Uff-da

Repeat after me. Ooofff . . . duh. Now string it together into two unseparated syllables, and make the first one pop. Uff da, the Norwegian expression of amazement. As boring as Norwegian culture is (yes, Vikings, rah-rah), it does give us this catchy utterance. With the eclipse passed and only some residual effects in play, we can sigh "Uff-da" to ourselves and nestle into the comfort of the Taurus moon before she shifts into Gemini, arguably my least favorite sign, but that's just because airy-fairy, Jeckyl-and-Hyde frivolity gets on my nerves. Geminis are great if they've got enough water in their chart, giving them much-needed depth, sensitivity, and insight into themselves. But I digress.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel like the universe just delivered me a giant spanking, and this wasn't one of those, "Ooooo, baby, baby, give it to me, give it to me" kinds. Uh-uh. I can finally say that I appreciate the new course heading with just a mild grimace. I'll have to go out and get more toilet paper soon, of course, because most of it is swaddling my bruised backside. But that's a small price to pay for such giant lessons in life.

How many of you have checked out Eminem's new video, Mosh? Say what you will about Em, but the guy says what so many unrepresented, marginalized youths are thinking, and he has the potential to be more than just a rap/pop sensation. This guy could lead several generations of very pissed off Americans into giving a shit about our country and doing something about it if he keeps getting political with his messages. No, you don't have to be educated at a fancy school to be a leader. We need a leader willing to be controversial and flaunt the hypocrisies of our society in our face, someone who will be subversive and anti-PC, someone who will bring it to the people, someone who can rally the underrepresented to action. Malcolm X, my friends, was a thug born in Nebraska. Obviously, Em's a white guy, but he's got working class, Midwestern fire in his veins, and he's got one helluva following. His call to action (Vote goddammit) just might be enough to get those who would rather park it on the couch and toke on a joint to stop at the nearest voting precinct on the way to get munchies. He's got potential, this guy, and he shows it with this video. Check it out.

And VOTE! goddammit. Else, you got nuthin' to bitch about, and when the State of the Union address finally has you going to the dictionary to look up fascism, you'll just have to swaddle yer bum for the next series of spankings, suffering under the knowedge that you could have done something to prevent them.

Cutting Out the Middle (Insert Yourself)

As your own awareness evolves, you begin to stop looking for answers outside yourself. We are taught to give away our power to others, but I do believe that the time of the guru is over. There are leaders and teachers to learn from, but all information must be filtered through our own discernment. I have become wary of people who claim to have "the answer," but when I am at my lowest ebb, I want so badly for someone to provide me with the answers that are eluding me. Perhaps the best support is reassurance that you have the answers yourself if you just go to that quiet place in your center. My acupuncturist calls it preserving the integrity of your own universe when you deflect the actions and reactions -- including the solutions -- of others. I believe in listening to many perspectives and considering them all, but I believe in listening to the voice of Spirit as it counsels you for your ultimate answer. Ulimately, it's your life, and you have to call the shots based on where you are on your path. You'll stumble at times and bang your knees up, come up bloody and bruised, run into invisible walls, and stub your toes. But that's how you learn.

It's your life, after all. Respect yourself, others, and the Earth, don't hurt others unless you have to defend yourself. That's what I've learned. But shit, I'm not the guru. Just a fellow seeker. Follow your own light home.

Eclipse Doubles

Eclipse. Again. Yeah. Wow. Fucked up vibe. Add to this strange, seemingly malevolent brew the rapidly accelerating quickening we are in the midst of, and you have a recipe for disasters of all kinds. Since taking up the study of astrology (as a hobby of course, for now), I have paid particular attention to the events surrounding eclipses. The universe switches gears when they bear down on us, and we spiral deeper and deeper into distortions of the time/space continuum only to be belched out, quite ungracefully, on the other side. The other side, you read correctly. The other side of what? Well, reality, I suppose, or whatever mass hallucination or hologram constitutes reality. The universe plays tricks on all of us during these times, and surprises of all shapes, sizes, textures, flavors, and pointiness pop up where we least expect them. Don't believe me? Well, huh to you. Pay attention. Document what happens in the week before and after they occur, bearing in mind that eclipses come in pairs. Fascinating, the duality of it all. And the eclipse sequence is backwards. The first, a solar eclipse, is a new moon event, and it is the effect, if you will, with surprises that are the result of the tag team's show-down. The second, fourteen days later, happens on the full moon, and this is the phenomenon that most homo sapiens are used to viewing. This magnificecent spectacle offers us the causal variables. The question is last and the answer first, cosmically speaking (get out of your linear framework already; free your fucking mind). So who cares, right? Well, upheaval is always associated with these dueling boogers, upheaval that is ultimately in our best interests but can hurt like hell. This particular lunar eclipse is, in the words of my teacher, ominous to say the least. It's not by accident that it precedes the election. Stay tuned for what may be the most absurb tragic-comedy of our times. Bring popcorn.

