Leaving Marks

We never know who we will dance with when we are open and enjoying the dance. Our partner could be someone we set our sights on and went for, and she can also be someone who we just happened to meet who suddenly clicks with us.

When the music is playing so beautifully and we are moving together with the music, it is effortless and we blend with the sound until our bodies move through space as dreamers who get from here to there without seeming to exert and muscles, simply flowing with joy together. Music, people, all one.

The music is always part of the background except that we are not always conscious of it. We get so used to white noise that we don't hear the dance of life that is going on all around us.

After the dance, we leave the public space and we come home. There were times when we left marks on each other's bodies, times when we were so hot for each other that we did not notice anything except the feelings that were penetrating our souls, consuming our entire consciousness as we consumed each other.

At times like these we were holding each other so tightly that we didn't even know how hard we were touching. We just wanted all the touching we could get. Our nails and our teeth were reaching to touch the part beyond the physical. If we left marks or drew blood, it was not because we were seeking pain, it was because we were seeking pleasure and we were holding tight so that there was nothing between us.

It is always about closeness and it is always about the heart. Long after the skin has healed and the marks disappear, the only marks left are the ones on our hearts.

Dreaming, Breathing, Quickly, Deeply

What is it that you want now more than anything? What would you do if you if this moment could be exactly as you wish?

Would you turn to see the face that goes with the voice you have been hearing? Would the touch you desire be soft? Would the comfort of the touch open to a whispered sound only audible between the two of us?

Do you know what I was dreaming? I had a feeling that your dream overlapped with mine. That is why when we talk, there is a similarity in our visions, and the things you want to say I say, and the things I want to say, you say.

When we dream and then it comes true, it is precognitive, and these dreams can become stunning in their intensity as we breathe deep and digest the idea that we are here now and we swim toward each other in this liquid atmosphere that surrounds us when we are engulfed in a feeling we savor. It totally surrounds us, this feeling, and we swim in it, and we breathe without effort, quickly, quickly as we look all around to see if we are really swimming, then deeply as we know we are here, and the waters part and we walk through them together, feeling the lifting of water, the lifting away of whatever we were thinking of a moment before we were here.

For You

What we have always desired flows close to the surface in this Valentine tide of energy cascading through the atmosphere.

When we hug, I can feel your desire. In your eyes, I can see the fire. In all the torrents of feelings pulsing through the space between us, there is a sweetness on the air and an earthy sound coming from your throat.

There is nothing so much as as the silvery moon, reflected on beads of sweat. There are outlines of excitement making themselves visible as well as audible on your breath.

What are those things you say without saying, you know without knowing, you feel even now, in memory, in spirit. Your hair is electric, picking up signals from the small sounds of evening, where the singing of all the creatures forms the words I want to say. They give voice to our feelings. Your hair brushes my skin as you lean over me, and you feel me tremble when those wisps stirs the edges of my spirit and the landscape of my body.

I feel your desire in your embrace. The scent of your true desire has escaped from under your perfume and made itself known just as our eyes met again.

The moonlight on your calf ascends your thigh and traces a silken path invisible to the touch, but everywhere to the eye.

I ask you again your name just to feel the way you pronounce it with your tongue.

Light, Shadows and Love Without Measure

When you see a face that looks familiar, what do you do? Do familiar faces make you feel like you are getting a "do-over" or a reminder of a past experience that provided a powerful lesson? So if this face belongs to someone else, it stirs feelings in you, but different feelings in them.

It is the play of shadow and light that illuminates our visions. When we see what is on the screen that plays in our mind, how many of these shadows form the movies that we watch?

It is all shadow and light, you know. Movies, they are all shadow and light. Memories. They are all shadow and light. Look at how we look when we think we see something and we are awakened to the possibilities.

Have you noticed that look that sometimes lights up another person's eyes when they think they have recognized you? You know that puzzled look like they are trying to remember where they saw you before?

Then after you speak and you know that you don't know this person, they still have this look in their eyes like they still are remembering who they are remembering even though you are not the one they were thinking of.

It is all shadow and light.

How much of the world we inhabit is shadows and light? Who is remembering what? It is all shadow and light.

Do you ever feel like you are walking through a forest and cannot find your way out? Do the trees look like the ones you passed coming in, yet the more you look, the more you cannot tell? Is there an in and an out?

What frequency is normal? What does it mean that we recognize but do not recognize? Is it that we are finally getting the lessons?

