heathervescent

riding the dragon

Rereading old posts, I came across these fabulous directions for living from myself, from December 2003. They ring true today and I ponder them for the next year.

.....
acquiesce. (Which secretly means to act.) [So, how do I know how to act?]

I know how to act by being in tune with INTENT (the big intent of the universe, eagle, tonal, etc) and my intent (personal). I try to keep a detached view (sometimes very very hard). I practice various magical passes. I practice seeing. I look for agreements. I practice dreaming. All these tools provide an individual piece like compass, map, next resting area on map, that helps me know what to do (acquiesce) in my "everyday" life.

My life has been very difficult recently. There have been huge changes happening. The changes happened (I made them) because I finally had the energy, guts, and surrender to acquiesce.

Acquiescing can be done in small shifts and sometimes in very swift crushing movements.
.....

They key word up there is surrender. Surrender to acquiescence.

Surrender to your life. Surrender to live it passionately and with awareness.

a note to terrascope readers

You have compassion for Clint. He is your friend. I have compassion for Clint. He was my best friend, lover, partner in crime and companion longer than any of you have known him. You do not know the ins and outs of our relationship. None of our friends did. Not even the closest one - Laramie.

You know only part of one side of the story. That's fine. We live not in a partisan world. Any view, by the mere fact that you are viewing is not objective. Be not so quick to judge my actions. I did nothing illegal. Just as Clint does nothing illegal by requesting 1/2 of all assets, even though he contributed 30-40% to the acquisition of them. Tell me terrascope readers, does it seem fair to combine 3 pounds with your friend's 7 pounds and when you split you each take 5 pounds? Seems like a raw deal to the one who contributed 7 pounds in the first place. (And we're not just talking money here. There mere fact that I could do what I did shows the place I held in the relationship.)

Which goes to the question of Karma. And fairness. And the laws of the nation and state in which you live.

I've asked Clint to be fair. Fair not in terms of legality, but in terms of karmic fairness, fairness to what our relationship was. Fair in unravelling the pieces. I put my faith in the universe to "make the right things happen." Yes I was angry. My anger peaked about 8 months ago. Clint chose to stick to the fairness dictated by the laws. I warned him to watch out, because karma sweeps it's tail. The wheel turns. I know this because the wheel has turned many times. I know karma coming back at me. It's not pretty, nor easy, but does provide plenty of opportunity for growth.

Judge not, lest ye be judged. Perhaps, I stand judged by you, which puts you at the mercy of your own judgments. This contributes to your world view, as you create the world you live in. You are your own Wizard of Oz. You pull your own levers. You create the dream you live called your reality. Clint created this reality.

Raise your angry fist to the heavens and wonder. Feel the victim. Self-pity. Or face up to your actions and take responsibility. The world gives you what you need for your next steps of growth.

Will you rise to the occasion of being a better person or fight your better self?

Online Communication Behavior

This is a great article by Amy Gahran on human behavior and the Internet. Enjoy.

"Contrary to popular opinion, the Internet is not really about technology. It’s about people, specifically how people communicate. ..."

chapel perilous

What to do when ships sink? When wind blows on the mountain and forms stagnation? When compromising fails in resolving conflict?  You enter the perilous chapel. The family guides:

          Changing yang in the third place means:
          When tempers flare up in the family,
          Too great severity brings remorse.
          Good fortune nonetheless.
          When woman and child dally and laugh,
          It leads in the end to humiliation.

Perhaps the punishment is too severe. The punishment is more severe than I should have liked, however it was not my choice. The universe provides, shows the path and I accept, knowing the hardness. Meting out punishment is perhaps harder for the one with the whipping stick. I'm sure he knows this too.

So I enter with full awareness into the Chapel Perilous. Where even more bets are off and my trust in the universe, the unknown is the only thing that matters. It is the key. The third staircase. The voice of Intent, the rustling of the leaves pointing out the muddy path.

So enter, give way to all you have known - to all others have told you. Let not the judgment and ego and anger and resentment snap your leg in the trap. Dally not with the sweets and treats and sensual delights. For if you do, you will never leave the chapel alive - nor will you leave it unscathed. Everyone who enters is changed.

Why wait for death, when one has the power to change and burn today.

enlightened code

clean clear simple hand coded html is about as zen as it gets.

