I Love Albert Einstein

The tag on my Good Earth tea bag this morning bears a quote from Albert Einstein:

"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them."

Einstein is talking about energy and the need to shift energy in order to create change. This is why our 'problems' are our greatest gifts - they cause us to change.

There's some saying that new age folks like to utter when there's whiff of shit in the wind 'Is it a problem or an opportunity?'. I think I've mostly heard this from people who delivered it with smarm instead of the curiousity and integrity with which Einstein might have asked.

The Jewish Hugging Doctor

Today I bit the bullet and went to my primary care physician to inquire about the sinus headaches and green snot I've been ignoring for the last 10 days. Truth be told the green snot was new this morning and a righteous bellwether for the situation at hand.

Anywho, at 12noon today I sat in the dingy office my PCP waiting for him to examine me; having never actually met him I had no idea what to expect. His last name sounded Jewish to me and while waiting I could hear an older man speaking on the telephone with a distinct New York accent. This was my guy I was certain.

A few minutes past 12noon in walked my doctor, he proceeded to ask me a few questions mostly regarding my symptoms and medical history. Next came the meat and potatoes of the examine, blood pressure and temperature, a mouth open wide 'ahhhhhh' and a light shoved up each nostril. What I didn't anticipate was the surprise dessert. Dr. takes a stethoscope out of a drawer and while keeping up his end of a conversation about the aviation industry pulls up the back of my shirt that was tucked into my pants and slides his hand and stethoscope up my back! Holy crap I'm thinking - don't these fuckers ask first? And that wasn't the end of it. After he listened to my deep breaths he reached around to the front of my shirt went to lift it up quickly realizing that a top entry would be more efficient he reaches down the front of my shirt without so much as a pause or how do you do and sticks the stethoscope down against my chest. A few more breaths and we're done, prescription in hand I am asked by the doctor to 'lift up my arms', I do so and before I know it he's hugging me and wishing me 'get well'.

I look around the room and take in the half dozen posters and placards that say things like 'hugging saves lives', 'a hug a day keeps the doctor away' and then I realize ........ I've just seen the Jewish Hugging Doctor.

I Got New Shoes

Killing My Comfort

Mercury's retrograde and recent Eclipse are all about looking at the energy wrapped up in old patterns that have come due for undoing.

This signals the time for me to evict myself from my comfort zone where love is concerned. From a deeper perspective it is about embracing freedom and stepping outside the prison of the familar. I've no idea what this will look like when the shift is complete or if it will ever really be complete but I do know one thing. The time has come.

My friend J sent me this ... and I'm grateful ... it is spot on what I'm churning over regarding love. It is love beyond hallmark cards, holding hands at the movies, wedding bands, going steady, cheating on each other, giving the cold shoulder, living in fear of rejection, hoping for something that is only an illusion.

I don't know what the title it but it's a Rumi poem:

"Love is reckless; not reason. Reason seeks a profit. Love comes on
strong, consuming herself unabashed.

Yet in the midst of suffering love proceeds like a millstone, hard
surfaced and straight forward.

Having died to self interest, she risks everything and asks for
nothing. Love gambles away every gift God bestows.

Without cause God gave us Being; without cause give it back again.
Gambling yourself away is beyond any religion.

Religion seeks grace and favor, but those who gamble these away are
Gods favorites, for they neither put God to the test nor knock at the
door of gain and loss"

(translation by Edmund Helminski)

Dog Is Blind. Who Will Help?

Lost Domain - Soul Freed

So long story short Network Solutions appears to have somewhat illegally sold off a domain that I've owned for many years - stacia.com. In February my registration expired and without notifying me or my technical contact of the expired status they sold it to someone who apparently now owes them money for it.

Thing is previous to this fucked up incident I'd been considering giving up the domain and moving everything over to another one I picked up last year. Something about owning the domain of my first name has always sat funny with me. People call it a vanity site and while I may be vain need it be so blatant? I mean a blog where I dish on what's going on with me is enough right? It's super subtle for sure ;-) but at least my first name isn't attached.

Well anyway, on the advice of Erik, I decided to just park stacia.com and do the move. He suggested it was so rare to own the domain of your first name that I should definately hold onto it.

Well too late - it's gone - that ship has sailed and somehow I feel a little bit better even if NS is in the wrong.

Something Comes To Kick You Up Inside

I've been kicked - *hard* - spent the last two days feeling nauseous and grappling with the need for change. My friend J was good to remind me that the sensation of separation from other is merely a separation from some part of one's self. And while I chew on that and the greater notion of what it truly means to be part of a collective consciousness on a day in and out basis I am reminded of this .....

