A Moment for the Pre-Raphaelites

"Woman - Which Includes Man, Of Course: An Experience in Awareness"

The following experience is an invitation to awareness in which you are
asked to feel into, and stay with, your feelings through each step, letting
them absorb you. If you start intellectualizing, try to turn it down and
let your feelings again surface to your awareness.

* Consider reversing the generic term Man. Think of the future of Woman
which, of course, includes both women and men. Feel into that, sense its
meaning to you -- as a woman -- as a man.

* Think of it always being that way, every day of your life. Feel the
everpresence of woman and feel the nonpresence of man. Absorb what it tells
you about the importance and value of being woman -- of being man.

* Recall that everything you have ever read all your life uses only female
pronouns -- she, her -- meaning both girls and boys, both women and men.
Recall that most of the voices on radio and most of the faces on TV are
women's -- when important events are covered -- on commercials -- and on the
late talk shows. Recall that you have no male senator representing you in
Washington.

* Feel into the fact that women are the leaders, the power-centers, the
prime-movers. Man, whose natural role is husband and father, fulfills
himself through nurturing children and making the home a refuge for woman.
This is only natural to balance the biological role of woman who devotes
her entire body to the race during pregnancy.

* Then feel further into the obvious biological explanation for woman as the
ideal -- her genital construction. By design, female genitals are compact
and internal, protected by her body. Male genitals are so exposed that he
must be protected from outside attack to assure the perpetuation of the
race. His vulnerability clearly requires sheltering.

* Thus, by nature, males are more passive than females, and have a desire in
sexual relations to be symbolically engulfed by the protective body of the
woman. males psychologically yearn for this protection, fully realizing
their mascuilinity at this time -- feeling exposed and vulnerable at other
times. The male is not fully adult until he has overcome his infantile
tendency to penis orgasm and has achieved the mature surrender of the
testicle orgasm. He then feels himself a "whole man" when engulfed by the
woman.

* If the male denies these feelings, he is unconsciously rejecting his
macsculinity. Therapy is thus indicated to help him adjust to his own
nature. Of course, therapy is administered by a woman, who has the
education and wisdom to facilitate openness leading to the male's growth and
self-actualization.

* To help him feel into his defensive emotionality, he is invited to get in
touch with the "child" in him. He remembers his sister's jeering at his
primitive genitals that "flop around foolishly." She can run, climb and
ride horseback unencumbered. Obviously, since she is free to move, she is
encouraged to develop her body and mind in preparation for her active
responsibilities of adult womanhood. The male vulnerability needs female
protection, so he is taught the less active, caring, virtues of homemaking.

* Because of his clitoris-envy, he learns to strap up his genitals, and
learns to feel ashamed and unclean because of his nocturnal emissions.
Instead, he is encouraged to keep his body lean and dream of getting
married, waiting for the time of his fulfillment -- when "his woman" gives
him a girl-child to carry on the family name. He knows that if it is a
boy-child he has failed somehow -- but they can try again.

A bit more Rumi...and then no more?

I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.

Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
What a bargain, let's buy it.



I'm crying, my tears tell me that much.
Last Spring, they say, the new green, how weak you felt.

Remember any night of all our nights,
but don't remember things I've said.


Late, by myself, in the boat of myself,
no light and no land anywhere,
cloudcover thick. I try to stay
just above the surface, yet I'm already under
and living within the ocean.


Friend, our closeness is this:
Anywhere you put your foot, feel me
in the firmness under you.


When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.

Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.



For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.
From within, I couldn't decide waht to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then I walked outside.


The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill.
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.



Does sunset sometimes look like the sun's coming up?
Do you know what a faithful love is like?
You're crying. You say you've burned yourself.
But can you think of anyone who's not
hazy with smoke?


We have ways within each other that will never be said by anyone.


You don't have "bad" days and "good" days.
You don't sometimes feel brilliant and sometimes dumb.
There's no studying, no scholarly thinking having to do with love,
but there is a great deal of plotting, and secret touching,
and nights you can't remember at all.


There's a strange frenzy in my head,
of birds flying,
each particle circulating on its own.
Is the one I love everywhere?


Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts in the pomegranate flowers.
If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.


The mystery does not get clearer by repeating the question,
nor is it bought with going to amazing places.

