Writing for Life

Dare to be a fashion don't.

2010-10-28T11:53:00.005-04:00

Do you ever wonder if you're followed around by the fashion police?

Recently, I discovered that in order to clothe myself properly, I'd have to journey back through the cedar-closet Narnia that is my past. (Really, the cedar closet has all my old books -- makes you wonder which I value more.)

I've tried to put on the things I love, but they hang on me. Kind of like I ditched about eight years of time without making compensation for the present fashions. You can, (no, really) go back; you can go home again to your old wardrobe, but if you don't make allowances for the shoulder pads and longer hems, you're going to look a bit (just a tad) odd when you walk out the door.

I recommend taking a good, long look in the mirror before attempting to leave with these items:

1. Tapestry vests. I don't have the one I love most -- mostly because it was my sister's and at some point she reclaimed it. I do, however, have my 3x tapestry vest from 1990, still hanging neatly in the spare closet upstairs. It's beautiful. Goes great over t-shirts with only slightly-out-of-style acid-washed jeans. (And I can never, ever take it downstairs until it's really back in style.)

2. Quilted blazers. I kept this blazer because I swore it would always be in style. It's acid-green with black stitches, front pockets (oh, if you think I'll post a picture of it, well, I might, but not today) and even quilted arms. Looks beautiful with black, narrow-ankle pants -- that went out and then back in style.

3. A wedding dress in navy blue. Okay, so I'm not Ms. Havisham and I don't wander around in my wedding dress, but the gorgeous blue cocktail dress with beaded bolero jacket would be wonderful for several events. I swear it's not dated. But for some reason, I can't bring myself to wear it so I've put it away for a rest of perfect retirement. (You really have to read Dickens to appreciate that reference.)

4. (Oh, I've got more) argyle socks from high school. You'll laugh, but I actually still have socks from third grade -- red acrylic knee-highs that I sometimes wore with my Brownie uniform. I didn't have orange socks. Close. They still fit. Some things are worth keeping.

5. Madonna-star-dangle earrings. (These JUST broke.) I haven't worn them out of the house, but I kept these 1988 darlings on the OFF CHANCE that they'd come back into style. I loved these -- wore them out on dates to the movies in Windsor, Ontario, Canada and then on into my heyday as a j-school student in Toronto. I put them on after a certain shopping expedition with my eldest daughter -- I thought they were still pretty hip after what I saw SHE was willing to wear. And then, they broke. For $5, I think I got a pretty good value.

The things I wish I still had, that would rock my new campus life as a professional:

1. Boy Blazer from a private school in Toronto in the 40's. (Gone the way of all things.)

2. Batik lavender hand-print t-shirt (I WILL find a photo of that shirt)

3. Pleated-waist jeans (with unseen elastic in the back -- buffet pants of the MC Hammer variety)

4. Saddle shoes -- why didn't they become the mainstream?

That's my list for the day. I like lists. Keeps the clothing in line as I save it for posterity.

Now, where did I put that slip I bought back in 1992?

--Naomi

Happy unbirthday to me.

2010-10-21T15:17:00.003-04:00

I think I've written that before (look up). The thing is, I've actually got 364 chances to write that very phrase, so really, if I repeat myself, I only make myself look more detail-oriented as I keep track of the days that have absolutely nothing to do with the day of my birth.

People think I'm funny. I think I'm rushing through time and have only the briefest moment for a comment or two before the wind hustles me off to the next adventure. It's really strange having a mystical take on life. Is it a sign?

If you think it is.

A few months ago I got this amazing new job -- only a tiny little drive (oh, about the same time it would take to shop for all my groceries and schlep them home again) each morning and each night. It's a great place to work, but in the meantime, I've got two hours every single weekday to sit and think and sit and think and sometimes

avoid a deer.

(It's a really rural area up here in the wilds of MI.)

So I sing-song my way down the highway, and then I sing-song my way home. It's gotten to the point that I've used up most of my CD collection and have gotten way, way off track to my eldest daughter's CD. (She is 11 years old.) I like two of the songs, and can stand two more. There are about 18 other songs that are unlistenable, unprintable and unmentionable.

Some days I question my sanity, but I can't fast-forward the drive like I fast-forward the horrible bee-bop lyrics of a pre-teen vampire fiend gone horribly awry.

So what do I think about? This and that. My mind wanders over the flat landscape, now scattered with red and orange and brown. I think about the wonders that befall me, and how I managed to find the best opportunity the farthest away, time and time again. It's like I'm looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but I set my own boundaries too far off and end up at the horizon when really I thought the rainbow ended somewhere down at the end of the block.

Just a bit farther now. Any second, now.

Sometimes I wish I could tell jokes. Sometimes I wish I could tell stories. I think about bringing a recorder with me, because it's somewhat hard to take notes (but not impossible -- don't tell the cops) while driving in a straight line. I have all these great ideas, but then when I get home I'm exhausted and all my energy that drove me back south and east escapes through my gas tank and my exhaust pipe and

I'm spent.

I spent three years (since before I started my blog) working on my own -- even when I worked for other people. Now I'm part of a team. Sometimes I miss the silence. (It's quiet at the office, but I've got a million masters to answer to -- okay, about 20,000 students.)

Well, at least that inspires me for a song on the ride home -- ironic as it is.

Enjoy the silence.

--Naomi

Get back to work.

2010-10-14T13:41:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I wonder whether I'm running some kind of daydream clearing house on my lunch hour around here.

Why, recently, have I been writing such interesting stories? Because I'm inspired. Because I'm hopeful. Because in the end, all I wanted to do was donate my good will to the Universe.

Um, be careful what you wish for, because apparently, I have a retort to my Thick as a Brick blog entry.

Look, sometimes I play stupid. But not usually in my blog posts. I try to be thoughtful, but when I have another inspiration that the angel in question isn't happy with my story, I can't help but be intrigued enough to publish his response. (Note: Long quotes -- I'm doing the best I can, Michael J., so if I misquote you, feel free to "dream" yourself in and respond again.)

So I had another daydream that the archangel without wings known as Michael (Michael J., he said to say, so I'm correcting his name) took issue with me and had a message for my readers.

"This is what we wanted to say in your blog – we are HERE, we are NOT waiting for tomorrow and the angels themselves want to help us become who we are, just as you said," he said to me earlier.

"I want everyone to know that we are all under great perils from ourselves at every moment and that the greatest danger is to be not who we are, but who we think we are. Honesty is the best policy. You can write this however you want, but I want you to be yourself, and not thick as a brick, although I think you were just being playful and not playing stupid."

And since it's my blog, here's my message back (I do question my daydreams. Wouldn't any journalist?) I wasn't playing stupid. I was sincere. My questions were honest ones -- but you have to admit, the details were incredibly colorful. That's what makes the dream funny.

It's the funny dreams I remember -- because if there's no laughter I know they're not for me.

--Naomi

The fast train from Moscow.

2010-10-11T11:02:00.005-04:00

Today is a history lesson. I'll try and keep it brief.

My mother's family has a long tradition of crazy tales about how our family came to be. We lived outside of Moscow, and in the small village of Tolochin, Russia, over 100 years ago. Our family name was Kazdan.

These are our stories.

My great grandmother Rose had a birth father named Label. Label was drafted into the Russian army. Needless to say, he didn't want to go. The Russian army wasn't the most hospitable place for Jews at that time, so Label developed a plan to get out of serving.

He'd drink vinegar.

Not knowing the exact dosage of said liquid, he figured he'd drink enough to make himself sick, then when the army had declined his service, he'd get better and live his life.

Unfortunately, and strangely, we tell this with the fatalistic Jewish sense of humor of that time, Label was a bit of a klutz. A schlemiel -- not to put it badly, but the man didn't finish medical school, much less start it. He drank the vinegar, and unfortunately had too much and died, leaving his wife, Leah, and small daughter, Rose, alone in the world.

Leah remarried Mr. Mayer, as he was called, and he adopted my great grandma Rose. (I'm named for her in Hebrew; hopefully she's not insulted that I'm telling these stories.)

So my great grandma Rose became Rose Mayer. When it was time for her marriage, her family called upon cousins in Moscow. My soon-to-be great grandfather Israel came from a very learned family; possibly full of rabbis. Unfortunately, the records were all burned in the pogroms there, so we have only our oral history to go on, and some beautiful black-and-white portraits without names on the back.

This arranged marriage to her second cousin went well. I have a beautiful portrait of my great grandparents (in my memory, possibly in a relative's attic) in their bathing suits (20's style) with a background of the beach. They look adorably happy and giggly. I'd like to think they had a great marriage. They had seven children -- two children in Russia who didn't survive, one who came with them to the United States in 1904 and four more beautiful children, including my grandma Tillie, once they arrived.

According to my family, there were several relatives who crossed the Atlantic Ocean in search of a better life where our rooftops weren't full of fiddlers and fire didn't touch our sheets. My great grandparents eventually moved from New York City to Detroit, Michigan and opened up a paint and wallpaper store in that city, making a nice life for themselves and pushing their sons to become doctors (all four of them) and my grandmother to become a fantastic teacher in the Oak Park, MI school district.

My grandmother married my grandpa Harry on February 12, 1933. It was the middle of the Depression, and the story goes that they had a lovely wedding, a beautiful night and then they went to work the next morning. No honeymoon -- money was tight.

My great grandparents put my grandfather through dental school so that he'd have a good life. They lived with my great grandmother for a long time, sharing a flat in a two-story home with my great-aunt Josephine and great Uncle Sam, with their six children. My grandfather once said he wasn't very crazy about living with my great-grandmother, as he never, ever won an argument with my grandmother. The older generation was looking on.

When my grandfather went to war in 1943, my mother was only 18 months old. There's a photo of him in uniform outside the house. My great grandmother was on the steps in the background, watching. My great grandmother helped raise my uncle, my mother and eventually my aunt, after she was born -- probably (she says with a wink) about nine months after he returned from London, England.

My grandfather served there and saw his cousins, the Steermans, who emigrated there from Latvia probably about the same time we all left the old country. His family is even more lively in history. His mother, who divorced her husband, became a caterer around the turn of the century in Michigan. She told him that some of the rabbis (or at least one) would steal her chickens. I have no proof.

He also mentioned once that he knew the Purple Gang. You know, if I'd been older and in journalism school, I might have had the courage to ask for that story, but he shuddered when he mentioned the prohibition-based, rum-running mafia and then never said another word about them. Makes you think he knew more than he said.

My grandfather went to art school via correspondence in his forties -- he collected a series of books from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He gave me those before he passed away. They are my treasure; full of full-color plates (paintings) of the works of the masters. He was the one person who said, you know, if you don't like journalism school, it's okay to try something else. Don't worry about changing your mind.

Good advice that luckily I never needed to take. He passed away when I was 20. My sister was in Israel for the summer so my mother didn't tell her; we knew it was coming, but I always wondered if she knew it happened. I went home and cried. He was the one person I always sat next to in the den of their house while he smoked his pipe. That place on the sofa was known as "my spot." Emphasis on MY.

Our family names the next generation from the ones before -- only the ones who've passed away, since we are Ashkenazi Jews and that is our tradition. So my aunt Ellen is named for Leah, my grandmother for a favorite cousin, Tila, long passed (Chaya to giver her long life as well), my mother, well, for someone I'm sure, and me for my great-grandmother Rose. My cousin Daryl is named for Label, and we hope this all goes well. My sister and I both named our first daughters after my grandmother (only I named her for her nickname, ChaiTilah, because my Aunt Molly gave that to her when she was young.) I named my other two little ones for Mountain Boy's grandmother, Josephine, although she didn't have a formal Hebrew name so I just translated it and inserted it into the naming certificate. Baby Boy is named for my father's father, Mordechai. Although Mordy Munn seemed kind of rude in English, so we chose not to use it literally in this language.

(I'm quite merciful that way.)

It's funny how on my mother's side we've been here over a century, but with my father, we've only been here a little more than 60 years. Different perspectives, but the side with the Russian point of view (my grandmother's language of secrets -- she never learned) always dances, even when we're crying. Something about joy in small amounts, no matter what the occasion.

-- Naomi

Thick as a Brick.

2010-10-01T09:19:00.000-04:00

But your new shoes are worn at the heels
and your suntan does rapidly peel
and your wise men don't know how it feels
to be thick as a brick.
--Jethro Tull, “Thick as a Brick” (Part 1)

One day I had a daydream that I went upstairs to a small, plain white office and had an official visit with God.

I didn’t realize it was him.

After all, Jews typically don’t believe that you can just find yourself on the way to visit your own Deity, and that he’ll be sitting at a run-down metal and melamine desk, with nothing but a pencil and paper (filled with notes) sitting on it. A metal chair was in front of the desk, on an angle. Cream-colored cushions with small rips on the seams awaited my presence.

I sat down, and gazed upon a gentleman wearing a white rabbi’s robe. He had dark curly hair, and a gentle smile. He glanced up at me.

I gaped. “Um, why do you look like this boy I used to know back in fifth grade named Kevin?” I asked.

He grinned, leaned forward with both elbows on the desk, his hands caressing his face, and blinked rapidly at me.

“I don’t know, Naomi, why do I look like that person?”

And, well, I knew at that moment exactly why he looked like he did.

And I figured he knew too, so I didn’t say anything.

“Where is this place?” I asked him.

(And I’ll paraphrase this next part to make a point)

“This is Olam-HaBa-ah, the World to Come, Naomi,” he said.

“You mean this really exists?”

And then another angel came over, but he was shorter and wearing a dark colored shirt and black jeans.

(Black cars do look better in the shade.)

He sat in my lap. I’m not kidding – dude/angel sat. In. My. Lap.

And he placed his right elbow on the desk, as we were seated on an angle, and gave the man at the desk the same flirty expression, blinking and grinning at him several times.

“You mean to tell me,” the dark angel said to the man at the desk, “that other people don’t believe this exists?”

I laughed. And then I was back at my own desk, my computer in front of me, with a strange, sinking feeling that all was not exactly as it seemed.

***
Apparently, God isn’t the only protagonist in my daydreams.

Yesterday I had another one, except this time I was in a rather plush floral easy chair on a slight recline in a relatively nice office.

Do angels have offices? Can’t they telecommute from the beach, or the park?

Only this time, I was staring down the archangel Michael.

I think.

Michael, it turns out, looked like a man about my height, with the strongest eyes that flashed laughter, not lightning.

He offered me a drink.

And as I reached out to take a sip out of the yellow-green Tupperware (do they sell this there too?) highball cup, I noticed that I was looking a little out of date.

“Why am I wearing my white cotton sweater from my 20th birthday party at Ryerson in Toronto?” I asked.

Michael laughed. I think I amuse Heaven.

“Naomi,” he said, and he had the most beautiful, mellifluous voice, “why do you think you’re wearing that sweater?”

And I knew, and he knew, you know, what this was all about, so of course, being the journalist/dreamer I am, I asked another question.

“Can you all do this or are you someone else?”

“I can do it too,” he said with a grin. “I’m just that good.”

So says an archangel.

And it wasn’t that I could see the details, or the faces, or feel the cotton on my skin. It was that I could feel the emotions and the love that were in those things, those people from my past.

So says a journalist.

“Can you take a sip?” asked Michael.

“Do you have a straw?” I countered.

Suddenly there was a white straw in my cup. No little paper on the end – God and Michael must live in Canada, where sanitary expertise has a different standard.

I took a sip. It wasn’t what I expected.

“Do they have Mountain Dew in Heaven?” I asked.

“Does it taste like that? What does it taste like?” Michael asked.

Maybe he just pulled it out of his hat, but branding obviously isn’t a strong suit up/over there.

I took another sip. “Hmm, more like 7-Up,” I replied.

(My apologies to all the soda-pop companies, but remember, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.)

“Did it tell you anything?” Michael asked.

“Was it supposed to?” I replied.

“Sometimes it leaves a message,” he said. He seemed confused, and so did I. I’d never heard of a soft drink with voicemail.

I thought about it, but honestly, if there was something there, it wasn’t a message I could immediately understand (other than fight cavities with toothpaste). Like a strange song with little chimes that you hear on the wind one day, and you want to follow it, but you can’t quite find the direction and the streets don’t go there, anyway.

“It’s not the kind of message that I understand right away,” I said to the archangel without wings (at the moment) who dispensed carbonated ideas in a comfy chair.

“You should’ve known immediately,” he said to me.

“But I don’t.”

“Are you sure you’re Michael?” I asked him.

“Are you sure you’re Naomi?” he asked me in return.

And I made him a gift – since it was my daydream, anyway. I made a bright red rose appear on the desk (I think it was God’s desk – this is why I question whose office I really visited) and I brought down upon it a beautiful clear glass vase – upside down, to protect the rose.

Michael looked at the rose, under glass, but he hadn’t read The Little Prince (I highly recommend it) and didn’t understand why I was the rose, nor who was the glass.
“I know who you are, Naomi.”

And I was back in the real world, wondering if I knew the same.

Shabbat Shalom.

-- Naomi

Working for the Angel of Death, Day Two (II)

2010-09-03T16:31:00.002-04:00

Continued…

It was windy when I emerged from the elevator – for some reason it led me down and right outside. I swear it runs on some kind of inside-out angle.

Even in Heaven the wind can blow the sun away. The clouds danced in front and I stood in the shade of a very tall building and watched the sky move.

Down and under then over and then in.

Or so the Angel of Death said.

I’m sure someone has the wings to take flight and make a short run of this. But that’s not me. I had on the nicest sneakers I could find. Little pocket on one side of the right shoe with a key inside. I hadn’t had to use it – nice thing about where I was staying was that it was always open.

I could hear the direction before I could see it. Crowds of people off to the right, into a sunny spot in the cobbled road. I turned and followed the brilliant gold flashes of light into a marketplace full of tapestries and gilt-covered tent poles.

Brilliant blue coverlets shot through with silver thread were billowing into the street. Oranges and lemons in rough boxes – I could smell them on the warmish breeze.

Almost too beautiful to see. I could see why the Angel of Death kept his office so austere. So little distraction after all the synergy.

As I walked toward the crowds, I passed under a stone bridge. The rounded archways were made of something far older than I ever was. I hadn’t really had time to take the tourist’s view of the city of Angels, but now was a good time, apparently.

There must’ve been bells near the bridge, because something jingled a little as I passed. I turned to look, and a golden eagle almost flew in my face. Startled, but not scared, I stepped back to let an old grey-bearded man pass. He carried old scrolls, bound together with a velvet belt. The cover was off – I’d seen a Torah in temple before, but the bells and birds were still on the wooden handles, all metal and ringing and true.

The man swayed, and stopped to look at me. I stopped and looked back at him.

“I’m sorry,” he said with a small smile. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“That’s okay,” I said, shuffling a little. “That’s a beautiful pair of eagles on the Torah.”

He lit up like the sun. “They are, aren’t they?”

“Do they sing?” I asked.

“Only through my mouth,” he said. “Next time you visit this place, listen for my voice and you’ll hear what the eagles have to say.”

I thought about that for a moment, but he had nothing further to say and with a happy nod he wandered past me, satisfied.

I kept walking into the market. More stalls – but how could anyone sell anything? Curious, I approached another vendor. Little silver boxes sat on a table. They had something like cinnamon inside – they had to, or the woman who sold them used the spice as perfume.

She looked up at me with the deepest eyes – brown and soft and good. I thought of my own little eyes and wondered if mine looked that happy, ever.

“Um, are these boxes for sale?” I asked.

“Would you like to buy one?” The woman replied with her own question.

“I’m not sure,” I said. I reached out to touch one, hesitated as I looked for her approval. She smiled, nodded and pushed one forward. I picked it up, heavier than I imagined. Scrollwork as delicate as fairy wings along the sides. There were hinges on the back, so I opened it.

There was nothing inside. It felt heavier than it should be.

“Are you sure there’s nothing inside?” I asked the woman. And her face also lit up like the sun.

“Surely there’s something there,” she said as she held out her hand for it. I placed it in her open palm and she turned the box this way and that, looking closely. Her eyes narrowed a bit, then she suddenly turned it upside down and shook it.

The inner bottom fell out. I felt dizzy for a moment. But then the music started playing.

The thing about music in Heaven is that it doesn’t stay in one place. Not quite whole or quarter notes but beats of air rose up around the two of us, swirling around the table, then up into the sky. Not quite out of reach, but definitely not in my ears.

“Do you like music, Mira?” The woman asked with a gentle laugh.

“How do you know my name? And yes, I do so love music,” I said.

"Everyone knows you, Mira, we all heard about your new position and couldn’t help but be excited to welcome a new friend here.”

The woman reached over to the box, and shut it quietly. It made no snap as it closed, but the music faded away. I was almost sad when it disappeared.

She handed me the box.

“This is for you, Mira,” she said. Her hands clasped around mine as I held the little beautiful piece of silver soul in my grip.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry, but you didn’t answer my question. Can people purchase things in this place?”

She looked at me for a beat. “Everything here is freely given, Mira. Now, I have something else for you to take with you, where did I put it?”

She beat the little rugs around the foot of the table while I waited, wondering. Finally she pulled up something that looked like a magnifying glass, only the inner circle of the ring had more panes than the outer edges.

“Now this, this, my Mira, is something for your Rav.”

I raised one eyebrow. “For the Rav?”

“Yes, please. Give this to him when you return, Mira. And tell him that I sent it with my compliments on his most excellent selection.”

“How shall I tell him you are called?”

“My name is Deborah.”

And the air buzzed for a minute, but I didn’t get it so I didn’t say anything.

“Thank you,” I said, and turned to go deeper into the way – but the way was now empty and Deborah was the only table there. Where did all the noise go? Away with the wings, I gathered.

“Go on, shoo now,” Deborah said as she packed up her things. “Don’t be late coming back from your errand!”

My back was already turned. I hesitated, then decided that approximately one million angels knew only a zillion things more than I ever would. Not that I was any angel.

I pulled out my little wrinkled piece of paper that I’d scribbled on with pencil before I left, and checked to see if I’d finished. Nope.

Down and under then over and then in.

I think. The pencil was smudged. Hard to follow exactly. I decided that in meant back, because honestly, I was finished.

I turned back the short distance, back under the bridge, but first through the now empty square. I could feel the tall towers but there were no shadows. Back upstairs.

It was raining outside the window of the Angel of Death. I could hear the pitter patter of the drops when I got back to the doorway.

But it felt cozy on the inside.

“I brought you a little something, Rav,” I said to my teacher (who was really my boss) as I crossed tentatively into the doorway.

“Oh! Isn’t that nice, Mira. Come in,” he said with a wave of his hand toward himself.

I walked over to the desk and pulled out the relatively unusual magnifying glass and placed it gently before him on his dark-wood desk. The gray daylight outside didn’t make the glass sparkle like it did in the marketplace.

The Angel of Death picked it up and looked at it closely. He put his face to the glass, and for a moment as I stared back, all I saw were multiple eyes. The funny thing was – I knew I’d see many reflections, but not that each eye would be a different color.

All staring back at me.

“Thank you, Mira,” he said, amused with some inner knowing. “This is a most interesting find. Who gave it to you?”

“Deborah,” I said. “Why does the air around her buzz?”

He looked down at me, slightly. Being so tall had its advantages, but I didn’t think he meant anything by it.

“What if, Mira, your thoughts flew so fast they left your mind? Would they flutter like butterflies? Or would they drift like leaves? Maybe Deborah is full of bees.”

“I hope she likes honey,” I said before I could stop myself.

And that was the first time I heard the Angel of Death laugh. I felt it more than heard, almost like silent rainbows flashing and a gentle sting as his humor poked me.

“Anyway, she gave me a box, too. It’s really pretty, but when the bottom dropped out the music filled up the marketplace. I think it scared the eagles away.”

At that he stopped laughing, and held out his hand the exact same way, palm up. I reached into my pocket and placed the little silver box in his hand. He shook it gently next to his ear, and looked back at me.

“Did you hear the sea?”

“No.”

“Did you hear bells?”

“No.”

“Well then, what did you hear?”

“My heart.”

The Angel of Death put his hand on his heart. He thought. “What did it sound like?”

I had to think about this. “A rush of wind on the inside going upwards. Is that wrong?”

“No. Of course it isn’t. Music is what you make of it, here, Mira. Did you follow it?”

“I came back here.”

The Angel smiled, and looked away for a split second. “Then you did.”

***

Working for the Angel of Death: Day Two

2010-08-13T08:16:00.002-04:00

Day Two

I came back to the office of the Angel of Death the next day. Ready for action, or at least what masqueraded for that effect.

It was quiet as I walked in. The lights were off. Strange, never noticed that before. I looked around on the walls for a light switch.

Nothing.

The rear office had lights on. I could hear a faint rustling, as if the Angel of Death was turning in his chair. Thinking it might be a good idea to ask about having proper illumination for my own desk, I stepped forward onto the muted carpet, draped in shadow, and then realized that after my little statement yesterday, I was probably in charge of all desk lighting from now on.

See, yesterday I told the Angel of Death, my Rav (which means teacher), that my name is really not Mira – it’s Meira, which means “she who illuminates.”

Big Mouth Mira.

So, rather than going through the dark into the light, I thought about another way.

And failed.

“Good morning, Mira,” said the Angel of Death from his office. Still couldn’t see him. Gingerly, I stepped another step forward.

“Good morning, Rav,” I said to the lighter air farther on. “It’s very dark in here today.”

“Yes, it is,” said the Angel of Death. I could almost feel the glow of his smile.

I took a deep breath.

“Um, is there a way to turn the lights on in the office out here? I didn’t see a switch on the wall,” I said.

“Well, Mira, where would the switch be?”

“On the wall?” I said again, thinking I must not have gotten the idea across in the previous sentence.

“Check again and let me know if you find it. I’m having problems with the displacement of my ordinary things today. You seem to be good at finding a solution,” he said, and apparently with more rustling returned to his work.

The walls looked dim and blank. I felt them – they did have a texture. Almost like stucco, raised swirls of white on white. My hand bumped over the edges, but I couldn’t feel any obvious metal or plastic edge of a switch plate.

I would’ve drawn a solution, but the pencil was someplace far in the gloom. The shadows in the corners loomed a bit closer, and I paused.

There were no windows in my section. The Angel of Death, of course, had a window. I’m not sure what scene it looked out onto since I didn’t spend much time there yesterday. Some kind of cityscape. We were several floors above ground – at least today. I suspected that no matter which button I pressed on the elevator wall each morning the car would rise in its own good direction.

Button. Do light switches have to look like switches?

I felt around again on the cool wall. Dry, not moist at all. Apparently this was a solidly built structure and had no leaks. Excellent – I never did like extra water in my workday.

I moved my hands around in a circular motion – maybe I could feel along the wall and find something that felt like a light. But as I moved around, slightly to the right, the wall got warmer. Just a little. I moved my hand again, further up and to the right, and the wall was warmer again.

I swirled my hand in a small motion, then expanded it as I realized that the wall was getting warmer under my fingers. Just fingertips, then, in a circle – a loop de loop curly-cue around and around.

And then the lights started coming on.

I didn’t stop except for a brief glimpse at the ceiling – never noticed it yesterday, as I was busy with my filing.

It was cloudy at the top of the room.

The clouds weren’t painted.

Real clouds near the ceiling, just floating there, as if hanging out in an office was just the thing to do. They moved away from one corner as I swished and swirled my fingers around the wall. I started to tap the wall at the same time, as if I was playing “Morning has Broken” on an invisible vertical piano.

And suddenly the lights were on. And I heard a little trumpet from inside the filing closet at the far wall, blaring a small horn.

The Angel of Death walked to the edge of the door frame. Tall, dark and somewhat beautiful (okay, very,) he gripped the top of the dark wood frame, looked at me and said,

“And it was evening and it was morning, Day Two, Mira. Good work. I have an errand for you to run, when you have a moment.”

Good thing I found my walking shoes the night before.

To Be Continued…

I never ask.

2010-08-02T16:29:00.003-04:00

I pray regularly -- every Friday night, whether I need it or not.

Sometimes at other times; sometimes I forget until I light the Shabbat candles on top of my stove. The kitchen looks so comforting at dusk. Pink in my evening.

I light them, and I say the blessing that is really a repetition of a commandment to kindle the lights of our Sabbath. But I usually add a little something extra.

I pray for opportunity.

I'm one of those strange people who never, ever, prays for a new sofa. I don't pray for a specific job, or a new car, or a shiny bauble to appear on my doorstep.

I know better.

Ever since I took an amateur psych test while not doing my calculus homework in summer school (full credit, of course, she says), I knew better than to think of my life as spoon-fed anything.

My friend Leslie asked me to define something one day during that class -- "there is a tree with a key hanging from it. Describe the key."

The key in my imagination was a large, old-fashioned gold key, almost like it would unlock a castle door. It was hanging from a burgundy velvet ribbon.

"What do you do with the key?"

And y'know -- I almost didn't say it. I mean, the key wasn't mine -- just hanging there in the shaded forest of tall, tall trees. Could've been meant for someone else. Someone could be coming round the path anytime now, just waiting to grab it back. Maybe it was for his house.

But I took it anyway. Guiltily, I tucked it into my imaginary pocket.

And other than facing down the big, angry black dog, seeing my love as a small pot of jam, my future as a person-size mason jar of fireflies, and attempting to climb the very slippery and mossy enormous wall of death (I needed a rope to see over the other side, and trust me, the unicorns, rainbows and Barbie castle were well worth the view) it was quite

uneventful.