Eleven Years
New Model Army

Stevie said now don't look round they're watching us
Two girls in the corner of that dodgy club
And the grey eyes, the storm that I've come to know and wish for
Before I caught a breath well she was standing there
We walked the streets ofour town just talking
And the dawn broke grey and freezing through the deserted blocks
Just when your life is stale and there's reason there for everything
Something comes to kick you up inside

Eleven sweet years and no nearer home
A hundred thousand miles through this battle zone
Still high on the wire above the hollow darkness
Trying not to look down

No Rest for the wicked is still how it goes
Twisted up and turning in my bed alone
And separation pains like a blunted amputation
Pushing endless coins in the telephone

Eleven sweet years and no nearer home
A hundred thousand miles through this battle zone
Still high on the wire above the hollow darkness
Trying not to look down

So rest in these open arms
And lie until they come for you
And tell me everything you've ever felt
Tell me everything you want to see

Forever running even when we are standing still
Driven on and fired up as the whirlwinds blow
And shouting out inside, I'm proud of you, I'm proud of you
Ten thousand footsteps echo down the Brixton Road

Eleven sweet years and no nearer home
A hundred thousand miles through this battle zone
Still high on the wire above the hollow darkness
Trying not to look down

More On Love ....

This morning on my way home from the second to last trip from my old place to my new place I talked with my friend G who was hung over and lonely. G and I have been friends since forever and our friendship has been though interesting phases including the one in which I confessed to having a mad crush on him over pizza at an Italian restuarant in Boston to which he said nothing except that he needed to catch the bus. Nothing was spoken of said confession until years later while he was on tour and I traveled with him from San Francisco to Santa Cruz and asked about the incident. By way of explanation I learned that he'd refrained from doing or saying anything for the sake of his friend and fellow bandmate who had a mad crush on me. G didn't want to create problems with his mate and said in retrospect that not doing anything had been a mistake. We laughed heartily and then I told him that I needed to catch the bus back to San Francisco.

What I forget to remember is a lesson I learned through this little experience with G and that is that you never fucking know what's going on with someone else and rebuffed or embraced, loving someone, feeling love, whatever kind of love it is, whether it's plutonic, familial, sexual, romantic, brotherly, etc., etc. *is* a victory. It is why we are here and it is to be cherished and respected no matter what it seems to bring with it.

A Million Kinds Of Love

The astrological forecast for Virgo from Rob Brezsny for the week of March 9th, 2006 reminds me of a song I wrote called 'Tony Says' and it validates something I've been thinking about and noticing a lot lately - namely that there are many, many ways love manifests, is expressed and experienced here on planet Earth:

http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/virgo.html

"The ancient Greeks had words for love that transcend our usual notions, writes Lindsay Swope in her review of Richard Idemon's book Through the Looking Glass. Epithemia is the basic need to touch and be touched. Our closest approximation is "horniness," though epithemia is not so much a sexual feeling as a sensual one. Philia is friendship. It includes the need to admire and respect your friends as a reflection of yourself--like in high school, where you want to hang out with the cool kids because that means you're cool too. Eros isn't sexual in the way we usually think, but is more about the emotional gratification that comes from merging souls. Agape is a mature, utterly free expression of love that has no possessiveness. It means wanting the best for another person even if it doesn't advance one's self-interest. The phase you're currently in, Virgo, is providing you with opportunities to explore the frontiers of at least three of these kinds of love."

And here's an excerpt from my tune 'Tony Says':

Tony says
you're in my heart forever
Tony says
baby he's always there
there's a million kinds of love
he says
a million kinds of love

Reading Vedic Sanskrit would have profound effects on the physiology

This is really cool.

Creating Art To Right The Wrongs

Sometime last year I wrote a post entitled "Making Art To Fuck With You" tonight it's something a little different - something along the lines of making art when you feel like life has fucked with you.

Now the whole business of rights and wrongs - goods and bads - these are dichotomies and they mess things up - with a dichotomy in play things tend not to move so how can I re-frame the subject of this post ....? Okay how about this .....

Creating Art For Pure Creative Satisfaction

So here's the deal. I can't use my skills to their fullest at work for what I think are really stupid reasons. Am I selfish - perhaps - but that doesn't change the fact that my job doesn't satisfy me. In trying to find a productive and positive way to counterbalance this unfortunate situation I circle back to where I started with my creativity many, many moons ago. Art made at home is the antidote to a job and career that are not fulfilling or reinforcing of one's identity.

