Galactic Gal

Christmas come and gone

2012-01-03T12:59:00.001-08:00

It may seem like all we do is party but hey, we had a few events over the last months. Family gathered and we had to take pictures. Christmas just made it into my sis Cathy's newly remodeled kitchen this year. The contractors still had to put the final touches on it but no matter. The new granite island still handled the groaning load of food. I might point out the new range, and the first in our family to have such a food network extravaganza with the full on heavy gliding racks and double oven that still did not work and the six burners with the griddle on top. Very cool. We kept up with the drippings and clean up because it was so new and shiny. Lotsa food and no where to put it in our bodies.

Cathy and Mike stood up to the test after entertaining out of town family, guests and taking care of Marc's graduation from UCLA. Two days later, they flew to Hawaii for a family vacation.

Our gathering was smooth, free of stress and filled with happy moments, crazy gifts and sweet dessert. To our health and now a Happy 2012!

Thanksgiving Day 2011

2011-11-26T14:17:00.001-08:00

Not everyone got in my camera eye, although there were 20 + people who milled, drank, ate and partied. Ages from 15 to 84 feasted on gobs of food ( thats why it is called gobble gobble day) We ate at the tables decorated by sister Mare who did a beautiful presentation of color, candles and warmth. Niece Lea manned the wine bar and the organic juicy martini bar. Brother-in-laws Larry and Mike and Phil did the duty of "I NEED YOU to do something!" as was yelled out by the sister cooks. The kitchen was small, probably way too small to accomodate foot traffic but it had two ovens! We came prepared to lay out a groaning table and welcomed guests, some from out of town. We did miss a few though, boyfriends, girlfriends, ccusins and brothers but we filled the dining room anyway.

The Clubhouse was on the same property that I lived on and we had access to it because of a pre-arranged acceptance. It was really really beautiful. We had a kitchen, hardwood dining room with wine bar, pool deck with tables and chairs, large living area with big fireplace and HD TV. The couches called to many. There was an additional room with game tables and more sitting areas, soft lamps and ceiling fans. The hallway found most of the younger set at billiards and ping pong tables. Rain that was expected never came. Harsh coldness turned to a bright sun filled day and with ovens on, we wished for our beach wear.

Joining hands at the Thanksgiving table was touching as Sister Mare read from small print, a card that was tucked in our late Father's wallet, and fitting as we felt his love surround us. In addition, our new friend Jennifer (and family) who joined us, remembered her recently departed Mother. With Thanks, many heartfelt memories are tagged on to give the whole perspective of why we are grateful.

Once Upon A Time

2011-11-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

We live in a strange world. It is nothing like we imagined. It may start alright but eventually we learn of violence, corruption, fraud, hate, bullying, deceit, abuse, unspeakable hurt, abandonment, abject poverty and lonliness. Do you think maybe that is what spurs the Grimm fairytales? Again, its about innocence fighting the surprising controllers. Hmmm. Sounds like our world. Just to divert for a moment, television has become mostly our media ally as we contend with day to day struggles. Its in color! And on the big screen! Bigger than life! And is exhibiting our very thoughts, perhaps not even in mention but there. Oh Yeah! we muse. The reality show buffs have their day in the sun and the evening folks with a final sit down with feet up have their night among the stars. For me, it is the latter. I still remember my safest moments when I heard, Once Upon A Time. Every language has their storyline prefaced by this caption and all end with happiness ever after, or something similar. This new Fall show is a grabber and a keeper; a clever twist on fairytales that struggle to stay alive in a contemporary world. The flashbacks to the storyline we all remember is nicely aligned in synchronicity with the current storyline. You cannot help but see the correlation and the AH HAH that mirrors the writers soul intent creatively.

What have the critics to say?
San Francisco Chronicle dubs it "great fluffy fun".
Washington Post calls it "charming and elegant."
Chicago Sun Times finds it sparkly, but worried about the flipflop flashbacks. ( I find that rather stunning as it blends so well, a feat that is creative in scripting)
New York Times praises the actors. ( you will notice the mastership of veteran actors who have portrayed a very real character) A child who believes in the reality of the fairytale stories colliding with his present world is the pivotal character you will grow to love.

You will see Rumplestilksin as a daring and very bold embodiement by the deft Robert Carlyle who stars in Stargate Universe convincing us he is a sneaky bad guy, thus, expertly defines the role in this drama.

Snow White, the Evil Queen, Jiminy Cricket,Prince Charming, Gepetto, will dazzle you. The intertwining of each character that knows no timeline will surely move you into that world of our childhood and finish up your Sunday night wanting more. Missed the first show? Its available for free on the internet to watch.

Rock Around the Clock

2011-09-21T16:45:00.000-07:00

I want to say Ka-Ching but all that comes out of my mouth is Ker-plank. We sisters, Mother and Auntie traveled to the Church of Valley View where we donated to the slots. The pictures started out okay ( see Mom and Aunt Conny who is donning her neck brace, er, scarf) and then after the machines were well fed, we adjourned to food courts and infinity pools and lounge chairs. At least Cathy and I did, as we went into angst to have to part with our dollars. Cheap? no. Cautious and careful? yes. But we all know that a casino is no place to be a tightwad, especially when the machines are 1 cents. Now this was a revelation to me, since I was used to the Church of Vegas tithing at 25 cents and upward. I was estranged. The faithful parishioners were all on disability or Medicare prescriptions toting their appliances to help them stand upright so they could move from one station to another. After all, it is worthy of all to tithe in all places.

The drive down was a bit of comic relief and we laughed our way into Escondido. Laughed so hard that try as we might, we could not capture the audio on our smartphones for a chuckle recall. But as it goes, let me try to remember. One of the topics was the Foodie mentality and the Food network shows. My mother had us doubled over with her declaration that Giada who must wear a minus double zero dress size and who gobbles up rich and decadent desserts must have at least a staff member at her beckon call to hold the bucket so she can cough up the food. "Nooooooo!" my Mother screams, "she does not swallow!!" Then my Aunt in comedic rhythm chimes in, "Contessa swallows!! We died in howls of laughter. And that was how it went one after another topic.

The Casino resides in no where land, hidden in reservation canyons on a hill. Good thing they had the directions down pat because they visit regularly either by car or bus. Now this is worth mentioning. The retired community buses the seniors twice a day, morning with afternoon pickups and then are you ready for this? 3:30 am to pick up at 10:30 am! The graveyard run. Astounding.

Smoke inhalation is a first concern upon entrance to the casino. But then again, the very disabled and respiratory challenged are there with their cigs playing the Wheel of Fortune, awaiting their $12 profit. Cathy mentioned she had seen a woman carrying free chocolates to the high stakes area ( still smoke infested) and we will have to check that out next visit. The non-smoking section has all the sparkly cartoon machines with the asian, egyptian and wildlife flair. No one wins much there. You think 1 cent is a bargain but you forget you have to do 20 spins on 2 lines to make a dollar three eighty. ( don't ask)

We sisters enjoyed Rock Around the Clock, quite entertaining with all the bells and whistles and songs. But that distraction finally gave way to the reality that the machines, once loose, are now tight.

The Free Buffet was quite a show and offered every kind of food you could think up. Everyone gobbled like pigs at the trough and later needed tums. However, life at the slots is always better with a full stomach isn't it?

After we generously gave as much as we dare, Cathy and I slipped into the hotel next door for a respite from the clanging and dinging. Ahhhhh. An infinity pool and lounging and we were almost alone in thought with our potato chips. See pictures above. Then we got texted by the rest of the group and we joined them for some really serious smoke inhalation.

Warning! This is not for the fainthearted although it appears many are having body struggles. I have great compassion for the elderly but not when they push and shove and act rude. Maybe they have donators remorse.

The ride home was another hoot, in the dark at 10 pm and a shower and bed were waiting for me. Let's face it, family fun is always a lift of the heart muscle.

Family Birthday!

2011-09-04T15:55:00.001-07:00

Aunt Conny, my godmother, has just reached her 82nd birthday and I planned a ladies luncheon with the sisters and Mom to celebrate her. Aunt Conny is the vanguard of the family. She forged her way to California from the East Coast first, then we all followed, she forged her way to a 55+ community 12 minutes from my presnt home, and we saw Mom and Dad follow. Now a few more members are finding their way nearby.

All I could ever remember about Aunt Conny is her wit, her laugh-outloud-genuine humor, her serious flat out info, about anything, and her love of our family and living life to the fullest. She has bounce to her step and a solidarity about most things related. Her no-nonsense funny slant on life gives us all a belly laugh. And we did laugh all the way through that luncheon and worked off our sitting and crabbing with an old fashioned walk, greeting community residents. We left each other sweetly wrapped in one another's arms knowing full well, the next union will be just as fun.

The sisters pitched in hugely with a delightful menu:
Mimosas, olives, foie gras pate and crackers, fresh figs from Cathy's tree stuffed with blue cheese and drizzled with balsamic before a broil, vegetable and gourmet cheese crustless quiche, spinach salad with a raspberry vinagrette, panini's made with gouda. fontina, pickles and proscuitto, watermelon and mozzarella salad with tomatoes and herbs, and dessert? Aunt Conny brought her own strawberry shortcake!! HA! We had gourmet cookies made by a Ritz Carlton chef and Italian coffee. The inner child in us relished Aunt Conny's favorite pistachio nut ice cream.

The four hours went by fast but we sisters and brothers -in-laws had more in store. Glasses of amazing red wine and more left overs wasn't enough. We took in a late night cinema and finally said our goodbyes after midnight. I'd call that a 17 hour day filled with sweet memories.

Move to Laguna Niguel

2011-08-06T19:45:00.000-07:00

Strands Beach only a few minutes away!

Some would say "you should have your heads examined" with an unplanned move two hours south of your present home. The actual plan came out of the day of my Father's funeral when family looked at us and said you need to be down here with us. It didn't take an act of Congress to emotionally connect with that statement. Finances were thrown to the wind and we scurried around an almost impossible schedule to reach our immediate goals. But what were they?

We left our present office, found a sweet vintage refurbished one level building with vintage gates and shady trees in the heart of a simple Hispanic neighborhood, not far from our beloved office in the early nineties. Without the high rent. Impossibly cheap and saddled with a gem of an owner. This came not too suddenly but in Divine timing. We made it work and our patients complied with ease.

