Vertigo's Rainbow

Tapping the Past

2008-02-14T11:12:00.003-07:00

After neglecting my blog space here, I've recommitted to posting on it. I used it as a creative space at first and attempted to develop some insights into my self and past, then my writing degraded into an exhibition of how fucked up I was inside. As above, so below ... and then I attempted to change it into something more. Then it kind of died.

My partner has encouraged me to develop the plans I had to write a book, incorporating the chaotic elements of my childhood and growth. I'm scared to do it, lest I seem like an exhibitionist intent only on navel-gazing. But when I think about the kinds of writing I enjoy, I have to acknowledge my fascination with other people's "navel-gazing," or exploration/explication of the forces and experiences which shaped them. I judge my writing as harshly as I tend to judge my self, and that stunts any kind of creative development. This Mercury retrograde finds me revisiting the sharp edges of my past. There are many things about it that trouble me still. They are imbued with life force that is currently not accessible to me. I think that's what my nightmares dealing with the past indicate. There is soul retrieval value in working through the past with the written word. I process things emotionally when I write them down. And no matter how disgusting or offensive my writing about my self and past selves may be to me at the time of composition, I look back at it with eyes bathed in compassion for who I've been.

# # #

I would know myself in all my parts.

(from the Flower Prayer)

# # #

In my dreams I am eternally finding displaced cats and kittens and rescuing them.

I identify with cats, the four-footeds that have been my companions since the earliest days of my life, and their acceptance of me has been a constant in my life when there were no other constants. Many I have loved and lost. Many I have adopted, some by the grace of my mother and father, who put no limit on the numbers we cared for as long as they remained outside. As an adult I've adopted and rescued homeless cats in shelters and in carriers outside grocery stores. I very rarely find a reason to say no to them. They must sense this, because they come to me now, entering my home with wolf-like stealth, emerging from hidden spaces to announce their presence. My heart cannot deny them safe harbor and love.

Symbols of my child self, these creatures of unconditional love no longer have to dwell outside because my parents say so. I bring them in to dwell with me. In claiming them as mine, I reclaim parts of my self.

That may seem trite and silly to some. But then, those "some" have probably never had deep relationships with felines.

Edgewalking in a Small Town

2007-12-03T20:34:00.000-07:00

I have become a target for Jehovah's Witnesses. They're not harassing me, by any means, but they seem to have taken an interest in my soul. [A-hem] Souls.

This all began a few weeks ago, when they knock-knocked on the door, and I, figuring I was going to be greeting people seeking access to the paper, opened it. A lot of people are rude to Jehovah's Witnesses, which I don't understand because it takes guts and faith to go door-knocking and proselytizing the way they do. After I identified myself as Pagan (I didn't want to give anyone a heart attack by using the word "Witch"), I listened politely to what the woman had to say, as the young Witness-in-Training looked on, offering a few of my thoughts as to why people were turning away from Christianity and, toward the end of our conversation, taking the booklet she offered with a sincere promise to read it. She said she'd stop by again to discuss the booklet with me, and I said, "Please do."

Which surprised me as much as it does you.

This morning, I was cleaning up my desk, and I happened upon the booklet again. I thought briefly of throwing it away, but I remembered my promise and tucked it into a drawer instead, renewing my commitment to myself and to her to follow through on my promise. And wouldn't you know, a few hours later....

Knock, knock, knock.

I answered the door, again expecting to see someone with news for me, or at the very least, one of GuitarBoy's young friends wondering if he was home. When I saw who was there, I experienced a certain amount of disdain, both because it was half an hour away from the end of the day and I was trying to finish a project I'd promised to complete by five, and because I had not followed through on my promise to her yet. She was with her husband this time. With a niggling of impatience on my part, I listened as she remembered me by name and opened up to one of the gospels, where she read about the kingdom of heaven. Huh, I thought to myself, the kingdom of heaven could be here on Earth if it weren't for all you religious zealots (which is an untrue generalization, but it was the thought that ran through my head at the time). But she was so earnest when she asked me if I'd thought about the kingdom of heaven, that I respectfully replied, "Sure."

