To celebrate your ramble through the most wildly independent phase of your astrological cycle, I’m offering you three inspirational quotes. The first is from poet e.e. cummings: “To be nobody but yourself in a world that is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle that any human being can fight.” Your second shot of motivation is from Clarissa Pinkola Estes: “If you have ever been called defiant, incorrigible, forward, cunning, insurgent, unruly, or rebellious, you’re on the right track. If you have never been called these things, there is yet time.” Lastly, here’s a Hindu proverb: “There is nothing noble in being superior to some other person. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtPwljfA4xw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g8cmWZOX8Q

Tuesday found me at a local women’s spa.  Korean style.  Very tranquil, very wet, very relaxing.  It was a birthday treat from my parents which included a massage as well as the day in the spa.  My intrepid sponsor accompanied me and made the day extra special.

I have always been intrigued in the Asian art of bathing.  This was a wonderful opportunity to try out something I have never done really.  Mindful washing.  I’ve done cleansing baths before ritual and of course I shower, once a month at least, but this was different.  As I sat on my little stool and began scrubbing I realized that it was a wonderful opportunity.  

You might have guessed that Tuesday was the 12 year anniversary of my sobriety.  And the day after was my belly button birthday. Lots of new beginnings.  As I scrubbed away I visualized all the past years tears and hard times melting away and the new skin of this coming year all soft and shiny.  It were lovely and very meditative.  I need to get a little stool for my bath, definitely.  And what a water saver too! Gotta like that. You get clean and take as little as possible from the Mama.

There was lots of discussion about bliss and how we can push it away with worry and other things. About living in the stream of life that I have created, to drop the paddles that keep me trying to get up stream to nothing.  Everything that is waiting to participate in my life is down stream. What a concept.

July 4th was quiet and restful and very nice.  Patrick gifted me with a couple new books and beautiful candle holder that represents both the Goddess and the God to me.  We ate well, napped, made googoo eyes at each other among other things.  Watered the garden as the first stars came out.   The house is clean (P. vacuumed, what a swell guy), and the weekend is close. 

I am so grateful to be alive.