Crossroads Dispatches

really, 'The Secret' prerequisite: needlessness

Once in a blue indigo*moon, on a day very much like this very plum*ious present day blue moon may thirty one 2007 , if one is in a sphere that meters time that tis, there lived a fairy princess in a spiraling tower that reached to the netherlands maybe as far and away as the Tower of Babel would have if they had enough sense to consult with harpists alchemists druids and babies to build it out of stardust and song.

"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
was not spoken of the soul." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life

And pray tell did the princess have everything her little heart desired? What do you believe?

A friend that exudes needlessness texts me right now. He is having a four-course tea party with 11-year-old Isabella. Just the other day he's commiserating with me. Both, out of money. He texts me same evening, "sold a painting $600"

Methinks, myself, that manifestation in molecules of matter isn't about wanting. (O, yes, it can be loads of amusement for creatives to playdoh with matter. Playing for playing's sake, not lack's.)

The bewildering paradox is that the prerequisite for magic is...
N e e d l e s s n e s s

Mother / matter celebrates needlessness, knowing naught of neediness.... Behold! what is not your totality, Yours? Hark! What is not your own Voice ringing? She skips and skates with wholeness - not brokenness.

Got no diamond, got no pearl
Still I think I'm a lucky girl
I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night

...Sunshine gives me a lovely day
Moonlight gives me the Milky Way -
Irving Berlin, "I've Got the Sun in the Morning"

I listened again and again and yet again to Rhapsody in Blue this morning.

I certainly could have freak out instead. Bank account shows a number that equates to zero. I text at 11: "delicious rhapsody o bliss all this a.m. fact no $ hardly makes blip." Haven't seen The Secret in a few blue moons, yet I don't vividly recall promises of joy and enchantment and unconditioned bliss.

delicious rhapsody, melody of milky way infinitissmal intimacy of Light and Vibration Trickling tongue sprouting lilies of the field Angelic tickles of delight

I remember why babies coo and purr and murmur mmmmmmmmmmmm sweet surrender. Either I will levitate.. or melt into the Earth slide through the otherside. Bliss of emptiness penetrating hollow body fusing kaleidoscopes magnetic sparks of electrified peals of rose petals strewn confetti bamboula

It is like you are pouring honeywater from porcelain pitcher, and fluid porcelain starts to mercurial molassses molecules pour creamy light too

Everything no-thing start to co-mingle fluid dance of Bliss ecstasy - the pen said slinking across texture of midnight blue journal upon waking this a.m.

In his novel, William Carlos Williams opens with a sentence reminding that waiting is the most miserable word in the English language. Miserable, as in miserly. Misers aren't renown for their unbridled ecstasy. (defn: mean grasping person...Buddhists may get gist of the grasping...)

If you are not happy Now, never will you be. Now is Everything contained in a seed.

During the dot-com Depression of the Nasdaq economy, I was fairly broke by Valley standards. When I returned from the Temple of the Sun where men become gods, plussing another seven or eight blessed weeks in Mexico Guatemala and Honduras years ago I was even more so... athough I managed to live with Erika's family on her tortillas and rice and a room and cool water showers and Spanish lessons for $75 per week. My happiness from the respite rapidly spiralled to hopelessness when no solution to my income dilemma came to me on my return back to States.

I did the only thing that made sense: I splurged with the last of my holdings on a multi-day cottage (roughly $22/day at idyllic verdant fern haven of Hidden Villa) for a walking the pulse of the planet & dragonfly gazing & dwelving retreat. There I also devoured The Power of Now for the first time. Worry-free, I emerged from my cocoon and within the week, I obtained the most lucrative contract work I'd had had in years....

totally, out...of...the blue (totally out of the Now), "Hey Evelyn, hey my cousin, he's a CEO at this software company....is looking for some marketing...you available?"

Any sense of incompleteness and unfulfillment you have will haunt you despite 'successes' in manifesting matter if you are seeking to fill from out there an inner void... that void is mighty insatiable hungry ghost. (A gauzy figment, truly, have you peered?) It'll be that sense of inner void that's being broadcast, echoing echoing echoing the perception of a missing piece. What would respond to that call? Missingness.

Yet, you are holy, wholly complete holographic fractal of the Whole. Thou art that.

green is greener? yes!

i know
yes, and birdsong pierces me, it carries sharper,
clearer
resounding
reverberating
erupting
mirthquakes
in the bell towers
of my Heart

mirthquakes
i found REALLY a word today

i suspected so - yesterday's email to new (this life) rekindled soul kin

I prefer to think of the Law of Attraction as more akin to the Law of Projection. The outer world we perceive is a picture projected from our inner thoughts and wishes and beliefs and opinions and judgments 24/7. This isn't something we do sometimes when we're in the act of "manifesting" -- projection is all We do.

""The Secret" is based upon the concept that thoughts are things. Change your thoughts, and you change your world. This is true, but for most people, changing your thoughts can be challenging. First of all, what ARE your thoughts? Can you differentiate between your thoughts and the thoughts you have absorbed from your parents, peers, and society? Who are YOU in the process?" - Janet D. Swerdlow, "Law of Attraction: Beyond the Secret"

You can start seeing where The Secret is trickier than it looks at first gloss.

We are entrained in second-hand desires that aren't necessarily our own desires. Bogged and mired in emotions of guilt, shame, servitude, sorrow, separation, despair that carry their own vibration. Nearly every child grows up buying hook, line, and sinker into collective beliefs of sin, sickness, and death so that what to date we've been creating on Earth is pretty much war, pollution and blight.

""Getting to heaven" will no longer be the ultimate purpose in life. Creating heaven wherever you are will be seen as the prime objective. To experience this, people will not have to confess any sins or fast during daylight hours or travel on pilgrimages or go to places of worship weekly or tithe regularly or perform any particular ritual or act - although they may choose to do any of these things if it pleases them..." - Neale Donald Walsh, What God Wants

He who binds himself to joy

doth the winged life destroy

but he who kisses the joy as it flies

lives in eternitys sunrise. -  i luv William Blake

Our grasping to our conditioning, as well as grasping Joy, obscures its everpresent effervescence. Enlightening happens all over again, every second. Remembering when someone asked one of my teachers, Adyashanti (since he ought not to have anything being spiritually awake and all), why he was married:

"Because we enjoy the heck out of each other."

So we engage Life, we celebrate, we share the fruits, & we enjoy the heck out of each fractal of Life when we create. What more could you need?

"We could not help contrasting the equanimity of Nature with the bustle and impatience of man. His words and actions presume always a crisis near at hand, but she is forever silent and unpretending." - Henry David Thoreau

Bonus: If you suspect you've ever ever ever been a spiritual healer, clergyperson, magician, sorceress, priestess, wizard, shaman et al in past, today is the day to release any ancient outdated vows of poverty and suffering, or perhaps specific promises prayers supplications never to receive anything in return for being of the Light, or the giving of any type of spiritual nourishment.

