Without a doubt I am thankful for my Sunday's of late...because my step-family--once so very difficult to handle--- comes to visit. A six year old, a thirteen year old and a thirty-four year old, all girls, all different but all vital to my happiness visit to do laundry, eat lunch and socialize at the end of each week.

None of us is church going but this ritual does feel like good spiritual food. This coming together makes us all better, even if we don't completely understand how it works right now.

Graciously I'm off today...and have been lazing around for most of it. At first I was mad at myself but then I thought...hey...what's wrong with down time? I worked exceedingly hard this week. So...leisure accepted! Now, though, I want to follow through and figure out how to do yearly progressions...I have a feeling this will be the key.

In any new age counseling that I've done, I've found that the progressions...the descriptions of what an individual is going through in their current age cohort is the most compelling portion of the reading. Yes, clients are fascinated by personality descriptions and insight into their hopes and dreams. But what any such reading really comes down to is "what happens next?" Heck that's the very reason I learned to do numerology in the first place; I wanted to find meaning in my otherwise very conventional life.

And it has helped...I do feel less adrift. But, with time I've learned that real "meaning" is different for each person. And sometimes we forget how to think or rather we forget how we think because we're too bombarded by life.

This afternoon is about going to A source and reconciling it with MY source.

Sacred Life Sunday

As a way to try to deepen my commitment to writing here, I'm going to try at least for this next Sunday, being part of Sacred Life Sunday. The purpose is to center one's attention on what we love, what we are grateful for, to concentrate on what connects us with our center. Here's to finding that center, every week.

In memorium

"...learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master."

-Excerpted from 2005 Kenyon Commencement Address - May 21, 2005 by David Foster Wallace

What an amazing bit of insight from a tortured writer. DFW committed suicide earlier this month. But the fact that he did so doesn't debunk the importance of this in the passage. In life, in our spiritual practice, in everything we strive for, if we don't approach things with the proper mindset, we may find ourselves at a dangerous cross roads.

Closer...

C had a wonderful idea about starting to do workshops. It sparked something in me so I’m seriously thinking of following it forward. She suggested I do numerology seminars and it seemed a natural. Since reading a new book on “what I’d be good at when I grow up (ok when am I not reading about this???), I’ve determined that I enjoy teaching, instructing, giving people insight on how to do things. It makes me feel alive.

And perhaps I don't want to stop at a little old divination workshop...maybe I can teach other things? Time to dive into my past to see what topics might work.

In plain sight

Why am I drawn to this picture of a tattooed woman holding a craft-embellished stuffed animal? Because part of me wants to be her, and could be her in another parallel universe. Because I love the aspect of camouflage in this picture. There she is, posing in a fully formed persona.

When one reads the article associated with this picture, the reader gets a clear idea of what's important to her, what drives her but; really, the interior life of this person is very well hidden. I love that feat. It's kind of why I wear funky glasses and why I sport my own very timid and low-key tattoo on my own wrist. (and why I daydream about having more tattoos and funkier clothes.) It's all part and parcel of the theatrical visual aspect one needs to construct to be a more public person.

People sport fictitious or fantastical public personas all the time (think Salvador Dali, the San Francisco Brown twins, Barak Obama, Dame Edna, Sarah Palin). These carefully established roles are worn like business clothes. It's a uniform and these forms follow function.

For years my coping mechanism was to hide in plain sight, to try to be invisible. It worked rather successfully but I've grown tired of that old game and its expectations (i.e. - fawning sycophancy). It's time to try a new one.