Linda Cohen's Luminous Lotus Blog

Moon Void of Course

2011-12-29T16:10:00.001-05:00

Central Park 12/26/2011 photo by Linda COhen

Moonday December 26, 2011 9:20 C(herry) E(xceptional) T(ime) Moon void of course - heading into Aquarius @ 12:14pm

Hold up, I am, in my winter-warm temple bedroom with an abundance of clear apophyllite crystals (for peace & receptivity to higher realms) well-placed under my pillows and stationed at intentionally proper feng shui friendly corners of the chambre. However, aforementioned crystals did not deliver restful sleep, nor the peaceful dreams I long to soul travel… as I had hoped, and as they had stoked previously.

Richly resiny ebony brown fuzzy frankincense sticks aburn, a powerful spiritual scent, clean, cut-through, pure church inspiration. Rachel Poger’s somber elegant renditions of Bach sonatas…. perfect for just these late December mornings, in between the long day’s journey into night… sounds of sweet creation and peace streaming tiny iPod speakers, peachy crystal Himalayan salt lamps emanating breath/blood-deep healing negative ions… The Gods and Goddesses abounding my play space along with vibrational essences and myriad jeweled crystals (including a large many-spectrolite-hued oval Labradorite pendant I wear as “the stone of Magik)”. All manner of fun enlightening new and ancient “tools” to cheer me on, charge me up, help me “clear”, and inspire me to evaluate and declare all necessary new year’s aspirational upgrades (!yikes!) and create clear consistent actions/energies for me to enact these sought after changes! Committed to begin, voila! January 1st of the last year of the ancient Mayan calendar. Get on with it Gate Keepers of the Ages. Swing the Gates high and Open Sesame

Closer each year, to grasping the Magic Golden Means Ring as I spin more gracefully and awake on life’s most colorful enchanting carousal…The Wheel of Life…with you…where the painted ponies go up and down…where four massive mysterious miraculous impending horsemen of Revelations ride forth charging!!! the exquisite astral light to inaugurate a new Heaven on Earth.

Do keep my guard up to the ever changing needs and wishes of my body/mind and Spirit. PAY ATTENTION WOMAN! It’s like you have to learn to play Classical music before you can play Jazz. Ah discipline. Courage my love.

Mantra: I CHOOSE

Tarot - fitting!

“FIRE MOTHER: the conduit

Divinatory meaning: Long after the energy of others has burned out, your energy burns like a constant pilot light; you have the sense of being a sought after leader especially in matters of Spirit. …As long as you move in accordance with Nature’s laws, Nature obeys your every command….”

Balance, Golden Mean, the glass half…
The mathematical formula for the golden mean – which provides stimulating contemplations is -1+1=0.

Our identity may feel like a racing energy flow. We may be moving, as if on a racetrack, between identities. We may spend more time on one curve and race around another. Picture this figure eight pattern.”
From Tarot of the Spirt by Pamela Eakins.

Cleaning, clearing, tossing, generally, in every area, lightening up for 12. Then I’ll strap on my cherry velvet seat belt with the flashing silvery day -glow Northern Lights fountaining and take to the rainbow starstreams. Let’s fly!

FEELING
A CONTENTED COW
GODDESS
SERPENTINE POWER
SLOW SNAKE SIZZLE
RISING
LIKE A PHOENIX –
TO CREATE
TO RECREATE
TO SUNAMI CLEAN
WITH A TOWERING WAVE OF TOURQUOISE BLISS –
TO CREATE ANEW.
KIND OF LIKE A SOFT
BOILED EGG.

Essences: Began taking FES Sagebrush today, to clear the dross from my life; FES Bleeding Heart for emotional independence; Alaskan environmental essence Northern Lights for amazement; Alaskan Blueberry Pollen of abundance of all “good things”, FES Queen Anne’s Lace for inner sight, FES Manzanita for viewing the body as the temple of the soul, and importantly Alaskan environmental essence Rock Spring for renewal. I continue to read Layne Redmond’s WHEN THE DRUMMERS WERE WOMEN; A SPIRITUAL HISTORY OF RHYTHM.

Of course there are the new goals to chart. And there is also the supreme appreciation of NOW and dancing with Shiva. Very romantic. Tantric!

I CELEBRATE

Soul Star photo by Linda Cohen

Entering the Cave

2011-12-20T12:30:00.000-05:00

Hather Queen of Heaven

WATER
Love, Reflection, Psychic Upwelling
Cups, Mirrors, Moon
West
Dusk
The Sacred Year Falling Toward Death
Blue, Green, Purple, Black
Quartz Crystals and Moonstones
Fish, Water Snakes and
Dragons sloshing in
the Sea of Renewal…………………………from Tarot of the Spirit by Pamela Eakins

Feeling. More like winter. As we flow towards the onyx cave of stillness passing through The Solstice needle’s darkness on December 22, for a long night’s deep sleep where the Goddess breathes life into the Underworld King, dead and asleep, who will rise again come Spring. Together their rhythms, exchanges, deepest natures, essences, blend in sacred marriage rites which intertwine the Fire, the Water, to create balance to renew the land and all Her life forms.

Cycling the Eternal
Serpent Cycles - Wheeling
The spinning Cosmos –
We sleep
We play
Our ancient moon drums –
Ruby wine….
To dance each new day….
Painted Golden
The Great Goddess sails
The silver night stars
She is the moon
The Milky Way
Sustaining, Rebirthing new life –
With Her creamy cosmic milk.

What could reflect the growth cycles, natural rhythms, wonderment at Nature’s joys more than baby Bee? Where last year she pointed to all things “Da Da”….meaning “name this thing.” Where now she calls out in her festive Christmas-Tree lit living room with grand views of Central Park, “hey dad, watch me spin. And slide. Om Ma.”

Ah. So. Hathor. Golden One. Great solar goddess of love, beauty, dance, sexuality and intoxication! Oh spirited Queen of Heaven and Earth helping birth the new Sun King later down the seasons….Most welcome in your compassionate radiance.

Spending times with family, friends, the ancient dance, the Yuletide spices, the magic of Namaste, the depths of black night where Kali too stalks.

Essences I’ve added recently: Alaskan Moldavite gem elixir for spiritual quickening; Alaskan environmental essence Rock Spring for miracles and renewal; my Peace/Energy 11/11/11/11 for opening to new “higher” – more loving – realities; Alaskan gem elixir Azurite for clearing and opening the third eye; Bev’s Queen Ann’s Lace for deeper soul sight.

I WELCOME THE MAGIC OF WINTER
I WELCOME DEEPENING MY MAGIC

Photo by Linda Cohen

Freya's Day - Day of the Goddess

2011-11-18T13:30:00.002-05:00

Photo by Linda Cohen

Freya’s Day – Day of The Goddess – November 18, 2011 8:23am chez cherry

Bought my first Azeztulite crystal at Namaste yesterday….to accelerate deeper knowings and understandings – communication with peace-loving Inter-dimensional Beings, expanding “reality”. Also working with “Abundance from The Garden” 30-day affirmation program by Melissa F. Halsey and reading from “Tarot of the Spirit” by Pamela Eakins, PH D. … as well as Dion Fortune’s “The Sea Priestess”
“All women are Isis. And Isis IS
All Women.”

I am loving reading “When The Drummers Were Woman – a Spiritual History of Rhythm” by Lane Redmond. Did you know The Venus of Willendorf, limestone “goddess”, was made circa 25,000 BC? I am buying a frame drum this weekend!!!!!!

And reading in “The Book of Stones” by Robert Simmons & Naisha Ahsian about Phenacite… “the supreme third eye stone.”

Affirmation:
I Open Myself for Initiation Into the Higher Realms Of Consciousness.

Frequently taken essences at this time: Pretty Face (inner and outer beauty), Blackberry (for physical manifestation), Sticky Monkeyflower (for fears of intimacy), California Peony (for radiant female energy and openness, vitality), Walnut (as “the link-breaker” and for psychic protection, transitions). I recently added Manzanita (for viewing and “treating” the Body as the Temple of the Spirit).

I am also taking Julia Graves Madonna Lily and Medugorje Mallow (both for Grace), Bev’s Queen Ann’s Lace (for inner sight)--- along with the following gem elixirs: Apophyllite (for tuning into higher frequency energies), Scolecite (for facilitating clear Shushumna energy, energy of the Kundalini/the spinal column), Flourite (“the break-up elixir” for clearing energy), Flourite Combo (to nourish the rainbow chakras), Kunzite (to experience and share a “higher” love), and my own Peace/Energy 11/11/11/11 essence, which is for sale through me :-) and is for assisting with the stepping through (now open, once closed) gates to new more loving, beautiful, purposeful, peaceful and Lighter realities.

Bee’s 2nd birthday party is tomorrow! She got a candy pink bike from her mom and dad.
The Chili Peppers sing in their new amazing album, “I’m With You” …. ”When you’re alive the nights are long – But the years are short. When you’re alive.”

I CELEBRATE THE GODDESS AND THE GOD
I AM A HOLY BEING~~~I AM A LIVING GODDESS

Photo by Linda Cohen

New Moon Reflections on Turkish Delights

2011-10-27T11:11:00.013-04:00

Photo by Linda Cohen

New Moon Reflections on 10/2011 Travels to Turkey Istanbul, Ephesus, Bodrum, Kas, Antalya…Istanbul ~~~Home…

Temple Cherry 6:09 am New Moon in Scorpio Wednesday 10/27, 2011

-Excerpt from travel diary…Bodrum, Turkey, El Vino Hotel 10/17/2011 ~~

I’ve had more quick changes in Turkey then anywhere in a long time, maybe since Miami in the early 90s…
It looks one way
Then a nano-second later…
It’s all completely changed
In a fashion
You wouldn’t have imagined.
Pounding rain sheets, startling sun -
Boggle-eyed fish wriggling in nearby quays
That most likely you’ll have for dinner. Gladly!
Wonders of color and whimsy,
Everywhere laughter mixes
With soul-deep calls to prayer. Islam…
A gentle Islam, of which Abraham, Moses and Jesus
Were among the prophets leading up to Mohammad. 6th C AD
A luscious fertile land whose
Human history goes far far far back~~
Where The Great Mother Goddess
Cared and cares for Her whole Creation.

Traveling in Turkey was wonderful not just because there is so much history, culture and “native” color …. Sixteen million people live in sprawling Istanbul. Ahhh the twisting winding impossible to follow labyrinths of the ancient Grand Bazaar (oldest market in the world), The Spice Market’s twinkling neon bubble-pinks, fuchsias, aquas, golds and rainbows of streaming light enhancing every corner where every manner of fresh intoxicating spices – many golden grades of precious saffron! – sing out of their sweet and pungent natures. Richly textured and brightly colorful clothing, unusual musical instruments, sumptuous woven goods, sexy belly dance attire, exotic teas and herbs, and the ubiquitous Turkish Delight treats… Vendors enticing all with offers of Turkish coffee and “special” teas who want to bargain with you as much as to sell! The haunting calls to prayer countrywide five times a day starting at 6am (can you believe this early siren was music to my ears!), inviting believers to the magnificent mosques, 246 in Istanbul alone, to take spiritual time-outs and be part of a living breathing holy sea of peaceful worshippers…. the radiantly clear essence of the Mediterranean Sea (of course there is The Black Sea to the North and the Aegean and The Sea of Marmara and the delicious Bosphorus Straight with its bustling Golden Horn Harbor flowing through and connecting Istanbul’s European and Asian land masses). In Istanbul, one can lunch in Europe – amid hookah smoking celebrants and kababs - and Asia, an hour later, for an afternoon tea, the country’s national drink! MMMMMMMMmmm there are the handsome, friendly, vibrant Turkish people, the marvelous diversity each new day offers, the cosmicality of such a fragrant babbling international crossroads. The joy of life sizzles! Amid blooming hibiscus and wild flowers and massive friendly olive groves. There is the endless delicious licoricey Raki to drink and tickle you warm inside, golden and black sunshine-filled fresh figs and honey, the hustle, the street raps, the elegant come-ons (“Come into my carpet shop lovely beautiful lady, I would love to offer you tea, love to make fresh fish for your dinner tonight, please allow me to cook for you.”), the pure mystery and far back to time’s beginning history, the strength of the dollar to the lira, the incredible music spots and fish eateries of the Taxim district. There is the underbelly of a middle eastern rhythm and flow to carry you from day to night to day… to new dreams within you and ten thousand more details that paint beautifully unique soulful scapes…not only this and more….

BUT also because travel challenges one/me, opens me up like a curious iridescent pink and orange topaz or sapphire pupil of life, and allows me to truly be in the present, in the sweet tangle of the day’s and night’s foreign details along with the perfect freedom to flow solo or connect…There is the visceral missing of my loved ones allowing me to appreciate “home” that much more. There is the pride in “achieving” proficiency in maneuvering through the strange and healing connections – so long sought for - of a far off face of Mother Earth brought near….tides of personal longing fulfilled in being a cosmic traveler… To soak up what I can of it all and give back a thousand percent of who I am and am becoming…til I’m filled up with the give and take, the sun and moon, silver and gold, the yummy unpredictability of journeying…learning to be more adept and independent as a planetary citizen.

There are events, places and people I shall remember always, thank Goddess. The beautifully painted wooden dolls “hiding” five babies of exact likeness inside to be discovered one by one which I brought home for Bee and my mom. Most impressionably, on me of course, remarkable Ephesus, the main reason for my journey…inhabited some say since 20,000 BC, but within recorded history since the Amazons in 6,000 BC. Home to one of the world’s seven ancient wonders, the now much ravaged Temple of Artemis (come from Cybele an “earlier” goddess). The most amazing ancient city ruins one might conjure up in a lucid dream. Home to the final home of Mother Mary, brought to Efe from Jerusalem by Saint John the Divine, to protect her in a rapidly changing and violent beginning to a new age, Piscean. The wall of multi-colored wishes written and attached by travelers to this mystic site of Mary’s house for her blessings and divine interventions….My new glorious Scorpio Sister, Ilke, more goddess in every aspect, one could ever know…running her marble-tiled Sultan Park villa on the distant and beautiful peninsula of Kas…. Sultan Park, with its roosters, chickens, turtles, laughing English schoolmates on vacation playing all-day water games in the massive sparkling sapphire sea-salt water pool overlooking the most azurite private beach I have encountered anywhere! and adorned with every manner of goddess bloom and olive branch. There is the marvelous old town section of Antalya in the south where one can traverse the narrow chaotic streets to arrive at a “hidden” private beach with jovial terraced restaurant overlook to satisfy tastes galore. And more. Much more.

I won’t forget Jackie, my plane-mate home to the states. I’d run out of Advil and asked if she’d any. “No. But would you like a couple of Percosets?” Would I!
And knowing I will return to Istanbul to the exotic Taxim district and blue mosques and Egyptian obelisks and serpent columns and street vendors selling fresh hot grilled corn on the cob and roasted chestnuts. And of course to The Sultan Park and Ilke…to celebrate life and love. And to revisit Ephesus, where I felt stirrings of the Goddess as rich as ever.
Tesekkurler Turkey! Thank you Anatolia.

I carried with me only a few essences: FES Dogwood for grace of body, mind and Spirit. Alaskan Chalice Well for the support of all Nature. Pretty Face to feed my inner and outer beauty and one large bottle of Five Flower formula which I gave to Tyson, a marvelously strong and handsome Turk on military “assignment” from Australia, sitting next to me, on the other side from Jackie, who got fretfully plane sick and was instantly soothed by the essence…which he gratefully accepted as a gift to carry with him. I also carried Kate’s Magic Isis and Rebirth oil along with Blue Lotus oil from Thailand, exquisitely exotic and healing
I did, more than in the past, use my healing crystals…especially Tibetan Quartz and Apache Tears for staving negativity, Serpentine for Kundalini energy support and opening and Malachite for protection, vibrant life energy and inspiring love within through emotional balance.

Affirm:

I’m doing it! I am here, present.

Photo by Linda Cohen

New Moon Reflections of The Autumnul Equinox 2011

2011-09-26T21:50:00.010-04:00

Isis Alter photo by Linda Cohen

9/27/2011 New Moon Reflections on The Autumn Equinox

“….The ancient Great Mother Goddess not only presided over life- She existed in it. This meant that hill and stream were sacred. It meant that human activities such as weaving, pottery, sowing seeds also were an expression of the sacred, and all existed within a totality…a ‘holiness’ which means ‘wholeness’. The later conception of a Fathergod, existing outside His creation, has emptied the world of life and wonder. It has meant by implication that the world of matter is there to be exploited and therefore despised as being set apart from, and lower than, the spiritual abode of God….

The words ‘matter’ and ‘mother’ have the same root. It is not hard to see how separation of the divine from His creation has been bad news for plants, animals, the human body, women and sexuality, not to mention the ecosystem, for what is not divine is flawed and suspect, indeed evil, to be used at will and yet also shunned. The Goddess, who blessed sexual love, whose mystery was revered in each sprouting shoot, was gone. In Her place stood a grass-widower God presiding over a sterile creation….

