no more phonebooths = no more heroes - is anyone investigating the possible connection - call Soledad

anyone can be a superhero

Being a hero was a tricky job.

Besides being able to change into your superhero cape in a tiny little phonebooth and besides being able to leap tall buildings in a  single bound, well, we pretty much required that you be ... perfect.

And because this perfection, this state of rightness, doesn't really exist it required some conspiratorial bullshit to keep your superhero cape on straight.

We are living in a time of incredible change - the beginning of ... well, something else - something real.

A world where real trumps right;

a place where there is no perfect and the real heroes are the makers

(anyone making a real life and making real choices, even when things get messy and scary and we don't know what the hell we are doing yet or where the hell this is all going)

who are scared to death but putting ourselves out there anyway. This stuff is not for sissies.

Courage is telling our story,

not being immune to criticism

- Brene Brown

(and if you haven't watched her TED talk lately, it's HERE)

This new paradigm has the superhero confused.

(and we can't really blame her because we are the ones who gave her that cape, and pointed her toward the tallest building and told her she could fly in the first place)

Tomorrow is hub's birthday and I just bought the makings for his cake (and yes, we're talking Duncan Hines here). It reminded me of his 21st birthday when I made him a cake and it was such a mess that I tossed it and bought him a store made one. Then he called and said he couldn't wait to come over and eat the cake I baked. Ugh. So, I tossed the bakery box in with the cake I'd baked and presented the faked-baked-cake as my own.

Now, this is not such a terrible thing to do, obviously - I've done way worse things than this to hubs over the years, but George has gone on and on about this cake for decades - I swear to God he married me because he thought I would bake a cake like this faked-baked-cake everyday for the rest of his life (poor guy). This morning when I asked what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday his eyes sort of glazed over (this could be a dry eye thing - we are old now) and lamented, "remember that cake .....".

Our heroes, like everything else we see, are mirrors. We see ourselves in them and now that life is requiring us to go deeper we are not always liking what we are finding.

(like mistresses and performance enhancing drugs and drones and cake boxes hidden in garbage cans)

And whether we believe this go-deeper thing is a planetary cycle change where everything that isn't like our current vibration comes up to be looked at (like I do) or that this go-deeper thing is an internet, nothing can hide here anymore thing (like I do, too) - it doesn't matter - it only matters that we somehow, someway find the guts to be real.

Maybe we can't be right and learn something.

And yes, I'm going to confess to that faked-baked-cake or maybe just let hubs read this post. I think he might be as disappointed in me as the world is in Lance Armstrong. Marriage is not for sissies either.

all decisions are really two decisions ... (on why there are no wrong choices)

Let's not take action to make up for a lack of focus ... but once we decide we must take action.  

"A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided." 

- Tony Robbins

And once we decide and then take action we make a second decision.

"We choose and in making that choice then have to choose again to be right with that decision or to be bitter and regretful." 

- Kathy

 

and of course if everything falls (as grandma would say) to hell in a hand basket we always have this

a little words of wisdom from the good doctor today

print by sweet daisy designs

you can't miss the boat and if you do, it wasn't YOUR boat

rock the boat locket by me

We either live in a world of lack or a world of abundance

and we get to live in the world we believe we live in.

Yup, it's as simple as that. 

(and, if we say, of course I believe in abundance, I focus on abundance .. well, let's just take a breath with this and maybe even a little step backwards)

Because if we have some belief that we missed out on something somewhere - that our boat came in - and we were sleeping

(or looking at pretty pictures on Pinterest)

that by the time we woke up and stumbled into our UGGs and brushed our teeth and got our asses down to the dock - our ship has sailed

or if we believe that someone else is ahead of us - that if we don't hurry up and get something someone else is going to get it

or if we believe that we made a mistake in our past that we regret (yes, I mean any regret here, regrets are always about fear and lack)

then maybe this abundance thinking is just something we think we are doing; maybe our real beliefs are rooted in lack.

Lack says there isn't enough for all of us, so I'd better get mine, we only get one chance, one great idea, one soul-mate - we have to be vigilant or we might just blow it or even worse we already have blown it.

This isn't the way the world works, but it could be the way our world works. It doesn't have to be.

The truth of an abundant world is that we get lots of chances, lots of ideas and yes, even lots of soul-mates.

And this isn't an excuse to be all lazy and sit around looking at pretty pictures on Pinterest all day or to say that when one of these things comes along we shouldn't grab it - for God's sake - GRAB IT!

BUT we can't miss our boat and if we do - it wasn't our boat! And guess what - the flipside of this in an abundant universe is also true - if we get on the boat - it is our boat!

We simply can't screw this up.

No one can steal our thunder because it's our thunder and if it looks like they have - it's because it's their thunder - and there's always another thunder storm anyway.

No one is ahead of us (well, actually that new born baby could be more evolved than we are and she most likely is) and when we think someone is we have lost trust in an abundant universe, lost trust in ourselves. And this is good news, because it creates a space for us to recognize this; a space to shift our thinking.

So, we recognize this thought - we don't judge ourselves for it- we just recognize it "isn't this interesting", we let go of this thought of lack and then we reattach to the vibration of abundance - we can do this in an instant, we don't need 20 years of therapy to do this ruminating on what we have lost, on what has been taken. Nothing's been taken.

Now there are absolutely times when things fall into place for us or we have an idea and I absolutely believe we need to act on these things when they come up. But there is not one thing out there for us - there are lots of things - every choice just brings a different path and brings a different adventure.

