Stretch

Blues on Mr. Vice

2006-01-11T21:11:00.000-08:00

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)

2006-01-01T00:52:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-30T14:01:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-15T16:15:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-03T12:15:00.000-08:00

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

2005-11-30T13:49:00.000-08:00

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

2005-11-16T09:47:00.000-08:00

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.

Gibberish Speaks

2005-11-13T16:09:00.002-08:00

I am hearing a convergence of voices -- a threnody whispers on the ceiling, water licks down the walls and shivers my spine in the absence of knowing who I am, where, outside the forests of enchantment, I should go (where to work? where to work?) to find the right sequence of numbers, to silence the fear of not enough.

I am tinder. I smoke. I am flame sizzled by spent water. I should be happy
now, feel glee. But change is a cruel companion and the constancy of the unknown assaults me.

oh how the phantom sags
light shrugs off the dollar
but there is no money to be wasted now
no time to be content
as flesh wallows in debt
and sauces
but there is comfort here, mute comfort
that waits for this madness to depart and leave me with

a vocabulary so bruised that it hides.

# # #

I don't know if the above made a lick of sense. Welcome to my world of not making sense. Mercury is immobile now, waiting for the backwards two-step to begin. Pardon me for my incoherence. Given the circumstances, it's normal.

I think I feel better now, and will now shower.

Closer

2005-11-13T10:14:00.000-08:00

Blinking now
pinching this salted husk
awake.

Breath of the ocean, rise,
that I may salute you
with laughter and tears
stand before you and tremble
as you soothe the form torn
by pain and memory.

Gray
fleshy
luminous darkness
backbone
reaching forward
to the neck
never there.

Beloved of Tiamat
roll deep
dive where eyes
only seek, cannot penetrate.
Linger fat there then
linger long
on the cusp of foam and mystery

waves roar.

Untitled

2005-11-11T10:29:00.000-08:00

I have been attempting to render the experience of Monday into words. It's still not right, but as incomplete as it is, I need to see it posted to help me see where it's wrong.

We arrived here safe and sound last week. Please pardon the gaps between Arizona and Oregon. I'll fill them in as time allows.

Blinking now
pinching this salted husk
awake.

Breath of the ocean, rise,
that I may salute you
with laughter and tears
stand before you and tremble
as you soothe the form torn
by pain and memory
with your grey, fleshy
luminous darkness.

Linger fat there then
linger long
on the cusp of foam and mystery

waves roar.

Was Not Was

2005-10-27T14:42:00.000-07:00

Possessed
by an emotional intelligence
greater than the sum of your rational parts
I am the antithetical
in your discourse
and your discourse is a sham.

There is no alpha in my being
no omega
just a circle
a spiral
getting me deeper down.

Around I go
a death throe
of paradise.

Audre Lorde . . .

2005-10-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

. . . is my favorite poet. She has influenced me more than any poet, and I'm always shooting for creating the kind of rhythm and flow and beauty and impact she wrought with words. A self-described "black lesbian feminist warrior-poet mother," Lorde died of cancer in the 90s, leaving as her legacy some of the most brilliant poetry and prose of the 20th century. Her writing always reflected her activism and her courage.

Her poem below is appropriate for this time of year. I hope you take from it strength and an appreciation of your own complexity.

The Women of Dan Dance with Swords in Their Hands to Mark the Time When They Were Warriors

I did not fall from the sky
I
nor descend like a plague of locusts
to drink color and strength from the earth
and I do not come like rain
as a tribute or symbol for earth's becoming
I come as a woman
dark and open
some times I fall like night
softly
and terrible
only when I must die
in order to rise again.

I do not come like a secret warrior
with an unsheathed sword in my mouth
hidden behind my tongue
slicing my throat to ribbons
of service with a smile
while the blood runs
down and out
through holes in the two sacred mounds
on my chest.

I come like a woman
who I am
spreading out through nights
laughter and promise
and dark heat
warming whatever I touch
that is living
consuming
only
what is already dead.

The Unpredictable

2005-10-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

What is the difference between being trusting and being foolish? If I knew the answer to that question, my mind could release the death-grip its got on the moving problem.

First of all, I have to marvel at the difference in people in Oregon, at least those I've spoken to. I'm not even there yet, and already I feel welcomed. I anticipate having friends again! I anticipate wanting to participate in my community again! There is something softer and friendlier and just plain endearing about the folks I've been speaking with over the phone, and it contrasts the feeling I get interacting with Arizona residents. People in the desert are harder, rougher, crustier, like the desert itself. I don't know if it has to do with the lack of water here and the surplus of it there, the difference between red state and blue state residents, or my own perceptual distortion. I guess I mention perceptual distortion because I got caught up in some New Age hocus pocus for a while. Wayne Dyer, guru of the New Age movement, insists that people are the same everywhere and how you feel about them is a reflection of how you feel, relate, think, and thus, interact. I disagree.

Four Oregon residents I've spoken with over the phone have now stated that they hope I come in and see them or contact them so we can get together when I'm finally in town. One woman is going completely out of her way to contact people she knows with rentals and has offered to go scout out the neighborhoods of the homes we're considering. I am turning over as many rocks as I can find, and Jo, the delightful woman of the last sentence, popped up smiling from one turned over yesterday. She has nothing to gain from helping me, as we can't afford the property she and her husband own. How refreshing and stunning, as in, I'm stunned. People in Iowa are warm and helpful (something I very much took for granted during my formative years), and encountering a similar spirit in people again makes me feel really happy. Thankful.

I'm hoping to work at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, and barring that, I can still volunteer there. A very nice public relations woman for the Aquarium has helped me make contact with those in positions to give me a job. (As far as the available jobs in the coastal area go, I'm going to have to be flexible.)

So again, I return to the question, what qualifies as trust -- that your needs will be met, you will have a roof over your head, food to eat, the means to pay your bills -- and what qualifies as foolishness? We have no guarantees that we will find affordable housing once we arrive. Having pets makes our options very limited. Rentals we can afford are snatched up very quickly. But from my investigative perch, looking down into the jaws of the unknown, I see my fear is holding me hostage again. What I can see from here is a hospitable community and magnificent surroundings. We need to be there to snatch up our own rental. We are leaving on All Hallows Eve. Trick or treat? Indeed.

Worst-case scenario: We blow our wad on a temporary rental we can't afford for more than a month, I do whatever work I can find, and we find a more humble abode once the roof over our head is secure. My mom and sister caution me over and over about taking unwise risks. I ask you, what is an unwise risk? I don't think I've ever taken a real risk at all so I don't know. I'm always too scared of the bottom dropping out from under me and leaving me prostrated before an angry and punitive Father God, which I don't believe in anyway -- just leftover conditioning from childhood.

I need me some more pioneer spirit!

# # #

Michael Lutin is huffing and puffing about water being unpredictable. I believe him. We've seen the evidence of this all over the globe. And yet, I'm still moving surfside. My parents' house burned to the ground as soon as they moved to the farm.

Life, Mr. Lutin, is unpredictable. I refuse to live mine in fear.

# # #

I've not been paying a lot of attention to the news, save for Eric Francis' blog. I just hope Prezzy Bush buys a big package of Charmin. His backside is going to need it. He'll just have to remember to remove it from the roll before inserting it inside his drawers. You never can have too much cushion.

Choosing Love

2005-10-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

Today I am supposed to be packing. My body has other ideas. This time, my upper and lower back have decided to go on strike. I never finished that post about how I originally injured my back ("Eclipsed by a Garden Cart"). It goes like this:

Just one class short of an English major, I was working on an organic vegetable farm by the name of Rock Spring Farm in northeastern Iowa. The Blanchards did not permit kneeling while working, which meant I was always either bent over from the waist or in a squat. I don't know if you've ever tried squatting or bending over for 8-10 hour days, with upright breaks consisting of hauling a poorly maintained garden cart over hill and dale, through the fields, to the compost pile and back. I hadn't before, and I imagine it would have been fine except for a few factors:

1. I am built like a halfbreed Italian farm girl. I carry my weight around my hips and ass. No lithe frame here.

2. The garden cart, as mentioned, sported one, then two, flat tires. I did not know how to be assertive enough to demand that they repair the cart so it would function properly.

3. I had weakened first and second chakras from a few unsavory bouts with depression. Survival issues having to do with money have always stalked me as well. It was no different then.

One rainy summer day, I was hauling swaths of remay (a covering for particularly bug-sensitive plants, like arugula) up a hill to the barn using the cart (walking in front, pulling it behind me). It was hard going because the ground was saturated with water and very muddy; I used the force of my will and brute strength to get it there. My back was very sore after I had accomplished this, but I was accustomed to perpetual soreness in the evenings, so I unloaded, went back down the hill, out to a field, muck caked on the wheels and my boots, loaded up with salad greens, hauled it back up to the cleaning shed, and just as I was about to clear the incline, I felt something clench up and radiate pain into my lower back. I teared up from the pain, stopped, gritted my teeth, and managed to heave it up into the shed. (Why I didn't stop at this point is a good question, especially for $6.00/hr.) One of my bosses saw my face, asked what had happened, and sent me home with a command to ice it and call in the morning to let them know how I was.

I took the next day off, had a three-day weekend, and stayed off of it as much as I could. The next Monday, as I was getting ready for work, I bent over to move a crate of filed paperwork to where I could rifle through it for something I needed, and my back tightened and clenched and pain returned, only this time, more severe and hot. I somehow made it to the phone, left a message, and crawled into bed, where I remained for the next four days. During this time, I decided that my back was not worth $6.00/hr. I left a message for them stating that I didn't think I could continue working for them, asked them to call me back, and waited, feeling guilt and shame that I had failed them as the most intense part of their growing season approached. I never thought to shift more of the responsibility for my injury onto their shoulders. So when they offered me no worker's compensation or money to see a medical professional, refused to give me my last paycheck in a timely manner, and accused me of being irresponsible and unreliable as well as a liar, I was incensed, hurt -- these people had become my friends, their sons my devoted tag alongs -- but believed that they were right to blame me. Of course, my injury must have been entirely my own fault! Most importantly, they were right, a stronger person would have sucked it up and continued on, pain or no.

And therein is the crux of the problem. My typical approach to difficult situations, ones in which I am weak and in need of care, support, help, is to shrug it off, suck it up, and march onward. I have learned how to be assertive since this incident, but somewhere along the line I have learned to suffer well and despise myself for my failings, thinking if I am weak then I deserve to suffer. Even as I write this, I see how ridiculous it is to operate this way. I suppose I am finally being given an opportunity to change this maladaptive approach to my problems. This could be a watershed moment for me.

I went very deep last night into an old wound after tweaking my back again, and I think I understand where this practiced self-loathing comes from. When I hurt myself the first time, I couldn't afford to see a professional but went anyway, hoping that they'd pay me by the time the check cleared. I had a therapeutic massage and some reiki and felt wonderful afterward, that is, until the check bounced.

Now I have an opportunity to care for myself in a way I didn't then, to love myself into wholeness. When a wise woman recommended that I get some kind of treatment for the nightmares I've been having, inwardly I scoffed, thinking I was strong enough to weather the discomfort of my predator dreams. I bought some more Valerian and decided we couldn't afford it. I didn't think I was worth that kind of self-love.

But I've discovered a little girl inside here somewhere, crying, cowering, whimpering, afraid. I think it's about time that I showed her that she is lovable, that there's nothing wrong with her, that I'll keep her safe from harm.

# # #

I was outside by the creek yesterday and watched butterflies flitting, almost everywhere it seemed. It occurred to me that autumn is the time for transformation.

May I finally become a butterfly.

Rain In with Cats and a Restless Dog

2005-10-18T13:57:00.001-07:00

I'm sitting on the couch, an afghan tucked around me, smelling the rain scent, listening to cottonwood leaves drip as water percolates down through the thirsty soil. Air is chill. Wind is gusting. Kitchen reflects last night's feeding. There is an insistent ache in my skull; the shadow of a migraine looms, threatens. I am pausing between keyboard strokes to press on the acupressure points my acupuncturist urged me to use whenever these boogers hover around me. I probably triggered it by injecting too much spice into last night's dinner -- cabbage, tofu, and peas are cooling, but I couldn't resist the red pepper punch.

Free association is something I have been relunctant to engage in on my blog because what my mind reports to my fingertips reveals more than I would often like. Take the last post, for example. I might as well have written "UNRESOLVED PAIN" all over it. A part of me judges such undainty exposure as indicative of weakness. Too, I do not know how to be truthful without scaring people. Scaring people by being yourself is something no one wants to shoulder. How I have generally dealt with this:

Pretend well.

It's necessary for me to trot this out now because this is something I wish to change, have been working on changing in my interactions with people. Online, however, it's easy to fall back into this habit. Truth is, I am scared about our upcoming move. Lots of thorny issues with finding housing.

This upcoming move represents the first time I have moved somewhere because I wanted to. Not for someone else's benefit or under some dire need for change and healing. I am terrified of all the things that must fall into place in order for us to set up house in Oregon. I am terrified that we won't have enough money to get a nice place to live, and I'm so very tired of living in squallor. Intellectually, I am aware that I need to trust the universe to support me, but after six months of high intensity personal problems, fanny red and swollen from the swinging I've been doing by it, I am terrified that the past will continue undermining my best efforts. I know people say, "Wherever you go, there you are," but my experience has demonstrated that every place has a different feeling and causes different aspects of yourself to come forward. And I'm not running away from myself; I'm moving toward new opportunities and experiences. There's so much to do, and so much that remains unknown. I will attempt to be here now and walk through my fears and apprehensions in trust, but man, oh man, there's a quiet, stifled aching going on here. Question marks around the horizon.

I imagine that my anxieties about my past's impact on the present are being reflected in the recurring nightmare I am having again about being thrown back into high school to complete my senior year before I can graduate from college. I hate that dream. I wish I knew how to make it go away.

# # #

An aside to Reya: I would love it if you shared your sister's information with me. Thanks for offering. Sorry to take so long in responding. Fanny gliding again.

The Sound of Coming Home

2005-10-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

The light this time of year and the way sound travels remind me of harvest time on the farm. My parents were the sole farmers of some 400 acres of soybeans and corn, so no matter what year it was, this time of year you'd find mom and dad deep into the harvest: my mom, hauling in loads of grain on the tractor, and my dad in the combine, giant furrows swallowing whole rows of corn in a matter of minutes. They wouldn't make it out of the fields till mid November, generally, around the time of my birthday, but sometimes as late as Thanksgiving they'd be out, and when I was a little girl, I was in the fields with them, late into the night, waiting for that last load to be delivered to the dryers at the middle place or the south place, and my mom promising me that this was the final haul as she swung back into the tractor, throttling up the engine to the tractor's highway speeds, getting her daughter home and to bed.

