.doodles i dug up.

On By Ka Malana - Fiestaestrellas.comIn Astrology23 Comments

I’m a lover of line
the gloss-on atop paper
the tip of choice
pen, pencil, or dirt
paint, sculpt, hands
to clay

I’m a lover of line
and form and a
wandering curiosity

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allows the page to just
do justice to itself
without the presence of
any mind.

I am a lover of line
of lyrics and liquid
of flowing and flown

drip-drop, the medium moves
across dimensions
from visions,

bop hop, clop,
if it’s a flop,
who cares…
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This is part of my contribution for Cheer Peppers 🌶 Nano Poblano. Click for more contributions from other peppers.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>~<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

at some point in my life, I stopped doodling. I hope it comes back 😃

gnarly, sausage tree, lizard 🦎

On By Ka Malana - Fiestaestrellas.comIn Astrology, Scorpio, Something altogether different18 Comments

 

Textures of life lived:

 

 

It’s important for me to remember to “do” one day at a time. I have tools that help me look into the future but that is, at best, not always to be used. This is important. I’ve grown accustomed to learning how to do many different things and regularly shift my focus. But as my energy has gone out a lot recently, I’m starting to draw it back again, bring it back into focus for the winter. I enjoyed my short break to wander a little bit. It is reflected from my changing activities in my school schedule, and the working schedule that I make for myself. There’s a lot that I am balancing in a shifting world. Every day the needs of my family are different. The clocks have changed, too. The time to “drawn in” as such, like a deep inward breath has come again. Adjustments are being made to our circadian rhythms here.

Meanwhile, the reality of the upcoming holidays stimulate our appetites and communities with activities and industriousness.

A lizard visited with me yesterday, this was for several minutes. I’m aware that I am to persevere by our visit. Having recently scrubbed out my refrigerator, I’m aware of needing to clean this window sill as well.

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A few weeks ago, while getting some of our regular “Vitamin N” outdoors, I captured a glimpse of a unique tree with a plaque that explains it, “Sausage Tree.”

 

 

This blog post is a contribution to Cheer Pepper Nano Poblano this year, 2019. If you want to join in and visit the other bloggers, please do you are welcome at any time. Please click the link

2019

Special moment of gratitude: This day and every day I am so grateful for my wonderful husband and partner! 💖

 

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

On By Ka Malana - Fiestaestrellas.comIn Astrology6 Comments

I feel heard 👂 and connected 🤲 🙌🏻 🤙 in the Pepperdom of this November’s Nano Poblano.

Will be visiting folks as often as I can this week, peppering the time of day.

Here’s a reminder for the 21 day Empowerment Meditation at the online Chopra center. If the link doesn’t work, I’ll come back and update it. Each meditation/mantra audio is available for 5 days from the date. Today is Day 2. I listened to Day1 & Day2 back to back because of my free time due to not sleeping while everyone else was.

A Haiku

her eyelashes drew
from my mind’s eye before she
curled up in my arms


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2019

More inspiration needed; and contentment

On By Ka Malana - Fiestaestrellas.comIn Creatrix, Something altogether different, Transformation16 Comments

I didn’t feel like posting yesterday. I could have put in the extra effort at the end of tired day, and got it in at the end of the day, but I thought: I’m not gonna push. I’m okay with non-perfection. Pushing is something I only do when I am inspired. Otherwise, there’s a whole lot of self-love and nurturing that is okay to address, because obviously I need it. I need inspiration. I can only push, when I have love behind me, when I know that I am a being of love, and sometimes that most certainly is in the form of a push. Other times love is “let it go, just stop.” It can be any of these things, or even a combination.

Yesterday was my second day at a conference where I volunteered, and I got to enjoy some Qi Gong the first day. I only made it to one lecture yesterday but I wasn’t stimulated by it, except to start getting involved in martial arts again. Nearly everyone I speak to who is old school and a leader in the field says where you really learn what you need to learn, you learn through martial arts training, or that that’s where they learned, not in school.

While I was visiting the exhibits I had a couple of times where I noticed myself only being spoken to by the vendors based by the “status” of my badge. Actually I didn’t have a badge because I didn’t need it this time. This was the second day and I got a two day pass for volunteering plus a free pass for being a student.

