It’s a little past the New Year, but I feel like taking on another daily challenge, or as close to daily as I can manage (giving myself lots of rope). My photography project (the arty self-portraits) for this year is to focus on expressing emotion through the photos.

That seemed to invite joining poetry with the photos, which serves the bonus purpose of keeping me writing. Here’s the first few installments.

frozen heart

Sad eyes
gaze quizzical
from bluezone
distances
hope froze over
long ago
and now
nothing ever happens
her veins have changed
from hot flood
to lacy traceries
no more beating heart
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Last night, I came across a poem I wrote back in 95… the title grabbed me with its reference to the wind (Tempest + Gale = wind).

I was in a Pluto square at the time and in a big rage at God (or whatever masquerades as God in most organized religion), pumped up, feeling like death couldn’t hurt me.

“Come and get me! Yeah I said YOU, chickeenn…’ the poem said.

Then, I got scared, put the thing away and never did anything with it. I know, I know.

Personally, I feel sure that if I die, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll stay right here, enjoy my body as it melts into the earth, still aware but slowly expanding to become one with her.

It’s happened to me before. Every past life regression I’ve done (three, with three different hypnotherapists) has taken me back to that same experience. I’ve *never* ‘gone to the light’, whatever that means. It feels alien to me.

It’s probably because I’m fey. The Church used to claim that the fey folk have no souls, which just means they don’t separate from their bodies and go off to some other place, they stay and change form until they reconvene in another time and place.
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Last year I performed at the Habitat Cabaret in Maple Bay with a wild troupe of talented folks, and what a great time we had, face paint and costumes and amazing entertainment.

This Saturday, there will be another Cabaret, relocated to the Duncan Garage (a bit smaller, but also cozier), and I get to sing in that one too. I hope you get to come. It’ll be fun!

Saturday evening, Duncan Garage, doors at 7:30… I’ll be there. I haven’t performed publicly since June 27 at the Gong Show, so I’m really looking forward to this.

I’ve been a member of the Progressive Bloggers community over on Word of Mouth Blog (WoMb) for years, but since WoMb has gone defunct (or dormant), I’ve transferred my writerly focus over to this personal site.

Then yesterday, Scott Tribe asked if I wanted to add this site to the ProgBlog community, and I hesitated at first, because this tends to be a rather relentlessly personal and navel-gazing blog (well, mostly; I do write stuff like this, too). I do, however, think of myself as a progressive sort, doing my part by living my life according to my principles and writing about it here.

I’m a photographer / artist / singer-songwriter / card reader / astrologer / writer and this blog is the container into (out of?) which I spill everything; I can’t really categorize myself well. On the Political Compass, I am firmly lodged way down in the lower left hand quadrant (below where Gandhi is). I’m a leftie-libertarian, which I count as ‘progressive’ though of course, if you don’t fit in that quadrant, you’re likely to disagree.

What is progressiveness? I suspect that ultimately we’re all coming toward the same central truth from our own positions in the spectral sphere, and that therefore progress is going to look different according to our individual starting places.
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I just realized that this is the website I have on my business card. So prospective clients come here. They must be a bit confused, and I couldn’t blame them for wondering what in Gaia’s name this blah blah blog has to do with my business.

I’m working on that, folks, my apologies for any befuzzlement. Like a Phoenix from the ashes, this website will be reborn, surprisingly, when the time is right (ie, when I have the time and some freedom from the beautiful heat).

What I do is unique, and it’s about who I am as much as it is what I do. I am a passionate devotee of Gaia, Earth Mama, this blessed bountiful bowl of pleasure which gives us source and sustenance, herself product of the marriage of Spirit and Mat(t)er. It’s why I call this page ‘Spreading the Gaia Word.’ I speak the Word for Gaia, as best as I am able.

And this page is about more than that too. I will have more to say about it as soon as I can get a break from the daily business of my life to sit down and decide what it is.

What is it that I do? I read cards. I painted them. They’re cool. I pair them up with a very special deck of other cards. They go really wonderfully together.
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I never cease to be fascinated with my own crazy brain (and I mean that in only the best way). I frequently stumble upon gems cast about my recent past which seemed no more significant than pebbles at the time. When I find them, I am dazzled for a while. Ooh! Me a poet!

Like this piece, found in a paper journal (I know, so last century, but I’m a product of my time). I wrote it early last summer. I thought might be a song, which would be exciting (and still might be), but I won the Story Slam last night at the Zocalo and now I’m all into the spoken word thing. So I tried reading it out loud, and liked it that way. Maybe I’ll enter it in the next story slam.

This was written in the breathy new beginnings of opening up to the love I’d believed to be over (the ending of which, faithful readers of this blog will recall, was recounted on these page in grim poetic detail). Time passes, and things have progressed pleasingly on that front. More than pleasingly. And yeah, we do still choose to live apart. We go home to different islands at the close of our visits. It’s good.