But something stuck. And when I got older and was in my own house -- or even a little before, I realized that a)I still feel guilty sometimes about the opportunities I receive and b)I shouldn't feel that way.

I pray for opportunity so that I can be faster, smarter, better. I figure no one is going to deliver my destiny on a golden platter. But then I wonder, just a little, when I consider all the good things in my life. It's a strange thought to think that I'm limiting someone else by taking my own steps.

Love is infinite. I never worry that I'm taking love away. But some years have been so lean, and yet I still felt like I was taking something from someone else even when I needed so much.

Resourcefulness is a two-sided coin. When you think no one will rescue you, you take the key. I never thought to shout out into the forest -- hey! Does this belong to anyone? Does anyone want to show me where this key goes?

I never ask.

I think about that, lately. I wonder why I pray to just see opportunity so that I can take it. It's active in the taking, but so passive in the observation. There's more to making a life than just keeping an eye on hanging keys. And, I don't always have the right pockets anymore. Something about those parachute pants went the way of all things.

And when I do think to ask, it's Shabbat, and we're not supposed to ask God for anything then. Maybe subtly, but not up front. Only a blessing -- not a sofa.

What would I ask for, I wonder, if I remembered to pray on a weeknight?

Happy Monday.

--Naomi

Ready for Lunch

2010-07-27T15:03:00.001-04:00

“Thélete na eínai éna gévma, í na fáte éna gévma?” -- Greek

One day I sat down in a sunny place and told myself a story. It wasn’t a story about a sunny day.

In fact, it was quite the opposite. Someone very wise once told me that in order to discover the hidden places within us; we should simply make up the details and consider the job done. Not that we need to prescreen the lies in our lives – merely that the things that move unseen around us may actually be ready to give us true gifts if we’re willing to tell the tale ourselves.

This is that tale.

In a faraway place, a stone tower, really, I decided to take my lunch underground. No windows in this bone cold room. Only a small fire in a grate, and three blackened workmen gathered round, warming their hands and preparing a small meal for themselves.

I hesitated to sit by them – they seemed quiet and willing to only be part of themselves. But for once in my life, I wanted to meet different people and make conversation instead of dining in the corner of the prettiest crystal (as in breaking-glass) ballroom.

The men noticed me. They gestured with gnarled hands, long bent from labor, to sit across from them, but near the fire. “Sit, sit,” one man said. Shorter than the others, but thinner with a smile that flashed white teeth in the firelight.

I sat gingerly on a plank. There was no food here, other than what the workmen brought. We watched each other across the flames, smiling slightly. No challenge issued. Another man offered his bread toward me, but after I refused once he continued eating.

We sat companionably for a while, and I wondered what I would learn from chatting with the men who worked so hard to keep the tower warm. I was willing to wait for my lunch, just to see what happened.

The men finished eating. They wiped their mouths, roughly but not harshly, and leered at me a little – ready for some fun. I wasn’t sure what they were up to.

“So, little one, do you want to eat a meal, or be a meal?” The smallest one asked me.

“Why?” I asked.

The second man gestured to the wall they leaned against. They moved away from it as he tapped on the stone. Suddenly, the stones separated to reveal a wooden door hidden beneath. He opened it, and I could see the iron chains and planks of a dumbwaiter. There was nothing on it, but it cast a shadow into the shaft, as the light from the flames of a large fire lit the scene from far below.

“We see you’re hungry,” the third man said. “We’ll find out soon how much.”

The first man jumped up lightly and stood right at the door, gesturing. “Your ride awaits, m’Lady. You have only to choose.”

I had the distinct impression that I wasn’t going anywhere except into the dumbwaiter.

“Eat a meal or be a meal?” I asked.

“Yes. Choose.”

I looked at the dumbwaiter, sitting on the echoes of flames.

“Down.”

The small man gasped, holding his chest in shock. “Down,” he cried. “Are you sure?”

I smiled calmly. “Absolutely.”

“Well then,” he said, “here is your ride to dinner. Hopefully you’ll taste wonderful – I do so like young ladies, boiled,” he continued, laughing.

That did not comfort me.

I got up, dusted myself off a little, and went over to the dumbwaiter. I sat on the planks. The second man made sure I’d fit, and as he grasped the chains, he whispered, “it’s a hot ride down – careful to jump before the flames hit your bottom.”

I held my breath as they lowered me down. The flames grew higher, and the more the chains squeaked with the men’s efforts, the hotter the seat of my trousers became. Down, down, down, and then, almost near the bottom, the chains leaped and the planks bounced me off the dumbwaiter. I fell forward, into a large rock-faced kitchen lit by the enormous hearth that shot the flames back up into the tower.

I was surely a meal in waiting.

“You might as well get up, now that you took the long way ‘round,” said the cook as she threw around pots and spoons in some dinnerly dance. I crept up meekly to the counter, rough-hewn logs bigger around than I was, and sat on a stool to see the scene around me.

“Am I a meal now?” I asked her. She turned her back to me, wide with effort and age, and though she shook a little, her mirth was barely audible.

“Not since you came downstairs. Ah, but upstairs, now then, you would’ve been served,” she said. “Boiled and spoiled and oiled, I imagine.”

“But whose dinner?” I asked.

“The prince. He loves to try a new dish every now and then. Lucky you, though, your free ride will get you dinner another day.”

The cook said nothing more, until suddenly a large clay dish full of the best-smelling food in the world was thrown before me. It didn’t spill. I waited for an invitation, but none came. It seemed to be my food – it was right in front of me. Then again, she might have missed.

No harm in one bite, I imagined. Incredible. Hot, roasted good things fried in oil that slid down my throat. Better not to ask too deeply into what it was.

But I did have to invent my own knife to serve myself.

--Naomi

Working for the Angel of Death -- Part 2

2010-07-20T15:00:00.003-04:00

(Continued...)

I looked down at my hands – no wand. But strangely enough, there on the middle of the desk when I turned around to ponder my lack of equipment, lay a beautifully un-chewed pencil.

That’s how I knew it absolutely wasn’t mine.

Supple and golden yellow, and sharpened to just the right point.

I wondered. Should I use it?

Sounds like a curious question, but honestly, in my first day on this job, I didn’t want to appear untrustworthy. And, considering my location, I knew, just knew, there wasn’t anything like a free lunch in this part of town.

Eh. I shrugged. All things considered, I could work off the debt. I took it in hand, and began conducting my own personal internal musical score while I considered what type of magic I’d need.

Up and down in the air – in the silence and the white. Like directing the clouds, almost.

Until I started walking and the sparkles followed me.

Never having been chased by golden sparks in the air, I was a bit nervous and made my way toward the door. I wasn’t sure how far they’d follow me down the hall – perhaps all the way to the washroom?

I didn’t get that far. Well, I didn’t mean to get that far. I just walked, conducting, and suddenly realized that the way my movements were waving in the air that the shimmers could be directed like my own mystical etch-a-sketch.

But apparently the solution closet didn’t need to be found at all.

It needed to be drawn.

I could already see the outline of something, so I started filling in the edges. A little bit of door here, a bit of handle there, and suddenly I had the nicest vision of a somewhat translucent closet door in the middle of the air somewhere slightly displaced from the edge of the office. Inside, of course.

The vision of solutions filling my head suddenly became more solid. The door materialized, and although I realized as I pulled on the golden handle that I’d forgotten hinges, apparently the things-that-go-poof-in-the-day remembered and nothing came off in my hands as it squeaked open. Just a tiny squeak, as if the universe said, “ah-ha!”

And then I saw what lay inside the solution closet.

Of all things, an order desk.

With a tiny bell, shiny and silver and brand new, waiting to be rung – just off to my right. A little Dutch door was the counter, in the same dark wood as the shelves at the other end of the room.
I pressed on the bell and it dinged in echoed harmony. A choir of secretaries couldn’t have done it better.

“May I help you?” A voice said in the distance. Strange, there didn’t seem to be much other than the counter and the bell inside the closet. Where did the voice come from?

“Well,” I muttered quietly, “I could use a bit of help with a solution. Is this the solution closet?”

“Drawn and quartered,” the voice said, as a little imp rose up from under the door. “Sorry, dearie, I was just rearranging my things down here – hopefully I didn’t startle you. What do you need?”

“I’m having some trouble alphabetizing these files. Do you have a solution?”

“That’s a larger question than I realized. Assistants, these days,” the imp continued, making notes on a sudden poof of pink smoke that turned into an order form. “Always asking for the large things, when really all I can stock are the smaller questions.”

“Well, I suppose I could ask a smaller question,” I said, eyeing the imp carefully. He stopped writing. I should be more cautious about help from strange closet ordering stations, anyway.

“What is it, then, please?”

“What letter do I start with?”

And the imp smiled a smile so wide that I thought his lips would burst. Blue skin around his piercing eyes wrinkled into the most synergistic joy.

“Don’t start at the beginning, dearie, if you know what’s good for you. It’s too far back and you’ll never get there. But if you start at the end, you miss all the good things. Pick somewhere else, and carry on from there.”

“Why?”

“Too large a question, I’m afraid,” the imp said. “Just work your way through. Do your best – and you know, you can always draw another solution when you need one.”

I almost thanked him. But then again, I should’ve known better.

The imp reached outward and pulled the door shut. Show over, the sparkles flared up one more time and like fireflies on the wind, blew away.

Where does the wind go on the inside?

Having found the solution, or at least where it was kept, I made my way back to the bookshelf. I placed the pencil to the right, and went back to my new desk and carried the pile of files back over to the shelves. After I placed them higher so I could sort, I began the arduous task of being somewhat nosy and searching for some way to make them make sense.

But there really was no way, since I couldn’t read them. Except, one of the files broke free of the others when I was restacking and sorting and almost spilled onto the floor. Somehow, I caught it in mid-air, slightly ajar.

My name was on the inside, but with one additional letter.

M-E-I-R-A.

The page was rimmed with gold leaf. Beautiful vines clung to the edges, curling and winding around. Smaller purple violets blossomed forth from the vines, and the letters in my name clung to the flowers like the ink wanted company while it dried.

Meira. And underneath, a small definition of who I was supposed to be.

She who illuminates.

Apparently, when one works for the Angel of Death, and files for a living, one may find the very file of who we really are.

I had other pages, but the cover intrigued me so much that I decided to file it in the front so I could look at it later.

Once I placed it into the first green binder, top right shelf, it started to fall into place.

I filed myself under B. For Beginning.

***
The Angel of Death was just finishing his own quill-scratching for the day when I placed the last manila folder gently onto the bookshelf. He did glance at me from time to time, but other than a small smile once in a while, we worked together and yet apart in silence. The whitest, most pale silence yet peaceful.

The bookshelves disappeared into the wall once I turned away.

The Angel of Death looked up at me from across the way.

“Well? All finished then? Did you figure out how the system works?” He asked.

“I seem to have managed, Rav,” I said to him with a smile. “I really liked the file with my name in it.”

“Did you?” He asked again, but it wasn’t really a question. He put his hands forward, together, on the desk and leaned toward me. “Tell me, Mira, which letter did you end up starting the system with? I’ll need to know if you find another position.”

“B.”

“B?” He grinned. “Didn’t want to start with the first letter of your own name?”

“That seemed too obvious,” I said to him, tilting my head slightly. “It’s not all about me, is it?”

“Did you read the file?”

“No, actually, I got too lost in the cover art but I figured I’d better start in the beginning, anyway.”

The Angel of Death actually looked right at me, then. Such a sharp, piercing gaze.

“B,” he said.

I looked at him and my smile grew wider. There was a gentle breeze in the office suddenly, as if a window had opened to the outside. Cool.

“B,” I said.

“Well, then, now that you’ve found the beginning, I suppose you might want to come back and continue on through,” he said to me, although he looked slightly nervous at the prospect. But I think he actually might be nervous that I wouldn’t, rather than that I would.

“I’d love to stay on for a while, if you’ll have me, Rav.” I said to him.

“Then here you are, Mira, here you are.”

(I would say, The End, but maybe in time it'll be the beginning. Who knows how many files are really in the letter A?)

A long short story.

2010-07-16T16:01:00.004-04:00

Working for the Angel of Death

“Well, I’m sure you’ll be able to find your desk,” the little demon said as he showed me around the office. Nervous, my first day and all.

Beautiful office, really. White walls, pure as driven snow. Brilliant pot lights in the ceiling gave off a glow of angelic glory undefined by reason. White carpet – no stains. Imagine that. Nothing like the hell I imagined I was going to as I made my way through the underground tube, around the river to my new workplace.

“Isn’t there something I should know before I start?” I asked, wondering if I could find my way around the big office – comprised of my small desk, which was left undecorated just for me, and the inner office with more plush carpet and a big, black leather chair that I could just see the corner of from my vantage point.

“Well,” the little demon said, examining his long finger nails closely for a moment, “I suppose I could let you in on a tiny little secret.”

“Yes?”

“If you’re having a spot of trouble, any time of the day, I’d check out the solution closet, if I were you.”

“What? Where is it?”

The demon smiled, but only slightly, and looked up at me. “That was the tiny little secret.”

“What was?”

“That there’s a solution closet.”

Then I realized that the closet wasn’t quite located anywhere near me. “Oh.”

The demon picked up his things, consisting of a very large overcoat, a very small briefcase, and a medium-sized rubber duck. “I’ll be off then, duckie,” he said with a chuckle. “Worst of luck to you.”

And suddenly with a swoop of shadow, he was gone.

Big sigh.

I looked around. This wasn’t what I’d planned. I thought, upon expiring somewhat early, due to circumstances that were OF COURSE beyond my control, that I’d have just a bit of pitchfork action, then on with the suffering.

I had no idea that suffering for eternity consisted of a desk job with the Angel of Death.

Apparently the Hellion Temp Agency knew what they were doing. They said this was the absolute worst punishment they could come up with, and I just knew that they were right.

I looked down at my pointed heels. The shoes ached a bit, having not been broken in at all. Some little agent had picked me up straight away at the weigh station, after finding out that the scales of justice were just a bit broken that day, sighing and moaning his fate of having to get me proper clothes for the position.

And yes, all malls are located in Hell.

You want to know how I know? Oh, I shouldn’t go there, but what they hey? I just got my first demotion and I’m so thrilled – NOTHING WAS IN MY SIZE.

But apparently, space is limited in Heaven these days, so the angels and demons live and work together now. I suppose that I was sent to work in the low-rent district. But everything looked fine to me.

I sat down in my too-short chair, with my too-tight shoes, my slightly too-big skirt (but only in the waistband), my too tight top (and you know that of course there are no safety pins in the world that can contain my rack of lamb) and looked for a pen and a pad of paper, so that I could take notes in chicken scrawl for my fab new boss.

And then the Angel of Death walked in.

He looked at me.

I looked at him.

Then I looked at the floor.

The Angel of Death was the most attractive man I’d ever seen.

He rubbed his hands together and smiled. I continued looking at the floor, but the sparkle from his teeth only added to the glare.

“Well, now, my dear, cat got your tongue? Up with you so I can have a good look at you,” he said gleefully. Way, way too happy to see a temp in a new position on her first day in the afterlife.

I stood up, slowly, and looked up at him. It was going to be a long day.

“Hello then, I’m the Angel of Death. I’ll be your superior for the next little while, and I’ll try and make your life as easy as possible.”

“Oh! That’s fantastic. I’m Mira. Nice to meet you.” I held out my hand. And the Angel of Death took it gently, turned it over, frowned just a tiny bit, and gave it back to me.

“That’s odd. Haven’t you been permanently assigned to someone yet? I thought you were just filling in until your position was open.”

“Well, er, no,” I started, nervously. “I didn’t realize that I was going to be assigned right away. Seems like I got off to my new end on the wrong foot.”

He looked into my eyes, bending over to stare straight at me. The smile left his face, a little, but I saw the strangest twinkle in his eyes. Very tall, but not unkind.

“I’m not the Devil, Mira,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

“Okay.”

He cleared his throat a little and stood back. “Well, let’s just get to work then, and I’ll check on your assignment in a little while. Probably a bit of lost paper work, I imagine.”

“How can I help you?”

“Well, first off, I could use some assistance with this pile of files I’ve been meaning to put away.” And the Angel of Death waved his hand and the wall in front of me opened. Dark wooden bookshelves with large Kelly-green binders full of papers lined the place where the whitest pale used to be.

He walked over to the other side of my desk – could’ve sworn it was nothing but edge and carpet, but suddenly there was a stack of manila folders waiting for their proper place – on the shelf, apparently.

The Angel of Death picked up one of the manila folders. Thick, with yellow sticky notes peeking out from the edges. Worn at the side, like someone had chewed the tips off in a fit of pique. He looked closely at the name, almost like he needed bifocals – apparently Hell doesn’t have a LensCraftsmen, either.

“This one seems ready to be put away, Mira. Do you think you could examine the shelves, and file the proper placement? It’s all alphabetical, so I’m sure you won’t have any trouble,” he said, now facing the dark wood. I watched the back of his head, his hair shifting slightly under the lights. Highights in a color I couldn’t imagine. He gently placed the file on my desk.

Then I was back in reality. “Shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll get right on it.”

“See that you do. I’ll be in my office if you need anything. Oh, and welcome,” he said as almost an afterthought, and he walked away and I could hear the smallest ruffle as he sat down at his large, dark desk and began working on something that apparently required an inkwell and a feather.

I picked up the file he’d left on my desk.

It was blank.

How could I file something that had no name or title?

Considering my situation, that it was only my first five minutes on the job, and that I didn’t want to appear helpless, I looked around, and decided the only thing to do was break confidentiality and look inside to find a name. Perhaps I could make a label, too, while I was at it, although I did notice that the Angel of Death didn’t prefer computers. Perhaps I’d have to shovel coal later, too, to keep the place warm.

But somehow I didn’t think so.

Just a bit nervous with my fingers cooled – I timidly opened the file.

Lots of note pages filled with scribble. Doodles on the side – funny drawings of strange animals and people, sometimes strange geometric shapes. No runes, or swear words – in fact, when I tried to read the notes to find something to file it under, the words just didn’t make sense.

He did say it was alphabetical, didn’t he?

Humming a bit under my breath, which I’m known to do in certain situations involving utter, well, not confusion, but simple misunderstanding, I walked the folder over to the bookshelves. I placed it gingerly in a blank space along one shelf, and pulled out a binder. Perhaps there was guidance on the shelves themselves.

The binder was lighter than it looked. I thought it was full – but when I tugged on it to pull it out, I could feel the weight of it was no more than one purchased at the store, still wrapped in clear plastic. It smelled new, too.

I opened it. There was one piece of paper inside. One little slice of the work of the Angel of Death. Just a few words on it, with no apparent reason.

I didn’t want to ask for help. There must be some way to find order out of this tiny microscopic chaos, I thought to myself. I could hear the Angel of Death shuffling papers in his office. I froze at the shelves.

“How’s it coming along, then, Mira?” he asked. He sounded calm. If only he knew. “Everything going well out there?” He got up out of his chair and came to the doorway.

“Oh, just fine, Sir. Oh! Sorry, do you have a proper title – I don’t know what to call you.”

The Angel of Death looked me over – up and down. He put his hand up to his chin, and thought of a bit, considering.

“Are you comfortable with my first name?”

I gulped.

He sighed. “Rav will do, Mira. It’s the proper title, after all. I am a teacher, even in the worst of times.”

“Yes, Rav.”

He clapped his hands. “Well, then, back to work.” And he went back to his desk, almost in a flash of light. I’d never seen an angel move that fast.

Alone again. I looked at the shelves, eyeing them over, thinking about a possible solution. I could reorder them all to my liking, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to stay. Something less permanent, then.

Walking away from the shelves with the manila folder in hand, now warm to my touch, I wandered back to the desk and took a long look at the office. There wasn’t much to look at. But I remembered the little demon’s words – the solution closet. Supposedly, I could’ve asked for that too, but I’m not that dependent on conventional solutions.

I wondered if waving my imaginary magic wand would do anything to locate the closet.

To Be Continued ...

One-line poem.

2010-07-06T10:49:00.001-04:00

Tis of thee I sing.

(Not much time to contribute, but I thought of this in the middle of nowhere on a sunny day while looking up at the sky on the fifth of July -- better late than never, God.)

--Naomi

You can't make me.

2010-06-17T13:41:00.002-04:00

"Screaming is for when you have nothing better to do."
--"Everything I need to know about life I learned from reading Anita Blake. (Laurell K. Hamilton)

So I'm screaming my way down River Road one day this week, wondering about why I'd play Blasphemous Rumours on a beautiful sunny day.

Why scream? I have nothing better to do. Maybe I like the perspective it gives me -- a wandering Doppler effect of agony inside a shiny blue mommy van.

You can't make me.

I don't have to.

I don't have to write in my blog. Sometimes I do, but being in search of (in many ways, spiritually and employment-wise) means living the Leonard Nimoy PhD school of philosophy.

I don't have to scrub my floor with a stiff brush and dish soap.

I don't have to read the books I reserved at the library.

I don't have to deliver a bag of clothes and food at the mission instead of Goodwill.

I don't have to clean my room.

I don't have to eat vegetables.

I don't have to finish what I start.

You can't make me, anyway.

What are you going to do, sue me for kitchen malpractice?

Maybe.

What happens when we live by the code of only doing what we have to do? What happens when we only complete the work that others start? What happens when you're only peeing (pishing) on fires instead of burning them out?

Hot coals, my friend, hot coals. I'm sitting on them and my tuchas (read behind) is burning.

I'm listening to "Rebel Yell." Why? I wanted something out of character. I wanted to write against the grain. But what happens is that I learn more about the struggle against myself. I'm writing against my better will. (Not judgement.) So I change the song, to increase the force of the pressure against me.

Now I'm aggravated. Fine. You can't make me listen to something I'd like. (Well, I like it, but not that much. It's the horn section that pisses me off currently.)

Why make the effort? Why bother? What's the point, anyway?

(I thought we were here to learn courage, honesty, but then again, that wasn't my mission -- trust, patience and self-acceptance are mine alone today it seems.)

The point is, (she says with a wry grin) is that some things just need to be done. Not for your own personal satisfaction, but then again, who knows what you'll learn by completing (so far) a good soul scrubbing?

Why bathe? (asks my eldest)

Why clean my room? (asks the middle?)

I want baba. (says the baby.) Where'd the ball go? (he also says, cutie that he is.)

I want my Mommy. Sometimes I want my Mummy, but I'm into other cultures at the moment, and don't have time to unwrap the past.

You can't make me, anyway. Which probably means it's time for more library books that you can't make me read, food that you can't make me eat, and a journey of a lifetime that you can't make me complete.

Except that secretly, I want to.

--Naomi

Breakdance.

2010-04-22T11:13:00.002-04:00

I went to my high-school spaghetti fundraiser for our upcoming reunion this fall. Last week, the sun was shining, it was a beautiful, warm day, and for the first time in many years I was home in Windsor, Ontario (yours to discover) for a happy occasion. I met my friend, Sandy, at Vincent Massey Secondary School and realized when I walked in the door that incredibly --

I missed my school.

Which is really, really strange, because, get this -- I still have nightmares that I haven't finished Grade 13 and I'm missing one more course. Of course, during my nightmare, I can't find my schedule, nor the office, and I'm wandering the halls (not naked, mind you, nor during a tornado) trying desperately to find out why, at 40 or 41 years old, I'm still not a high-school graduate.

Fun, eh?

So in prepping for my 2.5 hour journey south, I was looking up old Stang articles I wrote as a reporter, then editor for my infamous high-school paper. I found one, my first one published -- waaaaayyyy back in 1984. I was 15, it was my first year on the school paper, and I was so proud to be able to write and be published.

In honour of that occasion, here's my ancient (yet still amusing) article.

Breakdance

They seem harmless enough as they pay to get into Massey's dances, but don't let those cute outfits and flash colours fool you. They mean business and we (sigh) know it. These are the break dancers. But why do they do it?

Breakdancing started in the inner city; a solution for the gang fights. Now, instead of a duel with knives, they turned, twisted, and flipped around to prove that their gang was THE BEST. Eventually this form of competition moved from the city to the suburbs. It turned into a neat way to impress your family and friends. What a change of objective!

The break dancers of Windsor come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from small children to adults who should know better. The teenagers are the ones who invade Massey, though. They lay low for about an hour or so, to give a false sense of security, and of course, to get the best spot on the floor. Then it begins. At first the beat of the music rattles your brain, but as vision clears you see people sliding, crawling and generally jumping around. These are just the spectators. As you look inward you see ...

...In the centre ring, these joint-shifters are doing things I wouldn't make my worst enemy do! Flips, turns, arms and legs in the air, and hands where normally the feet should go. Isn't that dangerous, you ask? Of course. But who can resist all that attention you get while almost breaking your back doing the suicide move? Oh, and that head spin! He couldn't have hurt himself much -- as his brains are at the posterior end of his body! Really, to have the guts to do that.

Breakdancing, the new fad, has been accepted by the general public as normal (what else could they do?) Therefore, it is not unusual to see breakdancing downtown, at the mall, or even the street with the most people.

So the next time you see a breakdancer doing his thing, ask yourself: is there really something to be gained by this? Yes or no, I think we'll all have to agree; variety is the spice of life. Can't we tolerate them just a little longer?

--Naomi Gumprich, Nov. 2, 1984 Massey Stang

One little goat.

2010-04-04T21:50:00.002-04:00

Every night, as my children go to sleep, I sing a prayer with them. I sing the Shema -- a Hebrew sing-song prayer that reaffirms that God is one.

The girls know it by heart. They depend on that little ritual, that tiny little song that sings them off into slumber. If I'm not in that bedroom on their schedule, they're coming out and looking for me -- looking for that small period of time in their day when we sing (sometimes together, in tune.)

I don't know if they really understand what the song means.

Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.
Blessed be his name, forever and ever.

I sing it in Hebrew, the way I learned it at temple when I was a little, little girl. Not too little, not as small as my younger daughter, but not as old as my eldest. I liked to sing, and the meaningless phonetics didn't phase me. I fit in with the crowd as we all chanted the same melody.

I see this with my daughters, as they sing this song in our temple, now. They know the tune, if only those two lines. I swell with pride that they can participate at their own pace.

But I wonder, sometimes, what I'm forgetting to tell them. I teach them the song, but I don't sing the English. I teach them the wonder and joy of Jewish holidays and Judaism and Hebrew, but the awe and mystery that I feel about God -- I wonder if it's possible to transmit that to a child without a lecture and a chalkboard.

(Of course it's possible.)

It's the depth of the ritual that surprises me. One little prayer before bed. I started this ritual because the eldest needed, desperately, to have more routine in her life. So I created this pattern of reading a story, and cuddling, and then turning out the light and singing this song. Jews traditionally say this prayer, the Shema, twice a day -- in the morning and in the evening. It's one of our most powerful prayers -- some say the most powerful. You can say it on your deathbed and rest, affirmed.

But having just celebrated Passover (and thanks, I managed to enjoy the matzah and other goodies) I realized that my children don't have many other songs. When my mother remarried and we moved to Canada (along with my subsequent adoption and name change from Melamed to Gumprich), I became part of a new family, that had more songs than we did. I learned to blend in further with more traditional Judaism. I learned to sing (but unfortunately not remember the words without a primer) new songs. And now that I'm a little older (don't push me, my b-day isn't until next week!) I see the depth of those songs. Not just in English, but in the depth of Hebrew, of Aramaic, of the roots of our people, and their (and my) dedication to keep traditions alive that have lasted thousands of years.

Here's the last verse of a Passover song that I always loved, for the lilt at the end of the last line -- it's the way my mother sang it. I have no idea if it's exactly the right tune. Kind of like the third-generation grandchild cutting off the corner of the roast because 50 years ago her grandmother's oven was too small for the same cut of meat to fit inside. (And in keeping to this theme, it's a bloodthirsty little tune...)

Chad Gadya

(One little goat, one little goat)

Then came the Holy One, Blessed be He,
and smote the angel of death, who slew the slaughterer,
who killed the ox, that drank the water,
that extinguished the fire, that burned the stick,
that beat the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the goat,
Which my father bought for two zuzim.
Chad Gadya, Chad Gadya.

It doesn't look that interesting when typed, but it's actually quite catchy. What I like about this song is the idea of consequence. Did the cat have a choice to eat the goat? Certainly. Did the dog have a choice to bite the cat? Of course he did. It might have been instinct, but it really was his decision in the end. But, I ask myself, Torah scholar that I am, did the dog bite the cat because he ate the goat? Or was he just walking around the corner and see a tasty piece of tail?

(Oh, I skirt the edge of blasphemy, but trust me, I always make those blind corners, somehow.)

But it's the stick that gets me. I mean, it's just a stick. How did it beat the dog? How did it rise up in the air (asks the eternal child) and wind up beating the dog? Did it suffer consequence? According to the song it did -- it burned in a fire. But even the fire suffered, as it was extinguished by water.

Seems that everyone and everything suffers consequence for our decisions. And God, in the end, had to deal with the mess that followed from one poor man's decision to take advantage of one bargain goat on sale.

Who's aggravated in the end? Me.

