Goodbye September

This would not be a good time for you to read the book called The Complete Idiot's Guide to Enhancing Self-Esteem. In fact, it will never be the right time to read it. While it's true that at this juncture in your life story you can make exceptional progress in boosting your confidence and feeling positive about yourself, you're not an idiot and you don't need idiot-level assistance. If there was a book called The Impish Guide to Accessing and Expressing Your Idiosyncratic Genius, I'd definitely recommend it. Likewise a book titled The Wild-Eyed Guide to Activating Your Half-Dormant Potential or The Brilliant Life-Lover's Guide to Becoming a Brilliant Life-Lover. ~ K. Totally Loved This & Am Owning It

I've had a wonderful birthday month. Time with family. Time with friends. Time alone. Fabulous music. Insightful traveling. Engaging reading. Not to mention, I'm getting better and better at passing life's quizzes. Obstacles maneuvered with grace. Problems solved with ease. Of course, substituting dancing for worrying probably helped. Even so, seeing that we create it all for ourselves, I'm always amused when I don't have an answer. Then I remember that Love is always "D" or "All of the above." To aid you, just remember, D is for Dance.

Anyway,

I'm taking on my last blog by committing the coming month to poetry. Certain to be challenging, I think it will serve me. I'm not giving myself any rules. I'll let what comes up, come up and bravely post. We'll see how "less and less" becomes "more and more"...who knows, perhaps I'll throw in some impishness with a little idiosyncrasy here and there.

More Of Me In Motion

"Our job is to become more and more of what we are," says poet Marvin Bell. "The growth of a poet seems to be related to his or her becoming less and less embarrassed about more and more." Whether or not you're a poet, Virgo, I would like to apply this gauge to your own growth. The way I see it, your power to claim your birthright and fulfill your destiny will ultimately hinge to a significant degree on your ability to shed all residual shame about your true nature. And guess what: There has never been a better time to work on that noble project than right now. ~ Boss Man

Werd.

Dear Universe, “Find me where you know I need to be.” ~ Gary Zukav




I loved Zukav's quote the second I read it. Yes. What a perfect prayer. What a perfect desire. And so, with a open heart, I am choosing to embrace it fully. I've been doing a 21 Day Vegan Challenge* and, also with an open heart, chose to totally violate it today. By doing so, I found myself at my local coffee shop. The compulsion was literally steering the wheel. When I get there, I see a friend that I've not seen in awhile. A long while. So long, in fact, I did not realize she had been divorced...for over a year. She asks me how I'm doing. As I tell her of my well-being, I can see that she isn't doing well at all. Sometimes another's pain can be so visceral it becomes your own. But I've learned that taking that on doesn't serve anyone. It's true that you cannot get sad enough to make someone happy only in a positive state of knowing All-Is-Well can you create wellness. Since we create our realities, I fully understand that this is not altruistic. It has something to do with me and it has something to do with hope...that very fluid energy that slips easily in and out of our world. Just the act of making a time to talk can be a hopeful act towards healing. What's on the other end of that anticipated time together is infinite in possibility. One being, finding her lost Self. But I know she'll find herself again because, like my mom used to always say when we went to the fair or a carnival, If you get lost just stay still, don't move and I'll find you.
My friend just has to get still.
*Dear Eggs & Salmon, I miss you. ~ Andi

Day 30: Disco'urse

Dance is the hidden language of the soul. ~Martha Graham

Not surprising, many of the blogs in this challenge had blatant spiritual overtones because that is just where I am in the journey. It's lovely to incorporate the hugest part of me into the smallest of a day's movement. It makes everything sacred. Now, most in my outer realities just see Me as me. I don't preach but I do engage in discourse. I am often asked questions about how I see something. The soul has many hidden languages. We interpret them through our senses but we have to be aware that we're in a conversation in the first place. That random voice in your head is not so random. It's your consciousness seeking awareness. I'm learning to partner up with Mine and am allowing It to dip as deeply as it likes. And, as my Hip-Hop class resumes, I am loving the soulful connections the women and I have towards each other. It's silly. It's fun. And it's sisterhood. Life is a dance where sometimes the groove is easy and sometimes you find yourself doing The Running Man while the other is doing the Bus Stop. But as the sages of the ages have all indicated, there is a common rhythm when one learns to Go With the Flow. And it is in The Flow that the greatest communication takes place.

Day 29: On Keeping My Heart In Wonder

And a woman spoke, saying, "Tell us of Pain."

