Little Bits of Magic
I do follow astrology. Not the Minnesota guy who wants to add some new sign (?) and bases points on the stars' position relative to the sun but the traditional Western tropical-based stuff. You know, magnetic poles and how stuff looks from Earth. Because Mercury really doesn't go backwards, ever, but when it appears to do so from Earth, man, it really does make my hard drive crash if it's got it coming. I don't base my life on it, but I do read Lutin and Barry, especially when things seem very What the Fuck. I like Lutin's special messages, and I share them with my sister; I'm a Virgo-Scorpio (Sun-Rising), and she's a Virgo-Virgo. We get the Virgo message religiously and discuss it like, well, Virgos, and then we continue to go on planning and saving the world, she with more focus and me with occasional passionate rants.
Lately, though, I have felt this simmering rage. It's just sort of there, like this snake in the room that I can plug into at any moment. It isn't based on anything specific, but it's just sort of there. It's like this invitation to go completely insane over anything I'd care to choose. Like a magic buffet table in the room of a dieter that becomes whatever they're craving at the moment, plate, knife, fork, and spoon at the ready and a neon EAT ME above it all. Apparently this is Uranus's fault. It's getting close to Ares, which, when the two get together is like inviting a pyromaniac into a room full of dynamite and handing him a lighter on the way in. Add the thing with Pluto in Capricorn and I guess we all turn into raving loons. Scoff it you want, that's fine by me, but all I know is that even before I looked it in, in my body, this has been in full bloom for several weeks now. And with me it's always the war of that Virgo and Scorpio: right now the Scorpio wants to light a few of the powder kegs too, because it sounds FUN and surely they all DESERVE IT, and normally the Virgo would be sternly telling the Scorpio to stop that nonsense and get back to work, but right now she's just so incensed that people are all SO STUPID and wants to go around scolding everyone and whapping them with rulers. And when that fails to work, she starts eyeing the dynamite, since it's right there, and Scorpio says, "Hey, I have this lighter...."
Lord.
So I just vowed to Marie Sexton I am stopping reading the news and listening to it, especially the stuff about Harper Collins introducing a morals clause. (ARG ARG ARG ARG, RULER, LIGHTER, BOOM) It's just work with blinders on, and when I need a break I can go look at her very naughty tumblr. Or The Daily Bunny. This seems sane. I'll probably go eat off the buffet table sometimes too (unless I can find something else for the Scorpio to get obsessed by and something for Virgo to clean up and keep busy), but I'm going to give the New Plan a try. And in the spirit of such, I opened my work folder and my iTunes to do so.
And I found a kiss from the Universe.
During the last Mercury in Retrograde (last month), I got a big Let's Get Organized bug up my butt, fueled partially because my hard drive was almost full. I moved all my music over to my external, thinking this would buy me enough space to keep going. It did--except I didn't realize that when I did so, I would lose every single one of my playlists in iTunes. Every. Single. One.
I never actually cried, but it was like someone had ripped out organs from my body. I make playlists for each and every story. I had all the old ones saved. I was okay with ones for Hero being lost, and Special Delivery and Double Blind-those ships have sailed. It would have been nice for nostalgia, but whatever. The ones that hurt were Nowhere Ranch and Temple Boy. I couldn't even remember what I put in them, especially Nowhere Ranch. And it's about to launch, and I couldn't listen to it anymore. It made me very sad. Technically my time machine (mac thing) might have them somewhere, but I'm afraid to mess things up, so I haven't looked. It wasn't worth the risk, because it wasn't important enough.
The kicker, though, is that the whole time I knew the playlists might be on my ipod-and yet I never looked. It was like when you can't submit a manuscript to a publisher because you don't want to find out they won't take it. You would rather keep the illusion that it might be there than find out it isn't. Sometimes I thought about it, but it was like I deliberately wouldn't scan the ipod playlists to find out. This has continued for over a month.
Until this morning when I opened my iTunes. My ipod had run out of battery because it had been left on, so I plugged it in, and it of course automatically opened itself in iTunes. And it also opened itself so that when I looked down at it, I could see all the playlists it contained.
It has everything I could have ever wanted except Hero, One Night, and The Seventh Veil, none of which are super-important. Hero I have a saved list for, TSV I know like the back of my hand, and ON needs some work anyway. But Nowhere Ranch was on there. And Temple Boy. And the End of Novel playlist, and HAMEMA (lord, that one's a head trip. What a menagerie) and Double Blind. And you know, this is my favorite kind of gift from the universe: true magic, in my mind. Magic isn't the stuff that appears out of nowhere, that defies physics and makes the world unstable. Magic is the power, like a good story, to embed your salvation in your own narrative. And I even like that it's not complete. Some got lost, like a sacrifice--making the survivors all that much sweeter.
So I'm not thinking about the buffet table right now. I'm listening to the Nowhere Ranch soundtrack while I work on edit-for-hire stuff, and I'm happy, happy, happy. No anger at all. I'm going to try to hold onto that. I'm going to try to blog more, and not angry stuff. (Though I want to. GOD I want to, especially with our fucking legislature introducing anti-gay marriage amendments to the Constitution..... LIGHTER LIGHTER WHAP WHAP WHAP) It won't do any good. I don't want to go up in the flames. I want to be part of the happy on the side, the magic that rises up slowly and heals, not burns everything to the ground.