Allow every vow to dissolve. Receiving is giving when sense of seams and veils disappear.

p.s. Lovely Blue Moon mandala here by Terrance McKillip. Would have included... but... hey. Do you get copyright? I don't believe in copyright anymore. (One of those second-hand beliefs that sloughed off in these sheddings of stuff not of me.) Please please flutter these pages & posts shamelessly freely throughout the four winds and four elements and particularly the fifth, ether... I only request smiles, named credit & link back to my blog.

images Galadriel, by Sandrine Gestin (via Galadriel Gallery at Meduseld) ; Time Immortal by Timothy Lantz (luscious dark art I swoon for); Wide Blue Sky by Auntie K (via the eye candy for the spiraling Flickring soul, Spiral Gallery); babbling butterflies photo via Magical Mystical Fairies site

beyond 'The Secret': though we travel the world over to find the Beautiful

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have to think my life as an epic - a movie, perhaps or a poem from my time as a wandering bard - or I could not withstand it. Dealing with cartesian reality collapse of time and space and everything in between as I know it. Ah yes...

The new normal.

And truly, these are larger than life times.

"We are what we think," is how the The Dhammapada begins...a 2,500 year old secret. Hardly news.

            "For consider the world -
            A bubble, a mirage.
            See the world as it is,
            And death shall overlook you." - Buddha, The Dhammapada

Now, that's closer to the real The Secret. One day sitting at a bench watching the heaving bulbous belly of the Rancho de Taos Church, I felt Mary's moment at the anunciation in presence. The memories of the tsunami was still burning a hole through my heart that July 2005.

It was then that the wooden statue of Saint Francis spoke to me through symbol. That is the way of signposts for a bard - omen, symbols, archetypes. In one hand, he held a dove and the other hand, a cross.

"Choose life, mi hija." 

There was a woman working inside, collecting the $3 for seekers and gawkers to view the Shadows of the Cross painting. "I have a question about the statue outside-- "

She doesn't even look up from the counter to meet my eyes: "He's holding life on one hand. Life or death."

This choice no one can make for you. All our other little wishes for cars, bicycles, planes, and bling will be for naught - and, yes, even the noblest wishes for a healthy peaceful planet - without a fire burning for expanding evolving Life, Beauty, Grace.

I once wrote and I need to re-hear it myself: "Grace is the free and unmerited beneficence of a God which is all and nothing and totally beyond comprehension. It is the natural law of the cosmos - well outside the gravitational pull of man-made laws of sin and/or karma - which is ever-available in each and every and every moment. The metaphor of gravity can be extended: The lightness of Being that comes by accepting grace each moment is akin to the weightlessness and bouyancy and peace of outer space.

It is so wholly unconditional and infinitely patient that it allows you to hit the snooze button as many times as you wish, yet your remembrance of its embrace eventually wakes you up gently and in your own time."

"This world is but canvas to our imaginations." - Henry David Thoreau

p.s. Well, claro, the Spanglish because we were in New Mexico.

Taking a breather. My world keeps getting rocked. (If curious, read comments.) My own interpretation of The Aeon is you have crossed a chasm via bridge from one world to another. After you've stepped across, the bridge tumbles below. You cannot turn back to your old ways of being, patterned responses, nor worldview. The new world seemingly has no instruction manual, no guideposts, and it sure ain't Kansas, Dorothy.

For comedic relief, I enjoyed this The Secret parody.

images Galadriel,(more) an Elven from Tolkien's world. (Awfully similar to my name, Elven, eh? So too Eleven.)

beyond 'The Secret' series: qualifications

"The reason can give nothing at all
Like the response to desire." - Wallace Stevens

What are my qualifications to host a "beyond 'The Secret'" series?

Am I an expert on abundance?

Am I credentialed in manifestation?

Am I hailing from the right lineage of teachers and masters?

(Forgodsakes last week she only had four dollars in her wallet. What does she know?)

Do you see the trap you've fallen into if you believe I have to be an expert? That I need a diploma in manifestation? That you'd like to talk to my stockbroker and financial advisor for evidence that I know squat about what I'm talking about?

Oh, I may be tempted to give you some "credentials" but the Universal laws don't give a damn.

If you need my qualifications to listen, there's a good chance you're holding a belief that maybe you need to be "certified" or "anointed" in some manner to create what you desire. Maybe you're thinking you've got to "pay your dues" and "earn" your creations. Or, at least, be able to prove yourself a worthy enough investment for the Universe to take notice (as if it operates as a bank or venture capitalist).

If you need my qualifications to hear, there's a good chance you believe that someone else, anyone else, is granting you this unconditioned and unlimited wisdom, power, love already innate within you.

You don't earn your way through good works, or prove your worthiness, or chalk up enough merits and pay your indulgences.

And She doesn't require a recommendation, a lead, or your ROI analysis. She doesn't require a return on her investment whatsoever.

Grace is free! Absolutely Absolute vast & free.

Let's just say that my sincere desire to have these mysteries revealed is more than enough. And that's enough for me, and it's enough for you.

I understand though; there's oftimes I don't trust that the very tenderest fluttering of love and willingness are going to suffice either.

I have been for so many years absorbed in a quest and exploration of the transcendent otherworlds of formless and Absolute consciousness. Currently, I find myself totally smitten by the tangible, and Earth herself. And the alchemical union of the formless with form.

My favorite Tarot card captivates me. It is the Princess of Disks (to the right), representing "earthiness of the earth."

"Here we have an attempt to translate into a picture the spiritual quality of earth, eternally pregnant and containing in its fertility the unwritten cypher of cosmic lore." - "Princess of Disks" interpretation, Instructions for Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot Deck

Eternally pregnant. I adore that image of creation. This devotion, that desire to touch this earthiness of the earth for my self, more than suffices... for earnest desire ruffles the wind and moves the mountains and it is the way of manifesting in Mother, in matter.

Be wary of experts. You are the guru. (GURU = Gee, you are you.)

So I'm not writing this as an expert bestowing expertlyness, but rather as an adventurer and creatrix of the golden age cavorting with fellow wayfarers & imagineers.

You have all the questions and answers, as you are all the questions and answers. We need only to quit pretending we don't...

"One mother describes her own experience with her 5 year-old. “We were in the kitchen. I was cleaning out a cabinet and she was playing. Out of the blue she said, ‘This is our last year, Mom.’

“Taken totally aback but definitely not wanting to startle her, I nonchalantly asked her ‘Oh yeah? Whaddya mean?’

“‘I mean, this is our last year to pretend. After this year we get to be real again. No more pretending.’