And he said:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of

the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you

keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less

wondrous than your joy; And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have

always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity

through the winters of your grief. Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by

which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his

remedy in silence and tranquility: For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the

tender hand of the Unseen, And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned

of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears. ~ Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet)

*What do you live for?

Day 28: Who You Really Are

What is your definition of happiness?

It's a state of being...a very well chosen state of being.
A moment you remember being completely happy in and a description of why you believe you were.I sense I'll fail in acknowledging the number of moments that have gifted me happiness. I've never had to question My Universe's abundance when it comes to this. There are so many, in fact, that when I'm not in that very well chosen state of being, I can reflect back on those moments and easily enter into happiness. How blessed am I? I Am. For now, allow me to use this blog as a nice opportunity to share a bit of my blissful Abraham-Hicks experience because, frankly, they're kinda fierce in the happiness department.

K. So...

As The Generous Universe would have it, I was able to catch a gig within close proximity to me on my birthday. Since it was a short, one day, morning seminar, I knew my underage children who could not attended would relish the idea of sleeping in late and ordering room service from the rather fine hotel that was hosting the event. Upon heading out, my early bird and I even spoke of it:

I'm so excited!
Why?
Room Service. I'm gonna be like that kid in Home Alone.
I don't think so!
Man, why'd I say anything?
Go back to sleep, Darlin'.
Apprehensive, I left her mulling over the menu.

Anyway...
...I enter the event and immediately hit it off with a woman named Kat. Not surprised. Our conversation unfolds naturally and I find myself drinking a Birthday Mocha Latte. She tells me of all the events and cruises she has taken in. I realize that among the many around me, I'm a serious newbie. Between a few books, a couple of DVDs and their flashcards that I love, YouTube is really my source of information. Noting, of course, that they do periodically offer a cruise to New Zealand that I might consider breaking the piggy bank to join. Anyway...
...I love events where everyone has willingly chosen to be there. It's one reason concerts, plays and movies hold such great energy. Everyone's vibe is similarly resonating. Energy is focused. It certainly was that day. It was a happy event. I was delighted to be there but had no intention of raising my hand. I knew that the questions that I came with would be answered. There was a question about raising a "difficult" child, another about "emotional control" and a wonderful reflective question of, How much of You are you allowing to manifest? The premise of the day was, basically, asking everyone to embrace and become solid in our knowledge of Well-Being.
The subject of healing made its way into the morning. She basically said, Faith is the emotion of the Vortex* and one should always be positioning themselves there before acting. It aligns with knowing without having some manifestational evidence first. If there was a mantra that she would ascribe to one of the greatest healers she would remind us that Jesus NEVER freaked out. To heal is to create hope in another. It is to make peace with where you are knowing that as you make happiness (joy, bliss, euphoria and any other unnameable for this similar emotion) the TRUE manifestation you are desiring from moment to moment, all other desires have to reveal themselves...healing, obviously, being one of them. Because we cannot change a negative into a positive, the focus must always shift away from the undesirable to the desired, again, with an emphasis of feeling your way forward knowing All Is Well. Needless to say, that made me happy.
P.S. Somewhere within the session Room Service popped into mind. I threw out a dollar amount willing it to manifest and was happy to find myself up $35 bucks. It was all so very well for the time being...then I took them shopping. Man, can they manifest. Ha...

* Vibrational Reality:

Day 27: Be A Possibilitarian*

We are here to create. There is no getting around it. But, imho, to create is the function of life. From the birds to the bees to the babies and all them trees, fundamentally, we are creators. The meaning of life, to me, is in giving life intention. For the Soul, intention is a compass that guides our attention. In guiding our attention, we find ourselves seeing the world as a place of inspiration. We are inspired to create well, to create for others, and to create with awareness. Under those conditions, there are infinite possibilities lining up eager to manifest in a meaningful, loving way.

“You may not be a Picasso or Mozart but you don’t have to be. Just create to create. Create to remind yourself you’re still alive. Make stuff to inspire others to make something too. Create to learn a bit more about yourself.” ~ Frederick Terra**

*My definition of the meaning of life.
**The photo is of a gift from my girls.

Day 26: What Is Love

aka My Definition of Love:

Love is a state of pure positive energy. It is who we are and where we come from. It is the highest emotional vibration and when it's reached and transmitted it dominates all others frequencies.

As we move from where we come from (Oneness) into who we are (Individual), it is In Love that we stay connected and thus powerful in these worlds of our making.
"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius." ~ Mozart

When Love is allowed to fuel our awareness; when it is allowed to ignite our imaginations, we become greater than genius. We passionately meld with Source. There is no greater creative force than that of Love calling us into Being, each our own individual selves, here to reemerge through our co-creative dances whose music leads us back into the knowledge of our Oneness.

