Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Quote de jour: Broken Hearts

If you're really listening, if you're awake to the
poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly.
In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst
open again and again so that it can hold ever-more wonders.
—Andrew Harvey, The Return of the Mother

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Exhibit: Kubrick at ACMI


Visited the Kubrick exhibit at ACMI on Monday.. very, very, very, cool. Can't rave enough about how cool this is... spent 2 hours in there and could've easily spent another 2. Highlights: at the very end is the 30min doco on how he uses music in his films, he actually has a piece of music in mind first, then he creates a scene around that music.

He was a real hands-on director, with such an eye for detail, a real old school perfectionist film maker.

The 2001: A Space Odyssey bit was the best, they even had the original 'space baby' starchild prop... freaky. Do your self a favour & get down to ACMI...

Book: Invisible Monsters


Just finished Invisible Monsters from good ol' Chuck P. My favorite lines:

"Find what you're afraid of most and go live there."

and...

"This is the biggest mistake I could think would save me. I wanted to give up the idea I had any control. Shake things up. To be saved by chaos. To see if I could cope, I wanted to force myself to grow again. To explode my comfort zone."

ahhh... for the love of the Chuck! ..For he finds the enlightenment within nihilism.. ;-)

Such a complete reading experience, he never leaves any loose ends, everything gets tied up in the end, his narrative almost circular in structure, like a mandala. He plays around alot with chronological time, but I never felt lost.

I'm trying not to read all his books at once, I read one and then read something completely different to keep my palate fresh.

[Confession: While reading this book I actually had a slightly sexy dream about Chuck (!)... and yeah, I know he's gay and he was more of a friend than a lover in my dream. We were working on writing together, it was NYC or some US city and I had to go out for something... I got lost out in the big city and it turned into one of those 'frustration' dreams where I couldn't find my way back & couldn't work the mobile phone I had ... but I was determined and finally figured out how this phone worked and found my way back to his apartment. He was distraught, upset and chastened me for wandering, saying he was worried about me & we hugged fiercely.. awww Chuck! I never knew you cared... how weird for my subconscious to use him as a metaphor, maybe, for the writer within that had strayed. Maybe I'm finally going mad... at last sweet release from this annoying sanity!!]

Next book: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, then A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett. My gawd, I'm turning into a hardcore book slut. [ps... thx to the beautiful Marika for the loan of Invisible Monsters & if yr reading this we must get together & do our bookswap soon!]

Quote: Soul Mates

Some intersting pop-psych to think about...

"Why is it so hard to find a soulmate?" asks psychologist Carolyn
Godschild Miller in her book Soulmates: Following Inner Guidance to
the Relationship of Your Dreams
.

Her answer: "Because most of us are actually searching for egomates
instead. We place the most limited and unloving aspect of our minds
in charge of our search for love, and then wonder why we aren't
succeeding. To the degree that we identify with this false sense of
self, and operate on the basis of its limited point of view, we aren't
looking for someone to love so much as recruiting fellow actors to take
on supporting roles in a favorite melodrama."


I love that... "supporting roles in a favorite melodrama", it's like we pick people who might just screw us over the way our parents were screwed over, or alternatively pick people who we can screw over, and on & on because it feels so familiar... and all the time we just love the drama of it all, we're enraptured with the drama but it keeps us from really growing, from being truly happy.

There has to be a time in one's life when one is ready to let go of the drama & open up to something else. hmmm.. but what is that something else? Taking responsibility for one's own life? Not picking people who you know are losers or inappropriate from the start? hmmm...

Monday, November 21, 2005

My Weekend Away: Koala Love


This weekend was super-fabbo. Yes, I got away out of the city for the first time in ages. Hit the highway with the supercool uber-chicks Dana & Helena. We headed to Geelong to see my mum in hospital, she is recovering from a knee reconstruction & bionic knee implant operation and is doing well, looking good and feeling great.

In Geelong we also went to see the film: kiss kiss bang bang, with Robert Downy Jnr which was a pretty cool film. Was good to see him acting so well again, he's been a favorite since Less Than Zero. Fun film with lots of good plot twists & turns. Dana ate her first peppermint choc-top and is now fully converted and may never leave our fair shores... anyone want to marry a beautiful Leo woman for a US Green Card/Australian residency swap?? Apply here at Sacred Profanities...all enquiries will be treated with the utmost confidentiality...

