Self-Parody

A friend has been playing a game of self-parody. (Less likely to give offence, he thinks, than if people parodied each other. He’s probably right.) Having done a wonderful job of catching his own style, he invited others to try it too. Daunting, but of course I couldn’t resist! Here’s my self-parody blog post. Do you think I succeeded? Anyone else game to try?



Sunday market day
I manage so well alone
feel self-reliant
and meet wonderful people
my goodness always so blessed

The day started cool (well, for these parts, that is – but it could be a lot worse, I could be in Melbourne, LOL [Actually I was of course in Melbourne for quite a long time in one of my – ahem! – previous lives … or in fact two of them, with a gap in between when I went to the country … but I digress….].).

Yes, well, as I was saying, the day pretty soon got much warmer, and I was excessively delighted to be in the pavilion! (Dungeon that it is in winter, but one can always rug up – in this neck of the woods, as it happens, we think it’s freezing if we have to wear one jacket – but still, as soon as it hots up around here, the pavilion is the place to be.)

A darling little girl came by with her Mum, and as soon as she caught sight of me in my bright, welcoming outfit and vibrant purple hair, she broke into huge shrieks of laughter, pointed at me and nudged her Mum, who bent down for the child to say something in her ear. She hastily shushed the little girl, but I saw a hint of a smile twitching her lips too as she glanced over at me.

“It’s perfectly all right,” I called to her across the space between us. “She’s drawn to my aura. It happens all the time with these dear little ones.” The mother merely threw a somewhat startled look over her shoulder and bustled the child away.

*Sigh.* So often the parents just don’t – in fact can’t – understand the very special children who are manifesting upon the planet these days. These kids are indeed incredibly drawn to me, and tend to be overcome by spontaneous joy whenever they encounter my energy field! Btw I have no explanation for this; it is simply what is so.

And so it was yet another magickal and auspicious and wonderful day, and once again I was able to give my clients absolutely what they wanted and needed (deep-down, that is, even though in some cases their consciousnesses may not always have allowed them that awareness as yet. Luckily I have learned to be supremely confident of my insights on these occasions, being, as I am, the recipient of so many miraculous gifts)!

“How blessed I am,” I thought to myself for the umpteenth time, as I packed up my car later in the rapidly increasing heat. “Indeed!” I agreed with myself as I steered with gratifying efficiency out of the somewhat awkward parking space that my personal angels had found for me earlier, and drove home over Clothiers Creek Road’s steep, winding hill. Oooh! that steering wheel was HOT! Time to start again with the old towel-over-the-steering-wheel trick when parked for any length of time!

Being very much otherwise occupied tomorrow, I’ll leave you with a promise to post another poem soon from my old mate Thom, who always gives me permission to share his work. We've known and revered each other since the days when I was a famous poet in Melbourne in the eighties, and also when I was very highly acclaimed in Austin, Texas during April of 2006. (Don’t worry if by some chance you've never heard of me; perhaps you’re too young (or too old, roflmao) but basically it’s really entirely my own fault for being too modest in recent years to push myself forward, unlike some others of my more widely-recognised colleagues from that thrilling heyday of the Poets Union (of which btw I was a co-founder back in the day.).)

Oh and, if you would like to read my poetry, you can find many of my poems at my “Lecherous Crone” blog, my “Weekend Limericks” blog, my primary MySpace profile, and of course on Twitter, where I am massively enjoying trying my hand at “tweetpoems” of 140 characters or less, which are frequently re-tweeted by my followers as a way of expressing their admiration. (In my case, of course, it‘s a particularly challenging exercise because I always put a hash tag and the word “poetry” after each tweetpoem so as not to confuse any non-poetic members of the public who may come across them, thereby further reducing the number of characters available.) I am also published in the jocularly titled anthology Wankers Anonymous (Google it!) and will be featured in the first issue of the forthcoming ezine Poetasters Online, ed. by Datura Flight.

on this darkest of nights

By Thom Moon 10
(posted with permission)

i cannot see my hand in front of me

the bush outside my borrowed window is black and deep and dark

absolutely no perspective is gained around me

unless and until i look-UP!

fierce stars and planets in a foreign constellation

beam brightness and illumination

as it is by night-so too by day

your candescence shows me the way

among the rising,falling,spinning frozen stars

to navigate a pathway by the ways of Light

it is a long road to morning

the darkest hour is not before the dawning

it is now,when things seem blackest

we go within -or choose to look without

hope of consolation or maps

There will always be Light above us

and light within-even if obscured

by a context of darkness

Light and change are assured..

