I’ve been blogging here on WordPress for 11+ years with everyone! Some of you I met early on, even! You fill my heart with so much glee that I want to share that glee with the natural glee of the season. I plan to sprinkle the re-blogs with autumny-loveyness. Bringing my energy here–every day–
March 2011 was the inauguration of Fiestestrellas. Then on August 2011 I re-birthday-ed the blog. Now, I am actually gonna CELEBRATE the blog! This upcoming month will be filled with the joy I have been cultivating over the years. I will be picking through the best of the best in my previous posts, poems, drawings, etc. Then I will find time to blog-sprinkle with something colorful, unexpected, delightful, whimsical, or unsuspecting.
Dear friends, thank you, thank you for being on this journey with me. I know that this re-blog celebration is the just beginning. I was strongly nudged by my spiritual team to get this up and running as a pre-cursor for all that is to come at Fiestaestrellas.com
It is so fulfilling to be here, daily, even when I am always busier than last year! 🙂 We can do this. Also, of course, I’m gonna ask you to join me. Please re-blog for the month of November. I just know you have gems sitting on those dusty blog shelves. What are your own favorite blogs? Can you fill whole month with them? Now is the time. Sparkle and sprinkle in the autumny dark spooky nights, leaf-slide deep into autumn and prepare to rock your holidays with the best bustling and amusement coming from the comfy corners of your blog home. 🙂 JOIN ME!!! Who’s in?!
If I’m middle-aged, I spent the majority of half of my life uninterested in ritual. Growing up I felt the rebellion to any type of ritual. For one, “ritual” meant to me as an activity that most people were disconnected from. I saw those who were living their rituals as just doing them for reasons unknown, usually out of habit, or by the shear influence of their society and culture. I saw a lot of people who seemed confined to their rituals. I didn’t want that for me. I didn’t want any structure for me. That was because I didn’t *understand* structure. However, the beauty of my path led me into true empowerment to where I could make and define rituals that were truly meant for me (and now my family).
To begin with, I started to become enlightened to the meaning of ritual when I studied anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh for my undergraduate degree. I learned that ritual not only provided structure but highlighted and connected people with their purpose. This doesn’t have to be religion–which is what the word ritual used to be confined to. Fortunately ritual is related to spirituality and this is why: with ritual we are creating space for our spirits to live. Ritual helps us “house” our time.
Now, I have always been interested in astrology. But not for the conventional reasons, but maybe for some of those too. Astrology has helped me connect to time in a ‘larger than community’ way. However, it has also connected me with community. There are so ways I could assess and think through how astrology has led me to ritual, but I don’t make a stink out of ritual. I still don’t want to be confined to it-so I’m not. It’s as simple as that. A ritual can be a simple “nod” to the inner part of me that wants to acknowledge the importance of space and time.
So, back to time: here I am. I am almost all planned for 2023. On that list of activities that I am signed up for is seeing Neil Degrasse Tyson. I am over the moon excited to see Neil Degrasse Tyson in 2023. My daughter has been attending a very wonderful “science” preschool with the most amazing humans who run it whom I have ever met. I’ve always loved science. But, I am not confined to science, either.
Back to ritual: I am writing out my calendar for 2023, and I am visioning and planning in ways I would never, ever have wanted to when I was younger. I’m doing it with delight and joy. This is not work. This is definitely pleasure. The previous 5 or so years, I started looking back over the last year. Basically the first part of my life, I had no ritual for reviewing the past or moving into the future. Now, I do. There’s momentum gaining in this process, and I’m excited about what’s around the bend.
Do you have rituals or do you dream? Do you do both? How do you organize your life? My years of “letting it happen” have finally co-joined with “making it happen” in a way that doesn’t constrain my soul. I feel this immense freedom I have not felt before. A lot of that freedom is coming from a new teacher I have been working with the last 6 months. I am looking forward to sharing more. But, I’d also like to hear a lot more from you!
James Lee UnsplashHeather Zabriskie, UnsplashJoice Kelly, Unsplash
P.S. One of my future goals is to take my family on an ancient library tour of the world. When shall I plan it for? Maybe in my 60s… Not sure yet.
I always think of you all during hurricane season. I don’t really know specifically where any of you are but I do wish you all safety and protection from the Ian storm surge.
I have zero advice to offer you on this. Still reading? Maybe you can comment in the comment section on what qualities you think good writing has? I’m talking about, asking about, what speaks to your soul, your mind, and your heart?
