new types of learning

So while encouraging my son to learn how to type we have this conversation:

'I learnt how to type using a book.' I inform him.
'Why would you use a book? Why didn't you go online?' he demanded
and I looked at him and started to laugh and said 'I learnt to type before the internet.'

Here I am, older by the minute!

In the meantime, I'm also on amazon, researching best learn to type cdroms. I didn't like any of the free downloadable stuff available. (for those who long to know, I eventually went with Typing Instructor Deluxe V17, doesn't that sound fancy!)

Also found this site and am now testing my speed and accuracy (neither of which were as good as I hoped, I'm averaging 70 with 5 mistakes, I thought I was faster than that!)

My Prediction for the year 3010

I had a very funny interaction with an acquaintance the other day. He is a journalist and knows me as a community activist and I told him that in my professional life I was a tarot reader, and he said, “Really? And you come across as so intelligent!’ and I laughed and replied that I am intelligent when I give readings as well… but it got me thinking… and here are some of my thoughts, this post is going to be longer than usual, so please bear with me:-

My prediction for psychic phenomena –



Let’s go back in history for a minute. People always saw blood and had theories about blood, but until much later than you would think (1919) they did not know about blood groups. The rudimentary tools for blood transfusion were around in the 1700’s and the first human to human transfusion was recorded in 1818.



When doctors first had the technology,  they tried blood transfusions from strong people to weak, even from strong animals to sick humans.  Unsurprisingly, most humans died, even after a transfusion, though more mysteriously for the doctors at the time, some did not, and in fact got better… because the doctors didn’t know about blood groups, they couldn’t make sense of their results. Indeed early transfusions were from animals to humans (and why not, we eat and digest animals, there was no obvious reason why we wouldn’t be able to take their blood directly) but of course most of the humans died, and those transfusions were soon banned throughout Europe.

So my prediction for the years 3010 – so grateful if someone could keep this alive in the internet for that long for me to be vindicated – my prediction is that there will be a strong and solid science for psychic phenomena, and they will have a reasonable explanation as to why sometimes studies worked and sometimes they didn’t.

Perhaps, like blood types, there are psychic groups, and some groups enhance each other and some negate each other and the types of people who become scientists fall more into the group A mental abilities, and the types of people who work on their psychic abilities are group B and Group A and Group B negate each other…



There have been studies on prayer and bacteria. I’m wary of the word prayer and would prefer a study of meditation or focused thoughts and bacteria. However, it has been shown that bacteria that is focused upon by human brains grow better. Yeast seeds focused upon grow better, Yeast seeds with negative thoughts, grew worse than the control group (yeast seeds which were ignored) We get lost in the idea of prayer but I’m interested in what the human brain is doing here, what signals it is giving out, and how it is impacting on the world.

There are many, repeated studies, showing that meditation (focused thought) has a real, measurable impact on blood pressure, heart attacks, anxiety (which seems like cheating, because that’s a mental issue to begin with, but it has physical symptoms which meditation can allay) What we think about these automatic systems in our body, can affect those normally unconscious processes.



All of which brings me back to Tarot. The theory of Tarot is that while shuffling the cards, the person imbues their energy into them. That energy then affects which card goes where, and then when you read the cards, you see what is going on in that person’s energy.

Doesn’t sound like it makes too much sense, does it? And yet, time and again, I see it. I see people with money worries draw only money cards; people with relationship issues draw cards exactly about their particular relationship. A woman came and saw me and I said, your house card is in disarray and your lovers card is upside down. And she said, she had just moved, because her husband had an affair and the divorce was just finalized. I promise you that I don’t say that to every person who comes for a reading. Each time the cards fall into a different pattern, and that pattern reveals something true and real about what is going on in that person’s life. I don’t have the science to explain it, but then again, I don’t need it. I can see the reality in front of me.

Science Cafe at the American Museum of Natural History

If you are a parent of small child in New York City, especially if that child is a boy, you have been to the American Museum of Natural History. In fact, I've been there so many times I know where many of the exhibits are. They also have special exhibits to lure you back in when you are tired of the regular ones. There was a film set in it - Night at the Museum, which was fun because it played into the fantasy of what might happen there at night... One summer DH even did summer camp there for 2 weeks and loved it.


