Dare to be creative

Since I was a little child, I've been exercising my artistic creativity in the most varied forms. I don't remember any time of my life when I was not doing anything creative, and I was never blocked by my parents or teachers. So my creativity flourished and became part of my understanding of life. Later, when I started to break a little of the big barrier of introversion that had permeated my life and had a closer contact with other people, it was sort of curious to realize how their views of life were different from mine. Part of my difficulty in teaching art is based on my attempts to understand how things work for people who don't create on a regular basis. It is like trying to understand how it is to live underwater when your nature is to walk on the ground.

Some my say that artists are lucky, privileged or "gifted" people. But I don't think that I, or any other creative person, are really any of these things. We are just exercising something that in reality is within everyone. We are so addicted to the feeling of happiness and realization that comes from the act of creation that we want more and more - I, for instance, wake up thinking about art and go to bed thinking about art.

There are no “creative” or “non-creative” people. All of us are creative people. Creativity is nothing that people cannot develop and exercise themselves – because, as sons and daughters of the Creator, that's our intrinsic nature. It is just that the second type probably had few or no chances to develop their creative beings as a natural thing. We go to school and we learn that math and history are more important that music or fine arts, because they are things of the intellect and arts of the perception, and since intellect is more important than feelings, therefore the arts are not really important. Artists are just those lunatics that make beautiful things to hang on our walls or put some sounds together to help us relax in the end of a stressful day. Nothing really important like money or a nice house and a car, or like science or engineering, those things, you know, that build and make the world you live in "work". Some people even say that creating art is not even a real job.

Oh, the world. That wonderful, comfortable, sick world of people fragmented and unaware of their own emptiness. That same people who learned so efficiently how to maintain the status quo are the same ones that know few or nothing about themselves. The same ones that look for a God somewhere over the rainbow and are unable to realize that He is in fact inside themselves, in their owns hearts... But they cannot hear Him because their hearts have been silenced for so long that they even forgot they have one.

According to the Eastern wisdom, things like creativity, perception and emotions are seen as ways to set us free from ignorance and suffering. It's only trough those things that one can access levels of conscience that are not within reach of the conscious mind. Eastern wisdom teaches us that we must function as wholes, and not in fragments, like the mechanistic Western thought has instructed us to do for so long. What follows this deep unbalance we live in cannot be less than sickness and distance from our true essence – and from Divinity.

Being creative does not only mean to create art in its strict sense; being creative is to be ourselves, it is to let your imagination flow and bring it to the world in physical form. It is to let your light shine from within to the outside. This light ends up illuminating not only own our existence but also everything and everybody else that comes to get in contact with us. And thus our personal contribution to a world more conscious and free from old, limiting patterns takes effect. Creative people are in straight touch with themselves because they are in constant process of self-understanding; at the same time, they are freer because they learn how to transcend their reality (this type of transcendence, or encounter with something bigger than ourselves, it's ordinarily attempted through common forms of escapism, which can include things like drugs, organized religions or TV.) They become conscious of their uniqueness and improve their self-esteem and self-respect. They leave their marks in everything they choose to put their love into: a meal, a painting, a new way to decorate the living room or to make the working team more productive. They become inspiring, more sensitive to other people's needs, more empathic and more able to contribute to their world in a loving way, because they learn to recognize the Divine in themselves and in others, understanding that through that divine inheritance we are all connected.

Recycling... Organizing... Creating.

I'm going through what appears to be a recycling phase in my artistic life. There are some things that are not working as I'd like, and others that sound to me to be in need of urgent changes. I've been experiencing different techniques and approaches toward my themes and also trying to find ways to turn things a bit more organized and exciting.

At the last Lexington Pagan Pride I saw a tarot reader that warned me about the need of some changing in my professional life. At that moment I didn't realize that I needed that, everything was just fine the way it was, but a couple weeks ago I began to look at my works with different eyes and everything suddenly made sense. In fact I've been too eager in embracing new opportunities and getting involved with so many things that I've been feeling overwhelmed. And it is not bringing any good to my development as an artist - or my sanity.

It seems that Artessence will also change. I've been planing bigger things to this humble space and attempting to transform it in a real project. I'm excited. While it does not happen, I leave you with this wonderful interview with the Dutch philosopher Robert Happé (the website is in Portuguese and also the video subtitles, but the interview is in good English), which is pretty much the spirit of Artessence. Enjoy!

