love

Hello brave ones,

This is a post from ages ago. Three years to be exact but it has been a topic of constant conversation these days.

When do you take the leap to change?

I like the idea of permission, and I LOVE the concept of Grace.

So today, if you’re contemplating listening to your gut. Or you’ve already taken the leap and you feel like you’re in free-fall—maybe this will help.
That’s always my wish.

Carry on,
xox

Both feet have to leave the ground to leap.
Ohhhhhh Shiiiiiiit!

…and therein lies the rub.

When am I ready to leap you ask? Uh, just this side of NEVER!

We seldom feel like we’re ready….it just isn’t the right time…not yet.

But what the hell are we waiting for?
An illness?
Divorce?
The empty nest?
More diplomas?
Losing a job?
More zeros in our bank account (Ahhh, now I’m getting warmer) but how many are enough?

How about PERMISSION?
The WORD from God-on-high that all systems are go, and you’re ready for launch.
That’s what I want!
That’s what we all want. Right?

But you know what you guys? We’ve got that. We have our internal guidance, our intuition, our gut, to let us know when we’re getting close.

We’ve all been there. You get that restless feeling.

You start asking life WAY too many questions.

You feel as if you can’t continue to do that thing you’ve been doing for one. more. minute.

That to me, signals one foot off the ground.

Then I have to suck up every ounce of courage to trust those signals, and
Lift. The. Other. Foot.

Permission is Grace’s secret weapon.

If you give enough value to the signs; the synchronicity, that jumpy little feeling in your belly, and you turn away from the fear and doubt and really show up for yourself; you grant Permission.
Permission’s bodyguards, Faith and Courage, then clear the path for Grace to enter.

Then you know what Grace does?
She lends you her hand and helps you balance…
so you can lift your other foot to leap.

Xox

“The trouble is not that I am single and likely to stay single, but that I am lonely and likely to stay lonely.” ― Charlotte Brontë

Hello my tribe,
Well now.
I wish I had all the answers. I wish I knew what to say to lift all of our heavy hearts.
All I can do is share what I believe and how that’s helping ME make sense of all of this madness.

I believe in energy. That everything is energy. Love, hate, optimism, fear.
It’s all energy and that energy has power.
And after a while, if you focus on one thing long enough it gains momentum.
We just saw the proof of that with this election. Lots and lots of folks whose fear and anger morphed into a blind rage. I say blind because everyone wants to be heard, right? We all want to think our needs are being served. So, in their own self-interest they blindly (and deafly (is that a word?)), followed someone who said, “I hear you.”

I believe he took the momentum of their fear used it against them.

That being said, I’ve alway remembered what someone wise once told me “Don’t be against something Janet, be FOR something else. Don’t be anti-war, be pro-peace.”
They explained how, from an energetic standpoint (yes, we’re still talking energy), it’s cleaner. It’s clearer.

Because, when you rail against something by yelling and waving your fist at it—you give that very thing MOMENTUM. That’s what causes rioting and violence in the name of peaceful resistance.

Besides, if and when the shit does hit the fan, if my hair is on fire, I can’t be a part of any solution. I believe fear is disempowering. Because I know fear won’t lead me anywhere near the solution.

Plus, it feels like shit to hate. Doesn’t it you guys? The pettiness? The cattiness?
It feels like shit to think that fifty percent of the country is nuts. It feels like shit to be so freaking far away from love. Because you and I, we’re all lovers.
We’re the unifiers.
We like to think we’re spiritual, evolved, and open-hearted.

But look how conditional that has become.
It’s turned into “us” and “them.” And we’re behaving no better than “they” are!
“Think like me and I can love you/be your friend. Look like me, talk like me and vote like I do and only then can I love you.”

Yikes.

Don’t get me wrong. We must be vigilant. We must march our asses off, write letters, organize, protect, defend and sign petitions. And vote. For. Sure. We MUST Vote.

I’m just asking that you check-in with yourself. You’re intentions and the energy you’re giving momentum to.

It’s abundantly clear what you’re against, but what are you FOR?

I believe in civil discourse.
I believe it’s a small world and that we’re all connected.
I believe in using our voices.
I believe that the majority of the American people are decent, loving people.
I believe change can be a good thing.
I believe that our country needed a wake-up call. Many of us had NO idea how many “-isms” were alive and well and living under the rug.

I believe in us and that love wins. I really do.

