i've been asking myself a lot of questions lately...namely, "where the hell am i?"  not just physically, but emotionally, spiritually (all the same thing if you ask me, but you haven't so i'll save that for another blog.)  i've wound up on many an unfamiliar new york street corner, wide-eyed and soggy-tailed, forced to remember that i was never a great girl scout..."always be prepared" extends now to a change of yoga clothes and a stash of condoms...which, upon further, socially relevant examination, probably goes to show you that, in my short time as a daisy scout, i really got the point of all that stuff.  you never know what life's going to throw at you, so keep it real, and keep it safe.  back to the blog.  getting up off of familiar ground is unsettling, to say the least, but liberating in that it necessitates presence- awareness of body and mind in order to not topple over, or end up in a crazy relationship, or broke...we'll get to that later.  my point today is that no one told me freedom was going to be so precarious, so read on for my experience so far.

i'm watching myself more closely these days, and from a certain vantage point, i look a little...well, lost, actually.  maybe that was the point.  not so long ago, i recall glorifying the benefits of getting lost in my new city (from the safety of my home, surrounded by my loved ones.)  now that i am on this journey, part of me is not so sure; "where the hell are we going?!" she asks.  well, thankfully i don't have to grit my teeth and lie to my frantic self, just quote someone else's line of wisdom that appeared in my inbox today: wise, wise angel o' mine announced, "getting lost is not a waste of time." oh, thank god...

although sometimes it feels that way, in a big way.  the goal, i suppose, is to stay on the path.  to sit with yourself, all of yourselves, and listen.  deepak chopra said, "great change is always preceded by chaos," and i have to say this current current of chaos running through me is definitely playing games with my head.  cyclically wondering why i can't seem to sleep enough, or get enough ice cream, or find anything to slow down the thoughts, some well-trained part of me knows that i have to stay with it, breathing, in order to usher in the change that is imminent.

a common question these days, from the people i'm meeting in new york, to friends back home and even myself late at night, is, "so, why did you move?"  i liken this urge to uproot and move away to a scout's trek (this theme suggests that maybe i'm destined to be a scout leader...) through the woods: the pack follows the leader that way, and i see a cumbersome and mysterious trail leading...nowhere.  i have to take it!  i have to know what's down there!  and suddenly i'm alone on the path i chose, and it's terrifying!  but what i know is that it's worse to live with the feeling of not having chosen my own way.  i have increasing clarity around what is important to me and what i'm willing to do for it, what i want to do with myself in the long run (i'll tell you about that later), and that impulse has pushed me here, into the rawness of my own heart.  girl scouts of america...watch out, here i come.  you'll always be prepared for wet, bendy sex.  tongue.  in.  cheek.

this morning, as i sat picking apart every little choice i've made so far, demonizing myself for being human and a little vulnerable, i was finally able to wrench myself free for long enough to come to the conclusion that, i was, in fact, acting like a dance mom.  to myself.  how about a little compassion, eh?  and then i remembered an article that a friend recently shared with me about kicking bad habits (i would call judgment a pretty nasty habit.)  the author wrote, "We do it until we don’t do it."  a fairly simple breakdown of releasing old patterns through compassion.  just like we have to trust our loved ones to get where they need to be on their own time, we must find that same trust in ourselves and the time it takes to get the lessons we need to learn figured out.  all of our vices are ours for a reason: they are our greatest teachers.  so on this ever exciting and sometimes treacherous path, i'll hope for continued grace, and remembrance that:

the tremble of tears that shifts the ground beneath you
will make mountains one day
nature is at work inside of us

in light and love,
keep your head up.

storm's a brewin'

tonight in brooklyn, something other-worldly happened: i heard thunder and saw lightning.  it truly struck me as something bizarre and almost frightening because this city is so loud, so thunderous already that nature just seems like such an extreme against the intense urban-ness.  any real, spontaneous life, anything volatile from the earth is just extra what you're used to.  so with that, here's some of my poetry...which may come across as just extra what you're used to...


sometimes i want to lick your face just
to show you how sweet you are...
or tuck you under my arm like a
blanket, trailing silently
behind me.
i trust you like a brother
and i want to fuck you like a train wreck,
hard, loud, run it off the rails
till something makes us stop.