Now I know every field has big shots. That’s fine, I guess, but I’m tired of starting a conversation with someone only to be ignored the second someone that that person considers is more important walks by and engages them. This happens far too much to me. So, being a particular “nobody” we tend to just accept that that person doesn’t want to miss the opportunity to speak to someone special – or as he said, “a pillar in the field,” or at least someone who is a celebrity teacher.

Hmmm…

Okay, no problem. Normally I try to focus on what’s good, where connections DO happen, but I’m running out of patience in my 6 year process for things to click in a more meaningful way. The heart of it has gone dry so many times and I’ve never spoken of it until now. I have a no-obligations consultation today with a communications specialist and business coach, and I do hope that it helps. I’m running out of steam, inspiration. What I am experiencing, there’s no way I am the only one – even if only in this context, at any other given point in time, there’s no way I’m alone.

From my perspective, there are tons of practitioner celebrities out there with tons of people who adore them, and supposedly they have great results, but I’m skeptical — and they are all over social media, and I’m just sick of this cult culture. I have no desire to become an expert. I’m sure so many of them are well-earned, or naturally talented/gifted/blessed/and self taught. I’m glad for so many of them and even more-so for the people they help.

Fortunately I was able to spend my time with loved ones and grab some nice photos.

So many years I didn’t speak my mind for fear of being perceived as being negative, and I keep taking responsibility for how I am contributing to my perspective, but I’m tired of the lack of resonance, and I’m calling for more inspiration.

This tiny cactus is alive and does not have a social media account or a social status. I’m a little bit grateful that this cactus’ voice can’t or hasn’t been channeled by someone and turned into a money making machine. Because this cactus IS PRESENCE. It’s not a metaphor. It lives and exists, and that is all.

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The irony for me what that I picked up this Dove chocolate at the conference and it said, “Don’t stop until you are proud.” What was perhaps really funny to me was that the foil broke in such a way that it makes it difficult to read. When I was young, my understanding was that pride was bad –  and I think pride was just misunderstood. I think pride is still misunderstood. I want to know what it’s like to have pride. I am opening my investigation into how it’s okay to have pride, and how it’s okay to speak my mind and not care whether or not someone is going to judge me.  There’s this great thing in Access Consciousness from Gary Douglas where he said something like you get $7, 000 for every time you are willing to allow yourself to be judged. I’m curious about that. I’m not curious about the money so much, but also I am. I need to earn a reliable income. I’m curious about what it means to not judge or be judged, or to be judged, and be perfectly alright with it. To be misunderstood, and be perfectly alright with it.

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Also when I was out walking and I saw this statue of this mermaid, and I wasn’t sure how exactly she “fit into” my day. There’s something about the way the photograph got taken. I took it, but there was an interesting energetic quality the moment I took it. I”m still trying to understand that. It’s as if there is an unintended rainbow near her face. I like the expression on her face. What does it say?

 

I think it’s contentment. Yes, contentment.

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Please Click for more contributions2019

To love is to grieve

On By Ka Malana - Fiestaestrellas.comIn Astrology, Creatrix, Reiki, Scorpio, Something altogether different10 Comments

that pit in your stomach
that moment you wake to
each new morning crusty,
to greet that dull emptiness –
memories of laughter, still lingering
but when you try to reach the energy of
it, and saturate yourself within it, it’s
gone silent.

the breath of your friend
on the other side of the phone
fully dissipated

your confidant, has been removed
the first person you think of
the first one with whom
you share anything that
excited you, no matter how silly, bizarre,
trivial,

the shape of your breakfast,
that small squirrel who winked at you,
and the corner of your room where
that one spirit of your ancestor
resides, and from where they speak
to you at certain hours of the night.

all those human updates,
removed from the planet

By the action of an
accident

Those you love, grieve
for you, because your love
And your tattoos and
the time we spent together is on
your skin,
which has been incinerated

You have now become a Cherry tree,

and you have become one,
with all
who grieve for you.

your best friend and all your friends
continue to collect and congregate in
your name, just to squeeze out more marrow
from the life you lived and shared,

and we will take and treasure those pieces
with each other, and do it over and over
again, as the sun sets over a vision of
your better outcome,

on the other side of our same shore,

in the twilight of your smile.