There might have been a time in this planet's history when we could have missed our boat, I'm not sure - but if there was those days are gone- because we're steering it now - our boat can't leave the dock without us.

our kids are not science experiments - what we can do about GMOs in our food supply

The Non-GMO Project is a great resource for all of us concerned with what is happening with the food we are eating and feeding our children (much of the information below is taken from their site). They now have an iPhone app shopping guide that's a huge help when grocery shopping.

(since I only have a stupid-phone I have been copying and pasting from their site onto my grocery delivery service - yes, I've been having my groceries delivered - it's winter, I'm cold and lazy, but eating less GMOs these days)

GMOs, or “genetically modified organisms,” are plants or animals created through the gene splicing techniques of biotechnology (also called genetic engineering which sound scary because it is). This experimental technology merges DNA from different species, creating unstable combinations of plant, animal, bacterial and viral genes that cannot occur in nature or in traditional crossbreeding.

If you are wondering why Monsanto is the scariest word in the English language this is why (well this plus agent orange, DDT, polystyrene - ranked 5th in total hazardous waste production with this one product alone, Round Up, PCBs, 300,000 dead Indian farmers and millions of dead everybody elses)

The most common GMOs are soy, cotton, canola, corn, sugar beets, Hawaiian papaya, alfalfa, and squash (zucchini  and yellow). Many of these items appear as added ingredients in a large amount of the foods we eat. For instance, your family may not eat tofu or drink soy milk, but soy is most likely present in a large percentage of the foods in your pantry.

GMOs may be hidden in common processed food ingredients such as: Amino Acids, Aspartame, Ascorbic Acid, Sodium Ascorbate, Vitamin C, Citric Acid, Sodium Citrate, Flavorings (“natural” and “artificial”), High Fructose Corn Syrup, Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein, Lactic Acid, Maltodextrins, Molasses, Monosodium Glutamate, Sucrose, Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP), Xanthan Gum, Vitamins, Yeast Products.

(the oil that little box of raisins is packed in that parents pack in their kids lunch as a "healthy" snack is a very high GMO risk- we need labeling!)

There is a great link HERE to GMO myths and truths and is a great wake-up call if this is an issue that is not on your radar. GMO foods are highly regulated and even banned in Australia, Japan, all the countries of the European Union and 50 other nations. In the U.S. we let the chemical companies tell us they are safe - they're not.

Cereals, snack bars, snack boxes, cookies, processed lunch meats, and crackers all contain large amounts of high risk food ingredients. In the U.S., over 80% of our food contains GMOs. Studies around the word have linked GMOs to cancer and infertility and we are ingesting them and feeding them to our children everyday.

(makes me furious - and that's a good things - mad moms can change things - just ask the alcohol industry)

We can't let this overwhelm us into passivity - we need it to stir all of us into action. There is a lot we can do - there is a great list HERE.

To make our voices heard by congressman, Obama, etc HERE

Saturn Saturday - and a full moon tonight in LEO

moon and stars prints by eve sand

There is a Full Moon tonight in Leo!

Because brave Leo rules our heart this is a wonderful time to release anything we are holding in our heart that is not for our highest good - the shoulda's and coulda's, old grievances and griefs - the opportunity for healing during this Leo full moon is immense. Make a list of what you want to release and set that baby on fire!

(I was just reading an article about how much dogs pick up the personality traits of their owners and I think this has more to do with them being under our energy the way young children are, but anyway, it got me thinking about Olive's one bad habit. She is just terrible to walk on a leash. She is constantly stopping to look behind her - it takes forever to get anywhere - drives me nuts! When we finally turn around and she is going somewhere she has already been she stops doing this and walks just fine - it makes me wonder how much of this looking backwards I am doing in my own life)

This week's charts are HOPE AND CHARITY (names changed to protect the innocent).

the cups part 5 - the secret of right timing called LUCK

Did you know 1 in 3 pieces of jewelry are worn for luck?

Another secret of that perfect cup of tea or coffee or hot cocoa (yum) is knowing when the temperature is just right.

(and I am starting to tire of the cup metaphor after 5 long posts and my teeny, tiny attention span and I'm sure you are, too, so if I switch to peppers or chicken wings or toasters to talk about temperature - I know you'll thank me)

Anyhoo, this right timing with tea is one of the secrets of right timing with everything. 

Many years ago, hub's lease was about to expire on his garage and we set up a meeting with the owners of the building to sign a new lease. When we arrived they told us their son had dropped out of college and had decided to ... open a truck repair business in our shop. So instead of renting to us they were going to rent to him and because our lease was about to expire we were basically out of luck.

As you can guess this was not good news. Hubs had just spent 3 years building his business in this location; working a gazillion hours. He was stressed. I was stressed, too and Olive, well Olive wasn't around yet, but let's just say, this was not a good day.

We started looking everywhere for a new location, but because we work on trucks and need larger doors than typical garages and because most locations are not zoned for trucks and because we didn't want to lose our existing accounts by moving too far away we were out of luck.

There was actually a perfect shop within blocks of our house, but it was an empty building next to a repair business that worked on cars and trucks and we didn't think they would want to rent to us (the competition), but finally, in desperation hubs went over to talk to them. The owner of the business said he didn't really work on that many trucks, but he didn't really need the rent money either - he'd think about it. 

We started to get our hopes up a little. We were only a couple weeks from having to move the shop. We thought maybe we were in luck.

The next day the owner of the business talked to the owner of the buildings who was an old woman and she said, "No, I don't know these people, I don't want to rent to them." Hubs set up a meeting, but she wasn't looking for any tenants she didn't know and she said, "No". We were out of luck.

