Life With One Eye Open

Forward moving February

My astrology zone for the month has informed me that as of the new moon on February 2nd, Neptune, Mars, The Sun and the new moon are having a party in Aqaurius!  Well, I am inviting all of you!  All of those who are ready to play, laugh, and prosper, can join in the glorious fun of achievement, friends and family.  This can be a very social and lucky time for all of us.  I say whether we believe or not, we can still choose to join in the fun.  It can’t hurt right? 

How about this for a theory… If it’s true that we are all energy and the earth is energy and the planets around us are energy, well, isn’t all energy inter-connected?  Doesn’t that make us “one” with everything around us?  This could be great news!  This could mean that everything we do and everything we are is part of a collaborative effort.  Something bigger than each of us.  But something that belongs to all of us.  We are all a part of this one big vast ball of energy and the roles we play in life are us communicating our energy with the energy of everyone and everything around us.  


Imagine it this way… Think of it as having invisible help in all of your endeavors!


I don’t know about you but the thought that I have the whole world behind me, with me,  helping me, makes me feel stronger, more couragous and loved.  It has also left me breathless, and extremely excited about continuing my quest of giving back when I can.  So much to be thankful for!


I know my sometimes debatable approach hasn’t gone unnoticed but you know what?  Great!  I would thank Carl Sagan if he were still with us.  He was an Astronomer who, in his lifetime, received the NASA medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, he was the recipient of the Public Welfare Medal, and a Pulitzer Prize winner (to name just a few of his accomplishments).  In a lecture he said, “We would be arrogant to think we are the only ones”.  It was thanks to his words that I became enamored with arcane subjects and have reworded this impactful sentence to get me through some arduous times. 


In college I had the privilege of attending a lecture by Ellie Wiesel. He is a world renowned  writer, a professor, a political activist, a Nobel Laureate, and a Holocaust survivor.  It was the holocaust survivor part that really got me.  I remember thinking, “Okay this is going to be interesting but oh so depressing”.  I never laughed so much in my life.  Now every time I think of Mr. Wiesel I smile to myself.  That’s some powerful stuff!  I am thankful to him for helping me find the laughter in adversity!


And of course, another of my favorites, Plato.  It was his dialogues about his relationship with Socrates that taught me my love of questioning!  So much so that I wrote this as a teenager when I first started reading Plato…  “A rhetorical question and the socratic method.  How would Plato fend in the 90’s and what corrections would his mistakes make?”


If we’re all thinking and questioning we could be on to something.  We’re sharing.  We’re contributing to the possibilities. Change. Growth. Love. Harmony.  Family. Prosperity. Kindred Spirits.  Forward moving.  Peace.

By pcarlson Category: Uncategorized

Shoot for the Moon

Life never ceases to amaze me.  I’ve been puzzled over some recent turn of events and I am having trouble accepting that maybe I am supposed to learn some lesson from the exchange.  I question this!  Maybe you can help me?

As most of you know I spent the first quarter of my life being insulted, criticized and verbally abused.  And those of you who know me, also know that I have spent all of my adult life uplifting myself into a place of confidence, value and self-esteem.

Shouldn’t my rising above my circumstance be proof that I am well-educated in the subject.  My theory is that people are negative or bitter because somewhere along the line they forgot their true worth.  We weren’t born into this world to just get by.  We were born to bloom!

The other day someone I have been working with very closely told me this story (this is one of many similar stories), “I met this girl who said she came to L.A. to be a star. And I looked at her and laughed and said, join the club honey.”   He went on to say more to the same effect and I was astonished.  What gives any of us the right to shed darkness on someone else’s dream?  Just because one person doesn’t make it in a given field does not mean that the next person who comes along, as far-fetched to us as it may seem, doesn’t become a huge success.

Why can’t we all just believe in ourselves and each other?  Why can’t we believe that if we shoot for the moon, that worse that can happen is, we land in the stars?  And if we can’t believe for whatever limiting beliefs we have inflicted on ourselves, why can’t we just shut the f**k up.  Doesn’t everyone know the old adage, if you don’t have something nice to say then don’t say anything at all?

I am an undeniable, unequivocal believer in our potential as people.   It has taken me a long time to believe in myself and my possibilities.

If we weren’t meant for greatness and we didn’t believe in ourselves, then there would be no Bill Gates of the world, no Mother Teresa’s and certainly no one running for President!

Negativity breeds like a cancer.  It is contagious and engaging and scary.  Look at what’s happening to me right now… these negative exchanges have left me sleepless, distraught and depleted.  I am reminded of my past and the negativity plays like a broken record.

My mother did teach me some valuable lessons.  One of those lessons was to not listen to what people say to us in anger because they might as well be looking at themselves in the mirror (perhaps her way of telling me not to listen to her? Oh! I just had an aha moment!).  Well, anyway, I think this holds true with negativity.  But the dilemma now is, what do I do about it?  I’ve tried to express my concern and the response is always, you are up here and I am here and we meet in the middle.  Well I don’t feel like we are in the middle.  I feel like I have been brought down to that preverbal gutter of negativity that I have spent my life trying to get out of.  I don’t want these to be my thoughts and I certainly don’t want to engage in the gloomy game of accusations.

I couldn’t wait to write this out today.  My way of brushing myself off and finding my footing again so that I may find myself once again, skipping along the stars like a cobblestone street.

