Sun...Scorpio
Moon...Virgo (good for cleaning and organizing if you can find the energy! Which might be at low ebb today! And be careful of gastric problems!)
Phase...Last Quarter
Time...1pm
Weather...60 and overcast in DC
Sound..."Got To Be Real" -Evelyn Champagne King
Mood...o.k.

BirthdayShoutOuts to: Condoleeza Rice (no prank gifts please! She's having a hard enough time of it these days!)(#52), Prince Charles (no prank gifts, look at his girlfriend, he's suffering enough.) (#58)and Yanni (I hate his music, so prank away.)(#52)

QuoteDive sez: "In life it's not who you know that's important, it's how your wife found out!" -joey adams.

SabianChallenge: 20 degrees Pisces. A table set for an evening meal. You may find that you have prepared the situation well. Perhaps everything is in it's place other than the substance or those who appreciate it. Patience is needed now. Realize that your needs are being met. Being well nourished. Provision of life's necessities.

OY...this isn't an easy topic. Some days it's easier to grab on to an idea for a topic and run with it. Some days they present themselves so easily! This one I had to read and re-read over and over a few times until something stuck out! Yesterday my Sabian Symbol site was down so I tried back in an hour, nada. I figured it was God's way of saying,.."no writing today." Instead I went with fiance over to soon to be ex's house (which he still of course pays for)and we cleaned it out and up for the new guy coming in. Hooray, soon to be ex is in FL now with family. But it was strange walking into the house that they lived in for a decade and then stranger was me cleaning out HER toilets. But I bit my tongue because 8 months ago, fiance helped clean up MY efficiency and helped move me up here. Fair is fair. This is what you do for those you love! Sometimes you move heavy furniture, sometimes you clean the crap off a toilet bowl. Love doesn't ask why!

Back to today's writing assignment: there's things I'm patient about and some things I'm not. Some things you are FORCED to be patient about. But what is it they say..patience is a virtue and good things come to those who wait.

I'm extremely impatient when it comes to getting on with my career and yet this isn't the ideal time. It's very hard for me to sit around here day after day not working and yet knowing that it isn't time to start looking for work (due to many factors) so instead I blog, I clean the house, I wait for my two younger kids to come up in December, I attempt to lose this pesky 20lbs...

I feel guilty. And yet my fiance says, don't worry about it; take this time to heal and rest and recuperate. So I do. Knowing that in about 4 months perhaps my life will get so crazy that I don't even have time to LOOK at this laptop, much less think about writing a post for the day. I want sooo badly to find that thing that will bring passion into my life. I have a strong feeling I'm on the right path so that makes it even harder to just sit and wait!

I know my needs are being met, it's comforting not to have to worry about the things that kept me up nights in my other life. My emotional side is being well nourished as is my physical side. But mentally it's a matter of reminding myself that while I'm waiting, I can doing other things to help myself improve my overall being.

One of the things I do for myself is write. It helps put things in perspective, helps crystallize thoughts. and helps me to feel like I am giving something of myself, putting something out there into the world (written word, in the form of a "journal/blog")to show my family and friends and the public in general that I exist(ed). Words do things that photos can't and I realize that photos do things words can't but together, they both can create a much more definitive "picture" of a person.

There will come a day when everything else falls into place. But for now, I wait, like an 'oruga', a caterpillar, in my cocoon. I'm not just sleeping in there, I'm GROWING, CHANGING and one day, when the time is absolutely preordained, when all system's are "go", I too will come out a beautiful mariposa, butterfly, ready and eager to take off and fly with my own wings.

But for now,...

I wait...

maybe not with all the dignified patience as I could have, but I wait, knowing all is well and the timing is indeed perfect, even if I can't understand why it can't happen sooner.

Patience is a virtue.

~pr~

Sun...Scorpio
Moon...Leo (wear your gold! Even if it's the fake stuff!)
Phase...disseminating
Time...12pm
Weather...48, overcast, misty in DC
Sound..."Blue Christmas" -Elvis (it's relaxing, don't hit me!
Mood...teensy bit nervous, feeling sad for fiance.
BirthdayShoutOuts to: Tonya "But Judge, Look At It, It's Broken!!" Harding (#35) David "Friends" Schwimmer (#40) Neil Young CSNY fame (#61) Sammy Sosa (#38) and Nadia Comenice Olympic Star, (#45)

QuoteDiva sez: "Always render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be." -Franz Kafka

SabianChallenge: 9 degrees Virgo. An expressionist painter making a futuristic drawing. Individuality and originality seem to be the uppermost requirement in this situation. Creativity and plans projected in to the future. Seeing things ahead of their time.