2005 so far in pictures

First is was this and I was impatient, impatient, impatient

Then is started to change

And it continued to change

And time will tell when it becomes

the future is now

as of today, I own the Future. I'll see you there soon.

burn baby burn

There's nothing like 100+- x-mas trees piled up on a beach when the flame pops out. The crummy thing was that the beach patrol swung by BEFORE it was set on fire and put a slight damper on the festivities. However after they "continued on their patrol" someone snuck over and lit it. (Oh how I wished to be a bold babe and do it. Alas, do I have someone in LA who would bail me out of jail?)

Anyway, the photo up there is courtesy of gigsville paynie. I love a large scale fire. It's got me thinking about my burnable playa art. I'm thinking love and rockets.

fiasco and plunging

"The greatest lives are built on the greatest fiascoes. Security and stability equal stagnation. If you want to live to the fullest, get out there and make as many creative mistakes as possible."

The coasters are ticking up to the top bump. Some have crested and are on that tiny bit of flat track before the plunge. Are you ready? Am I ready? Make sure to put your hands in the air and scream in delight, because here's the plunge right now ....

Canyon Cruiser?

This is the perfect vehicle for cruising the muddy canyons in style and safety. And it's sale on Amazon. Yes, all you Topanga hippies can have your own custom built Land Cruiser/Tank to circumnavigate that huge rock that keeps Topanga Canyon closed.

Extra fun for those weekend rides on Angeles Crest.

Piuma Photos or - Don't go there!

With charged camera in hand, I climbed the canyons again this morning. Check out the Malibu Mud 2005 Album for more photos.

Rock on!

Look for your own.

Look for your own. Do not do what someone else could do as well as you. Do not say, do not write what someone else could say, could write as well as you. Care for nothing in yourself but what you feel exists nowhere else. And, out of yourself create, impatiently or patiently, the most irreplaceable of beings.          

– André Gide

I couldn't have said it better. Quote courtesy of KJ Bishop - author of etched city. With a website of her (I think) own.
         

Piuma Piuma Piuma!

OK. PCH was a parking lot this morning. The mudslides are getting cleaned up, but they still had northbound down to 1 lane - which meant merging and a major slowdown starting at Topanga, which was still closed. I was pretty sure Malibu Canyon was going to be closed and since I has gas in my tank, I left the main alternative route and made my own. No, I don't drive an SUV or 4x4.... yet. It's just me and the snob - a black Saab Convertible. Today - we had the top down and proceeded to twist our way up to the ridge.

The "reward" was there. Las Ramblas has some really excellent downs... rocks, trees, not so much mud. Pavement cracking (still hanging on though). I wound my way on the ridge using all parts of the pavement. That yellow line meant nothing. Views of the pacific, clear and blue. I attempted to take some photos but my camera batteries ran out. Tomorrow - wait for the photos. I pulled off at an overlook and peered down. There was Malibu Canyon, no traffic, muddy streaks and I saw a couple trucks around what looked to be a slide. I carved my way down Piuma. I have a love affair with this road. Can a woman love asphalt and concrete? Oh yes, she can - and I do. I love this road. I love the name. I love driving up and down it. I love it in my car or on my motorcycle. I love it alone or with friends in the passenger or leading or following. I love it. And it felt so good to be affectionate to it's cold moist pavement. Not too many slides. Mostly trees covering the lane here or there. Malibu Canyon was closed at Piuma so I took my normal commute route on Las Virgines to Mulholland. Mulholland was more or less clean and I was back to safety in second gear. (I usually don't push it beyond 3rd gear here.) I wound my way to Cornell then Kanan and Agoura Hills. No freeway for me. All in all, it took me about 40 minutes from PCH to Kanan Rd via the canyon.

It was gorgeous. I was in love. The sun was shining and I was listening to my stereo. What more could I want? At least at that moment.

Ahhhhhh.

Malibu Mudslide Photos!

Yes, oh yes. We finally got a clear day. The first day of sun in ... how long? A week? Ah and the gorgeous sun. I almost put the top down on the drive in. Where were all the people? Roads were closed and yet, not a soul on the road. I was prepared for a long haul again this morning. But I was met with smooth sailing. I brought my camera along to take some photos. None of these photos are that great as I took them while driving to work this morning between 8:30 and 9. But it gives you some of the experience. Malibu Canyon is still closed. (I wasn't one of the folks to drive around the barrier). I tried to get up to Topanga to see that huge rock but failed in my CHP bribing.

