Neptune Landing

      The seasonal shift from the warmth of summer to the crisp fall always feels overly dramatic and strangely dangerous to me. I adore autumn and the festivities of Halloween and Thanksgiving, and yet I also experience an uneasy sense of dread.       Daylight savings disrupts my body’s natural rhythm. I’m hungry before lunch and my dogs are confused when we go for a walk. I’m reminded that my normal daily routine is simply an illusion perpetrated by the clocks that surround me. I suddenly feel out of sync with ordinary Time-Space; I’ve entered the mysterious landscape of a dream.       In times of uncertainty, I turn to my tarot cards for guidance. With the recent supermoon and lunar eclipse events, the wisdom of Moon card (number 18 in the Major arcana) seems especially appropriate right now. Here’s the Moon card from the Thoth tarot deck: Compare this imagery with the Moon card from the more traditional Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck:       While cont

      Jet lag and a feeling of loneliness did not leave me with a favorable first impression of Amsterdam whose uniform grayness and tight sense of organization I felt respectable but suffocating. It didn't help that I got lambasted on the 17 tram by an unhinged derelict. In San Francisco we have our fair share of crazies on the MUNI but they are usually berating the universe in general. This French-speaking guy directed his ire on me and my one regret was moving to another part of the tram rather than sticking up for myself.       Adding to the insult was a humid density to the City of Canals, similar to a bad day in New York (not surprising given their shared history) of heaving throngs and claustrophobic architecture, boorish tourists and locals clad in black. An obligatory trip to the Sex Museum and a "coffeshop" in Rembrandt Park proved to be elusive distractions –– I left the latter because of the horrific R & B blasting from the strategically-placed video scr

"We'll always have Paris."           The above quote given by Humphrey Bogart's character Rick Blaine in Casablanca could easily reach beyond the personal and speak to the collective, to the fact that Paris belongs, permanently, to each and every individual across the globe, a place on the opposite end of a boom-and-bust-town. Her heavy energy and organized infrastructure won't be blown away by some big, bad wolf. Rome may be the "Eternal City" but Paris knows too that it is staying put, that her edifices of steel and marble and stone aren't going anywhere soon (unlike the flights of her 80 million annual suitors). We'll ALWAYS have Paris.   Notre Dame Cathedral       We rolled into Paris's Gare du'Nord, a transportation crossroads, on a Monday evening. The best early decision we made was NOT to purchase a 1-day or 4-day Metro Pass but to instead pick up a book of ten metro rides for 14 Euros each. At today's currency rate (

      For the last 8 months, my cohort at the Shaman's Way have spent one full Sunday a month in San Francisco's wooded Presidio, walking the Inka Medicine Wheel. We are now at the mid-point of our walk although 'walk' may be too generous and dignified a term. For the first four months, we tiptoed around The South, meeting Sachamama, the Serpent Goddess, and going to the place of stripping old skins and identities. The latter four months we've been trudging through The West, meeting Lady Jaguar and facing the darkness of both ordinary and non-ordinary reality and the faulty workings of our own selves. While The South was about letting go of fixed notions, The West has trained us to walk without fear in a world that can be egregiously unsafe.       Before you dismiss this description as new-age gobbledygook, please know that shamanism is the oldest "religion" known to humankind. Many are loathe to pin it as such, preferring the term "technology,&

      Know the best way to fall in love again with your locale? Host a visitor, preferably someone close  to you, like a brother, and see California through his eyes.       Sean and I conspired this trip rather late, about a month before his arrival. Our dad had died in early March and we simultaneously felt the need for some bonding time. His first inquiry about San Francisco was: Should I dress up? - at which point I nearly spit out my organic granola. Formal culture is for the East Coast, I admonished him, while the West Coast rules all that is casual. Still I can't envision my bro going sloppy, even with the decision to dress down. "Just come as you are," I said, knowing his inherent preppy and dapper style would be a refreshing additive to the street-mix and likely attract some looky-loos.   Sean's First Morning at Alamo Square       One of my dear friends and dog-walking clients allowed us to stay at her SOMA pad while she herself was away on vacation. SO

      Even dealing with the muck of a thing like loss, I still feel like my life in San Francisco follows some sort of narrative arc dusted with a magical synchronicity. Clearly I've tried many things that haven't worked in easing the feelings around the death of my dad: new potions, old vices and general avoidance of life events. With enough curiosity and counsel from my better angels, however, I've found more skillful avenues for treating the subject like engaging in education (at a group level), reading up on astrology and listening to music.       For education, I've joined a grief group at the Institute of Aging in the city's Richmond District. It's a group of 12 of us who will hopefully become friends for life. The facilitator, Patrick Arbore , is an award-winning saint who started the Friendship Line, an alternative to the usual-suicide-prevention-hotline for elderly Californians. Patrick comes across physically and emotionally as a cross between Mer

      With its temperate clime and ocean-kissing caresses, Hawaii has always called me. Having been raised on the East Coast, the lush archipelago felt remote and fantastical as the only reference I had of Hawaii as a kid was when the Brady Bunch, in 1972, jumped the shark and encountered a lot of bad juju there. Still I appreciated the fact that our youngest U.S. state is the most geographically isolated string of rock on the globe and has a cultural and racial diversity that gives most alpha cities reason to pause. I just could not foresee going to one of the most beautiful places in the world in a state of shock, more like one of suspended belief, following my dad's death.  Baldwin Beach on Maui's North Coast       Dennis Kilduff died on March 2nd and I flew home the next morning and was thrown into the heady whirlwinds of funeral planning, greeting family, friends and guests and "catching up." As anyone who has been through this before, this adrenaline carri

        As many of you know, my dad, Dennis Kilduff, age 69, passed away at 11:35 p.m. on Monday, March 2nd. On this date, 33 years ago, his big sister and Godmother, Mary Driscoll, passed away and I've a strong feeling that the two of them were in cahoots about the timing. There seems to have been an extraordinary amount of synchronicity these last couple of weeks. Omens too have been flying out of the woodwork.  Dennis at sister Mary's wedding in 1953         The record-breaking snowfall in Boston didn't help ease his symptoms over this winter. Diagnosed with Pulmonary Fibrosis in March of 2013, Dad never once complained of losing his breath but he did grow frustrated that he couldn't be helpful around the house. Pulmonary Fibrosis causes scarring of the lungs; in Dad's case it was idiopathic, meaning the doctors could not determine its origin. Having toiled in a printing shop for decades, Dad was likely exposed him to all sorts of fumes and chemicals. He