The exotic life

A friend you may know - Rabbit in serious need!

Lily — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:15:02 GMT

A most delightful Tribe being, you may know him as Cydh or as DaZed or as Rabbit, lost his place back in February and promptly disappeared, and all who cherish him for his outrageousness and fun and artistry and clear loving heart have been worried. Word has finally filtered back that yes, he and his two beloved (and largeish) dogs and girlfriend were indeed on the streets, and it got worse and worse, finding and losing another place (maybe two of them, not clear to me yet), and having to send the dogs to the pound, running completely out of $ and yet still trying to keep working. Luckily he's gotten back in touch with some Tribesters, here's a link to the most recent blog post: http://people.tribe.net/prayoga/blog/76bfb3a5-cc24-427e-9a75-98ab1406902b and things actually have a hope of breaking thru and being OK now, right in the next 24-48 hours. But this man needs $ - I think most particularly to get his dogs out of the pound fast before somebody adopts them, and if their pound is like hours, we're talking hundreds just for that. I hope that everyone can chip in a little bit thru PayPal (oh if only we'd had access to him before, this would have been done long before), and together we can pull off yet another miracle -- there sure have been a lot of miracles needed lately, many are going thru serious crises, and yet I find that when people pull together in a focused way, like a flash mob, we pull it off quite effortlessly. Almost like thumbing our noses at the forces of misery that do seem to be attacking left and right these days. But hah! light and love win. Please join me in pitching in to the pot of love and power thru PayPal. The e-mail to send to is micaelcl@hotmail.com. And blessings and protection on all who do. Sending love and success energy to this little family -- to smooth out all these complex processes they must succeed at right away -- will also be very good and very helpful. Time for the EZ button to be pushed and the problem to be erased, with no harm done.

Raquy & the Cavemen live!

Lily — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:34:42 GMT

Through the incredible luck we've been having around here lately (it seems like everybody's doing something creative and being hugely successful at it), a local dancer friend persuaded Raquy Danziger & her band to play at our new local club Mendonesia's grand opening Saturday night. (This, by the way, will be about the only place in town that stays open past 9:00 p.m. weekends!) They're on their west coast tour and will end up at Tribal Fest in Sebastopol next weekend. (I'm going there too, you betcha!) For those who don't know, Raquy & the Cavemen (from NYC) blew Tribal Fest 6 out of the water couple years ago with their most unusual and unique fusion middle eastern/balkan/turkish/whatever! music, very heavy on the dumbeks (all kinds of 'em) and with the kamanche (a strange stringed instrument, very hypnotic and soul-stirring) playing a starring role. Then I saw them last year at TF7 and about lost my mind. Last fall Liron Peled of the group came by to visit our mutual friend and gave a workshop, and since then my dumbek partner and I have been intensively studying the Raquy style of dumbek. I think (and I have company) that this group (small, but joined by other musicians at most venues) is really about the top group today playing dumbek. So this time, not only a performance by local dancers, and the show itself, but on Sunday Raquy gave a dumbek workshop. This was so great because it was a small group and she showed us some advanced hits and techniques, and I think she really liked doing that because she seemed to really get enthusiastic at that point. After all, she's doing a workshop at every stop on the tour, and it must get awfully old to teach a bunch of strangers to dum-tek-ka over and over and over!! My hand is at the point where I can do most things now without a brace so I was able to keep up in the workshop - but as soon as it heals more, I'm going to learn those snaps, and the Turkish split hand/finger technique too. The show went very well, huge crowd for this town, with most everyone including me stuffed at the back (SRO)--I got asked to take photos of the event as the scheduled photographer didn't show. I've put a few up with my photos. Here's a link to their samples page on their website: my favorite CD is, still, "Jordan" and I recommend checking that one out first to hear the kamanche - http://www.raquyandthecavemen.com/cmcd.shtml

Chemtrails get more stylish

Lily — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:52:20 GMT

I just took this and another photo at my house at lunch today. We've been having chemtrails galore here for the past few weeks after a break of over a year. I don't know how they accomplished this - it wasn't there this morning - but it is a perfectly clear blue-sky day, so of course they're going to spread this stuff all over it!