the air between us is so thick
you could almost choke on it
and sometimes i wish you would
so i could tear down the dark walls
between us and set fire to the
misidentified luggage you brought home.

there's a delicacy in your gloved tongue,
it keeps things long and elegant,
covered, so that even when you grab your
audience by the throat and squeeze, no evidence
is left behind.
but i can smell it on your breath: undigestible
meaning.

your touch feels like a broken promise
from all that fear
eating through the foundation
of our hell-bent love for one another,
grown outta summer sweat and
shadowy exchanges.
still there's something unbroached, unconsummated,
and i hang on the edge
of it like a cliff-jumper holding my breath in vain.

the most romantic thing you said
was i wish we could have breakfast, or
at least fuck again...
before you dropped me off for tomorrow,
turned around and drove to her
mentioning something vague about...

it's far-fetched, i know, that i
could breathe the life back into you,
resuscitate your hollowed-out heart
in time.
but if you'd just open your mouth
for me instead of all this
tight-lipped strategy
let the earth come up to meet you instead
of buckling in the
hard suck of gravity,
we could just be
for each other
like mac and cheese.
i'd rather sip on bittersweet bravery than
choke on a burnt chunk of good-bye.
now it's all polite and nice nice inside
the walls are dripping with
little pink bits of meat still pounding
in synchronistic time.
are you hungry?
the beast that gets blown apart at least
deserves the courtesy of becoming dinner.

yoga and life and stuff...and lots of italics for emphasis

between the yoga classes and countless miles walked since saturday, my body and brain are fertile ground right now for thoughts, fears, emotions, pain, worry to all come shooting through the surface like the first day of spring.  the discomfort level brought on by moving to a new place has heightened my awareness around balance and what that looks like for me in my life, as it is.

particularly in yoga, when we talk about balance, there's a lot of this "masculine/feminine, light/dark, body/spirit" talk, but as regular ol' humans, sometimes i think that that particular kind of languaging gets lost on our ears and we still feel "bad" about fear and sadness and loneliness as very real aspects of ourselves.  or is that just me?

this all started in a class the other day when, after juicing up with lots of twists, in the middle of practicing side crow (not easy or comfortable), the instructor said, "so, you do the steps to set it up and you breathe, and some days you can do it and some days you can't."  and i laughed out loud because that is exactly the way i've been feeling about my life recently.  some days, most days, i'm capable of huge amounts of love and lightness, and some days i'm not.  some days i'm patient, some days i'm pessimistic, and some days i'm angry.  usually, just for a spell, though, and that’s what has to be remarked on: we're constantly in flux, and it's uncomfortable.  it's kind of annoying, actually.

there are these hemispheres of love and hate and light and dark, logic and intuition, cleanliness and sloth, trust and confusion which constantly rotate around the axis of our consciousness and come in and out of the light, our awareness.  we don't question the earth moving from day to night (although i am guilty of cursing the sun for rising on a perfectly beautiful night on occasion...), and our own passage from light to dark is just as natural, just as relentless, equally beyond our control.

the next day, i took another class which brought it all down, right here, to the ground level.  the instructor said over and over again, "sit well, align yourself so that we can do good work here, we are practicing techniques so that we might live well."  the practice became so pure with that instruction.  what's so often lost in yoga is the intention behind it.  i'm not practicing handstand so that when i get cut off in traffic i can pull over and do a handstand to prove how patient and strong-willed i am.  warrior II is totally irrelevant when it comes to being a good person.  i practice these postures to be strong and free in my physical space, so that what flows through me is pure, and not low blood sugar-induced hissy fits or clogged arteries or kidney stones.

the practice of yoga asana (postures) is difficult as a training tool for life.  just yesterday, as i was recounting my story of moving to a friend, describing my experience as "uncomfortable," she so gently reminded me that we could all use a little more time being uncomfortable.  and she didn't mean walking around on a sprained ankle or eating cookie dough three meals a day, but the kind of uncomfortable that causes a shift in awareness, uncomfortable in the interest of growth, not self-punishment.  uncomfortable, like holding a pose for seven or eight extra breaths.  uncomfortable, like going somewhere completely new for the first time and making new friends.  uncomfortable, like loving someone impossibly and hopefully over more miles than seems fair or reasonable.  uncomfortable, like allowing change to take the time that it takes.