Studio updates here!

When this blog was initially constructed, it was intended to accommodate my insights in astrology and spirituality. I had the project in hands and mind but I still didn't know very well what to do with it. You know, I have this tendency of accumulating projects, and then I end up with so much stuff in hands that it gets almost impossible to handle everything. So I recently took the decision on taming my super-ultra-mega Gemini tendency of working in one thousand things at the same time and put my projects together in just a few places.

I used to have a Livejournal to keep people updated with news about my artwork. But since I found out that they are now putting advertising everywhere on the site, and I don't feel inclined to pay for an ad-free account, I thought that maybe it would be a better idea to bring the artwork updates here. After all, this is also a blog about art and its connections with the spirit. And I'd have one less thing to take care of, what's always terrific when you are an artist and full time mom... ;)

So, if you want to keep informed about what I've been doing and don't really care about astrology, tarot cards and metaphysical stuff, just look for the label Studio Updates on the right.
And be welcome!

ooooops!

if you're visiting this space right now, sorry for the mess. I'm trying to organize everything around here and, as you know, it takes a little time. don't forget to come back soon!

my stroke of insight

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard's neuroscientist, talks about her experience of consciousness expansion during a stroke in 1996. I found it absolutely touching - and not because of the somewhat "preacheresque" tone of the lecture. It's great to see somebody with scientific knowledge experiencing something we've known for so long, and bringing it to the light out of the mystical/esoteric spheres. Highly recommend. Subtitles in Portuguese.


Part one:


Part two:

into the fog

I am not an astrology freak. You know the type: the ones that don't put their feet out of bed in the morning without consulting the stars. I am more likely to let life flow and don't really check my transits except when I am about to take some important step. Or when I begin to observe patterns in my daily life, and then I have no choice but take a look at the sky and see what's going on.

Since a couple weeks ago I found out I was getting clumsier than usual. I also began to lose and forget things - I've been forgetting essential items in my grocery list since 3 weeks ago! My energy levels also have been decreasing. My body fights to stay in bed in the morning, and my legs and feet are often heavy and hurt. I like to have one or another beer once in a while, and also a couple weeks ago I was feeling like drinking almost everyday. Last weekend, getting ready to leave the house, I could not find an outfit that could help me not to feel "sloppy". I've been also approached by people in need of help that ask me to "take a little look" in their charts or read the tarot.

Yes, you've guessed. Neptune is here. Yesterday I checked out my transits and found out that it is exactly 120 degrees from my Sun. A perfect and neat trine. And since trines are not always the agents of heaven's grace, as many believe, it's good I start to use my friend's energy to something constructive or I'll end up getting sick - the Sun is the physical body. My experience tells me that when we are naturally attunned to the energy of a planet, its transits don't use to be really devastating because we know how to deal with that force. I don't really tend to get lost in the neptunian fog because I've been dealing with it all my life and I know the shortcuts. In my case, Neptune is one of these planets. So, I am now pondering how I can restart a yoga program (interrupted since I was 8 months pregnant), give more attention to my social art projects or simply wipe the dust off my drawing table - have not been working since almost a month, occupied with other not-so-fun professional activities. Anyway, I am expecting nothing less than a sea of inspiration in this interesting phase.

under a little construction...

Stars with Tea now is Artessence. Because is maybe a better name to accommodate all my musings on the soul languages.

Just a bit more time before changing the url and links.

Lizzie Siddal, Dante Rossetti and the one thousand faces of Neptune

I finally finished reading the dazzling “Lizzie Siddal – Face of the Pre-Raphaelites”, by Lucinda Hawksley. The book is a delight in every page, specially for who, like me, have a big interest on the Victorian era and mainly on its artistic movements. Among them, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and its romantic protagonists play a key role. I have a great fascination with the life of the painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti and by his “femme fatales”, to which the stunning Elizabeth Siddal many times loaned her face. Siddal became Rossetti’s lover and finally, almost in the end of her troubled life, his wife. Rossetti and Lizzie were the protagonists of a relationship seasoned by the typical romanticism of their time, marked by poetry, art, laudanum, religiosity and tragedy. Neptune in all of its fashions.

