I was talking earlier with a friend about how astrological placements demonstrate in our external lives.  I have my Sun, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter all in Aries, all in the 12th house, which is the house of working behind the scenes.  I work mostly alone from computer and phone.  In my psychic reading practice, I read for many other readers.  In my ghostwriting practice, I ghost for 2 other ghosts.  That is pretty “behind the scenes” alright.  Then I have Aries rising so it makes me at least want to get out 🙂

I remember growing up in Hialeah, FL. We lived in a Cuban neighborhood where even the Stop signs said ALTO.  There were 2 water coolers in the Kwik Chek grocery, one for “white”, one for “colored”. My brother and I used to sneak drinks out of the colored one thinking we might start turning brown.  My mom was olive skinned with long black hair and looked very Cuban.  I look just like her except I’m a very beige and blonde version.   There was a big discrimination against the Cubans back then and everyone assumed my mom was Cuban, especially where we lived.  I remember once in the car, we pulled up to a stoplight and the car ahead of us has a bumper sticker that said “Honk if you love Jesus.”  Well, we love Jesus so Mom honks her horn.  The woman in the car flips her the bird and shouts out the window: “F*cking spics can’t wait for the light to change.”  My poor mom was mortified.   Continue reading →

10-22-08
Today I made my seafood chowder

Marinate 1 lb of bay scallops in the juice of 2 lemons
8 cloves fresh garlic chopped and sauteed in
2 tblsp olive oil

Dice and add:

I giant whole leek
1 fat stalk of fennel
I parsnip
2 whole carrots
corn scraped from one raw ear
4 stalks celery

1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp thyme
1 bay leaf
handful of fresh basil torn up, maybe 20 leaves
7 strands saffron
salt and pepper

Stir until the vegetables soften and reduce, then add:

1 giant can chopped tomatoes
1 small can double strength Campbell’s beef broth + 1 can water

A handful of bay scallops for flavor

Simmer 45 minutes, then add the rest of the scallops.  It’s ready when they are done, 5-8 minutes, but I add them and cook another 30 minutes so they kind of melt into the stock.

I love scallops. I know that many larger scallops are actually shark or ray, but I don’t care, I like the taste of all.

My sailor friend Mark and I moved up here together from Miami in 1983.  It was always interesting going about together because he was blind (2 years into it after a sailing accident), so I would describe to him everything we would be passing, so he could visualize the scene.  We both had the same odd, twisted sense of humor, so you can imagine how much fun it was with me doing the describing.  We’d often eat in seafood restaurants and would conjecture about what the scallops might actually be made of.  I’d describe the ray I’d see flying out of the kitchen, with little heart and star shapes cut out of its wings.  Get it?  Cookie cutter?  Wings?  har har I crack myself up.

Mark married my 4th husband and I, I have the video of him standing there with the giant Chapman Piloting & Seamanship book upside down in his hands as he begins reading off the Miranda warnings (it was a law office crowd I hung with back then).  Then his assistant whispers in his ear, she takes the Chapmans and hands him a PDR instead, also upside down, and the ceremony begins.  Mark is a hoot.  He married another ACLU attorney some 10 years back, we are still good friends.

I have all my post office stuff almost sorted out.  Lots of new rules and procedures for sorting, and forms to fill out and apparently I’m the only job in all of Melbourne to use Bound Printed Matter.  But it’s by far the cheapest rate for mailing the magazines, and they typically get there within 3 days.  Cheaper than a driver would be.

I have two more days to figure it out if I want the mailing to go smoothly.  I have figured it out step by step and have to run down to the main post office and spend 1-2 hours there to have them check it and tell me it’s right so I can move on to the next step.

First I have to sort out 4 separate jobs, because each weight counts as a separate job:

Stacks of 50 (9lbs) * Stacks of 25 (4.5 lbs) * Stacks of 10 * Stacks of 6 mags each

So the four jobs have to be kept separated by weight.

Then I have to sort by zone and fill out on a form how many to each zone.
Then I have to sort by zip code and fill out on a form how many to each 3 digit zip.