Until you've kept your eyes
and your wanting still for fifty years,
you don't begin to cross over from confusion.


The minute I'm disappointed, I feel encouraged.
When I'm ruined, I'm healed.


I drink streamwater and the air
becomes clearer and everything I do.

I become a waterwheel,
turning and tasting you, as long
as water moves.



In pain, I breathe easier.
The scared child is running from the house, screaming.
I hear the gentleness.

Under nine layers of illusion, whatever the light,
on the face of any object, in the ground itself,
I see your face.


During the day I was singing with you.
At night we slept in the same bed.
I wasn't conscious day or night.
I thought I knew who I was,
But I was you.


Drinking wine with you, getting warmer and warmer,
I think why not trade in this overcoat
made of leaves and dirt.
Then I look out the window.
For what? Both worlds are here.


Since we've seen each other, a game goes on.
Secretly I move, and you respond.
You're winning, you think it's funny.

But look up from the board now, look how
I've brought in furniture to this invisible place,
so we can live here.


The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.



We've given up making a living.
It's all this crazy love poetry now.

It's everywhere. Our eyes and our feelings
focus together, with our words.



At night we fall into each other with such grace.
When it's light, you throw me back
like you do your hair.

Your eyes now drunk with God,
mine with looking at you,
one drunkard takes care of another.

self-healing through relationships

So, I still haven't finished this book, but here's the therapist's solution:

Can’t heal through self-love because we've externalized the source of salvation (160), so through healing our partners by giving them the love they needed as children and still need now we are recovering an essential part of ourselves! (162)

We have to change and recover our lost self and as we do this we heal our partners!

It's an interesting hypothesis, and I guess if I have this right, a proper "soul-mate" is someone like our parents but wants to actually grow and change. If not, a relationship will not work. But, I don't understand how this connects to accepting people as they are and not wanting to change them. This is a particularly important point in intimate relationships. Plus, I would never want to be in a relationship with the negative traits of my caretakers...or would I?

flight of the conchords!

A cup reading

I'm sitting here at Viento y Agua procrastinating. I'm supposed to be revising my autobiography for a grad application, and in the meantime, I'm blogging and.....

having my coffee cup read.

I went into the session with a "wish" in mind, and in the ten minutes Vicky took to tell me about my coffee ground, I wrote 2 pages of notes. Let me sum them up now:

I'm busy, but I've already begun to shift, particularly in one relationship, because of a decision I made. Compelled by perhaps money, or a two-part division of funds, my perception of this relationship or what I thought the relationship was is changing and leading me to move in a different direction, which will bring about change in the other person. The spirit of little girl, perhaps myself, is guiding me, and though this journey seems overwhelming, it's only on the surface and part of the process because this journey will be straight-forward without faltering or doubt, and I don't need to worry about money because in one week or month I will receive positive news about money owed me. The cup reveals that there is no hesitation and that I will tell someone close to me who has been invading my space that "that's enough," once and for all because I express my emotions and must. I'm rising up (already in spirit), and although there is interference from behind and someone in my way, I have found the solution in rising above (my head), and this move will be in two days, or months, or the second day of the month. It will be matter-a-fact, and I will not look back, and it will involve a traveling adventure that is involved with my purposeful doing and will be with two or three others (three to four total including me) and will not spend my money but will involve music and creativity (gifts of mine that I'm not utilizing to their potential just now). The travel will be colorful and playful and by many different kinds of vehicles but not plane. It will be about my interest in the way people live, a cultural adventure, connected to my heritage and discovering things about myself.

Altogether, I must remember to not worry about money but to know that my abundance rises above money, and I give my abundance through unconditional love for others.

Oliver's Travels: Autumn 08

Oliver's Autumnal adventures included visits to bonne mamie (great-grandmother) and great-papa and Peanut as well as kickin in with nana (grandmother) on the sofa and papi in the backyard. He was given two new sweaters: one from nana and one I made. With the cooler weather, he's been sleeping more at my feet and less on his pillow that bonne mamie created for him.

Finished Reading: The Subtle Knife

She read:
"' Capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.' You have to get into that state of mind. That's from the poet Keats, by the way. I found it the other day. So you get yourself in the right state of mind, and then you look at the Cave....Shadows on the walls of the Cave, you see, from Plato....If you think, the Shadows respond. There's no doubt about it."

