The Hermetic Review

I have fallen in love with this kind of cycle. Saw this one outside the bike shop on Bergen Street today, and had to go in to ask for the the price. Let’s say I’m still saving up. The time will come.

Went with Brooks to the BAM Rose Cinemas last week to see the new Jane Campion film, Bright Star, about John Keats and his love affair with Fanny Brawne.

Ben Whishaw as John Keats

Couldn’t get enough of that sumptuous attention to detail, the juxtaposition of English country gardens and close-ups of textile, thread being pulled through fabric, made grand by the violins and the voices. Bare winter branches and French ribbon. And of course the bohemian clad in blue velvet, his nails all stained with ink.

Things are looking a little better around the blog these days. Finally was able to do some HTML today– it’s still a work in progress, but I am experiencing such relief at being able to progress at all.

This has been a day of little steps of this sort: I painted two walls a deep eggplant, the color of wine. Installed a new showerhead. Hot grits with ayurvedic spices, stewed bananas. NPR my constant companion throughout this day.

I have been writing so much, so many words flowing out from me in the looping script of my journal. I have a new project of writing about the harbor and the river each morning when I cross the Manhattan Bridge on the subway. The conditions change so dramatically from day to day– it makes me feel connected to the natural world that exists as the larger context of this city, to the ghostly Manahatta of yesteryear. Walt Whitman is more with me, and more in my imaginings, than he might suppose. Who knows but he is with me now.

The needs for stimulation and self-expression are tormenting me. I want to make everything, but I haven’t the supplies. I can’t yet afford to rent studio space anywhere I might have access to a letterpress. I haven’t any cloth for quilting, or dressmaking, or rug hooking (the craft of poverty, according to Wikipedia.)

I would like to garden. Roof garden. Permaculture.
I’m looking for poppy seeds to make the traditional poppy seed roll I loved as a kid.
Soon I will buy a new bicycle. I like the look of the Electra Amsterdam cycles!
Graduate School– I am considering going into Occupational Therapy. I need to take a year of science prerequisites and am in the process of figuring out how to do that.

I’ve been modeling for art classes at the School of Visual Arts, and I love that. Fulfills a bohemian ideal I imagined for myself when I was younger. I like the stillness, the focus that slows my mind to a quiet murmur. It’s an extremely meditative experience for me.

I have some Yoga Passbook reviews to catch up on. Coming soon:

• Prana Power Yoga
• Golden Bridge Yoga
• Sankalpah Yoga
• Yoga Sutra

I haven’t been blogging all summer because I’ve been so discouraged by the blog.com migration and what it has done to The Hermetic Review. All my formatting is down the drain, and I lost several posts, including a review for two weeks at Prana Power Yoga. My beautiful pasileys are gone! And that long booklist! It is such a bummer that I can’t bear to think of it!

To be honest, this stresses me out so much that it makes me cry every time I come on here to try and work things out. Their customer support is cold and weak. It took profanity and about 10 support tickets over the course of a month and a half to get anyone to respond to me at all, and when they finally did they offered NO solutions and NO reassurance. Now I’m supposed to wait how long until this will be customizable again? I am ashamed to put this sloppy thing on a resume now.

I don’t want to wait forever for the html features to become available, so I hereby am blogging again, even while things are still in disarray around my words. If you are seeing this blog for the first time, please try to imagine something much grander and more creative.

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Today I rode my bike through Central Park in the rain, and then played an excellent game of pirates while babysitting. This is the back-to-school mania; tomorrow will be day 7 of nonstop babysitting. I can’t even keep it all straight in my head.

I am riding across the bridge to stay in Williamsburg tonight, so that Brooks can take me to the new Italian coffeehouse in the morning for a ricotta and fig tart.

This Virgo time is all about nesting, putting love and attention into the home, creating an intentional space to surround us.