Musings of a Mystic (no more mess!)

"My own mind is my own Church."

2010-11-07T11:16:00.000-08:00

Thomas Paine said, "I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church."

Welcome to my worship service. :)

Ahhhhhhh. Sweet, soft rainy Sunday. I hear the rhythms of the rain; my wind chimes dance with the wind, sing with the rain. I have a book to read today, a paper to write, and some freelance graphic design work to finish (a lot of things are very different in grad school, but I still like eating). So a blog post is the prefect thing to do, right?

Right. It's my going to church on Sunday, I guess you could say.

One of the classes I'm taking is an online class (which I will never do again if I can help it. I need skinsuit contact; mere textual engagement in insufficient). Many of my classmates are not skilled writers, which can make it harder for me to extract meaning, to understand their thoughts and feelings, especially without physical cues.

For this class, we had to read a really crappy article, one of those that pretty much swears that if we had matriarchy instead of patriarchy, everything would be all better. If we worshiped a goddess instead of a god, things'd be ever so much nicer!

Ack. That crap drives me nuts, I tellya. We have this absurd notion of a matriarchal prehistory that women ran and life was great. Historical and anthropological evidence refutes this idea utterly. Didn't happen. We've built several cultural structures around hindsighted ideas about shit that never really happened (sound like a familiar pattern?) and it's pretty much a bad idea to do that--build a house on sand, as it were. Any structure built on a poor foundation is more likely to collapse; this happens in the mind as well as with levees and in governments).

So, speaking of building complex, elaborate structures on fallacy, my Mom just this week joined Facebook. Right before election day, she posted something about getting through elections so we can go back to 'normal,' and votes changing things so this country can heal. I asked her if she meant all the people, or just the Christian ones. All the people, she assured me.

She continued, "this Country is a democracy,"

[Which it actually isn't--it's a constitutional republic]

Mom: "created by men who believed in God"

[Also not true. All of our founding fathers had a relationship to religion--they couldn't avoid it, given the timbre of the times (I can't recommend PBS's series God in America enough!!).] And when you're done with that--or, hell, even as an appetizer--go read The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense founded on the Christian religion. Excellent research.

Mom: "and trusted in this nation to govern themselves, to put men and women in office who listen to the people of this nation and pass laws the meet those needs!"

[Kinda true, but not really. The idea was to create some thing that allowed for everyone to have a go at whatever they wanted, neither being oppressed nor supported. There isn't supposed to be one authoritative line; hence the whole checks and balances thing. I gotta go to Jefferson: "I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive."]

"Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between Church and State." The U.S. Supreme Court, 1947

Mom : "It is time for the American People to stand up for our Constitution and what it stands for, and I will hope and pray for all governing bodies to work together for the good of All the people!"

[Again, I hafta let Jefferson answer that one: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should `make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and State." Thomas Jefferson, in his historic Danbury letter, January 1, 1802]

On top of that, I admit a strong queasiness about their being some sort of arbiter of what's good for all the people. I know for sure that folx like Dobson, Gingrich, Rove, McCain, Palin, Brown, Falwell & Robertson have NO fekkin idea what's good for me. Nor, I must confess, do I know what's good for them. But I believe we both have the privilege/obligation to go find out what's right for each of us, and to keep that spaciousness open for others who choose a voyage of discovery over a prison of certainty.

Thing is, I plan to stop at discovery; I don't feel burdened by a need to foist my doctrine on others. Again with the Jefferson: "It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

I will now sit quietly back in my pew, and let this chorus of benediction round out my worship service. Enjoy. And praise be to Roland99for this excellent assembly of music to my ears.

"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?" James Madison, in "Memorial and Remonstrance", 1785

Roger Williams: God requireth not a uniformity of religion.

Thomas Jefferson: The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his Father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classified with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and the freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated Reformer of human errors.

James Madison: During almost fifteen centuries the legal establishment known as Christianity has been on trial, and what have been the fruits, more or less, in all places? These are the fruits: pride, indolence, ignorance, and arrogance in the clergy. Ignorance, arrogance, and servility in the laity, and in both clergy and laity, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.

Thomas Jefferson: I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

John Adams: The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.

Thomas Paine: Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst."

Abraham Lincoln: The Bible is not my Book and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma.

Benjamin Franklin: As to Jesus of Nazareth, I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with the most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts to his divinity.

"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion ..." from the Treaty of Tripoli, signed by John Adams, June 10, 1797.

"The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of church and state." James Madison, March 2, 1819

May you worship as it suits your soul,
even though that be no faith at all.
May you think as it suits your work,
even though that be no consideration at all;
and may you live as it suits the world you live in,
even though that be an unexamined life.

Pax, Shalom, Salaam, Pace, Paix, Freiden, Peace.

Moore Commentary on Ground Zero

2010-09-11T20:20:00.000-07:00

Ground Zero? Doesn't that mean a place where things begin, where they start, in addition to being a signifier for where shit happens? Doesn't that mean we can go somewhere shit happened and build consciously, intentfully, better than before? For me, that 'better' means more inclusive, btw.

Some serious shit happened 9 years ago in New York. More serious shit happened after that. Then Americans got seriously shitty about the shit and the people they all lumped together as being causal to that shit who they then treated even more shittily than ever before.

Shit.

So, I take what Michael Moore says with a grain of salt (sometimes I need to reach for the shaker, really). He's fantastic at using edited or adapted facts to create states in his viewers/readers. I like the guy, but I'm suspicious of everything he says because I always get the feeling that he's trying to get me jacked up about something so I'll do something about the something.

I susbcribe to his newsletter. Once in a while, something grabs me, like today. Mind you, I'm no sychophant. But this one--if you too will gird your loins with that salt I mentioned earelier--has a lot going for it. And it made me laugh, to boot.

It's hyperbole *at best* to declare that "If That 'Mosque' ISN'T Built, This Is No Longer America." Lots of things in America get built and don't get built and this is still America, in geography if not in (arguable) spirit. But I'd be much obliged if you'd do me the kindness of reading this one through, and letting me know what *you* think, even if it does end up tasting just the teensiest bit salty. Here's the Moore post in it's entirety:

If That 'Mosque' ISN'T Built, This Is No Longer America

OpenMike 9/11/10
Michael Moore's daily blog

I am opposed to the building of the "mosque" two blocks from Ground Zero.

I want it built on Ground Zero.

Why? Because I believe in an America that protects those who are the victims of hate and prejudice. I believe in an America that says you have the right to worship whatever God you have, wherever you want to worship. And I believe in an America that says to the world that we are a loving and generous people and if a bunch of murderers steal your religion from you and use it as their excuse to kill 3,000 souls, then I want to help you get your religion back. And I want to put it at the spot where it was stolen from you.

There's been so much that's been said about this manufactured controversy, I really don't want to waste any time on this day of remembrance talking about it. But I hate bigotry and I hate liars, and so in case you missed any of the truth that's been lost in this, let me point out a few facts:

1. I love the Burlington Coat Factory. I've gotten some great winter coats there at a very reasonable price. Muslims have been holding their daily prayers there since 2009. No one ever complained about that. This is not going to be a "mosque," it's going to be a community center. It will have the same prayer room in it that's already there. But to even have to assure people that "it's not going to be mosque" is so offensive, I now wish they would just build a 111-story mosque there. That would be better than the lame and disgusting way the developer has left Ground Zero an empty hole until recently. The remains of over 1,100 people still haven't been found. That site is a sacred graveyard, and to be building another monument to commerce on it is a sacrilege. Why wasn't the entire site turned into a memorial peace park? People died there, and many of their remains are still strewn about, all these years later.

2. Guess who has helped the Muslims organize their plans for this community center? The JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER of Manhattan! Their rabbi has been advising them since the beginning. It's been a picture-perfect example of the kind of world we all want to live in. Peter Stuyvessant, New York's "founder," tried to expel the first Jews who arrived in Manhattan. Then the Dutch said, no, that's a bit much. So then Stuyvessant said ok, you can stay, but you cannot build a synagogue anywhere in Manhattan. Do your stupid Friday night thing at home. The first Jewish temple was not allowed to be built until 1730. Then there was a revolution, and the founding fathers said this country has to be secular -- no religious nuts or state religions. George Washington (inaugurated around the corner from Ground Zero) wanted to make a statement about this his very first year in office, and wrote this to American Jews:

"The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy -- a policy worthy of imitation. ...

"It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens ...

"May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants -- while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid."

3. The Imam in charge of this project is the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet. Read about his past here.

4. Around five dozen Muslims died at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Hundreds of members of their families still grieve and suffer. The 19 killers did not care what religion anyone belonged to when they took those lives.

5. I've never read a sadder headline in the New York Times than the one on the front page this past Monday: "American Muslims Ask, Will We Ever Belong?" That should make all of us so ashamed that even a single one of our fellow citizens should ever have to worry about if they "belong" here.

6. There is a McDonald's two blocks from Ground Zero. Trust me, McDonald's has killed far more people than the terrorists. [this is one of the places where I laughed, because all comedy is based in tragedy; in this case, the tragedy is it's true]

7. During an economic depression or a time of war, fascists are extremely skilled at whipping up fear and hate and getting the working class to blame "the other" for their troubles. Lincoln's enemies told poor Southern whites that he was "a Catholic." FDR's opponents said he was Jewish and called him "Jewsevelt." One in five Americans now believe Obama is a Muslim and 41% of Republicans don't believe he was born here.

8. Blaming a whole group for the actions of just one of that group is anti-American. Timothy McVeigh was Catholic. Should Oklahoma City prohibit the building of a Catholic Church near the site of the former federal building that McVeigh blew up?

9. Let's face it, all religions have their whackos. Catholics have O'Reilly, Gingrich, Hannity and Clarence Thomas (in fact all five conservatives who dominate the Supreme Court are Catholic). Protestants have Pat Robertson and too many to list here. The Mormons have Glenn Beck. Jews have Crazy Eddie. But we don't judge whole religions on just the actions of their whackos. Unless they're Methodists.

10. If I should ever, God forbid, perish in a terrorist incident, and you or some nutty group uses my death as your justification to attack or discriminate against anyone in my name, I will come back and haunt you worse than Linda Blair marrying Freddy Krueger and moving into your bedroom to spawn Chucky. John Lennon was right when he asked us to imagine a world with "nothing to kill or die for and no religion, too." I heard Deepak Chopra this week say that "God gave humans the truth, and the devil came and he said, 'Let's give it a name and call it religion.' " But John Adams said it best when he wrote a sort of letter to the future (which he called "Posterity"): "Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present Generation to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it." I'm guessing ol' John Adams is up there repenting nonstop right now.

Friends, we all have a responsibility NOW to make sure that Muslim community center gets built. Once again, 70% of the country (the same number that initially supported the Iraq War) is on the wrong side and want the "mosque" moved. Enormous pressure has been put on the Imam to stop his project. We have to turn this thing around. Are we going to let the bullies and thugs win another one? Aren't you fed up by now? When would be a good time to take our country back from the haters?

I say right now. Let's each of us make a statement by donating to the building of this community center! It's a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization and you can donate a dollar or ten dollars (or more) right now through a secure pay pal account by clicking here. I will personally match the first $10,000 raised (forward your PayPal receipt to webguy@michaelmoore.com). If each one of you reading this blog/email donated just a couple of dollars, that would give the center over $6 million, more than what Donald Trump has offered to buy the Imam out. C'mon everyone, let's pitch in and help those who are being debased for simply wanting to do something good. We could all make a huge statement of love on this solemn day.

I lost a co-worker on 9/11. I write this today in his memory.

"The man who speaks of the enemy / Is the enemy himself." Bertolt Brecht

I'm sending a dollar to the mosque. I'm a grad student now, and that's about what I can afford. But that dollar is still a symbol of my chi, and the rest of my chi is committed to ending this irrational, fear-based, sickeningly polarizing, divisive shit. I leave you to the guidance of your conscience (and wallet) but encourage you to take a moment and send a grain of blessing, support, love, harmony or whatever else you can think of to support all of the Muslims in NY, especially imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as he struggles to follow his grace in this sitch.

Insh'allah, may there be peace, at Ground Zero and all other grounds of new beginning built on catastrophes of misunderstanding and fanatacism.

Pax, Shalom, Sala'am,
Deborah

Bring It, Boss

2010-05-18T14:28:00.000-07:00

Some fears you can move through singularly, like a minor boss in a video game. You meet it, you kill it, you find more treasure. Some fears are Big Bosses, and the battle with them is cumulative. Everything you do up to that point trains you to meet the Boss Fear, you fight it, you get your ass kicked (and, hopefully, win) and then you level up. Those kinds of fears must be moved through; one you’re through, you’re simply not in the same landscape anymore. Same game, but new turf.