Carry on,
xox

Hi all,
Whether you believe in astrology or not, Clarity, love, miracles? This all sounds pretty awesome to me!
Carry on,
xox

Rare Astrological Event—all of the Planets Align & Turn Direct: It’s Time to Leap.
The Elephant Journal~via Kate Rose

“Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.” ~ Unknown
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On Saturday, January 7th, we will experience a rare astrological event—all planets will turn direct.

During most years, at any given time there is at least one planet in retrograde motion, however, it’s not unusual to see a few in that motion as well—but rarely do all the planets turn direct at the same time.

This phase of action will last until February 6th when Jupiter turns retrograde.

The reason that this is such a big deal is that it’s happening in a very auspicious manner. Venus has moved into Pisces, and Mercury is turning direct at the start of the New Year.

It’s clear that this is a time for movement, for action and for exploring whatever it is that has been calling to us for some time.

Astrology is not about a one-time chance that will never happen again—we just have the option as to whether we are going to walk in fully into what is waiting for us, or if we will need a gentle push in the right direction.
What is meant for us will always hit its mark in our lives right on time.It’s not possible to mess up our life’s plan so severely that we feel desperate and without hope. Yet, even with that being the case, sometimes the divine orchestrates such an event that it’s impossible to ignore.

We missed something—something big—something that, quite possibly, we didn’t think was meant for us.
We left it behind in 2016, thinking that it was over—that we were making the right choice and that we had better things waiting for us.

We thought we were being adult about it.
But really, we missed an important part of a conclusion we drew too soon.

The thing is that we can say we are moving on, and that we are going in a new direction, but sometimes—no matter how far we move—the divine force in this world moves us right back to where we were.

With Mercury just ending, a fog is lifting, and there is clarity about a situation we had thought was all figured out—and because Venus, the planet of love, just turned direct in the loving and ethereal sign of Pisces, it seems that there is a matter of the heart that hasn’t yet been decided.

No matter how much we think we know the ending, sometimes the universe shows us that this was only the first act.

This next month—whether we want it to or not—possesses the ability to change everything in an instant.

Where you once felt stuck, things will suddenly fall apart to reveal new information and alternate endings you could never have imagined. Where you once struggled could give way to ease.
And indecision could suddenly become nothing but a faded memory of a time when your head and heart fought battles over your future.

The truth is that no great moment comes without first creating chaos, so the potential is there for January to be like that child’s snow globe that they can’t resist shaking up just to see what might happen next.
But that’s also what we have to remember—none of us knows how this will play out, and none of us knows what the ending of any of this will be.

We are being guided. We are being given clear heads and courage—moments of realizing exactly what is occurring and what those feelings are that flutter throughout your heart.

In February, we will have the last eclipse in a cycle that began last September, so anyone who thinks that they can just leave 2016 in the dust hasn’t really understood that the reality is there are never any true endings.
Situations morph, evolve and transition—sometimes more beautifully than we could ever anticipate.

The one thing that we have to remember during this month is that we aren’t being fooled. Perhaps this month, more than any other in a very long time, we will see clearly the matters of our hearts. We will find the words where we previously struggled, and suddenly sense will be made from everything that has transpired for perhaps the past few years.

Once in a while, there is a stitch in a time—a moment where things just suddenly fall into place. A moment occurs when the planets truly align at the finger of God, and all along we realize that this was his plan.

Perhaps we will finally understand that we were never off course—we’re just blind to the destination.

All of this means something. There are no coincidences—only synchronicities.
It’s been said that we can ask the universe for all the signs we want, but that ultimately, we see what we want to see when we’re ready to see it.

January is asking us just one question: “Are you ready?”
Are you ready to see everything that you were too scared to open your eyes to before? Are you ready see the life that is meant for you?

Perhaps there are no final choices or endings, but once in a while, the universe and God conspire to give us a chance at having the life we’ve always prayed for—our only job is to listen.

Our mission this month is to be open to change, so we can let ourselves be led to where we need to be, instead of planting our feet in resistance.
Because once in a while, miracles really can happen—but only if we let them.

“What good are wings without the courage to fly.” ~ Atticus

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2017/01/rare-astrological-event-all-of-the-planets-align-turn-direct-its-time-to-leap/?__prclt=ituSQnbi
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“They say that anger is just love disappointed.” ~ Lyrics from “A Hole In the World” by The Eagles

You know its funny; and not in the haha way, more the ironic variety, that the times when I’m in emotional pain, when I should be writing—I can’t.

My friend the Book Mama says: write when you’re bleeding.
I find myself too busy at triage, what with the tourniquets and numbing agents to have anything at all coherent, let alone pithy to say and I know you all expect yourselves some pith from me.