...

I wondered what symbol my subconscious would chose to write about today. I closed my eyes, did my usual "clearing my head" exercise, which means I literally "brush" the bad vibes away from my upper body. I think about my parents and grandmother, pet my cat Chloe who is almost always sitting here next me as she loved to be close to either me or electronics (not sure which) and I click on this picture of the milky way and wait a few seconds and up pops a symbol with its interpretation.

I thought because of the stress of the last 15 hours or so, what would come? What did I get? Well, at first glance it seemed another topic of originality and creativity and didn't I just write about that yesterday?

So I sat a few more minutes and re-read it. Then it came to me. I was going to write about the dear man I'm going to marry next year.

Yesterday when news of his mom came, he was on his way to his soon to be ex's house to help her pack up. They were not the happiest married couple but he was even more disgruntled. He did the unthinkable, he left her. The whole process took a long time, years. But finally one day he hit that point where he was mad as hell and wasn't going to take it anymore. For years, he had been in more the caretaker role, than husband. She has OCD and other emotional issues. She alienated him from his own family. In fact, his mom didn't see him for a decade. As soon as they got married, he came up here and the wife discouraged him from seeing his family. Because of her emotional problems and my fiance's gentle heart and spirit, he gave in at every turn. Yet another reason for his grief yesterday, it's only been in the past 15 months, since being with me that he has reestablished a connection with his sister and mother.

For the longest time, the soon to be ex wouldn't try and get out and get a job. She hadn't had a job in ten years and it was always her choice. Fiance encouraged her but with OCD, things that are simple for you and me are next to impossible for them. She became a self imposed prisoner to her order and schedule and doing otherwise would cause inner chaos and turmoil and she refused medicine thinking it would be worse for her(?) She was afraid she was going to be poisoned?

The last straw for my fiance was when his father died in '04. It didn't matter what she said, he WAS going to go to the funeral and spend as much time down there as he needed. That was his first glimmer of his future. And over time, he, like that expressionist painter, started to slowly, ever so slowly, take out his paints, easel and canvas and begun to paint his own future.

I came along. Fortunately for me, he had painted me in his future. And how ironic, as I had always been in the painting of his life! I was that little 13 and 14 year old he went to school with, many years ago! See me there,...flat chested and alternating between clown and angel?

I'm so happy I'm part of his future.

But first he had to bite his tongue, kiss her ass, coax, coddle, coach and cajole her these past months to get to the point where she would move back with family many states away. With people suffering from OCD who are not on medication, you have to take things slow and careful. He had to use every ounce of creativity and inner reserve when it came to handling her!

He has this fantastic ability to see future trends, it's something he does as an executive with a company that deals with the future of tv! two years ago he had to formulate the gameplan, lay the roadmap for such a thing. At the same time he had to coax, cajole, coach and coddle higher ups! And he found himself having to do the same thing with the soon to be ex.

There were times along the way when I am sure he wanted to tell all of them off but he also has this very diplomatic nature. He employs it with his ex, his higher ups and yes, even me at times! So many times, from the outside looking in, he appears to be this milque-toast, push over but then a few more days or weeks or months go by and you realize that man had method to his madness. There is a reason behind every action. He KNOWS what he's doing.

It is because of his measured actions and yes a whole lotta' ass kissing and bending over backwards that his ex was today and yesterday packing up to move back with her mom and get her life up and running again. It has not been an easy road. But tomorrow he drives her to the airport and she's off.

They will then deal with the divorce, she lives her life (hopefully getting the help she needs) and he and I...get married. That's in our future painting anyway!

As for the future of tv...many of the things that you enjoy with your dvr's....started off as a germ of an idea in that creative mind of his. Things you will be enjoying and using,...him again and you'd never know it because my painter is extremely modest. In fact, he's up for an emmy next year! (technical emmy.)

But in my heart,...he's my OSCAR!!!! My Tony, My Emmy!!! And I can not wait for the day when I'm his wife. What a wonderful future ahead.

