Then she kissed him. She ran her tongue over his teeth and his lips. She sucked on his mouth and kissed him harder, and placed his hands in her blouse and then she was pushing herself against him, feeling the solid feeling in his pants right by his zipper, and something was there behind those barriers that was hard and powerful and she pushed against it all, this package she wanted to spring open and unwrap under a tree on a soft bed of duff, and she was pushing him down and trying to open his package, and that heavy belt came first, that impossible bolt and rivet, that zipper with rusted teeth that wouldn’t budge, and there it was, there it was. ~The Portable Veblen

Coleman Hell - Fireproof

VIRGO  Wisdom isn't glamorous. It's typically depicted by an old scribe on a mountain or a short green alien. Ryan Gosling wouldn't play Wisdom in the movies. And yet, "wise" is the most attractive thing you could be today.

Ok but this is the reaction to sanity and wisdom, in my experience. I clean (act like an adult) and Django is here demonstrating the part of henpecked. Hiding, lest I might nab him, like his ass doesn't show.

“Remind me, what is the stoic glacier method?”

“It’s the slow process of shaping someone’s behavior by force of one’s own personal stoicism.” (“If you wish to be loved, love,” said Seneca, a Stoic of note.)

~The Portable Veblen

VIRGO Remember when you felt helpless? If you could have only known that help was on its way, how much easier the moment would have passed. Remember the lesson. Trust that there are forces on your side.

They say that whatever you do during an eclipse is like planting a seed – you’ll get more of it whatever it is.  So I’m trying really hard today to be okay.  I sent my youngest kid into the hinterlands of Germany overnight, by himself, for a ‘save the environment’ mission trip.  A plane, two trains, one bus, all in German.  It is hard to describe how you feel about a youngest child.  It is not that you love them the most, more like you love them the hardest.  They are the most likely to be not-ready when you die, stuff like that occurs to you, and in whatever way you find yourself wanting to protect that one the most.  So, being how I am built, I send him the furthest away so that I know he will be okay.  And, to be honest, I cried most of the night in terror that something might go wrong, and cried most of the morning because nothing did and he doesn’t need me anymore ish.  Once there, he texted that all was well, except he is with 9 other teenagers and none of them speak one another’s languages and it’s super awkward.  “I feel like a newly divorced dad or something, lonely in a new place with nobody and a single bed.”  I snapped a pic of myself where I am sitting at work – all those other teens have mothers too, at work somewhere missing them too right now, and everyone knows how to say “Mom”.  Start there (and then come back Boy…)

pic removed

Life is an eclipsing of things, one over another over time.

The elusive camera-hating prince charming. My mother naming him after Idris Elba still cracks me up. For scale reference, that is a 4 inch potted plant he is sitting next to. You'd think, given he is the only pretty prince in my pond, that I would see him ruling the roost at his leisure fairly often, but he almost never lets me get anywhere near him. Wary and ambivalent to the bone. Only Jasper can sit next to him.

upshot

I love my job. Being a teacher is the shit. Even when it's a nightmare.

VIRGO Pleasure can serve as an anchor to the moment. It keeps you from skipping ahead in your mind and missing the good parts. Tune in to your senses. The pleasure is there. All you have to do is take it.


That's a lot. But not enough.

People use their bodies far too lightly for my taste. A tattoo should mean some serious shit. It's forever on the only self you've got.

I have one tattoo of the names of my children written in an alphabet that one of them made - child hieroglyphs, is how I think of it.

I wanted to put an eye tattoo on my back. I kept thinking, "I have to watch my back." Over and over, I thought it, like a trauma mantra. I paid an artist to design something for me. Black/white line drawing I wanted, for emphasis on no bullshit. She never got it right, though. It was either flirty girly looking or evil-eyed ugly. Then I dropped the idea. But all the while the betrayal times were 'over', my gut was telling me different.



I am the only self I've got. If I can't trust it, how do I live?

So then I returned to the idea of the tat, after. But the design(s) I had paid for weren't right. And I felt really shitty for a really long time also, and I didn't want to put shittyfeeling on my body forever. But I am stronger now, so I went to see Sunshine's artist (how does she know evvveryone??). She sees him once a month so that she is 'forever a work in progress'.

Sunshine: A Work in Progress

His waitlist is normally 6 months and he usually only does huge pieces, but she talked him into hearing me out. I told him the whole story, Grandpa Ott and all, even about the sun in the water of the magic pond, the un-inverted feeling. "I want something that watches my back, but more like to TRUST MYSELF than to mistrust others. I need to listen to my own eyes."

He doodled as I talked. He turned tears into a water droplet, a tiny pond just big enough to reflect an Ott flower blooming above it.

Not that they (Ott glories) can't live in harmony, given the right offer. They like to coexist with throrny roses, for instance. And they glow-bloom before dawn, attracting hummingbird moths, not birds at all but butterfly-bees. Both the glories and the moths are more than meets the eye.

Add a discerning eye and ta-da...

While the mentality of our culture is deeply entrenched in competition and the survival of the fittest, such a mindset ultimately leads to a hostile society in which nobody will want to live. Venus and Neptune form a visionary trine. Look for softness, chivalry and compassion. If you don't see it in the world, imagine it and you'll help bring it into being. (Think globally, act locally.) VIRGO weekend love horoscope: It's not just about who they are but about who you are when you're around them. Do they bring out the best in you? Define best: Flourishing/Sexy/On Solid Ground. (Right?) (That what I bring out in you?)

Walt Whitman, "A morning glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books."

Their name is that of my actual grandfather, for whom Ears is named. And as lovely as the tiny blooms are, glowing in the center of deep violet velvet, it is their tendril that makes them special. It is thinner than a standard tendril, more like curly hair than vines. And they will kill any plant that tries to shade them out by wrapping around and squeezing - think strangulation with a piano wire. They look so delicate, and they are, but also damn near impossible to win a fight with let alone to kill. It'd be better to make peace with them, if you can.

I didn't use any kind of filter, I didn't even autocorrect the exposure, this is exactly how it looked. It had just rained heavily. Then the setting sun came out. The reflection hit the glass surface of the pond and rays of the sun rose up out of the water. For all the world, you would swear that the sky was the reflection and the sun lives underwater of that pond in reality.

When I am there, I feel un-inverted just like that. As if the rest of the time, I seem to live in the world more successfully than most people do because it is a trick I have perfected. Like "magic". But the real magic hides me Away.

real magic

VIRGO: Life takes courage no matter which choice you make.

Tawista woods - Minerva NY