My Goals for a Mid-Century Mystical 2013

The Mid-Century Mystic Spiritual Goals for 2013 (Space Age Modern Version)

Wasn’t 2012 a kick in the pants?  Seriously though; every single person I know was hoodswaggled and brainwhipped by ups and downs in 3-D Vista Vision.  Most of the energy was difficult, some of it welcome and exhilarating, all of it smacked loudly, like a two-story-tall tympani.  2013 already feels lighter somehow, with an effervescent pop like a freshly-opened bottle of Sprite (with the little dimple bubbles in the green glass).

So I have some goals for 2013, spiritually, creatively, and Mid-Century Modern Mystically.  Here they come:

1.      To Blog, Perchance to Dream. I have three blogs: one for my book, “The Cotton Candy Road Trip”, one for my voice-over career, and one that acts as part of my personal playground and church – this one.  Visiting my blog, for me at least, is like boarding the Wonka boat, cruising down the chocolate river, where Anything Can Happen.  At least, that’s how I wish it to be.  But yet I have to follow some sort of schedule.  At least I’ve tried, instituting “Monday is Tarot Day”.  Well, that was a valiant attempt by yours truly, but it doesn’t work when you’re dealing with writing primarily about spiritual things.  So for 2013, I’m committed to not committing, except for once a week.  I must blog on this dragonfly wing of a blog at least once a week.  What I share may inspire someone to live a lighter life, have a more playful day, enjoy something from 1966, so at least once a week is a must. Tarot?  Yes.  The Monkees?  Why not?  Spiritual Growth?  But of course.  Which brings me to …

2.      Life Coaching.  Alright, I took life coaching classes and I do coach, but, due to the Garden of Oddballness that was 2012, getting the website up and getting a handful of clients (at least) did not happen because of the bloom of oddities that met me throughout the year.  My Mid-Century Mystic blog is a part of the website, but because it’s on Blogger and my Guided By a Star coaching website is not, there are issues.  Enough with the issues!  Get the life coaching website up by hook or by crook and have a link to this blog and just stop with the waffling already.  There are people out there who need some coaching from someone who’ll allow them to play and be big kids!  Okay then …

3.      Vintage Finery.  So.  Let’s get down to the vintage goal for the year.  I’ve already got our new/old/Don Draper couches ordered (yes, I’ve imagined Don Draper draping on them, yes I have).  I’ve got a swellegant buffet waiting to be utilized for our entertainment center.  I‘ve got plans to paint the bland-as-wallpaper paste kitchen a pastelriffic palette.  These things need to be planned.  But beyond all that, I need to re-retro myself.  I’ve been lazy about incorporating something vintage into every day’s outfit.  I certainly have enough stuff to make this a reality.  So, please allow me to wave my arms like my beloved Serena in “Bewitched” and make it so.  And that also pertains to make-up and hair.  My hair has been a boring rendition of “the Rachel” because of the perm I’m growing out.  By the end of the summer, I should have my flip back, if not before.

4.      The Pause That Refreshes.  Meditation also took a backseat during the Scourge of 2012, which is ironic since I had an amazing time at the Chopra Center retreat in the summer.  But if you don’t practice, if you don’t keep the flow going, it’ll get stuck like taffy on the floor.  So meditation will be re-instituted into my daily plan.  And that also includes my walking meditation in my Church of the Great Outdoors, the arboretum.  But I’ll be adding something more …

5.      Angel on My Shoulder (and in my car, at the café, accompanying me through Disneyland).  Every single person on Earth has a guardian angel, angel guides and spirit guides.  I have a guardian angel, two other angels who have specific jobs, and a spirit guide.  I also have recurrent conversations with other angels, the big ones, like Archangel Michael.  In case you’re curious, your angels are always with you.  The big, celebrity angels, the ones ostensibly managed by big-deal talent impresarios in L.A. (kidding.  Just meaning that these angels are known by many religions, and by the non-religious as well), are there any time; all you need is to call upon them.  They can be anywhere, anytime.  The connection you attain with angels is up to you.  They’re at the ready and they help us mere mortals throughout our lives.  But if you wish to have a more personal, purposeful and fulfilling relationship with your angels, you need to feed it daily.  The onus is upon you to communicate with them to enrich and deepen your connection.  2013 is the year I not only deepen my angelic connection, but the time to make “angel time” a part of my daily spiritual routine.  Angle magic is powerful and gets you closer to God.

