Archive | Spirit Matters

All Around These Troubled Waters

I am sitting in the dining area at Fairway—a sort of greenhouse overlooking the Red Hook harbor—and I am trying not to cry. Correction: I am crying, but quietly, the way grown New Yorkers process very private emotions in the very public spaces where we spend most of our days.

I am feeling like yesterday’s lunch, which is ironic because I just polished off an enormous breakfast.

All around me waves are rising like Joni’s cold blue steel. It makes me feel held, these busy waters mirroring Joni. It also makes me feel lonely because only the world at large, strangers to whom I feel close, hold me right now.

This is Pisces season at its hardest.

Which is true, but also a cop-out, because this is just a hard time all around. This is Democrats-feasting-on-each-other-while-evil-oligarch-runs-us-into-the-ground time. This is virus time, frighteningly warm-winter time.

February’s last gasp is brutal. So is that of patriarchy.

And, yeah, I’m talking about the white supremacist capitalistic cockocratic dinosaurs poisoning our government, environment, media, fun. This is the longest dying gasp in history, and it’s killing us all.

All around my sorrow swims fury in these gloriously choppy waters. A fury on behalf of menopausal, perimenopausal, reproductive-age–damn it, all people who identify in any way as women. Also a fury toward the women who’ve swallowed so much shit they now feed it to others.

The fury I feel every time Warren’s “electability” is debated by the same couchside demographers who look the other way as her white male contenders scowl, browbeat, lie, fumigate, generally behave unlikeably. Just the body language of the debates makes me apoplectic. (It also rings more than a few bells in my professional life.)

The fury I felt last month when the architect next door fixed my armoire for a pound of flesh– swigging my wine for two hours while complaining about the wife he’d just left, bragging about the blue pills he takes to fuck women half our age. (It goes without saying his very decent ex is our age.)

Waggling his eyebrows as he said, “You must have been hot when you were young.” Continue Reading →

Fish Soup (More Pisces Season Notes)

I just wanted acknowledge to all the other women my age–and all those who care about our welfare–that perimenopause SUCKS. The mood swings, hot and cold flashes, sleep disturbances, constant peeing, bad skin, weird-ass cycle shifts. It’s basically a nonstop PMS. Worse, it’s basically a second puberty–one that results in sagging rather than pert breasts and, oy vey, dry pussies and grey pubes. Ok, rant over. But feel free to chime in.

Of course, this hormonal maelstrom is hitting extra hard because of this Mercury Retrograde in Pisces, which has been ravaging my heart and savaging my style–dowager chic having slid into shtetl chic (see pic!).

Here in New York everyone seems to be hurting everyone else and no one has been clearly communicating what they mean; this Retrograde has caused a Metrograde. After two inadvertently ugly interactions today, I climbed back into my witch’s lair and am now cooking everything I want to eat for the next four days: namely, fish soup with a splash of pernod,and a meatball ragu. Tears only improve the contents of a cauldron, right?

So if things are hitting you hard, it may be a good time to bunker up with home projects. Just remember: The only consistent thing in this world is change! By March 4, life will lighten up immeasurably.

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One benefit of such an emotionally driven month is our enhanced ability to tap into soul-level truths. To schedule an intuition reading during this time, get in touch.

Service Serves Yourself (Tis the Season!)

In her latest roundup for Oprah Magazine, the much-esteemed Chani Nicholas suggests that Pisces season—compounded by the Mercury retrograde in this sign until March 4–is about what to give, not get. She’s right, of course. Service rather than self-actualization is the most useful lens while we’re in deep-dish planning mode—-and ’tis better to plan than act during these watery two weeks.

Ask yourself: What do I have to share with the world? How can I best marshal my skills and resources to improve the lives of those around me? What will not only bring joy to myself but to others? This impulse to share–this all-encompassing compassion—is the absolute best part of Pisces’ osmosis (AKA brilliant lack of boundaries) so make the most of it while the water is warm.
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Images: Country Doctor (Night Call) by the great Horace Pippin doctored by yours truly; book cover by unknown artist. (Feel free to supply their name!)

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy