The Beautiful Answer

Reframing the Future

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 03:22:00 -0400

I can’t believe it, but this is my 365th post. It’s been a year since I started this blog, beginning with a line from an e.e. cummings poem as my inspiration:

“Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.”

In the year I’ve been writing, I’ve asked a lot of questions. It began with wanting somehow to release some of the negativity I felt surrounded me, to let go of some aspects of myself that I had outgrown, and release some people who weren’t really making my life a more loving and rewarding place to be.

As I began to actually go out of my way to search for the beauty, I found it. Almost immediately I could feel my heart and spirit becoming lighter. Which is not to say that all of a sudden, everything got amazing and better. But I started looking deeper and even deeper. I started noticing more. Stuff that used to bug the crap out of me, like the endless whining for more love, more attention and more … whatever someone didn’t have, began to sound like background noise.

In reframing my present, I found. I was reframing the future as well.

There is no real way to tell where any of us are going, even though I work in the realm of the intuitive every day, and have seen first hand how much this stuff works. But I know that I am headed in a far better direction than the one I had going a year ago. I don’t have to search for happiness now. It’s sitting right in front of me.

I can take my camera and find a shaft of sunlight, or a little kid blowing bubbles, and everything changes. In that moment, I have found contentment, all on my own, not counted on someone else to determine my mood. I have claimed an entirely new set of tools to work with, broken them in, and even shared them with some of my clients.

So on this last day of this blog, I want to say thank you to the people I have met. You are a cool bunch, with lots of interesting things to say. You’re funny and human and endlessly searching for that one perfect photo, or post, or joke to share with others. Because blogging is nothing but sharing, after all. So in that spirit, I invite anyone who wants to stay in touch to join me at http://www.sassypsychic.com. Think about signing up for the mailing list (don’t worry, I don’t overemail, and you always have the choice to unsubscribe), friending me on Facebook, or following me on Twitter (links on the left side of the Sassy Psychic home page).

I hope your journey is made happier for being here.

Channeling re: Upcoming Astrology

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 02:53:46 -0400

From a channeling session I did earlier this evening, about the upcoming Saturn direct and then Uranus-Pluto square, in case it helps:

Dear Ones, you do not need to be alarmed. The channel and those who follow her know that this one needs no introduction. Her need to support you and tell you of the upcoming troubles ahead is noble. But we ask you this: What time do you need to be home? How do you mean to get there? And when the bus arrives, do you stand in the middle, the back, or the front?

These may sound like idle questions coming from invisible super beings, but we assure you, they’re anything but. The questions have to do with the pressure currently being applied by the physical universe to choose a path and go with it. We send those into the world, such as the channel, who can make our words more concrete for those who cannot see and hear. We send those like the channel to those who cannot have faith in their own abilities, or seem to choose between a semblance of paths in front of them. It is time to choose, dear babies.

This is not so you gain recognition, or gain a gold star in the bargain. It is to bargain with larger forces inside yourself. The voices that want you to fail inside your head must be banished, just as outside action is taken on your part and on the parts of others to make the world a better place must be bettered and increased over time. There will be applied pressure from all sides.

We have said over and over again that it is not our world to waste. It is the divine right of the planetary activity to help some and hinder others. This is not a punishment, and it’s not meant to hurt. As the channel has suggested humorously on more than one occasion, it’s best to go fetal and protect your midsection, lest you get hurt.

We send the lightest beings toward the end of the planetary subsistences, when they are most needed. These will guide you through the next phase of your evolution. We send them directly to you, so you know where to turn when the energy gets darkest. We know you can and will pull through any troubling times with the utmost in grace because the channel has told us you are cool folks who can be counted on to travel in high style. We send the utmost to you, and then the lowest, so you know where you are at any given time.

Far from being a horrible time in history, it will be one of reconnection with the truly mattering, and allow most humans to find the true love they have been falsely seeking from romance novels and advertising. It will be a millennium of truly admirable traits from an admirable bunch of light beings. Carry forth your individual qualities, your inner resolve and your true nature. These will be the things that save us.

Idio-Syncrasies

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 02:58:00 -0400

As we near the inevitable astrological pairing of Uranus and Pluto, along with the direct movement of Saturn, I and many of my more sensitive clients have noticed a few things. People seem to already be in panic mode of one sort or another, taking everything on and becoming pretty damn reactive. This aspect is once in a lifetime, and serves to literally force us to choose between that which pleases us and that which serves the greater good of humanity, the planet, and our respective relationships.

