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Twelfth Month
November 26, 2012
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Twelve is a perfect mathematical way to look at everything. There are twelve of everything important because this is a simple, even way to divide any whole. The twelve astrological signs are found in twelve houses that represent different aspects of life and parts of the heavens. The twelfth house is the one that rules the unconscious. By keeping the public from seeing the contents the owner of this house reviews the risks and benefits of the unknown parts of the self. In the heavens, the twelfth house is the one just above the horizon at sunset, the last one visible before darkness. There are twelve Chinese animals that rule the years and hours of each day, passing in a slower, but even pace. These animals rule a year rather than a month, but it is all still divisible by 12.
We have a practice of creating a list for the first day of the first month known as resolutions. These are widely discussed and abandoned in short order until the following first month of the next year. By observing the universal failure of this practice I have devised a new one. By using the last month of the year to review and discover the deep, unconscious meaning of the 11 previous months, we may be able to make significant progress. By facing the shadow, the unknown, the undiscovered that we glaze over with overactivity on a regular basis, we may find wisdom and useful knowledge. You do not need to analyze all of your past to know that important emotions and facts have been swept under a big busy rug of quotidian fuss. You don’t need to meet all your demons, addictions, or delusions of actions past to make progress on taking good care of yourself. You simply have to be willing to consider that the darkness of your own heart may be the only thing blinding your vision. You need to be able to reverse all your assumptions for a while.
Saturnalia is the party time dedicated to Saturn, the ruler of Capricorn, and therefore part of December. Romans reversed all rules and authority during the celebration. After the darkest day of the year, the light returns, reversing the visibility available each day until the summer solstice. The celebration of the darkest time when the world is reborn in the form of seeds and saplings is a universal need through all of history. Here we have some present day Brits dressing up like Romans and getting down for Saturn in December. The beat goes on.
Krampus, Shmutzli, and St. Nick
November 26, 2012
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The 6 of December is St Nicholas Day. In Europe the popular Krampus, also known as Shmutzli in Switzerland, is St. Nick’s full time side kick. In Austria Krampus is much more popular than the saint, representing old time winter. I have been in Vienna on Krampus night, when people dressed more or less like gorillas run around with big sticks frightening pedestrians. I also saw 6 Krampuses on Austrian television creating a hexagon with the big sticks and circle dancing. The Euros are not afraid to link the ancient religions to the present day. In fact, that is what makes them Euros. They may not know the enitre history of traditional local customs, but they have an strong affinity with preservation of provincial attitudes and ancient practices. The ancestors make them do it.
In Switzerland Santa is paid by neighbors to come to your house and scare you on Dec. 6. Your parents give him alcohol and tell him all about your worst behavior. Shmutzli is with him carrying a sack of ashes. My friend Edith lived at the end of Santa’s route in her village, so he was pretty schnockered on schnapps by the time he arrived at her home. She remembers he smelled like alcohol and pretended to put her in his sack to haul her away from home for bad behavior, of which he knew every detail. She was really scared of St. Nick. During the three weeks between 6 Dec. and 25 Dec. the kids conspicuously make efforts to amend the problem disobedience chastised by St Nick that frightening night. On Dec. 25 the baby Jesus will fly through the window to leave oranges and walnuts to well reformed children. The customs vary from place to place, with the Swiss love of regional tradition and language. What is the same about all the places I have visited during the dead of winter in Europe is a community effort to scare away the winter blues and share light. They still have plenty of real fires on the streets roasting real chestnuts and warming up the spiced hot wine they serve in seasonal huts set up for the purpose. These pop up specialty bars often sell a regional specialty they make each year at the time. There is a big effort to create warmth outdoors with food, alcohol, festivals, fires and lights. These efforts are less personal and more spread across the community, with less focus on the large material haul (or obligation if you are the parent), more on the party atmosphere shared with neighbors.
We Americans may be overlooking some important lessons about stress, greed, and balance that Krampus represents. By teaching kids that a never ending stream of new material objects flowing steadily, but gushing and flooding the world in December, is the key to satisfaction and fulfillment we may be creating a new kind of Christmas monster. I am in favor of importing Shmutzli to the US, as a new superhero action figure and video game.