in finding our "balance," or pushing into those spaces that bring up discomfort, we arm ourselves against the unexpected, fortifying our hearts to live this very brutal life of a human being.  like the rugged and raw landscape chögyam trungpa rinpoche describes in his "eternal ground," we are as the earth: violent and life-giving and beautiful, constantly dying and constantly giving birth.  our work is not to stop that process, but to participate in it.  pema chödrön talks about the peace that’s found in accepting our humanness, and when discomfort arises, we don’t push it away, we look at it as a means, “of ventilating it, of loosening the tension around it, of becoming aware of the space in which the discomfort is occurring.”

by holding ourselves up to the light with no expectations, we can just do the work instead of judging and wondering why we’re not perfect.  if you were perfect, there’d be no point in you being here.  as humans, our aim cannot be to make ourselves perfect- we already are, that is our essence: pure potential.  it has nothing to do with capability or physical beauty or intellect, but rather, i believe, with vulnerability, persistence and love.  when we practice intentionally, with the aim of keeping focused on our individual balance, we nourish the collective.  through generosity in your work, by focusing on your own healing, you make it possible for others to heal.  it is damaging and cruel to think that any of us is a lost cause.  practice for yourself, practice for your loved ones, practice for strangers, practice for people you think you know and let them surprise you. 

so, live well; not accidentally, not apologetically, not in secret.  there is nothing we can't rectify if we choose to.  don't give up.

*special thanks to bryn chrisman (http://yogamayanewyork.com/?p=282) and carla stangenberg (http://jayayogacenter.com/about-us/teachers/carla) for the inspiration and support.

re-root

first day in my new city called brooklyn
figuring out how to get breakfast coffee groceries not lost reading street signs dodging cyclists meandering through marketplaces bookstores delis construction zones
everything's heightened, exaggerated
figuring out what leads to what turns into where leads me north east south west
i pass legendary familiar ordinary and lovely sites
i love a man laying prostrate on the steps of a church, unencumbered by legs, bringing him to rest that much closer against his God, sleep
slipping into a familiar bookstore for enclosure
out of nowhere my purse goes off- like, an alarm in my purse goes off
i'm receiving an emergency weather alert text message on my phone
this has never happened before so i don't recognize the sound or realize it's even me until everyone in the shop turns to look at me as though i were the disaster they were being warned about....i smile....pay for my picture postcards...scurry out the door...
just in case i had started to feel at ease
i walked past the same car wash four times today, and every time the men stared like they weren't staring, having perfected this particularly male kind of multitasking
i understand you, i think to myself, and smirk as i imagine their surprise when i talk back, "dime lo que quieras..."
outside my windows the city moves and breathes along deep grooves of rhythm and blues
and i breathe in time
holding sometimes to take it in deeper
and to feel the spaciousness given me from miles and miles away
"sad" is too small
"afraid" is staring me in the face
i'm simply overwhelmed by love
my body trembles under its weight, stretches around its size, and moves tirelessly at its urging

mysterious universe

this is an old post that i started and never finished....until today....

a new series began on NPR called "the hidden world of girls." it documents stories about "girls and the women they become," female rituals and rights of passage, and unlikely traditions around the world.

i was inspired by the perfectly phrased thesis of one reporter: "one thing we noticed, if you're delving into the lives of women and girls, you can't help but enter into the mysterious universe of their bodies..."

the lives and rituals of girls and women fascinate...the daily ritual of cleaning our pores, plucking our eyebrows, picking out the best bits of granola from the bowl, the 8-octave range of laughter when we gather in groups...

the phrase "mysterious universe" instantly ignited in me two things: my own awe and adoration of the physical body in motion, and the tremendous pressure put on women to look a certain way to be considered "attractive" in our society; the obsession with physical standards put on a form that is so varied and powerful and designed to break boundaries. creating a collective belief that all bodies must adhere to one aesthetic goes against nature. okay, this is not new information. but women are still prey to it's grip on our minds and behavior. women are still fighting themselves and killing their spirits in order to fit into a trendy new look. or, in order to feel accepted in the world. which is what this comes down to. women's day may confuse some people- why do women need a whole day? women are powerful. yes. beyond measure. but we are not accepted completely. our bodies are not celebrated- not as they are, but as someone, somewhere decided they "should" be because it's more aesthetically appealing on camera. i'm going to put out there that 99% of women have/have had some form of an eating disorder. in my opinion, obsessive calorie counting is an eating disorder. it is absolutely true that counting calories can help people get healthier. physically. mentally and emotionally, i believe it is self-destructive. my opinions are based on my experience- what i have gone through myself and what i have witnessed in others.