“I kept cleaning out the cabinet and asked her if she could explain any more. She said, ‘This is our last chance to get to pretend. After this, we get to be real again. No more chances for pretending because this is our last chance.’

“I did ask her (still nonchalantly but showing interest), ‘And this is a good thing, right?’

“‘Oh yes, Mom... a very good thing. We’ll get to be angels very soon.’" - "Indigo Children", Library of Halexandria

Bonus: "When I first saw the Princess of Disks, I was utterly captivated. [Me too!] I got a Scandinavian feel from her, particularly Finnish--which really made me identify with her, as I'm a quarter Finnish and a quarter Danish.

I made an immediate connection not only with the card, but also with the disk she holds. To me, it's the Sampo: a magical object forged by Ilmarinen the smith in the Finnish national epic 'The Kalevala'. The Sampo was supposed to be a three-sided mill, one side grinding out grain, one salt, and one money. Its lid is multicolored and even though it is eventually destroyed by Louhi, mistress of the North Farm whose daughter Ilmarinen courts, its fragments take root and continue to produce and symbolize prosperity. It makes perfect sense for the Princess of Disks, the earth of earth, to be holding the Sampo (who knows, perhaps she is the daughter Ilmarinen had been seeking to wed, born of witch-blood and proper bearer of the Sampo)." - posting by 'prosewitch' on the Aeclectic Tarot forum

images Timothy Lantz' (newly discovered - wow; I totally love a pure sleek dark too) A Change in the Wind; Princess of Disks from the Thoth Deck, art by Lady Freida Harris; Timothy Lantz' Quintessence

beyond 'The Secret' series

"The higher realms knows that what we focus on becomes our reality… it becomes our experience and everything around us only serves to act as our stage… a stage that serves to support what we are choosing in our lives and what we are choosing to fill our heads with. Our surroundings love to support what we choose to create in every way. They are at our beckoned call… willingly manifesting what we are wanting to see and believing we see. We are masterful creators indeed. Blame can only exist when we refuse to see own our own power as true creators." - Karen Bishop, Energy Alert 5.24.07, What's Up on Planet Earth

Most of the time we're not creating, we're miscreating. Okay, I'll speak for myself... too much of the time I'm miscreating. Maybe you symphasize.

An invaluable lesson I learned from whitewater kayaking (besides you better know how to right yourself up in a hurry, those underwater rocks can hurt pretty little heads), is that you will die young if you focus on where you don't want to go.

These hardshell boats are fitted snug to your hips, so if you are looking straight at the looming gargoyle of a rock that you definitely don't want to be anywhere near, then staring in bewilderment at the granite siren is the surest way to find yourself headed for it since the boat follows every twitch and movement of your body, including your upper torso.

The strategy is to look only at what boaters call "your line" - the path where you do want to go.

"Nothing is enough to a man whom enough is too little." - Epicurus

So what do I do when I am down to my last four bucks? I pull out The History of Beauty, a voluptuous volume seething with art & beauty by Umberto Eco. This is the time to respire la vie. This is the time to inhale the abundance that is already all around us.

This is not the time to panic and stream, "My lord, there's a huge rock and I'm headed straight for it!"

Jesus perceived this and said, "Why are you reasoning among yourselves, you men of little faith, because  you have no bread?" - Matthew 16:8

Color, Eco helped me recall, may be taken for granted today yet color was highly prized in Medieval times.

"Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways." - Oscar Wilde

Is anyone paying attention to luxurious colors? All free for the intoxicating enjoyment? Even as I walked past cambio de cheques and Check 'N Go "payday advance" and Western Union shops lined up one after another (tucked in between all the laundromats) & Wells Fargo ads in Spanish promising us one day someday one day we'll be able to afford our very own washing machine. Even then as I walked by the day laborers collective in the Mission (San Francisco) the other day, what really jumped out vivid technicolor blazing were the seeping with color building-sized murals. (There's nothing like public art.)

"Paint only what you desire and paint it simply: God is in all things, God is Love." - Dante Gabriel Rosetti

Colors rock. For instance, the brilliant vermilion is still semi-precious. "As pure sources of cinnabar are rare, natural vermilion has always been extremely expensive. In the Middle Ages, vermilion was often as expensive as gilding. As of 2007 a 35ml tube of genuine Chinese Vermilion oil paint can cost £112 (US $170)."

"Artificial colors derived from minerals or vegetables thus represented wealth, while the poor wore only fabrics in drab and modest colors. It was normal for a peasant to wear gray or brown clothes made of rough natural fabrics, not dyed, threadbare, and almost always dirty... The richness of colors and the splendor of gems were marks of power, and thus objects of desire and marvel... On the other hand, the underprivileged, whose lot was to live in a natural environment that was certainly harsher and tougher, but more wholesome than it is today, could enjoy only the spectacle of nature, the sky, sunlight, and moonlight, and flowers." - Umberto Eco, The History of Beauty

So this evening, I walk (cost $0) to the Safeway store. Enroute I watch the white shimmering Sun (cost $0) lower into the horizon. At that eye-to-eye angle, it's so much easier to catch it's like a spinning top rotating off ecstasy.

I say hello (cost $0) to the startled red-headed woman (people aren't used to strangers greeting them?) whom admired the garden entrance to the condos and gingerly tenderly brushed her hand across the living tendrils of greenery.

Admittedly not the most aesthetic grocery store displays in the world, yet it's up to me to pay attention to the colors in the store. The flowers are luscious, especially the bouquet of roses mixed with differing combustible fiery shades. I've gone totally overboard in the last year for magentas, vermillions, rusts, salmons, pinks, roses, sangrias, crimsons (although I once was a greens and purples girl).

"Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one." - Paul Klee

Admiration of flowers (priceless, though actual cost $0).

I'm tugged to the wine aisle. The curve of the glass beckons. I decide to play a game and see which ones are the prettiest labels. Herding Cats is bursting with power and fun; and I love big cats, especially sleek mysterious jaguars. Cardinal Zin (Bonny Doon) is spunky. Trinity Oaks is lushly beautiful with a dyad theme. And Marcelina Vineyards' evocation of the bounty of the harvest, a woman plucking fruit off the orchard tree, is almost sublime. (Inhaling the beauty of wine labels, cost $0.)

I head over the magazine aisle and am drawn to Wonder Time. The current issue includes a field guide to fairies, you see. (Flipping through magazine, cost $0.)

Next I head to the candy aisle for the chocolate I planned this excursion around (when in doubt, chocolate saves your ass) and see that the Lindt Excellence Intense Orange dark chocolate happens to be on sale for $2.50.

Heading out to pay, it doesn't cost another nickel to laugh at the clerk's joking with the adjacent clerk. (Laughter has always been free medicine. How we forget.) I head home under the sentinel of towering redwoods and candlesque butter magnolia blossoms (cost of naturalist tour, $0). When I get home I savor a handful of lush chunks of chocolate, an succulent orange and a dark cup of orange spice black tea.