Fun for the head from Rob Brezny

Lily — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:32:36 GMT

Amazing, mindblowing, and creepy statements from Rob Brezny's latest newsletter: "I used to be an atheist until I realized that I was God." - Deepak Chopra Banging your head against a wall consumes 150 calories an hour. Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns. Life is "a meaningless existential hell," say 26 percent of American male college students. Most Americans would vote against the Bill of Rights if it were presented to them in a referendum. The odds that Elvis Presley will crash-land a UFO on the head of the Loch Ness monster are 14 million to one, according to a British betting agency. Heroin addiction causes constipation. More than half of the pianos in the world are out of tune. An underground economy that runs on marijuana, porn, and the services of illegal immigrants comprises 10 percent of the American economy. Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet and kills more than a thousand people a year. Sleep deprivation, which has reached epidemic proportions, is akin to drug abuse in the way that it dramatically lowers competence levels and causes aberrant behavior. Queen Ranavalona of Madagascar decreed that if any of her subjects appeared in her dreams, they would be killed. Thomas Edison was afraid of the dark. Big drug companies don't invest in the development of a new drug if it's a cure for a relatively rare disease that wouldn't affect enough people to generate a substantial profit. In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated. An Alabama court upheld a ban on the sale of vibrators, ruling that there's no constitutional right to an orgasm. Mosquitoes have teeth. The sun's mass decreases by four million tons per second, and our home star will die a few billion years from now. Every time an actor portraying a doctor performs a particular kind of surgery on a popular soap opera, real doctors are sought out to perform the same surgery at a dramatically higher rate. You're more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than a poisonous spider. Mortuary workers in Zimbabwe rented corpses to drivers who wanted to take advantage of the priority given to hearses in gas-station lines. None of Socrates' writings survive. In Jon Rappoport's book *The Secret Behind Secret Societies,* hypnotist Jack True says he rarely practices his craft any more because most of his clients are already in a light trance when they come to see him. What was an hour ten years ago is now only 52 minutes. Every night, millions of Americans are tormented by nightmares of the CIA overthrowing the democratically elected governments of Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Brazil in 1963, and Chile in 1973. Israeli scientists are working to perfect a procedure whereby they harvest eggs from aborted human fetuses, fertilize them, and transplant them into the wombs of infertile women, thereby making the donor fetus an unborn mother. This is Rob's site: www.freewillastrology.com

Pacha Mama performs - what a rush!

Lily — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:16:33 GMT

Finally the months and months of rehearsals and changes and rewrites and experiments and tense moments with our esteemed leader, who always decides at some point we are not and never will be ready, and commences to freak, lol! -- finally time to get up on stage and kick ass!!!!! I sprained my wrist just one week earlier but my first thought when I hit the floor that day was "conga performance in one week - and this is to *not* stop me!" Have made incredible progress (thanks to awesome energies being sent my way and my friends' love) and so I re-handed my parts to just one hand (worst case scenario), and realized sadly I just wouldn't be able to do the wonderful variations I had planned ('cept for one or two) -- but then I got a new, short brace/splint on Sat. that was awesome!!! and gave me full use of my fingers. So I re-handed the parts again (I am a left-handed drummer, you see) and found a way to fake some bits, and came up with new and improved variations, and after dress rehearsal, I knew it was going to work and I could not only play, but rock out quite a bit, too. This performance, to a packed house -- they really loved us!!!! it was incredible -- this was the most intense and best performance of any kind I've ever done, because I fell completely IN IT. You know what I mean? I had some pain in my wrist at the start, yes -- but by the middle you could have dropped a building on me, honey, I wouldn't have noticed. And it was actually healing to my wrist to pound away like that. I am used to it, after all. The most powerful rush of energy was flooding thru me and thru all of us -- I knew we were going to be doing something really special and impressive, but I couldn't believe, as it was happening, how incredibly good we were! I could not believe it. What an experience. We were absolutely flying and the improvs and playing out were extraordinary, passionate! I felt like this energy had me, and it was so exciting I actually started screaming there on stage--plus I was locked into the energy of the whole group (12 all together, but only 9 played on the big finale, just advanced players) And people dancing like mad, too. It felt while doing it like I never wanted to ever stop doing exactly this, ever, ever!!!! for the entire rest of my life, that this was *it* past all imagining and nothing could ever be more right. I've never felt that before except at peak dance mode. First time ever with drums. As usual, only a few usable pictures -- and as usual, the best pictures were taken by the person with the worst camera. It's so weird to see how still we all look in the photos when still was the very last word you'd ever think of to describe it. So I was about to quit conga entirely for a while, to focus on dumbek -- guess not!

owie!

