Desiderata

You'll get your money I'll get my friends Hard living's forgiven In the end You got your troubles I got mine On a clear day I can Read your mind Oh it's like a battlefield inside You got to Give a little love Give a little love Give a little love To get a little love Give a little love Give a little love I know you better Than you want me to Inside your pockets And walking in your shoes Oh it can get better if you try You got to Give a little love Give a little love Give a little love To get a little love Give a little love Give a little love I hope you Give a little love Give a little love Give a little love To get a little love Give a little love Give a little love

Honestly, I think we read horoscopes for selfish reasons. We just want to feel like that what we're feeling/thinking/emoting is validated by someone else out there. Maybe other people out there are neurotic like me! ::Reads horoscope furiously for anything relatable:: Ah, yes the universe gets me! Anyway, this little ditty came up in my horoscope today and it's accurate as hell: Warning: With Mercury retrograde until the 9th, you run the risk of spreading yourself too thin. Write down the top three goals (max!) you want to accomplish in October, and focus solely on those. After the 9th, you’ll feel the pace pick up at the office. Since this can get stressful, make sure you’re burning off steam with regular exercise. I have been spread SO thin by social and personal obligations that I had a full-on meltdown last night. I was crying uncontrollably because I have so many great things going on in my life and I can't do them all. I want to be Wonder Woman! I want to ca

Everything is interconnected. Gratitude improves sleep. Sleep reduces pain. Reduced pain improves your mood. Improved mood reduces anxiety, which improves focus and planning. Focus and planning help with decision making. Decision making further reduces anxiety and improves enjoyment. Enjoyment gives you more to be grateful for, which keeps that loop of the upward spiral going. Enjoyment also makes it more likely you’ll exercise and be social, which, in turn, will make you happier.  - Alex Kord, neuroscientist, UCLA Ask “What am I grateful for?” No answers? Doesn’t matter. Just searching helps. Label those negative emotions. Give it a name and your brain isn’t so bothered by it. Decide. Go for “good enough” instead of “best decision ever made on Earth.” Hugs, hugs, hugs. Don’t text — touch. Read the full article on TIME.com .

This morning as I was missing Shane really hard, I stumbled upon these images. They are by a Korean artist whose aim is to depict real love. I have to say--it's some of the most real and familiar imagery about love I've ever seen. The series is called "Love is" by Puuuung. Original source and artist page .

The day before yesterday. Not yesterday but the one before that. Let's just call it: the other, other day. So, the other, other day I went to Venice Beach by myself-- a solitary ritual I enjoy on the rare weekend when I have no plans. Shawnee picked me up from my house and drove me to Venice before she went to work. We grabbed some delicious smoothies and parted ways--she to her job and me to the beach. I walked lazily through the bustling crowds of miscreants and tourists that populate the boardwalk. I noticed a fry cart selling what appeared to be traditional Belgian style fries in paper cones (served with mayonnaise just the way I love them), but I simply shrugged and smiled and resisted the temptation. I sipped on my smoothie and continued on toward the water. I sat down, realizing I'd forgotten a towel, but it didn't seem to matter. Life felt right. I felt content; I was where I was meant to be. I reached into my leather bag and, with some difficulty, pul

Just stumbled upon Liz Gilbert's recent post about travel. I'm re-posting it here as a reminder to myself that even though I'm EXHAUSTED, poor and unsettled: it's WORTH IT. ______________________________________________ QUESTION OF THE DAY: Why do we travel? Dear Ones - This is what jet-lag looks like on me, at 3am. This is what my poor innocent bathroom mirror had to look at this morning, in the cruel, cruel pre-dawn hours. Niiiiiiiiiccccceeeee. I just got home from a three-week trip to Greece and Turkey, and at 3:00 this morning, jet-lagged and ragged as all hell, I pondered once more (under the harsh bathroom lights) this old question: WHY DO WE TRAVEL? Because let's be honest, you guys. Traveling is expensive, inconvenient, tiring, time-consuming and sometimes — like all interesting things (sex and creativity, for instance) — it's even boring. You don't speak the language, you don't recognize the food, the toilets are co

Read this today and it really resonated: I feel it’s something that is always there, something you’re born with that gets lost along the way, or stolen by others. Sometimes you have to dig deep to find it again. ~Amy Lee Tempest "You didn’t come out of the womb unsure of your cry or insecure about your large umbilical cord. You came out blissfully unaware of external judgment, concerned only with your own experience and needs. I’m not suggesting that you should be oblivious to other people. It’s just that it may help to remember confidence was your original nature before time started chiseling away at it. Once you developed a sense of self-awareness, you started forming doubts and insecurities about how other people saw you. You learned to crave praise and avoid criticism, and maybe you started getting down on yourself if you got more of the latter than the former. When you start feeling unsure of yourself remember: we were all born with confidence, and we can al

I haven't written stream of consicous-style in so long. I wonder what will come of it. I remember when I was in college I was told to just keep writing. I was even told to just keep typing no matter the typos I was making. I am not necessarily doing that but I am continuously writing. She even told us to keep writing even if all we were writing about was the fact that we are writing. It seems like a silly practice but I actually think it helps. It helps dust the cobwebs that stick on our mind and clogs up our fingers; or more like, helps us shake away the self-consciousness that plagues our creativity. That was like almost a half-way decent sentence. I am sitting here today at work and it is a lovely grey day. I am listening to Van Morisson's Moondance and he just said "neath the cover of October skies" which reminds me of exactly this moment. Even though it's July. I wish it were October. I am going to get started on my Halloween costume pretty soon. Working w

