we are stardust we are golden
“Ask your heart what’s right
And follow it.”
That’s on my housemate’s refrigerator magnet. They’re the sagest words I’ve ever seen. In fact I think my whole life (and certainly the life of this blog) is a never-ending exploration of practicing, encouraging and embodying that.
“And follow it,” being the very hardest part.”[T]here is a difference between destiny and fate. Fate is coming at you, but your destiny, if you are not careful and immensely determined, recedes ever farther away; and so, the transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, said, “Hitch your wagon to a star.” The image of the Star tells you to have faith in your ideals, to dare to dream, and to hold tightly to your perceived purpose in life.” - meaning of the Star card in Tarot, from The Psychic Internet “You have divinity inside. It’s like a jar waiting to be opened with your free choice, and if you don’t open it, there are no solutions. Oh, nothing bad is going to happen. It’s just that that jar is going to be tossed by the waves like it has been all your life. But when you open that jar, out comes the divinity, which is you, and you start the process of true communication with Spirit, and wisdom to control the waves.” - Kryon, Manhattan, March 10, 2007The Star, in the Tarot deck, is a card that shows up for me a lot lately. Purportedly it tells one to have faith in their ideals, and to “follow their star.”"We are stardust we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”
Joni Mitchell/CS&N (at Woodstock)To my exasperated frustration at times, I’m finding Life won’t budge an inch and grant me the luxury of compromising my highest ideals any longer. When I take baby steps out of anxiety, or I settle or compromise the result collapses like sand castles before a gulping tide… luckily before I get very far.
It won’t allow for infliction of Self-cruelty, even in the name of paying May’s rent. Nothing, but nothing, but my deepest desire moves with any semblance of frictionless grace. I am feeling the rising futility, and I text a friend. He replies: Just b.”Stretch, Risk, or Die. A stretch is something you’ll to do even if you’re a little scared. If you’re really nervous about doing something, then it is a risk. A die is something you would absolutely not do. The die is always what we secretly fear [it is our heart’s desire].” - Rhonda Britton, Fearless Living (via New Moon Journal blog)What?! That sounds like upside down thinking! How could we be most fearful of our own heart’s desire? Wouldn’t be skipping gleefully towards it?
That stretch, risk, or die pithy paragraph registers true. For instance, I’ve witnessed my own life-long avoidance of magic and music.
A week ago I write to a friend who’s own path often mirrors my own:you haven’t asked yourself in too long about what you realllllly truly desire from your deepest core and most absurdly idealistic creative dreamer part of you (not necessarily same as what you expect, or what you believe you “deserve”)Same friend I wrote a friend about a month ago:i don’t understand money & ownership and possession anymore
just friends kindred spirits and gifts and creating and freedom and
art and the end of world as we know itI really meant that. I find Wealth to be intimately tied to camaraderie, sharing, communal joy, gifts, flow and constant circulation.
Coming back to Silicon Valley has been a culture shock, to put it mildly. Fiercely missing the conviviality and community of New Orleans, so much that I have difficulty getting back into the swing of things - even writing this post. Last week on my return, when I saw a flyer at Philz Coffee for a room coming available at an artists’ collective in the Mission, I thought maybe that could be a step in the right direction.
I’m feeling more and more inclined toward encouraging the myriad of infinite unique expressions of living and being. Allowing every one to their own full flowering, with no desire for clones of this flower self, and so more than ever I’ve a “live and let live” philosophy. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this art collective and arts incubator’s mission - it simply doesn’t jibe with what I want and so I move on… rather than settle, compromise or delude myself that I’d be helping anyone by persuading them over to my dream and changing them “from within.”
The nice - if painful - thing about contrast is that it clearly delineates. After New Orleans, it’s clear I’m personally done with Silicon Valley. (Though I’m still seeking a base in SF.) Puzzle pieces of things unspoken fell together for me, and I realize I yearn for the experience of community. And more. I wrote a friend in an IM chat:well, once i was in nola, i saw the whole caboodle - an interconnected coop/collectives of small farms, groceries, cafes, art-live houses, etcI want to celebrate & engage in a colony that cultivates seamlessness between magic, life, and art.
Art literally and figuratively at the very core of Earth.
I see, hear, taste, smell, touch it’s time to leap.
I’ve got to instigate my utopian visions myself together with a tribe attuned to these strands of music resonating from the spheres. Connected via hyperspace aether and Internet, and for those tangibly, tactilely inclined such as myself, a galactic center in New Orleans. (Actually I’d imagined an open Grail cup triangle with bases in SF, NYC, & Nola.)”Sometimes you just have to take the leap and build your wings on the way down.” - Kobi YamadaBonus: The main reason I came back to the Bay Area when I did just occurred this weekend. It’s beyond my ability to fully articulate, but the gist is it was multi-day ceremony that uses hyper-dimensional sacred geometry to reawaken dormant electromagnetic meridian points. But don’t quote me on that. I just know the stuff transmutes! The faciliators will be back from Bali in November, and next time, I’ll spread the word.
A cube is a hyper-square: If you want to understand hyperdimensions, here’s the popular (1399 fave saves thus far in delicious) Imagining the 10th Dimension site, book, and video. Though, I’m less interested in understanding, than EMBODYING. I say all this because I think the closer meaning of The Star card is expressed in the idea of that we’re on a divine & celestial mission - that it’s no accident we’re here in this time & place on this planet. In the Thoth deck, The Star speaks to the geometry of old being poured out and the new higher hyper-geometric forms flowing in (they’re not just spiral though):”Every form of energy is spiral; this is in anticipation of the present Aeon, that of Horus, [innocent child-god birthed from the masculine and the feminine divine] the crowned and conquering Child, successor to the “dying god” Osiris. The departing Aeon is shown in the rectilinear forms of energy issuing from the lower cup. These forms stand for the now abandoned Euclidean geometry. The figure of the goddess may be taken as a manifestation of the surrounding space of Heaven.” - Instructions for Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot Deckimages Origami art star, photo by Mary-Irene Lang; The Star card in the Thoth deck of the Tarot; aerial photo of a very large and sacred public art project ;-), here a pentagram crop circle by Allen Brown