Apparently they do. The police were conspicious by their absence when it came to the vandals. They were allowed (encouraged? Helped?) to smash windows in the downtown financial district and to burn police cars. There was not a hint of police presence or interference in these activities.

How many of these black-clad terrorists were actually undercover police officers? It seems likely that some of them were. This has now become a time honoured police tactic: dress up like the bad guys, do bad guy stuff even if there are no real bad guys around who want to do it in order to get the bystanders fired up and into a mob mentality in order to justify the massive police crackdown that they’ve spent so much money on making possible.

It’s called incitement to riot, wait isn’t that against the law? Ah, you see, the police are allowed to break the law in order to encourage people to break the law so that they can arrest them. It all makes such perfect sense.

The following quote is from the description on this video of Black Bloc violence:

It should be VERY obvious to everyone at this point, there is a pattern here. Massive crowds of PEACEFUL protesters show up to voice their opinions and concerns, and LIKE CLOCKWORK the Black Bloc comes out of nowhere and FU$%S UP THE WHOLE PROGRAM, EVERY TIME. This is a classic, PREDICTABLE tactic used time and again. And every time it happens the black Bloc gets away while the peaceful crowds are surrounded, harassed, arrested and worse. It is used to steer the public away from what LEGITIMATE protesters are out there screaming about, and is also used as a way to condition the public into expecting harsher police responses and HUGE security clampdowns (1 BILLION DOLLARS) every time there is a protest organized. The Black bloc is a tool of the Global Elite and there is plenty of proof if you are willing to look for it. REAL PROTESTERS DON’T WEAR MASKS, except gas masks, and by the time those are necessary it’s obvious who is on what side! I can guarantee that just like all the past G20 protests, it will come out that the Police (undercover, in uniform, and elements of the Black Bloc), were the ones burning and smashing things, so they have their excuse to rush in on the law abiding protesters! GUARANTEED

“$1 billion of security cannot stop a radical group as they smash a police rental van at University & College intersection, while dozens of police officers sit in rental vans across the street. The Black Block escapes proceeding the closing down the ‘free speech zone’ in Queens Park… G what? Hollywood Psy-Op!”

Video Credit To SupportLocalScene:

http://www.youtube.com/user/SupportLo…

REAL PROTESTERS DON’T WEAR MASKS, except gas masks, and by the time those are necessary it’s obvious who is on what side! I can guarantee that just like all the past G20 protests, it will come out that the Police (undercover, in uniform and elements of the Black Bloc), were the ones burning and smashing things, so they have their excuse to rush in on the law abiding protesters! GUARANTEED

EYEWITNESS REPORTS: Reported in THIS VIDEO – Police allowing destruction, not moving in…

THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING,THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE, THAT IS WHAT HYPOCRISY LOOKS LIKE!

But this is the piece that shut down my celebratory mood for good today. It’s a very long, detailed, wrenching, excellently written story by a guy who was arrested along with hundreds of other bystanders, protesters, shoppers, locals and other innocents and detained in cages–yes, cages!–crammed with other prisoners for nearly 24 hours. It’s a hell of a story, the kind of thing you can’t imagine happening here. You just can’t.

But it did. It would make a hell of a documentary film. Paul Manly, I hope you’re on this one. Shame, shame, shame on this country today.

More stories from the mainstream media:

National Post photographers arrested & detained for 24 hours
From the Toronto Star, 20 people tell their stories

Here I was, all set to go downtown and join the community in its Canada Day party, but now all I want to do is cry. Or maybe break some windows and torch some police cars.

If they want to start a revolution, this is the way to go about it. How long are we going to let this crap go on? They’re strengthening the infrastructure of the police state. Will we wait until we’re all confined to cages to do something? What the hell CAN we do?

God damn it. I want my country back. I’m starting to feel like this.

Oh, and the HST kicking in today? I’m not even going to go there. It’s just adding insult to injury.

We all love falling in love with ‘the One’, that magical feeling of total merging, bonding with another human, being completed by your soulmate. Life is all about happy ever after once you have that experience. Isn’t it?

Not really. Falling in love is only the beginning. Love’s Heaven, when it’s deep and real, the sort that begins with that utter bliss of deep meeting your own perfect ‘other’, the one you feel safe and at home with, your best friend and boon companion, can become Hell when the beloved become the hated Other in a flash.

“I don’t know who you are right now!” “I can’t believe you just said / did that!” “But you know better, you know how much that would hurt me, how could you…?” “What on earth did you mean by that?” “If you loved me, you would never, you would always…”

Love begins with desire and hope, consummates in bliss and passion, and if we choose relationship as our primary healing path, will weave its way through minefields of betrayal, hurt, hatred and everything we most fear, until, if we are lucky, persevere and keep our hearts and minds open, forgiving our own selves and each other all the way, we emerge on the other side, still in love, in a much more spacious, safe and grounded way. We can evolve through to a place where love is safe, and trust is solid. The path to that place is not an easy one, though. It might involve breaking up and reconnecting. It might not. It did for me.