I’ve dealt with all the minor bosses I can. Met them on the noble field of internal combat, won (well, mostly) and now it’s time to level up. The Big Fear is up next.

For me, that means becoming a verb. The little fears I’ve been able to deal with on my insides, using my tools, my process skills, everything I’ve learned over the years. I’ve been training to meet this Boss since I got back from Cuba in ’05.

The two times in the last 10 years that I can remember someone asking me what I was most afraid of, the answer has been the same: getting my PhD. No, I don’t need it to legitimize my knowledge. To a point, I don’t need that sort of credential to teach, either. But I desire it. I need to know that I can commit to a dream, take the baby steps involved and pursue my Personal Legend. Her name is Dr. Addington. She dreams of social justice through religious literacy. She strives for a better world by becoming the change she wants to see in it. She aches for all this to make sense, somehow, to broaden her awareness of assigning meaning and value to a life that’s over in the space of a cosmic sneeze.

And here comes the Boss Fear. It means moving—both figuratively and literally.

We leave in 2 days to go seek housing and employ. We seem to need to be on the ground there, where the chi most needs moving. An angel brought us a car perfect for living there, at a price we could afford. An angel offered us lodging while we go look, til July1. One thing at a time, we’ve found the magical objects needed to meet this Boss and win. I still think that I could use some bonus armor or magically enhancing objects or special spells, but who knows what’s to be found on the way.

That’s the thing: hafta be on the way now. I’ve processed. I’ve moved through my innerscape. I’ve done all the footwork from here that I can. For some reason, I was under the delusion that if I did it “right,” I’d have moved through all my fears so that I could go un-gently into that good night, fear-free and ready for anything. Not quite. This fear has been distilled to its essence: a fear of the unknown, which can only be properly dealt with by moving into it, by acquiring knowledge.

I’m ready. I have to be. If I tell myself I’m not, I won’t ever go. I’m not fear-free in the way I thought I’d be, but I’m not being animated into action by my fears, either. They’re like the smelly hippie hitchhikers in the backseat that I know I get to take with me a little way along this path, and then they’ll get out, hopefully without leaving stains or a lingering, nose-whapping scent.

Here I come, Boss. I’m ready for you. I’m naked, vulnerable, exposed. I’m spacious, loving and grateful. I’m unarmed and waiting to embrace you into non-existence. I’m looking forward to what you have to teach me about the pursuit of my Personal Legend.

Bring it.

It Ends at the Beginning

2010-05-06T12:51:00.000-07:00

I am so sick of my own process that I could just about puke. I place enormous value on self-reflexive methods of growth and evolution, but seriously. All things in moderation, right?

I’m doing the least I can—check. Moving through fearwads as they arise—check. Dealing with my shit the best way I know how--check. Remaining engaged and present, open to what is—check.

Great. Could we do something else now, please?

I crochet. It started when my chiro suggested that a handcraft might help me move more energy into my creativity. I figured, okay, what can I do that’s cheap? I had two old crochet hooks and one knitting needle in the bottom of an old sewing kit. I had some interesting leftover yarns from making hairfalls for Burning Man. Seemed ideal. I got a book targeted at 9 year olds or so and taught myself basic stitches.

Then I got another book and learned more. Then I went out on the net and learned how to read patterns (they’re written in glyphs, not words, so some learning curve there).

I started by following directions, learning the “rules.” Then I kinda went off on my own, making simple things according to what I’d learned about the rules. Then I got bored.

I got tired of doing the same thing repetitively. Then I found freeform (also called scrumbling which the urban dictionary defines as "blowing a raspberry on someone’s testicles" (go figure I'd have a hobby that has a connection to doing odd things to people's naughty bits, huh?). I started to paint with yarn.

I’m only a beginner. I’m still learning about how different weights of yarn and different stitches can dance with each other harmoniously. I’m still learning how to make it lay flat, how to get it to do what I want. I’m still using the rules and stitches I learned early on, but now I’m having my way with them.

I’ve been working on my learning piece for 2 months. Not every day, but steadily, and some days for hours and hours. Creating beauty calms me. Struggling with creation centers me. Watching a something emerge form a not-bloody-much fascinates me. And I now have concrete proof that I can start a long-term project and finish it, even knowing for a fact that it’s utterly imperfect in more ways than I can count.

And now it is complete. I finished it last night—wove the loose ends in, tidied up, that sort of thing. Imperfect as it may be, I did it and it’s mine. I learned a lot from it. Each time I look at it-even though I made it-I see something new. That seems improbable to me, but there you have it. I journalled and photographed its becoming; I’ve never done that with art before. It was interesting, and a definite exercise in discipline for me.

So my first try ends here. Completion achieved. The work even inspired me to write a poem (which also helped when I was facilitating the writer’s group for the Emma Center, because my cowriters got to watch a piece get written, worked on, change, and be finished--it's down at the bottom of this post). And I got to go through the process of writing as a process. This is good for me because I have a nasty, sabotagy tendency to quit if something doesn’t come out perfect and finished on the first try (a lethal habit I am striving to unlearn).

My fingers itch already for something new to work on. I’m lying on the grass of my brain, looking up at the moving cloudforms of my thoughts, becoming willing to let an inspiration find me and light me up. I have no doubt it will, and I have no doubt that the more practice I get in doing that the better off I’ll be as I walk off into my own new sunrise.
approx size = 2.5x2.5 feet.

Crocheting a Poem

I pick up my pointy stick and begin to inscribe patterns:
loops, lines, stringy language;

each row builds on the last and becomes the next.
I hope the one before makes sense
or the followers are lost.

Tension is critical. If I make the next word too tight
or too loose
the other words will have a hard time figuring out where they belong
and the work won’t lay flat on the page when it’s done.

If I don’t balance creation with control,
it will curl around the edges:
that makes a poem harder to wear.

If I can craft this poem,
allow it to become,
witness the tango of colors,
pace my hands and feet,
weave a rhythm,

I will have made something that might
clothe a naked form,
or offer nice, warm beauty
on a cold, blocked night.

I cut the working strands
and weave in the ends.
Good finishing is invisible.

Changing the Story

2010-05-05T16:26:00.000-07:00

Stuff happens. As it turns out, the stuff that’s happening is very seldom the cause of any pleasure or distress I may experience. Pleasure and distress come from the stories I instantaneously (and far too often unconsciously) tell myself about the stuff that’s happening.

Take moving from my 20 year home to a whole new place, for example. Not such a big thing, really, especially when I look at people like my friend Inge (see previous blog post), and when I observe the different ways things like this are handled in other places in the world. Were I Bedouin, I’d nut up about staying on one place!

I’ve been telling myself some hella sketchy stories. I think I’ve moved through a lot of the tangly threads in the fearwad an am now hopefully moving on to dealing with less fearsome, paralyzing things.

I’ve been using Dave Berman’s Manifest Positivity motto: What’s the least you can do? It’s really been helping; some of these fearwads and their constituent chunks have been so seemingly gimonstornormous that I haven’t been able to work with them as wholes. In pieces, though, I can manage to chop wood and carry water.

We took a big step yesterday.L & I sat down and crafted an ad to go out on Craigstlist and some other places where, hopefully, the person(s) who need us will see our beacon shining against the clouds (evokes Batman, dunnit?). It took us a couple hours, and we had to get past the stories behind some the of the kneejerk reactions that can make it difficult for us to co-craft, but we did it.
It’s here:

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/hou/1724596027.html.

We think it turned out pretty good. Hopefully, you’ll go take a look at it, offer us comments, maybe put it on your Facebook where more people can get at it, etc.It really is rather lovely.

To find the stuff that went into that note, I had to change some story. While the details in story vary for me, many of the little ones share a common theme: This is HARD. Moving is hard. Moving to the Bay is hard (oh, yeah, and don’t forget expensive). Packing is hard. Letting go of what I know is hard. Finding a place is hard.

What if I told myself a different story? Like, moving is challenging, but doable. This is a chance to learn even more about managing my personal resources. Packing is a bitch, but it gives me a chance to sort out the detritus I’ve kept that isn’t me anymore. Finding a place to live might be tough using conventional methods, but I live in a place of boundless hope with almost infinite other ways to try and do things. Being me isn’t a detriment to doing what I desire—it’s exactly what’s required.

Just one different story can alter my perceptions; a combination of other stories can alter my perceptions significantly enough to allow me to become aware of other, previously invisible, options.

So today, this Note from the Universe comes in: "Never compromise a dream, Deborah. Always compromise on how it will come true." The story I was telling resulted in a worldview that I would need to alter my dream to make this happen. Bullshit. It’s the story that needs altering, and that part is way easier than, say, packing.

Tying Up My Camel

2010-05-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

The more I wrestle with this, the more I find it to be a complex, Gordian set of fears, not just one or two that I can deal with quickly, detangle and move on. I keep finding the smaller fears that make up the big, scary looking fearwad and am dealing with them as I find them.

Somehow, I expected this to go faster. Silly me.

In the midst of my wrestling, I got to do a couple neat things this weekend. I had the pleasure of attending a lovely wedding and help a friend with moving stuff. All I really wanted to do was stay home in a corner sucking my metaphoric thumb and twitching, but I’ve learned that the best way to get out of my own crap is to do something for others. So I got up, dressed up and showed up.

After the lovely wedding, we headed for Inge’s. That’s the friend we were helping with moving. She’s amazing. She’s got more time in volunteering, community activism and social justice than I’ve been alive. She has health challenges, and this really neat wandering eye. She’s leaving her home of 18 years to move to the east coast, to live closer to her other kids and grandkids

She’s 75.

Seventy-five.

Isn't she delightful? So curious! So mischievous! So vibrant! She’s built a life here, and is giving it all up to do something else. Can you imagine? At that age? Packing it all in to go do something totally new and different? Hell, I’m having a hard time imagining it for myself and I’m only 45!

But she’s doing it. Her house sold at a good price (for this market) before it ever even got listed and she had 2 buyers standing by. Once she made the decision, she says, things just started falling into place. She’s very sad—grieving, even—for the life here that is ending. But she’s all sparkly and excited about the new life that’s about to begin. There was a book about love and dying on one of the boxes in the living room, which she enthusiastically recommended to me, saying, “Grieving comes from love, you know. We must risk the pain of loss to really love all the way down.”

I have at least two choices, here. I can look at her as a model, a way of helping me to comport myself in a similar fashion. Or, I can discount her entirely by drawing on specifics, like our lives are different, she doesn’t have the same issues I do, it’s easy for her, blah blah blah. That kinda crap. I have decided that, like her, I am not a victim of my chaotic existence but that I am an adventurer off to see what this next bit of my life is going to look like. I can make either option come true, depending on which one I choose to believe.

If Inge can do it, then I bloody well can, too.

This fine model may not help me find and detangle another fear; that’s my work in progress. But it does something equally valuable: it shows me that theses fearwads can be dealt with, and that there’s hope. Vast, boundless amounts of hope and the deep, fervent faith that if this is really what I’m supposed to be doing, doors I can’t even see yet will open to me right when I need them. That’s not to say that I’m operating under the assumption that I can sit on my ass and if the Universe wants me to go somewhere or do something that a magic carpet will arrive to whisk me off to my fate or destiny; it's up to me to take the steps that move me in my desired direction. It means that I’m abiding by a Muslim truth: Trust God and tie up your camel.

Suck By Association?

2010-05-01T08:23:00.000-07:00

Emotional weather forecast for today: anxious and uncertain with patches of peace and tranquility. Internal squalls of debate and doubt with breakthroughs of clarity. When in motion today, be wary of high turbulence in areas of low ceilings.

I’m making headway.

Last night, while moving through some more of this very interesting internal weather, I ran across something. It’s thirty years old and subtly influential. I found myself saying, “…and the last time I gave up everything I knew and moved, it sucked.”

Well, of course it sucked. I got married and left home young. Really young. Fifteen. Shortly after I got myself into some wedlock, I moved. At first, it was only halfway across the country, to Colorado where children in Halloween costumes were making snowmen. I was horrified, and cold. A year later, it was the rest of the way across, to Virginia. I was horrified for different reasons, and I was hot and overhumidified. I didn’t know anyone, I’d never lived anywhere but California, all my family and my familiar stuff was gone, gone gone. That hellish phase lasted for two years. I’d never had to move in the world as an adult before, and I had not one iota of a thought about a clue about anything in life. I was miserable.

I didn’t realize I was still operating within that vintage misery, until I heard myself say the thing about last time and the suckage.

Sure, it sucked. I was basically a smartass teenager, using marriage in order to run away from what I didn’t like at home. I had no idea how to be in the world. I learned a lot about how I didn’t want to be in the world.

The similarity this situation bears to “the first time I did this” is actually minimal. I’m moving. That’s about it. I’m thirty years away from being a smartass teen. I’m not running from anything; I’m moving myself steadily, consciously towards something that matters a great deal to me. I have something of a feel for how the world moves, now, and a much better idea about how I desire to move through it. I’m not the same person I was then. The situation’s not the same. I’m leaving my home base to go somewhere else: that’s really where the resemblance between then and now ends.

And yet, I still have it in my head that “the last time I did this, it sucked.” That doesn’t make a lot of sense, really, considering that what I’m about to do (make conscious changes in order to pursue my dreams) is not what I did thirty years ago. There is no “last time I did this” because I’ve not previously done it. But damned if my saboteur isn’t trying to tell me it’s the same.

It isn’t. There’s a big difference between escape and adventure. Last time: escape. This time: adventure. It is not going to be all suck. There will be some suck, as it is moving, and moving, in general, sucks. But default suckage by association? Nah. That, I can leave behind.

Just Say Thank You

2010-04-29T15:04:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was a mite sketchy up in the ol’ brain tower of doom. Managed—and right properly—to think myself into a tizz. This morning promised more of the same; the hamsters in my head woke up scant moments before I did and already had a ruckus going before I even got my coffee.

And then one of my angels stopped by (this loving spirit happens to have chosen a particularly splendid skinsuit and along with the grace she brings I get a hottie to look at. The Universe is indeed kind).

We chat; an impeding visit, perhaps? Timing’s the thing. Whenever a visit might occur, she says, I must be accompanied by some sort of speech-prohibiting device. Ball gag was the specific she mentioned, but I rather prefer good old fashioned panties and duct tape. She whips off her pants and transforms, by their removal, the panties she’s wearing into a future gag for me.

They’re blue, like an early summer sky. They have a satin bow.

Ever obliging, I put the panties in my mouth (after a hearty inhale, of course). Nice, that they smell like her. Not as nice that they also smell like laundry soap of the variety that makes me choke. I decide a token of the panties, as a reminder to silence, will do. I grab my nearby thread snips and go to remove the bow only to realize that I can’t really see it (and they are cute little panties that I’d hate to damage accidentally). I then reach for my glasses. I can’t find them. I begin to freak just the teensiest bit, starting to tell stories like, “Oh no! Without my glasses, I can’t read a thing and I have work to do today! I must have my glasses! What if I can’t find them?!? Oh no! Ack!” And so on.

Sparklingly perky, she says, “Just say, ‘Thank you!’”

I did. I said, “Thank you for the nice, soft fuzzy experience I’ll have without my glasses. I dunno why I get to have this experience, but thanks!”

I felt lighter instantly. I figured if it worked for missing glasses, it’d work for other things. So I said thank you for the fear I had yesterday that led me inward. Thank you for the haze of not knowing that surrounds our moving adventure. Thank you for the anxiety I get whenever I think about moving. Thank you for the sorrow I feel at being far from tribe and friends. Thank you for the lessons I haven’t even seen yet. Thank you.

This isn’t over yet. Move Day is a only month away and nothing on the surface, in the Maya, has changed. I still don’t know where we’ll be living or how we’re going to get there. But I am now firmly reminded (I put the satin panty bow above my desk) that I can say thank you to anything, thereby initiating transformation like my angel, who can transform panties to a gag at the drop of a pants. Thank you.

Writing Adventures in Terror

2010-04-28T16:28:00.000-07:00

I’m scared shitless and the only thing I know to do is to write my way through it. I’m facing one of the biggest adventures of my adult life: I’m leaving my home of twenty years to move to the Bay Area and start grad school.

Last year I got accepted to the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley to work on my MDiv; after those three years, I’ll do another two for the PhD. I couldn’t go; funding fell through 2 weeks before we were slated to move. Had a house lined up and everything, and the Universe said, “No. I need you to stay in Humboldt a while longer.”

Okay, I can live with that. I applied for and got a deferral. I started a Coaching practice, which has been one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever done. It deepened my service and my skills. I believe I have helped some people with their goals. And now it’s time to move.

And I’m terrified.

Our moving budget is skinny, but we have one. No known place to stay while we look for a place or an actual place to live yet. Hard to househunt from a distance, but doable.

Lolo & I had a meeting today. We talked about dates, a Plan, and how to go about this Big Adventure. That part was good, but it scared me more. See, I have no idea how any of this is going to play out. All I know is that we need to be living down there, preferably in the Easy Bay and preferably as close to Holy Hill as possible. We can’t afford a lot of rent, and neither of us have jobs in the Bay lined up. Fortunately, I do have some steady, passive income; we should be able to get by until we find work.

By all conventional rules, this looks to be a very challenging adventure. On the other hand, according to my beliefs, sometimes we get called to act without knowing for sure what the outcome will be (which is really true of life in general, but humans are excellent at creating & getting attached to the illusions of comfort and security). I also choose to believe that the Universe is constantly conspiring on my behalf and that I am held in ways I cannot even begin to imagine. That’s generally a place of joy for me, but right now, I’m frightened.

I’ve said all along that I’ll do whatever needs doing to manifest my dream of grad school. I mean that. Right now, though, I’m scared of what that might mean. Will I be called on to do things that physically hurt? That make me seriously uncomfortable? That would make one of those really heart-wrenching tales of personal sacrifice and overcoming obstacles to reach a dream? I can’t know. What I do know is that I said I’d do anything, and I fucking mean it. I’ll sleep in the back of our truck with the dog and cat if I have to. Funny, but right now all of my solutions to my adventure dilemma are even scarier than the dilemma itself. I suspect my saboteur is working overtime just now.

My training tells me to sit with my fear, to be fully in it. Mustn’t fight it; must go all the way in, see what I’m really afraid of, use my tools, move forward. Right now, that’s daunting. I asked myself what was the least I could do, and writing my way through it came to mind. So here I am.

We like to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race. We both love drag, drag queens, fabulosity, spirit and courage. It comes down to the last round with the last 2 contestants. They have to lip synch for their lives. One of them gets down off the stage and does her thing right in front of the judges’ table. The judges are looking at here, while the poor girl up on stage muddles through. Our theory was that the one who got offstage wanted it more. She was willing to go that extra bit because she really, REALLY wanted to win her dream.

And she won.

I wanna be like that. I wanna be someone who figures out how to go that extra step for my dream—works those extra hours, makes that extra sacrifice, whatever. I shout loudly in the silence of my head to the Universe: THIS IS MY DREAM! I AM DOING THIS!

…and I hear crickets. No specific guidance at this time. “If you are calling from a rotary brain, please stay on the line and the next available representative of the Divine will be….” >*click*<.

Okay. To me, this means that I have what I need in order to do the next thing I need to do while staying fully present in this moment. Apparently, I need to clarify for myself what it is we’re after so that we can create it. That’s progress, anyway—having something to do that moves me closer to my goals helps ameliorate the fear that paralyzes me.

Stay tuned: more tomorrow as the story unfolds. I’m on an adventure and I invite you to join me as I write my way through it.

What We Should See

2009-09-04T12:38:00.000-07:00

There's a big stink at the moment, about the AP's decision to publish a photo of a Marine in his last moments of life. I saw it come up as an aritcle about the stink, not the stink-causing article itself. So I went looking for the image, to see what all the stink was about, and I found this:

I thought, "Ah, that must be it. Then I read the caption: it said "dying Marine on the road to Seoul." That whapped me hard. I was looking for an image of a young man dying in one senseless, "modern" war, and as if one senseless war isn't enough, I get dragged all the way back to Korea. Amazing.

Stunned but unstaisfied, I kept hunting. Here's the Big AP Stink image:

The young lad, one Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard, may he rest in peace, was hit by rocket shrapnel and died.

He died, some other soldiers died, and other people have died too. Women, children, civilians--ours and theirs, as if there's really any difference between one dead human and another, in terms of cost. Is an American life inherently worth more than an Iranian one, or an Afghani one? (hint: the answer is NO). All dead. Dead dead dead. Death is the price of war.

One of the things I remember about the Viet Nam 'conflict' was seeing images that disturbed my child's mind. It really made me wonder why all this was going on, why people had to die for what seemed to me then very silly reasons. The images were there, though, all over the six o'clock news.

Small wonder I grew up hating the news, and newspapers, and talk radio. They all stank like death.

Nowadays, I listen to talk radio and watch news--mostly online. I get the NY Times tweets, and a few other sources, too. I like to vet information. So this AP story about the big stink around the picture caught me for one primary reason: The dearth of images of our current war. It's been made terribly easy for us, as Americans, to not even notice we're *at* war. Well, we are. And not to beat a dead soldier, but death is the price of war.

Should we see the cost of war? Will that help us become so disgusted and appalled at our collective choices that we begin to make different choices, choices that don't result in corpses--or near corpses--that need to be photographed? Is that why some people are trying to say that publishing this stinky photo of a Marine in his death throes is a horrible thing, because there's some sense in our administrators that if us plain old regular people see these images we might get just a little bit miffed and want to do something about it?

At the very least, we should make sure that what we're purchasing with this abundance of death is worth the price we pay for it. I don't know about you, but I prefer to see what I'm buying before I pay.

Held by Hooks and Hitachis

2009-08-21T17:20:00.000-07:00

Few years back, I got to do my first hook pull. Large gauge needles are placed in the chest; it’s through enough tissue to hold them in place just fine. The hooks aren’t gonna pull out; the piercings are rich and deep. Once the piercings are in, a 3-4’ length of cord is tied to the loops at the ends of the hooks.

It was my first time. Fakir & CM Hurt (out of LA) were the piercers; I had some history with CM, so I went with her. Her modowrk is amazing, and her spirit is vibrant, full of dark humor and huge love. Cleo DuBois was a major ka-see-ka (‘experienced guide’) for the trip. I was ready. I have a history of doing intense things with my skinsuit, and I figured this to be right up my alley.

I waited in line, held by my lovers G&S, safe in the arms of blessed community. Some of my other Detroit peeps were there, and it felt tingly and scary and bubbling with potential. It was like filling up your gas tank right before you head out to Burning Man, your vehicle loaded with gear and tribe.

The piercings hurt—for about a minnit. Of course it hurts! You’re poking 10 gauge hooks into your chestmeat. But then…oh, but then. I fell more deeply in love with my endocrine system in that moment than I’d ever been before. The drum sounds rippled through my skin; it was as though the new holes, tight as they were wrapped around the metal of the hooks, had opened me to the rhythms. The drumbeats and low chanting danced right into my skin along with the hooks.

Each of us—there were about 20 participants in this ritual if I recall (all bets on recall are off after the hooks go in because of the sudden, immediate and dramatic priority shift that occurs when you break through the boundary that most people believe separates us from one another) moved gingerly, finding our places in the pain, in the sounds, in the room. I can’t tell you how many people were holding space or just watching; from here, it seems like lots but I admit, it could have simply been all the angels in the room. There was presence.

After everyone had been pierced, whatever it was bubbling and brewing in that circle spilled over. The holes in your chest don’t just let things in—they let things out, too. Maybe it was the leopard print sarong I was wearing, flavoring my experience, but I transformed. I was wild, feline, joyful, wounded, perilous and ecstatic. I learned by doing who it was that I wanted to hold my cord, who it was I wanted to trade cords with, who it was I might be willing to tug on.

When we had reached a certain level of transformation, of energy building, Cleo danced her way into the middle of the circle with a large metal ring, a rattle and a Hitachi. She beckoned us to her. We went. Using carabineers, Cleo hooked each of our cords to the large metal ring. We stood around the ring, unable to be more than 3-4’ from it. It got more and more crowded. We had no choice but to touch each other, to find a way to comfortably stand and sway without falling down or knocking someone else over. We cooperated instinctively; that was my first proof that humans can cooperate instinctively.

Then Cleo began to play with the center ring. It was a circus of sensation; she vibed the ring with the Hitachi, and we all sighed and hummed with one voice. She lifted up; we came to our toes, laughing, moaning. She crouched down; we bent towards the source of sensation, chuckling and crying.

And then everything stopped. It was like someone had hit the mute button on my experience. I didn’t hear drums or people or moaning or chuckling. All was still. In that stillness, that silence, I realized:

No matter what we did, we were connected. If one person took a deep breath, someone on the other side of the ring felt it. If someone moved sideways, we all went sideways. There was nothing--not a laugh, a sob, a twitch—NOTHING—that didn’t reverberate through the ring and into everyone else attached to it. It was undeniable, inescapable. We were all connected. Yeah, yeah, I know I said that. But dig it: WE ARE ALL CONNECTED. In that moment for me, there was no difference between that center ring and the whole of my world.

