09-13T05:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had a good old clear out of several kitchen cabinets. We all have some version of these cabinets. Mine were the tea and spice cabinets. They had been accumulating for over three years and I was frankly avoiding opening the doors. I knew critical mass had occurred when I realized that the coffee and tea I use daily lived on the counter because there was no room in the cabinet!

So, armed with large trash bags, I approached the cabinets and ruthlessly evaluated and separated useful from not useful. My criteria: If I hadn’t used it in nine months it went! I said to myself: I could have grown a baby in the time since I last used this thing! And out it would go. An hour later I had a bag full of discards, and a bag full of glass and tin for the recycler. Then I scrubbed out the cabinets, and spritzed them with some homemade air freshener so they sparkled with good energy. Wow! Much better feel to the entire kitchen! Gone were the twigs and leaves of once lovely teas now stale. No more anemic spices left over from the recipe I made only twice! Now I have an organized cabinet of useful fresh tea, coffee, and spice items.

Over time the cabinet became stale and was adding negative energy to the room. This in turn made me not want to open the cabinet door and instead stack the daily items on the counter! It was dragging me down!

It’s an interesting and sad phenomenon; what negative energy does in the presence of positive energy. Say you have some positive people in a room, emanating a high, positive vibration. Enter a person emanating a lower, negative energy and who is resistant to change. What happens? Do the positive people induce the negative person to become positive?

Sometimes it happens, but more likely than not, one of two things typically happens first:

1. The positive reject the negative and continue with their positive vibe. This results in the negative becoming affronted or offended and in response escalating their negative vibe. Discord ensues. Typically the negative one leaves in a state of great negativity and agitation, and the positive ones feel attacked.

Or:
2. In an effort to be conciliatory and avoid confrontation, the positive lower their vibration to accommodate the negative. This results in the negative one ‘feeding’ off the positive, and in the positive being depleted. The entire situation is lowered because the negative remains negative.

We see this every day at work and in society. And we certainly see it being played out politically in the US right now. I’m not sure what the answer is. Negative energy is always going to be there; it plays a part in an energetic balance that is somehow necessary. For what, I don’t know. We can’t control society. But we are part of society and somehow we are part of the positive change that is happening (let’s all sing Age of Aquarius now….)

We can keep on keeping’ on, and we can create a positive home environment to sustain us through the unavoidable dealings with negativity. And part of that involves magical housekeeping. We can use natural products that help add positivity to our environment, and this will sustain us as we maintain our positive vibrations.

Tomorrow I’ll post an easy recipe for homemade air freshener that is guaranteed to clear a room of negative energy and add a little sparkle to anything you use it on!

Nine-nine-nine

2009-09-09T14:08:00.000-07:00

09-09-09. Lots of analysis about today’s date is coming across my cyber doorway today. Numerological significance. Mystical import. Astrological. Astronomical. Quantum reality.

All I can really tell is that the veil is thin today. It’s a great day to meditate and get some wisdom. If you’re in meditative practice, then you likely noticed this. Kundalini energy rises easily. Uplink-ing – what I call that connection with other dimensions – is effortless. For me the third eye colors flow and Spirit communicates directly today.

If you’re new to meditation, today’s a really good day to start. Just sit quietly with your back fairly straight (so the energy can rise on your spine more easily). Be comfortable and don’t force anything. Breathe in and out through your nose, and be aware of your breath. Don’t concentrate on it; just be aware of it. Think the word “I” on inspiration, and “Am” on exhalation. If you get distracted, just brush it away and return to your breath. See where you go. What you see. Who you meet (you might meet yourself!).

Whether you achieve a little relaxation, some third eye activity, or full-on communication with Spirit doesn’t really matter. What is good is that you “showed up to the mat”. It’s not a competition. It’s your reality. Be aware of who you are at your core level. The rest falls into place when you know who you are.

Namasté.

White Rabbits and Pocket Watches

2009-09-06T19:11:00.000-07:00

We girls assembled for a Mad Tea Party at one of our number’s gracious home. Hats, tea, cats, and great cackles ensued. Oh, and lots and lots of food: finger sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, crudités, scones, jam, biscuits, cupcakes, lemonade, and teas galore… oh my did we eat! And laugh. And yes, cackle.

