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I spent my life among atheists and have come to the conclusion that it is a life bereft of mystery and richness. Those Yoruba priestess did more to light my way than any atheist has ever done. Similarly, the Zen center and Buddha’s teaching has done more to explain my life than any rationalist text could ever provide.

So today, when I woke early this morning feeling powerful from all the positive vibrations in my life, I got on my knees and thanked my ancestors who are my true guardian angels. There is no doubt my mom brought Tin into my life. And so I called on her and her mother as well as others to help me negotiate these major changes in my life.

AND I asked for multiple offers on the LaLa. I’m not being greedy, I’ll never get the $500K I put into the house back, but I want maximum profit and so I said, yeah, that offer last night was good, but I want more offers.

One of the priestesses said – be specific – and so I have. The lot – check. Multiple offers on the LaLa – check. Quick sale – check. Affordable apartment – check. Building my own spiritual home – less is more – check. The road ahead is lit by these spirits who have come to help me on my journey.

Before the Open House began, while I was straightening up the house, offer number two came in. An emotional one – they said to tell the owner “we will be good stewards to your house” – I pray that the person who moves in, appreciates the seven years of my life I gave to creating that vision.

Why believe anything else? I have seen what’s possible.

I went to pick up Tin from his playdate and my friend said that she got her house by asking for it – someone spoke to her and she responded, I want to live on the bayou and done. She bought her house for $150K on the bayou years ago. Her prayers were answered.

My challenge has been having the clarity to know what to ask for – now that those prayers have been answered – I am being very specific and the cosmos are listening.

At the end of the day, atheism bores me, and lacks the richness of a world where ancestors who have passed, step in and help you along the journey. As my Yoruba priestess says, “I was all up in Jesus, but Jesus is sort of boring, give me Yemaya, Oshun, Eligua, and the pantheon of ancestors who hold you up.”

What a lovely reminder that fear is NOT our natural state of being. It is not who we really are. Our work is to unlearn the lie and uncover the truth. (HBW)

“Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we have learned here. The spiritual journey is the relinquishment – or unlearning – of fear and the acceptance of love back into our hearts.” – Marianne Williamson

It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
– James A. Baldwin

A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

writer’s block

PRONUNCIATION:
(RY-tuhrs blok)

MEANING:
noun: A usually temporary psychological inhibition preventing one from proceeding with a piece of writing.

ETYMOLOGY:
After the term ‘block’ or ‘blocking’ used to describe obstruction in mental processes resulting in an inability to do a certain task. Earliest documented use: 1950.

NOTES:
The writer’s block has been described as the situation when your imaginary friends won’t talk to you. But this condition is not limited to fiction writers or even to writers. Here’s the composer Rossini’s advice on this matter:
“Wait until the evening before the opening night. Nothing primes inspiration more than necessity, whether it be the presence of a copyist waiting for your work or for the prodding of an impresario tearing his hair. In my time, all the impresarios in Italy were bald at thirty.”

“I want you to always be here.”

I woke this morning at 3:45 – the joy of now trying to scramble the details together. Last night, after I was already in bed I received an offer on the house, less than 24 hours before the Open House today. I was able to read the Sunday New York Times that for the first time arrived early enough to do so since Tin came.

Before dawn I had a conversation with the bayou and said that it had provided me a great deal of solace amidst an avalanche of pain for the past seven years. My next view will not be so strong a statement and perhaps that is as it should be. There were many times over the past seven years, that I wanted to put stones in my pocket and walk right into that water and find rest, peace, relief.

The psychic powers of water are evident in any of us who live here in New Orleans surrounded by it. The pull of the bayou as a panacea for life’s milestones never failed to charm me. When my Yoruba priestesses took my Yemaya statue and submerged her in ocean water, I was told that putting this Ocean Goddess under water would allow me to come up for air. And perhaps they were right because I have been breathing easier instead of wishing it so.

A few hours later I saw a pelican huddled in itself and walked outside as it began to rain to see three large white Pelicans take flight and soar over this body of water that has been my view. We become what we behold.