We are loved. Deeply.

Next time you stand in front of a mirror, in all that you are in that moment, just whisper to yourself: Love creates me. And to honor and acknowledge that truth...

Love yourselves. Deeply.

PS: "Embrace your world, embrace your reality, scour its corners for things out of alignment and love and embrace them into the light." ~ Ships of Song...aka Be Love.

Day 25: Don't Laugh

aka Something you would do if no one stopped you or if you knew you wouldn’t fail.

I want to write a musical. I want to write one of the greatest musicals of all time! Now, seeing that I have very little in the way of actual experience including a deep lack of musical theory, structure and notation, oh yeah, and the whole plays poorly any instrument...makes for a somewhat lofty dream. But I have an idea. The idea came from a verse that rose into my mind along with its melody way back in 2008.

I've seen your face
in my dreams
call my name...

wait,
I know you.


Tears fall with grace
through the seams
of this place...

...flowing towards you.


And I've
lived a thousand lies
pushed each one aside
in hopes of finding you

somewhere in the truth...

I think I'll just write it and allow The Universe to fill in the gaps. I owe it to Myself to finish something....

Day 24: Photo Jumping

aka Something you did as a child that other people remember you for.

Besides being known as Katastrophe, I'm told story after story that I would ruin picture after picture by jumping into it at the last minute. I've yet to see evidence.



But it's out there...

Celebrating Another Year of Creative Endevoring*

THAT'S WHAT <----> I THOUGHT!



*Thank you for reading my thoughts...

Day 23: Idiot At Etiquette

aka Most awkward first impression you feel you’ve ever given.

I dated this one boy most of high school. I had put on a little weight my sophomore year (ok, maybe alot) and, coincidentally, he thought we should take a break. So, we did. Amazingly, I had a wonderful friend who always seemed to pick up on my feelings and thought I should come over and eat dinner with his family. I was hesitant because I had never met them before. I was also hesitant because of my weight and the fact that I have to mentally tell myself to savor food. I can eat faster than anyone I know. It comes from my mind thinking I should be doing something else. So, I show up and they are lovely to me. I think he told them I had had my heart broken because it seemed to me that food was their healing agent as the table was a plethora of yumminess. I felt better just looking at it. Particularly, because his mother had arranged a beautiful table setting. I told myself that I wouldn't over eat. My focus was to predominately be salad. And as I served it onto my plate, I became the focus. Everyone had stopped serving themselves and started staring at me. His sister was astonished, You're putting it on the wrong plate. I didn't know what to say. I don't know that I said anything. I know that I felt the heat of a blush overcome me. I know that I felt very conspicuous. But I also know where my friend gathered his ability to pick up on feelings because one by one, beginning with his dad, they began to put their salads on the "wrong" plate.

I'll never forget that.

It's so easy, even within the smallest gestures, to nurture someone. Looking back, I can see the Universe, even then, attempting to draw in examples of what a family could look like. And, not only that, I became exceptionally proficient with a salad plate.

Day 22: Happy ReBirthday

aka Someone you would give your life up for without question.

"She had given up her life without question assured someone other than herself knew far better how to live it." ~ Unpublished Manuscript*
























*I've a few of those.

Day 21: I Love Them All*

I really do love them all. I've an urge to post uber music videos, dance videos, photography, photos of art, poetry, fictional and nonfictional passages, dramatic monologues, links of performance art and so on and so forth but I paused and thought, Just answer the question!

I LOVE IMPROVE COMEDY.


*What's your favorite medium of art?

Day 20: Vintage Trouble

Some friends will just stand on their heads for you. Especially those that throw all the way back to the 4th grade. When Cindy and I reunited under the sunny skies of West Hollywood, she was determined to show me a wonderful time. Just being with her rocks but she thought I needed to meet her friends Ty and Rick...two guys who really rock! At the time of meeting them, they had just formed Vintage Trouble. Rick, somewhat of a computer whiz, showed me their first video they'd put together. My mouth dropped but not before asking them, Are you ready for fame?
Down to earth and just plain earthy, the band has a groove that throws all the way back to the glory days of Otis Redding, James Brown and Sam Cooke. But they've got their own soulful thing going, too.

And it is Vintage Goodness!




















Ty Taylor & Rick Barrio Dill







*A band that you immediately liked and the song(s) that made you like them.