Gathering Energy on the Yin Side

It is a luxury to be off for a few days and not have to get up at any particular time. To be able to just read books and watch movies, to listen to music and just let new ideas percolate through my system. To enjoy a leisurely bath. And a cup of tea.

Just cooking some simple, healthy meals and getting plenty of rest is a good enough way to spend the day. When I feel like getting active again, I will be ready to get moving again.

Sometimes you just need to recharge your battery. During my busy seasons, I can sometimes work for weeks without getting a day off, and since I enjoy doing my reading and healing work, I am happy to work as much as possible.

There are some things I need to schedule right after New Year's, and then get everything off to a high energy start.

I am enjoying the yin side of the equation right now, staying in with the heat keeping everything cozy, nestled in with a book on the history of cards, some music for a winter evening and snacking on some delicious home made bread that a client just dropped off.

What else would make this an even better evening? Only one thing. If you think you know what that is, call or email, and you could be the winner of..........................I will tell you when you call.

Avatar's Failure of Imagination

Avatar is now the highest grossing film ever, and this fact is sure to add to the pressure to name it best film of the year. Although an entertaining movie, I would never agree that it is the best thing I have seen in a year.

Question this. Plot development? Why is it that the imagination that could come up with fantastic flora and fauna and luminous special effects could not imagine this magical world playing out in some way other than two armed forces trying to destroy each other? If the creative people behind this movie could imagine a world very different than our own, then why not elevate possibility thinking to a new level where solutions to problems can be found?

Question this. Character development? Is it possible to view the military commander or the corporate guy as anything other than one dimensional cretins? Compare them to some other good movies. Have you ever seen a film where even the bad guy had some complexity, some positive aspect, some appealing qualities or characteristics, making them at least an interesting character?

These two flaws are so large that Avatar will never stand as a great movie, unless you want to judge greatness based solely on special effects or box office receipts.

Avatar Anomalies

As a movie experience, Avatar is a constant stream of stunning images, so if you just want to kick back and be dazzled by computer generated images, then this is definitely the ticket.

Much has been made of the fact that it cost about a half billion dollars to make. But such figures are difficult to comprehend. Not so long ago a million dollars was considered a lot of money. When they say that it cost a half a billion dollars to basically make an adult cartoon, it really makes it seem like play money. Most of us live on a total annual budget that would be totally lost in that figure. There are probably some countries in the world that don't have a half billion dollar annual operating budget or an economy that produces that much. Some numbers are hard to comprehend.

I guess for some people the mere fact that the movie cost so much to make was reason enough to see it. I rarely go to movie theatres any more since I am so happy with the way Netflix works, and the price is a bargain. I like the idea of being able to watch what I want when it fits my schedule. But the idea of a huge spectacle in 3-D is something that would not come across as well on a regular, smaller sized screen, so I decided to see it that way, on the big screen.

What about the story? I heard someone else say that it was a lot like an old Disney cartoon called Ferngully: The Last Rainforest and that Avatar was nothing more than a half billion dollar Ferngully. Not having seen Ferngully myself, I can't say. But I can say that it reminded me of a very well made cartoon. Yes, a cartoon that is light years ahead of what we used to call cartoons in terms of animation and special effects.

What I can say is that in what I consider a well made movie, you have intriguing plot developments and strong characters.

What really is contained in Avatar besides stunning visuals? Well let's see. You have the corporate guy who takes the attitude that "it doesn't matter what the natives want. The minerals under the land where they live are worth a lot. Our wheels do not stop. We have a lot of money to make here, and that is all that is important. They need to get out of our way." He reminds me a lot of some of the corporate guys I work for on my day job.

Then you have the mercenary enforcers, the military kind of guys who think that the best way of resolving different points of view is by destroying the people who have other points of view. Obviously a reference to some current events. Most people can probably pick up on this. Sound like a war where a group of mercenaries named Blackwater has been helping to secure black water (oil)?

The natives in Avatar people have a metaphysical world view of how everything is connected and how healing, visions, interspecies communication, connection to the ancestors and all kinds of marvelous things happen as a result of these connections, which appear to give the people magical abilities. They are a very spiritually oriented people. Yes, our world would be a better place if we were all so attuned.