Drumroll please. Grand monetary expenditure for the day: $2.50.

p.s. Yes, this is the beginning of a blooming new series, or a fun twist on delving into Wealth: Epicurean pleasure, abundance, wishes, lust for life, passion, midwifery of matter, creating reality, the fertility of summer, & excess riches galore.

p.p.s. Of course, oui, I got the Death card today: "The Death card indicates this transition from lower to higher to highest. This is a card of humility, and it may indicate the Querent as being brought low, but only so that they can then go higher than they ever have before. Wang notes that Death "humbles" all, but it also "exults." Always keep in mind that on this card of darkness there is featured a sunrise as well." - interpretation via AecleticTarot.com

images Luscious Red, by Ruth Palmer; Venus Venicordia, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti; tulip photo via The Rampant Scotland newsletter; Vermillion by John Rainsford

perhaps consider what life would be like if we truly lived by what we believe

"Perhaps consider what life would be like if we truly lived by what we believe." - Lost & Found on The Hierophant

When I first got to the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, and saw that there were no full-on grocery stores, that's when I first got a clue that the trip was going to be a tad more expensive than I'd anticipated.

That old flashback anxiety came up the first day or two when I went out to eat, paid the bill and then flash forwarded into the future calculating in my head the total spreadsheet amount for food expenditures  for the two months (plus in actuality).

It didn't take me very long to get into the New Orleans' laidback vibe, however, and feel that somehow everything was going to be alright.

What I ended up recalling (my life flowed with grace and miracles in Thailand and Sri Lanka the winter of 2005 too) was when I take the initial, if faltering, step, the Universe takes at least 99 on my behalf.

Small example. I rarely needed to take cab rides while in New Orleans. I would simply decide where I wanted to go  - be it in Tulane or Magazine Street or the Mapleleaf Bar - and voila! someone would inevitably offer me a ride - typically without me asking.

The first time, I'd only been in town for two days so I took a cab to the Jung society meeting on the Enuma Elish myth in uptown. There I met Dan and Diane - literally right next door neighbors to where I was staying - voila! a ride home materialized.

I had no idea when I got there how I'd get home (it was a church tucked off the beaten path; a cab would definitely need to be called out.) Yet I did know I needed to be at that particular meeting. That was the step. When you listen and hear, "Go." You don't balk, "But that's all the way in uptown. It'll cost $25 roundtrip. And...."

Don't give up even before you start. You move in the direction you're being pulled despite appearances that you ought to wait until all the ducks are in the row, and you've lined a ride home, and the stock market is, and the...

I don't wait for evidence to present itself that I'm on the right path. Evidence comes, if it does at all, in hindsight. You move because the wind blows you that way.

"The only thing that will move you (and I don't mean to be too poetic about this) is the same thing that moves a leaf hanging from a tree. It's simply because the breeze blows that way. So you always know what to do: The breeze blows that way, and that's the way you go. You don't ask questions anymore. You don't evaluate why the breeze is blowing that way because you know that you don't know why. And you know you can't know why. There's never been a leaf anywhere that knows why the wind blows that way on that day at that moment. That breeze changes the orientation of your life, moment to moment to moment, simply because that's the way life's moving. And when you're living in your awakened self you have no argument with the way it's moving because it is the same as you are." - Adyashanti

Actually, that's the way I met my friend Wyatt. I didn't know how I was going to get home that day I met him busking on University Avenue either. That was our opening exhange. He asked for money. I walked over, lowered my voice and explained that I'd give him something but I didn't have enough for bus fare home myself. (Tended to go through these feast and famine cycles in the past.) I only know that something was compelling me to go to Palo Alto that day. I followed that whim. Of course, I ended up getting a ride home from my friend that works at IDEO... yet I didn't know that apriori.

I found that New Orleanians were generous, sharing and less of a "me, mine, and my" frame of mind than I'm used to observing in the US.

It's there it all dawned on me that money would end up becoming extraneous.

Call me quixotic, idealistic, dreamer. (I cannot explain the how's) I've seen into the future. (Though yes, the future keeps shifting because we change it.) Surprising myself, I feel moved toward "collective" (for lack of better name) and cooperative ways of sharing which don't necessarily involve money, or monetary systems.

I want to play in that realm. Live by that belief that we can take care of each other.

To me, art isn't to be merely visited, watched...it's more like a space you inhabit, you absorb, you be. Doubt I've said this, but I'm into social art. Not social as in we're going to exchange comments, trackbacks, and I'll add you to my buddy list.

Social as in art that creates civilizations...like this...

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

- John Lennon, Imagine

I witnessed so many acts of collectiveness in Nola, ah, where to begin. Okay, here's one I witnessed: One evening I run into a cool pianist I've met at Mimi's upstairs. He is giving away a newly inherited piano to a fellow pianist sitting there at the counter. They'd met the week earlier at Mimi's. It's an extra piano, and she doesn't own one.

That logic doesn't resonate with everyone. Why not put the piano on Craigslist? Why not eBay? Why not donate it to the ___. Because he met whom it was intended for.

Last week Donna wrote in comments: "For some real fun, try giving money away, and watch how fast it comes back to you. ;^)" Yes. (The Diamond Cutter is a marvelous true story of this in practice. If it matters, he ended up a multimillionaire in the process.) Obviously one doesn't give with any expectation of getting. I don't give for quid pro quo or karmic brownie points.

Anyhow, once I got the lesson of giving, I found another lesson was waiting.

& it has to do with truly living by what I believe. As runners are wont to say, though, your mileage may vary.

There are those who give little of the much which they have - and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

And there are those who have little and give it all.

These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.

And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.

And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;

They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.

Though the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.

It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;

And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving

And is there aught you would withhold?

All you have shall some day be given;

Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors'.

You often say, 'I would give, but only to the deserving.'

The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.

They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.

Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights is worthy of all else from you.

And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.

And what desert greater shall there be than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?

And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?

See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.

For in truth it is life that gives unto life - while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.

And you receivers - and you are all receivers - assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.

Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;

For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the free-hearted earth for mother, and God for father.        

- Kahlil Gibran

UPDATE: As soon as I hit publish, I get this about circles of sharing and generosity entrepreneurs in my inbox:

"Imagine walking down the street and a woman comes up to you and says, 'Hello. I have an offering for you.' Puzzled, you look up and in your palm falls a $7500 check. 'Why me?' 'Serendipity,' she says. 'What should I do with it?' 'Whatever you want.' 'How did you decide on $7500?' 'We sat in a circle of silence, wrote down a number on a piece of paper and it averaged out to $7500.' And then she walks away. Now that's a pretty ridiculous story, but that's what has brought us together here." - "A Radical Experiment in Generosity Launches," CharityFocus.com

images Visit (detail of entire painting above) by Mari Klarwein; Breath of Gaia, by Josephine Wall (btw, discovered via a cool art blog by Melissa Ulto you may enjoy, Multo.com::Visual Magic); Tree of Fruitfulness, by Lieve Prins; can't find origin (from Myspace page while surfing) but probably one of those fantasy games

joy is my Compass (appreciation the key)

we came whirling
out of nothingness
scattering stars
like dust

the stars made a circle
and in the middle
we dance

- Rumi

I once used to try to figure out what "God" wanted for me, as if there were any conflict between Wills.