i think it is a right of passage, unfortunately, to go through a period of disconnection to one's physical self. as a woman, coming in to one's own with a body as capable and powerful as the female body, "women who swell with the tide, women who change when the wind blows, show us we are connected to everything, show us we are not separate from everything." naturally the passage would be fraught with mistrust, misunderstandings and discomfort. i personally spent days gripping onto my inner thighs, staring into the mirror in horror at what i saw. i pulled back the flesh on my legs to see, just for a moment, how it would look, to feel what it would be like, to be 'pretty.' i don't know where this started or came from, i just know that i was living in a body i didn't understand.

over one summer in high school, i dropped from approximately 123lbs. to 102lbs. at 5'4" i was underweight. every thought i had was about food- i had my food down to a science and any deviation threw me into pure panic. i never felt nourished, i never felt satisfied, i just felt i had control over something. i was light and it felt good to hear people tell me i was "little." but i was dying. i had no emotional strength and i was disconnected from the world around me. hell, my hair was falling out. when i look back at that time, i was 100% lost in my neuroses, and never in my body. the result was a shell with a smile that i showed the world. the worst part about that time, in addition to the obscene mood swings, is that i have so few memories. i remember so little about the time i spent with friends and the things i did because i was never present in a single moment.

as is often the case, the weight started to come on. slowly at first, and then with a vengeance. i turned a corner and went from one extreme to the other, eating to fill this well i had created in myself. there were times when i could not stop and i made myself physically ill. there were times when i just ate with the intention of purging later. now eating brought me into my body, but i was even more uncomfortable than before.

with time, only time, and a deep knowing inside that i was living at the mercy of a lie so pervasive it has generated a billion dollar industry, i began to live inside my body- as it was. i was heavy now. unrecognizable when compared to images of my "former" self. but i was learning to accept that, to move on in spite of being uncomfortable and insecure. i not only felt a shift into a different physical space, but mental and emotional space as well. i had depth again. i was becoming whole, although still incomplete.

i found ways to express myself physically that felt joyful. i dove into my yoga practice. i started dancing again. getting back in front of a mirror and putting on tights with 40 more pounds than i had before was shitty, to say the least. but, really, there are worse things in life. i had legs and the desire to move and nothing was going to make me feel bad about that. with my weight, i felt i was in a cocoon so that i could emerge, at some point in the future, my Self. at least, that's how it made sense in my head. it was a lot easier to deal with that than to get up every day and say, "i'm fat and ugly." that method doesn't work if you hope to keep your spirit in tact.

it must be said that i am in no way disparaging exercise or eating right or becoming more mindful of what you put in your body. what i am saying is that everyone deserves to feel at home and loved inside their own space. and as a very wise woman said, we only have dominion over our own bodies. women naturally feel and sense more physically, and that is why this article is addressed to women. if women's bodies weren't so powerful and misunderstood, then how did female genital mutilation come to be? who invented breast implants? and vaginal reconstruction? who put the idea in our heads that after pregnancy and giving birth, a woman's body is "destroyed?" by diminishing and objectifying the female form, we diminish and confuse the woman's role in society. it is in our vulnerability that we have power. i can take into myself and create out of myself. i am soft and it feels good to rest against me. for someone seeking world domination, you can see how dangerous it might feel to really engage emotionally with that power- the power of letting go and receiving and connecting to nature. who's in charge? no one. all of us. it's not for you to know.

