Smells bells

Rain spattered the windows and he rolled up the windows. Great thought Casey, well aware of how she smelled. There was silence.

Casey was overwhelmingly aware of the smell of fermented cow that pealed in the truck like a drunken bell so loudly. How could he sit there so calmly? He should crack a joke or something to relieve the tension. She peeked at him again and again and every time his eyes were resolutely on the road. Casey felt so uncomfortable. Couldn't he say something, anything? Her level of irritation rose, he was deliberately making her feel this way, sitting like a handsome statue.

"Go ahead and say it." she said, unable to bear it a second longer.

"Say what?" he replied, smoothly negotiating the tight curves that predominated the roads in the back country.

"Something about this infernal stink, what else?" she said.

He gave her one quick assessing glance.

"Yes, well if you roll around ina pasture something might stick." he said.

"I didn't 'roll around' as you say. I fell." she popped back.

"Okay lady, you stink to high heaven. Happy now?" he said.

"The name is Casey." she said.

Evidently this handsome man went through life being unbearably rude. He hadn't asked her her name, or how she was, or where she lived, or anything at all.

"What is your name?" she asked finally. Heaven forbid she have to tell someone she was rescued by some unknown person.

"Hays" he said.

She thought she'd misheard. Hays wasn't a name.

"I've been in an accident, the least you could do is be polite." she said.

"That accident was your fault. Some imaginary animal ran in front of you you said. So, you'd went to some bar and had a few drinks and you're embarrassed, I understand that. I would lie too if I ran off the road like a slosh." he said.

"There was a cat I told you." she said.

"Lady, I didn't see no cat. If you say there was one, there was one, okay?" he said.

It was too much. Calling her a "lady" in that tone of voice was no compliment, acting like she was some hysterical female with a case of PMS and calling her a liar to boot. Her anger rose like a tidal wave, but she felt confused all of a sudden and her thoughts were all jumbled in her head. She was going to tell him off but good but she felt this peculiar floating sensation and the lights above the steering column seemed to dim and then wink at her, and then all the lights went out.

Casey looked up at this strange guy who seemed to be laughing at her.

"Well what's wrong with it?" she asked

"Lady, do I look like a mechanic? It's midnight, if you don't want me to call 911 then there is nothing I can do for you." he said.

He was walking off, leaving her she realised with disbelief. Men didn't do that to her. They wanted to fix things for her and do things for her and they always had ever since she was a little girl. He couldn't leave her at this time of night on this back road, it might be noon tomorrow before someone came by and her cell phone wasn't with her.

"Wait!" she called and opened the door and of course immediately fell down. He couldn't do this! No one could be so cruel. To her amazement she began to cry. She was down in the same cow patty she was in before. Three times she had fallen down and her head hurt horribly and she smelled like an old cow. Then, as she was crying in earnest she felt herself being lifted up and she was in the strange man's arms. He carried her as if she weighed no more than a few pounds, she settled her throbbing head into his shoulder, she felt the bristle of his whiskers on her forehead and realised he hadn't shaved. She felt perfectly safe, though she shouldn't have, knew that she shouldn't have. She couldn't think, but she knew she wouldn't go to the hospital or any hospital for that matter. This man would have to see her home and then everything would be fine. He set her in the front seat of his pick-up by the road, and Casey managed a little smile at him.

"I'll get your things and be right back." he said.

Casey was glad he was taking charge of the situation finally, like he was supposed to.

Once she was home she could call on her family to help her.

He got back in and started the engine and started to drive.

"Aren't you going to ask where I live?" she asked, "Because you're going the wrong way."

"I'm taking you to see a doctor." he said and her heart fell.

They Meet

It was dark and foggy that night, dust motes and smoke reflected back at her from her headlights. Something suddenly ran in front of the car. Casy spun the wheel automotatically but stupidly in the wrong direction, to the right where the creature was headed. She ran into a ditch and smacked her head on the steering wheel. The car bounced out of the ditch like a toy and slid out on it's own forward motion a few yards into a field. Casey cursed and clutched her head. How could she be so stupid? All because of a cat, she realised suddenly she had seen it for a millisecond and she couldn't hit a cat, could she? Casey had always loved cats, they were the perfect little antitodes to the loneliness that being single in a world of married couples could provide. She felt guilty about the cat, she could check and see if the cat needed a vet anyway. She stepped out of the car to search for it and stepped in something and she was sliding, sliding helplessly and down she went. A needle like pain in her andle hit her as she went down and all she felt for a full minute was that pain and every other thought in her head flew out of it. Some sensible part of her brain knew that she had stepped in what was popularly known as a cow patty. Disgusted she wrinkled her nose and sat up. Wafts of barnyard smells rose with her and she realised she was actually sitting in the nasty stuff. She sat there and tried to get control of herself for a moment and feel her ankle and the bump rising on it and assure herself nothing was broken.

Could she walk on it? She wriggled her foot experimentally and it didn't hurt so bad. She got up and as soon as she put her weight on it the returning pain made her jerk her leg up and down she went again. Casey cursed colorfully and vehemently. She was in a mess and no mistake about it. She couldn't help the cat, she couldn't even help herself. Suddenly two white shoes showed up in her vision in the grass in front of her.

"Hi there." said a masculine voice and Casey looked up to see one of the most handsome men she'd ever seen. In the moonlit night, he was all in greys and pales yellows, but the beauty of his face and his tapered figure could still be seen. His face was broad and he had full lips and low brows and she could see he wore glasses.

"Need some help?" he said while she was considering this apparition that had magically appeared before her. He was looking at her with a smirky smile on his face as well he might considering she had just driven into a cow pasture.

Casey felt very much at a disadvantage, what with her rump planted in a cow patty that smelled so strongly she didn't see how he could miss it but she decided to act like she hadn't noticed his smirk and the irony in his voice.

"Yes please, I seem to have sprained my ankle." she said.

"Oh." he said and surveyed her. Casey was suddenly conscious of her skirt up above her knees and her messed up hair. She jerked her skirt down primly.

"You don't sound drunk." he said.

Casey felt anger stirring in her. Here she was the victim of a car crash and he was just standing there doing nothing.

"No, I am NOT drunk." she said heatedly.

"Don't get in a hissy, you did drive off the road. Usually you follow the little lines you know."

"I can drive thank you very much, there was a cat. Oh no, where is the cat. Please look for the cat. It might be hurt." Casey said.

"A cat." he echoed with disbelief.

"Yes, you do know what a cat is I hope. Just do it." Casey said.

He wandered off and Casey sat there waiting. Suddenly she thought of snakes. Please let there not be snakes she thought. Anything but that. After a few moments he returned unbitten to her relief.

"No cat. Now may I please call 911?" he said.

