R&R, poison oak, and what makes a person tick?

I sit on the shade-dappled lawn of The River Inn in Big Sur, California, my legs tired from walking probably three miles or so up the canyon trail at Julia Pfeiffer State Park this warm morning among ancient redwoods next to the sea. Physical exhaustion would make me feel good, except that near the inside elbow of my left arm is, horror of horrors, a spot of poison oak! Probably due to the three hours I spent at Point Lobos yesterday, where poison oak is ubiquitous.

I've taken two high-powered 200c Rhus Tox homeopathic doses so far, and have one more to go, but this stuff might just get me anyhow, just the way poison ivy used to get me, until I started to take pantothenic acid on a regular basis. If poison oak does get me, then it's time to "practice the presence" even more thoroughly, to accept even the itching into the moment and not separate from it!

Meanwhile, one day into three days of personal R&R, I've begun to delve into a question that fascinates me at present, namely, what exactly, uniquely, drives me? Perhaps with transit Pluto turning to go direct, right on top of my 27° Sagittarian Sun, this question is currently inevitable. In other words, how does the mysterious Plutonian life force channel itself through my partciular mind/body/soul to distinguish "me" from other beings? My studies in astrology point to one way of looking at this question of the uniqueness of every being. But what I'm looking for now, is a statement or two that describes what I've been searching for, what all my projects and products are spin-offs of, all my life.

The question has come up in the wake of my interview with Angles Arrien on Thursday, a riveting 75 minute occasion where it felt as if we were diving down into what makes her, this specific woman, this extraordinarily gracious teacher/healer cultural anthropologist, tick? You'll have to wait for the first issue of CRONE: Women Coming of Age, due out Spring Equinox, 2008, to "read all about it." We were both pleased, and at least I was slightly surprised, that our time together flowed so smoothly and efficiently and created content that even she seemed glad to uncover!