baptism

waves, Canon Digital Rebel

After several recurring dreams this week of looking for the ocean, I finally made it to Ocean Beach yesterday with a friend. It was deliciously warm and we walked and walked and walked until my legs ached and my skin felt dry and salty.

And then, I did something that I never do in San Francisco. I jumped into the ocean. {If you've ever felt the water here you'll know why}

At first I just waded in and rolled up my pants so they wouldn't get wet. And as I waded further and further out I couldn't resist. I dove into the ocean, clothes and all.

And it was glorious.
I felt transformed, alive, joyous.

It was the best day I've had in a really, really long time...

lip gloss

lip gloss, Canon Digital Rebel

My friend Marcia above, getting ready for the incredible Sunday pool party she organizes called Feather. Think lots of sunshine, fruity cocktails galore, and pretty gay boys to flirt with. The next one is October 16th at the Bambuddha Lounge {previously the Phoenix Hotel}

Other delights:
Little journeys on Virtual Sweden

Beautiful images of storms

The clouds last week...

Fall is here and so are we

candy colored zinnias, photo booth pic

Fall is here! and your time capsules went out over the weekend. I had the opportunity to read a lot of them and was so moved and excited for you.

My wishes for you as you receive them:
1. To be inspired by your dreams and wishes
2. That you honor yourself for what you created and invent a way to celebrate this. It could be a toast you make to yourself in the company of friends or maybe sharing your list with someone. Acknowledging yourself in the company of others is a powerful thing. {You can also ask them what they'd like to be acknowledged for!}
3. And that you hold what you didn't manifest very gently and either recommit to it or let it go.

The only rule of the game: You are not allowed to make yourself wrong for not writing your list, not sending your list, or not doing your list well enough. You are definitely not allowed to make yourself wrong for what you didn't manifest!

Whether you sent in a time capsule or not, what is the thing you created this summer that you'd like to be acknowledged for? (big and small things equally welcome)

p.s. See Jeff on the cover of the Palm Springs paper.

Winter of the Dance

Jeff Pitcher, photo booth pic

I want to congratulate my friends Jeff Pitcher and Mike Schwartz for another inspiring feat!

After they bicycled across the country last year in The Great Sitting, Jeff proposed to his now wife (the wonderful, incredible Keri Smith) and then moved to her home in Flesherton, Ontario. {Mike also came to live with them for the winter to collaborate on a book project with Jeff.}

After bouts of writers block and winter blues, both boys, slightly depressed and with wild imaginations, decided to dance outside in sub zero temperatures on a street corner just to liven things up and see what would happen. What they discovered was how much fun it was, how alive they felt, how happy and free. And so they came back each day, and danced and danced and danced.

An excerpt from a great article in a Sacramento paper says:
On that chilly day, Pitcher--in the throes of a winter depression--grabbed his Discman and hiked to the highway crossroads in the middle of town dressed in pants, snow boots and a large parka. Once there, he danced with eyes wide, limbs gyrating, arms pointing to the sky, snow falling gently on his face. Cars slowed, the drivers staring through their frosty windshields; passersby stopped and pointed; and Pitcher just danced to the music in his headphones. After a couple of hours, he stopped and hiked home. The result was liberating. He returned day after day for several months.

And then they made a movie about it.
(You can see a screen shot here )

There are some extraordinary things about the movie that make me incredibly inspired and happy.
1. It was filmed with a tiny digital Elph point and shoot in "video clip" mode
2. It is one of the more unlikely, ridiculous and wonderfully human things one could make a documentary film about.
3. It is hilarious and honest and poignant and strangely compelling.
3. It is premiering this week at the prestigious Palm Springs International Film Festival.

I am so proud of them! So wish Jeff, Keri and Mike the best this week. They are currently dancing on street corners in Palm Springs during the festival...

Conscious Bookkeeping

just a girl growin up, Canon Digital Rebel

Okay, so I have something to admit.

After five years of having Superhero Designs, I am finally taking on the big project: creating a bookkeeping system. Now I know that I already mentioned that fancy little Quickbooks course a while back, but do you want to know what happened? I took the course for several weeks and then never opened the program on my computer. Hello, resistance!

