�Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn�t the mountain ahead that wears you out � it�s the grain of sand in your shoe.� -- Robert Service, writer (1874-1958)

I find as I look around me, to all the faces of those that I love, that underneath whatever visage reflecting whatever proper countenance, is a muted, pained expression of one with an incurable mental blister. I recognize this look because I, too, have carried it. �Times are tough.� Yes, they are, aren�t they. Yet I dare, in the midst of these �times�, these lunar alignments, these uncontrollable circumstances, to want to live as fully as I have ever lived, to suck even more out of every moment, every experience. Let me give you a little example:

�Live now. When you are eating, eat. When you are loving, love. When you are looking at a flower, look. Catch the beauty of the moment! The loving person has no need to be perfect, only human. The idea of perfection frightens me. We�re almost afraid to do anything anymore because we can�t do it perfectly.� -- Leo Buscaglia

These are just some things I�ve been mulling over lately, as I go through this latest transition of mine, as my tripod continues to shake and tremble like the earthquake that shook me awake last night. So fucking appropriate, to have an earthquake at a time like this, right? How we truly can manifest our true feelings. That�s what happened, collectively, last night. 5.1 on the Richter scale I heard. Just another interesting thing.

And tonight, Halloween, is a full moon, a blue moon. Another part in the cycle of life peeking out to say �Hello! Get out of your little space and take a fucking gander! You are the tiniest part of the whole, and yet every move you make, every thought you have, creates the greatest ripple-effect possible, and yes, I feel it, even from here.� If the moon had a voice, right?

The fact of the matter is, I don�t know. I have no freakin� clue about ANYTHING right now. If I�ll have a job, where I�ll be living, if some of my friends will ever speak to each other again, how people will be, within and around themselves. I just don�t know. But those things, they are pebbles in my shoe. They painfully rub against existing abrasions in my psyche. And I�ve decided, at least for now, this moment that the stress doesn�t have me, that I want to take off my �shoes� and run barefoot in the grass under Halloween�s Blue Moon. Breathe the air, feel the wind, smell the night, and SEE those around me. Not just look at costumes and engage in small talk and drift off numbly in my mind of things I have to do, things I SHOULD be �worrying� about. No. But to be there, and see, and hear, and lose myself for once in the moment that is.

I wish to invent a drug that makes it impossible to drift, but for an hour, just one hour of true, real, living in the NOW. Imagine what we�d learn. Right now, I have an itch on my left arm, a cold soda in front of me, and I can feel my fingers as they unconsciously search out the keys they know so well to document these words that seem to be coming straight from my head and landing on the screen in front of me. That�s now.

So enough of this mumbo jumbo, right? I�m sure you have a million things you need to be doing. I just hope that as you do them, you stop for a moment to experience those physical sensations that come along with everything. One thing I do is put a bit of scented oil somewhere on one of my arms. As I move about throughout the day, occasionally, I will turn a certain way or make a certain movement that will allow me to catch a whiff of that fragrance I�d already forgotten about. And no matter what I�m doing, I�ll stop for just a moment, breathe in deeply, and smile.

We NEED that, things like that. Especially in �times like these�.

-Barbarella

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