How do these other folks do it?

Some people are great at it. Brilliant really.

Liz phucking Gilbert got rich off of it for chrissakes.
Glennon Doyle Melton, hello?
Hemingway was in constant emotional turmoil while he crafted his gorgeous prose.
Nora Ephron cried the entire time she wrote the hysterically funny book about her cheating husband who fell in love with her friend—while she was pregnant.

My trials and tribulations are not nearly as epic as any of theirs — yet I find myself uncharacteristically silent.

December was the cruelest of bitches as months go and like any good bitch she pulled at my hair and held my face underwater during our wet t-shirt catfight.

All bets were off. Nothing was fair. I was caught off guard—blindsided. And just to make matters worse the timing sucked because, well, you know, Christmas…

I hate feeling bad at Christmas and will do almost anything to fa la la my way out of it. This year there weren’t enough fa la la’s on the planet to keep my head above water.

I know many of you guys felt the same.

I’ve talked to a few of my friends, the ones who have a high tolerance for uncontrolled sobbing, and they’ve shared their stories of various friends and family members who seem to have been possessed by an intolerant, angry, asshole who blamed them for all of their angst. Lots and lots of disappointed love.

Did any of you experience this phenomenon?

This December I lost my shine. Someone I love held me solely responsible for everything that went wrong for them in 2016.—and in a fit of rage they became my judge, jury and executioner.

Oh yeah, and Happy Holidays!

My friend Kim suffered the same fate. Her best friend stopped speaking to her for no apparent reason and then that friend’s husband publicly shamed Kim on social media where, at the end of a Facebook diatribe, he actually said Happy Holidays. Can you even believe that? “We are morbidly disgusted and disappointed in you and we can no longer bring ourselves to speak to you. Happy Holidays!”

WTF people?

I don’t know about you all but I have my own fallen expectations and disappointments I don’t need anybody to pile theirs on top—thank you very much. Besides that, I think there should be ground rules for raging. Stick with the “I feels” and stay away from the “You ares” because later on, when the dust has settled, no matter how much you try to walk back the things you said—they cannot be unheard or unfelt.

Words are powerful things. They are the first weapons drawn in a battle. And if they’re aimed just right (and they always are by the people who know us the best), they find all of the tender spots and in the process—they kill love.

I felt sliced and diced in December which left me at a loss for words. Maybe they seeped out of all the little holes left behind. Maybe I’ll still be sweeping up consonants and vowels from the cracks of my floor in July. I don’t know. What I DO know is that I will do what I always do—what WE always do—right ladies?

I’ll lick my wounds, pull up my big-girl panties, find my words, and eventually look for the miracle in the mess. A big juicy one lives there I’m sure.

Until then you can find me scarfing down anything chocolate that isn’t nailed down and plotting my revenge (kidding. Maybe…).

Here’s hoping this finds you all happily eating salad.

Carry on,
xox

*Hi Loves,
This is a post from Christmas past. I think it was way back in a simpler time — 2013.

Anyhow…it’s a crowd favorite, the number one most requested holiday post because it’s all about my husband and everybody roots for my hubby. Right? I mean, he tolerates me and that is no small feat.

He’s no saint, believe you me. He’s a procrastinator extraordinaire as this story will reveal, and a curmudgeon rapscallion of epic proportions.  HOWEVER, all that being said, the man never ceases to amaze me with his common decency.

Here on Earth 2.0, I miss common decency. I think we all do.

So here’s a dollop courtesy of my own, personal Avatar. I’m immensely grateful for him, all of you, and your decency and continued loyalty. Wishing you and yours the happiest of holidays and an amazing 2019!
xox

AVATAR
av·a·tar
ˈavəˌtär/
noun
1.HINDUISM
a manifestation of a deity or released soul in bodily form on earth; an incarnate divine teacher.

I met my husband when he was 47 and I was 43.
To say I kissed a lot of frogs along the way is an understatement!
And since he’s French there’s also a certain irony there.

On paper, I looked über normal.
I had a great job, a house, a relatively “normal” family, lots of good friends, two Siamese cats, and a Partridge in a pear tree.

But as you all know by now, I had my dark, hidden secret.
I was a closeted seeker.
Devoutly spiritual.
I did yoga,
I meditated twice a day,
I could have been a monk.
Well, except for the red lipstick and nail polish…oh, and the sex.

Anyway…
I’m pretty sure I blurted it all out after a glass of wine on one of our early dates, half expecting him to excuse himself, saying he was “going to the restroom”, only to discover he had made a run for it!