There are names that go with every face. There are faces we associate with all the phases of our life. There are times when we get an opportunity to do it over, and do it right this time.

There are faces of light and shadow, there are sorrows of great depth, and loves without measure. In our waking moments, our aliveness brings us to a new state of awareness, constantly. They speak to us of second chances.

The wheel turns, but not without giving us another look. Karma, coincidence, sorrow, joy, light and shadow. It is your movie. It is my movie. It is our movie.

Yes, there have been sorrows of great depth, and these shadows are the reminders that we are still alive and that there is also love without measure, and with these we can fashion new pictures, new images, new movies. It is all shadow and light. And love without measure is the only balm that lets us start over with a clean slate.

There are no ghosts in our shadow land that do not respond to love. Yes, it takes some of us longer than others to recognize the true faces of the shadows.

Mysteries Solved

He walked up to her while she was smoking a cigarette and he handed her his business card. All it said was Mysteries Solved and a phone number. She wondered how he knew that there was something she wanted to know. So of course she called him. "How did you know that I was looking for someone to help me figure this out?" she asked.

"Everybody has questions they want answers to, everybody is puzzled about some of the things that have happened in their life," he explained. "It's just that only some people are curious enough to really want to know the answers. Other people just push it to the corner of their mind and forget about it."

He handed these cards out to people everywhere he went, and there was a steady flow of customers, because there were always mysteries that people wanted solved.

There were mysteries that could be unraveled by sitting down and talking, and there were mysteries that required some digging around, although the Internet made the digging much easier than it used to be. And for some mysteries, he used his ability to travel mentally to find the answers.

It was an interesting business to be in, and there were stories that he came across that stuck in his mind and people were always interested to hear them.

You see, the word mystery quickly translated as crime stories and detective novels in the public mind. Then there were other popular mysteries, like UFOs, gypsies, witches, ancient civilizations and conspiracy theories.

But the mysteries that the mystery man got called for were usually more subtle, and more personal than that. Sure, there were those who had encounters with ETs, ghosts, witches or shamans, but there were many more who wondered where their life was going or why it had gone like it had already.

The Mystery Man was just as intrigued with these cases as he was with the big ones, and that is why he kept handing out his card to total strangers. He loved the mysteries they brought him.

And the people who called him loved the way he helped them unravel the mysteries and tell the stories of their lives. You see, this is how the Mystery Man also came to be known as the Storyteller. It was uncanny the way that he could find the perfect way to approach each person's request.

You could see it in their eyes, and hear the words form on their lips as he once again slipped a card into a stranger's hand without a word. "How did you know that I was looking for you? How did you know that I want to know? How did you know I have questions to ask?"

And the Mystery Man just smiled his cryptic, mischievous smile and responded, "Call me. I'd love to talk to you."

And so they did, and with each call, another mystery was unveiled, and another story was told. There was healing and humor, joy and sadness. And no two stories were ever exactly alike.

Surrounded by Symbols

This season, more than the rest of the year, is more laden with evocative symbols than any other time.

How familiar are we with evergreen trees, holly wreaths, mistletoe? What about the New Year's symbols of the baby and the grim reaper? The witch at Halloween? The cornucopia at Thanksgiving?

We speak in this shorthand all the time. We know that a red diagonal line through anything means no. We know that thumbs up means yes. We know that a person who opens their arms is welcoming us and one who crosses their arms is not. We know that a colon and a half parenthesis is a smile. :)

Symbols have been part of our lives since before we had fully formed language. Primal ones that we have found, like the ancient cave paintings, are as emotive as many more finely drawn paintings, and carry a powerful amount of energy in a few spare lines.

There are systems to symbols, and some, like the runes or the I Ching hexagrams have an interesting way of fitting together and interlocking visually.

Others, like the system of tarot, have a way of interlocking conceptually, and although they are visual in themselves, they cannot be as compact as abstract forms like runes, or the hexagrams of the I Ching.

Some symbols are so emotionally charged that their mere appearance sends chills or rushes of joy, depending on the sign, without anyone saying anything or any accompanying literature.

Obviously, some symbols are references to ancient beliefs and feelings and some are purely modern inventions of convenience which may or may not last. With some symbols we have near universal agreement, but with others not.

We bring our own interpretations to symbols as well as recognizing traditional meanings. This is why two people can look at the same picture and have two very different experiences of it.