Do you only read on a certain topic of set of topics?
Do you like to be inspired, motivated?
What motivates you?
Must the author have qualifications and expertise?
Do you only read from writers who already have a big following?
Do you wish to work on your own self-expression?
Is it important to you that the author be relatable?
Do you want to be able to interact with the author?
Poetry: do you respond more to subject matter or voice? Do you expect to be the same or changed by the poem, in some way? What if the poem makes you think? Do you like that or does the challenge feel too uncomfortable for you?
What are your own writing goals? Do you have quarterly writing goals?
Where do you see yourself going with your audience? How important is your audience to you?
We are managing through the heat wave but the internet is down. My cellular service is providing this little bit of connection. I have really, truly missed WordPress in the last several months while I was less present and more in my “local” life and goings ons… The community we’ve created is so beautiful. I love how we are all living our own lives, working on our own art, writing, hobbies, freedom and voice. Thank you for being here! 😃
There are so many of you who I miss, who have not been writing. You are never forgotten.
I didn’t know what I was going to write, exactly, until I sat down and click-clacked away at the title. Apparently I am going to be writing a guide. If you know me well, you will know that the mere idea that I would provide you with a guide that you will immediately read and ignore is hilarious to me. There are many times in my life, when I have tried to share my wisdom but it has absolutely fallen on deaf ears. Sometimes people forget my advice was mine and they took it for their own and thought it was their own idea. Eventually they catch on. One of my first pieces of advice for you is to skip everything that I am writing and go directly to the song I have posted. The song is everything you need. The end.
But I am still here and click-clacking away. I’m doing this instead of cleaning the toilet. If you know me, they you would know that it is ridiculous for me to spend this time writing before my warrior training; I should really be cleaning the toilet. However, if you also know me, I think I’m going to bang out this post and still have time to do a glowy job on the toilet and make the good old porcelain shine. My voice feels different, but I assure you: it’s mine. It’s even more “me” because of this Mercury retrograde shadow period.
Essie Jain – my new favorite singer-musician
Source from above is Cafeastrology.com
Mercury Retrograde September to October 2022
On August 20, 2022, Mercury enters the Retrograde Zone (pre-retrograde shadow) at 24° Virgo 12′
On September 9, 2022, Mercury stations and turns retrograde at 8° Libra 55′ Rx
On October 2, 2022, Mercury stations and turns direct at 24° Virgo 12′
On October 16, 2022, Mercury leaves the Retrograde Zone (post-retrograde shadow) at 8° Libra 55′
KA’s10 STEP – GUIDE
1). Create comfortable space between your people and you.
Do this by taking more time to understand what people are saying. Recognize that even if you give it more time, you might still have a misunderstanding.
2). Spend more time in quiet, journaling, and/or expressing yourself with the AWARENESS that you may not be understood as clearly as you’d like. Work on refinement.
3). If you HAVE TO sign a contract, realize that it may not be perfect and it will likely need a “redo” so try to be as clear as possible by understanding that you may change your mind later, or need to do extra work around it.
4). Use your time to get better acquainted with your technology, car, neighbors. If anything requires extra attention, expect to have to pause to take care of things more frequently. Pace yourself.
5). Have an outlet for your frustration that is not another human or an animal. Practice deep breathing.
6). Allow your spirit to guide you in a whimsical way but don’t sway too far off track. You need to give your spirit a wee bit more freedom to be “airy” during this time.
7). Ventilate your space and keep your air circulating.
8). Participate in movement activities to help nourish the energy that can get restricted during the retrograde movements. Any frenetic energy needs to be channeled into brainstorming or even scribbling. It’s okay to be messy during this period, give it an outlet. Your systems will improve when you observe yourself as a “train off the tracks” so you can be more mindful of your habits.
9). REALIZE that this and every and all retrogrades are phenomena that don’t need to drive you crazy, because they are helping you to improve and become a much clearer and more direct version of yourself within your environment (3rd house, domain of Mercury/Gemini).
10). If people from the past come back, ask yourself what you can learn from this period, so that when Mercury goes direct and into the post-shadow phase, you have clarity around your relationship.
Toilet cleaning is about to begin, at its best! LOL
With this New Moon in Virgo, I hold my health and vision gently. I take inventory of myself, and I sink into the Earth. I feel the protection of the land and know how we care for one another. This land cares for me, and I for it. May you fill with blessings in your awareness of all that is available to you, right now.