The hooks left my flesh later. I remember falling into a puppy pile of warmth, embrace, magical adoration. My puppy people left later, when I went back up to my room to bathe (this is also when I learned to never schedule a session for immediately after a hook pull. Silly me). The dried blood around the hooks left as I sank—slowly—into the warm water.

What never left, and still hasn’t, is that knowing of connectedness. For me, it took hooks to have that ah-HA. I don’t know what it’ll take for you, or for the rest of the world. But I do know that it is a knowing we must all come to. And soon. The illusion that something as fragile as a skinsuit somehow makes us *separate* from each other is ridiculous. It’d be downright funny, if that illusion didn’t cause so much fucking pain in the world. Even though we can’t always see it or feel it, we are, at all times, connected to each other that way. Not just the people we want to play with, or to family and tribe. Everyone. We’re all hooked into the web; someone thrums a string in Sri Lanka, and we feel the ripples of it in our own skin. We turn away from someone in anger, and we yank on other people’s spirits. We’re just too small-sighted to notice the depth, breadth and scope of our connectedness.

Hook in, people. Hook in. Find your own way of experientially knowing this Truth of connection. Choose wisely whose cords you tug on, and to whom you hand your own cord. And then come dance your truth with me. I’ll be waiting with the Hitachi.

I Went to an I-Scream Social

2009-08-18T13:36:00.000-07:00

I live in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. Nestled in the crook of the mountains, caressed by breath from the sea, bundled up in fog come summer and deluged by rain the rest of the time, we Humboldtians relish our isolated, rural community. Only two roads in: 101 north/south, and 299 east. Both are twisty, mountainous journeys that make you feel like you’ve earned the beauty by the time you get here. You can fly in, too, but you can’t always land. It’s almost like the sentinels, the semper virens, pick and choose who gets to come in and who doesn’t. We live in the Emerald Triangle, in the Red wood Empire, behind the Redwood Curtain.

We have a respectable (up til recently) university, one of the highest per-capita artist populations in the state if not the country, a few bars, some churches, a community college, and a particular economic structure with rarified local industry. Snoop Dogg plays here regularly, at the Vet’s hall, charging almost 100$ a ticket and passing trash bags through the audience, soliciting Humboldt donations. There’s magic here.

And not a lot to do on a Saturday night. Sidewalks roll up around midnight, leaving thrillseekers some pub action and maybe some exotic dancing (if you’re in Eureka or are willing to ‘drive into town’).

I’m kinky. I live in Humboldt. I like to go kinky places, do kinky things, see kinky people, chat up kinky stuff. In a place like this, that means creating community, something I’ve been involved in for as long as I’ve lived here (19 years this month). From working with small, house-meeting groups to working with organizations that host classes and events, it has been my privilege to serve my community in some delicious ways.

Saturday last I attended a Social hosted by The Impropriety Society (HumboldtImps.com), which followed classes taught earlier in the day by BusDriver and Pink (fabulous Bay Area cousins who came north to share their playful spirits and useful information). Our local Munch (run by Master M & salve Kelly; visit eurekamunch.org), sponsored by our local intelligent and sexy purveyor of pervy delights, Good Relations (http://www.goodrelationseureka.com/), arranged for the classes; the ImpSoc hosted the Social. We’ve also had the great folks at MedicalToys.com teach and support the community. Socials are smaller events that happen once a month, with large events happening in the general vicinity of Halloween and Valentine’s Day. Socials sell out at 75 tickets, and the larger events sell out at 200-300, depending on venue. No, it ain’t the Citadel, but it is our shining bastion of pansexual, kinky, poly-supportin’ cross-dressin’, hard-playin’, good lovin’ impropriety that some of us require in order to have sane, healthy balanced lives.

Since the area’s so small, we don’t really have the population to support a huge variety of specific splinter groups (the one exception to this seems to be gay men, who have their own community up here but don’t come play with the rest of us nearly often enough). The benefit to this is an exquisitely diverse community. If we want safe places to play, we must work together to create them. We cut a wide swath of freakliness in which we all try to support each other and get along. I’ve seen the hardcore D/s couple frolicking right alongside some folks playing strip Hokey-Pokey. I’ve seen riggers & flying right next to a plush pile of people. I’ve seen spanking alongside medical scenes and bellydancing in the background. I’ve seen a tiny little kitty rhythmically playing the bum of an adorable cross-dressing kitten; I’ve pummeled pals with boxing gloves while watching predicament bondage between blows. I’ve been offered brand new, untouched fresh meat (I hope they come back!) and we’ve got old dogs like me, who’ve been at this for a while. We have noobs, novices, naughtys, notoriae and most everything in between, all managing somehow, sometimes even with grace, to coexist and co-create.

We’ve worked hard to get here, all of us, from the folks who started the first ‘guerilla sex theater’ group to its present incarnation, the Humboldt Impropriety Society. Three women run the Imps; they bust hump to bring these things off (sometimes we even get to thank-spank them!). Our community sports a volunteer spirit that warms the heart, even on the foggiest of days (and they’ve been known to stand guard at the outer entrance at 3 am in 40 degree rainy weather, too). We have our Impresses, we have volunteers that impress, and now, having attended a party equal to those I’ve attended across the country in major venues with all sorts of splendid players, I’m renaming our place.

I hereby dub Humboldt County (and surrounding areas) The Redwood Impire. In our Impire, there is frolic, laughter, cries of pain, squees of delight and dismay. There is rope, leather, satin and skin. Within our enclave there is safe haven for the respectful freak of every stripe, spot and pelt; there is education for the seeker of new knowings. There is camaraderie, commiseration, construction and collaboration. We have art days, where folks gather to create visual stimuli to be used at events (I’m still impressed by the 7’giant fabric-mache penis & the 5’ yoni). To be fair, there is also the familial bickering and social distress that comes with being part of a small, ever-so-slightly incestuous community where everybody thinks they know who and what everybody else is up to. I admit, it does get tough, figuring out how to hold members of the community who move from one phase of their lives to another, all within the community sphere. And I still wouldn’t trade it for the world.

I am Impressed; I hope that this model of cooperative education and support is Impspirational. And yeah, I do mean to Imply that we’ve got a thing goin’ on up here that’s just as fine in its own way as anything I’ve ever seen anywhere else. The greatest Impasse for most is just getting up the gumption to come; once they arrive, they find we’re not Imperious or Imperiling but rather Impish, waiting to Impclude them in our community. We’re about Impowering folks, not Imprisoning them (although I do recall a cage with wheels that had a cutie in it that I got to ride around on and a blowjob I got through the bars of a cage from someone with the prettiest mouth I think I’ve ever seen).

So if you’re ever in our neck of the woods, stop by. We welcome Imports, Impresarios, the Impractical and the sexually Impoverished. Feeling Impotent? Come hang out with us; we may not have a cure, but you sure as hell won’t be bored here in the Redwood Impire.

Blackberries, Blood & Bottoming

2009-08-12T19:04:00.000-07:00

It’s been an action-packed couple of weeks; things are settling from adventures, and writing resumes! I’ve missed you!

Blackberries are evil, insidious, invasive, mean, nasty, cruel, barbarous creatures. Why do we endure them? Some would say, “Because killing them is impossible;” others would say, “Because of the fruit.” I do like the fruit. A fresh blackberry, right off the vine, tastes like our gentle, coastal breezes mixed with sunshine and sugar. It comes in your mouth, and you like it. You lean down and look for more. The risk of pain is worth the reward of flavor.

Here in our little bit of Humboldt that we like to call M’skeetah Holler, we have blackberries. Lots and lots and lots of blackberries. They are like a usurping, unwelcome occupying force and they are resource gluttons. With all that a blackberry bush has going on, I’m surprised that it has any energy left to make fruit. Canes there, runners here, thorns everywhere. It certainly is productive and efficient.

Just outside my morning window, where I like to sit and merge into my day is what I call my ‘fishbowl,’ a small, enclosed area that makes me feel like I’m all by myself, out in nature. I have elegantly, whiffly jasmine, sweet, fragrant honeysuckle and some gorgeous basket and bird’s nest ferns. Hummingbirds and monarch butterflies come to taste the butterfly bush and pink teacups; spiders weave webs for me at night that glisten with fresh mist in the morning sun. It’s la luxe verte.

I sit in the morning and look out into my fishbowl, watching the creatures pollinate things and dine on nectar (and sometimes each other). In spring, I watch the ferns unfurl a bit each day; in fall, I watch the berries to see if they’re ready today? Today? Today? Lately, there’s been this ginormous blackberry cane moving steadily westward, from one side of the bowl to the other, and I’ve witnessed it grow by inches each day. It bothers me. And it has friends.

Meanwhile, my jasmine isn’t as productive as I’d like. I enjoy having it in such a state that if I open my window, nature’s best air freshener just wafts right on in, tickling my nose with happy. But the blackberries are taking up too much resource for the jasmine to flourish. This bothers me. Yes, all living things have the right to, well, live, but as custodian of my little patch of dirt, it’s my job to make decisions about these things. And then act on them. Today, I decided to do something about my botherdness.

Too hot to work in long sleeves (a thermal event uncommon in Humboldt), I went out to tend my bowl in a tank top & jeans. I knew it’d be a tradeoff.

If I were a plant, I might be a blackberry: Persistent, tenacious, successful, well-equipped for its job, fruity, mean, sharp and (if I anthropomorphize just right), sadistic. I swear, I can hear them chuckling as they pull on my pants like a sugar addicted toddler in the treat aisle at Costco begging for “suuma doze cookies, Mama!” They snortlaugh and act like it wasn’t them when they untie my shoelaces, but I know they’re watching to see if they can get me to faceplant. They laugh outright when their tender caresses produce fine welts that begins to trickle red, the same shade of red as an almost-ripe berry. It’s eerie, how much their laugh sounds like my own when I wear thorns and welt people.

Did you know that you can use some of the long and supple thin runners from a blackberry bush for bondage? And some of the thick, thorny canes make great canes (single person use, please). Yeah, go ahead and wince and maybe make the teeth-sucking sound; it’s appropriate.

But I digress.

Everything that didn’t have fruit on it, I cut. This year’s crop of berries already looks magnificent, and I know that if I get the plant to put its resources where I want them, the berries will be even sweeter and more plentiful. I’m crafting for a swell harvest. Meanwhile, I free up the jasmine and get the honeysuckle more light so that they can be abundant, too. And all it cost me was a little blood and aggravation. Small price to pay, really.

An hour later, I’m almost hot and definitely cranky. I trip over the hose (partially because my shoe’s untied), the vines won’t let go of my gloves (but will leave thorns in them), I have as much schmeg in my hair (despite wearing a do-rag) as my shaggy dog gets when he’s anywhere near redwood duff and I’m covered in dirt, dead leaves, pokes, nicks, scratches and a gouge or two. I have bottomed to the blackberries and, right about now, I hate my top. I chose my top today, and nobody to thank—or blame—for that but me. It isn’t about the top; it’s about what I bottom to showing me about where I fall short. Today my fallings short would be in patience, endurance, and band-aids.

I’ve bled for my blackberries. I’m hoping that’ll make ‘em even sweeter, because each scratch, poke, and thorn gouge represents a blackberry that I am going to eat the hell out of come early Fall. Cobblers, wine, confit, maybe some preserves: all those berries will be mah bitches then, and I’ll remember that bottoming to them got me there, to that sweet juiciness I do so enjoy.

Damn it, Toto, we're still in Kansas!

2009-07-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

A cop was recently arrested in Kansas for domestic abuse. The alleged victim is his (now) ex-girlfriend (and former contracted submissive).

Michael Percival (age 44) set up a fishing trip for he & his kids on June 15. Elisha Cabrera (age 42) and her son weren't invited. After his return from the trip, there was an exchange between Percival and Cabrera which, in line with the terms of their agreement, which resulted in her being assigned 50 whacks, which were then administered over the course of 2 days.

On June 18, Cabrera got drunk, went to his house and pitched a fit. Charges against Cabrera as a result of the June 18 arrest included third-degree assault, harassment, DUI and obstruction of telephone service (no details on what that might actually mean).

Cabrera goes to jail. She's in the restroom, changing into a jail suit and being supervised by a female officer who happens to notice marks on Carbrera's butt (without knowing dimensions of the room, location of the two women, etc. it's impossible to say if the marks were "noticed" or exhibited purposefully). Cabrera says Percival made the marks during a punishment. Without seeing the pictures that were taken by the police, in jail, of Cabrera's butt, it's hard to deduce the age or direct source of the marks. Reports of affidavits are unspecific as to the nature or condition of the marks.