Women of a certain age cackle. It’s the result of all of our life experiences. With the perspective of middle age we are able to laugh about so much that was once the source of angst and self-doubt. Men. Careers. Fashion in the eighties (Which, by the way, the LA Times announced today is coming back! Did I discard my shoulder pads too soon?).

I left our gathering feeling so refreshed! As though I’d had a psychic bath in clear cool water: inspired, invigorated, and ready to face my week ahead.

It’s so easy to get caught in a tangle of negative vibrations. Difficulties of economy, social dynamics, work drama, family crises… if we aren’t careful we can find ourselves just crawling between one negative encounter to another, and then crashing home to sleep and start the whole cycle the next day.

It’s so important to not only face those negative situations with grace and positivity, but to schedule fun breaks in life. Meet with friends. Do something that is carefree and happy and uplifting. Whatever suits you. It can be singing in church or the karaoke bar, dancing on the beach, having a Mad Tea Party. Share your experiences and have a laugh with others. It’s good to know you aren’t alone. And that you can laugh about things. Do it. Be a little outrageous.

This way, you raise your vibration. And the raised vibration will attract more of the same to you. And while you will still encounter negative situations and people; it will be easier to deal with them and maintain your own good positive vibration.

To me that’s really what karma is all about. The vibration you put out is what comes back to you. So put out a joyful vibration. It will bring joy back to you threefold or more.

Luna and Michael

2009-09-03T19:56:00.001-07:00

Luna is Full and I'm watching the Michael Jackson funeral on telly. Feeling still and involuted. The Full Moon seems a good time for interment. Interesting thing, this vicarious grief; this collective sobriety. Why do so many of us feel like we lost someone we knew? I never met the man. I have met several people who knew him well. My own burial arrangements are for a less illustrious area of the same Forest Lawn site. But I had no interaction with him other than to sing to his music and dance to his tunes. Why this connectedness? I think it's evidence of the Universal Spirit that binds us all and of which we are all ultimately a part. A ripple on one side of the water is felt on the other. Even though we may never have been aware of him, we feel the absence of his energy on this plane. He has moved on. We remain.

Tonight as I go out under the Moon for my ritual work, I'll look up and maybe there will be an extra sparkle. RIP Michael.

Cocoa and Cats

2009-09-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

Tonight is a quiet night; the outside air very humid and hot even at this hour. Fires to the north in LA; Hurricane Jimena to the south in Cabo. But here it is still and languid and I have cocoa and cats and am working on figuring out how some one died in a nursing home when they weren't supposed to and whether there is a case here.

Full Moon and Crystals

2009-09-01T20:29:00.000-07:00

Just like the New Moon, the Full lasts only a moment. You can feel it. For energy work purposes though, the effect of the Full Moon extends for a ‘full’ seven days: three days before and three days after. After this time the Moon begins to significantly wane and other sorts of energy work are best done then.

I like to use the time of the Full Moon to cleanse and charge things. Especially my collection of crystals: the decorative, the jewels, and the ‘working’ crystals used for healing. Because I get a lot of questions about it, I thought I’d take the Full Moon time to write about energetic crystal cleansing. Everyone develops her own traditions, and you will develop yours, too. Here’s an introduction:

Lisa Williams taught me to regard crystals as though they are little sponges. I love her metaphor. They soak up negativity and there is only so much they can take on and then they must be cleansed out or they become ineffective, just like a washing up sponge. Most crystals will benefit from periodic rinsing in salt water (know that some are friable and cannot tolerate water – there are other methods of cleansing for them). I either take my crystals to the ocean, or mix up a good bath of salt water and rinse them in that. As you rinse, set your intention that all negativity leaves the stone. Then they are ready for charging! That’s where the Full Moon comes in.

Set the crystals out where they are safe (from robbers, from raccoons, from anything that may be tempted by the sparkle) yet can access the night air during the Full Moon. It’s not imperative that there be a visible moon. If it’s overcast or raining (or snowing) it doesn’t matter. It’s the energy you want. Moonglow is merely a tracer for the energy. You can set them on your windowsill, on your patio, in your yard, on your roof – wherever they are safe Let them sit there all night if you can. You’ll know what to do.

If you set out some bottles of water too, you’ll have Moon Water to use for charging during the coming month. The water will hold the charge. Moon Water is great for zapping up crystals, washing your face, cleaning your kitchen, making air freshener – you name it. It adds a little extra zip to everything you use it for.

