Canvas to the Imagination

In the mornings when it’s not raining, I love to watch all the overhead avian activity, as the sun comes up and I wait for the bus. None of the birds I see are very exotic but I take pleasure in witnessing how they make a start to the day just as their human counterparts do the same.

Often there is a large flock of pigeons gathered together along the telephone wires near where I stand, and I watch as they jossle for position or preen their feathers, letting loose ones fall to the road below. Sometimes there are tiny sparrows sharing the wires, and if I listen carefully I can hear their shrill cries above the noise of cars zooming by. There are also gulls flying overhead, on their way to somewhere, and many crows returning to their daytime territory after a night in Burnaby.

The birds have shown me that humans aren’t the only ones with a busy morning commute. And I wonder if they sometimes feel as we do, like staying in bed just a little longer and hit the snooze button.

From Free Will Astrology -

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Most flowers depend on pollinators to reproduce. Birds and insects brush up against a flower’s male parts, picking up pollen that they leave on the female parts of the next flower they visit. But nature has created an anomaly that doesn’t play by these rules. A wild orchid known as *Holcoglossum amesianum* fecundates itself. Its male bits actually move, carrying out a complicated maneuver to reach around and down to deposit pollen directly into its female portions. This orchid is your power symbol, Leo. I hope it encourages you to learn more about self-fertilization–to increase your mastery of the underappreciated art of inspiring and teaching and taking care of yourself. Halloween costume suggestion: a hermaphrodite carrying a wild orchid.

The best part about this horoscope is that I AM currently learning to “increase my mastery of the underappreciated art of inspiring and teaching and taking care” of myself. Sometimes Rob Brezsny is scary.

Five good things from this week:
1) Finding inspiration in the window of a random store on Broadway for a future photo shoot with Christopher. This time I get to be the model and he’ll be the photographer. The new idea made us both laugh very hard.
2) Freshly baked brownies baked and given to me by Jamie. He says that chocolate has healing properties, and after eating most of them today, I now think it’s true.
3) Standing on the Cypress lookout with Hendrik and enjoying the breath-taking view of the Lower Mainland buried in a sea of fog.
4) Coming to a very important realization, with Mandy’s help, that has put my mind more at ease about the resolution of an unhappy situation.
5) A long, but wonderful, conversation with Travis about the state of the world, relationships, and all points in between.

“The moment you come to trust chaos, you see God clearly. Chaos is
divine order, versus human order. Change is divine order, versus human
order. When the chaos becomes safety to you, then you know you’re
seeing God clearly.”

—Caroline Myss, *Spiritual Madness: The Necessity of Meeting God in
Darkness*