In early spring of 2007, I had a couple of perfect days.  Winter was over, I had a new job and I wasn't freezing or starving anymore.  Ashley had moved in and we had big dreams.  I was in a new relationship and in love.  I spent evenings on the front porch with Ashley, Kendal and the boy, eating chocolate cake, lighting candles and incense, walking around the neighborhood with them and talking about poetry and music and art.  I rolled over in bed one night and snuggled into the boy and said that I wanted to have a magic summer, to have a long and lazy string of perfect days.

A couple weeks later, my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and I slipped underwater for almost a year.

Dad died in February.  The boy left me two weeks after his funeral.  Ashley and I moved out and apart from each other.  The framework of my life, in the span of six weeks, was stripped bare of everything except me and dance.

And then, strangely, things got magical.

*

A week after my Dad died, I met Sarah and Maria from Gypsy Hands at Tribalcon, and twenty minutes on their massage table turned me into a spiritual being.

*

A week after the boy left, I fled to Knoxville with Dana.  We'd randomly gotten the bug to plan this trip before the breakup, and it was a lifesaver.  Gypsy Hands picked me up again and dusted me off.  I stayed up all night with Zafira and the Mezmer Society, dancing tangos and trading adventure stories while August played the accordion and sang and Onca flipped upside down on her head and did the splits.  I started to see the promise and the light and feel beautiful again and remember why I trudge along doing this all the time.

I came home and blogged about it.  Later, August told me he found my blog about the night, and that it influenced the way he thought about and approached his shows with the Mezmer Society.  That they do community-friendly jams after they finish their sets now and try to perpetuate that magic I felt to their entire audience.  Artists inspiring artists inspiring artists inspiring artists.  That, to me, is magic.

*

With nothing else to do or be responsible to, I felt an overwhelming pull to prepare for and go to the Bellydance Superstar auditions in DC.  I hunkered down, I focused, it felt more right than it had in a long time.  I felt cosmically plugged in to *something,* and I just had this feeling that I was supposed to be there and something was going to click into place for me.  Half of my family travelled up with me, I put everything I had out there.... and as it turned out, I didn't even make it out of the first round in the auditions. 

But in a lull moment, I found Ashley sitting next to a guy in the lobby.  She introduced me, and then wandered off.  It was, of all people, Maduro, an electronic musician married to tribal bellydance star Asharah.  I own all his albums and we've danced to a lot of his tracks.  I took Ashley's vacated chair and we started talking.  Eight hours, several plastic cups of wine, an ass shelf, a BDSS show and a trip to a diner at 2 AM with Ashley and Asharah later, we were still talking.

Have you ever had a random encounter and felt like a big puzzle piece chunk of your life just fell into place? Or known within five minutes of meeting someone that you're going to be best friends for life?  Meeting Maduro and Asharah was like that.

*

A week later, Alternacirque did a collaborative, and largely improvised, Art Bar show with Deft Key.  The audience was larger, despite the fact that I'd been holed up with audition preparation all month and hadn't promoted it the way I should have.  The energy was fantastic.  Lots of smiles.  The ATS was extraordinarily tight.  Cat came back for that show.  Nate snuck back into town to perform with us one more time before taking off to hike the Appalachian Trail.  There was a thunderstorm behind us, far off in the distance.

After the show, we kidnapped Chris, my massage therapist, and went sailing on the lake all night.  We drank wine, saw falling stars, listened to night time music, watched the full moon, curled up in a tipsy puppy pile on the bow and watched the sky get lighter.  I felt so free and was so in love with my life that night.

*

The next month, Mezmer Society crashed our show.  The weather was perfect.  The shows were good.  Our crowd smashed the take records for Art Bar.  Mezmer was fabulous.  We sang and danced and played music and wielded fire tools until 3 AM.  Then we ended up at the Whig in time for last call.  Then we went swimming until dawn.  I scraped my chin on the bottom of the pool racing Kima underwater.  I still beat him.  I am a little silver fish.  We slept for a bit, then had pancakes for breakfast, and I talked about classical music and being an artist with Kima and August for hours.

Onca and August have declared Columbia one of their coolest gigs ever, and keep writing me asking when they can come back.

*

In a forest for the trees kind of situation, I burned out in August.  Big time.  I cried every day for four weeks and only left the house for work and teaching.  Then we had an amazing, giggling rehearsal full of magic in my front driveway, that amazed and won over even the cops that were called on us, and a few people sent me messages telling me how I'd helped and saved their marriage, their sanity, their lives.  And that, in turn, saved me.

*

When I started pulling myself out of the burn out pit, I did a charity show and a workshop in Charleston.  The dancers down there couldn't compensate me for the show, but to my surprise, they put me up in a five bedroom beach house right on the ocean in Folly Beach.  All to myself for the night.  I walked along the water in the dark and left the windows open to listen to the surf while I had a full night's sleep for a change.

*

I flew to DC for five days and camped out on Maduro and Asharah's couch.  No sightseeing, no workshops, no real time tables or obligations aside from a performance Sunday night at DC Tribal Cafe (which was one of my best solo sets in a while, despite a hangover of absolutely epic proportions).  I wore sweatpants and kneesocks.  We watched the Discovery Channel and youtube videos.  I cooked my thai spring rolls and peanut sauce for the first time in something like two years.  I'd forgotten how much I loved cooking for people.  We drank a bottle of wine apiece and watched The Triplets of Belleville and My Neighbor Totoro.  I saw bellydancers, burlesque, drag kings and erotic lesbian spoken-word poetry at a circus sideshow bar with non-rocking rocking horses (and a cat) on the rooftop where Maduro and I drank appletinis and took myspace-style photos of ourselves with his iphone.  Asharah and I discovered we were soul sisters over soy chai lattes and ginger root smoothies.  I went to a rooftop party with a large strip of astroturf and a view of the entire city, and I took a walk apart and looked in the direction of Arlington Cemetery and thanked my dad for all the hints and guidance he's been giving me lately.

*

I am made of glass and starlight.  I live and work and love in a twilit dreamworld.  And I would not have it any other way.

My life is buzzing.  There's a dim hum of focus and excitement and inspiration filling the sunny daylight hours.

I've gone back to Whisper Hungarian as my show piece.  N___ gave me an Aphex Twin song that I'm now obsessed with.  I scrapped At the End of the Day in favor of it and have been choreographing all morning.  Last night I fell asleep with it on repeat on my ipod.  Buzzing and humming in the darkness with my dog curled at my feet.  My ipod and several open books now sleep in the spot on the bed where the boy used to lay.  I'm finding I'm happier this way.

In a burst of creativity, I suddenly have plans sketched out for Alternacirque through August.  We are happy and in love with each other and seething with potential.  It's going to be a magical summer.  Our shows will get bigger, our crowds are getting bigger, we are getting better each time.  Every month our performers come more and more into their own.  We are living lives that other people only dream of.  This is what it must feel like to be a proud mother.

I am still going to city yoga.  I love to place my mat by the open door to the back garden and practice with my long hair flying free in the breeze.  I haven't had long hair in almost ten years.  It's wavy and halfway to my shoulderblades now.  The people there are open hearted and beautiful souls, and they're inspiring me to try to be one, too.  I've started talks about possibly teaching there in the fall.  God, how amazing that would be.

My vegetable garden is starting to produce.  Three yellow squashes almost ready to eat.  So many roma tomatoes, I can't even count them all.  Cucumbers, big boy tomatoes and eggplants on the way.  Finally getting the first female zuccini flowers.  Nasturtiums and zinnias flowering.  I sat on the back deck under an umbrella with a cold soy chai and polished off a couple of books from the stack yesterday afternoon.  Every book has been perfect and telling me things that resonate.

How long can I hold onto these amazing moments?  Please, god, let me stay like this a little while longer.

I was 21 when I lived in London for a year.  I had no hips and was still carrying around the last bit of baby fat in my cheeks.  I was wide-eyed.  I hadn't learned how to carry myself or carry on a sophisticated conversation or remain cool and aloof in social situations to maintain a sort of mystique.  I threw myself into those sorts of things with the deftness and enthusiasm of a young puppy.  I wore bobby socks and clodhoppers and short skirts.  I had my hair cut in a messy pixie that I changed the color of frequently.  I wrote in a journal that I'd covered inside and out with pictures from magazines I found beautiful or inspiring so that the blank pages weren't so intimidating.  I filled it with words, notes, quotes, concert tickets, the only journal I've ever finished.  I got on random buses and wandered the streets of London in the rain and fog with no destination in mind. 

I was finding out for the first time that I could be considered attractive and be sought after, and that was a strange thing for me to consider.

I chose the dark horse.  He was 36, old to me at the time.  Tall, lithe, bald, deep voiced, earringed, tattooed, confident in his own skin in a way I wasn't yet.  He sketched and danced and taught me how to cook vegetarian meals.  I sat on the tiny kitchen counter in his flat in Shepherds Bush and swung my socked feet like a child.  He was divorced and wild and free and sad and jaded.  What started as an experimental fling soon became an inescapable vortex where we were hopelessly and overwhelmingly attracted to each other and picked at each other's scabs to try to keep from getting too close and vulnerable.  He called me immature and annoying.  I threw Humbert Humbert accusations at him.  Then we'd throw ourselves back at each other with a redoubled intensity, going to deeper and darker places that left me both exhilarated and in tears in the morning when I would slink back in the previous night's clothes to London Bridge on the Central Line.  12 stops to Bank.  Mind the Gap.  Spend the morning soaking the soreness away in the bathtub.  He saw me off on the train to the airport when I left England for good.  He confessed to me that he probably wouldn't have gotten involved if I hadn't had the ticket out of the country, that he'd already tried to settle down once and been burned, that he didn't want the responsibility and commitment and the errands and chores and weekend trips to the hardware store.  He told me there would be a time when I'd grow disillusioned with the idea of living happily ever after.  I told him there would be a time when he would feel the urge to settle down and try again.  We each turned out to be right about the other.

I went back to America a little older, and a good bit...wiser I suppose.  My family remarked frequently about how much I'd matured in my year abroad.  I said nothing and licked my wounds in private.  There are some things I don't discuss with my mother.

We still talk, though for a while we couldn't.  He sent me yellow roses once in the year after I returned to New Orleans and I deposited them directly in the trashcan.  Time has passed and faded a lot of the old hurts, though I think I still bear the scars.  Sometimes I catch him online in the mornings before I go to work.  We check on each other from time to time, he commenting on my pictures and videos, me watching him change his mind about settling down again after all.  She's another dark, long-limbed, long-nosed, pixie haired girl who takes portraits of herself every day.  They've moved into his old flat in Cambridge and blog about clearing brambles from the garden.  I'm not the unspoiled girl I was when I met him anymore, the fresh canvas he could doodle on and wreck at his leisure; I'm all grown up, with all the experience and comfort and strength and scars and baggage and cynicism that goes along with it.  I get the impression sometimes that he still thinks of me as the young girl I was, and wonder what he would think if he saw me now.  If he'd even recognize me, my hair longer, my face thinner, my hips wider, my eyes blazing, my shoulders back and my body carrying the burden of the disasters I've shouldered and survived.

I've made a lot of safe choices in long-term partners since then, feeding upon them like a vampire, stealing bits of their stability and grounding for my own purposes, playing house and settling down for the long-term.  I've loved them dearly, but never in the all-encompassing, soul-baring, self-destructive way that I loved him.  Neither choice has panned out into the marriage and house and kids that I've always kind of planned on for whatever reason, and I'm at a loss as to what to try now, aside from yoga in an effort to ground myself on my own without preying upon a romantic partner, massage work to leech out the old traumas in a metaphysical bloodletting.  I am much changed these last three weeks.  More comfortable with the idea of living for myself and working on myself.  Less sure through and through of this person I'm becoming.  I feel suddenly older.  I don't mourn for my last relationship very much anymore.  I catch little flashes of him lurking around corners and in crannies of this house: rolling over and looking at me in the morning with the sunshine pouring through the window, or standing in the doorway in the kitchen in his boxers and a t-shirt, the strength and stockiness of his arms.  They feel foreign and detached and strange when I come across them.  He's hiding from me and from the destruction he's wrought, which is making it easier for me to forget the love I thought I had for him.

He hadn't been gone two days when new suitors started tiptoeing closer.  They email and call and text message me three at a time, causing me to juggle and work to keep the threads of conversation straight.  I'm not sure what to do with any of them.  I half-heartedly try them on for size in my head and shrug.  One is as lost and down as I am, and he's the one I go to occasionally when the emptiness of the house and the stress of limbo and transitions gets to be too much.  We stay up all hours of the night watching independent films, elbows and feet slowly getting tangled, both of us understanding the devastation in the other.  I stay the night or return home with the same amount of indifference.  Mostly I muster up enough motivation to return home.  We're tiding each other over and I think we know it.  Ashley's asked me once where I've been.  I told her "out," and she didn't press the matter further.

This is the last week living in this limbo where I've been abandoned.  Ashley's already moved out, Bradley's snuck in while I've been at work and taken everything but a few pieces of his furniture.  I plan to get my stuff out of the house this weekend, trading this limbo for another where I hunker down and wait and see where I'm supposed to go next.  I suppose it's preferable.

Somewhere on the streets of London, the ghost of my young self is still wandering, unbroken, idealistic, optimistic, having adventures, brimming with possibilities and potential.  It makes me feel better to think she's still out there, out of my current sight, possibly waiting for me to rediscover her in the future.

When I was about sixth grade or so and going to middle school in Savannah, GA, my social studies teacher made us do a unit on the pilgrims.  She put us into groups and handed out a worksheet with a list of twenty or so objects of various levels of practicality and necessity.  We were to pick eight items from this list that we as pretend pilgrims would bring with us on the long journey to America for use in our new lives in the new world, and we would rate them in order of importance.  Some of them were no brainers-an axe, blankets, flint, etc. etc.  I got into a pretty heated debate with the rest of my team about the last slot.  They insisted on taking a Bible.  I thought it more prudent to bring a shovel.  This being the Bible Belt, I was quickly and overwhelmingly outvoted.  In fact, my group, and every other group, put the Bible first on their list.  What's more, the teacher overheard me, and publicly shamed me by recounting my heathenish argument in front of the entire class, eliciting gasps from most of the students.  Somebody stole my bookbag and threw it in a mudpuddle later that day.  I don't recall exactly, but I may also have been stuffed ass first into a trashcan.

I wasn't a very popular kid, it turns out.

My agnosticism started pretty early.  My parents and older sisters are all various stages of lapsed Catholic, and for some reason it just didn't take with me, or with my younger brother.  My mom raised us on the principle that we learn to think for ourselves and make our own decisions about anything and everything, which means she has to accept it when we run off and think for ourselves and make decisions that she can't fathom.  She's pretty patient about it, luckily.  I'm pretty damn cynical when it comes to spiritual issues.  Nothing has ever called to me or spoken to me, and though I respect many aspects of most religions, faiths and ideas, I take great pains to stay away from anything organized.  Christianity, Judaism, Islam, most religions really, have incredibly beautiful sentiments and ideas, but I'm sometimes irked by what a few people do in its name.  So I've muddled on in my life without it.

Then my father died two months ago.  My dad was larger than life.  He grew up all over the world.  He flew blackhawks and spoke six languages and got into firefights in back alleys with terrorists as a dayjob.  His strengths lay in organization and getting people to adore him and follow him while he turned things around.  It seems a logical step that someone that had such power in life will go to the other side and immediately start throwing his weight around over there, too.  I didn't really have any opinion or beliefs on life after death or heaven or hell or any such things until recently, but I swear that dad's spirit is a 900-pound gorilla wreaking the chaos in my life at the moment.  I'm not sure yet whether to be pissed off or grateful for all of this.  It's a lot of both right now.

I've noticed before some strange and fortuitous impulses and decisions and events that change the course of my life, and recently this has all gone into overdrive and seems to have dad as an impetus.  I don't dream of him or talk to him like the rest of my family does, but he's talking to me through other people.  Massage therapists specifically.  I've mentioned my experience with the girls at Gypsy Hands before in my blog, and I've said that I think meeting them is going to be an important event, possibly a turning point, in my life.  Dad's been passing me messages through Sarah.  That he's around.  That he's protecting me.  That he's cleaning up a few things for me while he's at it, and that I'll get to do the whole soulmate love partnership thing sometime in the future and not to worry about it.  She's not the only one, either.  I swear there must be a sign on my forehead that says "THIS CHICK IS GOING THROUGH A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING, GIVE HER GUIDANCE" because people are stopping me on the street and emailing me in droves.  It's eerie.  Meanwhile, in one fell swoop I've lost my boyfriend and my house and been freed of my responsibilities to take care of other people and pay rent and afford groceries.  Not exactly what I thought my summer would be like, but I'm stuck on this rollercoaster with no choice but to ride it out.  It's not like I can get off and unsee and unhear all of this stuff when the universe is hitting me over the head with a giant, neon mallet.

It's ridiculous when I listen to myself.  I'm setting off my own woo-woo meter.