Which all goes to show how I think about this museum - as a child's mecca, where I float along on his interests. Then, after the summer camp I think, I got on their mailing list and they sent me emails about their science cafe, something for adults only. I sent it to some friends of mine I thought would be interested and for months the first Wednesday of every month rolled around, and for months none of us could do it, and finally we committed and said, next month, no matter what, we are going.

So of course the one we could absolutely go to, was in time for Valentine's Day and was about Why Humans have Sex. It was our first time and apparently the largest crowd they have ever had! David M Buss, a renown author and someone I had never heard of, gave a very entertaining talk about mating rituals amongst seals and insects and how they correlated to mating rituals amongst humans. It was fun, though I did say to my friend who came with me that next time I want to go to something I hadn't read so much about, because he didn't really tell me anything I didn't know. It's such a juicy topic that most interesting psych studies and results are reported in the papers. He mentioned again the t-shirt experiment, where women could actually get information about immune system compatibility through the smell of a sweaty t-shirt - though of course they didn't know they were doing that, they only had to rate how attractive or repellent they found the smell of the t-shirt and the scientists worked out the rest. But that's an amazing piece of information, and shows that attraction processes are far more sophisticated and subtle than we ever knew.

I'm very glad we went and we will definitely go again.


But what really changed my perception of the museum from a child's playground to an adult dream, is that in the line for the wine tickets, one man told us that on one Friday night a month, the museum hosts a party in the Rose Centre - (where all the planetary displays are) getting famous DJ's, the dancing starts at 9, and stops at 1 am sharp, they get around 1,000 - 1,200 people, and it's amazing, he loves it. And I thought, what a perfect use of the space! Visiting lectures is one thing, but this was great out of the box thinking. The next on is on March 12th, and I will definitely be there!

What will you take with you when you go...

On January 30th we will have been in New York for 8 years. Prior to that we were in Sydney for 2 years and London for a further 8 years. Long time. While in Sydney we packed up a house. Not knowing where we were going or for how long, we put it in storage. There eight (not one, not two, not three but eight!) containers, each large enough to fit a modest car, languished, waiting for us to return...

This August I went through the containers. I felt embarrassed about how much crap we had saved. My only excuse, that we didn't know what we were doing, how long we were going for (originally it was going to be a year, and then it just extended) but really, did we have to save empty peanut butter jars and pay their storage for years? It was a relief to throw them away. I dumped piles of stuff on my family, threw loads of stuff simply out, and reduced the load to a mere 3 containers (my husband was still in NY, all his boxes, how was I to know which weird computer cord was important, and which was junk? All they remain... for the next 8 years probably...)

But there were a few, small, pristine boxes marked - to be shipped to New York. I knew most of them were full of CD's. Hundreds of CD's, maybe thousands of them. I knew my husband missed them. So, too tired to ferret through them, (it really was an exhausting day) I just said, ship those to New York.

Now you may have been seeing


but I was seeing


Yesterday, ironically, suitably, on Australia Day, the boxes arrived. Today I've gone through them. I don't know how many of my husband's CD's will actually be relevant, but the one box of books shows me clearly what was important to me then, is not important to me now. It was full of text books on Psychotherapy, which I no longer practice, and the complete works of Dennis Lehane (yeah, I'm stumped on that one too) No wedding photographs. No old romances that I still twinge to read. One of DH's boxes actually has videos in them. We don't even have a video player anymore.

We did get the beautiful and very fragile glass vase (which arrived in perfect condition) and a beautiful round glass lamp (ditto) and a few fragile perfume bottles we had bought in Venice many years ago. So some pretty artifacts. But mainly, it feels like an archaeological dig, which reveals what we valued so many years ago, is not nec what we value now. And I guess, all information like that is valuable, because it teaches me that I don't need so much stuff. I'm shedding things everyday (dropping off bags of books to Housing Works, to paperbackswap, giving bags of clothes to local organizations, just letting it all go.)

Well, the stuff from Sydney is also stuff I can let go... All I really need is those wedding photos...