If I wrote a poem; A poem about anything Would it say something? About me or my thoughts? Would it be a thing, Where people would read it And think, I know. I know what she thinks. I think she knows What she means. I know what you mean, I think. -Diana McNeill, 2015 Image via wit and delight

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit. – E.E. Cummings

I just stumbled across this old horoscope (from a couple of weeks ago). The general themes still apply (of course). Pour yourself another cold brew, Capricorn. Done and done. Probably over-caffeinating myself at this point.  This week could find you in a sleepy groove, but not without reason. Tuesday’s full moon in your 12th house of completions is sounding the call for a cleanup mission. Is your space a disgrace? Probably not since you tend to be organized. Well actually, it is a disgrace. And yes I am organized, but my room has clothes all over the place. I've been so busy and doing way too many things, as usual. Also: I have too much stuff!  But, you probably feel overloaded: too much stuff, OMG I literally just said that!   too many commitments and responsibilities you’re only halfway passionate about.  Talk about reading my mind... Hew the excess from your calendar and you’ll feel instantly refreshed. Instead of refilling the white space that creates, leave some open ti

I've sat here at my desk all day with this post open. The intention was to write about how I have so many things I want to do/say/be, etc. and how I lack any and all motivation to do so. Irony.

“To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise...Let him take a course of chemistry, or a course of rope-dance, or a course of any thing to which he inclined at the time. Let him contrive to have as many retreats for his mind as he can, as many things to which it can fly from itself.” - Samuel Johnson in James Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson

  “Let everything happen to you Beauty and terror Just keep going No feeling is final”  ― Rainer Maria Rilke “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”  ― Rainer Maria Rilke

“I think that it is useless to fight directly against natural weaknesses. One has to force oneself to act as though one did not have them in circumstances where a duty makes it imperative; and in the ordinary course of life one has to know these weaknesses, prudently take them into account, and strive to turn them to good purpose; for they are all capable of being put to some good purpose.” - Simone Weil, Waiting for God Image via souvenirs

do want. all images via urban outfitters instagram

Me rn. source: web

I was sifting through some old google docs and I came across a few goals I wrote down for the year of 2014. Now that it's come and gone, I feel like I'm able to see it with fresh eyes. The goals are pretty general, but here they are with sub-bullet point commentary. Focus on positivity and happiness/Seek joy and find peace After the dark, miserable year that was 2013, 2014 could only be better by comparison, and boy was it ever! I felt so much more at peace and much more comfortable with my beliefs, my decisions, my lifestyle and my existential wanderings/wonderings. In 2013 I was a scared and broken little person with a thousand questions and worries about the purpose of the universe and myself within it. In 2014 I committed to living out the words in the Desiderata poem, and I firmly believe it has changed my life forever. Read books on other religions/spiritual writings I didn't do this. Practice yoga without fail 3-4 times a week I didn't really acco

Miraikan National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. teamLab's installation: Floating Flower Garden: Flowers and I are of the same root, the Garden and I are one. 2,300 floating flowers in an interactive space. DREAMWORLD. via Pace Gallery Blog .

I'm gonna drive to Paper Source and buy myself a journal tonight. I'm feeling the need to physically handwrite something-anything-all-the-things! Let's see how long this lasts, haha. Would love to lose 10 to 15 lbs. But how do I do it? How do I actually commit to something like a real weight loss plan? I know I'm not in anyway overweight or anything, but if I'm being completely honest, this is the worst I've ever felt about myself, physically. I don't feel healthy, and that's the real reason I'd like to get out there and do something about it. I'm not an avid exerciser anymore. When I played competitive sports I was really fit. I had abs!--abs, people! Now I've just got to figure out how to rekindle that active lifestyle fire...I'm looking into joining a co-ed soccer team, I'm re-instating my holiday hiatus-ed yoga membership. These things will help. And it would be so much fun to feel healthy and confident about myself again!

My toes are freezing! Why are my toes always freezing?! I've got a super legit space heater rotating in my room, set for 2 hours to make falling asleep manageable. Yet my feet freeze.  Today was FULL. I woke up early. Earlier than everyone else at my parents' house. The house was quiet, full of heavy breathing, but eerily quiet. Baby wasn't even stirring. Brie was contently snoozing beside me in my childhood room. The room is spare at this point in time, due to changing tenants over the past few years. My grandad lived there for about a year, but now he is dating a younger woman named Sharon and they live down by the beach, which he loves and it suits him perfectly. Brits love to bask in the sun and he is no exception. Now, Andrew and Amanda live in that room because Forrest has pretty much taken over Amanda's room. So whenever I go home, I end up sleeping on the couch downstairs. I don't really mind, but it does bring up a lot of funny feelings when I do end up

I get a little tired of all the new year's related posts that surface on January 1st...nevertheless, here I am writing one of my own. Is this really just another day, or is it truly an opportunity to reflect and remark about the past year? I suppose it's a little of both, so I'll jump on the bandwagon and make a few comments about the past year and what I'm looking forward to for the next. This past year was REMARKABLY superior to 2013. For me, 2013 was full of dark, incomparable heartbreak, and in all honesty--it was the worst year of my entire life (with the huge, HUGE, exception of my darling nephew being born). Thankfully, 2014 brought with it--a fresh outlook on life, a somewhat solid yoga practice, an increasingly reliable group of friends and a real sense of community in LA, a relationship with Forrest that means the world to me, a new chapter in my relationship with Shane, plentiful travel opportunities and consistent quality time with my family (most notab