There are sounds here that are reminiscent of the tractor's high drone, and it is one of the most comforting sounds I can imagine hearing. Whenever I'd hear that sound, I'd know one of my parents, most likely my mom, was coming home. With the final thrust of energy available to them, they'd stay out late into the night, sometimes all night, getting in the crops in time for the snows that threatened to obscure the fruits of that year's labor, with winter days ahead promising time to rest and tend to family life, such as it was until my parents separated and divorced, their crash and burn linked with the demise of their farm, farm and family crumbling from the debt they'd incurred to keep the farm running through drought and flood, the poor farming economy of the 80s and early 90s driving my dad to take out hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to keep his family farm afloat, and then having to auction off the land, equipment, and his pride, as my mom stood alongside him, wondering why she hadn't kept more informed of their financial bottom line from the beginning. It suddenly became my dad's farm, my dad's equipment, my dad's loss, my dad's money, my dad's pride that was the issue. My mom's contribution was denied. Her time on the tractor was no longer relevant, her sweat and blood and tears invisible, like vapor.

There is much I could write about how my family's disintegration dovetailed with that of the farm, but my point is to instead illustrate the comfort that this time of year represents to me in the annals of nostalgia and anticipation and childhood. The nostalgia I feel when I hear that high lonesome drone assures me that all is well, that a warm bed waits for me, that soon the waiting and harvesting and long strength needed to weather the hard knock of skull against back window of tractor cab will give rise to something else, and whatever that something else turns out to be, it will be restorative and nourishing and a lot like coming home.

Onto the Oregon Trail

2005-10-11T22:24:00.000-07:00

Now it is happening. Doug got the job offer, and we are off to the Oregon coast! I cannot express how wonderful it feels to think about living by the ocean, nor can I explain how easily it's come to be that we are moving there in a few (or two?) weeks. This comes on the heels of me receiving a job offer from the Red Rock News to be a features writer and copy editor. I was waiting to see which presented itself most clearly, and now we are following the road as it unfurls before us. You could say I'm excited, because I'm outta my mind excited. Ready to pop or float, not sure which.

There's an aquarium in nearby Newport, the Oregon Coast Aquarium, that I've queried in the past couple of weeks, but I'm going to have to contact somebody over the phone tomorrow because this email business isn't working. Maybe November will find me working in the library again, or maybe something totally unexpected will come over the horizon in the next few weeks. I feel so blessed to breathe the cool autumn air outside and feel chilly, really chilly, at night again. Chilly and giddy and ready to welcome the changes ahead.

BioAstroRhythm

2005-10-10T13:06:00.000-07:00

What is Scorpio? A Paradox, in Reverse

Scorpio is blue eyes gazing into starry black night, not the Milky Way.

Scorpio is luminous,
a silhoutte brightened by the shadows.

Scorpio is wanting to but not always knowing how.

Scorpio is distraction mindful of itself.

Scorpio is craving.

Scorpio is seeing beauty not skin deep.

Scorpio is laughter bouncing back from unseen walls.

Scorpio is always, always an enchantress.

Scorpio thinks three dimensions are boring.

Scorpio is a dream weaver, a healer.

And sometimes,
Scorpio is full of shit.

Morning in the City in the Desert

2005-10-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

Dawn

A twitchy stillness
sallow vibrations
within the early Monday morning rush phase,
unexpected, like love suddenly with lust,
in a valley between canyons and mountains
where the people
(considered a continuous equation)
work, drive, play, eat, sleep, dream, fuck, die
but the gray marauders of the early light bringing the stillness on
always scent the air for danger and pause to wait before stepping
lest a roaming shadow of this era
move to harm them.

Aggressively passive most of the time
the sleeping male relies on his mate
to protect him while he sleeps
she keeps watch like the wild thing she is
like a mother
like a jealous lover
nervous to be on time someplace
she paces and snorts
huffing and stamping when a new potential threat
enters the silence they hollow out from the dirt.

In an overdeveloped metropolitan wasteland of cement
and freeways and yuppies and suburbs
it figures they would rest in this patch of desert
so near their mountains of origin,
wander past their boundaries of descent
and find a new peace, the silent lark, in the fringes of desert in the city.

They broadcast their stillness through the superficial noise
and inane cell phone chatter,
a new wave kind of soundlessness.

Sky kisses the morning while the javelina sleep,
mostly silent, in the city.

Almost Published

2005-10-07T10:27:00.001-07:00

McSweeney's said that they were tempted, but that they had decided against publishing it in the end because they get too many good sestinas to post. They seriously considered it, and that, I think, is a success.

So here it is, on my site.

Black Tides Under a Restless Night

You aftershave is poison
a potion prepared for your face after anointing it with water
when you cut yourself, and you bleed,
and it hurts like a sunnuffabitch, baby,
but with my touch, I say I can heal,
I can heal you with my touch.

As I wonder about your touch
if it would be poison,
a scorpion to sting me, not heal,
perhaps a breeze on the water,
where ocean salt tastes like tears, baby,
where waves plead and make my heart bleed.

But as I bleed
I speak to you of rivers that do not touch
of whether I will ever conceive a baby
whether my womb is poison,
whether it would fill with foul water
or after birthing, heal.

Chiron speaks of wounds that never heal
always picking the scab, waiting for it to bleed,
the eternal peroxide bottle on standby for water,
you, for a mother’s hands, a gentle touch,
me, for the hot thing to relinquish its poison,
for the moon to speak my name, baby.

I will not eat the meat if it comes from a baby.
I pray for our culture to heal
while we both wait for it to eject its poison,
believing that to live is to bleed,
for the dead do not bleed or feel a lover’s touch
and blood is always thicker than water;

water is not thicker than blood.
And my pillows sigh as they wait for you, baby,
my ivy tangled in the cornfields waits for your touch,
for our shackled souls to heal,
though every 28 days I bleed,
glad to be alive and know the fear of poison.

My soul bleeds water and by firelight I heal,
for it is a blessing to bleed and by a full moon wait for your touch,
but some still say that your touch is poison.

For Love of a Dog

2005-10-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

Dear Editor:

I recently had an experience at the Verde Valley Humane Society that I think fellow animal lovers may find interesting. After all the press surrounding neglect and abuse allegations at that facility, I assumed that there would be no obvious signs of ineptitude or neglect when I visited to meet the dog I’d found online, having determined that my future dog would come from the V.V.H.S. because I wasn’t convinced that everything was hunky dory there, especially considering the Letter to the Editor by the Cornville resident who volunteered there ( ) and despite having been cleared by the authorities of any wrongdoing. I also fell in love with the face I saw on my screen, described as the mug of an Irish Wolfhound/German Shepherd mix.

I’d left several messages the day before, while the facility was closed, notifying them that I wanted to meet this dog, and I followed up my phone calls around noon the next day to make sure he was still available. He was, but I was told the facility closed at 1 pm that day, and I assured the receptionist that I would be there, but I was driving from Camp Verde, so please bear that in mind, but that I would be there as soon as I could, say half an hour.

After being trailed by two police officers for the majority of my drive down Why 260, I arrived at the facility, excited to meet the dog and make arrangements to adopt him if we hit it off. The receptionist refused to allow me back in the kennel area because it was 1:00 and they were closed, the computers were down, and that was that. I explained that I had just called about a dog, and all I wanted to do was meet him, that I was sorry I had been delayed due to driving a steady 55 all the way from the outer limits of Camp Verde. After I protested that the dog was there to be adopted, and that it was her job to facilitate adoptions, and that it would only take a minute, she sucked in her breath, shot me a look, and dialed a kennel attendant to open up his kennel.

When I met the dog, I knew he was the one, even though I was dismayed at the lack of energy he displayed, not standing as I approached, not even sitting up to meet me when I entered the kennel, kneeling to pet this beautiful giant prostrated on his side, his backbone protruding visibly through his skin, his face gaunt and narrow, ribs clearly defined, his hip bones jutting and sharp. I declared my intentions to adopt him, went back out front and thanked them for their help, and asked if I could take the paperwork home with me, thinking I could fax it in the next day. The receptionist told me I was not allowed to fill out the paperwork at home, and when I asked why, she said those were the rules and that I would have to come back in the morning. As I protested such a silly rule, telling her that work would prevent me from making another trip across the valley, and that the dog was visibly malnourished and weak and needed to be adopted as soon as possible, another vehicle pulled up and an older gentlemen walked up with his granddaughter, wanting to look at the puppies. They, too, had driven from Camp Verde and were puzzled at the sign that said 10-1, thinking that the humane society was closed during these hours instead of open. She told them they would have to drive back tomorrow, as the facility was closed. They left, and at this point, she became openly rude and nasty with me, telling me they would only hold the dog for me for 24 hours, even if I couldn’t return the next day, and I turned my back to her and walked out.

When I returned home, I immediately left a message for the director, describing my experience of a half hour ago. I advised her that I had just alerted the media about my experience and expressed my confusion that an animal held at her facility would be in such poor physical condition, although I had no way of knowing how long he had been at her facility, and that I would wait to speak with her before I came out, guns blaring, alerting everyone within reading distance that more investigations were needed about the Verde Valley Humane Society. I never spoke with her, although I returned twice more to the facility within the next three days.

I discovered my dog had been there for two and half weeks, the same amount of time in which the gained approximately five pounds after I assumed his care. And, miraculously, the staff was wonderfully accommodating and friendly when I returned.

My dog is wonderful, steadily gaining weight week by week and filling out to his full size and magnificence, and I can’t imagine life without him now. I wonder why the people charged with rescuing and protecting animals in the community fail them so miserably, and the public they serve. I sincerely hope that no other animals waste away in the Verde Valley Humane Society, and that when an animal in Camp Verde is found in a hot metal trailer during the last part of July, that our animal control personnel respond by rescuing that animal, not walking away because it’s time for them to also go home for the day. My mom is a nurse in the OR, charged with people’s lives every day, and most days, she doesn’t get to go home when her shift is over. She stays, and takes care of the needs of her patient. Shouldn’t those responsible for animal welfare do the same?

Eclipsed by a Garden Cart

2005-10-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

I turn and scoop me out of this cracked eggshell.
Soft-boiled again. Damn.

I have been reading some very interesting blogs lately, which have re-affirmed my desire to be a part of blog culture. I may be isolated in the desert, but there is some kind of connection forged to other like-minded beings through this machine.

I particularly enjoy reading about how this time of year affects people. Being an autumn baby, November born, I have become accustomed to craving this period of increasing darkness and longer shadows. It feels like coming home as the sun moves from Libra into Scorpio, but this experience is complicated by crawling through the dark of the moon to a solar eclipse. Heavy. Intense. Bizarre. Three adjectives which suitably describe me right now.

# # #

My lower back gave out yesterday, after I'd reinjured it a week ago to the day, tweaking the area weakened and originally injured by working on an organic farm using faulty equipment (hint: never agree to use a garden cart with a flat tire, let alone two; oxen don't even do this). I should not even be sitting here, but the bed-rest regimen was wearing on me, and I won't be able to complete this post until later, but I needed to start it.

Okay, so this is going to be abruptly abbreviated. I'll leave off with this:

I will dance with the dragon instead of fight it.

Bowing to this Loud Feeling

2005-09-29T11:58:00.000-07:00

After Meeting Skeleton Woman

She's a shaker of stones, this one. The original rattlesnake. So hot, she feels cold. So cold, she feels hot. Her language is a code, an amalgam of old words and gestures.

She floats on the dawn, breathes mist in the morning, shudders when she wakes, and howls. Her life, a wild freedom: she lives it in the deep. Awake, and alive where ocean serpents sleep, secured -- she, their secret.

Sometimes she loops back on herself. It feels like sliding down the mountain. It feels like release. She might slip off the planet. She welcomes the rush. Her knees are not brakes on the mountain, more than metaphor. The wind breathes her name.

Tiger striped yellow on black, creature in negative. She climbs on its back, rides air. Moored to the Earth by loose gravity, a magnet to hot flame.

Like steel, forged smooth, her bones. Coal-smoked eyes above a purple tongue, flicks sticky dew when mouth parts to laugh. Voice grained from pain. From guiding ships through wave and mist. From administering the rain.

Her bosom swells to sunset, heaves from enfolding sun in night till dawn. Her afterglow, a rainbow. Her precision, a beat.

For Renee

2005-09-28T12:23:00.000-07:00

Drunk on Captain Morgan and Coke, Dances with Broomstick

You always braved the deep spells of my blackness
and looked into my eyes without flinching
your blue orbs fastened on what you saw there
fashioning with bold charcoal strokes
a smile from the grief that held me
captive, roots for this ivy in the corn fields
your long artist's fingers
brushing back, making straight
the remnants of what held me together
weaving onto the warp of me
a design that is held here still
a design made clearer with desert blowing
and heat
a design become finer with age.

We cackled and snorted like bawdy old women
recited Chaucer waving cigarettes
and would've made the dead wretch
blow a thonderdent in his grave.
We were poor, and floated on the morning,
as we waited for the familiar of night
to welcome us into our true skins
becoming tigresses after the moon rose,
stalking off, into the bright beam,
to hunt what eluded us
to pursue what we craved
We became one with the Earth
and we called her by name.

You listened to my bad poetry
my wretched theories about life
my constant analysis of what was wrong
with this planet as I tried to shed
it from me, like a chrysalis outgrown,
and you always believed I would someday
be a butterfly
you never mocked me for remaining a caterpillar.

On the most fundamental level
I am female and I am a tree
and you are roots that feed me,
making me green and wet and alive
like those eagles
we watched soaring over the corn fields
and forests, riding the invisible,
the currents of motion,
in deep, long-necked dives,
rising up again to challenge
the wind, coming up against it,
defending, maintaining position,
no altitude lost, nor progress made,
waiting for the proper updraft
to glide away on, and being a victim
of no one, fly on to new lands
and visions. If our dreams keep us hostage
pursuing us while we sleep
as nightmares, then we
will wage war with the predator,
for that, we know, is its name.

We were the steam-soaked preambles of potential,
now young women, strong and free,
not yet mothers, no longer maids, we
swoop on our own updrafts and heal
to transform
and become ourselves at last, finally.