Cabrera has provided law enforcement with contracts, documents used to affirm and record consensual negotiations about roles, limits, and consequences to prenegotiated activities. Items discussed in the contract included "personal hygiene, general behavior including sexual behavior and clothing,” and specified punishments if she failed to meet expectations. “The punishments could be as simple as standing in a corner, or as severe as ‘spankings’ on her bare buttocks with a belt or other object,” the arrest affidavit for Percival said.

As a result of all this kinky, incarceration, dayglo orange clothing fetish scene, Percival gets arrested, is suspended from duty and is out on $2,500.00 bond. His trial is scheduled for September 11, and the attorney he's running with is named Scissors. Running with Scissors on September 11? I dunno. You figure it out.

I first heard about this on Dr. Gloria Brame's blog. The header is "Here we go again: male dom on trial in Kansas." Her response to Cabrera’s admission of consensual BDSM activities is:

What can I say except if you ever find yourself at a doctor's office, in an emergency room, or under arrest and someone notices the marks of your sexual play, and ASSUMING YOU WISH TO PROTECT YOUR LIFESTYLE PARTNER...please LIE. The sad thing is that real victims of domestic violence usually do lie about the source of their bruises, while sadomasochists (unaware that what we do can and will be viewed by courts as assault) will blithely spill the beans. Stay safe and keep those beans to yourself UNLESS you feel you are being abused.

It seems that Cabrera has no interest in protecting her "lifestyle partner." Contracts about standards, protocols, rules, roles and punishments may sound fierce and foreign to the nilla ear, but having participated in long-term consensual service arrangements myself, I am not appalled. In fact, it shows damn good sense on both their parts. If Cabrera whipped out the contracts in an attempt to foil her ex, it may backfire. I'm not sure if Kansas is a 'consent is not a defense' state (but I do know that California, my beloved, bankrupt home, is such a state). If she entered into those contracts willingly, then they are of no use to her as a punitive device. In fact, using them as evidence may prove that he wasn't abusing her and that she knew what she was doing.

According to the arrest affidavit, “If she failed to count (each strike) or miscounted, Percival would start over from the beginning.” Well, duh. That's how those things work. If I had someone under contract, in service to me and they were displeasing or violated the contract, there would be punishment. And it would hurt (not much of a punishment, otherwise). I have found that if I am not self-mastered enough to be willing to be the hard wall against which others dash themselves during kinky adventures in self-discovery, then I don't deserve to have someone under my supervision or in my care. Period. Within the BDSM context, this all makes perfect sense. Outside of their context, these things become leverage and sensational soundbytes.

Dr. Gloria Brame is one of my heroes. Her shoulders number those upon which I stand; her work made it possible for me to do what I've done. But lying? I must respectfully disagree. Yes, abuse victims often lie about the abuse, because they don't want anyone to know. Home life could get worse, or there's so much guilt, shame and fear that it's best to rot slowly from within than face the often dire consequences of bringing abuse into the light.

If I wanted to protect any of my "lifestyle partners" the LAST thing I would do is lie. Audre Lorde said, “Your silence will not protect you;” I think that lying is an anti-protection device also. I would discuss it as I would my laundry, or my grocery list, quite matter-of-factly. This is who I am and this is what I do. Your squick-factor is not my responsibility; my responsibility is to conduct myself honorably, within the bounds of my own integrity, while compassionately respecting the fact that you’re squicked. Sure, there'd likely be some grief to take for being honest and frank, but that sort of thing needs doing during the normatization process, in culture, of things previously held as major social taboos. I'm alright with that. It is the silence of those of us who practice both personal culpability and consensual kink that creates the loophole for someone like Cabrera to jump through, using shocking "facts" outside of the context in which they make perfect sense in order to further her own personal agenda, whatever that might have been. If people had better, clearer ideas about what we do and how we do it, it would become far less possible for facts to be twisted like that. Social clarity about our subculture with its rituals and traditions will not be created by BDSM practitioners lying. As long as we hide behind the guilt, fear and shame, arrangements like the one between Percival and Cabrera can--and WILL--be used against us in courts of law.

I'm Standing on Her Shoulders, Staring Down at Her Cleavage

2009-07-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

I love sex. I love kinky sex. I love the presence of Spirit in sex. I love prostitutes and sacred whores. I love my own amazing femparts, and all the fun things they can do. I love women who start strong and finish stronger, reinventing themselves at increasingly higher octaves as they live their own magnificent lives. I love smart women; nothing turns me on like a big ol' brain on a woman who knows how to use it. I love women who've done the work to discover who they really are inside, and bring that joyful, hard-won wisdom into the world to help others.

In short, I love Annie Sprinkle. And today is her birthday, which is cause for a day of celebration indeed!

Sprinkle is a prostitute and porn star turned sex educator and artist. Her best known theater and performance art piece is her Public Cervix Announcement, in which she invites the audience to "celebrate the female body" by viewing her cervix with a speculum and flashlight. She also performed The Legend of the Ancient Sacred Prostitute, in which she did a "sex magic" masturbation ritual on stage. She has toured one-woman shows internationally for 17 years, some of which were are titled Post Porn Modernist, Annie Sprinkle's Herstory of Porn, Hardcore from the Heart, and, currently, Exposed; Experiments in Love, Sex, Death and Art.

The first porn star known to have earned a Ph.D., Sprinkle received her Doctor of Philosophy in Human Sexuality from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. Her work, spanning more than three decades, is studied at many universities, in theater history, women's studies and film studies courses. She also is a faculty member at The New School of Erotic Touch.

Sprinkle's first porn movie was Teenage Deviate, released in 1975. Perhaps her best known featured role was in Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle which was the #2 grossing porn film of 1981.

In 1991, Sprinkle created the Sluts and Goddesses workshop, which became the basis for her 1992 production The Sluts and Goddesses Video Workshop – Or How To Be A Sex Goddess in 101 Easy Steps. which was co-produced and co-directed with videographer Maria Beatty. She later starred in Nick Zedd's experimental films War Is Menstrual Envy (1992), Ecstasy In Entropy (1999), and Electra Elf: The Beginning (2005).

She has appeared in over 200 films and many television programs, HBO's Real Sex among them.

Sprinkle's work has always been about sexuality, with a political, spiritual, and artistic bent. In December 2005, she committed to doing seven years of art projects about love with her wife and art collaborator, Beth Stephens. They call this their Love Art Laboratory. Their projects are all documented on their web site, www.loveartlab.org. Part of their project is to do an experimental art wedding each year, and each year has a different theme and color.

And that's the short, short, short list. Fetish model, comedienne, advocate, activist...the list is as long as her legs look in the picture I have of her in heels and a corset.

Dr. Annie Sprinkle's work is an inspiration to me. If she hadn't done what she did, me doing what I've done would have looked much different. She broke ground, she blazed trail, she offered me her hand across space and time whispering, "See? It's fun! And if I can do it, you must at least try!"

I stand on the shoulders of giants. In this case, the giant is Annie, looking just like she does in the picture of her I have in in my hallway: she's adorable in her bouffant flip hairdo, hands flared, balancing on the left foot while the right foot says, "Oooh, la la!" Her cleavage grins and winks at me; sometimes I swear I can see it jiggle tauntingly. As I stand on her shoulders, I'm looking straight down her voluptuous, corseted cleavage. Thanks, Dr. Sprinkle. Thanks for everything!

Visit Annie's website.

No Next Thing to Say

2009-07-16T15:50:00.000-07:00

In conversation with others, my tendency is to listen attentively with detail, and then script the thing I'm going to say next. When you're in silence, you're free to devote all your attention to listening, because there *IS* no next thing to say. You weren't talking in the first place!

That sort of freedom is delicious and rare. To fully immerse in anothers' words which lead you to their feelings which lead you to their innerscapes and a vast, deep way of knowing them, and moving in smooth, fluid tandem with what they're trying to share with you.

I bring this from the silence into my speaking life. May I always be allowed the freedom to hear you, to feel you, to be with you, and be with you very, very well.

Love Note to Myself, or Things One Remebers When It's Quiet Enough to Hear

2009-07-12T14:35:00.000-07:00

Dear Me,

We’re never merely who we think we are. There’s always more to know, more of you to be discovered, more to love, more to be grateful for. The rest--stuff, expectations, blame and other ways of outsourcing authority--is a trap. It’s a bottomless, spiraling path to a pit. This downward path affords opportunity after opportunity to discover who we aren’t. We get so used to seeing what we've seen before, what we expect to see, that by the time we notice it, we’re so accustomed to the status quo that we assume that’s all there is--or will ever be. We walk down and down and down on this spiral and we forget that there’s an up to match our down. But how can we see an up when we don't even notice our down? It's easy to miss the down (and therefore the up) because the slope is often so gradual as to appear flat. But it isn’t. We may think we're waling forward in a straight line, but we're not. Einstein even proved that this whole timespace thing is as curvaceous as a stalking BBW sub in a corset & a short skirt. All we see is what we’re used to, what we expect to see.

But we can remember. We can remember there’s an up. It’s scarier only because it lacks that woobiness of comfort, familiarity. It really isn’t any more scary than finding the down, though the up is, in my opinion, certainly no less pleasant than the down.

Realize your downward walking so that you can look up. Plato was just telling you about the cave; he didn’t mean for you to stay in it this long.

Be grateful for everything. It isn’t easy, but it can be done. Gratitude makes a big difference in your quality of life, especially when it’s tricky; to be able to weed your life so finely that you discover a tiny jasmine blossom among the blackberries, trying to thrive, takes some doing. It requires stamina, effort and grace to truly experience gratitude when it all feels and looks like fertilizer. Keep practicing. You get better at it with practice.

The world is subject to change – dramatastically – without notice. We can’t know. What we can know is what’s inside us; that’s ours to control.

Go back and get the pieces of yourself that you’ve left behind in chasms of resentment, bungholes of fear and concrete galoshes of hate. Unbind yourself from those Marleyan chains, and bring yourself fully present to this moment, right now (flogging-giving or receiving- is great for practicing this, by the way). You won’t believe how much extra vitality you’ll have to work with, to apply to your desires when you call the abandoned pieces of yourself into the present moment!

Love and gratitude have in common that they can both be tough to see in a messy situation. But they are always there, if one insists on looking for them til they’re found. Find something to love about everything. Easy when things are pleasant (which is why pleasure is such an excellent ground for discovering how easy it is to love something if your perspective is just so); hard when things are icky. But if you practice looking for things to love and get used to that lovin' feelin', why, then, you’ll be ready to notice it elsewhere. Hone yourself on love. Everything else breaks.

Ever yours,
Me

Not whispering sweet somethings

2009-07-10T11:07:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday! Boy, what a trip. My first words this morning were, "I love you." I wanted to make sure I said something good when I got to speak. That's a theme in and of itself. My rules were simple: no talking, and no entertainment media consumption. Oh, and no beer (that was the easiest part).

I'll tell you all about it over the next week or so, but I'm on my way out of town for a couple days, away from technology. But here's a sweet little something I rediscovered while cleaning my hard drive. It was written for Annie's blessing way, and her daughter, Korazon Pearl (whom I was lucky enough to witness entering this world) just turned one year old. And since I'm going out of town, in part, to celebrate the impending arrival of new spawn, it seems right. Though written for Anne & Korazon, here it's dedicated to B&D and the Zeppling about to appear.

Enjoy, and more soon.

__________________________________________________

Once there was a woman.

She was a good woman: pretty, smart, fiercely temperamental. One day, she wandered away from her village into the woods, where she met a beautiful stranger. The stranger called to her and she went; they danced in a clearing and laid down under the stars and whispering trees. In hindsight, she felt that the whispering trees might have been telling her to go back home, but that was hindsight, and it had been good for those moments on the forest floor with the beautiful stranger.

In the morning, the woman awoke alone and with a big, hungry belly. She had opened up to the beautiful stranger; during the night while she slept, a spirit had crept into her belly asking her to give it a body so that it might become a human and discover the mysteries and wonders of being a person. Surprised, the woman thought about it for a moment, and agreed. “Alright, spirit. You may live in my body for 3 seasons. But after that, you must come out here where I can see you, and we will finish growing you in the open air.” The spirit agreed, and the woman went home to tell her village.

Some in the village turned away from the woman. They were not ready to help a spirit in a new body learn to move through the world. Some in the village ran towards the woman, asking what they could do to help. Some quietly went about the business of getting the village ready to house another spirit in a body as it journeyed through the world. The woman spent time dancing and crying and screaming and redecorating and talking to the spirit in her belly, just like all crazy women who wander into the woods and lay down with strangers do when they find themselves unexpectedly hosting a hungry spirit in a big belly.