The Way We Get By

Every so often I tivo things I think I should watch, and then let them languish until the tivo deletes them for less wholesome stuff. So I tivo the pbs program, POV, which is documentaries about ordinary people. The most recent one was called The Way We Get By - which is a terrific title all by itself.

And it's topic and nature surprised me - it's about these elderly folk, some of whom are war veterans themselves, who live in Bangor Maine, which is the principal exit and entry points for US soldiers going to Iraq and Afghanistan. And these people make sure that there are around to greet every single plane that lands with these return soldiers, greeting them, saying thank you. Such a simple thing, but so unexpectedly moving, on both sides of the hand shake.

And it looks at the lives of three of these greeters, these people in their 70's or 80's. And their lives are hard - either loneliness or ill health or financial maters plague them. And yet they have learnt the essential lesson - to make yourself feel better, first help others. And through the helping, they themselves are rewarded, with comradeship, a sense of purpose, thanks. In the giving, they get.

It was a simple but moving film, and I'm glad that I taped it.



Today was a day for stumbling into things I taped... I downloaded this cd ages ago, and promptly forgot about it, and I think a full year or so later, came across it and thought it was one of DH, but listened to the first track. This remarkably British voice, they don't make voices like that anymore, comes out to talk to me about changing my level of magnification. It turns out that Alan Watts was one the 9influential early Western Zen Buddhists who gave many lectures about zen Buddhism. He ws good to listen to too.

So I feel like I've given myself good psychic nutrition today :)

Visiting old writings

I wrote this in 2003. Most of it is still true. Not struggling with fear as much as I was (good thing) Still want to have magic powers :)

Friday's Five, done on a Saturday night

1. What's one thing you've always wanted to do, but never have? God, there are hundreds of things... been in an orgy, taken really good psychedellic drugs, been more risk taking, I guess.

2. When someone asks your opinion about a new haircut/outfit/etc, are you always honest? No, it depends how much I hate it, but also how much use my comment will be. If you've cut your hair really really short and it looks a million times better long, what is the point of me saying that? If you ask me before hand, what do you think, should I cut it all off, I will definitely give an honest opinion. Ditto clothes. Are we in the store or already at the wedding?

3. Have you ever found out something about a friend and then wished you hadn't? What happened? An internet friend once told me, and another guy, a whole tissue of lies. It surprised me how shocked I was, I mean the internet is all about masks, but aside from anonymity, I am totally honest, and we had known each other for about 6 months, chatting daily. She told all of us she was 21 and it turned out she was 35 with 3 kids. Surprising for me, but devestating for the guy who was thinking of changing continents to be with her!

4. If you could live in any fictional world (from a book/movie/game/etc.) which would it be and why? Hundreds of them and all of them involve magic. I would live in George RR Martin's Fire and Ice world, I would live in the Liaden world (tomorrow, please) I would live in Ursula Le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea world. I think you are seeing the trend here. Actually I think I resent that I can't live in those worlds!

5. What's one talent/skill you don't have but always wanted? Aside from super-hero skills? I want to read minds, I want to sing, I want to be psychic generally, I want to time travel, I want to be fearless :)

treasures in storage

Had the most momentous month - new baby in the family, such a sweet, sweet angel. We spent too long in hospital with him, but now he is all better.

I also went through our stuff in storage, upset about how much junk there was, and then finding the occasional treasure.

I found this poem I had written when my son was not yet 2 and we were visiting Italy -

In a foreign country
Warm with Mediterranean sun
We seek the cool
of the local museum.

In a fine dusty building
With its impressive courtyard
We carry the pram
Up massive marble steps.

Not giving it much thought
We expected the baby to sleep,
Or failing that, watch the people go by.
But he found another use
For the large empty rooms
And high vaulted ceilings.

As we rushed by golden works of art
Nothing could stop his enchanted chirping
As he experiments with the echoing chambers.
All through the gallery,
His ‘singing’ could be heard.

As I nervously hushed him
One more time
An older woman stopped me,
‘Il contento’, she said, ‘he is happy.’
And we walked into the sunshine smiling.

So happy we have a new baby in our lives... just magic the gifts they give