When she asked me what I thought it meant, I just reversed the question: "What do you think it means?" I believe she opened to a verse in Daniel next, and then maybe one of the Timothies, developing her explanation all the while. We went back and forth for awhile, with me questioning her and refusing the role of proselytyzee, until I asked, "Do you believe the kingdom of God is imminent?" Both she and her husband nodded a grave yes.

Now, while all this was going on, I was very aware of my discomfort, but simultaneously fascinated by the dialogue and amazed at the kindness and true belief of these gentle people, who truly believe they are doing the Lord's work by following the Great Commission. I didn't feel judgment coming from them, just faith. As I stood in my center of Will, listening and speaking with them, I also listened for any advice Sacred Dove might have been offering. All I got was a continued sense of curiosity and a desire to continue the dialogue and maybe, just maybe, take her up on her offer to attend church in their hall on Sunday.

Why? Because I am an edgewalker. One of my heroines, M. Macha Nightmare, participates in interfaith dialogues on a regular basis, and I recognize the value of this work. I am not deluding myself that I am going to change any of their minds, and really, I don't want to. But it just so happens that I was raised in the Christian tradition (she even remembered which one), and I am equipped with the experience to walk into that lion's den with one mission: to show them that Witches are not evil and that we respect those of different beliefs and can hold them in our hearts with love, just as their Savior commanded them to do of Gentiles and tax collectors and prostitutes and other people outside their circles of social and moral experience.

So am I going on Sunday? I'm still not sure. But I have a strong sense that if I don't go this Sunday, I will one Sunday down the line. Why?

Because I am edgewalker, and it is in my heart to accept love where it is offered and to offer it in turn.

Intolerance of Intolerance

2007-10-13T21:38:00.000-07:00

So I'm now living in a community where they made a bonfire out of copies of Rudolfo Anaya's book "Bless Me, Ultima." It happened a couple of years ago. Certain people found the book's content disturbing because the story deals with Pagan subject matter and is about a Pagan heroine, and they didn't want their children being exposed to such "evil." This, despite the town librarian's staunch defense of the book. It chills me to my marrow to reflect on how this echoes, however symbolically, the horrors of The Burning Times. And they call this a liberal community. Pah!

I can just imagine the preachers behind their Sunday pulpits, ignorantly urging their congregations to oppose the teaching of Witchcraft. Without having read the book themselves, of course, to even know what it was about.

My reactions, since finding this out, have varied from shock to paranoid fear about being an openly Pagan woman in this community. Now I'm just mad. And it's coloring my experience of the town I'm helping to cover as a journalist. When I ride the bus into Telluride, I am constantly hearing conversations about church or Big Christian Daddy. I watch people who have these conversations treating people of lower socioeconomic statuses like pariahs, sometimes going so far as to snicker and whisper indiscreetly, while casting glances in the direction of whomever they're mocking, and all I can do is shoot daggers at them through my eyes and fume inwardly, while fantasizing about how good it would feel to beat the nastiness out of them. Those are my darker moments.

I know there are tolerant, loving Christians out there. I went to college with quite a few, and I've known others since. But why is it that the intolerant ones are breeding like bunnies in small towns?

As heavy as some of my feelings are, I see this emergence of anger as a positive step in my development. I remember being ridiculed and tormented for being a dyke in high school, and how the ostracism and cruelty stung, and how I dreaded each school day more and more as graduation approached. I stood up to those bullies as much as I could, confronting them on more than one occasion, and I walked with my head high and shoulders back, but I was always afraid inside, always, that another attack was imminent. Anger has now replaced my fear, and as nebulous as the relationships between all these events of intolerance are, I am growing up past fear and finding my outrage.

And that in itself is a healing. That itself is a gift.

Pain as Information

2007-09-27T21:05:00.000-07:00

My health is not so good. And really, my health has been not so good for awhile now. A long while.

Most people would get the proper health services they needed, if they were insured or independently weathly. Since I've only been insured as an adult once, and I'm definitely not rich, I have learned how to do without health care. I've learned how it is to gimp along and call it functioning. My pain tolerance is high, and my ability to suffer while calling it strength has got to be off the charts.