The Goddess is not ‘God in drag.’ She does not sit in the clouds wearing a size 38C breastplate. As in ancient time, She is within us and around us. Exalting the Feminine does not mean merely putting a female at the head of an organization instead of a male; it means a radical reappraisal of function and approaches, where greater cooperation is encouraged. There are many ways to be explored in which women can be endowed with greater power and self-determination without feeling that they have ‘become’ men. Exploring these ways in a male-dominated status quo can feel forced, and we have to start with truly valuing the feminine qualities that rather than differentiate, that accept rather than compete, that receive rather than dictate. It seems we have to feel our way, for we cannot be sure exactly what ‘femininity’ may be – for instance, there are many warrior goddesses and plenty of room for fierceness within the divine Feminine. We need to explore – respectfully, trying to drop our old yardsticks….”
From the goddess by Teresa Moorey, Mobius Press

--------

Cultivating Equanimity on the Autumnal Equinox 2011

O holy Mother, Daughter, Sister O
Isis Queen – Guardian of Women and Children and the very grain that blooms rich and golden..
Silver starry-eyed Lady of the evanescent furtive moon ~
Embrace and Grace my fire-
Opal igniting higher-heart and beating violet astral wings invisible….
Fluttering with joy and hope and the new life you inspire! Regeneratrix!
In luscious cherry deva play, near-intoxicating devotion, may I dance and sing
And pray!
Among this morning’s emerald rain-
Kissed garden flowers - rose indigo peony …
Your holy circumference, outstretched wings, your Throne, your Goddess love~~~
Encircling The Tree. As it ever IS.

--------

A most beautiful, powerful, cleansing visage of Mother Nature, sheets of silvery
Rain-glass fanning this crossover earth day. Equal of Goddess and God. Equinox 2011.
The sacred marriage bed.

A picture window throne at Jean George on Central Park divine and divining luncheon with bro Richard The Lion-hearted and the great Mother Mine Herself.
Much new excitement with clients and goddess circles, Namaste and thyme – and the lutes and dumbeks of Istanbul with its Bosporus blue smile enticing -
Rhythms of female design pulsing the soaring white dove while protecting the sacred primal Dance.

Courtney, wild urban cowboy, Knight in shining soul garb and laughing wonderment, Arriving to my rescue to ferry me down, by golden steel-wheeled steed, to Lafayette Bar & Grill. Student belly dance show of Isis priestess Nourhan Sharif.
Fortunate dancer I,
Brimming with lila/play. Magical delight in moonstone ivory veil, shadowing Her
Full mystery
Face. Flashing onyx Egyptian stiletto eyes. Surprise. I put a spell on you because –
You’re mine.
Following festivities I broke my two month fast with ruby Pinot Noir, the fine dark chocolate of vinos. And it is good. So good. Goddess good.

The night galloped me home through thick rain slick avenues of neon Times Square
Big Apple bravado and the Friday night hoopla Manhattan always is….
The Fisher King took off towards The Hudson Valley….fresh trout to smoke and wander
Earth Mother’s stream banks and hidden caves, while I celebrate my crossing
Into the open celebratory arms of Autumn. Cornucopia harvest season swings freely ~~
In arcane crimson twine, a lantern and the spider web of All creation
Busily spinning towards a new age of Light….
The Water Bearer, Aquarius.

Most especially I am tuning into this current, this dance, firstly with Sacred Datura for all new moons mystical enlightenment by FES & Pegasus, with FES Dogwood for grace of body and soul movement, Alaskan Kunzite gem elixir for higher love, Moon Goddess from cherrie seed, see www.healingforharmony.com, Julia Graves Green Tara Asparagus for spinal alignment (so important)….my time-honored friends FES Blackberry and Pretty Face, and an important! Bach remedy for this moving time, Walnut, the link-breaker!

I CHOOSE
(…and am not bound by past, nor others’ choices)

Crystal Changes

2011-08-28T16:34:00.016-04:00

Photo of Isis Alter by Linda Cohen

ps: New moon in Virgo Sunday (no sun) August 28th, inside out of Hurricane Irene’s cleansing wakes~~~

Crystal Changes

Saturn’s Day Augusto 27th, 9:55 I am She

Hurricane Irene approaches. Shut down city plus transportation for the first time ever! Just last week a Virginia earthquake (see Edgar Cayce) so very rare an East Coast event. Now it’s just me myself and Irene…and the soul-felt stillness in the ethers before a wrathful face of Mother Nature shows.

No booze for 26 days. Since Augusto 1st. First for me too. Learning temperance to more fully align with my soul-star’s intent at this pivotal juncture in The Ages. Having worked on this: (1) clearing; and (2) attachment-free intention in synergistic ways these past six months to move to a different energetic pattern, I am able to feel and act more on Thy will. I AM ISIS. ISIS I MA. I AM KALI. I am a tall-grass eating emerald green lizard wild woman who is course-correcting for balance and body/soul harmony.

TEMPERANCE, BALANCE, BEAUTY, HEALTH, CREATIVITY
FUTURISTIC HOLISTIC OPTIMISTIC VISION~~
The Priestess Way….xtra beauty within, without… and perceived in All
(see cherrie seed’s Saraswati Muse essence)

Reminds me of “cleansing” in the ancient Temples of Beauty and Sacrifice, having my feathers and scales removed in MU (Lemuria) and Atlantis during the dizzying incarnation process. For the new-skin-suit rejuvenation program, along with balancing left and right hemispheres of the brain, I am using meditation, flower essences, sound and light waves and currently esp into gem crystals for healing physically and emotionally, thought amplification and the enhancement of all good quality of mood and state of mind. Rekindled the old flames of amethyst (higher guidance), ruby (deep heart chakra), gold (the inner and outer bodies of alchemical transformation), copper (as it ever was, great conductor), sapphire (upper chakras), purple fluorite (amplify the higher mind) et al. As a direct result of working in Namaste Bookshop (offering amazing crystals and crystal expertise from staff) my passion for crystals is reactivated along with a time-honored use of gem elixirs. Especially drawn to the higher consciousness stones (facilitate inter-dimensional travel, dream work, deep connection to divine beings and feeling states including unconditional love, self love, inner peace, creative power (selenite, pheynacite, morganite, kunzite, scolecite, clear apophyllite, sugalite, pink calcite, honey calcite, moldavite, ocean jasper…to name names). Of course, must! continue working on lower more EarthStar, grounding chakras.

Gem elixirs are available through Pegasus, Pacific Essences, Alaskan Essences et al.

AH. There’s Lou Reed’s crooning in the background, “take a walk on the wild side.” Far as I can see, the wild side now is The Middle Way (not my natural nor genetic predisposition). I know the value of and am aware that this is my next step up the ladder toward greater all-aspect-freedom. Edges of new attitudes are cleaner, clearer, crispier…as I am more able to align with them. Healing Herb Bach Walnut flower essence for breaking links, for transitions and for psychic protection; Alaskan gem elixir Kunzite, for the divine love vibration; Pegasus Scolecite, for inner peace and spinal/chakra (shushumna) alignment; and Julia Grave’s Green Tara Essences (at Flower Power), especially lilies for grace, flow; Cherrie Seed’s Healing for Harmony essences, AdiLaxmi for flow, DhanaLaxmi for prosperity, PujaLaximi for gratitude; and occasional supportive under-the-tongue hits of FES Blackberry, for physical manifestation and Pretty Face, to foster inner and outer beauty (one’s perception thereof).

After a decidedly inward couple of years, now feeling the impetus to journey to new realms in mind, body, Spirit. Infinite gratitude to Nourhan Sharif, my Egyptian belly dance teacher, a fiery goddess of dance oriental, a life-giver, a sustainer goddess - for helping me raise my high-scorpio energy. Great joy from and to delicious grandchild Bee. Experiencing new levels of health and honesty in family and friends… while we dance through rainbow light alchemical soul-fires toward a brave new EarthStar birthing.

May Irene’s cleansing winds and sweeping waters
Usher in a brilliant new September ~~~
And may the harvest bee
Abundance for All
Good Health.

Photo of Isis Altar by Linda Cohen

Sunless Sunday

2011-08-21T10:32:00.008-04:00

Photo in Central Park by Linda Cohen

Sunless Sunday August 14th, 9:35 m (mother of) a (adventure)
Year of Our Lady 2011

Now.
The night-long, thick
The slate sunless sky
The deliverance of tympani suites of rain
Cloud-filled sheets under a ripe full moon invisible
Passing…
Into fathomless Pisces and whereby
Breathlessly rattles summer’s heat again, againe, whose climax is…
Foreshadowing a new fall.
Still as the swells of Inanna’s
Grace-filled ocean heartbeat –
Where She gathers Herselve’s full passion
For Her light revealing Equinox rise
Earth’s balanced day -
one week
One month
One Season
Away.

Then. August 13th into 14th
The new Copa was pulsing sexy Latin vibes with Alberto Santiago
Late last night, Las Puerto Rican
Guapas (all bronzed and big-assed-beautiful all
Dressed like whipped-cream child brides, the softer half of a perfect banana creammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Cafe Couple on Her high-summer’s spun-sugar melting night)
Tight spiked in blood-wedding red heals and hematite spandex
Warrior-queen shield-dresses, that shield little wherefore
All is good. Guapas & Guapos spinning effortlessly
Like a cool tropic breeze spins on a pink-stucco vine-lined Vieques vierno
Patio, arched gold dolphin weathervanes encircling the sky-turquoise
Heart-shape swoony moon-reflecting sexy swimming pool.
Moonglow eyes, skies above white pearl smiles and licking-lips
Velvet Black Russians and/or fire hot bronze Barbados rum. From
Intoxicated papaya plump Latina
Blow-kisses (mmmmmmmwaw), bubble pink, peachy, cocoa sweet
siempre kisses ~~~
(Kisses (forever young))…
O Won’t you stay forever young (bob dylan back then when he was young, for his kids)

Made it home before
The Flood? This time. too jazzed
To sleep, Sex in the City
My soul to keep.