Reality is shifting, cracking, opening up dimensionally to such bizarre and wonderful things that I won't speak of it until it's more, um, obvious to you. I assure you, most of you wouldn't believe me. I wouldn't believe it myself if it didn't have to do with why I'm alive at this time. Interesting, to be sure.

What's very important is for us all to be willing to shed our delusions. Think of 'em like a snake-skin coming off (if it doesn't come off, you are going to be itchy and delusional, and who in Gaia's green Earth wants that?), and think of reality being peeled back like the layers of an onion. These are simple ways to conceptualize the shifts occurring. Of course, you could always choose to remain in denial. Free will, you decide. But these eclipses are going to make it mighty uncomfortable for anyone to remain in that state for long. Kind of like wearing cheap wool on a hot summer's day. Ewwww.

It helps to keep everything in perspective when your emotions are running you ragged. I speak from experience here.

In the meantime, though, go out and look at Grandmother Moon. She's lovely as she hangs there brightly.

Who was the idiot who decided that a man was in the moon anyway? I dunno. Don't really care, either. The moon governs such dark feminine energy, though, and if there's a face to be seen at all, it's a lady, not a dude.

The Feminist (in her former days)

Every once in a while, old pain wells up to be dealt with, reprocessed, let go. The only way I have devised to do this effectively is to write about it. Maybe someone else in a similar situation will find comfort in it. Maybe pain's creation of beauty is enough. Maybe my ego is healing from what happened when I submitted these poems years ago to be published (mis-editing someone else's art should be an act punishable by public humiliation; that's what I endured, after all). Whatever the case, I feel moved to share it.


Not the Allegory of the Cave, Exactly

The path of the Spirit
is the path of the Flesh
Plato had it all wrong
when I bleed every 28 days
I encounter creation
and when my body has purged itself of the old
I reinvent myself into a pattern
that you do not know.

I wanted you to be my beautiful lover
to crave the space I inhabit
to know me apart from the fictions
of other women and bodies.

Your filterless gaze,
it convinces me you are a victim
of your own desire
but, baby, I've known desire
I've pushed against it with my thighs
felt its comforting press against my stomach
held the fullness of it inside me
so I know that it propels me
unlike when you were drunk, stoned, and defenseless
against the sexual onslaught of an insistent woman.

The desire that moved your hands over her body
and not mine
is your birthright
for you are male
and do not
know how
to love.

For Those Who Have Suffered Broken Hearts

My friend Ellen performed this poem at her senior voice recital after my friend Kara set it to music. It had a bluesy, haunting kind of feel to it. It was sung a cappella. Read.

Free yourself.


Nothing Lost That I Can't Find Again

Wrap around your finger
like a little girl twirls around a mayflower pole
inconceivable that I could ever hate you
but in the cave I peer out of
I wield my cat o' nine tails
twitching, pacing, waiting for a message
you bruise me with your silence
and so I lash myself just to test my skills.

The venom seeps out of the wound in my right heel
where the viper bit
I suck it up and spit it out
aiming your way
but, boy, you're immune to your own poison
you go your own way without making a raucous noise
consorting with your kind who feed on blindness
and here I am again left to test my mind-reading skills
when no frequency tunes in
I cut myself
and horror of horrors, I wait
to see if I still bleed
'cause they say that blood is thicker than water
and water's all you are, baby, water's
all you are
and my blood is thicker without you.

'Tis No Simple Thing To Have a Heart

All apologies. To those who have wronged me or someone I love, I struck with calculated precision not because I hate you, but because I hate what you did, what your actions represent: a calloused heart. But in striking, did I merely justify your reasons for behaving as you did? Did I condemn you for your humanity? Did I add to the pain that found its only outlet in hurting another?

I dreamed of a tiger the other night, a magnificent female creature trapped in the house I grew up in, attacked with calculated precision for her wildness in the same way that I have been attacked for my own. She was me. I was her. As I approached her, her pelt sliced open and pinned to the floor like a mouse on the dissecting table, her heart beating fiercely, I was powerless to assuage her suffering or comfort her. I wept, woke up weeping, and cried off and on throughout the day. I, too, have suffered, prostrated before the dispassionate stares of cruel tyrants that jeered at my pain and mocked it. I do not condemn fellow travelers on this journey for their suffering or acts borne of it. I forgive you, for I recognize your suffering as my own. I advise you to cradle the beautiful new being you have become and croon to her, croon to her gently. She needs to be loved. And when she is so full of love that it pours out of her, you will know she is ready to share her love and life with a mate.

I forgive you. Go in peace.