For two of the last three deadline days at the paper, I have been inside the spell of a migraine. Through some effort of my will, I have managed to seem normal while inside I am falling apart. I'm afraid that if someone finds out I'm not well, and worse yet, that I get migraines, that they will immediately write me off as unreliable and flaky. You have to admit, lots of people who claim migraines are really just experiencing what we generally call a headache and looking for a way to call off work. Migraines are different. And I am familiar enough with them to say that when I am experiencing a migraine at its peak strength, I am a whimpering, crying mess who clings to her blanky in the dark. It is impossible for me to work when it's at that level because of the nausea, light and noise sensitivity that accompany it, that and the pain is so intense that not even I can fake alright-ness.

But on a pain scale of one to ten, I can function at a seven, if need be. Not at my full capacity, but I can work. And as long as the day may be and as stressful as I may get, no one knows unless I tell them, "I'm fighting a migraine." Which I will not do unless I have to leave because it's just become too much.

I have decided that I don't want to just suck it up anymore and pretend I'm not hurting when I am, and in a way that people who don't get migraines cannot understand. I used to see it as strength to do this, marshal onward in the face of misery and pain, and now I see it as a way my self-hatred manifests itself in disguise. The ER doc (who was so very kind -- a father of one of the kids I used to teach) recommended I get an MRI after my follow-up visit with him, and I reasoned that I couldn't afford the damn follow-up visit and definitely not an MRI so I would just do my normal thing and ignore it, hoping that whatever caused it was just some fluke.

But I can't hate myself like that anymore, no matter how much it's going to cost and how much more debt I will incur by seeing the doc again and getting an MRI.

I have to tell myself that I'm worth whatever it costs and that life doesn't have to be spent in pain and fear. I'm so used to living in the shadow of pain that my self-hatred did not become clear to me for what it was until I was sobbing in bed yesterday morning because I just couldn't force myself to go through another day in sustained agony.

And that, I tell myself, is progress. As horrible as it is to look at, that reflection staring at me during my dreams is my own practiced self-loathing. Only I can do something about it. I am taking the first step tomorrow.

Snarl, Bark, Whimper

2007-09-13T11:13:00.000-07:00

Today's one of those days when I look at everything and go, "that sucks" and "that sucks" and "that sucks" and "so does that -- it sucks hard," only to realize that the only thing that really does suck is me.

I'm tired, physically, because the nightmares I have every night do not leave me feeling refreshed like a morning breeze.

I'm tired of living in the inbetween-zone. Inbetween two homes, two towns, two jobs -- and all of this without a car.

I think my body is very clear on what it needs. It needs to sleep. But I can't sleep unless I'm on a couch or in bed. And those things are approximately 25 minutes away.

I'm tired of having a lingering headache ever since my ER migraine adventure last weekend.

I'm tired of worrying about money.

I'm tired of Telluride's posh attitude.

I'm tired of needing a haircut. I'd get one if I had access to a stylist whose skills somehow dignified the $60 charge. My stylist in Phoenix only charged $35, and he always delivered a nice, artful cut, so I felt happy throwing a 20-spot at him when it was all over. Makes me want to shave my damn head.

Which I would immediately regret.

Maybe the best way to deal with this is to take my Sticky One on a play date. The Fetch is worn-out and feeling neglected.

No fucking wonder.

Style Guidelines

2007-09-04T14:35:00.000-07:00

Censorship in favor of content that appeases. My death blow.

Too much propriety. Creativity doesn't like it.

Simple lines. Complexity inhibits the flow.

I am revealed in a skin that might be too tight or bright

and what happens if no one loves me
what happens if they see me curled round my fist?

Vulnerability should be so premeditated.

News

2007-09-04T10:23:00.000-07:00

The Telluride Film Festival happened over the weekend, and I can now stop complaining that I've never encountered a celebrity in day-to-day life. Daniel Day-Lewis and I looked at each other across the street, I saw Justin Timberlake making a horse's ass out of himself during The Feed Friday evening, and M. Night Shyamalan walked right in front of me with an umbrella, on the way to a film. Sean Penn was in town as well, but I never saw him. Regular folks like you and me, except for the whole fame and money thing.