My friend Dinah posted this quote on her Facebook, and I’ve been haunted by it ever since. I was mentally and emotionally abused by my older brother since I was a young child. I have not had communication with him in over a decade and half at least and only to drop off a check for him at Barnes and Nobles from my parent for him.
Mental illness is no joke. When you have it in your family, it destroys you from the inside, while you are young and innocent and haven’t even formed a sense of who you are yet. It’s like being rotten and feeling rotten, and then you are carving your way out of it to find and redeem your purity, your health, and what’s worth loving about yourself. No abuser loves themselves. They will make you suffer because of their own self hate, and then they will blame you for existing while they ignore and invalidate your existence.
I’m still scared of him. I still worry he will be in the same geographic area. He has shown zero interest in me and but conversely when he had become a cutter he splattered darkness all of the internet and complained about me to “his people.” I am posting this because of the quote. I am breaking free. I am breaking 💯 free and I don’t even know how I’m going to do it. But, I will continue to not only be a survivor but a thriver.
I will not live in fear of him. He no longer has ANY power over me!!!!!
My Blog is 11 years old, from March 2011. It didn’t get its celebration in 2020. Between 2020 (pandemic) which I was not depressed, and 2021, when I was depressed–there was no celebration. Since it’s my birthday on Sunday and this blog is named after the idea of celebrating, (“Fiestaestrellas” is my made-up word which means: celebration of life, time and everything), I’m gonna call it a re-birthday today. It’s also an homage to the stars. The stars do not rule us–but they make an excellent tapestry or “green screen” for all our events and grand plans. The stars follow us.
Astrology is the work of story-tellers. We need to tell the best stories that inspire that reclaim the meaning of our lives and that help us have hope for the future. I believe this is the purpose of astrology. I have really not focused on it for a long time. One of the main reasons is that I lost my voice for it. The second reason was that I was very distracted with deep and intense study in other fields of endeavors that I put all my focus there, instead. In the meantime, I occasionally and randomly blog here about all sorts of different things. Many of those things are more personal in nature. I blogged about my own healing journey through pain. I blogged about my milestones, and I blogged about my spirituality at times. There are times my writing was about writing itself, or about meditation and maintaining spiritual practices and developing discipline. Lately, I’ve been more interested in cultivating passion and commitment. I’ve blogged a number of poems and published a poetry book in 2017, and posted about it here, too. Also I have sometimes included my art from my past, and thoughts on art, while I contemplate how I will feature art in my future again. I love music and have not added enough songs to my posts. In the future, I want to spend more time on the ‘craft’ of my writing, my art, and return to my photography and also, astrology: the language and programming of light from the stars and how it relates to how we define meaning, consciousness, and togetherness.
pixabay
HAPPY RE-BIRTHDAY, FIESTA ESTRELLAS!
You all make Fiesta Estrellas “a thing” and she and it will grow beyond me–as I’d love to expand into the horizons beyond, for the good of all of us.
Was she an emblyna francisca or euryopis californica? It’s tough to tell. She was so small. She scrambled when I opened the window to vent my frankincense incense burner’s intensity as I clear my magical space. I have visions now of the little amber looking spider friend who rolled into a shoulder roll martial arts ball as I touched her gently to nudge her onto my white KN95 mask for transportation outside. It was a successful strategic move. She’s clearly outside now.
inaturalist photo
Today I is the first day of Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi’s Time to Thrive Challenge. It starts today at 11am PDT. Check it out. https://timetothrivechallenge.com/join
The gophers had come! The gophers relate to the strong feminine energy of the Mother Earth. They symbolize fertility and working deep with the soil. Gophers love to nibble on roots and destroy gardens. They’d be cute if they weren’t such a pest. There are limitless resources out there about smells gophers don’t like. I have tested these hypotheses and the gophers are not too dissuaded. Garlic and Gardenia don’t work, moth balls do not deter. Gophers are resilient and smart. They have each other, but it only takes one gopher to ‘somehow’ make many more. I’m not saying that they are asexual, but they sure are clever and fast when they want to be.
The gophers show us how to build and network. Their tunnels can be elaborate; they work unseen. I’ve been thinking about the networks in my life that are unseen. The ways that I’m tied to others and to my neighborhood and community. Animals are messengers and help us to reflect on the wisdom they provide if you are looking, responding and receiving those messages.
Fiesta Estrellas 
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