NEGATIVE CAPABILITY!

Cave= Alethiometer=Fortune Telling=Ritual?
Shadow particles=earth=Dark Matter= dust= "sin"

Finished Reading: Mad at Miles....Davis

By Pearl Cleage, Mad at Miles is a book about how Davis is "guilty of self-confessed violent crimes against women such that we should break his albums, burn his tapes and scratch his CD's until he acknowledges and apologizes and rethinks his position on The Woman Question."

A friend lent me the short book this past week or so. Cleage argues that we wouldn't listen to any musical genius if he was guilty of violent crimes against black men, so why do we listen to Miles Davis?

Cleage's position is certainly a very strong one, and she goes on to give some basic training points: the warning signals as a way of anticipating violence in order to avoid it, some of these are:

-- shouting, hollering, excessive cursing, name calling, sarcasm

-- finger pointing or fist waving, especially in and around your face

-- throwing or breaking things

-- hitting his head or his fist against walls, tables, steering wheel...

-- threatening to do violent things to himself or you

The book, overall, made me sad. It's sad that we live in a world where books like this and positions like this need to be taken, that woman is, as Cleage points out quoting Yoko Ono, the "nigger of the world."

Cleage does leave her readers with hope. Here is her statement on "looking for a good brother." My friend read this aloud at our last Unity Bridges Fall Retreat.

WE ARE LOOKING FOR A GOOD BROTHER.

WE ARE LOOKING FOR A RIGHTEOUS BROTHER.

A REAL RIGHTEOUS BROTHER. NOT ONE OF THOSE SINGING WHITE GUYS WHO MADE THE LOSS OF LOVE SOUND SO INTENSELY INTENSE THAT YOU HAD TO FALL IN LOVE EVERY TIME THE RECORD CAME ON.

WE ARE LOOKING FOR A REAL RIGHTEOUS BROTHER.

AN ALL GROWN UP, AIN`T SCARE OF NUTHIN`, AND KNOWS IT`S TIME TO SAVE THE RACE RIGHTEOUS BROTHER.

A GOOD FATHER/GOOD HUSBAND/GOOD LOVER/GOOD WORKER/GOOD WARRIOR/SERIOUS REVOLUTIONARY RIGHTEOUS BROTHER.

A READ A BOOK AND PLAY A TUNE AND DANCE YOUR SLOW DANCE SWEET AND LOW DOWN RIGHTEOUS BROTHER.

A LOVE BLACK WOMEN, PROTECT BLACK CHILDREN, AND NEVER HIT A WOMAN RIGHTEOUS BROTHER.

A TURN THE TV OFF AND LET`S TALK INSTEAD RIGHTEOUS BROTHER.

A TURN THE TV OFF AND LET`S MAKE LOVE INSTEAD RIGHTEOUS BROTHER.

A BROTHER WHO CAN LISTEN.

A BROTHER WHO CAN TEACHA BROTHER WHO CAN CHANGE FOR THE BETTER.

A BROTHER WHO CAN MOVE TOWARD THE CENTER OF THE EARTH.

A BROTHER WHO IS NOT INTIMIDATED OR CONFUSED BY THE POWER AND THE MAGIC OF WOMEN.

WE ARE LOOKING FOR A RIGHTEOUS BROTHER. WHAT WE USED TO CALL A GOOD BROTHER.

A BROTHER WHO DOESN`T CALL WOMEN H**ES, B***HES, SKANKS, PU***IES, SL*TS,etc., etc., etc.

A BROTHER WHO USES CONDOMS WITHOUT BEING ASKED.

A BROTHER WHO DOESN`T CALL SEX SCREWING.

A BROTHER WHO KNOWS THAT TIME AND TENDERNESS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN SIZE AND SPEED AND THAT RECIPROCITY IS EVERYTHING.

A BROTHER WHO DOESN`T DESCRIBE THE DETAILS OF AN INTIMATE HETEROSEXUAL ENCOUNTER BY SAYING, "MAN, I KNOCKED THE BOTTOM OUT OF IT." OR: "I F**KED HER BRAINS OUT." OR: "I DREW BLODD FROM THAT B**TCH."

A BROTHER WHO SAYS: "I MADE HER FEEL GOOD. I SHOWED HER HOW MUCH I LOVE AND CHERISH HER."

