for virgo: One reason I've been put on this earth is to expose you to a kind of astrology that doesn't crush your free will, but instead clarifies your choices. In this horoscope, for instance, I'll crisply delineate your options so that you may decide upon a bold course of action that's most in tune with your highest values. Study the following multiple-choice query, then briskly flex your freedom of choice. Would you rather have love: 1. knock the wind out of one of your illusions, thereby exposing the truth about what you really want; 2. not exactly kick you in the butt, but more like pinch and spank you there, inspiring you to revise your ideas about what it means to be close to someone; 3. spin you around in dizzying yet oddly pleasurable circles, shaking up your notions about how to keep intimacy both interestingly unpredictable and soothingly stable.

4.____________________________________________________________________________________________ [the world may never know]



Eilen Jewell: Shakin’ All Over (Johnny Kidd and the Pirates cover)

the cat bong - it's not funny so I should probably stop laughing, eh? quite an impressive contraption, the kinda thing only a stoner in NEBRASKA would have the time to craft and one which only a stoner would get caught using as it MEOWED. I'm currently the foster mother of a little rescue shih tzu - maybe she's been baked! that would explain a lot.

queen of swords

[my nana, turning 95 last week - the hotlips are a nice touch,eh?]
-----


I've said before that every craftsman searches
for what's not there to practice his craft.

A builder looks for the rotten hole where the roof caved in.
A water-carrier picks the empty pot.
A carpenter stops at the house with no door.
Workers rush toward some hint of emptiness,
which they then start to fill.

Their hope, though, is for emptiness,
so don't think you must avoid it. It contains what you need!
Dear soul, if you were not friends
with the vast nothing inside,
why would you always be casting your net into it,
and waiting so patiently?

*Rumi
---
what I'm listening to: "Stray Age," Daniel Martin Moore, repost

you're safe with me lala la

God, I was not meant to be the isolate
ery in this body.
I was meant to have your tongue in my mouth.
.
That is why I stand by your great plaster lips
waiting for your voice to unfold from its dark slot.
.
Your hand clenched into the shape of a bottle.
Your mouth painted shut on the answer.
Your eyes, two blue mirrors, in which I am perfectly denied.
.
I open my mouth and I speak
though it is only a thin sound, a leaf
scraping on a leaf.
*Louise Erdrich, "The Sacraments"

--

what I'm listening to: "Love Affair," Nina Kinert, you won't feel a thing la lala - totally gets under your skin, this song



--

faintedink'skid

I went back to the hot yoga studio yesterday after a hell of a month too sick to practice there - it helped a buttload immediately. My welts are fading this morning towards the scars they're apparently going to be, like a heart tattoo of "Mom" on my arm only different.

Feeling fierce.

----

Get offa me

"If I Were Your Woman," Gladys Knight

"Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)," BT Express

---

indifference is a psychological precondition for Igetoffonyoursuffering

---

I'm working on my unattachment mojo, but I refuse to accept that any species will either play dead or attack as its only two modes of being (not even the human male)

for virgo: There's a rung missing on your ladder of success. I suppose you could see that as a problem. It means you won't be able to climb higher by taking two manageable steps, but will be compelled to attempt a giant upward stride. I see this as potentially a good thing, though. The missing rung is exactly the kind of glitch that could activate your dormant reserves of ingenuity. It might even force you to become so smart and resourceful that you'll ultimately rise to a point you wouldn't have been able to if your ascent had come more easily.

ya know when the Hulk goes greenasldfasdlkfas;ldjkaaaaahhh whatever? that's just like the demi-superpower of Idon'tgiveashit: it breeds in the blood in mounting molecules of terrible sad panic then finally flips a lid and goes righteous on the ass of whatever causes it such pain, shitty and awesome. Idon'tgiveashitanymore truth consciousness

----

morrissey - ok by myself live

bonus: "Heads Will Roll," Yeah Yeah Yeahs, great track

the carbon monoxide detector is busted, that was all - wasted money on the emergency gas dude and I was stuck living through the night besides, woo hoo

----

The new moon in Pisces represents fresh beliefs. If you lost your faith in someone, especially yourself, you can now find it again. If your convictions have weakened you can decide what you do feel strongly about. Spiritual discovery happens, and most often comes from doing the most practical of activities with great love. This year the new moon in Pisces falls on the same day that, in 1968, Cambridge astronomers announced the existence of pulsating stars they named pulsars. These stars were baffling to their first observers because their emissions seemed irregular and they were dubbed by their discoverers, Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Anthony Hewish, the tongue-in-cheek name of "LGM-1," which stood for "little green men." Could it be possible that these strange stars radiated from alien civilizations? It's the premise of many a "Star Trek" episode and a delightful conduit for imagination. This new moon in Pisces is ideal for investing some energy in your own fantasies about the possibilities of the universe. It doesn't have to be extraterrestrial in nature, and in fact it's probably mundane. For instance, maybe there's something you want that would make your life easier, but you haven't figured out how to get it yet. Daydreaming on the topic of "what if?" will likely bring many ideas that never occurred to you before. Be bold with your imaginings. The more wild and impossible your fantasies are, the better the ideas that come out of them will be.