"No need for that, just help me up." Casey said. To her relief he did just as she said and she hobbled leaning on him to her car, sliding into the driver's seat.

"Thanks for the help, I'll be on my way now." she said and gave him one of her dazzling smiles she reserved for those of the male gender.

"Ma'am I think...." he started.

"No, don't worry about me, I'm fine." she said with another male neutralizing smile.

She turned the key and nothing happened.

She looked at him befuddled.

"Lady, you ain't going nowhere." he said with satisfaction.

Sesiquadrate

I wanted to say something about the 135 degree aspect that is the sesiquadrate. Some insights come our way sometimes that are a little weird. There is an astrologer on the internet named Kira that says the sesiquadrate has to do with subconcious longings to make life turn out pleasantly. It's really true. My Mercury sesiquadrates my Pluto. A Pluto in the 9th house person believes words to be very important, they have impact on the person and on others as well. I used to practically throw my poems at people like gifts, that they would understand me and life would be wonderful. Well nothing was further from what happened! Kira says the sesiaquadrate is always an uncomfortable aspect with sorrowful results. I knew that my writing was powerful, but it couldn't be used in that way I know now. People do not want that much intensity. This sort of awareness comes with age or with an astrologer who can advise you, or a really good friend who doesn't mind hurting your feelings. Some of us are intense people, we need to tone it down in society. Reading a book or a blog is one step away from the person, you are not knowing them personally. So it is that I think I can blog with some intensity. I'm still working on that story to come in future blogs!

Storyteller

This pix is of my daughter Amy, who likes her image to be on my blog and is also much better to look at than myself. Plus she is always taking pictures of herself. I've been thinking how a blog can be anything. Some use a blog just like a diary, listing their activities and I think this is interesting according to how much you are an interesting person. Some of them are so perky and gossipy that I have this negative image of cheerleaders and their strict exclusion of anyone not cool enough to be in their group, but that is just me and my weird hang-ups I guess. I don't think my personal life would be of interest to anyone, even those who know me personally are not jumping up & down with eagerness to know me better, must be all that natural charm I have. I do have some experience as a storyteller however and I think I will do one for this blog that maybe 3or 4 people are reading on a good day perhaps. I read about a writer who did a calendar story, with something happening on each of the 365 days in a year, ending of course on the 365th day. Now limitations are sometimes good for writers because all of a sudden we have a goal to reach for and we can stop messing around and actually do some real work. I wanted to buy this calendar but like most people I want a lot more than I can afford and decided food and electricity might be more important. The idea has stayed with me that I wanted to do something of this type of thing myself however. I have enjoyed writing for this blog and hope it to be entertaining so I thought I would do something of the thing I think I do best: tell a story. It will begin when I begin, when pesky things like working for a living do not interfere. Adios.

More on Books

I think that others have the same problem as I do. How to find a good book. It seems that is something predictable about every plot.

I wish to be suprised.

Stephen King has said that writing seemed to him as a kid to be an endless corridor of doors, full of endless possibilities. It seemed that way to me, once.

I find difficulty with old books, the language seems so heavy and convuluted. I think what we want is a new adventure, a new turn in the road, and there is no one like Vonnegut or Tolkein. There are people who have things to say I am sure, perhaps it is time someone allowed them to say it. Editors are eager for this and complain that all the stuff they get is just more of the same. I have discovered books covered with mold, I have read books used as doorstops, I have searched for treasure in every swap shop and every garage sale. I have wandered all over book stores searching. I search for inspiration and something uplifting. Perhaps other people search for something else. I want that crystal pure joy of language, that word used differently, that seagull soaring in the sky like Jonathan Livingston Seagull. We should follow our Muse wherever she should lead us, maybe fear holds us back. People say computers and television have killed books, I don't think so. Somewhere someone writes, because they want to, because words are very much doorways into someplace we have never been before.

Starlight-Starbright

There has been a book translated of ancient astrological magic, called the Pickatrix. There is much in it about the making of talismans. Is there some Celtic or Druid blood in us that this makes us make a universe of strange dreams? Saturn they say now is more of air than of earth, that it ruled Aquarius once, the sign of the future. It may be the Age of Aquarius because no one really knows when that age starts. We know that Uranus rules Aquarius and also electricity, technology, and thinking about humanity and our collective needs. It is said that Uranus rules astrology itself.

This has given people hope for a brighter day.

Uranus in our chart tells us what genius we have, what our inner purpose must be. Mine is in the sign of Leo. Leo is the sign of show business and Leo has been known to like it on the stage. I have a bit of the dramatic in my writing, I am not a dramatic person in person so to speak. Still this Uranian energy about to be released on the world is enough drama for anyone, what can happen in a world with Uranus running the show? I see Uranus in the desire to feed the hungry that we have going on now, the desire to take care of the people wherever they may be. This is one great thing.

I also thought the purpose of government was to take care of it's people.

The Sexiest Thing is Trust

Tori Amos sings this line in a song on "Beekeeper".

I do not know a lot about relationships and the men I attracted before I married were of the "jerks" type. This was perhaps my fate but I knew all along that there were better relationships, I just hadn't found one yet. This line resonated throughout me and started me thinking. Maybe there isn't such a division in our genders, to make a pun here. We often stress the differences between men and women but we are more alike than we are different. The road we travel on is confusing, I often thought if someone spent a lot of time with me we would naturally be close, but alas, it is not so. Maybe the thing lacking is trust. If you think about it, Ms. Amos is exactly right. The sexiest thing is trust.

Joni Mitchell

She is called the songwriter's songwriter.

There isn't anyone like her.

Her songs are about love and romance.

One of my friends told me about Joni Mitchell and this is the kind of gift that friends do for one another that is greater than any other gift. Her phrasing, and the way these words tie in with the music, the eloquent pauses, the way she hits a note and the music has already hit that note, or she hits a note before the music does, how can I describe this? This hippie chick from the sixties knows no decade though that is the decade when we learned her name. What she says she says so vividly is how the guy who discovered her put it, the same guy behind Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I suppose people played music in cafes at one time, Joni refers to her "dark cafe days". She is a Scorpio and totally feminine but this art of hers goes way past gender. Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows calls her a "goddess" and carries the Blue CD wherever he goes. They recorded one of her songs "Big Yellow Taxi".

There is a coolness sometimes to her music, a jazzy feel, a classical feel, a feeling sometimes of loneliness. Maybe because she is also a painter, she paints pictures with words. I am left with a feeling when listening to her that perfection has been reached, and that this is art. Her later albums have gone on paths that confuse me, not like the simple beauty of her earlier work that I understand so well. As she says in a song:

Condemned to wires and hammers

strike every chord that you feel

that broken trees

and elephant ivories

conceal...