Not to sound dire or anything like that, but it’s some pretty serious shit. Channeling to come tomorrow night.

I have been drawn to this word idiosyncrasy when trying to describe to people how the energy feels to me. It’s unique, that’s for sure, and very no nonsense — very strong at the core, acting a battering ram and a funnel all in one. But when I looked it up, I found out that the word derives from Ancient Greek meaning “one’s own” with “mixture.”

That sounds like something that would be ready and able to meld a bit, to let some personal things go in order for the whole to thrive. But so far, and we’re not even to the meat of the aspect yet, my experience has been that most are still looking out for themselves, feeling sorry for their inability to get what they want every second of every hour, and giving very little thought to the idea of the collective.

With aspects this strong, we don’t really have a choice. Planets are always going to be bigger and stronger than we are. So it’s always best to cooperate with them as best we can. This blog was started nearly a year ago with the thought of looking for what’s beautiful in the world on a daily basis, what’s hidden behind all the stress and inability to see beyond our own issues. It’s somehow fitting that the blog will end as this aspect applies which, if we’re not aware and intentional, could rob us of that ability to see beyond, to the very truth of our being.

We do not need to be idiots (derived from that same root of “one’s own”). This was a huge diss in their culture, because not taking part in the communal aspects of life was considered a detriment for the entire society. We need to melt a little, to give up something in order to take part of what we need. To not do so is to love ourselves and the next guy less, and that ends up serving no one.

Just A Few More Posts Left

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 03:05:48 -0400

Just three more posts after this one until I’ve officially kept The Beautiful Answer alive for a full year. Wow.

As I get closer and closer to what this actually feels like for me, I’m happy that I managed to stick with something on a daily basis for pretty much the entire year. Four posts were either skipped because I was sick or traveling, and one because I just didn’t feel like writing anything that day.

One thing this blog has definitely hammered home for me is the idea of impermanence. Sure, it’s easy to grasp the concept intellectually, that things don’t last. That as each breath leaves our body, one more moment is moving into the past. But it’s another thing to write down your experience every day for 365 days in a row, watching things that annoyed or amazed you yesterday move into the past as well.

Sometimes I marvel at why people like blogs so much. They offer a place to vent, or keep private thoughts, but only if you don’t mind they’re not really being all that private. For me this has been as much about shifting my perspective on a daily basis, of making that a true spiritual practice so I get used to it, than anything else.

After a few more posts are written, I have no idea what I will do. And that in itself is a pretty cool place of freedom to be in.

Exhausted But Happy

Sun, 17 Jun 2012 02:06:06 -0400

I’ve been traveling a lot lately, which always tends to change you somehow. It may be simple as seeing a spontaneous standing ovation in the airport lounge on the way to Baltimore, as veterans from WWII emerged from the airway. It may be as complex as overhearing intimate conversations you’re not supposed to hear — what the baby likes to eat, when you’ll be home from your trip, who’s speaking in low tones to someone clearly not their spouse.

It may be as great as meeting people who show up to hear the written word spoken aloud in Phoenix, or just to see what you’re like, what your journey has been like as you set it down on paper. That’s pretty gratifying, too. But after a while, you get tired of the wheels spinning beneath your feet and you want to come home again, exhausted but happy, to see what you’re going to get up to next.

I don’t know what this is, this next path that will carry me forward. I have some idea, of course, but always like to stay open to suggestion. Most likely, I’ll keep writing a project I started a little while ago, maybe start writing a new play as well. The days will pass and I will travel more, meeting more people from different walks of life. And my life will be informed, and feel fuller and richer and just the slightest bit more human because of it. Did I mention that I love being alive?

My Advice? Go Fetal & Stop Fighting

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 02:19:47 -0400

Some people don’t believe in astrology, the same way they believe that herbs don’t work, or Western medicine is better than Eastern, though Chinese medicine, for example, has been treating billions of people over many centuries.

That’s cool if you don’t want to believe the paragraph-long horoscope you find in most newspapers. It’s actually a lot more complicated than that. But most sane people will admit that planets have strong gravitational pulls and act on us just as the Moon pulls the tides back and forth each day.

In ten days’ time, we’ll be undergoing a pretty seismic shift, astrologically speaking. Saturn, planet of structure and planning, will go direct (it’s been retrograde since February 7th), while the planets Uranus and Pluto square one another. That’s a pretty big deal, since it happens only every 70 years or so. The last time is happened, the Great Depression was in full force, people were suffering everywhere, Adolph Hitler rose to power in Germany, and the entire world was plunged into war. Various economies were ruined, and took years to rebuild following an Allied victory.