A BROTHER WHO SAYS: "I RUBBED WARM OIL ON HER."

A BROTHER WHO SAYS: "I KISSED EVERY PART OF HER I COULD KISS."

A BROTHER WHO SAYS: "I MADE HER FEEL SO SAFE AND HAPPY AND FREE THAT SHE FELL ASLEEP IN MY ARMS AND HER HEARTBEAT SOUNDED LIKE OCEAN AFTER A STORM..."

WE ARE LOOKING FOR A GOOD BROTHER.

I missed Leonard Cohen's concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival by a couple days this past summer.



"And you know that she's half crazy
And that's why you want to be there.
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China.
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
then she gets you on her wavelength
and she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover."

I remember J-A sharing his "Hallelujah" with me in the first year or so of college. It moved us and revolutionized my understanding of joy and pain.

"Love is not a victory march; It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah."

Later, I heard Rufus Wainwright's cover and later still, Jeff Buckley's.

I'm watching Rufus Wainwright on the Martha Stewart Show this morning.

This past year, I saw Rufus cover Judy Garland songs at the Hollywood Bowl, and it was there that I first heard of Martha Wainwright! I can't find a copy of her "You've Cheated Me" to post.


"I'm miles from where you are; I lay down on the cold ground"

Then, I saw Loudon Wainwright III, the father, in concert this Fall. I guess this makes me a Wainwright fan. I need to see the mum, Kate McGarrigle, in concert next.

One of my students wrote a paper entitled, "The Chemistry of True Love," and, about the same time, a therapist friend recommended a book that looks at romantic attractiion. Harville Hendrix argues that attraction is based on:

1. bio-logic: principles of physical attraction, phernomes, survival, etc.
2. "exchange": looking for those more or less our "equals."
3. "persona": "What will it do to my sense of self if I am seen with this person?"
(3-7)

But even moreso, we are attracted to people with character traits (often the negative ones) of our parents.

1. We enter our love relationships bearing emotional scars from childhood, and 2. that we unwittingly choose mates who resemble our caretakers, the very people who contributed to our wounding in the first place.

Our wold brain, trapped in the eternal now and having only a dim awareness of the outside world, is trying to re-create the environment of childhood. And the reason the old brain is trying to resurrect the past is not a matter of habit or blind compulsion but of a compelling need to heal old childhood wounds... You fell in love because your old brain had your partner confused with your parents! Your old brain believed that it had finally found the ideal candidate to make up for the psychological and emotional damage you expereinced in childhood." (14)

Fear of engulfment or abandonment? Fuser or Isolater? We have, Hendrix argues, three selves:

1. lost self -- parts of your being you had to repress because of the demands of society.
2. false self -- facade you erected in order to fill the void created by this repression and by a lack of adequate nurturing.
3. disowned self -- negative parts of your false self that met with disapproval and were therefore denied.
(32)

He points out that dreams reveal all these projections and mixings togethers of people/transference, and I've actually noticed that my dreams do just that -- freaky.

Then, he explores the stages of romantic attraction as the phenomenon of recognition, timelessness, reunification, and necessity. He argues that that whole sense of knowing someone for a long time, having known them before, etc...is because we've confused that person with our parents, and when we realize that our new partner won't bring us whole-ness, we realize we are those hurt kids/incomplete selves. (48-51)

When we manipulate the situation by performing or pretending to be a person that can meet this partner's needs, we are "projective identifying," or lying (54).

When we expect our partner to read our mind or meet all our needs, we are being little children!


A fascinating book for sure. I haven't finished it yet, but I know my lost self is hoping for completion, my false self will pretend to not care to protect myself, and my disowned self is going to say something caustic. HA!

The new misogynistic ideal: "Miss Independent"?

In my list of guilty pleasure - work out (shake it)- music, I've got so many songs about independent women. Destiny's Child, that I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T song, etc.

In a particularly misogynistic industry,

(Byron Hurt's Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes addresses this

Full documnetary here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2020029531334253002
Intro here:
)


there's something so appealing and seemingly uplifting about songs that encourage strong women.

Nevertheless, the videos and lyrics seem to be more about an ideal and less about true female human beings. It's that old mythology of the virgin/mother/perfect vs. the whore/bitch/witch? The rampant hatred of the feminine?