As days and nights tumbled over one another, moving time forward through space with their antics, the woman’s belly got bigger and bigger. The spirit in the woman’s belly became more accustomed to wearing skin, testing out the idea of being in a body by stretching and poking and punching the woman from the inside. The woman’s belly got so big that she was certain she would burst before the spirit ever decided to come see what the world looked like with its own, new eyes. The spirit laughed at the woman, telling her, “Don’t worry, mother woman. I have been here before; I have seen the world. But by the time I get outside, I will have forgotten much of what I know, which is why I need you—to help me remember, and to survive the remembering.”

The wise, cranky, itchy-bellied, woman smiled and patted her belly, saying, “Of course. And when I remind you, I will be remembering myself, and we will move through the world together. After all, if we wish to know the way ahead, we must ask those coming back.”

The spirit laughed, making the woman’s belly ripple from one hip to the other. It said, “By sharing the pain of my becoming, I will show you how strong you really are,” and took a nap.

A little while later, the spirit woke and knew it was time to leave the warm, dark comfort of the woman’s belly. The spirit still remembered that each new beginning is an ending of something else, and that’s always the way of things. The villagers walked with the woman to the gatehouse, where all beings come out of the previous world and into the present. The villagers faded into the trees, close enough to be there should the woman call, and far enough to give the woman room to expand into new life.

The woman walked around the gatehouse rubbing her lower back. She squatted low when the pains came, breathing the rich, fertile earth into her body and blood. She leaned against a tree when her legs grew tired, the world itself cradling her. She breathed deep. She panted shallow. She contracted. She expanded. When she had at last surrendered enough of the world she had known to make room for the new life to enter, the baby slid easily from her body, landing gently on the soft, welcoming earth. The woman removed her shirt, cleaning the child’s face and wrapping it close. She cradled the child in her arms watching it remember how to breathe while wearing a body. When the child inhaled deeply and let out a strong cry, the woman laughed and put a nipple in the child’s hungry mouth. The woman, the child and the entire universe breathed a deep, easy sigh of contentment, and everything kept moving right along, just as it has always been and will ever be until it isn’t anymore.

I've Come for an Argument, Please

2009-07-06T18:17:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, I had a pretty stunning realization: I don't know how to be, outside the context of an argument. To test the realization, I checked myself the following morning, to see what happened. My eyes weren't even open yet and the argument in my head had begun. Sheesh!

Reason follows that if I am in an argumentative internal state, if that's how I'm treating my relationship to myself, then that's how I'm treating other relationships, too. I cannot see that as a good thing, a thing that requires no work on my part.

So I talked to some friends who've done some serious internal work. Silence was suggested, and that is something I've been mulling over for ages. Seems like now's the time to go in and see what the hubbub is really all about.

From Tuesday morning when I wake until the same time on Friday morning (7.7 - 7.9), I will be in silence. Using Teresa of Avila's model of the interior castle, its seven mansions and many rooms, I'm gonna do some housecleaning. From here, the external manifestations of this inner work will be cleaning my hard drive, working on my virtual business in Second Life to set it aright and tidy, and writing. I may not end up doing any of that; I may end up doing more. I've never done a silence practice before; I'm excited to see what's in there, to see what will emerge regardless of what I think I might be doing. I guess you could say I'm closing down the storefront so I can pay some mind to the store.

I'll letcha know how it turns out. The writer in me is fair drooling over all the fodder that could come of this (as well as dreading trying to inventory and catalog it all!). Other parts of me are having different response, and I'm trying to put all of them back in the river that runs through me (that's a reference to this post: http://musingsofamysticmess.blogspot.com/2009/06/river-runs-through-me.html?zx=b6d9d7ba5659108 ). My baseline is to keep my mouth shut, my heart and mind open, and see what arises. I may have come for an argument (not just a contradiction, mind you), but I'm hoping I'll end up with one of the most interesting staycations ever.

Have a great week, and wish me good consciousness!

Freedom, Liberty and Independence

2009-07-03T17:09:00.000-07:00

Ah, the 4th of July weekend approacheth, with all its attendant BBQs, patriotism and exploding devices. In America, We're ostensibly celebrating our Independence from those nasty English red-coated oppressors. It'd be swell if, while we remember and celebrate our extraction from the grips of a tyrant that we could look at the tyrant, at least long enough to go, "Ew. We don't ever want to become that!" IN order to overcome judgment, we often become that which we judge, so I guess it makes sense that we turned out the way we did. It's a great way to learn compassion--becoming what you judged.

Continental North America was a long way from England--a relatively tiny island that, at different points in history, managed to colonize & rule far larger portions of the known world. That's a high concentration of power in a small place. And not even the English were exempt from being picked on by the English. The Puritans weren't, to England, the way we remember them--stuffy, rigid, uptight. They were actually key in attempts to reform the Church, to return to a "pure" from of Christian worship. They were Conservative, sure, but in many ways they were a bastion against ongoing corruption in the Church. They got picked on a lot--for their clothes, the way they ate, the way they prayed, the way they lived in the world. They were so different that they clashed with the dominant culture; something had to give.

Back in the day, if you hated someplace enough and were willing to face the rigors of a sea journey you could go somewhere brand new, somewhere 'uninhabited' (read: already occupied by some heathen peoples but don't worry about them because God loves us better and we can take their stuff and turn them into Christians we'll never have to respect because they're a different color!) The Puritans thought this a fine idea, hopped on some boats and headed west. At last! The promise of freedom to live and worship as they chose!

But England came with the English. Eventually it came down to telling George (hmmmm...pondering the ratio of association of the name George with empirical tyranny...) to bugger off, that this land is my land and you can shove your taxes and the teabags they rode in on somewhere the sun doesn't shine.

You'd think we'd remember what it's like to be picked on. The Puritans came here because of it. They, in turn, picked on the indigenous people. As more folks arrived on this continent, more people got picked on and more groups for the picking on of people formed. And so it goes. If we don't heal the wounds that result form picking and being picked on, we become cruel, aggressive abusers ourselves, perpetuating the cycles of nastiness. Fortunately, other choices can be made.

This weekend, whether you're grillin, thrillin or chillin, take a second to find someone who gets picked on and do something kind for them--even if it's only a smile, a moment of pure & unconditional acceptance from a another being. That is, after all, some of the original ground for this country: a safe place for the picked on to go and just be who they are. Liberate yourself from ignorance and arrogance. Free yourself from the contrived, socially enforced demonizing and otherness that keeps us from compassionate understanding of one another. Become truly independent by learning who and what you truly are and refusing to settle for anything less.

Happy Fourth.

Pat & the Lad

2009-06-26T13:27:00.000-07:00

I had a nice rant the other night after I saw this:

http://gawker.com/5302311/exorcise-your-gay-demons-in-connecticut

It provoked potent, immediate reactions in me. I expressed those feelings, and knew I'd want a more considered response to something that triggered me so hard. Watch the video, and then come read my story, the considered response to what I saw and felt.

Pat and the Lad

Once upon a time, there was a peaceable world where people of all colors, shapes, sizes and identifications lived in harmony with the land, each other, and something else that nobody fully comprehended, despite claims and best efforts. On this world, there were many tribes of folk who had chosen to occupy the same time and space because they derived pleasure, comfort and joy from the company of like-minded folk. Not everyone in each tribe, let alone the tribes themselves, agreed with all the others. Oh, no. Some people called common things by different names, and this did tend to cause disputes. But the people knew how to communicate without taking differences personally, so they worked it out. Harmony and individuality within a group are not mutually exclusive.

One of the most common disagreements--so common a disagreement, in fact that there were jokes about it that made everyone laugh--was what to call It. Consciousness, Divinity, Spirit, God, YHWH, Jehova, Allah, Krishna were some of the names that had glibly marched down through history like a whole parade of clothes without an Emperor. After a very long parade, the people agreed that there was something Else, that it seemed possible for individuals to interact with it directly, that time spent in Its company could provoke astonishing feelings of love and balance and that the rest was pretty much up to interpreting breadcrumbs left in the woods of ignorance by the denizens of the forest themselves.

After that long parade, it was pretty easy to just go ahead, agree to call it It, and to agree that the individual was free to decide what relationship one wanted to It--if one wanted a relationship at all (which some folks in the pub up the road thought was enormously amusing because to choose to not have a relationship is a relationship).

Though it was usual for the like in mind to congregate, the people did a fantastic job of getting along in the form of collectives almost as well as they got along as individuals. But one day, a very poor arguer decided that in lieu of proof of stated beliefs, assertions of faith and heart-feelings was enough, somehow, to make the other people involved wrong.

Just plain wrong.

Though a poor arguer, this person (whose name is lost to the shadows and time but whom we'll call Patricia McKinney just for the sake of convenience) was terribly charismatic. Her beliefs and her faith were so very, very strong that people who lacked their own strength of conviction came from far and farther to borrow some of hers. And all it cost to borrow conviction was a little bit of soul. Only a small bit, and for a thing as spacious as a soul, it didn't seem like much. Thing is, though, when you don't know how big your own soul is, a small piece can seem like a whole lot. When one pays for something with soul, they tend to treasure their purchase because, somewhere, even if they don’t know it, they understand that they have paid dearly. Once you have something that cost so much and is so cherished, holding on to the thing becomes more important than holding on to what one paid for it with.

Eventually, Pat had enough friends to make a tribe. They all got on famously, holding the same faith and borrowing from the same branch office for their conviction of belief. Oh, sure, that kind of externally-originated imposed homogeny caused some trouble behind the scenes, but that was to be expected.

A child was born into this tribe. He was raised by Pat's folk, parents who loved him, and a community that held its children to be precious and who educated them thoroughly. They loved him. But then he entered puberty, and things began to change.

Some of the changes happened on the outside--like hair in new places, and a funny croaking voice. Some things happened on the inside--like realizing he didn't want what he'd been told he should want if he wanted to be a good man and a good lover and servant of It. Having been so taught, the lad assumed that there was something wrong with him (even though if he'd walked up the road a spell to meet Harvey's friends he'd have learned he was perfectly normal and that the messenger, Pat, sent to deliver Love and Compassion had gotten the message a bit skewed). The lad took matters into his own hands and set about to change his ways. But he couldn't. Every thing he did to combat his rising terror of wrongness was just that: an action. It in no way expressed him, his nature, his being. You see, changing what you do gives others the impression that your insides have changed, But if it doesn't come from your insides, the outside only changes in appearance.

The lad despaired. He went to Pat. He begged for succor and aid from the hideous plague of longing for the proscribed, aligning with the forbidden. He got down on his knees, a supplicant to a human, a human just like him. Pat's heart swelled with love and pity for this child of her tribe. She had to help him, she knew it. But how? She turned to one of the rare books, one that had been transcribed through at least 6 languages and copied by many different hands to the point where one could easily value it as an exquisite work but knew better than to interpret literally. She looked into the book, searching for something to help her help this child of her tribe. Her tribe. The tribe that had come to her. She began to think of her tribe as beginning with a capital T. Then her thoughts turned back to the book. She found something that seemed suitable, and then some other pieces to weave together and before long, she had it. She knew what to do for the lad.

"Child, I will help you. Come to the Grove at dawn, just before the sun is born, and we'll fix you right up. Then God will love you again."

The lad beamed, kissed the back of her hand with the enthusiasm of a swashbuckler offered 10% more free booty and skipped from the room.

He entered the circle in the Grove before dawn. Thin light trickled through the mist. He felt like the world was a ghost and he was the only real thing in it.

Pat told the lad what was to be done. Gaining a shade of pallor with each revealed detail, the lad nodded his head once at the end, too weak to do much more from loss of blood to the head. He assented to the torment, in the name of love. The circle closed in, and they began.

There was yelling, shouting, flailing, poking, puking and proselytizing. It was traumatic. Pat told the lad that he had a badness inside him and they were going to get rid of it. The lad was dubious, since how he felt seemed so thoroughly natural and organic to him.

When it ended, the lad was tired. He felt bruises in places that weren't of his body--at least that part of him was relatively unabused. He searched around on his insides to see what was different, to see if he could find an empty spot where the badness had been, but there were no empty tables in the diner of his mind; no empty stalls in the restroom of his soul. It didn't seem like anything was gone, or different. He was just tired. They took him home, fed him warm broth, wrapped him in a soft blanket and put him to bed, promising they'd come see him tomorrow. They left.

Outside the lad's window watched one of Harvey's folk who went by the name of Mary. Mary had witnessed the whole thing in the Grove and was stunned, appalled and pissed right the fuck off. Making sure the lad was alright, she went home to seek the collective wisdom of her tribe. Some were just as appalled as she was and even more outraged (because they felt that being more outraged than the outrager gave them more cachet, somehow); some stood calmly, hearing the whole tale from one perspective and choosing their relationship to the story they were hearing. They discussed it. What should be done, if anything? How to choose?