Lizzie Siddal didn’t have, for her time, what one could name a conventional beauty. Tall, slim, pale face and red-haired – what was still considered a sign of bad luck – , Lizzie was seen with strangeness and caused controverted feelings, of both admiration and repulse. However, for the eyes of the young painters of the Pre-raphaelite Brotherhood, she was some kind of idyllic creature. One after another they invited her to sit for them, starting off a career she had never dreamt about and that would immortalize her, as well as it would open the doors for her work as a painter and poet.

Unfortunately it was not possible to find the complete Lizzie’s birth data, but is known that she was born at July 25th, 1829, under the stars of Cancer. Incredible sensitivity, mood instability, romantic inclinations, attachment to the past – what made her to identify almost instantly with the Pre-Raphaelite themes and use them in her own paintings – don’t leave doubts about the typical Cancer temperament. Therefore, one could imagine the extension of her sorrow and sadness by bearing during 10 years the hesitation of Rossetti in marrying her. Even more painful was the experience of giving birth to a stillborn baby. Family and children are of vital importance for Cancer people, and they use to be very maternal types. Of melancholy temperament, Lizzie suffered from an unknown illness that stole her vitality and that was only getting worse with the passing of time, in spite of the efforts of Rossetti and some friends to help her heal. When in treatment, Lizzie used to go to water stations – a Cancer treatment – around England. When Rossetti was with her she always experienced relief, what indicated that her illness was probably of emotional causes – Cancer again.

Rossetti and Siddal lived a very troubled relationship. Although Rossetti postponed their marriage and had several affairs during his courtship to Lizzie, their attachment was strong and had a spiritual tone, like the one of two people destined to be together. Rossetti took their relationship to the extremes of the romantic idealization. Lizzie was his Beatrice, homonym poet Dante's beloved, and in the skin of Beatrice he portraited her for several times. But the most symbolic and powerful Rossetti's piece on the same theme is undoubtely Beata Beatrix, his last painting of Lizzie, made after her death on an overdose of laudanum.

Beata Beatrix is an essencially neptunian work. It starts with the supernatural light that surrounds Beatrice and other subjects, giving them an spiritual aura. Beatrice is shown in the trancelike atitude of a martyr, prepared for her passage into a fairest world. A nonrealistic, red-coloured bird brings a poppy in its beak and flies over Beatrice's hands, in an allusion to the Holy Spirit. In the background, the figure of Dante stands by a well, a symbol of rebirth not only of Beatrice but also of himself. On the left, the figure of Love in red sends us to Venus. Being Neptune the higher octave of Venus, and considering the intensity of Dante's love for Beatrice, I see this composition as quite suggestive of a transformation, or evolution, of the material, human love - Venus - to something purer, or most sacred - Neptune. Love as rebirth and a bridge to the heavens. And there's indeed a bridge in the background, the bridge over the Arno river, in Florence, where Dante and Beatrice lived until her death. A sundial shows on the figure nine, the number mystically connected by Dante to his beloved, which is symbolically the number of compassion and higher forms of love.

Another reading of the painting, made by Hawksley herself and that gives us another neptunian facet, is curious and pretty much disquieting. What the fantastic dove is carrying in its beak is nothing less than a poppy - a symbol of death and sleep, but also the source of opium. Beatrice/Lizzie's ecstatic attitude can be interpreted as the one of an addict, the kind of sensation they experience, unconsciously seeking for the neptunian peace of the primeval waters...

However, the most disturbing in the making of Beata Beatrix is its "supernatural", premonitory character. Some scholars may think that that was a piece painted after Siddal's death, as some kind of tribute, but the truth is that Rossetti started it before his wife's overdose on laudanum and consequent death. As we know, the psychic and mediumistic are also Neptune dominions. Later, Rossetti describes the work as "not as a representation of the incident of the death of Beatrice, but as an ideal of the subject, symbolized by a trance or sudden spiritual transfiguration."

Images: Beata Beatrix (1864) and Portrait of Elizabeth Siddal (1854), both by Dante Gabriel Rosseti

Cancer

When I come, it comes Summer in the north and Winter in the south. Right nine months before Aries, symbol of birth.

I am the mother. The principle of generation and conservation. I am everything that is inside, that nests and protects. Womb, cave, the homeland. I am your refuge and your home. Mother Earth. The essence of the feminine, the ying, the anima, the passive side of every human being. I am your roots, your past, your nest, the place where you turns back to when you need comfort and feel like a child again.