How I could be of better service to the world, and make a difference? as if that would yield a different movement  of action than holding, What makes my heart sing?

"Used to" goes as way far back as 8 a.m. this morning.

"Should I move to the Mission for the summer (in San Francisco)?" I ask the Tarot. It took me a while again to recall that the Tarot is not to tell you what you should do. (Pulling the Oppression card helps jog my memory.)

I am the mistress of my destiny.

I choose.

I know in my heart of hearts. Or, as one of my teachers, says: Allow yourself to know what you know.

The only good the Tarot is for is to confirm that I am not deceiving my own self and selling my vision short. The Tarot never shoulds.

I was in the Mission the other day checking the general scene, and then inside one particular six-bedroom arthouse with an available sublet this summer. Before the meeting, I ate at Cafe Gratitude for the first time.

"What are you grateful for?" is emblazoned on the cafe's T-shirts.

Grateful for? I don't understand. Why pinpoint? Grateful in. Grateful in this Life whatever she brings is how I was feeling right then.

That Tuesday as I board the bus on my way to the Mission and to Cafe Gratitude and to the arthouse, I text a friend, "Pulled 6 Wands today" [Victory]. "Riding in glory?" he asks.

"Mayb. Simpr. Blessed."

Blessed for no particular reason.

If I looked at the externals of my situation that moment, there could be found plenty not to be grateful for. That goes for the whole week plus since I've returned to San Jose from my nine-week adventure in New Orleans. Everything clicked for me in New Orleans. I just so much as thought something, and voila! presto! Life waltzed with me there.

"I'm late! I'm late for a very important date!" buzzed the White Rabbit to Alice as he furiously scrambled about. I feel like Alice in Wonderland myself - mystified. Most people in Silicon Valley are so busy chasing Life, they don't have the inclination to give it or those about them the time of day.

A friend from Nola consoles via SMS: "Leaving here is similar to dying a small death.it takes awhile to get used to living in the other world (regular time usa)." "Reg time?" "Reg time ppl forget to stp to smell the roses"

Much of the time since I've been back, I've been thrown for a loop and energetically disturbed. A few days ago I'd texted same friend in New Orleans:

me: strong field here in the valley [Silicon Valley] of lack...and $ as soln to everything...hoard $ as way to shore up security...brings up my old conditioning & doubt

friend in nola: I find old condi good ref pt

me: yeh odd to c myself revert 2 old ways...which is held in much regard here! living by the grace of god is not

"Where has your desire for comfort and security cost you your aliveness?" - I Am Grateful: Recipes and Lifestyle of Cafe Gratitude

When I order the "I Am Elated" enchilada special stuffed with a tangy pepita sunflower seed pate from the chalk blackboard - maybe it's the festive orange lettering - but the price isn't indicated, and in that moment it doesn't make a difference in what I desire. Lately, I'd envisioned expanding the pop-up  nomadic tea-house into the evening hours, yet I don't want to serve alcohol. "Live" (raw) drinks though could be the ticket. Curious, I order the raw cacao smoothie, "I Am Luscious."

It's quite acceptable these days to spill your sex life over into your blog life. I've even heard of a guy polling his readers as to whether he ought to break up with his girlfriend or not.

The greater taboo (and a friend said it'd be more interesting since yawn! we've become unshockably nonchalant with all the DIY porn out there) is to bare your financial life online.

So, when I got the bill for the meal at Cafe Gratitude, I had to gulp.

"Nice touch," I think to myself. "Part of the lesson in abundance is also wrapped up in the bill." I am not referring to the Abounding River game card they attach with a wooden clothespin.

At that moment, I checked in my reactions: Anxiety, check. Imagining a future on the street, check. The Witness part of me follows the visceral energy moving and rising up through my gut and my heart and up, up away. Simple awareness transmutes everything, releases.

Whoa, don't let the dreadlocked "don't worry be happy" vibe fool you... this ain't for the cavorting across the country Volkswagon bus crowd: Check plus tip will amount to a $24.00 lunch. And that amounts to half of all my liquid funds to date - and my rent is overdue. (And it's $16.00 - rounded up - roundtrip from SF to SJ on public transportation.) (p.s. I own no credit cards, no car, no TV, etc by choice.)

I can't do gratefulness as a practice. Or appreciation as a practice. It feels too contrived. I'm catapulted back to my mom telling me to eat my peas and carrots and I must finish the whole plate because "those kids are starving in Ethopia."

"Well then," I remember muttering, "ship them these peas and carrots. I don't want them."

But I do know that even when I am completely so-called broke, I can typically magically unearth something tucked (way way in the back) in the pantry. It doesn't cost me a cent to go to my closet and don something vibrant. So I wear a festive azure gypsy skirt and pink pearls while I simmer the bean soup. Ain't nothing stopping me from eating it out of the best china in the cupboard either.

All the while I am consciously aware of a strong pull like the moon exerts on the tides, an overwhelming temptation, to feel sorry for myself and mope around in grey flannel pajamas and eat out of the same pot I heated the soup in and indulge misery.

Yet I don't.

Funny thing, the blessedness never went anywhere the whole doubting time. It is the sun beneath my fog.

"It is an act of spiritual mastery to choose a life that is joyful, even in the midst of great difficulty." - The Hathors via Tom Kenyon, "A Path Through These Turbulent Times", Sept. 8, 2005 (hmmm, a week after Katrina)

Bonus:  Joy is security. "Spiritual preparation means to prepare for the possibility of your death through a recommitment to your life—to living and choosing what is essential for ever-increasing experiences of appreciation and joy. It sounds odd, but following your deepest sense of joy will lead you to be in the places where you will most likely survive, should the Earth go into a period of purification." - The Hathors via Tom Kenyon, "A Message for the Life Sustainers", Jan 2, 2005 (not coincidentally written after the tsunami)

And: "It is an extraordinary opportunity to experience hyperdimensional physics in action, for as the superconductive fields increase on the earth in their various forms, you can ride these states of energy into higher and more exquisite states of consciousness. They are, in some very real ways, like doorways into the higher dimensions of earth. They are an invitation to leave your attachment to surface awareness, literally and figuratively, and to enter into the extraordinary mystery and the exquisite birth of a new earth.