Zae-lei

My granddaughter is a double Sagittarius like me, without that pesky Saturn on the ascendant. Her best friend is her brother. She seems almost to keep an eye on him and doesn't want him out of her sight when she is not at home. Like any Sagittarius child she likes to be in the middle of where people gather, but she always wants her mother to be there. If her mother and her brother are with her then all is right in the world. How fearless she is when they are with her! This little dynamo can keep going and going. I find it endearing how she draws strength from those she loves. Last week she told me seriously that she had quit school and wasn't going to go there anymore. She shines more than any star in the sky.

Evel Knieval

Here is Evil Knieval's chart.

Interesingly, Chiron is in the 6th house of work.

Chiron represents wounds and he was hurt a lot at work!

There is an emphasis on Fire signs.

The greatest number of planets is in the 7th, 8th and 9th houses.

Planets on the right side of the chart means that you are involved with other people, the 8th house represents our concern for how others view us. Here Neptune and Mars occupy the 8th house.

The signs are categorized into masculine and feminine. The thing that stands out is that a whopping 84% of his chart is masculine.

His Saturn is in the third house of communications, this says to me that maybe he had trouble talking to others in some way, Saturn doesn't like to be in the sign of Aries. I thought to find Antares which sits at 7 degrees Sagittarius in his chart, but it is an interesting chart anyway.

Saturn

Winter is Saturn. Saturn represents older people and the laws that govern us. Saturn is on the ascendant of someone famous, J.R.R. Tolkein, the writer of the Lord of the Rings. It doesn't stop us from being imaginative, it is just a reality check. Saturn also gives us what is due us for our hard work.

I was e-mailing a friend and when she didn't e-mail me back I grew impatient and finally e-mailed her. I told her, "It was your turn, wasn't it?" She replied,"You always did want things to be orderly."

Yes I do, or rather my Saturn does.

A strange thing about this planet for me is that it doesn't want complications in work, it wants a clear road ahead with work that is simple and orderly. That is the story of my working life, I do a job that is getting X amount of product out in X amount of hours, simple and organized. It is strange to read this about myself in some astrology book, I mean it is myself the me that I know and here it is in some book. I don't know sometimes that I am all that crazy about the fact that astrology works. Saturn wants to work hard but us Saturn people want a clear goal with clear visible achievement or we are just downright sulky. Saturn has a lot to do with work. Saturn also wants to delay success in our charts, no wonder people hate Saturn!

As a kid I was told I was a Sagittarian and I read my Sun-Sign with wonder. Didn't sound much like me, as much as I liked the description. Saturn is in my Sagittarius first house, and Saturn puts the brakes on any house that it is in. In the first house of self it is myself that is being cast in a Saturnine mold and I cannot change that. I am almost morbid at times, I feel walled in with things I ought to be doing and am not, I feel pressured to live up to some Saturnine ideal. My Saturn is conjunct the fixed star Antares, a star associated with military victories. While I haven't joined the Army yet I can see I view life as something of a military campaign. It's not bad to plan, one mindless weekend I overlooked buying bread and had a breadless week.

The fixed stars explain how a planet can become so powerful, more powerful than any other planet in your chart. My Saturn is way too powerful. The fixed stars erupt in your life in short vehement bursts so the ancients say. Oprah Winfrey is someone with a lot of fixed stars in her chart. That is an interesting chart to study for anyone interested. Not everyone with a good chart succeeds however, I think hard work has to go into the equation too.

Antares has a lot of bad stuff associated with it as do all the fixed stars. Maybe the ancients were looking for a way to explain the bad events only I don't know. It sometimes makes people daredevils who are careless in the face of danger. Now, if we had the chart of Evil Kenevil...

For all of that Antares is a royal star denoting success. My ascendant says I am gullible and easily cheated, the star right on the ascendant is important as well as those in the same place as your natal planets. I can tell you that is so, I believe people when they tell me things, don't you?

Saturn in my chart is troublesome even though it is one of a Grand Trine. A Grand Trine is very good, some say it means you have good karma from a past life. Ghandi had a grand trine in fire signs as do I. They say that fire burns. Ghandi changed India, but people were hurt in the process. Fire also inspires and warms us. Fire brings change.

A Grand Trine is said to be better for having Saturn in it, the idea being that life becomes too easy for us and we become lazy without Saturn. Quite a lot of criminals have a lot of trines in their charts, the idea is that they are too lazy to work so commit crimes. That and a lot of astrological research is going on, there is one on serial killers. Maybe we will learn something.

Saturn seems to make us aware of our obligations and makes us take our punishments. I have felt that so strongly. Yet my life is one of imagination when I am not at work, a life of books. But if you ask any author they will tell you writing is hard work, people who have not done it think it quite easy. This is the biggest illusion, it seems everyone wants to be a writer these days. They think they can write a book in a few days. Some books take years in which to write.

Saturn is in us and a part of us. Saturn is us doing the right thing. Even professional criminals have things that they will not do, Saturn works for all of us whether we learn his lessons or not.

It is said by astrologers that if we refuse to learn Saturn's lessons then the lesson will come again at us in a different form and we may not recognize the fact we are learning something yet again. Astrology tells us about ourselves and the inner conflicts that need to be resolved. Everyone has done something and wondered later why they did it. Here is one way to find out.

Magic

My idea of magical is probably just like yours, something great and unexplainable. We must have a great need for magic, there is so much of it in movies. In one of Roger Zelaney's books about the magical beings in our world from Amber, a guy throws a bible at an Amberite.

"Just what were you expecting to happen?" Corwin asks.

"I thought you would go up in a puff of smoke I guess." he answers.

They have a chuckle about that. Then he says, "It is sad that there is no magic in the world, and that there never will be."

Our magical hero sadly agrees.

I have felt a little bit of magic listening to music, the things it makes me think of are pretty amazing. I have had golden moods in which I felt everything was alright. These philosophies that if you give out goodness and good deeds that these good deeds will come back to you seem to me to miss the mark. Perhaps it will be in heaven when I get rewarded and not here and now. Maybe I have my reward in my mind, for I have a mind that loves itself, I love to think and ponder stuff so much. Maybe the reward and the magic is in those things we take for granted, our children and the wind in our hair and the graceful shape of trees against the March sky. I have felt love so much, where does it come from? I run from too much closeness with others, I want to drift like driftwood in dreams. Is that so wrong? Is it nature's magic that I find things inside my mind to entertain me?

I know the premise behind scary movies, we want to be scared of zombies and werewolves and then laugh at ourselves for these things will never be and never existed. I don't know what is behind all this wishing for magic in our lives. Maybe we all real the Narnia books as children, and watched too many Disney movies.