**************************************
Please don’t make me explain this poem. I think it doesn’t need anything extra. Mourning is a shared activity, sometimes we carry some of the heaviness of our friends’and our own as well, maybe, they can energetically bear the burden of the love that was lost, because of this poem.

2019

Cheer Peppers 🌶, Mercury retrograde, Nature – Nano Poblano

On By Ka Malana - Fiestaestrellas.comIn Astrology22 Comments

2019

I signed up to participate in this year’s blogging festivities/group challenge knowing that there’d be a strong possibility I’d be feeling dried up for inspiration by the time I got to this day, having recently overworked myself attempting to accomplish goals, but also surprising myself as well by accomplishing more than I expected I could. It was worth it! So here I go again trying to be a part of things. Usually, I’m trying to catch up with what I signed up for, or watching from the sidelines, wishing I was participating in what “everybody else is doing.” And inspiration is something that I am both always looking for, and trying to share. <—- that’s the key point, I think!

The best part about the Cheer Pepper NanoPoblano goal this year is to spend time visiting and commenting and supporting other blogs and bloggers. It’s built into the intention, and the design. As always with Cheer Peppers, this is not a hard and fast rule, and we are encouraged and we encourage others to do their best, gentle nudges. I believe it’s 10 days of commenting, 10 days of posting, and 10 days of reading other bloggers, or something like that. I need to go back and read the fine print. Feel free to let me know in the comments if I missing something.

The beauty of all this, of course, is to be present, be part of a team, and have some fun! This might be the only blog I post of my own – or there could be 9 more – or why stop there? (I don’t know what tomorrow or the next day will bring) but at least I’d get the word out, and you can click on the image above to see what the other Cheer Peppers are up to, so many of them talented, kind, and with fresh perspectives served, so many of them I don’t know yet!

Today, and for the last few weeks, I’ve been sneezing like crazy but not officially sick, just congested. I’ve had insomnia, and it’s been a rather uniquely difficult Mercury retrograde start for me! I usually respond to Mercury retrograde with becoming more talkative or ‘creative,’ out of the blue, or maybe just more communicative – to my better or worse judgement. In other words, my mind gets busier. Full and New moons often (but not always) have an effect on me too – hence why I began an astrologer at a young age.

Today I am showcasing two simple images from the outdoors, as being outdoors always brings back a certain undeniable positivity and connectedness.  The first is leaf bug, as I called it, until I identified it as the California angle-wing Katydid. This particular bug struck me as exotic, even though it’s probably lived here for a while in the greater area. It is still new to me!  We definitely felt the presence of our visitor and have a strong totem in the last several years with the greater grasshopper and cricket 🦗 family.

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The second image below is of a dove’s feather. It’s been a while that I have been seeing these and crow’s feathers, while I’ve had fewer of the Hawk variety that graced me with many during the years of 2009-2013. Surely, all these finds are related to messages, even if some of them have to do with the differences of where I spend my time geographically. I look at the dove feather as my greater purpose to find and create peace within, and being honest and acknowledging what’s in the way of it, and how to get more focused on being more present in my life, within my community, building community… etc etc, being more comfortable with being seen as I am in all the various forms I show up, and really having very little power over that – being online is where I find myself the most socially awkward, which seems unusual because most people say it’s the opposite. I prefer being in person with people (as well as enjoy my time alone). Anyways, I digress! The dove feather also shows me that I am also a part of the bigger planetary effort of the peace process, and living in harmony with nature.

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I hope you enjoyed what I wrote here, and you enjoyed the pictures and contemplations. A Mercury retrograde like this might help take me into deeper reflections, as the holidays seemed to have a really enthusiastic kick-off this year in my observation. I saw more people participating this year with costuming and having fun. It was neat to witness! The Scorpio intensity has been especially intense this year, lots of memorials and grief surfaced over lost loved ones this year, as well as previous years. There was even a mourning for relationships that seem to be cut off because some friendships don’t seem to do well with space and distance geographically. It’s not that way with everyone, but sometimes friends are locked into their own lives, and no matter your history, they don’t want to continue connecting for whatever reason to “who you are today” – that does hurt. It’s very painful.