We then headed down the coast to Lorne to the Kaos Kafe where we had a superb brunch and spent the rest of the day shopping like the naughty girls that we are. [me bought fabulous tangerine nail polish]...

Then down the Great Ocean Road to the lovely hamlet of Apollo Bay.. such a cute little town by the sea.. this is where I will buy a holiday house methinks, where I will paint all day and own 9 cats and go the jazz festival every year. Found a great restaurant and ate fabulous food with good wines [Four Sisters Sauvingnon Blanc] ...can't beat that. The locals were friendly and cute... Walking back to the hotel we looked up and saw millions of stars, I've missed these living in the city and all... realized that sometimes I could just leave the city behind so easily, have to remind myself that all the striving for something, for our passions, our careers or whatever is worth it, but then again, wouldn't it be nice to just chill out in the country like a little plant? hmmmm...

Next morning we headed to Cape Otway and saw scads, and I mean scads of koalas.. in 30 years of living in Australia I've only ever seen one (1) in the wild, but here we saw about 5 of them along the road, and there must've been heaps more out in the bush. The place was literally crawling with them and they were sooo fucken cute, their ears are so fluffy...

Have now arrived back in the city, hungover and travel-weary and happy to crawl into my own bed tonight.

Tomorrow: the rest of my life.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Pic's: Kim's Housewarming Party

Three Red Goddesses

The Beautiful Dana!!

The Loose Ladies

The Sacred & the Profane Yoga Wisdom

Is that lipstick on my teeth? Or a rabbit sneaking up behind me?

The Cleavage Shall Inherit the Earth

redmeri

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Recipe: Profanely Sacred Sangria


Serving up the Sangria!
[oh gawd...i look like a big italian mama in this shot!]

My housie Kimmy & I made this for our party on Saturday night, it got glowing reviews, such as:
"Gosh, I don't usually drink sangria at parties, but this is great!"
-I think Stella said that...

This is a two-day process, so be prepared...

The Night Before the Party...
Into a clean bucket, or large punchbowl put:
- 2 x 750ml bottles of a dry red - preferably a Spanish dry red if you want to get really authentic.
- half bottle of either vodka or Cointreau
- small bottle of brandy
- 2 x diced oranges
- juice of half a lemon (go easy)
- 1 x diced lime (squeeze as you go)
- 1 x tablespoon of honey or more if you like it really sweet
- 6 x cinnamon sticks (break a few of these up so the flavor escapes)
- Optional fruit: apricots, apples, grapes etc.
- Optional spice: star anise, nutmeg, damiana?
- Cover bowl with glad wrap & put in fridge overnight.

Just Before the Guests Arrive...
- might want to filter out the blood red orange chunks & cinnamon splinters
- add in one bottle of high-quality lemonade or soda water: eg. Schweppes etc.
- add splash of champagne (or half bottle depending on yr taste!)
- 10 x strawberries sliced lengthways
- fresh mint leaves (optional)
- ice

Serve up in heavy glass goblets for that euro feel.

Friday, November 04, 2005

Junkie Wisdom

My housie Kim, just texted me this:
I'm listening to junkies existentialist pep talk on the tram... Speculation as to whether Campbell the Speed Freak is actually God.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Quote: Chaos

"The moment you come to trust chaos, you see God clearly.
Chaos is divine order, versus human order. Change is divine order,
versus human order. When the chaos becomes safety to you,
then you know you're seeing God clearly."
—Caroline Myss, *Spiritual Madness: The Necessity of Meeting God in Darkness*

I love this.. Pure evolution & expanding potential is embracing this chaos and letting go of addiction/dependence on whatever crutch one uses to avoid the chaos: chocolate, chemicals, cigarettes, bad relationships etc... the chaos will always come up, it will always challenge us, the key is to ride it, dive into it and through it to the other side... without losing one's mind! Lovin' it. Embrace the Chaos of the Stormi.