Blues on Mr. Vice

It is over now. It is done. My quest to find connections over the Internet has reached its conclusion. And so has this blog. The vice of all vices, that which turns my blues into technicolor monsters. And for what? Some kind of perverse attempt at finding my voice in a mainstream medium. Gross.

I've lived as The Hermit ever since I began to post my writing online. This blog is actually stifling me creatively. I'm not sure how this is so, but it is. This blog is not really a reflection of me anymore. It's a reflection of someone I used to be, and the culmination of the prayer:

Dame la muerte que me falta.

I am not a blogger. I am a poet. I am a wild, radical woman. I am a death dancer, a shadow who dares the waves on the beach to strike. I am not a new age zealot who believes she has any answers. I do not believe in finding answers. I believe in being the question. I am the stars' lover and the colt's hoof, an alchemist of food and drink. I'm a private person, not an exhibitionist or a narcissist. You'd probably miss that unless you knew me. And nobody reading this does.

This is the end of the charade I've been playing with myself.

Mostly, I am tired of all this old shit. So I am letting it go. I am diving into the world of flesh and bone and rock and tumbleweed and reality and me, and keeping my laments silent, as they should be, and my desires close to my skin.

May love always find you.

Straddling the 5 & 6 (add 2,000)

It is impossible to live on Earth. We live in Earth. Under sky as well as over it. Above and below ground we stalk and whisper. It depends on your perspective. From the frigid reaches of space? From a fingertip's position on a globe? From gravity's stubborn insistence that we stand, just here, just so? Perception changes.

I'm working on changing perspectives to change my perceptions.

Can polarities merge and produce a third? A third option uniting "either/or," beyond even the scope of "and"?

Is all this suffering really necessary? A big ape has more humanity.

Human beings. Learning. To be human.

Free Association

I wound up un-submitting the opinion letter for publication after I posted it here. I wrote it in a fit of anger (rage) that needed venting because it was churning around in me, seeking release. I thought better of it because, while I imagined it would strike others who agreed with me as being spot on, it would also have further divided me (us) from him (them), and that's the gap that needs to be bridged. I don't have any idea about how to bridge it, but I realized that I would have just strengthened his opinions and made myself into a target for his anger and on and on and on, thereby furthering the process of escalatory retaliation that fuels violence. Self-restraint is very hard for me to practice when I'm feeling something intensely. Where is the line between expressing an explosive emotion and keeping it locked up inside you? I'm never quite sure. The impulse to be a butt-scuttling stinging little beastie likes to stay close by, but that doesn't mean I have to give it free reign.

Here's what happens when I don't find expression for explosive energy: Liver Qi Stagnation. Which gives rise to depression and all manner of physical problems, problems I'm grappling with right now. It gnaws on me like this (written yesterday):


Back trauma. Who knew it would destabilize me for three months when it started? I've realized a lot of things about how I deal with pain. Things, truth told, I'd really rather not have to confront because they're scary and ugly and they stink.

I've been marveling all morning at my capacity to use up my strength to soak up the pain that's spilling around me, that I can't contain, and can't release, and can't heal. Fundamental problems for me -- using my energy to marshall through problems that I can't resolve, or can't figure out, or feel beholden to, like a degrading lover. My problems in a way are my darlings. They never leave me. Not even when I ask. They stalk me wherever I go because they just care so much. And fundamentally, these problems are not mine and I am not theirs and I don't want them anymore. I think I know how to proceed away from them except for this damning, constant pain, way deep in my pelvis.

It's an exercise in helplessness and futility to make progress, and heal, and feel stronger, and then be shoved three steps backward down to where you just emerged, and to do so over and over again until your energy is depleted and there is nothing you even recognize in yourself anymore except that familiar sense of misery and doom that wants to survive and take your life force with it.

How maddening it is to jeer at myself for being so weak and accuse myself of lies and cry at my own cruelty and realize that something dark and sinister in my psyche has taken me hostage and I do not have the foggiest idea how to diminish its power because I feel no power and I hurt and I'm afraid and I'm so, so sad.

Here I am, in my paradise, and every time I try to be out in it or tend my home or animals or even seek out help to put my skeleton in better alignment, I am back at zero, and I want to be at one. So you can be in hell in paradise. Christianity should know about this.


Yeah, that's fun stuff, eh? I'm aware of the potency of that kind of expresssed emotional experience and how it frightens most people. I'd be lying if I said it didn't frighten me, too. I'd be lying if I didn't admit to feeling ashamed of these kinds of self-destructive, heavy emotions. I know that they gain power when they're stuffed, but in the physical state I'm in, I can't vent them through vigorous exercise (tried that, which rebounded badly in the form of more pain). I am so blocked and fuzzy that I have trouble articulating them creatively -- articulating anything at all. This morning I finally recognized that I have come to a dangerous place within myself. The things going on within me are violent, and aggressive, and primal, and if I do not restore some balance, they will consume me. I have been here before.