6.      A Year-Long Cosmos Cotillion.  2013 is a six numerologically, the year of creativity and love and I choose to celebrate these things all 12 months in a very exciting, serendipitous way: the 2013 Party a Month Club.  No, I’m really not kidding.  Some people have rolled their eyes at this idea, citing the fact that I already make February my birthday month.  Well, if you’re celebrating a milestone birthday in the year of creativity and love, the year that’s also your 15^th wedding anniversary to your soul mate, the year that’s also the 15^th anniversary of your first trip to Disneyland with the aforementioned soul mate, I say take the whole year to rattle the noisemakers and blow the kazoos.  The Party a Month Club will begin in earnest on February 1 in Disneyland for my birthday.  It will run through January 31^st, 2014.  The ideas I have for parties (some grand, some quite small) range from the sublime (wait ‘til you see what we’re doing for our annual Summer Soiree!) to the silliest bit of girl-night grooviness I’ve ever dreamt up.  Note: there are no membership cards or dues; I’ll just throw parties and invite people.

I’m loving 2013 already.  2013, you are natty and snappy, wearing your little bowtie and brogues.  You smell like lavender and citrus and I thrill to you up in the air, riding the sky ride across Disneyland circa 1963.  I embrace you and know we will be the best of friends.

Another blog post about moons and love ...

 For Christmas, my sweetie lassoed the moon. Just like George Bailey.

But because Ben did it, it's even more magical and sweet and I was so overwhelmed to come to bed on Christmas evening to a moon in my room!  It's one of those remote-controlled ones that you hang on the wall and you hit the remote and the moon goes into its phases, or you can set it to a particular phase and it glows a friendly light for 30 minutes before shutting down.  So it's part night light, part learning tool (we're in waxing gibbous phase right now), and all wonderful. 



What's especially sweet about Ben gifting me with a moon is because, well, we still have neighbors next door who insist on leaving their garage lights on all night, so I have to close the blinds or else get blinded every time I getup to use the bathroom.  So, I don't have the luxury (yes, it's a luxury these days to actually be able to have our window blinds OPEN) to look outside my window and see the moon.  At least now, I have a glowing moon-like orb right on my wall, above the closet.  It makes things a bit easier that way and I don't go to sleep hating the folks next door.  Hate is not something I want to take with me into the new year (as you can tell by reading some recent posts).

And that is a natural transition to the Full Moon that comes tomorrow.  It's a Cancer-Capricorn moon and it's been given the nickname "The Love Moon"; Cancer is all about emotion and love and nurturing and Capricorn is about balance, so we're asked to balance emotion about relationships with a sense of stability.  Tomorrow is the perfect time to take stock of the loving, familial feelings we have when we spend time with like-minded people.  To take a close look at our love relationships and see how we deeply connect, not just on a physical level, but emotionally and spiritually.  We're urged  to go quietly within when we meditate on the strands of love that weave together our lives with others, to lend them a deep sense of value and give thanks for them.

What's very interesting is that 2012 began with a Cancer-Capricorn moon and it's ending with one as well.  It's as if the cosmos had it all worked out from the get-go: 2012 was a time to learn and grow from all the seismic shifting, learning how to balance all those disparate energies and, ultimately, owing our emergence from the roller coasters of the year to the one true, pure thing we can always count on: love.




 

Choose Love.

I was driving in the north suburbs on Thursday after a rather satisfying voice-over session, en route to the Chicago Botanical Garden for a long walk through the trees, when suddenly I remembered something rather vexing.  I hadn't thought of it in years, but suddenly, the flood of memories sparked a tidal wave of emotion, causing me to enter into prayerful contemplation once I did reach my walking destination.  You see, while driving through Highland Park, IL, I recalled (seemingly out of nowhere) that nearby, many years ago, a disturbed woman (whose name I've decided to not repeat, lest give dark energies more of a toehold) opened fire on elementary school children, killing several innocents.


Yesterday morning, while getting ready for a busy day of working out, visiting Dad, and beginning a steady stream of Christmas-making activities, I was met with the news of the killings in Newtown, CT.  A disturbed man opened fire on elementry school children, killing several innocents.  The similarities between the two events were chilling.  Did I somehow have a precognitive hit while driving through the northern Chicago suburbs?  Was I tapping into a rivlet of mass consciousness already rippling with sadness from the Oregon shooting of the day before?