The day before we had to move we heard about an empty airplane hanger at a nearby airport. Hubs, quite illegally I'm sure, moved his operation into the airplane hanger. We were in luck - sort of. His mechanic took a job somewhere else and hub's workload slowed down enough to make it all just barely do-able (no welding, no water, no heat, no windows). After a few months in the airplane hanger an old man moved into the hanger next door with a glider plane. He was in his 80's and getting his pilot's license.

Hubs and the old man became friends and one day he asked hubs why he was working in an airplane hanger. Hubs explained our situation and the old man said he knew an empty shop owned by one of his very oldest and best friends and he would talk to her. We were in luck.

It turned out this oldest and best friend was the woman who owned the shop down the street - it also turned out that in the few months we had been in the airport - the owner of the repair shop and main mechanic had developed carpal tunnel syndrome and was actually looking to do even less work. This all fell together. We were really in luck.

Now what is the chance that hubs would move into an airplane hanger next to a man who was best friend's with the woman who only rented to people she knew (so now she felt like she knew us because her friend did) and that the main mechanic would get carpal tunnel syndrome and now needed our rent money to make up the income he was losing from not being able to work as much.

This is the kind of win-win that life/the Universe/God can put together - it happens all the time. Sometimes we try to push and pull and make things happen instead of letting things fall into place and we muck this all up.

(sometimes there are a whole lot of things going on that we can't see - things that need to fall into their own places to make room for us to fit into ours)
 
Maybe the things we call unlucky - are actually the very steps that get us to the lucky - if we just stay on the path.

And staying on the path does not mean continuing to do the same thing - the very thing that isn't working for us, but it does mean doing something.

If we know what we want and if we know why we want it and we take action, maybe life can use whatever action we take - to get us where we want to be.

Maybe we really can get what we want from where we are with what we have!

 (we may have to let go of a few things first, often the idea of a rescuer - when we really get that no one is climbing down that well to pull us out, and we may need to grieve the loss of this myth for a while, but when we really get that - we can really start to make our journey to LUCKY happen)

Hubs is much more decisive than me. He is much more likely to know what he wants. My own right timing usually works differently and I'll talk about that in part VI (damn I love roman numerals!).

xo all

Part IV - the hot/cold cup or the secret of right timing

print by jan skacelik

Now, sometimes a cup of tea is too hot and sometimes a cup of tea is too cold and sometimes a cup of tea is just right and often we can't tell one cup of tea from the other cup of tea until we drink it.

Timing is important with tea.

Timing is about cycles.

Remember that great song from the Byrds (and Pete Seeger before them) - Turn, Turn Turn (you can thank me later for putting this song into your head - it's that freaking good) - which is actually taken word for word from the Bible.

We can feel the truth of these words in our hearts.

Life isn't static. Life doesn't support us getting stuck (and this is great news because when we feel stuck we know that we will eventually - depending on the speed of the cycle we are in and our own natural inclination toward stickiness - be unstuck). Change is what expansion is all about and contrast creates the impulse for change and so we get cycles.

Stuff changes.

We psychically detach from what we need to leave before we physically leave. We can't reattach - things have shifted and we don't fit anymore.

It's our inability to reattach that let's us know this is a real deal thing.

*One word (well 68 words actually) about this detachment and what has happened on our planet in the last couple years - lots of karma has fallen away as the planet has ascended - the dropping of this karma has created a lot of loss in people's lives as things we are no longer connected to fall away -

this is meant to feel like we have lain down some heavy baggage but sometimes we get scared and try to hold onto this stuff that is leaving - a person, a job, a way of life. But we can't stop a cycle we can only ride it out. Whatever we have lost we need to know that life loves us so much it has created this space for us. I have a friend who told me she even lost her attachment to her children for a while and it scared the hell out of her - what she really lost was the karmic connection from her stuff to their stuff. There is nothing to fear here - real stuff can never be lost and love is the real stuff.*

Sometimes with things like marriages and businesses we cycle within the relationship and come back together in a new way, but the cycle happens.

We can't fight the cycle

(it will leave us bruised and battered and calling 911 in the middle of the night if we try)

it will leave us empty.

This empty feeling just means there is no more for us in this place.

This is the feeling that has fueled every single thing that has ever happened since the beginning of time - this is the feeling that we ignore at our own peril - the very expansion of the universe is at stake!

But, because we have forgotten that we are here for expansion - because we have forgotten why we are here and who we really are - we say, "what do I do next? I don't know what to do!".

We don't really need to know what to do next before we move out of an empty place and what we really mean when we think this is that we want to know what is going to happen next. We want to see what's ahead. We want to know that we will have the fairy tale happy ending we were promised and we want it in writing and notarized.

We want to know what is going to happen before we make a move and that just isn't the way this game is played.

If we could sit down right now and watch a movie about the rest of our life; a movie where we could see every challenge, disaster and triumph ahead for us (all of these things are kind of the same to our soul which only requires expansion and doesn't care so much what kind of package this expansion comes wrapped in) - what do we think would happen?

Well, we are only human so we would probably try to avoid the challenges and we would certainly try to avoid the disasters and it would be this very avoiding that would not allow the contrast in our life to create the triumph - in short we'd fuck it all up.

And this is how we screw up our children by the way - when we do things for them and try to make things easy for them; when we take away their contrast we don't allow meaningful desires to be born within them - this has created an entire generation of people who have no idea what the hell they want to do. This isn't the way the game is played.

The truth is we know what we do next because what we do next is always the same thing ... what we do next is stop being in the world we are in. 

We make a move. And yes, this can be a small move - we are totally allowed to make baby steps as long as we keep on making them. And yes, this can be multiple moves in multiple directions because we make our own rules with this. 

The actual decision we make is never as important as the reasons we make the decision because it is the reasons we make the decision that create the outcome!