The next phase was short selling our home. What else could we do with everyone else on the block going in that direction? Many homes sat, but as God would have it, a perfect realtor who I found through mere intuition from looking at her picture and then finding a friend in this woman. She was the conduit for luring in a buyer in record time. We boxed, we stressed in between driving weekly to the south coast looking frantically for a residence. My sis connected us with her dear friend who is now, you guessed it, a dear friend. It did not come as quickly as we expected, four months of grueling searches preceded our find. The funny thing was that we looked at property all around the very spot we were to rest. We asked that God go before us and in that Divine Order it came upon us in such a generous way. Everything on our wish list was granted and we are endowed with a good relationship with the owner who is also a health professional.

We moved on July 6 2011 with a moving team sent to us straight from the highest heaven. Surely life will follow in a straight path from that day on! It took many weeks to unpack, even with the help of my sisters and family. Each day we ended it with a glass of wine, good food and a view unsurpassed of the ocean in the distance.

Our trade off for accepting this dreambag was traveling up to L.A. twice a month to maintain our patients schedules. Smiles and adjustments went hand in hand. Our patients were happily content and never missed appointments.

Phase four is now finding office space in our new neighborhood. More to comment on that.

We are back to gardening and soaking up some good sun and having a normal life, thank you God, with our family.

My Dad 1919-2011

2011-02-20T19:11:00.000-08:00

My first memory of Dad was when he took me to the Jersey Shore. I might have been barely a full grown toddler and most afraid of the massive pull of the tide. Dad held my hand tightly and walked me gingerly into the ocean. My fear was profound but his hand was my anchor. He told me not to be afraid for he would always be with me. I carried that trust even as I placed a rose on his casket this week. I am confident he will be in touch with my spirit and receive me home when my hour arrives.

I've written about Dad before in my blog but now wish to add a few more thoughts. He was graced by my Mother who gave stewardship to him in a good way for Dad was always most appreciative and taught us kids to be so for our Mother. When the appointed time drew near, he slipped away in her arms and my two sisters arms, governing angels that they were. Each of us felt the prick of his absence, his final wave goodbye and will show tribute in the days and years to come, in the many ways he left his mark.

It is written, there is no immunity from life's sorrows and in attempting to protect ourselves from pain by simply closing a little to life cannot save us. Often we are afraid that if we touch our pain we will be swallowed up by it and deem us dysfunctional. If we become so overwhelmed with grief, all the good in our life will be inaccessible to us. When pain is large we feel we cannot expand enough to hold it all. Yet when we are with pain we somehow can retrieve parts of ourselves and are able to once again love those parts.

Wisdom is often born, they say, in the shadows and more is visible in darkness than in light. Oddly, sorrow and joy do not cast shadows because they provide the steady glare of illumination. Wisdom stretches us beyond where we even thought we could go to tell ourselves the truth. Wisdom asks us to choose life, and to experience it fully.

My father, being poignantly honest, lived each experience of life fully. Challenges were welcomed, brainstorming was commonplace. He golfed, sat on bleachers, drove miles and miles to work with a team of salespersons leading them to embrace the best they could offer, he had a memory for numbers, events, history. His penchant was reading inspiring works, praying dutifully, eating wonderful food passionately. His wisdom came from struggling years as a child having very little, to fighting in a world war to understanding the complexity of humanity. He was a teacher without a degree, a Godly force without a clergyman's collar, a coach without a team. With every hat he wore he lead by that example. That wisdom I continue to carry. He also allowed himself to love well and for 92 years while being fully present, because he knew that doing so gave back to the essential Sacred Mystery of God that sustains all life.

If I could sum up what he left as his legacy was to never devalue those things we treasure and see and touch the Divine in everything and in each other. And to hold a heart full of peace.

Ciao Daddy.
Til we meet again . . .

Merry Christmas Family!

2010-12-26T21:19:00.000-08:00

Its been a wild ride this year. Family members surgeries, re-arranging attendance to help our ailing Father to us siblings and Grandfather to our own children, a hot simmering summer and now cold, rainy winter, lots of air travel for some, championship sports events for our kids in soccer, baseball, gymnastics, pinching more pennies than we are all used to and finding the precious time we all need with family.

This Christmas we invaded our parents home with food, wine and laughter. It was challenging and it cramped our styles but our Father wanted his children and grandchildren near him.

The rain fell in sheets and we scurried with umbrellas and packages, stuffed with prime rib and cornish hens and lots of sides. We are used to the imbibing and gluttony but how much can a stomach take? We exchange gifts as a game and laughed until our sides split. Some were left with gifts that couldn't be given away!

Grandchildren took the time to personalize their visits with Grand Dad. Although frail, he kept the love.

Manipulation of the Human Psyche

2010-10-31T13:53:00.000-07:00

There are those who speak out and matter and those who remain in safe silence. Here is an excerpt of Alan Watt's book Cutting through the Matrix. His words are thoughtful, researched, real in live time, full of historical remembrance, inspiring and filled with a truth, few, unfortunately dare venture to think about. He is a vanguard that has chosen to stimulate the human element to make adjustments in thinking, belief and action.

Cutting Through Book 2 by Alan Watt A Glimpse Into the Great Work SAMPLE PAGE FROM BOOK As a preface to understanding, I think it necessary to go through the standard phases of “waking up."

1. An Individual vaguely perceives something is wrong in his/her life. This takes the form of fatigue at trying to "keep up" with real or imaginary crisis, encroachment of government into every aspect of life, increasing taxationand so on. Sometimes it takes the loss of work and the realization that the safety net they contributed to has a gaping hole in the middle.

2. The individual discovers that justice is a joke and that all control mechanisms go up like a pyramid, taking their property, taxes etc. with it. This wealth then is distributed to "help bail-out" or "prop-up" "failing" transnational corporations. Left-overs are channeled via Overseas Developement Corporations to "developing nations," where the loot is pocketed by front-men and their beaurocrats. Crumbs filter down to social services, which, after being guzzled by directors and staff, leave little for the needy except bundles of forms, in triplicate, of course.

3. The individual looks around for others already exposing "the conspiracy." These established champions inform him which "conspiracy" books to read. Having then done so, the individual begins to "expose" the corruption, first to friends, then when friendless, he either publishes what he has gleaned or becomes paranoid and withdraws from society altogether. Why does the waking-up process fail to spread quickly through society? 1. He is terribly naive. He believes the massive corruption "just happened" to begin in his own lifetime, otherwise mummy or daddy or teacher would have warned him. It does not occur to him that his Parents, teachers etc. were as conditioned as he was. 2. Most people do not wish to know. They, like farm animals, have been domesticated. Wild animals (original) have natural instincts of self-preservation. They sense the evil intentions of predators and they survive by trusting their instincts. Wild herds do not "hang around" when one or more members drops dead. Specially bred sheep do. 3. Pavlovian conditioning/response indoctrination has been fed to every individual, through schooling. The media then takes over. Peoples’ opinions are simply sound-bites from news, talk-shows or quotes from glossy magazines.

4. Trust replaces the instinct of self-preservation. It over-rides memory and logic. Controllers and shepherds encourage trust. 5. When threatened with loss of possessions, property, access to health care, etc., people turn to government(predators) for help, or/and organized religion. Should an individual persist in pushing for his "rights," he will be removed from society and placed in a psychiatric hospital or prison on any number of pretexes. The alternative is death by "accident," or shot by police while 'resisting arrest.' © 2007 Alan Watt

Family Night Out

2010-10-03T15:30:00.000-07:00

Reservations were made by my sister Cathy and brother-in-law Mike who sat at the bar waiting while we were still navigating around a massive (new) parking structure at Irvine Spectrum trying to find a parking space on a Saturday night. My other sister Mary Ellen was somewhere far behind us. It had been a long while down memory lane when we first walked this spectacular outdoor mall in Orange County. Built by the Donald Bren Irvine Company ( a most respected and diversified private Real Estate company) with 1.15 million sf of building space, 130 stores and a 6400 seat theater with 21 screens, scores of restaurants, fountains, 350 palm trees and 500,000 ceramic tiles ( not to be persnickety) it wowed my attention for sure. The walkathon throughout is sure to burn a few calories but it is as pleasant as the county fair type food that graces the mall and lures you in. I'm talking coney island kabobs,tacos, pizza, pretzels, subs, funnel cakes ( see pics), yogurt, sushi, candy ( oh! the chocolate covered nutty caramel apples!),fudge, ice cream, crepes. The restaurants rate as some of my favorites . . .the kind you keep on your bookmark list like Cheesecake Factory and P.F. Changs.

There was some serious electric guitar playing mid courtyard and a 108 foot Lighted Giant Ferris Wheel handcrafted in Italy. My son tried to get on but alas, the gate closed at the late hour.

The family met at Javiers Mexican Grill which put every Mexican restaurant I have ever been to in my life, to shame. This was a serious eating and drinking hole. The tables were slammed with food, wall to wall people ( you walk sideways practically) and an army of servers who have grace and aplomb amid the screaming happy campers. We were navigated into a darkened back room lit with candles, a fake tree with flickering lights and a zen like fountain wall slick with water. The ambience was top notch. The menu extravagant. The salsa biting hot. Most of us ordered the lobster enchiladas and honestly, the beans were to die for. I don't remember refried beans like that since Mama Cita in Mexico when we lived in Guadalajara as young stupid students. Wow! Drinks? Margaritas without any allergic response. Just a wonderful show of food.

After sampling desserts along the courtyard, ( sharing means you get a bite or two) we realized the time got away from us. It was 11 pm and we tried to find a bathroom. Wound up in Dave and Busters and a new world opened up to us. Dave and Busters is one of those honky tonk establishments of eat,drink,play. The menu ( no we did not eat again) carried soft pretzel bits with spicy horseradish mustard or honey sweet mustard and cheddar cheese sauce. Flatbread pizzas, buffalo wings, potato skins, philly steak rolls, chips with the quac, spinach dips, edamame, burgers, quesadillas; the usual fare for people who get hungry playing video games. We walked through in order to find the restrooms and lo and behold, the sing song sounds sang to us like a casino melody. My sister bought a $20 power card and began to game. We tried skeet ball and wheel of fortune that brings on winning tickets you turn in for cool toys and high tech gadgets. The clock was ticking and we were tired but come on. This idea of fun out of the brainy agenda of Buster-- who ran a watering hole in 1982 next door to Dave who ran a fun and games facility for big people and combined their efforts friends that they became turned this enterprise into a monstrosity of fun all over the country ( Look for one near you). Definitely on my own agenda for a return visit.

Stelligs Michael

2010-09-07T23:14:00.000-07:00

I have always had a yen for the mysterious and unexplained, a riddle without an answer or why humankind would build underground cities and where are they? ( another post another day) or what lies in them thar ancient hills?