Tomorrow morning. August 14th - morning pages wrap up
Grand to wake up in the temple peace lilac sage vibration all
My impassioning Tarot cards, magic crystals (newly included kunzite and morganite golden pink islands of divine love) and of course the other vibrational essences which inspire to inspire:
Blueberry Pollen (Alaskan flower pollen, prosperity consciousness); Blackberry (FES, the physical manifestation essence): Desert Lily (FES Research, the cool inner feminine juices which remedy the hot summer dryness); Pretty Face (FES, perception of inner and outer beauty): California Peony (FES Range of Light, vitality, celebration of life); Kunzite (Alaskan gem elixir, higher love); Scolecite (Pegasus gem elixir, inner peace, sushumna): New Attitudes (Pacific Essences, as desired); DhanaLaxmi (cherrie seed’s Laxmi essences, www.healingforharmony from India, SUSTAINING, as in Laxmi the perfectly-matched lotus-riding consort of Vishnu, Preserver of the Universe)
And too the holy lingam of my pink rabbit standing tall, proud, satisfied amidst my other morning gems.
A new incarnation of “my club”, me with no hangover.
Hail Isis, thank you for your guidance, inspiration, magic candles, chants -
New Attitudes, The Mystery The Thunderous Morning
Storm
Precedes
This joyful Ides of August.
The bee turns twenty-one. Months. A Buzz.

~~~ I am newborn again
With loving passion, compassion and perception of the immeasurable beauty of Creation ~~

Cherry 8/11

Photo in Central Park by Linda Cohen

I Lost My Head :)

2011-07-13T11:40:00.000-04:00

Photo by Linda Cohen

Saturn’s Day July 9th 9:55am
I LOST MY HEAD ):

Yesterday, July 8th, 2011
I lost my head!
In a living-goddess demons’ feeding frenzy.
My loving raspberry-pink resolve -
Dissolved…. to onyx anti-matter.
I tight-roped the Hell
Realms. Soot-sticky, deceptive
Spirit-fly-paper grabbing my clockwise spinning chakras–
And Hungry Ghosts with long pine needle-straw lips feeding
On my yellow Swiss cheese aura -
Sucked themselves in…switched my Ocean-Blue Right Brain-
Disk and sword-split me back to back. Back/Kcab.
Into my original hermaphroditic halves –
Sparring for the neon-amethyst Soul-control
Danger flashing Dakini-dashboard.
In a dizzying whirlpool spiral-red descent….
The timer set for twelve DST hours the suckers
5’D(ed) the life-screen into fraxeled crack-nail
Holograms trying to kidnap my cherry Buddha Nature!
All the light-years, eons, evanescent edgy borders of “real” time -
Short-circuited, thick puce summer
Airs swelling with crimson mosquito blood -
Gorgonic astral electric storms threatening!
Blinding wicked mescal visions, inserting tape loops reversed
In my shook-up confused curly frontal cortex. O yea
I let my guard down and was raped!
By my own Shadow.
Azure cosmic seas within gone! lost!
My Bodichitta heart-mind twitching in self-blame. So oh oh HO
What could IIIIIIIIIII do?
I could not fight
My own dark knight
Such are these delusions coming from dead roses
And putrid peat moss.
-----------
AND SO I LET GO ~~~ Into the crowning violet-gold Present. When…WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeee
Somewhere around Astoria Boulevard on the N train
Torrid tourmaline charcoal skies broke open….
Zeus’ mighty thunderbolt emblazoned an ivory Peace Sign –
In the jet-black starless fulcrum
Of the evening’s swift eclipsing shift.
My Greek friends – S and M - waving from the East
End of the station where my dazed head hovered furtively.
I could see Burger King and Pizza Heaven…
Pulling in the station remembering….
My recollection serves Santorini-orange-gold emblazoned sunsets and
Crystal white wine foam from the exquisite volcanic Grecian isle -
Which soon I would be sipping. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
We join at the top of the dripping gray
Now friendly subway stairs, European -
Kisses, two-cheeked, as my head alights
Twixt my shoulder blades where 3D life resumes.
The rainy world round me takes a solid form.
Thrilled to be myself in a TGIF moment.
Determined! no more to let my mind stray and decay so far below
Her calming turquoise alpha-surface.
On an aimless humid funky July day…Grateful. Now. To Be.
A bit more awake
For the Fall.

Flower switch up for new flow~~~
Blackberry (for physical manifestation); Desert Lily (for Goddess moisture in the desert of our urban lives); Pretty Face (to feel pretty inside and out); California Peony (for lusciousness in lower female chakras); AdiLakxmi (for flow); Asparagus (consciousness of straight spine from Julia Graves @ Flower Power); Medjugorjie Mallow (for Grace); Saraswati Muse from healingforharmony (for seeing beauty in all things: Walnut (to break the links that bind me still); and a new Pacific Essence "New Attitudes". As always Alaskan Chalice Well (for feeling the support of all of nature).
Affirm:
I AM A LUSCIOUS SUMMER GODDESS SURFING THE HIGHER FLOW

Photo by Linda Cohen

Slay the Ego

2011-07-05T09:20:00.001-04:00

Slay the Ego
(from the Secret Dakini Oracle by Nik Douglas and Penny Slinger)
photo by Linda Cohen

Blog: June 29th 8:09 am
EMOTIONAL ALCHEMY – SLAY THE EGO

The “slogan” I pulled from Training the Mind, and Cultivating Loving Kindness (Atisha’s 59 slogans…from a translation by Chogyam Trungpa) ~~~
#42 Which ever of the two occurs, be patient…Extremes of suffering and happiness are the result of karma, and therefore need to be accepted. The main point is whether good or bad “happens”, be patient and remain on The Path (to higher consciousness, enlightenment, being open and loving, non-reactive and in the flow.) Practice the dharma either way.
This is so important to aspire to. Inner tranquility to hold to one’s center. Peace full. Sourcing! Giving. Non-reactive. Flowing. Opening up to free ourselves of fear and lack. Opening ourselves to our and others’ highest good.

Life is precious mystery. A gift of Creative Spirit which is our very nature. We careen off each other’s rainbow-chakra energy, karma – new patterns, shape-shiftings, forming, dissolving, forming, dissolving. Shiva’s eternal dance. Flaming-tongued onyx-skinned Kalima’s sweeping the stage of Being clean. Being the Chariot Driver/Deep Sea Diver unwavering on the strong, steady, balanced neon-cobalt-blue with silver day-glow stars surf boards of your inner guidance, inner stability - to navigate the rich and oft’ times turbulent oceans which are the infra-red to ultra violet waters of our currents, lifestreams.

The cards are THE HIGH PRIESTESS foundation-ing THE QUEEN OF CUPS (hearts). As above. So below. I perceive so much strong sacred female energy flowing into our male dominated (for eons) psyches and cultures, shifting the scales of Yin and Yang towards balance. I know this BeCause the aspiration is emanating from within me and all who aspire “Heaven” on Earth. And what is coming from me is coming from Source. SHE IS HERE. Her love. Her wisdom owl. Her sacred mossy sea-caves. Her sweet morning blueberry’s pollen spun like violet cotton candy spores through the new summer green fields. The dappled dancing wild flowers, Queen of the Meadows. Her crystal clear waterfalls of Ochun, like splashing angel-light, renewing, refreshing, pure. Her spring-fed Dakini clear turquoise ponds where the stillness of the glassy surface coolly reflects the incandescent smiles and coded wings of Concord dragonflies carrying messages from other dimensions. Her daughter’s first steps. Her aching passion to express every nana-aspect of HerSelf inside the All. And when She dances, seven diaphanous secret veils may unveil…butterfly bells tinkling and flowing gypsy auburn hair like fire burning dust into purest gold. She is the soul of it. The (w)hole to be impregnated, the empty space of receptivity unbound and when She weeps The Black Madonnas feel this sadness and send Her love, uncontrived and free.

Blue Lotus oil from Thailand. Rachel Podger’s exquisite Bach sonatas. Burning sticks of Moldavite, from Namaste (2 West 14th Street), and thick resin amber oil anoints. New essences will arrive soon from India and the West Coast (Pacific Essences).

A time to ponder summer goals, inner and outer, as July alights this new moon in Cancer, solar eclipse. Spirit goals, and for writing, dancing, money, love, travel, work, home, new disciplines and new adventures in breaking the bonds of illusion. Using tons of Blackberry essence (physical manifestation), Manzanita (my body is the temple of my Soul), Walnut (the link-breaker), Alaskan Northern Lights (for amazement), Portage Glacier (for release) and the purest Gold gem elixir to golden me…..
- All I want and need comes easily and naturally to me.
- I am filled with radiant creative energy and beauty.
- I am with the right man for me.
- I fully accept and embrace the energy of divine love.
- I am learning to love and accept myself (Pine very helpful!)

THE HIGH PRIESTESS
(From Tarot of the Spirit by Pamela Eakin, PH.D.

All knowledge of dark and light forces
Is good; every experience contains
a message for growth; listen and you will
hear the message of your own inner
teacher guiding you in this mysterious
time; attune to faith; you are accessing
hidden or secret knowledge; be aware
of all signals in your environment;
attune to impulses; remember, retaining
memory is the third mode of empowerment;
the gift of insight is now at hand.

Affirm: I joyfully and fearlessly accept the higher path I have chosen in this lifetime.

The Hight Priestress (from The Cosmic Tarot)
photo by Linda Cohen

XO

2011-06-29T09:20:00.001-04:00

Photo: Queen of Cups by Linda Cohen

Blog: Fast Forward to June 26th, Sort of sunny Sunday 9:26 am Postulate #1: Most mortal men can’t handle a Living Goddess. Even the Gods may fumble.
Postulate #2: Goddesses like US are soul-shakers…..rattle rattle rattle bang bang wake up cluck

Carlos Nakai’s Native American flute-fans the Morning Glory-blue sounds of awakening peace in my cool temple bedroom. Now it’s to clear my head from last night’s bad preview at The Cherry Lane Theater and the two Grey Goose that followed on a sweltering night in Gotham. Rose pink, lilac, and Moroccan fig votives emit precious essential oils from India and Nepal. Sri Lanka. Far Far East. This inter-dimensional temple in which I live and aspire to practice peace (which sometimes looks like war), soothes and uplifts me ever. Mirrors me….Sometimes new-born tigress tame. Sometimes a wild woman crazed and running with the wolves inside and out. Scorpio rising. Mars in Scorpio. South Node Scorpio. Phoenix energy! Put in the cosmic mix, three eclipses this June month and stir consistently and vigilantly.

(1) Got a call from an old friend of 50 years past. She, long suffering, and in the midst of the “big shift” reappears in my life. Also this current month of June: (2) I met with a first cousin (who “found” me from my website) and with whom I feel in sync and larger-family hopeful; and (3) the lovely, now 25 year old, daughter of a unique former lover (15 years I haven’t seen him or her) in Sweden contacted me from the heavenly hue of true and lasting butterfly connections! Amazing time of sync and sharing. Solar returns. Reconnections. Lettings go. The silent perfect Tibetan sand mandalas wiped clean upon completion: nothing lasts for ever where all is flux. Form is Emptiness. Emptiness form.

Mentoring many with the healing flower essences, Nature’s vitamins for the emotions. Already missing my Goddess Circle goddesses, but grateful for the summer break for more writing, dancing, biking, zoning out and in adventures and new yoga practice. Namaste. A new Tarot deck, The Cosmic Tarot, with only the Queen of Cups face up on my alter. It’s time to review and synergize new flower essences and gems… as so fast are the spinning energy spirals of the ethers ebbing and flowing through ALL Creation, one must keep up, or at least make the valiant effort.

Guess what? Mr. X has down and disappeared (but, I notice, logging on, not from checking his jdate site obsessively? I only check mine on Sundays since I’ve witnessed the addictive nature first hand). No call, no word, no scratch of an email, hieroglyph, carrier pigeon, nor any snail mail Hallmark card graciously bowing out. Bow. Wow. Nada. Limboing for one romantically unsolid week. Finally! Eureka! I get it this time. THE LESSON: I’ve been a willing, no deliriously happy, erstwhile “victim” to the mans’ rules regarding extra-us sex…..A ruse, disguised as flattery and offered as proof of impeccable integrity and honorable character! (Him: “I never cheated on my wife!” Him: “When I get into a relationship, AND I REALLY! LIKE YOU… it has to be monogamous”. And him: “I only have one girlfriend at a time.” And him: “My wife never cheated on me.” And directly into my disbelieving hazel eyes…”.Why didn’t you fight for the relationship?” (Who is X talking to?) As if I were his ex-wife or latest dropout Barbie Doll?) Me: vis a vis early Sex in the City, veritably crooning, “You are truly the heterosexual holy grail.” Handsome, appropriate, sports car, boat! sexy and monogamous!…feels like winning the internet-dating lotto. ching ching ching

I thought I was being so free-thinking and independent, after we’d begun dating, (though I did think it odd that he told me “weekends are for the boat”) - does the boat miss him during the week? But, I figured, there’d be plenty of time to work out schedules once we got some time in under our belts, right? Meantime, keeping my life right on track, skipping no dance nor yoga nor drumming class, no goo goo eyed excuses, from me, for not visiting my mom or granddaughter Bee… really staying better than on track in my own life, choosing days and times and places X and I might meet that would work for me (a switch)…. but for this one fucking blind spot. I always put forth visions of male/female equality, to the men I start dating, before they give me their monogamous hip hop rap…. I say outright that dating/fucking other people is fine. Hello! Safe Sex…Both for the goose and the gander. And I always buy a brand new pack of high end lamb skin condoms, ready, willing, and able to serve…..and always I get the “no no no no princess” from the man. “I want US to be monogamous.” And – “no no no. No condoms needed. For ME, doll, one girlfriend at a time. I’m clear.” So up pops the question of the HIV test, which the last three men I’ve dated told me pistil blank they’d just had the test and all is well, better than well, they basically have superman blood. What do I know? Evidently, little. In this arena. But I’m learning. Men will say anything when struck by Cupid’s golden arrows of desire, entranced by a woman’s golden sparkle, or the conquest of a new vagina. Maybe it’s in their sexual DNA? But haven’t we evolved at all in the 21st Century, as time is rapidly coming to an end (as we know it)? Can’t relationships be honest and free. Is it only fun for the guy with a butter cream lie? Where have all the flowers gone? Who is killing all the bees?

But the big DOUBLE CROSS was already in play, and I, again, The Hanged (WO)Man, suspended in a bubble of fantasy and rose-colored frames. In the short time X and I had our flirtation, 28 days less or more, I (encouraged by his visions of vastly more pleasurable sex) had a full frontal Brazilian twat waxing (it’s only hair, hair which better not grow back gray!). “Take risks,” “Go for it,” he egged-faced me on. So. Ok. And? Now I’m box-bald, itching and not enjoying sex more with him. Or myself. So what! I did it. For me. And I’m glad for the new exotic experience even though it killed. May even continue the art and upkeep of the sacred entrance to the tunnel of love, desire and ineffable sexual secrets.

The time is one of full expansion. Fulfilling of potentials. So what’s a little clean-shaved vajayjay while progressing on The Path. The Heart Sutra. The Cult of Isis. Priestesses of Ochun? Following Inanna’s return from the Underworld? The depths of my own Living Goddessness….O Kumari you are my muse!
These date ‘em, mate ‘em and uncreate ‘em match or jewdate addicts don’t fancy getting our gnarly pubic hairs in their perfectly pre-whitened and expensively Vaniered choppers, and have such degenerated eyesight that they, they claim, “can’t really find things down there in the bush with so much heavy camouflage” (a direct quote). There’s DANGER down under in the jungle, the threatening amazon foliage of sweet fragrant gardenia juices and Secret Garden FDS summer tangles. And of course they brag about their own hair-tamed and perfectly groomed prized lingams, but natch! They never take Viagra! And they can always cum. Hum. Ho.

Well. Well. Well. (The I Ching says one must penetrate the Well completely.) Holy of Holies. That’s what we Goddesses are. - I believe - labyrinths of hidden jewels and Yeshe Tsogyal Lotus petal rainbow fountaining nectars of Kundalini bliss wheels. And here’s the disconnect, these allegedly squeaky clean aspirants, and apprentices to the Goddess, request immediate rsvps for monogamy…Butt as I found out later, they’re monogamous with about five other lovers too while your waiting in your wings. And just a few months, weeks, or even a fortnight down Route 69 - they have more outside (you) obligations than Obama. When will we wake up to smell these oxymorons? And take back our power!

NOW. Practicing the dharma, I witness, I watch, I wait, I do not judge nor lie in ambush (with a laundry bag of dirt to toss on them). But come on. Where falleth I? in his well-crafted entirely him-centered formula of work, workouts, former wives, children young and old, cars blowing up and jealous boats? Alone! With my Louise Hay healing affirmations and Buddhist loving-kindness practices. That’s where.

O. Me. NOW TAKING RESPONSIBILITY. Victim no more! What’s an open-minded, sexy, free-spirited, soulful hot cool scorpionic dakini to do? Become cynical? Remain a victim of abuse? Swear off men. Not this living goddess. I keep flowing and flowering in the flow.
Conclusion drawn: I will date who I want, what I want, where I want. I will decide with whom I choose to be exclusive, when the time is right. I will always have an adequate supply of Natruallamb Luxury Condoms, Extra Large and Lubricated on hand, so to speak. Sex is sexy if it’s safe.
And to Mr. X…I say, “Y? Can you find no means to heal your defects. Y not? I remain O Circle of Life. Flower of life. O la la. So X….Ta ta”.
Essences: I am using HH Bach Walnut to break the link of the vajayjay trap and for psychic protection; Pegasus Et A Ceti Starlight Elixir (I need some new info from my star-sisters); FES California Peony for luscious femininity; Gypsy Goddess Metatron for unity: Dalton’s Queen of the Meadow for being in my power; lots of lilies, especially FES GRACE. And long-standing FES Manzanita and Pretty Face and Alaskan Blueberry Pollen.

I Am A Holy Being. I Am A Living Goddess.
Joy is everywhere. Madonnas wear Betsy Johnson.
As I release the past, the fresh, the new, and the vital enter.

Photo: Secret Garden by Linda Cohen

Signs & Signals

2011-06-26T11:20:00.001-04:00

Photo: The Bee Playing Stevie Wonder by Linda Cohen

Signs & Signals Thursday June 16th 8:53am
Went to dinner at Milos with X last night in an opal-white glow of Luna Mother’s full-faced Sag moon. Supreme weather today/tonight. Very full-moony. Architecturally and monolithically magnificent and stunning chrome and silver silhouettes of heavenly-beacons of both modern tradition (Trump Tower) and ultra-modernity (Twin Time Warner Towers) sharing space with the clearest blue lavender-tinged, day-melting into night etheric blanket. And the beautiful man…sweet, sexy, manly, seemingly sensitive and wise, funny, considerate, again seemingly deep-souled hunk. But don’t tell him just yet that I said this although I probably will blabbermouth it out myself. Really????? I ask me? How many men in their Don Johnson tinged-gray late 50s hair do I find attractive? .00005% I would guess. And that could nearly include men in general. Lots of them look really good, and will sweet talk nearly all innocent holders of the vajayjay power. BUT so many of them do really stupid things like not giving up their subway seats to pregnant ladies, or fluttering in and out of truth, as if that could really be, with regard to whatever persona they wish to present on the spot… or disappearing altogether, sub Rosa. Sub Adam. You never know. No you don’t. Who does? Find out what you can from the cards, the tea leaves, the Runes, the Ching……a tapestry for understanding. A commitment to long-term growth and inner change….change, the only constant.

In the fun of the flight and the fancy hours edging incandescent towards midnight, X and I chose a Rune from the Nordic oracle -- it appears a backward F, kind of semaphore-like = Signals, The Messenger Rune, The God Loki

“The Keynote here is receiving messages, messages which may be of a new life….The connection with the divine is at hand. It is the signal to explore the depths, the foundation of life, and to experience the inexhaustible wellspring of the divine in your nature….At the same time you are reminded that you must draw from the well to nourish yourself and give to yourself. Then there will be more than enough to nourish others. A new sense of family solidarity invests this Rune.”
And just like that in the heart heat/loin heat of the moment Mr. X makes a toast to “us”.
Fun. Very fun.

To work at Namaste today. Very good fun…
Tonight Nour Han’s Student Belly Dance Show somewhere on The Bowery. Love the Bowery.

Essences: FES combo Sacred Heart by the bottles full. Gypsy Goddess Metatron for UNITY. Finally a new bottle of Rock Water arrived from FES. Pulled out the Blackberry from my regimen for the time being. Alaskan environmental essence Northern Lights for amazement. Also heavy on the FES Manzanita and research essence Blazing Star. Sticky MonkeyFlower to overcome fear of intimacy and lots of delicious Hibiscus for enhanced female sexuality.

i am a holy being.
I AM A LIVING GODDESS.

Freya's Day (Goddess Sabbath)

2011-06-24T16:50:00.000-04:00

Dali Sculpture Photo by Linda Cohen

Freya’s Day (Goddess Sabbath) June 10, 2011 7:11 am

I’m cracking, wide open and to skeletal crystal iridescent -ivory smithereens, where ancient, hurtful, unloving patters release. A body to soul roller coaster. A chakra cyclone. A longed-for blessing. X and I had a date for last night, to top off a near one hundred degree day in the Big Apple. Threats of heavy rain, hail and thunder storms and even wild inner city tornados ominously lay over the city and surroundings. I emailed X to say we’d be best to take a rain/thunder/lightening/hail/tornado check. I felt good about this more balanced me who three years ago, or there about, I would have considered the stormy weather a test from Holy Spirit to see if X could make it in alive from Long Island to see me, dine me, sex me. Forget that. No more tests :-)

And everyone does what she/he wants to do, no guilt tripping. Pine essence is good for self-acceptance and freeing from feelings of guilt. Progress.

Things at Namaste are moving wonderfully well. I love the spiritual emporium, and love working there. I feel appreciated for my expertise in flower essence therapy. I am cultivating many new synchronistic and fascinating connections. The energy is very high. Everyone loves this store; it’s just right. Also a fantastic resource for crystals, crystal jewelry, amazing psychic/healing/meditation wands….so much! Moldavite bath salts. Imperial topaz “chips” for fifty cents. Television crystal to better read beneath the surface and all manner of Healing Herb Bach and FES flower essences. Heavenly music. And everywhere the faces of the gods and goddesses and Buddha in astounding forms.

Feeling so naturally the flow, the grace, the guts to stretch my lizard skins beyond their former fit. More energy. More clear space in my mind. More REAL work, inner and outer, greater manifestation through greater clarity and Ganesha’s divine protection. OM. OM I AM ONE. OM I AM HOME~~~

Where to take the Goddess Circles next season? Mystery. Ritual. Feeling our connection more and more BEING HER. Where I am challenged, hesitant, lack confidence, unsure….now pondering, “What would SHE do? Isis? Laxmi:? Quan Yin? Freya? Ochun? The Marys?

Creating higher ideals to live by “amid the garbage and the flowers.” The cosmos is spiraling from the sacred flower of life at its center, continually nurtured by Goddess energy, earth loving, compassionate, flowing, peaceful, in Grace the flower(s) bloom.

Expanding my essence taking, adding more River Goddess from healingforharmony, more DhanaLaxmi for sustaining, lots and lots of lilies....heavy Sacred Heart

Amid the Garbage and the Flowers
Photo by Linda Cohen

Signals

2011-06-24T08:30:00.000-04:00

Photo: My Mom in the Garden by Linda Cohen
Father's Day 2011

Signals~~~~

June 9th 9:07 am – the thermometer in Shakespeare’s Castle in mid-Central Park is supposed to soar to 97…. and the ethers are filled with sooty gray ominous forms! I am waking up early. 7am. What a switch from just a few months ago. Took Bee to her new art and music, snack puppet and cheerio class. As always this complex complicated, quadruple Scorpio wench of a loving willful brilliant beautiful funny and utterly adorable and disarming imp – opens and fills my soul with love. UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. She’s quirky. She gets me. We’re a very good match! Bee and cherry.

The final Goddess Circle of the season starring Ochun was sweet tender, powerful, and life-affirming. The Circle is far greater than the sum of its parts. We are a spiritual cell in the Love Body of the Goddess when we meet, doing magikal, ancient and futuristic songs and prayers and dances and telling of our stories…exchanging information, aligning with each other’s lives for support and connection…The Whole is fun, unique, creative, uplifting, mirroring.

Very good morning at Namaste!.... Jewel of a spiritual oasis in a sea of the every day veil. Date tonight. Fun!

All is well in my world.
All I want and need comes easily and naturally to me.
I am with the right man.
I am filled with radiant creative energy and beauty (inner and outer).
I CHOOSE.

Taking a lot of essences morning and night: Himalayan Lily, Blueberry Pollen, Gold, Blackberry, Manzanita, Blazing Star, Cayenne, Madjugorje Mallow (from Bosnia, where Madonna apparitions occur daily), David Dalton’s Werewolf Root (on my 2nd bottle this month) and cherie seed’s Moon Goddess. Sacred Heart is my staple.

I am OPEN to my highest good; the good of ALL.

Spirals & StarStreams

2011-06-23T10:45:00.002-04:00

Ochun Alter Photo by Linda Cohen

Spirals & StarStreams~~~
June 8th Wednesday, final Goddess Circle of this season, Ochun: Orisia Goddess of Love, Pleasure, Sensuality, Fertility, Beloved by many, from her early African origin through the Diaspora which brought Ochun far and wide: to the Caribbean, especially Cuba, for whom she is the patron saint, to Haiti, Brazil, and all over the globe.

A magikal time of mystery and manifestation, high energy output=high energy return. The train comes on time as I pass my monthly metrocard through the turnstile, the B train, Sexy Secrets has the negligee that I want in my size! (rare), men offer their prized subway seats to middle age ladies, even girls in a packed A train in the 87 degree rush-hour haze. We’re smushed against each other’s sweat and still we are smiling, like a traditional Cuban son band waiting to play, we’ve got heart and we can share it, really. We are helping one another. Maybe, we feel, if we’ve made it this far, as in are still here on the Mother planet, there is an inner risk-taker, a positive sharing attitude, a protective golden field of light and life around us. Let’s have fun as best we can BE CAUSE who knows. Anything?

Yoga at DBGym with Tim is always a challenge and a hot handsome hilarious hoot of a contortionist’s dream but I am thinking of quitting this August 1…time for something new yoga-wise. JivaMukti? Pure? Kundalini? Dragon? But before I leave DB gym, I want to perfect, as in do an unassisted handstand against the what once had been the 23rd street YMCA second floor yoga studio wall. I did it once so far. This long-time vision. What a feeling of will and determination and strength overcoming fear. Very exciting, hand-standing on my own, after two maybe three years of teacher assists. The hand stand rocks. Met Cherie Seed at Flower Power at 1pm (www.healingforharmony.com). I love her Laxmi essences and other energy products which Lata may carry in the future; they just have to work out the details of Divine Intervention. Cherie is now working in India where she lives (she is Australian) making her sacred goddess medicines. I literally bought a 22K Laxmi pendent (reverse side Laxmi yantra) and chain off her neck, practically as she was about to leave to return to India, healthy-looking body. What a gift. I love this golden pendant I wear next to my silver Isis. OM ISIS the flow, the flower…And the flow. Meeting X and other new friends ;-) helps me realize the power of the healingforharmony essences and my own power. I am more able to step back before knee jerk reactions and reframe the scene. It’s fun and creative. My affirmations, journaling, spiritual practice and the tv show Men of a Certain Age help me. A SIGN: I hardly ever lose anything but I lost my red peace scarf about a month ago and I did let it go however it upset me. This unlike me carelessness. Then today, more than four weeks later, finding my peace scarf in a locker in the gym…like carrie finding her carrie necklace in S and the C, I felt. Readying for OCHUN celebration tonight! The 95 degree afternoon with Bee (while wild horrid shootings were blasting up, gang-style, kids at Brighton Beach) to her new art and music class. Fun!