Mysterious, as every water sign. Who dares to find out what is hidden below my surface? But my water is gentle, my water nurtures, fertilizes. It eases your thirst. However, it can be dangerous sometimes. Be careful or I can drag you when my arms assume the shape of rapids or waterfalls.

I am the Moon, I am the Woman. The High Priestess. My breasts overflow with milk and remembrances. With open arms to receive you, here for you when your soul is troubled and your heart is hungry. You don’t need to tell me anything; I just know. And I’ll take care of you when the rest of the world becomes hostile and dry. I will even fight for you if necessary, for I am strong and hard outside. However, I expect from you the same consideration, the same love. Are you ready?

I see the world through silver lenses, I can make it a more beautiful place with my imagination. I go up high to catch stars above and know their secrets, to hear the whispers of my sister Moon. To write words of wonder with my silvered fingers. But sometimes I fall… So deep, so painfully deep I couldn’t even remember my dreams. How could I understand the mystery of being so strong and the same time so crystal fragile? Sometimes, a blow can shatter my heart in a thousand pieces. And I’ll remember them forever. Each one of them. Every piece of myself that I put together, again and again.

I am inside you, with my rainy eyes and hair covered in water lilies. I am that part of yourself that wants to care and nurture, when you scream with emotions and instincts. I am where you feel at home and protected, and where you want to protect. Where you take your nourishment from and feel safe. I am where your soul is – nothing less.

Image: Mother and Child, Gustav Klimt

Astrology and reincarnation - part 2

Karmic Astrology is the astrological discipline that relates the configurations in a chart with the past lives of an individual. It considers every point of the chart as a significant of some type of past experience. I am not a karmic astrologer, and, although I agree with that premise to a certain point (the person we are today is an offspring of the one – or ones – we were yesterday,) my opinion is that we should be very cautious with any type of system that proposes to uncover our past. With my respects to the karmic astrologers – I know that some of them do a really excellent job, - I am especially suspicious of readings that reveal your profession, sex or even the time your lived your last life. The reincarnation of a soul is the result of a complex and delicate planning, and nobody is supposed to know its subtleties.

In the astro chart, some points can be considered to have a most intimate relation to our past experiences as a soul. I'd like to bring forth the Moon Nodes, Planets Saturn and the Moon, the water houses (4th, 8th and 12th), the Moon Nodes, the retrograde planets and intercepted houses, and some of the major aspects and planetary configurations.

Moon Nodes. Probably the most meaningful of the configurations related to our past lives, the North and South Nodes (also known as Dragon's Head and Tail) express, according to their axis, qualities acquired in our past lives (South) and others that need to be stimulated in the current one (North). The characteristics of the South Node are so easy to express that we sometimes may become too “tied” to them, while we should use them positively in order to develop the potentials of the North Node. Therefore, if our South Node is placed in Cancer, or in the 4th house, it means that we learned so well how to give value to the family and the intimacy of our home, becoming sometimes so attached to the security of our “nest” that, in this life, when we feel inclined to “cut the umbilical cord” and seek our place in the world (Capricorn, or the 10th house) – and we'll feel that urge quite strongly - it may bring a lot of anxiety. While we are not able to learn how to integrate our public and private life, we may remain confused about our actual role is this incarnation.

Saturn. “Father Time”, the “Lord of Karma”, Saturn represents, by house and sign, where the results of past lives patterns will show with more intensity. It points out the nature of the main experiences we’ll must live in order to turn or karma in dharma, where we must assume responsibilities for how we live our lives. Saturn is work, and only through disciplined and patient work we’ll be able to overcome old habits. Thus, if Saturn is placed in the 4th house, it’s in the sphere of the family and home that we’ll be presented with experiences that will sound challenging but will teach us important lessons for our evolution. If placed in the 6th house, health and work areas will play the role as “purifier” of our current experience.

The Moon. The Moon is the significant of our past conditionings and instinctive reactions. It shows emotional needs and factors that can influence our emotional security, either from our current life or the past ones.

Trines. Strengths we’ve built in past lives, and that enable us to do things easily in the current incarnation. Especially strong are the grand trines, which mean a closed circuit of energy flowing easily between the planets involved and the element they are placed in. It means we have built, in past lives, self-sufficiency in the matters of that element.