women take in the world around them and process it through an inherently sexual filter- their bodies. we give birth, which is, like it or not, the result of having sex. which is, if you're lucky enough to be with someone with whom you share trust and respect, utterly pleasurable. pleasure is part of the life-creating process. women feel, and we give life and we give love, and that is what makes the world go 'round. of course, that is not one-sided. women give, and are happy to give with a little understanding and respect. in order to bring the world into balance, men and women have to accept each other, as we are, and move forward with the intention of growing our consciousness to really view each other as equal. so women become vindicated for their inherent sexuality, and as punishment become "sexualized" and stereotyped. what i experience as sexual does not require me to wear stilettos and leather and purse my lips to express myself. at least, not all the time. the problem is the "stickiness" of that image, the grip it has in the psyche of our society as the apex of sexuality, and even what it is to be a woman. how about the sexiness of menstruation? what's not sexy about a woman moving with the tides of the earth, pulled in time with the moon, generating fertile ground to create life? if we gave ourselves the time and space to ride the waves of emotion and physical discomfort, PMS wouldn't be an ugly word or an ugly reality. it wouldn't exist.

in my current body, the excess has been shed and what's left continues to surprise me in it's effect on people, even myself. i don't have a perfect body, but i have a body you can hold on to. i have a body that's real. i have a body that's round. and i think the sexiest thing about my body is that it's MINE; i know it inside and out and it loves to move, it loves contact, it loves feeling.

i starved myself of my life for so long because i didn't feel like being me was ok. i buried myself in food for so long because i knew what "they" wanted wasn't possible. i wasted so much time not loving myself because, no matter how many times i heard the opposite, the world out there does everything to make you believe that what YOU think about YOURSELF doesn't matter.
what is healthy? what is beautiful? what is any of it?

your body is not a temple, your body is your home, your nest, your refuge. take care of that. spend as much time on the living room and the bedroom and the kitchen as you do on the facade. because really, no matter how good a house looks on the outside, if you walk in and there is garbage on the floor and one lone folding chair in the corner, you'll never want to be there. take care of yourself, and praise the beautiful being you are.


http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=124122126&m=125006017

the lover

i'm a romantic by nature. i love to love. i live to love. love is everywhere, love is everything, LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE. so imagine my chagrin when i pick up a lovely buddhist periodical, ON VALENTINE'S DAY, and read this:

"Romantic love, no matter how delicious, is the primary symptom of cultural malaise, the central neurosis of Western civilization.

By romantic love I mean that which focuses upon the loved one as an object of passion, devotion, and fixation. The loved one becomes the answer to all of life's problems, the source of all our happiness, and potentially, the source of all of our woes. But, if we are honest with ourselves, we can see that romantic love is deeply unhappy love, addicted to misery and suffering, cloaked in fantasy and separation."

i have enough experience with meditation and yoga to "understand" this message, but my heart, frankly, yelped like a puppy being kicked when i read this. i tend toward the dramatic, but doesn't EVERYBODY need love? what is love if not complete and utter surrender to another? well, some might say it's a healthy relationship...the idea behind the article i found is that pumping up love, or the object of our love, to be the cure-all in our lives is a recipe for disaster. therefore, we should use meditation to cut through fantasy and illusion to relate to life as it really is, in order to create REAL magic. well, if you put it that way, creating a relationship to something real is undoubtedly more fulfilling than relating to an illusion. but letting go of fantasy and romance....well, where's the fun in that? i'm torn between these two seemingly distinct beings within myself who approach love from entirely opposite ends of the spectrum- reason and passion, and i'm determined to reconcile the two. or maybe introduce them for the first time...

let's be clear that we're talking about romantic love here. we've all felt love, in the general sense, whether we classified it as such or not. that light, lifting feeling when you're surrounded by people you love, laughing, standing two feet deep in the crashing waves with the sun on your face, or having all the wind sucked out of you while listening to a certain piece of music. that sense of awe and wonder, to me, is the definition of love. in those moments, love is big and beautiful and wondrous and life-giving. but when that feeling is caused by one other person who makes your nether-regions tingle, well you better watch out because here's where it gets confusing; here's when we have to ask, what does it mean to love, and who decides?

i remember being in a yoga class and the teacher said, "when you give support to your heart you can open up without risking getting hurt." she was referring momentarily to a back bend, but obviously relating to real life scenarios. she always spoke so beautifully about the importance of having boundaries in order to be truly open. but without a full explanation i imagine the real meaning was lost on most of the class because, in our culture, any reference to the heart is either medical or entirely poetic. we have movies and music talking about the ecstasy of love and the 'ONE' and all that other poetic perfection, and then experience the real life instances of saying 'i love you,' and having the object of our affection turn on their heels and run for the hills. how then do we deal with the emotional aftermath of rejection? listening to sade on repeat, staring at the phone, driving slowly down the other person's street with the headlights off...or whatever...with 'Grey's Anatomy' polluting society's collective mind about the 'shoulds' of relationships, people end up going through life either exposing themselves and their emotions to the point of indecency, or walking around with electrified barbed wire fences around themselves.