Life is good again now. May the good health of my family prevail. May WE be kind to others and take the moments for exchange, meeting eye to eye with neighbors and friends and new friends too. May we be the shimmering love lights we are here to be…glowing, golden white pink lavender sparkling human astral peace candles….incandescent cosmic mother seeds.

Essences added: FES Sticky Monkeyflower for fear of intimacy; extra Rock Water and Pine, HHBach, barrels full of FES Sacred Heart and Dalton’s Werewolf Root essence.

I CHOOSE

Star Streams & Spirals

2011-06-22T19:00:00.002-04:00

Photo by Linda Cohen

StarStreams & Spirals ~~~~
June 7, 2011, 7:40 am Morning Pages…

Everything’s looking so much brighter. Neater? Jimmy Cliff’s, “I can see clearly now….” echoes from Bee’s cherry red iPod. Feeling an ultra violet sense of peace.

I had a Brazilian full frontal waxing with a small triangle landing strip (the only sign of civilization remaining); the curly black tuft of pyramid marks the f spot. The jewels are beyond, so to speak, or perhaps within, or revealed from drawing the astral curtain behind said strip. Strip being an operative word. OUCH. Per a new guy I’m dating…. a “close shave” was Mr. X’s undemanding request. I should have known from being a Sex and the City devote/junkie….that the quality upkeep and maintenance of pubic hair is big IMPORTANT business and according to my Polish vajayjay-waxer Marta, from the land of densely thick blue bee’s wax, I am clueless as to the 2011 rites re: this sacred area. Kundalini serpents coiling. OK Game on! Wow it hurts, but nothing like an upper lip electrolysis torture session. So, piece of vanilla chiffon cupcake, yoni-pie, fresh-moan lawn romantic aromatic. I’m not used to the way it feels or looks…but if “it” makes sex better. Duh! Or DaDa. Or Yankee Doodle. Or Dali! Onwards to the current goddess’ offerings…. of revelations of the pomegranate mysteries, dakini-languaged- treasures, possibly available to the worthy male initiate in an astral bay window of time.. Wish-fulfilling gem. Swirls of raspberry cream, peppermint dream, smoothies on the hottest near-summer day. Tennessee Williams' South Carolina heavy vaporous gardenia airs.

I’m getting out on my silver blue steed-bike, Blue Tara, more. Central Park is blazingly beautiful and earth-fragrant in the early mornings, like a sweet moist blooming and beckoning pink lotus vajayjay. It’s the swelling blooms of lilac and the dripping dense purple wisteria vines, this year, that are so utterly perfuming the park’s ozone-rich emerald ethers, while the big silent trees are bursting with life-force prana. Morning time the park’s rich palate of greens, golds and pear blossom whites are the most dense and oxygenating in the city ( the river is good too). No cars allowed! It’s runners, bikers, strollers, amblers, ramblers, the lifeless looking homeless still asleep in the nooks and stone tunnels of the park that are regulars. Here, Mama Nature and her myriad sparkling creatures – before the day too fills with sunfire and the naked city streets are thick with gaseous yawning sputtering cars grabbing for the lights. It can get too tight.

Meeting cherie seed of www.healingforharmony.com at Flower Power at 1, après yoga. She’s just in from India for a couple of days. I feel her Laxmi essences helped facilitate a major shift in my reactionary patterns and super-sized my creative focus and flow! And being able to be more inclusive in my thinking, holistic, less constricted and judgmental. When I start judging myself I take a hit of Dr. Bach’s Pine. When there is flow….there is spiraling energy infinite! such that, if we are open, many new possibilities present themselves and we are more able to see them and choose the directions, actions, venues, thought –patterns, summer colors, playful third-eye bindis which further our Starpath views and Starpath views of others - to benefit All. Not so much time wasted in conflict and indecision. More trust in my intuition gives me greater confidence and self-acceptance. I believe this is to be a powerful meeting of shamans and that some good exchanges and ideas will be born today at Flower Power.

I believe in all the good unfolding now, the soul-cross-connections, the hyper in-syncs, inter-dimensional heavenly bodies co-joining and morphing. June 2011, with its 3 lunar eclipses, and the radiant orgone energy of life/sex opening wide its arms to rejoice the fountaining of Guru Rinpoch’s rainbow lights spraying our mucked-up carburetors clean, both loosening and firming our iron-man stiff joints, physically and emotionally. And if you happen to be a dancer WOW….feeling the red, orange, yellow, tourmaline pink-green heart space, light incandescent throat chakra radiating blue, indigo third eye and white/violet of our whirling Dervish crown ……chakras open from our long-stretching roots deep into Mother Earth - to our spindles of consciousness hip hopping the heavens, the Buddha fields….there’s a lot going on NOW with a deep sigh breath from the mouth. I have prayed, long and deep. And I have let it all go. Prayed more fervently and imagine how it could be. I’ve story-boarded, taken my essences faithfully and ritualistically, invoked the goddess and called often on Ganesh, Lord of Obsticles. I have taken bigger risks while still staying true to myself. I’m not testing so many people in my own mind any more = not testing myself. Let it be. Don’t force. Take a good seat and watch the magik show. Be the magik show. Be grateful for the magik show.

I feel the merits of my concentrated good works and am so grateful to Spirit and all the loving powers that be. O yes! There is so much more of me that needs greater disciplining, and I can accept that. And allowing myself to move more energetically and spiritually (inside too) – to a new level of freedom, flow and emotional flexibility. I am flowing, free-flowing, flowering with lotus love intentions and big klinky brass bracelets Ochun loves, burning yellow candles, watering and ingesting sunflowers.

Major essences of the moment: Himalayan Lily, Blueberry Pollen, Gold, Chia from Gypsy Goddess, (loving) FES Blazing Star, BLACKBERRY, MANZANITA, Pretty Face, Flourish Sacred Heart spray, Grace, Medugorje Mallow (Julia Graves) for Grace, and David Dalton’s Werewolf Root essence for radical change.

We are all here NOW.

One Wednesday Morning

2011-05-18T19:10:00.023-04:00

(Photo by Linda Cohen - Tata and The Bee)

One Wednesday Morning
May 11, 2011 8:40am
A Cherry & Bee Day

Waking in the soft-lit temple of my own holy make-shift design, healing elixirs abound -.
Flower essences from Mother India, AdiLakshmi for flowing, Blue Moon for Shadow Love,
River Bloom as inner anthem to Printemps-
Sacred flute-tongues snake hissingly ‘round me,
Himalayan pink-salt lamps radiate Asian crystal mescaline-like rainbow-rays
Baby-pink rose cuplets. Royal Ceylon-saffron yellow. Cleansing. Potentizing vanilla sky etheric space.
The King of Cups
Is in the cards – Again. May he cometh forth.
Morning coffee bitter black organic Nicaraguan
South Indian temple incense. Lavender flowers laced thin birch sticks from Provence France ~~~
Entwine, Divine, Combine… Interdimension- thine!
Protective, uplifting, anointing. Precious Earth perfumes. Agar wood from outside Mumbai paints baby Ganesh smoke-streams.
East Indian deities of three shining onyx eyes stare into the temple garden. Lila (play)! Lovely diva dragonfly darting
Timeless zones of creamy consciousness come whisper in my inner-ear - Encoded rich antennae secrets.
Holographic planes collide in aqua sea blue Emptiness
Making. No thing. Everything.
Queen of Diamonds… Holds the cards – She knows how to deal.
My Argo bed so valiant ride! my family snapshots winking, dinking – fun lips, painted orchid plum.
Spanning Star-Streams Strong ~~ these pearls of DNA family energy strung together destinies~~
Lioness lineage Dakini wise and skilled in means…. - traveling
No time spent…..Ever young
Ganesha presides where outside the retooled bricks –
Lead to Central Park, heavenly green, pink, yellow, wisteria purple, buttercup sweethearts. Central Park.
This May day spreads in from the East showering blessings
Translucent Apple Blossom sheath/leafs, as tiny see-through Chinese coins ching ching ching
Titillate mystic blue airs, inundate dancing-park pathways – they do tell…(If you listen)
Tickle the new emerald blue grass, billions
Of secret siddhis (blessings) alighting your foreground Star-Path of whimsy and Desire….Lunar Fire ~~~
Feeling your dark cave fill with flowers, your empire waterfalls
Higher than Super Man can fly….
Colors. Velvety and prickly
Scarlet red rose. Wild and unpickable softens…
Too tight heartstrings –
Depths of my Spirit blossom!
Painting the city and me both brightly. Softly.
Lilacs, dripping Morning Glories, Tulips kissing pastel Monarch butterflies….
Fashion shows in fleeting realms of season.
Yes, let's do fall in love –
Beeng here ~~~Where it is….now.
*Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always—

ts eliot the four quartets

A Breath of Spring

2011-04-13T15:06:00.027-04:00

(ARTEMIS ALTER by Linda Cohen)

My Breath of Spring April 2011

Artemis springs forth this newer day –
Moon Magic April offerings of silvery filament-rays~~
Her silver huntress tunic glistens, glows
‘Neath younger brother Apollo’s increasing
      Solar Light –

Inside me too mandalas kaleidoscope, shape-shifting hexagon honey comb
amber astral crystals
Sugalite, Phenacite, Emerald, Star Ruby, U-man Watermelon Tourmaline
Brilliant! Hologram Mirrors Our undulating Hula-Dancing Cosmos –
With so much recent time-testing-time in strict Father Saturn
      digging, undigging, digging, undigging
      invisible muddy emo-ruts and guts and beta-brainwave quick-
sand ditches tugging…    unplugging.

Sculpting time for a body upgrade….hummmm what’s new and ancient out there? Studying
Five Phase Nutrition, deep Chiron-guided astrology, Law and Order (reruns), the fine, essential, Art of Patience.
So grateful, humblingly grateful, for Revelations at last brilliancing
The Spider Web's design. Living. Our dying. Born. Gone. Born again. I have starseed impressions of Golden Temples of Wisdom high inside the Eck Stream,
On the thin-veiled Soul Planes~~~
Finely and front row (my movie) with my princess feet more gypsy core, my spine more cobra straight, Dancing mystical star-emblazoned skies
On Chinese dragon comet tails, soaring
In whose inner blue velvet veil
I see the Goddess’ face ever more clearly
She
Is opulent Grace. Smiling Eye, Sexy vibe which reveals no Secrets.
I see Her in my chipping lapis blue finger nails~
And in The Velvet Underground’s exquisite chaos~
And in the heart cups and newt tails and psychotropic-teas of Alice. Cheshire. March hare marched. Cruel? April is arrived~~
With golden growing stronger. Inanna and Demuzi. Sacred marriage rites.

As above So Below
Mysteries of Mother Moon reflections
Nearer –
The soul-train of my cherry mind-flow clearer
      Fountaining, orgasming, rainbow spectrum spermy streamers seek to dazzle my truer nature
Ahh Creation    FEELS so good.
I’m proud of creating
      Turkey (more a giver than a taker…something new)
      Medicine.
      Bee
      As my honey grandchild Spirit Guide.
Me? a wild woman of Artemis
So long I Be….
            cherry linda

Quick Recoveries

2011-03-17T07:50:00.011-04:00

(Photo by Linda Cohen)

Quick Recoveries – Shedding Age-Old Winter Emotional “Stickies” to Claim New Spring Sparkles (at any age)
March 11, 2011: 9:09am Morning Pages~~~

Upshifting into Spring. Pan’s erotic delight. Sweet tart blackberries. Pungent ruby and amethyst grapes. Luscious Sexual Tantric Songs of Pomegranate-Sacred Marriage Rites…Will they be fulfilled? This year? Will Inanna blush? Will the Lingham dare go the full distance inside the moist and fragrant darkness of Her lotus flower? Mystery Cave. Since the Beginning.

~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~What is extraordinary about the golden “Horse Goddess” Rhiannon, with her flaring-nostriled silky-white Mare of light-winged-speed is that She is both woman-wild! as unfettered Mother Nature IS and at the same time the epitome of basic divine/human “orderly” goodness. Within Rhiannon… conflicts resolve through patience, love, creativity, goddess magik…. FEMININE POWER - for the greatest good of All. Most especially Her family.~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ve hardly had any (cold/dampening) salads this winter, per the sage advice of my colonic therapist/shamanic healer, Janice Zwail. Switched to lightly steamed greens (collards, kales, chards), steamed carrots, purple cabbage and other earthy roots… as well as more digestible proteins (fresh ocean fresh fish! like salmon and cod - never farmed!). Less colon-binding store-bought supplements. Chia seeds and Chia flower essence (from Gypsy Goddess*) for my independent spirit) as intestinal broom, muchos sea veggies for full-spectrum minerals, fiber, taste. Feeling less “full” - more free-flowing - in my body/soul unit. Between dry skin brushing (Acca Kappa brush) and organic coconut oil Ayurvedic full-body self-massage before showering (Whole Foods has their 365 organic brand coconut oil which is very reasonably priced), upping the high quality physical movement: yoga; bellydance; deep breathing! I feel a butterfly-like breakthrough to a new form******** chakras all a-rainbow-spin, younger, more responsive, more flexible, open, easy healing, organic cherry pink whipped cream topped “I’m ready!” girlish Spring vibration. Cherries are coming into season. And yet a far way to go, for me, with more consistent discipline on all levels - including writing, photography, electronica in general (iPhone?). Words. Pictures. Magik. Music. Springtime musings in the still grey foggy lingering Pisces’ time that wanes with a half-life shiver - the end zodiac sign coming to cyclic, inevitable rebirth - innocent Aires upon the Vernal Equinox rules. Zero degrees Aires. March 20.

Unsettling unpredictable energetic ups and downs in February/March – with inner and outer earthquakes. The horror of the soul-stealing earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Near daily violent physical and astral cyclones, cleansings. Vituperative Scorpio stinging exchanges! Out of nowhere? No! Where? Built-up layers of toxic astral sheaths, stored in the inner body, largely unconscious, charcoal tier upon sooty tier of interior refuse needing release, but in more productive fashions than dumping hot potatoes on the closest relative or friend. The only way out the tail-chasing serpent of wisdom is Wisdom Herself. Realization our infernal projections need lopping off at the hydra-head. Can we see our stumbling blocks as The Yellow Brick Roads of our Higher Paths? Don Juan’s “petty tyrants”. Beware the signs of conflict, confrontation… and be still. Sit. Non-reactive. Sit. Meditate on the “right view” for healing. LET IT GO! Quick recoveries from illusions, delusions and their trappings help us feel the Oneness, just as energy shifts and clears after tropic storms dissipating the built-up charge. We feel for our own centers and dig in deep to the core of us to create alignment with a loving flow. “Pay attention,” I tell me. “Compassion as well as inner fire.” Practice…looking at “it” from your point of view, and letting lots of shitty feelings, patterns, Pavlovian reactions, resentments, stacked-up black duffle bags filled with proof you’re wrong! go go GO!…into the recycling tunnel of white-light-love. B’bye! Taking lots of Rock Spring for renewal, Northern Lights for the feeling of amazement and miracles, Ruby to enliven, empower, lower chakras and Himalayan Lily for youthful, second chakra teenage fun and levity. !And just pulled out the Manzanita for my body is the temple of my soul! OM

Along with Tarot, I Ching, Runes, a simple heads or tails… I am working with my Buddhist Master Chogyan Trungpa’s Training and Cultivating Loving-Kindness from the 59 slogans of Atisha (10th AD). I am currently exploring the slogan “Be Grateful to Everyone” implying that all our challenges are gifts (we have chosen) to improve our spiritual understanding and practice. Being a loving Being. Some points made in this commentary are: “Without others, we would have no chance at all to develop beyond ego. So the idea here is to feel grateful that others are presenting us with tremendous obstacles….Without them, we could not follow the path at all….If someone hurts you, you should be thankful to them for giving you the opportunity to practice. But you do not have to expose yourself to be hurt….You just lead your life, being very sane, and you don’t hurt anybody else….The whole approach is dealing with all kinds of hassles and transmuting them and working with them as a workable journey toward enlightenment…It is a lighthearted situation – including death. Keep that in mind. Make a slogan out of that. Whatever comes up, you do not regard as the ultimate, final problem, but as a temporary flare-up that comes and goes.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

And my morning Voyager Tarot: Way of the Great Oracle (James Wanless) comes up card #16 of the major arcana – The Tower: “Out of the fire of transmutation is fashioned a new soul and a new life. Be a warrior. Sacrifice with courage, will, and discipline what needs to go, and you will be renewed.”

*see Gypsy Goddess on Facebook

Victory Bowsprit from the SS Maine, Columbus Circle, NYC
(Photo by Linda Cohen)

Reaching Rhiannon

2011-02-25T15:39:00.010-05:00

...taken by Linda Cohen "Cherry's Garden"

Freya’s Day – February 25, 2011 9:16am… dark wintry mix beyond and gloomy - Morning Pages…

The flow’s better. Not quite so to and fro in fear right now. Tides are moving within and out, especially in the oft’ challenged second chakra area where I tend to hold shit. But today, and increasingly, I feel “more of me in me” and less anything else. Like all the tiny chakras of my being are spinning better – for the good of All. While, in truth, there is so much more “vestigial” stuff on every level to discard! I feel to 180 my compass pole (as the axis of the Earth shifts fully in Her time) to be open to receive. To and fro the timeless tides abide in natural law. Hoping to leave so much cleansing behind and reconfigure a new paradigm of me….I think it’s called living. Aspiring to be open to receive heart & thought-felt manifestations of aspirations etched in consciousness, in fantasy, and meditation over time, as Great Spirit hears my prayers. xoxox

It’s all about perspective, see. The ability, natural or acquired, the skill to be creative (with a loving foundation strengthened by commitment to my Starpath Self). To imagine my spirit’s desire, my calling - in the broadest sense... that I feel on the right track – and also have the faith, perseverance, wiliness… and the boon of a positive loving VIEW from “here” to “there” so to speak, the process, is the better part of the magik. Oh sweet patience, graceful faith, please be my constant companions. Follow-through gives such a sense of confidence and power as we stretch further, energetically towards the flow and flower of Our Oneness….in the frame or “template” I am Self-Created in my evolutionary progress. Like a mysteriously beautiful blooming blue lotus rises from garbagy murk. A human being. A miracle.

Onion skins of painful, constricting astral armor have nearly strangled my sensitive Virgo body, where now these layers crack and melt more than in a while; I think it’s feeling Spring too. So hopeful for the passion fruit. The olive. The ever figgy fig. The Goddess, The God, waking from the long dark sleep of winter. My Spirit and my body are making better friends. Like my good friend Diane said to me recently, “all this dancing’s (Diane is ballroom dancing at the moment, with goddess verve!) opening up my chakras. I’ve never felt so good in my body and POWERFUL.”

---------------------

Along with Rhiannon comes the new March. 2011. One key quality is movement. Like The Chariot, number seven, in the traditional Tarot, heroically riding the focused path. Movement. There is also great strength, forbearance, beauty to the heights, pride - but a selfless pride, the essence of feminine embodiment of virtuous qualities MIXED WITH A SORCEROUS ANCIENT WELSH HORSE GODDESS, a Fairy Queen Goddess of Magik. Rhiannon rides like the wind, most magical, clothed in shimmering gold, on a pure white mare that practically flies her to her bidding - where the emerald forest trees part in perfect path for Rhiannon to reach home.

With movement we break the cycles of entropy of fading Father Winter to stretch towards rainbow flowering spring. A Crossroad’s Tme of change; of deepest transformation. Cycles. Persephone rises from the Underworld climbing the ladder of garlic roots. The King Fisher grows big balls again while MamaEarth's fields and vines swell to succulent sweetness. Soon.

Feeling ‘flower essence cluttered,” I spent a good amount on time this week, through research on many levels, from my pendulum to learning deeper layers of the properties of the essences. Simplicity. Clarity. Intuition…bring me to the following essences NOW coming into Rhiannon: HH Bach Rock Water for flow; Alaskan environment Rock Spring for renewal and miracles; Pretty Face for feeling inner and outer beauty; FES Range of Light Blazing Star for golden solar-filled action that embraces feminine expression as its twin; Alaskan gem Sugalite for deepening the physical expression of the spiritual; Alaskan Gold to enhance self-esteem and a main building block of the New Body; Julia Graves’ Asparagus for strengthening the spinal column and thereby enhancing our connection to Heaven and Earth; and just before bed the Alaskan environmental essence Liard Hot Springs for clearing astral junk, cellular detox. While I affirm:

I’M READY NOW

More about Rhiannon:

SUGGESTED MANTRA: INSPIRATION

SUGGESTED AFFIRMATIONS:

I ask and therefore I receive
I deserve to fulfill my destiny
I welcome change in my life
I see the path intended for me
My future is full of possibilities
I invite new choices into my life
My goals are becoming manifest
I deserve to have my dreams realized

ESSENCE: Goddessence NUIT 100% pure essential oil blend, FES Mountain Pride for spiritual warriorship, FES Larkspur for leadership

GEMSTONES: Cat's-eye, ruby and moonstone

Goddess Sabbath

2011-01-22T22:32:00.025-05:00

(Winter Alter by Linda Cohen)

Friday January 21, 2011, Wintry Goddess Sabbath - 9:06am

White fleece of last night’s snow dissolves too quickly under a desolate gray Sabbath-mornings’ struggling sun. I see from my window, across the courtyard drop, the rooftops melting slush. Still in bed, journaling, iPoding out rare Bach sonatas, Rachael Podger, satiating my winter temple with violin-airs I embrace in every waking cell. Golden Votives of red current and patchouli, thick with potent healing oils, burn as offerings to the goddess.

I’ve chosen our February goddess, or She has chosen me. Parvati. Omnipotent consort of Shiva The Great Destroyer who levels all that is stagnant too long and washes reality clean to create the new… as time and non-time move through universal cycles of creation, preservation and destruction/purification. Parvati as Prashnaparamita, Ultimate Reality, where is seeded the impulse of Creation Itself/ Manifestation. Parvati as supreme consort, faithful wife, goddess of love, mother of Ganesha, Elephant Lord of (overcoming) Obstacles. What will I learn of the Daughter of the Himalayas and her cosmic family? Parvati - white as the snow-topped peak of mystic Mount Meru, heart center of the universe. Her pink/gold virgin silk full-skirts, 24 karat gold dresses and exquisite feminine spiritual adornments? She abides with her husband Shiva on Mt. Meru, where, together they save the world by making selfless Tantric love, in perfect union, in ecstasy divine, purely and lovingly exchanging male and female cosmic energies, yoni and lingam, in bliss! in ultimate balance. From the Beginning. She is the art of being a woman – manifest. She is ever with me on my own spiritual journey, as liberator and inspiration. She is as the white/powder-pink snow of the high Himalayas breath, She is gold. Cerise. Cherry. Opal white. O mystical goddess/empress, an expression of both Great Mother Kali and Durga, The Warrior Goddess, also consorts of Shiva.

Holy cow. Currently, I’m in a huge and hard-to-navigate cleansing cycle, for which, of course, I take full responsibility (2010 so glad you’ve taken leave), with all manner of healing crises and necessary upgrades to install, new programs. Poor digestion, fuzzy eyesight, off balance sleep cycles, myriad aches and pains (clearings and makings-way for new higher frequency) – and the dreaded just-before-wake-up noxious (but revelatory) dreams.

Dream: I am being tested along with many others including my daughter Joanna, who appears eminently more prepared than I. I am not prepared and growing more and more frantic trying to get my peas in a queue. Not enough paper. The print on the test’s too small for me to read. I am actually trying to cheat off Joanna. It’s a three-hour test but I have no watch; there are no clocks on the wall. All I see of the test is, “WHAT ARE THE LEGAL RIGHTS OF THE FATHER?"

Confused. Is this a trick question? I do not know the answer to this one of thirty test questions. I try to ask Jo who does her best to share her answer with me but the Gestapo-proctors notice our exchange and are on us like hungry demons in for the kill. Now, increasingly things are going whacky in my nightmare/dream. Mostly there is not enough light for me to see the questions nor write the answers. My pen doesn’t work. I’m panicking and begging anyone for more light, a pen that works, blank paper. Then I misplace the test all together! Shattered.

In one blessed moment of calm, I decide to let the entire test-process go for the moment, believing deep inside, I will have this test finished correctly and handed-in, as always, by the time the three-hour test-bell rings. I leave the “school” (appearing in my dream as my junior high school in North Miami nearly 50 years ago) to go off seeking a cafe for a much-needed caffeine fix. Naturally, I get lost, with a horrid sense of direction, always. A car offers me a ride so I get in. But where are they going? They, the men, don’t talk to me. They just drive. Now I am hysterically screaming, “I’m in the middle of a test.” They stop the car, waved down by a fellow student of mine, also taking a break from The Test. He insists they let me go… where they proceed to throw me out of the car to the ground. They speed off. I’m on the edge of nowhere; every direction looks darkly the same. Dream ends. Fellow student gone. I struggle to consciousness. Having slept too long.

Thankfully, it’s Friday. Freya’s day. The Goddess’ Sabbath which I have always honored, not knowing why until reading Moon Magic by Dion Fortune. Freya’s day, as it ever was, IS, and shall be, honoring the Goddess. I am still very much working with and praying to The Black Madonna to help me shake free of addictive behavior, knee-jerk reactions and toxic energy patterns on all levels. Also to shed light on, accept, and integrate my shadow. And mostly for the miracles She may bestow on us who believe, prayers for intercession.

No booze in January, except Saturday nights. Using Gypsy Goddess Black Madonna Sacred Spark Oil (see Facebook). So far, so good - but for the intestinal yeast that remains. Major Janice Zwail colonic on full moon Thursday. Diet change must be! I pray. Cooked leafy greens (fiber and minerals) and proteins, less supplements and fake “good” food (Amy’s frozen everything). Food thing’s been badly off since my mother’s summer illness. Quality grains quinoa and millet, sea veggies, fresh ocean fish, free range bird. Spectrum organic coconut oil, inside and out. Quality probiotics. A cleansing mineralizing morning hit of Emergen C with MSM. My intention, day by day, is to be healthy and open to what this new world/energy (of 2011) beckons. To upgrade for vitality and light-heartedness. Compassion. Recommitting to the glorious and scary step-by-step unlayering of veils. The step-up to the plate interior and exterior goddess work/play. Let go… the mean-spirits! of me.

A quote I came upon last night, in Dion Fortune’s Moon Magic, about the difference between being together with the right woman/man and the woman/man who will never be right, “He knew he could have given an intensity of love that the light-hearted thing (his wife) would never even know what to do with.” That explains a lot about the quality of love/sex/initiatory evolution. Magnetically drawn - to and fro - as universal frequency changes up. Aquarius now rules the Age.

Focusing on cleansing essences at night: Liard Hot Springs; the Alaskan Glaciers; Dalton’s New Medicinal Herb flower essences; gems of Brazilian Quartz, and Celestite to clear upper chakras. Aspiring to take less essences for greater healing progress and clarity. By day: Pretty Face; Explorer’s Gentian; Gold, Star Ruby (be here now); Rock Water; and the Alaskan environment essence Northern Lights for that feeling of amazement. And it is. NOW. Amazing. I'm also using a Perelandra set, Nature Program, where I am divining essences with my pendulum. Today I used, Sobopla - Balances and stabilizes the triangle created by the relationship and interaction between the soul, its physical body and the planet upon which the body resides. As a result, the soul, body and planet become one strong, fully functioning triangular unit. Sobopla also balances and stabilizes the physical seating of the body/soul unit to the planet.