Which of course does mean that we should all quit living, go underground and drink beer all day while listening to Joy Division. But planets are bigger and stronger than we are individually. Chances are, if you’re not on the path the universe wants you to be on, it will not so subtly shoved you onto a better path ASAP.

My advice? Cooperate!

Going fetal for a bit may be the best bet, as long as you’re willing to listen to what’s going on in your heart and in the world at large. What you’re called to do right now you’re probably supposed to do, as long as it doesn’t involve harming yourself or other people. Stop fighting what’s more powerful, and learn to cooperate. That’s the message of this time in history. Don’t let “them” tell you that someone (some group, religion, or other target) is at fault for all your problems. Don’t be that easily manipulated.

Instead, taking a temporarily passive stance, just long enough to listen to the sounds of your life calling, may well help to avert whatever darkness want to rise in the world.

Riding the Ups and Downs of Progress

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 03:06:58 -0400

Ever notice that whenever you’ve got a lot going on in your life, the next moments, which are just kind of fine, seem disappointing? I’m sure it has to do with all the adrenaline moving through your system, all the hormones coursing through our bodies for one reason or another.

I suppose that if you’re not careful, you could get addicted to that. After all, there’s no drug that’s better than what our bodies can do. We have all the serotonin we need, unless we’ve been born with some sort of deficiency. We produce hormone spikes, and insulin surges, and even endorphin rushes so powerful people get addicted to whatever’s producing them. We believe heroin’s better than sleep, or meth is better than running.

Shyah. As if the body doesn’t always know better.

Though I’ve noticed some of this behavior in myself, the wanting things to always exist at a breakneck pace, I’m also smart enough to know that lack of sleep just makes you stupid, and doing lots of drugs and alcohol just doesn’t make me happy.

So I’m gonna become a master surfer of the ups and downs of progress. And on days when things aren’t huge and hyper and fabulous, I’m going to take a mental break from all that, read a good book, and let my mind rest. It’ll probably thank me later.

F*ck Perfect

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 02:29:23 -0400

I’ve found a new motto. In working with suffering people every day, and having done a fair amount of suffering myself, I’ve come to understand a few things:

1. That life sometimes has suffering. Probably no way around that.

2. That we add to our own suffering, often without realizing it, by believing on a very deep level that we have to be perfect.

3. Perfect doesn’t exist.

4. Therefore, f*uck perfect.

More to come. But I’d consider this a pretty big breakthrough. I’m sick of telling my friends, family members and clients to try harder. To keep striving for something they may never attain. Not that you shouldn’t try in life, but hell, finding yourself even one step closer to your goals is a success, in my book.

So perfect, watch your back. I’m comin’ for you.

Why the Hell Not?

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 03:08:19 -0400

This question is going through my mind more and more as the days fly by. I only have a few more posts until I get to the one year mark with this blog, and will have to post some channeling about it before I finish this up.

Today, all I can seem to think about are moments from my past. They seem to come out of nowhere, leveling me with their intensity, until I’m forced to start looking for patterns. These are people from my past that I have not thought about for years, and others that I have set aside to grow in my own direction. What they have in common I do not yet know.

When I was younger, I was a little dreamer without much time to dream. From my earliest years, I’ve always had a lot of jobs, and did my writing and performing (then, at least) on the side when I had time. I was taught to be afraid of nearly everyone and everything, lest it somehow be coming along to take advantage of me. But I was hungry for experience, and soon learned to throw off my fears. Not that I’m never fearful, mind you. I just have a much better handle on what’s useful fear, and what’s not.

As this blogging project draws to a close, and things have opened up for me in an incredible new way, I’ve been thinking about how far I have come since I was that fearful little kid, and what it all might mean in the scheme of my larger life. Though I don’t have all the answers, and they’re not really tying themselves up into neat little bundles of understanding, I do have a new resolve, a WTF spirit about me, more than usual.

If I don’t know exactly where all this is taking me, I can say why the hell not, and dive in with a little more conviction. That right there I can do.

Leaving Some Behind

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 03:38:54 -0400

One of the things that happens when you approach a goal — losing weight, say, or even publishing a book — is that you find you’re doing stuff other people aren’t. It doesn’t mean you’re better or really all that much different in terms of the stuff that makes us all human. We all want love, for example. We all need water, food and shelter. We all push away what we don’t like, and pull toward us whatever has caught our fancy.

