I stumbled across a podcast recommendation on an astrology site this morning.  I just finished listening to one of the podcasts.  It is terrific.  

Tara Brach, the senior teacher at the Insight Meditation Community of Washington (D.C.), shares a weekly talk on Buddhist teachings and practices. At the start of each evening, she guides her listeners through a 30-minute mindfulness meditation (also known as Vipassana) and then speaks for about 50 minutes. This podcast will include many of her recent talks and a few past evenings that cover key themes in Buddhist teachings. Information on these evenings, IMCW itself, and much, much more is available at www.imcw.org .

This woman has an insightful way of speaking and teaching.  What she said in her podcast of May 14th really resonated with me.  

Golfing with Monkeys:  Description: 2008-05-14 The Buddha taught that in any moment that we have an argument with life, we suffer. This talk explores the ways we are conditioned to think life should be different, and how the natural arising of unpleasant experience becomes locked into suffering. An experiential reflection guides us in how to respond, rather than react, to life's challenges...inhabiting a wise heart.

I'm adding this podcast to my weekly podcast must-listens.

http://www.podcastblaster.com/directory/podcast-37587.html

 

I had to add an item that Tara used in this talk:

 I've just about given up on adding to my SPN card collection.  I'd rather spend the money going to the conventions.  In fact, there's a part of me that's considering putting the cards I do have up on eBay for sale.  If I do that thought I'd probably want to do it before the series ends.

What, you may ask, does this have to do with Tarot. Well, she answers...

I think I may be replacing the SPN card obsession with a Tarot card obsession.  Who knew?  I've a friend who has an entire bookshelf full of cards.  I've been interested in Tarot for what?  Two months at the most and I already have four decks and just ordered two more online.  

What the heck am I going to do with all these cards?  The instructor of the Tarot class I took a couple of weeks ago puts some of her more "pretty" cards in photo albums.  That's not a bad idea.  I wonder, however, if they have Tarot card sleeves like they do trading card sleeves for albums.  Probably not.  But they should.   Some of these decks are just artwork.

My decks so far...

Golden Tarot	Rider-Waite
Osho Zen Tarot	The Goddess Oracle
Medicine Cards	Aleister Crowley Thoth

And the two decks I just ordered...

Deviant Moon	Paulina Tarot

 My spiritual journey right now is about exploration and investigation.  Dipping my metaphorical hands into lots of stuff.  Following impulses to see where they may lead me.

Last night I was led to a sound meditation by Tom Kenyon,  Infinite Pool: Passage into the Holographic Brain.   I've decided to not decide what I think (yet) about the source of his inspiration for this sound meditation.  All I know is that when I listened to a small sample of it, I could feel it through my whole body.  So I got the MP3 version and listened to the whole thing tonight.  The site recommended you start with just one track, but once I started I could not stop.  

BTW, a friend of mine listened to the sample and she did not have a pleasurable reaction to it at all--so one's response to this is likely to vary.  

I felt strong vibrations all the way through listening to this CD.  And then about 2/3 (maybe halfway?) through, I felt a definite shift.  I felt very calm and peaceful.  I remember having the thought, "I've arrived.  I'm here."  

When the CD was done, I felt very at ease.  The internal tensions that I've been feeling are soothed and gone (at least for now.)  I feel very peaceful.  Which astounds me in a way, because I felt such strong vibration in the beginning that I wasn't sure how I'd feel when I was done--but I would not have guessed "peaceful and at ease."

It really isn't a physical release.  It feels very internal.  For those who have listened to me angst over the last few months around the dissonance this spiritual journey is creating within me--this is like a soothing balm over that.  I feel like my insides have been cleaned out.  Like my pathway has been cleared.

[x-posted to both my LJs]

I took my daughter to this new restaurant I discovered last week through a friend of mine. It's located in the Sellwood area of SE Portland.

When I was there the first time with my friend Barbara, I did take photographs, but never got around to posting them.

I posted previously about my visit to the NW 23rd Ave area of Portland. The Sellwood area reminds me a little of the NW23rd area. However, it's not quite as ... yuppified ... yet, that is. I can see that changing.