~~~I AM A HOLY BEING. I AM A LIVING GODDESS ~~~
I AM WAKING UP TO A HIGHER POTENTIAL.
MORE ME. MORE ME & YOU. MORE ME &
ALL. ONE.
ALL I WANT AND NEED COMES TO ME
EASILY AND NATURALLY.
I AM FILLED WITH RADIANT CREATIVE
ENERGY AND BEAUTY.
I AM FLOWING AND FLOWERING IN THE GARDEN.

Snow Day

2011-01-12T16:04:00.009-05:00

(photo by L Cohen, highline, Chealsea, New York City 2010)

January 12, 2011 10:52am Snow Day Morning Pages

The beefed-up snow storms’s past; wasn’t much of a winter wonderland Like the last one. I always love it when The Snow Priestess visits, so pure and newly fresh. Like a new start. I love winter. The speed in me craves the stillness. Quiet.
It’s such a magical gift to be able to take care of myself (I remember praying for this - doing push-ups before work at 7am karate class on West 23rd Street, my hair wet and frizzy wild from running out into the icy winter mornings, then off to work at 9, the ubiquitous bran muffin, the long boring day, then night school for nutrition at 7, nails badly in need of a manicure and no time or moolah for regular facials or colonics or massages, no time for deep breathing on the run. No time nor enuf patience for my two incredible children as they sped past my speeding. Now. My prayers are answered. I am able to do morning rituals for mind/body/Spirit most days, I belong to a great gym, study with a deep-souled yoga teacher and a wild and mystical Egyptian belly dance instructor. And of course, there’s my family. Me and my family. Precious. Given.
I feel I’m changing. Slowly and nearly imperceptivity, yet I am. More equanimity, more emotionally spacious with regard to attachments and the way I “think” things “should” be (in my favor). Having taken many cleansing flower essences and gem elixirs etc. for the past few months (Sagebrush, Liard Hot Springs, Golden Seal, Lousewort, Brazilian Quartz) I am experiencing the releases on many levels and need to be clear that I INITIATED THIS CHANGE FOR THE GOOD; be conscious of what I’m creating and where I’m headed (inside, of course). I am less angry and less willing to just react to what irks me, more meditating on the flow, less knee-jerky, maybe a bit less jerk? More willing to extract the bigger picture from the shorts. My stomach - “gut”- is going crazy loosening and releasing the stagnant astral energy which is clogging my pipes along with the arteries of Spirit. I know I am barely in the chrysalis stage of this current transformative cycle and have worlds of difference to embrace and integrate (much much more open - hopin’ - for light-filled perspectives with the gloom and doom half-life ing it in smoky dust trails fading behind me).
The healing crisis, “cold”, semi-automatic flu/cleansing - for me nearly always starts in my hara (seat of power), gut, between the second and fourth chakras where I “hold”. It’s where I store and layer the shit, old and new disappointments, failed expectations, low self-esteem, “I can’ts”, along with self criticism, fears ranging from where is my “partner”/helpmate - to health challenges in my family. For some, symptoms begin in the chest (grief? asthma-like conditions born of trauma somewhere along the lifestream) where Yerba Santa and Grief Relief are good essences; for some the migraine signals the clearing to come, where the gem elixir celestite helps along with essences for balancing the crown chakra and the entire spinal column and energy system; for some, the throat, when in detriment…has become the “seat” of unexpressed emotions and creativity, and always “stuffing it”. For me, it’s the digestive (or indigestive) tract, very Virgo, very full-spectrum indigestion on all levels where Chamomile, Crab Apple and Chalice Well flower essences soothe and clear.
I haven’t been drinking at all except for Saturday nights - which I provided for (as made ok) in my January goal of no drinking. I hope this will lead to being more mindful in this area for good. Also, much less tv and filler reading. More targeted for study and skill. More action oriented. Proactive and yet most acutely aware of the non-actions I must abide in order to grow and heal, of which there are many. No pushing others towards my way, no manipulations, no jumping the gun, back stabbing, judging (trying), blaming…allowing, more space for unfoldment, with Star Ruby and Northern Lights my essence choices. I adore and use unsparingly the environmental essences, capturing a moment of sacred, often wild and transformative, elemental time/occurrence in Nature.
So much cleansing! Not sure I was prepared. But signs are signs. And taking responsibility works. Good friends have been MIA for months, top students taking their leave, courses disappearing, what seemed once important dims. I have a “stomach” ache and am coming at healing on many fronts: Oscillococcimun, bee propolis, Echinacea and Gold Seal, juicing, Emergen C, Chlorella, herbal teas, clear blessed water by the barrel, massage, extra B complex and zinc, tons of probiotics, heavy doses of great music and art, and of course all my essences and elixirs and prayers to Guru Rinpoche. Staying on top of my life as much as I am able, the nuts and bolts. The ineffable love of - and - for my family. A belief Obama will make a positive difference in the universe.
I feel a new Shambhala on the other side of the steep cliff. Perhaps one hundred miles straight up the rocky Himalayas, or a dazzling light-year from here. Or in the very next moment. I’m beginning to feel a new dawn, inside. And The Word is Good. And the Word is Goddess.
1. I am filled with gratitude for my precious, exciting, loving life.
2. I am filled with radiant creative energy and beauty.
3. All is well in my world.
4. All I want and need comes easily and naturally to me.
5. I am with the right man for me.