And I think in addition to the porn and the bunnies, when I get mad I'm going to listen to this song: "I Promise Love" by Casey Stratton. It's one of my very favorites of his, from the album Divide. And it ABSOLUTELY is the theme to Nowhere Ranch. I had Dan hunt down an embeddable link, which I included below. It's a whole dollar. Listen to it, and if it makes you see the sun, I suggest you go give yourself an anti-Uranus-in-Ares-with-a-side-of-Pluto-in-Capricorn treat.
Lately, though, I have felt this simmering rage. It's just sort of there, like this snake in the room that I can plug into at any moment. It isn't based on anything specific, but it's just sort of there. It's like this invitation to go completely insane over anything I'd care to choose. Like a magic buffet table in the room of a dieter that becomes whatever they're craving at the moment, plate, knife, fork, and spoon at the ready and a neon EAT ME above it all. Apparently this is Uranus's fault. It's getting close to Ares, which, when the two get together is like inviting a pyromaniac into a room full of dynamite and handing him a lighter on the way in. Add the thing with Pluto in Capricorn and I guess we all turn into raving loons. Scoff it you want, that's fine by me, but all I know is that even before I looked it in, in my body, this has been in full bloom for several weeks now. And with me it's always the war of that Virgo and Scorpio: right now the Scorpio wants to light a few of the powder kegs too, because it sounds FUN and surely they all DESERVE IT, and normally the Virgo would be sternly telling the Scorpio to stop that nonsense and get back to work, but right now she's just so incensed that people are all SO STUPID and wants to go around scolding everyone and whapping them with rulers. And when that fails to work, she starts eyeing the dynamite, since it's right there, and Scorpio says, "Hey, I have this lighter...."
Lord.
So I just vowed to Marie Sexton I am stopping reading the news and listening to it, especially the stuff about Harper Collins introducing a morals clause. (ARG ARG ARG ARG, RULER, LIGHTER, BOOM) It's just work with blinders on, and when I need a break I can go look at her very naughty tumblr. Or The Daily Bunny. This seems sane. I'll probably go eat off the buffet table sometimes too (unless I can find something else for the Scorpio to get obsessed by and something for Virgo to clean up and keep busy), but I'm going to give the New Plan a try. And in the spirit of such, I opened my work folder and my iTunes to do so.
And I found a kiss from the Universe.
During the last Mercury in Retrograde (last month), I got a big Let's Get Organized bug up my butt, fueled partially because my hard drive was almost full. I moved all my music over to my external, thinking this would buy me enough space to keep going. It did--except I didn't realize that when I did so, I would lose every single one of my playlists in iTunes. Every. Single. One.
I never actually cried, but it was like someone had ripped out organs from my body. I make playlists for each and every story. I had all the old ones saved. I was okay with ones for Hero being lost, and Special Delivery and Double Blind-those ships have sailed. It would have been nice for nostalgia, but whatever. The ones that hurt were Nowhere Ranch and Temple Boy. I couldn't even remember what I put in them, especially Nowhere Ranch. And it's about to launch, and I couldn't listen to it anymore. It made me very sad. Technically my time machine (mac thing) might have them somewhere, but I'm afraid to mess things up, so I haven't looked. It wasn't worth the risk, because it wasn't important enough.
The kicker, though, is that the whole time I knew the playlists might be on my ipod-and yet I never looked. It was like when you can't submit a manuscript to a publisher because you don't want to find out they won't take it. You would rather keep the illusion that it might be there than find out it isn't. Sometimes I thought about it, but it was like I deliberately wouldn't scan the ipod playlists to find out. This has continued for over a month.
Until this morning when I opened my iTunes. My ipod had run out of battery because it had been left on, so I plugged it in, and it of course automatically opened itself in iTunes. And it also opened itself so that when I looked down at it, I could see all the playlists it contained.
It has everything I could have ever wanted except Hero, One Night, and The Seventh Veil, none of which are super-important. Hero I have a saved list for, TSV I know like the back of my hand, and ON needs some work anyway. But Nowhere Ranch was on there. And Temple Boy. And the End of Novel playlist, and HAMEMA (lord, that one's a head trip. What a menagerie) and Double Blind. And you know, this is my favorite kind of gift from the universe: true magic, in my mind. Magic isn't the stuff that appears out of nowhere, that defies physics and makes the world unstable. Magic is the power, like a good story, to embed your salvation in your own narrative. And I even like that it's not complete. Some got lost, like a sacrifice--making the survivors all that much sweeter.
So I'm not thinking about the buffet table right now. I'm listening to the Nowhere Ranch soundtrack while I work on edit-for-hire stuff, and I'm happy, happy, happy. No anger at all. I'm going to try to hold onto that. I'm going to try to blog more, and not angry stuff. (Though I want to. GOD I want to, especially with our fucking legislature introducing anti-gay marriage amendments to the Constitution..... LIGHTER LIGHTER WHAP WHAP WHAP) It won't do any good. I don't want to go up in the flames. I want to be part of the happy on the side, the magic that rises up slowly and heals, not burns everything to the ground.
And I think in addition to the porn and the bunnies, when I get mad I'm going to listen to this song: "I Promise Love" by Casey Stratton. It's one of my very favorites of his, from the album Divide. And it ABSOLUTELY is the theme to Nowhere Ranch. I had Dan hunt down an embeddable link, which I included below. It's a whole dollar. Listen to it, and if it makes you see the sun, I suggest you go give yourself an anti-Uranus-in-Ares-with-a-side-of-Pluto-in-Capricorn treat.