Friday, December 28, 2007

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Pluto moon conjunction

I thought it might be worth copying here a text I wrote on tribe.net, someone asked about experiences with pluto-moon conjunction. This transits happens once every 2 hundred and some years, so lots of people never go throught it in their lifetime. I did, 2 years ago. Here's how it was.

For me it was a clear rebirth of the Feminin, accepting the yin in me. I also have moon conj neptune in the 11th, sextile natal pluto in the 8th.

My conjunction was 2 years ago. I did powerful inner child work in therapy at that time. I found my inner child, it felt like I was adopting a very traumatized child, taking it in my life and learning to heal it. We talked in a meditative state of conscience, I learned I had an abandonment trauma, from early on.. I asked her to show me how it started and then I regressed in time. I saw myself as baby laying on a kitchen counter wearing only dipers, feeling cold and had a pain in my abdomen problably from crying so much. This baby was feeling utterly betrayed by the parents, like she had a compromise with them that they would take care of her, and they failed it. I was amazed that this tiny baby had such an expanded conscience of what was happening, it was so intense and spiritual. I cried alot, my body ached for days after this. By far the most intense experience in my life.

I remember the first time the therapist lead me to my inner child, and we talked, and then we said goodbye, he told me to tell her i would be back, and I did, and she didn't beleive me and was so sad I was leaving. :( She was right, I really didn't want to go back. It wasn't pretty. She was dirty, lifeless and greyish... When I gave her attention she began to shine.

Very soon after, I began to learn to love her fragility, her vulnerability which i had rejected in me since forever. Problably because of the traumatic experience I've told. I didn't like children either. All that was very blocked in me. As my "virtual" relationship with the child evolved she become so beautiful, and I become very aware of the need to protect myself more, and accept being here, incarnated. Accepting my mortality.

This process was pretty magical. there would be alot more to tell. I totally changed as a person. I began to love myself. I accepted the yin in me. And that's how I found once you love yourself, you love other people too. Automatically.

Also a week after this, I had a gastric (moon) bypass (pluto) which allowed me to loose over 100 pounds. If I hadn't accepted the yin in me, I would have a very hard time feeling ok in a smaller body. It was hard but magical and divine. It was extremely productive. I'd take pluto transits over saturns any day. =) So, don't be afraid of pluto. Think of the lotus flower. That grows in the mud, and then becomes such a beautiful pure white flower. don't be afraid of the dark. It will surprise you in a good way if you are willing to let go of illusions.


Friday, December 21, 2007

Who took the L out of lover?


More photos taken today. They're not meant to be very artistic. Check the summer archives for those. Winter isn't pretty in the islands. I'm not inspired. I'm just posting because people asked and I'm nice.
That's Pico island in the back. It still has some snow on the top.

I'm feeling sick from eating too much. There's a fruit here called araçais- you can google araçá or check last years winter archives for a photo - which i eat with milk and sugar. if i leave it in the milk for a litle while it becomes yougurt. i have no idea why, but it's delicious. and so i ate too much.

i'll survive. I wanted to translate something I got in one of those fw: emails. It says:

Did you know......
... that the people that spend alot of time protecting others are actually the ones that need more protection?


... that the people that keep others company and help them are actually the ones that need more company and help?

Fish versus crab

I found this comment written by a pluto-in-scorpio-generation pisces girl. I think she kicked ass writing this!
I've been known to defend pisces fiercely so I loved finding some other pisces doing it, and with added psychological insight from this powerful pluto in scorpio. This was in the context of comparing pisceans with cancerians.... :

"Cancer is the first water sign. Cardinal water, which means ambitious
feelings. Cancers are compulsively emotional. Piss them off, and u'll see how
fear turns into violence. ....

The problem with this sign is that they just cannot get over themselves.
Being part of the personal signs(Aries-Virgo), they see the world from the
inside. It's the "me and the rest of the world" philosophy that characterizes them.

That's why u'll see them bursting into tears more often than u'll see a fish doing it.

They're new in the water business, and have trouble holding the dam on their emotional waves. And since family is of paramount importance to them, they're the most likely to compromise of the water signs. They simply cannot picture life without spouse and kids.
Now, Pisces, on the other hand, are the most impersonal of signs. The fish
philosophy could be described as "I am the world and the world is in me". Of
course, this could degenerate into all sorts of unhealthy interpretations,
depending on the outer-neptunian influences in one's chart.

It's easy to see why Pisces is the most schizophrenia-prone of signs. After a few years of seeing and understanding everything, it's only a matter of time before questions will overwhelm u: what's real? what's right and wrong, good and bad? They all make sense, after all. U might be tempted to believe u have unlimited rights upon others, since u see things they don't, or other grave presumptions. All in all,
Pisces is death.The merging with something greater than one's self. That's why
they don't care about human ambitions. It's like Einstein, a famous fish said:
"All I want to know is God's thoughts. The rest is detail."

That's why Fish and Crabs have relatively little in common. Crabs see their family as the center of the universe, whereas Fish just wanna get the heck out of this world and into something that makes sense, and have little or no concern for human values, such as family, career, social duty etc., etc, and so on, and so forth.

The reason why they seem submissive and insecure? Well, it's easy. Life is short. And we all know leading a war on 2 fronts will kill u for sure. Pisceans are
battlefields from the day they are born. With a nuclear war going on inside of
u, u just cannot afford to launch another one with the outside. If it wouldn't
kill u, it would surely consume the little time u have on this Earth. And for
what? If u went to visit a friend's place and his dog would start barking at
you, trying to defend its territory, would u spend the rest of the evening
trying to explain to the dog u're right, or would u ignore it and go inside and
have a good time? "

I think this explains the transcendence os Pisces. I agree totally with what she says. I've said myself plenty of times : I have no tolerance for stress, I already have so much going on inside me to deal with, I need peace and quiet. i literally tune out around stressed people, i let them have their fun, but it is choice to be stressed over most stuff. Some people happily choose it. I do have a bit of contenpt for people who like stress. :P they're primates. hahaha this is my venus in cappy talking now.

This perspective makes alot of sense to me, viewing the signs in their order of evolution... in which aries are less evolved, and pisces the most evolved :P but of course this isn't like that in real life. there are a few exceptions.

Esoteric astrology sees cardinal signs as more evolved for example, followed by fixed signs.. then mutable. But then again. I have serious doubts about esoteric astrology not being a bunch of crap.

Thanks to Sandra for letting me copy paste her comment and thus further enlighten the world about us brilliant pisces. :)

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Gymnopédie No.1


I did get a cold. Some fever too, but i'm better now. Just laying around, trying to not get worse.

I'm very bored, lonely and kinda depressed. I want to go back home.
This hasn't been a great week so far. I'm crying very easily lately, but i think it may be because i'm feverish. I get more emotional. Not sad, just emotional.
E.g. I saw something on tv today about kids living in institutions, and it was nice, they were happy, succeding in school and their goals. I got so emotional I cried. I was happy. It's nice to see people that go through so much hard stuff so soon in life and they move on and succeed, find love, and direction in life. Also if my bf says he misses me i get all teary. I'm getting teary right now. Lots of emotions. I'm like a pregnant woman. Emotional rolercoaster. It's interesting though. And healthy. To get a chance to welcome emotions whatever they are. That's something I didn't do for too long.
I'm a bit sad because I've lost connection with the people I grew up with, going off to school far away. I don't belong here anymore. This isn't new. But makes me sad.
It's not like i wish I was friendly with everyone. I don't have the energy for that, or the motivation, socializing is exausting sometimes.
... be back later.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

"caccoa balls" recipe


This is a recipe I've always known, because my mother always made these. But i've never seen them anywhere else. Maybe she made up the recipe. The fact is it's delicious. Everyone loves them. My niece is undecided between them and the nanaimo bars. I'd say the latter are slightly better.
ingredients: milk, butter, sugar, pure coccoa powder (unsweetened), shredded coconut, old bread.
It's supposed to be crumbed bread, but I'm lazy so I break it into pieces with my hands. If you have a kitchen robot and can crumb it it will be easier later on.
First, put some milk on a pot. How much? Good question. maybe 2 cups, for 3 normal white breads. I don't use measures. Yeah, that poses a question on why I'm writing this recipe. I have no idea how to explain it.
Well, you melt the bread in the milk.. you can add the sugar and coccoa and about a spoon or 2 of real butter to the milk before adding the bread. it's maybe 3 or 4 spoons of sugar, maybe 3 or 4 of coccoa. depends on how you like it. stir that. and then add the bread crumbs, or pieces and stir it till there are no chunks of bread around, if you got the milk quantity right, it should be a sort of brown paste by now. You can add more caccoa now if you think it's not strong enough. Add coconut until it's a very thick paste. Let it get a bit colder, and then mold balls with this paste, like in the photo, and get some more coconut around each ball. and it's ready to eat! Kids love it. I do to!
ps- I think i got a cold. :(

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

alex the cat


This is the only photo I took today. this was my cat for almost 2 years I think. I gave him to a lady that lives in this house. And I went to visit him today, he recognized me and we played for a while. I'll see him again tomorrow.
No luck in the hegdehog search so far :/
PS. see a tree lying down in the background? that was the wind last night. My car almost flew off the road a few times today. really windy here.
I'm babysitting my 5 years old niece today. so i have to go cook something I promissed her. I'm tired and freezing.

Monday, December 17, 2007

winter in the island


I just arrived at Azores today. The weather is a mix of tropical rain with hail. lots of it. Haven't seen it in years here.
I didn't sleep today, because i had to get up at 6 am to be at the airport.. i'm totally exausted, ready to pass out.
hope to look for a baby hedgehog these days. that would cheer me up. the ones born in late summer usually don't make it through winter, too small to hibernate. I'd love to find one again.
In the summer at night, there are loads of them in the road, usually dead already :/ they are really cute and sweet. if i find a baby i might try taking it back home in the airplane. might pass as a hamster :P it's forbidden to have them as pets. they're are a protected species in europe. in germany people are allowed to pet them through the winter. but I doubt the guards at the local airport would know anything about that. they sleep all day, just like hamsters, and the babys are the same size and colour. It's doable. I'll try it if I find another baby. But after today's cold weather I hope they aren't dying as I type... I need to chill. I'll be back soon.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

comment on comment :)

I got some feedback! :) Weee!

Devil Mood wrote:
You have a point about the buddist attitude. I found
myself thinking about their search for peace at all costs many times and
thinking either that it was GREAT, or that it was just not how it should be
done.At least psychologicaly, it can't be good to bottle everything up, can it?
I mean, I know they don't bottle, they transcend...but transcending isn't human.
It's Pisces (sorry, bad joke hehe) If everyone was Buddist and tried to
transcend we'd still be living in caves and hunting, do you realize?


Waterviolet:
YeS!
The buddhist perspective is helpful to a degree. I think it's very useful to the western materialists who are excessively incarnated, are too stressed and without a real understanding of their spiritual dimension. As Nuno M. puts it "we've killed a God that we need and replaced it with half a brain" thus leading to where we are as a western culture. People are too inmeshed in their own little problems, their belly button is the center of their world, and it's so easy to be overwhelmed living like this when you're so inside things. Things which are maya = the illusion of forms.
If you try to understand a painting that is too close to your eyes, all you perceive is a blur. On the other hand, if you are on top of a mountain looking down, it's very easy to see the roads, figure a way out of the labiryinth. Detaching and knowing you are an eternal spirit on an earthly journey gives us the right perspective which is somewhat detached from the illusion that the forms are as real as we are, to the point that they could affect us, kill us (our bodies and souls), this is the Illusion that keeps people from being at peace and etc.

But other then that it can sound very extreme. The idea we shouldn't be attached to anything at all. And not suffer or feel any extreme feelings at all....

Someone said that we have to incarnate because God didn't figure out any other way to teach us something (don't remember what the exact thing was unfortunatly, but it is implied next ->) . Only when we are confronted with the tension of a polarized reality is when we have the chance to create, make something new. Be alchemysts. Be God. Make choices, create harmony from conflict. So it is important to be here. instead of just meditating on a monastery and pretending we're not here, life is not happening.

This extreme position problably has a role to play. It seems to suit some people. But I think most use it as an escape from themselves problably. To burry their turmoils. To refuse incarnation. Not the buddhists from the orient, I have a feeling they are spiritualy mature enough to have figured how to balance both spiritual and material dimensions. But westerners. new agers have this problem. And problably some of the message of the orient has been lost in translation, westerners can't be expected to do any better if that's the case. We'd do well to keep to our own religious traditions perhaps. I think we don't because we have emotionally and intelectually developed some aversion to it. Another bad consequence of attachment. The orient seems pretty cool to me. But it is a hugely different culture that would take a lifetime for us to understand. The translation problems are inevitable. Plus they're not always too keen on letting westerners learn about they're culture, as people who have learned Reiki might have heard. And they are right......I feel divided thinking this. because i understand both sides. orientals being aware westerners will mess it up because they don't have the ability to really understand what they're about, on the other side, westerners being fascinated by oriental wisdom and being so tired of their own spiritual traditions, having had a too personal bad experience with it most times. Even when orientals want to teach, like the Dalai Lama, it's still hard to translate a culture. Especially to new agers.... which are very eager but not very willing to dig deep, too used to instant and superficial things. These are mostly wounded and tired people looking for (instant) illumination. I don't blame them, but all this doesn't amount to a great situation in the spiritual scene these days. I won't get into that. I think I embody new agers, totally, I empathize and I understand we are expressing a phase in the spiritual evolution of society. I honestly don't see a better way to do this then to be a new ager. Which I could define as someone opened to new ways of thinking, curious, spiritualy famished, and not used to old, ancient cultures and languages, making them not too aware of the context of things and they're full meaning. But it is this openness, and inherent confusion, that will lead to whatever good will come in the future. It's the age of Aquarius. Aquarius is co ruled by saturn. That's what's lacking in us new(uranus) agers (saturn). :)
structure...discernment, that only comes from wisdom and experience. This is too new yet.

Spirituality can be an escape just as drugs and alcohol are, if that's what you want it to be. Depends on what people look for. Truth/direction/purpose or easy escape/instant confort/glamour goals. Don't want to use "ego goals", as that makes ego sound like a bad thing and I don't think it is at all. Having an ego is being incarnated. As I've been mentioning in these lasts posts and comments to posts, this is something I think I need to learn in this lifetime, to be here, be incarnated, be here in body mind and emotions. feel things. react to them. have boundaries. So I have alot of respect for people that do this well.

Doing this well is the basis for a healthy/solid personality structure. I notice lots of saturn words here :) boundaries, structure, respect, learning. Definatly being incarnated is about being saturnized.

The following is is from http://www.astro.com/mtp/mtp12_e.htm


"When Mind and Body are combined, they form the cross of matter"




Both jupiter and saturn have this cross and have the curve that symbolyzes the soul. But jupiter has the soul on top of the cross, and saturn has the cross on top of the soul:



"The symbols for the next pair of planets, Jupiter and Saturn, concern the
relationship between the soul and body. With Jupiter, the soul is elevated
over the cross of matter, signifying the importance of finding a meaningful
connection (soul), ‘something to live for’ in the manifest world. Jupiter
frees the soul from the dominance of matter. With Saturn, the cross of
matter is elevated over the soul, signifying that the soul’s yearnings must
be given shape and form within the limitations of existence in time and
space"
Being incarnated is partly about being limited in time and space.
The symbols are really fascinating, aren't they?