At the moment of your own physical birth into this life, you did not know what was happening—only that a great pressure was upon you and a movement you could not stop. This is, in many ways, a similar event for the earth herself. There are new worlds emerging in the midst of the world that is right before your eyes.

The reason you are here is upon you." - The Hathors (via Tom Kenyon), "Managing Subtle Energy During Earth Changes," Feb 3, 2007

p.s. Loofa asked me to share my own dreams/visions more (in addition to encouraging you to follow your own star). Been inclined myself to share that. Hint: It's about "Abundance 2.0." Check out the Tarot card on Abundance too: Exuberance. Friendship. Community.

images Alphonse Mucha's Dance; Ilene Meyer's Ten Note Whirl (don't they look like Fools dancing? In the Universe card, "We dance with the joy of life. And again we are the Innocent" (another name for the Fool is the Innocent); Ilene Meyer's The Magi (it takes a Magi to live willfully in joy - despite our conditioned patterns denying joy)

muggles coming out of closet (broom optional, wands not included)

I used to cringe when people labelled me bohemian:

"A Bohemian is simply an artist or littérateur who, consciously or unconsciously, secedes from conventionality in life and in art." ["Westminster Review," 1862] - bohemian, via Online Etymology Dictionary

Doesn't sound so bad, eh? But there's always an undertone of dilettante itinerant vagrant vagabond ne'er-do-well to "bohemian." Not likely someone with a good credit report, and straight A report card. (Well, I did have a 3.9 GPA once.)

"my views are pretty unconventional, but i guess each of us harbors an unconventional heart of our own" - me, in an IM to a friend

Nope, wouldn't help telling me that  Rockefeller had a bohemian streak too.

"Like many itinerant vendors in rural places, he was a smooth-talking purveyor of dreams along with tawdry trinkets, and Eliza [his future wife] responded to this romantic wanderer." - Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller

That is until I learned recently that the French word bohémien (translates to bohemian, or gypsy) comes from the old French word "Boem" meaning "sorcerer."

sorcery

c.1300, from O.Fr. sorcerie, from sorcier "sorcerer," from V.L. *sortiarius, lit. "one who influences fate, fortune," from L. sors (gen. sortis) "lot, fate, fortune" (see sort). Sorceress (c.1384) is attested much earlier than sorcerer (1526).

Now that I like: I am the mistress of my so-called fate dreaming this story-dwelling make-believe game up as I go. Plus all the things that happen and beings that are met along the way aren't to be struggled with - any more than I'd struggle when reading an intriguing fairytale fantasy that keeps me in suspense. As I skip along the yellow-brick road choices will present themselves as the never-ending story unfolds (not necessarily linearly), and we get to participate with breathless wonder.

I can't pretend to be a muggle. I keep giving all y'all (Nawlins' talkin') plenty of hints that we're boarding the Hogwarts Express here - in case you don't want to.

The train is departing shortly presently to a glorious, enchanting haven... though you need to leave your limitations behind at the customs desk. (There are quite different customs over there yonder in hyperspace. & Spontaneous wisdom & grace glides and dances adroitly on the high-wire without any fall-back belief net. Beliefs make one too top-heavy for spritelyhood.)

"If you remember the station scene in the Harry Potter books (or movies) in which the wizard children were able to board the Hogwarts Express on platform 9 3/4 by walking straight through a concrete pillar, then you will begin to see how all this works. What is delightfully easy for wizards is equally impossible for muggles (non-wizards)." - "End of World Theories", Circles of Flight (for the record, I'm not agreeing with this article, the muggles will and are also in their right place, right time)

Being a wizard - or a gypsy sorceress - is easy. You just stop fighting the magic in you, spilling out of you. By coming out of hiding for starters. The bible puts it this way: "Nor do men light a lamp and put it under the bushel, but upon the lamp-stand, and it shines for all who are in the house." (Matthew 5:15) 

Being a wizard is a choice. (I know, I know Mickey underscored over and over for you in Fantasia that it's very dangerous Pandora's Box.) A glorious choice, actually.

"Never give a wand to a man that can't dance." - old Celtic proverb

Sometimes it's nearly ordinary. With a twinkling twist, though.

A creative friend who claims a past life affinity for Lady Guinevere was lamenting about her interior design business last week. I tell her, "You aren't creating this for the beauty salon owner's benefit. This isn't for her [ah, yes, she was clashing a bit with said owner]. Millions more get their hair cut, and get their nails done than go to churches on Sunday or attend a Buddhist retreat. You're creating a subliminal temple of beauty and harmony and love for every single person that walks in those doors to remember what they've always known."

But that's just the beginning of wizardry. Infinity knows no bounds.

p.s. Old bohemian secret....psssst, if you want to know about wizardry, follow the children.

"No child but must remember laying his head in the grass, staring into the infinitesimal forest and seeing it grow populous with fairy armies." - Robert Louis Stevenson, Essays in The Art of Writing

Their eyes, actually their perception, just see what they see even if it isn't supposed to exist according to grown-ups. They haven't grown accustomed to beliefs. A reader begins an enchanting email:

"Through the transparency of your blog, you have been the catalyst for the mystical, magical turn of events my life has taken lately. Last night my son (age 1) and I saw an angel (or something) – from the corner of my eye, a fluttering followed by my son’s squeal of delight."

Which reminds me that a friend texts me the other day: The children are ruling the world.

(Hallelujah, praise god.)

Bonus: From World Wide Words by Michael Quinion:

[Q] From Annlasa: “I would like to know how the word bohemian came to mean someone or some idea that is offbeat.”

[A] It comes to us through French, in which language the word (as bohémien) has long been applied to gypsies, who were thought to come from Bohemia, or at least to have entered Europe through that country. This is just the same way our gypsies were so named, because they were thought to have come from Egypt (gypsy being a corrupted form of Egyptian). In the nineteenth century, the word shifted sense in French to mean somebody who was a vagabond, or a person of irregular life and habits, an obvious enough extension of meaning if you accepted the then common disparaging view of gypsies. This sense was introduced into English by Thackeray in Vanity Fair in 1848: “She was of a wild, roving nature, inherited from father and mother, who were both Bohemians, by taste and circumstances.” The word quickly came to be applied with special reference to an artist, writer or actor who despised conventionality. By 1862, the Westminster Review was able to say that “The term ‘Bohemian’ has come to be very commonly accepted in our day as the description of a certain kind of literary gipsey, no matter in what language he speaks, or what city he inhabits ... A Bohemian is simply an artist or littérateur who, consciously or unconsciously, secedes from conventionality in life and in art”.

images Star card by ©Stephanie Pui-Mun from a Gypsy Tarot deck in progress (more works by Pui-Mun);  a psychedelic gypsy from 60's Rock and Roll Legends gallery; Persian Goddess by ©Sara Haase, her whimsical online gallery is titled Wispy Gypsy

we are stardust we are golden

"Ask your heart what's right
And follow it."

