A moment in time
A moment in time,
At the start of the decade.
Lights. Music. Dancing.
A glass of champagne.
Choosing a rhythm,
At the start of the year.
Balance. Detachment.
To stay in the moment.
For the first time in years, we rang in the New Year at a psytrance party in SF — Tribal Convergence at the Gingerbread House! Michael Liu, Witchdokta, and the Mendo Organized Chaos crew had done a great job putting the party together, and the place looked amazing. We found a cab with no problem (just say no to surge pricing and exploitative business models!) and got there just as Galactic Illumination started their set …
I had been in a reflective mood for the last few weeks, spending lots of time with tarot cards. And fortunately there was decent cellphone reception at the Gingerbread House, so my online tarot journal on TapestryMaker (the social network/community software I’ve been developing) was right there there at my fingertips. So as I enjoyed the vibe, I looked back over these recent readings and reflected some more …
Happy New Year! We had a great New Year's Eve at Tribal Convergence; more about that soon. And now it's New Year's Day, a great time to start setting the rhythm for the year. I did a lot of work in December reflecting on my goals and priorities and what kind of life I want. One thing that really came out for me was wanting to integrate tarot more deeply into my life ... no time like the present!
( Read more... )
Oh my, so much to catch up on since my last public journal entry: Solstice readings, including Lisa de St. Croix's excellent Visual Journaling; full moon readings late on Christmas Eve after a big holiday party; and then the Fortune Circle Holiday Party! And as I start my period of reflection on 2015, I'm going to work backwards, so to speak; which means that the Harvest Tree readings at the Holiday Party are the first ones I'll be journaling about.
The Fortune Circle work I've been doing with James Wanless and about a dozen intrepid Fortune Seekers has certainly been one of the highlights of these last few months. Our get-togethers usually include James talking about one of the Gold You Rules, splitting into breakout sessions for discussions, a guided meditation, and then picking cards that match the topic of the night. The holiday party had a slightly different format, picking multiple cards and describing a spread for people to do their own Harvest Tree reading. One interesting thing about the Fortune Circles is that they're pseudonymous; Monday night, it was me, Morpheus, Azeri, the Queen of Wands, Dragon, and the Fortune Maker.
This is a tarot spread I created for anyone who relates to what I’ve been saying – about losing touch with earth, about knowing there’s something inside that wants so badly to come out, about missing their creative selves, about just feeling goddamn lost right now.
-- Beth Maiden, Creativity, courage, commitment: a tarot spread for the new moon on Little Red Tarot
It's true, I do miss my creative self. It's been years since I've written poetry or fiction or worked on e-luminatus or journaled about psytrance. Sure, I've been creative in other ways, but for quite a while I've felt a gap. And it does feel like there's something inside me that wants to get out, so while I wouldn't say I'm feeling lost, this spread still seemed like a great choice for the December new moon. It worked out even better than I had hoped.
One thing I came away with: one good way to get more in touch with my creative side is by doing more writing. This is something that's completely within my power. I can see it, feel it, believe it ... so, time to do it!
Writing about Beth's spread and my new moon readings seems like a good place to start.
A lot's happened since I last posted here. One thing that hasn't happened, for the most part, is writing: poetry, fiction, journaling, or blogging. It's felt like that's been missing to me for a while, and I really want to change it. Hopefully I will!
First, we have to convince our own governments that when they mandate snoopy back-doors and kill-switches in social media, they give that capacity to dictators, too.
Secondly, we have to make the connection between copyright enforcement surveillance and global justice struggles, by explaining as often as necessary that you can't make a system that prevents spying by secret police and allows spying by media giants.
And finally, we have to convince these businesses that it is in their interests to make the architectural changes that protect their users from arbitrary detention, torture and murder when they make the unplanned transition from cute cats to impromptu atrocity videographer.
That's 2012, then, and several of the years that will follow. Let's get busy.
2011 wasn’t the year I expected it to be. But while it’s easy (and depressing) to look at what didn’t happen, one of my resolutions was to take a more asset-based thinking approach to life. If I look at what I — and we — accomplished this year, it’s pretty impressive.
-- NanoEvolution
Why yes, I have been quiet for a while now that you mention it. We spent almost a month on the road, starting with Sacramento for a privacy coalition meeting, and SF for Olli Wisdom at Space 550. We had juggled our plans to be at IlluminiNation, and it was totally the right call. 550 Barneveld is a great venue, and we ran into plenty of familiar faces from back in 2003/2004 when we used to hang out there all the time. Musically, DJ Dragn'fly was great, and Olli was Olli -- not as good as his legendary 2004 (((thump)) set, but still. One of our friends was at her first psytrance party. How cool is that?
Wednesday evening, when we finally got back here, I dropped by the Atrium. They had been closed for a few days after their Halloween weekend blow-out, and it was fairly low-key, but it was great to be back. Friday night was a stompy darkwave set by DJ Anomaly, and then last night was Transition II.
Of course The Atrium's nowhere as big as Barneveld, but even with a small crowd the vibe is amazing. It was looking partcularly trippy Friday night, with some new UV-active Cyberdog artifacts and gorgeous flowers. And the light makes everybody look good!
no! its not a secret forbidden world that only a few fortunate transgressive people can/must participate in. it's all of that but it is also a world anybody can enter.... and so its all about how you want the fantasies to be.
-- Can Fantasy Stand Against Hegemony?, 2003
We drove up from SF and got back to Seattle on Wednesday afternoon. There was an early show with a "special suprise guest" at The Atrium, and when we dropped by who should we find but DJ Anomaly, back from her European mini-tour, playing an unannounced set at "Welcome Home". How cool is that?
We bopped for a while, had a glass of wine, and were home before 11. I heart psytrance.
What would you like to introduce to your life? Introduce no more than one or two rituals at a time and make sure they become habitual before you introduce new ones. "Incremental change is better than ambitious failure. Success feeds on itself." -- Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier, p. 9-10 |
In the aftermath of my events on Sept. 11, 2011, I feel violated, humiliated and sure that I was taken from the plane simply because of my appearance. Though I never left my seat, spoke to anyone on the flight or tinkered with any “suspicious” device, I was forced into a situation where I was stripped of my freedom and liberty that so many of my fellow Americans purport are the foundations of this country and should be protected at any cost….
This country has operated for the last 10 years through fear. We’ve been a country at war and going bankrupt for much of this time. What is the next step?
-- Shoshana Hebshi, Some real Shock and Awe: Racially profiled and cuffed in Detroit, Tales from the Heartland
Following a catastrophic national event, such as 9/11 in the United States, conditions are anything but ordinary. The people are traumatized, they long for someone to make them feel secure, and an ancient paranoia switch is once again waiting to snap on. Under these conditions, fear mongers thrive. Their characteristics are so hand in glove with the trauma reaction of the population that their identifying behaviors are scarcely "seen" at all. In short, after we have been thoroughly traumatized, we cannot see the devil.
-- Martha Stout, The Paranoia Switch
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chiming
