http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/#loc=Seattle%2C%20WA%2C%20USA&lat=47.6062095&lng=-122.3320708&x=-122.3320708&y=47.6062095&z=7

And just think... we're on day 52... and they're saying 120 days to fix it, or so.

Should be no problem at all.  Especially when they're trying to fix it during hurricane season. 

Is it the beginning of our self-made apocalypse? (You know, like a real one, not a fairy tale one.)  Is THIS going to be the thing that gets us off oil?  Will we have any choice?  Will we survive?  Can we survive today without oil - fertilizers, pesticides, medicines, plastic(!), and pretty much everything that makes the world "go" round - is dependent upon oil.  Can we live without the lower part of the food chain known as seafood?  How big? 

Very, very rich people (a comparatively small number of people, but an objectively very large group in the millions) control the vast, vast majority of wealth and resources available on our planet.  But they do so because each of us gave them a little bit of the wealth we were given, over and over again.  In other words, they got rich via the industrial-capitalist system which brought us the products we so deeply believed we wanted and needed. 
A system most of us would defend, with blood if we believed it was necessary, while waving red white and blue star spangled banners.  And before you think you wouldn't kill to defend your beliefs, try following your tax dollars.  See what you (and your children, and children's children) are actually (going to be) paying for (for generations to come, if we aren't bankrupt). 



WAR. 


And war, of course, as we all have known deep down inside, is about oil. 

Love it or not, this is your world.

Sometimes, it's the song that takes you somewhere, instead of you taking the song somewhere.

Sometimes, you just have to start playing, letting the notes come to you as they do in the moment you play them.  Sometimes you have to let the harmony flow into and through you as freely as the air passes through leaves. 

Sometimes you have to just take a chance on yourself.

This will never stop happening.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/caught_in_the_oil.html

The Obama Administration approved the deep-sea well that has so tragically injured our Louisiana coastline.

Indeed

http://www.skyscript.co.uk/scorpio.html

Particularly insightful quotes:  

"No sign ever falls on the negative end of a moral trait; it is only bound to representing an archetypal theme and bringing both extremes of that theme into focus. With Scorpio the inference of deceit picks out the theme of falsity and truth; and as we might expect, those with the acuity to be masters of deceit are also the best equipped to recognise it when they see it.  In their gift of realising deception, rejecting hollowness and seeing through shallow facades, Scorpios are not afraid to expose realty for what it is; they are the emissaries of a more complete sense of truth than many of us are prepared to contemplate, the penetrating aspects of it often being too painfully sharp for comfort. The paradox of Scorpio is that when it is fooling you, it is not really acknowledging you at all. Real communication with this sign means engaging with honesty, no matter how candid, sordid or direct. Cheat you it may - that means nothing; when something really does matter Scorpio won't be fooled and it won't mess around with either pleasantries or mind games.

"Traditionally governed by Mars, Scorpios are genuinely capable of seeming destructive and intimidating, (towards noble ends as well as self-centred interests), because where Mars dominates there is little interest in compromise; the impulse is for active attack or strategic defence, whatever it takes to avoid yielding one inch more than necessary. But the direct, active principle of Mars is sublimated in its nocturnal expression, and like all water signs Scorpios seldom instigate attacks, preferring to hold their power in reserve. This undercurrent of unexpressed energy is the basis of an almost tangible magnetism, a sense of power embedded in the aura that reveals itself expressly when their acute defensive instinct is stirred. It's worth remembering that, as much as it may seem a contradiction, Scorpios strongest line of attack is always in defence, where their fixidity brings enduring patience and determination, and their natural resilience makes them seem practically impassable."

"When Scorpios do engage in conflict their method of operation is perfectly reflected by the terrestrial creature that defines their celestial motif - all scorpions are venomous and all are predators, but they never actively hunt or chase down their prey; instead they patiently sit and wait, months if necessary, proceeding to ambush only when their quarry is close enough to stand little chance of escape. In business and battle Scorpios make inestimable adversaries..."

