Welcome to a World of Spiritual Harmony

Andy Dooley - yes, Mike of tut.com’s brother - is a stand up spiritual comic. He’s also a strutting, dancing, mimicking, hysterical storytelling spiritual comic. Just came from his evening workshop at New Thought Unity up the street. Following a great dinner at What’s for Dinner, up another street, with great friends.

The simple true stuff we’ve all heard before, and worked too hard at. The easy stuff we made difficult. The fun stuff we took seriously. I laughed out loud for most of the 90 minutes plus. He’s doing a workshop tomorrow which I am sure will also be wonderful - I think I’ll send one of my other Gemini selves to check it out, while the rest of me is doing what’s already on the schedule.

Here’s the Power Mantra - let’s all trying saying this at least 15 times a day for the next 30 days - and then report back what happens! Note: you could just say love or power. But since power is love in action - I like it this way. Let me know on September 1!!! And I’ll let you know, too.

Stop. Cancel. Clear. I have nothing to fear. All my love and power is here.

I know way too many women who get way too hung up about having someone else clean their house. I think it’s a great idea for a bunch of reasons!

Number one - the house is totally clean at exactly the same time. If I was doing it, the kitchen would get organized one day and the dusting could happen almost any time. I love walking in and having the whole place sparkling, and smelling of the eco-sustainable non-chemical parsley cleaner we use.

And then - I have almost always had friends cleaning - much more comfy, no psychic shocks. They’re helping me, I’m helping them. And we’re both supporting the local economy. I usually try to be around when she arrives, so we can hang out and catch up for a few minutes. And if what needs done is a really big task, we’ll often tackle it together.

The same way with the garden - some wonderful person will show up who doesn’t have a way to play in the dirt and is looking for that opportunity. I get to supply the opportunity and again am happy to support the local economy.

There is in both cases plenty for me to do inside and outside the rest of the time. I love keeping the space sacred and beautiful. And am overjoyed to have such great help to do that!

A friend of mine who has been working with the Enneagram for a long time is now becoming certified. She recently taught a workshop for us, her fellow Dream Group members.

You can google or wiki Enneagram, and learn about this system of 9 personality types, which teaches us ‘that early in life we learned to feel safe and to cope with our family situations and personal circumstances by developing a strategy based on our natural talents and abilities.’ Using the Enneagram, we can find new strategies for getting where we want to go, and let go of a lot of tactics that no longer function in our lives.

I’m an 8 - called the Asserter, the Challenger, Boss, Top Dog, Confronter. I am, however, in recovery, as I always laughingly tell folk. Anyone who knows the Enneagram always knows instantly which I am.

It’s an interesting and useful system, which helps me better see myself in the world. As does the Myers-Briggs and astrology. They are all good information about how the world works, and how I work in that world. It’s fairly easy to ‘type’ yourself. To do that, check out www.EnneagramInstitute.com. Don’t forget to stay playful. All this information is easier to work with when we keep it Light.

So here we are in late July, and it was still light in the backyard at 9:15 p m. The wheel has begun to turn, and it’s not light til nearly 10 anymore.

The garden and patio - where the bird feeders are - has been full of blue jays lately, with their noisy selves. Counted 7 one day last week, all perched on and around the tall feeder. The deer tackled some of the impatiens, too - just as I was getting ready to spray them with Liquid Fence. The greenery growing through on the brick patio is finally coming under control, with white vinegar sprayed on everything.

The collard greens have taken over the garden for the moment, and the potatoes will be ready to dig by the end of August. Looks like a hugely successful crop this year. Just planted more kale, and am ready to harvest the green beans again. A busy happy fun and beautiful summer here in the woods.

Thanks, Universe!

A friend was giving a talk at the Contemporary Arts Center this evening - on the connections between Art and Dreams, focusing on an exhibit called Sanctuary Dreams. Since I love dreams, another friend and I attended. Plus, it gave me a chance to renew my CAC membership - though the envelope requesting same had been in my desk drawer for Lo! these many months.

At any rate - there it was, 7:30 p m, we were starving. Where were we going to go to eat? Aha - CAC is at the corner of 6th and Walnut. Just a bit over half block away - Bootsy’s. The collaboration of the flamboyant Bootsy Collins and restaurateur Jeff Ruby turns out to be great fun, and a terrific place for a foodie, including a vegan foodie.

I ordered everything on the menu that I wanted, especially since it was tapas - small portions: black beans and rice (friend Pat said it was the best she’d ever tasted), potatos bravas under a different name (my favorite tapas of all time), a soft bread with a salad on top (can’t remember the name - yummy), one of the best guacamoles I have ever tasted, and a veggie ravioli - scrumptious. Plus a wonderful green tea, very pleasant service - and I now have a Jeff Ruby bag, which was filled up with all the left leftovers - a bit of everything except the quac.

And - as we were leaving - we each got a $50 off coupon for dinner at Carlo and Johnny’s out in Montgomery, which I haven’t been to since Jeff Ruby took it over.

Quite a winner of an evening!

I just returned from a memorial for a friend. Actually, a memorial for a friend of Brian’s - so I knew Duane from his late teens on, as a part of the whole group from the ‘Island of Misfit Toys’, as Brian now talks about himself and them.

The memorial was held at the Lloyd House - where many alternative events in Cincinnati are held - and which I just found from reading the plaque today, was built by the man who also created the Lloyd Libary.

These were all kids always searching - they were born knowing there was some better way to live than that prescribed by this difficult and negative (up until now) culture, which is so rewarding of conformity in all things. I knew Duane’s searcher self, his need for belonging, for a spiritual home. I knew his family, was friends with his mother as well, knew what a good thinker he was, liked his grin.