Good Eats

I am in love with Alton Brown. He is doing exactly what I would be doing if I had a Food Network television show. I love historical trivia, exact and to the point instructions and his zany sense of humour. I love watching people who have confidence, maybe because I don't have any. I like his funny hair and how it sticks straight up. I like how the lawyers attack him with pieces of paper when he goes with stuff that might not be too safe, like the time he started showing people how to make bagels with lye. (Do they make bagels with a burning and dangerous acid like lye?) I liked it when he set finsh on fire and they burned like candles. And yes, these little fish were once used as candles he says. I even watched him cook squid, and I know after seeing that I would never eat it. Unless Alton asked me to that is, I would do anything he asked me to because I am in love with him. This show has been on five years and I have not known about it. I'm not worrked, because I can order it on DVD.

Mighty Regulus

What is the most powerful star above us?



The answer must be one of the Royal Stars of Persia, Regulus.
If this star at 28 degrees of Leo conjuncts a planet it means you run into famous and successful people, if you are not famous and successful yourself.
My reading suggests that Regulus should be used as a point in your chart like the Black Moon or the Vertex or the Nodes of the Moon.
Jupiter conjunct Regulus is supposed to be a guarantee of fame and Whoopi Goldberg has this star in her birth chart conjunct Jupiter and Pluto.
Regulus in the tenth house is supposed to make for a successful career.
My Regulus is in the ninth house of higher education and publishing. I've had some success in this area, not higher education no, but publishing.
Napoleon had his Sun conjunct Regulus at his midheaven, and he was a success for awhile anyway. This Sicilian who had no French blood is said to have seduced the French people with dreams of glory, and these dreams were false.
One of the strange things about the fixed stars is that the forecast, although promising great success, is that success will be taken away or that you will be disgraced somehow. It seems the more the star contributed the more is taken away, or the more dishonest the person. Whoopi Goldberg is in no danger of losing her success because her success was honestly made, by means of her real talent. It is like karma is promised in the stars, that if you do evil with success given to you evil can happen to you.
One of my stars rules the right eye, which has perfect vision, but I also have my Moon on a star cluster signifying blindness, and I am almost blind in my left eye. It makes me shiver a little, that these things could very well be the truth.
Regulus means "little king" in Latin. It is said to make those it influences noble, proud, and bigger than life. Amazing.

Writing stles

Kurt Vonnegut writes once and does not re-write. In his book he says he is a "basher". Other people write a quick story haphazardly and then painstakingly correct this first draft. He called these people "swoopers".
Carolyn Jewel, a writer of historicals, wrote one book quickly and almost as fast sold it and then was unsuccessful in publishing three or four subsequent books. She states that she suddenly realized that writing fast was her process.
All these writing books profess to know something that can't be known, how to write. It seems to me that writing is different for those who do it. There is no secret formula, secret handshake, private club, or method.
I find that strangly reassuring and wonderful.
What could be more democratic than writing? It doesn't matter how old you are, what you look like, whether you are black or white or even American at all. Nobody cares about anything other than the quality of the writing. It is a job you can do at home.
If you look at the quotes of famous writers about writing they are as varied as their writing methods.
What is writing?
Writing is whatever it means to you.

Solar Return Chart

Solar Returns are easy. Even I can do them

Now when I say they are easy I am reminded how people wanted to borrow my astrology book, "The Only Astrology Book You Will Ever Need". They wanted to borrow it, but none of them ever drew up their own chart or even figured out where their Ascendant was. I found this strange. Maybe it is the way life is now, we are used to passive entertainment like television. Astrology I guess was just too much work when they were only seeking to be mildy amused. I've got a passion for it. I remember when I first saw my natal chart, Whee- this is me! I was excited by the rune like symbols. A solar return is when the sun returns to the place it was when you were born. It is supposed to be a prediction for one year. The excitement of astrology is that it tells you what nobody else will, who you really are for one thing, and what your purpose might be. Still astrology had come down to us piecemeal and with missing parts. We can only guess at some things, but what we do have is pretty amazing. Astrodienst will do your solar return chart automatically, a great place on the internet.

For me and my solar return chart here is how I read it.

My ascendant is in Libra, a time for making peace with others and having harmony in relationships. Libra rules my tenth house in my natal chart, so the emphasis will be on career. Where the moon is indicates your emotions or where your heart is. My Moon is in Capricorn in the third house. Capricorn is a cardinal sign that is emotionally reserved. I will be emotionally reserved in the coming year, I won't change my basic personality, I will just be a little more Capricornish, if you will.

It is interesting that where Aries is is where you start things. Aries represent Spring and new beginnings. Mine is ruled by the 5th house, the place for creative endeavors. The fifth also represents our children, games and having fun.

Interesting also is that where Jupiter is is where you want to be. Mine is in the fourth house of Home. Now I want to be home anyway with my Moon in Cancer, for the coming year I will enjoy home even more.

Astrology really does not predict things as the planets have so many different sides to them and the houses rule so many things. Mars for instance can mean accidents, energy, or even a man in your life. That could mean a great deal of different things. Astrology may be no more than grabbing at clouds, but haven't you always wanted to know what a cloud feels like?

The Secret

There is a book called "The Secret" and I don't even remember what the secret was in the book.

I guess it didn't make much of an impression.

I used to feel like aliens had left me here and hoped they would come back. I felt there was a secret that everyone else knew that I didn't know. Like maybe at about the time you got the birds and the bees talk your parents gave you this secret only my parents who didn't even realise they had any kind of responsibility for us had neglected this important task.

I think life is exactly like baseball.

Amy decided she wanted to cook and what she decided to make first was cupcakes. She went about it so slowly, carefully reading the cookbook and chosing a recipie, so carefully measuring ingredients and asking me what "Beat" exactly meant. After an hour she finally set the timer and put her cupcakes in the oven. I acted like nothing important was happening, but inside I knew that her whole idea of cooking was about to start. If the cupcakes didn't turn out well, she would start to think herself a bad cook, that cooking was difficult, or that cooking was something that she herself could not do. If the second time trying to cook it didn't work out and then again the third time, it is 3 strikes and you are out.

The cupcakes turned out beautifully and Amy always says she is a great cook. The only thing she cooks is chinese noodles but never mind that. Success leads to success and to confidence.

I think in life I've been struck out. I have tried different things and they haven't worked out. I keep trying but it is at different things, not those things I failed at. Each failure is one more knot in my coffin and each failure shines on my opinion of myself. I don't even think it is true that I am failure but it is inside you and cannot be removed. Knowledge does not mean that you are free, oh no, we are never free. We took this path instead of the other path and there found ogres and ghouls and are bound now to be forever afraid. We know these, our own monsters.