You may find it interesting to check out both my commute photo album along with the Malibu Mudslides one.

I'm not turned off by this at all. I think it's exciting. If anything closed roads, lanes, the earth itself unstable increased my exhilaration to live. I think it's AWEsome in the true meaning of the word. These mudslides inspire AWE in me. I do not think that I will escape. I do not dance the dangling meat to the tiger. I am in awe at the tiger. Just as I am in awe with nature in all it's incarnations. We are alive. Let's not be tame. Let's live in awe of this world. That's by the seat of your pants!

Monday morning mudslides

PCH was a red muddy mess with boulders the size of my car and smaller spilling into the right lane. I saw 3 major midslides and many smaller ones. Topanga Canyon and Malibu Canyon roads were closed, so it was a Kanan Dume day.

I really didn't mind the slow down. The drive on Kanan was delightful - fog so thick I couldn't see more than 15 feet in front of me (Monterey Bay diving visibility), it was misting a solid spray (just enough to clean the mud off my windscreen) and waterfalls that make the road look more and more like Maui Hana side.

What a relaxing drive. There's nothing better than to enjoy it.

waiting

I am not a patient person and so far 2005 has been about waiting. "This is a fine pace." I say to myself. An echo from this summer. But it's not. I'm winding up. I'm in overdrive and ready to spring into action. It's 2005 and there are so many things to do.

However, on all tracks, it's waiting. All 5 rollercoaster are climbing to the top. I can only imagine what the ride will be like. I know I should enjoy this calm before the storm or the eye of the storm, but I much prefer the storm itself.

Which has me thinking. What does one do when waiting? The unexpected happens.

The lines were very long at LACMA yesterday. I waited to get a ticket. All around me people were irritated and flitted around talking about how the show was sold out and people were trying to sell tickets or buy tickets from individuals. The guy in front of me said he may have an extra ticket and would I be interested in buying it. I said ok, but had to wait until he got to the ticket window. As I waited I was not anxious - that much. I knew there would be a ticket for me. I knew I could buy it. If there wasn't a ticket I would go do something else. I wasn't worried. I didn't care about waiting in the line. I looked around and up and felt the rain drops spear down from the cracks in the structure above. I didn't even care about the unknowns around my friend meeting me - even if it would happen. None of that was of concern to me. I just waited my turn.

Everything worked out perfectly. I got a ticket, I saw the photographs. Carson met me just as I was pondering the simple and the clutter in Robbert Frick's exhibit.

Since I know I can be that detached with waiting, why is it so hard to wait for these other tracks? It's because of the investments. In each of the other tracks I have something invested in them. Emotional, financially, intellectually. I don't want to walk away from any of those tracks. And yet, I cannot execute... yet. YET.

Wait - wait and see. This really is a fine pace. Just you wait and see.

Just do it

"When in doubt, do it."
     - Oliver Wendell Holmes 

thunder delight

It just thundered and lighteninged here in Santa Monica. I woke up to the sound of rain pitter-patter. I'm sitting here now at my computer on the kitchen table, drinking coffee and the highlight flash out the window a few seconds later a rumble. What wonderful noise.

It's been a good first week of the year. What I've learned so far? Take care of the body and the rest will follow.

New Photo Albums

I posted Portland Ho and Commute to the blog. Check out the photos of cutting down an Xmas tree from the national forest and the fabulous commute I gush about constantly.

all she wants is... glamour phones

It was catchy enought to catch me. The Nokia site with their new phones are really something. I've been waiting to see a cell phone manufacturer make body cell phone/cell phone jewelry. This is as close as I've seen it. I'm definitely holding out for "Fashionable Fold".

Check them out.

Managing Oneself: Harvard Business Review drive the nail home in one shot

It's often hit or miss with HBR articles. Tthis month they really delivered a gem - for me at least. This is the way I work - they way businesses *should* work but so often do not. This isn't a free article, but it's worth it if you can get a look. Here's the snippet.