When I was in litigation I used to treat myself to pampering at Bellagio and would always get a stone massage. The masseur I saw was into Native American shamanic magic and healing, and would take the stones up onto his roof there in the Las Vegas desert and charge them. You could feel the difference in the stones. He would also burn sage during the massage. Very cleansing. (You can similarly use sage to cleanse friable crystals)

This is just a summary. There is much more to the subject, but this will get you started if this is the first Full Moon you will charge crystals. Dig into your jewelry drawers and grab stones that haven’t been charged in a long time. Clean them and get them into that Full Moon energy! And notice the difference when you wear them.

Listen: one of my favorite songs in the entire world:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEmK9qFB1Y0

If you have any questions, feel free to email me; I’d love to hear from you.

Signs

2009-08-29T18:16:00.000-07:00

Lots of signs from Nature this weekend. Yesterday I moved all the plants from the inside planter at the library onto the patio, so the planter can be repaired. I took a bit of care with them, tied up some weak branches, and made sure they all had plenty of water. When I went outside to check on them for the last time before the weekend I saw a crow had visited them as well and left a feather, which my cats are now enjoying.

Then early this morning I got up and watered all my home patio plants and topped off the fountain water (it’s been over one hundred degrees during the day lately and everyone is thirsty; even the fountain). Found a solitary sparrow feather sitting waiting for me when I went out to check on it all a little after the watering. Hmmm. Lots of birdy gifts.

The most fantastic sign of all though was later this morning as I was shopping. I went to the local Sephora to check out Kat Von D’s makeup line, and after buying some iridescent eye shadow was walking back to my car when a huge scarab beetle flew up to me and slowly began circling me. He passed up and down me, and regarded me front and back. His iridescent blue and green shell glimmered in the sun and resembled the powders freshly painted on my face (I am not always the demure reference law librarian). He landed on my hand, appeared to study me quite intently and then circled me a few more times before taking stock and continuing his way down the pathway. The total encounter was probably about four or five minutes long. Another shopper witnessed this and came up to me, asking whether I knew anyone who had passed who liked scarab beetles. She said surely this was the soul of someone who knew me. Well, of course I know who this was. And I smiled, tears stabbing the back of my eyes, as this person is with me always, and shows himself in the sweetest and funniest ways.

I spent the afternoon laughing and teasing myself that I see Spirit in a lot of strange ways! Feathers blowing by and overly familiar scarab beetles! Then I turned on a television rerun of Lisa William’s Life Among the Dead, and of all the episodes that could have been showing, the one being broadcast was the one most personal to me: the War Widow reading, which makes me remember so vividly a reading I had a few years ago in which my friend came through for the first time since his passing. Coincidence? Ah, there are no coincidences!

I believe our loved ones in spirit send us signs all the time to let us know that they are there and that they care about us and are helping us. Spirit has the ability to influence nature, like crows and scarab beetles. Watch. Be open. And see who shows for you today. It might be the penny on the ground (check the date!), the animal encounter, or, as my neighbor experiences,the finding of hairpins in the oddest places and times. How does Spirit show to you?

Afternoon at the GIA

2009-08-26T20:57:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the GIA in Carlsbad, California for a tour of the library and related areas. Wow! What a fantastic place. As you approach the center, you see the Tower of Brilliance, which displays the world’s largest crystal octahedron, made by Swarovski. It gleams like a beacon.

After going through two levels of security I met up with my GIA friend Paula who walked me around room after room of stunning gem displays – everything from old gem cutter equipment to glittering faceted gemstones and micron photographs of crystals that looked like paintings by O’Keefe. I was completely bedazzled and almost overwhelmed with the energy. Some areas of the building were buzzing with crystalline energy to the point of making me dizzy. The rare book vault was profoundly still and peaceful.

Of interest was a large chrysocolla; longer than my arm, and just the right size to be a wing:

And many intricate patterns of crystals – these social rocks fascinate me more than the cut stones. They sit in attendance one on the other....like friends around a campfire...

There were also fossilized sea creatures who became jeweled in death:

The library and the rare archive room blew me away. I could have spent a week there and barely emerged for food and air. There are more than 38,000 volumes on everything you can imagine having to do with gemology, including a couple of sections on the metaphysical aspects of stones. Woo hoo witchy woos!

