At 1:02pm Eastern Standard Time on October 4th, Mercury goes retrograde in Scorpio. It'll go retrograde in Libra on October 10th until it things go back to normal on October 25th. Whenever this backward spin somehow drags everything forward, I usually get a sudden ah-ha moment when my hard drive stops working or a phone call won't connect *or something!* that makes me feel like a gigantic hippie. And then everyone in my world lets out this collective groan as they brace themselves for the inevitable -- miscommunications, missed connections, problems with electronics of any kind, having to hurry up and wait for the most basic things, and so on.
Like the pull of the moon on the water, it seems that the planets are always yanking hard in some way or another. When Mercury is in retrograde -- having the appearance of traveling
backwards in the sky -- it takes on aspects of the planet in whose house
it resides. Every planet has its own attributes. Scorpio is emotional intensity. Libra is balance.
You've heard all this before, haven't you: don't get married, don't sign any contracts, don't start a new business, don't spend any money, don't make any important decisions, don't buy anything new. I don't pay any attention to any of that stuff until I'm looking for an explanation as to why something weird happened. When all else fails, I hibernate -- especially when it's cold. Aside from slathering myself with gobs of patience, crawling through a 7 day cleanse along with 21 days of eating clean and a fairly steady diet of bikram yoga should be enough of a calming distraction.
The thing to do is redo, renew, review -- and, for me at least, rehearse. I'll be singing and playing at Lincoln Center on November 15th as a finalist in the Mountain Stage NewSong Contest, so this month is prep time. I dug through my hard drive and found three songs I forgot I had. What's especially annoying is that one of them is really good.
Showing posts with label hibernation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hibernation. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 01, 2014
Saturday, October 15, 2011
instant hibernation
i hit a snag and hibernated for most of this week. gathering stuff for graduate school applications, working on this ever blossoming libretto for spring 2012 performances, working with blood on a new idea, decluttering the love nest and throwing stuff away, digging into billie's blues: the billie holiday story 1933 - 1959 by john chilton, watching a new movie every day, auditioning and auditioning and auditioning, mentally preparing for several rounds of oral surgery that begin next week, and editing my closets and refining my personal style for the cold weather season. getting my favorite combination cowboy/motorcycle boots resoled. finding business cards and old letters and keys for doors long forgotten all over the place. everything must be sifted through carefully and assessed, and then everything must go. well. almost everything.
everything is shifting slowly and yet ever so drastically, and i'm not ready. i haven't been to boxing conditioning class in days -- and i can feel it. i should get my piano tuned, practice the guitar more. what happened to my beautiful uptown songwriting circle?
the rest of the year will find me elegantly well-appointed, dressed mostly in vintage, up to my neck in rewrites and in a great deal of physical pain, eschewing most if not all of my daily boxing rituals and drinking my meals through a straw. i'll have to cut back on the excercise. i won't have the energy for it. i have no intention of giving up occasional jaunts to speakeasies, burlesque shows, pie contests, korean day spas or teatime. because fun isn't overrated, no matter how broke you are.
looking forward to wandering through the new york city comic con tomorrow afternoon before evening services at tsc, a long walk afterwards and of course, tea.
everything is shifting slowly and yet ever so drastically, and i'm not ready. i haven't been to boxing conditioning class in days -- and i can feel it. i should get my piano tuned, practice the guitar more. what happened to my beautiful uptown songwriting circle?
the rest of the year will find me elegantly well-appointed, dressed mostly in vintage, up to my neck in rewrites and in a great deal of physical pain, eschewing most if not all of my daily boxing rituals and drinking my meals through a straw. i'll have to cut back on the excercise. i won't have the energy for it. i have no intention of giving up occasional jaunts to speakeasies, burlesque shows, pie contests, korean day spas or teatime. because fun isn't overrated, no matter how broke you are.