Managing Oneself by Peter F. Drucker   
Success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know themselves—their strengths, their values, and how they best perform.      

We live in an age of unprecedented opportunity: If you’ve got ambition and smarts, you can rise to the top of your chosen profession, regardless of where you started out.

But with opportunity comes responsibility. Companies today aren’t managing their employees’ careers; knowledge workers must, effectively, be their own chief executive officers. It’s up to you to carve out your place, to know when to change course, and to keep yourself engaged and productive during a work life that may span some 50 years. To do those things well, you’ll need to cultivate a deep understanding of yourself—not only what your strengths and weaknesses are but also how you learn, how you work with others, what your values are, and where you can make the greatest contribution. Because only when you operate from strengths can you achieve true excellence.

a childhood song

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Frontrow/5764/pippi.html

Reviewing the index of this site, I am looking into a slightly skewed mirror.

And this is one of my favorite songs: Hooray I found the words.

Wake up you lazy bones
there's a lot of work to do
but the lazy bones says
"Not today, tomorrow I'll work for you."

Wake up you lazy bones
you have work to do today
but the lazy bones says
"Not today, today I'm going out to play."

Tra-la-la-la-la-la
how hard I'll work tomorrow
Tra-la-la-la-la-la
that's why I'm resting up today

Wake up you lazy bones
for you rested yesterday
and the things you said you'd do tomorrow
you must do today.

Tra-la-la-la-la-la
I'll do them all tomorrow
Tra-la-la-la-la-la
That's why I'm resting up today

Wake up you lazy bones
use your fingers and your thumbs
Don't you put it off for another day
for tomorrow never comes

quotes of risk and reward

I admit, I stole these from the comments in Barlow's recent post. They are so wonderful I must place them here also for your pleasure (and mine as well.)

The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of life is to live dangerously.
- Fridrich Wilhelm Nietzche

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure that it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
- Ernest Hemingway; 1899-1961

Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us.
- Thomas Browne, 1605-1682

We are more often frightened than hurt; we suffer more from imagination than from reality.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca (ca. 1AD)

Yes, risk-taking is inherently failure-prone.  Otherwise it would be called sure-thing-taking.
- Tim McMahon

"When it comes time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.
- Chief Aupumut, Mohican. 1725

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
- Mark Twain

We live amid surfaces, and the true art is to skate well on them.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

mudslides and risk

It's been a raining off and on for several weeks. The rain varies between a light drizzle or sprinkle to torrential downpour. I commute through the Malibu Canyons and that means - MUDSLIDES!

I've noticed the mud on the sides of PCH the past few weeks. Sometimes some small rocks, occasionally large boulders the size of my torso are also seen. I dodge them and run through the film in my mind of the rock tumbling down the cliff. How did it land? Who saw it first? What would the experience be like if it were to tumble down the exact instant I was driving by?

I look at the mud puddles by the side of the road. I expected great big sloshes into multiple lanes not these smallish swirls of wet red dust. It occurred to me that the slides don't necessarily come down in an avalanche of mud, but rather grain by grain, the rain sweeping the sides of the canyons clean towing in it's flow grains that detach themselves from roots and rocks.

Malibu Canyon was closed today. The rock slides I have seen on a regular basis the past week must have been too much. That's OK. It was a good excuse to continue up PCH and take Kanan Dume. I saw more slides as I zipped up the "super two" lane canyon road. I remembered the first time I took the road and blew my clutch. A day so unlike today. Still I was in awe as the first time. Today it looked like the Hana highway on Maui. Flush green, waterfalls by the side of the roads, wet rocks, fog. It was gorgeous and I was so happy to be able to experience this on the drive to work.

I  realized more succinctly that risk is an important part of my life. My morning drive with the risk of mudslides, falling rocks, curvy canyon roads emblazons me to live fully. Being fully alive and aware of your death at any moment. Of course I don't want to die. But anyone, even you, can die in an instant - in the next instant or a future far beyond.

So I make the choice. I drive my stick-shift around the canyons, I take the blue highways, I look with awe on the mud slides and I drive with delight through the freeway puddles splashing the wet dust onto my waxed black finish. I'll die - that's for sure - and I hope it won't be in my sleep. Until then, I'll live by the seat of my pants. I'm glad the snob has headed seats.