Beautiful Movie: IN YOUR EYES
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Beautiful Movie: IN YOUR EYES

It’s been a long time since I fell in love with a movie the way I did last night with IN YOUR EYES. So here is my movie review for this richly enjoyable film.

IN YOUR EYES is the story of a woman and a man who find themselves telepathically entwined, a bond which leads them to greater and greater trust and finally to love. With grace and humor, this movie shows two people engaging the process of mutual self-revelation that is falling in love, and then finally lurching into the more humbling unburdening that is intimacy.

I felt a tender resonance with the woman Rebecca undergoing psychic events and struggling to have her vulnerability, her personhood, and her distinct agency all at once, all while married to a wealthy, controlling man who insists on seeing her as crazy. “Because he loves her.”

As if!

The writer in me loved the perfect balance of Joss Whedon’s screenplay. It was simply a beautifully written script. The two main characters mirrored, tested, and enhanced each other. They gave to each other, needed each other, and completed each other. Whedon’s Rebecca has class and education, and she must confront and integrate her losses to find her strength.  His ex-con Dylan courageously decides to grow and better himself, yet it is his criminal skills that ultimately save the day.

I laughed out loud at a scene where the main characters were dancing to music only one of them could hear aloud–while others watched. A scene where Rebecca erupts to save Dylan from a kitchen fire was scary, funny, and compelling all at once.

With delight, I recommend this movie: it’s a 5 star film.

I was never a Buffy fan, but to Joss Whedon, I say, My compliments! Well done, sir!

movie review

 

Note: The movie soundtrack is also fantastic–worth $9.99 to purchase. I particularly recommend Crumblin’. Great song!

Days of Inspiration
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Days of Inspiration

Yesterday started out as a really hard day for me. When I woke up, the things that are wrong with my life weighed heavily on my heart, mesmerizing me to the point of destabilizing me.

I’ve endured these debilitating days periodically throughout my life. My usual strength seems like a sham, my resilience is a distant, invisible shore, and my many blessings have no more substance than twisting shadows. Even when I try to enumerate the specific graces of my life–because gratitude is one of my go-to tactics for self repair–they vanish before I can grip and savor them.

Then I saw some excellent tweets. Yes, of all things, the mercurial Deva of Twitter stepped in to succor me.  A blogger had mentioned my name in her “Top ten authors of 2014” list.  A Spanish man had glowingly tweeted his enjoyment of my novel “En Inmortal.”

I called my friend Jan and she patiently and lovingly talked me through my conundrums. She herself has experienced similar challenges, so she had insight to offer. She’s one of those brilliant souls with deep wisdom gleaned from living with presence and authenticity. She also has, oh, a million talents. I pay attention when she talks. Jan understands about pain and love and life and longing.

Gently, at one point in our conversation, Jan said, “You see things so clearly, Traci. That’s your sin.” Then she explained her meaning, and I gained new clarity.

My lovely friend Lori emailed me “So much love” and invited me to email back. I poured my heart out to her, and she emailed back with such fierceness on my behalf. Her empathy is amazing. It moved me and humbled me. And I got another dose of it today on Skype, and today we could laugh together, too. Just seeing her bright face lightened everything.

Beautiful Michelle Skyped in today, uplifting my day with her piquant presence and all the glamorous goings on of her life. She’s a canny, perceptive soul and she listened closely when I explained what bothered me. She had practical advice that was specially tailored for Traci, and no, it wasn’t drinking red wine, though we giggled most rambunctiously about that.

Aren’t giggles just the best medicine?

So from an inauspicious morning flowed two days of kindness from people I love who love me. That’s been the biggest learning of these middle years: to fill my life with people who love me and support me, people I can trust. I wish I’d known long ago to do so. Maybe I felt I didn’t deserve them.

There was affirmation, too, in the form of the “Best of authors” Blog list and the Spanish gentleman’s tweet–and that always helps.

For anyone who reads this post, I wish that you may experience the same kindness and love and affirmation, when your heart trembles.

For a pix to accompany this blog: FiberOptic Fairy II, our tree topper.  Because she’s whimsical and unintentionally funny, and earnest and sweet, and full of holiday spirit. And I’m grateful to her, the way I’m grateful to my friends, that she holds her place so gracefully.