My body's been holding stress again.  Knoxville is four hours away, and I can only go up there so often to get my reset button pushed at the Gypsy Hands studio, especially on a starving artist's budget and a rickety jeep with 200,000 miles on it.  I emailed Chris, a casual friend here in town who specializes in massage therapy for injuries, and begged him to squeeze me in for an hour if he could.  He called me on Monday and scheduled for late Tuesday night.  I asked for an hour.  It stretched to three ("You're a mess," he said, shaking his head).  This is not happy gentle massage, either.  This is deep tissue, soul tearing hell.  Chris turned out to be really good, very into structural aspects of the body as well as the emotional baggage behind it.  The Gypsy Hands ladies ask questions and counsel your soul while they work.  Chris for the most part was quiet.  He forewent the new agey music for Mazzy Star and Portishead (very cool).  I think he's found the key to my backpain, and it's really low down in my hips.  He found it through the glute first, and I wanted to curl up into a ball and die when he started working on it.  "What IS that?" I hissed while my toes curled.  "That?  That's all stress," he said.  "I won't know fully until I flip you over and get in there, though, but this is all old stuff."  When he started trying to get at it from the front, I wouldn't let him near it.  He hadn't even touched it before I tensed up like I'd been shocked and started whimpering.  He tried to work his way down into my hip flexors and was completely blocked, physically and intuitively.  I'm completely locked up down there, and neither of us know why. That's apparently where my stress has been going, probably for years and years, and my subconscious doesn't want to deal with whatever it is and won't allow access.  We had to give up.

Chris and I leaned against the edge of the massage table for a while after we'd finished up and we talked about what he'd seen while he worked.  He said that most times when he worked on people, he saw kind of a flat, even thought process in them.  He demonstrated by putting his index finger in the air and slowly, steadily drawing a straight line across.  I, on the other hand, am a confused and spastic disaster in my head.  He demonstrated this by taking both index fingers in the air and drawing frantic loop-the-loops in the air.  "Your brain never stopped," he said, shaking his head and rolling his eyes a little.  "You need to work on quieting it."  I felt a little ashamed of my brain and guilty for taxing his intuition for three hours.  That just reaffirmed my current plan to take the money that was previously going to rent and put it into yoga classes.  I've got to ground my ass out somehow and learn how to chill.

Chris started talking about how sometimes the universe will just clear everything out and give you a new path to follow, if you're mindful enough to notice it. 

"You've got to just pay attention and things will just start happening to you.  Random people will stop you and tell you things that you need to know.  You'll start hearing voices in your head telling you to do things." 

"I think that's already happening," I told him. 

"The biggest thing I got out of that session," he continued, "is a big message saying for you to wait.  Just keep waiting, and eventually something will present itself to you, if you're paying attention." 

"Waiting is hard for me," I said.  And it is.  I do not deal well with anticipation.  I used to sneak through the house and find my mom's hiding places for my Christmas presents when I was a kid.  It killed me to wait.  I had many more emotional breakdowns while my dad was sick than I did after he died, because it was the waiting for it to happen that was agonizing.  I ache for resolution.  When something bad happens to me or my expectations or plans fail, I immediately go into hyper damage control mode, not resting easy or stopping until I have a new plan in place.  Hence my fretting in the previous blog entry about scrambling to find my own place instead of going to my mom's, even though tying myself down with a year lease is not the best idea at the moment.  My plans and expectations are completely shot right now.  I have freedom to do whatever I want at the moment, but it's too much freedom and it's freaking me out not having a new set path and plan to follow.  I like to know every aspect of everything, it's both an asset and a fault.  So resigning myself to wait for a bit without a shiney new goal to hold up is really, really weird and unnatural for me.

"Just wait," he said. 

"Always hurts like hell while it's all happening," he added.

"Yep.  It sure does," I said.

 

Once again I'm getting messages handed to me by a massage therapist.  At least he'd given me basically what I was looking for in terms of spiritual answers and some direction on what to do.  Sit tight.  Await further instructions from God.  I spent Wednesday dealing with the light headedness and headaches that seem to plague me after getting this kind of work done.  I had another strange conversation about spirituality with a coworker that fell right in line with all the other stuff I've been getting.  I am resigned to the fact that my previously agnostic self is fully involved in a spiritual quest that is completely taking over my life.  That's...pretty unexpected. 

Today I was sore and I felt like I'd woken up in a body that belongs to someone else.  I'm tired.  This afternoon I got an overwhelming urge to take a long walk when I got off of work.  It was so strong that I squirmed around in my chair at my job waiting for quitting time to roll around, similar to a little kid who has to go to the bathroom.  I loaded C. Ray up on his leash as soon as I got home and took off in the direction of Granby Mill Village, my old stomping ground where the duplex of doom resides.  I walked down my old street and came across fellow Duplex of Doom resident Misha moving all of her stuff into an enormous Budget rental truck.  I caught her on the last day before she moves to Wisconsin.  I walked down the next street and lo and behold, Chis pulled up in his truck.  He checked in to see how I'm feeling and we talked about him helping Alternacirque run fire safety next week.  I walked through the riverfront park at twilight.  I called Bradley to work out a few logistical things, and it remained civil but strained and awkward.  I spent a year with that boy and he's suddenly a complete stranger to me.  C. Ray and I wandered back home, a few good miles under our feet.

I checked my bank account when I got home and realized the federal part of my tax return had dropped.  Rock on.  I fooled around on Amazon for a while, and started looking at spiritual self-help books.  If I'm going to go on a spiritual journey, I'll read about it and brush up on it.  Hopefully find a convenient step-by-step how-to manual on my psyche.  I had no idea where to start.  I farted around the new age tribes on tribe.net looking for recommendations.  I trolled Amazon reviews.  "Five stars.  This book will change your life and give it new meaning.  A++.  Would read again."  I grabbed my keys and headed out to Barnes and Nobles.

Being a lifelong cynic, I'd never perused the New Age aisle at a bookstore before.  I stood there overwhelmed and confused for a good forty-five minutes, much to the consternation of the staff that were starting to close down the store.  Buddhism.  Tao of Pooh.  Do the Dead Watch Us While We Shower and Other Questions Answered By a Clairvoyant.  Three shelves of books by Sylvia Browne.  Tarot.  Astrology.  Find your Inner Goddess.  I tried picking books at random and flipping through them.  "We are but drops of water, sharing energy in a vast ocean of collective consciousness."  Oh dear lord, lovely sentiment, but as a writer I couldn't remotely get through 300 pages of that, I'd gouge my eyes out first.