Squares and Oppositions. These aspects represent lessons that we failed to learn, or that we learned only partially. In this life, they arise as challenges and difficulties we must struggle to overcome, energies we must integrate in order to get the best of them. The grand cross (4 planets in square to each other with 2 oppositions crossing them) means an accumulation of karma, or negative conditionings cultivated along several lives that need immediate repair.

The water houses. The conscious mind is only a least part of our psyche, the tip of the iceberg, while its huge, covered part is nothing less than the unconscious mind, built out not only of our early experiences but also of the register of many lives. Since the water houses – 4th, 8th and 12th – are intrinsically related to our psyche and unconscious predisposition, compulsions and patterns, they may keep precious information about what moves us below the surface.

Retrograde planets. For their retrograde nature they are believed to contain information about certain qualities that were not adequately worked on in our past lives, resulting today in a difficulty to express the energy of that planet. A Mercury retrograde, for instance, may indicate that our capacity of communication was poorly or inadequately used in the past, and today we may struggle to make verbal connections or develop our mental capacity.

Intercepted signs. They indicate a difficulty to express their energy in a physical level, as a result of past limitations. However, they own a potential of success if the individual apply efforts towards their development.

Differently from what many can say, the mechanism of reincarnation does not consist in punishment. It's rather a wise, ingenious and merciful way used by the Superior Power to teach us who we really are: heirs of life, co-creators of the universe. The Christ said "You are Gods". But until we fully develop our divine potential, a long road must be followed through many stars and many ages.

Astrology and reincarnation - part 1

As an incorrigible reincarnationist, difficult is, for me, to separate astrology from reincarnation. Simply because I see both as natural parts of life and of the universe laws. If the astro chart is a “compass”, or our “manual of instructions”, and if we are products of the choices we’ve done in our past lives, it’s not difficult to conclude that our astro chart is somewhat tied to our past experiences.

The American psychic Edgard Cayce talked about the interrelations between astrology and past lives in his readings. According to him – and that may sound a bit controvert to many - astrology does not make sense without the notion of reincarnation. He also warns against the general tendency of blaming on the planets for our misfortunes, considering man as a weak and unprotected being, totally at the mercy of the stars. This belief releases us from our responsibilities towards life, what creates a feeling of dependency that can be very comfortable for some of us – but that it’s very far from truth.

The French scientist and educator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail – more known as Allan Kardec – no doubt granted us the most complete study of the spiritual nature and reincarnation. In his body of work, books and articles composed in the second half of the 19th century, Kardec opened the definitive scientific and philosophic study about what he called spiritism. Since I’ve been a student of his works for many years, it’s based on his concepts that I’ll attempt to give you some brief, basic explanations about reincarnation.

We call reincarnation to the idea, or belief, that our spirit, surviving the material death, will return to Earth in another physical body. This concept has been shared since the antiquity by all the existing religions, being banned from the Christianity by the Second Council of Constantinople, in the 553 century, thanks to demands of the emperor Justinian. Among other arguments, it’s said that Justinian’s wife, empress Theodora, could not stand the idea of being born again in a humble life... Reincarnation is cited in the Bible in several passages, which one of the clearest ones can be found in Matt 17:10-13, when the disciples ask Jesus about the coming of Elijah the prophet. Then Jesus answers that “Elijah has come already, and they did know him, but did to him whatever they wished, ” and the disciples understood that he was talking about John the Baptist – meaning that he had been Elijah reincarnated.

Why do we have to reincarnate?
It’s a law of nature that every living being needs to evolve towards perfection. But to become perfect the spirits, created “simple and ignorant”, according to Kardec, need to accumulate knowledge, result of a long road of learning about life. In our evolutionary degree, not very high yet, the best way to learn is living a material life and going through all the experiences, good and bad, that our adorable little planet has to offer us.

How many times do I have to reincarnate?
It varies according to how fast we learn (and apply) our lessons, how much we can achieve in each life. We can compare Earth as a big school; some do real good and advance through the grades, some don’t and keep stationary or have to repeat that same grade until be qualified for the next one. Here we have many freshmen, sophomores and seniors, according to their progress in life. And every little thing, good or bad, that we achieve, is purely an offspring of our own efforts and skills. This is why we find so different people around, different levels of intelligence, character, appearance, even of material resources and achievements. Our life is something we construct day by day. There is nobody to blame for our good or bad “fortune” but ourselves.