TRUST IN CONNECTION EVER/MORE August 19,2009

Market Sunday

It’s that lovely, economical period of the year when we don’t need either the heater or the cooler on. Last Sunday was warm and sunny and gorgeous; it was surprising that some of the market stallholders didn’t turn up. Maybe there was a festival or something somewhere, that the rest of us hadn’t heard about. Luckily a lot of the public had not heard of any such thing either, and came to our market.

There were drummers too, a new troupe in this region, dressed in outlandish, glamorous costumes, all different, the predominant colour bright red. The market organiser had warned me beforehand, knowing that loud noise nearby can interfere with my psychic readings. “They’ll be walking around,” she said. “Not staying in one place.” I bumped into one of them early, doing my rounds before the customers started arriving. It was an old mate I hadn’t seen in some time. She took in my purple-red hair and vibrant red and purple shirt and told me I should be in their troupe!

I loved doing the markets with Andrew all those years – 14 or so. It was companionable and fun, and he did wonderful things for people with his Reiki treatments and Indian Head Massage. I also love doing them on my own now that he’s retired. I’ve enjoyed discovering that I can be capable and self-reliant; now I relish the ongoing experience of that. The gazebo, given to us some years ago by our good friend the Water Filter Man when he got himself a newer one, is very easy to put up and take down. I’ve got it down to a fine art by now and can do it alone and unaided – even though the other stallholders would help if needed.

Newest GodDaughter came to see me! She will be six months old next week, so was conveyed by her parents – her radiant, besotted parents. They handed her to me and settled in for a chat, as I had no customers just then. “Oh look,” they said, “She likes you.” They told me she had just started “getting funny” with anyone but them, but she seemed fine with me. I reflected that I’ve known and held her since a few days after her birth, but they said she even reacts that way with her grandmother. I felt smug. She sucked gently on my shirt and twiddled my sacred pendant. I noticed that she is getting prettier all the time.

“Could she pick a card?” said her mother. I turned her to face the table and drew the cards closer. She selected two which clearly described each of her parents. I encouraged her to try for one more, to comment on herself. She got 4 of Cups, sometimes known as the card of “Divine Discontent”. I explained that it depicts someone who’s got lots of goodies but wants more. Her father said, with a laugh, “She’s been a bit like that lately.”

The drummers started up. They stood in an empty space a few stalls down from me and bashed their instruments fast and loud while a bit of a crowd gathered. Then they started marching and dancing towards us, at the beginning of their “walk around”, rat-tatting all the time. It was wonderful – and it was thunderous. “I think I’ll just take her away a while,” said Newest GodDaughter’s father with some concern. He scooped her up and set off for the far side of the market.

When he returned a little later, he stood holding her as he chatted to me. She suddenly caught sight of me, her eyes focused in and she beamed. Then, still holding my gaze, she laughed and laughed with sheer delight. I’ve never felt so flattered.

Newest GodDaughter at four and a half months, with her Radiant Mum

TURTLE ISLAND(a story forgotten..

By Thom Moon 10
(Posted with permission ... just because I like it.)

She had put the crab pots out and invoked turtle wisdom

(slow,deep,sustaining-with our whole world upon its shell)

Went out to pick up the crab pots

First one empty-second one full of crabs

Third one -something stuck inside

Now the water was clear so she could see down

at a turtle stuck for the past 12 hours

She had to cut him out-he was dead to our world

But she began massaging him ,flipper by flipper

until involuntary movements of his beaked head

assured her that some life was evident

She had done this for hours-praying,meditating,chanting

soothing and caressing until she was able to slip that turtle

back in to the waters(asking a surfboard rider to care for him

As soon as the board rider came close-turtle dived deep and was gone

leaving only this slip of a flipper of a story to share

as evidence that all magick is reversible

What you love is salvageable/beliefs make results real

and we still have a lot to learn from turtles

Like-how did such a huge creation

fit within the tiny entrance to a crab pot trap?

(and how will we ever get out again?

WELCOME TO TURTLE ISLAND TOTEM August 18,2009

Photo © Patricia Geyer 2009

Weight Loss Update

How’s the secret diet?” asks Stepdaughter with a naughty laugh in her voice. I don’t even think, as I reply that I’ve lapsed a bit during this hard winter of lingering colds and low energy. Only afterwards the word registers: “diet”.

People just won’t get it.

IT. IS. NOT. ABOUT. FOOD.

Even the woman I think of as my best friend in these parts snorts testily when I tell her for the umpteenth time that it’s not a diet. “Oh well, whatever you call it then. Eating plan, whatever.” She looks so scornful - despite seeing me scoff the chocolate biscuits - that I give up and refrain from insisting that it isn’t an eating plan either.