It seemed like a good sale at the time, I'm sure. But if you knew, as only God knows, what would happen from the purchase of one little goat, would you let the entire song suffer just to reach that catchy refrain? Would you stop the purchase? Would you stop the song halfway, because the rest is just too painful to listen to (if you were at my seders, you might've.) Or would you just let it play out, because not only can you see it coming, but because maybe you hope that things might be different?

Or maybe, maybe, you might see that in the end, we all learn from our choices.

--Naomi

How our shoes make odd noises in this space.

2010-03-22T09:42:00.003-04:00

It might be a misquote. Don't sue me. (The title, that is.)

So I've been wandering around my own internal universe, wondering how the patterns in our lives fit together. How is it that I weave on the underside of the loom, yet someone else can see the beautiful tapestry?

Why am I blind on the inside?

Justice is supposedly blind -- but I'm fairly sure she can feel the weight of our decisions. Is it blindness if you can't see, but you can feel?

I thought that the weight of justice was the truth, but then again, me being the queen of misunderstanding, I wondered if the unbearable lightness of being also sets one free.

Just something to think about while I don't work (I'm getting there) and figuring out how to clean out my kitchen for Passover.

If you're standing on holy ground, according to my people, you take off your shoes. But that whole Counting Blue Cars song is about our shoes making odd noises in this space (place? Someone please comment and correct me!) Why would we wear our shoes in front of God? Are we not standing on holy ground? Why would we dare wear our pointy-toe heels and shiny patent leather boots in the middle of the desert?

The better to see ourselves.

--Naomi

The truth is out of style.

2010-03-16T09:25:00.003-04:00

I saw this video this morning, posted on my friend's profile page (who shall remain anonymous unless he really, really wants to comment -- please?)

Oh, 1989 was such a good year. Bitter, sarcastic GenX going to college and loving it. Journalism school -- all about the truth. Objective truth. But is there such a thing? Two sides to every story; except usually there's way, way more sides. (Here's your side.)

When we grew up, we grew less cynical on the surface, but our small commentary on our society remains. We didn't buy into the cereal commercials or the water-based monkeys that would suddenly come to life if only you added the smart liquid.

My quarter didn't buy anything, not even a chocolate bar anymore. But that and 85 cents would surely buy a cup of coffee.

Drink it up, baby. Can we tell the truth? Sometimes. Can we debase ourselves enough to lose our self-consciousness and accept each other for what lies within?

Same answer.

Oh, I try. But I love this song's tone. I love the old-school rap, the social commentary. I told my friend it was like the Electric Company for juvenile deliquents (sorry if I offend). I see what that show has become, and it has remnants (revnants?) of our childhoods. Teach with humor, laughing at ourselves.

Oh, and this blog was sponsored by the letters U and 2.

--Naomi

Audience with the Queen.

2010-03-11T09:33:00.003-05:00

Went to a writers' meeting last night; second one in two months.

Finally, I found my people. My peeps, and not the marshmallows with colored sprinkles. I read some of the short-story collection I'm writing and thinking about.

Silence.

Um, did I say something?

Strange. Maybe I was looking for a captured audience with a laugh track. That went out with Woody Allen movies. Or maybe, it wasn't funny enough. The thing is, it's not meant to be so serious -- on the surface.

It's just a story, after all.

It's the strangest story I've written; the one that comes after the first one. I sat the characters down, in the Montel Williams show that is my imagination, on a comfy couch with assorted sodapop, and asked them the questions I really wanted to know. After all, readers need to know.

Crazy. They responded. I wrote streams of consciousness -- all mine, yet the people that inhabit this story became real. During the story, surely, but as I read aloud to a stunned audience of about 10 in the Barnes & Noble (were they? Feel free to comment) it became apparent that I'd outdone even myself -- because I could feel the life within these figments even then.

A drive of dragons, Naomi, not a drove. But what about a fragment of figments? (If you've got better, it's a new game. Let me know.)

--Naomi

Dry gravity well.

2010-03-04T12:56:00.002-05:00

So I was with my kids the other, well, month (I take a while to think about stuff) -- playing at our local children's museum. Science, art and tech in a low-key, fun way. A mock-river with boats; vacuum cleaner pipes with bouncing balls. Turn over the miniature cars and run them on tracks.

Gravity.

Time.

Not precisely space. But still.

And I was thinking about time. I know, this is probably NOT what most people think about. But I'm an (unpaid) philosopher. I think about stuff.

Most people think time is like an escalator -- one way up or down, into the future. (Up or down depending on what you think of as your final destination.)

But what if it wasn't? What if time was more like a sphere?

What if you could go anywhere within that sphere? Would you? What if you could live your life in more than one place, not in a linear way -- what if you could wander the whole mall instead of just taking an escalator (stand left, walk right) to the next section?

Would you meet yourself in the end? Could you see everything at once, or is that linear as well?

And in the end (if it's not linear, is there an end?) would your decisions matter? What's on the outside of the sphere, anyway?

Probability. (I'm trademarking that -- copycats beware.)

Can we go outside time and make decisions? Rest on the steps of the universe and consider our options, then dive back in? What do we take with? Do we have to leave the decisions behind, and just suffer the consequence?

What if time wasn't about linear paths, but about decisions and consequence? Is that multi-tasking?

Barenaked Ladies on my computer-mock-stereo say,

"I'll take you home."

Decision. Consequence after choice. Is it linear? If/then? Or is the consequence apparent before the decision? Does that mean you can go back in time and change your decision?

Yes. Because changing your decision backwards means you feel differently about every consequence that happened afterward. Change your decision and you change your perception. And then suddenly,

the past rewrites.

--Naomi

New Laws.

2010-03-03T08:41:00.002-05:00

These laws aren't new. Isaac Asimov, my favorite science-fiction author, invented these laws in 1941, in a short story that I absolutely loved. He was my mentor, my father figure, my brilliant humourist who got me through the long dark nights of my childhood and adolesence. If I was ever afraid of the dark, it wasn't because of his words:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

We are not robots. Even if you don't believe in organized religion or the theory of the soul, we are more than the sum of our parts. We choose goodness over evil, and we survive based on similar laws in our own systems.

Do what thou wilt, but harm none.

--Naomi

I miss schoolhouse rock.

2010-02-26T13:50:00.002-05:00

Rock of Gibraltar -- my base of education; not including elementary school in the United States. Also loved the Electric Company and lo and behold, it's been redone for a new generation.

What's the point? Are we joined together, and if so, how? Are we for ourselves? (Had a dream I asked that of God -- if you are not for yourself, then whom are you for?)

Are we all just conjunctions -- and, or, and so on? Who are we to ourselves and each other? Are we all just here to "rock on" and party like it's 1999, or do we really want to live in the future? (Um, it's 2010, for my readers who forget to watch the news.)

If we link arms, and work together, do we have any limbs left to do the hard work? Can I dig myself out of my challenges with my big left toe? Or maybe the links between us are metahporical conjunctions.

And.

--Naomi

Learn out loud.

2010-02-24T16:41:00.002-05:00

I was thinking today in the white and the pale. I smiled. Then I chuckled.

I used to sit in my living room, while I was in high school, struggling with my physics and math textbooks. I had all these tests. I didn't get it. I had no idea how to learn these theories, these letters out of order that made no sense.

What to do?

I looked around. I had a book. I had a dog. Therefore,

I had an audience.

Well, damn if I wasn't going to teach the dog trig.

So I spoke out loud. Cookie was going to learn math. Actually, I didn't even care if she listened. I just needed to work these damn theories out. I didn't think I was any good. I thought that since I was a girl, I couldn't do it.

(Which is BULL-CRAP, by the way. Bullpuckie, as we used to say before it was okay to swear out loud without having to wash your mouth out with soap in the washroom.)

This is my theory, I said to myself and my mother's earthtone furniture and the "matching" peach painting that she bought at the not-starving artist store.

No one heard.

But I did.

I spoke the theories out loud to my curtains, to the walls, to the black-shiny-polish paint of the stair railing that faced me. I talked about all these equations as if I was explaining them to a really fun friend.

And that friend, in the end, was me.

I spent most of grade 11 with my hand up at the back of the classroom. The teacher would ignore me. "Sir!" I'd say. And he was annoyed -- because I didn't know the answers. I just had more questions (including of course, why our math program was a week behind the physics program so my teacher had to pull a double shift and actually teach us how to do the math before we could use the theories -- hey, journalist at heart -- get to the point!)

This is who I was, and who I am. I learn out loud.

Call it auditory learning, but there's nothing like challenging the air and the sky at the same time as yourself. Talking to yourself might be out of style, but if you can't learn by sight alone, and writing it DID NOT HELP, then hell, shout it out to the arched 70's ceiling and pray for forgiveness or a good dinner from your mother when she finally got home.

I still do it. I still shout at the universe, except when I need a good scream. Then I roll up the windows and keep my frustration within my four pieces of glass (not including the sweet spot on the windshield -- small smile implied.)

It's okay to talk out loud. It's better to yell at each other -- even when the yelling is about questions. The Canadians might have thought I was questioning their authority -- and I was -- but what I desperately wanted besides attention was answers.

Why is it that a young woman who questions, who is thirsty for knowledge, is seen as too aggressive to be worthy of a few mathematical equations?

My daughters are intuitive mathematicians. So am I. (But not an intuitive speller - did I spell that right? Is it wrong to make up spelling when I'm a contributor to urbandictionary.com?)

Don't know what 7 + 5 is? Grab 8 pencils, two suckers, three pennies and three crayons. (I actually had to do the math to get that -- eldest daughter didn't. She just knew.)

I miss that. I can argue politics and english lit and religion (sometimes) and my own opinions, but I saw in a magazine recently that there's a physics cruise. I want to go.

Wouldn't it be fun? Three hundred geeks sitting around getting sunburned, well away from the rail to the water, debating whether the ship will sink into its own gravity well from the mass of our thoughts?

Man overboard.

--Naomi

Tap softly, and.

2010-02-23T09:46:00.002-05:00

I'm horrible. I just logged in and looked at the date of my last post and sighed. Too long gone, too long missed. Been busy, but that's no excuse.

Do you ever have the connundrum of having too much to say -- to large a concept, too many words? Maybe my brain-funnel is too full and it log-jammed at the wrists. Funny.

I've been having an argument with myself (basically) over what constitutes right action. Do we take action because it's the right thing to do, or for some later reward? Do we live our own lives because we have bills to pay, or because in paying those bills, in some small action, we find joy in the motion of a pen -- ink on paper?

(Although nowadays one could, supposedly, find joy in the click-tap of the keyboard.)

How hard is it to find joy living as yourself? Don't ask me. I figured long ago that I was the strangest bird on the block, and that if I wanted any satisfaction I was going to have to find it on the inside. External validation isn't of much value when in the end, money

burns.

So, here I am, click-clack-mooing in the dusky dawn of the late afternoon of the Industrial Age (read beginning Information Age), thinking about what it would be like to suddenly appear at my desk (and see me in my pjs) from 1970.

What wonders would be beheld, in my not-new house, with my somewhat new automobile, with its flashing lights and automatic windows. What new innovation would be this computer with its television-screen-like appearance and the availability of over seven billion books (or the eqivalent) with the touch of a finger.

How much did we change? We still get married, we still have children. But nowadays if you want to go out for a "pint of milk" or a "loaf of bread" take your cell phone with you because we're all on duty 24/7. There is no escape -- we have the web on our phones, music on our ears, and tracking traces of our paths along machines in the sky for our own protection.

(Not being paranoid, no one is personally following me. Just mentioning that there's a reason your personal GPS can find your auto-route to your destination. Did you think it had it all inside? Where are you now? Can you hear me?)

Well, just my personal rant, with the stones and deep subject implied. I wrote another news story this morning, just a brief, and had to look up a fact. Strangely, my Canadian education is lacking in well, the facts of American education.

Click-clack-oink-lookup. Google the universe and 15 seconds later, I had my facts and ducks in a row. Used to be a phone call and a waiting, or at least a lookup in my handy-dandy-dictionary. Now I just telephone the Universe and ask politely. Or at least tap softly.

And carry a big phone.

Happy Tuesday.

--Naomi

Through a glass, lightly.

2010-02-08T14:45:00.002-05:00

JABBERWOCKY

Lewis Carroll

(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

(just a selection of one of my favorite poems.)

This poem, in case you've never seen it, is written in absolute nonsense rhyme.

Or is it?

We had to act this poem out in high school. I played the mome rath. I dressed all in brown -- a brown turtleneck with a brown and yellow-striped miniskirt, brown pantyhose a la my mother, and little black boots with River Styx gold buttons on them.

I put on some brown gloves, and some sunglasses, and with my short little 80's hairdo growled my little heart out in front of my classmates.

Sometimes it's all about making sense of the nonsense.

So what's a mome rath? Beats the hell out of me. Maybe it's a hell-bent teeny-bopper doing a little jig. Maybe it's a child on the hunt for his favorite beast, in a happy field of slithy toves -- grass waving in the sunshine and the shade of the passing fancy clouds.

Maybe the mome rath was the little girl bent over in the leaves, looking for the angels that supposedly whisper over each little strand,

"Grow."

Don't be so literal, I tell myself. It's all about the metaphor. But what if the metaphor isn't something we can understand?

Sometimes there are no metaphors. Sometimes there are no explanations. But I still want to run in the sunshine, and if nothing more than a frothy burble comes out of my mouth when I'm 85 years old, then

so be it.

I had a dream I was explaining the universe to a myth the other night. They asked how the Big Bang really happened.

I took out my hand and put a little navy handkerchief in it. I folded it up tightly, and sang a song about a mulberry bush.

The universe is a giant jack-in-the-box (not the fast food chain that served nasty burgers.) Wind it up and watch it go --

POP

goes the universe.

(In a good way.)

--Naomi

Lifelock.

2010-02-05T12:53:00.002-05:00

Busybusybusy this week. Like an avalanche of work fell on top of me.

Only this kind of snow I like to lie in. Don't need an air pocket -- work is the air. Love the words, my personal fingerpaints. Just dip my mind into my keyboard and insert my own personal wind.

I always did wonder if I blow my ideas out my bum.

Did you ever have a day where you wonder where all your stuff went? I had a day in college where I could not find my shoes. This was before I became a shoe-aholic. I spent quite a while spinning in dizzy, panic circles thinking about absolutely nothing but my absolute need to get the hell out, and how I was going to get to the subway in my socks.

Better now. I have several pairs, (of shoes, not panic) just in case. And, yes, they are mostly black. Women do that. Go figure.

So, as I'm wandering around my personal insides, what's new? The same and different. Writing non-fiction and living fiction sometimes. I think my life needs a soundtrack. I use pandora.com -- that works, for some parts. The radio fills the rest in the car.

Running on a fast hamster wheel and wondering whether I can keep up. Maybe I should just try and jump to stop the spinning. Do hamsters think of that trick? What would happen if the wheel stood still for a day?

Woke up from a dream, confused. Wandered around the dark thinking about coffee but I didn't make any until it was too late -- it wasn't. Coffee works at any time of day. I would make tea, but for some reason, it makes me laugh to think that someday all that caffeine will make me grow chest hair.

My only other thoughts, other than I've got a lip-lock on my life, is whether it's a bad thing to write all your hopes and fears and issues on a public blog. Is it wrong to play the fool? Sometimes it's okay -- I hope the people I work with take me seriously. My thoughts, however strange, are just as deep and wide as any "official" topic. Am I not official?

Been listening to and eating Red Hot Chili Peppers. Life should be spicy. Should have a little spark to it, now and then -- or all the time. Does that mean crazy busy, or full of talk? Not quite.

Sinking into snow and silence is also exciting. Cover myself with a quilt made of my own memory and fall back into my own personal dreams.

--Naomi

The day before.

2010-02-01T13:14:00.003-05:00

So, it's one day before Wireton Willie (or Puxatony Phil, if you're living in the USA) makes his appearance. Are you excited? You know, out here in the wilds of MI, the weather changes about every 20 minutes. It's a huge joke, in a way -- if you don't like it, just stand outside and wait. Something will change.

It was sunny outside this morning. I thought for sure that that darn beaver (oh, excuse me, groundhog, aren't those the same?) would see his shadow. Ugh, another six weeks of winter. But then again, if it's cloudy here, and I don't see my shadow, the farmer's almanac that I don't read is fairly vague about the timing of that upcoming spring.

And what defines Spring, anyway? Pardon me for my lack of legal definition, but I would think that if the wind didn't taste bitter, and the sun came out, and I was walking in mud instead of slush, that would fulfill the requirements.

Um, no. Mid-Michigan in springtime looks pretty much like winter, if you ask me. We have the longest autumn on record, but spring lasts for about one blink, then it's hot and humid and we're sweating to the not-oldies in our cutoffs and hoping for some thunder later in the day.

I need to write more. I've been writing on my own, for work and pleasure, but not publishing it here. Why? Dunno. Maybe my fiction stuff lacks. Maybe I get these great ideas but I'm afraid of my shadow. Maybe it's just too sunny out there to find the stuff underneath the rock of my own imagination.

February is the cruelest month, here. I've wanted to see Australia for a long time, but besides the cost and long flight, I wondered what the best month would be in a continent that always seems to have good weather. It's nice there now -- but it's okay here, too. Just a bit cold, a bit of a breeze and a long wait for March.

Once you have that down, and you know, positively know, that you've only got to outwit Jack Frost for another four weeks (and I do mean that, considering it's also the shortest month) you just eat a lot of chocolate (thanks, Hallmark, that was well-placed) and turn on the lights, the heat, the bathtub hot water and sit on the dryer if you have to.

I always did like good vibrations. :)

--Naomi

Paint the chicken.

2010-01-28T08:25:00.003-05:00

I was up early this morning. I went outside and looked at the clouds. I saw two formations as they flew across the sky. Both looked like two figures, one chasing the other. The first -- a dragon, but it wasn't chasing its tail. Instead, as I moved my eyes, then my head, I saw a scorpion at the end. What was a scorpion doing chasing a dragon?

Who knows?

Second formation, flying quicker. Another dragon. Maybe a fast horse out of town. Trailing its tail was an astronaut. Or maybe, a swimmer. Maybe we swim with suits on in the big blue sky for a reason. After all, it's January, and baby,

it's cold outside.

Why do we see images in clouds? Is it just random weather patterns or something else? What do we do with the images we see?

I've got my youtube on this morning (that's a new phrase, feel free to incorporate at your own expense) and I'm listening to a hazy shade of winter.

First the "new" version (a la 1980s), then the original. Music different, lyrics the same.

What if we changed our own tune and the lyrics were the same? Can we write our own stories to a different drummer?

I wonder sometimes.

There's nothing wrong with wonder. Sometimes I'm awestruck by the universe. Maybe today is the springtime of my life, with new and old music and snow on the ground and I shiver not just from meteorology but from melody

inside.

When you're faced with a choice of painting the chicken, or eating the chicken, mind your priorities.

You can always eat the chicken cold later.

--Naomi

What the hell is going on?

2010-01-22T11:47:00.005-05:00

I've been sending this out and about today; thought I'd share it with you. Old but good, even a decade and a half later (or so.) (Thanks to netjeff.com for the jokes,italicized comments are mine, blame me but don't sue!

STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION DRINKING GAME RULES
(To be played while watching the show, these days it's on DVD -- pop or soda is fine, but watch that it doesn't come out your nose! )

Have one sip of beer per successfully met condition
Anybody: 'Open hailing frequencies' 'Medical emergency' 'Belay that order'
'Energize' 'Hell','Damn' and other swearing.
See Riker's special swearing rules.

Picard: 'Make it so' 'Engage' 'Come' - two if said in personal quarters (no comment)
'Captain's log' - two if supplemental 'Proceed' 'Number One'
Worf: 'Impressive' 'Admirable' 'Grrrrr' ( A simple sneer qualifies)
Data: 'Fascinating' 'Accessing'

DRINK WHENEVER:

Riker swears - two drinks; three if it's 'hell';
whole beer if he asks 'what the hell is going on'
Riker walks forward as if he's trying to knock an imaginary door down with his forehead.
A female character has flawless makeup after she's been through the ringer.
Picard straightens his uniform
Data's innards are revealed
Data uses his strength
Data is cut off mid sentence - two drinks if it's a list of synonyms.
Data gripes about his inability to perceive human emotion (isn't dissatisfaction a human emotion?)
Geordie's visor is taken or knocked off (you'll lose an eye that way!)
Georgie gets bitched out for faulty engine, warp drive, etc.
Beverly can't figure out some bizarre medical problem
Deanna senses something really shocking
Deanna gives us Betazoid insight into something really obvious
O'Brien has a line (this gets brutal after the third season - weak drinkers may pass)
A crew member drinks - two if it's Picard; three if it's Picard drinking tea; four if the tea is identified as Earl Grey.
A bridge officer is shown in casual clothes (one drink per scene, per officer) (pace yourself)
= two drinks if it's Beverly in a sweater; two drinks if it's Picard in his chest-revealing bedwear. A bridge officer appears in dress uniform (one drink per scene, per officer)

Every time somebody is addressed by his or her first name - two if there's some kind of sexual tension going on.
Every time they use transporter room three. (Why? Who knows?)
A shuttle craft seems like an unsafe place to be. (oh, because the gold-sparkle transporter is soooooo FDA-approved!)
Somebody reads a book. (Enterprise-public-library-system)
Somebody preaches the Prime Directive - two if it's NOT Picard
Somebody preaches about Humanity's Unique Potential (NOT our USP)
Picard has an accident or is attacked - two drink; three if it draws blood
Picard is possessed - four drinks
An 'old earth saying' is brought up - two if Data has to have it explained to him.

And...
Patrick Stewart tries to speak French
Wesley talks back to his Mom.
Somebody implies that Ten Forward is a "Happening Place" (Quotes are mine. I play "air guitar," too.)
They fade for an advertisement by playing the 'ominous horns'

Klingon is spoken - two drinks per scene in which Klingons are alone and have no obvious reason to speak English but do so anyway.
Each scene in which a nifty new Romulan ship is shown (fresh off the line)
There's a token alien in the background with no lines - two if it's a Vulcan. (Hello, EEOC?)

Yellow Alert - one drink
Red Alert - two drinks (do they have time for a drink? Oh yea, they're not drinking. By this point, I'm laughing too hard to care.)
Intruder Alert - three drinks (have yourself a break today)
Another Captain or Star Fleet Command officer is on screen.
There's a countdown
Every time a bridge command is handed over
The Enterprise crew avoids a confrontation instead of blasting away. (L'chaim)

Each scene in which the Enterprise actually fights (shots must be fired) - two drinks.
Whole beer whenever the saucer section separates. (You'd have to watch multiple episodes -- this implies a binge -- mind the gap -- in memory.)
They contact somebody on the communicator/intercom without going to a panel or touching anything. (Hmmm, a Star Trek plot discrepancy, who'da thunk? God is in the details, Gene Roddenberry)
A communicator isn't working or is blocked - two if it's out of range. (Can you hear me now?)
New Trek contradicts a fact from Old Trek
(Unfortunately, players may be too drunk, or laughing too hard, to adjudicate this rule)

Or:
You're thirsty.

Have a great weekend!

--Naomi
*http://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=DrinkingGame

We are here now.

2010-01-15T13:58:00.002-05:00

I wrote this 11 years ago. I was frustrated and angry and I was also competing in a poster contest for my graphic design school in Toronto.

It made the quarter finals.

I was told that no one would read my words, since they were part of a design. The year after I graduated (if not sooner,) I began to notice that many, many designers were incorporating words, poetry, even definitions into their designs.

But this isn't about me being ahead of my time. I get that now. The question is,

are we still here?

are we still ready?

we are here now we are ready for tomorrow

hopeful shadowed underpaid courage my love edge
of the millennium generation X pain desire knowledge
love
hang in there it's only a matter of time me
me me me generation baby bust
enthusiastic vivacious waiting to exhale information overload
slackers growing up baby need
for clairity show me today hopefully hopeful
courage
are we going to be enough
X me
slackers are not just another
we are key kids show us the world my
generation down but not out don't knock us down until you've seen what we can
give peace a chance
don't despair it's not over until it's
over working til we die and enjoying the hell out of it never
never land internet boogie grunge hip twisted
faithful encouraged discouraged idealists with few ideals

worship the future new new new and
improved who do you think we are time
warped hopefully playing catch up with time
don't wait up we'll find our way we're ready test
us poke us prod us touch us & reach out with your minds and grasp
use us

vivacious tenacious waiting
to exhale hip singularly
making our mark on a new society
effervescent eat our dust
find our methods
because
at the end of the universe on
tidal waves of sound and light and idea you'll find us out there
waiting

waiting for you to join us
we're ready for our closeups
we're ready for tomorrow

--Naomi

Terriful, Horribul, No Good Very Bad Day.

2010-01-11T10:44:00.003-05:00

I'm now an editor for Urban Dictionary.com. (Like you can't be one, too.) My word of the day is this:

terriful

Something that is beautiful and terrible at the same time, in the most awesome way. Intimidating and too large to comprehend other than extreme pain mixed with insight and wonder.

I walked a fine line looking for infinity and when I stared into its face I found it terriful.

So, what else is new? Nothing much. Just checking out my old poetry. You know, I didn't realize it at the time but I wrote poetry while I was in art school. I called it target marketing package guerilla package design. Actually, I didn't call it anything but expressing my pain with a computer and a keyboard and a pantone color chart. Possibly better than an exacto blade to the skin.

Here's a selection:

befor

ter

Never never or ever done I'm

leave it to me

dead to me

sorry I

you can never never never

never never that's it

kaput done extinct for

ever after never can't won't shouldn'

t wouldn't couldn't never gone va

moos disparu s'en va never

jamais ever god help your sou

l can't gone ever vanish left

took off hidden can't ever eve

r over finish gone extinct dead

dead dead past over mourir ti

l death do us part sorry

sorry sorry can't take it

swear so sorry regret forever

and ever and ever and ever

sorry ever for ever

ever ever go back.

What is the poem about? Kind of an intentional loss. I don't want to go into it other than that. Everyone has their privacy,

sometimes.

Enjoy the photo ops from my sketchbook back in the day:

--Naomi

Be Yourself. Only different.

2010-01-07T14:31:00.002-05:00

I write this out of frustration. I used to go outside, light one up and smoke my anger into oblivion. Now I'm going to make use of my poison pen and light up the Internet. Can you smoke ones and zeros? Who knows?

Lately I've been faced with a quandry. Be yourself. But be someone else. Because who you are/who you were/whom you become is too different/too same/too hard/too soft/too stupid/too smart.

It's hard to find a happy medium when you're in the middle of two large cliffs. Normally, I'd just light up a smoke and fall into the empty space. Once I got to the bottom I'd get out my curled-up spoon and dig my way out. I never thought to grow wings and rise above it all.

New perspective. Walk the line, walk the spiral even if it's in the air and the colored smoke is from your own exhale. So let's follow this spiral up:

I'm not who I was. That's absolutely true. I've been walking through my own personal fire for a while now. So how can I go back to being unburned? Even when the skin heals, it's different skin, different cells making up the same body. It might even look identical. But it's not.

Trauma of any kind makes new growth. It may cut you off from yourself for a while, but even a vacation from my own soul has its benefits. Living with myself inside new expectations creates new likes and new desires.

I keep saying that I'm the same, but that's utter bullcrap in the end. I'm different. But then again, I was always different, just now it's a different kind of different. Who travels on this type of journey? People in great pain.

Some people just sit down by the side of the road and cry. Others throw stones. I don't like to throw stones at glass houses. I just rap lightly with one small finger, holding out a soup stone to make a new dinner. I figure I'll make more friends and create community, rather than holding myself back into the ditch.

I used to miss myself, but then I figured out that I'm always here. No matter how far our journey, it's still our journey. Inside and out, I wash myself clean.

--Naomi

Fear.

2009-12-28T11:59:00.002-05:00

I sent a letter to President Barack Obama yesterday.

I'm not usually one to write to the president. I mean, how many letters does that man get, anyway? Who am I to comment and have him actually read it? But I had a good idea.

What would happen if we all came forward and got to know each other? Not just to make friends, but to really be one community, one family? What would happen if we not only had a plan to meet up with friends and family in case of emergency, but if an entire city had a plan to find each other when the lights go out?

Do you know where your neighbors are? It's eight o'clock, and the lights are out because someone, someone far away, wants to make you suffer. Your community is without power, there's no Internet, no radio (unless you've got batteries), no grocery store, no transactions with credit and debit cards, no washing machine --

no oven.

How do you survive? What if it's more than three days? What if the National Guard can't get there because there are just too many places in the same situation? What if an entire state, an entire country or an entire electrical grid goes down and you're not in the right place at the right time?

(I'm referecing an ice storm that practially stoned Quebec many years ago. Most of the lower end of the province was without power for over a week. People had to take in their neighbors. My friend was in this, and her family was taken in. The ice was so thick that the entire power grid went down, towers and all. The hydro (power) company took in workers from the United States. But what would happen if the power grid was down everywhere?)

Think about it. We're afraid to get to know our neighbors. (I keep typing the "u" and I know the brits and aussies would forgive me, but according to my statcounter, most of my readers are in the good ole US of A.) I know my neighbors, even if I don't know their names. I walk by them and can tell by the flowers on the porch who lives there. We smile and say hi, but we don't bring over cakes. It's not the 50's, I tell myself, so who cares if I bring something over and say hello?