Greeting the Season
November 25, 2012
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The feasting of Thanksgiving behind us, we are hurdling down the holiday barrel of laughs toward either a cheery/jolly time or a close encounter with debt and depression. Which do you have at holiday time? Since much of the shared consciousness of holidays takes place on screens now, rather than in person, we can more easily show a public facade of festive fantasy while freaking out in deep desperate disorientation. I personally am neutral. I don’t drive much any time of year, but for the next 5 weeks I will be in my car even less. I do not like all the high anxiety and consumer madness in the streets. There is more distraction than I would like on the road, so I stay home.
My parents used to send out letters in Christmas cards to establish a contact with people they knew around the world and basically mislead them about how happy they were. This copying and addressing by hand, then stamping and sending the revised versions of their lives was an important way they stayed tribal with all the accepted norms they wanted to keep. They lived in a time when the exterior show was of the utmost importance. Not sending Christmas cards would have made them uncivilized. I still have a couple of cards printed with my name on them that I sent to people when I was in elementary school. They are kind of non sectarian, with a picture of a fawn and Happy Holidays. I have never felt the need to send cards or give gifts as a social imperative. The big build up, the relatives crashing at the house, the decorate and mandatory clean up was not my style.
I like to cook special treats that remind me of winter to give to friends and neighbors at this time. I make some spaghetti squash latkes for Chanukah, and all kinds of ginger concoctions. This year I am featuring nuts and everything that I can buy at the Caravan Market. This specialty foods shop right down the street from my home has all manner of goodies and spices from the middle east and north Africa. I can bike there and bring back exotic extreme foods and spices in minutes. They have pistachio baklava, halvah, and Swiss chocolate for sweets. My own version of holiday cheer is a little extra money and effort spent on food and drink. Shopping local for me is fun and easy. I prefer supporting my neighbors in business to trying to find my car in the parking lot at the mall.
Hip Shopping and Sugar Plums
November 23, 2012
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By definition, a purchase at a small business is an act of individuation. The effort to save small business, slow food, craft quality, and organic farming is valid from an economic standpoint. The local business keeps currency flowing in the local stream. Home Depot takes as much profit as possible home to the stockholders, as is their mandate. This does not make Home Depot evil, but it does mean that it is impossible to purchase anything hip at that Depot. The interaction with the customer is done to scale, as in, ‘What do we need to order from China for next season?”, or “How do we create a new line of seasonal treats our customers have requested?” The hip gift giver looks for the unique match, which is not to be found in the massive crush of deep discount mall shopping.
My mom just loved being swept away by merchandise. She shopped all over the world and stocked up on gifts for unknown future receivers. These ghost recipients were just taking up some of the slack in her giant shopping disorder. She was good anywhere, from the street market in Asia to Wal-Mart. She loved acquisition for no apparent reason. I spent way too much time in my childhood shopping for my taste. I believe this experience shaped me into the psychic speed shopper that I am today. First of all, like many traits we reverse (only to end at the same place), my goal is always to spend as little time as possible. Exactly like my mother I start with no need to shop, owning already more stuff than I could ever possibly use in this lifetime. If I buy something I need to feel that I have been guided, like the Star of Bethlehem, to that object. I want to feel like shopping commando, in and out without even being detected in the marketplace. Ruby (my mom) wanted to hang out and try on everything, being stimulated and thrilled by dressing rooms and the hollow compliments of commissioned sales people. She burned me out long before I was 9 on that situation. I never go to malls, and would simply die if I had to go to one on Black Friday.
Today for Green Friday I have no particular need to buy anything. It is the perfect day, however to take the public bus to Fourth Avenue to buy pecans and pistachios at the Food Conspiracy. There is a local party with live music, discount shopping and dining, and a chance to see the streetcar tracks they have been building for what seems like forever. By taking the bus right in front of home I will avoid all traffic/parking/road construction issues. I like to create gifts I decide to give, to make it a personal deal. The recipient will never be thrilled as in wow the expensive brand name thingy everyone else has!!!!!!!, but maybe years later will be able to remember how the sugar plums tasted. I freestyle my own sugar plums from nuts and fruit I find or have. This year I dried some awesome pears in September that are delicious. I want to try mixing them with pistachios and pecans, both of which are grown in Arizona. I encourage you to do your own, since it is almost impossible to make them taste bad. I think Alton is way off base with the fennel seed, and would never do that in mine, but that is why the creation is an individual gift. The ones in The Night Before Christmas were sugar-coated coriander …..drastic flavor if you ask me. I goes to show that your flavor will be savored by individuals, so take some time to do something tailored to them. Thoughtful and personal is the new mindless overconsumption.
