So many different people have said to me recently, “this is crazy” referring to some aspect of what we now have to call “normal life” that is NOT NORMAL.

This happened recently, and a little voice inserted itself…

My friend said, “these are crazy times” and the little voice said, “these are crazy-MAKING times. someone/something is literally trying to make everyone crazy”.

The high-level theater-of-greed-and-corruption of this administration, I fear is soon going to take its performance to a shriller pitch.

I imagine “the show” will be destabilizing at best.

I have a bit of cosmic strategy for us.

It is a bit of a paradoxical strategy, but one that will serve us well in this particular micro-era in history.

The strategy has two parts, two identities within it, really. To the non-magical person, the two parts of the strategy may seem to counter the energy of the other.

But we are in WEIRD TIMES*. We need to be able to move in weird ways. In this case it is wise to maintain two seemingly opposite stances and flow between them with grace and ease. I imagine them as two poles between which we circulate, weaving infinite infinity-signs between the two.

The first stance is the bit by bit part. We stay CLEAR on what we are doing and why; and we keep moving forward and doing the necessary steps, bit-by-bit. Even as the geo-political world tilts on its axis, we stay close to our intuition, we know what our purpose is and we keep living that purpose. Moment to moment, day by day, we do each small thing that eventually adds up to big things; even in chaos, even in craziness.

Do you remember the Aesop’s Fable of the crow with the pitcher of water?

That crow shows us how to do bit by bit.

So the story goes – a crow comes upon a pitcher with a little water in the bottom. The crow wants to drink the water, but the water line is lower than his beak can reach.

Then the crow figures out (because crows are SMART) that he can drop pebbles, little rocks, into the pitcher and the water line rises. So he puts enough pebbles in so that he can easily drink the water in the pitcher.

That is the perfect representation of the bit by bit part, tossing pebbles into the pitcher until the water gets high enough to easily drink.

We know we want the water, and we are willing to keep finding the pebbles and dropping them into the open mouth of the pitcher.

That is the first stance - a steady, gentle focus on the small tasks that must be done and being kind of dogged about doing them.

And then, paradoxically, for our cosmic protocol to work; for the second stance, we must stay flexible, read the room and be ready to move with currents within the larger collective.

So there might be times when we, as crow, need to move away from our pitcher project to attend to something else – chase away the hawk flying over our nest, or pull the tin foil from a burrito someone threw away, or romance a potential mate who has suddenly alighted next to you.

The ease with which we are able to move between these two states – being intent and committed to our bit-by-bit pitcher project AND being aware of and able to flow with (perhaps surprising) outer events - we use both stances to our advantage – we get the benefits of both.

I will just say it. The astrology of July is bananas.

Magically, I’ve been getting weirder and weirder, and it is highly effective.

For instance, coming up with this non-sensical cosmic stance of BOTH bit by bit being so focused on doing the things and making my way towards my good future, AND keeping my third eye so in tune with the collective that whatever swerving is needed - is a match for the greater energies playing around with us.

Even though it can be slightly confusing for those around me, I like being one who can easily switch between these seemingly opposite states - of clear-determination dancing with synchronicity-responsiveness..

Two opposite things can effectively work together.

We can stay focused, smart little crows that we are, and drop our pebbles in, bit by bit, until we can reach the water that hydrates us.

We can also broaden our vision for a wider view – not just of our own little pitcher concerns – but of the bigger world. There might be a water more delicious than what is in the pitcher - and if we are too focused on the pebble game – we might not even know it is there for us.

And, sometimes, if we have become too distracted from our pitcher water project we might find ourselves really dehydrated.

May we all find our ways to dance between these polarities, calling on each stance at the perfect time and being able to move without restriction between the two states of being – focused, diligent, attention on the water in the pitcher (our personal small world and concerns) and open awareness of and access to the currents of energy and information available to us in the larger world.

Until next time,

Jess

*“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” - Hunter S. Thompson

“Have you been having conversations with friends about how weird things have gotten? I feel like I’ve been having these conversations a lot. The vibes are strange. It feels like what we had come to rely on as “reality” is shattering to pieces. In fact, this breakdown of reality is more than a vibe or a feeling. What we experience as reality is a collectively created consensus on what is “true”; our communities are fragmented, and thus so is our reality.

Is climate change real? Do vaccines cause harm? Is capitalism evil? Do individuals and “nature” exist?

Our communities are fragmented because within our families we don’t hold the same views; within our neighborhoods, workplaces, and cities we don’t share the same views. Meanwhile, when we enter cyberspace, we careen through a funhouse of rapidly shifting, largely amorphous views, at warp speed. It makes sense that many of us are feeling disoriented.

I suppose this is how it feels to be entering the age of Aquarius. The Age of Global Weirding.

In Norse magic the wyrd is the web of fate, conceived of as a fabric, a warp and weft of interlocking threads, which becomes loose and unravels in times of collective chaos. The bad news is that, well, things feel chaotic and uncertain and stressful and humans don’t like that. The good news is that when the web of the wyrd becomes loose, new futures become possible, transformation becomes inevitable.