Then some of us have children, and we find ourselves living vicariously through them. My success now is their success and I feel this success as if it were my own. I never knew that life would be like that. My parents didn't feel what I feel, this overwhelming pride in your offspring. This is part of being a grown-up, this is the way things were meant to be. There is a way around things that you thought insurmountable. Even the fact that people do not listen to me I've gotten around that by writing. Here another fact of astrology comes out, that the written word is different from the spoken word. Astrology seperates these two things. The ninth house rules the public expression of ideas and there sits my planet of power, Pluto, and there sits my planet of genius, Uranus. I publish what I write and marvel, that I who is so inconsequential in person can be so compelling when I write. So even if I cannot talk and be heard I can write.

Life may be baseball, but rules were made to be broken.

Kurt Cobain

An interesting chart is that of Kurt Cobain. There are interpretations of this chart that you can find in the Web. He shot himself in April of 1994.
He is an example of a person with an emphasis on just one element and that element is Water.
He had some Fire in his chart, but it has been said that Fire only makes water even more waterlike, it makes emotional people even more emotional. I am astounded by the chart, and by anyone who could live with this sort of chart. He was a Pisces with a Moon in Cancer and a Rising Sun in Virgo. All the planets grouped on the right side of the chart indicate that partnerships and other people were very important to him. Uranus in the first house is always a sign of a person who is unusual. Pluto is silent in the twelth house. I am not an expert but I think this chart is quite an example. He was a person who felt things intensely and lived an intense emotional life. It is really quite easy to prove astrology I think. This chart reflects exactly who Kurt Cobain was.

Fat or Thin?

When I first arrived in Arkansas the first thing I noticed is that fat doesn't matter, not here. I privately thought this a very odd thing, that girls who are obviously overweight were being openly admired and remarked upon as beautiful. Beauty is more about personality and the way you dress and the way you talk. There are people who call these girls fat, but they have always moved here from other places.
How amazing! I've fought the Battle of the Bulge and I had a mother who always abused me badly about my weight. I thought it akin to some unforgivable sin. I had a friend who was pencil thin who always thought she was fat. She had to be reassured constantly. It seems to me to be as obsession that no one can cure, a dream that people have that life would be totally different if they were only thin. I find this strange, though I myself have often dreamed this dream. There was a girl at my high school who was a cheerleader who was fat, but she kissed up shamelessly to the skinny girls. You will still be you when you are thin, but we think of it as a transformation, a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, living the perfect life. When I ask my daughter what her physical faults are she knows them by heart: nose too big, legs too long, hair too straight, and feet too big. I know that she bonds with her girlfriends this way, each of them talking about their faults. It is okay, at least it is better than my mother worrying about the saleslady at the store actually knowing what size I wore.

Hayz

Astrology sometimes picks one planet and places it by aspect or by placement as the planet in your chart. For me, it is the Moon.

My Moon is in Hayz. It is a nocturnal, (night), planet in a nocturnal sign in a nocturnal house in the nocturnal hemisphere of the chart. The Moon rules my chart.

Now this cannot be good, as the Moon rules emotions and it should make me an emotional person. Astrology tells us what we don't know and don't want to know, whether we want to know it or not. Like it or not I am not ruled by reason or logic but by emotions and I always have been. I find reasons for my emotional reactions but I am not reasonable. This is interesting for it has been found that people compensate for what they do not have. I am Dr. Spock when I speak, logic rules. Interesting that writers often are people who lack air in their chart, they write a lot to compensate for their lack of mental abilities. Interesting that people have friends that supply that missing element, whether it is air, earth, fire, or water. Here I am with a husband who has planets in signs that I have no planets in, interesting that he is a Taurus when I have only one planet in earth and interesting that my path of fortune lies in Taurus itself, telling me that the Taurean qualities of persistance and determination are just what I need. My hubby is a double Taurus as I am a triple Sagittarius and that I wandered like a lunatic until I found him and he brought me down to earth. As I believe in things that cannot be seen he believes only in those things that he can see. I was validated as a writer only when I got paid for my writing for him. Money talks he says but what is money? It is a means of exchange. Someone found value in my writing and paid me for it. I hope that one day money will be properly applied to taking care of the people that are in the world, whether they be the dreamers or the builders.

Chart Patterns

How astrology came to be no one knows. It is ancient, more ancient than the pyramid building Egyptians and how it was done we just don't know. It is said to be like music and numerology. There are 360 degrees in a circle, and aspects are those derived from dividing that number with fives, sevens, and other numbers. The signs are divided into masculine and feminine. Like most people I am interested in my own chart. There is a mystery here, and it is keeping my up nights. I would rather think about astrology however than unpleasant things like work or bills.
There is enough to think about in astrology that I assure you that you will never have time to think about those bills and can leave them in the mailbox.
My path of fortune is in the sixth house of service to others, a house ruled by Virgo. My midheaven is in Virgo also. This means that I should live my life to be of service to others.
My ascendant is in Sagittarius, the explorer of higher spirtual learning. I have a grand trine in fire signs and fire represents inspiration. I am supposed to serve others by inspiring them on their spirtual journey is how I read this. This is strange. The only thing I inspire in life is my dog when I open the refrigerator. Astrology is like that, it sees each of us as special even if unknown to us just how we are special.
Maybe in a perfect world we would all be doing what it was God meant for us to do. Until then we can talk astrology and wonder. What kind of world was that ancient world where astrology first came to be?

Real Care Baby Program

My daughter has an interesting assignment this weekend. She is to take care of an electronic baby. She has a sensor on a bracelet she has to press to the baby's abdomen, so the baby knows it is "mommy" The baby wakes her up at night crying just like a real baby. The baby needs one of four things when it cries, it wants to be rocked, it wants it's diaper changed, it wants a bottle, or it wants to be burped. My daughter Amy has to do each thing until she finds the thing that makes the baby stop crying. She has been taking this baby everywhere, and people are funny the way they do a double take and then realize that the baby is not a "real" baby. The baby is rigged so that if you do not support the head, the baby dies and you get an F. This is supposed to help prevent teenage pregnancy. She has been sleep deprived this weekend but insists she has to be in school on Monday to turn the baby in. It is supposed to let teenagers know how much care a real baby will need, should they feel a desire to have one. I suppose teenagers feel the desire quite often, since teenagers are always having babies. There was one in our town who gave birth at the old age of thirteen, and I think her mom is taking care of it. I personally hold the unpopular opinion that teenage girls should be vaccinated against pregnancy like they are for the measles, now there is a shot you can get that lasts one year. Who knows, maybe these electronic babies will do just what they were designed to do, prevent teenage pregnancy.

Calling

I call to you across mountains and deserts and windy canyons

I have at times been able to talk

Can you hear me?

I walk around another shadow and I can feel sounds reverberating down the inside of me,

and I am

looking for someone like me, aching like mad

Can you feel me?