"Independent Queen looking for her throne
I love her because she got her own."

These lines remind me of Sarah Jones' "Revolution."


Their definition of independent women seems to be contingent upon this perfection of being without needs -- no needs from men (except some not so subversive ideas about sexual needs or male attention of course) and perhaps no needs at all? What happened to interdependency? Is this really healthy?

set yourself on fire

This is a friend's epigram this week on gmail chat. They are lyrics to a song by a band called Stars.

There is only one thing
There is only one thing
There is only one thing
There is only one thing

"Most highly favored lady, Gloria."

I'm rediscovering the Advent carol, "The Angel Gabriel."

And with it, I'm remembering how much I like Sandro Botticelli. I first came accross Botticelli in High School art class with Mr. Genberg. I saw "Venus" in Florence and was just stunned. When I look on his artwork, I feel nostalgia, and I'm reminded of the Pre-Raphaelites.

Breakdance Bowling

Mary Magdalene

I'm giving out Mary Magdalene cards for Christmas this year. I've been a part of a Gospel of Mary Magdalene study this semester/year, and this past Saturday, we had a retreat. We discussed how "sin" might be code word for objectification -- ourselves or others -- and that we are growing when we come into greater and greater awareness of people as people.

Reminds me of Ephrem the Syrian:
"The Awakener came to awaken us"

We questioned if anyone is fully awakened. Is it possible? Is it even desirable? best? We also talked about:

how there is always a system or institution -- even questioning the system is a system?

how we might need to redefine trust

how the answer may not exist -- only answers in tension with each other -- a relationship.

"My heart going boom, boom, boom."

Something about this song makes me extremely happy and free.

And in this video, Peter Gabriel on the bicycle????!!! I love bicycle riding.

I know my life will be as it should....all things go

My mom loves Cat Stevens.

I wondered for a while if Cat was the father of Sufjan.

Flamenco

On Friday night I went to see a Flamenco performance at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. My colleague gave me her ticket! I sat in an Orchestra seat, center, and enjoyed the colors, the dancers and the live music. I do believe that what I now need is a Flamenco dress! Although I don't Flamenco, I did end up going Salsa dancing this past weekend at Tapas in Newport Beach!

I'll run away with you ... I'll run away with you

I think this is a wonderful song,



but I didn't realize how lovely it is until I heard Katie Melua's version.


"Show me how you do that trick
The one that makes me scream" she said
"The one that makes me laugh" she said
And threw her arms around my neck
"Show me how you do it
And I promise you I promise that
I'll run away with you
I'll run away with you"

Spinning on that dizzy edge
I kissed her face and kissed her head
And dreamed of all the different ways I had
To make her glow
"Why are you so far away?" she said
"Why won't you ever know that I'm in love with you
That I'm in love with you"

and, that last line of the last verse --
And drowned her deep inside of me


Although this isn't her version, I found this other Melua song lovely as well.

Full Cold Moon tonight

Some friends in my "Cuddle Call Group" are camping it tonight to see the largest full moon of the year. Sigh. I wish I could go.

Friday December 12 — The Full Cold MoonSky watchers will be dazzled by an exceptionally high, bright, and large Moon. In fact, this Moon is 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full Moons this year. Why? The Moon is both in its full phase and at a point in its orbit that is nearest Earth, called its perigee. When these events occur together, the Moon is closer to Earth than usual. The effect? The Full Cold Moon will appear especially large near the horizon as the Sun sets.

Finished: Of Water and the Spirit

I'm taking it slow these days -- this week in particular I've slept more than I have in a long time -- but with books in particular. I remember skimming How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler (along with his Six Great Ideas) in the midst of my undergrad education when I was reading too many books a week. Adler couldn't stop me from engulfing myself in the words of other for the sake of an "A." Nowadays, I'm taking it easy. Of Water and the Spirit is the first book I've finished in about a month it seems. And, it was great.

Malidoma has me questioning words.

I recently was looking at the word "logos," which to my understanding is translated as "the word" in Greek. In the famous John passage about the word became flesh, I came across a study that argued the word "logos" could have been more appropriately put as "sophos" or wisdom. This is fascinating to me because being a word nerd myself -- I've been struggling with understanding how words are not adequate to express the complete feeling or meaning. Wisdom -- and with it I believe comes less words and more of an image, like Sophia -- might hold the key to greater understanding I'm thinking; the wisdom became flesh?