Back to the Wall, Fangs Bared

2005-09-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

Right. Last post had me bitching about lack of publishing opportunities in this area for a hip little filly like me. Now I am embarking on another mission.

Mission Get The Fuck Outta Here.

In order to be successful in this mission, I must be resourceful, creative, and persistent. I must have moxie, verve, and vast reserves of self-confidence. I must not give up even when certain people (who shall remain nameless) will not deign to respond to my queries. I must not allow my working class roots to trip me up. I must not be afraid. Because if you've ever watched (or read) The Children of Dune, you know that fear is the mindkiller. And really, I'm not afraid of anything except my own boogeymen. Stare 'em down, a few paces back, and charge.

Now I must ask, very nicely, if you, Compassionate Reader, will do me a favor. It's painless. Altruistic. And, though it won't get you laid, it might help you feel better about yourself for not commenting sooner. Please tell me:

Who is your favorite indie publisher?

Just type in the name and be off! That's it! Simple! Like drinking straight out of the milk jug! And no guilt! I won't care if that's all you say!

I've got my own list, but there are many out there. I'm researching them all through the Internet, but I need you to two cent me. I need help. There, I said it.

I specified independent publishers because I don't do corporate, mostly because corporate is always doing me. Without my consent. And near as I can tell, all major corporations do is amass wealth for the few while putting their feet to everyone else's necks. And that includes you. Unless you're wealthy. In which case, good for you. Wanna share with the rest of us?

Working-class feminist consciousness marching onward . . . .

Uh Uh

2005-09-18T10:49:00.000-07:00

Finalmente, unas cosas:

Blogger sucks. It has locked me out for the past several weeks, claiming that I need to change my computer settings to allow cookies. I've checked. Cookies are allowed. I have changed the settings to block cookies, ask before accepting, and then back again to always allow cookies, but still, the damn thing has denied me access to my blog. Frustrating. I see my profile views are increasing (nobody commenting, though [you know who you are]), yet I've been unable to post anything relevant to my life since the failed Sangre de Cristo fiasco. Fuck.

I applied for a job that was way beneath my skills and aptitude a couple weeks ago, had my interview last Wednesday, and felt, you know, pretty good about it. Mostly. It was a painless interview, the least stressful one I've ever endured, and seeing as it was for the company Doug works for (a company that claims to be a family company) and my qualifications were above and beyond what the position required (not to mention that I believe I, once again, knew more about the English language, editing, and composition than the man interviewing me), I figured I would get the job. But I didn't feel like I was going to be offered it after the interview. I drove home from Sedona feeling good, but not because I believed I had necessarily secured the job. The man didn't even ask me questions about myself, my skills, my character, my goals. Nuthin'. He just babbled on and on about the job and what my duties would be. I asked some key questions about the position and why they weren't hooked up with InDesign, which led him to become rather defensive about their current software and the fact that Macs are not used by anyone in the office, including designers. After having dressed myself like a professional (no jeans and T-shirt!), I did what you're supposed to do in an interview, and I even laughed when appropriate. The interview concluded with him bidding me to tell Doug hi for him, because Doug was a great guy. I even sent him a follow-up thank you via Apple I-Card (whatcha think, salt in the wound?), with a polite, though amusing, message.

It turns out Doug has never even spoken with him before. Lack of sincerity strikes again!

Then Friday, after trying to distract myself from the anxiety I felt about whether or not I would be starting an 8 to 5 on Monday by reading a letter in The Believer about, essentially, classism in literature (although the writer was woefully ignorant of this subtext), I received a telephone call from said interviewer. I was not expecting a telephone call. I figured he'd email me if I hadn't made the cut, which was unlikely, despite the nagging feeling in my gut, right? But no o o o o o o o. He got stuck on asking for me by name:

"Is this, uh. . . ." (voice trailing off, uncomfortable silence).

"Jaimie? Yes, speaking."

"Right. Jaimie. This is Jon. We've filled the position."

"Oh. Well. I'm glad you've found a good fit for the position."

"I'm really sorry. It was great to meet you."

"Nice meeting you as well. Not a problem."

(click)

I was so humiliated by the rejection that I immediately began crying after I hung up. There are not many jobs around here that have anything to do with publishing, and while proofreading ads for the newspaper industry is not my first choice, it was, at least, in line with my skills. I know I would have been intolerably bored, and he made an issue of telling me that no one was to ever mess with the wording of ads, even if they were grammatically incorrect or semantically skewed. So there would have been no room for any creativity. It would have meant commuting two hours every day. It would have meant crappy health insurance, which would have been supplemented by my paycheck, better than nothing, but still. It would have been steady work.

My copyrighting job for the never-before-mentioned Web site has been completed. I finished the final review of Eyes of Sedona a couple weeks ago. There are no more freelance projects coming my way, mainly because I've decided making regular paychecks is key now that I have a car, and the only way to save money to get the fuck out of Dodge is to do whatever mediocre work I can find that doesn't totally insult my sense of ethics and professionalism. Translated, this means that I haven't lined up any more freelance work. I'm sending writing samples to a new magazine that's starting up in Taos, New Mexico, on Monday. And wading through the long list of resort jobs and receptionist positions in order to find something moderately in line with my skills. Fuck and hell.

Speaking of hell, it's not excrutiatingly hot here anymore.

Speaking of here, I found another scorpion last night. The little stinging beastie was scuttling across the floor, taunting my cat, the mighty Scorpion Killer. She's a good little predator, fearless. I suppose she lives with a Scorpio. Why would she fear that which I am likened unto?

Thanks, slum lords! No more walking around the apartment barefoot for me.

Books I'm reading:

The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols
The Woman with the Alabaster Jar by Margaret Starbird
The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

And I'm still trying to finish the last 59 pages of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig.

In the queue:

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
Joan of Arc by Mark Twain
Cowboys Are My Weakness by Pam Houston

# # #

The good news is that I will be tutoring my next door neighbor's five-year-old daughter in reading and writing starting Monday. Her step-father charges her $6/hr (whatthefuck?) to tutor her little munchkin. She's a bright child and very creative. I had given her some fingerpaints I'd purchased for another munchkin I never saw again to give them to, along with a couple of children's books I'd picked up during the past few years, and you could just watch her imagination churning. Her mom works long hours and doesn't have the time to help her get her homework done (a first grader with homework?), although she does read to her at night before bed (which seems more key than giving a first grader homework). I assured her mom that I'd be happy to tutor her for free and that I was qualified, given my tutoring work in the library system and during high school. It'll keep my perspective anchored on possibility and innocence to interact with a child regularly and help her discover the amazing world of reading, the lands you can visit by just turning pages. I'd be hopelessly devoured without those realms.

But you knew that already, right?

Just kidding

2005-08-23T14:57:00.000-07:00

Seems I spoke too soon about my move. Seems you can't force the universe to bend to your will.

I was eating at a Chinese restaurant with Doug over the weekend and the word "Tiamat" sprung into my head. Now there is a name for the snake in my dreams. I will keep riding the back of the great mother, and I pray that she guides me home. Maybe she'll guide me through the currents to the ocean, finally. Dunno.

I'll just keep putting one foot in front of the other. At least I have a vehicle now. And the words are coming, so all really is well, despite illusions to the contrary.

How Soggy It Is Here

2005-08-02T22:26:00.000-07:00

It's amazing that this parched air is saturated with moisture right now following the rain. I should have remembered that the desert offers much to the senses; even considering the light air of the mountains, the cool lushness of this high desert valley at night, where puddles spot the landscape and make the children next door think longingly of romping through them, makes a body happy. It is calm, though harsh, and the heat of summer builds to a crescendo with humidity and dank air before it eases off to bring in cool autumn and winter currents. Explaining the effects of the mountains on me is impossible in a poem; I won't even attempt to do it with prose. It is a complicated, rather mystical thing to explain feeling claimed by the land. Like I was coming home, finally. The displaced woman has no words to express her experience to anyone else, but if you're another mystified, mystical, missed-the-bus-that-everyone-else-rode-in-on kind of person like me, I don't need to write an essay about it.

So it is with a certain tenderness that I will leave these valleys that have been home to me for my three and a half years in the desert. Bittersweet? No. Providential? Yes. But not in any sort of theologically Christian sense. In more of an old pagan, mystical sense of knowing that Fortune has turned her wheel once again.

The Gnashing of Kali

2005-08-02T22:21:00.000-07:00

I took some liberties with the percentages of water to cents made per dollar. But that's poetic license, see, and so it's alright.

So much sun. So much sweat.
Makes its own lubrication
hydration becomes the thing, the thing
not power, not power, not power over another
just cooling the blood flow
down, building electrolytes
up, the world turns
around, and pauses.

Earth, seventy percent water,
I, seventy-three, make
the same cents to your dollar
on the average, they say, it all evens out
my fertility earns me ounces to a pound.

Emotional I may be, provocative,
yes, though these wide hips refuse
to fill a dress
sky colors me misty
without water, stained
reddish (not rosy) wearing no panty hose he said:
"Too volatile, too free--
too much beyond me--
too fierce, too competent,
too wild, unkept, become
rational, measured
I do not take my pleasure
(underneath his breath)
in your power, you see,
your past does not concern me
I command that your shoulders hang down
(don't frown)
that your eyes drop low when I pass
kneel to my power
I'll not accept less."

Arrogant man! Regarding me senseless,
stupid, an inferior strain
by two x's a threat, my pain
a proof of the fire that forged me
whole, still my stride glides, still
my pride wide, these wise eyes
accept no fool's chidings, nor the grasping,
gyrating, paranoid man
whose fancies propel him beyond Capricorn.

Do you know what lies beyond Capricorn?
Can you tell what rides behind my stare?
Not so languid, my fury, nor light,
my care, direct my wrath,
Lady, stand me up, I, aware, clasp
my legacy firmly, rock my shoulders back,
watch your fantasy, rotting,
a compromised woman I'll not become
my words are my violence
there is no need for a gun.

Stunned, he rolled me
over, howled, eyes
dropped sights to my chest
with his poker face tried
tried, tried, tried, tried
so very fucking hard
to pry open my side
But I maintain my vision,
seek my peace
repel his greed
retain my grace
insane to stay here
I, aware, break this chains like I cut my hair.

Fury wraps shadows around me.
A snake-led woman, having descended, ascends.

I should have posted this ages ago. A big shout out to the biggest dick of the year, my former boss.

A Past Blast

2005-06-01T11:21:00.000-07:00

Oh goody! My first troll has paid me a visit. Probably some disgruntled, bitter person from my past who didn't get what they wanted from me or got way more than they were expecting. Maybe one of Doug's disturbed exxes. Although the suspense is just KILLING me, I'm gonna go out on a limb now and take a stab at who it might be:

Hi, Rod!

(You have some faulty parallelism going on in your comment, whoever you are. You'll want to keep an eye on that tendency in the future when attempting to compose.)

Let's play!

Troll said:

"Writing -- and thereby editing -- is not a game.

Neither is life.

At some point, it might be advisable to take any or all of them as not something you just drift through and fail to care about the consequences of how you and others you *choose* to associate with impact the lives of other people."

Almost very well said, Troll.

I'm going to continue to assume that this anonymous commenter is Rod. Rod has an e-zine that he's very proud of, and as the editor and venerable grand poobah of his stable of marginally talented writers, he takes himself and his craft WAY too seriously. He thinks that his publication is some kind of service to humanity, and that because of the service he's providing so selflessly (if doing something simply for the joy of it--without pay--somehow translates to being selfless; his inflated ego--which forms the outward manifestation of his [inner] massive inferiority complex--is paid hand over fist in strokes of self-importance), he is entitled to special treatment and recognition, not the least of which includes the incredible expectation that his readers will respond to his online Beg Campaigns by sending him money orders so that he can continue to do what he does best: be a reclusive drunk who repels human kindness and, incredibly, expects it to keep being proffered him as some kind of oblation, forming the buoy that keeps him afloat. That he is a pathetic, self-aggrandizing, parasitic drunk with little to no social skills is sad, so pity tends to combine with compassion and motivate bleedings hearts like Doug and me to try and help. But it is impossible to save a person from himself and be the form of grace that such a person relies upon to be saved from himself. Rod doesn't think it's hip to be square; he thinks it's hip to vent his spleen on the people trying to help him. He thinks that he's experienced more suffering than Average Jane or Joe, and his hard, hard life makes it okay for him to demand handouts, then pitch a fit that he didn't get the kind of handout he WANTED. Rod is little more than a child--a child with some major anger repression issues. Luckily for him, he gets drunk on a nightly basis and vents his repressed rage all over the place.

Interacting with a fifty-something-year-old who's always playing the race card against you, while he assumes that your age, class, spirituality and sex indicate your capacities to understand the world and "be" in it are inferior to his, as he frames his dark skin and the hideous legacy of slavery around your fair skin, shaming you for the sin of white privelege you already feel so acutely (and never minding that your roots are working class or that you possess the blood of Irish and Italian peasants). . . it's a bit of a trick. Somehow, in his chemical-addled mind, he is successfully able to rationalize his codependent behavior by clinging to the belief that he deserves to be supported by others--especially by drifting, selfish, thoughtless souls like me and the one I have chosen as my companion through life. I guess it's Rod's way of exacting reparations from The Man who owned and tortured his great-grandfather.

Doug and I were both fools to try to help him. We were fools in the way we went about it. Our own lives were less than stable, but we still attempted to help another in need. Ah well, live and learn.

And Rod? After months of trying to help you, we realized that if we kept paying into the Rod Reparations Fund that we'd never be able to help ourselves get out of the negative feedback loop our lives had become. We kept putting you and your "needs" ahead of our own and kept experiencing the vindictive fury of a thankless wretch (constantly biting the hand that feeds you is not advisable in the future, BTW, if you plan to continue to support yourself through the handouts of others). And we finally realized that we were attempting to help a vampire--an amoral creature whose spirit is as good as dead who kept sucking until we had nothing left to give (and your furious hunger had, for the moment, been sated). And we became aware that we had been played by the mastah playa.

Q: So what do you do in such a situation?
A: Whatever the fuck you need to do to get away from the vampire.

(Don't suppose you've ever had the antisocial personality disorder pinned on you before, maybe co-morbid with something equally fascinating like narcissistic personality disorder?)

It seems that your latest online suicide threat caught you another altruistic bleeding heart (good tactic, by the way). I'd suggest you reign in the drunkenness and, you know, maybe leave your new abode every once in a while. But by all means, keep painting yourself as a martyr for your audience and your current "patron." It gets you by.