Could I be born in an animal body?
No, this is not possible since it would mean to retrograde; it’s incoherent to the idea of evolution. If you are a 7th grade student it’s impossible to come back to the 1st grade and let go all you have learned during all your school life.

It sounds a lot of work to me. Why don’t we simply be born “ready”, or the way we are?
Because it sounds like a big, big injustice. A world with sick and healthy, poor and rich, geniuses and retarded, good and evil, people who die in early age and in advanced age… It’s unreasonable and hard to understand why so much injustice (and so many blessings) happen to so many people without being deserved. Otherwise, a world of pure and free happiness and equality would not teach us anything. We would be like students whose diplomas were granted to without even have entered a classroom.

What about the karma? If I suffer in this life does it always mean that I did something bad to somebody else in a former life?
The word karma was taken from the Sanskrit, and means action. It does not necessarily mean a bad thing, but the result of the action-reaction law, which says that every action produces an equal reaction – good or bad. We don’t need to be afraid of our bad actions of the past. Reversing the bad karma is possible through it’s transformation in dharma, or the right way of living. Jesus, Buddha and other enlightened souls taught us that “love covers a multitude of sins” and that “all component things in the world are changeable,” meaning that through a work of love, compassion and service it’s possible to change the conditions of suffering we may have created in the past.

In the second part of this article we’ll see a little of how the astro chart can be read as a sort of “spiritual resume”, and what points of the chart are the most intimately related to our past experiences and lessons to be learn in our current life.

A time of Mars

Astrologically, the new year starts only on March 21st, when the Sun enters the sign of Aries, opening a new trip throughout the Zodiac. But since most of us are more tuned to the traditional calendar, it's never too late to wish you all light, love and understanding for this brand new year.

A new year reminds new things, new beginnings, new resolutions. I confess I am not very prone to new year's resolutions lists, since I believe that changes can take place in our lives every day. But for a strange force, I ended up making one for 2008. Most of us want to be a new person or hope to find a new world as soon as the calendar changes. But those changes, we know, do not happen like magic. Mahatma Gandhi once said that we should be the change we'd like to see in the world, and there's nothing closer than truth. It's useless to continue waiting for the changes to happen to our neighbors, our co-workers, our classmates. But if each one of us decide to work in this direction ourselves - at least a little bit - wonderful things can happen.

Changes demand power of will and a big amount of courage. Qualities of Mars, the warrior god, that is also considered the ruler of this new year. Particularly I do not share this concept of a year-ruler, but I'd like to take advantage of it this time, 'cause talking about Mars is talking about a powerful force. Mars represent action and energy and nobody goes very far when those functions do not have the necessary "boost", or do not work in the right direction. This is how is so important to channel Mars' energy in a way that really "works" for us. We can be aware of that by analyzing the position, by sign and house, of Mars, as well as its aspects. The element of Mars also can provide precious hints about how to direct its energy in a adequate way.

When Mars is in Fire signs (Aries, Leo and Sagittarius), its energy it's at her best, once it is in its proper element. We're talking about highly motivated people, people that have no fear of initiating things or fight for their beliefs. Their energy must be directed towards creation and leadership, and they need constant movement. Mars in Earth Signs (Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn) are able to direct their energy towards hard work and discipline. They work better when their efforts are put on something palpable, something that involves organization or the pursue of material resources. In Air signs (Gemini, Libra and Aquarius) the focus is in the mind. Their energy is more easily channeled towards ideas, communication and connections to other people. And in Water signs (Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces), Mars develops wonderfully in the reign of emotions and feelings. It's said that it may not be an easy position for the warrior, due to the passive aspect of the water, but inside, these "soldiers of emotion" can be stronger than anyone else. They can work very effectively when the target is compassionate or inspirational service, like philanthropic activities or the arts.

Wherever is your Mars placed, think about what are your wishes for your life in the next 12 months. Maybe you'll find useful to make a collage with images that represent those wishes, and place it somewhere they can be daily and easily viewed by your. Reflect, in a realistic way, on how to achieve those goals. Develop a step-by-step and just start. You can do it. Remember, when we have strong will powerful forces are moved in our favor.

As for me, I wish to continue having fantastic sushi dinners like the one I had on New Year's Eve. Happy 2008 everyone!