And this is also why this is such an emotional time of year for so many people. We are surrounded by symbols and they can convey a host of messages to us faster than we can digest them.

A Sense of Adventure

For many people, the word adventure conjures up images of climbing mountains, snowboarding in the back country, riding big waves on surfboards, sailing around the world, jumping out of airplanes with parachutes, and other such daring physical feats.

However, not everyone wants to do such things, and so perhaps it is worth considering the many things a person could do that would constitute an adventure for them.

For example, wouldn't many people who create their own business consider it an adventure? What about people who overcome a fear of public speaking and then become known as a speaker or actor? What about the person who writes a book, or paints pictures that hang in art galleries? Or the person who goes back to school later in life and earns a degree or learns new skills to start a new career?

Yes, earlier in my life I hiked fourteeners, crewed on a racing yacht, walked on fire, went on vision quests, drummed all night around campfires and did other such things.

Then I did other things that I thought of as adventures that depart from the vigorous physical model.

I thought of it as an adventure to work in the Renaissance Festival, to be a security guard for the Chicago Cubs baseball team for a season was an adventure, to edit a magazine and write for publications was an adventure. Writing books was an adventure. Teaching was an adventure. Moving across the country and starting my life over again several times, was an adventure. Learning to develop my psychic abilities was an adventure. Learning to be a gardener and herbalist was an adventure. Learning to dance was an adventure. Learning how to be a lover was an adventure.

If we have a sense of adventure about life, we can define it in many ways, all of which enhance our sense of aliveness, joy and excitement.

What are the adventures you have had? What adventures would you like to have?

Dancing, Healing, Spirits

Some psychics smoke cigarettes to ground when they are taking a break. Some eat sweets. Me? I like a shot of scotch. And I dance. Let me note right here that I don't drink while I work. Not even when I am working parties or events where they are serving liquor. I have my scotch after work, when I get home. I am always sober when I am reading. I know there are people out there who might think that psychics should just do things like eat vegetarian and do yoga in between doing their psychic work, but that's not really how it works. Put a plate of BBQ ribs or meatballs in the break room at a psychic fair and watch them disappear.

This year, I felt the veil part about a month before Samhain, and I have been asked to do work I do not ordinarily get called on to do. The events I have been working have been very busy for me, and I have felt the energy open up new channels. It has been a profoundly heavy time this year.

Tonight, and a few nights recently, I have done something I have not done in a long time. I went to bars that feature blues or rock, and I drank and danced.

You may not think that is noteworthy, but here's why. Years ago, I used to dance every week. You could count on seeing me at contra dancing every Friday evening. Then I tried some other forms. One of my inspirations was a guy in Atlanta who told me that he took off a lot of weight and kept it off by dancing. He danced several nights a week. One night was contra, one night was Cajun, one night was Irish, one night was waltzing, one night was swing. He asked one question. "What's more fun? Going to a gym, lifting weights and walking on a treadmill, or dancing with women?"

I didn't have to think long. And I danced more. And I always felt good when I danced.

When I moved to Colorado, I started doing the Dances for Universal Peace as well as the contra dances.

Then I met a woman who did not care for the dances I took her to when we started dating, so I quit dancing to spend more time with her. She didn't take me up on my offer to go dancing in bars either. As a result, years went by without me dancing again. I missed it. But you do crazy things sometimes when you are in love.

So that relationship is over, and recently I felt the urge to start dancing again. I actually was kind of hesitant wondering to myself whether I would like it as much as I used to after a long layoff. A couple of people encouraged me, and I am so glad they did.

Even though putting my foot back in the dancing water began with having a drink and asking women to dance in a bar, my energy really perked up just from doing that. Next week I will start contra dancing again. Then we will see what comes next.

This I know. Dancing is the antidote to a lot of things that bring our spirits down. It must be the endorphins or whatever that kick into gear when we get up and dance.

Or maybe it is just the heart that enjoys the aerobic exercise. The heart also enjoys the touch and the eye contact with a dance partner. Dancing is very healing.

Love, Heat and Passion

It has been said that the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. Upon first hearing this, many people think that this cannot be correct. After all, love and hate would seem to be the two opposites. But there is a lot of energy in these two. Ray Bradbury, the great science fiction author, notes in Zen and the Art of Writing that there is as much zest in what you hate as in what you love, and either can produce enough energy to inspire great stories and great writing. Deep feelings from any perspective can breathe life into a point of view. Powerful reserves of feelings can animate and illuminate.

