A Child is Born

My dear friends Rupa and Kiran welcomed their second child into the world yesterday. While the wee lad doesn't have a name yet, he certainly does possess a personality - at only 18 hours old! He fluttered his wispy eyelashes, although infants can not see until a few days after birth. I was so moved by watching the new mother, battered by the ravages of birthing and yet proud of her grand creation. The father was also exhausted but soberingly vocal while speaking to a group of visiting men.

"You can't imagine how much a woman goes through. You can't imagine the pain she has to endure. I couldn't handle it myself at first. Imagine having to endure that for hours is crazy."

Hats off to Kiran for voicing a tribute the creative force and endless strength of womanhood.

But the visit wasn't all about the gore of delivery. There were sweet spots. Rupa's aunt bringing in a tupperware full of her favorite Kitchadi, sour rice flavored with nuts and seasonings. Kiran's brother and fiancee - looking longingly at the little man with cherished dreams of their own. Rupa's father, cradling the newborn after swearing he wouldn't touch him until the age of 6 months. And Rupa herself, reigning over her guests as majestically as a queen. Handing out Indian sweets - Misurpak, Ladoos, Rasmali - as is the Indian custom. Sweets made from milk and sugar to celebrate a birth.

And as I finished this post I got a call from the happy Mama, notifying me that baby was indeed christened with a name, that being Om. The all-encompassing symbol of mystical entity. How fabulous is that!

Amidst the Chaos

Don't know about you but it's draining to ride the waves of transformation these days. To that end thought I'd share some information, guides, assistance that I carry around in my toolbelt these days. In particular I'm excited about a remarkable woman named Laurie Bloom who also goes by the moniker: Ajnira. She's a tremendously talented healer, teacher, channeler. She must be feeling the pull of the chaos as well because she is now offering classes to contend with the personal planetary onslaught of these days. Check her out.

Laurie Bloom - Ajnira at the Healing Zone

Introducing our New Class Schedule. Become your own healer in an hour with a simple, easy to use healing method. Become part of the global movement for direct healing. Step by step demonstration makes removing anything from viruses, bacterial, fungal, microbial, parasitic, flus, colds, chronic conditions ( pain, allergies, addictions,
STD's), a reality. From simple to complex conditions and disease processes. Get health-wise. Can curing Pathology really be this simple ? Simple and fascinating. Come join Ajnira and lead the way to true health Security in your family, friends and communities. We will send you home curing yourself and your loved ones.

This will be the first of of a 3 class series, repeating monthly. Each class building on the basic concepts introduced in:

Class 1 beginning Monday October 22, 2007 7-8:30 PM
Class 2: Monday November 26, 2007 7-8:30 PM
Class 3 Monday December 21, 2007 7-8:30 PM

Ajnira Lauire Bloom, MS is a practicing nutritionist, energy healer, hypnosis professional and intuitive. She has been self-healing for over 20 years.

Develop your Intuitive Skills. Educate your intuition and awaken true intelligence. How to begin or deepen your comfort and skill with divination. We will explore the unseen realms of information, wisdom and spirituality together. Demonstration of different Approaches, including creating your own system of tools. These can offer practical solutions and insights To the Cosmic nature of your life that can help create a new level of empowerment.

This will begin a series of 6 classes repeating monthly, each class progressing to new levels of development using your intuitive tools and understandings.

Teacher: Ajnira Lauire Bloom. MS psychic reader, healer, and intuitive channel
People in all age brackets from all walks of life find my readings interesting and relevant to the questions they are asking in their lives.

Call for Space: 973-509-8908
$33 per session
Classes held at The Healing Zone
127 Valley Sacred Space
Located at: 127 Valley Road, Montclair, NJ

4 Women in a Jetta

One of the joys of life has to be Girls Night Out. Imagine girls night out with your favorite women. Then imagine not only one night out but 3! Such was my weekend. Cousin Radha's birthday and she visits NY/NJ to celebrate. Cousin Suj (from NY) and cousin Patty (from Baltimore) all join in the festivities.