if you've seen the movie, 'UP,' there's a scene between a man and his dog that illustrates my heart's understanding of love; Dug, the dog, knocks on the door of his master's house (Dug decided this man would be his master, while the master refused...classic dramatized love story.) then he says simply, "i was hiding under your porch because i LOVE you.....can i stay?" in Dug's world, love is something automatic, and mindless. Dug doesn't THINK about it, he just loves his master because that's his master. and even when the master says over and over again, 'i'm NOT your master,' Dug persists. it's adorable, it's heartbreaking, it's a cartoon. it's entertaining because we know it can't end badly. put that into the context of the real world it's slightly pathetic. and painful to watch because, unfortunately, in real life, the Disney producers aren't guiding the story line to ensure a happy ending for the love-starved dog named Dug.

i don't believe the heart can be controlled. but it can be reasoned with, to some degree. if you live your life in a 'protective' state of mind- not expecting anyone to be able to understand your heart, or to fully appreciate and protect the gift of your love, you're not going to believe in or even recognize the miracle of that person when they show up. the balance point is to be present enough to recognize the butterflies and skipped beats, AND protective enough to realize that YOU are ultimately responsible for the fate of that little heart. it's up to each of us to determine whether or not the object of our lust deserves that pink pulsing muscle in our chest. love is a gift, and sometimes we give gifts that are appreciated fully and sometimes we give gifts that WE really like, but the significance is totally lost on the recipient. believe in the possibility of shared love, fall in love with your own heart first, and when the time is right you can spill your guts in a tidy way. magic is real, but we have to give it REAL LIFE context, because it can be really not fun, too. in that way, loving someone is just like anything else- let's say a shower- it's something you need regularly, it's something that can go from hot to cold in a split second, it can make a big difference in your day and your health, and it's something that can be easily taken for granted. but we all need to shower.

in the game of love, there are bound to be casualties. involuntary manslaughter. homicide. suicide. if you know the content of your own heart, if you talk to your heart regularly, know its secrets, its desires, its needs, you will learn how to feed it and care for it. and then when someone comes along who might be worthy of the gift of your love, the two of you can share it. i don't know that i'll ever completely get over the impulse to rip my still-beating heart out of my chest and wrap it in a big pink, bloody bow for my lover, but i guess i just have to take that risk, one love at a time.

why can't you be perfect?!, or, "she who is independent and free"

"If you're a left-winger, you may think right-wingers are stupid or evil or both. If you're a right-winger, you probably hold the same attitudes about left-wingers. A similar pattern prevails between most other groups that hold opposing views. You're a rare person if you've never looked at a certain group of people and thought to yourself, "They are all sick idiots."

But I'm asking you to find out what it's like to dispense with judgments like that. In fact, try living without any scapegoats whatsoever. If even for an hour per week, visualize the possibility that those with whom you disagree might be sincere and well meaning.

I'm not suggesting this exercise merely because it's a nice thing to do. It will also have the effect of giving you access to parts of your own intelligence that have been closed off to you."

searching for inspiration today, i sit down at my roommate's computer, open up my treasured "Free Will Astrology" reading for the week, and what do i find? a gem of a fortune. not my horoscope, but a "Sacred Advertisement" for my sign. this man seems to know all. was he reading my thoughts all morning? and was it really the stars that aligned to create a day full of judgment and disappointment in another?

why is that we- i'm sorry- why do I put so much pressure on people to be perfect? why am i so critical? well, i have done some research into myself, and because i believe in taking responsibility for our lives, as well as cosmic truths, i use astrology to gain some insights into my tendencies.....for better or for worse....

my sun sign is capricorn- ambitious and practical, likely to have an excellent sense of social responsibility. great. read on: "you put yourself under enormous pressure to perform, and can feel personally responsible for those around you. you may have suffered from a restrictive early environment, and your aloofness may serve to protect you from dealing with a fear of intimacy, or low self-esteem. you exemplify the values of hard work and accomplishment, and service to the goals of humanity, and your redemption comes when you allow the spiritual joy that you feel inside to fully express itself in graceful acts of loving-kindness."

