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Klout Psychic
December 16, 2012
— 6 Comments
I have done a lot of joking on the subject of influence measurement, Klout in particular. I used to have a lot of fun over at Klout, but never took it seriously. Now I do wonder about one thing. How does Klout know that Chris Brogan belongs at the top of my influencers list? This happens to be true, but there are no FB connections, no tweets between us. He contacts me, as does the fabulous S. Anthony Innarino, by e-mail each Sunday.
S. Anthony’s Influencers list shows Brother Brogan at the top, which does make sense, but how do they know about me? My Klout influencers list has had Chris at the top forever, but also lists one person I don’t even know. They have no record of the books or e mails, and they do not seem to be accurate, let alone psychic. It reminds me of a joke my father used to tell about a thermos bottle given to a hillbilly. The fellow wondered how the thermos knew weather to keep the contents hot or keep them cold. The punch line of the joke was “How do it know?” I add this to the list of questions I ask about the meaning and accuracy of influence on Klout.
I have joked lately about the topics being yanked and the humor involved in the influence categories. I don’t pay much attention to it any more since all my fun food topics were tossed by the influence bosses. Apparently one can grow influence in strawberry guava one week, and have all your important and valuable influence wiped out whimsically the next. Some seeds fall on fallow ground. I feel that I have been, and many still are unduly influenced by influence fascists.
Intuition, Archetypes, Ancestors
December 15, 2012
Historical enemies, sagas of war, and the tragic impact violent thoughts have on society today are harsh reminders of human disorder. We can not look back to find a perfect time in history or a completely noble story of our ancestors’ survival. The mixed bag has always existed, known and unknown, true and false. When evil rocks the world we are all quick to isolate culprits and round up perps in our own minds. It does not matter which demon we blame, even if we never mention it out loud. The very act of deciding who is to blame will be a process to eliminate knowledge of one’s own part in building a more hateful world. The question of the moment is “Who started this?”, but we all know intuitively the answer to that eternal question.
The prostitute archetype in each of our dramas will test and be tested to discover ethics and limits. The question will be answered in this lifetime about how blind you are to others in order to enhance your own comfort. This story will star your prostitute archetype. Your storyboard will be repeated in different costumes and sets until the line has been firmly established between your soul and what you are willing to do for physical comfort. You may find it is an opera one time and a comedy the next, but if you look back you can identify the segments like vignettes on the Twilight Zone. You created and produced these stories to find your limits. Your own unconscious mind has written, directed, and been in charge of casting the stars. There are sometimes entire decades of reruns. I feel that our nation has been rerunning an unfortunate version of our best selves with less than admirable results.
Grand Holiday Spa Down
December 11, 2012
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If you could go back in time to any place and time where would you time travel? I know I would go straight to Bad Ragaz (via Zurich) to party like it is Christmas. I would attend the tree lighting choral evening and giant buffet offered by the Grand Hotels Bad Ragaz. There is nothing like it anywhere.
Lobby Grand Hotels
lights of Bad Ragaz
buffet for the whole town
choir for the whole town
Let’s party
Festive in Bad Ragaz
the Christmas tree
downtown Tamina Gorge
Sonia, Bademeister
I would go back to the day before the beautiful people redesigned the spa, when bads were bads, and bademeisters were bad ass.
Sonia on the job
Navigating Backwards
December 9, 2012
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sunken treasure of dreamsStudying one’s ancestry one learns history once and for all. Any abstracts become clear when you chart your own pedigree. Any dates memorized come to life when you find out what your own ancestors were doing at those times. I am always a big proponent of being present in the moment, but historical knowledge helps me appreciate the present. The belief in intuition is enhanced when the timeless soul is given room to move. Calendars and clocks are maps of time that match the heavens in a very precise way. The full meaning of the heavens is impossible to capture in a clock. If you can view your life from a higher place time is less relevant than it appears to be in your rear view mirror. Meditation is the path to truth beyond time.
I am all the way a navigator. I have flown many miles in private planes navigating from the air, do very well with driving, or public transportation. Reading maps and finding different kinds of maps has always been a fascination for me. Historical maps and charts of the heavens are of particular interest. I am learning with precision how to navigate backwards by means of the family tree. My study of Sacred Contracts teaches me to align with time in a much broader spiritual sense.
Memory and dreams reconstruct time as well as facts. Often by repeating a story that is highly revised and edited for the ego’s best light we create a strong reality that never existed or has a chance of being true in real time. Our poetic dreamy visions of ourselves and others are the pageant we produce in order to learn our life lessons. Each one of us produces and directs the archetypal dramas in which we live. We act in the dramas of others, as do they in ours, but we only witness tiny segments of other people’s story. In dreams we only see faces we have seen in our waking lives. In dreams we deconstruct and revise the archetypes and their roles in our own big picture.
Looking at the symbolic as well as the scientific meaning of the past I see above and below are forever linked just as the past and the future. They have no meaning without their partners, like the border crossers and the migra. Our lessons are repeated in time, but are not done in a logical worldly sequence. If we believe in divine order it would be wise to honor and make some contact with it. In this way we can avoid swimming against the current , struggling to arrive in a place we have already been. Deep meaning is found by reading the treasure maps in our dreams.
Let Us Eat Cake (or Not, But Let Us Not Give it Superpowers)
December 8, 2012
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American Gothic corn bread
If you go to war with cake it will win. If you pretend that December makes food more important than Jesus, you will be damned in all possible ways. I have nothing against cake, but only eat it two or three times a year. Since bakery cakes usually do not satisfy any of my gourmet desires I make my own. In order to glorify the special event of cake creation I purchased a bunt cake pan that is super gothic. Making the cake your creation and your gift is the opposite of going into a trance to eat an entire crappy tasting store-bought cake quickly before you become aware that you are shoving something into your mouth. If you give a cake power to control your actions, what are your saying to your own soul? If you take your time and select the ingredients with care your cake can be a reflection of your Epicurean celebration of good taste and tasting good.
