The Wisdom Index
I took the Jeste-Thomas Wisdom Index, a short survey created by researchers at UC San Diego that can determine your level of wisdom. Here are my scores:
I was surprised that I scored the highest in Spirituality. My first thought was, “Is there something wrong with that?” I answered myself with a gentle “no” and realized that I’m still holding on to an outdated concept of Spirituality.
My mother indoctrinated me to be “spiritually liberal” and I grew up in and out of churches. As an adult I have an aversion to group think and anything that requires my weekly attendance to evolve or grow in any way. But that is more Community than Spirituality.
I actively try not to lead with Spirituality, but I think I’m only kidding myself. Because underneath every nature outing, or meet-up with a friend, my heart beats with communion. When I’m alone, I’m never alone. There is a cathedral inside me and the church bells ring hourly.
Draw your inner child’s dream bedroom
One of the healing frogs, and
a page from my book “A New Temple”
I dreamed that child me was standing in an empty room. My husband was there. He offered to build me the childhood bedroom that I never had but always wanted. Just then the door flew open and the frogs — who I call the “healing frogs” — hopped in to help.
Unfortunately, I woke up. So I meditated to re-enter the dream. I envisioned everything that child me dreamed of having: a wall full of books, a window seat for reading, a view of a river, an art easel, and a microscope.
I then envisioned what adult me would appreciate: a chaise lounge and bar cart with endless, flowing champagne, a sitting area for friends and tea, and another window with a view of mountains.
This room is now a visual safe space that I can return to in meditation for solace. If there is an answer I need, I can pull a book from my shelf. If there is something that is confusing me, I can inspect it under the microscope.
After completing the drawing, it became obvious to me that all the spaces and things inside my room are the most important aspects of my life — quietude, learning, art, connection, nature, and celebration.
Astrological Consequences Or How To Embody Freedom
My birth chart.
I received a reading from my favorite cosmic outlaw / astrologer Antero Alli — side note: there really should exist more cosmic outlaws in my life — and his advice helped me evolve the concept of Freedom in my life. He said:
Freedom is the ability to make any decision, or take any action, as long as you are willing to “buy” the consequences.
So I try to have a constant awareness of consequences and a persistent self-question of “Can I buy the consequences?” All of my actions and decisions come from a deep yes inside of me and because of that I feel the embodiment of freedom every day.
Note: This post is an excerpt from my weekly mind dump newsletter, sent out each Friday.
Late night revelations
Sometimes, after weed and wine, I’ll have a “revelation.” Usually, in the light of day, I’ll delete them. Some I’ll keep forever, like this one:
Note: This post is an excerpt from my weekly mind dump newsletter, sent out each Friday.
The Mandrake Man Dance
I held on to that space between wake and sleep and these mandrake-like creatures slid out of the trees and a did a dance for me. They introduced themselves as “tree men” and that’s why I call it the Mandrake Man Dance.
Note: This post is an excerpt from my weekly mind dump newsletter, sent out each Friday. For more tree visuals go here.
Spirit orbs in Oakland
My studio in Oakland was a hot spot for hauntings. I would often sense when spirits would drop in. This is a photo (2010) of one my ghostly visitors.
A case for growing angel wings
From Meditations on the Tarot by Robert Powell
The organs of action are simply crystallised will. I walk not because I have legs but rather, on the contrary, I have legs because I have the will to move about. I touch, I take and I give not because I have arms, but I have arms because I have the will to touch, to take and to give.
Action plan: Crystallize the will to fly closer to the Mystery of the Universe. You might just sprout spiritual wings.
Note: This post is an excerpt from my weekly mind dump newsletter, sent out each Friday.
Dream fragments
I find lost parts of my self in dreams that I can bring back to waking life as gifts. This is a version of me that is confident and whole and walks the world with her front-facing soul.
There are only fragments
“There is no complete life. There are only fragments. We are born to have nothing, to have it pour through our hands.” ― James Salter, Light Years
Sophisticated and effective defense mechanisms
Some defense mechanisms are good tools for life. They help to transmute conflicts into something positive. Below is a chart of common defense mechanisms organized by their level of sophistication and effectiveness. Aim for Sublimation.
From Beyond the Narrow Life: A Guide for Psychedelic Integration and Existential Exploration:
The absence of defense is, in general, closer to psychosis than enlightenment. The ego is largely our friend. It’s doing its best with what it has. Expanding self-awareness isn’t about taking a sledgehammer to all our defenses. Some strategies, however, are more effective than others.
The Inner Why Technique
How to do it:
When you notice a sudden change in your emotional state (e.g., you start becoming anxious, sad, frustrated, or angry), immediately give yourself the best quick explanation you can for WHY you think that change in your emotions just occurred. The sooner you can do it after the emotional change, the better. — Spencer Greenberg
Note: This post is an excerpt from my weekly mind dump newsletter, sent out each Friday.