~pr~

THANK YOU AGAIN TO LUCY, PETRA, JOY, NIKKI, BOOKWORM, MS. DONUTS, THERESA, BELLA, SCHREE, LESLIE, MISTY, KELLY, MR. O, MS. PYE, SHERRY, MS. BLU, THE CAPT., MS. COLCON., GRANNY JO AND THE OTHERS WHO CHECKED IN ON ME TODAY! MS. SOUTHERN BELLE MOMMY IS RESTING AS COMFORTABLY AS SHE CAN AT THIS EARLY STAGE.

Sun...Scorpio
Moon...Leo (go out and inspire someone, esp. a child!)
Phase...disseminating
Time...11:00am "Thank you to our vets, for their service to our country"!!!!!)
Weather...63, scattered clouds/sunny now, in DC
Mood...o.k.
Sound..."Have You Ever Seen The Rain"...Rod Stewart's version.

BirthdayShoutOuts to: Demi Moore (#44, 1962 people ROCK MAN!!!) Leonardo DiCaprio (#32) Hard to believe he ever did "Growing Pains" but then it's hard to believe George Clooney was ever on "Facts of Life!" go figger! Kurt Vonnegut (#84)

Jack Palance. Great actor.

SabianChallenge: Gemini 29 degrees. The first Mockingbird of spring sings from the tree top. You can take the best of what is available and make it even better. The Mockingbird is often seen as copying others and therefore not particularly original. But the Mockingbird is very creative; it uses the sounds of other birds to make a very unique call of it's own. The key is: are the words or thoughts original and unique or are they borrowed from others without any sense or filter of personal authenticity.

...

When I was first started out teaching dance I used to rack my brains to come up with original ideas on how to teach and sometimes they were hits and sometimes misses. The same thing went when I was choreographing. Again, some of my ideas were out of the ballpark, some were bunts, some were fouls, some were complete misses! I learned from every experience, no doubt about that! I also used to get frustrated when I couldn't seem to be completely original. While my math and cooking skills sucked the big one, I had always prided myself on being creative and original. All my friends and my parents always said I was! In my circle of friends, I was the talented dancer and writer!

But when I was having to come up with dance after dance, after a few years I started running out of ideas or I started to get lazy and then I got real guilty feeling when I would look around at other teachers' works or I'd watch stuff on tv (some of my best moves were taken from Cheerleading competitions, on ESPN in the late 80's early 90s! I would record them on my vcr (what's that say the young folk!)and play them back a million times breaking down the choreographer and tweaking it just enough so that it wasn't a total copy.

I kept it a secret. I was ashamed of what I was doing but mostly I felt like I had given up or that I just wasn't that brilliant and clever. But since I had started, I couldn't stop 'lest people think, ohh Rubble, she's lost her spark, her ability to wow the crowd! Little did people know, I hardly came up with anything really, truly mine. I felt like a fake!

Unfortunately, it wasn't until the end of my run as a dance teacher/choreographer that I was able to admit this to an older dance teacher who had also worked with some pretty famous teachers in NY back "in the day" She invited me over for tea one afternoon and we had the best chat about this very subject.

First and foremost, I'll never forget that she told me I was too hard on myself and that look around, most everything has been done before! But there is room for the innovative and yes, people have come up with pretty original ideas! But the majority of what one sees has been done before, it's just in a different order, or to different music and you're in a different costume. What makes it an individual thing is what you put into it ("filter of personal authenticity.")

She reminded me that a good choreographer is knowledgeable in many styles of dance. It helps to be a dancer yourself or atleast, former dancer. You have to be able to interpret dramatic scenes, emotions and ideas. One has to be able to work with the space, time, light and design concepts. Choreography takes a good eye in recognizing technique in other dancers as well as weaknesses. If something isn't working because of a dancer(s) technique, you have to be creative enough to switch it up, turn it around, do something different!

You need to be able to effectively use words and music. Stay away from the predictable. There's analyzing of dance routines and seeing what looks good and what doesn't.

She said dancers share. We throw it out there and we expect people to watch it and yes, take from it what they want, change it up and make it our own! To a certain extent it was indeed a case of "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." But it was a thin line between being a copy cat and borrowing an idea and making it your own. It was a thin line to walk and I wasn't objective enough to see that that was what I was doing already. I wasn't giving myself enough credit. I couldn't see that I was taking 101 acquired skills of credible choreography and using them to put my personal stamp on my work.