Are you dangling from the moon?  Will you share?

By pcarlson Category: Uncategorized

Some Simple Wisdom

Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish. 


~Marcus Aurelius

By pcarlson Category: Uncategorized

Love Actually

I made my first statistics list before my first birthday and I believed that my fate was sealed.   I came into this world because it was to late for other arrangements.  As I got older I struggled to find my place in the world.   I was lonely and I was lost. But most of all I was angry.   Angry at the genius mother who couldn’t love me.   Angry at the military father who was never there.   I was angry at my Self for what had become my life. Why didn’t I have the answers?   Why couldn’t I fix it?   Fix my parents and fix my Self.   Frustration and rebellion would set in like a bad rerun and I couldn’t turn it off.   I feared everyone and trusted no one.   I was the quintessential representative of a misplaced youth and I was face down in the proverbial gutter.   I didn’t know if I would ever get up.   I just lay there in a puddle of my own tears.   Drenched and depleted I prayed.   I prayed for guidance and help and love.   I am simultaneously launching a new company and writing a book proposal for my 1st novel to submit to publishers.  Somehow we prosper!  We are able to push ourselves to new limits and it’s then that we start to realize our true potential. We must hold ourselves accountable and then we will become conscious. Conscious to a life worth living and the possibility that we are all so very special.  The biggest lesson on my journey is that we do have power. We do have worth and our words can make a difference.  And I hope that by some miracle my experiences and my sometimes questionable approach may shed some light, spark a fire or give some insight for all of us.   I know the world does not revolve around me.  I realize that we are all in this together.  In some way shape or form we all have our shit.  And the best way to get through life is to find people who’s shit is compatible with ours.   I hope my writings help change our world a little bit.  Help someone know that they weren’t the only one who had bad things happen to them.  To know that the world will give us what we ask of it so we must be careful what we wish for.  And perhaps it is conceivable that we can negate the disparaging voices from our past. This is about sharing in the process and not being afraid of the rejections, the inspirations, the positive influences, the negative influences, the process of dealing with daily life.  This is where we can be reminded of the value and the power that a kind word or a smile or some love can hold for someone who is living life with their head down.  I was that person for far too long.  My friend Betheny challenged me to an experiment.  Everyday I am to look 10 strangers in the eyes and smile.  Sounds easy right? For me it is a terrifying prospect.  But I love experiments!  So I find the courage in her intention for me to live outside my shell and meet new people.  It’s even getting easier, well for the most part,  when I can stay out of my head long enough to know it’s not that deep.  And the most important thing is I am smiling and I am making someone else smile and a smile can go a long way.  Like Love… Nothing moves mountains like love! We all have love in our hearts.  So let’s focus on the love.   Today let’s focus on the things we love about ourselves and silently say “I love you” to everyone we meet.   Do you have some love to share with the world?

By pcarlson Category: Uncategorized

Full Circle

Sometimes life gets the best of me.  I let it.  Sometimes I wallow.  Too much thinking.  Too much comparing.  I don’t have to be the quintessential dark side that I grew up with.  I don’t have to be my mothers daughter knowing my mother wasn’t capable of being a mom.  I don’t have to compare myself to some Cimmerian fascination.  This is the 21st Century after all.  Pause.  This is me.  This is me sitting in the middle of the floor hoping the food will comfort me.  Hoping the tears will satiate my wanting.

Thoughts become things and I fear that sometimes I think myself right onto the path of following in my mothers footsteps.  Why is the grass always greener?  The wonder always pertinent?  My fears my reality?  I spend a lot of time alone.  Not lonely.  But alone like I was born from some Basquait painting.

The unequivocal need to separate myself from a past that should hold no bearing leaves me contemplative and crying.  Breaking the chains that bind me prove irreverent sometimes and I can’t tear myself free.

Not everything needs to come full circle does it?  Can I step out of it like a ticket line?  Wallowing in self-pity doesn’t suit me.  The blanket of food doesn’t fit me anymore.  And the incessant relaying of similarities has overstayed their welcome.  I am not her anymore then she was me and this isn’t some painting or song or symphony.  This is my life.  I guess sometimes even I need to be reminded.  Reminded of a promise I made to myself.  My own words venturing once again to teach me…

A leap of faith and I join you in an epic adventure.  An autonomous decree that if I miss, the stars will catch me.  I become one with you and the world is an illumination.  Me the shadow dancer being beckoned to embrace the splendor.  The flight of an angel. Protected from the fears of adolescence.  Guided through clouds of promises. Gratitude holds us high. Traveling the summit of our consciousness.  Only the inner wonderment of a child shall find us airborne.  Defying gravity. Immersed in the blue moon. The beauty of natures charms open their arms to us.  Below the grass green and untouched. I can smell the flowers and I bask in their ability to wear their Sunday best. Not a wrinkle in their stems or a pedal out of place on their heads. The light breeze sings for them, as they dance for me.  My leap of joy. I believe. The awareness has made me one with the energy fields around me and so I ascend in harmony. I am set free. I shall rise to the occasion. Choose life. An answered prayer, a silent lullaby, a dream come true. Help me stay on course. Help me to live like a butterfly. Help me glide. Help me love. Help me belong. Help me trust. Help me keep my promise.

By pcarlson Category: Uncategorized