Pisces Wonder Twins

I got to hang out with my 2011 Friend of the Year yesterday and it was exquisite. As I always say, "we meet the people in life we are destined to meet," and we might as well make the most of it.

Our introduction came by way of social media, although we have so many characteristics in common, not the least of which is our sun sign, we may have eventually crossed paths at some point; mutual acquaintance or some such... or maybe, probably I'd say now, social media was the way we were supposed to meet. After many false starts and re-schedules, we finally met as the sun was in the twelfth house, off of Rittenhouse Square over octopus.

Friend of the Year is a distinction I came up with this century to describe people I meet and expect to still be friends with five years later. During times when I was much more social and sociable, I became friendly to quickly with people who turned out not to be the kinds of people I wanted to be friends with, or the other way around. I looked at my core group and realized how long we'd known each other and decided it really takes about five years for people to learn each other, tolerate each other, communicate with each other, feel each other and thus become life-long friends, regardless of distance, life changes, sickness and health.

It's been five years now since Yael and I made that connection. She had to leave Philly, but comes back to visit every so often. We like to make it a point to get together, have a nosh, a drink or two, share philosophies, experiences, life updates and yesterday we shopped.

This piece found me. Magic is everywhere.

Whenever we're together our powers are amplified; the Pisces Magic happens and reality seems to shift in our favor (without taking anything away from anyone else's world). For me, this magic manifested simply in finding a tapestry that called to me in a South Street shop (Eyes Gallery) that I haven't set foot in for a long, long time and running into a work colleague from years ago.

The more I want to recount about yesterday's travels, the more I realize that words cannot capture the memories, the feelings... the power of being with my spiritual twin... dare I say soul mate? (In the most spiritual sense of the term.) I'll just use these words to hold the space so-to-speak, in this farewell to the home town chronicle.

Pisces Sun - Virgo Moon

I was born under a Full Moon in Virgo. I never really got into astrology, but when i heard about it I started reading my "charts" or at least about my characteristics. A lot of it seemed accurate and during the course of life i either became more Pisces, or Pisces became more me, in that I may have fashioned my personality to fit that which was described in astrology charts.

As i wrote this, it seems doubtful. On the one fish, I'm so contrary that I'd probably resist going along with the flow, on the other fish, I'm not sure we can stray very far from where our personality is supposed to be. In addition to the sun and the planets, I am a result of my surroundings and experiences. The times in which I've lived and the methods I've chosen to deal with the information I absorb from the world.

The last paragraph was very enlightening.I have highlighted some sentences that resonated with me.

Flashback image from April 2008... City Hall, Philadelphia

by Grant Lewi 

This comes from http://horoscopespot.net/pisces-sun-virgo-moon/

You are able to put your intuitions over and to bring them to bear logically on your life. You are a good judge of people, with an absolute determination of the correctness of your judgments. Once you are determined about the inner worth of an individual, nothing he can do, however erratic or unreasonable or reprehensible, will shake your faith in him; you understand him from the inside out, and you are willing to let him work out his own problems in his own way. You believe that “to understand all is to forgive all,” and though you are a harsh judge when you estimate a person to be fundamentally unsound, you are equally lenient when you know that the core of his being is sound. Your tolerance is specific rather than universal, intellectual rather than emotional, for you apply to your intuitions a high degree of logic and common sense by which you can make them plausible, both to yourself and others. This integration of facts felt and facts known gives you a quiet self-assurance which rises from the working together of your mental and emotional natures; these are not generally found at variance with each other.

You don’t find yourself doing by impulse things of which you disapprove; and though you may do things of which others disapprove, you have a good reason of your own why you are all right. Your conscience is a real force, but as you are tolerant of others you are also tolerant of yourself, and though you won’t often stray from the beaten track, when you do, you do it calmly and without excitement – with a quiet conviction that you are acting according to some code or other, which you may have made up for the occasion, but which is very real and definite to you. But, by and large, you will lead a conventional, orderly, and understanding life.  

You have a keen sense of humor, laughing readily, which may not give an accurate impression of your fundamentally serious nature. You are amused by life at the same time that you are acutely conscious of its underlying tragic implications. But this consciousness does not interfere with your enjoyment.  

You have a private litany of faith, a sort of exclusive metaphysics of your own, by which you weave together apparent contradictions into the integrated philosophy by which you live and estimate life. This position is mildly good for business activity of the non-executive variety, and also for such creative work as calls for accuracy, thought, and application, rather than inspirational creativeness. Makes good humorists and joke-smiths.

Kirtan (Keer-tan) Carnival

Hare Krishna

Hare Krishna

Krishna Krishna

Hare Hare

Hare Rama

Hare Rama

Rama Rama

Hare Hare

These are all the lyrics to all the songs that were song last night at Kirtan, a meet up group that gathers first Fridays over top of a restaurant down town. It was my first time there, my first time at a meet up and my first time at such an event. 

It's more spiritual than religious, which I like to think I am. I'm not really looking for anything. It's more like I'm feeling  for something. That feeling is what other people describe as the spirit coming through them. While I was there I tried to relax my body, which is something I have a very hard time doing, unless I'm asleep, and I'm not sure I even do it then. I came close, but I didn't completely let go. 

I know, it's me. 

We've been hangin' for decades now... The stories... (2015)

Afterwards, a quick, brisk (cold, that is) walk to the other end of "Center City" to catch up with my Roll Dawg for a nosh and catch up at Tria, and a random meet with a friend from earlier in the century. And then off to Trestle Inn for carnival hosted and curated by DJs Argo and Lexx. I just shook my ass to some samba, in honor of Mardi Gras/Carnival, which I hear won't be happening in Rio this year. This is as close as I get to relaxing, in a circle of dancers just moving, usually with my eyes closed, no drama, no pick ups, no one-night-stands. I danced up a good sweat and in about 90 minutes it was time to go.

Much gratitude.

DJs Argo & Lexx, Jet Bar (2013)... they always rock the yard!!!

Now, here's my theory as to why the spirit doesn't enter me, and hasn't entered me during such times as funerals (in churches) and Kirtan... because it's already there. If your music is turned up loud, you're not going to hear anything else unless it comes louder. Whatever I have... what I call magic drowning out everything else. It's getting in there, and most likely getting absorbed by what's already going on. 

It's nice to be able to have new experiences. It's nice to be able to party with the cats who throw the party.