I was too hard on myself.

I wish I had had that conversation earlier in my career but I remembered it when I went into teaching preschool. Instead of feeling like I was stealing ideas, I took ideas, tweaked them, used what worked and what was tried and true and comfortable for me and I put just enough of a personal spin on it to make what was happening in my classroom a very personal teaching experience. It was some of the same stuff Mrs. So-n-So did in her class and a little bit from Miss WhatsHerFace but I took my creative potential and talent and integrated them to find a new way of presenting the same lessons.

Mockingbirds take the music and sounds of other birds and make it their own and in that, they create a new melody!

If I was a bird, now I know,...I'd be a Mockingbird and proud of it!

~pr~

Sun...Scorpio
Moon...Cancer (children driving you nuts today?)
Phase...disseminating (you have illumination, now what?)
Weather...72 and sunny in DC and a big raging hurricane on Saturn!
Time...1pm
Sound...Cher's "Do You Believe" (she and I share the same bday!)
Mood...o.k. butcoffee hasn't kicked in yet.

BirthdayShoutOuts to: Mackenzie Phillips, One Day At A Time(#47)Tim Rice, lyricist, Lion King and others,(#62)and Mr. Jaws himself, Roy Scheider (#71)

Ed Bradley...loved his work, earring or sans earring. He'll be missed.

QuoteDiva sez: "If we do not know what port we're steering for, no wind is favorable." -Seneca

SabianSymbol Challenge: 11 degrees Pisces. Men traveling a narrow path, seeking illumination. Sometimes the search for high ideals and understandings place us at odd with conservative social expectations. It is the ability to persevere with the search, regardless of the cost that marks the sincerity of the journey. Having a cause to follow. Caution: being blinded by the light. Not knowing where you're going.

...

I've never been a passionate person. You might be tempted to think I am from my writing or my dancing. You'd be partially right. I was only truly passionate when I really understood and appreciated what I was dancing for and why. I am somewhat passionate when I write about something that really inspires me to write! Otherwise, I tend to go through the motions. I am actually almost as passionate as I get, to do these daily posts because one day I will compile them and actually print them out and they will be available for my kids to read (hopefully I will still be around if they have any questions or comments of their own!)

Most of the dances I was in I didn't really like. But I did my best and faked a lot of people out with my seeming passion and projection. But it was acting. But every once in awhile I loved the choreography and I loved the music...it all came together for me on a molecular level AND a spiritual level!

This is hard to admit. It's hard to admit you are faking it so much of the time.

Towards the end of my teaching career in both dance and preschool, I was faking the passion. I was burned out and disgruntled in my personal life and with petty and pesky obstacles on each job. But I put on my game face and did the thing. I have that ability especially in regards to work. I might have fucked a lot of things up in my life but one area I excelled, my work ethic. My kids know it to. But they also saw mom like this at home but in public I was

I'm sure the impression could be mom was two faced. I didn't see it as that so much as self preservation sometimes! It was how I got through the day. I bit my tongue, kissed ass, bent over backwards to avoid confrontation. I do not thrive on chaos, it just makes my life harder than it has to be. And you know,..o.k., so I faked it a lot, I faked passion..you know what...people were nice to me, people helped me along the way because what they were seeing was a kind, enthusiastic, hard working person and maybe on another level they saw I was this frantic, confused, scared person!

If all that's a crime...lock me up, throw away the key. I still think, for me, it beats being an angry, angst ridden, morose, pessimistic bore. It worked for me. Enough anyway to get me through a very hard 18 years.

I was watching tv the other day and I saw a commercial. There was this out of shape guy, in his late 30s I'd say, maybe he was my age? he looked at himself in the mirror and jiggled his belly and looked exasperated. He decided to go out and buy some running shoes and start jogging. He decided to get passionate and follow a cause! His cause? HIMSELF!

I'm realizing as I get older and especially the past 8 months that I need to get genuinely passionate about something in my life and a real good start would be..ME! I need to be my own most important cause! I'm not such a bad cause to follow! I do sometimes think a telethon would help but I can do it without if I need to! While I'm not that out of shape, there are "tweaks" that need to be made physically as well as mentally, emotionally and spiritually. It's a package deal and now's the time to buckle down because I am not getting any younger.