What happened to the good old days when people formed a community, when children played in the street with each other? Fast moves, frequent change of address due to changing economic circumstance, CNN articles on kidnappings, video games and lack of empathy.

Where are we? Are we on the right road? What happens when we know each other's names? Everyone has one, according to the Registrar General (or whatever that is in this country.) What happens when we come together and prepare for disaster in a way that only individuals can muster. What happens when we figure out that we can pull up our own bootstraps and save ourselves? Maybe the National Guard needs to be someplace and they don't have enough people to serve us all. If we're not on fire, we need to start our own.

President Obama knows the big lessons history gives us. We need to learn to make do with what we have. We are the most resourceful people on the planet, so we tell ourselves, but while I'm using all the electricity I want to stay warm, listen to music, and type, some fool in Africa is using our leftover pop cans to build a roof to shade from the sun. It's hot out there, people.

Gotta find some shade.

Come together, everyone. It's time to learn how to make ourselves one. Especially in the most divided city in the middle of Michigan. We are one Saginaw.

--Naomi

Pimp my ride.

2009-12-21T05:24:00.002-05:00

Well, people, I'm entirely too predictable. Sorry about that. See, when you're attempting to prank the Universe, I mean, what do you give to the deity who has everything? So hard to shop when all the stores are open and everything is on clearance when it's the on season.

I saw these lyrics a few months ago, and they didn't agree with me. Then I met the devil one day (seriously, I don't really think he's all that bad. What is profound spiritual growth but suffering?) and he showed me a different way to look at things. What if (she asks no one in particular), we played a little game of opposites? What if this song is precisely the opposite of what you think it means, but you have to be on the in-side to get it?

I don't like being rushed. Getting out of the house with three kids is like escaping the black hole of Calcutta. (I realize that's cliched, but what can you do? (she shrugs, Jewish-style.)

(I'll have a hot glass of water with a slice of lemon, please.)

Read the following song in two ways, and you'll see my dilemma. First, read it as if every line were the opposite, considering that death is an illusion and suffering is based on our level of personal enjoyment (it's not as cruel as it sounds.) Then, read it as if it's a dialogue -- what if the song is a conversation with someone who does exist? (I've, um, included some friends in this, so sorry if I missed you.)

Xtc — Dear God lyrics

Dear God, hope you got the letter, and...I pray you can make it better down here. (That was me, at the beginning.)

I don't mean a big reduction in the price of beer (This is God's sense of humour.)

But all the people that you made in your image, see
Them starving on their feet 'cause they don't get (This is the USM and Meghan)

Enough to eat from God, I can't believe in you (This is still me to some extent.)

Dear God, sorry to disturb you, but... I feel that I should be heard (This is from Rob and Jennifer.)

Loud and clear. We all need a big reduction in amount of tears (This is from President Obama)

And all the people that you made in your image, see them fighting
In the street 'cause they can't make opinions meet about God, (God knows this.)

I can't believe in you (so say we all at some point.)

Did you make disease, and the diamond blue? (This is from Seth)

Did you make
Mankind after we made you? (This is from Bruce. Freudian, my tuchas.)

And the devil too! (This is from my inner child. Hey Mikey, want some cereal?)

Dear God, don't know if you noticed, but... your name is on
A lot of quotes in this book, (This is from the Rebbe, and Heidi -- but it's a message for me as well.)

and us crazy humans wrote it, you (This is directly from me to you all)

Should take a look, and all the people that you made (Hi, Sascha and GooseBreeder.)

in your
Image still believing that junk is true. Well I know it ain't, and
So do you, dear God, I can't believe in I don't believe (This is from the Chicken-Fried Ass.)

in (This is me and a Small Town OK Girl.)

I won't believe in heaven and hell. No saints, no sinners, no
Devil as well. No pearly gates, no thorny crown. You're always (This is me and all of my people.)

Letting us humans down. The wars you bring, the babes you (This is my anger.)

Drown. Those lost at sea and never found, and it's the same (This is my fear.)

the Whole world 'round. The hurt I see helps to compound that
Father, Son and Holy Ghost is just somebody's unholy hoax,
And if you're up there you'd perceive that (This is Steven James)

my heart's here upon
My sleeve.
If there's one thing I don't believe in it's you.... (as you are, not you as you can be. That's from God. Go figure.)

I'm not trying to offend -- but Stumble this and see what happens. It's a random kind of day today, being the least day of the week. Strange how I come up with these ideas in the middle of the things* (I want this quote, hang on while I look for it):

couldn't find it because it's too dark, just like the funniest part (read inside) of a cow. So I looked for another book, being the random person that I am, and came across this quote:

"It makes sense that the wavelength of the wave associated with this lightest particle with nonzero extra-dimensional momentum would be about the same as the extra dimension's size." (Um, yea, I'll have fries with that shake.) **

*Recommended reading for said life experience:

A Wind in the Door
by Madeleine L'Engle
See Blajeny: The Teacher who brings Proginoskes to Meg and sends them on their journey to save Charles Wallace

** Warped Passages, page 356. Get it and read it if you can. If not, makes a great doorstop or paperweight or sleeping pill for the perplexed.

Have a nice day. Beware of Romulans bearing gifts. Don't let the back door slam on your tuchas as you're walking out, and I can't wait to see the back of you.

Love, Naomi

What if Godot never comes?

2009-12-11T08:44:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking about a play (get this) that I read in high school. It's called, "Waiting for Godot." For those not in the know, it's about two men (sad clowns, really) who are waiting for a friend near a tree. They console, they whine, they entertain themselves with silly things but in the end it's a play in two parts about absolutely nothing but waiting for an ending that never arrives.

Or does it?

It's such a deep play that I studied it again in university (that's the way Canadians used to say it) in French (joke was on me -- I only got it when I saw it as performed in a theatre. Trust this bilingual chick to only understand French through body language.)

So I went back in time, today, my own personal wormhole via Wikipedia and read the summary (the Cole's/Cliff's Notes version of the 21st century) once more and found much more than I anticipated.

I was going to write about waiting for something to happen. What happens if nothing does? But the play is far deeper than that and I, as a mere 40 year old, am humbled by the brilliance and underlying themes that I never anticipated as a young-yet-brilliant 18-year-old.

What if time is just a repeating loop and the more we look at it the more we learn? What if it's not the endings that matter but the deeper introspection into the second round?

What if, (she asks to absolutely no one in particular) we just waste our time waiting but in the end the wasting is the point?

I ask this because, if you don't know, I really don't plan these in advance. I get an idea and sometimes I look for a quote but today it hit me over the head (no, really) and I just had to see what happens when I play with an idea.

I play with ideas and I play with time. Some people call it wasting. I used to call it that until I woke up one day and realized I already had everything I needed. So what else could I do with myself now that, according to all Newfoundlanders, all the trees were cut down and sent off and the fish were harvested (that's a Canuck bitter-sweet joke).

I'm left with my own feelings about things, and honestly I'd rather drive off into the sunset than deal with them. Thinking is hard for me -- so hard to aim my thoughts at the intended idea rather than just let them swirl in a fog of Christmas prep.

I dance in my kitchen and attempt to juggle the universe. I keep waiting for something to just park in my lap and deliver my destiny but apparently I have to go out and get it. I don't relish the thought of doing my own shopping for myself. I actually hate to have to select just about anything -- I dither and dally in stores looking for just the right thing. The thing is, I know it when I see it.

I'm too visual and visceral and it's a lethal combination. You know, I do try and stay normal through all of this, although I've discovered several new addictions, including talking to the universe, learning to heal people (although not myself, that's too profound a punishment to give up lightly) and making my way toward several new careers, even though the least of them leaves me with the strongest opinion and would take the most work.

So what happens when you're left in the middle? Godot may have come (and it's not God, it's not revelation, but maybe it was a true friend that in the end had too much faith in him and was merely testing the others into insisting that he come. Maybe they didn't know the rule, and never thought about it because they really wanted to see this poor sop and never knew that he might be somewhere else.)

What happens when the universe lies? Is it really truth-in-waiting or maybe some other title before the aristocracy falls?

I'm impatient -- and this may be yet my longest blog. You might find it worthwhile to pour yourself something while I pour out my angst. It's hot and black and goes well with biscuits. I find two bags of it quite enough after I wash out my own pot.

So hard to decide when Godot really does show up and you don't realize it because it's not a person or a box in brown paper. So hard to understand that Godot may be just the sparks inside others and the words we hear in our lover's lips are from somewhen else.

I worry that these blogs will be deleted accidentally if I pause, but then I realized, they're already saved. What if we are too? Not in the traditional salvation way, but what if time and destiny are already here? What if that's what Godot is -- just time? If we're swimming in an ocean of it, how can we wait for the tide? It's far more subtle underwater.

I've got ghosties chatting with me on all sides -- you would not believe what the Otherworld has to say these days. Apparently my life is in question -- so much gossip. You'd think they'd clean my house, although they have said they would if they could.

So trembling are my insides when I think that you might actually publish this in its entirety, Naomi. I cannot believe that after all this time you finally realize that it's the hardest thing to listen adn not be able to respond. I wish I could get a word in edgewise, and look, here I am.

Please do tell me your thoughts but you'd better be willing to publish this. There's this guy waiting here, he took time off work to show you himself and you keep syaing it's not good enough but what if it is God, and he took time off creating the universe to tell you his thoughts? what if he's really waiting for you to type I submit again and again and again you say well guess what what if it's never enough? What if you insist and you don't get what you want? That is a good question -- I see that what you do is make educated guesses on what gets the best outcome. That's interesting. I need you to talk and say how you feel.

See, that's the thing. I submit -- such a Christian term for a nice Jewish (read rebellious) girl who grew up knowing only that she had to claw her way on her own. I didn't know any such rules. I don't like them. I'm a non-conformist to the core (except when it suits me) and I think of it as losing not only face but identity to admit (see, that's the right word) what really matters to me.

I disagree with the Universe. I keep saying that the destiny I want is what I expect, and lo and behold, I get an opinion from the great beyond saying that if that does not happen, what do I do when I get the unexpected?

What matters to me is love. Not just love but reciprocal love that doesn't require anyone to bow. Jews don't bow. They only prostrate themselves before God.

But, Jews do bend. They bend again and again and sometimes they just don't realize that other people play by different rules. Even the Otherworld doesn't understand that what I wanted was something to bend with me, not play on me and prey on me. I get angry just thinking about all this bending, but I do it in my own way.

In the end, what I reach for continuously is self-acceptance. What I wait for is destiny, and I do realize that I'm too passive about it. But I'm also someone who understands that things come in stages (that's the least of my lessons, these days) and that a year without myself probably isn't enough. Even a year within is never enough.

So to the ghosts that haunt me, here is your legal tablet in the form of 21st century communication. I submit to the following -- that I am stubborn. That I am fundamentally changed by my experiences. That I am persistent and worthy and intelligent and creative and loving. That I am angry. I submit that I am not ready to make certain choices and only wanted to form my opinions in my own way. This has been denied, because, well, destiny intervened or God or the baby crying -- any way you slice it I live my life interrupted.

When life denies, I just keep moving. I look for acceptance elsewhere. I do give it a good go. I think I'm one of the best, most persistent people I know. I also think that in the end, for some, it's just not good enough because what some people call submission is really revenge. And in the end, (and just ask the Otherworld), all we have is love. Revenge is empty. Vengeance is useless. I'd rather pour a pot full of sparkles on my enemies than have them pay.

Here are your sparkles. They're inside all of us and someday you might realize, my darling ghosties, that what you're searching for has already arrived.

I expect you to publish this in some way just like you did with the previous channel and that this message is intended to inspire people to take action in some way and live their lives to the fullest and that I want you to also know that maybe the spelling errors are intended so that people think you're not perfect even tough you knhow you really are. Love, the Omiscience presence throughout the universe.

--Naomi

*Waiting for Godot (pronounced /ˈɡɒdoʊ/) is a play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait for someone named Godot. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's premiere.

Sweet dreams.

2009-12-04T08:56:00.002-05:00

I am falling down the stairs
I am skipping on the sidewalk
I am thrown against the sky
I am raining down in pieces
I am scattering like light

--Small Blue Thing, Suzanne Vega

My daughter had the most interesting dream the other night. Something about needing to move the sun. She pulled it through space until it met Jupiter. It was a disturbing dream -- it displaced the earth, and according to her, everyone died.

She didn't seem upset. Possibly because she's 10 and sees it as just another nightmare along the way to adolescence.

Some people use their nightmares as opportunities. Being the journalist I am, I interviewed her in a casual way and discovered that she pulled the sun, rather than waiting for it to move on its own. She found her own u-haul and towed that star all the way out to the middle of the solar system. Never mind that the lesser planets had a mind of their own.

She's still going on about it, and we've been trying to discover whether the dream will lead to a practical science-fair project or a short story or just something she'll remember as she grows up -- a small spark inside her memory to inspire her to reach for other things.

I used to have just one dream -- a very scary one. When I was about seven, I had a dream that I alone faced an evil villain. I dressed in my best sparkly gold bathing suit, rode on my bike and put toothpaste in his eyes. Just the solution any resourceful child would think of to defeat those who were chasing her.

But the most interesting thing about my daughter is that in her dream she pulled the energy along with her --while I confronted with a small instrument of torture. Which dream is more effective inspiration? Moving the mountain that is our star or riding a small craft on the wind in search of an arrow?

Maybe I need to hitch a tow on my bike and take that star with me when I ride. It might weigh me down -- or maybe I could use it to superpower the wheels and push the arrows that are my children further into the future.

Sweet dreams.

--Naomi

Queen of Chaos

2009-11-24T13:41:00.003-05:00

I've been wondering what would happen if Lilith wrote a blog.

Um, I'm not talking about the nice lady (and I do mean that in the nicest possible way) who married Frasier on Cheers.

I'm talking about Adam's first wife.

Once upon a time, when the world was new, God created Adam and saw that he was lonely. So he made Lilith.

Lilith wasn't a typical Eve. In fact, she was nothing like Eve.

Lilith talked back.

Lilith wouldn't sit down and take it.

Lilith was a separate person. She had her own ideas and her own desires and since she wasn't directly taken from Adam's rib, Adam didn't quite think she fit.

This isn't about Adam. But what happened to Lilith, according to Jewish mythology and my own personal view, is that she was discarded. There aren't a lot of nice references -- except for this feminist magazine I used to read back in Toronto.

I always find the story kind of ironic -- a sideways smile on ancient history. Some brilliant woman stood up for herself and got the shaft. Okay, so she wasn't the nicest person. She probably had a big mouth, fiery red hair and the greenest tinge of jealousy when Adam spent time naming the animals.

But she also made the sun rise and the moon set and I bet she was the one who helped name the stars.

So if Lilith had a blog today, what would she write about? What's it like to have your own opinion and stand up for yourself? What happened to Lilith, anyway, after she was sent away? Did she insist on being returned, or did she just pack her bags and take her ego trip to the Underworld?

What would Lilith think of today's world -- I bet she'd like it better than ancient times when women weren't quite considered owners of their own destiny. I bet she'd be thrilled at equal partnerships and voting rights and the ability to own property. I think she'd probably write about her journeys down south (so to speak) and what happened when she came back to see what a mess we thought we'd made.

But I also think Lilith is the queen of chaos (lower case, no official title) so she'd be happy to see such promise in the spills and stains.

--Naomi

Letter to my inner teenager.

2009-11-19T13:55:00.003-05:00

Dear Naomi:

You are one of many.
I loved you well.
I became someone more.
I keep you in my heart
but I need this life.
I love my children and they are ours.
I see my eyes and your smile and I see
who you became.

You danced in the driveway
and I dance in my room.
You smiled at the air
and I smile at my children.
You sang to the trees and the sun on
the leaves and
I give to people and
I left you behind.

I reclaim you -- I redeem you.
I take you in.

You are my hope and my dreams
and I deny you no longer.
I love you now as I did then
but I forgot
how to find you
in the rush to begin.

You are the nest under my feathers.
My colors, your branches.
I need you to hold me
I fly without wings.

I am Naomi.
I am several but I am one.
I am love and compassion and
flight
and laughter
and song.
Isn't it possible for one person to hold many attributes?
How can love and laughter be from different parts
when all we are
builds wings inside?

Don't you all want to write one now? Let's begin.

--Naomi

On purpose.

2009-11-12T09:05:00.004-05:00

I had a strange dream early this morning. About purpose, and how it affects us, and how we affect and effect ourselves.

A feeling came over me. I'm such an intuitive person -- it's not always images that I dream of, but emotions that take over my body in shudders and sighs. I feel, and I make myself feel.

I'm sitting here typing, and telling you a story. This is purposeful.

Before this, I sat and meditated (which for me means sitting and trying not to think anything in particular while thinking lots of things in general.)

Think that's without purpose?

Think again.

I realized that all the rushing around, the making and the doing, is not just purpose. It's a way to de-purpose as well.

Shakespeare once said that all the rushing is just sound and fury, signifying nothing. (I'm paraphrasing.)

When we move, we use energy. When we think, we also use energy. Not just the energy from the food we eat, or the water (or in my case Diet Coke) we drink, but the energy within ourselves as well.

What we do when we move around, when we cook and clean and take in information, is normally referred to as having purpose. I used to (and still argue with myself) think that this is what must be accomplished. That I must be busy. I'm very much a person of my body -- I like to be in motion. My fingers are almost always doing something, even if it's just doodling on a scrap of paper or flicking the pages of a book.

But, what happens when we sit still is NOT that we cease motion. It's just a cessation of outer motion in order to bring movement inside.

Sitting still and contemplating is also a purposeful (and beautiful thing.) When we finish the motions of the body, we purpose all the stillness inside.

This is also called learning.

In the thick of it all, I thought it best to keep moving. I thought that if only I kept going through the motions, I'd feel the emotions. But what I did was bring all the stillness I felt inside to the outer edges of my body.

And in the stillness, I thought my dark fall would be the end of all motion.

But then the light turned on inside.

And I realized, that with all my outer motion, that tires my body and soothes my restlessness, I'd been recharging my inner battery. I took all the motion on the outside and brought it in.

You have no idea how strong the wind can be on the inside when it must rail against our own bodies. I thought I'd shake myself apart.

You also have no idea (or maybe you do) how strong the light can be when you've been sitting in your own inner darkness.

It's so bright it's blinding, and I've had to feel my way around just as if it was the middle of the dawn, when the eyes are used to night and the sudden rush of day comes over the horizon and makes it difficult to adjust.

How do you use the inner battery to power the the light of the soul and find your way home?

--Naomi

Make new friends...

2009-11-07T15:15:00.003-05:00

Okay, I'm an idiot savant.

(The idiot was implied.)

Seriously, an idiot. And unfortunately, I didn't realize it until after the very incident occurred.

I tell myself lies. Everyone does, but this is an important one. I tell myself I'm like Abraham -- that I keep my tent open to receive visitors.

I'm the biggest liar of them all.

My tent is so closed up that I cannot begin to imagine letting new people in. It's hard, because I'm hard. The problem is that people think I'm hard like glass.

But I'm really hard like that chocolate dip you get when you order ice cream at the drive-in off that back road somewhere in the summer.

One bite and I'm just all cracked.

I got an invitation from someone I did not know on Facebook. I did go into this person's profile to see how he knew me -- a friend of a friend. I hadn't spoken to this friend in a while --she's very different and we've become distant.

To make a long story short, I ignored this person's request.

It bugs me.

I didn't feel bad at the time -- something just felt off. I also thought that if I ignored this person's request that I'd be able to go back into it at another time. But unfortunately, that's not how it works on Facebook (FB execs, take note -- this should happen, it's an inutitive reaction. Change your program.)

But you know what? What's the worst that could've happened? Maybe this person would've seen something about me. Maybe this person would've gotten to know me. Maybe this person would've stalked me (my biggest fear, that someone would actually come to my house and see my dirty laundry) but honestly, I'm listed in the phone book under a couple of different names. Anyone who wants me can find me with just a bit of effort.

So I went looking, oh, a couple of weeks later, after I felt just a bit bad about being such a hypocrite. I used to be different. I used to be willing to meet new people. As I get older, it's an effort to make new friends. I fight against it. I tell myself I'm stuck and I need to meet new people -- I'm afraid I'll end up with the same 10 friends from high school.

I apologize. I don't know if this person will read this, but this is the most public place I can think to put this. I do remember your name, and I did go looking but I couldn't find you.

I keep thinking that if I could only clear out my closet of old clothes I can make way for new experiences. I toss out sacred cows but I don't make the burgers.

Anyone want to make a new friend?

--Naomi

Random Fact #2

2009-11-02T20:53:00.002-05:00

"Roll The Bones" -- Rush

Well, you can stake that claim
Good work is the key to good fortune
Winners take that praise
Losers seldom take that blame
If they don't take that game
And sometimes the winner takes nothing
We draw our own designs
But fortune has to make that frame

We go out in the world and take our chances
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That's the way that lady luck dances
Roll the bones

Why are we here?
Because we're here
Roll the bones
Why does it happen?
Because it happens
Roll the bones

Random Fact #2: I like to drive. But not too far.

Okay, you're probably wondering where I've been. Truth? Everywhere, nowhere and in between. Mostly carrying the weight of the world inside my head. Sometimes crying (okay, well lots of crying) sometimes agonizing (okay, lots of that too.)

But yesterday, I started laughing.

I finally started to see the funny side of my life. I started writing it out, and I could not stop typing OR laughing. I laughed so hard I almost split my side. Don't worry, it'll be in my memoirs.

I got a job as a part-time reporter (read stringer) for a couple of dailies out here in the River Styx (pun intended, I like my eye coins silver, not copper.) Work finally picked up, my life is starting to calm down and be profoundly misperceived at the same time.

Sometimes I just have to stand on my head and whistle Dixie. It was a custom, when I was about 10 years old, to put a throw pillow on the floor from my mother's over-priced couch, and bang my feet up onto the too-clean wall in my fruitless attempts to become upside down. Unlike the eggs or pineapple surprise,

I never made it.

But I made damn sure I could whistle in the dark.

So now I'm here. And I wonder -- what would happen if we all just accept that this is it? That we're just here. I want so badly to find more out in the world, but no matter how much I drive, I keep coming back to the same place.

At least on the outside.

Sometimes the synapses that connect us on the inside change direction -- electrical flow reverses with the changing of the automatic gears. I drive in one direction, float the energy outward, and then pull a quick U-ie and speed through the leftover stream of thought.

It's a rush.

So enjoy the song above. I like songs about failure. Not because failure is a goal, but sometimes it's the only option and we have to make the best of it. Failure is not about getting less, it's about getting nothing. It happens because it happens.

The trick is seeing the emptiness for what it truly is. There's a passage in the Torah about tohu-vavohu -- chaos in the deep, just in the first paragraph in Genesis. It's about how the world was empty before God filled it.

But what if the emptiness, the failure, is simply the potential to be full?

--Naomi

Random Fact #1

2009-10-19T15:44:00.002-04:00

I liked this post so much in another blog (Thoughts of a Small Town Girl) that I thought I'd try it.

Random Fact #1 about Naomi: I AM BLINDED BY SCIENCE.

What the hell does that mean? It means I let concrete information get in the way of a good idea. I've been having a good idea for months, but I let my own superstitions (read five senses) come between my spirituality and myself.

Science is great. I love it. I've been a science and science-fiction fan for almost 35 years. As soon as I could read beyond the little joined words (and, is, the) and got beyond the Cinderella tales, I started on a path toward the future.

I realized I was finally living the dream back in 2001. I stood on a street corner in downtown Chicago one hot summer evening and saw the newspaper box -- the headline read that the human genome had finally been decoded, years earlier than planned.

My heart stopped. The traffic, human and otherwise, swirled around me in a colorful fog that had no meaning and no symbols other than my own destiny.

I'd made it. I'd lived to see the future, and this was it.

Until it wasn't.

At some point, the future we aspire to live in becomes the present tense, and it's up to us to decide if we can accept it and stop waiting. Once you live in the future, you live here.

I keep waiting for more science. It wasn't so long ago that we laughed at Don Adam's shoe phone, and gave our best guess on when we'd finally explore Mars. Both gone and done and part of the lifestyle.

I need to open my eyes. Look beyond the chemistry of my baking mixes and see the destiny beyond the tree branches.

Amazing Grace
how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me
I once was lost
but now am found
was blind
but now

I see.

--Naomi

A nice cup of tea.

2009-10-17T20:35:00.002-04:00

Look, I may live in a country that swears it won't do something for all the tea in China, and even still dumped all its tea into the Boston harbor over two centuries ago.

But I still love a nice, hot cup of properly brewed tea.

You can only imagine how hard it is to find one, living in the land of coffee and Coke.

Believe it or not, there's a fabulous little coffee shop that makes pots of tea just like I used to have in Canada. It opened last year, with its sage green and putty beige walls, light GenX soft-rock music, pot lighting and expensive paintings hanging on the walls that you too can have if your checkbook is full enough.

So I went there today for a cuppa. Just a nice pot of English Breakfast brewed just right with the tea leaves, NOT THE TEA BAG AND A CUP OF LUKEWARM WATER. (Yankees, take note.) Don't even need sugar or milk when it's served this way.

I lingered over that cup of tea for almost two hours (well, with several boiling-hot water refills in the pot)and found my own inner strength. That and the strength of a long-term friendship.

Maybe the windows weren't steamed-over like the winter walls of my Chinatown hangout back in Toronto. Maybe the signs were all in English, and the people were all from one small area.

But I still felt all warm and fuzzy inside. Felt almost good enough to be a different day of the week -- Saturdays are normally for shopping and wandering about, not sitting in the lap of leisure dripping jokes and light banter with friends while the cloudy day passes.

Highly recommended. Do visit this nice little shop sometime on State St. in Saginaw -- you won't grow a beanstalk to heaven, but you might just find the goose with the golden egg. (The name of the place is the Magic Bean.)

--Naomi

Running on Empty.

2009-10-15T13:00:00.002-04:00

Sooooo, in case you haven't yet noticed, I'm linking myself to a new blog.

Let's just say that some of the more interesting stories in my life deserve justification in their own way. Fiction? Yes. But interesting fiction. YES.

I'm still writing for pay -- working on technical stuff, journalism. But everyone needs a hobby.

I set up the blog last night (you'll know it's me) and accidentally confused some people who thought I was legally changing my name. Legally changing my hair color is more like it.

Sometimes I feel like more is happening inside than out. Sometimes it's worth it to get it all on "paper" (digital paper, that is) and express it into (and I mean like a cow) one bottle.

A hundred million bottles, washed up on the shore....

I'm pulling out the stops and checking for messages inside. But the only bottle I have right now is on my kitchen windowsill. It's from Israel -- a Coke bottle with Hebrew script. Why mention it?

If you found a bottle from somewhere else, perhaps somewhen else, wouldn't you rip off the top and read what's inside?

--Naomi

Just Seth?

2009-10-14T17:27:00.005-04:00

So sometimes, in the corner of my mind, I come across strange thoughts. I have strange dreams where I'm flying or falling or wandering long halls. And I meet people. Maybe these little visits are just trips into the astral plane.

One of the people I meet in my dreams is called Just Seth. He's been pretty nice. Amazingly, I'm such a good dreamer that I've met several new friends on the edge of sleep. Allison. Rob. Some guy in Virginia. A strange raven. A man who signs. A beautiful blond boy I used to know in high school.

How can you know someone just in a dream? Repeating dreams, repeating daydreams. And one small phrase that can mean something really, really good, or really, really bad.

Yes indeed-y-doooooo.

Why that phrase? Who knows? It sticks with me. My dreams stay with me like cobwebs on a woooden post. I find myself saying things I've only learned in those flights of fancy. I "indeed" myself. I make myself laugh. One of these days, I'll be the old cat lady with 26 cats in the yard, feeding them leftover Alpo and tying the fringes of my apron in knots.

I wish I could find the people I dream about. I see so many -- I give out my phone number in my laughing way, singing it the way I do to my children. Just find the area code and you're done. Then again, I give out my e-mail address, too, and it's strangely quiet on the mid-Western front.

So if anyone sees a guy named Just Seth, let me know. He looks like a curtain of dark red light -- fluttering and waving against a dark, starry sky. I should know -- I look up at the sky and wish sometimes, hoping against hope that the moon will look down on me and wave back.

--Naomi

Brand New Day

2009-10-09T13:41:00.007-04:00

I took this down. I'm republishing it. Why? Because I'm chicken. Because I'm afraid of the woo-woo. The big bad wolf of self-respect. But y'know what? It's a good post. It's honest. It's true to me. And that's what counts. More soon. xoxoxo --Naomi

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

I dream of fire
Those dreams that tied to a horse that will never tire
And near the flames
The shadows play in the shape of the man's desire

This desert rose
Whose shadow bears the secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume that would torture you more than this

And now she turns
This way she moves in the logic of all my dreams
This fire burns
I realize that nothings as it seems

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

I dream of rain
I lift my gaze to empty skies above
I close my eyes
The rare perfume is the sweet intoxication of love

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

Sweet desert rose
Whose shadow bears the secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume that would torture you more than this

Sweet desert rose
This memory of hidden hearts and souls
This desert flower
This rare perfurme is the sweet intoxication of love

--Sting

Dear Rabi:

(This is a letter to the ghost I've been channeling. I'm not sure it's his real name, because it's Hebrew and how many people do you meet who have such a beautiful name?)