I had grand visions when I moved into the LaLa. Instead of the two large flowers pots, I had thought of gas fires that would sit in cauldrons and burn greatly. How festive I would say to myself when I thought of my idea. How grandiose and delusional I think now in my humble state.

The lot that I will build my house on is a humble lot, narrow and long, with a broad view across an expanse of lawn to the house across the street that reeks of New Orleans architecture. Standing in the midst of that grass, I watched the young African American children headed to and from school. I thought of Tin growing up and playing soccer on that grass. Of he and his friends running and jumping contained within a (be)held scope of wonder.

My life has changed greatly in seven years. As a friend said to me last night, you have led so many different versions of yourself in the past years. And now this one is another.

Earlier yesterday, I had driven to the post office to drop the Netflix envelope in and had to spit. I don’t know how to spit. So instead of risking out the window, I opened the car door, and just as I was attempting to spit a gust came and blew the spit inside the car. I then hurriedly sought a tissue or napkin to clean up my mess. Yes, indeed, some things change, while others stay remarkably the same.

I went to sleep last night wondering about the lot – is it meant to be, was I doing all I could to get it? On the way to Zumba, I dropped a letter at the owner of another lot saying I was interested, hedging my bet. When I left Zumba, feeling refreshed and my insides nicely shaken up, I ran into the guy that I want to buy to buy the lot from, the original one, and he said, “I thought about it and the lot is yours.”

Done.

Yesterday, was a move forward and a setback in thinking. My therapist said to embrace my friends right now because I will need them, but I’ve found it difficult to do just that because as one told me, the more ears you seek, the more mouths you’ll find. Change rattles people and change is what’s happening.

May 2013 would be the 8th year in the LaLa and February 2013 would be five years with Tatjana and those anniversaries are not going to be celebrated this year. Instead, I’m entering the new year and new chapter with unknown milestones and celebrations.

And that’s scary. So when I walked over to the lot with the architect to talk about building a new house, and was confronted with confusion about whether this is a done deal or not, I felt like I was stepping back into the abyss instead of stepping forward into the light.

I went to sleep early, trying to get my head around whether giving into the everything will turn out the way it should motto to the what if I need to do more to affect this change. The Yorubas said be specific. So I was, I asked specifically for what I want. I want to trade my vanity house for a spiritual one. I want the process to be a healing one, not a stressful one. And I want more than anything to step with purpose instead of fear.

This chapter is just beginning to be written and I feel utterly alone in these decisions – yes, friends are all around me, but they are cautious and concerned about my bold steps and I feel as if I need to shake loose of old ways of thinking that make me cautious and concerned. I want instead to be the Fool and step off the cliff and have faith that the future is a new way of life and thinking.

January 05, 2013
Taurus (4/20-5/20)
The waters you are navigating right now might not be as crystal clear as you would like them to be, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that evil monsters lurk under the surface. Have confidence that all is well, because who is to say that it is not? Your tendency towards pessimism has been growing stronger, and this is something you should address today. Admit to yourself that you don’t know what the future holds, and there’s statistically just as much chance that things will go well as that they will go poorly.

The day started with a blessing, not your usual kind of eyes closing and palms together, but more of nuts rattling in an African marriage blood bowl, cigar smoke sheathing your outer layers, and concoctions of honey, rosemary, holy and sea water, rose petals and “other” things.

Whose calling you? Your mama – she wants a candle and her flowers changed. Your corner is blocked. A spirit kicked me in your office. Why are they trailing me, I’d like to know?

A friend calls, you can’t, positively cannot build your own house, you need to focus on your health. I forbid it. Meanwhile, what better way to ensure that no spirits are hanging around, pulling me down. With a new construction – only the ones that are invited in can move in.

