Ode to the Present
by Pablo Neruda


This
present moment,
smooth
as a wooden slab,
this
immaculate hour,
this day
pure
as a new cup
from the past--
no spider web
exists--
with our fingers,
we caress
the present;

we cut it
according to our magnitude
we guide
the unfolding of its blossoms.
It is living,
alive--
it contains
nothing
from the unrepairable past,
from the lost past,
it is our
infant,
growing at
this very moment, adorned with
sand, eating from
our hands.
Grab it.
Don't let it slip away.
Don't lose it in dreams
or words.
Clutch it.
Tie it,
and order it
to obey you.
Make it a road,
a bell,
a machine,
a kiss, a book,
a caress.
Take a saw to its delicious
wooden
perfume.
And make a chair;
braid its
back;
test it.
Or then, build
a staircase!

Yes, a
staircase.
Climb
into
the present,
step
by step,
press your feet
onto the resinous wood
of this moment,
going up,
going up,
not very high,
just so
you repair
the leaky roof.
Don't go all the way to heaven.
Reach
for apples,
not the clouds.
Let them
fluff through the sky,
skimming passage,
into the past.

You
are
your present,
your own apple.
Pick it from
your tree.
Raise it
in your hand.
It's gleaming,
rich with stars.
Claim it.
Take a luxurious bite
out of the present,
and whistle along the road
of your destiny.

Scorpio Horoscope for week of June 2, 2011

The roots of big old trees are your power objects. I advise you to visualize them in your mind's eye for a few minutes each day, maybe even go look at actual trees whose roots are showing above ground. Doing this will strengthen your resolve and increase your patience and help you find the deeper sources of nurturing you need. Another exercise that's likely to energize you in just the right way is to picture yourself at age 77. I suggest you create a detailed vision of who you'll be at that time. See yourself drinking a cup of tea as you gaze out over a verdant valley on a sunny afternoon in June. What are you wearing? What kind of tea is it? What birds do you see? What are your favorite memories of the last 30 years?


Free Will Astrology

"The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there and still on your feet." Stephen King

Taco salad


Ingredients

8 Ounces CREAM CHEESE
1 BOTTLE TACO SAUCE
SHEREDED CHADDAR CHEESE
1 PACKAGE TACO SEASONING
SHREDDED LETTUCE
DICED TOMATOES
OLIVES
ONIONS
AND ANYTHING ELSE YOU MIGHT WANT

Directions

MIX CREAM CHEESE WITH TACO SAUCE AND SPREAD ON A COOKIE SHEET
MIX SHREDDED CHEESE WITH TACO SEASONING
SPRINKLE ON CREAM CHEESE
ADD FINAL INGREDIENTS SPRINKLE ON TOP

If you're talking behind my back, you're in a good position to kiss my ass!

Willow: [explaining why she wants to stay in Sunnydale when she has other choices available] The other night, y'know being captured and all, facing off with Faith... Things just - kinda got clear. I mean, you've been fighting evil here for three years and I've helped some. And now we're supposed to decide what we want to do with our lives. And I just realized that's what I want to do. Fight evil, help people. I mean, I-I think it's worth doing. And I don't think you do it because you have to. It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in.

When that day comes I shall futterwacken... vigorously.

From the moment I fell down that rabbit hole I’ve been told what I must do and who I must be. I’ve been shrunk, stretched, scratched, and stuffed into a teapot. I’ve been accused of being Alice and not have be Alice, but this is MY dream. I’ll decide where it will goes from here.

If you diverge from the path--

-- I make the path!

