Aries Weekly

Here's how rock critic Aidin Vaziri described the stage set when hip-hop artist 50 Cent played in San Jose: "an urban wasteland that looked like it was designed by Disney (complete with an overturned police car, graffiti-covered trashcans and the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty)." I hope you don't take this the wrong way, Aries, but there's a certain resemblance between that environment and yours. The so-called chaos you're surrounded by is either imaginary or artificial or both. It may be seductively well-made, and therefore hard to resist, but you can walk away from it any time you choose.


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The primary meaning of the word "healing" is "to cure what's diseased or broken." Medical practitioners focus on sick people. Psychotherapists wrestle with their clients' traumas and neuroses. Philanthropists donate their money and social workers contribute their time to helping the underprivileged. I am in awe of them all. The level of one's spiritual enlightenment, I believe, is more accurately measured by helping people in need than by meditation skills, shamanic shapeshifting, supernatural powers, or religious knowledge.

But I also believe in a second kind of healing that is largely unrecognized: to supercharge what is already healthy; to lift up what's merely sufficient to a sublime state. Using this definition, describe two acts of healing: one you would enjoy performing on yourself and another you'd like to provide for someone you love.

So much has been going on in my life right now. So many emotions relating to the battle of cancer my brother in laws brother is going thru- so many experiences and complications that we already saw my mom go thru, he is going thru. As well, there is much to at work in preparation of my 3 week departure- I’ve got my fingers crossed that things will go well while I am away- as upon my return, my boss will no longer be my boss as he has resigned. The workload finally caught up to him but I hope he can handle things while I am away.

In exactly 14 days from today, we will be in Rome. Then Venice. Then Florence. Then Rome. Then Athens. Then Mykonos. Then Naxos. Then Santorini. Then Athens. Then Rome. Then back to San Francisco.

It seems so surreal.