Just don't expect your typical behavior to create a different outcome for you this go-round. You know what they say about those in glass houses . . .

# # #

Now if that wasn't you, Rod, well, you still had it coming.

Regarding the comment and anonymous respondent:

I won't even dignify your attempts to insult me by becoming defensive. Your cowardice is reflected in your choice to remain anonymous. Of course, that's your right. And of course, your point of view is less than illuminating, but certainly very curious. I appreciate the earnestness behind it. Oh wait, you were trying to be caustic, weren't you? Hey, chin up--at least you're amusing!

I wonder how many people have laughed while crying at the same time because the drama of the life they live becomes clear for a moment, and they understand the tragicomedy that our lives are, finding it wonderfully ridiculous and so, so sad at the same time.

Life may be more of a game than any of us realize.

From B.A. to b.s.

2005-05-26T00:17:00.001-07:00

Gandhi recommended being the change you want to see in the world. It's an exceptional idea and I'm constantly aspiring to it. But it's not easy. I suppose this is true of most worthwhile endeavors.

Today the fragile optimism I was tending crashed to the floor when I saw that my creative strategy for making some bucks is not going to work out as I'd hoped. Given the situation I'm up against (that and the rock made tending the optimism difficult), it seemed like a brilliant move to advertise my editorial services, with a focus on my experience editing books, in the area papers. I know there are some very well-off people in this area writing their memoirs and metaphysical mumbo-jumbos who need someone with the skillz to tweak and polish their words before they submit it to publishers, and Doug works with someone who advertised himself in this way and successfully attracted writers and wannabes who paid him well for his efforts.

I have been giving myself pep talks about my competence as an editor and my abilities to effectively market myself as a freelance editor here (as soon as we can afford to place the ads) so that I can begin to network myself once my hair is cut so that it doesn't need to be hidden underneath an old bandana anymore (out of shame, I choose to hide this raggle-taggle mop that hasn't been shaped in ages because we haven't had the money). But today, while scanning the classifieds, I discovered that a woman with a Ph.D. had beat me to my plan, her ad for writing and editorial services placed neatly in the middle of the last classifieds page. I felt like someone had just socked me hard in the gut. I cannot compete with a Ph.D. in English.

True, the college I attended is one of only two Iowa colleges that made the cut for the 2005 U.S. News and Report college guide. To that, I lobby a "so what?" I've got a B.A. in English (that I snagged by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin, courtesy of repeated bouts with depression) and just a year and half of solid, demonstrable editing experience under my belt. True, I've helped friends with their writing since high school, but that's nothing to brag about to someone who wants to get their book in print. (But to toot my own rusty horn, a friend of mine recently asked me to help him revise his personal statement for law school applications, and after I'd done my thing and sent it back to him with lots of comments, questions, and suggestions for revision, he told me I was a rock star.) I realize my emotions are coloring my perspective here, and maybe I'll feel differently when I've had some time to process this, but right now, I am lost in a labyrinth that keeps changing every time I think I've discovered the right path out.

Patience, patience, but for how goddamn long do I have to keep being patient?

I'm not mentally clear enough to focus my thoughts any better than I have just done. How I would dearly love for this day to be over. But I can't sleep and my mind is stuck in a feedback loop, sending me deeper and deeper into spiral. Something is sucking me under, and all I can do is thrash and inhale water.

If only I had gills.

So, baby, do you like it raw?

2005-05-20T23:50:00.000-07:00

I've figured out what's wrong with my blog these days. I assume no one is reading my writing, and since that's the assumption, I have no one to (conceptually) write for, so I cannot find an appropriate tone or flow. Add the grim reality of me not conversing with anyone but Doug (with rare exception), and you have a recipe for a voiceless woman.

I know that my voice gets stronger when I'm writing an email or pen-and-paper letter to someone. So if anyone out there wanted to a good dose of who I really am, below is an excerpt from an email I recently sent to my mom.

It doesn't get much more intimate and real than this, folks.

Dear Mom,
.
.
.

We went to a meeting of that poetry group last month, and I was sorely intimidated by two of the featured poets. I've always wanted to slam but hadn't really seen anyone do it live. Until then. I'm trying to motivate myself to focus on getting my material up to snuff so I can get up there and slam it down the way I know I am capable of doing, every bit as much as those middle/upper-middle class poets were doing. So the intimidation and outrage and need to be known for Who I Am is stirring me up toward that end. I just need to get out of my own way. The thoughts don't flow when I'm emotionally constipated, and then all that does come out is a shit-bath of emotional frenzy, which doesn't always make sense.

So I'm re-introducing myself to women writers I respect who tackle the issues that tear away at my sense of myself and non-existent social justice. The personal IS political, and rereading outspoken feminists who have channeled their pain and sense of social and personal displacement into their work is incredibly self-affirming and motivating. Once Doug goes to bed tonight, I'm going to attempt to put myself into my poems in a new, revised way. Because Mom, I want to introduce some people to what a Fury, a real Hysterical, Hell-Bent, Overemotional Female has to say about things. Poetically.

This has turned into an email that may frighten you. Don't let it, because this is good. This is evidence that I am back and on fire, on fire with a zeal that has something to do with this yang energy that bounces around inside of me seeking release, finding none, giving me these bloody headaches instead. This is a good outpouring, and I assure you of that as I assure you that what will make all be well is unleashing the power of my lyrical voice in some capacity, an empowered capacity, a more mature, wisened capacity, a raw, succulent, vibrant capacity to feel and be known for who I am, not who I try to be for everyone else's sake. This is Mars and the animus and the holy, righteous indignation and rage of a woman who has been powerless to stem the flow of patriarchal disorder against herself and those she loves most fiercely. This is me dealing with the melancholia that laps and drips and stirs and heaves and bends in upon me and my ability to live according to what I know, feel, and believe.

This is me being your daughter--the daughter and the granddaughter and great-grandaughter of Italian women who struggled so hard, so very fucking hard to survive and pass a freedom they'd never tasted, just dreamed of, to me. To me. From you.

So I take it. Breathe it in. And I will speak with it.

Fiercely and truly,
your daughter
of Pluto and Mars

Another old poem (in revision)

2005-05-20T01:33:00.000-07:00

Nothing Lost that I Can't Find Again/Baby, You Ain't Atlantis

I am a woman
a creature of the nighttime
in the daytime
I prowl and track the inbetweentime
When the new moon emerges
to blur the edges between
life and death
I am reborn.

Like the phoenix rising from the ash
I claim a dirge for my lullaby
coming before your altar like a resurrected sacrifice
where my gaze mocks you, and my desire,
it churns.

I'm on my knees to my god
knows why this happens to me --
he loves me not when her mercury's
rising--funny
how I've always tried to transcend
the coldness of the world
held in your one clenched hand
looks warm there and sweet
and laughing lines cross my face to face again
it hits me how your eyes hold me in a trance where only
beautiful visions fill my mind
seems to be losing its clarity again
my gaze returns to meet you
where I will not go anymore.

This woman wants to be a tree
but trees need roots
to weather the storm
lashes out of your mouth
says I'm only a persistent vine
creeps up your leg and to your place
yeah, baby, you know the place where
the rootless vine finds
like wine to me, you are so full of spice
no, girls aren't made of everything nice
to see you again
it hits me how your
eyes hold me down like those damned
elusive roots I lack. But in the springtime,
baby, in the springtime
when the moon rises and the sun sets
and the moon sets and I rise,
remember me, remember me.
Roots grow.

Allow me to explain

2005-05-19T12:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, tantrum over. I'm not sure how long I'll be sticking around here, but for now, I'm sticking.

I intend to prove that you can remove the shit you're painting over by using a very specialized, intense type of paint.

What puzzles me is that no one ever comments. Early on, there were a few, but it seems that those people decided they'd also had it with Blogger. They're gone. No updated posts for me to read and two cent.

So I am confused that my profile views keep increasing, but no one ever says a damn thing. I'm guessing these viewers are folks who think I'm a nut. Worse, an uninteresting nut who wallows in the refuse of her past. If that's the case, so be it. If you met me, you'd believe differently. Of that, I am sure.

Since I've probably failed to say anything remotely interesting to potential readers, let me direct your attention to Ursula K. LeGuin's book The Dispossessed, and this quote on page 301 (paperback version):

"You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere."

Here's to being the Revolution.

Enough

2005-05-18T19:27:00.000-07:00

The past few days, I've been marinating on a few things related to me, this blog and blog culture.

* I don't really like blog culture all that much, and I don't really like Blogger. Blogger has failed to update my profile statistics (way more than 16 posts here) and update my recent posts, and I don't know how to fix it. Nor do I care enough about this shoddy journal enough to try to fix it.

* I am tired of the content here. I've done my best to make this blog into something more reflective of me, but I have too many negative associations with it, and it's futile to try to make it into something better. I mean, you can paint over feces, but the feces will always be there.

* I've let my friends know about this project, but none of them have taken an interest in it. I know, they're very busy people. But I've decided that they really don't want a window into my life, so I'll stop trying to provide it. They want to know, they can email me.

* There are just bones here. . . bones I will reanimate somewhere else. Maybe I'll feel differently about blog culture when I don't hate mine.

Stretch out.

Rough Draft

2005-05-18T00:50:00.000-07:00

Below is the first attempt at reconstruction of a poem I'd written when I was still living in Decorah. It was a fairly good poem, and I submitted it along with some others to a local arts magazine. But they didn't publish it. Instead, they selected another poem that they horribly mangled and printed. I was mortified when people started complimenting me on it at the public library where I was working. I tried to graciously accept their compliments, but I was a deer in the headlights behind the circ desk grasping for a way to seem pleased while inside I was screaming in protest that it wasn't MY poem they'd read. I didn't know how else to handle it, and since my life was falling apart from the inside out, the botched poem was the least of my worries.

Anyway, back to this attempt. The poem was saved on an ancient computer I owned, but one day the damn thing refused to boot up. I didn't have the money to have it repaired, and it was a relic anyway, so I ditched it when I moved, willy-nilly, to the Southwest (along with everything else that didn't meet my importance/sentimentality criteria--most of my possessions weren't fitting into my '96 Geo Metro).

I have let go of a lot in the way of material possessions in my life, which is really easy compared to the process of letting go of the emotional, spiritual residue from the past, in terms of painful experiences and foolish selves. I've found some aspects of myself that I am trying to tease out again and reclaim.

This morning, shortly after I climbed out of the shower, some lines from this lost poem started running through my head. It was a thrilling moment. I'm still in the process of trying to recreate it, though, as with the rest of my life, so please be kind with your assessments. It's really rough and disjointed, and I'm hesitant to post it, but I need to see it up to help me get it right. Once I do, it's going on my list of poems to slam. (I am convinced that I need to get up there and try, really look that fear dead in the eye and go "booga-booga!" to it. Whenever I watch, I know that I could do it, too. But the material's gotta be good, or uh-uh.)

He said that only he knew what lay beyond Capricorn
beyond Capricorn
but I also know
because I am there
beyond Capricorn
near the edge's murky tip
in the droning lullaby
stuck in the lint trap of the dreamcatcher
where nightmares and boogeymen are caught
in the echoes of dissonant wolf cries
where the wind blows and the baby falls
in a briar patch outside the cradle

My grandfather also knew
and he passed it along
a hard knowledge to carry
in the legacy of my blood
and like the pump of the hot thing
pushing this blood through veins and arteries
it moves me and it's a righteous movement
my movement is a righteous movement
I said
my movement is a righteous movement

A revolution is contained in my blood

My grandfather drank steady
of the violent melancholy in his Irish blood
helped move me here
and now it traps me here
past Capricorn
his unlove
that keeps pushing me off
the balance of the moment
paused, looking back
from somewhere near Capricorn
to Adam and his sons
who keep me bound here

Silence Alive Only in Memory

2005-05-14T23:51:00.000-07:00

The walls here are thin. So thin that I can hear the people next door having normal conversation, the CDs they play, the movies they watch. The sharp click of their heels on linoleum.

I know way too much about my neighbors.

If they didn't work out of their apartments, it wouldn't be such an annoying problem. If I didn't have such uncanny hearing, it wouldn't bother me. If I had a car, a job, and a life, everything would be different.

Then there is the construction issue.

The noise here is grinding loud and maddening. Day in, day out, the house across the street becomes more and more erect, a giant penis being stimulated by generators and drills. The noise starts at 6:30 a.m. and doesn't break until 2. Then it starts up again, relentless.

We moved here to escape the urban wastelands of civilization. Yet civilization followed us here, and the noise penetrates my sensitive earlobes--some, the low bass tones that only cetaceans can hear, and others, so audible they assault the senses with a brilliant vulgar clarity (and glee)--fondling and pricking my three tiniest bones in a constant reminder that silence is a commodity more precious than time, more useful than money, and for me, a creature who crouches inside the spiraling hour glass of progress, being crushed by the ceaseless count of the sands, the sound of silence is crucial. But this sound has become so expensive that a poor working-class slob like me cannot afford to buy it.

I cannot find the silence of my childhood, and I never thought I would miss the simple rhythms of sound and life in the Midwest. Iowa, you tricky whore, you convinced me you didn't want me--that I did not belong with you--and spat me out, an exile, casting me away from the fertile prairies and cornfields of my youth. I never thought I'd miss you.

Oh, how I crave the smell of that good Iowa dirt, the smell of it after a rain.

One day, maybe you'll take me back so that I may be the ivy on your cornfields again.

Postscript: This came out rather rapidly, and I'm still not sure if it makes sense. Since it flowed out (for a change), I'm letting it stand until I can approach it with a fresh perspective. (This is my sketch pad. Caution is not welcome here.)

Good Reads

2005-05-13T00:13:00.004-07:00

I have been filling up on some great words lately, words that are helping to create different realms of thought for me. I've been saying I need to get some new thinking going on in here. Initiation sequence begins:

Shock Treatment by Karen Finley (brilliant monologues of the controversial performance artist)

The Women's Book of Creativity by C. Diane Ealy, Ph.D. (self-explanatory, invigorating)

Succulent Wild Woman by SARK (if you haven't heard of SARK, you may want to google her)

Black Elk Speaks

Thinking Class: Sketches from a Cultural Worker by Joanna Kadi (elegant, passionate essays)

random bits of poetry and prose

lyrics by The Tragically Hip

Good shit, Maynard.

'Night.