Much like Dances With Wolves, the native viewpoint really resonates with one of the military guys who decides to go native. He has allies among a few other sympathetic military people and scientists who appreciate the unfairness of it all, who get a sense of the metaphysical connections, and join the revolt against the brute force. This is the part that is kind of like Matrix, where the clash between cultures is really a clash between alternate realities and there is a catalyst who travels between the two. The scenes at the Tree of Souls certainly calls to mind the huge party scene from Matrix. I like these metaphyiscal aspects, and that part is alluring. But we still have stale plot points and stock characters where the only reason for visiting other planets is to exploit their resources, and the only kind of interaction with others is violent, and the people in power are toxic jerks.

You could even dip back a bit further and find a number of ways that this resembles Star Wars with the ex Marine in the robot standing in for Darth Vader, the droids attacking the critters, the muppets replaced by animated graphics of plants, animals and humanoids, and the underdogs are still the only ones really connected to spirit.

But to my taste, some of the best movies I have seen are not these huge eye candies, but rather some of the smaller movies with strong characters and plots that are not predictable from the first frame. Sometimes they win big awards and make big money, sometimes not. There are things in a great movie that are more fascinating than flying dinosaurs and iridescent jungles.

Avatar comes to a conclusion with a lot of stuff getting blown up, burned and shot. Hollywood loves to do that, because it makes for spectacular visuals. As entertainment, I find other things much more interesting, although I readily admit to watching some action, adventure and mystery movies.

Right now, the buzz is such that Avatar will no doubt be nominated as the best movie of the year. But in my opinion, that is more a result of the marketing buzz it has generated and the colorful special effects created than because of the great script and great acting. Sorry, but I am not on the bandwagon. All this movie has going for it is great visuals.

Then again, we have to look at the context to see why it is popular.

I guess it helps to have visual virtual enemies because it at least gives audiences a target for venting anger, compared to nameless faceless brokers who can amass fortunes selling stocks they don't own, those who sold people mortgages they knew that they cannot afford, and those who make profits by offshoring the jobs and selling off the parts and giving themselves massive bonuses while dumping employees and dumping on the ones who are left.

When politicians are trying to convince us that forcing us to give more of our money to the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies that have been ripping us off for years is a "reform" it is kind of like living in a cartoon or slapstick comedy. The lobbyists write diabolically funny plays, only they call them laws.

In the real world, we have unobtanium too. The script writers didn't really stretch their minds too far to get to unobtanium from unobtainable. Asking some of these politicians to do what we elected them to do and fix what needs to be fixed for us is like opening Pandora's box. Look up Pandora in Greek mythology. Those ancient story tellers could spin fantastic tales that have given roots and wings to our culture and civilization for millennia.

It is not surprising that with all the craziness going on in the world, some people would rather watch a cartoon and forget what is going on. Sometimes it is impossible for comedies and cartoons to one up real life.

So is this giant cartoon the greatest movie of the year? No, but it will help many people find some temprary relief from real problems, and that is what we pay movies to do.

Dynamite Visuals

Avatar is well on its way to being one of the biggest movies ever. In terms of special effects, it is really special. In terms of plot, it is something of a cross between Dances with Wolves and Matrix.

You can make what you will about whether this is a parable about current wars and whether vastly different world views can coexist.

There are some great metaphysical conceps on display about the interconnectedness of life.

But at the end, do we still have a very colorful and fantastic set of visuals that are all about two armies blowing each other up?

Hollywood always loves those dynamite visuals.

Bottom line, is the story that great, or is it just a showcase for visuals? Let's think about this some more.

The Color of Black and White

Changing the tarot deck we use to do readings can provide a burst of fresh energy in the same way that reorganizing our living space can give us a sense of renewal.

Those of us who like using tarot cards usually have looked over a number of different decks, and maybe we have a number of them, and we usually gravitate to using one deck that becomes our favorite and most reliable tool.

Sometimes, when a person sees a deck it is love at first sight, and they use it for years without even considering using something else because it works so well for them. Then there are others who have a deck they enjoy, but then they see another that sparks their energy and imagination, and they switch to using that one regularly, and they repeat this pattern over and over, a serial monogamy with tarot.

There are some people who regularly switch back and forth between a number of decks that they enjoy using. Some decide which deck to use based on their mood that day,or if they are reading for someone else, perhaps choosing the deck they feel will work best for that person.

I have a larger than average number of decks since I deal in cards as well as collect them for myself, so I have seen a lot more decks than most people. There are decks I can appreciate for the sheer beauty and art, others for the appeal of the concepts.

Most people who use cards have had some instances of buying a deck based on a few examples they have seen, but then are disappointed with the whole deck. And then there are decks which we love, except that there are a few cards that just bother us because we don't like the concept or the execution, so when we use it, we keep wishing that one or those few cards were different than they are.