Nevertheless, tis hard for me to forsake my occupation -- English Literature person that I am -- as well as my passion -- I identify as a writer. Poetry, some argued (I'm thinking of Laura Riding -- a next read), was the key to what I would put as a link between words and wisdom.


Malidoma is really questioning questioning or the desire to intellectualize or take apart meaning. Here are some passsages I found most moving:

I became conscious of an overwhelming urge to analyze and intellectualize everything I was seeing and experiencing. This impulse to question was cold and purposeless. I was tired of getting nowhere in my thoughts, tired of being constantly defeated in my understanding. I felt trapped, caught inside a stone wall, trying uselessly to break out. But I didn’t know where I would be if I escaped. (200)

But, I kept telling myself, one cannot continuously ask questions. One cannot always sculpt theories to frame experience, or top experience with the roof of theory. The techniques of indigenous learning were revealing themselves before my eyes, sweeping away my preconceived notions of how learning was accomplished. The contrast between this state of mind and what I had been accustomed to at the seminary was the same as the difference between liquid …living, breathing, flexible, and spontaneous… and solid. What I was learning made sense only terms of relationship. It was not fixed, even when it appeared to be so. (203)

I cannot repeat the speech of the green lady. It lives in me because it enjoys the privilege of secrecy. For me to disclose it would be dishonor and diminish it. The power of nature exists in its silence. Human words cannot encode meaning because human language has access only to the shadow of meaning. (222)

Meaning does not need words to exist. (258)

Questions are the mind’s way of trying to destroy a mystery. The mind of the village elder has become accustomed to living with questions while his heart dances with the “answer.” (264-5)

The speech of silence is achieved when words, and their potential ability to hurt meaning, are done away with. Words entrap meaning, torture it, slice it into pieces the way a butcher cuts the meat of a slaughtered animal and serves it to us. The speech of silence has profound respect for the integrity of meaning as an entity separate from language. In silence, meaning is no longer heard, but felt’ and feeling is the best hearing, the best instrument for recording meaning. Meaning is made welcome as it is and treated with respect. (272)

Crazy enough, some of my Unity Bridges friends have attended Malidoma's trainings, and I'm hoping to attend his Intensive Retreat in ritual for 2009 up in Santa Rosa. http://www.malidoma.com/intensive2009.html,

It's time for a little S and G

It's one of those blustery mornings where the clouds are moving about in a orange and violet sky -- I caught the sunrise this morning -- the wind seems to come up and kiss you, and the sweater as well as the coat are needed.

And, because I mentioned noise and such in a recent post, I thought Garfunkel's thoughts on our inability to communicate emotionally or even love each other was apropos.

Dia de Guadalupe

Today is the day to celebrate the Virgen of Guadalupe's appearance to the Mexican people. I was given the chance to visit the Shrine in Mexico City a couple summers ago. I had a rosary my grammie gave me blessed by the priest, I walked around the Cathedral, I stopped to gaze at Juan Diego's cloak, etc. Although I question the Catholic church, the uses of events/miracles to "convert the natives," and the fact that visitors aren't really allowed to get very close to the cloak itself, I had an amazing experience. I was moved by the faith of my Mexican family.

Total Noise

A professor/mentor came into the office yesterday as I was going through my facebook pictures and deleting photographs that certain new "friends" -- students, potential funders of my projects, family-friends -- might deem inappropriate for a teacher, chaplain, mentor. It's silly really, but my visiting professor/mentor friend asked me how much time I spent on facebook and myspace, and I know already that I spend too much time developing these relationships through popular and temporal mediums, but my professor/mentor's thoughts on these time-consuming and relationship-stunting endeavors hit home. Texting, chatting, emailing, myspacing, facebooking can't and don't compare to real face to face relationships. Sure, I'm thankful for the ability to stay in contact with those I love that live far away; nevertheless, I'm feeling the need to, at least, call friends on the phone.

The conversation with my professor/mentor turned to Wallace's thoughts on "Total Noise." Wallace seems to speak to the heart of the matter -- the need to be "in the know." I think it's an addiction and it's insanity in an age of seemingly limitless information, people, possibility.

I need simplicity.