# # #

The Blue Bomber is officially dead. It met its end this morning on the way into town, and it couldn't have happened in a better way. It made some horrible grating and clanking noises, and then it lost power. The man in the truck behind us gave us a ride to the Spur, where the road construction was creating so much traffic congestion that he let us off to walk the last three miles into town. Turns out that he lived in our rental last summer. Small world.

There are some details to be worked out, such as we will be needing some interim wheels, until the Tracker is fixed and we're moved to Norwood. We spent time and energy looking for the best location for the interim office, which will be operated out of our home while we get the paper up and running. Lucky for me I'll be working for and with such wonderful people. I've got lots to learn.

It's weird how journalism has been stalking me. When I finally earned my English degree, everyone assumed I would either become a teacher or reporter. I responded to their assumptions by stating that neither interested me and I just wanted to live in the mountains or by the ocean. And wouldn't you know, I did become a teacher and now I'm on to journalism!

More than once, because of Doug, I've been offered opportunities in journalism, and I, figuring that I'd make a shitty reporter, have found ways to skirt those opportunities in favor of jobs that complement poverty. The areas of Norwood, Naturita, and Nucla, as well as Sawpit and Placerville, will be under the jurisdiction of this new paper. One of the issues I'm very interested in covering has to do with uranium mining. The Four Corners states are all experiencing a boom in uranium mining (because of nuclear power plants gaining even more popularity, especially in China), and Nucla and Naturita are the former sites of uranium mines that had been shut down and were in the clean-up phases. Now, given the increasing demand for uranium, they're opening those mines up again.

I feel some Erin Brockovich coming on.

Lifestyle Protest

2007-08-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

It's been over a month since I posted anything here, and so much has changed since beginning the Feri training. So much is about to change.

I have been thinking about ways to challenge the Bush administration's war agenda. They obviously don't give a rat's ass about dissension. Demonstrations don't phase them, congressional disapproval amuses them, and that leaves me wondering what I can do to protest.

I can stop driving my car.

It's a revolutionary concept to me. I've been dependent on having wheels ever since I was legally allowed to drive. I worked after school, and I had to drive to get to work because I grew up in the boondocks. I had to drive to get anywhere outside my piddly excuse for a hometown. The will to drive has been a part of me for so long that I wonder what will happen once I am no longer dependent on a car to get to work.

There is also the problem of road trips. I love road trips. I love the freedom of the road, the sense of adventure being on the road creates. I love being able to pull over and explore at any given moment. And public transportation does not allow me to satisfy my need to roam along the way.

As uncomfortable as I am with the idea, I aim to redesign my way of life so that I am no longer a gas-guzzling American. The Oil President and his Oil-Slick of a VP can take their oil and shove it.

I don't want it anymore.

Anticipatory Jitters

2007-07-19T11:46:00.000-07:00

The most precocious 4-year-old I know composed these lines this morning . . . well, that's my interpretation on her impromptu statement while swinging.

The beginning of her poem:

The moon follows me
The sun follows me

But she also repeated it as:

The sun, it follows me
The moon, it follows me

Who says kids can't write poetry?

* * *

I am traveling to Denver this weekend to attend the first Denver Feri training and finally meet my fellow students and the most excellent Thorn Coyle. I am just abuzz with anticipation. I am apparently very nervous, too, because I woke up with diarrhea this morning and retched into the shower for a while. I also had the recurring dream that I was taking finals to graduate from high school, but this dream is a nightmare, mostly because high school was, and I woke up crying and moaning after talking loudly in my sleep.

I am now going to take some activated charcoal to help soak up whatever nasties are in my system. I will not be ill this weekend.

I can't wait to experience a city for a change! Eeesh. Even if the city, like Phoenix, is a study in urban sprawl. Telluride, wonderful though it is, is a place you have to leave in order to avoid falling prey to the insular reality living here creates.

I have an idea my navel gazing is about to become way more interesting. I may even [gasp!] begin to post about subjects other than myself.

Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to Denver . . . .