Lily — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:58:15 GMT

i'll be typing 1-handed awhile as on sat. i sprained both mtylft wrist and my right foot/toes in a fall during dance class - somebody spilled some clear super-slippy lubricant type stff and didnt clean it up - they've done this be4 and you can't see it unless you and the light are exactly right - maybe now they'll fix this - i'm lucky we were just starting class and doing a sedate walking drill across the floor, instead of some frenzied leaping freestyle - to ER and everything and splinted to elbow , since then mostly just figuring out hoew to dolife's daily tasks. my friends have been so wonderful and it's a strange feeling to me to be babied - they helped me plant my new plants too as had to get it done this weekend, next 3 weekends jammed - i don't really like people hovering etc. but i know it's good, and it'so strange when you can't wash your own hand and someone does it for you and even cleans the potting soil from your nails -- and best of all i feel so much loving healing energy flooding in to me that i've been in the most cheerful mood thruout -- thing is i've got dance workshops and a dance on sat. and conga performance on sun. so i need to be all better by then. i can swiotch my parts to 1-handed but i'm drum lerft-hand but i've often switched hands before - i just won't be able to do the great variuations i've been working on. anyone willing to send healing and success energy out, i will so appreciate it -- i'm thinking we're all getting so much practice l,ately in sending such energy for a reason! meanwhile i'll be rather quiet but still here

Dance Anywhere Day!

Lily — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 21:09:52 GMT

I learned late yesterday that today was a worldwide simultaneous dance event for National Dance Week - where you were asked to break into dance wherever you happened to be at the designated time (or go someplace public and do it there on purpose), and film or photograph it and put those up on the site: www.danceanywhere.org Well, in our time zone the moment was noon, so yippee! I got to leave for lunch a bit early and do it at the city park. There hadn't been time to get anything organized, so at first there were only 2 dancers and then eventually there were 6. Everything always starts late in this town so I would say we started at 12:05 but then we kept on for an hour so I think we did well. I was busy dancing so I don't have much in the way of photos (yet) -- the best part was when we left our grassy space and took over the bus shelter, with drummers, and an instant mashup then occurred with dumbek rhythms and "I Love the Way You Move" on the boombox and we all got seriously into it. That was completely fabulous and I hope somebody's got pictures, which I will post if I get. I had to race back to work. We thought people would stare at us but no - everyone just ignored us, which really helped us overcome any inhibition. Doing things like this is not really a weird event in our town - everyone is used to people carrying on in public here, lol!

Eddie the Arson Dog

Lily — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:55:30 GMT

Eddie is the most adorable and beloved big golden retriever, age almost 10, and he's been working for our Fire Department since he was a puppy. He's probably my fave dog in the world. Every time he sees anyone he lopes right up and lays his heavy head and his heavy arm and paw on whatever part of them he can reach; he loves everyone. But he's very well trained, and when on the job he looks at no one. He's got some bad guys, most definitely. About a month ago the Fire Chief came in and with terrible grief (he loves Eddie so and is his handler) said Eddie'd been diagnosed with cancer, lymphoma, had a big tumor by his heart, and was going to be put to sleep. And was retired immediately from his job. It turns out that lymphoma is *the* genetic defect associated with golden retrievers and 63% of them die from it. Here's the freaky thing: Over the prior weekend I'd been reading magazines and I just happened to focus on a statistic which kind of glowed at me: that the cancer lymphoma is 70% curable in humans. And it cures quickly. This interested me for some reason and I immediately had it memorized. So I told the Chief about this statistic and we all urged him to give the suggested treatment a try because it looked like it really did have a great chance of working. So he did. Meanwhile, I created and had made a fabulous award plaque with photos of Eddie and much praise and we scheduled a ceremony, hoping Eddie would still be around for it. And everyone prayed for him. Things started looking up right away; the tumor shrank by more than half after only 1 shot. Yay! Well, we had the ceremony last week and Eddie was there. In full remission. Happy and getting his appetite back and being his usual loping caressing self, just with shaved spots. It was funny because the center where we had the meeting and award is also a major place where Eddie does practice training. So it has little spots of whatever gas and other accelerants they use to test and practice these dogs here and there in it. They brought Eddie out on a leash but he thought at first he was there to work and that nose went into action and he was dragging his mom around sniffing the ground furiously. Luckily the applause did get his attention and he joined everyone for the award. And I think he likes his plaque.

Master of Light

Lily — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:46:00 GMT

Here's a photographer named, apparently, Alan Jaras - his name on Flickr is "Reciprocity" and a big chunk of his work is experimenting with light - bending it through different materials, capturing it without film, all kinds of possible refractions, and the results -- if you are thrilled by light -- will thrill you to your core. I recommend the collections entitled Bending Light, Twisting Light, Taming Light. The little thumbnails for them don't begin to reveal what awaits. http://www.flickr.com/photos/alanjaras/ Enjoy!!!!

It's really Spring, and Lily is happy!