What this stuff does do, however, is illustrate how you’re different, highlighting precisely the things you don’t want to look at, at least if you’re like me. Not a lot of people will write book during this lifetime, the same way most will not know what it’s like to lose a lot of weight and literally become a new person. While the person doing those things is trying to catch up to the new “them” they have become, they also realize, sometimes as they look back where they’ve come from, that they’ve inadvertently opened up a pretty big distance between them and other people.

It’s not intentional, and it’s not why I do what I do. But sometimes, even when you’re not trying to, what you do opens this distance. Other people are doing what they do. You’re doing what you do. It’s just what happens over time.

Over the years, I’ve gotten a lot more OK with the fact that this happens. I used to fight it really hard, wanting to bring everyone along on my journey. But then I got really tired, and realized this really wasn’t possible.

It has to be OK to leave some behind as you take big leaps in your life. Though it’s sad, and you miss them a little (or a lot, as the case may be), it’s necessary to keep you on your path toward your highest development. For me, this is beginning to move pretty fast, and is only likely to get faster after Saturn goes direct (more on that soon). Getting more and more and more into allowing as this begins to manifest. Whatever is left behind worked for a time and then needed to move into the past. I’m OK with that.

So Incredibly Close

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 02:38:24 -0400

You know when you get so close to something you’ve been working for for so long that, well, people say you can taste it? Strangely enough, it’s not my sense of taste that’s most engaged when this happens, but you for you, maybe that’s what happens. Instead, it’s my sense of touch and smell that get most affected.

First, I can feel with my hands how the energy begins to change when I’m very close to breaking through. It opens up in a way that feels like nothing else. You know how it feels when you move your hand through an open window, when it just moves easily through space? This is how it feels to me.

Second, I begin to smell it, almost like I’m running a race, and beginning to catch up to the lead runner. I can see the sweat on the back of this person’s neck, hear the air moving through his lungs, and witness his chest moving up and down as he races for the finish line. But it’s the smell that brings it into three dimensions for me. I can smell his feet, hot in his sneakers, straining to bring him there faster. I can smell his fear coming out of his pores, that after so much work, he may end up finishing behind me. And I can smell everything going on around the race — the air like a cross between fresh paper and jasmine, the water chck-chck-chking from the sprinkler on the lawn, the smell of the shampoo in my hair, as it streams into the air behind me.

This is a race that plays out in my mind a lot these days. I am gaining on this runner every day. And with the energy this open, who knows where it will all end up?

Into the Abyss

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 02:29:09 -0400

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. ” — Joseph Campbell

I’ve been thinking about this quote a lot today, for a few reasons. The first is that I’m considering what I want to learn next. I keep adding to my skill set every few years, and love to keep learning and learning. Honestly, I don’t even care of it’s practical or if I use it. I just love to read and learn and engage with new information.

The second I suppose I used to believe that you had to suffer to make good art. That to make money or even have a semi-comfortable existence due to your art was “selling out,” and that somehow getting attention was too awful to consider. I was stupid then.

I’ve come to realize it’s not about the suffering, but about the abyss. To be able to sidle up to it, run toward it, or peek over the edge isn’t just a fear-producing form of torture. It’s a privilege, an opportunity the universe grants so you’ll first of all be more appreciative for your life, which always looks a lot better when you’ve looked into the abyss, and second of all will see more deeply into human experience, and be able to create from that place. No matter what you do, music never sounds the same if you’ve had a near-death experience. Art doesn’t look the same, relationships with people you care about don’t feel the same, and really nothing will ever be the same. So you live in that place every day.

So the next time I stumble, I’m gonna give a little fist pump of joy when I’m on the ground. If that’s where the treasure is, I’m gonna look for it, roll around in it, revel in it until I find the good stuff.

A New Leaf

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 03:10:21 -0400

I’m feeling really different these days. I don’t know, fresher somehow, lighter and with some sort of renewed purpose. I’m not ordinarily someone who sits around wondering why she’s here. I’m pretty directed that way, and endlessly curious. So I could pretty much go on learning for the remainder of my days.

But when I get in touch with my emotions, and the sensations I feel in my body and in the energy around me, it’s as if the universe is pushing me forward somehow, asking me to take a broader role in the world. Part of me knows what to do, what is being asked. Part of me doesn’t. So on most days I’m content to take one more step toward whatever.