Our life is created from our decisions as surely as our bones and blood and muscles. The song about the broken, crying woman with "years of bad decisions running down her face" is ... well, freakin' scary. We don't want to be this woman and we truly, truly can't be this woman if we make our decisions for the right reasons - we don't have to make the right decisions, because there are no right decisions! There are only the decisions we make.

Many years ago hubs and I separated. I moved into an apartment with our daughter. We didn't know what we were going to do next we only knew that we had both reached the place of empty at the same time. This is a precarious place for a marriage to be. We were scared. We had another human being, the most important human being on the planet to us, depending on us to make the right decision and we had no idea what the hell we were doing.

After a few months of baby steps in different directions we went away for the weekend together.

We both knew our reasons for whatever decision we made were what would create the outcome we both wanted (which was everyone's happiness) - we both knew instinctively that either decision - to move together or to continue to move apart would eventually create everyone's happiness - so we focused on our reasons and could see that our reasons to move together (which included the happiness of that most important human being and the fact that we still loved each other) were much better reasons than our reasons for moving apart.

We started a new cycle together.

If we had divorced (and if the reasons had been there for that we would have) - then that would have been the right decision and we would have made that work. We would have all been OK. Things would be different for all of us now and we would be in different places, but we would still all be OK - there wouldn't be "years of bad decisions running down our faces", we wouldn't be second guessing ourselves, because we would know that our focus on the reasons would have created our best outcome.

This right timing cup is getting pretty wordy even for me and we haven't talked about the "striking while the iron (or teacup in this case) is hot" kind of timing that creates luck and we will in Part V.

xo

the secret of the cups part III - the leaky cup or how we make sure we never win

print by laura evans

See Part I and II.

It doesn't take long to figure out we are holding a leaky cup.

Our chin gets wet. Our shirt gets wet. Our desk gets wet. Wet happens.

(unless of course we are totally distracted by grumpy cat pictures - I am in love with grumpy cat - actually I mostly am grumpy Cat, so maybe it is the familial thing, I even have the droopy eyelids now. I can't get enough of her)

We probably wouldn't think :

"Dammit this cup leaks! I'm losing tea - I need to pour more tea into this cup!"

But this is exactly what we do with our leaky cups -  the cups that no matter how much we put in there they are never filled - they are bottomless, but we don't seem to notice.

(thankfully not bottomless in a scary hairy ugly guy in a thong at the beach kind of way but not in an endless cup of Java way either and if you are sick of me talking in metaphors you are going to be sick of me for a while because I am feeling the need to talk in pictures these days)

One leaky, bottomless cup most of us we all have is the money cup - yup, I think maybe everybody, it's societal - now don't tell me you don't care about money or you have enough money - this isn't about how much you care about money or how much money you actually have, this is about how much money you feel you have and I probably won't believe you anyway.

We will never feel like we have enough money (obviously we can actually have enough money) - this cup will never be full no matter how much we pour into it.

This is why doing it for the money or making money our main goal is a great way to make sure we can never win.

Hubs and I saved enough money to pay off our mortgage. This was our big deal goal for a long time

(and no, we didn't do this the smart way with extra principal payments - we saved our money in a sock drawer, well a bank account that just smells like a sock drawer).

But once we had the money saved we said to ourselves - "what are we nuts, we can't take all our money and pay off our mortgage - what if an emergency comes up?!" ... so we saved more money.

One day we had 3 months of emergency funds saved plus enough to pay off our mortgage then we said to ourselves - "what are we nuts, 3 months emergency money in this economy is not enough, we need 6 months emergency money!"

So we saved 6 months of emergency money plus enough to pay off our mortgage and we still haven't paid off our mortgage - we will never feel like we have enough money.

(disclaimer - we have a very small, very old, very falling apart house that we have had for decades which makes this whole "saving to pay off our mortgage" quite a bit easier)

When I was in banking I had lots of senior clients who lived like they were destitute from their social security checks while they had hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank. One woman came to me crying that she had to cancel her cable television because the rate went up.

I showed her how we could move some funds into her liquid accounts to cover her shortage for the next 12 months - she didn't need to deprive herself of Sex and the City (hell, no). The same woman who had been crying seconds before, quickly dried her eyes and looked at me like I was nuts. "That money is my savings, Catherine!"

We will never feel like we have enough money.

For many people, especially women, one of these leaky cups is called ATTENTION - as in, I need more and more and more, although we will not admit this even to ourselves (Tony Robbins says that the number one thing women want from men is ATTENTION - why are so many men so freakin' oblivious to this? I think he said the number one thing men want from women is APPRECIATION or maybe he said sex - I kinda slept through the 'what men want' part).

CONTROL is another big old leaky cup. No matter how many things we get under control ... there is always something ... else.

With my south node in Capricorn (Astrological charts are a great help with this, but your own intuition and just an honest look at your life works just as well) I knew CONTROL was a leaky cup for me - in previous lives I needed to be in control, it had always worked for me and those I was responsible for, so I came into this life with that energy and magnetized myself to a childhood situation where life was totally out of control confirming for me that I needed to be in control. 

(and you don't have to believe in past lives to resonate with this - just think 'childhood' whenever you read 'past life', it's a lot of the same stuff)

Now in this lifetime this energy (my been there/done that comfort zone) is precisely what will not work for me. And honest to God every time I give up control I win - every time I try to control things I lose (note- this is not true for everyone) - I once had a wise person say to me "what people who want to control everything really want to control is what other people think of them" - she said it kind of off-handedly and at the time I thought she was wrong, but it stayed with me (which I guess means on some level I didn't really think she was wrong) - now, many years later, I see the truth in this, at least for me (blogging is great for letting go of this one).

