Being Santiago

Well, it's been a few days since my last entry and already the emails are flowing in. "CD you haven't blogged in a few days" "CD why aren't you blogging" and all i can say is, I've been a bit busy. Travelling East, braving perhaps the bumpiest most terror-alert-diverted landing ever, which can't compare to the subsequent (and still ongoing) barrage of plans for my scheduled beautification by my mom. Clearly I have not shared this url with her. Today was Pedicure/ Manicure - neither of which i wanted particularly, both of which my mom scheduled for me. I am not complaining, i attended, got lotion rubbed all over my hands and feet. I just always feel so strange when someone pampers my feet - who am i to ask them to provide such a service? who cares? this is not what i am going to blog about after 4 days of silence. All i'm saying is - there's something weird about paying someone to paint dead skin cells. It's one of those behaviors to be examined in another 10k years and falsely determined as medicinal practice. "Women and occasionally men painted their nails to prevent the spread of the self-acceptance-virus." Then again, i like to dye my hair, and those are also dead skin cells. Just another hypocrite blogger, staring in the mirror. Your Fallible heroine, on call. And back to business. I'll be brief. I'm exhausted.

I re-read The Alchemist on the plane. And as many books do the third go around later in life, it widened my psyche. The Alchemist is like reading an ayn rand book on valium. Philosophy, packaged in a short 150 page story about asking questions and eluding answers; spinning the mundane into golden consciousness. "I'm an alchemist simply because I'm an alchemist" - it's Plato's Know Thyself in different packaging.

"To realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation, and, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." (p.22)

So once again, the obstacle to destiny and enlightenment is....fear. Fear keeps us from understanding who we are, where we belong, and asking questions. Fear prevents the vastness of destiny, eroding stereo to monotone.

The Alchemist's Santiago bipassed his training at seminary to instead become a shepherd - yet as his journey progresses he grows into natural priesthood of the mind.

While part of human consciousness, fear earns our attention as we learn how to succumb or overcome. Destiny needs an invitation from the subconscious, a level which can exist on it's own outside of consciousness. fearless choice and possibility turns the subconscious into an alchemist. The rest is up to us.

no mp3 or picture today, maybe tomorrow if i can get the wireless going.



happy Alchemist Day. AD. Enjoy AD.