But then I started thinking about trees, and how they lose their leaves once a year. Sure, the process is visible in fall, when the leaves are turning color and hitting the ground, but it must begin in summer. Just when the leaves are losing their very greenest color, and the air is getting hotter, the tree is agreeing to change. It’s setting forth a contract to do what it always does — move into the inevitable slowing down of autumn.

I feel like those leaves, making an agreement to move through the intense changes of spring and summer, so that things can slow down a bit in fall. I love that time of year, anyway. There’s something deeply reverent and still about it. And this fall, there’s something in me that says I’ll be in a far better and more enjoyable place, even though there’s absolutely nothing wrong with right now.

Working with Confusion

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 02:32:12 -0400

On any given day, I work with a lot of confusion. Usually, I’m so busy trying to see through it intuitively, so I can help someone release old, negative patterns from their past and bring in newer, fresher and healthier patterns for their future, that I don’t see how much of it I’m actually weeding through each day. That came to a screeching halt during the work I did with my clients today.

I was trying to help someone see why they had tried many times and failed to find a wonderful romantic relationship. Normally, you want to approach this so the person sees the pattern themselves, then accepts that they need to release it in order to be happy, rather than acting upon them, and forcing your version of what works and what doesn’t. So she was getting pretty near the pattern in question, then circling back, not quite seeing it but still, practically touching on it, but wasn’t quite willing to accept that it was this belief she had inside herself, about her ability to get the real kid of love she was seeking, which was the primary culprit.

“Do you think it might be this?” she asked.

“Do you?’ I responded, trying not to sound combative or petty.

A few moments passed. I could practically hear her mind turning the idea over and over.

“I’m gonna chance it,” she finally said.

I asked her what she felt she was risking by letting go of a thought pattern that had her believing she could only have love for a few months, and then not at all.

“It feels like me,” she said. “Like it’s been part of me for so long that I don’t know who I’d be without it.”

That’s what we call a bingo moment.

Finally, she let me remove the pattern and install a healthier one in its place. At the end of our session, she said she felt lighter and less stressed out. But it got me thinking about how we want to cling to whatever feels like us, even if it’s unhealthy, or brings us nothing but grief. How whatever feels familiar is a better ally than an outright enemy.

After the session, I did a little group energy work, to let go all the energy of confusion for everyone I was working with, so they could release anything that was standing in the way of clarity for them, or obscuring their ability to see what was best in the moment.

About an hour after that, I got an email out of the blue from a client I had worked with late last week. “Just wanted to say I feel so much clearer now,” she said, “and grateful for our time together.”

That, people, is why I continue to do this each day.

Never Too Late

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 02:05:07 -0400

Just got through watching the first episode of Push Girls, an interesting new reality series about four attractive wheelchair-bound women living in Los Angeles. Sure, it’s great that they’re smart and spunky and directed. It’s great that they can do a lot to smash stereotype of ableism ,and show that people in wheelchairs can do all sorts of things, even be independent.

My only question is: Why does a reality series always have to focus on the most vapid traits in us?

Think about it. In Push Girls, there’s a quadraplegic trying to make it as a model. OK, not a problem. If you’re willing to break down those walls, more power to you.

My issue is that she’s 36. That’s paleolithic in model years. To this character, it seems like there are two jobs: working in an office, which she’s dismissed because of the lack of mobility in her hands and fingers, and modeling. Heaven help the rest of us.

Maybe I had my expectations up too high, hoping to see, say, a woman in a wheelchair who was a mechanic, or a teacher, or a member of the clergy. I was hoping to see paraplegic restauranteurs, travel agents, movie critics, and bankers. In short, I was hoping to see “real” people doing real things with their lives.

I live in Los Angeles, and I know there are a lot of body conscious, model and actor/actress-wannabee people here. I’ve just grown weary of everyone on earth wanting to be a model. I don’t wish this woman ill — not at all. I just wish the spunkiness in these women extended to doing things that — let’s be real and honest here — are just as valuable as having your picture taken, or showing up to auditions.

Why does seemingly every reality show have to start out with every single character launching a tour, putting out a record, getting their headshots taken, or heading to a high-powered meeting with an agent? Perhaps all the naked striving and jockeying for attention, even if it’s negative, was what lost me the first time around.

Hey, it’s never too late to turn the channel, I suppose.

Searching for Sassy's First Award!