They thought back into their own tribe's past. They could remember well-meaning folk with extra shares of conviction to sell that ended up doing not so good of a job at running things. From there, they were able to find their compassion, and see Pat as no different than they were--just carrying a few extra issues. They could see that Pat was just as much a part of It as they were, no matter what either of them called it. They decided to go talk to her, to truly hear her side of the story.

She was not moved. They talked to her some more. She still was not moved. They asked her how she would feel, needing to have her badness removed just because she was around people who didn't share her values, ideas and worldview? They kept at it for hours, with no sign of a dawning of recognition anywhere in the sky of Pat's eyes. Even though they disagreed with her actions, then knew that Pat deserved the same love and justice as anyone else. Unable to sway her conviction, they at last decided to leave her in peace but with this caveat:

We congregate out of love and affection for one another. Love need never make another being wrong or bad, so the next time you see one of your tribe suffering, direct them to those whose actions as well as words will be a compassionate gift and an act of love that aligns with the nature of the sufferer’s being, not yours."

When Harvey’s people left, the lad went with them. He's there to this day, with Harvey's tribe on the other side of the Grove, manifesting the glory of love, harmony, and authenticity. His husband comforts him at night when he wakes with bad dreams.

Raccoons & Brooms

2009-06-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to all my FB coupins who answered the call for a question as a blog prompt. I now have fodder for at least the next week!

But this one jumped out at me for today, from Leticia Arvizu:

"Have you ever met a two and a half legged raccoon that could stare even YOU down?"

And the answer is 'no.'  The one that stared me down had all four legs.

We'd been on the road a lot.  It was summer, when traveling gigs come easier.  After a few trips out of town with only brief stops at home in between, the coons discovered the cat door, the cat food, and the cat's water (as well as the toilet, the sink and anything else they could reach.  We'd come home to a paw print encrusted kitchen and bathroom.  There's something to be said for the survival aptitude of determined, hungry creatures with opposable thumbs.

We were gone so much of the time, even with the neighbors keeping an eye on things, that the little bandits got brave.  Or stupid.  Or addicted to whatever crack they put in organic hippy cat food.  The cat door was across the room from the bed, in plain sight.  We could see them poke their adorable little noses through the catflap, whiskers aquiver.  If we made a noise, the coon would retreat.  If it was just my nancy cat, Tux, standing watch, they'd waltz right on in, flicking their tails in an apparent gesture of "Yeah, bitchcat, that's right.  We're the coons, and we've come for your food, so backoff!"  And Tux would let them.  He seems to have a very clear understanding that the obligation for providing food is not his.  He only has to eat it.  Supply is obviousy a human problem, as is dealing with raccoons.

One night, assuming we were alseep, one of the buggers ambled right on in and headed straight for the kitchen.  Fed up with the mess, noise, and extra cat food expense and charged with the adrenaline surge of an urban dweller conquering some part of the mighty wilderness, I flung off the covers, sprang to my feet with a warrior's "ah HA!" grabbed a broom, and cornered the fat bastard in the kitchen, where I held it at broom point while it tried to evade my menacing sweeps.  It sat down, looked at me, and did that funny little raccoon noise that's cute unless they're looking right at you with coonly menace deep in their beady eyes.

I hear graciously suppressed laughter inflecting the syllables of, "Hey Babe?  Whatcha doin?"

"I got me a coon!  I got it trapped in the kitchen with this mighty broom!"

"Oh, really?  Now whatcha gonna do with it?"

Between the flush of successfully cornering the coon and irritation at its devouring my cat's food, I had indeed neglected to formulate a post-capture plan of action.

Made me wonder what other areas of my life I run on surges of adrenaline, frustration and a mighty warrior vibe without any solid, considered, intelligent after-the-sacking plans.  Where else in my life do I pursue a perceived adversary without any idea of what I'm gonna do if my pursuit results in capture?  Where in my life do I target what appears to be the cause of my emotional surges (eg., raccoons) instead of dealing with a broader, more encompassing issues (eg., the cause of raccoons being in my house)?

The raccoon just stared at me. It knew. It knew that, despite my enthusiasm, larger brain and supposed intellectual advantages, it had bested me--and without a gol-durned broom. I lowered my eyes in defeat, having been thoroughly stared down by a four-legged raccoon. Having vanquished its foe, the raccoon dropped down on all fours, speedily waddled to the cat flap and was gone.

Maybe, if I ever rewrite this bit, it'll be a two and a half legged raccoon--you know, for dramatic effect. I dunno--I'm not sure that the ratio of my silliness to the number of raccoon legs involved shouldn't be kept a little higher; is it more pathetic or less so to corner a coon with fewer legs?

Everything Is a Mouse Turd

2009-06-22T20:04:00.000-07:00

Due to a deepened comprehension accompanied by a major shift in the material world, it has come to my attention that I am not to begin graduate school in mid-August as planned. I am still to begin graduate school; just not yet.

Or not.

You know what? I dunno.

See that quote over there, in the sidebar? The one from Joseph Campbell? Yeah, well, that's about right. Everything is perfect. And sometimes life throws you a curveball (but only when it needs to get your to turn your head and look at something from a different perspective). The specific curveball here is not moving to the Bay Area to begin grad school in August.

Having been the recipient of what I feel is an unusually high number of curveballs over the course of a relatively short mortal existence, I can say that this shift--though one of the most major in terms of life shifting--has been one of the easiest to deal with. While profoundly invested in my work and deeply attached to the idea, I am not now nor have I been profoundly attached to the outcome. That lack of attachment and its attendant projections, speculations and subsequent investments of my own chi (read: personal energy, life force, etc) has made this shift easier than anything else like it that I've done to date.

As a friend of mine once warned me, one should not pole vault over mouse turds. Pole vaulting over mouse turds is an unnecessary expenditure of effort to attain a desired result. As long as the result one's desires is outsourced or exclusively material, one can nut the fuck up when things go "bad." Don't get me wrong--I have my preferences, and my ideas about how this should work. I have also somehow miraculously acquired enough good sense to know that the evidence (things not going as planned in spite of enormous amounts of chi, time and will applied to it) points to the fact that my ideas were probably not the most beautiful ideas possible. Like Einstein said, and I paraphrase: "If it isn't beautiful, it probably isn't true." My ideas not being the best ones to get the job of my continued academic education done does not imply in any way that my goal is faulty. That message would come under separate cover. What this redirect means is that I, the thinking me-ness, did not come up with the most beautiful, elegant way to go about my mission.

I'm fine with that. My mind is hardly the be-all-end-all of minds. Though I am the center of my own universe--the little dot with an arrow pointing at it that says 'you are here'--I am most decidedly not the center of THE Universe. I actually like the idea that I don't have all the answers or final say in the Universe. I'd be worried sick if I thought that my finite capacities had to be enough to run the whole show. I am learning in this where I have deficits that prevent me from being fully prepared to undertake my mission. I have learned that I am no longer willing to put myself or others at risk to force my dreams into being. I no longer cherish nor am I defined by the bitter, excruciating self-inflicted pain and drama of pushing even a "good" thing too far, too fast. I didn't even know I'd gotten that far until I got this far!

Until and unless I get word that my goal isn't right choosing, I'm sticking to my course. It's just going to take a bit longer to arrive at my destination (and only if I choose to believe that there was an itinerary I had access to in the first place which, obviously, I didn't). Meantime, I will have the privilege of serving my community in Humboldt for a little while longer as I hone my already mad skills into an even finer tool. I refuse to allow the tyranny of my goals to undermine the reason I set them which, in this case, is to help as many beings as I can come to an end of suffering. I can do that from anywhere.

Obviously, the ending of suffering begins with me. If this had happened even a few years ago, I would have been an a terrible state of suffering right now. I'm not. I don't feel bad. I feel a little sad, which I think is normal, and a tad disappointed. I'm deeply grateful that I got to move through this with grace and without undue, inappropriate pain. What I mostly feel is peaceful; even in the face of rapidly and dramatically shifting circumstances, I have not lost my center. I'm still on the right path. Maybe someday my experience will prove useful to another being who is contemplating a pole vault when all that's really needed is a gentle, elegant step over the mouse turd. And maybe the secret here is that everything--when seen from the proper, perhaps larger perspective--is no more than a mouse turd. It's the choice of how to be in relationship to the mouse turd that matters. I choose to keep walking, and to save the pole vaulting for when I really need it.

5 Words Meme

2009-06-19T14:48:00.000-07:00

My beloved Alesia posts this last night on FB: Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" in the comments and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.

So I shouted, and she worded me thusly, replying: Hm, let's see if I can reduce the clamoring avalanche of Deborah words down to five: spider, journey, mask, will, reach.

While I am tempted to include 'clamoring' and 'avalanche' in my package, I'm sticking with the five for now.

Spider: In some Native American stories, there weaves Grandmother Spider, the Weaver of the Web of Life. She spins, and we all scuttle about this enormous web that's made up of tiny, heartstoppingly thin yet breathtakingly lovely threads. We are all connected. I was part of a hook pull once, and at one point all of us had lines tied to the large hooks in our chests the threads where then clipped to a central ring. If one person so much as took a deep breath, everyoen else felt it, through the strings running from individual to the central point of connection. Whetehr we see it or not, everything we do, everything we are affects everything else we're connected to, which is everything.

Also, spiders are some of the most successfully adapted creatures in their niche. I pray for that kind of success. They also have eight legs, neat parts, and the feamles run the show vis a vis mating then killing. But the males don't feel anything; I kinda like to think that the venom shot that puts them into lunch wrappers helps them feel only their mate's sweet kiss as they dissolve back into the system. Spiders produce thread from their own bodies and, proportionately, this substance is some of the toughest in the world.

I weave webs of people.

Journey: I'm so on one. My life is the trip of a lifetime. My destination? Yes. Everything else: A pleasing, fragrant blend of "Ow!" and "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!"

Mask: I spent the better part of my life pretending to be things, exhibiting the surface states & conditions I believed would reflect most strongly in the eyes of others so that when I saw me in them, I would see my big, important self. Whups. We all wear masks of many types. I strive to be aware of whatever mask I'm wearing in any given moment, and to make sure that I know why I'm wearing it. My masks hafta be a reflection of my innards, not an artificial projection so that I can identify myself with false reflections.

Will: I haz it. In spades. My will is like a hammer: I can use it to build a birdhouse, or bash in some brains. It's a tool whose application is evaluatively significant. It's the bear I'm training to dance instead of maul innocent bystanders.

Reach: If this was free association, my answer woulda been 'toilet brush.' I had to clean the bathroom when I was a kid with whatever trendy new product was available, and at one time that was some spoogy lookin crud called 'Reach' (I also had to clean the bathtub with Comet & a toothbrush, naked, so I didn't get my clothes dirty or ruined from cleaning. If you're thinking 'Mommy Dearest,' then you get the idea). Reach was marketing-spiffy because of its curved neck so you could squirt the spooge up under the inner rim and clean the hard-to-reach places. But even though it was supposed to do the cleaning work all by itself, I still had to scrub it with the toilet brush.

In a non-free-association kind of way, my reach is the expansiveness of my arms, my heart, my spirit. My limit of my reach is the limit of what I can hold, love, expand into. I'm working on a longer reach so that I can hold, embrace, touch more, without coming off center or bullshitting myself. I stretch, I reach, I seek. There are things within my reach, but I can reach so that I might expand my reach, and that's no stretch.

Thanks, Alesia! I love you!

addendum to Holding patterns

2009-06-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

...and then Brezny chimes in:

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): "I guess I just prefer to see the dark side of things," says actress and comedian Janeane Garofalo. "The glass is always half empty. And cracked. And I just cut my lip on it. And chipped a tooth." As witty as that thought may be, I don't recommend you make it your approach in the coming days. My analysis of the omens suggests that reality will be especially malleable. Even more than usual, it will tend to take the shape of your expectations. So please, Aquarius, try hard to see the lovely, graceful, unbroken glass as half-full of a delicious, healthy
drink.

[SLURP!!!!]

Holding patterns

2009-06-16T13:14:00.000-07:00

Quantum mechanics predicts and physics experiments verify that the universe is made of things moving in patterns. It's all one big ballroom floor, with some things waltzing here, oh look--some tango, a bit of foxtrotting over there, a reel over there, a stately pavanne over there. Everything's dancing with everything else, within predictable, expressable rhythms and patterns. Patterns are everywhere, and then the patterns interact with other patterns in even more patterns. It really is exquisite. And mind you, I'm not talking about a closed system in which the absolute predictability of patterns makes variant outcomes impossible. Oh no. Even with all the predictable, magnificent patterns in play, variability always arises in the interaction between the patterns. The designs produced by the certainty of patterns combined with the uncertainty of their interactions is our world. Tasty.