The Snow Priestess

2011-01-08T11:14:00.005-05:00

The Full Moon Lunar Elcipse Begins
12/21/10 by linda cohen

January 7th O Holy Friday 10:18am the Moon is in Aquarius
Morning Pages – Feeling The Snow Priestess in my own StarLily ~~~

A light snow appears to be rising up
From the Earth’s heartbeat (an illusionist’s dream)
As it mixes and dances with those gravity-correct
Snowflakes, shape-shifting, tiny lace
Angelic, symmetrical visages of new winter’s wear.
It’s always mysterious with uncertain outcome?
When the Ice-Princess shakes up Heaven’s Crystal ball and voila!
Infinite expressions of snow-angels
Begin to pirouette in the sacred geometry of Nature’s mystical fashion –
Seemingly random but inherent with purpose as each flake dovetails
With its neighbors and the whole mix keeps remixing.
Icy breezes of this morn cast their elemental whips Here
There – painting a pure ocean-white blank canvas
With their vibrant playful leaps and spins,
O Patterns of the Goddess.
In the silver-blue northeast Sabbath
Morning the snow now looks –
Like frantic little sea-bubbles with no control
Over their exquisite graceful ballerina bodies,
Blown with a hearty loving laugh
Off the smiling confident lips of The Snow Queen –
Gazing emerald-eyed into Her limitless Celestite
Pale-blue crystal ball.
I am burning
Honey-toned beeswax candles, O holy golden light,
Imbibing Shankar ragas from my pink butterfly I pod
Through the pours of my sesame-oiled winter lizard skin, and
Thinking…of a perfect day’s outfit for a snow storm’s ride
Up to Bee’s hive.
Still to “do”… present day’s sacred Tarot.
Already sipped flower essences with delicious virtue-rich gem elixirs….
Himalayan Lily, Star Ruby, Celestite
Madujore Mallow – with a cleansing nip of Golden Seal.
(from my bed, The Argo (about to take leave) I see my
Drying lavender roses, hanging upside-down
On a six-foot bronze medieval Spanish candelabra
My mother gave me -
From which many prayer candles have done their bid….
Delivered on prayers and hopes and ever dreams.
In my gentle-pink temple bedroom of rose and raspberry –
Crowned by The Virgin of Guadeloupe tapestry
Upon my Pharaoh-sized queen’s bed.-
Sipping warm Mixed-Winter Blend java from Whole Foods -
Still potent with aromatic fresh-shaved cinnamon garnish.
Up, up. Away and off!
To Be with the abandonment of our Priestess’ snow’s delight –
To Be a snowflake with ivory sea-horse wings
Fluttering beyond time and man’s reason
For The Great Goddess… knowing …
Tomorrow’s “Next to Normal”

Life in General

2010-12-11T21:59:00.010-05:00

Billboard near High Line
Chelsea, NY

Life in General

December 11th, Sun in Sag, Moon void of course, Mercury retrograde, 10:51 am.
Noche Flamenco tonight at The Cherry Lane; an old fashioned facial at 2.
I need good incense (Enfleurage on Bleeker Street Agar Wood). Couldn’t sleep, by 4 I had to put myself to pillow and insist.
I feel the magnetic pull both ways so strongly at this time: the pull to live safe and cozy in my comfortable routine (where most of my life I HAVE NOT BEEN)
“managing” mainly familiar feelings…tho’ there’s been so much family crisis and flux these past six months that lots of new ( and old entrenched) very intense and challenging emotions and questioning The (my) Self on deep levels of my being as to where I am in denial, what must change for growth and health and the spiritual evolution of me? Then there is the equally familiar beckoning to “rise” to the new energy (come on 2011) of change magnetizing me “forward”. Breakthrough. Repetition. Redemption. Day by night, back and fro, working it, creating higher perspectives, more loving and truthful perspectives, lighter, living from the inside out, softer, more open, more pink love-conscious. On the Sapphire Starpath.
To and fro this crystal pendulum of living. “Cleansing” essences I take before bed: Sagebrush; Brazilian Quartz; Liard Hot Springs; Goldenseal
and Lotus Fountain Essence - - -
And the “new” implants I take upon rising: Redwood for stature and filling up my cells with radiant strong energy and alignment; Pretty Face (a signature essence for me, that goes to the core on my body/soul integration); Pine for self acceptance and forgiveness and to relieve feelings of guilt; Gold for self esteem; Rock Water to keep on flowing in potentially ice-rigid times; Blueberry Pollen for prosperity consciousness. I’m also using, ad hoc. Julia Grave’s Green Tara Lily essences: Madonna Lily for Grace; Himalayan Lily for light-hearted girlishness; Asparagus when I meditate, for the spine. As needed. Sacred Datura on the new moon. Still afraid to start Dalton’s Werewolf Root Essence
for great transformative power.
Some necessary upgrades:
- No alcohol in January
- Norhan’s belly dance classes and all weekend workshops
- Start money market account
- Write weekly blog with my photographs

Criss-cross nano second to nano. A few sacred drops of Rock Water to keep on keepin’ on, more Redwood for rich stature and energy, extra Himalayan Lily for the hot restless sexy female energy of the late teen/cool babe I must still be inside.
And from Carolyn Myss’ Defy Gravity “Respond to intuitive signals coming through your biology. Stress in your solar plexus is a signal that you are losing your power to something. Identify that something(s) and take action before it consumes you. This is a wise action.”

I am a holy being. I am a living goddess.
cherry linda

Woodstock, New York, Late August 2010

2010-09-20T17:43:00.007-04:00

Woodstock, New York, Late August 2010
Morning Pages

I can feel that I’ve been slacking off on “morning pages” – Julia Cameron’s main means to sanity for the creative person) and need to get back on track to cast the day in intention and explore my art. Writing and now too photography is starting to be fulfilling.

Dream: I’m back in “college” (hotel? dorm? university? and fancy hotel). Of course it’s exam day and I hadn’t taken any of the classes, had no idea what they were or how I could have missed them. I was running around to feel out where I had to go and do – when miraculously I was 3 hours into the day and had, somehow, completed 3 exams. I am finishing up the third test and seeking the location of the next, and final, exam. I tell myself, “I’ll wing this one. Do the best I can. People were guiding me and for once the directional signals I gave myself were “on” target…. but I woke up before I found out what happened with the final test? O passive aggressive dreamworld; how you do mirror my own!

I’ve had this dream in many forms over the years. This night’s in-the-dark feature film indicates to me, being more relaxed in life, letting go the struggle, seeking - but trusting my intuition more and allowing for more positive solutions. If not “perfection” – a welcome feeling of semi-completion and at-tune-ment. More confidence? Drive? Faith? So many years of implanting these “higher” qualities in the rugged pine forests and meditational caves of my rocky mind with flower essences visualizations, affirmations, prayers and astral updates.
Perhaps? Some light has filtered in. OM. AH. HUM.

This dream and being in Woodstock for a longer stretch are making me feel stronger, lighter. Needing and getting a tree top respite from the frenzy and challenges of this summer – mainly my mother being ill. Releasing the concrete jungle for the hummingbird’s dazzling iridescent gold wings, the darting silky zebra butterflies, the sacred elephant “remains” (tree husks) I pray to as I take my long snaking perambulation down down down and back up Upper Byrdcliffe Way to number 53 – a spiritual constitutional to kick off the energy rev. For much happens and yet really nothing much at all.

There is no single focus or highlight, teaching or treatise of this two-week retreat. Rather a consistent flow of quixotic weather, good and new friends, spiritual practice, ordinary magic, the ineffable “SOB” story, gleaming prayed-for voltage returning – all the lights went out along with the hot water!) right after Old Same Bonnie’s and my ceremonial sundance (transforming the deluge to power “on”, the fun and sparkle of Barbara’s Rainbow House birthday dinner, a long talk with Tom The Musician et at, about family and what friends go through in life, under the twining arbor flower trellises he is building and will soon take his new bride under… for their vows - just five days’ time, dining and wining with Val and Arturo at The Red Onion. O the cosmic magic of the pearly full moon and red god of war Mars conjuncting in the star sapphire sky… for the appearance of two radically different moons, creamy white and burning astro-red. WOW. Wishes, on both falling stars and Airplanes! (hear BOB). Discovering Bee had crawled for the first time in Nantucket and the riotous video of Miss Bee’s victory – her screams of delight and pride announcing to all, I am woman hear me roar! that followed the news.

Mid-morning naked sun baths, slathered in coconut oil amid the lusty fragrances of the mountain forest, on the tree house roof top; real shimmeringly soft white-gold radiant sunlight treatments. Fresh herbs! and August flowers galore – wild pink and lilac roses, deep purple morning glories, white and orange lilies, the omnipresent Black Eyed Susans (for casting light on the shadow self… oh my… dancing the grounds with us and the divas of the plants and frogs and lizards and spindly spiders and doe-eyed ones… in the Buddha fields of The Rainbow House. Sacred waterfalls. Buddha’s image divinely sprinkled sparsely in the gardens to be discovered by the fortunate - as forms of wisdom incarnate high under the Tibetan multi-colored prayer flags waving in the mystery and low-sitting in contemplation near “my” Yeshe Tsogyal wishing pond by the large blue hammock. Her secret dakini’s conch shell teachings throughout time and space…terma unseen yet “planted” hidden to discovered at the right time. Flickering moment’s moment of awakening - when ts eliot’s “cloud passes over the sun” (The Four Quartets, Burnt Norton) - in the garden where the pool of our childhood’s memory appears empty til the sunlight’s return again fills the pool with love and laughter. Remember?

Shiva and Eric and Taxi Paul’s death which I hear is being commemorated Woodstock area October. The rushing clear cold Old Mill Stream, crystally as ever. A general sense that the world’s mood – I guess my mood – is slowly improving.

O the ineluctable modality of the sensual of two weeks, really 11 days, with King Arthur, Vajrasattva BE! flowing rainbow light through me and you and you too. O Precious Guru. Lotus Born…..Loren comes soon to “tend the sheep,” ferrying us to the famous local bus stop in front of the hardware store. The day is inviting and light. I can’t wait to see Bee.

ALL IS WELL IN MY WORLD
I AM A HOLY BEING. A LIVING GODDESS.
I AM FILLED WITH RADIANT CREATIVE ENERGY AND BEAUTY.
ALL I WANT AND NEED COMES EASILY AND NATURALLY TO ME.
I AM WITH THE RIGHT MAN FOR ME.
ESSENCES: Blackberry, Blazing Star, Explorer’s Gentian, Pretty Face, Blueberry Pollen, Northern Lights, Gold, Spectrolite, Grace.

cherry (currently blissful warrior)aka pema osel

Dakini Training - Morning Pages... Aug 15, 2010

2010-08-16T07:35:00.005-04:00

Dakini Training
Morning Pages… Sunday August 15, 2010 9:26am
Readying for Woodstock

Eat right, Clean 1) alter; 2) crystals 3) wash
Emphasize beauty, grace, strength, compassion, mystery of woman. Power.
Dreams? I think I feel, in my dreams, that men forget me too easily (some men) =
improve detachment factor while remaining open-hearted for the pure sake of giving.
Be with my mother kindly.

With my current primary essences, I’m focusing on:
1) Explorer’s Gentian (FES Range of Light): Bright open new-pathways to dakini energy.

2) Pretty Face (FES): towards greater ease, flow, flower and ability to be outside the self more. Confidence in inner and outer beauty for spiritual evolution.

3) Spectrolite (Alaskan Gem Elixir) and Northern Lights (Alaskan environmental essence): Carry the vibration and range of full spectrum color/light (as the Northern Lights dance in the sky like angels) to deeply feed cells, to rainbow our insides to experience the magical sparking qualities of the full “mandala” – through the creation, projection and radiation of bliss.

4) Madonna Lily (Julia Graves Green Tara essence): for greace. To be aware of strengthen grace in my life and thereby the entire mandala, to be graceful, full or grace, refined female spiritual consciousness

5) Blueberry Pollen (Alaskan pollen/flower essence): for radiant, easy, flowing abundance in all good things in life, non-grasping, in the Big Flow

Affirm:
1) I am filled with sparking radiant creative energy and beauty.
2) All I want and need flows easily and naturally to me, for the benefit of All.
3) I am open to exploring new paths of energy on all levels. My energy is ever self-cleansing, self-renewing and joyfully, healthily exciting.