Anyways, I’ve rambled a bit more than usual. I wish you all a great weekend, a wonderful Nano Poblano, and a fruitful Mercury retrograde! May your days be filled with love and wonder!

Happy baby pose, sharing more of me.

On By Ka Malana - Fiestaestrellas.comIn Astrology23 Comments

the focus, the point
of any moment’s contentment
is the delicate
reality

of right here, now playful ~
cross crawl,
ipsilateral,
in a ball:
when hands touch soles of feet, and
reach
to touch
toes!
this pose –
is made

for giggles, and wiggles.

the sacrum is flat,
and the body is a bowl
nimble and ready to roll,

figure it out as a baby, and
then, forget it.

then spend rest of life,
practicing yoga,
and watching your love baby grow.

*******************************************************************************

Happy Full MOooooOn in AriES!

I finished some of my board exams for practicing acupuncture and licensing! I have 5. I did 2 so far in the last couple of months, but will have to wait to take the one for this state once I graduate. The other 4 I can sit for now, so I did 2 National Board exams past couple of months, passed and completed! However, they are doing a restructuring of the exams and scheduling is a thing, so I might have to wait until July 2020. I did return to school, so I’ve been busy with that, and midterms, and being a new mom: which is the most fun, and helps to balance the hard work! Being a mom is also hard work, no doubt, but it’s more immediately rewarding. Trying to plan for next semester, returning to the clinic, and slowly finishing the few classes that remain until I graduate and I will be finally done with this very long 6 year journey (only 4 class left).

I will draw a card from my Wild Wood Tarot deck and bring you into the woods to play with me this autumn!

Also as an 8th ray ritual magician apprentice, where I have been working directly with New Zealand First Light Flower Essences, I’ve been working this month with the moon as an alchemist, where I can see the future I am creating, and it’s marvelous.

Astrology worth sharing

On By Ka Malana - Fiestaestrellas.comIn Astrology2 Comments

Sarah Vrba really shines the light in the dark on this heated-up, up-coming (but can be felt now) full moon in Aries. She speaks about the poetry of Astrology, and I know we are speaking the same language!

When you see it directly in the way we have these line-ups at 20 degrees and the intensity with square energy. We could go on and on, using the planets to describe what is energetically available beneath these descriptions and expositions.

Though, I love Sarah’s here!

Poetry brings us into direct relationship with what is beyond symbolism – while using symbolism!

Sometimes the most direct way, is indirect.

How Tao are you, today? Tomorrow? Yesterday?

For more helpful astrology, including a great do it yourself Tarot spread idea, go here

What I learned from my blogging time-off

On By Ka Malana - Fiestaestrellas.comIn Abundant Earth, Meditation, Projects, Something altogether different, Transformation32 Comments

 

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Image from ABC Open contributor trish.muir, from ABC https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-16/reflection-of-peacefulness/8124582
  • I learned that taking a break from blogging made me happier (so I’m just back to share what I learned), for now.
  • Time away enriched other areas of my life in ways that evened everything out, so I will do this more often, potentially by making my blog private again.
  • I love the WP community and have missed each and everyone who’s company I have enjoyed throughout the years. Looking forward to visiting you soon!
  • The process and dynamic of change is something that I consider fun. I’m curious how I will reinvent this new blog that I will create.
  • The rest of my life does not take a break, and I have been deliciously enjoying what has shown up. Somedays have been better than others, but overall, it’s been the best time.
  • Visiting with family has been so lovely – and it was so nice to focus on my visits with them without maintaining an “online” energy, and being this digital persona.
  • Blogging can be whatever I make it. I’ve been blogging for over 8 years; “Fiestaestrellas.com” will be changing form and format in a year or two from now.
  • This blog space will gain new life by 2021, potentially by the end of 2020.
  • Reading for pleasure is more pleasurable when I am more-so “offline,” and not creating and sharing content. I have so many other reasons that I use my computer, so it means more time away from my computer.
  • There are times in life when I want to widen my community and increase my outreach, and other times when I want to focus on enriching the foundation in my life and nurture that foundation, making new discoveries here. I’m still in the place of enriching my foundation: my “why?”