I am restless looking for only another alleyway and peeking into windows as I pass without destination,

seeing things that look like they might be alive

Can you see me?

And there must be someone somewhere like me

and we can have endless conversations, sane and mad

we could drink rum & coke and eat toast and jam

and I could taste once more of wonder

Is it enough to only imagine?

At the bottom of the ocean I feel swayed by currents

I feel rising waters and enormous pressures

Can you save me?

The Black Death

Here in Arkansas we have chickens, everyone has chickens unless they live in town where livestock is prohibited. The farmers plant fruit trees in twos, one for us and one for the birds. At one time in the Middle Ages people lived a communal life, a family might have two rows of a field. The mistress of the house kept stores for the winter. There was a pasture that everyone's livestock grazed. In those times there were too many people, and not enough resources. The gleanings from the field were not left for the poor anymore, society was breaking down. When I went to college the registered nurse who was teaching us about this time in history told us, thank goodness for the Black Death.

The world was overpopulated and there was not enough land to sustain life. The plague, by wiping out half of the earth's inhabitants saved us from all that. There was land, and people started growing orchards and new plants and a record number of births happened after the Black Death. My teacher is an extremely practical person and she saw the plague as the solution to many problems. Here we are now in much the same predicament. We are too fruitful and we multiply. I myself who had no plans to have children at all, had them. It seems to me that a little planning would help. Life itself is precious, we say that but we do not mean it. Sitting here a hundred years away we can say this awful thing, to be there seeing the loss of life we would think differently. We are here to sustain each other and the earth, to feed the children and help them.

Abuse

It is said that our parents have an unfair advantage in that they form who we are without us being able to do much about it. My father abused my mother, and I and my brother sat by helplessly. It seems to me that I have been on a journey to figure out why. It seems to me that I could help someone else with the written word. The written word has magical powers, books magically appear in your possession to lead the way, to guide you on your path. As I have benefited perhaps I can benefit others. Here in bald language is what I have ascertained which may or may not even be true, just true to me.
Depression is a hard burden, and my father had major depression. This causes insomnia, and he slept badly his whole life. My parents were locked in a life or death struggle, with one and then the other getting the upper hand. My father figured out something that many men do, that anger makes depression go away for as long as you can remain angry. A funny thing is that this abuse runs in families and my father was abused by his father who was abused by his father going back who knows how many generations. This anger came out towards my mother, who was to blame for everything. Even stranger is the fact that abused women not only stand for it, but cannot be separated from the abuser. My mother would not have let anything keep her from my father. This anger he felt was necessary for his own survival, nothing else brought relief. This happened in cycles, you could feel tension building to my father's ultimate explosion. My brother and I were no more than pawns on the chessboard the two of them were playing, but all of us were pawns in the game my father was playing. It is instinctive for him to become angry when he sees one of us in person, when we are faraway he waxes sentimental and loves us so much. I say this for all of those out there who are searching for reasons, there was no reason. There is just this illness and a drowning person will seize anything or anyone to keep from drowning. I have read about this from other accounts and this is the conclusion I have come to. I am two people to my father, the one present in person and the one he loves who is not there.
My father lived a different life in later years with a younger woman who adored him. He still battled insomnia and he watched television all the time. He would leave the lights on so bright.
This is my hard won piece of knowledge and I hope it will help someone else.

Sect

I recently posted that although my Jupiter was in the tenth house success had not come my way. Recently I have learned more stuff.
Mine is a night chart, and in a night chart according to some ancient sources Jupiter's power is not there and the benefits instead come from Venus. Jupiter is weak in a night chart! Astrology of sect is where the planets are and whether it is a day or night chart.
Planets below the horizon are more powerful and where Saturn is reflects where you see challenges coming from. My Saturn is below the horizon where my Sun is, therefore I see challenges as coming from myself. A person with Saturn on the other side of the horizon would tend to see challenges as coming from outside forces. That is exactly how I think, I think that when I fail it is completely my fault, no matter how many obstacles are in my way. I think I should have done better.
I've recently been thinking that the world is here for us instead of us being here for the world. My young daughter has her first job, and she is being taught by the older teachers how to do things. She is eager to learn and very young. I used to think that I should do things right at all times and so should she. Now I think I understand that this is the way things are and the way things should be. The older should be there to teach the up and coming and the world was made for us to get out there and learn and become. My Saturn has been too hard a taskmaster, confusing the world for me. Still I am who I am, and no amount of knowledge can change that. Sometimes knowing something doesn't change anything, and my world view isn't going to change radically at this late date. When the outside world became too harsh I fled inside, and there things can become muddled. Still I look at astrology and I am filled with wonder. There is a cosmic pattern there, and one can only wander on these pathways of wonder.

Pluto

Pluto is a tiny planet with a lot of punch. It's powerful dark energy is not easy to handle, and Pluto aspects can be very difficult. When Pluto is on the midheaven the profession of the person is supposed to have something to do with death, or with uncovering secrets. Agatha Christie has this in her birth chart, and she wrote about murder and the uncovering of who had done the crime. It has been discovered that the planet that is closet to the midheaven usually determines the profession, thousands of charts have been studied. Astrology is a science that is always growing and getting better. Where Pluto is in your chart is where your personal power is, for good or for bad according to how you use it. Pluto also rules nuclear energy, strangely enough. Pluto gives you power in the house where it is at birth, but it also gives some kind of problem with that power. Pluto's gifts come with a price. Pluto rules Scorpio, it makes drives intense, it makes ambition obsessive, it makes lovers jealous of one another, and it makes people want to dominate others. It is said that Pluto detroys so that life can regenerate, Scorpio also rules regeneration. Pluto is a negative energy but it is our choice how to use it. All of the planets have a good side and a bad side but Pluto may be a planet that is a little more bad. I believe that this energy has great power for good as Scorpio does, Scorpio is also represented by an eagle rather than a scorpion. Surgeons, doctors and healers all are ruled by the mysterious planet of Pluto. It may be that Pluto is a planet beyond our comprehension.

Writing and making boxes

My husband likes to make boxes, lots and lots of boxes. I like to write, lots and lots of stuff. It appears to me that we both have something in common.

We do these things because we like to do them. We've both had successes along the way and lots of failures but we keep trying. I have been published and people have bought his boxes, but we both have spectacular failures too. Our hobbies are home grown and we're proud whether anyone else is or not.

We have work that we have to do to pay the bills, and we have this creativity that calls us to make something. These things are work that gives back to you. Besides, says my hubby, it's a box and you can always put something in it.