You can bet I'll return - there is much magic and lore to uncover there.

Grounding Myself Tonight

2009-08-25T19:19:00.000-07:00

Did you feel it? The atmosphere today was kinda off. Absolute confirmation came when the staff at Starbucks related their clientele was either out of sorts or spacey today. Then my Vedic astrologer friend Adam Eliot explained that Venus is going through a difficult transit, and we are feeling the energetic wave effect of that celestial experience.

All day long I felt like I needed to watch the sky for incoming… who knows what. So tonight… grounding…. Back to center. Shower off the detritus of the day’s negativity. Salt bath soak. Walk on the Earth and send roots of my energy tendriling down to the pulsing core energy that sustains us all. Water the garden and feel the plant energy. I want to feel any energy that connects with the Earth. I want to sleep outside tonight.

Bedazzled!

2009-08-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

The Gem and Crystal Faire was stunning! Room after room after room of sparkling stones and bustling crowds; the place buzzed with happy energy. It was indoors, but had a bazaar like feel: amethysts from Uruguay, lapis from Afghanistan, silver from India, larimar from the Dominican Republic…. Booth after booth of exotic wares and sellers!

This assemblage was geared toward the jewelry maker and crafter, so there was a prevalence of booths with strung gemstones… tables deep with amber, coral, turquoise, garnet, jade, pearls, and carnelian strings. I longed to dive into them like a bath, or at least run my arms through the piles like a pirate with a treasure chest.

More to my practical taste as a magical homemaker were the raw mineral sellers and their arrays of globes, palm stones, tumbles, and raw points. I wound up purchasing a lovely ruby fuchsite palm stone. Once I figure out the camera Tina has loaned me I shall post a picture. It is the most beautiful apple green with ruby… and exudes a vibrant hopeful energy! My cats are all over it still.

The lads selling the fuchsite were very jolly, and produced a tray of iced cake balls they had made and gave us each one after our purchases. I shall now call them the Cake Ball Miners and visit their shop up in the Inland Empire area of Southern California.

My favorite find was a stunning quartz point array tucked back at a booth in a remote room. It is about eighteen inches long by about eight inches wide, and has many, many, many quartz points of all sizes emerging from a matrix. For Lisa Williams fans: it looks a lot like the quartz point array she has in her office in the first season of Life Among the Dead. Talk about energy! I held my hands over it for a time and the energy was like a million little acupuncture needles striking me. Tingle! I heard Vincent Price’s voice in my head: “the tingler!” (I hear Vincent a lot, so get used to it because you’ll read me referencing him and his films from time to time). At $4,000 the array will have to wait for another time.

Interestingly, the event was held at the Scottish Rites Center here in San Diego. Translation: the Masons: the modern descendants of the Templar order. As we meandered through the hallways we looked at the cases of hats and aprons and tiaras and various regalia of the organization. It reminded me of the Old Testament references for gemstones and the high priests. (Exodus 28:15: “And thou shalt make a breastplate of judgment…”). Those ancient cultures had it going on too! They recognized the influence of crystals on the human energy field. Why else give detailed proscriptions for breastplates with gems for each tribe of Israel, to be laid out in a precise manner? Oh I hope The Naked Archeologist has a show on the Breastplate of the Ephod! Or a reprise of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, where the priests demonstrate for the high school audience why they inlaid the gems in such a way, and how the energy of crystals assisted them in their spiritual rites.

Ah… now I must get back to the practical world and work on some legal stuff this Sunday. But my mind remains bedazzled by the faire. If one comes near you, go – you’ll find some wonderful little thing to add to the energy of your home. And maybe the Cake Ball Miners will be there!

When a diamond is set in a golden ring, it looks very nice. The gold is glorified and at the same time the diamond is glorified. The Lord and the living entity eternally glitter. And when a living entity becomes inclined to the service of the Supreme Lord he looks like gold. – Bhagavad Gita.

Crystal hunting

2009-08-21T06:10:00.000-07:00

Headed to a crystal and gem faire this weekend. Hope to be able to post some pix !

Sage it Out With the New Moon

2009-08-20T20:48:00.000-07:00

Ah the Dark of the Moon is upon us tonight and anticipation fills the air. But first… housekeeping is in order! And given the focus of this blog, of course I mean magical housekeeping!