"Both [Scorpio and Virgo] are feminine signs, so neither is comfortable with an easy, expressive discharge of internal energy; and since Scorpio is of the phlegmatic temperament it is even more driven towards internalisation.  In order to penetrate it must first draw towards it: Scorpio doesn't walk into your territory, it doesn't flirt and cajole, it merely let's its own energy attract, and when penetrating your secrets it does so having lured you to a place where resistance is low."

"Any attempt to skirt around issues, whatever form they take, smacks of insincerity and avoidance, and Scorpios have seen too much, and worked too hard to deal honestly with the darker sides of reality, to engage in a world of pretence. Even in their sarcastic sense of humour Scorpios have a way of reminding us that we may laugh at life, but we should never be too flippant about it."

And we'll go dreami-i-i-i-i-i-ing...

So I had this great dream last night.  It felt so good.  I only remember one moment, but I had fostered a child, a little boy and he was maybe 2, but probably as big as a 3 year old.  He was lying in a crib.  I climbed in, and held his warm body against my bare chest and squeezed tight enough that if I had done so in waking life, I'd probably have killed him.  I laid on my back and he laid his belly flat on mine, and I just hugged and loved him tighter and tighter.  It almost felt like I was taking him right into my heart.  

That felt really, really good.  I woke up and felt incredibly warm and loved and good. Amazing what a little bit of acknowledgment can do for a person.

My sincere thanks to Al S. for his assistance and inspiration of this dream.  It is to touch the face of God itself to receive an acknowledgment from the Anima Mundi.  It's been a while. 

God DAMN it.  I hate getting up at 5.30 in the morning.  I *really* want this to come to an end. When I am done with school, I intend to work for myself, and my hours will NOT start before 10am.  Even that's a little early.  

Plus, I hate that I have so much physical pain all the time.  Like, all the time.  Today, I have upset stomach, kidney pain, back pain and leg pain.  Fucking EVERYTHING HURTS!  I could live without that just fine. 

Someone suggested to me yesterday that it might have something to do with the negative psychic energy I have bound up inside.  Yeah, probably very true.  But these sorts of insights always lead to the same conundrum.  How do you let go of a maladaptive way of being without having replaced that behavior with something else that meets the need that the maladaptive behavior has previously met?  We hold onto these sorts of things because they do something important for us.  Not because we're lazy or because we think there's no better way to be.  But some of us are just "that" fucked up.

Anyway.  I feel spent.  Just so tired - and I just got out of bed.  Blah. 

Twisting, turning, through the nether...

Steve Sickenberger is an asshole.  Like, way, way more than me.  He's a genuinely nasty, ugly, mean individual who actively seeks to injure me professionally, personally, and emotionally.  

He sucks.  

Also on this list, I think, are mmm, Michele Nguyen, Scott Stokes, Kevin Bierworth, and probably one or two others, but I'm not sure, so why say so?  Anyway... what really is most hurtful about the behavior these assholes deliver in my direction is that I've never done anything to any of them.  In fact, I avoid all of them as much as I possibly can.  Oh, yes, I've said something with a sharp tongue to them each at least once.  But that's sort of like yesterday's news in the kitchen, right?  Having a sharp tongue is just something that others (or at least I) should grow a thicker skin around.  Each of these individuals has said MANY things to me that are so far beyond anything I've ever said to any of them I just don't understand.  

They're haters, and I try really hard not to be.  What's so great about beating up on me?

And while I *really* hate this whining shit, I don't DARE access the part of me that makes me feel like I have POWER over these people.  Because that IS the ugly part of me, and that IS NOT the part of me I choose to be, whenever I still have control over that choice.  

I just don't get what people want from me.  Do they want me to blow up at them?  Be ugly toward them?  Do they want me to fail?  Do they want to just be terrible people?  Do they think this is good, or right?  Is it moral behavior?  Ethical?  Is it appropriate or professional?  Is there any justification for it whatsoever?  If not, then what the fuck?  


Just plain old what the fuck?


Why are SO MANY people just worthless pieces of shit?