Mariposas

2007-06-27T00:39:00.000-07:00

I am not one to use the term synchronicity, mostly because it's become a new age misappropriation of a Jungian concept and it pisses me off. That said, I have been noticing how certain things are happening in my life that relate to a significant theme or symbol. Take butterflies, for instance.

I love butterflies. Who doesn't? They're beautiful, magical creatures that contain the mysteries of transformation, metamorphosis. Butterflies signify a power we all contain, but as one born under the sign of the Scorpion, they are crucial symbols of promise and hope to me. Persevere through difficult processes of change and transition and you can emerge from your Plutonian fires a new being. They remind me of my birthright, my power.

This happens to be the time of year when butterflies are emerging all over the San Juans. When I started working at my preschool, there were many cocoons in the classroom in little cups. The first week of school, when las mariposas emerged, I was as enraptured as any of the kids when they started poking their ways out and finally made their first flights.

This past weekend, returning from Cortez in a car with the moon roof open, I was shocked and amazed when a butterfly suddenly landed on my arm. We were travelling at highway speeds, and I don't know how the thing managed to enter the vehicle. But it did, and it choose the underside of my left arm to alight on. It rested there for a few seconds, and then it circled the car briefly before disappearing through the hole in the ceiling. I could not ask for a better personal affirmation in the wake of so much chaos.

I may not know when I will emerge, but I am becoming a new creature. And that is enough for now. The promise of the butterfly sustains me.

Since My Words Left . . .

2007-06-12T15:44:00.000-07:00

. . . I've decided to use someone else's. Hats off to Lucinda Williams, a musician whose lyrics are true poetry (these lyrics are from her album West).

I know she reads this. I may not be all the things she hoped I'd be. I may be a Pagan. I may be bisexual. I may be a handful to love.

But I'm still her daughter. And proud of it.

I love you, Mom.

"Mama You Sweet"

I love you Mama you sweet

With an ocean in my spirit
And cracks on my lips
And scars in my heart
And this burden on my hips

Ocean becomes heavy and tries
To push its way out
Through these ancient eyes
And the memories in my mouth

Ocean becomes tears
That ebb and flow
Over the lines in my face
And the pain in my soul

And pain hits a wall
And doesn't know which way to go
And ocean says I'm crying now
And tells pain to follow

And pain courses through
Every vein, every limb
Trying to find a way out
Between the secrets in my skin

And secrets hold on
Until they finally give in
And they meet up with ocean
And tears again

And tears hand me a shovel
Saying break beneath the crust
That binds earthly skin
And buries all the trust

Somehow trust was caught
Between the cracks on my lips
And the scars in my heart
And this burden on my hips

I love you Mama you sweet...

Self-expression

2007-06-11T11:38:00.000-07:00

The worst thing about writer's block is obvious.

The best thing about writer's block is reviewing old writing. I found a stream-of-consciousness piece I wrote last autumn that really lends itself, after some mild revision, to becoming a slam piece.

A word about me and slam poetry:

I am not a slam poet. I once wrote a poem about how I was not a slam poet so I could perform it at a slam. Except I chickened out. I suppose I've known a few too many slammers to allow myself to get too close to the form lest I, too, be mistaken for a self-important soapbox artist. I also dislike how homogenized the performances are and I loathe the notion of rating a poem -- a work of art -- in a competition where there are winners and losers. I generally call myself a spoken word poet, if I have to classify myself, but I have not been doing the whole performance thing for many moons now. Telluride lacks the kind of venues for poetry I grew accustomed to in Phoenix. Which is sad, no?

However, every time I do perform, people ask me if I slam. Pretty funny.

# # #

After thoroughly assessing my clothing situation, I have decided that I obviously need someone to help me dress myself. I do not adhere to trends. I do not particularly like the experience of trying on clothes. And, generally speaking, I hate malls. Having cash to blow on clothes is rare, too, so there aren't that many opportunities for me to improve my outward expression of myself.

It comes as no surprise, then, that I feel like I'm wearing somebody else's clothes and I feel ill-at-ease in them most of the time. I was just starting to develop a wardrobe I could live with when I was Taurus-ized by a manipulative woman I had mistaken as a friend who offered to wash my clothes for me when I was homeless. I never got my clothes back. What I was left with was an odd hodge-podge of old clothes that are steadily wearing out.