*often unable to reconcile the "i shoulds" with the "i wants," i turn my confusion onto others. "you should, because i can't!" and sometimes just, "i suck." yet, somewhere inside there's a *SPARK* of love and compassion and grace that i would really like to put forth more often...especially in situations like yesterday....(details aren't important...let's just say my expectations weren't met and i got a little huffy...)

the sign of capricorn is ruled by the dark, paternal planet of saturn. great. daddy issues: "saturn is the planet of limitation and contraction, and the trials of life experience. this includes discipline, punctuality, and the conservation of material resources. it indicates areas where the personality will be restricted by fears and lack of confidence."

*ironically, my father was never the disciplinarian, but here's how i've learned to behave under saturn: i HATE to be late for things. ANYTHING. and if you tell me you'll 'be there later,' i want you to give me an exact time. please. it really stresses me out. and if you tell me that you'll be there and have to cancel, i get mad. or really sad. i make mistakes. often. and tend to dwell on how to redeem myself. oh, and i revert to being 5 years old if you take my food. serious big brother trauma. don't i sound like fun?!

LUCKILY, capricorn is also an earth sign, so there's some balance to all that hard-nosed, know-it-all energy: "the earth element is feminine or yin, in-taking and receptive. it corresponds to the jungian typology of sensation. earth people are in touch with their bodies and the pleasures of the physical world around them. they are givers of form and structure. they endure."

*so, basically, i like to tell people what to do, and i like it when people touch me. i really like it... and i'm a giver. who loves food and drink. so, you know, i can be fun OCCASIONALLY.

how about chinese astrology, in which i am the poster puppy for the sign of the dog, "who symbolizes character traits such as loyalty, compatibility and kindness. dogs frequently offer kind words and useful advice, always listening and lending a shoulder when necessary. dogs often become deeply involved in others’ lives. ensuring others are happy is more important to the dog than wealth, money or success."

*i'll be there for you whenever you need me. i'll even scratch your belly. just bring me a treat!

"dogs at times can also be temperamental, narrow-minded and stubborn. dogs can benefit by learning to relax and being more rational."

*hmph...whatever...

now take a listen to some jyotish (ancient astrology of india) advice for yesterday (when my critical knob turned WAY up!): "today practice seeing what you can’t see. see beyond the limitations of your pre-conceived notions about people, places and things. maybe he really isn’t a jerk. maybe she really isn’t selfish. maybe this world is just a dream happening in a gigantic mind."

*hah. maybe he really isn't a jerk.....interesting....

ok, so maybe i overreacted. perhaps i could offer a more graceful solution to the situation (again, details aren't important, because the FACT of the matter is that i tend to be overly critical AND sensitive...lucky him...) i don't know that i can fully let go of my resentment and violent wishes for the workmen upstairs (SERIOUSLY?! WHY do you need to THROW everything?! isn't there a way to hammer quietly???) but now i can acknowledge that my thoughts are futile, if not a little childish. (no, stacey, construction can't be done quietly just because you don't want to be disturbed. these men are actually WORKING. you're sitting on facebook....no one's out to ruin your day.) at the end of the day, and as much as i hate to admit it, deep down inside i'm just a wet little puppy dog lookin' for someone to love...

and to conclude, i'll share what i think is by far the most meaningful reading of all these traditions- of all the ways to read the stars- here's what the cosmos had to say today:

Thursday, February 4, 2010 (Waning 7th Phase; Libra/Svati ~ “She Who is Independent and Free”)

"In the days of Rama (the epic hero and godman of the Ramayana), no one believed that a mere monkey could defeat a powerful demon. And yet, one by the name of Hanuman did.

In the days of the ancient Israelites, no one believed that David could defeat Goliath. And yet, he did.

And in the days of Middle Earth, no one believed that a humble hobbit could rescue the world from darkness. And yet, he did."

so why do you think you’re so helpless?

gather your courage. surrender your pride and insecurities. you have absolutely nothing to lose. take a momentous leap of faith.

*word.