I fled, slinking over to the old familiar confines of the literature section.  I gorged.  Spent $83.57 on two Isabella Allende memoirs, the new Jhumpa Lahiri short story collection, The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho, and a grande soy chai latte with whipped cream.

I get it.  I'm sorry.  I've been duly chastised.  I'll stop trying to force my spiritual awakening.  I'll wait.  I promise.

Individuals born on the cusp of Scorpio (the eighth Sign of the Zodiac) and Sagittarius (the ninth Sign of the Zodiac) are ruled by both Pluto...with a secondary influence afforded by Mars...and Jupiter. Here, the bold and aggressive traits associated with Scorpio, courtesy of Mars, blend with the active and versatile nature of Sagittarius, complete with that Sign's highly magnetic qualities afforded by Jupiter. Thus, these cuspians can accomplish the most difficult things and meet virtually any emergency. The zeal of Sagittarius offsets any Scorpio procrastination, resulting in a far-reaching strength of purpose and accomplishment. These natives are frank and open-minded, perhaps a little too much so, but they usually manage to curb their egos to the simple point of self-satisfaction over true accomplishment. The Scorpio/Sagittarius cuspian is of the type that can succeed at whatever he or she might undertake. No obstacles seem to stop these individuals, save the overconfidence in their own ability. If they should lapse into the Scorpio tendency to delay, then they will compensate with the fervor of Sagittarius, frequently expending too much effort in their project. In essence, the fiery nature of Sagittarius can burn itself out when it has the watery Scorpio in attendance to act as a damper. Accordingly, fire and water should be properly separated in order to produce steam with steady and powerful results.

The Scorpio/Sagittarius cusp combination, also known as the Cusp of Revolution, corresponds symbolically to the period of human life at around the age of fifty-six, a time when inescapable changes must take place...retirement may be looming on the horizon, marriages and other relationships may be forsaken and physical limitations may have to be confronted. However, this cusp comes with a greater empathy for fellow human beings and an interest in international or even universal concerns. At this stage, many individuals can experience resentment and/or rebelliousness at not having done what they truly wanted to do in life. Indeed, many perceive this period as a last chance. The revolutionary nature of this cusp can underline the need for total reorganization if crucial changes have not yet been made. The revolt that engages most Scorpio/Sagittarius cuspians is often the battle against sloppiness, bad taste, ineffectiveness, stupidity and old-fashioned or outmoded attitudes. Although these natives are capable of exploding ancient myths, they are equally capable of reviving and preserving myths that they view to be useful. Thus, those governed by this cusp may, at heart, also be secret traditionalists.

Characterized by a disdain for middle-of-the-road politics and middle-class ethics, most Scorpio/Sagittarius cuspians would rather be either very rich or very poor...either an aristocrat or a working-class hero/heroine. Indeed, any one of these would be infinitely preferable to anything that might fall inbetween. This yearning for extremes leads many natives of this cusp to indulge in excesses, often in more than one area of their lives. Such individuals are usually well aware from an early age that they are different from other people. An unusual combination of opposities, those born on the Scorpio/Sagittarius cusp blend the sensitivity of Scorpio with the freedom-loving character of Sagittarius. Thus, within their own families, these subjects may occupy something of a lonely position in relation to parents or siblings. In fact, their assessment of their peculiar abilities and strong drive to succeed often dates from childhood years. Making future plans and dreaming up elegant new schemes (in addition to guiding a decent percentage of them to fruition) are all characteristic of the Scorpito/Sagittarius imagination and determination. Those ruled by this cusp are both goal-oriented and result-oriented, frequently displaying the same degree of stubborness when choosing a friend or life partner, whom they may pursue with unrelenting zeal.

The laughter of these cuspians is a direct barometer of their mental health. If there is no merriment within the first few minutes of conversation, then it can generally be assumed that something is awry. Those who fall under the jurisdiction of this cusp can use cutting sarcasm and derision, not only to make a laughingstock of their enemies, but to give even their dearest friends a good poke in the ribs every now and again. In this respect, they tend to operate with something of a double standard since they do not take kindly to being derided themselves, perceiving such teasing as an attempt to humiliate. Thus, an individual will never be given a second opportunity to be condescending to natives of this cusp. Moral questions are important to these cuspians. They strive to be honest but sometimes fail. They believe in being truthful but frequently cannot measure up to their own standards. Finding it difficult to be totally open and honest with those closest to them, Scorpio/Sagittarius individuals may tell only a part of the truth, which results in personal embarrassment and regret if they are found out later. Still, these subjects are blessed with undeniable charm and their well-meaning, faithful and loyal attitudes will usually lead those who love them to be forgiving.

Natives of this cusp tend to be concerned with the deeper and more focused aspect of learning. They are versatile and progressive, but can oftentimes be impatient and pushy...particularly if something is not getting accomplished in the manner they want. Anyone who would wish to change the mind of this cuspian will undoubtedly meet with trouble because it is never certain exactly what the motiviation might be. In short, those governed by the Scorpio/Sagittarius cusp are far too complex and usually far too secretive to be easily understood. Interested in thought and outreach, these are normally intensely powerful, good-humoured and generous souls. Prone to respond to the world courtesy of emotion and action instead of thoughtful practicality, they would rather experience life than read about it. They can appear irresponsible or tactless on occasion but are basically motivated and loyal individuals. Still, these cuspians are often misunderstood, frequently perceived as being dictatorial and/or sarcastic. Broad-minded and enthusiastic, there is a tendency here to speak before thinking. A cusp combination of great depth, its natives, many of whom are blessed with a daring an adventurous nature, enjoy travel and spiritual study. These individuals aspire to rise above the ordinary world into something quite extraordinary, but their suspicion and jealousy can serve to pull them down. Still, they do possess passion and awareness that could prove to be saving graces in that regard. With an inherent love of a good time, the Scorpio/Sagittarius subject is usually outgoing and friendly. Indeed, many are natural comedians, often exaggerating their adventures to entertain others. Here, the innate self-confidence may cause these natives to be argumentative and/or blunt, but their sole intention is always to learn and not to offend. High-spirited, enthusiastic and frequently flirtatious, Scorpio/Sagittarius cuspians tend to enjoy a social life. They are also fond of competition. Seldom satisfied with moving at half-speed or softening their abilities to allow those with lesser skills to beat them, personal challenges are always appreciated. They are apt to prefer solitary or one-on-one sports that will stretch them to the limit...skydiving or big game fishing, for example. They are also likely to be rather lucky souls and probably enjoy gambling, while the philosophical aspect of their character denotes a fondness for drama and debate.