Days Aspirations: Work, proposal into Integral Yoga Institute for December teaching, fine-tune all apprenticeship programs.
~~~BE as east and relaxed in my flow-
~~~Exercise my body and continue my spiritual studies (Yeshe Tsogyal, Guru Rinpoche practice, Tara. Practice compassion (Yellow Star Tulip) especially with my mother.
Continue reading on White Tigress secret sexual teachings…the untapped spiritual evolutionary path to enlightenment…mostly ignored in The West
~~~Download new music; ready for Woodstock, explore new computer. Continue cleansing, feng shui, aspirations and end of day reflections.

I AM A HOLY BEING. I AM A LIVING GODDESS
with the supreme blessing of Bee Montana Kanew turning
9 months this day. My grand daughter delight.

Dakini Training

2010-08-01T20:32:00.004-04:00

Love photo of cherry and bee
June 2010 taken by Diane

dakini training
August 1, 2010, 9:49am morning pages

A drift. Where to take. Today? Break free of inertia. For me, so much, too much! depends on the weather. Iffy, humid, grey with showers today but not too bad. Not good enough for Astoria Park.
I feel stuck. Longing to initiate some new skill, learning, teaching, glamorous adventures and routines. Started taking Explorer’s Gentian today, newborn day of the eighth month, Leo (so far I’ve decided no tv today). Desiring to wake and explore – not just do the laundry.
Where is my “talent” in this time? When do I? and how? and where? break free? And then there is simply, spiritually, accepting the mountain (I’m stuck up on), until the next “spring” thaw? (I’ve passed through several springs up here on my mountain top though. Is this good or bad?) My relative inertia must be “relaxed” “ventilated” - the beauty and power of this time be evident in everything; the lsd of the mundane encouraged. Gentle, be gentle with your views, blissful warrior, I tell me. Yet firm enough with the tensions of my spirit so I don’t hate day’s end (from lack of personal “productivity”). I feel at a loss as to where to direct my energy for the “good”. My good? Greater good? The same. Should I do the laundry? Eat a peach?
So….now….. I turned my phone back on and put the wash in spinning. From whence will come adventure? Thank you, holy Spirit in all things, for my blessed home and family and beauty and friends and Creative Spirit.
I have a whole “free” day. I want to experience freedom as open and thrilling and on the verge of authentic adventure – not a burden to withstand. We create our own reality. Do I need to pay an astrologer to advise me how to move$ Or why I’m not? Or can I pull myself together to just move? Move where? How much will it cost? Will I like the bathrooms? Can I come home whenever I want to? Are there enough toilets- and gutters to catch the rain? What’s the “highest” move? Shouldn’t I be creating more work? money? men? compassion? fashion? news? excitement? PEACE! Shouldn’t I be creating more play?
Of its own accord, will so much change tomorrow that I will already, yet to come, long for the freedom of today, which then will be in the past? Or have I had enough of this relative freedom and create some fences, borders - steppings out towards connectivity and bounds?
- I am filled with radiant creative energy and beauty.
- All I want and need comes easily and naturally to me.
- I love myself (and you) and each day is a holy gift
wherever, whenever, however…
the Goddess lives.

Buddha in a Goddess
American Indian Museum
Seaport, New York City

New Moon in Cancer '10

2010-07-12T18:13:00.008-04:00

New Moon in Cancer ‘10

blissful warrior

Last night reading Miranda Shaw’s Passionate Enlightenment on Tantra.

Feeling the inspiring presence of Yeshe Tsogyal, Queen of Bliss, in my life now. I feel to adorn myself with all sacred manner of cloud pinks and silk rubys, the sheerest Vermeer golds, Milky Way ocean-pearl-whites. My eyelids sparkling with golden ore from Nepal and luvulite purple flecks of spirit crystal, fluttering my butterfly lashes. Painted toe nails conch-shell pink and splashed light with mercurial silver star-dust.

Only, I can listen to Kirtan or any music ecstasy following the throat chakra swells of perfumed offerings, the ancient transcendental oud, the crystal humming katak drumming, the emptiness of radiant sounds filling my sense receptors with vision mystery, awe and heart-love-devotion.

New moon. Eleventh day (The Force (The High Priestess)) Sunday. Still summer sirens seek sensual sexpression sincerely opening songs of soul and lila.

O AH WOW Y MOMO SITA OM O AM WOW Y MOMO SITA OM

I take my essences: Spectrolite for all the colors of the rainbow; Sacred Datura for the new moon; Madonna Lily for Grace; Pretty Face and Gold.

I Sparkle Gold and Pink Bliss Waves ~~~

Blessings of the Goddess~~~

I drink sweet wheatgrass, chew Japanese Sun Chlorella and anoint myself with Triple Lotus – purest blue, pink & white lotus oils blended for optimum Lotus “hit” - from Thailand. TAM.

OM TARE TU TARE TURE SVAHA

Yoga in honey window sunlight, especially extended headstand.

Vajra Sattva mantra. “music for your sensuous journey…Mango Blossoms Unveiled…water weekly, sacred garden. toasting pumpernickel bagel to offer to myself with Hass avocado and feta from Greece… last-minute ironing dry skin-brushing bathing in Himalayan sea salt with coconut/vanilla scrub finish up finish out – purchase on my way uptown through central park 2 tiny airplane gray goose, jump on local a train to spend the wiling afternoon to play

bee mine…

and all who love you bliss-wheel donut girl~~~chinese jewess princess ~~~

The Juicy: Take your time. The Mystery is everyness and each. Namaste.

Bee inspiring. Bee inspired. Plant your new moon seeds with faith –

Your Lakshmi Garden grows.

Sprit Flowers

2010-07-08T21:21:00.005-04:00

SPIRIT FLOWERS

I rose to find white flowers
I rose at Springtime, dawn –
My gardenia heart
My –
Scorpio moon full
Rose, with petals
… ivory bliss.
I rose fair to new
Season, I reached
for winged Isis Light –
Incandescent, healing, nurturing
Rainbow translucent skin
Pure, fresh, refreshing
new skin.
Rose I….into the Garden
Rose from the dark silty mud –
And we are now Blue
Lotus shallops ~~~
Emitting Dakini Love.
Therein our pleasured
Inspiration –
I rise now to meet
the rose –
You mean so much to me precious
naked sacred soul.

cherry linda 5/2010

(Photo taken by Linda Cohen at Lata's country home in Hamden, NY)

Exchange for Evolution

2010-05-17T19:30:00.024-04:00

> > >> [Original Message]

> > >> From: Gina
> > >> To: Linda Cohen
> > >> Date: 5/15/2010 8:31:12 PM
> > >> Subject: Re: Tomorrow's Circle for the New Moon
> > >>
> > Linda,
> > You know Saturn is back in Virgo for a quick visit!!!! And Saturn is in
> >opposition to Uranus & Jupiter. And there is a big T-square.
> >Are you facing radical change, or unsettling circumstances that are
> forcing you to re-think. I'm asking this of a fellow Saturn in Virgo girl.
> I am facing some very tough situations, and I was just wondering if you
> were too.
> Love you bunches. Have a great night.
> I wrote this while I was in Atlanta, but was unable to send it on, I
> just got back home...went to an amazing psychic, an old friend, so I'm
> feeling
> > > much more potent and energized ready to fight dragons and prevail.
> > >> Love you more than you know...g AKA flowerperson
> > >>The smells of flowers in Atlanta on the soft air is so profound...
I love the south in the spring.

> > On May 16, 2010, at 10:23 AM, Linda Cohen wrote:
> >
> > > I am so in the middle of this with everything. I won't be repping for
> FES after this month, they're hiring a big pro marketing team for the
> Midwest and North East; and it's gonna be a change but it's gonna be
better for
> me; for me to move to the next level, which is already happening. I've been
doing a
five day cleanse through Organic Avenue and finished yesterday, The old
ugly smelly shit from the past has literally erupted with my children
> and the baby and my mother. Pretty much we're in a big change - cleanse.
> Scary. I do feel very strongly to do my Buddhist practices, centering
rituals,
> but must stay true to who I am because taking abuse from them, even tho
it's
> old stuff, it's past! Now's the time to move through my fears and my angers, i
> don't want to get stuck in old patters and I do want to CREATE new
ones... I
> want to write more and dance more. Thanks for letting me know this;
helps
> to take the emotional charge off it. I have a few affirmations:
> OM. All is well in my world.
> OM. I am filled with radiant create energy and beauty.
> OM. I am one. One. (I'm redoing ann's prosperity program and that's
> helping me. But it's a volcanic - Goddess Pele - eruption in progress as
I write.
-----cherry with Saturn in Virgo
> > >

> > [Original Message]
> > From: Gina
> > To: Linda Cohen
> > Date: 5/16/2010 10:44:07 AM
> > Subject: Re: Gina Baneena
> >
> > Man, it's big!
> > I know exactly what you are talking about...but I am going to
prevail...I
> am going to re-invent and re-create and remain beautiful and vital. I'm
> not sure how yet, but I feel the energy.
> Last week, I found out my immediate boss, a black woman, who is afraid of
> me, has hired a young black woman to take my job without telling me! Sort
> of Sucks...doesn't it. Fortunately, i have bigger wigs that understand
my contribution...but it
> is still going to be a (I don't want to use the word fight) a
> re-investment...I love being right! Think of the Ace of Swords. Think
of the Empress!
> >
> > My friend Hillary, the psychic, said think of it (the knowledge) as a
> gift from the Universe, you know, you can respond differently now, and its
> time to do more, I am a tested power player, negotiator, path finder,
> producer...that's is what I am meant to be. So be it. Invent your job
and
> go after the money to do your job. Be creative.
> > This Virgo Saturn Return is the end of the old way of being...it's
gone!
> We are new women, we are stepping in to new life. The apprenticeship is
> over.
> >
> > It's funny, i don't feel the end of FES happening for you. The
corporate
> way is over! I'm surprised they don't know this. They want to grow, but
at
> what cost. Interesting to mull.
> > I'm telling you Columbine flower essence is a treat. And I'm going to dip into the
Wild
> Oat. I've lost my pendulum, which has me totally dis-spirited and sad. I
> hope it turns up.
> > Sister, I'm givin' you a high five...we will prevail undiminished!
> Love...g

> [Original Message]
> From: Linda Cohen
> To: Gina
> Date: 5/16/2010 10:57:13 AM
> Subject: Re: Gina Baneena
>
> True my darlin - the time is here. and it's exciting and it's fun with
the
> view you mentioned :-) all this shit is coming up for releasing and we
> don't have to let it "suffer" us as in the past....I'm doing a lot dry
skin
> brushing, great healing products, the organic ave cleanse and my
> affirmation from ann's book is I AM ONE. Dig it. I dig it. I'm taking a
> lot of cleansing essences, alaskan glaciers and i was taking a lot of
> sagebrush, also am taking blackberry blazing star, fireweed combo!!! very
> helpful and when i need it chalice well and some lilies i got at flower
> power. - i don't think i'm done with FES either but the repping is a thing
> of the past...i need to make some bucks, reach a broader population with my work,...on into the challenge of the day
> spirit warrior. good thing we have the flowers and each other :-)
>

Living Goddess

2010-05-09T17:09:00.024-04:00

I AM A HOLY BEING…

I AM A LIVING GODDESS

SPIRIT FLOWERS

I rose to find white flowers
I rose at Springtime, dawn –
My gardenia heart
My –
Scorpio moon full
Rose, with petals
of ivory bliss.
I rose fair into new
Season, I reached
for winged Isis Light –
Incandescent, healing, nurturing
Rainbow translucent skin
Pure, fresh, refreshing
new skin.
Rose I….into the Garden
Rose from the dark silty mud –
And we are now Blue
Lotus shallops ~~~
Emitting Dakini Love.
Therein our pleasured
Inspiration –
I rise now to meet
the rose –
You mean so much to me precious
naked sacred soul.

Our Goddess Circle, nine women presently, studying, and aspiring to embody “higher” qualities of different Goddesses throughout all time and space, has nearly completed its second year of practice… though SHE has been with me since I can remember. Before that too, I am certain.

I can remember. Feeling HER. Awestruck, pulsing midnight sapphire skies with twinkling silver stars making skyroglyphs across the heavens; playing in the mossy woods where my family’d go for summer vacations in The White Mountains of New Hampshire, rolling in the fresh brown soil with stately, creepy crawly, Daddy Long Legs spiders; dangling my nine-year-old dirt-dusty summer feet in clear cold running brooks ‘neath mantles of wise old evergreens; frogs croaking in tongues & shimmering rainbow messenger dragonflies like sci fi angels traversing planes with radar secrets. Later in autumn’s harvest time, the dark starless mystery of All Hallow’s Eve, Day of the Dead, wearing splendidly colored Chinese red, Turkish gold, Aegean blue silk “veils” as the icing on my Halloween costumes (belly dancer’s still my favorite). Me and my sister being hot and cold in the high winter sunlight searching for sea shells on ever-blue stretches of Miami Beach island visiting Nana and Papa, whose house had three coconut trees towering the front lawn, drinking the sweet clear nutty water, crescent shells where I might hear echoes of far off Tahiti, Bora Bora, half lives of sonar vibrations coursing the Great Mother’s womb… whispering through magic spirit-networks; and seasons later, donning real beige silk stockings with lacy garter belts for my junior high school proms. Times of free-form dancing to all manner of music. And entrancing tribal drumming… feeling the changing seasons inside my quixotic moods, in the poetry of my romance thoughts, dreams of vivid astral colors, the dark red goddess-blood of my first initiation. Communing, praying to La Luna Bella - all phases of Her moony cycle;

Our Goddess Circle’s tales of Isis magic and protection; Sophia wisdom; Aphrodite beauty; Athena strength; Demeter’s mothering Persephone and bringing forth the cultivation of grain which moved us light years forward - from hunter/gatherers - to farmers, keeping animals …to spiritual practice, bearing witness, learning to “let it go” (still lots more here!), releasing stinging fear-based judgments, honoring The Earth & Mother Nature, being real about how I feel and not judging my feelings, forgiving myself and others for not being perfect… in our way’s perfection, practicing compassion. The story of where we come from begins with such a great and powerful MYSTERY. The story is ineffable. But we try to sense the whole from what we gather of the parts.

BOTH the male energy divine and the female energy divine, active and receptive, fire and water, yang and yin, intellectual and intuitive, filler and filled – ARE INHERINTLY NECESSARY FOR ALL CREATION – and that which we seek now, has always been sought - - - even when “we” as pre-historic wo/man, as early civilizations, now and always, at the very core…. waded our way through instinct and desire --- seeking the essential BALANCE. The constant everlasting weaving of the male and female energies, consciousnesses - to spin out Creation, to not burn up in the dry FIRE of intellect and disrespect for Nature, nor drown in WATER’S uncontrollable emotional power…as it ever IS…. The patterns we make inside the chaos; the chaos which is the pattern.

Male and the female energy inside us…seeking balance, harmony, creative self-expression and CONNECTION. We do so much, we work so hard, we set big goals, try to master and manage our emotions, use and abuse time – faster, faster, going, gone. Then try to slow down. Meditate. Watch spring tulips sing their gorgeous blooming newness-hues, pink velvet petals laced with saffron, plumed hearts opening to Sky’s delighted vastness stretching from the cold of last winter toward the prickly heat of a new summer’s coming. And how do we find meaning? Sustain meaning? Share meaningfulness with others?

Mary, Jesus, it takes so much “centering” for me to feel okay. I am in constant waver between feeling “on” and wondering where that expansive feeling flees to when it, for little apparent reason, departs and I must reup with my yoga, dry skin brushing, I Ching tosses, tarot spread, walks in the Park, diet, daydreams, actions and soothing knowledge that there are infinite new beginnings inside of me. Inside us all. “Breathe, Love, Repeat” is the name of a one-woman show one of my students is performing tonight in the West Village. Sister Suzen, that says it all.

To stay on track, what I call my “Starpath” or higher destiny, I recently completed a three-month Artist’s Way course with Julia Cameron at The New York Open Center. Julia is a master at unblocking creative energy with spiritual tools like long walks, writing “morning pages” in stream of consciousness - to clear for the coming day, giving ourselves artist’s dates (going it alone to do something inspiring or fun to create adventure, inspiration), breaking the every day to day ruts with silent time, media deprivation, affirmations and KNOWING OUR ART IS ALREADY MANIFEST! We just need to feed ourselves “right” so our art will flow and flower though us. Each day is a blank canvass on which to make our water marks, hieroglyphic shapes, sounds, no sounds.

It is useful and joyful to examine and embody universal Goddess archetypes, SHE (nurturing, earth-honoring, intuitive, compassionate, receptive) we are invoking now for the balance in this winding down “dark age” to birth The Golden Coming. To discover the many forms and faces of Her. In our Circle this past month we delved into Madonna, Virgin Mary. I love the pure, angelic grace and mystery of Mary. This coming month we meet the fiery, quixotic, infinitely creative Pele, goddess of fire and volcanoes, of destruction of the old lands and forming of new vistas, always active, ever wondrous.

Maintaining daily “centering” rituals helps me so much. Delighting in taking exquisite flower essences as Mother Nature’s vitamins for the emotions. What we think is how we feel. It’s a never-ending “check in” on what needs course correcting in our lives, cleansings of the stagnant, implantation of the flowing. Love to know your secrets of health! Love to share the journey.

We “Circle” from October through June, one Wednesday evening each month to meet a Goddess and to share our lives. Our “view” is that while we study the Goddess(es) in many origins, myths, histories and interconnections, WE (each of us) ARE LIVING GODDESSES, HOLY BEINGS, MANIFESTATIONS OF THE DIVINE FEMININE…carrying forth the ancient rites of story-telling, sharing, creating, participating in rituals of many forms, meeting “near the moon” as possible. Not to always be happy. Not to always dismay. But to be where we are and feel ourselves inside the Body of expanding Light. This holy act of recognition and reflection brings us joy and upliftment as well as facilitates diving into our shadows for acceptance, to feel whole, not fragmented. We have met The Creten Snake Priestess/Serpentine Goddess, Green Tara from Tibet, Isis, Demeter, Astarte, Inanna, Sheila Na Gig, Lakshmi, Yemaja, Mary Magdalene, Sophia, Kalima, The Blessed Virgin – and have so many more Goddesses to enjoy, embrace, locate in time/space and notime/no space….Yet we already hold the knowledge that in truth there is only one GODDESS, DIVINE FEMINE, with infinite expressions and manifestations. How thrilling to immerse ourselves in this radical pursuit of knowledge, experience and creativity. How joyful and powerful to aspire to navigate Her sacred realms, to have fun and share Being HER.

Thought Vs. Will and Affirmations

2010-02-24T13:15:00.003-05:00

Greetings! Today, I am starting another 30 day round of the "Abundance From the Garden Affirmation Plan" - and am having immediate experiences of Lakshmi abundance! I am doing my affirmations along with zinnia, tansy, gold, pyrite, northern lights and star ruby. I want to share an insight that I believe is affecting my experience. I recently read an essay by Rudolph Steiner in which he explains the difference between "thoughts" and "will." He says that "thoughts" are associated with our "nerves," whereas "will" is associated with our "blood." He also says that true imagination begins in the will - not in thought. As I do my affirmations with the essences, I am "doing" them - rather than "thinking" them - from a place of deep will. I am literally imagining myself IN the abundance of each affirmation - a much more powerful experience than merely thinking and saying the words. Today's example is: "I step into the Garden. I open my being - knowing that I am supported in the Garden. In the Garden, I am whole. I see my whole self reflected in all life - I AM FLOW." Instead of thinking the words, I am IN that garden dancing around in flow! A subtle yet profound shift that I wanted to share. I thank Rudolph Steiner for the always illuminating guidance! As well as the wisdom of the flowers and our own Flower Faery Linda!! Hope you are all being blessed by Lakshmi!

The "News" Is Harmony

2010-02-04T16:55:00.003-05:00

OK already the start of a new month - the love month. For me this is also the activity as well as the prosperity kick off month. I spent most of January in the cave, healing, juicing, writing, reading, sleeping and dreaming. Now it's time to head towards Spring, in intention and in activity.

I've signed up for the full "Artist's Way" with Julian Cameron given for 12 weeks through the Open Center. I think it'll be a great way to rev up my energy. Between morning pages and "artist's dates" - new activity rises with the sun. Of course you all know there is baby Bee. She's now 2 1/2 months young and strong and joyful. I am so happy to be spending quality time with my granddaughter; we love each other unconditionally:-)

I'm back in yoga twice a week and heading out for dance class soon, salsa, as ever.

I feel as though I've had many challenges this past month, more than usual. There's the hopes for the new year pitted up against the stillness of January. Bee had a horrid cold. I've several new neighbors move in and out - for me, this imposition on my space, the noise, the moving, the unfamiliar faces and routines has taken a heavy toll on my skeletal system. I had acupunture again for the first time in two years along with a prescription for bone marrow soup! Oy! Not sure about that.

One thing I am certain of is that the WORD FOR THIS MONTH FOR ME IS HARMONY - INNER HARMONY BRINGS OUTER HARMONY. I am One with Spirit. This simple thought is helping to release the tension and mindbog that have been plaguing me.

Please tune in to the new vibration of February. Heart to Heart. Soul to Soul. Body to Soul. And share your thoughts and epiphanies as well as your harmony and laughter. Love!

January Thaw....

2010-01-23T10:16:00.007-05:00