I have to put the stacks into big white postal bags, weighing not more than 30 lbs (although the rules say and the bags are marked 70 lb maximum).  If the intake guy says 30 lbs, even if that’s because he doesn’t want to lift 70 lbs, I am gonna do it his way because he’s doing my job for me.  Meaning I have learned it’s unwise to piss off the waiter that is getting ready to bring my dinner to me…

So that’s like only 4 stacks of 50’s in one bag; 7 stacks of 25 in one bag.
If my math is close, that will be 8 bags of 25s and 21 bags of 50s.
Wow that sounds like a whole lot less work than I thought…

I’m lucky in that all but 3 packages of mags go thru the Jacksonville 320 station, which means after sorting by zone and zip, I now will tumble them all into the same sack together.

I finished last night getting my labels resorted to zip code, and practiced filling out the forms.

And of course I’ve been calling the post office since 6am when they “opened” and can’t get anyone to pick up the phone…

I will go down there again if I can’t get them on the phone, and also ask when is the best time to call and come in and what their exact days and hours are for the mail to be brought to them.  I can always come when it’s not their busy time, since I’m the boss.

That’s really the only part I don’t like, is we have to take the job in to the downtown main post office now.  Before, they always came out to the house and picked up the pallet of mags for only $14.75 and took it in to the post office.

9-22-08
Yesterday I made this really good salad.  I didn’t want to have any meat, but I wanted substance, since the salad would be my entire dinner.  So I opened a package of chopped romaine and chopped it even further, then I added some sliced red onion and chopped black olives, tomato and capers.

Then I chopped a giant Golden Yukon potato and cooked it in a nonstick frypan until the pieces were almost crisp.  Halfway through, I added a bunch of drained, cooked garbanzo beans and kept tossing them all together.

At the same time, I sauteed a sliced onion in another pan until it caramelized and that went on top of the potatoes.  If you cook the onion with the potato, the potato will steam instead of saute, and I wanted to trick myself into thinking the potato pieces were meat, so I kept them crisp.

Then just dump the potatoes on top of the salad, then the onions on top of the potatoes, then mix with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Half the people I know are in the process of writing a book that they feel is being channeled through them. Each wants someone else to promote it for them.  We are all vibing in the same place.  We have come forth in a “cluster” as Abraham-Hicks calls it, to find ourselves in a powerful group of people who have truly amazing and inspiring stories to tell.  Maybe 90% of them wait and hope that someone else will discover their brilliance and promote them, so that all they have to do is show up and tell their story.  Wouldn’t that be nice?   That’s not how it works, though.  And they may stay at that stage for 20-30 years before they realize Hey, it’s my story.  Maybe I was just meant to write it for myself, because the writing of it will teach me so many lessons along the way.  That’s what experience taught me. My experience is that when the chanelling starts to flow and we think “Omigosh I HAVE to get this information out there!” that is just the Universe giving us the body chemicals for inspiration, dangling the carrot before us, at a time when we’re still programmed to think that some fame and recognition would be kind of cool.  So the first 10-20 years I thought I was writing for the whole world, then realized it was to help me change me and learn what I needed to know to become who I am now, and keep me on the path to who I can be.   Continue reading →

Janine emailed me that our drumming to calm the storms seemed to be working.  She suggested making up some chants for the media to get them to back off a bit.  I replied:

“I totally think it’s working.  I am loving getting to spend time doing the storm prayer work, at Unity’s noon prayer service today it was mostly about the storms, seeing them slow down and spin in clockwise direction.  I shared the storms chants with Beth earlier and at her suggestion we did it at the noon session – there were only a handful of us there but it felt very powerful! “
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Email to Rev. Beth “I was so glad I came to prayer service today.  Thank you for incorporating the storm chant into the prayer offering.  Did I email you the storm chant words?

CHANT TO SLOW THE STORM (to the tune of The River is Flowing)
The storms, they are slowing, Slowing and slowing.
The storms, they are slowing, Out in the sea.
Spirit, cover us, With your love, your Mother love.
(for my Christian friends, Jesus cover us, with your love, your Father’s love)
Spirit, cover us, Keep us safe and free

As we do the chant, we see the storms circling clockwise at your great suggestion.