Filthy Animals

2005-05-11T15:25:00.000-07:00

Remember the scene from Pulp Fiction where the two gangsters are sitting in the diner discussing what constitutes a filthy animal? Samuel L. Jackson's character maintained that a pig was a filthy animal, which is why he wouldn't eat pork. Know what? Pigs are actually very clean animals. Hog confinements are what's filthy, and if you were confined to an enclosed, dirt-filled lot and fed genetically modified Monsantoed food that gave you the shits, you would be covered in it, too.

I enjoy hiking at a national park down the road. Every time I'm hoofing it back in there, though, surrounded by the smells and sights of what is pure and sacred to me, my reverie is interrupted by all the trash scattered every few paces. People are the filthiest animals. In effect, we shit in the tub and refuse to acknowledge the turds floating around in it or how disgusting we are when we get out and don't fish our dookie out.

Once upon a time, I made a promise to this Earth to help take care of her as best I could. Today, instead of fighting a losing battle with my warring emotions (courtesy of Moon in Cancer and my hormones), I picked up a long stretch of trash, abbreviating my mission when my gigantanormous sack was too heavy to tote. It felt great to pick that foul shit up--another small step in the right direction for me.

So I'm trudging along, muttering to myself intermittently about how disgusting people are with this full trash bag slung over my shoulder and its stench wafting into my nostrils, heaving it down every so often to toss something else in and refill on the intoxicating scents of this area. At least five pick-ups passed me and kicked up dust during this mission, but no one inside these off-road vehicles returned my smile or even acknowledged me. Not a one of them stopped to ask if they could help me haul it out. And it's not that I was expecting a hand or some kind of recognition for my efforts; I was just creeped out by the blank stares of passersby, like I was a convict doing hard labor or some bloke doing my community service hours--someone to be shunned. I assumed that the people passing me were fellow nature lovers, friendly folks if nothing else. But evidently, I have yet to develop an understanding of the people in this area and because of this miscalculation, I felt like a great green alien with giant suckers attached to my forehead instead of a dusty bandana.

Were these the people who unceremoniously toss beer cans out of their trucks? Were these the tweakers whose drug paraphernalia I picked up as I successfully kept myself from gagging from the nefarious scent still attached to them? Meth stinks. I'd heard so, and now I have first-hand knowledge. Junk food wrappers, fast food containers, beer cans and bottles, soiled clothing, condom packages and crack pipes. What a nice sampling of the interests and activities of the local litterbug population when they're outside at night.

I still feel good about picking up that shit. I just wish people would take responsibility for themselves and respect the elements and forces that make life possible and beautiful on this great twirling blue planet. Why is that not second nature?

Perhaps a subject for another time.

Slow Motion

2005-05-10T23:37:00.001-07:00

Bright Spot

Shaved my legs today
a momentous occasion
put my body in the sun
rode the wind
became my sweat
listened to the noise, absorbed
its chaos
felt holy
and hungry
and alone.

x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x

What Do You Mean You Don't Have A Backbone?

My spine is a caterpillar
of uncertain dimensions
and strength, maintaining
this form through force
of will alone, a slinky
that has forgotten itself
warped from too much twisting.

- + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -

What the hell does guild the lily mean?

And why is it, if creativity is natural to everyone, that mine will not flow?

The worst thing is when you're trapped in a cage of your own making and you realize that this is so and accept responsibility for your situation, but are unable to dismantle the damn thing. Or you manage to get out of it and discover that you're not free after all, just in a bigger cage.

The best thing about today: I read an article about dolphins creating shapes in the water OUT of water. Or out of water in the water. Whichever way makes more sense. It was a nice way to begin the day.

Negative Horsepower

2005-05-06T00:29:00.001-07:00

Regarding my blog entries: there are few notable things that happen in my life from day to day. This is partly because I'm recovering from another sojourn in the underworld, and partly because I've recently moved and am adjusting to Rural America again--a huge change of pace from the twirl and whir of the city. Since I spent my formative years on a farm in rural Iowa, you'd think it'd be easier to swing back into this saddle. In some ways, it is. But in a big, bad way, it's overwhelmingly hard.

The real humdinger is the isolation factor, which raises the level of difficulty into the realm of Jack's beanstalk. I don't have the ability to get out and meet people unless I'm driven somewhere (although I am going to start accompanying Doug into town as soon as I'm able to fall asleep at a decent hour). I am unable to find work up my alley, even if we carpooled, because the small town closest to me, where Doug works, doesn't offer much. Yep, so I don't have a car to drive . . . even though my father has had an old car of mine he's been promising to make some repairs on and sell for me for, oh, the past six years. Uh-huh. That's right. Six fucking years. The car that started having problems around the time I started to experience depression is half a continent away from me. It still belongs to me, but I can't drive it, or go out to get it and drive it back here because I don't have the fucking cash.

My dad has evidently decided that I am on the bottom of his priority list, somewhere down near the procrastination list, but lower, around the "if I avoid it, it will go away" list. I will have to leave this subject for now because I'm starting to really want to throw something. And I'm tired of crying today.

I am effectively grounded in the boondocks. When I'm able to focus on the beauty of this area, the relative silence and great openness fills and calms me, and I am in love with my life. It's just hard to maintain that feeling. Control may be an illusion, but it's an illusion I'd love to have some more of.

The car I used to drive failed to pass emissions testing in Phoenix, so I was unable to renew its registration. That was a bad discovery. I flew into a rage after finding out because the car was already in need of major repairs I couldn't afford; my mechanic had gone so far as to warn me not to drive it outside of the city because it wasn't safe. The failed emissions test was that fabled straw the camel doesn't like to talk about, and I ripped the passenger's visor off and broke the glove compartment, beating on the dash and thrashing and screaming like a madwoman all the while. Luckily, I wasn't driving. But I suspect my fellow motorists got quite a show as I flailed on the passenger's side.

If my mom has not gotten rid of the little red menace, I should be able to transfer the title to my name and register it here, thereby avoiding the emissions issue (no emissions testing here). It's still not safe, and I'll be spewing pollutants into the air, and it will still cost money that we won't have for at least a couple of weeks, but at least I'll be mobile again. Since mobility has historically been crucial to preserving my sanity and stability in BFE, I'm hoping that both of those big little-ess words will return and give me back my life. I'll retire and replace it as soon as I can afford to and hope that the Earth understands in the meantime.

The Revolution Starts Now

2005-05-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

The above title for this post refers to a song by Steve Earle, a musician I'd never heard of until Doug played his latest CD for me. He's something of a country rocker with a real gritty, grassroots sound. This song is a great anthem and call to action:

I was walkin' down the street
In the town where I was born
I was movin' to a beat
That I'd never felt before
So I opened up my eyes
And I took a look around
I saw it written 'cross the sky
The revolution starts now
Yeah, the revolution starts now

The revolution starts now
When you rise above your fear
And tear the walls around you down
The revolution starts here
Where you work and where you play
Where you lay your money down
What you do and what you say
The revolution starts now
Yeah, the revolution starts now

Yeah, the revolution starts now
In your own backyard
In your own hometown
So what you doin' standin' around?
Just follow your heart
The revolution starts now

Last night I had a dream
That the world had turned around
And all our hopes had come to be
And the people gathered 'round
They all brought what they could bring
And nobody went without
And I learned a song to sing
The revolution starts now

As some of you know, I love Eric Francis' astrology website, Planet Waves. (Actually, describing it merely as an astrology website is a major oversimplification on my part.) Since Eric's on holiday for two weeks, I have been reading the posts of the Political Waves editor/mediator, Jude. Her post today got a small fire burning under my bum. Wal-Mart burn.

In the past month, Doug and I have twice slunk into Wal-Mart (a Supercenter, no less, which made it even more shameful) because our collective wallet has been very thin and we had some immediate needs: the first time, a mailbox and a shovel to dig the hole for it, and the next, glasses so Doug could actually do his job without straining his eyes all the time (he'd lost his a few months ago). Pressing needs, both of them. I had the hives (well, not really, but I felt hive-ish) both times I was in there; even so, I noted how friendly all the employees were. Exceptionally warm and folksy. I understood why Average Jane and Joe shop there and why Average Jane and Joe work there . . . still despised it, but I understood because I was in the same dire situation, needing more for less. The war between opposing points of view was strong.

This morning, I read Jude's post and article link on Wal-Mart and reaffirmed myself by taking a small but nonetheless meaningful step toward declaring what I stand for as a human being. And I wrote this:

Dear Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart Customer Service Associate Reading This:

I am leaving you, Wal-Mart. I am leaving you because you are an abusive corporation, a thing that manipulates, hurts and neglects the America I love. You think you have consumers by their purse strings, that we depend upon you to provide discounted items we need to live. You think that, because of our financial need for you, you can get away with putting profit before ethics. Mr. H. Lee Scott, stop neglecting the needs of your employees and rationalizing this practice with poorly manufactured rhetoric! It's not okay to shaft your employees so you can continue to sell cheap goods for a maximum profit. Surely the world's largest corporation with a 2004 gross income of 256 billion can figure out a way to take care of its employees while still being a profitable retailer. Until you step up and become the General Motors of the 21st Century--an employer that supports its employees with a decent living wage, affordable health care and humane, respectful, equal treatment--I vow to boycott you, and will continue to encourage others to do the same.

CEO H. Lee Scott, Jr. may not care about you, Customer Service Associate, or your family, but I do. And I realize that Mr. Scott doesn't care one bit about me withdrawing my consumer support. But I, together with many others, care enough to stop supporting Wal-Mart. I also care about all the family-owned businesses being hurt, run out of business, by Wal-Mart Supercenters erecting themselves in every small town they can ram themselves into. I care about people before profit, about families barely getting by because of Wal-Mart's unethical business policies. I care about the needs of the many before the pocketbooks of a few.

Abusive corporate policies hurt American families. Take heed, Wal-Mart. Take heed.

Sincerely,

Jaimie O. Dunn

That was the way I resolved my Wal-Mart moral dilemma. Now maybe I could have said it better, but I said what I felt compelled to say. The point wasn't the outcome, but getting past feeling helpless and infuriated, drawing on my power to act, not merely contemplate. I did something with my outrage and sense of powerlessness. I executed the directive of the yang energy that bounces around courtesy of my anger-laden liver, and I let it out. I released it. And it felt good. I've been outwardly very yin and inwardly very yang, if that makes sense. I'm still trying to integrate the animus, you could say. You could also say I'm feeling very Mars lately, or Martian, depending on the day.

I've been caught in a post-modern, existential headlock for a while, not believing that anything I do is going to really make a difference, so why bother. Not knowing what to believe anymore about anything, abandoning the causes I used to champion, just trying to get by without getting crushed. I guess I'm feeling more powerful lately, more passionate about life on this planet, including my own life. This was a step in the right direction for me. My sister's right, there are always alternatives, and my power to choose them is on the rebound.

Things here are gradually improving. I get overwhelmed sometimes, but I am doing the best I can do and trying to surrender the rest. One foot in front of the other. Heavy doses of The Daily Show and Real Time with Bill Maher. And movies and books for stimulation and escape. I'm keeping busy and working on figuring out how I'm going to make more of a financial contribution. Without a car. In rural America. More about that another time.

Doug and I went to a poetry reading last month in an old mountainside mining town full of bohemians and other interesting people. It was in a huge art gallery. Very interesting. I've been looking at my poetry with a new eye toward improving it so I can get up during the open mic section and perform my stuff, too, confident-like. (An aside: this blog does not contain much of my poetry, and most of what's currently on here is b a d, baddy, bad, bad.) Doug's got a reading scheduled for May 21st (he works with one of the coordinators of the poetry group). I've been reading some women writers I find very inspirational to motivate me to address the topics I feel most passionately about, bearing in mind that the personal is political. As my emotions even out, it helps me to write more clearly. I've noticed that a lot of my poems are lines of emotional frenzy that don't necessarily flow in the way I'd like them to. There's a fine line between abstraction and crap. I am trying to approach it with a critical eye while keeping the emotional ignition points strong. If that makes sense. Trying to find a mental/emotional creative flow. I have been incubating some ideas and am trying to find a clearer lyrical voice to express myself with. It is freeing . . . when I'm able to force myself past my fear and do it.

Speaking of fear, haircut missions are not my favorite excursions. My story is I don't much like confronting myself with the beauty industry and my own image complexes. Especially when my body's out of whack. I'm working on re-applying what I learned through acupuncture, and it's helping. Slowly.

Eclipses bring you some helpful insights? They did for me. My mission is to take it and do something with it. And it's working so far. It's pretty full inside here right now, and that is a blessed challenge and refreshing change. Taming the dragon is hard, but rewarding work.

Post-midnight Oil Burn

2005-04-30T01:51:00.000-07:00

Ten hours later, and I'm still not done. I was starting to lose my grasp of the English language, though, so I thought a little manual reacquaintment with it via my keyboard would do me good. I did take some time-outs this evening to watch Real Time with Bill Maher and go out to eat some Mexican food with Doug (in reverse order, though; having the toots and belly laughs is a real interesting combo).

Refried beans just aren't refried beans unless they're cooked in lard. How many vegetarians inadvertantly eat meat byproduct when they order their bean tostada? A better question might be how many vegetarians would be affected by lard in their beanies in this part of the country, my new small town in particular. I know it happened to me more than once when I was a vegetarian.

So it appears that I have taken a break to write about beans and farts. That's right. Beans and farts.

At least I can get back to work now.

Redirect

2005-04-29T15:46:00.000-07:00

Alright, goddamn it, I'm back and ready to muck out the stables here. There's way too much shit on my blog, but instead of abandoning it altogether, I'm going to resurrect it and transform it into something else. I suppose I could delete old posts, but that would be akin to hiding where I've been, and I am not ashamed of my past or any lurking past selves reflected here. YOU try having my life and see how much better you do. Yeah, thought you'd pass on that. (And no, I am not claiming that my life is harder than anyone else's, but it is MINE, and it's a humdinger.) Most people aren't jumping up and down, begging that cosmic joker known formally as God, "Ohh, please, plee-eaazee, let me come back next time as a Scorpio!"

It's the sign of being blessed or cursed, depending on what you do with yourself and your thick, dark undercurrents.

But enough of that. I didn't dial this up so that I could delve into more esoteric mumbo jumbo (though I suspect I will be doing my share of that from time to time). Essentially, I'm here because I finally trashed AOL. That free month of service is a great gimmick, BTW; it took me three months to decide that $23.90 was way too much for a crappy ISP, and then another two to do something about it. My new browser lets me play on blogger again. No, I'm not a big fan of blogger, either, but I will not abandon my blog until it becomes something more reflective of me.