I found a story that piqued my interest and left me still scratching my head in wonder. It is Skelligs Michael, an island thirteen miles from Ballinskelligs Bay off the coast of Ireland. Because of its fragmented history and its remoteness, many pilgrimages have sought this enigmatic site. They call it sacred but no one really knows why.

You can liken it to the Anuhazi sites in America, an abandoned community. High (714 feet)on this island, a terrifying steepness by average standards, has now the acute attention of the gov't of Eire and has forbidden tourists to scale the 600-700 and something steps ( who's counting?)--steps made out of slate, without guardrails. Even though there have been fatalities in the climb, and who knows how many unrecorded deaths, monks built the staircase to their heaven with their bare hands. A monastic settlement was founded around the jagged peaks of stone and slate by St. Fionan, the Kerry Saint, in the 6th Century ( 1,450 yrs ago) where monks worked and prayed and chanted possibly, overlooking a magnificent panorama. Their only visitors were the gannets; the largest colony of seabirds in the world it is said. At the top are beehives made of slate, their residences with openings at the top to let in the light of day or perhaps to let out the steam and smoke of a fire? The architecture reminds me of a Native American hut/tee pee. Oddly, the rock huts appear round on the outside but inside it is rectangular so the sleeping platforms can be built into the walls. The monks used terraces outside to grow vegetables and caught fish from the ocean below. Birds eggs were the main food supply.

There is a legend that St. Patrick waged a final battle there, fighting the devils and venomous snakes that plagued Ireland. I am one not to believe in myths, give me the cold, hard facts. But who knows what war was contended good vs evil? Many believe it is the site of Ulta Ur Lohas, a piece of Old Atlantis, still standing.

The monks left in the 13th Century and settled on the mainland. However, historically, Vikings had invaded Skelligs several times, bringing their unholy energy but for what purpose? Nothing of wealth resides there or could have resided there but love and peace. That love must have taken hold in the tundra; the very craggy rocks because that peace exudes even to those who cruise by in choppy waters and look up. Even the wind must have a faint brogue. Or at least a hint of Celtic song.

Synchronicity

2010-09-05T23:00:00.000-07:00

Carl Jung coined syncronicity as apparently meaningful coincidence in time of two or more similar or identical events that are causally unrelated. I prefer to go with Oprah's mantra that opportunity meets preparation. Preparation you say? Well sure. Since I believe we are not just flesh and bone, our spirits work feverishly at a higher clip of frequency moving all the chesspieces around while we are thinking, gee this was a surprising turn of events!

One day, we all should sit down with a piece of paper and list all the synchronous events that have "surprised us" in our life. Good, bad or indifferent. Yet, I beg to wonder if anything in life is indifferent. Ok I will start.

About three years ago, my husband and I attended a boring mandated seminar in the town of Santa Ana. The last day we were itching for something elevating and ventured down the road toward the beach. Without a map or a real destination I thought of an outside mall, famous for their restaurants one block from the ocean. "Fashion Island!" I said. So off we went, following signs and to our astonishment, not getting lost. Newport was fascinating for me only because I hardly ever went near there. We pull in and I see this large sign over a restaurant "Roy's". Roy's with its scrumptious Hawaiian food. We park and stroll over only to find out that the wait is hours long. When we left, another restaurant caught our eye. "Blue Coral!" I shout. I had remembered once that my brother-in-law Mike raved about it. We entered this softly lit inviting lounge and were told there would be a wait or we could have our dinner in the lounge. Fine by me. We sit down and my husband uses the restroom as I peruse the menu. When he returned to our table he said, Stand up and look that way. Syncronicity glowed ten feet away shielded by a partition. Sitting at a round table was my Mother, Father, Sister, Brother-in-law and niece and nephews. The screaming stopped when the waiters brought extra chairs over.

That was a far fetched but very true example of how our minds work in choreographing syncronicity. There was no way I was in touch with or knew of this orchestration. Well, I believe God works through people and that workmanship has much to do with physics and sparking points so we can expand our experiences. The spirit within that guides our actions even to the most impossible angle or manuever needs a standing ovation. No luck. No miracle. No collision course. This is the meat of our intuition, trained and honed yet so many of us refuse to acknowledge its perfection.

Have you started that list yet?

A Movie About Dreams

2010-07-25T17:16:00.000-07:00

For anyone who has not seen INCEPTION, I will be mentioning SPOILERS so watch the movie before you read what I have written. Above is the trailer and following is the brilliant soundtrack by composer Hans Zimmer who played it with orchestration at the premiere.

I purposely wanted to know what the world felt about this movie because the global perception is important to me to find out if people really cared about their dreams. The high majority of the people loved the film because it made them THINK. Not a popcorn muncher but a film that bewilders, befuddles and messes with your mind. It has been called a spy flick, a heist flick, an action flick, a sci fi flick, a riddle that is wrapped inside an enigma.

Christopher Nolan is notorious for thought provoking flims, i.e. Memento -where the protagonist suffers short term memory but then the film begins to fragment and is shown in reverse chronological order going from black to white and back to color. By the end of the film, some say, the protag doesn't know who to trust nor does the viewer. I saw that film many years back. Nolan also did Dark Knight ( Heath Ledgers last film noir)but I did not care to indulge. He also directed Batman Begins which drew my attention. More recently, The Prestige, which was a period piece involving magicians. I very much liked that movie. However, one common denominator of his films that is critiqued by many says: "they have no heart." The idea for the film was actually once presented in a 1969 James Bond flick called On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Nolan pitched his initial idea some ten years ago.

There are plenty of films that mess with your mind. I can think of Blade Runner
(1981) directed by Ridley Scott ( Terminator, Aliens)based on a book called DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? with Harrison Ford who we all love. He played a detective set in the future, who hunts down and retires advanced androids called replicants. A big question was asked of all who saw it. What does it really mean to be human? Was Harrison Ford a robot or not? The films ending, by the way, was changed and even seven versions of the film have been shown. People say you have to see it at least five times to assimilate all the information.

Lets not forget, The Game, with Michael Douglas. That blew me away.

Inception with a budget of $160 million and filmed in six countries has everyone racing to see it because of its technical CGI wonder and dream perceptions. I have come to believe that most people innately want to know more of that whether they remember dreams or not. It presents the veil that seems impenetrable.

Synopsis:
The Thief of dreams Dom Cobb ( Leonardo Di Caprio) is hired by the powerful Japanese mogul Saito ( Ken Watanabe) to hack into the mind, using chemical biotechnology of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), the heir to a rival business, to implant an idea. The idea is to convince Fischer that he should dissolve his dying fathers empire.

Mal, who was Cobbs dead wife, the femme fatale(Marion Cotillard) becomes the constant phantom haunting of Cobb's subconscious and unconscious mind and she appears, it seems, when Cobb is most distressed. We note she is not always there on screen and not in everyone's dreams such as when the van is attacked or the hotel fight with Arthur. She is evidently only in Cobbs mind.

Cobb assembles his team for the dreamscape: a female student called Ariadne ( Ellen Page) who his father Miles ( Michael Caine) suggests. Ariadne's job is to design the dream operations of the journey. She is young, granted, maybe too young for this film but the contrast is refreshing. She is the supergenius. Some film critics say she was miscasted but I am not too sure about that. She has this stoic, non-emotional voice and look about her that is really her personality. You see it even in her interviews off screen. And remember, 'no heart movie' from Nolan. No elicited emotion. At one point, the viewer sees Cobb and Ariadne wandering about in their dream while Paris is folding in on itself and giant mirrors opens in the middle of busy streets. My impression was perhaps the Director was a trying to make a point that architecture is whatever you want it to be and that there are no rules in a dream?

During the film, Ariadne questions Cobb as to his intentions, his fears, his covertness, his psychology of behavior. She even shows herself to be the voice of reason.

Cobbs point man, Arthur ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt) does the background checks. The Chemist ( Dileep Rao) concocts sleepytime potions that are basically illegal pulling the dreamer down 4 notches. Then we have the danger of limbo and never getting back issue. The Forger Eames (Tom Hardy) impersonates other people inside Robert Fischers dreams. You gotta be on your toes for that guy. Interesting slant. Strong actors like Michael Caine and Tom Berenger had bit parts that seemed plastic in contrast to the storyline. I would have wished for more engagement from them.

Christopher Nolan not only directed but wrote the screenplay. One critic said Inception islike a matryoshka, a Russian nested doll in its layers of perception and dreams. (I will have to research that metaphor)

Viewers of the film wanted to know why the top of the mountain scene with the white snow suits because both bad guys and good guys wore the same suits. To confuse us? Or was it some hidden metaphorical symbol? Many critics felt this scene was pointless with alot of nonsense machine gun fire. I had heard that Leo Di Caprio said it was a very difficult scene as they were breathless at the high altitude with long takes.

Piece de resistance: the scene with Arthur in the hotel floating and the walls slanting was a technological wonder. I read that two cameras and two screens had to be used in a massive Cardington soundstage in England. A 100 foot hallway that could rotate like a log up to eight times per minute; and a duplicate hallway standing vertically on its end so that Arthur could hang down inside it to appear weightless was implemented. Also they took a hotel room and rotated that at 360 degrees. As far as the one scene where Arthur stacks up his co-stars in zero gravity and floats them into an elevator, well I have nothing to say about that because the Cinematographer said that trick is secret.

What the film ultimately says is that dreams can be overtaken by others and in turn our subconscious brains can be trained to defend against outside dream attacks. This is worth exploring. How true or not? Do we have an innate defense system in place to protect us in our dream state?

Poison on our Shores

2010-07-03T16:38:00.000-07:00

Long before this oil spill became bigger than big news, I mouthed the words, "they hit a volcano". I never dreamed they would use that term countless times hence. My mind wandered to the vision of sub-seabed oil that may be necessary to lubricate the tectonic plates now gushing into our oceans. Mother Earth had been egregiously violated.

We have all watched the horror growing; the crude oil spewing like vomit onto our beaches, onto our babies bodies who frolick in the sea then scream "get it off me!", onto our sea creatures, confused and dazed while petroleum which can penetrate the cells of any living organism toxifies and kills. We have shaken our heads in disbelief that such a dangerous element could be allowed in the first place, as if we let our children play with fire hoping they wouldn't get burned. We shout out at rallies and the government officials. We play the videos and shoot it to everyone on our email list. We hear from our loved ones in the Gulf states who do not fudge on the truth. We look at the tar balls on the beaches once swarming with eager tourists. We study the oceanographer reports, the marine biologists, the experts who are telling a different story or a more expansive story. We hear the cry of many who think this was no accident. We want to trust but thats out the window. Then we are left with a solemn thought.