Now it is easy for us to recognize the passion in a relationship expressed as energetic lovemaking, romantic interludes and excited playfulness, but there is another side to that same source of energy. It is the dark side of romantic love that often finds expression in words that lead to regret, and the regret, in turn, becomes surrender.

Doesn't that often seem the case with couples who have mercurial relationships but stay together? They still have a lot of energy and they still care deeply. They care enough about each other to express deeply felt emotions. On the surface that may seem contradictory, but think about it for a moment. Two people may have very different opinions on a subject or very different concerns over an issue, but they still care enough to get excited, frustrated or angry and that forms the basic energy from which they argue. And isn't it true that often after a heated disagreement that the couple makes up, forgives each other and reconciles with passionate lovemaking?

So I am not saying that anger, arguing, and heated disagreements are desirable states, or things to be admired. What I am saying is that in a deeply felt relationship, there will be disagreements, heated discussions and flare ups. People in passionate relationships feel emotions deeply and they express them. And both parties in a relationship can take turns being right and being wrong.

Energy can be transmuted. Anger can become affection and affection can become anger. And the shifting between them can melt opposition. These change when a person is able to shift their frame of reference to view their emotions through a different perspective and they can feel the emotions expressing differently. How else do people calm down when they are expressing too much energy and going off on wild tangents?

Although the idealist in us would advocate for the peaceful discussion and resolution of all differences, with couples easily agreeing on solutions, the rise and fall of passions will preclude that from always being the case.

Strange as it may seem, it is the cool end of the spectrum that finally signals the end of a relationship. When one or both of the parties no longer cares enough to even disagree, they are indifferent to making love, and they can just walk away, then they are withdrawing their energy so completely from the relationship that there is nothing left. Nothing left to fight over, nothing left to debate or discuss, nothing left to love, no care, no compassion, no kindness, no tenderness, no excitement. Just nothing.

When one partner can actually say to the other partner that they do not care what happens to them, then the relationship has been drained of all life.

Just as the presence or absence of our body heat is a sign of life, when the body of love cools below the level of warmth, it is a sure sign that life is gone and that the love, heat and passion that once electrified the space between the two people has lost all of its vitality, that is indifference, the opposite of love. When nothing is left to flare up, nothing is left to heal, no excitement is left in the loving, and neither cares to even discuss it, then the body of love has cooled below the temperature necessary for life.

The passion, heat, and love in a relationship are its breath, pulse, and heartbeat. Without them, there is nothing.

The Power of Making Love Visible

Healing often takes place in forms that we do not recognize, because our tendency is to think of healing as more obvious and physical.

When feelings need to be healed, there are many ways to go about it. Often it is the love, compassion, kindness and cooperation that help heal.

But healing can also come through flirting, gentleness and creativity. Healing that needs to be done is often the common kind, the residue of divorces, end of relationships. Death presents different kinds of losses to heal, as do losses of career or jobs.

Loss of feelings is something that is sometimes visible on a person's face and body language, but some people are good at hiding it, and you cannot tell that they are in the process of healing too.

So here is a suggestion. Whenever you are in a position to be helpful to someone else, just do it because you can, and because it circulates good energy in the world.

Reiki and other forms of energy healing certainly do help with emotional healing and usually once a person tries it they can feel it.

For those of you with a partner, try expanding that feeling of warmth, gentleness and softness to your lovemaking. Make time to include this and notice what happens. Feel how the sexual healing expands and nurtures.

For those of you currently without a partner, try making more eye contact with the people you meet. See their souls light in their eyes. Offer them heartfelt compliments, and encourage them in any way you can.

Let go of the limiting notion that there is one perfect person for you but they are hidden somewhere. There are many people in the world with whom you can share good feelings, good experiences, joy and love. Viewed in that light, the world is abundant.

If we keep viewing our lives as some kind of a challenge to meet and marry the perfect person, we may be doomed to a life of searching for needles in haystacks.

Healing hurt feelings is a function of people extending love, joy, compassion and cooperation to as many people they come into contact with as they can.

We do have the power of making love visible. How often do we use it?

How We Relate

Often, we find ourselves hooked on forms that we follow because they are familiar, even if our own experience with them has not been successful.

