On Feb.14th 2010 the lovers celebrated Valentines Day. Romance aside, this day brought a greater significance this year: The start of the Chinese New Year and the Year of the Metal Tiger! Only furries could realize the potential of both occasions! [P.S. “Furries” is a sub-culture where you make love and role play while dressed in legit animal costumes.] I don’t know about you, but I am incredibly excited! I was born in 1986 making me a Fire Tiger. This is my year!!! I sense that great things are on the way!
Congrats if you were born in 1998, 1986, 1974, 1962, 1950, 1938, 1926, 1914, or 1902- this is going to be a great year for you too! And a HUGE congratulations to those born in 1902- if you are 108 years old and on the internets right now, this is definitely your year! And if you were born within the last 2 days of 2010 and you’re reading this, you are a baby genius and every year should be incredibly exciting for you!
Okay Lazer what’s all this horoscope la-di-da talk about?
Well, for those of you who don’t know, I’ve been way into astrology and horoscopes since about July ’09 (I’m a Cancer on the Leo cusp, btw). I generally start my day with breakfast and checking Horoscope.com. Horoscopes don’t provide absolute advice, but rather guidance which has been very beneficial and accurate for me over the past 7 months.
The way I see it, astrology is based on planetary configurations, which determine things like time of day and season. Society and lifestyles are in turn organized around these variables. So to me, it seems natural and beneficial to better understand astrology and how planetary configurations affect me as an individual even if its effect may be indirect.
I’m also fond of Feng Shui: The Taoist teachings and concepts of how to live in harmony with nature and one’s environment. The concepts are quite practical for leading a healthy life in balance with the elements and positive and negative energy, or “Qi”. Architects and interior designers often operate with an understanding of Feng Shui, which could also just be common sense at times.
For example, a bedroom should be a peaceful space with positive energy. It’s a place to rest and make love. If you work from home, it would not be a good idea to have your work desk also in your bedroom. The space is confused with work and rest. This makes spaces like college dorms, sometimes difficult to live in. It means your roommate could drunk vomit over both your bed and desk in one blow.
But the principles of Feng Shui are designed knowing that the perfect living situation rarely exists, so there are a lot of techniques to improving the “Qi” or energy of your living situation.
Still don’t buy it? Put it this way, we need both air and water to live- they are a necessity. Feng Shui teaches how to balance these elements in our surroundings. Some techniques are as simple as opening every window at your place once a day to allow the elemental wind energy to circulate.
Coming from a filmmaker’s perspective, I often approach Feng Shui with a visual approach. For example, I’m very concerned with lighting and natural day light and how it interacts with people and spaces. Plants need light to grow and humans need light to process Vitamin D. Studies have shown that human deficiencies of Vitamin D often due to a lack of sunlight can influence depression (I don’t have a bibliography for my blog so you do the research and figure out if these are all lies).
So light plays a huge part in our lives. Basically, we need light to see things (and photograph them). I believe a lot of healing can be done visually. I’ve devised certain visual treatments for myself because I don’t have health insurance. For example, if I start to get sick, the first thing I do is clean my apartment. The visual “idea” of clutter produces a negative energy in the space that affects me psychologically which can later turn indirectly physical.
An extreme example similar to this idea is found in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange when Alex is forcefully exposed to hours of horrific movies and images as a radical psychological treatment that also has a strange physical effect.
Okay, what the hell… I went off on a long tangent to say that I think astrology and Feng Shui are pretty radical and beneficial to my life. Even if you don’t buy in to it, if you're a Tiger, this is your year baby! Go over to Horoscope.com and read your several horoscopes to get some inspiration for the New Year! Make some change! Do what you want to do in 2010! Have fun!
Nipple Pinches,
-Lazer
Posts
Yeah, it's pretty lame-o that I have a work desk in my bedroom... And the office where I do most of my work has no light. Double Whomp.
ReplyDeleteI like your thoughts here about the necessity for light for live and how you perceive it in a unique way because of your film making background. I find myself thinking about light a lot these days. Cool blog you got here Marty!
ReplyDeletethanks Drew! Andy: At least you have sunshine nearly every day of the year for the bike ride to work... as for the desk, you should switch with Ted after winning a rock, paper, scissors match.
ReplyDelete