We have been so conditioned to believing that weight IS about what you eat. And certainly I have proven that over and over again myself – Lifetime Member of Weight Watchers, successful graduate of Jenny Craig, and so forth. Eating to slim does work … for a while.

Well, why should you believe me? I keep not telling you what we ARE doing. And then I say that we are not sweating off the weight with a harsh exercise régime either.

OK, let me tell you some things I can say. Over the winter Debbie, my massage therapist – who is trained in Swedish, Shiatsu, Reiki, Deep Tissue, Reflexology, Lymphatic Drainage, Advanced Aromatherapy and Cranio-Sacral, and knows how to read a body – thought my thyroid was out of balance. She suggested alkaloid foods. I was worried; if I started a special diet, would it interfere with the credibility of the weight loss program? Would people say afterwards, “Oh she only lost weight because of the thyroid diet?” I said as much to Letitia, the originator of our program. She just gave me a kinda fish-eyed look and said, “When have I ever spoken to you about food? It’s not about that.” So I relaxed and was careful for a little while, and when the doctor had my thyroid function tested it was perfectly in balance. So I stopped worrying about what I was eating.

Then Debbie picked up that my pancreas was a bit out. This was a worry; once before I had been told I had a pre-diabetic condition. I took my blood sugar for a little while, while cutting down on sweets, and requested that my doctor order a blood test. My naturopath and doctor both pronounced that I was not diabetic.

Meanwhile I became concerned about my osteopenia (precursor of osteoporosis) which I know I do have. I found out that the medication prescribed carried its own problems. My chiropractor recommended weight training as the only really efficient way to address the problem. So I started a gentle régime under the guidance of a trainer. I’m afraid I am not very disciplined and it’s been in abeyance a little while, but I do intend to resume.

And I have continued with my Tai Chi classes which I was already doing before going on the weight loss program.

Here is the interesting thing – while I was dieting for my thyroid and pancreas, while I was gung-ho with the weight training, I was not losing weight. I was in my “lapse” from the program and I could tell from my shape and the fit of my clothes that I actually put on a little. Now that I have revived the program, I’m starting to see slimming happening again.

The same happened to us all. It felt like a long, hard winter. Several of the team got sick this winter, sponsorship funding ran out, people at a film conference Letitia attended loved her idea but told her that her approach to the filming could use some changes…. We all either put back a bit of the weight we’d taken off, or stayed the same.

And yet we know the program works. We didn’t lose all the weight we wanted to as fast as we wanted to, but my goodness we did have some dramatic results. And the hiatus has been useful too, making us look deeper at what makes us fat and what makes us fit.

We had a meeting the other day, to hear Letitia unfold her new plans – not for the program, that’s unchanged, but for the way we present it to the world. Exciting stuff! And our enthusiasm is rekindled. We have put our lapses behind us and got back into the swing of it. And guess what, my face is suddenly looking slimmer in the mirror, and I’m doing up my bra on the tightest row of hooks again.

And no, I’m not divulging the details just yet. I don’t care if you think it really MUST be some revolutionary new way of managing food. Mind you, I always have eaten in a fairly healthy way – well, except for the chocolates – but that never stopped me getting fat, and since being on this program I haven’t made any drastic changes to what I eat, when I eat or how much I eat.

I had a lot to lose and I still have more than half of it left, so don’t expect to see me become stick-thin overnight (or at all; I’m not mad on the skin-and-bone look). I don’t know how long it will take. However we now have a digital camera, and almost know how to use it. I intend to post pictures from time to time, of the Incredible Shrinking Woman.

Today I walked into the Neighbourhood Centre and one of the staff – who sees me often – did a double-take and said, “Are you losing weight?” Yeah!

Computer - Developments

People have been so kind with their good wishes and helpful suggestions! My friend Letitia phoned up and said she had a friend who worked at a computer refurbisher much closer to home than the Sydney mob and could get me one that had just come in, for $550. She put her name on it while waiting for them to strip it down and do it up.

Then she happened to mention this in a phone conversation with her brother - who is a Mac computer engineer. He said, "Why are you getting her that model? She won't be able to upgrade." He suggested that it would be affordable to go for the "previous generation" i.e. not the latest model but the one before that, and to look on eBay. He also said I'd have more luck if I would consider a laptop.

Would I? A laptop is my preference! In my role as Secretary of the Neighbourhood Association, I get to use their laptop to take the minutes. It has Windows. I hate Windows! I can find my way around it, usually with some help from the more experienced, but after using Macs all these years I find Windows operations incredibly indirect, circuitous and time-consuming. It would be heaven to just take my own MacBook laptop along to meetings ... and many other places too.

Letitia is a whizz on eBay. She has put a watch on what I want, to see what they're going for. Around $800 it seems. When I get the money together, she will refer any likely-looking models to her brother to assess.