Often times when people have relationship questions, they are thinking about getting married or divorced. It is common for a person to be looking for a third marriage even if they have been married and divorced twice already. But if your experience has been that way, a new idea might work better.

One woman came to me for a reading and when the question of two lovers came up, she announced that she would not choose between them, she would simply keep them both. Of course, some people might not agree with this approach, but trying something different is for the person looking for a different solution.

Last week, when a famous movie star died they noted that he had been married six times. And I am sure you have also read about other actors and actresses who have been married that many times. You would think at some point they would just acknowledge that that model of relationship is not working for them and stay single. But I think what is happening there is that they are really so used to seeing relationships through the context of that form, that they cannot imagine a relationship in another form.

I have met other people who are not movie stars or pop stars or celebrities who also have a track record like that, so the idea is not just about famous people.

Some people who travel a lot for their business end up separated from their partner for frequent or long periods of time. Some people enjoy it that way, some just accept that it is part of the job, and others don't like it and it ends up tearing at the fabric of the relationship.

Once again, it is how people relate to the forms. Where one person might find the absences intolerable, another welcomes them.

We are at a time when many different kinds of relationships exist simultaneously. Within this article I am not trying to discuss all forms of relationships, just the most common.

Expanding our concepts of relationships seems to be necessary. About 1 out 2 marriages ends in divorce, but 50 years ago, getting a divorce was considered a disgrace and could prevent you from getting invited to certain groups and events. So the divorce rate was lower, but that was because some people stayed in a lousy situation rather than fight the social stigma.

Today, we have more choices. In most cases, people would not think twice about whether a person is divorced before inviting them to a social event.

Now when people are meeting and discussing themselves, disclosing that they have been married and divorced before is no big deal.

It all has to do with how you see your possibilities. Years ago, it just came to me when I was filling out forms that asked me about my marital status, I thought about checking divorced again. Then I thought that choosing that word to define myself is like saying that my status is all about my failed marriage. But that is not true. I now choose the word single whenever I have a form to fill out.

Why? If you are legally divorced and available for dating again, doesn't the word single define your current state?

Use a parallel example. Would you define the rest of your life as the person who used to work at XYZ Corporation but lost their job to outsourcing, or would you present yourself to new people as what you do now?

Certainly presenting yourself as who you are now and what you do now will further you progress in creating a new career path.

So give it some thought when you consider your options and what works for you. Maybe just continuing to date will serve your social needs better than another marriage. Maybe we have set stumbling blocks in our own path if we fail to consider other options.

Maybe the woman who chose to keep both lovers is going to thrive with her choice, instead of letting one go and marrying the other.

What made me think of all this in the first place? The idea of a person having six marriages. Plus the fact that so many people express a desire to marry again even if they have had a number of unsuccessful previous marriages.

We all have to make our own choices, it's just that sometimes we offer ourselves to limited a range of choices and then insist that it must be that way.

Perhaps the person who allows themselves more or different choices will cope with the ebb and flow of life and the ebb and flow of relationships better than those who confine themselves to the limited options.

That is for each person to decide. I am just offering this observation.

Love Lessons

Why are some people in our lives? Why is it that there is a sense of destiny in some relationships? Karma? Maybe. Or maybe there is another word for it.

Because of the chemistry between individuals, some are uniquely suited to teach us lessons about love. Others may be uniquely suited to teach us lessons about wisdom.

To be a teacher of love takes a special strength because sometimes the lessons we may present our teacher would make another person run and hide. When that person mirrors back love to us, there is a resilience and determined open heartedness that shows us the true nature of love, forgiveness, and kindness that is always possible, but not always practiced.

Those lessons are really the lessons that all of us can use, but because sometimes we are stubborn or thick headed, we might only be able to accept those lessons from some people, not others.

In a perfect world, I guess everyone could be a teacher for everyone else, but realistically, we have to be open to receiving those lessons. And the chemistry between us and other people might not inspire us to be open.

Some teachers might go so far as to say that all lessons are lessons about love, even if the lesson is about wisdom, or craftsmanship, business or relationships, the lesson is always about love.

To some degree that is true. If you love your work enough to do it well, that is craftsmanship. If you love the people you do business with, you show them love. If you care enough to study a subject to learn it well, that is also a labor of love.

And relationships? There are some people who insist on showing us love even when we screw up, either deliberately or accidentally. That love is quite amazing to behold and to experience.

