Years ago, I wrote an article about the God of Love: "Cupid is much more than a charming decoration on a box of chocolates: he is as vibrantly alive today as he has been for thousands of years. His sacred calling is to touch the hearts of mortals to help keep humanity full of love, and IN LOVE with life itself."
That's all still true, but today I'm writing an article WITH Cupid, and with a fresh approach! Hello, Cupid, thank you for agreeing to tell us about the real person behind the myths.
I’ve quite frankly found it pretty challenging to routinely bend to the gifts of quiet time. Not being much for coffee, cigarettes, or wine, it seemed I even missed the American rituals that build in a pause.
I found a pause recently, though, in a gift from a wise friend. A modern, clear, silicon hot water bottle. So handsome in its simplicity, just fill with boiling water. Then retire, cradling the hot little pillow. And let the heat creep across, from silicon to bones. Nothing one can do to rush a hot water bottle. No dial to crank up. But there is something about a capable hot water bottle that encourages sighs of release. An unwinding. A melding.
I wanted to share this to hopefully bring some lightness to our struggles with what is foreign to us, hard to pronounce, or even hard to understand. We can get too caught up in getting things right, worrying we will offend, or thinking we are not respectful if we don’t do the extra effort it takes to get it right. Consider that what come easy and natural to you, even though it veers from the original, might actually add to someone’s memory space, and enrich their lives
Like me, many of you have experienced what it's like to be different. Maybe you're psychic, or an Indigo; one of the many "clairs" such as clairtactile or clairsentient, a telepath, an empath; or you have what the Irish call Second Sight. Maybe you never talk about your special abilities, or you hide what you can do, because you're afraid of what people will think if they find out you're "not normal." But of course, these abilities are perfectly normal for humans; they've just been distrusted and demonized for a very long time.
I took my first steps on a spiritual path with the Universal Great Brotherhood. I remember my revered teacher, the Elder Brother, giving a talk during one of his visits to Ann Arbor. He looked around the room at all of our shining faces and said “Everything vibrates. I’m vibrating, you’re vibrating and, pointing to the table where his water glass was perched, even this table is vibrating. Can you see it? Can you sense it?”
I was pretty convinced that my wild woman would be of the earth, probably covered with some dirt, have long un-styled hair, and maybe, bit of a crazed gaze that warned the beholder that she is not to be messed with. That she is to be feared even. Western society has burned even the tamest of wild women (wise women and healers) for centuries to make sure there is no question that our psyches equate wild with dangerous. In fact I am bewildered more than anything that this archetype has survived and is coming through in our imagery at all given how long and hard mankind worked to eradicate it.
found this little six-inch Christmas tree at a dollar store, the perfect size for my small apartment. When switched on, it changes colors and is very soothing to look at. I've been practicing and broadening my telepathic abilities, and since the little tree was right in front of me on my desk one day, I decided to try connecting with it...
River: So, my sparkling little friend, is there anything you'd like to talk about?
As a young mom and graduate student, this shopper, now in her mid-thirties, used Double Up Food Bucks during her last year in school—stretching her food dollars at the farmers markets for fresh, nutritious produce for her family. Today, she’s a social worker in the area and a Double Up volunteer who refers others with food needs to the program.
This is the third time a dragon has showed up in one of my paintings and it continues to make me uncomfortable. The best way I can explain the discomfort is that the value of rational, scientific thinking as the only valid type of information gathering was such a central part of my upbringing that the consideration of the mythic is often accompanied by shame.
Last summer I decided I wanted to attend the Earth Keepers event in Arkansas in November. To manifest the necessary funds, I was following the Law of Attraction rules of visualization plus act-ing like I already had that money; but it wasn't working out the way I thought it should. Then I got the idea to talk to the Deva of Abundance, and I'd like to share the conversation with you...
I always get a kick out of seeing how startled individuals outside of music studies are when they learn that the vast majority of music majors in America graduate with little, or more often, no skills in the primary creative processes of improvisation and composition, nor in the African American musical heritage that is arguably America’s primary cultural contribution to the world.
With the kind of work I do through my creative company — 7 Cylinders Studio — I get to interact with an ever-evolving cross section of our community.
I want to highlight a handful of those criss-crossing clients to survey our local landscape through the lens of video and provide some of the more compelling projects I’ve been fortunate to produce these past few years.
I am encouraged and inspired by the number of adults enrolling in ballet who have never studied before, or may have only had a year or two of lessons. A common thread among these different personalities seems to be a “beginner mind set”, an openness to trying something new, willingness to persist as difficulties arise and the sense of satisfaction that comes from finally getting it.
Though I've always known in my heart that fairies are real, I never thought about creating a real relationship with them until the late 1990's. By then I'd been working with angels long enough to raise my personal vibration so it was close to the frequency level of most fae, which simplified connections and communications. And I figured that working with fairies would be a natural next step. After all, fairies have been described as taking care of nature the way angels take care of humans!
Have you been to a redwood forest? Or laid flat on your back watching the stars? Or seen a person that you’ve never met, that you are certain that you “know”? There are so many ways that people feel connected, and conversely, so many ways that we forget we are connected and tell ourselves that we are all alone.
As is often the case, when I first finished this painting, I had little knowledge of the insights it held in store for me. The first revelation came when my husband commented that the fish to the left was not in a natural position, that it wasn’t moving. Often the very section of a painting that doesn’t make sense holds great jewels to unearth about what lies in the deeper layers of the psyche.
Shortly after I graduated with a masters degree in clinical psychology, we had a major earthquake in Adapazari, Turkey, a town close enough to my home-city of Istanbul that resulted in a death toll of 35,000, and many more that were wounded and/or traumatized. I was part of a group of private practitioners, and overnight our office space expanded to include hospitals and tent cities.
America has been described as a society that is at the same time death-obsessed and death-denying. Mainstream media, in its efforts to capture and hold our attention, focuses on the sensational and feeds us endless stories and images of people being killed and we can’t seem to help but devour them all in a sort of dark obsession. At the same time, most people have a very hard time talking with depth about the idea of their own death and the topic is often treated as taboo.
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