Time-lapse photo of the Aries Lunar Eclipse on Sept. 27, 2015. All rights reserved (c) 2015 Jim McNeil.
Can we maintain our accelerated evolutionary trajectory and still be in relationship with the more traditional elements (and people) in society? That’s the question of the Libra New Moon. Continue reading
Backstory | Lyrics | Recording | Listen on YouTube and SoundCloud
Song: Ten Year Bender
Album: Ten Year Bender
This song is the title track from the 2015 re-release of Ten Year Bender by my rock project Stand & Deliver. I don’t remember the exact day when I wrote the song Ten Year Bender, but Continue reading
On this roller coaster ride
that my emotions have to take me on
– Neil Young, ‘Natural Beauty’
That first line from the last song on Harvest Moon always gets me. Sometimes my life seems like one epic emotional roller coaster ride. We’re trained by society to believe in control as a positive attribute. Continue reading
You can wear your shoes in bed at the Milner Hotel!
If I ever doubt that the emotionally-charged images I hold in my thoughts can create my future reality, all I have to do is look back at the Ten Year Bender period. Three images that manifested with an eerie degree of precision: Continue reading
I get as frustrated as anyone during Mercury retrogrades. But I have also learned to love these periods, because Mercury Rx tends to be when I make the biggest changes in my thinking, changes that lead me to more freedom, more money, more joy, and more of what I want out of life. Think of this podcast as a guided tour to the secret places Mercury’s publicist doesn’t want you to know about. And yes, the guided tours I’ve enjoyed most were the ones where the tour guide was obviously just a bit cracked… Continue reading
The first of two eclipses in September happens overnight Saturday, September 12 (USA). This is a solar eclipse (new moon) in Virgo that very closely opposes Chiron in Pisces. I’ve created a free 24-minute podcast you can stream or download, or listen to on YouTube. Also check out my September reading special: Continue reading
Ten Year Bender is the second studio release from Stand & Deliver, the current incarnation of my long-time rock project. Recorded in 2002 and 2003, the original, limited-run version of the album was titled songs for depressed people².
This record was intended to be my first “solo” project as a singer-songwriter. Continue reading
Did you feel that? The Moon entered Aries Monday morning, Aug. 31, around 4:30 am EDT and made an exact conjunction at noon on Monday to the degree of the September 27 Aries lunar eclipse. The Sabian symbol for the eclipse degree of 5 Aries talks about the capacity we all have to take our lives to a new level when we open to the power of spiritual inspiration. Continue reading
Jack White writes and sings about what it feels like to be a boy better than just about anyone else I can think of. In fact, I’m drawing a complete blank trying to come up with the name of anyone who mines the same territory, let alone does it so well. (If you’ve got someone in mind, post in the comments!)
The thing about songs like this one and (probably my all-time favorite White Stripes song) We Are Going to Be Friends is that he’s not writing nostalgically. He’s not looking back and trying to recapture the beauty and innocence of childhood. He – or whoever the narrator is in these songs – is a child. Continue reading
I do a lot of meditating in motion nowadays. I thought it might be interesting to record my stream of consciousness on my daily walk. The results reminded me of a period when I was crashing at April and Chad’s pad in Berkeley and had just read one of Castaneda’s Don Juan books. I forget which one – I’ve read several of them more than once. But I seized on Don Juan’s statement that if a person would just write down their entire stream of consciousness for (a week? 10 days?) they would overcome the egoic mind and enter a permanent state of nonordinary consciousness. Continue reading