Are those people who can show love born with that ability or do they learn it? I would say both, although it is fair to say that we all at least need to be reminded once in a while, and pick up a lesson, whether it is the hard way or the easy way.

Babies are born simply as givers and receivers of love. What they learn along the way in life influences how fluently they continue to give and receive love. There seem to be millions of variations in how much people are able to give and receive love. Since we are not all uniform in any other way, I guess that is just natural.

This piece is to thank those people who showed me the way to know this.

Her Name is Tarot

Public speaking terrifies some people. Not me. I love it, and I have done a lot of it over the years. I decided early on that getting familiar with the material and then speaking from the heart was the most satisfying way to do. I have seen other speakers who are so dependent on their notes that they would really freeze up and stumble if they lost their place. In my experience, one of the key differences is being in touch with your spirit guides as well as the spirit of the occasion.

More than once, I thought I knew the path my talk would follow, then I suddenly felt prompted to take it in a different direction. That did not throw me off. It felt good. I definitely picked up on something spirit wanted me to say.

This Friday, for example, I am speaking at the Celebrations Fair, at 3 pm. As I have been doing a little reading and thinking about it, mulling it over as I relax, a new thought suddenly came to me, and as a result, I will be doing something I have never done before in this talk. I will not say what it is until Friday. I have always felt that the energy of the talk must be held close to the heart until it is time to let it out.

There is magic in spontaneity. There is magic in the spoken word. Being connected to spirit keeps the presentation fresh. Yes, I know my material because I have had years of experience with it, but sometimes spirit has a suggestion for delivering the magic in a different way.

This talk will be different from others I have presented. It is all coming together in a very inspired and playful way, with gratitude, grace, magic and mystery.

I do not have notes, but I do have plenty of inspiration. My spirit guides are very active so I know they are preparing me for an especially good event. Knowledge is a ground for the seed to grow in, then comes the flow of the moment, the flash of insight and the arising of joy.

This path is a journey of discovery. Be prepared to embark not on fortune telling, but fortune creating. Fortunately, spirit speaks, and her words are enchantment. Her name is tarot.

Dreams of Dreams

Are our dreams within our reach or are they really farther removed than that? Why is it that when we wake up in the midst of an awesome dream, we lay for a moment savoring the parts we remember?

While still in the thrall of a dream, we can see all the beautiful developments, and then we tell ourselves that it is not real, it is only a dream. Yet, there are ways to make dreams real.

What has been the energy of the other world in our mind is simply what we are stirring up before they have materialized in our daily life. In the in between dream state, we sense that we can reach out and touch the others in our dream. We sometimes find ourselves riding around town or to a little place in the country, along the beach, into the woods or up a mountain road to a place where we just came to enjoy the sensations. And in time we feel those vibrations and discover that some of the clothes from our dream fit real nice and some of the things we thought about doing are now what we are doing.

So as your energy settles down, look at how it is moving and how you would like it to move. Yes, that dream state that is still within arm's reach.

When we give our sleep guardians various offerings to help us sleep, other gateways open, yet these dreams are also within arm's reach of our waking state. And some days we feel like we can reach out and touch them, and live in them. You see, there is not such a great distance between the world of our dreams and the world of our conscious living. We just have to reach for it, and close the gaps between the two dreams, the dream of life, and the dream of dreams.

Popular Romance

So tonight and tomorrow night, I will be doing tarot readings for people at the Rocky Mountain Romance Convention, a huge get together of romance novelists and their fans.

This should be a good fit, since one of the important questions most people ask about is their love life.

As of this date, I have been reading a lot of mystery, detective, suspense novels, some of which contain a bit of a romantic story in them, but I have not been reading romance novels.

The woman who runs the used bookstore where I trade most often says that she cannot keep enough paranormal romance in stock. There is a huge demand for stories that involve vampires, ghosts and such. Interesting that that category is so hot right now. Then again, those ghost busting shows have never been more popular on TV and mediums who bring messages from the dead have been popular for a number of recent years. So are vampire novels, tarot decks, and TV shows.

It will be interesting to see what all this means live and in person. I am looking forward to it. I think I am about to get another perspective on what puts the pop in popular. I expect that it will be a lot of fun reading for this group.

Melodies, Mind and Body

When we are young, music speaks to us of the life before us, where there are many possibilities. Many older people may summon nostalgic memories. Since many people are now living longer, hearing some inspiring music or seeing some great live performances may still spark ideas of things yet to come.