That pinprick thought sears through our hearts and minds imploding like grenades where our most private emotions reside. We ask the questions we dare not want to know the answers of.

Can this one unspeakable event change the world as we know it?

Can the possibility of a seabed collapse, a tsunami, a tectonic shift affecting the most coveted and talked about Madrid fault, a horrendous spread of disease from toxic oil rain, hurricane sweep take out millions of people who live in that part of the country and what then?

Even the optimists are pissed off and open mouthed about the consequences. This is not going away. This cannot be resolved in our lifetime. Coral reefs are affected that are millions of years old. Viable Plankton is gone -- the major sustenance for all sea creatures. The spread is finding its way to the Caribbean and beyond.

In addition, we have covertness, irresponsibility and mismanagement at the helm. We have our first Amendment rights severed at the Gulf so we have to depend on the few who know and will post. And we don't even have a State of Emergency Announced. Our fishing trade is gone. Our tradespeople have lost their jobs, perhaps their homes. Our workers in the Gulf on the cleanup are sick and hospitalized. Our children are having chemical reactions systemically.

Is this the beginning of the end of our country as we know it?

No Happy Ending

2010-06-10T15:04:00.000-07:00

Most of us need a happy ending or at least a resolution to a problem that allows us a choice in the matter. However, this film did not give us either.

The verve that Viggo Mortensen embodied as the Father of his son ( Kodi Smit McPhee) during a post-apocalyptic end-of-the-world destruction was un-namable but I will try. It asks you what moral and iron-clad grit comes out of losing his wife (Charlize Theron)and facing the wilds of man on a walk to somewhere, anywhere during a nuclear winter. The words heard as the Father narrates the perfect descriptives of Pulitzer Prize winning Cormac McCarthy's novel THE ROAD begins to break your heart before much is begun. "If only my heart were stone."

There is no gameness, no strategy, only a dauntless spirit to find food and shelter and a safe haven from those without conscience, who will dip into a place of abyss where no man wants to tread. You may ask, Where is the aliveness? Where is the purpose? Why write a book or film a movie about the destitution of war and its aftermath; an extinction of humanity?

Maybe you have to read the book first and let the author's words wash over you, poking into corners of the core of your being. "He knew only that the child was his warrant. He said, If he is not the word of God, God never spoke." He told the child, "I will not send you into the darkness alone."

So they walked the road along the same road that carried the vagrants, the thieves, the unconscious takers of life, the manic and the forlorn. The child said, "We're carrying the fire because we are the good guys."

The story brings to mind another book written by Octavia Butler before her untimely death, a woman of substance who wrote of the child who walked a road out of post destruction in the undetermined future, called PARABLE OF THE SOWER. Her faith and her diligence to bring a piece of God to her torturous journey and share with her road travelers was extraordinary.

In THE ROAD I was weary as the characters were, compassionate to the highest power and filled with war torn emotion that such a thing could be imagined; that man vs man could come to that nexus point. I settled for the one true message. That this portrayed the bare bones of what humankind feels with survival. How far does one go to survive? You watch those slip into an instinctual grasp for life without a glimmer of hope or renewal. In that survival few things were important: food, shelter, staying alive without armor, struggling with the innate need to be even-spirited in encounters with others, fighting against and weighing the balance of humanitarianism, feeling the importance of closeness and the expression of love, facing the hateful idea of suicide with a half-closed heart, accepting death and aloneness, letting grief fill all the empty spaces when memory floods.

These are the bare bones of our essence and for nothing else, this film forces the hand of looking at the inevitability of such a scourge.

Lotsa Gardening

2010-05-30T12:38:00.000-07:00

May 2010. Cold. Windy. Already lost one box of strawberries and bell peppers. Larry was out in the garden, we figured, at least 14 days solid, all day into the sunset pulling knarly weeds, choking mint and rosemary plants and planting a lovely creamy David Austin Ambridge Rose, a climbing Joseph's Coat and flowers that will spread nicely. How many trips to the mega store for more soil and organic fertilizer? Too many to count. Never mind the broken down gloves ripped from thorny bushes.

We added more clay pots to our already eleven Earthboxes filled with vegies and tomatoes and honest to God, those vegies in the clay pots are thriving with zucchini already. We came upon a very natural spray from http://www.spray-n-growgardening.com and ordered what was necessary to reboot the garden. It is already working big time after one week of spray. We plan to do an every 2 week spray during the blooming season.

It isn't over yet. Purple and pink salvia await a planting. I need a bird bath because the birds are bathing in a old Italian bowl I left on the ground. I need an umbrella for the patio table because the winds have ripped huge holes in it over 9 yrs. If you look too hard or too far, there is always something you have to fix or replace.

Hmmmm. I wonder if Mango trees would grow up here in the Sahara?

A Rock and Roll Easter Sunday

2010-04-18T15:56:00.000-07:00

A wild and wooley Easter rocked the big house in Laguna Niguel taking the shake from the surprising Baja Earthquake. We thought it was the second round of French 75's cocktails that made us feel like we were a canoe on the open sea. But then the big pool swooshing water overboard. Uh Huh. I watched my sister's eyes get big as we held onto the kitchen island. Did we time it? No, but it felt like a minute of rolling. After that, we went for a third round.

Our 91 year old Dad and 83 year old Mom took the rolling in stride. After all, how many earthquakes have they been through?

The big BBQ was a success and sisters and nieces, nephews and uncles joined in the fun of a beautiful blue sky, an unsettling earthquake and enough food to choke a horse.

Garden Is In

2010-04-18T15:39:00.000-07:00

Spring has sprung and soil has been flung. Larry had the bright idea of removing various overgrown lavendars and geraniums and rose bushes that struggled against odds. Once the ground lay bare, trips to the various and sundry nurseries ( count 5)revealed a plan. But what to plant that would withstand the morning sun and the evening shade? Henry Fonda yellow rose tree won the first round followed by our first try at two azaleas. Some Zion daisies filled in along with verbena. I have no idea what else Larry planted. A variegated leafed something with some hopeful flowers blooming. Alot of wood chips and dirty jeans ended that project.

In the backyard for two weekends in a row in between unexpected showers, we planted eleven Earthboxes with pickling cucs, Japanese cucs, zucchini in pots as well, lots and lots of tomatoes, strawberries ( a first - well we'll see with our bird friends), lots of multi colored bell peppers. We had some clay pots around and we filled it with gigante jalapeno plants, green bunching onions, basil, and herbs.

Now the wait until mid June to July . . . .

An Out of this World Black Bean Soup

2010-04-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

I have an aversion to bean soups. Or rather they have an aversion to me. I love the taste, but I suffer with digestive aftermath. So I set out to figure a soup that would change the course of those events. People that know me say I modify or "doctor up" every recipe I find. In this case, I took about 5 different variations and made them my own. Trust me, the taste is so heavenly and you won't regret it.

BLACK TURTLE BEAN SOUP

1. 1 Bag of Aromatica Organic Black Turtle Beans ( dry )emptied and soaked overnite in cold water 6-9 hours.
2. Drain the old water and rinse a few times.
3. Pour beans in a big pot with fresh cold water- cover beans. I use a large enameled cast iron pot.
4. Bring to boil- won't take long and then drain again.
5. Pour boiled beans in a bowl and set aside.
6. Olive oil and 1 Tbs. butter in cast iron pot heated up.
7. Saute' 2 cloves of garlic whole, 1 chopped onion,1 finely chopped raw carrot, 4 chopped stalks of celery, 3 dried red chili's, 1 sweet red bell pepper chopped, 1 chopped fresh jalapeno seeds removed, 1 chipotle chili, a healthy dash of ancho powder(achiote), lemon zest and orange zest and juice of 1/4 orange, herbs of choice: I used oregano, basil, coriander, parsely, cilantro, fennel seeds and mustard seeds( found in the East Indian store), about 3/4-1 cup of frozen organic corn. Let all that sweat while sauteeing. If you like cumin, which I don't, go for it.
8. Add 6 cups of water. I added about a cup of homemade chick broth I had as well.
9. Add beans and bring to boil. Make sure water covers beans.
10. Skim off any foam that builds from the boiling. I didn't have much.
11. Now reduce to a simmer, cover the pot and time it. You will be cooking it with occasional stirs for about 2-3 hours.
12. Last 30 min: add 2 Tbs. sherry, 1 Tbs. brown sugar ( optional), juice of one lemon, and if you have handy, some leftover chopped ham. I only used about 1/2 cup.

NOTICE I DID NOT SALT WHICH HARDENS THE BEANS.

I added salt at the end for taste. And I actually simmered it for 4 hours just to make sure the beans were thoroughly cooked down.

Last measure: puree with the hand blender, pour into bowls with a spring of cilantro and a dollop of sour cream if you are not dairy sensitive.

Serve with heated up Trader Joes Spelt rolls ( in freezer) if you are not spelt sensitive. A salad and you are good to go.

A soup to remember.

Our World, Our Universe

2010-03-30T12:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we have to stop and be in awe of what is greater than our flesh and bones, our things, our little life.

The magnificence of what is encased within our biology, our quantum mind and our consciousness grows into a vastness we cannot comprehend in the here and now. What went before us, will come behind us and what exists in the present that opens the door to all change makes us wonder about what the award winning novelist Octavia E. Butler said in her book of hope and faith in a post apocalyptic world " Parable of the Sower", that God is Change.

So how could any of us stay the same, think the same ol', when change surrounds us every living moment? Change allows us to re-invent ourselves, to experience so we can grow in different dimensions, to see with new eyes and hear with new ears.

Family Unites at Dodger Stadium

2010-03-02T19:03:00.000-08:00

I've never been to Dodger Stadium. What kind of LA girl am I? There are a few places in this mighty town I have yet to visit. When my sister told me that our nephew, Marc, a junior at UCLA on the varsity baseball team was going to bat against USC in the Dodger Stadium this weekend, the first of the Dodgertown Classic, ever, I downloaded directions and took the whirlybird ride up Stadium Way. There is a synchronous electric feel to the air and sure enough, my sister and family drove up from Orange County right behind us at Parking Lot ball #3.

Okay I felt a little out of place not wearing the UCLA flag across my chest and behind but blue has never been my favorite color anyway. I was there for the screaming excitement watching my nephews team beat the ass off USC.