Some patterns I like better than others. A nice Fibonacci string, for instance, rocks my world. Some patterns don't rock me quite the way I like; some patterns seem to think I'm a cat that it's fun to pet backwards. I'm one of those right now: A holding pattern. This depends on that (which I don't know) which depends on this other thing (don't know that either) which means this looks like that (unless something changes and ACK!! I'm paralyzed.

Except I'm not. I am my own chaos agent. Carolym Myss puts it like this: "God loves a verb." She means that when we are in action, moving, things happen. And it's true. So I push this button, I pull that trigger and things change. It's like dropping a pebble in a pond--there will be ripples. It's the effect of the ripples in toto that's impossible to fully know, and some part of me really craves knowing that whatever I'm doing is the 'right' thing to do, all the way out into the furthest ripple.

Waiting isn't living. Patience is one thing; being present to unfolding, observing and participating in my own becoming. The other thing is watching for the patterns and hitching my wagon to the star in motion that seems most likely to get me where I'm going.

Patterns there are, but this holding pattern is my own construct. I dunno what to do, particularly, but I've got to keep doing, and my actions must emerge from my being, not from an attachment to outcome. So I choose, and choose and choose. I watch, I attend. Chop wood, carry water and see what happens next. It's not the holding pattern that's the problem; it's what I hold on to (and, conversely, what I release) that matters.

[airplane raidio noise; click:] Alvaraddington Airlines flight 69, requesting permission to land, Tower.

Tower: Sorry, Flight 69; everyone's out to lunch. Hang tight a sec, and we'll get back to you when we know more.

[flap flap flap]

Roger, Tower. Flight in progress. But man, are my wings getting tired! Nice view, though....

Happy Monday!

2009-06-15T22:04:00.001-07:00

That's right. Happy Monday. Even with a yoga practice that wracked my weak-sauce knees. Even with me being a raging bitch. Even with grocery listing, marketing, cooking (ha!) and the bank and the this and the that and all of that other crap.

Monday. Happy. Makes me wonder how many of my other days during the week that I treat with the same accord as I do a nice, big, fat steaming Monday. I was thinking to myself earlier, "Self, you don't want a day job. You want your life to be your day job!"

I was very self-congratulatory over that spiffy realization. So, how do I make my life my day job and then proceed to love it if I treat it (or any other day) like a steaming pile of Monday?

I can't. And see, I get that on one level, but those creepy bits of hereditary dislike for a 'workweek' crawl into my brain and nibble. Don't get me wrong. I got a metric shit-ton done today. And there's more tomorrow. I mean, we're supposed to be moving in 2 weeks, and there's hardly a box in sight. It all needs to come together now, and they need to play like nice (if ADD/manic/bipolar) children on the playground so that everyone gets to participate in a solid round of my favorite game, We Win.

I guess I get to be content with the fact that, even though we never made it to the park, I got all the "kids" on the bus, anyway. It all showed up for Monday, and so did I. Some days, that's grace enough for me.

At least Tuesday reminds me of Lena's cat, who liked to be tied up and spanked. Uncanny. Never seen anything like it--in a cat. So here's to Tuesday. Be gentle with me.

Bacon in Junuary

2009-06-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

A quiet, grey Sunday in Junuary. Baconscent wafts from the kitchen, which means blueberry pancakes are soon to follow. Lots of work is tempting--I could just do a bit of this, or work on that so I'm in better shape at thehead of the week... you know, the ususal.

But I'm applying discipline today. I'm not dealing with that stuff. I'm sitting, being, organizing in my head, noting what will need more attention this week. After all, we are supposed to be moving in 2 weeks, even though I still haven't heard about tutiotion and have little direct clue about where the rest of the funding is coming from.

But that's okay, cuz it's Sunday. It's be still day. It's refuse distraction and be present day. It's remeber how good sleeping in feels and then eat some bacon day.

Mmmmm, bacon. I can be present to bacon.

A River Runs Through Me

2009-06-12T12:54:00.000-07:00

I'm not much of a meditator. Can't hang. My hands crave something to do; my mind is a humming bird, only interested in the candle flame for long enough to see it isn't a flower and move on. And my chiro tells me that my days of sitting crosslegged are over; that hip I cracked while roller skating when I was fifteen has finally caught up to me. Along with meditating poorly, I don't visualize well. There's something in my nature that distrusts and dislikes the notion of visualizing. Part of me says, "Hey! That's' not present moment! Get back here!" Problem is, that's not true. A visualization is a present moment activity; it's just one more engaged in the field of potentiality, where the virtual particles are, rather than the real. Ahhhh, the sweet smell of neutron clouds in the morning...

...as they pass over the surface of the river by which I sit (crosslegged and comfortable). The small, poofy clouds of vapor disappear over the surface of the river when the sunlight touches them. They go happily to union. Me, I sit by the river. Not doing. Not babbling. Just being. Sitting. I don't always look like me; sometimes I look like a wizened old Zen monk, in a simple brown robe and a shiny bald head. Sometimes I look like Marie Antoinette in full court regalia. I have come to discover that it doesn't matter who it looks like is sitting at the river's edge, as long as I remember it's only just me.

It's me, sitting there by that river. It's a bend in the river; it curves gently away to my left, and to my right. And I sit.

This river is full of things, from the requisite old tire, antique & sodden brown leather boot to my thoughts and my feelings. Some things have shapes, like a giant crawdad/mutant lobster thingy or a metal dustbin with legs (at least 3) or a butterfly with a beehive hairdo, hornrimmed glasses and a ruler. Some are like the puffs of mist that vanish with the touch of the beloved sun. Every thing's in the river, and the river just keeps right on rolling by, easy as you please.

I am serene. I have pristine posture. The sun is good on my naked pate. Something pulls me from my enlightened reverie. I focus my eyes on the river and something emerges; it's headed right for me. Might be pretty, might not. Might be pleasing, might be frightening. Sometimes I want to pull it into my lap and snuggle it, sucking the comfort from it. Sometimes I want to grab a stick--I wouldn't want to touch some of these things--and fling it way, way away, to the other side of the river or beyond.

Instead, I treat each thing that emerges from the river in the same fashion: I pick it up as gently as I can and put it back in the river. The hardest things to put back are the things I want to coddle in my lap and the repulsive things I don't want to touch. But they all go back in the river, as I watch them arise from my consciousness and return to it.

I am not the things that emerge from my consciousness. I am not that which arises. I am the river, the trees, the mud, the water, the monk, the stick. When I let something emerge from the river and come right for me, I'm being shown elements of my consciousness that would like my attention. But they all go back in the river, and I remain serene, unattached and, well, meditative.

It's a nice day by the river today. So far, it's been pretty easy to put it all back in the river. But my life will keep heading right for me, offering me endless opportunities to identify myself with one thing or another. Or not. As the part of me that must function in this world gets up from my seat by the river, a part of me sits there still, watching things arise and recede, manifest and dissolve. And the river flows. I can't wait to see what happens if I ever get good at this.

Cat: A tonic

2009-06-11T12:42:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was one of the Not-So-Good days, what with all the balls still hovering, damclesian, in the air & my fixations. At the end of a day--especially a N.S.G. day, I like to indulge in a bedtime snackytreat. My favorite is gummy bears. I can tell you which of the 3 grocery stores in town has the best bears (Wildberries, by far--the ones in the little bags above the bulk foods) and who has the worst (Safeway. Ew). I savor the textures and flavors of the gelatinous ursine delights. It's a good bag when you can really taste the pineapple in the clear bears. I'm on a mission to find me the best bears ever; suggestions appreciated.

At the end of my N.S.G. day yesterday, I was ready for some bears. I'd have even been happy just to have the Safeway kind. But no. Adding insult to injury, I was bear-free. And cookie free, and ice cream free, and muffin free and vanilla yogurt free. None of the things I enjoy as snackytreats were in the house. I fwumped myself on the bed at this discovery, which happened to be put me partially atop my cat, Meeser Toes (you can call him Tux). I was feeling very sorry for my poor little bear-free self, lemme tellya. A day like that, and not even one damned bear. Ugh. Typical. Damnit. This is stupid. Nothing works for me. Why do I bother. Fekkin bearless existence. Bargh.

Can you hear the rising grumblings as they fade into the horizons of despair and chagrin?

Over the sound of my own dissatisfied grumblings and foot stompings, I heard a sound. It was Tux, purring from underneath me. His buzzbox was in fine fettle. Still obsessing on the treats I didn't have, it occurred to me that Tux did have his stash of healthy cat treats, even if they do smell like they've already been in the litter box once already (I got the fishgut and innards variety this time; next time, it's the less-stinky lamb variety). He loves them. I think they smell like kitty butt.

Since I'm assuming that neither you nor I has any interest in eating kitty-butt flavored snackytreats, you may be wondering why this matters. Here's where I tell you. I didn't have any treats (waaaah), but my cat did (hurray!). And since there's only one of us here, I decided to see about unifying myself with my cat so that, even though I didn't get to have the direct experience of eating my beloved gummy bears, I did get to experience the joy of my cat getting his beloved fishgut & innards stinky treats. I got to experience joy in treats, even though it wasn't "my" bears or "my" belly. It was lovely. He radiated happiness and I got to soak that in. I felt better after that. I got to experience gratitude that one of the creatures in my house had treats. I got to experience joy in treat consumption. I got to pet a purring cat. I got to get over myself in a kind and slightly humorous (if smelly) way.

When I'm more enlightened, I'll be able to tell you that experience was just as good as eating my bears. For now, let's just say that it was almost as good, even with the kittybutt smell.

Baptismal Blog

2009-06-10T21:48:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, there were 3 things one simply did NOT discuss at the dinner table: Sex, Politics and Religion. So far, my career path has encompassed 2 of those, one of which I'm about to pursue in grad school.

I got accepted to the GTU at Berkeley fro my MDiv. Right now, we're in the middle of attempting to sustain the structures that provide us income, prepare to move, sort, clean, reduce, maintain, sleep, eat, poop regularly (you really can't afford to underestimate the value of that), make more money so that we can move, walk the dog, clean the cat's ear, do the dishes, pack, cry (me mostly--Lawrence is holding up like a champ) and generally hold it together. So whadda I do? Start a blog, of course!

There are many delightful, tasty, challenging aspects to this major life transition. I'm trying to make sense of them. As a mystic, I believe that there's really only one of us here (a notion supported by quantum mechanics--individuation in unity) and that there are ways to function as an apparetnly discrete being while sustaining unitive states. And because there's only one of us here and we are all connected in a profound web, net of life, it behooves us to get our acts together and learn how to do this human thing a little better. Me first.

That's my goal. To become all of who I really am, without judging any of it, and use that beingness to help end the suffering of all beings. Suffering, in mysticism, is not getting stuck in the illusion of "I" or the illusion of "that;" suffering is when one gets stuck in the illusion that there's any difference between the "I" and the "that." Part of how I've gotten to this point has been through alternative sexual modalities. God wears black leather. To hell with the head of a pin; how many angels are dancing on the tip of it as it's inserted beneath skin (okay, so that'd be a lance or needle instead of a pin, but I'm hoping you get it anyway).

Pema Chodron wirtes, "Discipline is the conduct that de-escalates suffering." Right now, I'm suffering. I'm suffering from the illusion that the way I feel right now is permanent and will never change. I'm suffering from fixating on the details that I think are necessary to the upcoming transition. I'm suffering from a rising anxiety centered around a feeling of not-enoughness. I'm suffering from my own PR. So, technically, discipline can de-escalate my suffering. Believe me, I thought about going out and finding someone to discipline, til I remembered that the kind of discipline she means is self-discipline. If I can get myself to consistently do something I love, who *knows* what might happen!

I've tried as many encourage-self-to-write experiments as most overweight, over privileged Americans have tried diets. None of them have worked. But I mean to end my suffering by seeing the true nature of things (pretty Buddhist in that department) and by disciplining myself to do something I love doing and somehow manage to constantly talk myself out of. My thanks to Lee Harrington for the idea that writing when it's scary is good, and Janet Hardy's reminder that one can get hooked on writing scary.

It may suck.
It may be boring.
It may be irrelevant.
It will certainly be irreverent (either everything's sacred or nothing is, like Einstein said about how you can live your life--like everything's a miracle or like nothing is).

Tellya what. I'll just write, and not worry so much about saying the right thing in the right place and see how it goes, mkay? At least I did it today, and I liked it. That bodes well for tomorrow.