The questions for us now are: what do we want to transform? And, how can we stay centered amidst the high winds of global weirdness to help midwife it into being?”

- Amanda Yates-Garcia Mystery Cult

“No one knows what to believe any more. The conspiracy theories can’t all be true; after all, many of them contradict each other.

The cracks spreading in the facade of reality will continue to widen.

…

We are not mere victims. We are all participants in the metamorphosis that is available in these times. The war for reality is not to be won with familiar weapons.”

- Charles Eisenstein

"The world is a wonderfully weird place, consensual reality is significantly flawed, no institution can be trusted, certainty is a mirage, security a delusion, and the tyranny of the dull mind forever threatens - but our lives are not as limited as we think they are, all things are possible, laughter is holier than piety, freedom is sweeter than fame, and in the end it's love and love alone that really matters."
- Tom Robbins

"In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."

- Hunter S. Thompson

Daisies

Go ahead: say what you're thinking. The garden

is not the real world. Machines

are the real world. Say frankly what any fool

could read in your face: it makes sense

to avoid us, to resist

nostalgia. It is

not modern enough, the sound the wind makes

stirring a meadow of daisies: the mind

cannot shine following it. And the mind

wants to shine, plainly, as

machines shine, and not

grow deep, as, for example, roots. It is very touching,

all the same, to see you cautiously

approaching the meadow's border in early morning,

when no one could possibly

be watching you. The longer you stand at the edge,

the more nervous you seem. No one wants to hear

impressions of the natural world: you will be

laughed at again; scorn will be piled on you.

As for what you're actually

hearing this morning: think twice

before you tell anyone what was said in this field

and by whom.

- Louise Glück

"You are moving.

You never stay still.

You never stay.

You never are.

How can I say you,

when you are always other?

How can I speak to you?

You remain in flux,

never congealing or solidifying.

What will make that current flow into words?

It is multiple, devoid of causes, meanings, simple qualities.

Yet it cannot be decomposed.

These movements cannot be described

as the passage from a beginning to an end.

These rivers flow into no single, definitive sea.

These streams are without fixed banks,

this body without fixed boundaries.

This unceasing mobility.

This life- which will perhaps

be called our restlessness, whims, pretenses, or lies.

All this remains very strange

to anyone claiming to stand on solid ground."

- Luce Irigaray

“To live content with small means. To seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion. To be worthy not respectable, and wealthy not rich. To listen to stars and birds and babes and sages with an open heart. To study hard, think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions. Hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, the unbidden and the unconscious rise up through the common. This is my symphony."

- William Henry Channing

"The present is the wave that explodes over my head,

flinging the air with particles at the height of its breathless unroll;

it is the live water and light that bears from undisclosed sources

the freshest news, renewed and renewing,

world without end."

- Annie Dillard

"It is believed by most

that time passes;

in actual fact,

it stays where it is.

This idea of passing may be called time,

but it is an incorrect idea,

for since one sees it only as passing,

one cannot understand that it stays just where it is."

- Dogen Zenji

From birth to death time surrounds us

with its intangible walls.

We fall with the centuries, the years, the minutes.

Is time only a falling, only a wall?

For a moment, sometimes, we see

not with our eyes but with our thoughts

time resting in a pause.

The world half-opens and we glimpse

the immaculate kingdom,

the pure forms, presences

unmoving, floating

on the hour, a river stopped:

truth, beauty, numbers, ideas

and goodness, a word buried

in our century.

A moment without weight or duration,

a moment outside the moment:

thought sees, our eyes think.

- Octavio Paz

"Reality, as it turns out, is far different than what we thought. Not only is it holographic but also nonlinear and multidimensional. The "you" who you think you are is really but a tiny fraction of all that you actually are. You are a limitless being that has "split" itself "multidimensionally", and you're now consciously experiencing one small part of yourself on this level."

- Ziad Masri

"Who do you think you are? Imagine there's a version of you that sees all of it. A version that knows when versions are messing with the other ones, trying to get things off track, trying to erase things. A record of all the keystrokes, the storage of all the versions, partial and deleted and written over. All the changes. All truths about all parts of our self. We break ourselves up into parts. To lie to ourselves, to hide things from ourselves. You are not you. You are not what you think you are. You are bigger than you think. More complicated than you think. You are the only version of you that is you. There are less of you than you think, and more. There are a million versions of you, half a trillion. One for every particle, every quantum coin flip. Imagine this uncountable number of yous. You don't always have your own best interests at heart. It's true. You are your own best friend and your own worst enemy . . . Only you know what you need to do. Imagine there is a perfect version of you. Out of all the oceans of oceans of you, there is exactly one who is perfectly you."

- Charles Yu

"As in nature, the soul and the spirit have resources that are astonishing. Like wolves and other creatures, the soul and spirit are able to thrive on very little, and sometimes for a long time on nothing. To me, it is the miracle of miracles that this is so."

- Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Gift

A day so happy.

Fog lifted early. I worked in the garden.

Hummingbirds were stopping over the honeysuckle flowers.

There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.

I knew no one worth my envying him.

Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.

To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.

In my body I felt no pain.

When straightening up, I saw blue sea and sails.

- Czesław Miłosz