The problem isn't the leaky cup itself - the problem is our inability to see the mess it's making when it leaks all over our life - when we make decisions and create intentions and set our focus based on things that are bottomless - we set ourselves up to be unhappy. We need to stop refilling the leaky cup and plug the damn hole!  

I have plugged a lot of holes in the last couple years - we can all do this (I recommend epoxy grout - it's waterproof), but it's a process and life is more of a spiral then a path so sometimes even when we have plugged a leak in the cup's bottom, another little drip might start near the handle and that is ok, more than ok actually because the leaky cups are part of life's polarity that causes growth- we have intended this lifetime as a lifetime of expansion, not perfection.

So, on the path to enlightenment (letting more light in) we let go of the leaky cups (they are always of the ego). We stop looking for something outside of ourselves to fill us.

TRUST is the answer to the leaky cup (and letting go).

Trust that money will be there when we need it - trust that there is enough for us - trust that other people know what's best for them - trust that things will get done without us - trust that we don't need to control things, etc, etc. Think about the areas in your own life that are insatiable and see if more trust (in Life/Universe/God/Higher Self - pick your comfort zone here) might stop the leak. Also it works to be fully invested in an effort (process) but not attached to a result - let go.

Next Up in Part IV (I think I write such long posts so I can write roman numerals, I love them) - the hot/cold cup or the secret of right timing

GIVEAWAY - Winged World Recycled Library Card ART - Emily Dickinson CLOSED

  

I fell in love at first site with Vickie Moore's magical shop where she gives new life to obsolete library cards by turning them into mini works of art!

Winged World, her Oregon shop, is amazing! Vickie rescues most of her cards from libraries with the help of kind-hearted librarians. She loves to look through her collection and imagine what kind of art would suit each one best. One of her favorite parts of the process is researching imagery that could go on a card. Then she gets busy drawing and painting, being careful not to cover over important words on a card ... she has dozens of different designs!

Since Emily Dickinson is a favorite of mine I know others will love her, too!

WHAT YOU GET:

Winged World's wonderful Emily Dickinson card art print!

HOW TO WIN:

It's easy-peasy just leave your contact info in the comments section below or do any of the following for bonus chances:

(5) Like Olive on Facebook (see top right column)

(5) Follow my blog

(5) Facebook/Twitter or Blog this post

Let me know if you have done these things so I can give you additional entries. This contest is open to everyone!

DRAWING:

Enter by midnight Sunday, February 1st - Good luck! AND THE WINNER IS:

True Random Number Generator Min: Max: Result: 30
Kiddo! Congrats Kiddo and thank you to everyone who entered! (the numbers were 1-84)

 

Saturn Saturday - a step back

print by the geekerie

Instead of popping up another victim volunteer tonight

(because a store's deadline got pushed up and I need to spend this weekend making that plus I have decided after last week's post that it might be most useful if I progress the charts a bit to see what's ahead)

I am going to get all the charts done on Monday (yay for postal holidays) - and post them all next week while I continue the cup series and post the next giveaway.

THE WINNER OF THIS WEEK'S GIVEAWAY IS: ZOE! YAY!

True Random Number Generator Min: Max 62 :  Result: 4 
  
Thank you to everyone who took the time to enter - new giveaway on Monday so check back then!

the secrets of the cups - part II (the empty cup)

wall decals by wall to wall decals

The empty cup's secret is, and you may have guessed this already -

it's not really empty

There is no place of nothing that creation springs from - but there is a place of stillness.

From the place of stillness (which is the beginning place, the time of allowing, the time of winter) anything can happen.

Most times when we say we want to be happy and we aren't it's because we don't really value happiness - we really value something else - sometimes we value our reputation more than our happiness, sometimes what we really value is safety.

If we really valued happiness it would be easy to let go of that thing that doesn't make us happy. Children do it all the time. And anything we could do as a child we can do now, anything we knew then we still know now - we have just forgotten our knowing - we've lost touch. It hasn't gone anywhere.

If someone is really unhappy and wanting to break up with her boyfriend - her friends would probably never say to her "well, you need to meet someone new before you break up with him - don't make any move until you have lined up someone else" - in fact, most friends would give her the opposite advice "take your time, sit with yourself for a while, rebound relationships don't work, yada, yada".

But, we tell people who are unhappy with their jobs to wait until they have something else lined up all the time.

[ And, one thing about rebound relationships - 

they actually do work -

because it's not their job to make us safe or happy forever,

nothing outside of ourself gets that job,

it's their job to break our holding pattern -

to bring us to the place of the empty cup -

and they are really good at that ] 

Now, I get that mama needs to bring home the bacon, but mama needs to be mindful of where that bacon actually comes from (and I am not talking pigs here) - because that bacon and wait, let's switch to the word moula (pronounced moola - it's Jersey for money if you are unfamiliar) because I am starting to feel sorry for the pig -

the moula doesn't come from the job - it comes through the job, but it doesn't come from the job - the moula comes from the Universe (God/Higher Self - we should pick our most comfortable word here because we really need to get this and hold it in a place we vibrate with) - the money comes from Source.

I have a niece who is divorced. She needs to go back to court about child support with her ex and is worried that she will not get the amount of money she needs from him. My advice to her is always the same - to remember the money doesn't come from the ex - it may be coming through him, but it doesn't come from him. Her source is the Universe. This was her source when she was married, too - it just looked like her money was coming from her husband's paycheck when in fact Source sent her her husband! The way the money gets to her may change, but her connection to Source is eternal.