----

"to dream of tomatoes means domestic enjoyment and harmony. . . for a woman to dream of growing tomatoes fortells of her happiness in a relationship or marriage"

----

I dreamt of planting pots full of them, ripening to gorgeous red faster than I could get them in the dirt. all good signs this day, but all I feel is nothing at all. actually, the feeling most familiar to me in this lifetime is of being punished collateral damage, so I feel nothing more remarkable than breathing would be a better way to put it. say la vee, at least now I know what I'll plant in the rooftop garden, which fortells of salads

----

Susan Werner: Help (The Beatles)

(and the joy might be delusion)

got home and the carbon monoxide alarm is going off and now I'm waiting for the emergency crew - maybe in addition to above diagram, I should add "brain damaged part", a dark gray cloud in the frontal lobe that's shitting out the [psuedo]joy blob . . .

Panic attacks are very sudden, discrete periods of intense anxiety, mounting physiological arousal, fear, stomach problems and discomfort that are associated with a variety of somatic and cognitive symptoms. Although these episodes may appear random, they are a subset of an evolutionary response commonly referred to as fight or flight that occur out of context. This response floods the body with hormones, particularly epinephrine (adrenaline), that aid it in defending against harm. Experiencing a panic attack is said to be one of the most intensely frightening, upsetting and uncomfortable experiences of a person's life. According to the American Psychological Association the symptoms of a panic attack commonly last approximately thirty minutes. However, panic attacks can be as short as 15 seconds, while sometimes panic attacks may form a cyclic series of episodes, lasting for an extended period, sometimes hours. Often those afflicted will experience significant anticipatory anxiety and limited symptom attacks in between attacks, in situations where attacks have previously occurred.
ouch, bad f'n week this one
The effects of a panic attack vary from person to person. Many who experience a panic attack, mostly for the first time, fear they are having a heart attack
dan auerbach - when the night comes beautiful song (artist website)

Of Montreal: Trouble (Lindsay Buckingham)

You can't tell in any of the pics but he's got a little white spot on his throat, like a little priest dog. He's black now, but he's actually a blue-sable, which means when he's grown his long coat will be a dark blueish pewter and his undercoat will be brown. For a shih tzu, he's mammoth - born on the 1st and already a fat bellied double-handful. I look like I've had a sinus infection for weeks, but he's fantastic looking w that glossy fur and button nose, eh? He'll come home at the end of March. Since he looks like a priest, so far the name leading the list is "Father Buttsniff". I'm still taking suggestions on the name, obviously.

"Monkery Blues," Carmen McRae, awesome track

when you say the word mine

Redbird: Love is a Rose (Neil Young)
bonus ouch: Cake - Love You Madly

Miss Emily Brown - (part of you pours out of me) Sleeping Lions high rec - her website

Ben Kweller — Wait (Beatles Cover) my pick at the moment

Peter & the Wolf — Silent Movies

Cat Power: Dreams

jack johnson w paula fuga - country road (karma gospel)

bonus tracks from DmS

"Your Love (Outfield cover)," Emma Burgess

another, "Stray Age," Daniel Martin Moore, lovely

he can back up and do the what?

lol, that cracks me up

Fontella Bass - Hold On This Time Free (Mojo /1972) - this is awesome, totally fun;

and another, even better: Linda Lyndell - What a Man What a man 7″ (Volt / 1969) - 2:09-15?;

rest of the moka playlist from which that comes can be found here, it's allgood

for virgo this week: "The person one loves never really exists," said Arthur C. Clarke, "but is a projection focused through the lens of the mind onto whatever screen it fits with least distortion." Your assignment, Virgo, is to prove Clarke at least partially wrong. See if you can figure out a way to dissolve or elude your own projections long enough so that you can see the raw truth about a certain person you crave or adore or care about. Not a reflection of the dream lover who hides in your heart. Not a fantasy you wish your beloved would become. But the perfectly imperfect soul who is actually there in front of you.

Okay.

Ezra Furman and the Harpoons - The Worm in the Apple

Aoife O’Donovan: Hearts and Bones (Paul Simon)

for virgo today: Today’s vibes aren’t good, and luck won’t exactly be on your side. Any minor risks, no matter how well thought-out or carefully considered, are unlikely to pay off. This goes for work matters, as well as money matters. There’s also one specific matter where you should avoid rushing a decision! [well I do feel like hauling off and punching somebody, but whom?]