Lily — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:50:27 GMT

I just feel so happy and light and zippy today, because: I started seriously discussing back in February with the Goddess and the spirits of this place that it was time for us to really have an actual spring here, "early, long and true" -- no treachery, no coaxing out of tender blossoms and then blasting them to oblivion with killing frosts, no snow in May, etc. "Look," I said to them, "Spring is my time, my best and most real time, and I haven't had one in five years now, and who knows how many more chances there will be?? Please, please: early, long and true this year." And amazingly, my prayer has been granted!! And -- even though when the alarm went off today and I thought it was Saturday and turned it off, and then dreamed I was at work and then woke startled to find I only had 45 minutes to get to the office, I actually got ready in no time and was even early!! despite trying to outwit myself And -- those mystery shrubs by the fence that were always stunted and small due to the shade of the great oak that fell last winter have now revealed themselves to be great and glorious lilacs!!!! Both purple and best of all, white, which I have always wanted. And such delights as these continue to reveal themselves, all gifts from the fall, which in the end, despite the shock and stress abd truly awful labor involved, has turned out to be an incredible source of blessings for me. And -- the tiny babyish hummer has survived the winter and is back, and I love this surfing hummingbird the most of all I have ever known And -- I feel the Joy that revealed itself to so many of us last year for the first time again - it did during the winter, but I knew it would return, and now it has And -- I've asked for a really big push from the transforming energies, something none of us can ever forget or deny, something that lays out before us our true destiny of delight spectacularly . . . and (she whispers) I think it is going to happen this very year Blessings to all here who sustain me, to all we love - thank you all for being and for being here, and yippee! to one and all, as One! Time to post the photo that says it all again.

Wait a minute - if there's Area 51 . . . .

Lily — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:33:50 GMT

I can't believe this question never occurred to me before last night. If we have an Area 51 - doesn't that imply that there are at minimum Areas 1 through 50 as well???? I don't hang out in alien-tracking circles (as little interest in anyone who must arrive by means of craft), so I don't know if anyone else has ever asked, or answered, this question. But now I'm curious. Leads?

for cat lovers who aren't afraid to show it

Lily — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:19:22 GMT

Here's 4 minutes of adorable fun - the CocoNelly video. Great dancing too! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1vkjOvD-zs Ladies, I have always said: if you want a good man, find one who really likes cats

This You've Gotta See!

Lily — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:39:25 GMT

They strapped cameras on elephants' tusks or trunks and here are some pictures they took -- animals elephants encounter who notice the camera, or who see their own reflections in the lens, and are stunned. Beautiful! I just hope they went in and took the cameras off after some reasonably brief time. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=543994&in_page_id=1770&ito=newsnow

This is all there is

Lily — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:56:46 GMT

This picture represents the volume of all the water and all the air on Earth, each represented in a sphere and compared to the size of Earth itself. The water includes every possible kind, including ice and dew! and is on the left. The air is on the right - pictured as if it were all at sea level (I believe they said) where it is most dense. I bet you thought there was a lot more of both of these. I sure did. And apparently, they are out of both at the Store.

And now he's happy!

Lily — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:39:32 GMT

This horse is well-known in my friend's neighborhood. He used to live with other horses and animals, and no one knows what happened, but one day they all vanished and he was left all alone. And he stayed alone, for at least a year or two, and he got very very sad. Horses just can't stand to be alone. They'll take anyone: a goat, a duck, a dog, just so there's someone. The people who live farther up the road would see him standing sadly in the corner of his pasture, rain, snow or sun - with his head drooping down, never even moving any more. So then people began to pay special attention to him. People who could find the time to walk this stretch would stop and call to him and tempt him with carrots, and when he'd finally get it together to come get the carrots, they'd pet him and hug him and spend time with him. Now people even come from town itself to do this. And people walking their dogs all stop and visit now too. When you stop by the fence he looks up with great interest: treat? cuddles? and trots right over. He definitely expects treats - if you failed to plan ahead and bring something, he'll show you what you can give him instead: by pushing you towards it and butting with his head the spots outside the fence where the tenderest new grass grows; he loves that so much! And it feels wonderful to have his big soft whiskery horse lips nibble it out of your palm. Here's a picture from Sunday when he got 2 carrots from me. His favorite place for petting is around the base of his ears and in a line from his head down to his nose - his eyes close up halfway and you can tell -- he's into it. I put up some more pictures too. Isn't this neighborhood nice? This is where, if I lived in town, I'd like to live (along with everybody else in the county!)