And they did. In front of 14,448 enthusiasts blanketing the left and right field pavilions.

Oddly my brother-in-law led the parade toward foul ball territory right behind the alumni tubas and beating drums. Not to mention the guy eating nonstop candy and yelling out the names of the players coupled with a mix of the appropriate insults and way-to-go's through the UCLA megaphone every few minutes. We cheered. We screamed til our throats went raw.

Then the foul balls came at us, as predicted by our Brother Phil who spent time on the field in the old days with the Philadelphia Phillies minors. Sure enough. My sister Cathy covered my head and saved my life. Brother-in-law Mike caught the ball and let it fall into a neighbors lap.

We watched our nephew Marc steal bases and reveled in the glory of a 6-1 Victory over the Trojans. Did we eat a Dodger Dog? No. The line would have lasted two innings and the line was slow so we saved our appetites for a dinner afterwards.

What was grand was the company kept and the joy shared and the big hugs and knuckle slaps. We gathered for our boy Marc and the long hard work of his team mates. And of course, a Dodger first for me. Happily, my husband remembered his one time visit to the center field pavilion. At ten years old,(53 years ago) he and his Dad saw a game and he caught a home run ball. Without his glove!

We Are Made of Star Stuff

2010-02-21T19:41:00.000-08:00

For a while now I have been reading international forums, out of curiosity. I wanted to know what people are saying, feeling, knowing about their placement in this world, in this Universe. My search has been provocative, bringing me to heights of interest and wonder. Across the world people are thinking as I do, asking the same questions and then we share and each of us picks up a piece of the atomic energy that floats ineluctably across the miles of space that has our collective signature upon it. I ask a man in Uruguay or a women in Sweden, or a young man in the backwoods of Canada what thrills them about this knowing and what is the catalyst for their quests. We debate, we justify, we link up our resources, we try not to generalize. So the search is not disengenuious. There is a clear cut motive why people want to know why it is that they keep searching for higher answers as to their existence.

Some cite their belief in God, a force, a consciousness that pervades the Soul Matrix. Some want to know why we have been thrust into a world that is comprised of so much evil and dark energy. Some use science or metascience or cycles of the ancient past to qualify their hints of understanding. A book, some research, a notion, a crop circle, a newly discovered document that may give a clue.

A woman in New Zealand fights for the rights of health and argues justifiably against the constraints of covert corporate chains. We all want to know why. After all, we were endowed with enough DNA to ask these questions that plague us throughout the histories of this planet. The common thread is why haven't we advanced technologically and intellectually and spiritually? What is holding us back that steeps us in the mire of depression and poverty consciousness? Are we not children of God filled with the Primal Light of the heavens?

My experiences in cyberspace are selective. I might find a forum that accepts all ways of thinking so I have to dig through the garbage dump to find the gold. But its there. There are questioning and answering minds that hover and wait for the connection. An hour or two to explore. To share what miniscule wisdom I can impart as I dodge the snarky prickly ones who lie in wait to use their unconvincing arguments as their intoxicant for the hour. It has taught me to be bold but also to be nonjudgmental and considerate. We all are feeling our way with blindfolds on.

Home Repairs

2010-01-30T22:02:00.000-08:00

How many of us have had to DIY when something in the house broke down? Uh, none of you? Some of you? Is it easier to call the maintenance guy? But all those bucks!

No one is going to believe this but its true. In the last 30 days we experienced an electrical break down of things we never would dream would disappoint. Let me detail. The two weeks before Christmas our 2007 Refrigerator still on warranty just started whining this wail that kept us up at night. Then the temperature wouldn't hold and we knew -- some part was not doing its job. We called the place that we had purchased it, waited half a week until the maintenance guy came out to check. "Yep, it needs a part I don't have and need to order. It may take weeks." This wasn't happening. Christmas was upon us. I needed to shop and store food. I sent my husband to the appliance dept in that store and said, "buy a new frig. We'll store this one or sell it but we have no choice." So he went and found a deal, same frig only better lighting. It arrived a week later. I had to hold off buying food until the eleventh hour. Ask me if I was in a mood. Three weeks later they found the part needed and fixed the old frig which now takes up room in the garage along with my old washer and dryer, "just in case my son moves out."

Next on the long list was the disc player in our just paid off SUV. Worse yet, I could not un-jam it or pull out the old discs. Everything is electrical and computerized and I was told not to play with it. It was a goner and until we could get it fixed, it would sit. We do not get much in the way of AM/FM up here in the canyons and high desert so I sing in the car now.

Following the disc player was the nine year old garbage disposal. For years I had been so careful not to plug it with celery, onion skins, egg shells or coffee grounds but that wasn't good enough. We went to Sears and knew there would be a cost for the item which was pleasantly on sale plus another hundred to call a maintenance guy. The nice man in Sears said, "why call him? I put in my own garbage disposal and I just followed the instructions. Save your money." So that is exactly what we did. But while my husband was under the sink, he found another problem. A leaking water filter, also nine years old. As they say, the number nine represents completion of a cycle. So, that will be the next step while I step over the wet rugs that lie over the laundry baskets to air out and the crates of cleaning junk.

Moving right along I should mention another nine year old problem. Replacing the stove grates that cleaning does not do it justice anymore. Just thought I would add that to the list while we are at it.

The flusher on the toilet was not doing well. To push it down sounded like a plane landing on the tarmac so we lifted the hood on the darn thing and rearranged a few things. You can always gizmo a rod or a spring. It works now but no, plumbing is not on our DIY list.

Two nights ago, we had settled comfortably into our living room after a knarly day at work, to watch some of our TIVO'd programs. We heard a crash and a loud grating sound that knocked our eardrums crazy. The picture faded on our five year old 52 inch wide screen and then a sound likened to a lawnmover that was chewing up a piece of wood followed. My husband started pushing buttons but the sound persisted until we unplugged the TV. My spouse is very devoted to a cause and that cause carried him into the middle of the night exploring and surfing the internet on parts. But what he did find was a company that gives free advice and then offers parts shipped. The diagnosis was made over the phone and parts ordered much cheaper than if another, you guessed it, maintenance guy came out to check and repair. We watched a few back episodes on the computer but reading took the place of TV-itis.

I didn't mention the dryer. It had backed up with soot and what not and we spent an hour vacuuming THAT out. And during the escapades of repair, we were visited by communities of ants during the rainy season.

I think we are beginning to accept the fact we are not cursed and life can be easy and smooth again. The stressload of one thing after another was over. We think. What we learned was hand wringing is unnecessary and that DIY is the way to go if you have the bravado to do so.

Don't Watch or Read The News!

2010-01-09T19:39:00.000-08:00

We stopped the paper two years ago after I couldn't stop sneezing from the newspaper ink. But that wasn't the reason. I found myself starting the day with doom and gloom. Our breakfast time, a holy beginning should not be poisoned with that preposterous hoopdedoodle. As expected I got the daily phone calls from the Times and humble offerings I should not be able to refuse just to start up again. Two years later I found a letter from them in my mailbox that knocked down my prior $44.00 monthly payment to $6.00 a month. I think that is the bottom line desperado ploy of a dying institution.

Yesterday a true blue 79 year old patient I've known for almost 30 years came into the office and told me that over the holiday season he especially had to battle against negativity in the news and all around, as he put it. This is a man who prefers a good inspirational book.

The complexity of how we are mind controlled into thinking that news is good, after all, we need to know what is happening in the world just stinks to the highest heaven. To be bombarded by what we are not, what does not serve us and what creates havoc in our purest hour is the challenge we face and must combat. If we do not, our ungrateful bodies mental, emotional and physical will tell us the consequences of that unforgivable sin.

If the rhetoric on the news makes us nod so hard our neck snaps we get into the compliancy of yeah! If the news forces its hand and makes us sick of hearing the same gawdawful broken record we get irritable. What is the percentage of good news being broadcasted? We hold in reverence the loud boisterous commentary reporters funny or not because they are well, loud and forcing their point. Who wouldn't listen to that? Like the guy who screams about the stocks. At the top of his lungs with the arm gestures. Our insecure hand is being forced to hold onto the fear.

This is not entertainment. This is a living hell of banter and disinformation and contrived and blown so far out of proportion events that make every channel on the television choke with it. Even if we hit the mute button on the remote we still get the banner across the screen. How would a caged animal react to being inundated with this kind of noise hour after hour, day after day?

But thank God for the mute button and the fast forward arrow. The few good shows I watch does not need the distraction at commercial time to learn about a new drug that has 1400 side effects including death.

So here is your test of courage this New Year. Don't watch the news. Stop your paper subscription. Pass on the Internet news pages. Don't engage in "the world is going to hell in a hand basket" conversation. We are mortals who have come to serve each other in grace and goodness. We need not be tainted or plummeted with information we can live without.

Great Wheat Free Gluten Free Websites

2009-11-27T15:34:00.000-08:00

I am asked by so many people, what blog is the greatest? What website for managing my Wheat Free Gluten free diet? What recipes are tried and true and won't make me gag?

This is the ultimate quest for myself as well, so I have paid attention to this in a big way. Cooking is one of my favorite things to do and I would embrace it as a professional if I didn't have to stand for hours over a stove or countertop. My goal is to make something truly gourmet and tasty and unique in quick time. I don't mind the stages to go through as long as it doesn't steal from my day. Below are listed the sites I am enchanted with.

http://heatherstrang.com/blog/wheat-free/ She deals with sugar free, dairy free in a good way.

http://nuchiafoods.com/recipes/Videos are great. Very informative.

http://www.elanaspantry.com/ A favorite of my San Francisco friend.

http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/

http://www.ifood.tv/network/wheat_free_cooking/recipes Videos!

http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/diet/gluten-free.asp Great Index of Gourmet recipes.

For you enthusiasts on measuring carefully:

1 Cup Wheat Flour Equals:
•Amaranth - 1 cup
•Bean Flour - 1 cup
•Corn Flour- 1 cup
•Cornmeal - ¾ cup
•Millet Flour - 1 cup
•Nuts (finely ground- almond, hazel nut)- ½ cup
•Oat Flour - 1 1/3 cup
•Potato Flour - 5/8 cup
•Potato Starch - ¾ cup
•Quinoa Flour - 1 cup
•Rice Flour (White/Brown)- 7/8 cup
•Sorghum Flour - 1 cup
•Soy Flour - ¾ cup
•Sweet Rice Flour - 7/8 cup
•Tapioca Flour/Starch - 1 cup
•Teff Flour - 7/8 cup

Read more: http://bakingdesserts.suite101.com/article.cfm/wheatfree_glutenfree_baking#ixzz0Y6iuxT6L

“Corn starch has the same “thickening power” as arrowroot, potato starch and tapioca, and you should substitute the same amount. Corn starch has twice the “thickening power” of flour, so it’s necessary to use only half as much. Example: If recipe calls for 1/4 cup of flour, use just 2 tablespoons corn starch. (Retrieved from the Argo website).”