What have you learned from your blogging “time off” ? What do you love about blogging? How has your blogging community grown and changed in just a few months?

My birthday gift to myself: a blogging hiatus

On By Ka Malana - Fiestaestrellas.comIn Astrology9 Comments

Hello friends,

As my birthday approaches, and my life has changed in a new influx of abundance with the birth of my daughter, and projects that demand my full attention, I think more about scaling down my life. I’ve started going through my emails, and reducing and eliminating every subscription, that even if I have enjoyed it, clutters up my mailbox. I have nearly eliminated all social media, over time.

This blog has been a wonderful gift to myself when I gave it me and started here all the way back in 2011 – 8 years ago!

I enjoyed having a place to share my poetry book offering, connect with many like-minded friends, and share in the experiences of other bloggers.

This blogging hiatus is indefinite, as I do enjoy and will likely miss contact with so many of you. My blog will be switching shortly to personal mode and from there I may still participate occasionally in visiting other blogs, but will for the most part “go silent.”

The time has come for me to renew my relationship with art and with all that I am doing in a more focused way, and spend more of my time and energy locally. No doubt, I have enjoyed reading poetry and browsing pictures and contemplating and living an examined life with other bloggers and writers and artists. This is what makes WordPress blogging a unique activity. I will want to improve my craft, so I will hopefully be back at some time in the future with fresh energy and fresh offerings.

In the meantime, know that I will miss contact with you, but am giving myself this space, so that I can be the best “me” I can be.

With great aloha, my love to you all, Ka

The new guide to life

On By Ka Malana - Fiestaestrellas.comIn Abundant Earth, Astrology, Something altogether different, Transformation9 Comments

The new guide to life
consists of simple pleasures

watching the shapes form
from out of clouds in the sky

the smell of the house
when dinner is full of
browning butter

fresh fruit on the counter

my baby daughter’s cheeks
when she smiles and
the sound of her squeal as
she kicks with enthusiasm

the sound that the trees make
when wind is whisking through

the splashing of ocean water
as it laps at our ankles
and the sand tickles and
exfoliates the soles of our feet

our morning walk to beat the
late summer heat

squeezing a lemon slice into
a glass of water and watching
it swirl

celebrating Lammas by gathering
ideas and updating the altar

singing simple songs in
foreign languages
and making up rhymes

just for her.

Mama and baby feet _ found online

Photo credit: source unknown

You don’t go in silence

On By Ka Malana - Fiestaestrellas.comIn Astrology14 Comments

🐞
grief belongs to the living,

only the
breathing cries.

your life is free now,
for me to remember-
🐞
how you spent your time
for years

is still unknown to me,

but i release the writing
from the diner’s walls of history
during our after-midnight booth meetings

where and when
we shared words from our notebooks
🐞
no words needed to make sense-
to understand and be understood was
the essence of our connection,

this was a first soul friend,
the artist path unveiled-
and then re-clothed in black.
🐞
you were a friend
who with non-explicit language
blended music, energy, art

and lived a raw & real life
🐞
shared booze, cigarettes, relationships,
all examined through emotion
with our paints while we chased our shadows,

i held your hand in deep sisterhood.

🐞
i am told you found a path of health
to walk for a while, and ever more
people who would love you.
🐞
you always were loved, and deserving,
may you find your way back to me.
To us all. for in my heart you have not left,
and the news i received, is still not real.
💗

Here’s a new song I discovered while grieving and healing. I know you would have liked it.
Forgive my inability to be poetic, or write exactly what’s in my heart. This is the best I can do. You don’t go in silence…

*Recently heard of a dear friend from my teenage years had passed away. That gives new meaning to “I don’t want to say Goodbye” poem. I hesitate to explain myself to others, because I know that the truth is beyond saying. Most of my closest friends understand this. My poem was in part prophetic. I just didn’t know it at the time.