One of the ghosts, angels or spirits I talk to has been following me for several months. This is my letter to him. Why? Because he's been nudging me to write him, care of all of you, and tell you all what the hell I want to do with my life.

Rabi has been nudging, cajoling, teasing and manipulating me into thinking for myself. I have cried and screamed. I have begged and pleaded. But the thing is, he doesn't go away. He doesn't leave, no matter how far I expel him. (And I am pretty good at expeling.)

Rabi says I discontinue and continue without purpose. That I lack structure, reason and dedication to one specific thing.

He's right.

The one specific thing I lack is purpose for myself. So, Rabi, here's what I want to do.

The skills I've learned through my little (and by that I mean long and involved) conversations with this Otherword mafia king (he's not really, but this will piss him off as I'm sure he's watching while I type) are much different than the skill sets I've been using. He forced me to disclose my intelligence, my perserverence and my dedication to serve and protect others.

I'm way too smart to sit alone and just think all day. I want to help others. I have an enormous gift -- I am a tactical, strategic thinker. I also think on tangents. Think of me as an enormous visual thesaurus. I think of a strategy and work my way outward on different angles. I don't work on a problem directly -- I come and go at will and think of other things.

I think of trees, Rabi. Why? Because a tree is a living being, interconnected both to the ground and itself through a network of trunk, branches and leaves. I am the trunk. I'm a small tree now, but I've grown.

I want to help others develop these psychic abilities. I've been able to measure some of my own and they're pretty strong. (I'm fairly modest, but you can ask me to go on in person.) I want to show other people that it's okay to be psychic. I want to help people develop these possibilities within themselves, because what I've found is that psychic abilitiy is really quantum mechanics -- we're vibrating strings of energy within ourselves and others from a distance through sub-atomic science. Go figure.

Energy can be manipulated with the mind. There are machines currently available to help people with disabilities -- these can be enhanced by people who understand how to use them intuitively. I can also help by showing others how to move outside themselves -- known as remote viewing, to see the world around them in a different way.

I find my way through a series of feelings known as clairsentience. I know how to use a map, but I've got more than a map in my head. I've got feelings and colors and sounds and light that guide me no matter where I am (except Lily Dale, NY, where the compass just spins. Damn ghosts and magnetic field.)

I see and I hear and I feel God. But not just God. I see and hear and feel things that others must feel, even though I've yet to meet them in person.

I want to be part of a community of people, my dear friend, who are like me. I saw a movie when I was but eight years old that had two children, twins, on a journey back to Witch Mountain. They went to find their people. This is what I'm saying.

I've subjected myself to my own pain, through the development of physcial conditions. When you're psychic, your own pain is translated into your body. Ever have a stomach ache because you're stressed? Try killer headaches and chest pain when you're expressing your own dissatisfaction.

I've got a Greek chorus in my head that agrees with me. Apparently, when you're this profound, God shows up with a team of yes-men that say, "That is JUST IT!" whenever you've found your own inner truth.

Below is a message from the ghost who haunts me.

This is the channel. This is the voice of Rabi Ben Hasheveynu. That is indeed how you spell my name. This is what Naomi Rebecca Gumprich-Munn has become. She channels others. She channels others but does not channel herself. I want her to become herself. This is why I contacted her though a variety of entities that I myself chose to emit. I indeed want Naomi Rebecca Gumprich-Munn to become something other than what she is. I need Naomi Rebecca Gumprich Munn to stop channelling me and find her own voice. I need Naomi Rebecca Gumprich to write ME a letter, in her own words, that will be published in this blog, about why she needs a new life. I need to understand why Naomi Rebecca Gumprich Munn does not wish to make this public and why she feels she needs me to channel this mother f*cking blog and to see just how fast she can type as a channel. This is pretty good. These are HER words. These are her words.

Funny. Strange. Invigorating. Inner Truth. These are my words.

--Naomi

What if?

2009-10-04T17:12:00.003-04:00

So, lately I've been thinking about strange things.

There's been a lot in the news lately about global warming -- how our planet is in danger, how the oceans will rise, then fall, leaving devastation in our wake.

Read that last sentence again and think about it. I'm not talking about the oceans. I'm talking about us.

What would happen, this crazy-ass sci-fi-writer in training asks, if all the people died?

What would happen, and please, get out a box of salt because this thought is very, very odd, if there were no more people on Earth?

Except there were?

Where do we go when we die? Ask 10 people and you'll find 10 different answers. Some will just say Heaven. Some might say hell. Some might say that we just decompose in the ground and live on in the memories of others.

But what, what might happen, if we just stayed here?

It's a strange thought for a strange day. Hey, I hate Sundays. Always have. So to keep myself busy I've repurposed some pop cans and liberated a bag of cat food (legally!) from the store. And now, just for fun, I'm considering what would happen if heaven really was just a place on earth.

How would all the souls get around, hanging out, flying on the wind? Would God just sit around and watch the polar ice caps melt? Would all the saints put up shiny-glass castles made out of dreams and air?

I mean, if earth is depopulated, heaven could get crowded. Someone would want to come back, but if there were no people anymore, would we just choose to deconstruct and choose the next best option? Dolphins are nice. They like water, and they even have a language of sorts. Whales do, too.

Better learn to swim, people. And grow some gills. Because otherwise we're all in for some angel wings and no where to fly.

--Naomi

Breaking up is hard to do.

2009-10-03T18:33:00.002-04:00

I broke up with my spirit guide today.

Let me tell you about him. Once upon a time, when I was about 15 years old, I stood at the bottom of my driveway on a relatively warm summer Windsor day and closed my eyes. The darkness turned red as I turned and turned. I did a little happy dance and the sun, or at least a little yellow piece of it, pierced the red.

I called myself Amiera. I didn't know what the word was -- I've written about that before. But what I didn't write about, and I'm going to now, is about the really cute, sarcastic and funny imaginary friend that I called Jonathan.

Jonathan was my best friend. Made up of air and dreams and laughter. I loved him, because he laughed at my jokes. He had the best smile. I took him with me almost everywhere. He made sarcastic comments, of which I don't remember. It's possible that it was just my imagination, but sometimes I thought his words just popped out of my mouth. Attitude with a big grin.

I needed Jonathan. I needed someone, because I didn't find the real stuff in my real life. I'm a writer. I like being alone. Being alone necessitates having imaginary friends because real friends mean you have to make an effort. They can't be perfect, because no one can be perfect. But Jonathan was perfect. Perfectly accessible every time I needed him.

I used to pile up pillows on one side of my bed at night, so I could pretend to cuddle him as I fell asleep. God forbid my mother knew -- I never told a soul. Who would believe me?

This lasted a few years, believe it or not. I was way, way too old for this kind of activity, but every crackpot needs an outlet. Now it's my blog, but before there were blogs, there was imagination (you can find the rainbow arc by spreading your arms and thinking of one of my favorite shows.)

But one day, I went too far. I actually told someone. Someone very close to me. And he asked me to bring Jonathan into the room. Jonathan in all his sunny-yellow imaginary goodness appeared at the end of the couch. I could see him but not see him, the way all pretend people work.

And my friend asked me to have Jonathan move past him, to see if he could feel. So I did ask, and something happened.

What happened is that I realized that either a)I was seeing a ghost or b)I was going insane.

I got scared. I got lost. I left high school and went to Toronto and figured that somehow I'd managed to invent a piece of myself into a living, breathing, but not seen person. And I kept looking for that little laugh, that funny sense of humor, that cracking joke that bit me in the bum when I least suspected.

Sometimes I found it. Lots of times I found it. And a couple of times I actually thought I'd really met him -- that maybe it was just a sense of destiny that I only suspected.

But I didn't.

And then Jonathan became something else in my adulthood. Something more profound, something of a teacher.

But our own best teacher is right inside. Talking to us, that little small voice in our hearts. Hi, I'm God. I'm inside you and I'm your best friend. I'm your best teacher, I'm your instinct and truth is always dark and red and true. Because that's what your heart is made of. Muscle, blood and energy coursing through the chambers.

So I broke up with my spirit guide today. Because I realized that I've been listening on the outside, driving through random moments of God and using up fossil fuel when the only fuel I need is pumping inside my chest. Sometimes irregularly, because my heart skips a beat when I consider that I'm on my own and God can carry us -- God really does carry us, but we're heavy and made of matter and dreams and when we're carried on the currents of time --

you figure out the rest.

--Naomi

Happy little trees.

2009-10-01T11:54:00.002-04:00

I'm thinking but not thinking.

Typical creative person that I am, I look for ideas from the strangest things. But when I'm stumped, I just stop.

Do something else unrelated and see what happens. Mostly what happens is that I go outside and look at the trees.

I'm totally into trees. Why? Because they're natural, they grow in patterns and sometimes the patterns lead to deeper insights about my own life.

For most of my life, I've wanted to swing from the tree branches. It's fun to imagine myself jumping up and grabbing hold.

But when you shake the branch you're hanging on, you shake the whole tree. The vibrations you create just by hanging on do something to the destiny of the bark and the leaves. Maybe you change the growth of something taller than yourself just by pulling one small green leaf off the stem.

Thinking but not thinking is a creative strategy. Many people expect that they can just sit down, come up with an idea, and work it through to completion. But that's not me. I stop and start and stop and start and go off on strange tangents just to see what's out there.

Red and gold and green and brown -- sky so blue it's terrifyingly heartstopping. Fall upward into white -- what happens when I let go of the idea? Does it float?

Better than thinking about lettuce sandwiches when there's no bread. Instead of trying to think of the second-best option, take a walk with me on the outside of your soul. Breathe in the world and see if that shakes up your latest opinion.

Just thinking.

--Naomi

Fried green tomah-toes.

2009-09-30T10:37:00.002-04:00

Sorry I've been a bit remiss in posting. Hopefully I've got a collection of ideas that's been keeping y'all busy.

I've been angry.

Anger is bitter. Anger is something I keep inside. I don't normally express myself outwardly in public when I'm in a foul mood. Better to keep it in, Canadian style, and go someplace private to detonate the atom bomb. Even the federal government found an isolated area.

So I'm thinking about how to describe that feeling. And y'know what I came up with?

Fried green tomatoes.

I saw the movie, many years ago, of the same title. Strange movie about personal choices and spiritual growth. But what I like most about it now is the title.

Green tomatoes aren't ripe. They're somewhat bitter. But when you dip them in flour, and fry them in oil, they're quite palatable. At least I imagine they are. I'm a nice Jewish girl who just loves Chanukah -- you fry it, I'll eat it.

How do you make anger taste good?

Back to the metaphor. I'm the queen of metaphors -- helps to explain difficult concepts and bring people together who can relate. If you cook something that's bitter, you soften it. Oil makes it not only softer but tastier because it adds a layer of fat. Top it off with a nice crispy coating, perhaps a little salt (and salsa!) and you've got it made.

Where does that leave me? Trying to find a layer of fat -- soften the anger into something else by gradually creating a situation that makes it dissolve. Fat tastes good, but it's not nutritious.

Something more pleasurable. So I wander and I think -- somewhat better tasting ideas. Like eating sweet fruit after something bitter. But I struggle with how to cook it off.

Sometimes the resolution isn't in the ingredients but in the heat of the frying pan. When we place our anger in the heat, maybe it'll soften up and taste better -- just like eating your own words. Not quite as sweet, since anger is my "frankly" moment.

But it can still be tasty and good -- if it leads to something.

--Naomi

Running.

2009-09-21T20:02:00.004-04:00

I went for a walk yesterday. I want to quote one of my own poems, and say that I ran through dappled fields of shadow and light.

But I was too out of breath and wearing the wrong bra. I'm quite afraid I made the wrong (but cute) impression as I walked an imaginary tightrope in fallen leaves and broken pavement.

It was fun.

Sunlight dappled shadow. Shadow dappled sunlight in pools of green and brown and orange as my sunglasses darkened my vision yet made it all more clear.

Walk straight. Cross. Walked crooked. Cross. Down and over and under and back. No ducking and covering -- try to stand straight and face the fact that I'm still here. Still here and working on it.

But I'm not.

I run two steps forward, turn in a circle and face the sky. I look up and see nothing but visions of imagination that don't get the dishes done or diapers changed or bills paid. Especially not bills paid. (Not unless they'll take a fist full of branches. Try mailing that FedEx.)

For now, it's enough to walk. Even in circles. Even in strange meandering patterns that bring me back to where I belong. It's enough to start slowly. It's enough to see in small doses -- being blind to my own joy for a while makes it hard to open my eyes in daylight.

It's hard to dig out. But it's rewarding to see that the world really waited for me while I hid behind myself.

About one more month before the switch in the great big sky shuts down and the snow falls on my tongue. I wonder if snowflakes taste as different as they look.

--Naomi

Back in Black!

2009-09-17T17:03:00.002-04:00

Welcome to the dark side of life.

I have been precisely unable to write in my blog for the following three reasons:

I don't want to.
I do want to but I'm too tired.
I need to but the contents of my soul are far too churned to process bitter butter.

I'm listening to a song about frustration. It's also about something else, but that's the way I pictured it when I was too young to understand.

I went inside down a long, deep road and found that the only thing that entertained me were old home movies on a blank screen.

I tried to hold myself inside only to find that I fell upwards into my own head.

It's dark in there, very dark.

I fully intend to write here every day, and every day I find myself falling into an oblivion of my own making. I miss myself, yet I found myself, and I also found that what I thought I never wanted, never could have is exactly what I desire.

But I'm moving in the right direction. I started thinking for myself, screaming at God in my yard in several languages -- I'm sure God will understand. At least I hope so.

I'm beautiful and middle aged and tall and short and heavy and not. As I lighten my load I find the scale grows smaller. But just because I weigh less doesn't mean that I matter less.

Soft and pink.

2009-09-07T20:34:00.002-04:00

My life is becoming redefined.

So, in order to challenge previous assumptions, I'd like to chat a bit about the book that I'm currently not writing. (Don't worry, I'm still working on a book -- just not this one right yet.)

I had an idea in the middle of a moment of grief this winter. I got this brilliant revelation in the darkness of a grey, stormy day and decided to make something out of the trench I'd been digging for myself.

What happens to friendship over time? What happens to relationships that falter? What happens when you suddenly discover an easy and convenient way to keep in touch with the people you left behind?

The Information Age has been kind to me. I like computers -- ever since my first computer class at St. Clair College in Windsor. We sat in the cold room with walls full of churning data and developed lines of commands to make a rocket ship fly up the screen. It took hours to write the code.

You could only run the program once.

Friendship can be like that. You meet, you discover, you play and you learn. And then you grow up and move on and the program is over. If you meet again, chances are you're different. Too hard to start over, too late to merge back.

How do you redefine a life interrupted? How do you change a relationship to something different when all you knew with another person was one way or another? How do you take the first step to finding a new, better way to be honest and true to yourself?

Sometimes, it works. Sometimes both friends are in similar places, or have grown in the same way. Sometimes it takes more effort -- revealing inner soft layers that grew hard with resentment decades ago.

I started peeling the onion of my soul this winter. I started shedding the layers, one by one and thought I'd found the center but then realized I was now in reverse -- not growing, but still shedding. Layers become larger the closer in I peel; longer and longer revelations show my soft, pink new skin.

Maybe enough time has passed that some old friends will come out to play.

--Naomi

Pop.

2009-09-01T20:06:00.002-04:00

I have just had the most frustrating, weird and enlightening experience. If you've missed me, welcome back to my nightmare/daydream of a blog. If you're looking for something uplifting, I'm again changing my tune because honestly, I need to talk about the stuff that's bothering me and I'm kinda tired of having nothing to say if I can't be nice.

I spent the past 25 hours in the clinical observation room of the local hospital, after experiencing a lovely joyride in the local sicko welcome wagon otherwise known as free trip downtown. Why did this occur? Because I woke up from yet another nap in my escape hatch -- read bedroom -- with chest pain so severe I was fairly sure I was on a one-way trip to the Otherworld.

I was clammy, cold-sweat sick with a heart ready to explode. I could not breathe, could not move and just about died of embarrassment as two guys in uniform had to stroll through my balled up dirty laundry to remove me to the wagon.

I've been poked, prodded, made into a bloodthirsty pincushion. I've been belittled, told that my last name is too long, that I must be a drug addict because I called 911 for help and the EKG didn't reveal the source of my troubles. I've had doctors tell me I'm lying because the test results showed nothing but a suspected case of mild infection and dehydration.

But I want to tell you something. I AM sick. And it IS curable. And I'm really, really tired of living in the closet.

Sometimes the pain we feel inside is nothing more than a broken heart. Sometimes the broken heart we think needs a catheter isn't really in need of surgery -- just time and rest. Sometimes the inner pain we suffer is pounced and trounced to the bottom of our soul so that we can deal with the daily bullcrap we get through to make it through the night.

But beware -- suppression of your feelings doesn't lead to health. It just leads to all that pain and sorrow and distress lodging in your heart for a long-term leave and bundles up your soul into such trauma that I was actually surprised it didn't kill me.

I have struggled with depression for over 25 years.

I am not a sicko. I am not a mental case. I am most DEFINITELY not insane. But being clinically depressed is so unwanted in me that when I began to fight off the symptoms I wrote them off as nothing more than feeling tired. Feeling somewhat distant (okay, really, really freakin' distant.) I wrote off friends. I wrote off family. I wrote off so much that eventually I had to collect all the IOUs I owed God and now have the bills to show for it.

But y'know what? I'm grateful. I'm in huge debt, but then again, I can't owe enough to the big man/woman/force upstairs for forcing me to confront my pain.

Depression is anger turned inward. It's pain for not expressing myself. For not expressing what I really want and need. I had a dream that God met with me and said that if I don't make some big changes in my life I'm going to suffer for being exactly what I most despise -- a coward and a liar.

I'm afraid of telling the truth about myself. I'm a liar because I fail to say what I mean and mean what I say. I fail to ask others for help, and delegate tasks. I won't let anyone else in deep enough to get to know me.

So this is what I know. It's the biggest wake-up call I've ever received, and trust me, the phone has yet to stop ringing.

Bless everyone who checked in. I wish I could say that I'm back to snuff, but it's going to take time and effort and lots -- LOTS -- of talking to figure out where the bottom really lies. I thought I'd found it, but I missed the trap-door that leads to the REAL feelings I put away.

--Naomi

Teshuvah.

2009-08-23T20:21:00.002-04:00

Forgive me, I've been working on an enormous research project and it's eaten up my entire weekend. (Well, that and three hungry goats.)

I want to write about something that happened this weekend. I did something different. I did something I hadn't done in a long, long time. I did something so out of character that I brought shock and awe to my feet when I entered the room.

I went to Shabbat services at my temple.

You'd think I was a movie star returning home from LA. The rabbi practically jumped out of her seat to greet me -- yelling out, "hey, look what the cat dragged in!" (Not really, but pretty close.) She wanted to know if it was a special occasion that I was visiting.

Oy. Pretty embarrassing.

Truth is, I don't go as often as I want to. Sometimes out of laziness, because God is everywhere and I don't always feel the need to make a drive to a certain location. Sometimes because of anger, because one member told me a while back that my (rather rambunctious) children weren't welcome in "his" congregation. (He's since moved out of town.)

And sometimes I don't go because I don't go, because, well

I miss it too much.

But yesterday, I went anyway. I felt like going, the timing was right, my favorite rabbi was in attendance, and I desperately wanted the feeling of peace and belonging that comes from walking in those familiar doors.

We were a small crowd, but larger than usual. About 25 people gathered to hear our rabbi speak and our visiting chazzanit (cantor) sing. It was lively. We jumped and danced. We sang loudly, not caring if we were in tune. We marched with the Torah, we joined voices in devotion.

And then we ate egg salad and bagels and sipped too-sweet kosher wine and thanked God we had each other.

Being part of a community is more than showing up. I guess I lost that part of my identity somewhere along the way. I used to go every week, drawing inspiration and faith from the psalms and the prayers and the chanting that got under my skin and made me learn even more than I realized.

Somewhere along the way I started to understand most of the Hebrew. I'm not just mouthing gibberish -- I figured out yesterday that I really do know the meaning of what I'm saying. I'm really, really praying when I sing and pray in Hebrew. Cool.

But it was coming home to my community that really struck me. Seeing people I hadn't seen in many months -- the warmth, the smiles, the forgiveness that we all feel when we return.

Teshuvah means to return, to forgive. It is the month of Elul -- the month before our Jewish New Year begins. This is the time we get ready for another year under God's gentle rule. This is the time we find it in our hearts to forgive those who wronged us, and to ask their forgiveness and to start our friendships anew.

I returned. I forgave myself for being away. I let myself get carried back into a world of song and prayer and God and honesty about the faith I feel that everything, everything somehow will end up okay.

When you come back, I'll be there to greet you.

--Naomi

My Canadian Two Cents.

2009-08-20T14:32:00.003-04:00

Okay, since I'm a Canuck and I live in the United States, I've had the extreme pleasure of being able to experience two different systems of government. Two different systems of relating to people on both business and personal levels. Two different systems of monetary currency.

And I've experienced two very, very different systems of healthcare.

I have many, many readers in several countries. But the country I live in currently is going through an intense period of debate over the role that government can and will play in caring for the health of its citizens.

I lived in Canada for 20 years. During that time, I had healthcare that was paid for out of taxpayer dollars. I had private prescription, optical and dental coverage. But when I went to the doctor or hospital, it was not paid for out of my pocket. I never received a bill.

This concept frightens many Americans. This frightens Americans because this country was founded on individual rights. Canada has a different foundation of government, a different history and a different destiny.

I think there are an enormous amount of erroneous assumptions flying around on the concept of government-assisted healthcare, and I wish to correct them.

Here is a reality of government-funded care.

1. You will always receive care when necessary. You will never, ever be turned away because of your medical condition or your ability/inability to pay.
2. You will pay more taxes to pay for this service. For the same salary, I took home less money for each paycheck. This is necessary to pay for the system.
3. Everyone in Canada has medical coverage. No one goes without.
4. There are limits to the amount of money a doctor can make in Canada. This creates a shortage of doctors. This shortage is not due to the fact that everyone has care.
5. A shortage of doctors creates long waiting times for service. This is not due to the fact that everyone has government-funded medical care.
6. When you have medical care, and you don't get a bill, you become much more willing to wait an extra few minutes (yes, in some cases an extra 60 - 90 minutes) to see a physician.
7. In Canada, you always have a choice of primary-care physician. You do not have a choice of specialists in most cases. You are referred by your primary doctor. This is similar to most healthcare (HMO) plans in this country.
8. I received excellent medical care while in Canada. I received treatment with state-of-the-art technology for the time that I lived there. I received care in appropriate and timely manners. I never waited an unreasonable amount of time for care. In emergencies, I was treated promptly.
9. No system will be perfect. But in the Canadian system, everyone receives treatment.

10. Our system in this country is broken. It does not function adequately. The fact that we have excellent, yet inconsistent care is not a winning argument for those who live without care or have inadequate coverage to receive anything but emergency treatment. This is insufficent.

We must change. The system must change so that everyone can receive care, regardless of ability to pay or previous medical condition. The system must be affordable, even if the system changes to one where the government is not directly involved.

We must be responsible for each other. We must all hang together, or to quote one of my most favorite historical characters, we will most assuredly all hang separately.

You go get 'em, President Obama. I'm right there with you.

--Naomi

God never misses.

2009-08-19T09:34:00.002-04:00

I had a funny feeling that I was supposed to take an alternate route to work today. So I got up as usual, dressed and drank my coffee, considering my options.

I usually listen to these feelings. It doesn't cost me anything but an extra five minutes to take a different path, and if I avoid the highway, I drive along green rolling hills dotted with farms -- tall corn glinting in the sun.

I couldn't figure out a good reason to take my normal path. There's nothing in particular that I need to see. No reason to actually go that way every day to work at all -- it's just faster, not particularly more interesting. In the winter, it's a bit safer, given that Michigan has prioritized salting and ploughing of our roads. But it's still summer here today.

So I drove out along River Road, into Midland County. A long, winding stretch of two-lane sunny curves that follows the Tittabawassee River. (Say that word five times fast, gringos!)

I don't know what I missed or gained, except a peaceful drive through quiet countryside. But I wondered, while I drove, what would happen if I didn't gain from the experience. What if I never saw what I supposed to see, or happened upon what I needed to find?

If we take a different path, we might drive right through a random moment of God. We might not see the implications of our decisions until long after we've crossed the intersection between present and destiny.

But don't worry; if you're supposed to be in the thick of an awakening, God will find you.

Because when God is aiming for you, God never misses.

--Naomi

Sometimes I don't break glass.

2009-08-18T07:56:00.003-04:00

If you click directly into my blog and go to the right-hand links you'll find an audio link to my song, Fall to You. Have a listen. Lyrics are in a recent post. Hope you enjoy! I'm optimistic that I can publish another one this week -- I've had a request for a very old song that I wrote many years ago. We'll see if Mountain Boy can reserve some studio time for me. :)

--Naomi

Fall to You (C) 2009 Naomi Munn, composed and performed by Naomi Munn.

Everything matters.

2009-08-17T16:32:00.002-04:00

Okay, I'm in kind of a silly mood, so I'm just going to roll with it.

For so much of my life recently, I've been talking to God about serious stuff. I've been questioning my role in this life -- the things I can and/or want to achieve. I sit and chat with God and the Universe about the heavy weight in my shoulders, the sinking feeling in my belly.

But I feel much more rested today. I took a few days off to rest (mostly sleep) and relax. I played guitar, even wrote a new song. I read good books and finally, finally managed to eat some good food.

I feel better.

So I asked myself, and my angels, about whether God is just there for the heavy lifting. I mean, who bothers God about the mundane stuff?

Lots of people.

Turns out, I've read, that many, many people use the Archangel Michael for the most mundane task of all --

finding parking spots.

People use angels for all sorts of everyday activities. I myself have been known to say a little wish to St. Joseph -- I hear he's good at finding lost items.

Works every time, and I'm not even Catholic.

Hey, you gotta take advantage of the sources as they come.

God isn't just for when you're sitting in Church on Sunday, or synagogue on Saturday, or whenever you go to a formal occasion to pray.

God is also for when you're picking up toys. God is also for when you're cleaning the toilet. God is also for when you're mowing the lawn or washing the dishes.

God is there whenever, wherever. Doesn't matter the time of day. God doesn't keep office hours or expect prayer delivered by rote from a book that's been published 1,000 years before you were born. (That's how old most Hebrew prayer books are, by the way. At least that old, in some cases, even older.)

If you can't decide which detergent to use, ask the still, small voice inside you. It's not abusive to ask for the Universe's advice on trivial matters. Because honestly, nothing is trivial. Everything matters. It's not like there's a giant weight attached to your choice of diapers,

But everything we do matters to God.

--Naomi

Fall to you.

2009-08-17T08:55:00.002-04:00

Fall to you

Book of life, open inside.
Binding hearts, the strongest twine.
Hand in hand, we reach for sky.
I wish for air,
you make me fly.

I see through you, I fall to you.
Ride the light; a shooting star.

I see through you, I fall to you.
Make my way to where you are.

Outside in, I see your eyes.
Full of joy -- complete surprise.
Hold my hand, the journey's free.
Just go back
to where we'll be.

I see through you, I fall to you.
Ride the light; a shooting star.

I see through you, I fall to you.
Make my way to where you are.

You lift my veil, I see your light.
Blinding day and endless night.
Merge together, endless one.
Only forward,
just begun.

I see through you, I fall to you.
Ride the light; a shooting star.

I see through you, I fall to you.
Make my way to where you are.

--Naomi
(This is a song. Mountain Boy will bring home his recorder and hopefully I'll have it up for you this week. He thinks I'm a troubadour from long ago -- I just think I'm sentimental.) :)

Wonder of wonders.

2009-08-14T13:54:00.003-04:00

Today I want to talk about miracles. Today, I experienced a profound miracle --

I made it to this day.

And y'know, this day kind of sucks.

I'm not feeling all that great, I've had some sleepless nights and I've been living with a large amount of emptiness in my soul for a long, long time.

But I figured something out.

Just because this day isn't wonderful, doesn't mean it's not a miracle. In fact, it's an even bigger miracle

because I'm not giving up.

I used to think that something extraordinary had to happen to qualify as a miracle. But honestly, just the sun rising up on another one of my terrible, horrible no-good very-bad days is extraordinary.

Sticking to our path even when it's hard is a miracle. It's a wonder that we don't give up, that we keep moving on and over and under and through. It's incredible how we live these lives full of misfortune and hardship and sadness and we still get up from under the covers, pull back the shades and

face the day.

The miracle, my friends, isn't that something falls down on us from Heaven. The miracle is that we catch it, even when our hands are full.

Shabbat Shalom.

--Naomi

The peak of 40.

2009-08-13T11:36:00.003-04:00

Art Teacher: That boy's a wizard. We were in the same class and dated last semester and when I broke up with him, he made me into the worst thing you could think of.

Alex: What?

Art Teacher: A 40-year-old woman.

--Wizards of Waverly Place, Disney Channel

You can see from the above quote that pretty much the only television I watch is with my children. But that quote, from that show, made me laugh so hard I could've spilled Diet Coke out my nose.