Back to editing. The noise in the neighborhood today makes concentration difficult, but I would dearly love to be done with this current manuscript. Editing it is like banging my head against a wall while doing a crossword puzzle.

Too Much of the Same Is No Good for Anybody

2005-03-23T06:02:00.000-08:00

Moving day. To where there be tigers.

Blessed be.

Untethered

2005-02-21T11:37:00.000-08:00

I forced myself to post what you see below because I am tired of censoring myself. Trying to cloak who you are and be who you are not takes so much energy. Especially when you're not always sure of who you are. You don remnants of past selves and put on what you think other people want to see you in. This is not living. This is dying. Small gasps of stale breath in your own private vacuum.

It is obvious to me as I read past posts that I have been hiding again. I'm eternally hiding myself from others. Letting a fingernail out here and a nose hair there, but mostly, I have been playing a deceptive game of shadows and mirrors with myself. Especially lately, and especially on this blog. For the past six months, at least. I went on a strange new age trip, which was some sort of culmination for me. I'm still not sure what kind of culmination, but something bad peaked. Being disgusted with myself for non-authentic self-representation only lasts so long before I try again.

My thoughts are muddy. Big vats of dirty water. Random. Non-linear. Tired of being what I think other people want me to be is all I can see in there. It's not surprising that my writing attempts have been very touch and go lately. I can't seem to stick with a thought long enough to develop it, so anything I write tends to be a snapshot of my fractured emotional condition. But instead of hiding this condition, I'll embrace it for all to see. Which is a step toward something I won't even call healing. Just truth.

This new resolution to reveal even the dark uglies of my nature and experience comes from brave poet and writer Renee Altson, who I just discovered in another web-surfing mission. I'd plug her website if I could figure out how to do that with my Mac. For some reason, lots of blogger functions aren't available to me on it, and I don't know html to do it myself.

Another dream died last week, and I'm still grieving it. It's too tender to even speak of, so I won't.

Right now, the beauty in the darkness is the rain falling on Phoenix. So far this year, Phoenix has received more rain than Portland. I love it.

So I'll curl up in my coccoon and try to adjust to my sadness, really soak it up good so I won't fear it anymore. Advice given to me by a wise woman. I heed.

I wait for the moon to burn me a new heart and new dreams. Audre Lorde wrote a poem about women who wait for something to change, only to find that nothing does change, so they change themselves. I've been trying to change my circumstances for years and years now, trying to change being a victim of circumstance and other people's decisions, my own pathos, the sick society we live in, my over-emotional nature (says The Man). And it's obvious to me that nothing is changing. So I'll try to change myself. I've been trying that for ages, too, but that kind of change is ongoing. I just never seem to change enough to be able to beat those demons down and find freedom from my past. I'll keep trying, though.

To the curly-headed old woman who oversees the universe: I am yours. Save me.

Leftovers from Yesterday

2005-02-03T09:57:00.000-08:00

Lack of original thought or, in my case, the lack of original ideas, can turn a person sour and toxic. Even the notion that originality is in danger is not my own; I borrowed it from a friend. Frequent uploading of other people's creativity can do something bad to a person, and the Web may be the most guilty culprit. I'm already tired of thinking about this problem, though, so I'll discard it the way we Americans trash anything that bores us or fails to stimulate our deficient attention spans.

Another friend of mine reminded me that there is beauty in the darkness. Dark nights of the soul can rob you of your appreciation of beauty. What about it being self-contained in the experience of your own inner darkness? It's hard to develop this idea unless you've been there yourself. I haven't been able to develop this idea into anything concrete. It's just another of my rough abstractions that feels true. Rationalism departs again. The insight is enough. For now. There is truth in it. That, in itself, is a comfort.

My voice has left me again, but I thought forcing some kind of self-expression would be good for me. In reflecting on past posts, I've come to perceive my own canned thinking, which is a bothersome thing. Being dissatisfied with previous ideas and ways of expressing them has chipped away at some fundamental parts of who I once believed myself to be. There is beauty in that kind of morose self-knowing. Maybe.

Incubate This

2005-01-04T08:44:00.000-08:00

I love being at the beginning of a cycle. There's excitement. It's palpable. There is hope. It's inspired with possibility. Which creates optimism. Even at the beginning of the soak cycle, there is a low-grade, bubbling kind of anticipation that goes with knowing you will soon have clean clothes to wear. Since I love the smell of clean clothes, the idea is a pleasant one. The only part I don't like about being at this point is the patience it requires. It's the tempering factor, the kind that lets the ideas incubate until they are ready to emerge into the elements. This part of anything is hard, although it feels great. This new annual cycle offers renewal and reconstitution for the weary, intimidated residents of Planet Earth. Winter's time is heavy and darker, something that shines only at night when it's coldest. I love that about winter.

Consider, along that same vein, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes' writing about the wild woman archetype:

In archetypal lore, there is the idea that if one prepares a special psychic place, then the being, the creative force, the soul source, will hear of it, sense its way to it, and inhabit that place. Whether this force is summoned by the biblical "go forward and prepare a place for the soul" or, as in the film Field of Dreams, in which a farmer hears a voice urging him to build a baseball diamond for the spirits of players past, "If you build it, they will come," preparing a fitting place induces the great creative force to advance

Once that great underground river finds its estuaries and branches in our psyches, our creative lives fill and empty, rise and fall in seasons just like a wild river. These cycles cause things to be made, fed, fall back, and die away, all in their own right time, and over and over again.

Creating one thing at a certain point in the river feeds those who come to the river, feeds creatures far downstream, yet others in the deep. Creativity is not a solitary movement. That is its power. Whatever is touched by it, whoever hears it, sees it, senses it, knows it, is fed. That is why beholding a someone else's creative word, image, idea, fills us up, inspires us to our own creative work. A single creative act has the potential to feed a continent. One creative act can cause a torrent to break through stone.

For this reason, a woman's creative ability is her most vauable asset, for it gives outwardly and it feeds her inwardly at every level, psychic, spiritual, mental, emotive, and economic. The wild nature pours out endless possibilities, acts as birth channel, invigorates, slakes thirst, satiates our hunger for the deep and wild life. Ideally, this creative river has no dams on it, no diversions, and especiallly no misuse.

Wild Woman's river nurtures and grows us into beings that are like her: life givers. As we create, this wild and mysterious being is creating us in return, filling us with love. We are evoked in the way creatures are evoked by sun and water. We are made so alive that we in turn may give life out; we burst, we bloom, we divide and multiply, we impregnate, incubate, impart, give forth.
(Women Who Run with the Wolves, pp. 323-324)

It seems there is something to focus on in these periods of anticipation. Good luck with the incubation before you emerge.

Moon Void in Taurus/Uranus Surprise

2004-12-23T08:44:00.000-08:00

Christmas is not my favorite time of year. It's almost blasphemous to say such a thing, isn't it? It's downright un-American. Well, I don't care. After all, there is very little about this celebration that is spiritual. It's a material girl's dream, to shop 'til you drop for shit you don't need and other people probably don't even want--every rich person's favorite holiday. Ooohh, goody-goody, maybe now you can show all the people in your family and all your assorted friends that you are an obscenely rich motherfucker, just in the kinds of presents that you buy for them. It pumps your ego way up to the popping point to have other people gush over what a generous gift/you shouldn't have when they receive their nicely wrapped present out from under the tree.

And what in the holy name of Jesus are we doing with the "Who's been naughty or nice?" Santa routine? A lump of coal for being naughty? Would Jesus have given a child a dastardly lump of goal for being human? I'm doubting it. Actually, I'm wondering what the fuck Jesus would think about the holiday that's arisen from his "birthday." Hmmm, yes, just when we need a nice greedy holiday to make us feel better--right in the middle of dark, winter days--we'll say that Jesus of Nazareth was born and we'll celebrate, by god. Even if we don't feel like it really is better to give than receive, we're gonna make a bee-line to the tree of silver and gold, the light-strewn symbol of paganism. Oops. Uhhh, wait. Erase that. Christmas is the world Christian holiday. We're killing the heathens even as we speak. There will be no talk of the yule log, egg nog, or what a solstice celebration actually entails. We're eating, drinking, and being merry, merry Christians, that is, and we'll have none of that Satan talk. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. And, oh yeah, uh, Santa.

What about Frosty the Snowman? How does he fit into the nativity scene? Let's not forget about Rudolph with his nose so bright, who, despite what the song says, was tormented because his name was Rudolph, not because he had a freakish nose. Reindeer don't care about that.

Don't forget how moved everyone feels when that age-old favorite, "Jingle Bells," comes on. Having never been on a sleigh, I don't know what all the fuss is about, and living in the desert, a merry pull through the snow isn't looking likely. I'm sure that "dashing through the snow" barely captures the joyous Christian sentiments? Maybe if we are drinking some wassail or egg nog, maybe some Tom 'n' Jerrys, we're feeling on top of the world as we dash along to sing some other touching Christmas carols to people drunker than we are. It is a touching time of year. Except for after the brats open all their loot and get hyper and annoying. By then, the Christmas ham is the least of your worries. Drinking enough egg nog becomes top priority.

But it's a holiday, good Christian people, and your radical fundamentalist Christian president just wants you to enjoy it all with your families. It makes him feel all warm inside to maim entire family groups while we, with our families, celebrate the birth of the man who encouraged us to love our neighbors as ourselves (including enemies) and reminded us that the kingdom of heaven is within us, that God is love, and all sorts of other stuff he, The Converted One, doesn't like to think about. What a Christ-like individual we have governing us. Conveniently forgetting this, distorting that, adhering to the "truth" as Billy Graham might tell it or Jimmy Swaggart. Any other kind of theology would interferes in our wars, see, and we like to exact an eye for an eye on any enemy, especially those darker skinned dissidents who haven't accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Makes me all misty-eyed, it does. What could be better than Christmas during a time of Holy Wars?

Yeah, and a merry fucking Christmas to you, too. Pass the fruitcake. No, that's a, "I'll pass" on the fruitcake. Jesus.

2004-12-06T13:14:00.000-08:00

she knew it was a pot of daffodils at the end of the rainbow. somehow, she found this comforting. sleep woke her groggy, and she gasped when she surfaced from the depths of wordless dreams. the sun had managed to invade her room while she slept, and though she had reminded herself that the sun was a necessary agent of the day, she much preferred to wake at clouds, not rays. gentler conditions stretched her into waking with a smile, not scowling at bright air.

Keeper of Shadows and Miracles

2004-11-30T09:00:00.000-08:00

She's a shaker of stones, this one. The original rattlesnake. So hot, she feels cold. So cold, she feels hot. Her language is a code, an amalgam of old words and gestures.

She shudders when she wakes, and howls. Her life, a wild freedom. The elements bless her asleep. Caves secure her secret. And when the rain shines, she falls.

Sometimes, she loops back on herself. It feels like sliding down the mountain. It feels like release. She might slip off the face of the planet. She welcomes the rush. Her knees are not brakes. Giant disks hurtle through air and stop with a float. The mountain is more than metaphor. The wind breathes her sane.

A tiger kisses her cheek. Striped yellow on black, creature in negative. On its back, she rides air, floats on the blowing. Moored to the earth by loose gravity, a hot flame.

Like steel, forged smooth, her bones. Flame-smoked eyes, purple tongue flickers sticky dew when mouth parts to laugh. Voice grained from calling rain. Ships follow her light home.

Her bosom swells to sunset, heaves from enfolding sun in night till dawn. Her afterglow, a rainbow. Her precision, a beat.

Belly Up, Not Dead--In a Pose of Surrender

2004-11-23T14:15:00.002-08:00

What happens when you eliminate capitalization? You get really honest. Try it. What's that? You're not feeling compelled? Here, I'll start, just to show it doesn't hurt, and the laws of physics will not suddently rearrange themselves as a result.

it's a very punk thing to refuse the shift key. some might call it post-modern. whatever. i've noticed the new trend on message boards and IM exchanges (during the relatively brief period that i ventured into the online dating scene. and just so you know, there's a reason those people are standing behind the electronic curtain), emails, and even business cards. i liked the look, but i'm not much of a bandwagon hopper, so i did my usual buck-the-trend pretense to indifference act until, just for kicks, i made my pinkies stop stretching down. it was as if someone had stripped me of my mask. i communicated without self-censorship. it felt like freedom.

now i'm gonna try it here.

but first i have a question: are anarchists allowed to have fund-raisers? bahahahahahahahahaha!

i had a reiki session today, the first one in several years. and i cried when the reiki master, a beautiful creature named angel (her given name, and an apt one) targeted my throat chakra. i'd suspected as much for a while, but today confirms it: i have a bad habit of non-authentic self-representation. that, translated, means i tell people what they want to hear really well. i don't change who i am. i just selectively reveal what i believe they can handle. true, i have an edge, and when it's safe, it comes out to play. when i'm provoked, i'm not much into self-censorship, either. but the mask is really interfering in my ability to BE me. live my life as boldly as i know i'm capable of. there's so much fear of failure that holds me in check. and it is essentially a problem with self-acceptance. so i, the hypocrite, striped yellow, have to admit i am deathly afraid of rejection and failure. not just because these are weaknesses that astrology insists i should possess as a scorpio, either (what, you think i'm that much of a cad?). because for many years, i've thrown my voice to a pitch not mine and rolled on my belly to protect it. the tears were a release of someone else's voice imitating my own.

and now i am just me, frail, tired, and silly-strange. and i'm gonna bleed the heat to rest, once and for all.

Going Televisional

2004-11-10T13:05:00.000-08:00

The other night, I caught a commercial featuring Denise Austin, exercise and health guru, speaking on behalf of Idaho potatoes. Her support of a diet featuring carbohydrates stunned me because, these days, it is not "in" to tell people to eat their carbs. Granted, the woman is making a pretty penny for her endorsement of the tater, specifically Idaho's taters, but there's no way she would have come out in support of Nature's comfort food if she didn't endorse that old-fashioned food pyramid that's been snubbed ever since the Atkins fad caught on. [Sigh]

I was elated. I leapt up and kissed the television. I did a swan dive into the refrigerator and came up grasping two rounded 'tatoey beauties, a loaf of bread, a container each of pasta, rice, and beans, some tortillas, a vat of maple syrup, and a bowl of hummus, placed them individually on the floor, and bowed to each of them in turn. An impromptu speech followed. "Oh Great Carbohydrates, forgive us for scorning you. It's not your fault you're so tasty. It's not your fault that we don't eat our vegetables. It's not your fault that we don't exercise. It's not your fault that we prefer bacon and eggs to a veggie stir-fry, green salad, or pasta primavera. Forgive us for scorning you. Long live CARBS! And long live Denise Austin!"

