Image credits: Candlelight and Wine, by Ralph Hocker, Acrylic ― 11″ x 14″ www.sevenlivelyartists.com/hocker.html ARIADNE, VENUS AND BACCHUS BY TINTORETTO (1518-1594) “Beautiful colors can be bought in the shops on the Riato, but good drawing can only be bought from the casket of the artist’s talent with patient study and nights without sleep.” ~ Tintoretto (such is the […]
This is another earlier blog post of my mine. I reached into my archives where I wrote about astrology; this was before I branched out and wrote poetry, and shared my art, and got more social about my life and my journey. I published a book since I was blogged, yay! I like to blog about ALL THE THINGS! New material is coming in 2023–but right now, this is my blog celebration. I teamed up with Cheer Peppers because I wanted to blog for the whole month with a team. I like to share space with people and I’m so glad that you have decided to read my writing, and truly: I am glad you decided to be part of my world. You matter, and I appreciate you!!! ❤ Please enjoy! Another busy back-to-back day today 🙂 I’ll be around to visit you again very soon!
A little bonus today that I’m excited about is that I linked all my Taurus posts to celebrate this Full Moon Eclipse in Taurus we are currently experiencing.
This first one below—> This was my life-changing Kauai experience when I got my spiritual name Ka Malana. It was a short post. I was very busy experiencing it all. I remember the most beautiful New Moon in Taurus ceremony on the beach… just amazing. The order of the blog posts is from oldest to most recent.
This one I didn’t even get to re-read, but I’m in need of re-reading it, *and* slowing down. Whatever that means! Felicia, our aloe, passed away when we moved South to San Diego…. Felicia never recovered. 😦
Click this for the photo–I also have blogged “some” of my photography in the past. Long time readers of this blog will remember my photography periods. I’m not sure why this link isn’t showing a preview picture of my post.
maybe the motivation i’ve pushed for years long now
will eventually grow its own legs, but it still needs pressing…
forward
getting praise for being happy is silly
when the joy fades,
I’m sitting in silence, taking the world in, and it’s sharp
Do you know what people are going through?
where is the talent to express these hard things?
where is the wisdom in my soul to trust THIS expression?
I am not made of roses.
but I do have thorns, little prickly places I don’t want to be touched.
I want to go into THIS challenge
I want to meet THIS darkness.
It is okay.
Guiding back the love into myself,
I trust this space, this time, this darkness.
I can be “outside” in it.
You don’t need to reassure me to hide away to do self care.
This IS self care.
My art is not about explaining myself.
I paint myself in black, and walk into the darkness,
because I want to blend in.
Shining is not for me.
I want to be different, black
but we are all in this together… so I am not alone
and you are different, too. We all are.
**I don’t want to be in the practice of explaining my poems. But, each piece I share is very real for me. Walking into the territory of discomfort is sometimes unexpected, but it happens. We live through our sadness, and pain. Joys can speckle the days with highlights. It’s just something we get used to, trying to live a life of meaning. This is how to put one foot in front of the other. The work we create need not be brilliant or good, and it doesn’t matter how much attention it gets. We all think we ought to find our sparkle and “stay there.” But that is not growth. Growth is in the trenches. It’s in recognizing our inertia. Today I have had a heck of a time with procrastination. And, I’m still there. And, that is okay.
*I’m picturing myself sailing on a ship, being deeply in tune with the ocean, and yielding to the power of the storm while the storm inside me grows to match the might of that storm outside of me. I am ready to build this new way of being in the world. I am ready to see the new ways forward. I am ready to be gentle and yielding in the truth of how mighty we all are. 💖 We can overcome our difficulties. I want to be on that path! I am on that path! I will keep going. Growth dreams, to become more than I am now, I am ready.