First orb spiders and bees then flyings ants and now this

Jasper the Mighty Wussy Dog just stays up high on the furniture and watches the scurry without so much as a boof. Finally the exterminator calls back, as I enter the elevator at work, and by the time I reach the 4th floor, 10 strangers and several coworkers know that these days I have vermin as moonlight companionship in of all places the damn BEDROOM (where the ants also thought it would be good to hang out - don't vermin know where the kitchen is? have vermin species, like humans seemingly, become less intelligent in recent generations?). At least I'm always good for a giggle, eh? O yeah, I'm the butt(crack) of every joke.

>:(

"The penumbral lunar eclipse of February 9 at 21° 00’ Leo opposes Neptune, just days after Saturn and Uranus make the first of their opposition alignments in 2009. This one has an effective geophysical shock window that stretches from the 4th (a day in advance of the Moon’s north declination maximum on the 5th) all the way through the 12th."

Here it comes, the lunar eclipse hitting the full Hunger Moon (also known as the Bony Moon [kagali] in the Cherokee tradition, and as Magh Poornima in the Hindu calendar) on Monday. In sum, solar eclipses are hard starts and lunar eclipses are hard ends. The shortest description of the effect of a lunar eclipse: you will lose something to which you have strong ego-based (i.e. you have your identity invested) emotional attachment. The moon is always about emotion and it's always about the impermanence of things - a lunar eclipse ratchets up the conjunction between the two, and weilds the effect of any full moon times 10 basically.

"A lunar eclipse is a supercharged Full Moon. The blocking of the Moon's reflection of the Sun's light by the Earth suggests that our material viewpoint stands in the way of our "seeing the light". It serves as a reminder that we need to realize how we are held in the dark by virtue of our perspective."

The Hunger moon signifies the deepest part of winter, the time of year when you are most likely to watch helplessly as those who are weakened may leave the material world. Most rituals associated with this moon are about honoring and asking guidance specifically from the people to whom you are related who are in spirit (i.e. dead). Speak to your (dead) folks as you prepare a meal - the smell of the food will carry your message, and in turn the guidance that you need will begin to come to you as you eat and thus feel the undeniable fact that you are still among the living. That's the Cherokee ritual, making a family dinner of sorts and setting places for your ghosts. You must accept: you are where you are (here); others are elsewhere (gone). Each of those facts presents its own challenges, felt uniquely at the crossroads between.

You may also choose something to let go of, a bad habit typa thing. A useful ritual option for that is simply flushing it down the toilet, symbolically or literally so long as you don't clog your drains. Of course you can use fire rituals for this too, and most group pagan rituals for this moon are some version of standing around a fire w your friends and throwing into it something that represents what you will henceforth relinquish (self-loathing, for instance, or bad memories, or a pic of an ex-lover you're still hung up on . . . ). Think of it this way: It's February, the food is almost gone, the firewood is wet, you're skinny and subject to maladies etc., so putting down anything to lighten your load may be the difference between your survival or not.

This year the Hunger Moon will be in Leo - that's not really good news. Leo is a fixed sign and doesn't get along well with emotionality, fluidity, change of any kind, and it especially is not happy with feeling out of control. Leo is one of those signs that is least likely to "go with the flow", especially any flow imposed on it by circumstances. Leo is prideful, it goes hard before falls. Chances are your emotional instinctive response to the eclipse will be something like "NO!", especially if you're a fixed sign. But it won't do you any good as the effects of an eclipse are usually not chosen and are usually "non-negotiable".

"The Full Moon Lunar Eclipse on February 9, 2009 occurs at 21°00' Leo (the degree of "Own Worst Enemy!"), in conjunction with the Fixed Star Algenubi, a star of cruelty, yet also artistic appreciation combined with great spiritual gifts, while the Sun is on the stars Castra ("The Fortress"), often considered problematic, though it has a good side, and Nashira, which favours good governance, writing, religion and the overcoming of evil. Pretty good, then, so long as you tread carefully and do not let ego create big problems making you your own worst enemy! [big caveat, eh?]

What we are called upon (or driven) to do may often interfere with what gives us emotional satisfaction, or we chase after our desires, while we waste or fail to develop our talents and skills. A tug-of-war exists between desires and emotional needs and practical ambitions. Appreciate whatever positive circumstances you encounter, and don’t be misguided enough to believe you can easily overcome any negative ones."

This full moon, one already about losses, magnified to the 10th power by an eclipse is a daunting notion. Seems like the arduous emotional tasks of letting a child grow up, of letting a parent grow old, of letting a person come into being in your life, of letting a person leave the world and yours = the most clear metaphors applicable to these first 2009 sun/moon eclipses respectively. In the most basic of ways, we are all trying to deal with those very cruxes all the time already, of course. I guess you could say that the stars are aligning themselves to help us have to.