NOODLES WITH PEANUT SAUCEServes 2

Look for gluten-free tamari soy sauce as stores such as Whole Foods. This recipe can be halved or doubled easily,

6 ounces gluten-free spaghetti
2 tablespoons chunky peanut butter
2 teaspoons Asian toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons wheat-free tamari sauce, such as San-J Organic Tamari
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1/3 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon minced ginger root
2 garlic cloves, minced
Pinch red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons finely sliced green onions, dark green leaves discarded

Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil, add the pasta, and cook, stirring occasionally, until al dente, about 7 minutes. Taste test often as brands differ.

Meanwhile, in a nonstick skillet (or a microwave), combine the peanut butter, sesame oil, soy sauce, vinegar, chicken broth, ginger, garlic and red pepper flakes. Heat very gently without boiling, and mix well — the peanut butter will melt into the sauce. Turn off the heat. Add the pasta, and toss together. Divide between 2 heated bowls, and top with the green onions.
This is from Jacqueline Mallorca, the gluten free expert. ( wrote two books )

Okay, to adopt a wheat free gluten free lifestyle, changes must be made. But change is good if the exchange is equitable in taste. It may not look like a four star bakery or eating establishment but if the taste is equal to what you close to expect of a food, then half the battle is won. Personally, the image must appeal to me. So I strive to accomplish a recipe that is worthy of a picture.

My choice of pie crust is Authentic Foods because it is made with almond flour, so delicate and tasty and great to handle and bake with. My choice of flour is Pamela's which never fails. Occasionally I will use 2/3 of the Pamela's and then some of the Authentic Foods Sweet Rice Flour ( not much ) and some sorghum flour, all added for sweetness and richness. My choice of sugar is brown rice syrup, organic agave, sometimes organic maple syrup and my new find, Z-sweet erthyritol ( Stevia ).

I have adhered to a wheat free gluten free diet for over two years now and I am conscious of how this has contributed to my overall health. I put together a mish mash of WFGF recipes in a cookbook for our patients in the office and since, have been able to take any recipe and modify it to my liking. This is the gold. To be able to create something worthy and safe for eating from the usual gourmet delicious basically sinful recipe.

My advice? To be patient with yourself. Strive to create taste you can live with and explore all the blogs and recipes that are tried and true. You may be surprised and stop feeling deprived.

Metals Creating Auto Immune

2009-11-19T19:33:00.000-08:00

As a nutritional practice, we target one of the greatest killers of health on this planet. Most patients hold onto Metals in their body organs, metals that were absorbed from a myriad of places. I will touch on a few.

Mercury, the big elephant in the living room, has been ranted about via vaccine discussions. But did you know that Mercury resides in pesticides ( in soil, in products, especially your regular spraying professional outside the house ), in hemmorrhoid relieving products, water based paint, soft contact lens solutions, broken thermometers, the NEW squirrley looking lightbulbs, fungicides and in the olden days, merthiolate. Mercury is toxic to all cell membranes and suppresses the immune system. In the brain it creates a firewall between neurons thus shutting down the needed synapse. Areas of the body found: brain, nervous system, kidney, appetite and pain centers as well. Mercury can be handed down through generations; the only feasible account of why babies are tested positive even if not given a vaccine.

Aluminum is found naturally in the Earth's crust, atmospheric dust and even in drinking water. We find it in pickles, baking powder ( always buy the aluminum free), pastries, maraschino cherries, non-dairy creamers, table salt ( not sea salt ), processed cheeses, all antacids, aluminum cookware, aluminum treated white flour, aluminum foil, tobacco smoke, artificial colorings and pesticides.

It interferes with normal body functions and contributes to Alzheimer's, Parkinsons, Lou Gehrigs diseases and dialysis dementia. Areas of the body found: bones, stomach and brain.

Lead is a toxic environmental pollutant. There is airborne lead ( gasoline additives and industrial pollution), lead based paint, newsprint ( now I know why I sneezed and coughed when I read the paper and have since stopped the delivery ), colored ads, hair dyes and rinses, bone meal supplements, dolomite, soft coal, leaded glass, pewter, improperly glazed pottery or dinnerware, batteries, cigarette smoke, pesticides, fertilizers, certain cosmetics, rubber toys, dirt near garages,parks or empty lots of old factories. ( watch out for kids putting dirt and dust in their mouths!) Lead attacks the bones, liver, kidneys, heart, pancreas, brain and nervous system.

Nickel mines have been closed down in many cities because of its ill effects. It can be found in jewelry, dental prosthetic devices ( the newer ones carry 60-80% nickel), tobacco smoke, orthodontic appliances, auto/truck exhaust, superphosphate fertilizers, nickel cadmium batteries, hydrogenated fats and oils, acid foods like tomatoes cooked in stainless steel cookware.

Nickel can target the point of exposure,( i.e. contact dermatitis and gingivitis) skin and lungs.

Cadmium has always been a concern and you can find many items containing the metal with warning signs. I remember my watercolor instructor who was President of the Valley Watercolor Society, telling me that she had to stop painting with oils because she was routinely hospitalized, as it affected her lungs. She switched to watercolor. You find Cadmium in the air, in food and water. It is in industrial waste, rubber tires, welding, paint, auto exhaust, cigarette smoke, white flour, white rice, seafood, rubber carpet backings,sewage sludge.

Just for one minute think about the Earth homes created in the Southwest. The walls were made of clay, water, rubber tires and aluminum cans. Dennis Weaver built such a home in Ouray, Colorado on the side of a mountain. He died an early death. Just saying . . .

Cadmium inhibits many enzymes, nutrients and metabolic reactions. It increases blood pressure, creates kidney and liver damage, anemia, chronic bronchitis, emphysema and osteoporosis. Found in lungs, liver, kidneys, heart, blood vessels, brain, in people with loss of smells and appetite.

Much of what I listed affects memory, hemoglobin, learning ( creating disabilities ), contributes to headaches, anxiety, depression, loose teeth, abdominal problems, and tremors.

Is this not enough to investigate what you are exposed to? If you conduct your life with the cavalier ideology of oh well, its in everything, so I have to die of something then your wishes will be fulfilled. If you become pro-active and go green and carefully choose what you use as a product, what you allow your body to absorb, then you can fulfill more of an optimally healthy lifestyle. We are all masters of our ship ( the body ).

All of this information is very real. We have had the ability to test heavy metals and actually trace to where in the organ it is most prominent.

Getting wise to what surrounds us, what we ingest and inhale may make you look like a obsessive compulsive over-protective person, but why not? Aren't you worth it? Isn't this the prelude to perfect health?

Some ideas:

Roll up your windows on the road and freeways, especially around trucks.
Choose watercolor over oil paints for your creative art.
Choose cosmetics that are found safe.
Be careful choosing vintage jewelry and pewter items just because they look cool.
Buy safe toys for your children.
If you must hair dye, get samples from your stylist and be checked for how it affects your liver. Look at the ingredients.
Don't smoke or be around it.
Don't have your house sprayed for insects. We never have. If we see red ants, we use cayenne pepper on the ant hills. There are plenty of safe natural organic fertilizers that you can use. Go out of your way to look for it.
Use parchment paper instead of aluminum foil when baking.
Go green in using cleaning supplies and laundry cleaners. We do!

Take special interest in the health of you and your family now. Don't wait until it is cool to do so. It may be too late then.

Update on our Winter Garden

2009-11-15T19:09:00.000-08:00

It was only a month or so ago when we planted for the winter. At that time, the heat wave was still lingering. Now that it is November,a cold front has hit us and the vegies are growing beautifully. We planted six beets, two red romaine ( one didn't make it with the winds), two buttercrunch lettuce, six spinach which are growing nicely, a whole box of sugar peas growing in leaps and bounds up the trellis already, four arugula which is prolific, four red onions, six heirloom deer tongue lettuce which are my personal favorite and four red leaf ( red sail lettuce ). No pests, no insects and not much water needed.

I step out there in the garden and pull the lower leaves of lettuce for salad almost every night we are home. Its buttery, peppery, fresh.

I have one empty earth box left that we may either plant carrots and radishes and scallion seeds or kale or swiss chard. The nights get down to 37 degrees now mid November and I worry about freeze. Maybe I need to cover the kids with shade cloth.

A Celestial Child

2009-10-01T19:45:00.000-07:00

She almost didn't come halfway through the gestation. A growth almost her size that resided in her mother's uterus crowded her space. The Doctors at Cedars Sinai would hover around the Intensive care bed while the beeps and whistles of machines and the hysterical cries of her mother filled the silence. Her amniotic fluid was diminishing. How could she survive? But she did through an act of God.

Nika Annabella came into our world on October 16, 1996. Her spikey hair and her wide open smile enchanted every one she gazed upon. From that moment, she touched us in immeasurable ways. Her mother, my baby sister, carried her alone, a treasured backpack during the course of her struggling years as an actress and dance instructor. She took up residence with my parents. The first two years of her life, Nika created a warm glow in the hearts of her grandparents and her grandmama. Nika became the center core of their daily illuminations. Her laughter, her antics, her beaming love became the glue for the senior members of our family; the soft place they would fall into.

As Nika grew, her personality flowered but never strayed from the core elements of compassion, sweetness, ( never disingenuous), smartness beyond her years, and a teasing humor that satisfies. She built her nest of strength around her family, her love of music ( piano and vocals ), her agility in dance, performance and theater at such a young age. Early on, gymnastics called to her. The advent of inner discipline came into her being. She devoted herself, solidly practicing as would an Olympic enthusiast, without parental urging, to reach a level of expertise. During this trial of honing the craft of sport agility, she engaged in the love of academics. A string of A's followed her many courses of advanced study. Science and math were not her only forte'. She balanced it all with the arts and languages. I remember one day around the family table she spoke Russian to me.