It's a perfectly January morning. 10:16 am. Moon in Taurus. I feel as if I've been swaddled in the deep freeze since Thanksgiving and now am longing for February to inspire me to spread my wings in several important ways. First, I have lots of good ideas for sharing the good, the bad, the sublime and the ridiculous in my new writings with this blog being a journaling/regular space to share and interact. My Goddess Circle is working to embody the qualites of Sheela Na Gig, bawdy, bold and powerful; symbol of feminine power so up front and personal that we witness Sheela consciously opening her own vulva, as symbol for divine creativing and the cycles of life. Always exploring ancient/new female energies to inspire and emulate. I am feeling the radiance of next Saturday's full moon already; can we dance? together. Can we make visions, aspirations, hopes and dreams...actual. With the support of my fellow goddesses and tools for stearing the mind/heart/ and body to greater wellness and a deeper, easier flow and flowering, I feel on the tip of the new. I think February could be a wonderful month for LOVE of many sorts; Self Love of course, is always the seed for love for others. I want to inspire myself and create beautiful colours with my life and actions. There is so much going on but it is the "divine feminine" that calls out to be recognized, honored, and brought more fully into today's shaky circumstances. I am whole, abundant. I am reveling in the birth of my grand daughter Bee, surely a life-changing event in our family. It seems as though, with Tabbie, the baby nurse, off on weekends, I have the great good fortune to hang out with Bee on Sunday afternoons like today when we again hope she Bee the lucky charm that brings another Jets win. I affirm: all I want and need comes to meet with ease and grace for the greater good of all. I took a good dollup of Hibiscus, Sierra Primrose and Apricot flower essences this morning. I shall put my arms around this day and give a big hug to all of us expressing ourselves, sharing, being vulnerable, supporting a more open loving, creative way(s) to live. I am a holy being. I am a living goddess.

The Divine Feminine - The Living Goddess

2010-01-18T18:55:00.008-05:00

We are holy Beings...

We are Living Goddesses...

For as long as I can recall, I’ve been fascinated by gods and goddesses, myths and legends: how are all the hundreds of thousands of goddesses (and gods) throughout time and space (geography) related? From where do these supreme archetypes come to us? What is it about man and womankind that has always laid the foundation for their civilizations upon the belief in the power and reality of gods and goddesses, divine Beings in whose image (with a great deal of latitude here) we are crafted, who are loved, feared, called upon for divine intervention, emulated and appeased? At the heart of civilizations are creation myths that tell intricate detailed interwoven stories of how these civilizations came to be. The myths are as diverse as the peoples from whom they come and yet there is a sublime and recognizable similarity, even in the most different spiritual expressions of the myths of these cultures. The “goddess” has a million aspects, faces, personalities, functions…yet all are related to the ONE prototypical divine feminine energy. All myriad forms emanate from the same SOURCE. Let us speak here of “The Goddess” aka “The Divine Feminine”. This Divine Feminine should not be confused with The Matriarchy of the past, which oft’ times manifested in similar ways to the Patriarchal society – aggressive, territorial, logic-ruled - we live in today that is on the verge of nuclear proliferation and disaster. We must come into balance, male and female energy, if we are to survive, if our mother planet is to heal and support life.

I would like to clarify that in the context of this blog, The Goddess is most often “seen” as female (but divinely feminine qualities are also embodied in conscious men). In truth The Goddess proffers qualities that are different from the masculine, logical, imperialistic, earth-conquering, patriarchal manifestations of male energy gone haywire. Goddess energy is Earth-honoring, loving, non-linear in thinking, intuitive, compassionate, holistic – even though SHE may wear a demonic face or shed blood from HER thirsty tongue! Always, with The Goddess (and God), we must seek the “original” energy from which the many manifestations are derived. SHE is the “emptiness” into which the male form is expressed, the void, the egg, the Circle, the mystery, the ineffable… the container of life. SHE can be a wily trickster, an ancient hag, a spider woman, a virgin, a whore, a seductress, a wife, a mother – and or all of the aforementioned –
a divine presence offering hope and renewal, inspiration and faith. SHE has the power over life and death and rebirth. SHE IS THE CIRCLE.

For thousands of years, at least, as far as I can discern, since the great god Yahweh of the Hebrews, dwelling in the ominous thunder-clapping sky with His might and vengeance, judgment and punishments, holding us to rigid standards of ethics, “an eye for an eye”, has been dominant over earlier matriarchal, societies. SHE has been abused, shrouded, tortured, misconstrued and out and out hidden! In recent times, perhaps with the dawning of the Age of Aquarius (hidden mysteries revealed to the every woman/man), we feel HER returning. It is HER qualities and gifts that our overly fire-consciousness Nuclear Age so needs to balance the destruction, disaster, hate, fundamentalism, proliferation of arms and warfare, separatism and ruination of our Mother Earth.

I have been studying and working to embody the divine (and sometimes seemingly not so divine and all too human) feminine for nearly twenty years. My journey has brought me to the edge of New Age (though ancient as The Beginning) medicine, as a certified flower essence therapist and field rep for the leading flower essence society in the universe, FES, The Flower Essence Society in Northern California Flower essences, Nature’s vitamins for the emotions, are liquid tinctures made from the blossoms of flowers to help heal emotional traumas, as well as help us to support those qualities which we most want/need in order to manifest our purpose/higher destiny, and of course, to help us stay healthy mind/body/ Spirit. Esoteric perhaps, but practical as the joy and healing flowers offer in their splendiferous variety. My path has, in recent years, brought me to work in healing Circles with women who want to learn about the many faces of the goddess and support HER higher qualities within, as well as share these virtues with all. In this light, I facilitate “Goddess Circles” each month in my home. Each month, I introduce a different goddess to the Circle… to be embraced - and HER higher qualities (fearlessness, nurturing, powerful, mystical, ritualistic, sacred, healing) identified and emulated in order to create more meaning and connectedness in our lives. More peace within. Without.

In the few years I have been leading the Goddess Circles we have “met” The Snake Priestess from Crete, Kalima from India, Tara from Tibet, Mary Magdalene, Astarte, Inanna, Sheela Na Gig, Athena, Isis and many divine others. We will meet many more in time and no-time, wearing the iridescent colors or the darkest inky black, as well as the uncompromising nakedness, SHE wears, taking healing essences of flowers to support our visions, doing rituals and ceremonies, as it ever was, to bring HER more and more to the Earth plane where SHE is so much needed NOW.

I feel HER inside me. When I aspire to be beautiful and magical, compassionate, one who can listen, aware of the Earth as a living being, patient and kind, giving and loving, connected to others, mystical and sparking, creative, transformational, skin-shedding, inspiring and powerful…it is SHE that I AM. And I am so very grateful to the brave and fun-loving goddesses who share this journey of celebrating and BECOMING with me. Now it is to take the sharing a step further, to offer this blog space for sharing ideas and insights and practices, communicating, interacting, voicing, and creating a dialog about the nature of the divine feminine as SHE manifests in US. So please bring your truths and visions to this forum and feel the freedom and creativity of HER. A WOMAN.

I AM A HOLY BEING

I AM A LIVING GODDESS

The Hermit

2008-03-06T21:35:00.005-05:00

Card Number 9 in the Traditional Tarot

Photo taken by Linda on a trip to Delphi, Greece in October 2006
(Click image to enlarge)

Most typically, card number 9 in the Major Arcana is a picture of The Hermit. He is a solitary traveler holding up a bright lantern to light his way in the darkness before him.

This is a glyph of one who has traveled long and far and accumulated much wisdom on the sacred path of life. He is a wayfarer positioned between card number 8, Justice/Balance, and card number 10, The Wheel of Fortune.

Before moving forward to take our chances on The Great Wheel, the position of card number 9 represents knowledge gleaned through the stages which have preceded. We now find a seeker who holds high the light. With the light he has come to internalize (represented by the lantern he carries), and casting this light before himself…he will soon move forward onto the wheel of life to meet his fortune.

While The Hermit symbolizes one who is solitary on the path, this is a stage we all must move through (as are all the “characters” of the Major Arcana) on our evolutionary paths. While knowledge can be acquired in many arenas in life (stations of The Tarot), the wisdom of The Hermit has come from ascending the dark passage ways that have led him to this alone, but necessarily lonely, place. He is stepping forth into a new place guided by the light he raises before himself… the inner light he has developed and now shines to illuminate the apparent darkness which will soon dissolve into the light of his wisdom and lead the way for him to move forward.

Justice

2007-12-09T20:32:00.006-05:00

Card Number Eight in the Traditional Tarot

Photo taken by Linda on a trip to Delphi, Greece in October 2006
(Click image to enlarge)

Card number eight –turned on its side, an infinity symbol- in the traditional Tarot is Justice, sometimes called Balance. Most typically Justice is portrayed as the glyph of a woman holding the cosmic scales, weighing the two sides, balancing extremes, blindfolded, without judgment nor distraction She measures the tides of change, the only constant in the Universe, the law of motion. Everything is in luminous motion, ebbing, flowing, flowering, shifting, so there is never stasis in The Absolute.

Karma. Action. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. All in Creation is ever changing, flowing, attempting to balance extremes and return to the illusory ideal of a center point of balance, equilibrium. That Justice is a woman suggests She is fair and She is most able to do her mission of creating balance within The Cosmic Law.

In The Secret Dakini Oracle by Nik Douglas and Penny Slinger, card number eight is represented as Kumari, The Living Goddess, “signifying perfect balance through positive channeling of power, culminating in spiritual evolution.” Kumari is an aspiration we all may have…to alchemically blend the facets of ourselves -mental, emotional, spiritual and physical- so that we may embody our “highest” (most loving and compassion) Selves in the evolutionary process of moving toward enlightenment. Toward genuine compassion. As enlightened Beings we may experience the Oneness that WE ARE.

The Chariot

2007-07-13T22:35:00.004-04:00

The Chariot - Card 7

Photo: Old Town Rhodes, Greece, May 2007
(Click image to enlarge)

The Chariot Driver moves forward in progress by holding to the middle way, unswayed by strong pulls to extremes which are ever present in the force field. Life is movement, flow, change; evolutionary growth is the imperative. It is only through this fixed law of motion and change that we grow and reach our highest destinies. It is the mission of The Chariot Driver to stay the noble course through determination, focus and expertise. Having passed through the initiations of the previous six major arcana cards, most recently The Lovers and thereby acquiring the awareness and responsibility of conscious choice, the aspirant must ride, unwavering, in the truth he/she has thus far learned on the path of evolution.

Seven is a number of progress and a number of man’s achievement through skillful means. “The Chariot represents progress, achievement, leadership, refuge, and safety…placed as it is next to Card 6, Love, it emphasizes that the only safe foundation for any progress is an understanding of the force called love. By keeping in tune with this Force our progress is limitless. Progress by love means roughly a society based on the consideration of the individual…Card 7 combines the qualities necessary for successful leadership - courage and ruthlessness - in dealing with outworn prejudices, vested interests and similar blocks.” (Evolution Through the Tarot, by Richard Gardner)

Riding ever forward, with the animal forces of nature carrying him/her as the wheel of life in motion, The Charioteer must take what has been learned through hard work and “mastery” and carry it to the next level of manifestation, Card 8, Justice.

The Lovers

2007-04-18T10:32:00.001-04:00

The Lovers - Card 6

(click image to enlarge)

The Tarot revels itself, a circle of the soul’s evolution from our innocent open Godlike nature (The Fool), through the sequential energy forms which follow in specific order, full round to The Universe or World (Card 21) and is ultimately reborn into The Fool again. These archetypical images or superconscious symbols have come down through time, a full esoteric system for self-revelation and insight into the deeper workings of life’s Mysteries.

Card 6, The Lovers, represents CHOICE and is a major departure from the rites and initiations of the previous five major arcana card/forms. In most traditional decks, the image is of a young man with two women, one on either side of him. Through the young man’s posture and body language and gaze, it is clear he has chosen the one woman he FEELS (like a charged magnet) is right for him, his LOVER…..where he prepares himself for the next stage/ card 7, The Chariot.

This is a heart choice and knows no reason nor purpose nor design other than the complete and selfless blending of two energy forms into ONE – an entirely new BEING born of the mysterious alchemy of love on this high vibrational level (many choose love for the “wrong” reasons, many cannot feel their heart’s true call, yet).

Love as choice, conscious SEX and the benefits thereof, along with the divine rite of passage to a “higher” or more fully expressed “energetic form” – The Lovers represents a major evolutionary step forward in the circle of life/soul… the I becomes WE and the WE becomes a generator for bringing/transmitting more “LOVE” into universal being on all levels. Fire and Water blend, weave, intertwine, where consciousness expands and love radiates from “them” for all to feel and enjoy the benefits of this highly charged essence. Love is a miracle. True love is a miracle which acts as a detonating device for both personal and universal expansion on all levels.

MAY WE ALL COME TO THIS STAGE AND FULLY APPRECIATE ITS DIVINE MAGIC, MYSTERY AND FREE-FLOWING JOY ESSENCE.

The photo of 2 yellow crocuses was taken by Linda Cohen when visiting Delphi, Greece, October 2006, seeking guidance on her “Lover.” Asking the oracle, “Will I find true love in this life time?”

The Hierophant

2007-03-18T08:49:00.000-04:00

Card 5 of the Major Arcana

(click image to enlarge)

Card 5 of the major arcane of the traditional tarot represents a further step along the evolutionary path, beyond The Magician, The Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor… Sometimes called the Pope, this stage in the progress of the Soul represents a conscious attempt to connect with formal spiritual or religious teachings in order that the individual progress from the previous stages on the path on to the next, The Lovers, or Choice. With the stage of The Hierophant, the man/woman/seeker aspires to expand her understanding and experience of the spiritual realm in order to progress toward self-mastery. Of course on our spiritual paths, each of us will encounter many challenges and rewards and the sought after “teachings” will provide some guidance as to how the soul may progress and show there is a commitment to the evolutionary process through seeking higher understanding and practice of universal law.

“Whenever one is talking about religion one is talking about emotion, or the Force that works through the emotions. One could say religion is, or should be, a school for the emotions. …It is by the fullest self-expression that we grow. By this means we enlarge our circle of being….The crosses on the various pars of the card signify male and female essences co-joined in ecstasy, thereby giving the knowledge and increase of conscious that can come from the ideal blending of two essences….Card 5 is well placed, preceding Card 6, Love, because any earnest seeker will find that God is Love.” – from Evolution Through the Tarot by Richard Gardener

In the photo (taken in Chania, Crete, by Linda Cohen) it is easy to see the aspirant has traveled to a place of pilgrimage and stands before “the authority” to receive knowledge and wisdom from which she will continue on her path.

Suggested flower essences: Purple Monkeyflower, Lotus, Angelica, Star Tulip, Lady’s Slipper, Lavender, Mountain Pennyroyal

The Emporer

2007-02-15T22:01:00.002-05:00

Major Arcana Card Number 4

(click image to enlarge)

“Card No. 4, The Emperor, represents an important stage in male development, initiated and transformed by woman’s love, and is now in a fit state of mind and being to exercise authority.”* Some of the qualities associated with The Emperor are worldly power, honor, wisdom and majesty. He is fully a man, different from the more playful and less developed Magician. In the traditional Tarot The Emperor holds a golden phallic wand in his right hand to signify that his power comes directly from the sun. In the traditional Tarot The Emperor is one of the “seated” figures indicating his ability to draw knowledge directly from the earth.

“These first four cards (of The Major Arcana) are a representation of magical love making. That is love making of so high a quality that it transforms the parties, instead of leading to conception.”*

So we are beginning to view the evolution of consciousness through the stages, or progression, of the cards in The Major Arcana. The photo image is from a chamber room in The Palace at Knossos, Crete. The alabaster throne was King Minos’. This was where those “guests” who came for an audience with the king had to spend time in order to purify their souls before meeting him.

Photo was taken by Linda Cohen on a 2006 trip to Crete, Palace at Knossos. The throne is the oldest surviving chair in Europe and belonged to King Minos.

*Taken from Evolution Through the Tarot by Richard Gardner. Samuel Weiser Press.

The Empress

2007-01-17T19:47:00.001-05:00

Major Arcana Card Number 3

(Click image to enlarge)

SHE is the full woman, embued with the secrets of the Virgin (Card 2) and ripe with the solar penetration of the initiated male. SHE is the conscious woman… wise, benevolent, serene, knowing, and powerful of HerSelf. From the multi-elemental skillful energy of the Magician (Card 1), through the secret universal laws the High Priestess guards within, to the preserver and giver of life HerSelf, the Empress is regally connected to both Earth and Heaven and is the perfect match for The Emperor (Card 4) to come…next.

States Richard Gardener in Evolution through the Tarot, “She is the bountiful mother, the controlling feminine influence, her control emanates primarily from the subconscious level in her, to influence her mate and her young… Card 3 is of course the more complete female. Her being has been impregnated by the Solar energy from the male, introducing into her primarily water and Lunar being, greater powers of warmth, understanding, kindness and forgiveness.” We all want to feel her nurturing wise-woman presence; through Her love and care we are naturally given the foundation for healthy growth and success in life.

The High Priestess

2006-12-20T15:13:00.001-05:00

Major Arcana Card Number Two

(Click image to enlarge)

From inside Athena’s sacred temple on the arid mystic Isle of Delos, I feel The Priestess’ presence deep within my virgin woman ocean self… eternally pregnant with Her secrets, Divine Knowledge, Wisdom of the Goddess, SHE.

She who is science - of life and death - abiding calm between the ancient pillars, guarding her power, She is the crescent moon and full moon too. In pure feminine grace she waits in her turn to bestow the treasures of enlightenment upon her chosen lover where through penetration and receptivity to Her he is initiated uncompromisingly into the oceanic realms of Her subconscious depths

where the omnipotent inner jewels - the ice white, the red rubies, shimmering star sapphires, crystal emeralds of healing and new beginnings, black sea pearls which must be born through Her into enchantment for her sisters... ripen…the deep blue realm, intuitive, feeling feeling self & She….the sea of her open womb where only HE may lose himself, cool the fires of his solar burning, come, rainbow bliss wheels fountaining the expanding cosmic ship which is CREATION ---

through Her sacred gates beyond the young Magician into the full expression of the man HE IS…The Emperor… She, The Mystery, allows the full exchange of essence – as HE fully opens to her divine gifts and by this holy magical exchange does finally fully receive HIS

as SHE comes back to life.

The Fool

2006-11-18T12:35:00.000-05:00

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The Fool in the Tarot, card 22, is the full circle link in the Tarot’s Major Arcana – 22 universal archetypes - between card number one, The Magician, and card number 21, The Universe… that pure open infinitely innocent energy from which we come originally and who we really are at the heart and soul of ourSelves. Our Buddha Nature, Christ Consciousness, Love Incarnate. The Fool is the no-mind, no-preconceptions, wide-eyed Light Being androgen traveling in cosmic consciousness… meaning childlike, loving, full of grace, untarnished and free, fully connected and representative of Holy Spirit, Source or Good Will. *“The Fool suggests madness, detachment and laughter. When we are in any of these states we are closer to God than when we are in a state of reason.” This is a state of being we aspire to through childlike play, our inner child, through laughter, through conscious sex, through Spiritual aspiration. We have all experienced being The Fool in our deepest full-bellied fool-hearty laughter; when we are loving our partners or ourselves in an unconditional bliss-giving and receiving state of merging with the divine; in wonderment; in letting go and surrendering to life’s flow; in traveling life’s journey with freedom from concepts and simply allowing unfoldment. The Fool is everything and No thing in energetic frame. In connecting the individual, The Magician, to the Whole, The Universe, The Fool is the bridge of energetic Light-Beingness which brings the merging back to Source, Love, Freedom…in the cosmic circle of incarnation and evolution.

* from Evolution Through the Tarot by Richard Gardner, Samuel Weiser Press

Suggested flower essences: Zinnia, Lotus, Cerato, Baby Blue Eyes, Borage