Sometimes changing a deck can freshen up readings and surprise the reader. With this in mind, I made a radical change. I went from using a very colorful deck with Renaissance type imagery to a black and white deck with a very simple drawing style that projects a lot of primal, earthy energy. This one is also one that has been out of print since 1974, so most people have not seen one like it before.

There have also been a few other black and white decks that I really like and interestingly, I have sold almost all of them, even though the vast majority of decks use full color in their design.

People who have created the better decks in black and white images seem to have imbued them with a very rich energy, wit, originality and boldness. I think that is what people see in these innovative decks because the power of the imagery must come from the form, not the burst of color.

I feel very good about using this deck, and no doubt I will go back to a deck with full color, but for now, there is a burst of freshness that pops out every time I pull out some of these cards.

There are cases to be made for working with one deck deeply and exclusively, and for switching back and forth. For me, for now, switching to the black and white deck from the vivid colors has proven to be a very lively and invigorating dance.

No doubt, I will continue to use decks that have a lot of color, as will most people, but just like with old classic movies, there are some black and white films that do not need color in order to be interesting, beautiful or great. And, of course, let's not forget some of the incredible photographers of an earlier era who did all of their great work in black and white. There are dynamics in the form that become more visible in the absence of color.

Filmed Imagination

I have not seen the new movie Avatar yet, but I plan to, and having read some of the reviews, and they pose a fascinating question.

Notice how typical it is that when humans encounter some other species that the response is always a fight.

When movies are about UFOs or creatures from other planets, a movie that shows some kind of peaceful, creative interaction is rare. Most often, we end up at war with each other.

Is this just a failure of imagination?

No doubt, from what I have gleaned thus far, Avatar is technically superior in terms of the visual effects. It is just the latest to continue to advance the craft of movie making through computer generated special effects.

But I wonder when we will see more movies that have a story at the center of them that shows people interacting with new tribes or species in some kind of creative, peaceful way.

True, in the history of our planet we see wave after wave of one ethnic group or tribe overpowering another, fighting for control of land and resources, or picking fights with each other over differences based political or religious opinions, race or ethnicity. A logical extension of that would be that when we do land on other planets this pattern will continue.

All I am asking is one question. What if movie makers, our large scale story tellers, were to expend as much of their creative energy imagining scenarios where encounters between different groups of characters were not violent? Is it possible?

Think about the differences between movies like ET, Cocoon and Contact and movies like Independence Day, Aliens and Terminator?

Doesn't our future begin with our imagining it?

Look Ahead, Then Rest Before What's Next

After wrapping up another outdoor festival today, I am looking forward to the next two festival gigs being indoor events. Once again the weather was a factor, as the cold, lightning and rain caused the festival to shut down on the middle, and longest day, which everyone who bought a booth also regarded as their potentially most profitable day. The break on Saturday gave us a little time to rest. After half a day of being in a tent with not enough warm clothes in the damp and cold, an afternoon of chicken soup and kicking back with a movie felt fine. Fortunately, Sunday picked up and turned out to be a good day.

By the time Sunday evening came, it was a good time to simply clean up and put things away, take a soothing shower and settle in with a good book.

In the morning, I will go back to the day job, but before I do, I give myself a little time to check my emails to confirm appointments for the coming week, going over some bills I need to pay, plan for the talk I am going to give at next week's fair, and then just relax a bit. Tomorrow, I will send emails to people I met today. I have an overview for the week and see how all the things I do will contribute to my larger goal of doing this work of reading and healing full time, and being able to quit my day job when the reading and healing business is built up to a more consistent level than it is now.

So this evening there is simply a pause in the rush of activity. There is movement beneath the surface. I will be going over my presentation for next Saturday all week in my mind. I will be connecting with as many people as possible before then.

But tonight, just for a while, just for a breather, there is soothing piano music playing, I am enjoying a taste of whiskey, and reading a good book. Soon I will go to sleep. A little pause is good. We all need it. There is much to be done tomorrow. Rest is what feels good right now.

Each week, do you take a look at your week ahead? Do you give yourself a little time to mull over the important things that need to be done, and then let go of them and simply be quiet for a while?

The Unspoken Word

Unspoken words are powerful words. My grandfather always used to say that we should not tell everything we know because then other people can have power over us. There is a power to being mysterious. Notice how often movie stars and pop music stars who do not grant a lot of interviews are the ones in most demand. They drive up their own value by not being available, by not speaking when they are not onstage.