The Legacy House
n. a property that has maintained its historical and/or cultural significance over multiple generations.
My “legacy house” was run-down and boarded up. I walked a long way in the dream realm just to stand guard in front of the house and protect it.
Squatters had broken in and ruined all the plumbing and stolen all the copper. Nothing worked inside and it was unlivable. But still, I stood guard.
I knew my family had forgotten this house. They no longer stopped by for their shifts.
I wanted to gut the place, pay for someone to come and haul all the trash away. But then I was told, “It’s not your responsibility to clean up your family’s mess. They can help too.”
This was never just my house. It has gone to shit, but I am not responsible for protecting or preserving it.
Then I woke up.
Sailing stones
We were two stones sleeping in the desert,
when I woke up you were miles away,
I asked you why you left,
you said a strong wind had stolen you,
I asked if you still loved me,
you said yes and no,
I wanted to throw myself at you,
you said you and the wind were in love,
I asked what that felt like,
you said like sailing.
Updated: Nature Timespiral
This depiction of all time and all life since the Big Bang is the Universe’s subconscious manifested. I have been using it as a visual meditation. I close my eyes. I breathe in deeply. I breathe out a timespiral of my own life on Earth. I populate the spiral with everything I have created in the past 37 years. The energies I have manifested with my words and my actions and my emotions. I ask myself what is missing — what still needs to be expressed. I want to live my life with as much creative force as the Universe.
The history of nature from the Big Bang to the present day represented in a spiral with notable events annotated. Each billion years (Ga) is represented by 90 degrees of rotation of the spiral. The last 500 million years are represented in a 90-degree stretch for more detail on our recent history. Some of the events depicted are the emergence of cosmic structures (stars, galaxies, planets, clusters, and other structures), the emergence of the solar system, the Earth and the Moon, important geological events (gases in the atmosphere, great orogenies, glacial periods, etc.), emergence and evolution of living beings (first microbes, plants, animals, fungi), the evolution of hominid species and important events in human evolution.
How to challenge your fear
“You must challenge fear and ask it what it means to say. As you go into the fear with eyes open, heart open and courage flowing freely, you will see that fear is only an empty room. Fear is only as strong as your avoidance of it. The greater your reluctance to see the fear, to accept it and embrace it, the more power you allow it.”
— Emmanuel's Book: A Manual for Living Comfortably in the Cosmos
Think Radially
Think Radially is the phrase I use to help me bypass my analytical mind. It works because it is impossible to think radially, so instead I visualize my existence spiraling out of a nautilus shell.
Think Radially acts as a taproot into my expanded consciousness and it permeates all possibilities.
To Think Radially is to transcend time. I give myself equal footing in all possibilities that exist. Everything is within my grasp — even the paths I did not choose.
The life that you fear will never be lived continues to unfold. You can sense it in the spaces between your breath and in the silence between your sentences. Events exist in all realms: mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, ethereal. Your cells are communicating and aging, while your emotions are maturing and your thoughts are evolving. When I say Think Radially that is my attempt to grasp what is happening behind the veil.
Your ancestors are You.
You begin to know your parents and lovers and friends more intimately, because you see their missing spaces. The space between their possibilities. You see their journey — the direction in which they’ve always been reaching. You see their sacred imagery. All along it’s been staring you in the face. This supernatural reality.
You knew from the beginning how everything would end: that relationship, the career, a move. You know this in the same way a compass needle ticks toward its magnetic north — pulling you toward what you’re most attracted to. Try to sense the direction in which your compass is pointing and then sense all the other directions you not will be walking toward. This is Thinking Radially — a doorway for connecting to your intuition.
When you find yourself flooded with Egypt
When you find yourself flooded with Egypt / the gold in your bones begins to sing / close your eyes / we made portals for this / let your blood dissolve / become stars in someone else's galaxy / in death we inherit wings / in life only your heart can fly
Flooded with Egypt created by AI Art Machine
This poem was inspired by a passage in Antero Alli’s book Angel Tech:
To the Western world of the latter 20th century, Egypt circa 3,000 B.C.E. is a most exotic, magical kingdom of great knowledge and power. A remarkable surge of human identification with this era has unleashed torrents of psionic information from the Akashic Archives.
Your ethical responsibility is to return and help your bodies become more intelligent. Teach them as if they were your children, as they are, and express the denser sides of yourselves. Have patience with their anxiety and ignorance, for without each other—they will grow lonely and you, dear lost souls—will not grow at all—visit their little minds in dreamtime and show them who you are. If they are flooded with Egypt, appear as KA—the bird-human symbol for the soul from Egyptian mythology—but appear!
A definition of time and space:
Space is what you desire and Time is all the ways you move toward that desire.