I don't know what it was

Lily — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:03:35 GMT

The strangest thing happened all afternoon on Saturday. I went to dance class as usual, and felt fabulous and blissful after, as usual. In the gym, a young girl came around the corner, heading toward me, and on sight of me (even though she was nowhere near me, and not in my way) she seemed a bit startled and said, "Oh, I'm sorry!" I just gave a quick smile. Then a bit later in the bathroom, as I walked in, that same girl came out of a stall and again jumped just a bit and said "Oh, I'm sorry! Excuse me!" as she caught sight of me. Again - nowhere near me. Now I was a bit puzzled. I knew I was looking relaxed and happy, and I knew I was moving that way too. I thought well, the poor girl must have some issues from the past that make her think that she's doing something wrong just by being in the same place as anyone else. Then I went on a massive shopping expedition to the bigger town. All afternoon and into the evening, people were doing the same thing. I had at least a dozen encounters where people would look up as I entered an aisle, say "Oh, I'm sorry!!!!" and hustle to move themselves and/or their carts off to the side even though . . . they weren't in my way. Often they'd say "excuse me" as I came by. I was getting really puzzled -- of course this happens sometimes, I do it too, when someone wants to get by, and there are three carts in the aisle, etc. This was different. All I had to do was appear, literally -- and these women (they were all women) were suddenly apologizing to me, quite fervently, out of nowhere. Am I looking very intense? I wondered. Do I look irritated or in a hurry? Do I have a sign on my forehead that says "Apologize to this woman NOW!" ? I kept coming up with no. After a few hours I definitely got tired of the search (for some things they just don't have anywhere), but even then, I could not explain this reaction to me - happening even when I walked through all on my own, in wide-open aisles with only 1 other person. They all would notice my arrival instantly. It was all so surprising to me that I didn't really say anything in response, just looked at them or said thanks - at one point I felt as if I were making some sort of royal progress, that this must be how people of nobility feel as they make their way through their kingdom and everyone gets to bowing and scraping. Not a feeling I've ever hankered for. Eventually, and still, I began to think . . . what if I took this very very literally -- is something trying to tell me it's sorry? for things that have happened to me here? It doesn't need to, really. I have gotten over it all as best I could and I don't feel that I still bear too much of it all now. But I just don't know. All I can say is: apology accepted, but really, you didn't need to, it's OK now, now that I know we're near the end. Around the time I got to this point, in the discount grocery store they were playing the song "Hey There, Delilah" and the chorus began . . . "oh it's what you do to meeeeeee, oh it's what you do to meeeeee." I realized suddenly that I absolutely love this song, I had no idea how much I love it, and I started to sing it (not too loudly but with full involvement )- and immediately the next aisle over someone else joined in, and behind me someone else, and then a couple came up the aisle and they both were singing, then some people in line at the registers joined in. We sang the whole chorus together, and then . . . we were done. All the way home I was wondering . . . what a strange afternoon. I know that was something, but I don't know what it was.

An Excitement of Crows

Lily — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:33:23 GMT

driving along, I spotted a really big flock of crows -- 40-50 of them -- excitedly milling around something at the foot of a driveway - darting forward and leaping back, startled, pushing and shoving each other to get a better view, squawking and jumping up a few inches in the air. As I expected, as my car drew near they all swooped up, and I could see what the object of their agitation was. I expected to see a small corpse of some kind, but no! Someone had delivered the Yellow Pages, tossing it at the bottom of the driveway. Nothing new about that. But for some reason, this particular copy was cached in a big ziploc bag. With a pink zipper. As some of the crows dropped back down, clearly seizing the opportunity to get another, closer, better look at the bag, I realized this pink zipper was The Big Event -- and in fact they'd worked the slide all the way open. It was so funny. It must be the first time they ever saw one. Next day there were at least 100 crows there, even though the bag with the Yellow Pages was now gone. They were perched in the trees and walking around with an air of waiting in the grass. I think that for them it was the rumor of miracle that drew them -- kind of like Jesus on a tortilla, lol!! They waited all day, and then they gave up. But in the lore of our local crows, Pink Zipper has made its entrance.