The great strength of Scorpio/Sagittarius cuspians is to be found in their determination to see things through to the end. They refuse to allow boredom to turn them away from projects and are committed to accomplishing what they set out to do. The philosophical and exploratory nature of these natives makes it important to live life to the fullest while experiencing everything they can. Indeed, their great love of knowledge and exploration makes them one of the most learned characters of the Zodiac.

The most important lesson to be learned by Scorpio/Sagittarius natives is to be aware of the fact that their passionate nature can easily lead them into self-indulgance and/or compulsion. As with all cusp individuals, these cuspians tend to be attracted to others born on the cusp...particularly those who fall within the Pisces/Aries and Cancer/Leo combinations.

I forgot how much I hate being single while bellydancing.  It's not the being single part, it's the hassle you get from people assuming you're something you're not, and the scrutiny of a small town rumor mill that's bored and has nothing else to do but watch every teeny development of your love life.

I'm giving everyone fair warning.  I am not an easy person to date.

I know the bellydance thing looks exotic and exciting, but if you talk to the last three boys I was in a relationship with, I'm sure they'll tell you it's annoying as hell.  I will do my best to save time to spend with you, but often you're on your own for dinner and I'll be asleep as soon as I get in from the rehearsal that ended at midnight.  My house looks like a bellydancer exploded in it.  Yes, those are pantaloons draped on the armchair, the mirror is the best place to store bindis, and don't throw away the fake eyelashes on the side of the sink, I need those.  My makeup case is probably more valuable than your car, and I own enough hairpieces to supply a cancer ward.  You will be covered in glitter.  Period.  It will get into your clothes and stick to your face and there's not much I can do about it.  I spend time out of town.  A lot.  Workshops, performances, spiritual quests.  I will spend my last dime on antique jewelry from Pakistan.  I devote a whole closet to crafts and fabric.  I will make the same costume piece in six different colors because I need each of them.  I will spend hours every weekend in the backyard with my fire crew, and there are six or so hulahoops in the garage.  I teach in three cities.  I rehearse all the time.  If I'm not rehearsing, I'm on the internet sending emails, organizing, networking and updating websites.  And yes, I will listen to that one song over and over again on full blast for the next three months until the choreography is perfect in my head.  For you, this is entertainment.  For me, this is my job.  When I'm in costume, I'm not going to hang on you and snuggle, I'm going to be networking, greeting people, and running a tight ship with my company backstage.  I'm a powerful and beautiful force of nature onstage, but at the end of a night after a show, my eyeliner is smeared and scary and my body is exhausted and smelly and I really, really just want to frickin get into sweatpants and pass out.  And don't even begin to think that I'll give you a private show in the bedroom.  I do this for me, not for you, and I'll kick you in the junk if you even suggest it.

I'm Scorpio on the cusp.  Run.  I'm pretty smart and into everything.  I'm messy.  I'm impulsive.  I'm obsessive.  I will never be rich on this path unless I hit the lottery or inherit a lot of money.  I've hitchhiked in Germany, climbed isolated mountains in February in Scotland in a blizzard, gone to fancy society salons filled with writers in New Orleans.  I have a nosering and size four earplugs (and expanding), and I'm finalizing ideas for my back tattoos.  I hate, hate, HATE doing laundry and dishes, and will let them pile up forever for all I care.  I have very strong opinions, though I'm an academic debater and will be swayed by a good counterargument.  I'm socially awkward.  I've been told numerous times in the last year that I'm intimidating.  I come from a very loud and very close family of strong women.  They're here in town and you're going to have to see them a lot.  We're odd and talk to spirits, and the ghost of my father will send you packing if he doesn't like you.

My mother says that before I was born, I would build up tension and stress throughout the day and thrash around at 4 o'clock every afternoon to let it out.  After I was born, I had an inconsolable sobbing fit every afternoon at the same time.  At 27 I'm still the same way.  I am vulnerable and sensitive, but will put all the hurt aside, plow on through carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, until I fall apart under the stress, quickly have a cry, then pick the world up again and continue carrying it.  I know this about myself, and try to contain the explosions the best I can to avoid hurting anybody, but I can't guarantee that somebody won't get in the crossfire from time to time.  I don't mean to and it's truly not personal.  I internalise stress and carry it in dense pockets all over my back and shoulders, which I'm having to spend a lot of time, money, work, pain and personal reflection getting rid of.  Disasters befall me all the time, most of them weird and traumatic and larger than life.  I've been bitten by snakes, survived two of the worst hurricanes to hit the US, been shoved around by thugs in Berlin and watched my father, one of the bravest and most amazing men I will ever meet, die shrunken and swollen in my mother's arms.  My father is legendary.  You have big shoes to fill.  I've been in a Red Cross shelter signing up for disaster foodstamps and K-Mart vouchers, sick with the flu and wearing the same clothes I'd worn every other day for two weeks.  I've done my best not to be crushed under by such things, but sometimes I have to work at that.