I think the finest hour ( and there are many ) was her drive to be the angel to those either less fortunate in mind, body or spirit, or to show a kinder way to those who tried to harm her with insults. I am talking about a child from age four or five when she consciously seemed aware of her imprint on society, to her present age of 13 years. In all my 62 years of life, in all my travels, I have not found one person who has measured up to her inner peace that exudes like a Tibetan monk, her consistent demonstration of love in all adverse moments, her sage philosophy compressed in her small child mind that chooses to see the better, the wiser, the more reasonable, the more logically sane approach to any situation. Does it boggle my mind? Oh yeah.

I am most honored to be this sweet person's godmother, who held her cuddly body over a baptismal font ( which I poured water from the River Jordan into )and prayed over her spiritual life which had already taken hold visibly.

Each day she pours her love into all of us, tightly wrapping her arms around us with a vastness of deep love perhaps none of us can know the depth of, and with that uncondtional love she helps us regrow a new heart.

This is the celestial child of the Universe who has yet to show us of what she is made of but the preface of this story has us all hooked. The Chapters of her life have yet to be realized. Nika will continue to perform, as a grand dame, an old soul, a messenger of God with angelic wings ( of which metaphorically says, rise up over your troubled life and see the brightness of tomorrow!)

It does not surprise that Nika has wanted to follow the path of healing since she was young enough to say the words." I want to be a Doctor, maybe a children's Doctor". The future is a promise land for this beautiful one. Happy 13th Birthday Nikster you have made our world so complete!

What is Shifting?

2009-08-29T15:19:00.000-07:00

Cycles. And I don't mean bicycles. We are influenced by what is shifting and we think we are losing our minds.

Take the Moon and the Sun. It has been noted that if we drew a straight line from the Moon through the Earth to the Sun we can be assured that the Moon and Sun's forces are in harmony; working together. But when the Moon and Sun are at right angles to each other with respect to the Earth then the forces are in contradiction. Tides are the result of how the Triad is working. We have cycles that affect our bodies, our weather, our financial markets, how we develop a habit or how long it takes to break the habit, how we manage our circadian rhythms especially in travel or disruptive events of our lives. We see cycles in how our hair grows and animal habitat and trees and plants. Politics, economics, war, earthquakes and volcanoes. Cycles occur in many third world countries in relation to floods or monsoons.

Haven't we heard all our lives that History repeats itself? What are we in a never ending tunnel of repetition? How do we stop the madness as a world?

Maybe it is simply a learning tool so we can discern order, chaos, patterns. Maybe it is a way to evaluate balance; the rise and the fall, the cause and effect. Maybe it is a way to see synchronicity because certain times cycles do that. Do all cycles run in a circle and return to their original starting point? Many say no. That cycles do not always repeat, but are not always isolated either. They are influenced by other cycles.

Well, I will leave that study in the hands of the expert forecasters and economic analysts. My point is on higher ground.

Are we the perpetrators of the shifting and cyclic trends or are we just the observers?

On a small scale I know people who are bent on self-fulfilled prophecies. They dream it, wish it and manifest it, good or bad. Because everything ultimately is subconscious. I guess that depends on your original mind construct.

What is important really? I would vote on shifting consciousness, magnetic shifts, shifting of priorites, and on a humorous note, staying clear of shifty people.

Earthbox Gardening

2009-07-09T13:34:00.000-07:00

Gardening is in my blood. I had a grandfather who amassed acres of land turning it into farmland in South Plainfield, NJ and I grew up running through fields of vegetables, and fruit orchards from the time I was four years old. We ate fresh gagoots (zucchini) that grew like baseball bats and corn shooting up to tower above fences. The Italian immigrants harvested huge barrels of tomatoes that my grandmother cooked down in the garage to make sauce she canned for the rest of the year. Think of the fragrances that were carried by the summer winds. Peppers, eggplants, watermelons. I'm sure there was more, but my child like mind was fascinated by climbing trees for the luscious apples. In winter, the pumpkins and the skating with our slippery galoshes across an icy pond. Nothing but pasture land enveloped our small village of ranch homes and farmland.

Those were the days when you could catch fireflies on a summer night in a jar and let them free after watching them glow. Those were the days picking concord grapes from the vine,squeezing the tough purple skins and slurping them into my mouth. I relished watching my grandfather pick snails up from the ground he would cook in his stew. The word babaluche stuck in my head although the correct terminology is Lumache. Perhaps it was his Sicilian dialect. I had no idea how he prepared them in some kind of tomato sauce, but I acknowledge the affinity for snails followed me all my adult life. Mostly smothered in garlic buttery sauce. The Greeks and the French make sure their seal is broken, and they are boiled in salted water for 20 minutes, then that water is changed several times until the green slime is lost. Finally cooked, it is covered with wine in a bowl until used in stews.

When our seven family members made the exodus from the east coast to California, in the cramped Ford station wagon with the wood panels, many of us old enough to realize, felt a profound sadness. As if we lost some part of our spirit once living among nature never to be revitalized. It was held in memory but never forgotten. Consequently, my father planted a patch of garden vegetables and most certaintly, Italian herbs.

Now, as an older adult, I weep for the lack of interest in gardening in our young generation. Putting hands into the soil is like being touched by Mother Creation. How can you not be changed in some profound way?

We found property eight years ago in the canyons. A developer had cleared part of a mountain that could have, may have, contained elements not found in most areas. I thought at the time, well, Gold was discovered just miles from here before Sutters Mill. Could there be gold in them thar hills? After the building of the house and the clearing away of debris, I answered myself. No. Just rotten clay soil that killed four of my trees that I planted and numerous vegetables. Frustration took hold and I almost gave up with the added problem of critters coming down into the canyon. I felt violated even though I wanted so badly to be part of the environment.

My husband and son gave me a gift. They spent a day under a summer sun on the other side of the iron fencing digging a tightly woven chicken wire fence that would most certaintly prevent anything, including possums and rabbits, from entering our yard, save the birds. The thirty foot extreme drop on the other side of the fence was too annoying to coyotes. For the first time, our bushes were not munched on and our flowers thrived.

Soil still being unusable, we invested in Earthboxes. We secured eight, followed the directions and planted away. We have six massive tomato plants, two eggplant plants, six various cucumber plants, six various pepper plants, four zucchini plants and we are enjoying at long last, a clean, easy to manage garden. My mind is already twirling with ideas for the winter garden. I hope to have several boxes devoted to lettuce. I am looking forward to kale, chard, broccoli, peas, cauliflower, spinach and more. This is the most ideal pest free manner of gardening and it brings forth abundance, continually. Just when I am thinking well, looks like the zucchini is done, bata bing, another two or three shoots become a surprise to my eyes. Do I recommend this type of gardening to everyone? oh yeah.

A Most Extraordinary Gentleman

2009-06-28T13:38:00.000-07:00

My Italian Father is 90.5 years old. He lives decades past many of the seniors in his retired community or in our convoluted ancestral family. His parents, Guiseppe and Isabelle emerged from the seacoast of Bari, the second largest city in Southern Italy. In olden times, Bari was controlled by the Greeks and then the Romans. Guiseppe left this plane long before I was born and Isabelle who could only master some broken English, continued to live in her humble brownstone apartment in Utica, New York for some decades longer. To describe her as a sweet and tender woman would not be justified enough.

My Dad, Frank, was one of three sons and grew up on the fighting streets of New York selling newspapers to earn a small income "to help the family out". They were a poor family with immigrant roots and learned how to survive in the worst of times. It was commonplace to hear stories of the long walks in the snow and the inability to have some of the simple comforts but Dad endured all of it. It was no wonder that he joined the Army and came home with a Purple Heart. He served in North Africa, Sicily, Anzio, France and Germany. Before all that, he was stationed in Pearl Harbor for three years and here is a story for the record. Before the attack, as life would have it, his Father became ill and he went home to be with him for a while. If he had been in Pearl Harbor when the Japanese bombs hit, his famous line to me was, YOU, my daughter, would not have been born. So, it appears, the grandfather I never met, saved the day and allowed my Father to choose another window of survival.

My Dad met Mom in French class in New York, after he returned from the War and irritated the hell out of her because his version of French was street French. The light of heaven descended on their love, as no one will question, they are soul mates. They married in a glorious wedding and had six kids, batta bing.

However, the purpose of this tribute to Dad is multifaceted. He is probably the most mellow, loving, generous, forgiving, compassionate man I know. He worked all his life seriously long hours to provide parochial schooling for his six children, to tithe to his Church, to make sure enough food was on our groaning table, to take care of his Mom and brothers back home, to sustain us all in a small ranch home, to build a large swimming pool and then care for my grandmother in many ways, who lived on our property for 30 years. Dad always found a way to buy each of us kids a used car and then to take care of all the repairs. His devotion to sports be it coaching, critiquing or opinionating with his two boys was unsurpassed. Not a week or weekend would fly by that he didn't sit on some bleacher and if not, the game was on the television. "Frank!" My Mother would yell, "Shut the TV, food is on the table!" He had mastered watching a game without sound between slurps of pasta, his other major love.

His fascination with history, reading, John Wayne and Robert Mitchum movies, golf, growing his vegetable garden and his friends who shared the bleacher bench, was the highlight of his life. His religious devotion and love of God is extraordinary. You would find him picking up a book on any spiritual subject often to soothe his soul.

Dad traveled to Europe many times with Mom, I think we counted 13 trips to Europe, many to Italy alone and he would often say to me, I could die a happy man just sitting at the edge of Lake Como with a glass a wine in my hand and a plate of vongole.

His wisdom stays with us and his humor, witty and dry and most hilarious and joyous. No this is not a confused man about his priorities or a man without memories and appreciation for life and his family. His life is more fragile these days, tearful over the most emotional events, soaking up the essence of what is most important, what is most gratifying. Above all,he is my hero and my inspiration for living a life of stewardship and dedication to purpose. Ah! Salute' Daddy!

A Son for All Seasons

2009-06-23T13:48:00.000-07:00

When he was seven years old, our son told us his real name was Ancontowasa. He drew some ancient symbol that could have spearheaded his destiny; likened to an imprimatur on a warrior's shield. He was not especially surrounded by the Native Tribe realm nor did he migrate to one particular religious thought. He did draw many other pictures including his affection for the name and it provided deep comfort.

The manner of expression and feeling about his name followed him all his life. There were times he would label his music demo with it, other times some genius abstract or otherworldly piece of art. Later in life he alluded that it codified some part of his essence, his multi-dimensional self. There was never any doubt or fear; rather an embracing.

The strength of his mind allowed him to heal himself of the usual childhood afflictions, one horrific accident where he was hit by a car at the delicate age of 13, and later, his penchant for using an imagined blue light towards any part of his body, i.e. knee surgery, and once, a deep gash in his foot falling off a trampoline at the Burning Man Festival. In all cases, sutures were required and in all cases, pain medication was replaced by his healing technique.