By this point, my cat is raising her eyebrows at my antics and giving me one of her "do-you-need-more-excitement-in-your-life?" looks. In answer, I scooped her up and marched around the apartment with her on my shoulders. She licked her lips in response (one of her nervous habits), but I swear I heard a "hell yeah" come outta her before our victory boogie was over.

After being delivered such a pleasant (and rare) surprise by television (PBS and Everybody Loves Raymond are the only two televisionary products I enjoy these days), I cautiously sat down on the couch with a bowl of chips, bean dip, and salsa to absorb more quasi-revolutionary messages. My mind spun with the possibilities. Maybe there was hope for pop music someday featuring actual talent! Maybe radio would kill the video star! Maybe reality television was on its way out! Maybe people would stop looking like clones of each other and learn how to have REAL conversations WITH each other (versus talking AT each other about NOTHING)! Then, another ad aired. This time, for an actual television program on FOX (a network about which I have nothing good to say except it gave us The Simpsons).

Briefly, I must say that I loved fairy tales when I was a little girl. I still love fairy tales, the unrevised, original versions without modernized, patriarchal plots, characters, and themes. And one of my favorite tales was about The Ugly Duckling. What a beautiful message for awkward children (which, near as I can tell, is all children at some point), that they will someday find their niche and blossom into beautiful swans. If it isn't already obvious, the reality show I am referring to is The Swan.

To qualify this upcoming rant, I have to say that I didn't watch the episode. I watched a preview of the upcoming episode, and that was all I could stomach before I promptly ran into the bathroom and vomited up my premature celebration snack of chips, bean dip, and salsa.

Everybody knows about this show, right? It's a season's worth of severe make-overs for "average" or "below-average" women. At the end of the season, there's a beauty pageant for the most beautifully transformed "swan." Okay, I have to admit, I've watched one or two daytime talk shows where they give rather mousy-looking or outdated people a new look. It's kind of fun to see what a little makeup, wardrobe change, and new hair style can do for a person. But this show takes it to a whole new level. Instead of enhancing someone's natural beauty, this show alters it. Surgically. And all the potential "swans" are women. American people, this is not okay. What kind of message is this sending to young women? If you don't like yourself, have someone take a scalpel to your face, maybe some acid, too, with a scalpel, vacuum hose, and laser combo for the rest of your body after you have gone on a crash diet and extreme workout regimen that you'll never maintain once the pageant is over. How many young women do you know who like themselves? Teen-agers? Mature women? With rising rates of anorexia and bulemia, and scores of women (and men) on Atkins diets to avoid dealing with their obsessive/compulsive problems with food (all of these disorders being related to control and self-esteem issues), how the hell is a show like The Swan empowering young women to feel good about who they are? If you manage to scrape together a healthy amount of self-esteem, it's in spite of the culture of idealized beauty we live in that says "Female Beauty Is Power." This message is everywhere, and it's a message we, The Empire, are forcing on other cultures with radically different notions of beauty and eroticism. We who've grown up in The Empire are well-acquainted with our superficial cultural obsession with image and what it does to us when we are genetically unable to fit into Cinderella's glass slippers. Despite our awareness that conforming to a certain ideal image isn't going to fix what's wrong with us on the inside, millions of people gather together in front of the mind number to see which "ugly" person is gonna look the most like Miss America at the end. So instead of appreciating and valuing our various forms of beauty, individually special and pleasing like different varieties of flowers, instead of looking inside ourselves for what makes us lovely and manifesting that light so that it animates us and affects others with its unique, sheer magnificence, we're gonna go with Botox and plastic surgery, thanks. We'll cut out what we don't like and inject the proper amount of disease to make us "acceptable." This is insanity. This is cultural suicide. This is prime-time programming served with a side of instant gratification, and Americans love it.

After I was done retching, I switched off the t.v., again vowing to only watch PBS and Everybody Loves Raymond, disappointed in myself for hoping to find something other than the cultural epidemic of emptiness on network television, disappointed in the part of me that wondered what I would look like after such an extreme make-over, disappointed in a country that would label such self-hatred entertainment.

My cat smiled at me as I placed the un-regurgitated remnants of my snack back in the fridge and removed a tupperware container filled with veggies and spinach dip instead. I stomped back into the living room, sat down. Breathed. When I finally flipped on the television again, I got up to bake a potato. Masterpiece Theatre was great.

TransPersonal Evolution

2004-11-09T11:23:00.000-08:00

Living powerfully does not involve feeling alone and cut off from your soul tribe. It requires learning how to build with others your most beautiful visions. Living by your soul, you must listen to your heart. And when the heart has been hidden and protected, learning to follow it requires finding it.

Now is an unmet potential. In each potential, there is a press of longing for connection. Forming connections requires discarding the impulse that commands us not to trust. Step by step, it unfolds.

Many of us were not taught how to love. This does not mean we cannot learn. We cultivate our soil to grow our blue-seeded brightness. We grow it and glow. My prayer is for the echoes of our collective voices, amplified. For combinations of sound, deep and resonant.

My prayer is for healing. My prayer is for peace. The Earth, she rises. Her children, asleep. My prayer is for their waking. My prayer is for your release.

Resistance Is Not Futile

2004-11-09T10:30:00.000-08:00

This is a shadowed time. Some would say it's been foreshadowed by various prophecies. Before you get your panties in a bunch, though, allow me to say that I do not for one second buy into the notion of an apocalypse. Although most of us have been forcefed a steady diet of End Times propaganda (kind of like Atkins mania, but worse), some of us have managed to avoid the brainwashing. Our Emperor hasn't, of course, but anyone who honestly believes he has an ounce of sense in his body, that his cellular structure isn't polluted by fear-based delusions, probably believed him when he insisted we were invading Iraq because they harbored terrorists and weapons of mass destruction. Hear this: we are the terrorists. We terrify an entire culture of people who were taught to believe in God differently. We terrorize a nation of innocents and say we're liberating them. We see footage of toddlers whose intestines are falling out, whose limbs are shattered and/or missing, as their mothers wail and cry out to the same God that Dubya believes talks to him and tells him to wave his mighty hand and make such suffering happen . . . we see this insanity and feel powerless to stop it. I'll tell you one thing, he might think he's the king, but he does not govern by divine right. His will is not the will of God. His perversion of a religion to suit his own political agenda speaks only to the ignorance of his dark soul and the ignorance of those who "elected" him to power.

What do you do when you're forcefed a steady diet of fear and hatred? Practice the opposite. Unplug from mainstream media. Stop supporting corporate entities that fund war (money's the only thing they understand, especially if it's money's absence). If you have a gas guzzler, sell it. Don't work for businesses that don't support your values and ideals. Work for what you value instead. Try to see and appreciate everyone's humanity, especially when they irk the shit out of you. Even Dubya, because behind all his posturing and strutting (Rooster Man), he's a very scared individual playing hardball with boys way out of his league. And he knows it. If it'd been up to him, he never would have run for reelection. But nothing about his administration has really, in the end, been up to him. He's just an ignorant man doing the bidding of very clever, corrupt, powerful motherfuckers.

I could prattle on and on. What good does that really do anyone, though? Ultimately, how you resist these oppressive times is up to you. Just resist!

America, the Broken

2004-11-04T10:34:00.002-08:00

Yesterday, as soon as I was able to stop throwing rocks and screaming, I sat down and cried for a long time. Watching my last great hope exit stage left was almost more than I could bear, my hopes for a true moral leader dashed. Naw, John Kerry isn't perfect, but he represented very simple yet elemental things: integrity, heart, principle, and hope. Hope for a world that gnashes its teeth and cowers in fear of The Empire. Hope for the Earth and all her creatures, even the ignorant ones who re-elected the Fuehrer to power.

So we have a president who is mentally unwell calling the shots. Nothing new there. What is new? The man who munches fundamentalism and swigs on his delusions from on high as he straddles his throne has no one to be accountable to anymore. He doesn't have to worry about reelection ever again, and he can do as he damn well pleases. Why, as his good buddy Dick said, he has a mandate now from the people (a-hem, barely half the people). He is gonna bring it to you like you ain't never seen before, complete with Dolby surround sound and LCD clarity for your viewing pleasure. And his supporters honestly believe that he's not going to do anything that hurts them directly. Ri-i-i-ght. I hope they keep telling themselves that. Especially when they are hurting from the domino effect of this man's actions, they need to remember to tell themselves that it doesn't hurt. I hope they're practicing now.

The rest of us who voted for hope will continue to lick our wounds and develop new strategies based on this unfortunate escalation of global events. I'm honestly not surprised that this is the scenario playing itself out, but I dared to hope it could be worked out differently. What is working itself out for me, personally, is a painful re-assessment of myself and my beliefs about how to affect change and walk my talk. This is what I have come to.

I have been wringing my hands like an old woman for far too long. I have believed that you can't change the system by fighting against it, that it must be changed from within. But what really happens is you become coopted or you coopt yourself when you stop resisting what you oppose. So maybe I'm not gonna change anything except myself through my ensuing actions, but I can take this rage that paralyzes me like Superman himself and do something with it. There are several camps of opposition now, ones that believe in peaceful protest (ahimsa, Oh Gandhi, so hard, so hard), ones that believe in getting militant about this shit, and ones that think we just sit around passively and wait for it to crash down around us. What I know: I will not be assimilated by this regime. My roots have been pulling at me, and they are tugging me away from a life in which the ongoing disconnection from Gaia makes the fear and dread going 'round so much more potent and distracting. Love is all that matters, after all, and my tugging roots keep reminding me of this. Creating community matters. Harmonious relationships with yourself and others matter. Action matters and contemplation is only powerful when you use it as a springboard. It's really important to follow your heart and principles now.

My guess is that cities are going to get really interesting to live in, especially if you like drama. Myself, I'm tired of it. Tune in to your center, and heed what it's telling you. I am.

As Ozzie sang, Momma, I'm comin' home.

Femma What?

2004-11-01T08:05:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's just because I'm feeling myself more these days (take that however you want), but recent episodes of foolishness and chicanery on the part of "the fairer sex" have led me to ponder an ongoing issue: my immediate lack of women friends my age in my vicinity. Now that's not to say I don't have women friends, but they're all old enough to be my mothers (and while they're all dear to me, they're not all cool or empowered). Why is it that I have been unable to meet cool, empowered, younger women? I'll tell you why. There aren't many of them out there. Leastways, not when you are bonded to a circle of women whose sheer beauty, power, and majesty is almost mythical. These women, who I call my women, are far from me now but such a part of who I am. These gems have spoiled me rotten and made me something of a spoiled brat, the kind so accustomed to cheesecake that when a dollop of pudding is served to her, she recoils in disgust and refuses it, preferring to go hungry instead. Maybe the pudding is the right color, and sure, it's sweet and creamy, but it lacks substance and complexity. I do love me some cheesecake.

I guess instead of highlighting exactly what's wrong with most women, I'll do the opposite, and highlight what's right with my women. Through knowing them, I've become a better woman. They're scattered at various global coordinates, but we keep in touch. One day, I will live in closer proximity to them. At least, to some of them (Thessaloniki doesn't look like it's in the cards.)

But do I feel like doing that now? Naw, not really. When you're in the desert, it hurts to remember the ocean.

A composite sketch will have to do until I can delve into their individual complexities. Strong-willed. They live life according to their principles and have renounced what is mainstream to be who they are. This makes them so fucking cool, and I'm not talking in terms of appearances. They're not fixated on appearances because they understand that image matters not, just substance. They're beautiful inside themselves, and this only enhances their natural beauty, making them incredibly exotic and alluring to the opposite sex. They're all peaceniks, activists in the way they live their lives, if not on the political/social scene. Creative like you would not believe, artists, musicians, chefs, writers, poets, gardeners. They live their spirituality, and they lead by example. They're all givers, too, and the real giving kind, not the kind who give and expect a return on it later and figure you owe them big time for such generosity. They give freely, without expectation of payback, and there are no debts among us. They all love to be outside and feel most like themselves when they're there, void of make-up, hair product, mall clothes, nail polish, or jewelry. And this is how they are most alluring. When they've got a tan, it's because, at some point, they got a nasty burn from some outdoors activity, and after aloeing it up, returned outside to do the things they love; the tan was just a result of them being themselves. Some of them think wanting to have a tan is really funny because they are naturally golden, dark brown, umber. They all know how to forgive. This makes them strong, not weak. But they all have such tremendous self-respect that they allow no person to use them.

I miss these women, these mythical figures from my past. And I love them fiercely.

The above is a formula for being an empowered woman.

Uff-da

2004-10-29T19:29:00.000-07:00

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)

2004-10-28T15:25:00.000-07:00

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

2004-10-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

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)

2004-10-07T13:24:00.000-07:00

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

2004-10-07T13:09:00.000-07:00

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

2004-10-07T11:38:00.000-07:00

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.

Come, Winter

2004-09-25T11:08:00.000-07:00

Autumnal stirrings. Coolness in the desert. Performing again. Free-lance gig picking up steam. Money on the way. Love on the rise. Dog on the horizon. A new place to live in while the desert renews itself once again.

Come, Winter

This city touches me and I feel so dirty
soiled past the attempted cleanliness of 23 showers
and a face mask
missing the smell brought about by autumn decay
as the nights grow darker and shadows rise sooner
in the dusk, with rains that bless the Earth before she lies down to sleep
fallow once again.

Then the snow, yes, the snows bringing a thousand sorts of delight to all senses
crunching crisply underfoot
woodsmoke scents the air
after autumn fires of leaf
stars smoked with clouds
suns we assume to be aflame in galaxies where life,
no doubt, has shaped itself differently
to us, though we know not whether these suns
still burn, we see it now and trust the constancy of our own star
to sustain, always, life
no matter how long the winter.

No, Jellybean, We Don't Make Things Happen . . .

2004-09-19T11:09:00.000-07:00

. . . we allow them to unfold. A couple of years ago, when I was listening to the Pacific ocean, trying to sink into sleep, this was the message I received. What a comfort. To understand that the chaos of the modern age, so magnified in cities where Corporate Whoredom is the only way to make a decent wage (unless you are an exceptional human being with your own business, for example), is a passing phase. To understand that chaos is illusion, that the universe is a place of profound order and harmony where all is profoundly interconnected, brought my life's experiences up to that point into extreme focus. I proceeded with an elementary understanding of that message and have built upon it ever since.