The spirit world that is an undercurrent for much of life here in New Orleans, was out in full strokes tonight. We went to Kermit’s Speakeasy to hear Mikhala Iversen Jazz Muffins and got a nice interlude of the BabyDolls and some second line strutting, then as Mikhala was going off, a woman picked up her tambourine and played like a son of a gun. The big thrill of the evening was hearing Kermit Ruffins daughter sing two songs that cut to the bone – dear god. The three hours we passed there reminded me of nights years ago at the Funky Butt, when the Quarter met Treme and anything goes.

So unlike our pass through at dba on Tuesday night when the Treme Brass Band played to a crowd of yahoo drunks from other parts of the U.S. who had no business being allowed in any club. Which was sadder, the lead who was three sheets to the wind or the crowd – or rather which came first?

The spirits have been knocking me around all day – we kicked them out the front door and had Blacky run through and carry the rest out. We washed my head with a special bath made to cleanse me. In Tin’s room angel children laughed and cut up, he needed no remedy. My mother wants a candle and flowers – demanding isn’t she? My Yemaya statue was put under ocean water with rose petals floating in it. A candle lit beside her.

We’ve asked my ancestors to help the house sell quickly and for a good profit. We’ve asked for help with my health and heart. We’ve asked for protection. We’ve asked for clarity. We’ve asked for peace. We went to the lot and asked the ancestors if it is meant for me and money appeared, then a yes. We planted offerings in the four corners of the lot blessing not only the lot but the house next to it (lagniappe I said).

My Yoruba priestesses were shaking their booty in Treme, one turned and said, “We don’t normally end a day of blessings like this.” Betcha don’t.

During New Year’s Day lunch Tatjana got the dime. Her year for transformation. I think I’ve done enough, thank you very much.

It’s raining outside and cold, a sort of typical New Orleans winter when there is no typical New Orleans winter. Our friends visiting from Spain got to experience 365 days in only four – from humid and hot to cold and rainy.

Yesterday, before we left to take our friends to the airport, Tatjana rented a pretty cool apartment in the American Can, which means more than anything – swimming pool for Tin this summer!

After leaving the airport, we had lunch and on the way home I fell asleep behind the wheel and rammed into the van in front of me. A sign of utter emotional and physical exhaustion. The guy got out, looked at me with my beanie and bald head, and said, “No damage, happy new year.” And we continued on our way.

The next days ahead are on the surface about selling the LaLa. Five people coming today as it was just listed on the MLS. Then an open house on Sunday, where my realtor feels it will sell before the agent’s open on Wednesday. So then I will be looking for an apartment as well. And packing. The thing I loathe more than painting. Because in packing you realize how much stuff you have really accumulated and how much you want to get rid of all of it. It’s only in unpacking and rediscovering your possessions that you realize why you have collected them.

Also today, my San Francisco friends return from their cruise and are coming over to do a blessing on me, the house, and the lot that I am looking to buy and build a new, energy efficient house on. The LaLa was all about surface beauty – in the form of shiny. The next house will be all about deeper beauty, the more in less.

My friends from San Francisco are both Yoruba priestesses. The Yorùbá have evolved a robust philosophy. In brief, it holds that all human beings possess what is known as “Àyànmô” (destiny, fate) and are expected to eventually become one in spirit with Olódùmarè (Olòrún, the divine creator and source of all energy). Furthermore, the thoughts and actions of each person in Ayé (the physical realm) interact with all other living things, including the Earth itself.

Each person attempts to achieve transcendence and find their destiny in Òrún-Réré (the spiritual realm of those who do good and beneficial things). One’s Orí-Inu (spiritual consciousness in the physical realm) must grow in order to consummate union with one’s “Ipônri” (Orí Òrún, spiritual self)…. Life and death are said to be cycles of existence in a series of physical bodies while one’s spirit evolves toward transcendence.

Their spell already began working when they walked into the LaLa and felt the tension and told me to cut rosemary from the abundant hedge in front and place it on the dining table to absorb negative energy. When placed, the negative began transforming itself into positive action.

My neighbor, the nun, gave me a bottle of holy water for the ceremony today. And I’m ready, eager for my blessings, accepting of my transformation, and at peace with my transcendence.

Happy New Year!