(so she sets her intention for what she needs to flow to her effortlessly for the highest good of everyone involved and releases the need for it to come from the ex - note - this doesn't mean that she doesn't go to court and seek a fair payment because action matters, it means she knows that she is ok no matter what happens - she knows her cup isn't really empty even when it looks like it is)

This isn't New Age gobbledy goop. It may be Old-Age goobledy goop (but I don't think so - ha!) - if you resonate with any of this, but not anything New Age check out Florence Scovel Shinn's work, a Jersey girl from the 1800's who knew a thing or two about a thing or two.

Now, I am not saying we should all run out and quit a job we are not loving. There are lots of lessons to be learned from jobs we are not loving (because any kind of learning leads to expansion and expansion is our real job here) - my favorite uncle used to say that you were not really a grown up until you "took a job you didn't want and lost a job you really did".

I am saying that when we get to the place of the empty cup - we often need to step away from the actionable life to gain perspective. 

So, I am not saying we should quit the job we hate, but I am not saying we shouldn't either. It may seem more logical to line up the next thing first, but I am just not sure that what is logical is necessarily true.

[ Rebound jobs and businesses work, too - Etsy is actually a great rebound business. The work of an Etsy shop takes us into the vibration of creativity and community no matter

how much money it channels to us. We expand.]

It is always possible to start a meditation practice and start a new life from a place of gratitude for what we already have

(without leaving that job since the money comes through it, but not from it)

gratitude for what we have is a great bridge from the stuff we don't want to the stuff we do, especially when we don't know what that stuff is yet. The vibration of "I am grateful for this" brings us to a place of more of "this" - we just line up with it, it can't not come to us.

So, we make a list of all the good things we get from the thing we are looking to leave, but think we can't - and we focus on this list. We set an intention for these good things which actually come from Source to find another way to reach us.

We are grateful for the paycheck but not the job. We are grateful for the sense of connection that comes from the people we work with but not the job.

We find we can go to work with a new passion and gratitude - we jump into a new vibration. From that new vibration all kinds of little (and big) synchronicities will start to be drawn into our life and most importantly the empty cup with allow us to notice them. We get to the place of allowing and then we take action from there.

Up Next Part III - the leaky cup

xo all

One of the central teachings of the Course in Miracles is "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God."

It teaches that if you can lose it - it isn't real. This is something it can take a while to wrap our heads around (but an instant to feel its truth in our heart) and some people may never vibrate with this (and that is totally ok - we are all here to learn different stuff), but if we do, it's a life changer.

the secrets of the cups - part 1 (these are not Victoria's Secret Cups but I feel the need to work those words into my title to attract more readers)

print by hair brained schemes

I've been thinking about cups.

Uh, yes, I said cups.

Empty cups and full cups and chipped cups and

that perfect cup of tea (or coffee) that smells just so and tastes just so and sits in our hand just so that when we walk into a room with that cup in our hands -

(even when that room has a sink that is filled to the brim with dirty cups, that everyone else in the house believes are cleaned by fairies - I mean they must believe this because if they weren't being cleaned by some kind of magical process, I'm sure someone would pick up a cup and wash it ... themselves ... sigh)

all is right with our world.

The cup seems a perfect metaphor for everything to me these days.

Let's start with the empty cup - you may or may resonate with this cup - it depends on which cup in the universal kitchen cupboard you are vibrating with right now - there are no rights or wrongs, goods or bads here - I only hope for your sake you are not resonating with that old Disney mug with the picture of Goofy in a racecar and the faded letters that read ... NAScaR daD.

(and it helps if you picture little Oliver Twist with his bent brim metal cup and soulful eyes imploring for more)

The empty cup is what gets our ass moving - it requires some kind of action -

now the cup doesn't need to be totally empty, of course - although for some people, and I think I may be one of them, it takes a swig of nothing from a totally empty cup

(how the hell did I not notice that this stuff in my cup - this stuff that had been sustaining me, at least in a "she's still breathing" kind of way - is ... well, gone)

to wake us up.

(yes, even when we are talking coffee here - it is the empty cup and not the full cup that wakes us up - stay with me)

When my Polarity Quit Your Day Job interview came out on the Etsy blog I got a lot of email from makers (and everyone owns this title because we wouldn't be on the planet earth if we weren't the most courageous and amazing makers in the universe, truly) - many were very drawn to the words

I made space for something new to find me.

This is the secret of the empty cup - the step away from actionable life

(and depending on your vibration the idea of stepping away from anything, even something we know in our heart is not working, can be either very alarming or very seductive - there is probably no middle ground in this for those of us who find ourselves holding an empty cup in the first place)

Now, how this cup gets emptied is a very individual thing:

defining ourselves by how much we do, putting other people first, not speaking up, being somewhere that we do not want to be, doing things we do not want to do -

the cup gets emptied by what we allow.

By the time we realize we are just sucking down air this has probably been happening for years, maybe even decades then we either create some change or more likely life creates this for us, usually in the form of some kind of loss - empty within leads to empty with-out. It has to.

(allow (inner work) + create (outer work) = well, everything actually)

My mother married her first husband when she was 21 years old. The guy she married told her when he asked her to marry him that if she said no, he was going to ask her best friend (women's friendships could be a little too competitive - they still can).

My mother thought about it.

She decided that it would be more painful to watch this guy marry her best friend than it would be for her to actually marry him herself, so she married him.

(note I said first husband)

Even when we don't know what we do want or what we do want to be doing, we still have to take action to get rid of what isn't working - this action precedes the state of allowing that is the empty cup's secret.

We can't slip into those kick-ass boots we just bought before slipping our feet out of our slippers and in between this slipping in and slipping out our feet have got to get naked - there's just no other way - well, unless we have some kind of kick-ass galoshes that fit over top of our slippers - there are never any absolutes with anything, life is tricky, folks.