In the beginning of the year I wrote a blog post titled the beginning of healing. In a personal sense, this was more prophetic than I knew. I sensed a deep river running through me ready to perhaps “cleanse me” and wash over me on a more subterranean level. Yet I’m not ready to define “what this is” on that deeper level, spiritual level. Maybe I sensed that quite a bit had been stirred up inside of me during the insanity of the pandemic and politics and thus readying me for more healing and feeling. Maybe I had just been through so much just having a baby and transforming into a mother.
Three months after having her, I completed most of my National Board exams before graduating.
I then finished my Master’s Program by December and the remaining National Board exam, but now have been stopped short of my goal to get licensed in my own state because of the need to sit for a 5 hour exam when I cannot due to pain and further causing injury to my spine. I put so much effort into my program and made much progress with my own health (so it seemed) only to be stopped short for a time. I can eventually take my state’s board exam, maybe, if I get well enough to. Sure I could move to a different state but we have other roots here as a family, and so I feel attached. Better to stick with the career roots my husband has built. Also, it’s home to my alma mater and I’d prefer to stay close by hoping for more opportunities that way. But not if I’m not well!!
I can barely take care of my family, and it being “just us” and literally no one else living in the same state, there’s no one to really turn to for a helping hand. We need to hire help.
Plus, my health has been the worst money pit.
Friends, I’m still in the thick of it, having some better days mixed with suffering days. However what seems to be emerging is this sense of connectedness with my closest friends, who still happen to live far. I don’t feel as lonely as I did a month or two ago, at least, not today.
I also really want to be in touch with people who have had or are experiencing chronic pain, and making the best of it. I absolutely know I am not alone. The whole reason I am walking my path is because I am authentically me. I am free to be myself, and learning every day how to show up for myself and love and bring healing to all the aspects of my consciousness. Some part of me does trust that this is a process unfolding within me, that I will get past it, and my life will move on! But for now, I’m in a really challenging & painful holding pattern.
a pillar has rolled back into place.
consciousness is as steady as a beam.
The gaze is calm while looking at the rust, bright lights and dark spots fuse transforming angles of industry into cloth and folds into thin sheets.
i hear a whisper from her heart
her lips are pressed against my chest. i feel warm knowing she is one with me again. She’s curled up inside of me, ready to face what’s next.
i turn to her and thank her for her patience, for enduring what this path and journey really means: commitment.
I’ve never seen her grow like this before, joining in with faith. She clutches onto nothing. She’s honest to the brim. Shes ready for what’s next. So I lead her back inside.
My drawing skills are nowhere near what they used to be, or potentially where they could have been if I would have progressed with this same skill level as a teen.
But I am 1000% less judgmental about what I create. This gives me pleasure.
I don’t have the time to dive in like I long to, but sketching a little bit here and there is a very welcome slow return to what used to feel more like “who I am.”
Who I am is not me.
It’s a process; it’s looking and feeling, and living. It’s simple. What activity most feels like you? Is it writing? Maybe it could even be walking? Walking would be my second most thing-I-do that feels like me (and exploring) but I have had to forgo that for now. I’m still finding ways to enjoy the day.
I then sifted through the debris and emptied the sand from my hands, made up of
messages that, when undelivered,
had turned to dust.
With my warm dry hands I gently held my
throat and let my hands speak “you may not know how to voice
but I give you time. I give you space.
Your voice matters. Never give up. Let anyone try to silence you, but you will never again do it to yourself.”
*is anyone else having trouble with the editor? I did a copy and paste of my poem and the formatting would not fill one solid block. I’m not being too picky about format right now, because it’s not convenient to be. It expresses enough on its own.
It’s okay to step away from the whole “the Universe is teaching me a lesson” paradigm. Sometimes things are the way they are because of a zillion potential reasons. And, sometimes, mercilessly, there is no reason. We still have the responsibility to deal with what arises. But it does not help to recycle the age-old idea because it’s near-neighbor is the concept of punishment and karma. While these things may be potential reasons for why things happen, they don’t express the love and peace and wholeness of the universe—which is the universe’s true nature. I take this stance because the universe is inert, in a sense, and very receptive. There is the peace in the space, in the nothingness of it. It “absorbs” all.