It's sooooo funny that the worst thing any 16-year-old could think of is to be 40.

When I was 18 I had an internship at a French immersion school in Windsor. I helped out pretty much every afternoon in the kindergarten room. The class had a male teacher, Mr. C. He was very, very nice and patient with a young woman who was just learning to put language theory into practice. Lots of gestures and kindness until I too was bilingual, just like the children who came to learn at the school.

Mr. C. was very mature. He had a mustache, glasses, wore professional clothes and had an air of authority about him. I adored him. I learned alot about teaching children from him -- the patience required, the dedication to helping very young minds adopt new skills.

I thought he was terribly old. One day, I was without a car and since he lived in the same general direction, he drove me home. On the way there, we chatted about this and that. I guess I made it pretty obvious that I thought he was much, much higher in years than I was.

But I wasn't.

"Naomi, how old do you think I am?" Mr. C. asked me. To this day, I don't even know his first name -- all Canadian school children address teachers either by their surname or by Sir or Miss.

"Um, 40?" I asked.

He laughed.

"I'm 25 years old, Naomi." He said with a grin.

"That's still pretty old," I said back.

He laughed again and dropped me off in my driveway.

So much for my adolescence.

Being 40 isn't all that bad. I was told the other day that I'm at my peak of womanhood -- the perfect proportion of beauty versus experience. Still sparking in the eyes, and still beautiful to behold. It's definitely not the worst thing I could think of.

Get out in the sunshine today and say thank you to the Universe for lending you so many years, already.

--Naomi

From the ground up.

2009-08-12T14:43:00.002-04:00

Today I want to write about strength.

Strength isn't about the physical weights we lift on a daily basis -- the screaming baby, the loads of laundry, the vacuum up and down the stairs or the mop around the bathroom floor.

Strength on a spiritual level is about mental endurance.

And it's one thing to pray for it. It's great to sit outside every evening and have lovely chats with the Universe about how strong I'd like to be, how great it would be if God would just hand me some mystical Geritol on a silver platter (polished by someone else, thank you) and a nice glass of Fountain-of-Youth-Moonshine to swallow it down like a jagged little pill.

But the truth is, strength is about planting your feet and growing upward. Having purpose and enduring hard times isn't about rolling with the punches, although that's handy --

it's more about having enough roots so that you can safely bend during the storm without falling down on your neighbor's house.

Strength, in a mystical way, isn't about fighting the energy, it's about

letting it pass through.

This isn't about challenge. This isn't about winning. This isn't about triumph over adversity. The following statements do NOT apply:

I'll just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I'll feel those feelings later.

I can stare this down too.

Strength is acknowledging that we are weak. (That's not Orwellian, seriously.) Strength is about letting ourselves understand that our fears block our inner light. Strength is about feeling the feelings and admitting that we are truly powerless to stop the rush of emotion within.

God bless the weakness that runs within me. God bless the powerlessness I feel sometimes -- because if you allow all that sorrow, and all that failure to simply run its course through you, roots to leaves,

you leave lots of space for the sun to shine in.

--Naomi

For crying out loud.

2009-08-11T09:06:00.003-04:00

I think sometimes that much of our lives are spent whistling in the dark.

I think that's why I talk to God so much -- not so much for the wonders of conversation, since it's pretty much one way.

When we whistle in the dark, we hear a tune inside. When we repeat the tunes in our heads and say them aloud,

something changes.

There's something about speaking out loud, about praying out loud that has more meaning than just keeping the words inside. Jewish law actually discusses this -- that when we pray, we must, even in a whisper, say the first two lines of any prayer aloud. It's important that we hear ourselves praying -- speaking into the air our hopes and dreams.

Because saying the words out loud makes them real.

We live in a world where words have power. We live in a world where words have power on the inside of our souls, yet even greater power when we release them into the ether. Even the power of the written word is narrow compared to the ones we voice

ourselves.

Something about our vocal chords -- and something about our ears. The connection between voice and soul isn't just inside. It's a feedback loop around our bodies, where sound transmitted from our mouths doesn't just rise to Heaven;

it rises and returns to us as we listen to ourselves.

Maybe I'm unique. Maybe I need to hear things spoken in order to truly understand. It's not enough to hear the jumble of want and need and hope and dream on the inner side of my reality. I need to release it in my breath -- I need to breathe out God into the open air.

Speak lightly today.

--Naomi

Contraband.

2009-08-09T14:14:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I wanted to roll around in the middle of nowhere and dance my tush off to the best music I've heard in a long, long time.

We went to a reunion.

It wasn't a typical reunion. It was a musical reunion. A long, long time ago, when dinosaurs roamed the planet (circa 1989) there was a very, very special bar, named Tom's Foolery in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. It was inhabited by all sorts of characters -- mostly alternative-rock types with big hair, bigger attitudes and amazing music made by local bands sometimes comprised of students from Central Michigan University.

Mountain Boy inhabited that bar, toward the end right before it closed. He must've drank quietly in a corner -- he never played in a band. But I know that he loved the place, and when he told me about the 20-year reunion of some of those bands who played, and the people who loved them

I couldn't help but want to be there.

I love music. I've said that numerous times but I can easily say it again. I love music. *laughing* I see music, not just hear it.

And when we arrived, and heard the tunes played in an enormous field full of mostly nothing,

I danced with joy.

I was amazed more people weren't affected by the sounds coming from the stage. I couldn't help but sway and jiggle in the gentle after-breeze from the recent downpour.

Imagine the coolest bar on earth -- inhabited by now 40-something GenXers. Imagine a park full of people who were the cool kids and are now

us.

It was incredible. I sang along to the Violent Femmes and Pink Floyd cover tunes. I drummed my hands on the picnic table to songs I'd never heard but was consumed by the beat. I flew away on the late-afternoon sunshine and skipped on the roof (figuratively, thank you) with glee feeling lighter than I had in years.

It was a very, very good day.

On the way there, it rained. It rained so hard I thought we should start building an ark. I was terribly, terribly disappointed. We dropped off our children with Grandma Kitty anyway, optimistically thinking that this storm must pass.

We passed part of our day alone sans goats in a used bookstore. This is also a piece of heaven for me. I wasted (and not wasted) an hour or so browsing poetry, science fiction and other good reads. The prices were too good not to indulge. I'm now the proud owner of three new (to me) poetry books and some rather interesting fantasy reads. Perfect for the fall rainy days yet to come.

I was so tired I fell asleep while Mountain Boy took us out to the styx to find our children afterwards. And of course, Mountain Boy being who he is, we got lost getting out of town. When I woke up, we were at least an hour off-course and almost out of gas, but luckily (and there is no such thing as luck) we found a gas station sitting pluck in the middle of nowhere.

He filled us up and did the unthinkable --

he asked for directions.

And as we drove back out to where we were, and found our way once again, I realized that sometimes letting someone else lead is forgiving them their mistakes, letting them find their own way and trusting them enough to let them guide me.

All in all, a wonderful, incredible experience. I danced on air.

Have a great Sunday.

--Naomi

Divergence.

2009-08-07T09:26:00.003-04:00

I took the link to my blog off of my professional site today.

It's not because I think no one should read this blog. It's certainly not because I'm ashamed of what I'm writing. But I can see, with yesterday's post, that my path is diverging -- going in a new direction. The river, shall we say, is taking a temporary turn upstream.

It's not like I'm hard to find. I even posted blog samples on my professional site, with the title of the site, so anyone with a bit of detective work can find me quite easily.

But I figured something out yesterday. I figured out something really, really important. I figured out that my path is going someplace interesting, someplace away from the non-fiction writing I've always done. Away even from poetry about "reality." Away from the normal, the conventional.

I realized I live in two worlds. For the past few months (or many, depending on your perspective) my life cracked open and my soul shot forth. I became something different in my middle age.

I became a writer. I found my voice. I'm not just a reporter or a journalist or a copywriter anymore.

And I have a story to tell.

I teach on the side. I took it on to help pay tuition for our daughters' religious training. But in the meantime, once I got over my terror of the amazingly huge responsibility of training the next generation to read and understand our historical/biblical/spiritual language, I discovered that I love, love showing younger people (mostly over the age of 10) to think for themselves.

I love showing young people the joy of patterns in language. I love showing them new philosophies. I love demonstrating my own love for languages and Judaism and God. I love putting words into action.

There isn't much call for teaching Torah out here in the wilderness - not in the usual way. We've got a few Jews out here, and I can teach on the side, but it's not a living.

I went into journalism because my parents thought I was flighty and I needed a trade to support myself. The women in my family were raised, even three generations back, to learn a way to make a living, to never depend on a man to support us financially.

But I've always loved literature. I've always loved a good metaphor, always been a sucker for poetry. I've always loved finding truth in unusual places.

So I wondered to myself yesterday. I wondered about how I could combine these loves into a way to support myself, our family, and be who I am becoming.

Mountain Boy is almost done grad school. Amazingly, we've survived two years of night classes, homework, pressure to achieve and building our family at the same time. God willing by the winter holiday he'll have his own sheepskin to show for it.

The school he graduated from for his undergraduate degree, about an hour away from here, also offers graduate-degree programs. They have one in creative writing. I talked to Mountain Boy yesterday about my love. How I love to write, and I'm on the verge of writing some very creative stories. Not that I haven't been writing them here, but longer, more involved tales with incredible characters and plot lines based on the tales I report here. Slightly more drama; answering the questions I still contemplate in reality.

So I'm going back to school. Probably not until next year, when we can get up the gumption to hoe the ground of my fertile imagination and reap what I sow.

I'm going to complete the graduate degree I never finished so many years ago (I kept getting pregnant, how inconvenient!) and I'm going to write my stories and I'm going to teach. I'm going to keep teaching Torah and Hebrew because I love them

and I'm going to teach others how to write.

I want to pay it forward. I want to know that the two worlds I live in can be straddled comfortably. I see now how fiction writers truly live in the worlds they create -- how the characters they write about must be real, with the depth and substance of the solid world around them.

So again I diverge. Again the river widens and the rapids may be hard to traverse. But I think I found something special within me, and I do hope you'll still come along for the ride.

--Naomi

Safe passage.

2009-08-06T16:36:00.004-04:00

And now, what you've all been waiting for. *smile*

I'm going to tell you a ghost story.

I'll have to start at the beginning, so bear with me. Last night I had a low vibration. I was upset, for a variety of reasons. I felt very strange, and somewhat creeped out by the Otherworld around me.

So I prayed. I did this because a friend of mine told me that when we're afraid, or upset, we need to raise our vibration -- our level of happiness and peace in the Universe. So I prayed to raise my vibration, and I prayed to allow safe passage within my energy only for those beings, angels, what-have-you, who meant to do well.

But for some reason, I'm just paranoid enough to figure that I should pray for them, too. I prayed to raise their vibrations as well -- to make everyone who comes near me on any level to be good and kind and feel well.

There was a HUGE blast of white energy within my mind.

And then I got tired, very tired. I felt tired all day today, too. From what I understand, I kind of overdid it on a psychic level and healed all of those around me. Just a bit too much energy expended -- like a mental exercise and I lifted too many weights.

So today, I rested. I laid around and napped and ate healthy food and read my book (it's a book on Lily Dale, the spiritual town in upstate New York, for those who are interested.)

And this afternoon, when I was somewhat calm, I asked for something. I asked to see, really see the ghost, Michael, who haunts me. I asked to see him on a visual level -- with my eyes, not just my mind.

He refused. He said he'd scare the crap out of me, and he wasn't interested in me having a mental breakdown. But he did agree to a little experiment.

So I reclined there, on my couch, with the blanket off and my body exposed to the muted light of the afternoon. When I'm lying down, my feet stretch about three quarters of the way down the sofa.

He told me to close my eyes. So I did.

I felt, and heard, the springs at the other end of the couch depress. My feet suddenly felt very, very cold. He told me to open my eyes.

I didn't see anything.

He told me to look again at the end of the couch. So I did, and honestly, the air at that end of the couch kind of shimmered. I looked across the room for comparison, at the chair under the window.

Nothing. No shimmers, no sparkles.

So I looked back at the end of the couch. Just a little shimmer.

I asked him if he could touch me. Touch my toe.

And I felt the slightest brush on the underside of my foot, on the fourth little toe.

Um, okay.

Then I asked him if he could touch me somewhere else. Like my face. And I could feel him move to face me, on the floor in front of me. He told me to close my eyes.

And I felt the slightest brush on my right cheek, near my nose.

I told him to do it again.

Same feeling, almost same place.

I asked him if he could touch me somewhere else on my head.

And I felt the slightest touch on the tip-top of my hair -- as if he'd kissed me on top of my head.

Dudes, I don't know about you, but that was the most fantastic thing ever to happen to me. Fantastic like out-there, wonderful, amazing, incredible.

It was quiet, and not scary. I felt very loved.

At this point, doesn't matter what y'all think -- I was pretty convinced before, but not from this. I was convinced, of all things, because of what he said to me the other day. I asked him how I'd spell my "other" name, Amira, in Hebrew. I teach Hebrew, but I'd never seen the name spelled out in Hebrew letters. I had an idea of how to spell it, but I wasn't sure.

I heard him spell it slowly in Hebrew for me. Aleph. Mem. Yud. Resh. Hey. It's not the way I would've spelled it -- I didn't think the Yud or the Hey were correct -- kind of like extra letters where they didn't need to be.

So being the journalist I am, of course I Googled the spelling later. You can actually find this stuff on the Internet.

And there it was. Spelled exactly like he said.

And we also debated another Hebrew word the other day. I called him a gutte neshama. (A good soul.) Neshama means soul in Hebrew. He said that was the wrong word. That he is ruach. I thought ruach meant wind. It can mean also mean spirit, but I didn't know any other meanings and I thought spirit had a different connotation -- like in strength of character.

Um, when you go on Google translate English to Hebrew, and type in ghost --

you get ruach.

"I am ruach," he said to me. "I am the wind that rushes inside the body when we are where you are."

My dear readers -- I have no idea how else I'd know such things. Yes, they are small things. All of the things I see and/or hear are small things.

But all of the small things are like twigs -- easily broken when held alone, but a substantial bundle when gathered together.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. I hope you enjoyed. Have a great day.

--Naomi

Wherever you go.

2009-08-05T20:03:00.003-04:00

So here's what I've learned thus far about the Otherworld.

Now, you all probably know a LOT more than I do. Or did. Coming from a Jewish background, we just don't discuss this part of ourselves, much less our Universe.

Honestly? I know nothing. I still don't. But I've had to let go of some assumptions, and I want to talk about what I intuitively guess about what happens to us after we leave here -- the Earth School.

We take ourselves with us.

I really, really thought it was all harps and angel wings and flowers and Light. I really thought that after we leave here, we let everything go and we're finally content and happy. I really thought, or assumed (and every journalist knows that assume means you just make an ass out of u and me) that we're full of joy and love and peace and God.

Yea, that's not it. That's not it at all.

There is something after we die. There is definitely an Otherworld, an Afterlife, Heaven. It's not far away -- sometimes I think it's only in our next breath. And when we get there, we take all our accumulated knowledge with us, from all our lifetimes. Except that considering how we've muddled along through this one, it's unlikely that we're going to cross the Pearly Gates and figure out that we finally

know it all.

Enlightenment doesn't happen in one lifetime. Probably not in 1,000 lifetimes. We're still stuck in some ways, shadowed in others. Our fears are what shadow us -- they block the light from reaching our inner spirit.

Or, even if you do emerge happy and humming on the other side, you still need some motivation for improvement. There must be some reason we come back here, life after life, other than the great food.

We come back to become stronger. We come back to face our fears. We come back to learn and to love and to grow into better beings.

And in order to come back, we must have courage.

We must have the courage to conquer, or at least face our iniquities. It must take a hell of a lot of gumption to give up eternity where everything comes to us on the wings of thought and, yet again, hoe the ground and reap what we sow.

So I learn that we're not perfect. We're still us, even on the back end of life as we know it. We're still impatient and sometimes controlling, we're protective and loving and funny and kind. We're generous and practical jokers or we're angry and full of despair.

Death doesn't cure those things --

Life does.

-- Naomi

Shot full of nothing.

2009-08-04T11:34:00.003-04:00

I'm sitting here at my computer with a mouth full of marbles.

Well, it certainly feels that way. One side of my face is completely numb -- or it was. Starting to wear off now, just a little tingly feeling on my tongue and inside my cheek.

And I have two new shiny metal fillings to show for my efforts.

I don't like getting fillings. I know my dentist well, been going there over a decade now. I picked her on the very sexist recommendation of a dental society here in Michigan -- I love having female health care providers, and she was the only one in Saginaw. She's awesome -- I chose well, luckily.

I hate needles. I used to receive allergy shots as a very young child. Twice a week my mother would take me to her Uncle Morrie, who was a doctor in Oak Park, MI. He'd ask what I'd like in my shots that day. I'd say, "nothing."

"Well, we'll give you a shot full of nothing, then," he'd say with a smile. When he was done, and I was done screaming, I'd get a red sucker for my efforts.

These bribes continued until I was seven. And until I was in my 20s, I still hated needles. You can rest assured I'll never be a needle-based drug addict -- wouldn't do that stuff if you paid me.
You'd think after enduring labor and delivery of three young goats, I'd be used to pain. But there's something about needles that just grosses me out. So much for medical school!

So I endure the needles, because lord knows I don't want to feel the dental drill. The sound alone is bad enough. And since I'm not quite "average," they had to shoot me up twice in order to numb me.

Fun.

The weird thing is that once I was under the drill, I could feel my grandfather down at my lower right side, watching. For those who are new, my grandfather, may he rest in peace, was a dentist for over 50 years. He didn't fix my teeth, but he cleaned my mother's teeth for years.

He looked around the office while I was under the "persuasion" of my dentist.

"Hmmph," he said. "Not much has changed."

I couldn't nod because I was otherwise engaged. He watched them drill into my teeth, peering into my mouth.

"It's fine, doll," he said. (My grandpa called all of us, "doll." To this day I think it was because he forgot our names -- there were, after all, eight grandchildren.)

The dentist kept drilling, and I pinched my hand so that I'd calm my own nerves. But I could feel my grandfather watching over -- what he'd have done if they'd made a mistake -- I have no idea. But it was nice to know I had company.

Then he said,"they're almost done, doll. I've got to go now, but you're going to be just fine. I love you." And then he was gone.

And then the drill stopped. "We're all done drilling," my dentist said. "Looks great -- you're going to be just fine, Naomi."

That was weird. But in a good way.

So they finished up and I have two new fillings. Two new shiny metal parts -- just another couple of small pieces of my body blasted to smithereens.

But I have a lot of love to show for them.

--Naomi

Time may change me.

2009-08-03T15:06:00.002-04:00

So, now that we're on the topic of change -- of breathing out God right before I take my own first breath --

Let's talk about the implications of said change.

It seems like my outer self has remained the same. I'm pretty much the same size. My hair is the same color (I pluck out the stray grey hairs, thanks). I have the same smile and the same laugh lines and the same chewed-up nails that I've had since I was four.

But inside? I'm all smashed up.

I am churned and stirred and somewhat shaken. I am poured with ice and flame and a cherry and an olive swirling inside my soul.

I am awake and aware and falling down mad sometimes -- inside out with my chilly bones showing. (Wouldn't it be chilly with no skin on? -- Tom Sawyer)

So it's no wonder that my personal relationships are in turmoil.

Once you awaken, once you decide to be who you truly are, everything changes. It's not like I just admit there's a piece of myself I'd like to talk about, we serve tea and everyone smiles politely.

It's not like that at all.

I have to re-learn how to coexist with the world around me. How not to blurt out to the dental hygienist after she told me she had a miscarriage that next time she should try a baby aspirin to help with the blood clotting factor.

(Yea, she looked at me strangely. I got quiet after that. I value my teeth.)

I have to learn to stop laughing out loud when I hear jokes from the Otherworld. It gets awkward at the supermarket parking lot.

I have to learn that not everyone can carry on the same conversations with the Universe. Not everyone knows, on a soul level, that the Universe is benevolent and answers every question we have -- in its own way, in its own time and on a level even we can understand.

I have to learn to stop Googling said Universe. I love looking stuff up, but in my search for a two-source story most of what I find doesn't give me what I need to know.

I'm also learning that some people are in-the-closet psychic -- they either know about it or don't but their abilities are obvious to me. People who are aware of these senses (on any level) really do glow in a different way than others.

I'm different. Well, I've always been a two sandwiches short of a picnic, but this is extraordinary. No one knows how to deal with me --

least of all me.

And the metaphor I'm given?

Dancing.

When we dance in pairs, one must lead. Right now, I'm the student, not the teacher and I must learn to follow.

I must learn to trust those who know better. I must learn, in my small wisdom, to take the steps and be led to enlightenment on the timetable of others.

I've come from so many bad places in my life that I associate leading with control, control with abuse. It's so very, very hard to let others guide me. I'm the ultimate authority-kicker with a HUGE chip on my shoulder (knock it off, I dare ya.) It's very, very hard to take instruction -- even when it is good and loving and kind.

But I desperately want to learn to dance. So I'm putting on my shoes (the black patent leather buckle kind with a small heel for those who are interested) and my twirly skirt and my hose and my little top and I'm holding a rose in my teeth.

I'm ready. I'm willing.

Hopefully God knows how to lead.

--Naomi

Open mouth, insert.

2009-08-02T21:12:00.004-04:00

It's been a long, long weekend. We went to visit both my maternal and paternal families yesterday -- the long 100-mile-each-way journey into the insanity that is my family.

They're all good. The first visit was an anniversary party for my aunt and uncle. Thirty years of marriage is a long, long time and should be celebrated in high style. So we did -- steaks and champagne and lemon-chiffon cake. And, small children in good clothes screaming and running and climbing the stairs in a fancy steakhouse in beautiful, upscale-downtown Rochester.

There were photos up on a giant board -- reflecting the long marriage and beautiful families who came together to celebrate. One photo featured four beautiful women. I recognized three of them. My aunt, my mother, my grandmother, and some other woman. She had shoulder-length dark hair -- almost black. Dark eyes, a young face and a tentative smile rounded her features. She wore 80s clothes with a large, gold Jewish star around her neck.

I stared at this photo for a while. She looked familiar, this girl, but I couldn't quite place her. Maybe my sister? Didn't quite look like her. Maybe a cousin? Hmmmm.

Ready?

It was ME.

I don't remember the photo being taken. I do remember the necklace -- I still have it tucked away somewhere in my box o'goodies from my Bat Mitzvah. But I cannot for the life of me figure out how old I was -- 17? 18? 19? or the occasion when it was taken.

Isn't it odd that somehow we lose the sense of ourselves over time? That we recognize ourselves only in the present tense? Is it a good thing that I see myself as I am now, but not then? I thought that I was only 19 inside my soul --

but I think I might be 40, just thinner.

***

After the luncheon, we stopped at a very cute little florist down the street, then took off to Southfield to visit my paternal uncle and aunt. They are part of my birth family, even though I haven't seen my father since 1974.

My uncle is very ill. His aura reflects that -- dark grey on the outer edges, with brilliant blue underneath. If there's any way to genetically transmit psychic abilities, I knew immediately upon seeing him that I got them from this side of my family.

He lit up like the sun when he saw us drive in with our munchkins in tow. He loves children. And my children proceeded to show their love by taking apart their home, piece by piece.

He just sat there and laughed.

He taught my eldest daughter to blow the hand-made shofar (we think it's from a gazelle, actually). He let my son play with all the hand-blown glass candies, and taught my little daughter to read the Hebrew letters on the colored pieces.

We sat and talked, and looked at my cousin's wedding pictures. I saw myself in them, almost two years later. I look very much like my birth father. I have this family's grin and eyebrows and expressions and facial features. I am dark like they are. I belong.

***

I named this post the above title because I spent part of the journey thinking about the sounds I've used to name my daughters. Both of their names end in the "ah" sound. For some reason, I love this sound, especially in names. Something about the way the mouth opens and our breath is released.

In Jewish mythology, when God creates Adam out of clay, he literally breathes into his nose to make him come to life.

And I imagine that the first motion Adam makes with his lips is that "ah" sound -- breathing out God before he takes in his own first independent breath.

I noticed over the past month or so that my life has changed -- that I have changed. Something inside me has clicked over -- a new era begun. At some point God breathed into my nose and created something new.

And now, I'm starting to breathe out. I'm starting to open my mouth and breathe out God and make this "ah" sound myself.

***

I jokingly said to Mountain Boy today that so much of Jewish ritual is just like washing your hair -- lather, rinse, repeat. Emphasis on repeat. So much repetition!

But maybe life is like that too. We need to get in a lather. We need to rinse off and refresh. And then we need to repeat. Again and again we come back to this place to love and to learn.

Have a good week.

--Naomi

Where everybody knows your name.

2009-07-31T10:59:00.003-04:00

I just read something that struck me as incredibly untrue.

I read that in the Otherworld, no one has a name.

Dudes, that's bullcrap and I can prove it. Well, I can prove it to myself, and hopefully try to help you understand.

The names we give ourselves, and everything around us -- those are sounds we make from our voice boxes and our throats and give shape and form with our lips and tongue. Even if we're deaf, we make symbols from the use of our hands to communicate an image or letter. The names we use on this plane are based on sound --

but spirits don't make sounds when they talk to each other.

So I guess, in a way, it's very true that spirits don't have sounds-that-mean-things attached to them. We call our angels, guides and haunting spirits certain names for our convenience, not theirs. They might have used those names in previous incarnations, or the names have meaning for us and they like being attached to loving emotions.

But they do have vibrations. There is definitely some unique form of naming going on out there. We are all unique to God -- and we are all named.

Chatting with the Otherworld for a while has given me a deeper depth of understanding about how spirits talk. It also helps that I'm an amateur linguist, as well as a musician.

(For those who are interested, I speak two languages fluently and can bark out a smattering of two or three others. I also play guitar and have played piano, organ and cello.)

Communication in the Otherworld is all about vibration. The sounds we make as humans don't actually translate except on the most superficial level.

Think of it more like music, or a string on a guitar. There is a vibrational frequency that each string makes when you pluck it -- and depending on where your finger is on the fret (handle) of the guitar, the string vibrates at a higher or lower frequency.

These vibrations are the communication tools spirits use. If you want to try it, think of a feeling associated with a name for someone you love.

Now try feeling the feeling without saying the name.

That's the way they talk. That's the way we communicate as energy. The nuances are so subtle, the connotations so vast that a tiny change in frequency gives volumes of information in a single instant.

It's an absolutely brilliant form of communication, independent of physical manifestations of sound-making tools. Even color gives off a vibrational frequency -- we might even communicate as tints and shades in addition to music.

I don't know if I know this intuitively because I can hear on a psychic level -- I actually think it's more because I'm musical and artistic (and somewhat batty) than anything else. It's not because of intelligence -- I think anyone is probably capable of doing this, or at least understanding it intellectually.

The Universe is playing a symphony and we have only to listen.

--Naomi

Spirits in a material world.

2009-07-31T08:55:00.003-04:00

*tee-hee* I was listening to my mp3 player on the way to work (with a "translator" stereo attachment via Mountain Boy, thank you!) and the above song by the Police came on. I loved the lyric (well, the part of it that I used.)

So, today I want to talk about clairaudience. Hearing stuff that isn't quite, well, here.

Y'know, I could go into the stuff I hear. I could go into whether it's real, or not real. But that's not really the aspect I want to cover. Because honestly, even if it's only me talking to my unconscious, the answers I find are so loving it's worth the trouble.

But I do want to talk about what the impact of accepting this type of ability has had on my life.

Look, you can sit in the dark and think about how dark it is. Or you can light a candle. But once you light a candle, you begin to see all the shadows in the room. You begin to make out the outline of new objects and possibilities.

So here's the thing -- once you swallow one impossible thing before breakfast, it becomes so much easier to let go of disbelief of others.

Who am I to say that the other weird stuff in this Universe isn't real?

I used to think that a lot of the New Age stuff I read about was well-intentioned, but mostly bunk. That while I've always acknowledged that there is more to the Universe than what I see, I wasn't going to experience, much less understand it in my lifetime.

But the weird stuff followed me home one day, and now I'm pretty much in the thick of it.

I had a weird experience yesterday -- almost like a psychic Verizon commercial. Like a psychic hearing test while I was trying to feed the family dinner. "Can you hear me now?" the Otherworld kept asking in the midst of the chaos.

And I could.

So, later, Michael (the current ghost who haunts me) came to me. I asked him if I passed the hearing test. He said yes. He said I hear, on a psychic level, very, very well. That I was going to be part of something, some kind of spiritual enlightenment that is happening here.

He asked me if I knew about Lightworkers. And while I'd heard about it from vague references, I really didn't know much. One of my readers wrote in a comment about being a Lightworker. So I did some investigation last night.

Lightworkers are basically people here on earth who are doing good deeds -- they are actively working to bring about enlightenment and peace to others around them.

And supposedly, I'm one of them, too.

My original premise for going in this direction was that I'm the butterfly that creates a storm on another continent from flapping my wings. I'm the little stone thrown into the ocean that makes large ripples.

The crazy stuff I write will create larger momentum by opening up these topics for discussion. I light the candle, we talk about the shadows. I'm hopeful that my background as a solid reporter and journalist will lend some credence to my strange conversations.