But complications, as they are wont to do, arise. People act dishonorably and maliciously, injustice abounds on social, political, and economic fronts, and instability threatens, at times, to undermine our best efforts. It's the wheel, Jellybean, it turns and turns. Yes, Fortune turns her wheel. Sometimes, it's the chickens, and other times, the feathers (a rough paraphrase of some folk wisdom distilled by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes [check her out]). I've found that the most unhappy people seek to inflict misery on others or use power plays to gain a temporary advantage. And though I strive to practice compassion, I'm not that elevated yet, and I pity those fools, for fools they are, and I hope one day to live in a world where injustice is not a worldwide reality.

Take last week's jaunt to the mountains, for instance. I, against my better judgment, agreed to be escorted to a little resort community in Colorado. Telluride. Some would consider it paradise. On my most fundamental level, the place offended me. Imagine: a place overrun by yuppies and WASPS, not just your run of the mill variety, though, filthy rich motherfuckers who all looked the same. Those are the types that own the town. Then you have your standard issue hippies. I love tree huggers, don't get me wrong, and although I don't look like one anymore, I still am a bonafide granola on the inside. But these hippies are the types that must love shi-shi, and I don't get that because my bohemian friends abhor gross displays of wealth where capitalism has run totally amok and squashed any sort of real culture or beauty. Sure, it was there if you looked up, but for a few hellacious hours, I was in the Scottsdale of the mountains, and I hated America. Telluride exemplifies exactly what is wrong with this nation. How such a divide between rich and poor can exist in a land where the American dream is promised to all mystifies me. Why you would choose to subject yourself to an environment that displays this divide in its gross excesses and materialistic squallor for any length of time is not only puzzling, it is humorous, in a sardonic, mad kind of way. Whoop it up on the mountain, and pretend that the rest of the world is not enduring the effects of a quickening, an acceleration toward a new vision of community where everyone has enough and wealth is spread equally among those who work to create this new vision.

Hold on to your bootstraps everyone, because what is going on in the world is going to become absurdly tragic for a while. Work to make your own life a testament to your principles. Utopia may seem an impossibility, but it is in the works.

Check out an excellent new book by cybercaster Meria Heller, The Mouth That Roars, soon to be published and made available on Meria.net and via the Mythville community of self-publishers who promote literature that enhances the world. More to come when it is hot off the press. You want an amazing vision of the possibilities of your life and life on this planet? Then you gotta read this book. Beauty and truth distilled.

Development

2004-09-11T17:06:00.000-07:00

Living in the desert forces you to encounter your own reflection and shadow, repeatedly, until you are able to integrate past with present, emotion with reason, conscious with unconscious, masculine with feminine, illusion with possibility. It is a harsh climate for almost six months every year, three of those being especially intemperate, and it is dry. Lips crack, sweat runs freely, water becomes an impossible element to keep stocked in your system, and tempers tend to flare. The glare from that intense sun overhead makes driving without sunglasses very difficult, and when you are the unfortunate owner of an air-conditionless car, those daily jaunts about the Valley are unpleasant indeed. It's like baking in a low oven until you arrive at your destination.

Despite this, the greater Phoenix metropolitan area continues to sprawl like a ravenous, uncaged beast, claiming more and more desert as "resort" fodder to be divided into plots, commercial as well as residential for middle to upper-middle class housing. It's a rich person's paradise and a blue collar person's waking nightmare. It's my idea of a futuristic dystopia. The desert makes this city beautiful, and acts of near-psychotic brilliance make it an ugly tribute to humanity's chaos.

What to do in the sun-drenched illumination of mirages where water vapor is a precious commodity every bit as much as water is? Clouds need water vapor to hang in the sky, and at this elevation, little water falls. Oh, to see green things and smell the decay of autumn in crisp, shaded evenings.

Northward, ho. Away.

Not Planet X, New Age Seekers: Enter Mercury

2004-09-07T19:47:00.000-07:00

For those of you not in the know about astrology, Mercury going direct is associated with the return of normal communications and technological functioning. It also puts the go ahead on signing contracts again, makes finding a new job possible (at least, one working for people you've never met before: retrogrades are great for reconnecting with people from your past, thus finding a job working for someone you've either known before or worked for before is a-ok), and clarifies anything to do with communicating, relieving frustrations surrounding human interactions and technology, especially computers. (None of this happens causally, mind you -- as above, so below; movements in the cosmos are correlated with the shifting energies on Planet Earth.) It's a maddening time for lots of people, and it holds certain activities in stasis. When it moves forward again, life surges forward again. Needless to say, but say it I will, I'm thrilled.

I came across old lines from what seems to be a previous lifetime, but was really only nine months ago. What the hell. Have a read. Caucasian female dates Native American man. It was a painful experience for us both, I imagine, but he was still a fucker. Bad news, Stu. Not for this chica.

Between the gray and the white,
there is a thin black line
And, Baby, you put it there
Not me
I only put my heart on that line where you
made a highway
Interstate Number Three-Something-Five
that's where you put it
through the place I thrive.

What's the relationship between art and pain?
Does one need the other
to be understood, to sustain
the thoughtful grasping, misunderstood white flag
the child's asking, the prayer man's bag?
Is oblivion the end of pointless woe,
where no truth can stand on, nor beauty grow?
Powerful dismissals, denial's control
seeking shades of comfort, harmony's glow.

You made me small
and I stood there, grasping
my shadow's length, my heart's rasping
grew harsh and desperate, combined with despair
You made me small, tiny I, there
to the will you exerted, an ingenius plan
Retreating in fear, igniting my tan-
less flesh
igniting my wind-stoked heart
flaming me white
and guilty

In that moment between reproof
and defence
the world stopped briefly, tensions dense
Found guilty of anger, found guilty of pain
I retreat to my heart-cave,
become the stain
my ancestors wove on me
inherit their sin
I thought we could beat it
the domination, the din
find a new course to run on
a new way to love
but love's not what you wanted --
so, I'll clutch it, the dove.

I Am Awake, My Mind Is Free

2004-09-06T13:52:00.000-07:00

I've decided that I want a dog. Yeah, one of those panting, drooling beasties that smells unless you bathe them regularly and requires as much TLC as a small child. So I trot off to the Arizona Humane Society animal shelter and investigate the options after visualizing the perfect dog: a boxer mix with the personality of my uncle's boxer, Roxie. The first dog who took a shine to me was a pit bull, and I had no idea she was a pit until I asked the handler to take her out of the kennel . . . very gentle, a little high strung, but very cute and virtually shedless. The pit bull factor seemed prohibitive since I'm an apartment dweller, but in the next breath, I found her. The perfect companion. Boxer mix, colored the same as Roxie with the same temperament -- low key, laid back, gentle, and affectionate. The problem? Providing the dog with a home suited to her rather impressive size. Roxanne (kind of Roxie II) would be the ideal companion for me to lavish love and affection onto, but I would not subject a creature that beautiful to inadequate quarters. Too, I'd insist on pampering her, and that requires what? Money, honey. Moola, plain and simple. She voted most likely to succeed must find a job that compensates her for her considerable talents and passion, ethics and vision. Nonprofit sector, here I come.

Now that Mercury is heading forward again, I am certain that the ideal job situation is waiting for me to find it. My ideal employer will be delighted tomorrow, after a relaxing three-day weekend, when my resume is deposited onto her desk. She won't be a Sagittarius. She'll probably be a water sign or an earth sign. Definitely not an air sign. Feel me or ground me, but don't bullshit me or try to manipulate me. These are my prerequisites for a boss.

I can't wait to see what else materializes this week. I have a feeling that it's going to be grand, whatever it is, and it will be fully in line with my dreams and principles. Discover those, love yourself, trust in the universe to support you through the underworld and above, and ascend, my pretties. That is your birthright. For sure, it's mine.

Warp Speed, Mr. Sulu

2004-09-04T11:43:00.001-07:00

I'd heard it was possible. In fact, fellow Scorpio lady friends of mine had told me of their experiences with the phenomenon. Like the good Scorpy I am, I had read oodles and oodles about the experience and wore out several vibrators (and several former partners) trying to achieve this peak of all peak experiences. In the past year, however, I had sadly concluded that having even one orgasm with a partner would not be possible until I fell in love again. So I told the universe of my plans to be celibate until someone worthy of my love fell out of the sky into my lap. Then, after a few months of getting myself off with my adept little fingers and tireless vibrator, I discovered an amazing thing: Not only am I capable of having multiple orgasms, I can have them regularly. Daily. I shit you not. Excessive I may be when it comes to my appetites for pleasure, but I know from countless experiences with both women and men that this is the real deal. This is the big love. And the impossible dream of being fulfilled in and out of the sack seems too good to be true. Thankfulness to the universe is all that I have for such a profound gift.

Blessed be.

More Digressions from a Stinging Beastie

2004-09-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

No doubt, after the last post, some puzzlement arose. How can someone who writes about love and self-determination write so viciously in the next breath? Here is the truth (can you handle it?): I never attack unless provoked first. Dragons want to be left in peace. But disturb them, or worse, disturb something precious to them, and you will have the dragon on your tail.

Dragons can be lovely protectors (although you never get that from the fairy tales, do you?). They can be fearful bringers of death and destruction (think Beowulf). They can be scary, circling around you counter-clockwise. And they can be mystical ancients with nothing helpful to say, whose only conversational offerings amount to satirical evasions and dry humor (think Grendel).

It pulled hard at her. She resisted, tugging back. Called out his name. Then, sat silent. Waiting.

She, not expecting it to call her out. Call her down. Pull her truth up, and glowing.

She leaned into it, soft. Reached out to it, timid. Laughed aloud, delighted. She shone.

A craving, hot thing, raged about her, attacking. She cowered. Defended. Rode on the dragon. Charged with it, mightily. Won.

Her dismount, a prayer for amplified echoes. For passing, for songs of old.

She threw back her shoulders. Hips swinging freely. Felt her face glowing. Whole.

Three and Thee

2004-08-30T14:36:00.000-07:00

Some people don't get it. That's okay. A word of advice, however: unethical actions create their own consequences. Talk to any pagan and mention the Rule (or Law) of Three. You want love? Make it. You want peace? Be it. You get the drift. You want your bad karma rebounding on you, go ahead, act like an ass (or other appropriate barnyard animal).

A Sorrow: For Wrath

Provoked by a pug-nosed, penitent, cloven-hoofed piggy
I, skyclad, shake with Pele's fury
a cockshrew, a corkscrew
a crevasse, a hole
swallows peace in the morning
before dawn, hot smokes roll
this trespasse stirs my center aflame
awake the dragon and learn.

Not tied to hoard
like the piggy who wallows
in wastes of consumption -- her own --
she just squeals and squeals
(like the ring of a phone)
wanting this, wanting that,
steals from others to get fat,
she ruts in her muck,
loves to wallow.

Loose a sow in the garden?
Give your jewels to thieves?
Dine with a swine
wiping its ass on dead leaves?
The stain covering you, it remains, it remains
your words sound false, your karma's refrain
no matter how fiercely I try to restrain
my breath, hold in
my fire
it blasts, it blasts,
my wings beating fast,
my eye seeing far,
to the Mordor of East
Pele calls me.

A blonde hair, a toenail
a picture, a poppet
-- such elements make their own magic and steam --
do I find you to bind you? Nay,
I come while you dream
in your dark hour asleep
my breath moves, it rasps,
my wrath creeps, it blasts,
the smokey heat, my cold stare
the old smell, your face there
a winged embrace, sullen piggy, awake.
Wake, wake to my flame.

Pluto's Move

2004-08-30T10:25:00.000-07:00

A while back -- must have been June -- the Venus transit really stirred some shit up. Venus crossed the path of the Sun, eclipsing him while surrounded by him, and she traveled across his face in front of everyone. What a jaunty dame. A show-off. But Venus was on the stage, engaged in a flirtation with Pluto as they circled one another across the cosmic table. One said to the other, "I'm not budging. You first." She glided silkily across the Sun who, tormented by the dualing pair, beamed the conflicted love energies to Gaia. It's understandable. You would probably be conflicted, too, if Pluto was stalking you. You'd probably like it a little bit though, probably more than you'd want to admit. You might even dig it solidly.

So what did the Sun do? Did he protect her with his mighty rays? Did he interfere in the match? Did he deflect Pluto's intense vibrations from Gaia's lap? Nope. He just illuminated the show-down so we could become aware of what was really going on in the universe. Eventually, they came to a different dalliance, but the Sun had nothing to do with the cosmic resolution. Darker love energies became more intense with the aspects formed, bringing certain relationships into clearer focus and many individuals into fuller awareness of what they desire and what they can and cannot have. Have you seen or felt the darker aspects of the feminine welling up since then, challenging our most basis assumptions about consciousness, relationships, life on this planet? Gaia weeps and stirs, trembles and heaves, and she opens wide her arms to receive it all. She knows how futile it is to resist love in any form.

Some stir, churn, crouch, and bend. They try to release their obsessive desires and recreate themselves in the light creating and distorting the shadows. They seek to release their need to be in control and refuse to take responsibility for other people's dramas. They calculate their stance and lean into a fluid motion, a motion not lethargic but vital, not desperate but charged, seeking a playful resolution to all of the dark secrets hurtling about creating obsessions and fixations. Most amorous dramas.

Now Pluto stations himself direct after doing his backwards step since March. What's going on between he and Venus these days? They still hanging out? Well, their relationship will no doubt keep us sky-gazin', gyratin', and generally indulgin' in all sorts of delightful devilments until at least December. Stay tuned.

Heat

2004-08-25T15:59:00.000-07:00

If life is a stage, and we the players, then who writes the damn script? Suppose, for a moment, it is you. Yes, you. You, the individual, collaborating with they, the collective. What do you want your life to look like? Write the script. Go ahead, try. You are already anyway. All the time.

Now suppose, for a moment, that the universe, as the rate of its expansion increases, speeds our thoughts even more rapidly into manifestation. What then? Do we "reprogram" ourselves, become our best dreams instead of our worst nightmares? Can we shift into such a state? And can we allow ourselves to dream, to fantasize, about what we desire and need our lives to look like?

Is all this suffering really necessary?

I propose radical new possibilities for my life and yours. Do something good with your intentions (instead of merely having them). I intend to have some fun with these big, bad desires I have. You should, too.

If life is a waking dream, then you, my friend, are the lucid dreamer. Get busy.