After careful reflection, this is what I believe:

2012 is the end of the world.  Truly.  But we have the choice to choose what world is ending.  Is it a world of safety and love and security and people helping people that must end?  Or, can we put an end to suffering, to senseless murder, to a society who's growing in carelessness and a lack of caring for life?

2012 is a tipping point.  Anyone with eyes in their head or a functioning brain in their cranium can see it.  When I saw President Obama during his press conference yesterday about the shootings, when he became overwhelmed with grief, unable to continue speaking for several moments, something in me shifted.  We have a leader who may, just may, be able to begin turning more of us toward compassion and care, rather than conflict and a sense of entitlement.  Our country - and, indeed, the world -- is at a crisis point where we simply cannot afford the luxury of complacency anymore.

If we view the shootings in Newtown as just another symptom of unsafe, ineffective gun laws, lack of sufficient mental health care, or just another cog in the wheel of hate and fear that's running rampant through the world -- and leave it at that --  we are allowing darkness to preside.

If we look at this tragedy for even a moment and become desensitized by what we see, darkness has won.

Allow the waxing of light to win.  Pray for peace.  Call your congresspeople and demand stricter gun laws, better mental health care.  Write to our Presdeint and tell him that, in that moment of humaness, of frailty and realness that he displayed, you saw him in his full capacity as a leader and you wish for him to continue to be transparent about his feelings on this matter, affecting real change on gun policy in this country.

Pray for the Love to prevail, for God and goodness to win.  For the end of the dark world and the triumph of the light.  Because that is the only answer.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPdbkkWx--0

 

Monday is Tarot Day once again! Looking forward to SO much!!

I was just playing today with my new Victorian Romantic deck from Baba Studio (the second edition with even more breathtaking imagery!) and thought about the three of wands card, and Advent, and looking forward to something miraculous.

I'll write about the tumultuous year of 2012 later this month; right now,let's focus upon Advent, the time of preparation for moving forward, of looking ahead, of all miracles that are possible.  

The three of wands usually depicts a man with three staffs and he's looking toward the horizon, ready to go forth and tackle, travel, and trust that the road ahead is true.  In the new version of the Victorian Romantic tarot, this card depicts a man with some sort of horn with a dragon head where the sound comes out.  It's almost as if he's signalling whoever's in his way, "Hey!  Coming through!  Big plans ahead!!!"

And that brought to mind Advent time, one of my most favorite times in the typical Christian calendar year, when we look forward to the birth of the Baby Jesus.  But it's more than that: it's the time we renew those feelings of anticipation of wonder and miracles.  We anxiously await hearing the retelling of the Christmas story (sometimes the one that Linus recites is the best, if you ask me), about the miracles therein.  And I always think, "Hey - if that miracle happened, what kinds of miracles are in store for me?"

They ARE there, just beyond the horizon ... 

December 5, 2012: Disney and Dave

 

While driving between a voice-over and writing and Zazzle time (as in, posting items to my Zazzle store: check 'em out at http://www.zazzle.com/amusementparkfun), I learned that the masterful, enigmatic Dave Brubeck passed away today.  He would've been 92 tomorrow. 

Uncle Walt Disney would've been 111 today.

Both men are alpha and omegas, constants in this world of variables. They've always been a part of the fabric of my world, from my earliest recollections. They'll never leave, they're always here, and they carry on, transmuting somehow, with every absorption of their work.

In honor of them both, here's a Disney/Dave mash-up I have a particular fondness for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnOYtUUX6kU

A curious day needs a bit of magical reflection, I believe.

Mercury's direct, so let's shake off the goo and get something cooking! And shaking!!

For some reason, this last Mercury retrograde, which just ended yesterday, really affected me, getting me stuck like something sticky, stuck in something stickier than molasses that was set outside in the frosty air, which would cause it to harden, so it's not only stuck but frozen in place, with a hold stronger than Crazy Glue used on something set adrift on an ice floe, only to find itself stranded in the middle of the Antarctic, with nowhere to go.

THAT kind of stuck.

It began on Election Day, where things ended up going very much in (I feel) not only my favor but the world's favor, but still scared us so witless that a bunch of us got together at our place and ate copious amount of junk food, including but not limited to red velvet cupcakes, until our President was re-elected and we sighed a huge, palpable sigh (but I didn't "trust" the outcome until about a day later, because it was, in fact, Mercury "if anything wacky can happen with technology it WILL happen" time) and has lasted just about three weeks and now it's finally gone and I say "good riddance" and "don't let the door hit you in the bum on the way out, you bum!"  Because I had the darnedest time concentrating, getting simple things like emails and invoices done.  No time for blogging, heavens no!  Because I was really only able to focus on stupid TV shows, or Angry Birds and Scrabble on my Android.  And even then, I sorta aimlessly sat there on the sofa, pecking away at my smarty phone, while the world whirred around me, and along with it, many of the things (other than theatre; did three shows in about 7 months and I need a break) that fed my soul (my book, books I'm reading, meditation, tarot, life coaching, planning trips, planning parties, planning sweet surprises for my sweetie, etc.). 