Magical housekeeping can be done anytime, anywhere, but is especially appropriate at the time of the New Moon. The idea is to clear the space you live in of negative energy, which has accumulated over a period of time. By doing it now, at the New Moon, you can start the coming lunar cycle with a sparkling and peaceful home environment.

If you haven’t ever done this for your home, I strongly recommend that you do. Negative energy attaches to places for many reasons and in many ways and after time it can really become interfering. Sadness, anxiety, conflict; these all happen to us at various times and the negativity lingers and must be cleaned away. Have you ever been to a location that had something horrible happen there? Remember the residual energy you felt there? The same thing happens in your home as the result of your emotions, your interactions with others, and just the messy business of living.

You want your loved ones to have a happy and calm place to live, eat, and sleep. A magical home may not be always free of strife, but it can be restored to a place of peace with some intention and ritual, and time-tested methods.

If your home has a lot of negative energy, it will take a few cleaning sessions. Once you get a place cleansed, though, absent any horrific events, routine cleaning will keep it fresh and positive.

Here are some of the things I do; I’d love to hear your methods as well.

Open the windows and doors. Let the air flow through. If you do nothing else, do this. Life energy, or chi, gets stagnant if it can’t move. When you open your place up, the energy flows and it’s like a river coming through and clearing away the debris of your psychic travail.

Sage it out! Light a sage wand, or (my preference) burn sage leaves on a charcoal pellet and waft the sage smoke through the house. Be sure and let the smoke get up into the corners and around the edges of walls and crevices, as this is where negative spirits will keep themselves. Mind your smoke alarm! Consider using another method to clear the space around that. No need to scare the neighbors. And be careful you don't drop sparks. The wands can be a little messy that way, so exercise care.

If you don’t like the smell of sage (my cats hate it, but they have to deal), you can use any high quality incense. Sage is particularly effective against active negative entities; incense will lift the atmosphere very well and clear it of residual negativity. And even though sage smells a little like weed, no worries. (I had the local constabulary rap at my door one evening in response to a domestic disturbance down the walkway just as I was in full magical housekeeping mode, and when I opened the door a blast of sage smoke struck the officer. I stood there looking very witchy-woo in a black outfit, my hair messy, and cats twining around my ankles as I held a smoking plate of sage. He never said a word about it. He’s a So Cal cop!)

You can also walk around your home with a candle, or a crystal wand (I love, love, love my selenite wand!) and say words of cleansing and protection. You can make up the words, or use words from your religious tradition. You can invoke Jesus, the angels, or the saints, or whomever you pray to for protection. The main point is that YOU invoke the protection and OWN it. As with all prayer and spell work, it is your energy that makes it work. This is not the time to be a wimp. This is your home. Claim it.

Banish the negativity. Send it away – direct it out of windows and tell it to leave. Invoke calm and love for your home, and call in protection if you feel the need for that. Rearrange your crystals and determine which will take pride of place for the next lunar cycle. My selenite globe usually fills that role and sits squat in the center of the house.

AA Michael is known for his protective work and will always gird a home if you ask him. One of the archangels, Michael is found in all spiritual traditions, which is remarkable if you think about it. But you have to ask. Your energy starts the process. I don’t know why this is, but it is. You have to ask. (Remember that time is a dimension, so you can ask for protection for the past, too – oh that’s a discussion for another night…)

There are lots of other housekeeping hints like this to discuss, but it’s getting late and I have to go finish my cleaning. I guarantee that if you do this little psychic shakeout, the space will feel lighter to you afterwards. If you routinely clean your home, you know what I mean. Please add to this discussion and comment with your methods. If this is new to you… give it a try. This is the perfect time to do it.

For my Muslim friends: Ramadan Mubarak! May the peace of Allah be upon you and may you have wonderful evenings of feasting following the fasts!

New Moon Magic

2009-08-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

A friend suggested I write about New Moon work as the New Moon is approaching (around the 20th). I’m happy to oblige.

Moon work is supremely centering and relaxing. We humans have always looked to the Moon for calendaring, crop planting, and various and general inspiration. We ladies learn at an early age that our life cycles correspond to the same 28-day rhythm as Moon phases. Everything from tidal flow to emergency rooms crises and child birth rates seem to crescendo as the moon waxes, so it’s the rare mind that disassociates totally from the notion that the Moon is somehow energetically connected to us. Being mindful of Moon phases is very useful in leading a magical life. Tailoring meditations and life tasks with Moon phase is a tidy and cyclical way of dealing with all things in their proper time.