The restaurant we visited was The Jade Teahouse and Patisserie on SE 13th.

( under the cut for photos and yammering... )

 I'm getting RSS feeds from "Our Lady of Weight Loss".  Found this in my email notifications today.  It really appealed to me:

"OLofWL is very interested in re-defining 'diet' as a regime that moves us away from feelings of deprivation, defeat and depression (our past association to the word diet); and rather a regime that moves us toward happiness!

 

She is therefore suggesting a daily diet consisting of: happiness, creativity, self-love, and positive energy and that we feed our minds, spirit, and sense of play. That's right!

 

We can follow The Happiness Diet and have our daily intake of happiness. Happiness includes (but is not limited to) talking to friends, enjoying a walk around the park, deep breaths of fresh air, buying flowers and arranging them in five vases around the living room!

 

Our Lady of Weight Loss wants to know ...

What would you like to fill up on? What would you like to experience repeatedly? What new definition would you to give the word "diet?"

DIET: from the Our Lady of Weight Loss Dictionary

"Something that you experiences repeatedly that fills you up in the best sense ... with non-food related items! For example: The Happiness Diet consists of daily platterfuls of beautiful morning skies, Mozart and/or John Lennon, dishy conversations with good friends, hugs, kisses, and cozy slippers.

 

Spread the word ... NOT the icing!

[Emphasis added by me]

X-posted to both my LJs.

 Weirdness.

So I never think about astrology.  I don't remember what prompted me to get that chart done 25 years ago.  But other than that time--never think of it.

At all.

Yesterday I spent hours engrossed in reading about astrology.

And today I come across a post of a woman (dianagarland ) who just(?) joined LJ.  Among other things, she's an astrologer and has posted YouTube vids for each of the signs.

My sign is Gemini, btw.

And this is also weirdly accurate.

 Through a very roundabout way, yesterday I found myself delving a bit into astrology.  I can't even recall right now how it happened.  One of those times when you are merrily following links through Google and you end up on something interesting.

I found a site that generated my natal chart.  I had forgotten that I'd had one of these done back in my early 20s.  A chart, a taped reading and a written reading as well.  I don't remember a lot of the particulars about that reading/chart--other than I first learned about Rising Signs in addition to Sun Signs.  My Rising Sun is Aquarius.

Once I'd generated the chart I started to get intrigued by all the symbols on the chart. The brief written summary with the chart did not go into the symbols.  And geek and language freak that I am, I was intrigued to see if I could interpret the symbols.

It was absolutely fascinating.  And scarily accurate.   I told Bob I wanted to try to do his to see what another individuals natal chart looked like and how it would be interpreted and to see if it also resonated with him.

Who know it was so multi-layered.  I mean you have the position of all the planets and other celestral bodies at the place and time of your birth.  And the placement of the zodiac signs as well.  And then there's the 12 houses on the chart.  The position of mid heaven.  And the position of the planets to each other as well!  All with specific symbols and relevance.





Tomorrow is Imbolc.  And I'm actually thinking of DOING something for this.  This would be my first celebration of this type.  I may do a little more spring cleaning and then decorate our dining room table with candles and flowers and have a celebratory meal with my family.  If nothing else, Bob would appreciate that it's got a celtic background (Bob's father was born in Ireland.)

Plus it occurred to me that it may be the perfect time for the burning ritual I want to do with some of my old work papers.

I also broke out my Tarot cards last night for the first time in weeks.  I'm thinking about doing a card a day for a bit.  Plus my 1-day Tarot 101 workshop is next Saturday.

I don't know why--but I'm feeling much less angst around all this starting about 1-2 days ago.

 I'm feeling very thankful and grateful right now.

Weird since we have snow again and I woke up from a hard-hitting nightmare and yesterday I heard about the death of a beloved director on a show I really love.  And on Sunday I'd had a very roller-coaster day filled with the emotional pain of others.