looking forward to wandering through the new york city comic con tomorrow afternoon before evening services at tsc, a long walk afterwards and of course, tea.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
winter = hibernation
hibernation: 1. to spend the winter in close quarters in a dormant condition, as bears and certain other animals. Compare estivate. 2. to withdraw or be in seclusion; retire.
when i got the winter 2011 emerging artist residency from the field some weeks ago, i realized that this was the perfect moment for me to fall into a deep sleep of creativity and let my ideas -- however lousy and half-baked and simple -- wash over the soul of me like a gigantic waterfall, and gush onto the rest of my world. that's the way the creative impetus seems to work -- for me, anyway. it gets all over everything, it affects everything. it changes me, opens me up. no sooner did i begin to doze and dig into the libretto for the alberta hunter project than the rpm challenge reared it's ugly head. i'd wanted to do it for ages. why not now? i couldn't think of a reason, so i signed up. by the time i really settled in, i decided to pull out the script for my one person show about reparations. so right about now, i'm off to the races.
it's trippy, that long walk through the snow and the cold and the quiet that lives in the darkness to the rehearsal space all the way on the west side. everything is still and the trees are frostbitten and i am alone. and i like my aloneness. i'm adjusting to this process, to writing everyday and working out ideas alone in a wide open rehearsal space. i like this chance.
there's all this other stuff going on -- a gig here and there, auditions, and lots to work on for the next album. and yes, there is boxing and all the work i'm doing physically so i can get good at it, which is a whole other situation entirely. an hour of circuit training makes me feel like crawling all the way home, or at least to the steam room. but creative hibernation reigns paramount.
i intend to emerge victorious when spring arrives -- lean and strong and clear-headed, squinting into the sun, defiant and happy. my script in one hand, my album in the other. a pretty hat on my head. new songs in my heart. more ideas, growing.
until then, i am hibernating like the bear my permanent boyfriend says i really am.
when i got the winter 2011 emerging artist residency from the field some weeks ago, i realized that this was the perfect moment for me to fall into a deep sleep of creativity and let my ideas -- however lousy and half-baked and simple -- wash over the soul of me like a gigantic waterfall, and gush onto the rest of my world. that's the way the creative impetus seems to work -- for me, anyway. it gets all over everything, it affects everything. it changes me, opens me up. no sooner did i begin to doze and dig into the libretto for the alberta hunter project than the rpm challenge reared it's ugly head. i'd wanted to do it for ages. why not now? i couldn't think of a reason, so i signed up. by the time i really settled in, i decided to pull out the script for my one person show about reparations. so right about now, i'm off to the races.
it's trippy, that long walk through the snow and the cold and the quiet that lives in the darkness to the rehearsal space all the way on the west side. everything is still and the trees are frostbitten and i am alone. and i like my aloneness. i'm adjusting to this process, to writing everyday and working out ideas alone in a wide open rehearsal space. i like this chance.
there's all this other stuff going on -- a gig here and there, auditions, and lots to work on for the next album. and yes, there is boxing and all the work i'm doing physically so i can get good at it, which is a whole other situation entirely. an hour of circuit training makes me feel like crawling all the way home, or at least to the steam room. but creative hibernation reigns paramount.
i intend to emerge victorious when spring arrives -- lean and strong and clear-headed, squinting into the sun, defiant and happy. my script in one hand, my album in the other. a pretty hat on my head. new songs in my heart. more ideas, growing.
until then, i am hibernating like the bear my permanent boyfriend says i really am.
Friday, June 11, 2010
...zzzzz...
there's a lot going on this weekend -- big apple bbq in madison square park, the puerto rican day parade, tony awards parties, world cup parties -- but because i took two boxing classes tonight, i'll be in hibernation: oversleeping, daydreaming and spring cleaning.
oh, yeah. someone suggested i take "before" pictures in a bikini so i can chart and monitor my progress. not a bad idea. photos don't lie -- and neither do scales.
oh, yeah. someone suggested i take "before" pictures in a bikini so i can chart and monitor my progress. not a bad idea. photos don't lie -- and neither do scales.
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