These “teaching a lesson” concepts are not helpful for people who are in the midst of true struggle and dark night of the soul. What people need are Earth angels (and otherwise). They need people who understand and intuit without having to look through the lens of their own struggle (and be clouded by it) but when they can deeply tap into the universal struggle that we are all susceptible to. One’s good fortune should never be taken for granted. It’s too easy to want to fall into the new age “Law of Attraction” and desire for manifestation! While all these things and many others have their positive and fruit-bearing ways, they do not fulfill the need for us to focus on becoming the most healthy we can be so that we contribute to others. And often we contribute to others even while we are unhealthy, broken, and in need of support ourselves. We can do both, and we must do both. There’s another maxim that gets recycled over and over again about the oxygen mask on the plane. Yes, you should take the oxygen mask first, but you can’t wait until you safely get off the plane before helping others. How do we help others? I don’t know. What I do know is that I intend to speak up a lot more about my opinions, my experiences, and what I think is more productive, efficient, and what I perceive as more loving. I’m not doing it in a writerly way, I know. This is all about undressing the writer and being without her craft, just to be here, fully. For the purpose of my own communication & growth. I am a living experiment and I always have been. Those who have known me since my teens and twenties would know this is my consistent approach to living a free life. But, I didn’t get my chronic pain until July 21, 2012. Regardless I use my old toolbox just as well as my new one.
What “new age” ideas could you do without (for a little rest-break from them)? How would you prefer to reframe some of your experiences so that you can better process them? What super powers have you developed since dealing with chronic pain?
I never intended to share this, but there’s something so special in it that I felt like if I don’t let it out, the magic will not come back again. And by magic I mean… the allowance!
Your life wants to live through you. If you are judging yourself before you even start, you are missing the most precious moments of your life. This is an energy thing. This is an important lesson. Give yourself a little exhale from now and then and remember– this is your life, but you are not living it for yourself! 🖼
I had never used these pens before. I’m not going to make excuses about how much I think this drawing didn’t live up to my expectations. I adore this drawing. It surprised me! With little to no preparation I made a Mark that will be remembered forever. I adore this gift that I was given, and I hope to pass it on! It only takes a spark and maybe “her” 🔥 fire will be blazing! That is my hope! 😍
with its full frizz why-not-be “cool” dreads, but never quite really curly collective except for this piece and that piece and this piece under here.
I write so I can unjam my mind that’s like toddler traffic mixed-mode transportation with plenty of pauses to get out of the toy car and smell a flower, and have to say hi and bye a few times to anything with a new name I just learned.
I write so I’m not alone, whether with my creativity or lack of imagination boring me into the crevices of the rug on my floor and the yawning afternoons when I’m studying so much and it’s still not enough because I’ve got several more hoops to jump through because no one knows what the end goal really is, certainly not me, and I’m always trying to help people anyways.
I write so I can reach you, hold you, take you for a walk, breathe with you, face you, love you.
I write so my spirit can ascend while my mind is busy analyzing and second-guessing how and what to do to pass the time while I’m in pain or in procrastination or both, and I just need to reach out and make contact with mobilizing words that gets life flowing and unstuck.
I write so that I can find my music or because my music found me and I can’t get that new melody obsession out of my head because it wants to move inside of me and animate me.
I write because there is no me, there’s just the writing and the moving and the reaching and the holding and the desiring and the clearing.
I write to find you. To stick with you, to invent you, to rehabilitate you, to worship you, to trust you, to learn about you. I write because this is the way you like to show up when you are in the neighborhood and your best friend is only as distant as the knock on the next door and the warm entryway awaits, and the meal, and the offerings and the friendship and the feast.