After going to an introduction for an amazing organization called Conscious Bookkeeping, I realized that I mostly live in an intuitive world when it comes to money. I vaguely know how much I have, I don't balance my checkbook and immediately seize up when anyone mentions accounting. My strategy is simple: I spend as little as possible and hope everything works out in the end. (Very scientific, no?)

I realized that I don't know how to create a budget or plan for the future, how to become financially literate or how to grow in this area. So ladies and gents, it's time for my initiation.

Conscious Bookkeeping offers a six week course here in the Bay Area. Their philosophy is that you can't even get to the bookkeeping part (without glazing over completely) if you don't look at your relationship with money first. Hallelujah.

This is the basic outline of the class:
Phase I - Financial Therapy — exploring your relationship to money on a practical, emotional, psychological and spiritual level
Phase II - Bookkeeping Training — learning to set up & maintain a bookkeeping system for personal & business- creating a practice!
Phase III - Life Visioning — visioning/ taking all the data and creating and living into a values-based Map of Intention (aka budget)

If anyone is interested, let me know! It starts September 22nd and is on Thursday evenings. We can get conscious about our finances together!

eyes shut

orange, purple and green, Canon Digital Rebel

When a friend of mine was a kid, she used to believe that when she and her family drove over the George Washington Bridge, that the wheels of the car would actually go along the suspension wires of the bridge.

She was so terrified at this thought that she closed her eyes really tight every time they drove over it. And of course, it was harrowing each time.

One day, she opened her eyes and noticed that they were actually driving on the road, and that there wasn't anything quite so scary about driving on the bridge at all.

Where are you driving eyes closed, white knuckled, through life?

As I look in my own life, I know that there is an element of this in trying to get pregnant. When we are afraid, we shut our eyes to what it is we know, to what is actually happening, and we are not really present. We are not really in our own experience.

For me, it's not being fully in my body, it's not being grounded in what is, in what is real. I forget what I know.

And you? Where are you afraid and not really present?

flower bits

flower bits, Canon Digital Rebel

It's hard to know what to write about this week. Everything seems sort of silly and unimportant in comparison to what is happening in the world. I find that I vascillate between focusing on the minutae of my life, and then seeing something like this, and just falling apart.

At Glide last Sunday, twelve hundred of us sang the gospel song "Wade in the Water" {God's gonna trouble the water} while images of New Orleans and the hurricane played in the background. We were all a puddle after that.

I am heartened by all of the help, money and love that has poured into this cause. A group called Craft Revolution asked for donations from crafty folks like myself and have already raised over $15,000 (and counting) by selling our wares online. Anything you buy from this site will go directly to the Red Cross. It felt good to contribute in this small way.

......

Some things I didn't photograph this week that I wanted to:

1. A man on crutches with one leg walking his fluffy brown dog who also had one leg.

2. A man in Chinatown pushing his grandmother in a wheelchair, while his wife pushed their baby in a stroller.

3. A piece of art at Creativity Explored that described Utopia as "a place where everyone has to look for things. And then they find them."

...
Big blessings to you all. Tell me any good stories you've got from the week. We need those too.

"He who can take no great interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great." -John Ruskin

wackadoodle

penis rocks, Canon Digital Rebel

In the midst of so much sad news, I offer up a few items to make you giggle today. A tomato fight in Valencia, Spain made me want to initiate a neighborhood food fight, my friend Wendy's impressive phallic rock collection (see above) made me grateful for my wackadoodle friends, and a lovely dinner party welcoming back Jeff and Keri(where we told pee stories for a good solid hour or two) made me remember my self that is silly and maybe even happy. (I have lost touch with this self this year. Hello, long lost friend.)

And while I don't offer these things as a substitute for feeling our grief right now,
for feeling our anger and our hurt, I offer them as a tiny crack of a refuge, a split in the rock where a tiny flower is blooming.

"This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet." -Rumi

Photo Friday: Order

little Valentina, Canon Digital Rebel

Photo Friday's theme this week is "Order."

And of course, there seems to be no order at all in New Orleans right now. The images have been unbearable to me. Still hoping a friend of mine is far away from there...

Some opportunities to give below:
If you have a spare room or couch to offer up and you are within a couple hundred miles of the mayhem, you can find more info here.

Cd baby has a list of artists that are donating the proceeds of their cds to the Red Cross. {via Jinny}

And of course, the Red Cross.