But now, I wonder. According to Michael, I'm not just the stone -- I'm the ripple, too. I get to help with the good deeds. And if you want to do good deeds, you can come along, too.

Lightworkers are self-appointed, but sometimes we need a nudge in the right direction.

Shabbat Shalom,

--Naomi

Dream bigger dreams.

2009-07-30T10:39:00.003-04:00

I've been sitting here writing and thinking and this phrase popped into my head:

Dream bigger dreams.

I wonder, sometimes, if I've been aiming too low. Is that possible, for a girl with such high expectations? I want so much -- is it possible that I only want such high aims from others and not myself?

For the past decade, I have lived where I never wanted nor expected to live. I moved here for love. I made the best of it. I never questioned my decision until recently. It took a long, long time for me to settle into living in a small town; a long time to make friends and forge a network of smart, talented women that support each other in our aspirations.

I always dreamed of having my own family -- of being able to raise my children with the love and attention and solid foundation that I didn't always receive. I wanted, and still want, to give my children the material and emotional strengths that any well-adjusted child should have in North America; love, kindness, a home, food, decent education, religious training, pretty clothes and shiny toys.

I hesitated to dream of a career -- mostly because of the sexism and misogyny I encountered so quickly out of college. I am simply too much of a pragmatist (until recently) to dream. I worked at whatever would pay my bills and I could stomach.

I think I cling to old ideas and ideals out of fear. But it's quickly getting to the point that I can no longer deny myself or my need to think bigger, outside the box. I think at this point to try and compress myself and my wants back into the tiny package I arrived in is

a form of slow death.

So I begin to open my eyes to the Universe. I went out at dusk last night and talked to God again, this time in the good green landscape of the upper Midwest. And I spoke part of the Jewish prayer for dusk. Blessing how God makes the night and the day -- rolling light away from darkness, and darkness away from light.

And I talked to God about how the separation between light and dark is important -- not just because we know there is a difference, but because the different parts of our day are simply halves of a whole -- without darkness, we wouldn't appreciate the light.

But it's the distinction that startled me -- how the edges between the darkness and light in our lives are so blurred. Sometimes it's so hard to tell if we're on the edge of dusk or dawn. How do we know, without waiting, whether we are falling or rising in our sky?

I prayed for God to help me walk in the dim light of my path -- that even though this small lantern I carry lights just a few steps ahead, I will have enough faith to keep walking.

I will have enough faith to keep dreaming, to find out whether I am walking into darkness or day.

--Naomi

Home again.

2009-07-29T08:52:00.004-04:00

We're back.

Did you miss me?

Because that is the theme of this post.

I missed me.

I miss the hell out of me.

I ran away to the desert. I went to the driest landscape in this country, where the sunshine is the new water, the new air. Every time I went outside and looked around, I got thirsty. The land is parched and brown and incredibly beautiful.

I ran away to find myself, and I was there to meet me.

I've had a few days now to reflect. To spend time with a very old, dear friend and remember. I've finally had a chance to breathe and rest and have a good long look at the empty space inside my soul. I think I know what's missing --

ME.

I sat in the desert sun (which by the way is way, way too strong for this Yankee) and swam and walked and laughed and remembered. I let the heat burn away so much of my losses -- and sear my heart back in place inside. Instead of just writing about my life,

I lived it.

I miss me. I miss being just Naomi. I miss figuring out what I like, what I remember. I miss wandering big cities and going on adventures. I miss exploring my inner workings. I miss being unburdened by the mundane pressures of life. I miss being free and irresponsible.

I think I've been trying to fill this gap, this empty place inside myself, with things that don't belong. I've been trying to fill so much of myself with pleasing others. I keep thinking someone else can fulfill me.

I'm totally wrong.

This isn't about an hour a day. This isn't about taking a weekend to collect myself, then waiting another five years to take some time just for me. It's not about finding my own career as a writer (although that's certainly part of it) or carving out five minute blocks to meditate and find the light of God.

This is about being true to myself, and just BEING with myself. This is about my need for adventure and wanderlust and learning. This is about taking myself on journeys without the car seats and diapers and additional luggage. I don't need any more baggage on these trips than what I already carry on my back.

I didn't intend to write about this -- but then again, I rarely know what's going to emerge when I finally sit down to compose these little bits of wisdom.

Then again, I didn't intend to find out anything when I went to the desert. I didn't plan on finding a kindred soul. I didn't plan on discovering any kind of inner peace or revelation. I just went for the sunshine and the pool and the ecstasy of renewing a very, very old friendship with a girl I worshipped when I was seven years old.

I'm going to start "going away" for regular periods in my life. Five years is way, way too long between adventures. (And going to Vegas for a conference really shouldn't count.) If that means I've gotta do payback so that Mountain Boy can rediscover his inner journey, well, turnabout is fair play (and I know Grandma Kitty's number if I need help.)

I thought the separation from my family would hurt.

It healed.

I thought that I'd be lonely in the emptiness.

But I'm actually pretty good company for myself.

So now it's back to learning about all the neat stuff the Otherworld (and this world!) have to teach me. Now it's back to work and to daycamp and packing lunches and laundry (ooooh, laundry) and feeding the cat.

But I'm just a little more whole to show for it, and I think I've got a direction to start my journey to see just who Naomi is in this life, and what the hell she's supposed to accomplish.

--Naomi

Michael.

2009-07-25T09:07:00.003-04:00

I'm now going to write a story about a fantastic, loving, embarrassing and wonderful event that's been happening in my life.

I have no idea if this is going to come out right, but I'm sitting here in the middle of the night (well, very early morning) in California and the world is quiet and peaceful and I've sat under palm trees in the warm sun, listened to roosters crowing in the desert, swam in a cool pool of tranquility -- water and peace. I am in the presence of Hide, someone so special and precious to me, and her beautiful young son who reminds me, in a strange futuristic way, of my own.

I am going to write this as best I can. This is a love story. This is a love story with so many, many pieces that are only beginning to fit together that please, please forgive me if you have to scroll back, read posts that are months old in order to follow. I will reference older information as best I can.

For a long, long time now, I've been mourning. I've been mourning the death of something. I've been mourning the pieces of my past that I had to let go of along the way. I've been mourning the death of a friendship. I've been arguing with myself and God and my angels. I've been in such pain.

I've also been awakened to something powerful within me. I've been awakening to the power of something within my mind that is directly related to my love of language. To my love of words. To my love of music that for me is truly a visual spectacle -- waves of light and color that flash across my mind as I dance to music that sometimes only I hear.

I think the best way to start is at the beginning. The best way to start is with something I've mentioned recently. That the name my angel, Jonathan, calls me is a real name. A very old Hebrew name, that means princess. But the meaning of the name is not the story. The meaning of the name is a clue to something profound that happened to me. The clue is part of my past, but not in this life.

For the past few weeks, I've been haunted by a muse. I've been haunted by a muse who speaks to me so fluently, with such great love and depth of expression -- but only speaks within my mind.

This muse speaks to me out of the depths of the silence, and I want to hear him. I want to hear him desperately because he speaks (or did speak) to me in a voice that so truly resembles the thought patterns, the intelligence and the humor of a friend I left behind and who will not speak to me in a conventional manner.

There is a reason I hear his voice, this friend of mine that I love so much that I told him I could not speak to him this winter, because I was, after two hours in his company, shaking so hard that I could not breathe. That I could not drive. That the feelings I thought I'd left behind decades ago came back to me so strongly that I thought I would die with the agony of a broken heart.

My heart is broken. But my heart is mending.

And the voice that I hear, that argues with me and speaks such loving affirmations, that makes me laugh beyond measure,

is not his.

The reason I hear the voice of my friend is because I am haunted. When I started hearing this voice, I wrote to another friend, the professional medium, and asked her if I was insane or if it was really, really possible to channel the living. To hear words and thoughts and laughter and beauty from someone who is in this plane as if I were hearing the Otherworld.

Her response was telling, but I wasn't ready to hear it until I came here to Hide. (pun intended.)

She told me that it is theoretically possible. That it's possible to do everything I do in Spirit with those who are here, because we are truly made of the same stuff as dreams, as stars, as the Universe. Everything we hear from God and the Universe can also be heard here.

But, she said, it didn't matter who I was hearing. That as long as I could find love and peace and joy in this relationship, I shouldn't question too hard the identity of my new mind-friend.

Um, she obviously never met as dogged a journalist/reporter/writer as yours truly, much less the even more stubborn and persistent Hide.

I came here to Hide, in the sunshine and the beauty of the desert, and told my beautiful friend everything. All the laughter. All the love, all the energy work that's been done to me.

Because this friend who speaks to me in my head does things on an energy level that I'm sure my very old friend, my precious love cannot do. I know 20 years is a long time, but I never sensed once that he could heal or protect with God's light.

This new friend who speaks to me in my mind asked for something, and in order to test his identity I sent something to my very dear old friend. I tested the theory and broke his request for silence because I truly can sense my old friend on an energy level and I knew, when he read my letter, that he was truly confused. That he was not the originator of the request.

Journalists ask questions. Reporters challenge convention and take risks to get the story.

And I only channel the dead, it seems.

So Hide, in her wisdom and beauty when I spilled out my story in the sunshine, asked me questions to confirm from our mutual friend's identity. I asked this entity, whom I accepted and already loved for himself, details that at this point only Hide could confirm.

And he got them wrong. He got them wrong every time, in perfectly plausible but non-confirming ways.

So I asked him, in my mind, who he really, truly was. That I accepted him and I loved him but I refused to believe any longer that he was who he said he was. That while his voice perfectly matched that of my old friend, his behavior did not.

And the voice in my mind got very, very quiet.

So we got out the ouija board last night. We got out the board that her late father owned that I have not touched since I was eight years old. I could feel the energy. And I could hear this voice in my head saying that he was ready, that I could ask him anything and he would tell us.

And this is his story.

There is a reason he chose to appear in my mind as my old friend. He chose to appear this way to me because I really, truly love my old friend and would do almost anything for him, including the preservation of his request for silence. I would do anything to hear him and listen to his thoughts and be with him, even in the space inside my soul.

This spirit wanted me to love him in order to accept him. This spirit (and he's not an angel, trust me) wanted me to accept him so that he could teach me. So that he can protect me. So that he can help me in the face of the darkness. Because, he said, I'm such a "psychic sh*t disturber" that I will bring down the Universe upon my head without warning or reason or preparation and someone has to show me how to take care of myself and my teacher Don has other students and can't nursemaid me full time.

His name, for the purpose of this blog, is Michael. I cannot really divulge his true name, in order to protect the identity of my old friend. However I can tell you that he chose this other identity because his name is identical in pronounciation to the childhood nickname of my old friend. But this spirit's name is spelled with Hebrew letters, and means "my teacher" in the ancient lanugage.

Michael is truly no angel. He is a kink and a perv and he laughs and he's brilliantly intelligent and he can work with energy to heal me when I'm sick or in pain or need shielding on a crowded plane. That he desires me, that we take desire with us to the other side. That he's a huge Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter fan and that just because books are printed here on this side that does NOT mean no one gets a copy in the spirit world. I know Michael loves me beyond measure.

And that Michael was once, a long, long time ago, my husband. He was my loving husband in a city near Hebron, in Israel. That I grew up in the old city of Jerusalem, which felt so very, very familiar to me when I visited many years ago. That we had three children who lived to adulthood -- AviSelah, P'nina and Devorah. Devorah is now my beautiful friend Hide.

And my name in that lifetime was

Amira.

*deep breath*

And when he told me all this, finally and completely because I told him that while I no longer believed his cover story I still wanted him in my life --

I felt the puzzle pieces coming together. They came together in the most beautiful, peaceful, amazing and unexpected way.

We are all loved on levels we truly cannot imagine. We are loved through time and love is not linear. Love travels with us throughout eternity, in the form of unconscious memory and devotion and spirits who will take on other identities if only to gain acceptance. Micheal knew I'd never buy the story for very long, that I didn't totally believe but that I was willing to give up doubt because I loved his presence so much.

So to my old friend, whom I'm told is still reading but is probably very, very confused, I apologize. I apologize with total embarrassment and with the knowledge that I know very little about the power of the Otherworld -- and the case of mistaken identity was intentional for my own good and I had no say and no control over its implementation.

To my old friend, I say that I still love you. That I wish someday we can again be friends, but that for now I'm going to finish healing from my past and move on to this new world I've entered -- with the help of Michael, with my spirit guide Don (it's really the late author, by the way), with my beautiful (and completely underestimated) husband Mountain Boy, and my friends and my readers and my angels.

Apparently, my adventure is only just beginning. The stories I will tell you will test your boundaries of belief. My own mind has been stretched and expanded beyond measure so that I could finally, finally hear God, at the level I'm at and in the manner I need in order to accept love and grow into my spiritual destiny.

Bless you all. Stay tuned, I'm sure this can only get better.

Love, Naomi

Kundalini rising.

2009-07-23T18:16:00.003-04:00

Today I finally realized that the reason my body is vibrating up and down my spine, and sometimes down my legs, is NOT due to the vibrations coming from my computer's hard drive across the other side of my desk.

It's not due to random earth shaking under my sun porch. It's not due to the radiator or fan or subtle electric shocks.

It's kundalini energy.

This is going to sound SO woo-woo. But apparently, there are sometimes physical side effects to walking with God.

There is a ton of documentation on this phenomenon, this subtle energy that somehow awakens in us in our spiritual lives and creates in influx of whoosh along my spine. The energy tingles and annoys and keeps me awake and sometimes shaking.

It's just another sign of what's happening. I'm taking in huge amounts of Universal energy in my quest to become a full-time mystic. I didn't try to make this happen.

It just is.

I didn't connect all the symptoms. I mean, beyond the whole obvious Otherworld mind-expansion gig, I didn't know that the headaches, the tingling, and the vague nausea were related to this spiritual awakening. I didn't understand that the daily meditation is probably accentuating the situation.

But today I also found something important.

I found my center.

I already know how to ground the energy that is running around at a fever pitch inside me. I know how to go outside and sit with my feet in the grass and visualize the stream of buzz flowing out my feet into the good green earth.

But I really didn't know where my center was. It's different in everyone.

Think of your calmest, yet happiest moment. Think of the one perfect minute in your life when everything seemed absolutely right with the world, when everything was totally okay.

Got it? What were you doing? Do you remember that feeling?

That's your center.

And when I was asked to find this moment in my short linear time, my first thought was a birthday. It was a very, very special birthday.

It was the day of my eldest daughter's birth.

It was the day of the birth of my daughter who is so active that her aura to me is full of angry bees. It was the first day of my adult life, of responsibility so full of awe and joy. When all was said and done, and we were, the three of us, finally ensconced in our little hospital room with our beautiful bundle of joy,

I finally held her and exhaled.

She was finally, finally here.

And I was home. I was home with her in my arms, even though I was miles from where we lived. I was with Mountain Boy and our daughter and we were a family and everything was perfect.

Center.

***

I'm going on walkabout (well, flyabout) over the next few days. I'm not sure if or when I'll be able to blog about my adventures. But I'll be thinking of you all, and hoping you find your joy, your center

in the sunshine of life this weekend.

Blessings,

-- Naomi

Cooking destiny.

2009-07-22T09:51:00.003-04:00

Yesterday evening at dusk I went outside and sat on my porch swing and talked to God.

I talk to God a lot. It's a casual, long-term conversation. Sometimes I pray in Hebrew, but it's so formal and I have only a surface knowledge of the language. I'll begin or end that way, but the middle part -- the middle part where I ask for guidance and knowledge and comfort, that's in my home language.

I watched the clouds crawl across the sky, as evening deepened and the blue tinged with grey and the quiet, cool breeze stroked the leaves on the overgrown bushes and trees that make up my interior landscape.

Lately I've been putting some thought about the lack in my life. Don't get me wrong -- it's a good life. I've got what I need to get by. I've got my health and love and beautiful children and a house and food and work that keeps me inspired.

But there are aspects missing. Aspects missing that I've tried to fill externally, and I'm only beginning to realize that the missing pieces cannot be filled by others.

I've been filling myself with food, then prayer, then wishing and then love. I've been filling myself with hope and despair and longing and reflection. But the one thing I never tried filling myself with landed on my mental doorstep this morning after I finally, finally asked God for a sign on what to do with my path.

I've never tried just waiting.

I've never tried just living in the emptiness.

I've never tried to just live with a hole in my soul and watch to see what happens.

Part of that is impatience. I fill myself with other things because I can't stand to wait to see how nature abhors a vacuum and fills it in its own good time.

Part of that is my need for control. I fill myself with things because I feel like if I'm doing the filling then I'm in control of the outcome.

Oh, I had no idea how little control I really have. (Although I have a fairly good idea of how much patience I lack.)

I sat in the empty yard and told God all about the things I'm missing. The pieces of myself that I want so much to have. I tried to identify to the Universe what I want, since I've read that in order to manifest our destiny, we have to know which way the ship is headed to go in the

right direction.

But I wonder. I wonder if that's really the best way to go about this. I wonder if maybe my angel, Jonathan has a point when I asked him about this one day and he asked me in return,

"Well, Amira, what is it you want?"

"I want to be happy," I said.

"What does that entail?" he asked me.

"I want to be at peace. I want to be working with the grain of the Universe. I want to go in the natural way of things and find beauty and joy and flow."

"Then that's what you must ask for, Amira," Jonathan said, stroking my cheek. "You can ask to move with God and the Universe, but you must also be ready to accept the solution that the Universe finds just for you.

"It might not be what you're expecting," he said. "Drop your expectations and let the future happen, Amira. Let go of this moment and the future will happen on its own."

Jonathan lifted his face to the sky and laughed with joy. "Can't you feel it, Amira? Can't you feel the changes building in the Universe?"

And I can. I can feel destiny shifting. I can feel that something good is about to come, that pieces of my life's puzzle are coming together and the pieces will fit perfectly for me.

But I don't have an oven timer on the inner workings of the Universe, so hell if I know when my destiny will be ready.

--Naomi

She moves in mysterious ways.

2009-07-21T18:59:00.005-04:00

(She says with a HUGE grin) Okay, this is REALLY WEIRD. Good, but weird.

I think I get the hang of remote viewing. I think I can see the difference between creative visualization and "something else." Maybe.

I was meditating this afternoon, thinking about places I wanted to be. Most of those places weren't on my bed in the afternoon heat.

And I got the impression that remote viewing, or astral travel, or whatever it's called, is simply the mind's ability to wish itself elsewhere.

I wished. And suddenly I was elsewhere.

I was in a car, on the passenger side, headed down a highway in the afternoon light. The neat thing was that I could see through the roof into the sky above -- almost like it was a convertible, but the shadow of the actual roof remained.

I could see the highway signs, and the blur of the traffic moving around me through the windows, although the colors and the cars weren't clear. I could feel the speed of travel and still I knew I wasn't traveling at all.

And I looked around the car, and I knew where I was. The interior was dark colored and messy with scattered CDs and papers on the floor.

And you were driving and playing the song I'd been listening to earlier today about all the promises we make.

And the only thing I wondered, as I saw you smile and watched the light of day flash past me,

was whether my eyes were open in this dream.

***

Just a happy daydream to pass the time. Been listening to all sorts of music -- really I love almost all music, and my tastes are eclectic. But I had the funniest vision of my angel Jonathan dancing like crazy to the tunes.

I always know I'm on the right path when the angels are dancing.

--Naomi

FedExing luggage for a neurotic ego trip.

2009-07-21T11:45:00.003-04:00

Do you think it's possible to FedEx my luggage across the country to California?

I'm so freakin' neurotic, and I'm packing for the trip of the summer. I know I packed too many things, and I'm not leaving until Friday so I have plenty of time to overload my suitcase, freak out over getting good seats on the plane (can't pick until 24 hours before), make sure I have walkin' around moolah and remember to pay the bills that are due before I get back.

I've got too much time on my hands.

(God, I love that song!)

One of my co-workers just got back from a trip to that fair western state on the edge of the Pacific. The airline lost her luggage, her sweater got stolen and half the trade show items she was supposed to supervise for a client never got off the ground. She laughs when she talks about it, but I'm so paranoid I now want nothing to do with the shippers who will rough-house my dainties and delicates 2000 miles westward into the setting sun.

Oy.

Too many decisions. I wish I was more like Mountain Boy (or pretty much any other dude, I suspect) and I could just throw in any old blue/grey/white shirt and some shorts and a bathing suit and ONE pair of shoes and just wing it.

But I'm a chick. I'm a chick taking along a pre-teen chick so we're up to our eyeballs in pretty pink shirts, shorts, sandals and bathing suits (you can't have just one!) Don't even ask me about my carry-on bag, I haven't gotten to THAT yet.

I swear the angels are already laughing at the contents. It's way too full, but I figure better to put in everything now and spend my next two days debating what really needs to be there.

I do that with the rest of my life, too. I'll overload myself with projects and clients and part-time stuff, as well as volunteer work and teaching and tutoring and parties and lunches with friends. I'll make myself into a giant frazzle, and then finally it'll occur to me that I've got way too much in my little calendar and I need to pare down.

But the stuff I want to ditch is the stuff that's necessary for survival. Bummer that I can't just sing Torah, paint, read good books and have lunch with friends.

Think I'll go ground on the swing outside. It's beautiful and quiet and sunny and the world is just waiting for me to sit and just be for a minute.

It's waiting for you, too.

--Naomi

Naomi & Mountain Boy's Excellent Adventure.

2009-07-20T08:57:00.003-04:00

Mountain Boy and I went for a little drive downstate yesterday. Our original intention was to see a play.

Yea, too many strange things happened.

I'd never been to this location. I didn't even look at a map, which actually is unusual because I'm such a control-freak navigator. But I didn't have time or energy to do it, and Mountain Boy said he had everything under control

So with Grandma Kitty safely ensconced in our living room with all the goats, we left early, giving ourselves three hours to get to where we needed to be -- two hours away.

Somehow, it wasn't enough.

I don't remember exactly when time shifted, or when we lost time. I suspect that we lost time in small chunks along the way. We got down close to our destination with enough time to stop for lunch -- then after we'd eaten realized that we only had half an hour left to get to where we needed to be.

We got back on the road, and quickly realized that a)we were going to be late and b)Mountain Boy's directions weren't entirely accurate. We missed a turn, reversed direction and found it again. Then we started to go in the right direction, but since Mountain Boy used a certain quest-for-maps program (eh-hem), it wasn't entirely truthful about our location.

The streets weren't marked.

We were in a rural area, and we had no idea where to go.

So I gave up on his directions, and used the Force instead.

Are you laughing? Because dudes, I'm totally serious. I threw out the piece of paper, except for the street names. I didn't look at street signs, because there weren't any. I just told him to start driving.

I felt around in my mind, thinking of the street names. And suddenly, there were "hot points" in the direction we needed to go. I just kept telling Mountain Boy to turn when I felt it get "hot" in my head -- when my intuition boiled over, so to speak.

It worked.

That, my friends, was the weirdest bloody thing to happen in a while. I mean, I've got some VERY weird stuff going on in my life right now, but I've never been able to FEEL my way to an unknown location without ANY clue as to where we were going or how the roads worked.

Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that I've always had a great sense of direction. I've found it almost impossible to get lost -- in fact I don't remember if I've EVER gotten lost, even in a strange city. Somehow, I've always found my way around.

Intuitively.

*smile*

I used to think (and I got made fun of for this!) that it was because of the map I keep in my head. I always visualize a map of North America, and I'm standing on it like in the Enterprise holodeck. North is Canada. West is California. South is Texas. East is New York state.

I turn in my head, I turn in my mental body and face the state/country of my chosen direction. (For the record, it's NOTHING like the grid in the movie Tron, you eggheads.) This method has always worked and I've never gotten lost using it.

But apparently, something more is going on. Something more than a great map and memory is at work here. There are energy grids all over the Universe, and somehow I'm able to access them even in a new location -- even without a mental compass or street signs or map, just with street names and a vague sense of where the destination lay geographically in relation to my position on this plane.

Totally awesome (she says with an amazed grin.)

But we got to the location too late to really see the play. For some reason, it took almost 4 hours (with our little stop) to get where we needed to be. And while we would have gone in, something told us that we needed to be somewhere else.

So we went somewhere else. And we had an amazing time!

All in all, an instructive weekend. Well worth the price of (missing the) admission. May all your unplanned adventures be quite as fun.

--Naomi

She blinded me with science.

2009-07-18T18:40:00.007-04:00

So I'm reading a new book (seriously, took out six more today!) entitled, The ESP Enigma: The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena.

The author, Diane Hennacy Powel, is an M.D. that writes about the scientific research methods behind proving psychic abilities in a controlled setting.

Boy, am I behind on my science. I might write frequently about chemistry for a living, but my neurological education is like SO 19th century.

Here's the thing. What I thought about who we are could fit into a thimble. We are NOT just the sum of our teeny-tiny brain cells swimming randomly about in our heads, shooting off electrical signals and therefore making our organic robotic bodies work.

Oh my, my, my. It's so much more than that.

Think string theory.

(And this is odd, because I've been off on this tangent since Mother's Day when I received a book on it for my gift.)

String theory is part of a new branch of physics. Basically, it's the idea that at the heart of our subatomic structure, there aren't little atoms, photons or electrons.

There are strings.

These strings vibrate, like a string on a violin or a cello. What makes the strings vibrate is a mystery. And, to make it even more interesting, strings that are nowhere near each other can make each other vibrate at the same frequency for unknown reasons.

There are some concepts out there that blow my mind. Some arguments that consciousness, or the fact that we even think of ourselves as "I" -- has to do with how energy and matter interact within our bodies. That the subatomic strings inside us somehow relate to a different plane of energy outside of our material world.

Oh, the more you read about string theory, the more the whole unified force theory of physics just flies out the window. Gravity, according to some newer theories, isn't a universal standard at all -- it's just a local anomaly and the rest of the Universe doesn't necessarily work on the same rules as our tiny planet.

So think of it this way -- psychic ability isn't unnatural. According to this author, the "sixth senses" some of us use naturally are only our abilities to sense the vibration of the Universe on a subatomic level.

Think that's weird? Um, yea, that's not just weird.

That's 21st century SCIENCE. I kid you not.

Now what's been bugging me is that our abilities aren't even. That some things, like clairaudience, have always come naturally to me and I've never questioned it. I can hear things quite well, thank you, although recently I've been able to hear much more than a short sentence at a time. *smile*

(This is probably related to my ability to channel entire musical overtures in my head. I can hear every instrument, every harmony.)

I can "feel" stuff too. That's called clairsentience. (World of Spirit ran a post on this recently. Check it out for more info.) That's our ability to have "gut instincts" or sense energy in the Universal grid.

But other abilities, like clairvoyance, aren't that easy for me. When I try and "see" things remotely (and I'm sure everyone reading here has probably at least tried, right?) I don't get the details right. I think that's why I make up details about my angels -- like how they look. It's just easier if I already have a picture in my head, then I don't struggle so much to hear what they're saying.

And I get kind of annoyed with that. I mean, that's not fair. We are usually born with the ability to see and hear in fairly normal ranges. Why would these psi abilities be so uneven? Are some of us just born "blind" on a psychic level?

But the answer I get when I struggle with this question is fairly logical.

Are we all the same height? Are we all the same weight? Do we all have the same level of intellectual ability? Then why should everything else be even? Why should we all have equal ability in every form of ESP? Why can't some people just be naturally better at one than another?

I suppose. Although I have to say that I did have a very strong "don't show me" vibe about this ability for a long, long time. I was afraid of this part of myself, so I actively communicated that when I felt strange things. "Please don't show me anything," I'd say to myself. So I suppose now that I've changed my mind, I'll have to somehow work at it to get it back.

So for all the doubting Thomases out there, who've chatted with me recently and some of whom have decided I'm totally off-the-wall (mishuganah), I can say

a)Yes, I'm fairly sure I'm off-the-wall, too. Thanks for noticing
and
b)I'm only noticing the Universe on a subatomic level --

I told you I was an observant journalist.

Apparently, I wasn't kidding.

--Naomi

Push, fool.

2009-07-17T11:21:00.005-04:00

You know what's really, really cool? I just joined all these new blogs and it's incredible how we all seem to encourage and inspire each other in our personal journeys.

Reading blogs isn't just about being a voyeur into someone else's life, or learning something new about a topic. It's about bonding and encouraging and sending the Universal energy to each other on a whole new wavelength. Waycool!

Stoneweaver is writing about how our energy (and I think our intentions) work together or conflict when we're trying to move forward in our lives.

Peggy is writing about giving up to the forces of the Universe and letting herself be carried (willingly!) into the future on the path meant just for her.

(Check them out, they're fabulous writers)

Energy and surrender are two forces in my life right now.

I've been in conflict with myself.

I've been afraid of what's happening, both to me and about me.

Some of the things that have happened in my life are definitely not what I'd have chosen. Especially some of the more recent losses I've experienced.

And with other events that have been foisted upon me, I've fought the outcome tooth and nail. I'm a very, very persistent (read stubborn but in a good way) person. I'm strong and dogged and intellectually capable of battling with a good argument. I've been debating heavily with the forces of the Universe for a few weeks now, and honestly?

I'm losing.

It's not my choice and apparently not always my decision how fate intervenes in my life. I can't see the larger pattern, so it's very, very hard to accept the wisdom of those who can (like my teachers and guides) and let things just happen.