David Foster Wallace, Intro to The Best American Essays, 2007 Edition


"...essays on everything from memory and surfing and Esperanto and childhood and mortality and Wikipedia, on depression and translation and emptiness and James Brown, Mozart, prison, poker, trees, anorgasmia, color, homelessness, stalking, fellatio, ferns, fathers, grandmothers, falconry, grief, film comedy -- a rate of consumption which tends to level everything out into an undifferentiated mass of high-quality description and trenchant reflection that becomes both numbing and euphoric, a kind of Total Noise that's also the sound of our U.S. culture right now, a culture and volume of info and spin and rhetoric and context that I know I'm not alone in finding too much to even absorb, much less to try to make sense of organize into any kind of triage of saliency or value. Such basic absorption, organization and triage used to be what was required of an educated adult, a.k.a. an informed citizen -- at least that's what I got taught. Suffice it here to say that the requirements now seem different.

...Or let's not even mention the amount of research, background, cross-checking, corroboration, and rhetorical parsing required to understand the cataclysm of Iraq, the collapse of congressional oversight, the ideology of neoconservatism, the legal status of presidential signing statements, the political marriage of evangelical Protestantism and corporatist laissez-faire ... There's no way. You'd simply drown. We all would. It's amazing to me that no one much talks about this -- about the fact that whatever our founders and framers thought of as a literate, informed citizenry can no longer exist, at least not without a whole new modern degree of subcontracting and dependence packed into what we mean by 'informed.'

Thoughts on "love melts us"

A friend's short story included the line "Love melts us," and I just think that is so true. And, I don't mean in the 80's love song way -- at least not completely.

I recently wrote a poem about love's melting abilities.



I listen to a song in my car on the way to work.


I listen to a song in my car on the way to work.
It’s a sad song about longing, un-returned love –
Heart on the sleeve kind of thing.
I’ve heard this one before
And really felt it.
Now the feeling passes me by like a bus that left me off on a previous pass.
Oh, yes, the driver makes eye contact with me, but
She shakes her head as if to say:
“You don’t belong on this bus.”
My arms extended, I see them fly by:
The passengers, the weepers, the gnashers of teeth, the dreamers.
Tearless, I think, I don’t belong here
And rewind the song and listen again.
And again.

"To young to hold on and to old to just break free and run"

I have a tape with Jeff Buckley's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." In the middle of the song, Buckley mixes in the Smiths' "I Know It's Over." It's haunting. Buckley seems to come up in many conversations lately. "Everybody Here Wants You," "Last Goodbye," and this song.

LITTLE JACKIE!

I was listening to Morning Becomes Eclectic on my way to work and discovered Little Jackie. "The Stoop" and "Black Barbie" are two of my favs, and this song's video is so much fun.

"There's only one me in the galaxy; I am an endangered species."

nobody knows me better.

Saw Leona Naess open for Ray LaMontagne....twice. I originally came across Leona in 2000 from an acquaintance in D.C. I couldn't find it on youtube, but here are the lyrics to "Chosen Family."

When his hands are in mine
I know that we'll be fine
And no ocean can keep me away
My love

It's really a beautiful song.

Insanity

"we must face our own ugliness. we often must become painfully aware of the unworkability of a pattern before we are willing to give it up. it often seems, in fact, that our lives get worse rather than better when we begin to work deeply on ourselves. life does not actually get worse; it is just that we feel our own .... more because we are no longer anesthetized by unconsciousness." ...from m. williamson

but there is something beautiful in the humanity of our "ugliness" and our awareness of that ugly/beauty.

Pobre de mi

On Sundays, mis abuelitos take me to lunch in Old Town Placentia. Driving there, I sit in the back of the cadillac with the back heater on high as we sing Linda's Canciones de mi Padre. We've done the sing in the cadillac thing for many years. My favorite is when we are in New Mexico.
(ay corazon . . .)

ah Elliott

I religiously listened to Elliott Smith the semester in D.C. and couldn't believe it when I heard he stabbed himself.


Reminds me of Bright Eyes.


Actually, when I saw Conor at the Hollywood Bowl, I worried he'd pull out a knife.

Mother Earth

Yesterday, members of an organization called Unity Bridges
(http://www.unitybridges.org/index.html) and I dug holes in the ground for a celebration next week. I felt like a little kid and loved it. I thought about how much I enjoy sitting on the shore in my bathing suit and letting the waves pull and push me. It was that kind of return to innocence experience.