That's on my housemate's refrigerator magnet. They're the sagest words I've ever seen. In fact I think my whole life (and certainly the life of this blog) is a never-ending exploration of practicing, encouraging and embodying that.

"And follow it," being the very hardest part.

"[T]here is a difference between destiny and fate. Fate is coming at you, but your destiny, if you are not careful and immensely determined, recedes ever farther away; and so, the transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, said, "Hitch your wagon to a star." The image of the Star tells you to have faith in your ideals, to dare to dream, and to hold tightly to your perceived purpose in life." - meaning of the Star card in Tarot, from The Psychic Internet

"You have divinity inside. It's like a jar waiting to be opened with your free choice, and if you don't open it, there are no solutions. Oh, nothing bad is going to happen. It's just that that jar is going to be tossed by the waves like it has been all your life. But when you open that jar, out comes the divinity, which is you, and you start the process of true communication with Spirit, and wisdom to control the waves." - Kryon, Manhattan, March 10, 2007

The Star, in the Tarot deck, is a card that shows up for me a lot lately. Purportedly it tells one to have faith in their ideals, and to "follow their star."

"We are stardust we are golden, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden."
Joni Mitchell/CS&N (at Woodstock)

To my exasperated frustration at times, I'm finding Life won't budge an inch and grant me the luxury of compromising my highest ideals any longer. When I take baby steps out of anxiety, or I settle or compromise the result collapses like sand castles before a gulping tide... luckily before I get very far.

It won't allow for infliction of Self-cruelty, even in the name of paying May's rent. Nothing, but nothing, but my deepest desire moves with any semblance of frictionless grace. I am feeling the rising futility, and I text a friend. He replies: Just b.

"Stretch, Risk, or Die. A stretch is something you'll to do even if you're a little scared. If you're really nervous about doing something, then it is a risk. A die is something you would absolutely not do. The die is always what we secretly fear [it is our heart's desire]." - Rhonda Britton, Fearless Living (via New Moon Journal blog)

What?! That sounds like upside down thinking! How could we be most fearful of our own heart's desire? Wouldn't be skipping gleefully towards it?

That stretch, risk, or die pithy paragraph registers true. For instance, I've witnessed my own life-long avoidance of magic and music.

A week ago I write to a friend who's own path often mirrors my own:

you haven't asked yourself in too long about what you realllllly truly desire from your deepest core and most absurdly idealistic creative dreamer part of you (not necessarily same as what you expect, or what you believe you "deserve")

Same friend I wrote a friend about a month ago:

i don't understand money & ownership and possession anymore
just friends kindred spirits and gifts and creating and freedom and
art and the end of world as we know it

I really meant that. I find Wealth to be intimately tied to camaraderie, sharing, communal joy, gifts, flow and constant circulation.

Coming back to Silicon Valley has been a culture shock, to put it mildly. Fiercely missing the conviviality and community of New Orleans, so much that I have difficulty getting back into the swing of things - even writing this post. Last week on my return, when I saw a flyer at Philz Coffee for a room coming available at an artists' collective in the Mission, I thought maybe that could be a step in the right direction.

I'm feeling more and more inclined toward encouraging the myriad of infinite unique expressions of living and being. Allowing every one to their own full flowering, with no desire for clones of this flower self, and so more than ever I've a "live and let live" philosophy. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this art collective and arts incubator's mission - it simply doesn't jibe with what I want and so I move on... rather than settle, compromise or delude myself that I'd be helping anyone by persuading them over to my dream and changing them "from within."

The nice - if painful - thing about contrast is that it clearly delineates. After New Orleans, it's clear I'm personally done with Silicon Valley. (Though I'm still seeking a base in SF.) Puzzle pieces of things unspoken fell together for me, and I realize I yearn for the experience of community. And more. I wrote a friend in an IM chat:

well, once i was in nola, i saw the whole caboodle - an interconnected coop/collectives of small farms, groceries, cafes, art-live houses, etc

I want to celebrate & engage in a colony that cultivates seamlessness between magic, life, and art.

Art literally and figuratively at the very core of Earth.

I see, hear, taste, smell, touch it's time to leap.

I've got to instigate my utopian visions myself together with a tribe attuned to these strands of music resonating from the spheres. Connected via hyperspace aether and Internet, and for those tangibly, tactilely inclined such as myself, a galactic center in New Orleans. (Actually I'd imagined an open Grail cup triangle with bases in SF, NYC, & Nola.)

"Sometimes you just have to take the leap and build your wings on the way down." - Kobi Yamada

Bonus: The main reason I came back to the Bay Area when I did just occurred this weekend. It's beyond my ability to fully articulate, but the gist is it was multi-day ceremony that uses hyper-dimensional sacred geometry to reawaken dormant electromagnetic meridian points. But don't quote me on that. I just know the stuff transmutes! The faciliators will be back from Bali in November, and next time, I'll spread the word.

A cube is a hyper-square: If you want to understand hyperdimensions, here's the popular (1399 fave saves thus far in delicious) Imagining the 10th Dimension site, book, and video. Though, I'm less interested in understanding, than EMBODYING. I say all this because I think the closer meaning of The Star card is expressed in the idea of that we're on a divine & celestial mission - that it's no accident we're here in this time & place on this planet. In the Thoth deck, The Star speaks to the geometry of old being poured out and the new higher hyper-geometric forms flowing in (they're not just spiral though):

"Every form of energy is spiral; this is in anticipation of the present Aeon, that of Horus, [innocent child-god birthed from the masculine and the feminine divine] the crowned and conquering Child, successor to the "dying god" Osiris. The departing Aeon is shown in the rectilinear forms of energy issuing from the lower cup. These forms stand for the now abandoned Euclidean geometry. The figure of the goddess may be taken as a manifestation of the surrounding space of Heaven." - Instructions for Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot Deck

images Origami art star, photo by Mary-Irene Lang; The Star card in the Thoth deck of the Tarot; aerial photo of a very large and sacred public art project ;-), here a pentagram crop circle by Allen Brown

the Master can keep giving because there is no end to her wealth

Keeping with the Wealth theme, I'm sharing some food for thought soul to set the stage from Byron Katie's new book, A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Ways Things Are without my own two cents commentary.  (Plenty of time for that.)