He is a Son for all Seasons by which I mean, however the wind blows he welcomes it. We are all usually fragile human beings. How often do we encounter ones that are not? My son is stalwart. When he was not quite into his twenties he asked the Universe, God, his guardians, his higher self, to not ever fall into the clutches of fear. Abject fear. The kind that paralyzes you and takes you down the forbidden paths of desperation. He saw in his early twenties a vision of his life in a sequential pattern. So far, fourteen years later, it has been pretty true to form. His instincts match mine. We are telepathic and symbiotic in nature. The umbilical cord was never cut it seems. Intuitively he masters his life. If it creates a lesson, he learns profoundly and laughs at himself. People that know him, want to be him. At the risk of sounding smotherly or egoic, he is the gentle giant that will lead people out of their funks ( darkness ).

The colorful art he creates is whimsical and cavernous, tunnels beneath our secret selves thus showing us the true mirrors of what we feel and must know. He excelled in college past the earmark of whatever he attempted. Pottery instructors would warn him of his risky attempts at creation, yea, he manifested the impossible. Musicians would stand in awe at his rapid fire music and guitar playing, a renaissance man without formal training. A bit of a prodigy, they would muse. When he directed or wrote a play or took on insurmountable feats by celebrity artists it seemed to not phase him at the ripe old age of 21. When he scripts screenplays and designs a masterful production plan, it comes from a place he knows not of. To him, he is led. He listens to his inner voice and has been known to get out of bed in the middle of the night, drive to Hollywood, sit on the curb and talk to a homeless man and then walk into a coffee house to meet a man who would later become a brother-friend in music. You have to ask yourself, who is this man?

He is my son who has a destiny very real to his conscious self. He prefers to not call attention to its grandness but rather envelope it into his positivity. He sees the world as it should be. He carries the inner knowing of yes, what can happen and then what must happen to set it right again. Occasionally he will watch the news events and most often, he walks away from it. He reads only uplifting works. He admires those that have come before him. Children know his energy and migrate to his softness. Women want to have him all for their own. Family members find him amusing and entertaining. Friends know he is the safe place they can fall without judgment or advisement unless he senses they are in a danger zone. Co-workers do not know his secret angle of distributing his charisma. He is the honest one. The fall down hilarious one with impersonations complete with dialect. He is the one that can take something damn serious and make it light and funny so you will always see the light cast on it in a different way.

I am the mother imperfecto. He is the classic generator of joy, be it cooking gourmet with me in our kitchen or slicing and dicing a new movie we saw together, or sharing each others inhuman day. We have it, its gold and beyond blessed, beyond what is true, he is the Son of all Seasons.

Bleep Hitting the Fan

2009-06-18T13:43:00.000-07:00

Perhaps these economically oppressed times create more unity than divisiveness. The school of hard knocks has hit everyone I know including moi. But I believe in an outreached hand that serves others, thus serving self. The tribal societies knew how to handle drought and famine. The Amish clans gathered round, villages across the world rely on their seasoned strategies to pick themselves up as a family unit. This is not known well enough in the civilized world; in the United States of America.

I read the Wall Street Journal recently. Detroit Michigan is suffering. 900,000 people and they now have only 4 Starbucks. Dear God, they are forced to make their own coffee! No national grocery chain exists in the city and Borders bookstore is 40 miles away. I won't go into the outrage of crashing employment at 22.8% via the auto industry in Detroit. Thirty percent is on food stamps. These statistics, I've read, are the highest in our United States. Will these people move like caravans out of their home state? Or will they learn to farm and create co-ops? What kind of creativity are they aspiring to in order to offset their calamity? Will they sit and feel hopeless, helpless? What is the plan for these folks? Because all of America looks upon them with great compassion and wonder. How will a new life be created?

I have known many friends who have left their home post and planted themselves near country living in states where rivers and forests still reside. To have the sacred land your backyard playground seems unimaginable to city dwellers, if even to learn how to build, plant, nurture gardens for our birds and bees, for human nutrition. To me, that is returning the trust to Mother Earth, where it should be always given exclusively; not to the corporate collective greed of tearing down nature for more and more housing, roads, strip malls, mega malls.

At least we have control on these issues. There are things threatening the planet we have no control over, like the diminished solar activity which many solar physicists have theorized could be due to the breach in the magnetosphere. Some astronomical societies say their helioseismological equipment registers a jet stream deep inside the sun making it migrate slower. This puzzles them because it has been happening over 2 years. Magnetosphere breach disrupting the coronal holes of the sun? I know, its so hard to look outside of our everyday problems.

Have we entered a new phase of thinking about WHAT we should really think about?

Everything is a circle. Are we returning to our roots? I was raised on a massive farm in New Jersey. I have a deep yen to return to that peace. I was in touch with all of nature. That grounded me. Cell phones, loud pharmaceutical commercials, raging mufflers on the road, long lines to anywhere entertaining, extreme markup on food and necessities, computer addiction and such do not ground me. Was that another life to be reincarnated as the end of the circle? Baby boomers are restless. They basically do not know why until they go to an isolated campsite or a trip on a floating houseboat or a slide down a remote mountain. I used to feel like a bird when I skied at the top of June Mountain. All I could hear was the wind and the shoosh of snow. I remember telling myself, you are one with the mountain as I skied past squirrels in trees.

Am I going to take the dive when the bleep hits my fan? Well, I do know one thing. I will take the @#%& lemons and make lemonade.

Meaningful Lyrics

2009-06-17T15:33:00.000-07:00

The Native Americans used to say, "Sound holds this world together". They were referring to the elements of sound, its tone and frequency. I am not a musician, though I would like to be and perhaps will fulfill that before I kiss this planet goodbye, but I do fall into the percentage of the listening public that knows when a certain sound resonates within. I go further. I believe in the lyrical component. What do the words really say and where is the emphasis?

Parents are outraged by certain rap verses and right they are because what changes the internal mindset or construct of a person, child, is the language that accompanies the beat of the drum. Now that we are blessed with internet, lyrics are easily obtained for any song. Youtube watchers can pick out a video that has lyrics flashing across the screen as well. Very cool for us baby boomers who strain to hear "huh? what was that word?" Now its in print because often, lyrics are not in the CD jacket anymore. And why not?

Just for fun I will list some of my favorite lyrics, and sorry you will have to just hum the tune of the song. Stop and Stare by One Republic: "Stop and stare, I think I'm moving but I go nowhere, yeah I know that everyone gets scared, but I've become what I can't be, Stop and Stare, you start to wonder why you're here not there and you'd give anything to get whats fair, but fair ain't what you really need, oh you don't need." Our kids trying to grow older may be pushed to think this way. Its a window into the soul of that kind of kid.

Praying for Time by George Michael: I must admit I also enjoyed the Carrie Underwood rendition on American Idol. "These are the days of the open hand, they will not be the last, Look around now, These are the days of the beggars and the choosers, This is the year of the hungry man, whose place is in the past, hand in hand with ignorance and legitimate excuses, the rich declare themselves poor and most of us are not sure, if we have too much but we'll take our chances cause God stopped keeping score . . ." Wow, well that packed it in didn't it? It finished with " Its hard to love, there's so much hate, hanging onto hope, when there is no hope to speak of and wounded skies above say its much too late." And to think this song was composed long before we experienced the downshaft of economy in our nation/world.

Remember Into the West by Annie Lennox (credit roll Lord of the Rings )? "What can you see, on the horizon, why do the white gulls call? Across the sea, a pale moon rises, the ships have come to carry you home. Dawn will turn to silver glass, a light on the water, all souls pass, into the west." Okay, this is a 3 hankie song. Sometimes I feel it was written to memorialize a soul making its transition to the next world.

There is a new one now that stirs the soul. A Note To God by Charise. She didn't compose it but her mighty voice is startling. " Give us the strength to make it through, help us find love cause love is overdue, and it looks like we haven't got a clue. Need some help from you, grant us the faith to carry on, give us hope when it seems all hope is gone, cause it seems like so much is going wrong, on this road we're on." Whew! I guarantee whoever hears this will be stopped. The momentum it creates rocks the inside of your chest wall. I sit back and think about lyrics that are the cause and eruption of what resonates as truth within my heart. I think it is a way for us to re-think our living and believing. I bow before any musical composer or singer who can translate this language of the soul to the people of this world. I think the most unfair experience is to be deaf. The deaf community is exempt from the beauty of song. How is their world held together?

Change Your Mind, Change The World

2009-06-14T12:06:00.000-07:00

One of the important risks we take in life is expressing ourselves in print; a greeting card, a discussion forum, a script or a book, a school essay, the Q and A of the local newspaper's editorial column, a letter to someone we love ( or hate ), a poster or sign, a journal or diary we keep in our drawer, or an internet blog. There is where I will begin.

Why blog? Why not? We all have something to say or spit saliva about. But for those who think not, it may not necessarily be the end of the journey. Musicians express through chords. Singers express through song. Painters through art. Sculptors through sculpting. I just may be the person who has always thought that writing evokes emotion that feels more lasting and complete. A way to sum up our thoughts in a more concrete way that is ours, not shared or copied or capitalized on.

Beginning with the idea of changing your mind captures the essence of progression and growth and its exactly the surprise we can give ourselves that ignites our flame. Whatever that flame is.

Here is the interesting thing most people may not know about mind. It is not part of the brain which resides in the confines of the skull in the human frame that receives and sends messages. Mind is quantum and exists where only quantum can exist; outside the human body, in the electrical field. Wow. Now that puts a whole new slant on things. Could it be that mind can access the knowledge of the cosmos? Could it be that mind could possess the particles of all healing as it resides in the grid of light? Wow again.

I learned something about the DNA. We were all taught that DNA is in the nucleus of the cell. It is the protein making ( synthesizing ) machine of our bodies. Here is where it becomes fascinating. By drawing transcendentally on the Quantum Potential residing in the electrical field ( black hole, white hole) through the idea of perception/belief, we can change how the cell membrane changes shape and how the DNA will respond. Read the book THE BIOLOGY OF BELIEF by Dr. Bruce Lipton and further, VIRUS OF THE MIND by Richard Brodie.Bottom line, what you believe changes your mind and changes how you perceive something. All translates to health and how the cells respond.

Do I believe by changing an energy frequency changes the world? I do. Each particle washes over many particles that are privy to our touch, our vision, our exhanges. One thread of many interweaving in the giant grid.