Ishvara-Pranidhana
November 16, 2012
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PSO at Heinz Hall
Last year I was very lucky to see the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra perform Handel’s Messiah as a fully staged opera. Everything about it was remarkable, even the serendipity of finding an excellent seat the day of the performance by just noticing the box office while I was on a walk. I grew up in Pittsburgh, but the Heinz Hall was new to me. Syria Mosque where I saw them in the 1960’s was gone like Forbes Field. In the lobby there was a great display about the life of Handel and the composition of the Messiah. He signed it SDG, in other words, he gave full credit to God for the music. I had seen this phrase before. It was written in German (those incredibly fancy letters you can’t read) on the outside of the school in Langweis, Switzerland, a small alpine village where my friend Steffi Burger lives. I love all that writing on the outside of old Swiss buildings, including hex signs to protect the contents of the buildings. They declare their faith and ask for protection in bold ( but hard to read) statements. I had some trouble with the reading, but was sure God was involved (most of them are about God and work) so I asked my friend, who also could not read it. We asked Walter Engle, whose family had crossed the Davos pass with their cows to settle the area centuries ago. He informed us that it said all glory to God (SDG).
School in Langweis
The protestant reformation was very into this idea and that is why it landed on the wall of the school. I relate it to the Niyama, or internal practice, of surrender to God as it is written in Sanskrit, Ishvara-Pranidhana. Apparently Handel went into a kind of trance and did speed composition under the heavy influence of spirit when he wrote the Messiah, signed it SDG and everyone knew what he meant. Bach was into this also. In yoga practice Ishvara is about trusting the divine flow, not so different from thy will be done. I wonder if by being a big student of linguistics I have stumbled upon the lowest common denominator of all religions. Surrender to God.
Triberr is Toastmasters for Bloggers
November 14, 2012
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The blog sharing, syndicating, and supporting system known as Triberr is the blogging parralell to Toastmasters for public speaking. i was invited to a tribe about a year ago with my not so regularly published Tumblr blog. I met cool people, read their blogs regularly and tweeted them to my mini following. We do bond as a tribe, and some are founded around specific areas of interest. The personality of each tribe is vastly different as are the styles of each chief. Everyone is a chief if the initiative is taken to grow and lead a tribe of one’s own. I enjoyed my first tribal experience, and noticed that the tribe existed even after our chief quit blogging and abandoned the tribe entirely. This indicated the power of the structure, the system, the potential of place we do all of this syndication…Triberr. The obvious limitations of being in a tribe with no cheif, and having only one person in my own tribe,(who really had not fully registered or blogged) lead me to a fabulous decision. I made up my mind to meet my only tribal member in New York City for the first TribeupNYC event to check the vibe in person. I am pleased with my decision to go for all kinds of reasons, including the fact that I enjoyed lower Manhattan in a pre Sandy state of bliss and perfection. There was no sign of impending doom.
I had risen before dawn for many years to attend Toastmasters meetings at a hospital to fine tune my public speaking skills. Our diverse and dedicated group proved to me how many different reasons there can be for wanting to speak in public. I already was a total ham, and won every week the extemporaneous table topic event. I covered my office with blue ribbons from table talk. Conspicuously absent from the ribbon display were ribbons for prepared speeches. I maybe got one 3rd place…or none. This is easily explained by my fellow Toastmasters’ diligent hard work. Like ants they attended conferences and competitions, put hours of prep into the speeches done in the meetings. I was the grasshopper who did little homework because the table topic ribbons looked good enough to me, and I knew I would win another one every week. Resting on my improvisational laurels yet again, I learned a lot. I thought the critique and evaluations skills were of the utmost importance. The supportive structure resembles the blogging tribe in the simplicity of the mission. Both Toastmasters and Triberr are designed to improve by practice and critique.
Triberr is a modern-day literary soiree with bloggers tribing up to read and share each others’ work. It has the same individuality that each Toastmasters chapter offers, and many participants are in more than one tribe, just like active Toastmasters who speak daily at different meetings. It has the same few stalwarts who keep it going, and the same number of flakes who come and go without much impact. Toastmasters is modestly priced, as is Triberr Prime, the paid version of the system. I am working my way up to Priming it. I have grown my own tribe since the conference on the equinox, and been invited to join some others. I love the way it exposes us to each other and to an unknown set of others based on our own cultivation of a news stream. There is no doubt in my mind that this power is working well for me, and even has the potential of moving me out of the table topic section of the creative world. I do really appreciate the thorough work and preparation dedicated to the blogs I am reading from my tribe mates. Perhaps I will try it.