While I constantly embrace friendships and the sacred feminine, I must say the added dimension of family raises the bar for feminine bonding. There we were, 4 Indian women eating dim sum in Chinatown. Browsing tchakis in little shops. Drinking margaritas and snacking on goat cheese chorizo empanadas. Reminiscing about our childhood. Petting adorable dogs named Mia that stop to talk to us. Making it from Northern Jersey to the city in less than 5 minutes! Sipping shots of Limoncello. Discussing the men in our lives. Getting roses thrown at us by effusive Italian men. Reading Tarot cards at 3:30 am in front of a roasty outdoor fire. Nibbling on a trio of Italian sweets. Remembering how goofy, beautiful, reckless, bold, insecure we once were. Appreciating how much we love food! Embracing the women we've become. Thankful for the bond of sisterhood, adulthood, womanhood.

As they drove away in the black Jetta I knew I had another precious chapter to add to the family story.

Why music vidoes are a great expressive medium

Do you remember the first music video? Video killed the radio star by the Buggles. Those were the days when MTV actually played music videos instead of the tripe served as reality shows. Who cares what STD Brett Michaels is catching these days, eh? It was my belief then, and still is, that videos are a fertile forum for self expression. You can capture your dreams, fantasies, philosophies and just plain thoughts and transpose them into a musical story for posterity. How great is that?

I recently caught a video that manifests this belief. It was by an unknown band, the best I can manage was that their name began with a C. Any musical detectives out there wanna find me the band name? The protagonist of the story was a centaur, barechested, foot stomping. You get the idea. He charges to save the heroine, a mermaid who has been captured by an Octopus. Now remember I did say videos vent fantasies. Come now boys, an octopus? 8 tentacles? a beautiful mostly naked girl? Anyway, the centaur battles the octopus, thus freeing her. At the end of the video the centaur holds the mermaid in his arms as they stand atop a craggy cliff, watching the sunset. How much more primal and mythical can you get? He becomes his true self - a stallion. And she turns into, well. A fish.

7 Things That Don't Suck

The priest of cosmic parody, Rob Breszny of FreeWill Astrology entreated readers in his newsmail to make lists of this very thing. In honor or Reverend Rob, here's my list of things that don't suck. Send me yours.

1. Google. On top of making my day with slams against Dubya, Google delights in playing with their own logo. I believe the above is Canada's homage to Autumn Google. US Google actually depicted a Horn of Plenty on the Autumnal Equinox on September 23rd, but foolishly I didn't capture it. If anyone out there finds it, please shoot it my way?
2. Lucinda's Burrito Truck. I've been meaning to write a piece on the culinary delights of those mobile units that dispose of quality eats. Lucinda's is one of those. Always someone interesting standing by the yellow retro logo truck while I'm waiting for my breakfast burrito. The size of a grenade and about as heavy, this egg, cheese and chorizo filled beauty warms the belly with a perfect blend of tastes and textures. Voluptousness wrapped in a tortilla.
3. Ugly Betty. Just caught the season premiere which only solidified my belief that this is the best written comedy on TV. How about that portrait of evil fashion editor Wilhamenia Slater with Dick Cheney? Come ON! It's freaking brilliant.
4. Energetic Body Massage. Owner Isabelle Dassinger of the Healing Zone in Montclair, NJ hires some of the most talented alt healers this side of Deepak Chopra. Ask for Andrea.
5. The Thorns Never would have thought to band this bunch of guys together, but glad they did. As far as rhapsodic road music goes, these guys rock.
6. Although Autumn brings the strange inclination to stuff my face with meats and sweets my body seems to handle it well. Doesn't hurt that I exercise 5 days a week and take hard core AB classes to boot. Highly recommend Vanessa's or Miquel's Core Ab Classes at the NYSC at Harborside, NJ.
7. Storks. My commute happens to take me by the NJ Meadowlands Center in Lyndhurst, NJ. I'm usually able to spot red-winged blackbirds, herons, storks, ducks and swans. Today I spotted dozens and dozens of storks feeding in the early morning marshland. They so didn't suck.