Take for example the phase of the New Moon: the time when the Moon is Dark and not visible to us. Many believe that the Dark is the time of greatest power in the Moon cycle. I think this is because it is the time of greatest possibility. The Dark occurs only for a moment, even though the sky seems pretty dark for several nights. The Moon is about to begin the waxing phase and so this discrete moment of Dark is a moment of pure anticipation. It is symbolic of the moment at which thought and intention become manifest; when out of the cosmic field, waves become particles. I picture Dr. Fred Alan Wolf running around, waving his arms and going on about axioms and resistance (I love Dr. Wolf so much). It’s a heady concept, and great for late night discussions. But what does the New Moon mean to us on a day-to-day level? How do we work with her?

On a practical level, the time approaching the New Moon (which we are in now: the Moon is in the third quarter as I write) is good for letting go, cleaning house, wrapping up old business, cutting cords, discarding behavior which no longer serves you - that sort of thing. As the Moon appears smaller and smaller; as that crescent wanes to a sliver, consider what YOU can let go of. What no longer serves you? Is it behavioral patterns that are long ingrained? Is it the clutter in the junk drawer of the kitchen?

Are you stalled in fear and not accomplishing all that you want to accomplish? Clear it out! Do you want to start a project? Sit down, clear your head, and do some concrete thinking and planning. Do your groundwork. Moon is about to start to wax and with that energy you can accomplish anything.

As the Moon wanes down, you too can crouch down in preparation for springing into action during the waxing phase. Get ready. You can do anything if you put your mind to it. And Luna is always there to keep you in mind of your own possibilities.

However you meditate, take a moment to think on the Moon. Ask Her for guidance (or ask whichever Deity you talk to). Your Deity created the Moon (regardless of your spiritual tradition, I think this is a given). The Moon is there to help guide you. You can’t get it wrong; look up and see what you see. Put on some music that makes you move, and clear out your mind, your home, your life!

Now I'm not a highly metaphysical man/But I know when the stars are aligned you can - Michael Franti, Say Hey I Love You

Farewell, Campbell

2009-08-13T22:09:00.000-07:00

Today the world mourns the loss of Campbell R. Bridges, a dynamic man who spent much of his life in Kenya. He is famous for discovering Tsavorite, a green gem of exceeding brilliance and quality. He was brutally murdered by claim jumpers who wanted control of his mines.

Tsavorite is an example of one of the new and powerful crystals Mother Earth is now revealing to us. It is an amazing healing stone and particularly useful in crises. It assists in girding the strength of anyone who wears it; transforming fear into strength, crisis into challenge.

New stones such as Tsavorite appear on Earth when they are needed. It is ironic that the man instrumental in revealing this stone passed from this world in such a manner. One hopes his glimmering grossularite assisted him.

Look at the gems you are wearing right now. Realize they are powerful repositories of energy. Visualize what it took to get the stone out of the ground and into your hands. Many people, many paths, temporal drama, eons of time. That stone, that crystal, is far older than you and will remain dynamic long after you are gone.

And yet now, at this moment, in that stone’s millennia of being, it is with you. Can you feel the energy?

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing there is a field. I will meet you there. – Rumi

Thoughts Become Things.. and sometimes silly evenings

2009-08-12T08:25:00.000-07:00

This evening I’m having dinner with Paula, a librarian from the GIA– my favorite cache of crystals in the whole universe. I met Paula at a party a couple of weeks ago and we hit it off. It happens that way when you work with crystals. You keep finding more people and crystals. Our encounter got me thinking of the concept of synchronicity, and one of my favorite stories. Some of you have heard this already, as I love to tell it, so apologies all around and feel free to click off now if you know this one.

It was several years ago and I was at one of Deepak Chopra’s satsungs in La Jolla back when he had his Center there. That night the main speaker was the legendary Fred Alan Wolf, physicist extraordinaire. When Fred talks I can barely keep up with his ideas – he zooms around on a plane well above my thick head. But I love, love listening to him. Dr. Wolf spoke at length about how scientists have demonstrated in a tangible way how a thought can become form; how the particles emerge from the mist; how things go, as his book title implies, from Mind Into Matter.