I have emailed close friends and family members with a shameless begging letter, to see if they'd like to give me an early present for my 70th birthday later this year, by chipping in for my laptop. Meanwhile am doing what I can to amass the funds myself, and have the first $100 set aside.

It's wonderful that what had seemed out of reach has suddenly become possible!

And incidentally, my Tarot student who "saw" that I would get a new machine via people who cared about me, actually thought it would be a couple. Letitia and her brother, perhaps?

Rating My Life

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	7.2
Mind:	6.7
Body:	5.9
Spirit:	8.8
Friends/Family:	7.2
Love:	7.3
Finance:	6.1
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

Best Writing Workshop Ever!

Ecstatic write-up at the WordsFlow blog.

If the house is a mess ...

My second husband Bill had a great mate, Lindsay, who used to renovate houses. He said that he'd observed over many years that "the more intelligent the woman, the messier her house". My friend Beth and I used to have standing joke ever after: "I'm having a really brainy day today," meaning, "Ignore the mess" or, "Do come in, I've been ever so dumb lately".

Of course, this was in the era when it was still assumed – in most circles – that housework was exclusively the woman's responsibility. Thank goodness THAT isn't the case any more ... is it?

Magickal Assistance

I mean business about the new computer! So I asked all my witchy friends to please do some magicks to help me manifest it. I know that, with these people, I only need ask and it will be done. Have also done my own working, of course, in conjunction with the full moon.

And yesterday, when teaching a Tarot class, I asked a student to do a reading for me on the matter.

She got that I shouldn't be hung up on getting the latest model but to look at getting an earlier one that would meet my needs and be affordable. She also got a strong message that it would come to me through the help of someone who cares about me.

I went on MySpace last night and there was a message from one of the witchy friends, a lady who lives in America, sending me a link. When I followed that, it was to an Australian mob who refurbish ex-Government and ex-lease computers, with a 12-month warranty on the hardware. (Well researched, eh?) And amongst all the variety of PCs, there was a 17-inch Apple intel for $899, with an operating system that'll work for me. I phoned this morning and learned they have a good supply of this model, so I have time to get the money together, don't have to grab it now (which would not be possible).

Andrew needs a new machine too, though not quite as urgently; this is also do-able in reasonable time, at that price.

Magick works in very practical ways, as all witches know ... and my student is shaping up as a most accurate Tarot reader!

Meanwhile, people both online and local have been booking psychic readings with me, so the computer fund has been started. Whoopee – and thank you, Universe! My thanks, too, to those who responded to my previous post with prayers and well-wishing – it's all powerful.

Why am I soliciting money?

What I love to do is writing, teaching, mentoring, counselling, networking: all the things I do online. Now I have an opportunity to do exactly this in a bigger way and earn some money at it too. I’ll be working with people I already know personally, who are close to me, so I know their integrity and also their skills. I don’t want to say more at this stage as it’s a bit confidential until we get it up and running. It’s a long-term plan, and we’ll be putting the preliminaries in place any minute.

Only, I have a problem. I’ll need much more efficient internet capability than I’ve got.

My computer is old – so old that I can’t upgrade my operating system. This is to do with the hardware, not the software. The hard drive simply will not accommodate anything beyond Mac OS X.3.9 – it doesn’t matter how often I empty my trash, move files on to a back-up disc, etc.

This means I can’t upgrade my browsers either. There are several versions more recent than mine, but they only work for OS X.4 and later. The earlier versions, moreover, are no longer being supported. So even though I can use them, this is fraught with increasing difficulties.

My computer is agonisingly slow. It can literally take hours to complete a few simple operations – by the time the machine thinks laboriously for a long while, the browser jumps unbidden to a different page or to a different location on the same page, and I find I’ve clicked something I wasn’t aiming for because the page has shifted, so I must undo that, or I have to return to the page I was on a minute ago and didn’t mean to shift from, or the cursor freezes and I try a reboot…. There are times I’ve been in tears. And as you can imagine, there are a lot of other things in my life that just aren’t getting done because of the inordinate amount of time my computer operations take.

Can you help me manifest a new computer?

Perhaps you’d like to buy a copy of my latest poetry book, “Secret Leopard” if you don’t already own a copy?

Or would you like to buy a psychic reading or an aura drawing?

Maybe a simple donation? (See Paypal "Donate" button above.)

If you are a praying person, would you be willing to pray hard for me to get the computer I need?

Perhaps you could send energy and intention towards that goal? Or visualise its attainment?

If you can work magick, will you please help by doing a working for me to get the right computer?

And if you are a healer, please send healing vibes to the situation.

Or just wish me luck. ☺

Many thanks!