Full Moon Eclipsed in Virgo

Lily — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:46:33 GMT

it was very lucky that, although rain is scheduled for almost every day for a week, the one and only dry day was . . . Wednesday! So I did get to see the eclipse. And feel it. As, I see, many of my friends on Tribe did too. I was downtown, at my second class of the evening - creative dance improv - I hoped others there would be interested in coming out to the parking lot and watching with me, but no! So I threw on shoes and charged outside and then, lol!!! I couldn't find it at all for the longest time!! There were some clouds in front, and it was already fully in shadow, and somehow, this particular eclipse is the darkest I've seen in a long time. One of my classmates came outside for a moment to warn me: You know in India they say that eclipses are evil and you should definitely not look at them!!!! And dashed back in. My sweet moon, my beloved, could never hurt me--although she has, in the past, made me crazy without a doubt. So I left early and found a good spot nearby to watch -- there were lots of very subtle shifts and changes, the kind where you go, was that my eyes? or did something flare up right there just now? For quite a while I did see a kind of golden flare at various spots on the faintly-lit right side of the moon and am curious about them, but haven't seen them discussed so far. Luckily I was already downtown - as I found out when I got home that you couldn't see it there at all. Those huge and beautiful trees to the east of my house definitely block a lot of astronomical action - seems like most cool things happen in the east. It seems so significant to me that I saw nobody at the park or other vantage points last night, and know nobody else who was even interested -- yet, on Tribe, many friends not only watched but took pictures, and (even more significant), quite a few were at dance class too! I'm so glad to have this opportunity to connect with you all. And the idea that people I care about and admire, but have never met, are watching and caring about something at the same time as I am - it's wonderful.

The Hula Hoop Way

Lily — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:06:28 GMT

finally, at long last, something new in my town -- hula hoop class. (It takes trends quite a while to get up here!) I was good at this when I was a kid but only at making it go up and down--none of us did any real tricks. So last night, taught by a delicate small girl, it's back in the hoop loop again for me. People don't realize it when they see me doing things now, but actually it's awfully hard for me to learn to do things with my body, always has been. In fact, dancing--which is the most important thing to me in 3D (and other realms as well)--was first tried because of my profound lack of coordination as a child, which at every growth spurt made me dysfunctional. Plus I am rather dyslexic when it comes to physical bodies, and until I know a teacher's body well, or unless I can repeatedly touch the part they're moving and then translate that to my own body, I truly can't tell which of her many arms or many legs a teacher is moving, or in which direction or space. It's hard to explain. So everything I know how to do, took me a long time and determined practice. But then, everything I did learn to do made something else a bit easier. And once I have gotten familiar with a teacher's body, I can pick up everything they do much faster. And, happily, nothing makes me happier than moving my body in absolute oneness to music. It's a cosmic experience married with an earth experience. I learned last night how to walk very gracefully while hooping and am just learning to run. I just can't do circlesover my head yet, though, because these new hoops are really heavy and my body thinks I'll drop it on my head. (Body is right, for now.) I instantly recalled how to hoop like crazy, and how to stick my butt out and hoist it back up if it starts to go down. If only I could practice at home! But the way those big hoops were crashing all over the squash court last night, . . . in my tiny place I would wreak devastation. Wait for warmer weather. tap tap tap tap. . . . I love the way the hoop feels going round and round and round and especially when it goes around my ribs. It's so meditative. Instructor says she can make custom hoops with crystals set in them and I think that could be marvelous energy wise. Even though the ring is orbiting around me, I soon feel like it's I who am orbiting something else, and made very safe and sure by doing so. Last night I fantasized about hoops that would light up and here one is already. (but $220?????? gee whillikers)

There's been an injustice here

Lily — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:45:24 GMT

I'm sorry that I return to my blog with news that is vile. Bruce, of MyStubenMySpec fame, a friend of mine and of many of my friends, perhaps the #1 tribe mod on the whole site, and a man known far and wide for his fun and courteous nature, has been unsubbed by Tribe management from Tribe. Tribe management claims that this was done because of complaints that Bruce had "stalked" someone and "threatened" them. However, they did not tell Bruce of this complaint, before or after unsubbing him without notice to him, last night while he was actually replying to a post on his tribe. And a little investigation shows that the complainant is one or both of a couple of people who carried out a huge campaign against Bruce a few months ago, for no apparent reason other than jealousy and having been tossed from at least one of Bruce's tribes for troll behavior. These guys actually sent a huge long PM to all of Bruce's friends, saying he'd committed various crimes and was a blackmailer. This naturally caused all kinds of upset in many tribes. Meanwhile, on a little tribe of their own, the guys sneered at members of Bruce's tribes and friends list, pulling up examples of their posts and threads on perfectly innocent subjects, and mocking and snickering at them. Anyone who was a friend of Bruce's was an enemy of theirs and a fool. But gee, that's a really big population of people. Now these guys are gloating away on the Premium Members tribe about how they've gotten rid of this "criminal" who's been "victimizing" THEM. But the reality is that Bruce, who's been struggling with this mess for months, threatened to take legal action against them if they didn't quit defaming him. So they took that threat to Tribe (according to Tribe) and said oh, this guy's threatened us, you need to terminate him. And strangely . . . despite having had plenty of exposure to and complaints about these guys in the past . . . Tribe did. Tribe threw out one of its most important contributors and a *staunch* supporter of Tribe management and employees. Someone who always countered complaints about Tribe, which have been legion in past months, with defense of the staff and gentle encouragement to give them the benefit of the doubt. Someone who encouraged many others to join as Premium members, to raise $ for Tribe. Money which has yet to be used as it was implied it would be used - for additional staff. But I know that during the intense discussions among hundreds of Tribe members over several months about how to keep Tribe alive, getting more staff was the key reason to volunteer to give money. So now Tribe management is basically now defaming Bruce as well -- although their initial explanation was so veiled and vague that it gave the impression that some sort of child molestation had gone on!!!! and multiple crimes of similar gravity. It was the troll guys themselves who broke the "real" story; they simply could not contain their glee. And they continue to mock and sneer at the members of Bruce's tribes, who have done nothing to them, ever. I've learned enough now to say that I believe that this expulsion was not based on any complaint by the trolls at all but on quite other, political reasons. And that the troll thing was nothing but a pretext. This is an injustice. I believe the truth will out, and in short order. Meanwhile, the very worst behavior -- not just on Tribe but anywhere -- has been enabled and encouraged, to cover up others' failures and insincerity. I don't like it when loving people are damaged by hateful people. I don't like it at all, and I don't accept it. Sure, lots of people will . . . but not everyone.