When you are negotiating with someone, the first one who speaks loses. The one who is waiting to consider all the facts and variables considers the perspective from all angles, so the one who speaks first has to offer something to try and close the deal. In so doing, they make a concession, which then places the other person in the position of power because they can then either close or try for further concessions.

Often times in movies or novels, the person who speaks little poses a greater threat because the opponent does not know exactly what they are up against. The one we know less about seems far more dangerous than the one we know a lot about, because we always figure that there is a way around the ones we know.

The unspoken word is also powerful in communicating deep feelings to someone we care about, because sometimes we flail about helplessly in our minds trying to find just the right words to describe what we want to say, and none of them are exactly right, so we say nothing, and it conveys everything.

Music, Our Portal and Passport

Music is a galvanizing force for bringing people together. The energy of music can bring people together quickly, creating good feelings, warmth, humor, lightheartedness, joy and pleasure.

Music can also bring healing. Why do you think that massage therapists and other body workers always have music playing while they are working on you? It helps a person relax, soothes the muscles and relieves tension, making it easier for the therapist to do their work.

It is also an aid to digestion, which is why soothing music is played in restaurants. It can also stimulate the flow of healing cells and energies in our bodies.

All of these things happen because music is a portal. It connects us with other people, it is a universal form of communication, which is why it is included on space probes we have launched. There have been many instances where people of different cultures who could not speak each other's languages have been able to play music together. There have been many ne recordings in recent years where we can hear people of different ethnic groups bridge the gap by finding ways for the musical idioms to come together and play.

What about as a portal for the imagination? how many symphonies, ballets and operas have themes drawn from great myths, fairy tales and folklore? Why is it that sacred chants, whether the Gregorian, Sufi, Hindu, Hebrew or any other can immediately transport the listener into an altered state of consciousness? At Renaissance Faires the period music is just as important in creating the feeling of that time and space as the costumes and decorations.

How many times when you are watching a movie can you tell whether coming actions and scenes are going to be sinister, tragic, hilarious or romantic because they are foreshadowed by the music?

Music can energize to make work lighter as well. Think about chants that people have done at work so that they could get enough of a boost to get things done. This is the common thread between the work chants of the slaves, the chants of the sailors, the cadence of the soldiers, cheerleaders in sports, chants of the warriors, songs people sing at harvests or plantings, and so many other examples. Music unleashes energy we didn't even know we had and makes that available to us when we have tough jobs to do. Sometimes I chant and sing during the work day simply to relieve tension and inspire me to keep going.

Music is a portal that opens the way for us to heal, shift into sacred space, to become engaged romantically with another person, to build excitement and energy, give us courage, give us strength, helps us grieve and to celebrate.

From the heartbeat we first know in the womb, the sounds we make when we go to war or go to work, and the songs we sing at weddings, funerals, the music we hear when we make love and the sounds that surround us in the world, we find our way to the places we want to go with music.

Feeling and the Mind's Eye

Ever notice how you can have even a fleeting image fly through your mind, and feelings come up? Images are powerful. The picture of someone we carry in our mind's eye can summon the same feelings you had with that person when you were together live and in person.

We use that faculty more than we realize. You know that example that has been used many times about when you imagine yourself biting into a lemon, and your mouth starts to pucker, but there is no lemon there. Your body, however, reacts as if there really is a lemon there.

When we watch a movie or read a book, we can feel some of the same things the character is going through because we can identify with them and relate to what they are feeling, especially if the book or movie is like anything we have ever lived through.

Our mind's eye even opens up new vistas to see what we have not seen, as in remote viewing, or what they call "casework" in the Silva Method Training. We can tune into feelings near or far and see things we did not know we can see. We can feel things and sense things about life from a distance, from memory, in our mind's eye.

Other Points of View

Here's something to think about. If the crop circles are simply hoaxes as some people claim, someone was really a genuis to be able to create works of art on such a large scale.

If they are not made by hoaxers, then we still don't know what causes them or how they were made, and they remain an intruiguing mystery. Either way, we have these strange and wonderful creations to consider.

So we consider the possibilities of other life in the universe. Again, we don't really know what is out there, so our imaginations are free to create explanations and make up stories. Perhaps the stories lots of ET fans favor about grays and reptilians are just fabrications from people who love mythology, fairy tales, fantasy and science fiction. So we have interesting stories to stretch our minds.