But now, as the pesky mercury retrograde in Scorpio/Sagittarius ends, I'm swept up in the directness of the zippy Messenger planet, and it appears as though I've gained a whopping amount of mental clarity, as if the stuckedness was almost a gestation period, and now I'm ready to plow ahead like a plucky Engine Who Could - and CAN.  In the last 36 hours or so, I've contacted a social media guru to help me with my book, wrote out countless emails and invoices, sent thank you notes and cards for various occasions/reasons, wrapped gifts, bought gifts, settled some money issues (some not to my liking, but at least I have clarity on some things and, really, it's all for the best), put stuff up for sale on Ebay, sent out emails and posted things on Facebook regarding my book and accompanying 2013 calendar (A nifty gift idea!  Contact me to learn more!!), and had enough mental clarity to buy the ingredients for a simply smashing cocktail to surprise Ben with last night.  Here's what you do:

1 oz. tropical white rum
1 oz. lemon juice (preferred Meyer lemons, but any old FRESH lemon will do.  Don't sully this experience with bottled lemon juice, please.)
1 oz Lillet blanc
1 tbsp. honey syrup (to make, take 1/4 cup honey and two tbsps. of water and cook it for a little bit on the stove and that's that)

Shake it with ice, drain it into a glass, drink it and exclaim, "My GAWD, this is an amazing cocktail!  Where has it been all my life?  My life has been a sad shadow of what it could've been if this cocktail was part of it sooner."  (BTW: can't find the recipe for it that I originally found in a Chicago magazine at the chiropractor's office, but here's at least a different article about the many benefits of living with Lillet in your fridge, from an earlier Chicago magazine article: http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/July-2012/Its-Cocktail-Hour-for-Lillet/.  You're welcome.)

So.  Today is my baby Ben's birthday, and I'm surprising him with, well, he's probably going to read this before the event, so I won't say, but it'll be a fun, relaxing, festive and food-filled evening.  And, besides the material gifts he'll receive, he's got the uber bonus of a fully-realized wife again.  And that, my friends, is the sweetest thing of all.

Even better than a Lillet cocktail ...

Election Special. Super Tarot Tuesday. Summoning the 6 of Wands

This has been, without a doubt, the most derisive, hard-fraught, nasty, and mercurial election season that I've witnessed in this lifetime.  Powers on both sides are unwavering in what they believe is true.

And they both hope and pray that their guy will be riding the horse of victory later this evening.

Okay.  Enough of being party neutral.  I'm an Obama girl, through and through.  I'l be wearing all blue today, and tonight I'll be watching the results of the election with friends.  We're serving blue cheese and crackers, blue chips, and the drinks on the roster include blueberry juice and blue curacao.  So there.

But let me extrapolate that a bit further.  What I'm creating today, throughout the day, is a surge of positivity for my President, for the Democratic party in general, and I'm doing this not only with my vote, but with my attitude and energy.  And, very importantly, I'm focusing on all of them winning.  I'm seeing them in the most positive terms and not giving any energy to the Other Side.  Because what we feed grows.  And, right now, the only thing I want to grow and manifest is a huge Democratic victory this evening, with the Blue Team riding with the heads held high, Forward, onto victory.

I'll be lighting a blue candle and saying prayers and summoning angels.  I'll do some tarot work (focusing on the victorious figure in the 6 of Wands card) and take a walking meditation.  I'll have a picture of President Obama and his family happily taking the stage at McCormick Place this evening to thank everyone for voting President Barack Obama into a victorious second term.  This, besides my vote (and some monetary gifts) is the very best thing I can do for the furthering of democracy, acceptance, and equality in this country.

Please join me.  The blue, tranquil waters are lovely...


PS: If you're interested in what some other metaphysicians are saying, please take a look at this article and follow through with the links.  Fascinating:  http://astrology.about.com/b/2012/11/02/mercury-retrograde-and-american-political-witchcraft.htm?nl=1