In these stress free days of mine, I have been able to formulate a game plan at least in my head and that's where it starts. Nothing on paper but that's the next step. Then will be the moment of action. But the road to self improvement starts with the single step of "I'll try." And you have to believe you are worth changing. I am. I will!

Illumination (wisdom) comes with every step, even the first one that takes place in your head! So here's to finding the passion of a cause you should truly believe in, yourself!

~pr~

Sun...Scorpio
Moon...Cancer (good for cooking a homestyle meal!)(or having a good cry?! ..or both!)
Phase...disseminating (a little introspection is good.)
Time...3pm
Weather...66 and sunny in DC
Sound..."Suzy Q. by CCR" (love my oldies!)
Mood...good, introspective!
BirthdayShoutOuts to: Nick "She-was-dumb-anyway" Lachey (#33), Carl Sagan, Chris Jericho (#36) Mary Travers of Peter Paul and Mary (I grew up listening to a LOT of FOLK music.)
QuoteDiva sez: "New fields of divine activity now open for me and these fields are white with harvest." -Florence Shinn

SabianSymbol Challenge: 30 degrees Aquarius. Moonlit fields, once Babylon, are blooming white. Even though the granduer of the past may be lost, changed or damaged by war or time, the energy and power of a place remains. You may feel that you are in the right place at the right time. The feelings of ancestors surround one's present deeds.

...

Funny that that phrase,..."right time, right place" should come up. I was looking at some old dance photos the other day and that got me going on a train of thought about me first taking over for a dance teacher that was leaving to get married and I was going to take over her clases. Up to that point I had simply done a few hours per week but now I was going to be having 25 hours and for a dance teacher that's 25 classes and that's nearly full time! You have to understand that the average studio is open from maybe 3pm-9pm so 25 is almost "full" time and my point is....OMG I was going to have a hell of a lot more responsibility placed on my shoulders. And I had only been teaching dance for a few years at that point. I was nervous.

I was talking to the gal who I was taking over for and I expressed my nervousness. She had some profound words of wisdom for me. "You know how demanding the boss is,..but don't let that worry you,..simply be in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing!"

OH,..is that all!!!

That was 1986 and I have often used that same line on my kids, my students and friends! It comes in handy! It seems like a simple thing but as you know, it's not always THAT easy to be in the right place, right time doing the right thing! If it was we wouldn't have too many cares would we. Life would be just lovely!

I have found however, that when I was following a true path, I was able to rely on the support of the universe and its flow. When I bucked the universal system, like a salmon going upstream, I got in trouble. I also got in trouble assuming and procrastinating!

But when I was going with the flow, listening to my wee small voice who is much like Jiminey Cricket, I did find myself right where I needed to be, doing what it was I was supposed to be doing and at the very right time!

So what about those times when I wasn't in the right place and time doing the right thing?

Usually I found myself fucked! And not in a good way! Life got harder for me. When I wasn't on a path that was true to my higher intelligence, when I didn't listen to my higher intelligence I suddenly felt the Universe closing in on me paying me back for my ignorance and refusal to do the right thing.

We wonder why it sucks to be us, we wonder why me, we wonder why is this happening to me. In most cases it's because we didn't follow our own good advice. We get what we give, paybacks are a bitch and oh well, put on your big girl/boy pants and deal because we pretty much fucked ourselves over!

When I started to really let go and let things be, when I admitted to myself that most of my circumstances were because of my lack of good judgment, when I took responsibility for many of my bad actions, life started turning around for me.

I really started believing that I was worth changing, I started believing that I was better than my circumstances. I affirmed it daily with a new found faith. I let go of my need to continuously beat myself about the head and shoulders for past mistakes. (Learning from them is one thing, continuing to punish oneself is another!)

I thanked God/Universe for all the good things I WAS DOING and for the good person I WAS! I thanked God for the good things I HAD in my life.

Life suddenly turned around...and when I say suddenly it was actually over a course of many months,...so no, it wasn't OVERNIGHT SUDDEN!

But it did change, when I changed my thought process. What you think, you become, both negatively and positively.

"Suddenly" I found myself indeed in the right place, at the right time doing the right thing.

The story to be continued....I hope for at least 40 more years!?

~pr~