In the meantime, I have dedicated my Tumblr blog to a new tribe I formed around the Three Book Diet cult I have joined as a superfan of the ever brilliant Brother Brogan. The ability to have a book club about an intense interaction with the material rather than a cursory and meaningless consumption of words is something brand new. It is the opposite of the high volume book club…..no review and abandon…not this year..we will live our books, live our yoga, live our true Epicurean literary lives. I do remember that at the end of Trust Agents there was mention of using what you have just read rather than hurrying away to more reading. Chris and Julian are teachers, not so much authors, even though they have written these great books. Business Design is the new community management. By styling his own business as interactive with ease it is my opinion that Chris has figuratively reopened the ancient Greek schools of philosophy that required direct transmission from the master. Socrates did not believe in the written word, thought it would ruin education. I am sure he would freak right out if he saw PowerPoint. I think that Triberr and the book dieting cult can combine very nicely. Ironically diet books that tell you how to eat are always best sellers, but nobody I have seen has chosen a diet book for the book diet.
How to Become a Super Model
November 13, 2012
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Find the essence of who you are meant to be through refinement and distillation.
Mollie Lu and the still
Keep your options open.
Mollie Lu
Enjoy the ride.
Jumps for Joy
Take some calculated risks.
Letting Go
Remember to thank the fam.
Max, Mollie, and Ben
State that you are one, and firmly maintain it.
Mollie Lu Looks at You
Claim Your Acronym
November 12, 2012
To enhance communication of any kind it is necessary to address a specific audience, even if it is digital. In the book Impact Equation I have been presented with a concept that I have been living for the last few years. Brother Brogan proposes that for an idea to evolve and be refined the qualities that cause audience to be interested in your message must be considered. He mentions that presenting in public with instant feedback from direct observation is entirely different from the digital world of presentation. This is the understatement of the decade as well as the theme of my study and effort for the last 3 or 4 years. I have always taught in person to groups and individuals. If I say so myself I have done this so much that I do instinctively know how to teach and drive a message home to people I can see and hear. However, my in person methodology involves much humor and stealth to distract and weave fairy tales of deep lessons. With real live people it is easy to stop when you are bombing, change course, redirect. It is digitally difficult, since we are communicating blindly with no visual of our intended audience. We now have no idea why or how anyone pays us attention, but need to fill in that blank in some cohesive way.
To plant a memorable seed in the digital arena that is both considered and spread by evangelists, there must be an easy way to evangelize. This is exactly the point at which I, as the charismatic in person snake oil saleswoman, completely failed to execute my core beliefs to what I know to be a very large audience wanting to feel good and feel healthy at the same time. I always look to the ancestors for deeper meaning. My parents were extreme acronym adopters in the 1950’s. The created codes such as SUS ( sit up straight) and COP (chin over plate) to give me orders in public and at home about how to enjoy dining with them. Like many other of my parents’ futuristic practices, virtually nobody else I knew did such a thing. My giant aversion to all acronyms can be directly traced to eating with my parents. This does not serve me at all and can not hurt the feelings of my dead parents. OMG, is it ever time to stop boycotting the acronym.
Starting from scratch, one would have acro’ed in initially before going out and getting and international trademark, if one had been aware. Since I was in the less than aware group, and only recently liberated to appreciate the beauty and power of the acronym, I must start where I am. Floatli is my trademark and my invention for water exercise. It is for those who like to feel good while moving, and appreciate the fact that they can move. Today I step into this century and happily debut the Floatli acronym:
- First
- Love
- Own
- Ass
- Totally
- Like
- It is
This means that taking care of your own body for the most pleasurable healthy outcome will involve radical acceptance of what is. The sensual pleasure of water as an exercise medium is empowering. It can be a haven for injured athletes, a playground, and a social bonding agent. If your first ( and maybe only) consideration is the flawed appearance of your bathing suit look, the good feelings stop before they begin. I am an evangelist for loving your own ass, because if you don’t nobody else will.