But mostly this naked feet place is the empty cup place (please keep in mind the image of little Oliver Twist and not naked feet inside empty cups which will get this all mucked up for you)

In Part II we will get to the secret of the empty cup - because every cup has a secret - I think Victoria knew this first ...

(well, except maybe the red solo cup - which is probably the worst song ever written and so doesn't get one)

Next Up - Part II - the secret of the empty cup

GIVEAWAY - Tattly Temporary Tattoo Assortment - Like a Real Tattoo But FAKE!! CLOSED

I have been obsessed with Tattlys since discovering them last year. I bought the I'm Late watches and keep a supply in my house to give to any "guests" who don't show up on time - I've only had one late guest (actually I've only had one guest) since this brain-storm, but you have to believe me when I say these tattoos are awesome - they go on easily, the colors are vibrant and they last a long time (but not forever) - they are perfect!

Tina Roth Eisenberg has turned her collaborative artistic venture into a global tattoo empire! Tired of putting poorly designed temporary tattoos on her daughter’s arm, she took matters into her own hands

and in July 2011 she launched Tattly Temporary Tattoos. Starting with just a handful of different designs, Tattly has received thousands of orders from around the world - after just one year they have 250 designs and are sold in over 90 countries!

 

WHAT YOU GET:

This awesome 8 set collection (1 of each design) made with soy-based ink. Packaged in card stock sleeve. Includes the following designs: Diamonds by Kate Bingaman-Burt, Peacock by Stina Persson, What to Focus On by Marc Johns, Red Bike by Katie Evans, Enamorado by Blanca Gómez, Popsicles by Julia Rothman, and Oh, Hello and Ship by Mike Lowery.

HOW TO WIN:

It's easy-peasy just leave your contact info in the comments section below or do any of the following for bonus chances:

(5) Like Olive on Facebook (see top right column)

(5) Follow my blog

(5) Facebook/Twitter or Blog this post

Let me know if you have done these things so I can give you additional entries. This contest is open to everyone.

DRAWING:

Enter by midnight Friday 1/18/13!  Good luck! CLOSED

Winner is # 4 - ZOE!

saturn saturday - our first volunteer - we will call her Faith (since she has some crazy faith I know what I am talking about here - I will give her a chart of her planets so she can check out what real astrologers have to say about it, too - since I can only guarantee my accuracy in corks and dog biscuits)

available at gritty city goods

Life is a series of checks and balances (to use my old banker jargon).

We create, we review, we keep what works, we tear down what doesn't or what is finished and we move on to create again. This never stops.

When I was in banking I would often sneak a peek at clients' charts before looking at large investments or commitments to see whether they were more motivated by safety or growth, any significant financial or work related pitfalls ahead, etc - but I haven't looked at charts in a decade plus.

Last week I put out a call for some guinea pigs volunteers to help me get my feet wet again and was grateful to find a few takers. I am going to look at each chart's Saturn, 10th house and North and South Nodes first and then see where my favorite female goddesses rear their heads (next month) - all of this geared to our maker businesses.

During times of transition it can be a clearing exercise to check out what Saturn is doing in our charts. Saturn moves every couple years bringing changes to whatever part of our chart he is hitting and every seven years he creates some hard aspects to shake things up.

The incredibly rich narrative of Saturn in Roman and Greek (Cronus) mythology is too important for me to do it justice here in a paragraph - astrologer Liz Greene has a wonderful book on Saturn and of course the web has lots of info if you are drawn to finding out more.

In astrology Saturn is an aspect of the father/authority figure - it's the 2nd largest planet, it's the planet of contraction (Jupiter, the largest planet, is the planet of expansion so we expand a little more than we contract) - it's about boundaries, responsibilities, karma, commitments, self-control - the stuff that defines (meaning = outlines) us.

Some of Saturn's harder tests are our first Saturn return

(Saturn takes 28 -29 years to come full circle back to the place he occupied at our birth)

in our late 20's and our second Saturn return in our late 50's.

(there are also other aspects like the Neptune Square Neptune at about the age of 41 and the Uranus/Uranus opposition at about the age of 43 - one or both of which throws pretty much every one of us into a mid-life crisis, Chiron return 48-50, Pluto trines Pluto at 58, Uranus Squares Uranus at 63 - both new beginnings)

First up is Faith (names changed to protect the innocent).

When Faith was born Saturn was in Libra and since Saturn was again in Libra from late 2009 until just a couple months ago, I knew at a glance that Faith has just been through her 2nd Saturn return.

This is like our own little (often not so little) personal earthquake- allowing us to shake off anything that is not really us (note- this shaking off may feel kind of like being water-boarded at times and in a partnership house like Libra might lead us through some loneliness and depression).

It can create dramatic change!

new moon day - set those intentions!

print by sonya kanelstrand

Today's full moon in Capricorn makes this a great day to set some intentions for the New Year.

This is not a time to be limiting the universe so it's best to work in terms of essence and not details here.

Life can dream bigger dreams for us than we have for ourselves truly!

(yes, I'm channeling Oprah today)

Don't overthink this. If we are sitting from the place of the question "what do I do now"  or "what do I want" the answer isn't just going to pop into our head because the question (place we are sitting) doesn't vibrate at the same level as the answer (place we are going) - and these aren't really places but maybe this is an easier way to look at it.

These very questions are what keep us stuck!

(this is science - every particle of matter within the universe contains at all times two aspects - the presence of the thing and the absence of the thing)

We are literally activating the vibration of "not knowing" with these questions - the one place in the universe the "knowing" is prevented from being!