My father was a public school teacher in California for most of my life. He taught 5th grade for some time and then moved on to 7th & 8th grade mathematics. Why he didn't off himself and/or wasn't sainted I do not know because either of those gigs would destroy most folk. But he survived and looking back I think he had a couple of very specific tricks up his sleeve.

Like clockwork every afternoon during the school year my Dad would come home from school, change out of his teaching gear and lie down for a cat nap. I remember him asking me to wake him up on many occasions. It took me a long time to understand what these little sojourns into sleepland were about - he was preparing for the *rest* of his day. After I woke him up he'd usually change into "work" gear and trundle down to the garage where he had a workshop setup. Down there you'd find the pieces of many different types of projects he was engaged in - there were wooden frames for silk screens and stained glass, table saws, sanding devices, and the usual array of hardware dads are required to covet.

This is where my father found his solace. Among his many creative accomplishments over the years he built (with the help of our family and friends) a cabin from the ground up on our property in Mendocino. I have the pictures of the two of us pouring the concrete foundation - my contribution to the pouring was minimal given that I was probably somewhere around 4 years old. He created designs and silkscreened t-shirts, aprons and posters for every troop and class I belonged to. Hanging in the dining room of my parents house are two stained glass windows that he labored over. The family room floor is a hardwood floor he laid some time ago. Every Christmas he took over the kitchen and whipped up batch upon batch of flavored hard candies for his students and our neighbors. Before I was born he made silver jewelry that my mom still wears on occasion. And that's just the beginning. When my Dad turned 50 he got his pilot's license, bought a small plane and restored the interior. I won't get into the laundry list of stuff he's been up post retirement suffice to say he's kept himself busy.

I know teaching frustrated my father; it's my understanding that beyond the everyday angst of dealing with 12 and 13 year olds was a feeling that the window for success with kids in the classroom given the nature of public education in California was extremely limited. It's clear to me that my Dad made up for the limitations of his career at home where he could allow his creativity to flourish.

It's also clear to me that my pull to music, art, fashion when I was young was out of a disenchantment with school and socializing with kids my own age. I was looking for opportunities to see what I was capable of - to use my imagination to make *something* and to express myself freely. This is really no different than what I am looking for some 20+ years later.

Over the years I've fought to bring more creativity into my career/day job - my philosophy is if I'm going to sit somewhere for 8+ hours a day it better be worth my brain's while. I'm tired of the fight really and starting to come to the conclusion that unless I go to work for myself getting my creative fix at home maybe the easiest way to satisfy that unyielding need.

Head Cold Versus Allergies, My Day Job And More Transitions Than You Can Shake A Stick At

I've got a goddamned cold again - either that or I've developed allergies because right now my head's like a faucet and my nose is at the end of it. This is so lame. I'm sneezy and runny and trying to pack my house up oh my!

What the fuck is this all about?!

I've been historically fucked over transitions - well not fucked if you don't mind me turning into a militant beast who's organized every last breath out of a process and could wallpaper the span of your large intestines with to-do lists and schedules. Wo betide the soul who crossed me in that mode.

But I don't play that way much anymore mostly cause my body can't take the ratcheting anxiety and tension required to pull off that style of maneuvering. No - now I'm more chilled out, mellow, lists don't get followed with any type of precision or at all and when I start to judge the resulting chaos I usually stop myself and just smile. So this cold I've got, it's all part of the gig right, unscheduled, somewhat less than ideal, it's casual, you know, sneezing your ass off to the point of having your co-workers ask you to go home because you're starting to scare them. It's cool.

Oh and my day job - speaking of co-workers - I'm a vaciliation factory on this one. It's bullshit ultimately, if coding new apps was my 100% priority I should have left it a long time ago. But I didn't because well I was in school and it's very 9-5 and well school time in the evenings was way more important and I got a lot of satisfaction from school so I could shrug the work thing loose most of the time. Well the jig is up on school - although I have to go back for a couple of ministers courses and then there's Clairvoyant 2 starting up next September not to mention the sewing/clothing design classes, pilot training and most recently writing classes I've been interested in pursuing. But all that aside my job is as we say at the office a fuckall. I'm back in the process game, teaching the business process and that as an internal dev team it's impossible to build anything while getting pulled in 8 different directions by every different department having no written requirements or delivery dates. So we're implementing process - and guess what's happening now - certain folks don't wanna play so they are having conversations with others about whether our team can really deliver and what about the 'perception' of our group out in the organization. This makes me want to kill myself. Motherfuckers.

So now I lie on my futon after having reluctantly imbibed some Sudafed and stare down at all of this and try to get into a place where I can see it outside of myself and not merge so totally with the work, move, cold, transition thing because ultimately none of it is me and it's all temporary.