The Essence of Beauty is Truth
November 8, 2012
I will have one pass to make an impact on a group of 13 year old young ladies soon. I have given so much thought to this presentation that I wondered if the end result might be a big fat flop. My theory of how to reach them has changed along the way, and drastically recently. I have received guidance with some first hand information on the realities of being teen today. I chat on twitter with Emme, Super Model, who is all of that and an advocate for healthy body image and healthy living. She covers subjects from make-up technique and selection to healthy living. I was lucky to win the prize on #Emmetalks after a wonderful chat with Marci Warhaft-Nadler who wrote the book The Body Image Survival Guide for Parents. Her book arrived in the mail just in time to both shock and inspire me.
Both Emme and Marci are parents who strive to model a healthy lifestyle that includes appreciating and nurturing one’s own body. They understand the culture of bullying and shame that is prevailing. They know that boys suffer from body image issues that are compounded by the fact that they believe those issues are strictly for girls. They suffer the shame of being ashamed in what they think is an unnatural manner. Both the mom of our featured teen young lady and I are veteran spa culture fitness instructors. We have witnessed the crazed disconnect that can and does happen between adults and the image they hold of their own appearance and its importance. In the book I learned that things have gone from bad to worse with parents now imposing very unhealthy thoughts about adequacy and appearance, even recommending plastic surgery to very young kids. Although learning how hard the kids have it today was very rough on me, I am very pleased to know that the dignity and well being of children is supported in this book with practical suggestions for parents. These concrete suggestions are very much needed for kids to be guided to healthy love, care and respect for the body they have for this lifetime.
When in doubt, scarf dance. That is my teaching creed and I am sticking to it for this lesson. The group of six girls have all known each other for years, growing up on the beach. In fact, I clearly recall monitoring a play group at the beach back when they all ate sand and toddled. I plan to bring back the carefree days of playgroup one last time with a lavish prom dress scarf dancing on the beach extravaganza. We have a professional photographer lined up to record this. I am not sure how each of these young ladies feels about her image, but I am collecting cold hard proof of the artfulness and beauty that results from purposely sharing joy. Pictures do speak louder than words. I look forward to this shoot with 6 supermodels on the beach.
Tapas
November 2, 2012
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The discipline to finish, to study and to sweat out the details is the path of tapas. Yoga’s mandates for a balanced life, yamas and niyamas regulate the ease with which we find enlightenment. Tapas is right effort, or dedication. All our efforts are subject to the energy we exert and the commitment we create within our minds. Belief alone will not bring the rewards that confidence combined with focused work can yield. Self discipline often involves forsaking some addictive or wasteful pursuit for another more admirable one.
As a library freak one can proudly wave the flag of how many books one reads. I have been enchanted with libraries all my life, and consume content (as it is now known) like there is no tomorrow. Although I say health is my real wealth, the truth is that the Pima County Library is the only thing that ever actually makes me feel super rich. I free range browse, check out certain books many times for recipes and pictures, and mindlessly and greedily reserve every single book on my current obsession. I have exhausted the cookbook section in several of the local branches. I am attached like crazy fire to the idea of never ending books. The price is right, so what could possibly be wrong with this picture?
Suddenly, a pop quiz about books from my author/ally:
Chris Brogan, who is a favorite author as well as a sometime correspondent/ally issued a challenge to join him in a year of restricting oneself to reading only three books. It is called the Three Book Diet or #3BD for those who speak hashtag. When the idea was mentioned I quickly found ways to cheat and not really do it, but do it as an experiment. I was planning to make my third book a revolving cookbook from the library. After all, I could never be away from the library for an entire year. This mental rebellion itself was a strong clue to the real motives active here. When confronted with the idea that we may flit through book after book while never digesting or using any of the valuable methods or ideas acquired I did not need to ask for whom this challenge tolls. It tolls for me. My picture is in the cosmic dictionary under dilettante who has read almost every book in the world……not to mention all the various training ad infinitum….(please, not to mention). I have done my best to choose the three books with integrity, and as little cheating as possible.
The first one already has a notebook with it so I get a two for one..How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci by Michael Gelb is a great book I have read once and then some. Sacred Contracts is a book I am studying thoroughly with the tutelage of the author, Caroline Myss. The ever brilliant Mr Brogan has taken the third with his new book, The Impact Equation. The challenge involves journaling and making use of the books chosen in an interactive way. Since Leonardo and Carolyn are already in the workbook homework format, and Brother Brogan is tweeting about it, it seems like a cohesive package. Yesterday I drove a route that ALWAYS includes a visit to the library. I thought very carefully about what a year would do to my feelings of abundance. It is not an easy decision, but I believe that tapas will become my new source of abundance.
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