Goth cake pan
I have dusted off the super goth pan for a winter delight. In the running for chosen recipe is a green tomato bunt cake I made a few years ago. It is not unlike zucchini or carrot cake, in that one does not associate the taste with the vegetable right away. Persimmon pudding is another favorite of the house. I never get as far as icing, and hold my breath every time I dump it out, hoping it will not break as it exits the bunt mold. I have bought a gigantic piece of lovely fresh ginger root which is already being used in all kinds of dishes. I think it is fitting to find a gingerbread creation that can go gothic.
overhead shot of corn bread
Zombie Fruitcake Identification
December 5, 2012
— 2 Comments
In this busy season while everyone prepares for the end of the world as well as the year zombies take advantage of the rush to inundate all segments of society. Vigilance has never been more important if you want to avoid being dragged into the zombie vortex.
Although you may think zombies exist in certain geographical or demographic ways, they are much more able and agile than anyone suspects. Shape shifting is their life. There may be zombies in your workplace, in businesses you frequent, and yes, gentle readers, even in your home. Don’t bother trying to identify them by appearance, as they are masterful at disguise. It is their bread and butter. There is only one proven way to know if you are dealing face to face with a real zombie. You shall know them by their fruits. This means that the results are the only way to determine what the intent has been. The zombie creates works (fruits) without merit and without meaning, coarse and wasteful. So if you are gifted a fruitcake by a zombie, do NOT regift it. It is evil. Do your part.
Gal 5:22 “But the fruit of the Spirit is, charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity.”
If your zombie fruitcake has none of the above ingredients, toss it straight in the landfill. Better yet, take it to Colorado and enter the fruitcake toss. What could be more fun than lighting your perfectly legal doobie and launching a fruitcake into flight?
Consumption as Culture
December 3, 2012
— 2 Comments
Who is in charge of the decisions you make about consumption? Do your values ever influence what you buy?
Best Time to Time Travel
December 1, 2012
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Gotham City
Today is the first day of the slowest travel time of the year. For the next two weeks hotels, flights, attractions, and everything related to tourism will be experiencing low season. This will abruptly come to a halt on Dec 15. If there is a place you want to visit but like to have the best service at the lowest price now is your moment. Get while the getting is good. The essential key to happiness in travel is beating the peak. If you fly on Sunday after Thanksgiving in the US you will be accompanied by the largest crowds of the year. Wait a week and a magical thing happens. Along with happier staff in hotels, restaurants, and airports the people know know the secret of hitting the road the first two weeks of December are a far less cranky group than the one that will stand in line for absolutely everything at the end of the month.
Carnegie in Pittsburgh
Phipps Conservatory
Last year at this time I went to Pittsburgh, where I grew up, but had not been since 1965. I had the best time finding landmarks and taking in the whole Gothic Christmas scene downtown. I went to Phipps Conservatory, a fond memory from youth, to enjoy the holiday botanical show. I enjoyed a superb performance by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and perhaps best of all I was invited to a family home to get down Steeler style. Although I didn’t go out to Oakmont to see my own suburban home with a basement, cheering the Steelers with a family of serious fans in their basement did bring back big memories. Naturally the place has changed since 1965, but since the three rivers made it what it is, the rivers still define the city. Once full of coal barges, lit up by the steel mills running all night, the Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers form the mighty Ohio in Pittsburgh. This strategic point, where Fort Pitt is memorialized, made Pittsburgh the gateway to the west. It certainly worked for me. I moved to Venezuela in 1964 to be a petroleum princess, then to Texas in 1966 so my dad could be an Aggie. I never lived in a cold place, or the eastern part of the country again after that departure. I was an ice skating whiz at the age of 10, but I tried it in Zermatt when I was about 47 and found I had truly lost my ability. I decided against the rental skates last year, not wishing to leave the ‘Burgh on crutches. Just watching brought back enough fond memories for me.
Choice and Awareness
November 29, 2012
What choices do you make all the time?
Free will is the ability/responsibility to choose. It is not something that we have or have not, but something that is always there to varying degrees. Choices are realized through awareness. These choices are enabled or hindered by situational variables. These situational variables are very much a product of choices made in the past. The variable that determines the choices made is self awareness. This is because most of what we choose is based on who we believe ourselves to be. Think; “what would I do in any given situation” and you will see that it depends on who you understand yourself to be. Therefore, it matters less to the well being of the situation, how many choices you have to choose from, than it does the ability to discern between those choices. Focusing on self awareness seems to be the optimal way to bring about a collective existence which…
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Moses at the Mall, the One Commandment Diet
November 29, 2012
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i have been reflecting a lot about the way the monotheists enjoy and spread their beliefs. There is such a giant conflict of interest inherent in pledging aligiance to one god then using that God as a marketing device. It appears that these worshipers do many diverse things to indicate how much they are into religion and their own sect. Sinning, confessing, decorating, blessing, baptizing, and tithing are slightly rediculous if they are performed to honor false gods.
Charleton Heston dressed in his Moses gear should be sent to the mall with the tablets and a buring bush. All the parents need to sit on his lap, very close to the bush, while the kids go to Santa’s workshop. Moses asks each parent if they have other gods before the one they take the kids to worship. Charleton will quiz them on their understanding and execution of the first commandment. The bush will then have some private time with each parent during which they will be still and know.
Would you be afraid to sit on Charleton’s lap? Did you have to look up the first commandment?
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