I didn’t know what a good photographer he was, how generous he was, how good at building websites for folk who needed them, and how good at teaching people who were going to need computers - but weren’t aware of it - how to use them. The friends who spoke at the memorial were in themselves testimony to Duane’s qualities, his passions, his quirks.

He was a passionate supporter of EarthSave, a vegan group nationally with a strong chapter here. I could easily imagine him, as one speaker did, sitting in the back of the room, quietly taking in all the talk and enjoying time with so many friends. And then enjoying the vegan potluck which followed, with all sorts of passions about all sorts of issues in the conversations.

Bon Voyage, Traveler.

A great evening at the opera last night! The last night of the season, Carmen was all flash and dazzle, full of emotions, an enormously crowded stage - an overload sensory experience.

I had seen it before, but in a much more traditional / more austere production. With the usual Carmen - proud on the one hand, needy on the other. This Carmen could have cared less, once she was done with a man. More spunk, more courage - and having a lot of fun flouncing on the stage. A 21st century Carmen, no longer co-dependent.

I still had my usual argument with her. This whole sacrifice routine, this belief that her karma could not be changed, that once she had a vision of her death, once she saw all that in the cards, that she was destined to live it out. Nothing is farther from the truth.

A reading is a statement of what’s going to happen if we keep going the way we’re going. We can always step off the wheel and change everything. I was paying closing attention last night - there were at least 8 times when she could have made a different move and changed the entire direction of her life.

And I’m faulting her friends, too. They should have ignored her, and simply stayed on the plaza when Jose approached. Plus her wonderful matador should have assigned some of his bullfighting friends to hang around with her. After all, Jose had been repeatedly clear about the fact that he was really stuck in jealousy, definitely an old paradigm emotion.

Nonetheless - another incredible night at the opera. We are blessed to have such a great company. The singers - magnifique (it was sung in French!). The costumes, the acting, the choreography, the sets, the extras, the kids. I could go on. It was a sparkling end to a fabulous season!

A yummy movie! Full measures of laughter, lots of romance - some funny, lots tender plus fear, sadness. And of course that wonderful castle, great special effects. And a very good story, well told.

I always want to get everything together - and so wanted Harry and Ginny, Ron and Hermione to go ahead and pair up. But watching the ways they didn’t was really very funny. The emotions seemed to rotate, though. A deatheaters attack on London, Harry and Dumbledore finding the Professor disguised as a chair, back at the Weasleys for a homecoming, a little romance, then more deatheaters and that home is destroyed.

Everything was both darker and lighter. More humor than any other movie, and really scary negative stuff - like Draco with the deatheater symbol on his arm. A terrific quidditch match starring Ron - who really rocks at his triumph! And a very scary Tom Riddle, both as a small boy and as a teenager.

It is, as always, a must see for me - so friend Mary and I, on the day it opened, had our purple veggie sammiches (the eggplant sandwich at What’s for Dinner) - and then spent time trying to find a parking place in the Levee parking garage. Had to stand in line to get tickets, even though we’d ordered them on line and should have been able to get them from the kiosk - which was not functional. None of that mattered -not even the 9 previews - once the movie started.

And then suddenly it was over. I thought it had just been about 45 minutes. Not true - it had been 2-1/2 hours. Sure flew by - one of the hallmarks of a good movie - especially when I’ve already read the book.

It is going to be hard to wait for the fall of 2010, and then the spring of 2011.

The wonderful Iranian people just keep shouting from their rooftops after dark and returning to the streets during the day. It was a little quieter for a few days, but after the sermon in the mosque on Friday, there they were again, braving tear gas and police brutality.

Their leaders seem to be the same way. Not much going on, then suddenly a big speech / sermon, or an appearance in public to help sustain the people in their protests.

My arm and my pendulum both say big changes in the fall - that both the ayatollah and the president will be gone. That didn’t make much sense to me a month ago - when it all seemed to be over, after that beautiful young woman died. Now it makes more sense. The Iranians are continuing to protest, continuing to fight for their rights, just not always in the street.

And thank heaven for cell phones and twitter - to help these courageous mostly young people in their struggle for a real republic, for real justice, for real peace.

My bff and the most fabulous caterer in town, Carolyn, and I just took off yesterday to play. And so, of course, we ended up at Findlay Market, eating several times - and then went to the Esquire to see Food, Inc. A busperson’s holiday, as it were. I am no longer a cook, though I still bake - but I know where to buy all the great food in town! and Carolyn is into food all day every day.

We felt pretty good about ourselves afterwards - since we have long been buying, eating and growing local food. And Food, Inc. will definitely push you in that direction, if you’re not already there. Those chickens, those cows. All that manure destroying our waterways and warming the globe. All that grain feeding cows - whose bodies are not built to assimilate it. Their bodies are built for grass. And all those dead chickens, just falling over from their own weight.

The human side of it was evident, too. The de-humanized folk on the assembly lines - just machines made of flesh. The contract growers, hiding the ugly parts of the business. Those who spoke to the moviemakers lost their contracts. The immigrants rounded up while the corporations were let off the hook were shown, too.

The actual human farmer who is farming on a human scale was terrific. He pointed out that his chickens have less e coli, raised as they are scratching in the real outdoor dirt, than processed chickens - even though those ‘manufactured’ birds are dipped in chlorine baths several times. He also - very un-American at this point - said he did not want to get big. What he may do, when Wal-Mart comes calling, is help others produce human scale food.

I have long said to friends - if you’re going to eat meat, eat organic/free range meat, not factory meat. This movie has all the reasons why. It is also an excellent movie, well made. Just shows you the truth, without drama. Definitely a movie for the new paradigm.