But he didn’t.

It ends up he was a seeker as well, having worked with
a Peruvian shaman along the way—so I should have seen this coming.

For years, I had sought the counsel of a channel, a friend who had the ability to call in “beings” of higher wisdom. So, I invited her/them over to “meet” my new husband. I’m not exactly sure what I expected, but what they did was to completely ignore me and practically fall all over themselves (in a nebulous, ghosty way), calling him “Great Avatar”.

Then they explained that I am the “consort” to this great being.

What? Really?
Like the Cleopatra to his Marc Anthony?
Uh, nope. Nothing like that.

More like the Robin to his Batman.
The Abbot to his Costello.
The Kato to his Green Hornet.
The Elaine to his Jerry.
The Heckle to his Jeckle.

Well, not exactly. I have to aquiece to the undenialble fact that, gulp,
He is my teacher.
I am grasshopper.

I just rolled my eyes, thinking that infinite wisdom must have mistakenly ‘Avatared’ the wrong guy—but the irefutable proof of it happened again—for the gazillionth time on Christmas Eve day.

He told me the story with tears in his eyes that night on our way to dinner.

He is a typical man in the sense that he waits until 3 p.m. on the 24th of December to start his holiday shopping.

So…there he was driving while famished, navigating an overcrowded parking lot with nothing to sustain him.

He had becoome Hangry (hungry + angry).
You get the picture.

Finally, after circling eight-thousand times, he saw a car ready to pull out of its space so he positioned himself, left blinker on, and waited…and waited…while the person sloooooowy backed out of the coveted spot. Meanwhile, on the other side of them was a little pickup truck that has the same idea. My husband seeing what was about to happen, aggressively blocked the spot with his black Porsche and pulled in. (Don’t judge, just because it’s a Porsche and a pickup truck, just don’t do it!)

As the pickup truck drove off, the driver made eye contact and flipped my husband the middle finger.

Oh, don’t worry, that stuff rolls off his back…he’s French, remember?
But still, it was Christmas Eve for cryin’ out loud!

No matter. He walked into a local joint to grab a quick burger and realized while he was eating, that middle-finger-pickup-truck-guy was eating with some of his buddies a few tables over.

So, he got out a pen and wrote a note on a napkin.
He then attached $20 and handed it to the waitress to deliver to the guy…and left.

The note read:
Even though you flipped me the bird,
It’s Christmas Eve.
your lunch is on me.
The black Porsche.

While walking away he glanced back to see the guy showing the note to his buddies as he stood up to search the cafe for this mystery Santa.

So decent, right? It brought tears to my eyes you guys!

He’s my hero.
He’s my teacher
He really is an Avatar.
(And said without any eyeroll whatsoever) It is an honor to be his consort/grasshopper.

Merry Christmas everybody!
Xox

“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world,
I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport.
General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed,
but I don’t see that.

It seems to me that love is everywhere.

Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy,
but it’s always there – fathers and sons,
mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends.”
~From the movie LOVE ACTUALLY (One of my holiday favorites!)

Oh, My loves, God only knows what I’d be without YOU!

xox

“Oh, the heartbreakingly beautiful tender weight of being human.” ~ Unknown

I’m tender-hearted.

Truly.

I know I may seem pretty cold-hearted sometimes, but I can be brought to tears by a beer commercial with big horses and dogs. And carols. Oh Holy Night or that incredible duet by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli —that one slays me.

So, yeah. I cry easy. Especially at Christmas.

A “friend” sent me a story with the video of a Santa who was granting a terminally ill little boy’s wish to talk to him only to have the boy whisper at the end of their visit, “Santa, can you help me?” and then die right there in the bearded mans arms.  The man is undone as he weeps through the telling of the story.

Well! That was the cruelest of Yuletide acts so of course I was forced to rip up her Christmas card and eat the fudge I made her.

I will not post it here because it really is THAT sad, but if you need to see it with your own eyes it is currently doing the rounds on Facebook where I have had to do the equivalent of running past it for the past week lest I cry my eyelashes off.

But you’re not getting off that easy. I saw this video and just had to share it with you guys. It is the epitome of the Christmas spirit and that’s all I’m going to say. Except…

I was shocked.

I was touched.

I cried and then I wondered what Oprah,  I would have done in the same situation at the same age.

https://www.facebook.com/unbelievable.wow/videos/289671704767444/

What do YOU think?