This is from safely enough in the past that I can dust it off now and claim it in the name of poetry. O mystery me! I’m a regular one-woman archeological dig.

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I’m sitting in the Zocalo Cafe in Courtenay, watching the rain outside and feeling content with my lot in life. I took my bike in to Sarah’s bike shop across the street and by the weekend I’ll be on two wheels again! And that is so excycling I can’t even tell you.

See the thing is, while in Chemainus my bike was consigned to an inaccessible corner in the basement, since there was no other place to keep it. And it was an odd place when it comes to cycling; everything in town proper was an easy walk but the roads were definitely not cycle-friendly. And Duncan was just too far to ride to (for me).

Now, my bike is conveniently stored and I live a sweet 7k ride from town, so once again my bike gets to be my main form of transport. Yess!!

The reason I’m sitting at my computer in a cafe instead of going home to write is that I’m experiencing a router issue. My connectivity at home is, shall we say, variable. So as soon as I get some cash ahead a new router is on my shopping list.

And now that I have a home to do card readings from–two homes in fact–I will indeed be getting some cash ahead very soon. I have some debts to pay off, but the lack of having to pay rent is a sweet treat indeed and makes life feel more doable all around.

These are my card reading homes in Courtenay: on Fridays from noon until five I’m at Winds of Change, which is the Moonliting of Courtenay (crystals, tarot cards, readings, hemp / organic cotton clothing, esoteric books etc). In fact, it is the only shop of its kind in the Comox Valley, so there is no reason it shouldn’t do well.
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Some aspects of this moving thing are kinda blowing my mind, and when my mind blows, I need to tell somebody about it. That’s the blessing of a blog. And by the way, I am so grateful to (and for) you guys. It’s amazing to have this socially acceptable venue in which to spill my guts in public.

So here’s the thing: for the first time since … well, ever, I’m settling into a home that feels as though it might actually last longer than my past pattern of a year or two in a place, three or four at most. I feel that way for these reasons:

a) the rent is free and promised to remain so,
b) what I am asked to do in exchange for the space is something that I have been dying to get to do for my whole life pretty much. (At some point I’ll tell the tale of my relationship with horses)
c) it feels good to me in virtually every way; and the kicker,
d) they want somebody to stay long term. Forever, if desired. And that’s a big draw for me: roots.

So I’m letting myself act as if I’m going to spend the rest of my life here. Not that I can accurately predict such things as the future (at least not with regard to myself), nor can I know what I will want or what changes life might bring. Still, for change’s sake I am choosing to take the plunge, unpacking crates and cases that, in some cases, have not been more than occasionally looked into in ten or even fifteen years.
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[Yawn] I’m staying up way too late tonight, creating a new website called ‘Computer Help For Newbies.’ (Stay tuned, I’m bound to bore you with the details soon enough.)

I was inspired by having gotten up early this morning to meet with a computer help client and finding out that, get this, nobody else is doing this. And also by Cathy’s comment. I will post something on the forum as soon as my site is up and running–and I’m already pretty close. Turbo charged.

As for exactly what ‘this’ is, you’ll find out soon. But it seems to be an open market for me. So that’s exciting, rather.

The crux of all this at the moment is, it’s now 4 am and I got up at 8:30 this morning. What am I, nuts?

I’ll leave you enjoy the last couple of days’ self-portraits… this last one should be clicked on and viewed large (click on the ‘all sizes’ button above the photo in the flickr page). I’m pleased with the swirly tiny red lines. They should be seen.

Must… Sleep…
Now…

g’night all.

Life, while it continues to mystify me, begins to gain a semblance of shape that shows hints of making sense someday. By ‘life’, I mean ‘my life’, for that’s the one in front of my I’s right now and the only life I am intimate enough with to glean the inner meaning of.

As an astrologer, of course, I daily operate on the assumption that meaning is and must be an inherent quality of life; yet, astrology allows for and includes the unknowable, the great mystery in the delineation of meaning. At best, the most we know is that some things must remain unknown. Still and all, much can be discovered, certain trends can be anticipated and certain tendencies remain reliable.

One might think that I, as one who plies my trade deciphering the puzzles of others’ lives, would be more aware of my own destiny, enough at least to settle into a chosen field and plow it with focus and intention. Yet such has not proved to be so, at least so far. I continue to revolve from vocation to vocation, devoting a year or two to certain subsets of ‘that which defines me’, only to allow it to lapse into dormancy when the next cycle comes around. While certain roles remain constant (such as ‘astrologer’), being necessary for my daily bread, other creative outlets revolve, some turning on as others turn off, inexplicably yet reliably. By now, I ought to know: still, now I am coming to understand. (more…)