Music communicates in many ways, on many levels. It encourages us to dance, engaging the senses, and it also sets our mind off in different directions. It keeps both mind and body limber.

Just as lyrics in music are stored in a different part of the brain than spoken words, it would seem that the memories triggered by songs can bring up associations from our subconscious in seemingly random patterns.

Music has its own history. It may have been created in a certain time or place and it can evoke memories, although the people who heard it when it was new may have very different memories associated with it than those who hear it a long time later.

Interestingly, the composer's intentions mean a lot to them when they are creating the music, but most listeners might enjoy it without ever knowing anything about those intentions. Quite amazing when you think about it, but it points to one simple truth. Just as we have no idea what a painter was thinking when they painted a picture, although we might enjoy looking at it and find ourselves appreciating it and being inspired by the finished product, the same thing happens when we hear a song we like the sound of. We may not ever know what the composer had in mind during the creation process, but we savor, and may be inspired by, the finished product.

So that gives music a unique power. Say, for example, hearing a popular piece of music reminds one person of an old lover from years ago, while another person hearing the same piece of music might have a memory of a career transition, or a summer vacation. Yet, hearing a piece of popular music can massage these emotional touchstones for millions of people at the same time in different ways.

The power of the melody has to be the unifying factor, even though lyrics are bound to send different people's minds off in different directions.

What is often suggested by music that we remember from when we were young is that there was a time when we looked at the world and saw a place where everything was possible. For many of us, good music still does.

Soft Summer Solstice

It felt appropriate to spend part of my Summer Solstice planting in the garden, then taking a relaxing bath.

The herbs are growing nicely and it is wonderful time to stop and give thanks for all of the wonderful healing energy they bring us and all the ways they add flavor and health to our lives.

The longest day of sunlight is also a time for gratitude for all that we have received. A time for gratitude for the people in our lives. A time for gratitude for health, love and abundance.

A time to light a candle and relax with a glass of wine and reflect on the polarity between this and the shortest day of the year.

In Shakespeare's play, this would be the magical night of the Midsummer Night's Dream. In Europe, May 1 is the first day of summer. Here they call the Solstice the first day of summer. Most years that seems too late, but this year, with snow until May, it feels like we just started summer.

In the fullness of life, there is much to be grateful for now. The wheel is turning.

Lust & Valentines

Valentine's Day has its real origins in the old Roman holiday of Lupercalia, which was a very lusty holiday. Men who were the priests of Pan would run through the streets in furry loincloths, wielding little leather strips. Women would bare their bodies so that they could be playfully struck with these little leather thongs, stripping themselves in public to offer a larger exposure, it was considered good luck and fertility magic to be touched in this way. Modesty had no place in this ancient festival. People publicly and openly played sexual games and enjoyed sexual pleasure.

Think about how many playful aspects of sexuality had origins in this festival. When did B&D play originate with their leather toys, garments and regalia? Lupercalia certainly popularized at least an aspect of it. How about party games like Spin the Bottle? What other popular sexual play had their origins in these ancient bawdy festivals? Obviously, the festival was popular and hugely celebrated for centuries, and among some parts of the population, it still is.

Lupercalia gets its name from Lupa, the she wolf who suckled the twins, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. They were regarded as aspects of the origin of the wild god, Faunus, the Roman god who was the equivalent of Pan.

As the church became more powerful, they tried to get people to abandon the old Pagan festivals, but the challenge was how to get them to quit doing these things when so many people were having so much fun? Even though church leaders declared participation in Lupercalia to be a sin and forbid people to participate, the people largely ignored the church's orders and rules and continued to party on.

So in the 5th century, the church continued to use the tactic it had used with other holidays they were unable to get the people to give up. Using the strategy, if you can't beat them, join them, they simply renamed the party that people were already going to, and abracadabra! Saturnalia, the celebration of the Winter Solstice becomes Christmas, and Lupercalia becomes Valentine's Day (to name just two). Of course, there is Easter, which changes its date every year because it is celebrated on the Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. Those fertility rites included the symbology of rabbits and eggs, indicators of plenty of copulation, and that is why it is always amusing to me how the great church holiday is still festooned with decorations of rabbits and eggs. If the people won't quit having parties, just slap a new label on it and announce that it really is an old church celebration.

Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar opens at the scene of Lupercalia, with Caesar and Mark Antony as participants.

Because of the combination of religious and political power, they finally managed to drive the bawdy aspects of the holiday underground.

So the church declared that in honor of an early church martyr, St. Valentine, the holiday would be a celebration of romantic love, affection and dedication. Of course, the original St. Valentine had as much to do with romance as rabbits do with the resurrection. Well, I guess if you are doing it frequently, some people may be praying for a resurrection.

All of the fabrications around St. Valentine being a patron of romance are just that. During the Middle Ages, in the time of writers like Geoffrey Chaucer, all kinds of stories about romance became popular.

The modern greeting card industry dates back to the 19th century, and they, of course, have profited mightily from promoting the sending of Valentine cards (a billion a year, according to the US Greeting Card Association), much the same way as the diamond cartels have profited by inventing and promoting the fiction of diamonds being the symbol of love. Industry has now expanded to promoting the sales of teddy bears and winter pajamas as Valentines gifts since the market is already saturated with heart shaped boxes of chocolates.

So if you are celebrating the real spirit of the holiday this weekend, it is not to be found in buying stuff labeled romantic. It is to be found in lusty playfulness and embracing the joy and pleasure of sex.

Tarot Stories

Among the many varieties of tarot sets, there are those which accompany a strong narrative text. For example, in the Tarot of the Cat People, Karen Kuykendall created a whole world of planets where different tribes of cats lived. In the Legacy of the Divine, Ciro Marchetti imagines a world that survives a cataclysm. Luis Royo is the author of a book of the Third Millennium and a Tarot of the Third Millennium. There is a Decameron Tarot by Giacinto Gaudenzi inspired by the medieval tale of the same name by Giovanni Boccaccio, a Dante Tarot inspired by Dante's Inferno, A Wonderland Tarot inspired by the book Alice in Wonderland and the Fairytale Tarot by Karen Mahony, Alex Ukolov, and Irena Triskova, The Inner Child Tarot by Mark & Isha Lerner and Christopher Guilfoil.

Then there are the sets based on mythology. There is an Arthurian Tarot, Druid Animal Oracle, Medicine Cards, the Mythic Tarot, based on the Greek Myths, Llewelllyn Tarot, based on the Mabinogian of Welsh Myths, Babylonian Tarot, Ancient Egyptian Tarot, Norse Tarot, Kalevala Tarot (Finnish, the Voodoo Tarot, and a variety of Celtic inspired tarot sets.

In each of these cases, plus many more that might be named, We get an opportunity to correlate things that are going on in our own life with other well known stories, and sometimes it is easy to garner wisdom from the well told tales, which in these sets all have dynamic art.

In standard tarot decks without an overriding narrative structure like these, there are sets of symbols and pictures on cards that the reader can fashion into a story. The framework of the standard decks gives the reader much more freedom to improvise, although the structure can also suggest a powerful context and font of wisdom to draw from.

It is your choice how you prefer to work or how you prefer to use them as a meditative device or teaching tool.

In the cases where a deck was created to go along with an existing text, the artists have enlarged the scope of the book by creating a parallel illustrated book to go along with the text to form the equivalent of a text with 78 illustrations.

In standard decks and oracle decks where everything can mix and match randomly and make sense, the storyteller, the reader, is the one who forms order out of chaos.

It is an interesting dynamic either way. We simply have to choose what method we prefer to work with, and some of us switch around for the challenge presented by variety, the chance of the shuffle challenging complacency.

Primal Multi-tasking

It is interesting how we multi-task all day because there are so many things to do, and we have to pay attention to several things going on at once. Yet, when nature shifts her energies, it is easy to observe how we feel the surges of energy that come with spring, the anticipation of longer days and warming weather can stir us and shift our attention.

It is like the full moon nights, when people just feel like being still and gazing at her for a while. She calls to us, no matter what else we are doing. Our primal instinct draws our attention to the full moon because we have been watching the movements of the moon and the seasons ever since caveman days.

Although most of us have shifted our attention from being farmers or hunter/gatherers, when paying close attention to these things meant life or death to ways of earning a living that are disconnected from the natural cycles of things. Ye we still feel called to it, and that is why winter draws us in and spring brings us out. And the moon stirs our souls.

No matter how hi-tech we get and how much we multi-task, our primal instincts will always beckon, and nature always gives us the energy we need, whether we know enough to ask for it or not.