Fall 07 Unity Bridges had a Renewing Ourselves retreat.


And this past Summer we had our fundraiser at Viento y Agua where I heard Angie Evans again and this other singer who did an amazing cover of Prince's "I would die for you."

All women, we write her-story.

"It Ain't Me Babe" Montage

Listening to Bobby D in the car these days.

I'm not the one you want, babe,
I will only let you down.



Here's Johnny and June's,



but the version I like best is Joan's.

Water and Spirit

water and wind = clouds.

wind is like spirit and fire.

Viento y Agua is a favorite coffee shop of mine (http://www.myspace.com/vientoyaguacoffeehouse).

I'm reading Malidoma Patrice Some's Of Water and the Spirit.

"Among the Dagara, darkness is sacred. It is forbidden to illuminate it., for light scares the Spirit away. Our night is the day of the Spirit and of ancestors, who come to us to tell us what lies on our life paths. To have light around you is like saying that you would rather ignore this wonderful opportunity to be shown the way. To the Dagara, such an attitude is inconceivable. The one exception to this rule is a bonfire. Though they emit a powerful glow, they are not prohibited because there is always drumming around them, and the beat of the drum cancels out the light."

I was given a drum recently! It's so beautiful!

My Favorite Christmas Tune: Song for a Winter's Night

A childhood friend and I went to see Lightfoot in concert in Cerritos the other day. It was pretty awesome, and he sang "Sundown" as well as "If you could read my mind love" and the one I remember Mr. M singing, "In the Early Morning Rain." Sadly, he didn't sing this one:



I discovered Sarah Mclachlan's version while working at the old Whitwood Mall. Long after I quit, I learned from my co-worker --Erika -- that our boss had been stealing our retirement and tax funds. She was such a nice lady, our boss, but she wouldn't let me read while working even when NO ONE was there. Instead, we listened to this KROQ or KIIS collection of Christmas tunes again and again. I remember this song the most; it's just so lovely. I found this video; it reminds me of something I can't put my finger on.

Christmas songs...

I think of Paul's "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas time," and

Christmas Wish List

crocheted hangers

rose succulents

Mary Magdalene Icon

It's all in the timing

Heath's play the other day in L.A. called "All in the Timing" made me laugh a lot, and this weekend, the importance of timing clicked for me. EUREKA!



In Switzerland this past summer, Denise and I listened to this song over and over again. I loved how she loved this song so much.

Goodbye November...is now; let us go then, you and I

I alluded to T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" when I landed sky-diving and yelled-- "I have dared to eat a peach; I have dared to disturb the universe!"

There is something so charming about the love song; it reminds me of my future old lady self with antoher great old lady, living in the cottage, walking along the shore, and smoking our pipes on the porch. I think, just now, my mantra has changed from daring to do something to something more like "Let us go then, you and I."

Today, with the start of December, I have a feeling that we are on the cusp of a microcosmic beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.



What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this
Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

You gave away the things you love, and one of them was me.

All you need is love.

It's official; I'm a hippy.  There were signs: dressing up like Stevie Nicks last Halloween, the red head band I made in the Summer, the drawings of the Native-American flower child I use to draw, my love of folk music -- the fact that I only really know how to play folk music on the guitar, etc.  

Seriously though, I've taken hippy living to a whole new level. I sit outside during my lunches, paint other people and let them paint on me, and, of course, talk about love and peace.  

Shh...Disneyland

---------------------I think it was my first year of college and my last year of high school -- the fam bought Disneyland passes.  Many of my friends had passes. I remember Mom bringing Turkey legs for us to eat when we came out just for the evening firework show, Lisa and I taking pictures with the fiddle player, and, at other times, fellow students and I reading and studying in New Orleans Square. 

I went there the other day and later met up with friends.  I did the whole read in the square, walk down Main Street, and buy a spiral lollipop.  It just wasn't the same. Perhaps it's that I've been watching too many films about the government and masonic leadership's plan to conquer our minds and the world. I suppose the disillusionment is best. At least, I find it easier to let go of the past.  

fire and rebirth

Feather to fire.....to ashes to snow to the rising riverbank where we will re-read our letters, understand and fly.