But what I keep thinking about is the love and support and understanding of friends and family.  My beach-retreat group reached out to me on Sunday with love and support.  And even though I felt out of it and somewhat out of place--they just enfolded me with inclusion.  My somewhat still jaded self keeping whispering in my ears that they were letting me in only because I just happened to pay to attend the retreat in the first place.  But my new-found voice quickly overcame that "monkey" voice.

And with the news yesterday of the death of Kim Manners, my online community just shared and shared their grief and memories of someone who, while we didn't know personally, had touched us all with his work, his work ethic, and the testimonials from those people who did know him personally.

And tonight is my drawing class.  I'm staring at the drawing I did last week noticing a freedom of movement that I don't think I've ever had before in drawing and rather (as is somewhat normal for me)...rather than thinking of excuses why I can't go tonight (snow, I'm tired, etc.), all I can think about is "how can I make sure to get there?"  I do have the option of going Saturday morning if the snow and ice are too much tonight.  But (*crosses fingers*) so far that doesn't look like it's going to be the case.

And my husband.  I don't exaggerate when I've told people (and him) that he really is my foundation.  Knowing he is there for me lets me feel confident enough to try to break through some of my past barriers--because I know he will be there to catch me if I need it.

After my somewhat distressing day on Sunday and before I went to the group meeting, I went up to Bob and he wrapped his arms around me.  I was crying because I felt like I could just FEEL the pain of his sister.  The tears weren't from me, somehow they were from her.  He just held me and before I left I told him, "Thank you for loving me."  His support is giving me the safety net I need to re-open my emotional responses to people.  Gives me the freedom to let myself be open and vulnerable like I've never let myself be before (outside of him and my immediate family.)

I am so grateful for that.

 I just attended a conference call hosted by franciscan  tonight.  She posted about here at mystic_cafe .

One of the things Vicki told me the last time I saw her was that I should work on protection since my recent work has increased my sensitivity and attraction to both positive and negative energies.

Weirdly enough I had woken up in the middle of the night, about a week before I talked with Vicki, with the distinct thought that I had a "psychic leech."  I'd never heard of such a thing--but it woke me up and kept repeating in my head.  I filed it away for future research and went back to sleep.  

A few days later I remembered the thought, googled it, and look at that--there are references to such things on the net.

And then Vicki mentioned it as well.

So when franciscan  mentioned that she could walk people through a protection exercise, I decided to call in.

She (and others) talked for just over an hour.  The exercise was interesting.  And did make me feel better.  I've been dragging all day.  And over the past several days have been having some kind of knee-jerk reaction to all this woo-woo stuff.  As I told fickleone  recently, it's like I'd just like to go back to the way things were before--but I can't seem to.  But I'm resistant in some way about moving forward as well.  

I have two more "assignments" from my discussion with Vicki.  Not really assignments--just things that came up that I wanted to look into.  One was a bookstore she recommended and the other was a suggestion to look into different types of leadership.  We had gotten into a discussion about leadership.  About how she saw I was a strong leader and would continue to be.  

I've certainly had positions of leadership given to me the last 10-15 years.  And when I left my last job one of the things I was interested in looking into were jobs that were NOT about leadership.  I was tired of leadership.  I'd never wanted to be a leader.

So I responded, "what if I don't want to be a leader?"  Her reply was, "I'm sorry."  Essentially saying it was something I was whether I wanted it or not.  I recognized the truth in that.  But still I don't want it.  She suggested looking into different forms/types of leadership.  I've kind of done that over the years--but upon reflection, I realized that I was keeping that "research" in the past to a very narrow focus.  A focus of business-as-expected leadership.  

But still the last several days, when I've even thought of spiritual work/thoughts--my first reaction is to shove it to the side.  I feel like I'm hiding from it or something.

But it keeps coming back.

 Welcome to my new alternative LJ.  This one is specifically for posts regarding my spiritual journey.  I'm still working on setting things up, but feel free to friend me here as well as in my main LJ--growyourwings .

I'll be posting again soon with info on which journal covers which.  First I have to finish updating user profiles for both these journals.