This is the chant I did earlier today:

Sarva mangala mangalye, Shive, sarvartha sadhake,
Saranye triambike Gowri narayani namosthuthe.

Phonetically:
Sar’ va    man’ ga la     Mahn’ ga lay
Shi’ vay    Sar’ vaa tha’     Sad’ ee kay’
Sha’ ran yay’    Tray am’ bee kay’   Gowri
Na’ raya nee’     Na mos’  too tay
Na’ raya nee’     Na mos’  too tay     (repeat the chant in sets of 3)
It basically is a Hindu version of  “Blessed Mother who oversees the material world, bless us and protect us.”
Andrea

9-1-08
I forgot I have to pay all the bills today which means
I have to balance the checkbook which means
I have to open the mail  and log it in before I can make a deposit,
Which means I can’t finish billing till all that is done.

They are out there preparing to pressure clean my driveway so who knows how long that takes.  As soon as I can finish this bank work, open mail, pay bills, finish billing, I am running out for a couple of hours, have no idea when that will be as what I think should take 2 hours may take 5.

Mark from the ashram emailed me his vision statement.
“ I envision a World of Peace, Harmony, and Well-Being for all.   I envision Health, Well-Being, and Harmony between Mind, Body, and Spirit for all..   I believe ancient Wisdom and Practices of Yoga, Meditation, are the ways of achieving Peace, inner and outer.    I see this Peace as a missing, yet integral, part of the Educational environment now!   I believe we can integrate this Peace into our current educational paradigms, transforming the paradigm, empowering students and teachers.  I believe that, if we, as teachers and educators, are to prepare students for their lives, careers, in this world, we must have them find Peace and Power within themselves, and take that out into the world.”

I emailed him: “ Hi, I think you expressed yourself well.  I liked the Intention.  Not as criticism by any means, but I am interested in that living at your sister’s seemed a more conducive environment for working toward peaceful resolution of daily matters that come up, and we can’t work on them if we’re away from them.  It reminds me of Karuna Das who in the beginning lived at the ashram, and he would always flip out when someone would slam the a door because it “disturbed his meditation”.  A yogi learns to maintain his center no matter what is going on around him, and he places himself in troubled times to bring peace to it.
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end of email

My personal checkbook just balanced on the first try
for the first time ever.  Nice!

The Horizons checkbook came within $40 of balancing on the first try!  Yay, close enough for me.  I round deposits down to nearest dollar and round checks up, so $40 is darn near right on, I’d say.

Ok, now I know what I have, on to the bill paying portion of the day…

Later in the day:
I got my driveway pressure cleaned today, first time in years.  It looks good, I must horrify my across the street neighbor, who has to look at my Addams Family house while I look at his cookie cutter brick box and flat lawn. He cuts his trees down because the falling leaves are too much work to keep raking up…  Then he puts those leaves in a plastic trash bag for the landfill… go figure!

A friend asked my process for a dollar script visualization.  One thing I find most helpful is envisioning checking my email and seeing a long row of Paypal purchase notifications, since I take Paypal.  I feel myself getting giddy with joy that I have so many of them!

I envision myself checking my bank balance online and seeing the balance growing and growing, even as I watch it.   I feel myself getting giddy with joy over that. Continue reading →

A story, circa 1970, listening to George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord at a friend’s home while tripping on orange sunshine acid.  Looking for the bathroom, I went into the master bedroom where a small Hindu (I learned later) altar was.  Baby Krshna began dancing on the altar and the mantra from the song, hare krishna, resonated in my head for days before I caught up with the friend whose house it was and asked her who the blue baby on the altar was.  She was glad to tell me and I went with her the next Sunday to the dinner given by the local ISKCON, who are the Hare Krsna. I spent the next two decades in and out of what some would call the cult experience.  I was glad to be in the experience as it taught me a lot about myself and about life and it opened a new, meaningful world around me.   Every time I hear George Harrison’s song, it takes me back to baby Krisna dancing for my delight as I tripped on orange sunshine.   Continue reading →