Her book is divided into the 81 teachings from the Tao Te Ching in Katie's modern lexicon and her everyday examples. This post headline "The Master can keep giving because there is no end to her wealth" is from the teaching numbered 77 (as translated from Chinese by her husband, Stephen Mitchell). I also like this other translation of 77:

"The way of the ordinary person,
is not the way of the Tao,
for such people take from those who are poor
and give to those who are rich.
The sage knows that his possessions are none,
therefore he gives to the world;
without recognition, doing his work.
In this way he accomplishes
that which is required of him;
without dwelling upon it in any way,
he gives of his wisdom without display."
- Tao Te Ching, as translated by Stan Rosenthal

While I'm at it, pssssst, Bryon Katie now has a blog (and this is her post about The Secret in "The Difference between The Work and The Secret" ). And now on to the snippet I wanted to share (complete excerpt from chapter 77 here):

"The story “I need more money” is what keeps you from realizing your wealth. Whenever you think that your needs are not being met, you're telling the story of a future. Right now, you're supposed to have exactly as much money as you have right now. This is not a theory; this is reality. How much money do you have? That's it - you're supposed to have exactly that amount. If you don't believe it, look at your checkbook. How do you know when you're supposed to have more? When you do. How do you know when you're supposed to have less? When you do. Realizing this is true abundance. It leaves you without a care in the world, as you look for a job, go to work, take a walk, or notice that the cupboard is bare.

The heart can sing, can't it! That's why you wanted money in the first place. Well, you can skip the money part, and just sing. It doesn't mean you won't have money too. Can you do it for richer or poorer, as the world sees it?

I love having money, and I love not having it. To me, spending money is nothing more than passing on what didn't belong to me in the first place. There's nothing I can do to keep it away, as long as it needs to be passed on. If it doesn't need to be passed on, there's no need for it to come. I love that it comes in, and I love that it goes out.

When I receive money, I am thrilled, because I'm fully aware that it's not mine. I'm just a channel, I'm not even the caretaker. I get to be an observer of it, to see what it's for. The moment I get it from over there, a need for it pops up over here. I love giving money. I never lend people money; I give them money, and they call it a loan. If they repay it, that's when I know it was a loan." - Byron Katie, A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Ways Things Are

images Susan Berns - 1970, by Mati Klarwein - amazing sacredly luscious art, a must see!!; and this photo? well, I'm fiercely missing Nawlins is all, & that's a crawfish boil

anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination." - Oscar Wilde

I reckoned the other day that there isn't much betwixt those who who read this blog and those who write it. I admit I'm not even sure the word betwixt is befitting here - I simply like that word, betwixt. Betwixt means

1. In the space which separates; between.

From betwixt two aged oaks. Milton.

2. From one to another of; mutually affecting.

There was some speech of marriage Betwixt myself and her. Shakespeare.

...and I like the etymology of betwixt, from two each: Etymology: Middle English, from Old English betwux, from be- + -twux (akin to Gothic tweihnai two each).

Anyhow, the point is that I realized that although Truth is a pathless land ala Krishnamurti, there are a couple of well trodden paths of desire.

The people that tend to congregate here, and congregrate in my life, tend to be those that are foolish enough to take the road less travelled and embark on the most direct, most "dangerous" (they say) path to enlightenment. Setting sail at Beauty and marching straight right through the Abyss, according to the mystical tradition of the Qabbalah. (One variation of being mine own, which is the Path of the High Priestess through Art.)

So considering my next theme here at Crossroads Dispatches that would help each of us, collectively I turned to my handy mirror to the Soul (the Soul bridging the material world and the spiritual - hmmm, I write that as if there were any betwixt between Samsara and Nirvana), the Tarot...

...and pulled the card: Wealth, or the 10 of Pentacles.

A very good choice, I should say. Sometimes the Pentacles are called Disks, Coins, Gold or Diamonds and its elemental ruler is Earth... "This Suit is grounded in the material and physical world, symbolic of accomplishment and manifestation. Disks represent Manifestation, physical expression in the world, physical creation."

The 10 of Pentacles is one of the most auspicious cards in the Tarot deck, besides World. Don't know about you, but the timing of this theme couldn't be better for me.

"The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible." - Oscar Wilde

It's no secret that I'm no fan of The Secret. I'm well aware there is a fine line between white and black magic, & miracles and manipulation.

My interest in Wealth is not necessarily to conjure up jewels, or bicycles, or mansions, although the other day I did have a nice plate of sundried tomato grits and fresh biscuit smothered with a basil butter. Nope, my dream is more global, aye galactic, in nature: a world shrouded in enchantment and mystery and beauty and intimate friendship is more up my alley:

“You may already be an Anarchist.

It's true. If your idea of healthy human relations is a dinner with friends, where everyone enjoys everyone else's company, responsibilities are divided up voluntarily and informally, and no one gives orders or sells anything, then you are an anarchist, plain and simple. The only question that remains is how you can arrange for more of your interactions to resemble this model.” - from fighting for our lives: an anarchist primer

It's not that I want "more" as much as sometimes I'm noting we use "lack" as an excuse to not fully express our true selves.

"If you wish to understand others, you must intensify your own individualism." - Oscar Wilde

And I don't want to forget that the buck always stops Here. Reminded of a favorite bumper sticker I once saw: "Are We Here Yet?"

"We're programmed to constantly expect more, work harder, climb higher. But true abundance eludes us until we learn to put our whole attention into what we're doing now. Until we master this present moment awareness, nothing we achieve will ever make us happy or whole. Any time you catch yourself saying "If only..." this week, slip back into the sensual lushness of your present moment experience. This is the space where miracles happen." - this week's Libra horoscope over at D.K. Brainard's site

Talking about Wealth means I'll be talking about alchemy. Which isn't about turning base metals into gold so much. The Harry Potter books brought 14th century Parisien bookseller and alchemist Nicholas Flamel back into the limelight. Flamel and his wife never went without, and gave generously to his community erecting hospitals for the poor and the like. Legend has it, he's the only one whom ever located the secret of the Philosopher's Stone, or the secret of gold and eternal life:

"This book fell into the hands of precisely the man who was destined to receive it; and he, with the help of the text and the hieroglyphic diagrams that taught the transmutation of metals into gold, accomplished the transmutation of his soul, which is a far rarer and more wonderful operation."

"Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you." - Oscar Wilde

p.s.  Friend last week: "God's work just doesn't pay."

Me: "Lately I'm finding the opposite to be true; it's becoming the only thing that does."

Bonus: A bit more on the 10 of Pentacles, Wealth card:

"Therefore, in it is drawn the very figure of the Tree of Life itself. This card, to the other thirty-five small cards, is what the twenty-first Trump, The Universe, is to the rest of the Trumps." - Ten of Disks, from Super Tarot

"When drawing the Ten of Pentacles in a reading, it symbolizes everything positive in the suit of Pentacles. Wealth, material abundance, abundant gardens, family happiness, happy home, traditional marriage, loyalty, love, your wishes will come true." - Ten of Pentacles, by PurpleLady

images Lady with Fan, Gustav Klimt (1917); opium den via Apothecary's Blotter Art Gallery; cover of Journal des Demoiselles, Fashionable dresses for young ladies