Books

I was reading about how Kurt Vonnegut has written a book explaining his views and thinking how I really have to get that book. To put it plainly, there is a lot I read that I feel I do not understand. I think we need a few pages at the end of the book, a summing up of what the author intended because doofus old me, sometimes I just don't know. Ayn Rand is another author I feel I want to understand, and Ursula LeGuin. I wouldn't change a thing about the books understand, and I don't want to interfere with the creation of art, just a little explanation please!
I love ideas and the exchange of ideas, but what I usually get in my conversations with others is gossip. That is okay, but sometimes I want something deeper which is why I read and I want to read something by someone smarter than me or else I wouldn't learn anything. I so enjoyed reading what Stephen King has written about how he came to write certain stories and the motivation behind what he has written. Thanks Mr. King! I want a personal note from the authors themselves. I remember I was so shocked when I read that the guy who wrote "Flowers for Algernon" was himself in therapy. I thought authors were like gods on Mt. Olympus, throwing down books like Zeus with lightning bolts, people so extraordinary that they lived in some other land thinking weighty thoughts all the time. I guess what I am getting to here is theme, what was the meaning and what was the idea? There is this world, this everyday world all stained and snarled, and there is book world. In book world life is better than life and there is a reason for things. It is a whole thing, all of a piece that stands by itself that took a long time to write, much longer than it took for me to read it. After finishing a book I can be somewhat stunned and searching inward for answers and feeling the book as something I have experienced. Of course, with a lot of books the point is quite clear, the boy meets girl book or the book that scares or the book that paints pictures saying here, here is how life is over here, see?
After reading perhaps millions of books over half a lifetime I guess I am saying I want more. Perhaps some books are written just to get people thinking and have no actual point at all other than themselves and that is fine for those books, for some of us unfamiliar with the ideas the author plays with-a little help would be oh so nice.

to blog or not to blog

Here in Arkansas it seems things are a little simpler. We are more concerned with what happens in the town we live in than with national news and for good reason I think. Here is where we are and where we have power to change things. You work and you want to start a family which causes more work of course and you hope. You hope that things will get better when you have a moment to think about things at all. I was reading all these blogs about politics and I have to wonder if public opinion can be a huge thing, or something so inconsequential that it doesn't matter if millions are thinking the same thing. It seems everyone is caught up in details and I am not getting the overall picture. Talk about being powerless, at my job I am. I work and there is a supervisor over me and a supervisor over her and a supervisor over her. My co-worker used to joke that we had too many chiefs and not enough Indians. I believe in Americans. Americans value fairness so much and believe in what we are supposed to be doing that I find it difficult to believe that the economy or anything else can "whop" us. I believe that when our backs are finally up against the wall that the old will be thrown out and something new will come in. President Bush said a strange thing, he said basically that the people in Iraq would come to like us. I thought that funny but quite American. It is American to think yourself so lovable. In any old country lane or back street anywhere, good people reside. We like ourselves quite a lot. Hey, what's wrong with that?

Oh, Sherry

It's waiting for me
Underneath
and my writing this means nothing
I write only for myself
I'm not creating anything
and waiting for it waiting for me
What is it you might ask?
It's me falling over into pain
It's landing over & over again on the ground
and I keep on making the same stupid mistakes and oh, Sherry I wish I lived on a higher key like you, dancing your dance and jumping right in when the water is fine and the moon is blue
with a fine mask of somewhere elseness, a fine
wish for someone elseness and oh, Sherry
I wish I could be like you

The Think Poem

Think pink

the girl says and she is

blonde effervescense with a way

of saying things

that almost makes sense

the smartest people who ever lived

think blue

water still is deeper

the inside of your mind

it is almost like sleep here

to know

and still knowing be helpless

think green

the book has not been read, yet.

we are still growing so green

we have dandelion madness, wish & blow

think grey

fog and embankments and

aren't we all grown-up now

colors too bright now

over our heads in under our heads

we didn't mean to kill others with control

grey is where you know you don't know

think black

aren't we tiresome, when it's

exactly right, perhaps this is

the colors all combined

I wouldn't live with black though

I wouldn't live

I will look for all the colors

or just sit and remember when

Fibromyalgia

When the doctor first told me I had fibromyalgia he had to write it on a piece of paper because I could not get my mouth to say the strange word. The day before I had laid down in the bed and felt all of the joints in my body throbbing with an achy pain and said to myself, this is not normal and I've got to do something about this. The doctor said there was nothing to do. All I had was a piece of paper with a word on it.

Now there is a medicine for fibromyalgia that helps, but it does not work if you overdo and get too much exercise. It is a kind of annoying fingernails on chalkboard sort of pain. I feel that been run over by a truck feeling. I can't seem to feel pretty anymore. There are limits that I have to pay attention to or pay the price. I used to exercise to feel the "high" that people who do it feel, now exercise is to handle the aches. It has changed everything. There is good news however. Although it feels like terrible things are happening to your body, nothing is happening to your body at all. This syndrome or whatever has none of the destruction of joints that real arthritis has. There are rumours flying my way that diet may be the key to overcoming the whole thing.

Diet is a difficult thing for anybody to do. I am going to try it. If nothing else I will get healthier. For all of you who have this my heart goes out to you and my prayers. There are good days for those who have this so it isn't all bad!

Jupiter

Jupiter is the planet of expansion just as Saturn is the planet of constriction. Where Jupiter is in your chart is where you have the most room to expand. It should come as no suprise to learn that Jupiter is in the second house, a money house, in the charts of Madonna and Bill Gates. Jupiter is more than that however and like all the planets can work in mysterious ways. Jupiter can also mean a "lot" of something, Jupiter is bountiful and expansive, but sometimes you get a lot of something that you don't really want. Jupiter is often described as luck, where your luck comes from and when you are lucky. It is not as simple as that for all of you that are thinking that you can learn astrology and become rich, astrology is a pattern; but it is a pattern that does not lend itself to easy answers. Even though cosmic patterns suggest that things come in cycles just as the planets orbit the sun it is a cycle that we change ourselves and I believe there is no stronger power than our determination to do something. As I write this I do not know what transits there are in the sky although there is a site that allows you to quickly see this. Astrology has lit a spark in my mind, but it is not a spark I blindly follow. I myself have Jupiter exactly at the midpoint of my Sun and Moon, an important location that must mean I will have outstanding success but alas, it is not so. I also have Jupiter in the tenth house of career which is supposed to be very lucky. Where my luck is I do not know, perhaps I sabotage my luck and think that I do not deserve success. It is not the stars leading us perhaps we are leading the stars. Einstein suggested that time itself does not travel in a straight line at all, that the past, present and future are all here at once. We think cause and then effect but maybe it could just as easily be effect before cause. As above, so it is below is the basis for astrology and palm reading. Jupiter may be no more than a clue to where in our life we can live more abundantly.