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 16:01:00 -0400

Super excited to report that my book Searching for Sassy: An L.A. Phone Psychic’s Tales of LIfe, Lust & Love has just won its first award, as a finalist in the Indie Excellence Book Awards!

Yay and double yay!

The response has really been great, and I am so grateful for all the reviews I’ve already received.

Onward and upward, to see what’s next. :)

Searching for Sassy on Sale!

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 02:50:00 -0400

Just found out that my book Searching for Sassy: An L.A. Phone Psychic’s Tales of Life, Lust & Love is on sale at Amazon for just $13.96!

Not bad. Not bad at all, considering it’s about $5 off the cover price.

Also, I’m offering a small gift for anyone willing to read the book and offer an honest review on Amazon. In case you’re in the marketing for a reading, some healing energy work, or another service I offer at SassyPsychic.com.

For most authors, reviews can make or break the book, so if you’re interested in that, please message me and let me know you’ve bought the book, are reading it or have read it and plan to review.

Much thanks from your humble Sassy Psychic. :)

Me 2.0

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 03:05:08 -0400

It’s starting to sink in that I’ll soon be finished with this blog, 365 days of almost daily posting, reframing my experience to find the beauty in my daily life if necessary, and finding ways got work with the challenging and the rest. Before I’ve even finished the 365th post, though, I’m noticing that a profound change has already come over me.

I started this blog because I was noticing a lot of negative people around me. It started to really build up for me — all the bitching and griping, spending previous moments complaining about the same things over and over instead of ever doing anything about them. I got the feeling that these people somehow expected others to build their lives for them, to take the responsibility that was rightfully theirs to make them happy.

Beauty is always the antidote to complaining, I have found. Try spending a day in nature when you’re in a bad mood if you don’t believe me.

The Me 2.0 that’s emerging is less afraid, less burdened by other people and their issues. Not that I don’t care about people. I just find their intentions to stay stuck a lot less interesting, and a lot less of a drag on my own energy fields. I feel freer, lighter and happier overall. I enjoy doing my work, and so many new avenues to work have opened up for me of late that I enjoy a great deal of gratitude as well. I’ve met some great friends during the past year and, if we’re continuing the software metaphor, believe there are fewer and fewer sucky people in the world.

In an era of few morals and even fewer reasons to believe, that’s a pretty big deal.

The Bubbles of Eagle Rock

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 03:07:21 -0400

Sometimes, life takes you by surprise. You’re driving along a sunny Los Angeles street one afternoon, kind of spacing out, just enjoying the light bleeding over the horizon as the sun makes its way southward again. The radio may be on or off, it doesn’t really matter. Your fingers may be tapping the wheel a little, as you coast to a stop at the light.

And then you see the bubbles, luminescent in the afternoon sun, a multitude of colors undulating back and forth as they make their way across the street. You see the kids then, doubled over with laughter, blowing as fast as they can until the entire street is filled with bubbles. You see them drifting across one lane then two and three until they’ve covered the cars in both directions.

And the kids keep laughing, and people are actually making eye contact now, smiling at each other in their cars, at the kids giggling and blowing bubbles for their lives on their way home from school. There are so many of them, you can’t quite believe it. All those fragile bubbles, managing to stay together at once, almost like a squadron of little colored balloons.

The kids have no idea what they’ve just done. They’re just trying to have a little fun between the boringness of here and the relief of there. Maybe you imagine that it’s the last day of school, and they’re looking forward to a summer of not much at all.

But they crack our hearts open a little, and widen our surprise at the way life has a way of making us laugh and wonder and know there’s some force up there pointing out our innate connection, just so we don’t miss it.

Calling a Bully's Bluff

Thu, 31 May 2012 01:50:49 -0400

What do you get when you call a bully’s bluff, or do the equivalent of pushing him or her down without all that messy violence?

Most of the time, you get your way.

During some of yesterday and the early part of today, I stood up big to a bully. He’ll remain nameless for the moment (no need to bring even more attention to someone who doesn’t deserve it). But suffice it to say that I, uh, got my way.

I didn’t start a fight, throw punches or go all Krav Maga on his ass. That’s not my style, anyway.

Instead, I just stood there, demanding to be seen and heard, quietly claiming my ground. This will change everything going ahead.

We’ll work together knowing that we are equals, and that we must communicate clearly and openly if what we’re doing is to succeed. He may still have his issues, and I may still have to look the other way when his, um, tendency to want to senselessly dominate rears its ugly head. Not my job, man, to fix that guy. I’m here to get shit done.