I'm not just the President of the Control Freak Society, I'm a client, too.

So far, my newest teacher, Don, has told me the following:

Trust my instincts.
Believe in what I cannot see.
Find balance.
Have patience.
Accept it -- even without complete understanding.
My life, as it is happening, is natural and wonderful and completely right for me.

All of this is great. Don is full of good advice. And in retrospect, I can absolutely see what he was referring to, right before the big moments occurred.

My life is definitely happening as it will, as opposed to what I planned, although when I whined this morning in my head, my angel, Jonathan, laughed and said I definitely had a hand in all these challenges and I think a lot of my ability to handle them.

(I think he means I set some of this up before I was born. Dudes, I totally buy that.)

Don's big wisdom for today?

Get it together.

I sense a gathering motion with his arms -- as if I'm supposed to not only "suck it up" (as the Yankees say) but gather my skills, my life together to move forward as one whole person, not the fractured/hidden/subliminal soul I was before.

Coming clean about who I really am not only enhances my ability, but heals me on levels I've only dreamed about.

Things are coming together into a new direction. I can feel it riding on the winds of the Universe, and I know I can sail this ship of fools (sorry, Mountain Boy music ref) into my future if I just let God decide which way to navigate the journey.

Nothing wrong with being a fool -- fools know they're crazy. Fools don't take themselves so seriously. Fools trust that Providence will provide direction and fulfillment.

I believe in you. I'm letting go and I'm going to trust that you and God and the Universe and my teachers are better guides than my fears.

Let love push this fool into the future.

--Naomi

Turn left at the white crow.

2009-07-16T14:27:00.003-04:00

Okay, so this is funny. I put up my meandering, doubting-Naomi post this morning. Then I went on to go about my day.

Apparently, the Universe is aware of my dilemma. That I'm somewhat afraid of opening up about this topic, even though I really want to talk about it, and this blog is my way of whistling in the dark.

I think a lot about what another blogger friend of mine wrote -- that I really need to just lighten up and let things happen, and the only thing I really need to concern myself with is whether the weird stuff in my life makes me happy.

Because if I'm happy, then it's all good.

But since I'm a journalist, I like to research. Looking crap up brings me nothing but joy. I don't watch much television, but I read books like the library is on fire and I'm the only source for a new reprinting.

So after I published my post, I got an e-mail. I got a book. And a random blog search. All about one thing. One tiny little bird, called a

white crow.

For those who've just joined, a little while back I kept seeing a crow out of the corner of my eye. It could've been a reflection -- I work in a room with a lot of windows (yes, it IS nice, thank you!) Or it could be something relatively "woo-woo." So I looked it up (being the smart-tush that I am) and discovered that crows are a Native American symbol for the spiritual phenomena in our lives.

Well, duh.

So it's just a teeny, tiny bit ODD that when I question my life in general, and the crazy path I've chosen; to not only lose some doubt about the weird stuff but actually WRITE ABOUT IT --

that I come across this one strange story three times in a three-hour period.

It's called the Black Crow theory.

"If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you must not seek to show that no crows are: it is enough to prove one single crow to be white."

Brain chemistry research has changed A LOT since my original delve into science back in the 1980s. A lot of exploratory work has been done on the nature of consciousness and our perception of the world around us.

But nothing quite explains serendipity, now does it?

Basically, if I can prove one thing, it is enough. I only need one thing to hang on to, plus my sanity and my joy at this experience.

The Universe is telling me I'm good to go. And so are you.

I think it's okay to doubt, and to question. I'm right up there with the Buddha that our life experience should be FULL of questions. No one should follow blindly.

I also think it's okay to write about this. Hang on to my hand, dear ones, this is going to be one wild, fun ride into the ether. As long as we're laughing, we're on the right path.

--Naomi

Tilting at windmills.

2009-07-16T09:23:00.004-04:00

Some days I don't know where I put myself.

Some days I honestly question the very atoms that make up the Universe.

Do you have days like that? Do you sit in your bed and question how you know for certain that the sun rises in the east? I mean, what is east, anyway, but a construct we've invented in order to know what direction we're traveling?

What if the concept of "east" wasn't real? What if the entire reality of us moving through time and space wasn't accurate? What if we really never went anywhere at all -- that all that shuffling and packing and going to an airport was really just a metaphor for spiritual development?

What if we've got it backward? What if WE'RE the metaphor -- we're the dream? What if we die and then realize that NOW WE'RE AWAKE?

*sigh*

These are the things I think about -- and after only one cup o' joe, I'm not getting very far on the limited brain power I've got.

Today, I'm tilting at windmills. I'm questioning the very fabric of my existence, the soul of my knowledge --

the heart of my belief.

So to make myself feel better (and give you all something to think about) I'll write about what I know for sure. I'll write about the things I've experienced that have some form of validation, so that I can continue to believe, for the moment, that this journey I'm on has some basis in "reality" (trust me, at this point, I really have to put that in quotes.)

The Things Naomi Knows for Sure:

We are more than our bodies. We are energy AND matter.

Thoughts are formed with energy AND cells moving around in our brains.

I can perceive energy on some kind of spiritual level.

We have angels around us -- beings made up of thought and energy, but not in the visual range.

Somehow the energy I perceive is translating itself into words and concepts and feelings and colors in my mind.

Some of the things I perceive are entirely accurate and can be proven.

Some of the things I perceive are probably constructs of my enormous imagination, but are still useful for my own spiritual development and are therefore still valid.

***

Spiritual awakenings are like a young child waking up from a deep nap -- little kids waking up in a noisy environment are cranky and confused and scared until they are comforted by a caring adult and can begin to comprehend what's happening around them -- even if it's only on their little kid level.

I think I'm just like a little kid, here.

I'm trying to make sense of what is happening to me, but I've only got the equivalent of a two-year-old's intellectual capability. I lack the concepts and background to make sense of the nonsense I perceive.

So sometimes, it's not going to be entirely accurate. Sometimes, I'm just going to have to go on faith that what I'm able to sense is either useful on a psychological level to me (like a metaphor) or is just something I'm not ready to understand -- yet. That's probably why we all have angels who act as our spiritual parents/guides -- we need someone to hold us and comfort us and try and explain, if only on our level, what's happening in our lives.

***

When I was about 16, I got a bit part in my high school's latest musical, "Man of La Mancha." I played Maria, the innkeeper's wife. I think I got the part mostly because I acted my little heart out. Anyone who knows me well also knows that I can sing in an okay range softly, but when you turn up the volume or the octave you might as well squeeze a cat's testicles because

I can break glass with that screech.

But I loved the idea of Don Quixote. I loved the idea that just because what he saw was "unconventional" -- that the way he saw the world and its inhabitants was "unrealistic"

didn't make him wrong.

It made him an optimist.

Maybe I'm just an optimist. I want to believe something so strongly that my creative mind invents concepts and metaphors to make sense out of energy patterns I'm just not ready to perceive in their most objective sense.

Maybe I don't hear everything in an entirely accurate way. But I'm fairly sure the energy I perceive is real. I'm fairly confident in some of my ability -- especially the stuff I've been able to do since I was a very young child, and never questioned it.

But the new stuff is just freaking me out. This new concept of active conversation with the Universe can be overwhelming, and I realized today that no amount of validation will ever be enough.

Sometimes, we've just got to take things on faith. Sometimes, we're not going to be able to pick up the phone and call The Muse (as The Muse will now forever be known in this blog) and ask for some kind of concrete evidence. Because honestly?

I wouldn't necessarily believe it if it was given to me.

My teacher, Don, appeared to me while I was meditating this morning. He's been giving me great advice so far, so I don't question him or his value to me. He told me I need to have patience. That accepting, rather than understanding, is what's important here. That The Muse is here with me for a reason, and that I need this spiritual relationship -- and basically that I'd better find a way to reconcile this with myself, because it's not going away.

Don's a very wise man, even in the Otherworld.

Have a great Thursday -- in Jewish lore, it's a lucky day of the week.

--Naomi

And another thing.

2009-07-15T18:48:00.003-04:00

I'm guest blogging an encore performance at Are You There, God? It's Me, Generation X today. In case you missed the last guest spot, Jen writes a religion/spirituality blog out of Oklahoma City -- she's got a global perspective so everyone will love it!

Check out my stuff and keep reading for her great thoughts, and those of the other guest bloggers she's chosen.

Catch ya on the flip side. :)

--Naomi

Dancing with myself.

2009-07-15T08:48:00.004-04:00

Mountain Boy got me an MP3 player for my trip next week. He put over 200 songs on it -- most of them my faves (he did guess on a few.)

I spent the evening reading and dancing in my head to the wonderful music. I just love music. I don't listen -- I feel it. I can feel the melodies and the harmony in the marrow of my bones. I love the beat and the crescendo and the chorus -- I especially love it when the tune doesn't follow a standard pattern.

And I realized that the core of my joy is about music -- when I'm in my head, when I'm truly feeling happy inside my soul,

I'm dancing.

I'm dancing with myself in the darkness of my mind, lit only by the light of God over my head.

And I'm not 40. Oh, SO not 40.

I'm 19.

I'm 19, just in my first year of college, away from home and finally free of so much of my pain. I have long brown hair in a pony tail, with HUGE gold hoop earrings. I'm jigging with my old, navy schoolboy blazer from the Toronto vintage clothing show, and peeking out is my lavender batik T-shirt with the strategic white handprints. *laughing*

I've got my acid-washed miniskirt on with black wool tights and my black and tan saddle shoes. (Did I mention I was a daring fashion "don't" at Rye High?)

And I'm dancing. I'm young and I'm free and my knees don't hurt and I can't stop shaking and moving and smiling to the beat of my joy.

So when I haunt you someday, coming back to talk to you in your dreams, don't be surprised if I look this way. Because apparently, that's who I really am.

***

So speaking of haunted,

So am I.

I thought maybe I'd managed to find a piece of myself that I didn't acknowledge. I thought maybe I'd finally found a way to effectively argue with my unconscious. I thought, after playing supergirl psychic adventurer, that I was done with the whole telepathic effort.

But apparently, I'm wrong. I am haunted by a muse, and all we do is bicker.

Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's sad. Most of the time I wish said muse would just pick up the phone and call, but apparently that's not going to happen.

This muse gives me great ideas. Wonderful creative ideas and inspiration. And comfort. Oh, middle-of-the-night comfort that is unparalleled by my imagination.

Being haunted is the ultimate long-distance relationship. No phone bills. No stamps. 24-hour presence with minimal effort.

See, the problem is, though, that it also makes a statement on the worthiness of the relationship.

(What? What the hell is she talking about, this muse? How can she complain about being haunted? Isn't she a full-time mystic?)

What I'm saying is that the reason the Otherworld ghosts and angels contact us through psychic mojo is because they HAVE to. There's no phone booth to the other side. There's no PO box to God. There's no train you can take -- not and return. All visits to that undiscovered country are one-way tickets.

But this muse has the ability to use the phone. This muse can write a letter or get in the car and see me in this plane of existence. This muse certainly knows how to find me.

I thought maybe I was going insane. Y'know, opening up this can of worms does tend to widen the fissures in the mind. I've got fjords the size of Norway going on at the edges of my soul, currently.

But I'm not insane. I'm still here, I'm still me. I live in this plane, in this body, in this life.

I love talking to the Otherworld -- the ghosts that haunt me don't judge me. There really isn't any judgement on the other side save for that we give ourselves. The Universe is quite merciful. The ghosts are well behaved, respectful and come to share love.

What I'm saying is the following:

1. When you live in your body, BE in your body. We're not meant to live in the Otherworld full time while we're here.

2. Don't just sit there and dream -- go out and get what you want. It's not good enough to think about it until you dream you've accomplished something. Dreams are inspiration, not intention.

3.Don't haunt me unless you're dead. Life is meant to be lived. That means making choices, and yea, sometimes they're hard ones. Tough.

We're here to live, to love, to go this way and that. Ultimately, there are no wrong decisions, there are only OUR decisions. We can't make them for each other.

Dance with me. Dance with me here. Dance with me now. Don't just dance in your dreams.

Blessed be our right to choose.

--Naomi

To thine own self.

2009-07-14T10:45:00.003-04:00

Today I finally took Jen's advice.

Jen, author of the famous blog, JenX67, told me (and all her readers, really) that instead of putting all our energy into writing blogs --

we should write books.

Jen said that the effort we spend on creating the perfect 500 word post could also be put to use in creating something longer. Something more profound. Something our generation, our tiny middle-squeezed X desperately needs to accomplish. While we make a small splash now in the world, the ripples we leave behind could shudder against our global destiny.

I want to be part of that destiny. I want to make those ripples. I seriously doubt the profundity of my words, but I have really and truly begun.

I've already started my non-fiction book, but I've run into a couple of snags -- my own self-consciousness in telling my story, and finding enough good material from multiple sources to make this longer than a multi-page magazine article.

So I've let myself stew. I've let myself get distracted by other events in my life. I've let myself set other priorities first.

And in attending to other priorities, I realized that I have another idea.

I wish I could say that my most recent muse for this idea is real. I'm still unsure about that. The ideas that pop into my head are so true to my own heart that it's impossible to tell if it's another, outside influence. But I'm discovering that finding the source of the good idea isn't as important as taking it and running with it.

I spent an hour and a half writing this morning in the blink of an eye. I don't know where the time went. And all I did was recount. It didn't feel like inventing, since I already know the story in my head. All I have to do is write it. There was no struggle, no reaching inside for plot lines or character development. Then again, much like my blog posts, I have no idea how this story will end.

And strangely, the story is coming out smoothly. Even writing dialogue, which I hate, isn't half bad. Going back to the beginning of the tale is somewhat daunting, but I think I can find a starting point and take it from there.

Writers write. It took me a long time to accept that I'm a writer. I tried to be a worker bee, then an artist, then a consultant, then a wife and a mother, and all of them can fit to some degree. But the only pigeon hole I've felt comfortable, well, holing up in

is writing.

Words are a game for me. Words are nothing but endless puzzles with multiple glowing pieces that dazzle in the light of thought. I play with them, toss them in the air gently and move them around effortlessly.

Words are my strength, but sometimes they mean so little to me. I've always judged on actions, because as I came to accept my past, I realized that I simply cannot accept that the words used against me had any meaning -- or any power.

I am not stupid. I am perfectly welcome into this world. I am not crazy or useless or powerless or wrong.

And if those words have no power, then I assumed that no others did, either. Only actions proved a worthwhile judge of character. Only actions could show me the true measure of a situation.

But when you talk to angels, all you have are words. Sometimes feelings, sometimes brief revelations. But what you get most is constant conversation with the Universe, on a stream of brilliance so light and airy that even God could float on the wings of our ideas.

So some words do have meaning. Words like love and cherish and providence do have power. We give words power when we choose to believe in them.

I am following my words. I am following those words with actions I believe in. I am finally moving closer to myself on a new adventure of my choosing. I've been told that my destiny is up to me -- that I'm not "meant" for one thing or another -- instead to co-create where I find my way.

God bless the path that leads to ourselves.

--Naomi

Raise anchor.

2009-07-13T12:36:00.005-04:00

So I've been struggling on what to write about today. I'm worried I can't be uplifting when I feel kind of lost at sea. It's a nice, calm sea, but it's strangely empty for the moment in the bright light of day. I've raised my anchor. It was weighing me down. Now I'm floating and the water's fine --

but I'm not sure which current to choose, or where it will take me.

I've been told not to write a perfect blog post -- to write an imperfect blog post instead. That should be easy, my friends, because nothing I write is ever, ever perfect.

One of my friends recently asked me if I ever have the urge to go back and change things in my blog (or any piece, really) after it's been published.

Oh. My. God. YES.

Nothing I write is perfect. Nothing. I would go back and change my entrance essay to journalism school if I could.

And I will go back and correct minor grammar/spelling mistakes in my blog if I can. I didn't for a while -- but over time I became less restrictive. I wanted to think of these posts as snapshots in time; but even time is malleable if you look at it the right way. Memories can be edited for prime selection, after all. But I refuse to make major changes, and I rarely take a post down. If I do, I'll write about why.

So here is the nature of my imperfect post --

I'm waiting.

I'm waiting and I am NOT a patient girl.

I am waiting to see what happens next, what new adventure will unfold.

Oh, I know perfectly well which adventure is next -- I'm going on a major trip next week, to a part of the country I've never seen (which is like what, most of it!) I'm taking eldest Daughter with me for her first adventure. (Actually, second. I figure packing for this extravaganza will involve much of her first.)

I'm hoping, and don't get me wrong, to leave most of my baggage at home. I'm hoping my soul will soar at least 16,000 feet to appreciate the view from above.

It's taking a long-range view that gives us the most perspective.

Hope I get a window seat on destiny.

--Naomi

( photo courtesy of freefoto.com)

Just a few more little things.

2009-07-13T08:47:00.002-04:00

Mountain Boy finally found the strength to finish editing our latest podcast episode.

For those who are new to my blog, I don't just write. With a husband in the broadcasting industry, I also -- with the ENORMOUS help of Mountain Boy -- create a bi-weekly 15-minute radio show. Not necessarily the same topics, but funny and interesting and extremely well-edited (thank you, darling!) AND, he finally put in some music that I like.

You can click on the streaming/download links in my blog to the right, or go directly to our podcast site:

http://munncast.podbean.com

Today's episode features the highlights of my hilarious journey out to California to meet Mountain Boy -- why I will never bathe in dirt and the real reason why pickup trucks with no pick-up have NO business driving around in San Francisco.

If you want to know the truth about why this Canuck talks funny (and no, Sammy, I'm NOT faking!) or what it's really like to dine with a five-year-old for the rest of my natural existence, have a listen when you get a moment!

You can also subscribe to the podcasts just like you subscribe to any blog -- go to the podcast site and click on the subscription links.

Cheers!

--Naomi

Wasn't that a party!

2009-07-12T10:03:00.007-04:00

(Don't you just love the photo above? I mean, my photo skills are NOTHING compared to other bloggers, but I just loved how the beams of light fall upon this beautiful couple, almost as if the angels are blessing their marriage.)

I woke up this morning to the screaming of two out of three goats (I mean kids -- I mean children) and thought I would probably die -- or at least barf myself to death.

Oh, wasn't that a party. *smile*

Mountain Boy and I went to the wedding of my co-worker last night. It was beautiful, joyous, raucous and even artistic. Such things do happen when one artist marries another.

The happy couple offered a free gift to all attendees -- an old-school photo booth located in one corner of the ballroom. I think Mountain Boy and I rushed the line to get in. (Yea, that WAS me pushing him to the front. I loooove having photos taken with my husband.)

Y'know, the problem with photo booths is that you don't know exactly when the picture is going to be taken -- especially when you're fighting each other for a fun pose. We tried to make one of us kissing, but got a blurry shot of the two of us pulling back, laughing (I didn't put that one in, sorry, use your imagination!)

But the rest are cute, so I'll give y'all a thrill and put them here.

This sweet, young (about 25 years old) couple married in an open-air garden under a beautiful white trellis decorated with pink roses and an assortment of blue, white and yellow-green flowers. (I'm SO not the florist, don't ask me what they were.)

When the ceremony began, there were big puffy clouds dotting the sky overhead. But as the minister began the vows --

not a cloud was found.

I always bring a ton of tissue to weddings. And wear waterproof mascara. Because usually, I just cry and cry and cry -- happy tears, happy tears.

But I guess I'm cried out. All I felt was happiness and joy, and not a drop fell from my daintily shadowed eye.

Mountain Boy is a bit shy, and he didn't know many people at the 25o-seat banquet. But I'm well trained to be sociable (if it gets bad, I just play journalist and interview people.) AND, I love to dance. Even with a bum knee we got in a couple of slow ones, and I just "chair shuffled" the fast songs.

Apparently the two glasses of Chardonnay I drank in celebration worked their wonders and I danced my way home in the van. I fell into a dead sleep only to awaken to the loud, insistent bleating of goats at the bottom of the stairs.

God willing the coffee works this morning.

--Naomi

I accept.

2009-07-11T11:26:00.003-04:00

The girls had a birthday party to attend this morning. I walked them over, with the Boy in the stroller. It is warm, sunny and peaceful here after the middle-of-the-night deluge that emerged from the sullen clouds overhead.

The girls walked ahead of me, their excited gaits skipping back and forth, ahead and next to me. I walked slowly, in my South Windsor pace, admiring the flowers and the way the light played on the leaves as we cruised underneath towering trees in our old neighborhood.

And as we walked, I felt the angels all around me. To each side, in front and behind. They walked in happiness, they walked in solidarity, they walked in blessing with me in the sunshine and the shade.

And after we walked the girls to their destination, the Boy, my angels and I walked around the block toward home.

I want to tell you all something before I move on into this conversation, and hopefully you won't think this is too strange.

Jonathan, my angel, has never once called me Naomi. I've been editing our conversations to change my name. Ever since he came into my life in his present form, over 25 years ago, he's called me by a different name --

Amira.

I didn't understand why he called me that. I thought maybe it was a name in another life, or that somehow I didn't like my name and had subconsciously chosen another. I even used part of that name, Amy, as my "stage name" when I played with Sammy when we were children.

I really didn't question it, because I loved the incongruity of my angel. I loved how this angelic California-surfer-dude-hottie could talk with a lilt in his voice, as if he'd come from some ancient foreign land. As if the accent of his homeland was somewhere way, way off in the distance. I didn't question the fact that I even HEARD his accent. Maybe, I must have thought so long ago, that was just how angels talked.

"Look up in the trees, Amira," Jonathan said as he walked along side. I looked up into the green leafy branches and watched the light dapple the trunk and the boughs.

"Do you see how the tree is in full bloom?"

"Yes," I said.

"And do you see, Amira, that this tree will bloom again next year, at this same time?"

"Yes."

"And do you understand?" Jonathan asked. "Do you understand, Amira, that everything now is in its perfect season? That everything goes round and will return at the proper time?"

"I think so," I said.

"Do you? Do you, Amira?" Jonathan looked directly at me. "Do you really, truly understand the way of things, that everything is in the right place?"

I paused.

"No," I said. "But I'm beginning to."

We kept walking, and Jonathan kept asking me questions.

"Do you understand, Amira, that you are here to experience this pain? Do you understand now that we come here to feel separation, because where we are there is none?"

"No," I said, turning to Jonathan. I took a deep breath. "But I accept it."

Jonathan beamed at me, a huge, wide smile that showed off perfect American teeth.

"And do you understand, Amira, that this separation, this pain you feel, is how we increase our joy?"

"No," I said. "But I accept."

Jonathan beamed again. I got the message.

We're here to love, and with that love comes pain. We're here to discover that the separation we feel from God and each other is an illusion, but we can only come through that dark hour by walking in shadow. We can understand that time, that distance are illusions, but only after we live by the hour and the mile.

There is only now, and we are always, always here.

This week I did something unusual. Since I've been able to hear my angels so clearly, I realized that Jonathan is the only one, the only angel who uses another name for me. Another, older guide calls me only, "My Child." Any other guides, recently, call me Naomi.

I looked up the word Amira on the Internet, using a name-meaning search.

I didn't understand what I found.

Amira is both an ancient Hebrew and Arabic word.

It means, "princess."

Jonathan has been calling me his princess all along, and I never knew it.

"We are ALWAYS with you, Amira," Jonathan said to me as we rounded the corner to our home, basking in the daylight. "We NEVER abandon you -- even in your darkest hour we carry you." His voice boomed in my head, it was so loud.

And so it is with all of us. We all have our angels. They are always with us.

And they treat us like the royalty we truly are.

--Naomi

Done like dinner.

2009-07-10T21:01:00.004-04:00

I don't know about you all, but I've got big plans for tomorrow, so I'll post this now and see how it goes.

I. Am. Done.

I am done like dinner.

Something inside me finally snapped tonight and I broke free of all the sadness I've carried around for so many months.

I don't know if I finally got sick of it, finally got over it or finally, finally forgave myself for whatever I needed to forgive myself for.

There were no bargains with God. There was no big flash of inspiration. More like I simply hit a wall one too many times. Eventually, even I can figure myself out.

And I meditated and asked my guides if this meant my whole awakening was over, if I was going to lose all the insight and guidance and active communication with the Otherworld if I moved on and jumped through the doorway into the happy Light of God.

They said nope. Everything is cool. Proceed as planned.

*smile*

All I can say, without incriminating myself or implicating others, is that I really, really needed to take this time, at this point in my life, to deal with things that obviously never were addressed. I needed to take the time to be full of regret, to mourn the passing of so much of my youth spent in anger or rebellion. To finally say, if only to the ether, all the things I wanted to say -- good and bad and hateful.

I needed to sing bad songs at the top of my lungs in the van with the windows rolled up tightly. I needed to cry in the supermarket checkout line. I needed to write in this blog (thank God for this blog, it is my sanity) and whine in my journal and write poems and songs and talk ad nauseum to Mountain Boy and my friends; including my best and oldest ones, Sammy and Meghan and Hide.

Mercifully, they put up with me. I owe you all a HUGE ton o' love.

I never found any concrete external answers to my grief. I don't think I will. But I realized so much during this time. I realized that when we are under extreme duress,

we cannot grieve.

When we are in an emotionally poisoned environment,

we cannot trust.

When we look at a situation in a hurry for answers,

we miss the third, most creative option.

I'm safe now. I'm warm and I'm fed and I'm loved and I'm calm. It's about damn time I faced up to myself for the decisions I made so long ago. (And honestly, they were good decisions, even in retrospect.)

It's about time I uncreased the folds in my soul garment and took a long, hard look at the pain I've been avoiding. I think I filled up a celestial river with my tears.

At some point, we reach bottom. We touch the bottom of our souls, either because we've finally emptied all the hurt and pain and sorrow, or we've managed to dive deeply enough into ourselves to face the fear.

If you like the way this blog has changed, from observation to contribution, from notice to service, from philosophical to mystical, then stay tuned.

We now take you to something completely unscheduled.

--Naomi

*photo courtesy of freefoto.com

The Lord helps those.

2009-07-10T09:22:00.003-04:00

I'm going to broach a sensitive topic. I'm going to sound vaguely preachy, but I don't want to get specific -- so don't sue me.

It's about helping ourselves.

Oh, I know people go all the time to the self-help section of the bookstore, of the library, of the yard-sales and possibly the vintage shops along Michigan Avenue here in Saginaw.

I know lots of people read stories on the Internet about situations similar to theirs. I know lots and lots of people pray and talk to God about their troubles, hoping for a solution to magically appear in their laps sometime shortly after midnight when the true darkness of the night sets in.

It's one thing to pray and read and discover. But it's entirely another thing to take action -- even if that action is simply asking someone (who is in body, not just in spirit) for help.

Sometimes the fabric that makes up our souls gets bent and creased out of shape. The creases, the sharp folds inside ourselves are really pockets of angst and terror that we refuse to deal with. We cover over our pain, we twist and rend ourselves into horribly unnatural shapes in our refusal to deal with our fear.

I'm not saying prayer doesn't help. Prayer, no matter which deity you invoke, ALWAYS helps. Being thoughtful and meditating on our situation helps a lot too. But sometimes we need more than a positive line to God or the words on a printed page that are due back tomorrow or you'll pay the 10-cent fine.

We need each other. That's why we're here in groups and not still living in caves by ourselves.

Sometimes we need to lean on each other to learn, to love, and to face our worst nightmares. Doesn't have to be a friend or the object of your affection. Even a stranger on a park bench can be a messenger from Heaven. We find our Earthly sources of wisdom in strange places. (At least I do.)

It's the reaching out that matters. It's the grasping of another hand, the expression of need. When we acknowledge that we are not all-powerful, that we truly desire and need the help of others in this plane of existence to set our path straight --

everything changes.

The Lord helps those who help themselves.

Shabbat Shalom,

--Naomi

Apples and seeds.

2009-07-09T09:46:00.004-04:00

freefoto.com

A friend wrote me a letter a while back, with a story about apples and seeds.

She had a dream, a vision about me that showed me sitting at a large wooden table, cutting open ripe, juicy apples. I took out the seeds, and then placed the rest of the apples in a clear cyrstal bowl in the center of the table. When I was done, I was left with a small pile of hard black seeds, and I pushed the fruit out of my reach.

Just a bit symbolic.

I love a good metaphor. Since I'm a poet, any kind of dream or vision like this is ripe for my interpretation (and I DO love a pun, thank you.) *smile*

I think, given how my life is going, that my friend's interpretation is only partially correct. She thought that the seeds represent the future, and the fruit is something I cannot have, because it won't nourish me right now.

But the vision is also about the action of separation. The fruit is secondary to the motion of dividing it into its components. Some issues in my life right now must be divided, seeds from fruit, into their separate parts.

The flesh of the apples is ephemeral - but the seeds contain the potential for new life at a later time.

Sometimes, we can't have everything. Sometimes, we have to find what's most important to us, most crucial and take that with us and leave the rest behind. The seeds in her dream represent the most portable, concentrated part of my desires.

My friend thinks I should store the seeds in a closet, out of reach until the next growing season. That may still yet be true, but I'm not sure I'm willing to do that. Seeds are easily stored in a pocket, or a little pouch around my neck. They don't weigh me down, and the tiny bit of energy they contain only adds to my strength.

Maybe I'll hold a few in storage, though, just in case.

--Naomi