Some authors have put together fascinating theories about how visitors had an influence on ancient civilizations. True or not, I do not know. Interesting, yes. Perhaps one of the intriguing aspects at the root is that so much is beyond our comprehension that we are like the tribes in Mexico who saw the Spaniards ships approaching and had no point of reference for them. They did not know what they were looking at, so they made stories up and related them to their mythology.

We may be looking at things we do not understand and trying to create explanations for them. I do not know the truth about all this. Probably no one does. But our space stations and Hubble telescope and shuttles keep expanding our views of the possible. And looking with our eyes and our minds and listening with our ears, we explore the world we live in, expanding, exploring, embracing whole new concepts.

What happens to us when our vision is larger?

Walk In, Walk Out

Like many other people, I am curious about subjects that have to do with ETs, UFOs, ghosts and so on. These aspects of life on the edges of consciousness are fascinating. Last night, I went to hear a speaker who claimed to be a "walk-in." Walk-ins are people whose bodies are inhabited by an ET. The soul or energetic body of an ET simply walks into the human body. She made an interesting comment. She said that many people who are walk-ins were misdiagnosed in the past as multiple personality disorders or bipolar. She said that when the soul of a human who wants to leave makes an agreement with an ET, one soul leaves and the other comes in.

Whether this is true or not, or whether it works this way or not, this concept is fascinating. No doubt, many people will dismiss such a theory as "way out there."

But consider this. Many people have a life which is not happy. They are not fulfilled by what they do. There are those who have had abusive childhoods or abusive marriages or other extremely disfunctional relationships. If they have no hope, and see no way in which their life will get better, their mind can go in some unusual directions. If a person decides to check out of ordinary consciousness, modern pharmacology offers some amazing drugs to let a person who has gone bonkers come to work and function, although other aspects of life are way out of whack. It is not so far fetched from the Philip K. Dick novel which was made into a movie about how people in a science fiction future would go and get a "treatment" that let them think they had been on vacation, when in fact they had not. They could have the feelings and memories of being on vacation while they still went to work. Wonder drugs, yes. Prozac? Lithium? Ritalin? These things are not exactly that, but they do alter behavior and change thinking patterns.

I believe, for example, that what many people now call multi-tasking is not a good thing. On my day job, for example, our managers insist that we can have more than one task be our number one priority at the same time. We work on dual screens, working on problems sent in by email while simultaneously taking calls from customers. Of course, they are wrong. A person can only focus on one task at a time and do it well. You cannot have more than one thing be the number one priority at the same time.

They also offer a shift of four 10 hour days a week, with starting times at 5 or 6 in the morning, which of course, would mean that a person would have to go to bed about 8 pm in order to get enough sleep to get up at 4 am. And that, of course, would interfere with having a life. I mean, when you get into that kind of rhythm, you won't have much time for socializing in the evenings. You wouldn't be able to go out and hear a speaker, see a play, go to a concert, or go out after work for dinner and drinks and conversation with your friends. Oh yes, and they did away with those pesky paid holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, July 4, Memorial Day and Labor Day. So all days are the same. You can just come in and do the same old grind without any extra pay while your family and friends are all getting together. Your life will be about going to work and sleeping. Yes, you will have a three day weekend, but your body clock will be reset to go to bed at 8 pm and get up at 4 am. What else would that do to a person's mental state? Road rage is one of the minor social aberrations that come from people venting inappropriately from being expected to do more work for less pay and having to drive in congested roads just to get to and from there. We are seeing what happens when such expectations become the norm.

Whether or not you think the whole walk-in concept is true or not, it poses fascinating questions about human development and evolution.

Powerful Essences from Dreams

Movies can convey a powerful impression on us that stir the emotions and tell great stories within a very compact amount of time. Images stay with us for a long time and make a deep impression. That is why sometimes we can recall a great movie we saw years ago, but forget things we have done in the years between then and now.

Storytelling is powerful, and combined with sounds and images, the magic of storytelling is amplified.

How many inspiring moments come to us this way? Yet, all of this is not to discount reading and personal storytelling. Those have been important in my life as they have been to people for generations and millennia.

At its heart all movie making is really just storytelling with all the modern equipment being able to do create worlds of illusion and illumination with a sense of immediacy.

Movies constantly involve metaphysical processes and philosophies. Concepts like karma past lives, ghosts, spirits, apprenticeship, wisdom, heart and soul are all there in popular movies, whether or not they are openly discussed in the dialogue. Have you noticed that? Some of the movies with a lot of this going on are not some of the ones that tout it up front. In the illusory world of movies, we often engage in consciousness raising realizations. From these dreams come powerful essences.