Carry on my people,
xox

“What if you saw your life from beginning to end, would you change anything?”~ The movie Arrival

Besides placing my little baby self with the perfect set of parents, on the beach, in Malibu, while being fed organic, gluten-free, free-range apple sauce by a giant silver spoon…

…I’d like to think I wouldn’t. But if I’m being truthful here, which I always try to be, I’m sure I’d take out my pair of big, sharp scissors and edit out all the painful parts.

The places where I didn’t get the part. Or the job. Or the boy I wanted more than a dish of really melty chocolate ice cream.

Where I was embarrassed. Sad. Ruefully disappointed. Or ashamed of myself. Yeah, I’d cut out those parts too, because, hey, nobody would miss them—least of all me.

And lets not forget the times where my heart got broken.

Where my chest hurt so much it felt like I’d recently had open heart surgery. Only to figure out later that the pain came from the exact opposite—the force of the slam. You can all relate to the force of the slam, right? Where you’re sailing along, all open-hearted (la, la, la, la, la), and somebody you love, respect and admire betrays you?

Or somebody dies.

First you hear the creaking of the hinges, because, hey, your heart is flung WIDE OPEN. This closing up tight thing will take a minute.

Then comes the slam. SLAM!! It batons down all of your hatches, locks every single rusty lock (and there are a shit-ton of locks, more locks than your average Manhattan walk up)…and installs a moat.

NOBODY is getting in there anytime soon. Am I right?

So, yeah, I’d say it would probably be in my best interest and the interest of love in general if I just cut out all of that messy shit —and pretend like it never happened.

But we all know we aren’t able to alter those things. I’m thinking of starting a “Go Fund Me” page to get that changed. Who’s with me?

Think about it though. Would you wipe out all of the people you’ve loved and lost? Just delete them from your script?
That would change so much. I don’t know if I’d be willing to do that. Because in hindsight each situation had an effect on another, kinda like the butterfly effect. In other words, it would fuck everything up.

Things we can”t even imagine. Things out of our purview.Things that are above our pay grade to even comprehend.

Didn’t not getting some of those things make you better? Stronger? Savvier? Funnier? And smarter?

Yeah… me neither.

In all seriousness. All of those things that felt like big, fat, obvious mistakes were like rocks in a stream, each one causing the path of the water to shift, which may have held us under, choking and spitting and gasping for air…until something (the fickle finger of fate?) grabbed us by our wet bathing suits, gave us a wedgie and led us to where we stand right. this. minute.

If I saw that in a life overview I’d probably laugh my ass off. Wouldn’t you?
And I probably wouldn’t change one goddamn thing. Would you?

Carry on,
xox

The best part of this video is watching Jason giggle like an eight year old boy and then break into some Latin (like you do), while discussing The Kiss.

So, tell me, why do people kiss each other? Haven’t you asked yourself that question?
I have.

I remember a long time ago reading somewhere, I think relating to Kabbalah (an ancient and mystical form of Judaism), the high regard with which they held a kiss. They consider it a sacred act. It is an act so intimate that you are virtually “sharing” the breath of another person.

Knowing that marked me.

Today, the most widely accepted theory of kissing is that we humans do it because it helps us sniff out a quality mate. When our faces are close together, our pheromones “talk” – exchanging biological information about whether or not two people will make strong offspring.

Well, that’s just not sexy.

Here are some other fun facts I found:

Do any other animals kiss?
Save for the bonobos that suck on each other’s tongues for up to ten minutes at a time, there aren’t any animals that kiss. And are we really going to count a tongue-suck as a kiss anyway? Somehow, humans are actually the only species to kiss on the mouth, and the meanings of a kiss are plentiful.

Why do they call it a French kiss?
The term ‘French kiss’ – once also called a ‘Florentine kiss’ – is popularly considered to have been brought back to the English-speaking world by soldiers returning from Europe after World War I. At the time, the French had a reputation for more adventurous sexual practices, and so it happened that these soldiers returned to their sweethearts with some newly acquired “skills”.

That being said, with decades of dating under my belt, I became a bit of a connoisseur regarding kissing. There is a Goldilocks zone where kissing is concerned. I’m sure you’ll all agree with me on the fact that a bad kisser can kill even the best chemistry.

No tight, dry “butt pucker” lips.

No overly moist delivery that makes you want to wipe your face with the sleeve of your jacket.

No wide open “shark mouth” where your teeth bang together.

And my least favorite, the wild tongue thrusting where it feels like they’re looking for their car keys somewhere around your tonsils.

Ah, the kiss. Done well it makes me giggle and speak Latin too—how about you?

Carry on,
xox