eeeeek! my internets are messed up!

Lily — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 19:34:53 GMT

FINALLY I can get online for a second and advise that even though I have way cool photos to put up, new blog post, and fabulous comments to post on various tribes, I haven't been able to do it because the internet here is all messed up. Geek on way to assist. For some reason it just started working right now, which confirms my suspicion that it's really Comcast's fault. Hopefully I'll be back later. Got some serious jonesing for Tribe going on here (sweating and breathing hard and my tummy don't feel too good either, lol!)

I'll be gone for a bit

Lily — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 00:30:38 GMT

I'll be gone until Wed. Jan 2 probably - if I can get to a computer at some point, though, I might check in earlier. Have a great New Year's Eve and Day, everyone!

Spiral Dance TONITE! Wheeeeee!!

Lily — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 17:57:51 GMT

tonight at the end of the community solstice celebration, which is huge here (hundreds come, way more than go to any Christmas church services), will be the Spiral Dance! If you've never done this I would so encourage you to find one and join in the first chance you have. Here you start slow and then go faster and faster and faster, and all the people look each other in the eyes and smile and grin as they race by. The radiance in the faces grows and grows and at the end everyone is huffing and puffing -- it's hard to sing and race around at the same time -- and in a dramatic crash of drums, the drum jam begins and people break out dancing. THIS is living! And something magical really does happen too, you can definitely feel it. Let's see, how does that chant go? We are the weavers, We are the woven ones, We are the dreamers, We are the dream To all friends here, a joyous return of the light to you all!

Is Everything Conscious?