Symbols are complicated things since, as Jung observed, they can never be
fully interpreted - they can only be experienced. Symbols transcend the
split between the rational and the irrational, the known and the unknown.
in Astro.com

Saturday, December 15, 2007

"Water can fLow, water can crash, be Like water, my friend " - Bruce Lee

Dear blog,
I don't have much to say. I could use someone to chat now.
I miss intelectual stimulus. I got some from all these videos I've been posting lately.
I made stupid O'reilly my pet peeve this week. He's a great pet peeve. He's a caricature of a bad plutonian, when pluto people aren't smart or sensitive they act like him.
I take some solace knowing there are smart sane people in the world, facing people like him.
I guess he's my shadow, if he gets to me this much. It's conforting to watch him over and over and figure his M.O. , because there are too many people in the world like that. I've known my share of them and I tend to just keep away from them, or if that isn't possible, let them beleive they are getting they're way. I transcend things too involuntarily to be able to get into ego fights like they do. But I wish I didn't sometimes. Because it is a real thing. There is alot of power getting thrown around, and ending up in the wrong hands due to it. So I live vicariously through this videos of people kicking o'rilley's ass. Poor devil.
The importance of the polarized vision of the world is sometimes underrated by buddhists and new age people. Sometimes the best thing to do is to be incarnated and live things totally, get mad, explode, tell people what we think and feel about what they do and say. If you just transcend, you'll feel at peace, feel slighty like a martyr, but that's such a well known feeling by now, and then misunderstandings happen, because you don't comunicate. People don't know who u are, they don't know where u stand, they just project whatever crap they have inside onto you because you do such a great job being a hollow mirror to whatever reality is at the moment. You adapt to everything. But it does hurt alot. to have people not understand you at all, project crap in to you and you have no idea how to defend yourself because you never practised it before. And then u feel alone and depressed. This is the life of a mutable, transcendent person (A pisces, in other words). Some people are too much the other way around. Both extremes are bad.

I'd like to talk about my saturn transits. Except they're not extremely insightful. It's a a saturn in the 7th, relationships... so that's my lesson in life these couple of years. I've found a stable relationship and am happy feeling attached. Feeling somewhat stuck, compromised. It feels doable now. I'm learning to not expect alot from people. And just expect my boyfriend to be the caring respectul sometimes loving person he is, in whatever spare time he has. I don't get intelectual stimulus in this relationship. He's pretty smart, it's just we don't think about similar things. I'm learning to be ok with that. That is the one thing that makes me passionate about someone though. But I can get that in other people. These are my saturnine thoughts. They're pretty benevolant I think, compared to what I expected. I am happy :) I get joy from his familly, i like being connected to them. I like the perspective of having a stable caring person beside me, even though part time, and partly invested. That how I feel things are. All the bad things in the relationship I understand why they are there! What they are trying to teach me. I guess this is the joy of having spent a life working on understanding the meaning of life. :) Now that i do, it bears fruit. Wonderful fruit. I feel prepared for this. So far. I dread falling in love with someone else though, and having to choose between that and what I have now. I feel like the old lady in Titanic, Rose, saying women hide many secrets... meaning her true passion. I feel I might very well become her. This isn't depressing to think though, it's pretty good. I am wise enough to choose stable real love over a fantasy passion. Long lasting love is a consequence of lots of work, patience, comunication, and just hanging on through things. Isn't that how we deal with life on our own? Why would love be so different, so magical all the time, like in fairy tales. That's not real. I beleive people can be passionate and in love, but I might never find that, and it's ok. I'm very thankful for what I have. It's more then I expected. And i'm learning about this everyday now.
I'll be having jupiter conjunct my venus in march. Loads of relationships, good ones, will come. I might have to live up to my words then. I know for sure I will have to face this choice love/routine vs passion/fantasy many times during life. This is what married people do, right? I'm a venus in capricorn trine saturn in the 7th. If I don't do it right, who will? :)

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Pisces-Tuesday, 12/11/2007

God bless Chris for saying this.

Monday, December 10, 2007

synchronicity, lack of

I love coincidences. They are supposed to be divine interventions. I beleive that. We don't always figure out why they happened, but most times we can and do.
I've been paying attention to syncronicities for a couple of years now, and it always makes me feel it's a God thing happening.
The problem is I haven't had that feeling of Godly orientation, divine order, for some time now. I thought it was a neptune transit... I'm in the fog. At a time where I need to make big decisions about my life.
But problably the point is to get into myself, meditate. and not look outside for orientation.
This is hard because I'm not a real meditator. I get distracted, bored, sleepy. Sometimes I do get orientation, but maybe 20% of times..