I will not deal with the following in a partner anymore: alcoholism, abuse, excessive anxiety, clinginess, mental instability, inexperience, crippling insecurity and being perpetually stuck at the mental age of 19.  God, I'm tired of it.  I'll work with you and your baggage if you'll work with mine, but dear lord.  It's best if you're grounded and calm.  I am an empathetic soul and will take on and amplify whatever mood you're in.  If you're neurotic, it's going to make me very neurotic, and you don't ever want to see that.  I want a partner, not a doormat.  Please step up and hold your own, I'll respect you all the more for it.  I won't live under your shadow, either, and I'm very feisty about that.  Just warning you.  I'm tired of men who talk big and never follow through, who talk about getting into shape and being healthy but instead sit around and get progressively fatter and lazier, who talk about travelling and experiencing life but are too nervous to make anything happen, who talk about making art and doing things with their lives but who never actually shut up and do it.  Dreams of glory, no drive to do the work.  I suggest not making me the center of your universe, either, because I tend to be busy and doing my own thing.  Be able to stand on your own or I will disappoint you.  Frequently.

If you can stand the insanity of my everyday life, there are some benefits.  I am never boring.  I throw wine-soaked parties with artists and accordion players.  I'm a great vegetarian cook.  I roll my own sushi.  I surround myself with oddities and color and light on no budget.  I follow my dreams and am thrilled to encourage you to follow yours.  I throw my entire soul into everything I do and love.  You can get through to me with reason and I do change my mind without bitterness.  I'm introspective and know myself, my personality and my body better than most people.  You don't have to buy me jewelry or flowers or take me out to fancypants dinners.  I'm happy to spend an afternoon on my front porch reading books we found at a second hand store, or having a cup of tea and talking about philosophy at 4 AM.  I have long arms and small hands that can reach into small spaces and retrieve things.  That's very handy.  I learn and experience fascinating things all the time.  I meet and hang out with amazing and talented people.  I am fiercely loyal and will have your back in a fight.  I take setbacks, turn them on their heads, and create even more amazing things with them.  That is becoming a specialty of mine.

Is anyone still here?

I'm still wallowing around in some grief issues.  I've been weepy all day.

I'm going to change my hair somehow.  I'm considering putting in extensions and possibly changing the color.  It's pathetically cliche, the whole breaking up and getting a makeover thing.  I went to the mall and bought a couple of new dresses on clearance to wear out tomorrow night.  I'm finalizing plans for three tattoos, one a major piece.  The two small ones come first.

I went to my mother's house today and cleaned out the closet in my high school bedroom in preparation of me moving in with her.  I love my mother, and she is so awesome for letting me come and stay with her as long as I need to to create my art, but I'm very much an independent nester, and I have to have my own space.  I hated high school so much and it's so depressing to be looking at a room I never really felt at home in covered in high school trophies and year books.  I tried to throw a lot of stuff away and mom kept rescuing stuff out of the trashbags.  I asked mom if I could move all the furniture out so I could have MY stuff in there, and she hemmed and hawed, saying that we should wait a couple of months until I figure out if I'm staying long term, and what's wrong with the dresser and nightstand already in there?  I hate it.  I hate new Ethan Allen crap.  I hate beige walls with a white chair railing and grapevines stamped in the corners.  I hate the suburbs.  I've lived in the heart of New Orleans and Europe in houses gloriously falling apart around my ears.  I am a bellydancer that runs a circus, and I'm bohemian thrift store fabulous.  So for the love of god, I need to be surrounded by dingy candleholders, paper lanterns and bright blue sparkly paint or I will fall apart and die I swear to god.

I once went to visit Diane, a dancer from n.o.madic tribal who ended up in Greenville post-Katrina.  She opened the door of her new house in a nice neighborhood and said, "welcome to hell" with this look of utter despair on her face.  She's stopped dancing and I haven't heard a word from her in a year.

I felt that depressing sucking vortex in my brain at the thought of having to stay in that room like that, the one where your will to live is gone and artists' block and lethargy rear their horrendous heads.  I know myself.  I know that if I can't get in there and change that room and make it my own, I'm going to curl up in a ball for months and not get any work done.  The last time I slept in that room was just after Hurricane Katrina, and I went out of my mind.  I had a pretty severe panic attack this afternoon.  Hence the escape and shopping binge.  I'm looking at two studio apartments tomorrow.  Apartment shopping is pretty much impossible when your primary income is from dance and you have a dog.  But I'll at least try a couple before I give up.

And if I do, I'm by god going in with paint brushes.

My family keeps our family spirits close to us.  Perhaps too close sometimes.  One of my sisters sees shadowy figures on her ceiling that signal to her when life-changing events are coming.  My other siblings have lucid dreams and talk to them.  The dead don’t talk to me directly.  My life has so far been an assortment of exotic adventures, random and impulsive decisions and spectacular traumas that keep pushing me into eerily focused directions.  My insistance on going to Tulane, though I hadn’t even heard of it before.  My year in England.  Finding bellydance.  Hurricane Katrina.  Breaking up with Toby.  My father’s cancer and death.  I’ve woken up and suddenly known that I had to put in my two weeks’ notice on my job to study dance full-time.  Twice now that’s happened to me, actually.  It wasn’t premeditated or really expected, it just came upon me so quickly and insistantly that I had to do it or I would go crazy.  I’ve begun to suspect that this many freak occurances that put me into fated situations is actually weird and unnatural.  I don’t think this happens to other people.

Last Saturday Bradley left me.  It was unexpected.  While I had unpacked boxes and planted a vegetable garden and rehearsed all week, he’d quietly packed his things and was gone immediately after informing me that he didn’t love me anymore.  Ashley and I can’t afford the house without him.  Ashley has to move in with George.  I have to move in with my mother.

I had a pretty joyless week.  I could no longer enjoy the amazing show we’d had at Art Bar last Friday.  I smiled as best I could through two workshops, and though dancing and teaching helped tremendously, the magic of it was missing, coming through tinny and crackled on the radio.  Planning alternacirque’s next show was a chore.  So was rehearsal.  Friends were kind and invited me out, and I dutifully attended and sat there quietly.  I started talking myself through the advantages of the situation--not having to bear as much responsibility to other people, having complete and total freedom over my time, not having to worry about rent or starving or freezing this go round, being around for my mom and helping her out with bills now that my dad is gone.  I was too hurt for much of this to sink in, yet.