We don't have to figure anything out today. The new moon isn't the time for that anyway and that just puts us back in our heads when we need to be working from our hearts right now.

Let's just put our hand over our heart and set our intention for joy!

(imagine it is the end of 2013 and we are thinking that we just had the most joyful year of our lives, just imagine how that would feel and sit in that)

Proof Positive that Positive Thinking ALONE Won't Get Us $5000 A Week For Life

A friend emailed me recently and while we were catching up she asked, "why all the positive thinking stuff on your blog lately?"

I didn't think of this as my recent subject matter, but we all know how scattered multi-faceted this blog is, so it did get me thinking.

I am more about "focusing on what we want" (in particular how we want to feel) these days than positive thinking -

although if we are more naturally inclined to doom and gloom, the sky is falling, Wednesdays are for whining kind of thinking and can evolve just that - well, things will certainly be shaken up for us in big ways.

(I still miss Wednesdays ... sniffle)

I don't think, as Marianne Williamson says "pouring pink paint over our problems and pretending that they don't exist" works either. The stuff we push down always bobs to the surface sooner or later -

although maybe this stuff that is bobbing to the surface is like an inner tube in a fast moving river and actually there to save us and the only reason we think we are drowning is that we are clinging to a slippery rock afraid to let go and reach out for it.

Besides I learned long ago that positive thinking alone is not a sure thing to getting what we want.

When I was a kid I was afraid to go into the bathroom because I always thought something scary was lurking behind the closed shower curtain.

(I admit I still peek behind one now and then ... or maybe every time I go in there)

My mother, being a highly creative and highly frazzled mother of 3 children under the age of 5 would ask, "why does it have to a monster in there Cathy? why can't it be something good? does everything we can't see have to be something bad?"

She started asking us what good stuff could be hiding in the shower. "An ice cream truck!", "A fairy!", "A treasure chest!", "A library!" we shouted, my little brother stopped us in our tracks with "Bozo" (we were old enough to know that clowns could be scary, too) - finally my mother clapped a halt to our shouting with a decision.

"No", she pronounced solemnly, "the best thing would be ... the Publisher's Clearing House guy with the balloons and the check". We all cheered.

From that day forward we pretended the Publisher's Clearing House crew was hiding in our shower ready to spring a $10,000,000 check on us.

It kept us from being afraid of the closed curtain (sort of) but if having 3 kids thinking about that an average of 3 times a day each for, I don't know, let's say 5 years, which would create (grabs my calculator) over 16,000 positive thoughts of a Publisher's Clearing House check didn't draw that guy to our front door

I am pretty certain positive thinking alone is not totally a sure thing.

(of course I am not totally sure my mother ever actually mailed in an entry form)

new moon, new year - 2013 here SHE comes!

calendar by anna newell jones

On Friday we have the first New Moon of 2013 and it's a goodie! Now this new moon is in the sign of Capricorn and Capricorn is the sign that is all about hard work.

Oh no, you are thinking - "not more hard work, Cat, I can't work any harder".

Don't worry- this is the kind of work that pays off, not the kind of work that gets you clean dishes for about 32 seconds until someone lays a coffee spoon in your clean sink.

This is the work that matters.

Capricorn is ruled by Saturn who is kind of the daddy of the universe (well, the sun is kind of the daddy actually, but Saturn is that stern daddy energy). When daddy (ego) is in balance with mommy (the moon/soul) all is right with the world.

When daddy has too much power (like the patriarchal society we had been living in) our drive for power, wealth and control overwhelms the emotional needs of the Moon (soul). It can create a society of greed where too few have too much and stuff gets clogged up - the energy just doesn't flow well - which is part of what we have been dealing with on this planet.

But Saturn is also the awesome and amazing daddy who shows us that hard work pays off, who gives us something to push against and teaches patience and commitment -

his is the gift that keeps us on our path.

Saturn doesn't promise success of course, our journey on planet Earth doesn't come with any guarantees, but he does promise self-esteem.

He's how we earn the stuff that we really get to keep.

(and if you are in your mid-late 20's or mid- late 50's you might find it helpful to study Saturn because he is about to kick your ass)

Anyhoo, a new moon in Capricorn usually just kind of reinforces this power, wealth, control mindset back to us, but it is a brave new world and this new moon is different. The feminine energy will not be held back any longer.

2013 is also a 6 Universal year bringing balance, peace and harmony - this is all about the heart chakra and balancing heaven and earth - bringing our ideals and practical matters together

(for many people this will be  the year when the doing what we love and the money will follow will fall together).

We need the balance of the inner and outer work to create this - the inner work to allow and the outer work to create.

This is a rebuilding year - 6 always brings more responsibility (especially when it comes to family and health) - it brings relationships, community building, love and romance - all good stuff for the planet. Balance and love will be the planet's vibration this year.

(this doesn't mean everything will be all roses and chocolate because vibrations bring up anything that is not of that vibration so we can look at it and deal with it)

The Sun, Moon, Mercury, Pluto, Juno and Venus are all in Capricorn at this New Moon so it is really empowering us to take charge of our lives. It's a time to breathe deeply, ground and center ourselves - move from our hearts - we are setting the foundation for the next 12 months. 

Jan Spiller has the New Moon Wishes Reminder HERE that you might find helpful. Voicing and putting our intentions on paper at any New Moon is powerful.

To everyone who left a comment or emailed me about our upcoming 10th house exploration (we are also going to look at north and south nodes) - we will do this anonymously - I will contact you or you can contact me with your birth date info if I don't already have it - if you know the time (and time zone) of your birth that works best!

xo all