Setting the record straight?

On By Ka Malana - Fiestaestrellas.comIn Astrology11 Comments

Is being a Leo Sun really about sassiness and celebrity? Is it really all that over-dramatic and self-seeking egotistical etc etc? I’ve seen the dark side of all the signs… and it doesn’t exist quite like that, or does it?

Are Scorpio’s really manipulative and jealous? Do Gemini’s strike you as shallow and Cancer’s as over-sentimental and stuck in the past? Is it impossible for a Sagittarius to commit? Are Virgo’s really all that uptight? These are some of the pejoratives that circulate the ethos.

To me, these are examples of the worse side of astrology, yet tabloid types of horoscopes continue to fascinate curious and desperate folks and circulate everywhere. After all, this is where it all starts. Why feed that?

Even people who aren’t even interested in astrology and who “don’t believe in it,” they are still aware of the stereotypes given of their signs, because of culture and media; these ideas are pervasive. So what’s beneath that? That would be a reasonable question for people to ask. Penetrate.

Is it human nature to make a caricature of human personality traits? What is the cultural obsession with personality all about? I hope more people begin to realize that reading lists of “pros and cons” and “positive and negative traits” overlooks the beautiful and rich nuance that is available in the art of astrology. When more people realize that astrology is not a fortune-telling game, but a deepening and meditative glimpse into the mysteries of all the things, it offers the ability to transcend them – even culture, even the transits themselves. Good astrology transcends itself by moving through the dross, asking the questions, and freeing the assumptions. It takes study, examination, and above-all, observation.

In our statistics we understand that correlation is not causation. So say it is with all observations. How do we know if we are creating self-fulfilling prophecy? The answer is through examination. It is through lightly holding ideas.

The path and the journey are not the road to transcendence, but the obstacles along the way are the gifts that make transcendence possible!

New Moon in Leo, July 31! Looking forward to it! One can be present in the here and now and also enjoy the possibilities of the future. The future is ‘now,’ dressed as time. We can transcend time by using time.

of unique talents and interests

On By Ka Malana - Fiestaestrellas.comIn Abundant Earth, Astrology, Creatrix, Something altogether different, Transformation8 Comments

Anna-Maria Hefele’s intriguing voice stretches the bandwidth for what’s possible with human voice and its acoustics. Check out this video where she describes, very well, polyphonic overtone singing. Here is her website for more information.

Recently I began my training as an 8th ray ritual magician with the Medicine Woman series of programs. Also, I aligned my meditation series with Deepak and Oprah again for this July 15th’s initiation of Miraculous Relationships. Celebrating this July 16, 2019 Capricorn lunar eclipse has been part of the way of my existence and sacred path, noticing what signs and correspondences show up along the way.

Keeping a meditation practice and embarking on a journey to deepen my astrological and stellar connections while being initiated as a new mom, simultaneously enjoying time spent with visitors, after the brief illness of my husband and the extra scrambling required, all while preparing (and deciding) for the autumn schedule has been a unique challenge.

I’m not sure if there are any unique talents related to what all I have been doing, but I do hope to continue to purify and prepare myself for whatever work I’ll be doing in the future, as I am continuously guided along my path. Completing the Medicine Woman Rites of the Six Moons with my pregnancy was a very special and unique gift to me in my magical life and the magical life of my family. Exercising and eating well has definitely been the way of this warrior.

My grandmother has been persisting and she’s just “wow’ed” our family so many times with her strength and endurance. Turns out I don’t have to say goodbye now. She’s now at her newest home. Thank you to everyone who read my poem and left some love for us (and her) here.

don’t want to say goodbye

On By Ka Malana - Fiestaestrellas.comIn Creatrix, Meditation25 Comments

for me, i’m not ready
for you, to go just yet–
but you’re tired and
overworking.

please find your peace
and the company of your
loves ones
who have already crossed over,

and who wait with
embrace of which you
are most familiar.

I just cannot let you go so
easily.

so sorry I am not there
to provide comfort, how I
am saying goodbye from
an internet connection

my words are Frank.

not colored with poetry.

I just don’t want to say goodbye.