I consider it a lucky find (trouvaille) whenever I come across an image that I would like to photograph! Since 2021 is going to be another “busy” year, I thought I’d try to keep the content flowing here at Fiestaestrellas and periodically post with new and interesting words in the title. Since so many of us here are logophiles.
So how is your 2o21 going so far?
This year, I focused on manifesting peacefulness, grace, and more organization and beauty in my life. I’ve also been trying to generate more “spaciousness.” This is a great exercise! Wishing you all a Happy New Year, 2021
We have a solar eclipse coming up here on December 14, a Jupiter/Saturn conjunction in Aquarius shortly after that and then a Full Moon in Cancer on the 29th. There’s been a lot of astrology to talk about during all these crazy months but these newer developments feel more liberating than we’ve seen in a while.
The solar eclipse on the 14th is in the sign of Sagittarius. It’s a good opportunity to take stock of beliefs and how beliefs affect and color emotions to create mental filter through which we determine our realities. There’s a lot of social movements and many small groups that have communications around beliefs and translating those into visions for how to live in the world. However I’m more interested on the individual level and how the astrology can be used to help liberate us.
For one, this solar eclipse which translates into a Sun and Moon conjunction in the sign of Sagittarius at 23 degrees and 8 min, at at 11:16 a.m. ET/8:16 a.m. PT. is within a 3 degree orb conjunction with Mercury. The stories we tell ourselves are so important, and they are important at any time. However when we are on the cusp of a new adventure or journey, as at this eclipse, we are even more guided to the star ⭐️ we hitch our wagons to. That wagon is the energy or the wheels we give to our personal stories. When we seek liberation, we often try to overcome personal stories but then miss out on the richness of a life of non-attachment within those stories that decorate and frame our lives.
For me, this eclipse takes place in my 11th house of hopes and dreams and this week I’m finishing up a long term goal to complete my Masters program in Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine and fulfill my last requirements. I’ve had a long journey 6+ years with this endeavor and I’ve really struggled a lot through many personal challenges. There’s also been many graces along the way; but overall, I wanted to quit many times. At this point, I’m looking forward to integrating and spending some time in a place where I can be on the other end of this milestone. I put in a tremendous amount of energy, work, and slayed so many personal demons, but I’ve got more effort and work ahead of me, no doubt. For now, I’m enjoying the energy of this solar eclipse to highlight for me how my life is in many ways “scheduled and on-time” regardless of how my ego sometimes prefers.
This Jupiter/Saturn conjunction in my 12th house will further light up areas where my self-undoing has short-changed me but best of all these openings will finally be in the same sign as my ascendant in Aquarius. I’m ready to be moving into my Aquarian energy again, into my 1st house eventually, which is a little while away, but will be an additional boost to how I experience myself interfacing and interacting with deepest hopes and dreams, as a whole and refreshed person on the new horizon of my new consciousness.
It’ll be interesting to see where we all land on the full Moon in Cancer on December 29, as this virus continues to challenge individuals, families and cultural and financial systems.
January 2020 began, after all, with a moon in Cancer, on January 10. Reflecting back on this time is full-circle, where will we be? Where will you be? Come January 28, 2021 the first full moon of the year will be in Leo. So let’s think on it. Let’s call in Sagittarian wisdom from experience that we have special access to during this eclipse and look at this Cancerian (stay at home) year, in bookends.
Let’s figure out how we translate into the New Year 2021, as the year that brings our strengths into the equation in a new way. We have in so many ways been vulnerable in 2020 (Cancer), some have fought against what might have been perceived as authoritarian and rules from governance, and now it’s time to think about the ways within we’ve grown as we continue to walk into a more Leonine head-still-held-up, in a “how we survived,” call to grace. It’s those sprouts 🌱 which will come up in the new year, 2021. We will be dusting off the ashes, so to speak.
I hope you all have a peaceful and healthy holiday transition this December as many have already begun celebrating Hanukkah and this month is rich in energy for hope and magic. May you be well, May you be happy.
Fiesta Estrellas 
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