As a songwriter and metaphysician, I am fascinated by love, and my relationship history has deeply informed my writing. These songs chronicle the understandings and teachings of love through all of its stages, the sweet, the bitter and the fascinating. It is a journey that can take us into the heart of the deepest pain possible to experience, and if we are willing to move through it, to a place of spaciousness, empowerment and permanent heart opening.

If we open our hearts fully and unconditionally to ourselves, we become able to open fully to another. If we open fully to another, we will have our frozen places broken open and melted, a kind of global warming of the soul, disastrous while it’s happening, empowering and strengthening after.

Sinead O’Connor wrote, “Thank you for breaking my heart / thank you for tearing it apart / now I’ve a strong, strong heart”.

Having our heart broken by the one we have trusted more than any other human is a profoundly transformational experience. These songs focus on the transformational journey of love, from seeking, finding, losing, falling, betrayal, abandonment, self-forgiveness and reconnection and renewal.

We are complex beings, and we require the mirroring of another to reveal to us our most profound loving, beautiful as well as what we least love and accept about ourselves.

I invite you to share this journey with me.

Winds of Change is located on 5th Street, right across from Hot Chocolates, the concert is in the back room at four pm. There are lots of other events there that day too, starting with a sound healing concert at 1pm and continuing on to the evening, as well as sales and such; it’s the big Valentine’s Day event. Hope to see you there!

Here’s December’s; late, I know, but the month’s not over yet.

Down-to-Earth Astrology

by Phoenix Wolf-Ray

Don’t swallow your tears or deny your fears, instead love, embrace and evolve them. Difficult though it is to embrace our dark sides, it’s necessary now. Saturn-Pluto says, the only way out is through.

December Forecast

Earth’s sign (always opposite the Sun’s sign) is given in parentheses. Read both as well as the forecast for your Rising sign (Ascendant) for the full picture:

November Grace

Counting down to that dreaded November night again.
Every year, the same routine
Steeling myself to face another anniversary of her death
My mother, Grace, took her life from me when I was 12
Sudden, violent death isn’t something you get over; just learn to live with.
Ugly and raw, that word… that dirty deed, that hidden, shameful secret in the trash, Suicide…

And now, another Grace departs on the witching hour of a cold, nocturnal November
Our very own TemPeSt Grace Gale…

Naively I fell asleep, trusting the world would still be as I’d left it in the morning.
Stolen from us while we dreamt
Our TemPeSt Gale, blown over
Our TemPeSt Gale, blown away

From somewhere
I hear a voice, screaming,
Hemming me in,
The world’s spinning
Tilt-a-Whirl, reeling
Pinning my ear to the ground
And it’s my voice I meet there
My voice

In minds eye, I see you
Ever tumbling from blue and white poetry-on-wheels
Your latest tribe of minstrels in tow
Laughing and fearless,
Furiously embracing every passion.
~We thought you were invincible~
That each morning, you’d arise with the sun, greeting us with crooked smile…
But all is still and quiet now
Utter, harrowed, gutted silence.
No goodbyes, no goodbyes…

That night…
A spark
Struck from our collective hearts
Sent ablaze ‘cross gloaming sky
As useless hands reach out
And fruitless mouths, beckon
To kindle your name, on whispered breath
Eyes tracking, full of rain…
Desperate eyes, blind with rain
Straining to hold you,
Just one… moment… longer…
Until abruptly,
The Veil parts,
Ushering in a strange, unearthly calm
And our TemPest Nightbird
Disappears amongst the stars…

- Elizabeth Gries

I lurve flickr. And Picnik, which is also associated with flickr and where I create the works you see here. And now I love Qoop too.

I have set up a store here with a few starter photos up, including the one Jean requested, so if you want to order one from them go for it.

I don’t have the facilities to create printouts, and the logistics of getting them printed and mailing them out and all is beyond me at the moment. So this is an awesome solution! You buy directly from them, and I get a royalty for every piece sold. Cool!

So if you see a photo here, or on my flickr page that you would like a copy of to decorate your actual (rather than virtual) wall with, and it’s not available yet on the Qoop page, drop me a line or make a comment to request it and I’ll add it so you can order.

How easy is that? Thanks, Jean!

To Be Strong: 2012

If you think there is no farther you can fall
Remember, there is no limit to the all
The only ground that you can stand upon
Is in the center, and it falls with you

Remember to be fluid in your lives
Follow your feet, and know you will survive
The only earth that can hold you flesh and soul
Is the earth that holds you here and now

There is a place where you are safe, and held, and warm
There is a one and only time for which you’re born
the time is now, the only place is here
There is a method, and this is how

Mm bap mm beep mm boop de doop de dooo
Mm bip mm bop mm baaahhh, mm, and me and you
And we and me and we and you and me and we
Mm bap mm be mm boop de doop de dooo

If you think there is no farther you can fall
Remember, place no limits upon the all
The only help that you can count upon
Is the help you give yourself

When your cup is full, it will spill over
When your cup is full it will spill over
It will spill over, it will spill over
There is nothing you can do
But open up your heart
There is nothing you can do
But open up your lips
There is nothing you can do
But open up your arms

There is nothing you can do
But open up your mind
There is nothing you can do
But open up your legs
And teach your soul to beg
And stop trying to play dead
Stop hiding in your head

It’s all right, you are not bad, or weird, or wrong
You’ve got a heart, you’ve got a thought, you’ve got a song
you will always belong
it’s okay to be strong

I have over 1,500 photos on my flickr page and this a fun way to enjoy some of them. I hope you like.