Takes a Village

While my blog has been silent for the past few weeks rest assured that its creator has not been. Came back from a restorative week at the beach. Cape May to be exact. Now Cape May is one of my favorite beach towns for several reasons. You know food's gotta be one of them and it sure is. The great shopping is another reason but the real allure is that Cape May is a dog beach town. It has a long expanse of beach in which dogs can cavort and rest their salty wee paws in the Atlantic.

I was accompanied to the beach by my friend Nina, a dog lover and karoke singer. You should hear her do La Bamba. what a Mexican yodel! Watching her play with Duke I realized why I've never desired to raise a child. I can't fathom doing it by myself, the thought alone exhausts me. And by alone I mean with a father and parent to my child, but we are still only a couple. What Nina showed me was a remembrance of how Indian children are reaised by aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmothers, grandfathers. All pitching in to watch the baby so she doesn't totter on unstable legs and fall on her face. To feed the wee one so Mom can eat. To keep her amused, thereby connecting with the energy of another human being. To punish her when she's naughty. To admire, croon, shower love so she grows up thinking she is a magnificent creature. If I had that kind of support I'd have squeezed out a dozen kids. But my life as it stands only offers the prospect of support in the form of expensive daycare and even more expensive nannies.

But this became clear to me. Does it take a village to raise a child? Hell yeah!

Jonathan Stealing Seagull

Many of you might remember the book in the 70s titled Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The book was written by Richard Bach in what he called a stream of consciousness from a higher source. Of course this comment caused an uproar in the fundamentally Christian community in which I was raised who lived by this dictum: if it's not from God, it's from Satan. Now why Satan would inspire a writer to capture the higher aspirations of a seagull, I don't know. But it blew me away. I was just a wee lass enthralled by nature and thrilled by the fact that an animal, much less a seagull, was the protagonist of an entire book.

Some 30 years later and once again I'm impressed by a seagull. Although perhaps not in such a noble manner as Jonathan's. This clip came to me from a friend as a joke but I was so taken with it, I wanted to save it as a screen saver. If I could figure how to use it as a backdrop for my phone I'd do it. Calling all techies. Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?

So here's the story behind the clip:

A seagull in Scotland has developed the habit of stealing chips from a neighborhood shop. The seagull waits until the shopkeeper isn't looking, and then walks into the store and grabs a snack-size bag of cheese Doritos. Once outside, the bag gets ripped open and shared by other birds. The seagull's shoplifting started early this month when he first swooped into the store in Aberdeen, Scotland, and helped himself to a bag of chips. Since then, he's become a regular. He always takes the same type of chips. Customers have begun paying for the seagull's stolen bags of chips because they think it's so funny.

Bless them Scots.

Pups in a Cup

As the days shorten I can feel time slow down. Shift from frenetic to slower, more leisurely days. And thank the Gods for that eh? As summer wanes and the chaos of these the past months disintegrates into the ether, I find myself drawn to a "comfort food" state of mind. Ergo the cup of pups. How much more comforting can a cup of pups be, tell me?

The Day After

Sometimes we get caught up in the antics of the universe and pay the price of heady association with such celestial bodies like Venus or the Moon. Thankfully, the luminaries slow down and give us a chance to recuperate from their antics. Today is such a day and I for one am excited with the prospect of a long, slow day in which nothing happens other than an evening of leftovers and television.

9/11 Solar Eclipse

Fitting that I haven't written for 2 weeks, exactly since the last eclipse. But then, who can expect to churn through the waters of ultimate transformation AND blog at the same time? And for you show-off out there who can, please write and tell me how.

While this eclipse hasn't been as devastating as the last one, I thought I'd offer a few links to navigate it nonetheless. check out my favorite site on the undulations of the moon, Mooncircles. Also helpful is The Daykeeper Journal.