What is different about this place I find myself in is what I know now that I didn't then, what I learned about my body/mind/spirit in acupuncture. It takes discipline and profound self-love to apply this knowledge, even though I am aware of its efficacy. It's the only way I know to treat the fear and worry charging around in me, wreaking havoc and chaos and disrupting any kind of flow. My own narrow-minded binary tactics of moving from one extreme to another have made me a victim of my self. Again. Time to stop the cycle.

Body, I say to you, let's make friends.

Letter for the Opinion Page

The letter below is a response to a couple of impassioned letters written by the same man and pubished two weeks successively. I direct myself to him and others who share his views. I'll let you know if it runs or not. (I submitted it with an introduction to the editor so it'd actually have a chance of running.)


Mr. Baker, I am not interested in having a debate with you as it is obvious that your mentality is fixed, in much the same way as your values are fixed and your income is fixed and your inflexibility is fixed, locked solid. You see the world in black and white, equate elitism with educational level, not class, and believe Fox News is fair and balanced. The fix we are in as a world is a product of narrow-minded binary thinking such as yours, and frankly, sir, I'm just not going to encourage such a dysfunctional, pompous discourse by engaging you in one. Rant on, shining diamond of a defunct era, rant on.

Somehow you still believe that liberal is a bad word and you wield it as some kind of sword to cut down free-thinking people. (Newsflash: It's not a sword.) What you call facts is what I call spin. According to you, my facts are biased because my sources criticize your political affiliates. By all means, continue to spin your cocoon of denial in tandem with your media spinners. Whatever makes you feel secure.

What really pains me is that our country no longer practices democracy and we will never rise up together to protest the lies and corruption of our present regime because people like you would rather deny that such a reality exists, count their money and faux security in the form of the bodies and minds sacrificed for a rich man's war, and believe that poor people are poor because of some inherent character flaw, like laziness or something, and rich people are rich because they deserve to be.

So please, continue to buy your expensive pooches and cars and beachfront property. I don't care what distractions you prefer. But when that ocean is pounding on your doorstep, and you're still debating whether global warming is a fact or not, clutch your money to your breast and hope it saves you. Because it won't, sir, and that's a fact.

Respectfully yours,
Jaimie O., Lincoln City

Jupiter's Gifts

I walked into a very bizarre and unlikely coincidence last evening. The Ghost of Selves Past decided to pay me a visit.

Now it is true that Michael Lutin wrote a very compelling bit on Thursday about how the New Moon in Sagittarius and Jupiter in the 12th house signified receiving a beneficent gift from the Universe where you least expect it (beneficent as opposed to the kind of "gift" that leaves you with puffy eyes). I thought, well, hells yeah, I am definitely in need of some happy surprises, but I really doubted that anything "miraculous" was going to occur. And it didn't, at least on Thursday. We did score a free, living Christmas tree, all potted and everything, after Doug spied it on the corner where we live, with the sign "Free Christmas Trees" giving us the go ahead to snatch it. I was very stoked about that cosmic gift because we couldn't have afforded to purchase one, even though we desired a tree very much, the undead kind anyway.

Happy surprise. Good fortune. But that wasn't the biggie.

Last evening Doug and I decided to splurge and went out for some Thai food. Our server seated us in a nice nook by the window and I sat down with my back to the corner, facing out. (It felt important that I sit there.) As I'm thoroughly examining the menu, I happen to glance up as people are being seated at the table directly in front of us. I noticed one of these people immediately because, from the back, she reminded me of a woman I knew in college. Same build, although somewhat larger, blue hair, same type of dress -- punk meets bohemian. The chances of it being her were miniscule, however, and it was impossible to know for sure until I saw her face.

So there I sat, feigning interest in the menu while glancing up every few seconds, hoping to catch a glimpse of her mug. I caught one of the people she was with looking at me very deliberately a few times, felt it intermittently when I wasn't looking, and this strengthened my suspicions that I was looking at the back of someone I knew from another era. Also, that I was being discussed by this former friend, GLBTA champion, and women's studies cohort.

I knew for sure it was her when I saw her turn her head to look out the window. Also when she turned toward the waiter to order. I even heard her voice. Unmistakable.

Let's just say that I had many visceral reactions to my certainty that she was who I thought she was. When this suspicion was confirmed, and therefore no longer a suspicion, I realized that I was faced with a decision: pointedly avoid her or greet her warmly. Initally, I was unsure of what to do because this person at one point donned a persecution complex, shined herself up to her full drama queen glow, and made a huge row out of something I was never even able to comprehend, declaring war on the women I surrounded myself with and, consequently, me. I tried to be friendly for a while but was always ignored. Perplexing. Ultimately I wrote her off as juvenile and to be avoided.

Since we'd spoken on friendly terms before I left Iowa, I figured all that stuff was ancient history. Plus, I was amazed to realize that it was her in front of me! Pretty fucking incredible. Then the issue became, shit, am I going to revert to old tendencies if I initiate contact with her? Have I really changed? Am I still that wretched creature who clawed her way out of the nightmare that the Decorah experience became?