This would be a great time for an angel to show up in my room and tell me he has a message from God.... "This is what the God in you wants Viviana's life to be about, and here's how you do it: first blablabla..." That would be precious. I'm tired of subtle hints. I need more faith. And guts.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Recipe canadian squares


On a more mundane level, I'm now posting this recipe. It's a dessert. I know it's a canadian dessert, because the 2 women I saw doing this both had lived in Canada for many years. [post scriptum, it's now 2 days after I posted the text outside the [...] and thanks to Kashmiri, I now know these are called Nanaimo bars, after a city in Vancouver, how cool is that! I made some more again today, they're a hit]

I made this recipe today.

The ingredients: one and a half or two packs of cookies, a simple kind of cookie (Bolacha Maria for us in Portugal), a pack of butter (real butter) , 2 cans of condensed milk, 1 pack of shredded coconut, a bar of dark chocolate and 3 spoons of peanut butter.

First:
-Shred the cookies into power... this can be tricky. I wrapped them on a kitcken towel and smacked it on the counter. some people may use a more intelligent approach... figure it out. It slip off my hand and went all over the kitchen, hahah. I then put the butter on a litle pan to melt the butter and then put the semi sliced cookies inside and smashed them with a wooden spoon. The result of that you spread on a ......hmm.. my kitchen vocaulary is short.. well, you spread it on a thing that you can get into the oven, a flat thing. :)
- Then get it into the oven for 10 minutes, It's supposed to make it more crunchy.
-Then mix the coconut and the condensed milk and put it over the cookie and butter mix.
- Then get that into the oven for more 10 minutes.
- Then melt the chocolate and peanut butter, with a bit of water, tiny bit of water, half a cup.
- put the chocolate mix on top of the other layers , let it cool a bit and get in into the refrigerator. about 2 hours later when it's cool, you can slide it in squares, of about 2 centimeters, and they're ready to eat!
this is one of the most delicious desserts I've had in my life. It's abnormaly caloric. :D You can deep fry the squares for extra calories hahaha. :)


Enjoy.

PS- On top is a not very good picture of the squares. They are DELICIOUS! they should be cut a litle smaller then this.

Friday, December 07, 2007

(write title here)

I'm having a bit of a writers block these days. Not that there isn't anything to write about, on the contrary...
So, I think it all started with an astrology consultation I had last week...
Made me think alot. I learned about saturn. And I learned I need to find my center, my Sun. Align myself with my soul and figure what it is that I want. What's my dream. And then ask saturn how to make it happen. I had never though of saturn as my servent. And so this is shifting my world these days. I'm empowered.
I've been trying to get in touch with my dreams and needs. Funny enough unlike what I thought and the astrologer thought, I don't think my professional path will be mystical. I use the word mystical instead of spiritual, because I think everything we do can be spiritual, no matter how pragmatic it is. My life will always be on a spiritual point of view, because that's where my conscience level is at. But I might not be working with mystical things.
I'm uranian and neptunian, and plutonian. the transpersonal planets are the strongest in me. I'm an alien. Some people call people like me Star Seeds. And it makes total sense to me from what I've been reading. What I also figure, is that the more evolved you are the more you'll have the hability to fit in, to love. Instead of geting a kick from being different like uranian people do. Or getting an ego kick from people thinking you are spiritualy evolved, like leos and most people do. The most evolved people are out in the real world. either being mother theresa's or being scientist or just normal average people.
Two days ago I saw a woman talking on tv, she was a catholic, she was enlightened. Her life changed, and from her speech and the light she had I knew she was for real. There are so many paths to the Truth. Only love is real. So where is love? I want to follow love.
It's not where i thought it was. (Be a light to yourself - Siddartha ) I find that so far i'm the closest source to love that I know. I mean, I find love when I meditate and am aligned with my Source. My goal in life is to be an open vessel for that kind of love. Because it's the only thing that heals and that makes sense. nothing is more effective then that. lots of other things are more effective then being a psych therapist. I think i just need to do things that have practical imediate results. So i think I'll be happy taking a litle turn into a more medical area. Like neuroscience.
Pisces- virgo, the serve or suffer axis. This is so right.

Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats

I miss music...