The ‘about phoenix’ page has also been updated.

It’s in the form of a PDF document because it contains a lot of astrological glyphs which turn into gibberish if you haven’t got the font (and I’m pretty sure you haven’t).

Download here

You’re welcome .

It feels amazing. I hadn’t been sure how much of that ‘amazingness’ (apologies for the cop-out generic word; I can’t think how to describe this feeling) had to do with my usual ‘I’m moving into a new space and clearing space in my life for a while until it all gets dusty, cluttered, disordered and I have to move again’ pattern and how much it had to do with something special or unusual going on.

Partly it’s moving in at Beltane, and this Friday is the Scorpio Full Moon, also known as Lunar Beltane, a potent time indeed. So these dancing faeries are a natural part of the season, I suspect; still, I feel blessed and special that they are here dancing with me. Whee!

The orbs, though. Some people think they’re ghosts. I’m not so sure about that interpretation; I don’t actually feel they are spirits of dead people hanging around my space. Personally I think they’re faeries. Just like everything, but cool anyway.

Still, wow and whew. I seem to be having my mind blown more than a bit these days, and my mind loves being blown! I’m going to post a set of orb photos on my flickr page as soon as I can and I’ll keep you all posted.

For the orb skeptics among you, and I number a part of my own brain among you, I’ve been taking digital photos intensively for years; I have over twelve hundred photos uploaded to my flickr account alone, and crazy gigs of photos on my hard drive, and I hardly ever take photos with orbs in them. The ‘orbs’ set I have on my flickr page is mostly composed of photos by somebody else, photos that I’m actually in front of instead of behind.

This is, if not a first, then not more than a second or possibly a third for me. Orbs. Masses of them. Whee!!

Yet the day itself was nothing short of magical. And since then I feel great. Instead of feeling older, I feel renewed. Brand new, reborn. It’s luscious.

I had a party, of course; I don’t always, but somehow this year it seemed required. I invited a bunch of people, some of whom (just the right number, and just the right people, though there were a few I expected, and missed) showed up. People stayed late, participated in my game and had a blast, in a very good way.

One person got drunk and obnoxious, and what would a party be without that guy? Actually he was kinda sweet, in a sloppy kind of way.

The game I had people play was this: we had a microphone, an amp, a bass, a bass amp, a crystal bowl, several guitars, several drums, and a wide variety of talent in the room. I started, and we went around the circle, taking turns. Each person could choose to do something themselves or request something from someone else. The variety of what emerged was amazing!

We had songs, of course; there were several songwriters in the room. Shauna requested that I read a spoken word piece that I performed at the Habitat Cabaret in December. You can listen to that performance here, if you like.

David, a salsa teacher, gave a salsa dance lesson. Thea requested to hear the crystal bowls, so Ian played them and we toned along with them. Bill wanted to hear some drumming. Ian wanted to hear a group song, so Ric played ‘Moonshadow’ and we all sang along.

Karin started and led a vocal jam (which we like to call a conniption). This involves a lot of surrender, listening and uninhibited allowing of the sound to flow, and it worked wonderfully as it always does! People are amazing!

Peter shared his shared his performance piece, which you can see here; I filmed it at Folk Yeah in March. Cheryl Cohen played the song on her new CD which she had recently recorded called ‘Sacred Hands’ and you can listen here on her MySpace page.

Ric was gracious enough to play the song I wanted to hear from him; you can hear a clip of that here; and if you want to know more about him or buy his CD (which I recommend), you can find out more about him here.

Ron read a letter he’d written to the editor. The story he told before he read the letter, about his cat, was much more entertaining. Still, as he said, ‘that’s my talent’. I’m so impressed and fascinated with the levels of talent and willingness to share that people have, when they’re invited.

A gratifying number of people wanted to hear something from moi. I suppose, I mean, it was my birthday. Pnina wanted to hear Peter and I sing a love song, so we did. And Sheya requested my brandest, newest, never before played song, which was edgy and fun to do.

Then after a full circle completed, we hung out and talked until I had to beg imminent unconsciousness and the party ended at two thirty or so.

So, oh yea. That was a good one.

You can see photos of the party here.

And oh yes… the dress. Oh, the dress. A birthday gift from Shauna, it’s luscious green silk, made of gossamer, moonlight and nothingness, which reveals all. Or it would have revealed all, if I hadn’t covered it with a black top.

Here’s what it looks like without the cover-up. Ooh, me so daring!