"The girl who lives there used to be a charming,
lovely girl, but she's lost faith in herself. She's a
monster! She's infectious human waste! Good luck trying
to save her!"
~Marla~

It's at night, when perhaps we should be dreaming, that the mind is most clear, that we are most able to hold all our life in the palm of our skull. I don't know if anyone has ever pointed out that great attraction of insomnia before, but it is so; the night seems to release a little more of our vast backward inheritance of instincts and feelings; as with the dawn, a little honey is allowed to ooze between the lips of the sandwich, a little of the stuff of dreams to drip into the waking mind. I wish I believed, as J. B. Priestley did, that consciousness continues after disembodiment or death, not forever, but for a long while. Three score years and ten is such a stingy ration of time, when there is so much time around. Perhaps that's why some of us are insomniacs; night is so precious that it would be pusillanimous to sleep all through it! A "bad night" is not always a bad thing. ~Brian W. Aldiss

Scorpio Horoscope for week of April 15, 2010

In North America, California Condors are the biggest flying birds that live on land. Their wingspans are up to ten feet. Once sacred to certain Native Americans, these members of the vulture family can live for 60 years and soar as high as 15,000 feet. But they came close to extinction in the 20th century, mostly because of human activity. In 1987, conservationists intervened. In the hope of replenishing the population in captivity, they captured every last one of the 22 remaining wild condors. Painstaking efforts gradually yielded results, and today there are 348 birds, including 187 in the wild. I bring this to your attention, Scorpio, because I believe now is an excellent time to begin a project to save your own metaphorical version of an "endangered species."

Scorpio Horoscope for week of April 8, 2010

Every one of us is engaged in some ongoing battle with ourselves. Maybe there's a conflict between our heart and head. Maybe we're trying to stop expressing some behavior that we know is self-destructive but seems all too natural and easy to do. Maybe we feel guilty about or resentful toward some event from the past, and are constantly fighting with its after-image. Whatever your version of the civil war might be, Scorpio, the coming weeks will be an excellent time to reduce the heat of the strife. But you'll have to be ingenious as you reframe the way you think about the situation, and you'll have to locate a reservoir of willpower that has been hidden in your depths.

"Our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by our triumphs. False friends only appear at difficult times, with their sad, supportive faces, when, in fact, our suffering is serving to console them for their miserable lives."
— Paulo Coelho (The Zahir)

"Love fills everything. It cannot be desired because it is an end in itself. It cannot betray because it has nothing to do with possession. It cannot be held prisoner because it is a river and will overflow its banks. Anyone who tries to imprison love will cut off the spring that feeds it, and the trapped water will grow stagnant."
— Paulo Coelho (The Witch of Portobello)

"Defeat exists but not suffering. A true warrior knows that when he loses a battle, he is improving the skill with which he wields a sword. He will be able to fight more skilfullly next time."
— Paulo Coelho

"The Marquis De Sade said that the most important experiences a man can have are those that take him to the very limit; that is the only way we learn, because it requires all our courage. When a boss humiliates an employee, or a man humiliates his wife, he is merely being cowardly or taking his revenge on life, they are people who have never dared to look into the depths of their soul, never attempted to know the origin of that desire to unleash the wild beast, or to understand that sex, pain and love are all extreme experiences. Only those who know those frontiers know life; everything else is just passing the time, repeating the same tasks, growing old and dying without ever having discovered what we are doing here."
— Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes)

"We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body. Many times in our lives we see our dreams shattered and our desires frustrated, but we have to continue dreaming. If we don't, our soul dies, and agape (highest/purest form of love) cannot reach it."
— Paulo Coelho

"When you're washing up, pray. Be thankful that there are plates to be washed; that means there was food, that you fed someone, that you've lavished care on one of more people, that you cooked and laid the table. Imagine the millions of people at this moment who have absolutely nothing to wash up and no one for whom to lay the table. "
— Paulo Coelho (The Witch of Portobello)

I realized Friday night that I have been dancing my butt off at RSC for 20 years now. I started going to RSC when I was 18 and now I am 38. 20 Years of dancing at RSC! Goodness, anybody else been there that long?!?!?!?!?

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. - Mark Twain

Just got Laurell K. Hamilton's Flirt in the mail. Also got a Valentine from my niece. =) The mail was good to me today!!!

has a belly full of sushi and a dvd of Zombieland. Life is good!!!!!

Valentine's Day Ren Faire ... who is with me?????

A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked. ~ Anais Nin

I now have internet at the new house. *Happy Dance*

Never tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. ~ George S. Patton