Days of Inspiration

 

 

Grateful
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Grateful

I give thanks for my children, my sweet husband, my lovely friends, my overly-gregarious dogs, my home, the books I’ve written and those I’ve read, good reviews that have thrilled me and not-so-good reviews that have taught me, the material resources of my life, the yoga practice that centers me, the spirituality that sustains me.

I am grateful that my beautiful, brilliant, hard-working, wonderful stepdaughter was accepted into medical school! Go Julia!

I am grateful for the extraordinarily generous donors who have given Parvati Press a start in the world, and I’m grateful for the authors who are coming on board with “the Millennium Falcon” of presses–and thanks to the ever inventive Chris for that image! Parvati Press really can outrun Imperial cruisers and make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.

I am grateful for the times I get to travel, and especially I am grateful for the cities of Paris and Venice and Rome. And I love living in NYC so I am grateful for this ineluctable Big Apple.

I am grateful that I get to write books. Being an author is the coolest thing in the whole universe!

I am grateful for my health. I am grateful for those I love and for those who love me, and yes, Gerda, Lori, Michelle, and Jan, I am talking about you. The other ones in the inner circle, you know who you are, and you know that I am thankful to have you in my life.

For the unmet friends, unexperienced love, and unknown blessings that are coming into my life, I give thanks, and I praise the Creator, the great sun at the center, for the fullness of it all.

Grateful

Birthday Wishes for a Beloved Soul
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Birthday Wishes for a Beloved Soul

Dear One
I wish for you discernment
that you may see who truly is your friend
and who isn’t
who truly wishes you well
and who doesn’t.
I wish you freedom
from your entitlement, your addictions, and your demandingness
so that you may enter into the clear
sweet peace of humility
that has everything to do with your soft open
heart’s kindness and love
for your core Self
and nothing to do with the curdled ego’s insistence
on gratification.
I wish for you that you seek wisdom
alongside knowledge,
words of gratitude
rather than proof,
and opportunities to give
in the very moments that you are tempted
to take.
I send you my love and my light
in the fullness of this day, your birthday,
as I do every moment of every day
and I wish for you that you feel my love
in every angstrom of your being
and that you learn to hold love in the reverence
it deserves
instead of seeing it as an agent to serve your bidding.
May you push you away the voices of false friends
who whisper in your ear of aggrandizement,
realizing that respectfulness
and honesty
and personal responsibility
is the better path.
May all your decisions be for the highest, best good
of yourself and all living beings,
And may your Higher Self bring you to conscious awareness in this lifetime.

by Traci L. Slatton
Birthday Wishes Birthday Wishes Birthday Wishes

Yoga With Dogs
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Yoga With Dogs

Gabriel is my boy. He is telepathically attuned to me, so he always knows what I am feeling. I can’t count the number of times over the last six years that he’s come to cuddle me at just the right moment, just when I most needed the creature comfort of his warm yellow fur, damp nose, soulful dark eyes, and eternally wagging tail.

Molly joined us three years ago. She’s a powerfully intelligent girl, a chocolate lab, a little reserved but deeply affectionate when it suits her.

About a year ago, Molly discovered that she could have some fun with me while I was doing yoga. When I do downward facing dog, she lies down beneath me, directly under the V of my body. When I do upward facing dog, she crawls over on top of me. When I’m doing jnana shirsasana, she puts a paw or her nose over my leg.

When she hears the “Om” chiming the start of my daily Yogaglo video, she trots in, and the game is on. It continues all the way through savasana, during which she stands over me and whines for me to KEEP MOVING.

So Molly and Gabriel must have talked, because now Gabriel wants in on the fun. Yesterday I tried to take some selfies. You can’t really tell but I’m in gomukasana and a reclined twist during most of the pix.

Yoga With Dogs Yoga With Dogs Yoga With Dogs Yoga With DogsYoga With Dogs

Selfies the Munchkin took…
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Selfies the Munchkin took…

My inbox recently topped 10,000 messages. Really? Lordy. So I’m pruning the mail, deleting what should have been sent to the trash long ago, and moving other emails into specific mailboxes.

Meantime, I came upon these photos, taken by my daughter before my hair was cut into a bob.

Selfies the Munchkin took Selfies the Munchkin took