Since I wasn't sure, I decided to marinate on it and began to eat my noodle soup, managing to master the chopsticks (finally! victory is mine!), while remaining involved in the conversations I was having with Doug and myself, somehow, simultaneously.

Maybe it had something to do with being able to eat with chopsticks after many failed attempts. Maybe it had something to do with the endorphin rush I was enjoying from having tossed caution to my backside's wind and gone at an aerobic workout with gusto, to hell with my uncooperative back. Maybe the reassuring flow of conversation with someone I can be totally real with bolstered me. Probably unequal parts all three. I decided I had changed, and there was nothing to fear.

When she finally stood up to leave, I put down my chopsticks and exclaimed, loudly, friskily, "Is that ____ ____?"

Nothing.

Evidently, it had been decided that any attempt on my part to make contact would be hastily avoided. I watched with interest and amusement as she awkwardly pushed in her chair without turning around -- at all. The body language of all three of them spoke volumes as they stalked briskly to the door, e.g.: my fellow alumnus kept her head turned away from me as she exited and got into their truck, which was parked allmost directly in front of me. It was painfully obvious that she knew I was there and didn't want to face me, literally. Sad, huh? Some people never change.

Pleased to say I'm not one of 'em.

After she was gone, I had a revelation of sorts. A full realization of how much I am not the person I once was. How much progress I have made. How much reason I have to be proud of myself. And I felt a surge of self-confidence and pride, and I felt like some bad spell had finally been broken. I laughed and laughed, and felt freedom.

I don't know if it makes sense that one non-interaction like that with someone I used to hang out with could change how I perceive myself. Probably not. I can't quite connect the dots myself. But that space of 45 minutes peeled away another layer of the old, and now I see potential all around, just waiting for me to realize it.

The Blueberry Review

What comes to mind when you think of herbal tea? Green tea? Wimpy, right? Uninspired. Droll. Don't hippies drink that stuff? Oh those smelly hippies. Sure, tea is easy to pick on, and why not, it's not like it has feelings or anything.

What if I told you that one sip of Celestial Seasonings Blueberry Breeze Green Tea would dispel the above stereotypes? You'd scoff. Sure. Because you're cynical, jaded, and under stress. Your scoffing would be warranted, though, because you would begin to suspect there was something special about this tea BEFORE you sipped it -- as soon as you poured it (or watched it steep in the saucepan like I do because a teapot just isn't a necessary item according to the fundamental laws of utilitarian budget restrictions). You'd notice that its reddish-purple color is familiar because it appears to you at sunset. You'd stare and fret about what would happen if you spilled such a vibrant color on the carpet. You'd spill it, yet it would not stain. You'd sip, and realize it was divine -- this, the ambrosia of the Gods -- but you'd still wonder how it would taste if you drizzled some honey into the cup -- just a little -- and squeezed some lemon into it, never minding the seeds escaping the pulp.

Then you would taste again. You would delight in the way the sweetness blended with just the right amount of tartness, remniscent of fresh blueberries but without the staining properties. You would gaze at the Blueberry Goddess on the package and love her and the artist who conjured her. Stress would drain from your body as you sipped, content in the experience of beauty joined with perfection.

You would then climb into bed, ready for sleep. And then you'd lie awake for hours, because it's green tea, silly, and it's caffeinated.

Solar Return, Lunar Surprise

It took turning another year older and the energy of a full moon to realize that an extended cycle of my life is complete, one that has encompassed several cycles of sun and moon. Another begins. I find myself in that awkward transitional zone between what has passed away and what is yet to manifest and be seen.

Perhaps that is why no words are coming. I sit in front of the computer and try to express myself, but there is a gap between what I am experiencing and my ability to process and articulate it.

After reflecting last night on the past year of my life, I realized that my friendships from the past have faded in importance, that I no longer cling to the old to show me who I am. There are certain people who will always be dear to me, but there is no one and nothing to hold me in stasis anymore. It is disconcerting and freeing to experience myself this way -- unnerving to realize that I am friendless, in the sense that there is no one, save my sister or mother, with whom I can share my new experiences. Though I may be friendless, I am not in the least alone.

Yesterday was a day filled with love and promise. My beloved and I explored some of the coastline to the north and saw two fawns, a doe, and a buck along the way, as well as many varieties of birds we couldn’t identify and enough green to soothe the most agitated Liver. We watched Raja race along the beach and felt the freedom he embodied as he extended himself to his full range and speed, the Greyhound in him alive and well.

Last night I crawled into bed feeling alive and changed, and was startled to see the moon in all her full splendor hanging above, beaming on me through the skylight. Doug was sheathed in shadow. Mars stood off to her right, a red and mighty encouraging presence. It seemed an important portent of things to come, though in exactly what way, I couldn't say. I let myself fill with their light and after an unknown amount of time had passed, drifted peacefully off to sleep.

I have so much to be thankful for. I have so much to learn.