 

Dana and I had planned a few weeks ago to spend this last weekend in Knoxville taking a Zafira workshop.  We are also in love with Sarah and Maria at Gypsy Hands, and we were curious about their studio up there.  I first happened upon them at Tribalcon, two weeks after my dad’s death.  I was breaking under the strain of grieving, carrying my boss’ workload at work while she had surgery and preparing Delirium for the show, and I threw my back out in a bad way on the car ride to Atlanta.  Maria had set up a massage table in the vending area, and I went as soon as they opened and snagged a session.  I was desperate to hold my emotions in and get my body functional enough to get us through the show.  But Sarah and Maria knew better and a couple of minutes into it, it became much more of a counseling session than anything else.  I am one of the most cynical, un-spiritual, un-woowoo people out there, but I will say this: Sarah can read souls.  Period.  I had never met her, but she immediately knew details about my life, my family, my emotions, my personality, my traumas and my father, whose spirit she said was close by at the time (and I felt him a lot that weekend).  I ended up sobbing on the table for ten minutes while the two of them crawled over and worked on my locked muscles.  I got off the table after twenty mintues and was a different person.  It’s inspired me to a few new ideas and dreams for down the road, and I think that meeting them is going to turn out to be a major moment in my life.

The timing of this roadtrip was perfect, actually, considering the circumstances, and we both decided to make it into a sort of a spiritual quest.  Dana and I had a lot of serious and intense conversations driving through the mountains in the rain last Friday.  We rolled into Knoxville in the early afternoon and wound our way through the city to the Gypsy Hands studio.  I talked to Sarah in the lobby about my latest disasters and hurts, and she nodded knowingly as if she already knew.  "I see this all the time," she said.  "People who have a strong parent cross over to the other side often have their relationships cut short suddenly afterward.  Your dad is very protective of you, and I’m getting from him that he was helping you out with that."  I’d floated a theory to Dana on the car ride up that since I was the one in my family who didn’t seem to have the ability to commune directly with the army of dead family members that seems to hang around us, that perhaps they contented themselves with messing with my life story instead.  Thinking about it, this would actually be a very dad thing to do.  He was the kind of guy who would polish his arsenel when our dates would come over to pick us up.  Sarah and I talked about how he may be trying to clear some things out of my path for me.  I’d quit my job to devote myself to dance, telling myself that if I didn’t do it now, it’d be too late, but I still had too many ties to maintaining a house and relationship to fully go for it yet.  I’d always marvelled at people like Moria Chappell and Samantha Hasthorpe who’d sold everything they owned, moved to the west coast, slept on people’s floors, studied dance and consequently made it into Bellydance Superstars, but I could never see how that sort of thing would be an option for me.  All of a sudden, in one fell swoop, all of my obstacles are gone and I have many more options to consider than I did before.

Maria worked on me for an hour, and it was pretty bad.  My back was a mess.  So were my feet.  The stress in my neck and shoulderblades are apparently something to behold.  I felt ill and got a headache from the amount of toxins that were released into my system, and that continued into the next day.  Dana and I went out for sushi, and though we’d planned to try to meet up with Jaia and Zafira later, we both crashed out early in the hotel room.  I slept like the dead and had a lot of weird and symbolic dreams that I couldn’t remember when I woke up.

The workshops on Saturday were a hoot, though I was still feeling ill and headachey and had to sit out for quite a bit of it.  Spins were pretty much out of commission for me.  Forget Zafira’s signature barrel turns.  But it was really fun to watch and store up a lot for digestion later, and there are a few moves I plan on stealing for myself and for Delirium (with credit, of course).

I had decided to perform solo in the showcase at the World Grotto that evening.  I chugged water to try to clear my head and got ready at the hotel room.  Backstage at the World Grotto was a mess of suitcases, costuming, bellydancers and musicians, props, random mirrors.  I warmed up in out of the way spaces.  I was hit on by a very attractive man, which helped my ego a bit.  My solo was pretty decent, though the dancespace was small and the sound guy was a disaster.  I got some really good feedback and got to perform for some people in the scene that usually don’t get to see me in person.  The show was really fantastic.  There were a lot of girls from great companies performing solo that I usually don’t get to see (Teijei and Majida floored me), and I got to see the Mezmer Society for the first time.  Dear lord, are there some talented people in that group.  I had no idea Onca could sing like that.

Dana and I ended up tagging along like puppies with the Mezmer Society and Zafira for the unofficial crashpad and afterparty.  They opened bottles of wine and August played his accordion for hours.  I lounged on a floor pillow in a borrowed tank top and talked to Liam about music and travels.  He pulled me up off the floor to tango with him somewhere around 3 AM.  Onca continually danced and attempted ridiculous feats of acrobatics and capoeira.  Maria from Zafira told a lot of insane stories about her life and family.  This.  This is why I love my life and put up with the things I do.  This is why I cannot lay it down, even though it contributes to killing all my relationships and forces me into constant poverty.  Even though I’m tired and heartsick and have no idea how I will eke out some semblance of a normal life doing this.  This is why I have to keep going and give it everything I’ve got right now while I have the opportunity.

Dana and I made it back to the hotel around 4:30 AM.  We woke up at noon and had to rush to get out by checkout time.  We had lunch in town, and dreamed up new dreams and expectations about life to be excited about now that our old ones are shifting or breaking or disappearing.  I am excited about my life again, which is certainly not how I felt at the start of this trip Friday morning.  I’ve been writing again, here and in my private journal.  That’s something I’ve not done since I’ve left England years ago.  I’ve downloaded a few more songs.  I have a few gigs falling into place.  I had dinner with my mom.  My dog ran around the yard in celebration for twenty minutes straight when I came home.

I think I’m going to be ok now.