Lily — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:54:01 GMT

This idea of panpsychism at last gives a name to what I (and many others thru time) truly feel: that all of createdness is pure *conscious* awareness THE WAY WE LIVE NOW Mind of a Rock By JIM HOLT Published: November 18, 2007 – The New York Times Magazine This is the little side note: The Mental Atoms “If evolution is to work smoothly, consciousness in some shape must have been present at the very origin of things. Accordingly we find that the more clear-sighted evolutionary philosophers are beginning to posit it there. Each atom of the nebula, they suppose, must have had an aboriginal atom of consciousness linked with it; ... the mental atoms ... have fused into those larger consciousnesses which we know in ourselves and suppose to exist in our fellow-animals.” William James, “The Principles of Psychology,” 1890 This is the article itself: Most of us have no doubt that our fellow humans are conscious. We are also pretty sure that many animals have consciousness. Some, like the great ape species, even seem to possess self-consciousness, like us. Others, like dogs and cats and pigs, may lack a sense of self, but they certainly appear to experience inner states of pain and pleasure. About smaller creatures, like mosquitoes, we are not so sure; certainly we have few compunctions about killing them. As for plants, they obviously do not have minds, except in fairy tales. Nor do nonliving things like tables and rocks. Enlarge This Image Ansel Adams All that is common sense. But common sense has not always proved to be such a good guide in understanding the world. And the part of our world that is most recalcitrant to our understanding at the moment is consciousness itself. How could the electrochemical processes in the lump of gray matter that is our brain give rise to — or, even more mysteriously, be — the dazzling technicolor play of consciousness, with its transports of joy, its stabs of anguish and its stretches of mild contentment alternating with boredom? This has been called “the most important problem in the biological sciences” and even “the last frontier of science.” It engrosses the intellectual energies of a worldwide community of brain scientists, psychologists, philosophers, physicists, computer scientists and even, from time to time, the Dalai Lama. So vexing has the problem of consciousness proved that some of these thinkers have been driven to a hypothesis that sounds desperate, if not downright crazy. Perhaps, they say, mind is not limited to the brains of some animals. Perhaps it is ubiquitous, present in every bit of matter, all the way up to galaxies, all the way down to electrons and neutrinos, not excluding medium-size things like a glass of water or a potted plant. Moreover, it did not suddenly arise when some physical particles on a certain planet chanced to come into the right configuration; rather, there has been consciousness in the cosmos from the very beginning of time. The doctrine that the stuff of the world is fundamentally mind-stuff goes by the name of panpsychism. A few decades ago, the American philosopher Thomas Nagel showed that it is an inescapable consequence of some quite reasonable premises. First, our brains consist of material particles. Second, these particles, in certain arrangements, produce subjective thoughts and feelings. Third, physical properties alone cannot account for subjectivity. (How could the ineffable experience of tasting a strawberry ever arise from the equations of physics?) Now, Nagel reasoned, the properties of a complex system like the brain don’t just pop into existence from nowhere; they must derive from the properties of that system’s ultimate constituents. Those ultimate constituents must therefore have subjective features themselves — features that, in the right combinations, add up to our inner thoughts and feelings. But the electrons, protons and neutrons making up our brains are no different from those making up the rest of the world. So the entire universe must consist of little bits of consciousness. Nagel himself stopped short of embracing panpsychism, but today it is enjoying something of a vogue. The Australian philosopher David Chalmers and the Oxford physicist Roger Penrose have spoken on its behalf. In the recent book “Consciousness and Its Place in Nature,” the British philosopher Galen Strawson defends panpsychism against numerous critics. How, the skeptics wonder, could bits of mind-dust, with their presumably simple mental states, combine to form the kinds of complicated experiences we humans have? After all, when you put a bunch of people in the same room, their individual minds do not form a single collective mind. (Or do they?) Then there is the inconvenient fact that you can’t scientifically test the claim that, say, the moon is having mental experiences. (But the same applies to people — how could you prove that your fellow office workers aren’t unconscious robots, like Commander Data on “Star Trek”?) Finally, there is the sheer loopiness of the idea that something like a photon could have proto-emotions, proto-beliefs and proto-desires. What could the content of a photon’s desire possibly be? “Perhaps it wishes it were a quark,” one anti-panpsychist cracked. Panpsychism may be easier to parody than to refute. But even if it proves a cul-de-sac in the quest to understand consciousness, it might still help rouse us from a certain parochiality in our cosmic outlook. We are biological beings. We exist because of self-replicating chemicals. We detect and act on information from our environment so that the self-replication will continue. As a byproduct, we have developed brains that, we fondly believe, are the most intricate things in the universe. We look down our noses at brute matter. Take that rock over there. It doesn’t seem to be doing much of anything, at least to our gross perception. But at the microlevel it consists of an unimaginable number of atoms connected by springy chemical bonds, all jiggling around at a rate that even our fastest supercomputer might envy. And they are not jiggling at random. The rock’s innards “see” the entire universe by means of the gravitational and electromagnetic signals it is continuously receiving. Such a system can be viewed as an all-purpose information processor, one whose inner dynamics mirror any sequence of mental states that our brains might run through. And where there is information, says panpsychism, there is consciousness. In David Chalmers’s slogan, “Experience is information from the inside; physics is information from the outside.” But the rock doesn’t exert itself as a result of all this “thinking.” Why should it? Its existence, unlike ours, doesn’t depend on the struggle to survive and self-replicate. It is indifferent to the prospect of being pulverized. If you are poetically inclined, you might think of the rock as a purely contemplative being. And you might draw the moral that the universe is, and always has been, saturated with mind, even though we snobbish Darwinian-replicating latecomers are too blinkered to notice. Jim Holt, a contributing writer, is working on a book about the puzzle of existence.

I am a little faerie!

Lily — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:09:30 GMT

Found this link on Cupozen's blog and it is so fun, and here's my results (link below): What ancient breed are you? You scored as a Faerie You are a faerie. One of the oldest breeds there is. Your very cute and bubbley, but sometimes it gets you into trouble. You need to know when to get serious, if you don't already. You make friends easily and always want to help, GOOD FOR YOU! Faerie 92% Elf 83% Sorceress 75% Goddess 75% Wolf 75% Shadow Spirit 67% Dragon 67% Drow 50% Vampyre 50% Zombie 25% I haven't been feeling very faerielike but glad to find I've still got it!! Here's the link: quizfarm.com/test.php