Star Guidance

When you are being pulled in two different directions it is easy to see it with astrology. My Sun and my Moon are on opposite sides of my horoscope chart and I know this feeling of wanting to go in two directions at once. I was born at night, and some say it is the Moon that is most powerful in my chart and that certainly is true for me personally. My Sagittarius Sun wants to wander and my Cancer Moon wants to stay home. I solve this problem by taking short trips instead of long ones, and carrying with me things that are dear to me like pictures of my daughters and a notebook to write in. I am always being confronted with jealous females and I didn't know why. Why is my Venus squared Pluto which explains something I have never been able to understand. I am not beautiful and I try to avoid these situations that seem to find me anyhow. I had a friend who I was jealous of for her delicate blonde beauty and her feminine grace who always attracted the attention of men and she confided that she was jealous of me because I got to work in an office and she was only a waitress! A small promotion at my job that did not even pay me any more money than what everyone else made had all the females at my workplace hopping mad and subjecting me to sarcastic comments. I told my boss I did not want the position because it didn't matter to me that much, I missed my female friends! It is something so strange that this happened to me that the only way I can explain it is through astrology. Why do some people seem to always get by with the things that they do and some people do not? Why are some people popular and some not? Countries are also assigned astrological signs, the United States with a birthdate of July 4th is a Leo. A proud Leo is exactly what America is, isn't it? It fits. England is an Aries country and Spain is a Sagittarius. I am amazed with astrology and with astrologers, some of whom have lots of impressive degrees and a lot of college. One day I want my own astrological reading, until then I'll surf the net for all the free stuff that is out there to learn. If I'd had my chart done when I was young, I could have known then that I should try for a career in communications, see my Mercury trines the Midheaven. Mercury rules Gemini and writing and journalism and things related to communication. I don't know where this learning will take me, there are people who move to a different place because it is more astrologically alike to themselves! That is something to think about.

Gardening

These are the blooms from my okra patch last summer. I told my friends it looks like we are

growing flowers instead of vegetables. To my amazement the okra we planted blooms with these pale yellow flowers with purple centers that are quite beautiful. It is said that okra seeds came from Africa with slaves who planted them here in the south. I have always eaten okra fried after being coated with cornmeal, that is the way my mother cooked it. The scorching hot summers here wilts a lot of plants but okra likes the heat and a lot of sun. I wanted to plant things after reading "The Secret Garden" which made growing things seem magical and mystical and healing. I am so proud of things that I have planted and grown myself, although we have been planting and a lot of things do not grow. It must be our soil is just right for peppers, squash, tomatoes and okra and not much else. Comment please if you know a great gardening site on the internet! Wishing everyone who visits my blog my good vibrations...from Arkansas

Poetry

Poetry was once the thing you know. Poets were venerated like rock stars. I was suprised to see in a book that some of these poems we have to study in school are actually considered "bad" poems, I thought that was a judgement I had made unique to myself. I think that we have a real need for poetry, we are just finding it somewhere else. We find it in song lyrics.

Everyone knows the words to certain songs, everyone discusses what these songs might mean. The song "Bad Company" is about a man "born with a sixgun in my hand" It conjurs up the old West and a certain world weariness and a feeling that if I am bad then that is what I will be, you can call me bad company. The song "Cruel to be Kind" was discussed and the many ways you have to be cruel to be kind. "Losing My Religion" was a powerful song with lyrics that we decided was about losing one's mind maybe, then again, maybe not. The meaning of poetry is not always clear, but the mood of a poem can be the clearest thing of all. It summons up feelings and longings and things unseen and remakes everything into beautiful. We think of poetry as being flowery and feminine, we think of poetry as the stuff we had to study in school that seemed to belong to a foreign land to people that spoke a different language and had nothing to do with us. In music poetry begins again. I am listening.

Edgar Cayce

Some people might not have heard of Edgar Cayce, he was the man in the book "The Sleeping Prophet." by Jess Stearn. Cayce would lie down and while in a trance would be able to diagnose illness and tell people about their past lives. These are called "readings" and they have all been recorded and there is a site on the internet with a list of them. All of us are on a spiritual journey, whether we know it or not, and Cayce would be a place to start for those searching.

It seems to me that we were left here in the dark, that we must take things on faith, for that is what our maker must intend for us to do. It has occured to me more than once that these mysteries are special to each of us, that each of us has some piece of total knowledge that is unique to ourselves. I tend to think that it is this way on purpose, that such things will never be proved one way or the other, to be true or false. The spirtual will not submit to scientific inquiry it seems. When I bring up Cayce in a conversation then people will also bring up UFOs and swamp monsters and crazy stuff like that which shows me in what category people put Cayce in. Truly, reincarnation explains everything so perfectly that it does invite one to believe. Why do young children die before they have even lived, well reincarnation says that they will live again. According to Cayce, life is just school. You live different lives and learn your lessons and go up to higher levels of existance. What you do will come back to you again, you will reap what you sow. Jess Stearn came to believe in the things that he wrote about and he started as an objective reporter of events. It is said that we die and we forget that we have lived before, but personality remains the same. There was mention of Mark Twain having dreams about other lives with a women who was with him in different historical periods, I would like to learn more about that and where the authors got that information! We are supposed to have soul mates, our mates from one life to the next, and Twain was without his in this reincarnation. There have been people who remembered previous lives and the tales are compelling. Whatever waits for us beyond the light I believe we can only have faith and do our best and continue to ask questions.

Tori Amos

Tori Amos blew me away with her songs and her piano playing, and like most people I want to tell everybody, "you should listen to this!" I was watching television when I first heard the melodious sounds of "Another Fairytale With You" and I knew I had to hear more. This singer is a girl, a fairy and a goddess and if you listen you will know what I mean. She hails from North Carolina, where another songwriter close to my heart is from, James Taylor. I've never heard her on the radio, but there are a lot of Tori Amos fans. I have to wonder, what else am I missing that this wonderful artist has been here for so long and I was unaware of her existance?

When I was a child I was often alone. I used to sing to myself because all music was forbidden in my household and I loved music so much. That is what Tori's songs remind me of, those songs that I used to sing for myself. One song is about a woman trapped in a painting hanging on the wall. "I will be safe in my frame" she sings and it makes me shiver with an otherworldly feeling. What a great songwriter! Her voice is pure crystal tones and she leads you down a mystical pathway. Tori Amos has stated "Something happens to me when I sing." and it is true she does not sing like other singers.

When Madonna sings she does so in a self-conscious way, and many others. When Tori Amos sings it is like you have wandered far away from where you were, you open a door and find yourself in a room in a castle with tapestries on the wall and in the corner is a red-headed girl singing for the pure singular joy of singing, singing for herself, singing for the pure joy of music, singing with the knowledge that musical notes are magic spells.