No futures are ever set in stone, but in general news you get now will not easily be changed. For instance, a diagnosis of a medical condition now probably won't be miraculously revised. But it does bode well for transmutation. That seems like cold comfort for those bound to stay put, but it is good news for the ill and/or departing, for they are more likely to experience their mortality/leaving as a sensation of being strongly wanted/welcomed elsewhere. Full moons are always associated with lycanthropy [from Greek lykánthropos (λυκάνθρωπος): λύκος, lýkos ("wolf") + άνθρωπος, ánthrōpos ("man") used generically for any transformation of a human into animal form, though the precise term for that is technically "therianthropy"], but the Bony Hunger Moon is the one designated as such, and is the moon you honor as the guardian of transmuted souls and their commerce with this world, in aupicious forms and ways. Given the effects of an eclipse on that moon, there will be something like door thrown widely open btw us-here and them-gone, which will guard the paths forward in our own lives for us if we ask for that, and which will illuminate the path away for anyone leaving us and/or the material world if we find a way to ask for that. All very good things. But the challenge: Unattachment feels to me like swallowing gooey lead. A giving up thing, only bad. And given the affect of Leo, it might be like the Sun asking the Moon for a little light. Like Life asking Death to be maid of honor. (ways to cope)

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Instead of a song, I offer a recipe for your Hunger Moon dinner. From the sandwich menu, the "Hippie Heroin":

-Get a dense multi-grain bagel (dense like a hockey puck, not fluffy - I like the flaxseed ones from Wegman's) and toast it dark crispy.

-Spread it generously with whipped butter (do not substitute margarine cz that stuff tastes like shit - and this is no time to diet, anyway, since you're feeding souls duh).

-Let the butter melt in a little, then spread thickly with peanut butter (I like organic crunchy).

-Add just a wee pinch of sea salt (the representative of the water element in this recipe, as a substitute for the Hindu emersion rituals of this moon).

-Then drizzle a tiny bit of honey over the top and onto the plate.

-Serve open faced with a side of fresh fruit you splurged on, a taste of natural food you can't help but feel glad you're alive for - red raspberries are my choice, watermelon for my grandpa.

watch the international yoga asana championship live today and tomorrow here (the international starts at 10 a.m. pacific, and meanwhile you'll see recorded snippets of the regionals)

Dar Williams: Family elmer on my mind
bonus track: Jack Johnson - Badfish Boss DJ [Sublime]

"Relationship is the challenge of everyday life. If you and I and another do not know how to meet each other, we are creating conditions that breed war. So the world problem is your problem. You are not different from the world. The world is you. What you are, the world is. You can save the world, which is yourself, only in understanding the relationships of your daily life, not through belief called religion, or the left or the right, or through reform, however extensive. The hope is not in the expert, in the ideology, or in the new leader. It lies in you." --Krishnamurti

[amen]

Moving my mind out of the way, spirit to body, yoked yoked, drained to the bone. I've had this cold for months across this endless brutal god damned winter. Dead invisible weight. I let it loose doing that mudra, where my tongue slipped behind my palate my throat now alarmed, the little shelf of fire in the back of my head, sneezing in fits responding. All I can do is sleep and dream of an eagle and think man alive they're big, like a small car - who knew?

day after day I breathe only to cough, narrowing my thoughts to wa

kaya fraser - the only exception

my nose is plugged bloody shut, which cannot be good for my chi at all

Sick as shit all weekend, with better options than to be trapped inside for days contemplating what it's like to be trapped and sick, but too sick for those better options. No superbowl parties for me. I'm gonna cough up my whole throat chakra like a big goober, feels like. It is particularly unhelpful that I can't watch television very much cz it always makes me sick, bc when you're sick the thing to do is to watch television (not try to read about sikhism vis a vis the hare krishna movement, for instance). I tried - I watched a thing on Animal Planet about a lioness who caught a baby oryx then kept it and tried to love it (though often a bit chew-i-ly) and that meant she couldn't leave it alone so she didn't hunt and started to starve and the baby oryx couldn't get milk so it started to starve until finally in weakness the lion dozed off and the baby oryx wandered some feet away and a male lion came along and chomped it while the mama lion woke up just in time to watch the baby go down easy like a plate of nachos. Then the mama lion went off to hunt, but as soon as her hunger was satiated she went and caught another baby oryx and the whole thing started over and ended the same 5 times before she finally wanderd off to die in nearly emaciated weakness (and heartbroken, presumably).

I am the kind of person who would project myself into the roles of both of lioness and baby oryx, and then would be too saddened by the bereftness metaphors to want to bother explaining them.

---

what I'm listening to: hare krishna remix something something - too sick to care who/what this is, used to be in my old running mix when I was at 4+ miles a day sometimes twice, losing my mind around my busted heart, repeat repeat repeat repeat