As coincidence – or in this case synchronicity – would have it, musician Dave Stewart was in the group as well. And as the evening continued we all got very silly. There were tabla players there and we got Deepak rapping Rumi out to their beats; we made Dave go out to his bus to get his guitar and we sang and made merry. And as the hours slipped by it all got very cozy. At one point Fred said he had always wanted to make a movie about the quantum reality in such a way as to make the concepts accessible to the average viewer – he wanted to make it a la Monty Python. Jokes were made as to how this could take form, and then – in a moment of pure synchronicity – Dave mentioned that he was meeting with Eric Idle in London the following week, and would Fred like to get together? The shock on Fred’s face said it all. Of course! Imagine saying you want to make a Monty Python film and someone says oh here, let’s go meet with the creator of Monty Python…. Wild!

Now at that point Yours Truly left the story, not to speak with either Dr. Wolf or Mr. Stewart since, but in matter of a couple of years, What the Bleep Do We Know came out. If you haven’t seen this yet, you should. It’s a great film about how the quantum reality works and it’s done in Dr Wolf’s crazy manner. It’s the film he made – the film he intended to make way back at that synchronous satsung evening. The film he set his mind on creating. People and situations and circumstances rose up to meet his intention. Out of his mind came this creation. Synchronicity…. It brought him everything he needed. Only… he had to take the initial steps to put the whole thing into action.

What could we do in two years if we put our minds to it? We could do anything. We really could.

Reaching Higher Ground

2009-08-11T20:50:00.000-07:00

Early today someone asked me how he could raise his vibration to a higher level. You’d think it would be easy, but my friend was having difficulty.

We are after all, nothing more than whirling bundles of discrete energy. Our bodies are made of space and electrons and neutrons and bits of this and that. And all energy has vibration. So as sentient beings we ought to be able exert a little control over the ‘vibes’ we give out to others. We ought, as spiritual people, be able to exude such balanced energy that we immediately soothe all those we come in contact with and have nothing but happy encounters. Yeah right.

Many days I deal with the public and lately they have been a difficult lot. They are angry, resentful, rage-filled, and insulting. At least they are when they are confronting the legal system. And many times the legal system is confronting them. So I suppose they are entitled to be cranky. I smile benignly and offer help and stifle the urge to match their negative remarks with retorts of my own. It’s a real challenge, though, when they make disparaging remarks about attorneys, about women, about the judicial system, and me. After all, I’m standing in front of them, making them face their unpleasant situation.

So after work today I took a walk. And before I padded out the door I slipped a lovely crystal in my pocket: a gorgeous piece of lakeshore prehnite from my friend Barbara, of the Keeweenaw in Upper Michigan. As I walked, and rolled the crystal in my hand, I began to feel calmer and lighter. I thought of Barbara and her lake. And of my own water here by the Pacific Ocean. I felt the crystal buzz with its ancient energy. And for some whimsical reason Stevie Wonder started singing “Higher Ground” in my head. The brain is a fine computer and I played all the intricate melodies and complex rhythms of that great song out in my mind. And as I walked, the day’s tensions and inequities melted away. I could return to my home refreshed and with my vibration raised up. All thanks to a walk, focusing on a crystal, and Mr. Wonder’s magical music.

“I’m so glad that he let me try it again/Cause my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin/I’m so glad that I know more than I knew then/Gonna keep on tryin”Till I reach my highest ground” -Stevie Wonder. Higher Ground

Start Me Up!

2009-08-10T20:51:00.001-07:00

First post on Magical Home/Magical Life! Finally! I'll get pix and more up in the next few days, but had to get started on this blog even without them. There's something about the energy in the air right now that motivates me. The time is right.

The whole purpose of my scribbling here is to explore ideas, create dialogue, and help others create a happy home environment, a happy family environment, and happy life through the use of magic. Everyday magic. Practical magic.

What's practical magic? Well for me it's a combination of the old ways (read: pagan wisdom) and quantum physics. We have the tools. Most of the time they're free or low cost. Most of the time we have them in abundance.

Moon work, crystal work, energy work, herbs and oils, meditation, wakeful dreaming, mediumship. We're going to discuss it all. It's not a secret. But it is ignored and discarded.

So let's change that and unlock the information.