Where's a fashion consultant when you need one? Probably hanging out with some pretentious poet.

Progress!

2007-06-09T11:12:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm about to start a new job as a preschool teacher, my tolerance for frustration and sucky situations has improved.

A large portion of the roof up and blows away; I walk outside to investigate. Giggles erupt. That's all.

My little black kitten, Daytona, brings five dead rodents into the house throughout the day as proof of his supreme mastery as Hunter; I watch his sadistic game of postmortem acrobats for a time, then scoop up his kills with a prayer that I wish their deaths had not been in vain and deposit them respectfully in the outdoors trashcan. Even when I almost stepped on a very large mouse in the dark last night after letting him in, I did not curse or become irrate. I just snapped on the light and began laughing at the behemoth-sized varmint he'd drug in through the window (and removed it, of course).

Jezebel drags a half-dead snake in through the window and deposits it on the bedroom floor, where she commences her sadistic game of "Come On You Slithery Thing And Move Or I'll Poke You." It plays opossum, and the worst thing I have to deal with is choosing whether to intervene in its Fate and free it or kill it swiftly myself. I decide I don't like the role of Old Testament God and allow her to continue her game. She eventually tires of it, and another member of the household rescues and releases it instead.

Raja manages to sneak a stick and a half of butter off the counter while I'm cooking; I give him a verbal reprimand, grab what's left of the butter, rinse it off and put it away. (Don't tell.)

I realize I left my book by Annie Proulx by the softball park before a rainstorm; instead of lamenting its loss, I select a book from the shelf by Haitian novelist Edwidge Danticat Breath, Eyes, Memory to read.

Just examples to illustrate that I'm dealing better with curveballs now. And finding some glee in the unexpected.

Me Chewing My Cud

2007-05-16T14:20:00.000-07:00

I've just reviewed my blog entries from this past autumn and early winter. And as they say hindsight is 20/20 . . . gods I was a mess.

I'm still in the process of trying to tidy up the messes I made then. My mom was convinced I was manic. Not so. I was frantic, trying to use the newly available energy I was experiencing to make everything better. Everything that had soured or fallen apart as a result of nine years of depression. Which was, oh, most everything. I believed I could will things to rightness.

I play The Fool well.

I've done a number on my credit score, lost all but two friends from the past, alienated my family while also somehow convincing them that I am The Devil, and experienced a number of other painful, embarrassing results of my actions. Yet somehow, miraculously, I am still okay.

I think, to borrow a phrase from India.Arie, that I am getting "back to the middle." I'm not depressed and I'm not frantic. I'm me learning who "me" is.

As difficult as this past year has been, I am grateful for it. I have learned, the hard way, a lot I naively assumed I already knew.

I'm planting seeds now. I don't know if they will grow or not, but I will tend them the best I can.

Random Bits Before Beltane

2007-04-30T14:19:00.000-07:00

Not only am I dreaming poetry, I am apparently reciting it in my sleep. I had no idea until my sleeping partner informed me of this. He says I whisper in words he can't make out, but that the cadence is like me performing. He says it sounds like I'm talking with spirits, and that they don't want anyone else to hear us.

* * *

Our resident ghost likes to watch television. It turns it on late at night sometimes. But last night it was watching an infomercial.

* * *

The Thundergods visited yesterday and look like they will be returning this afternoon. I've experienced thunder during snow storms, but yesterday the thunder accompanied the rain. It was glorious. The snow is rapidly disappearing. The foot we got a week ago has melted, and the snow buried in the crevasses and forests is finally withdrawing into the soil.

* * *

Last night, I was engaged in intergalactic battle. No knives. Laser beams. The dream kept looping back on itself so I was repeating the same sequences, with varying degrees of success. Sounds like my entire 20s.

* * *

Full Moon in Scorpio Wednesday. I feel the energy building.

Renewal

2007-04-18T14:21:00.000-07:00

I've been reading poetry in my dreams. Sometimes it's something I've written, but most of the time it's something composed by someone else, and it's always inspired. Pages and pages of it, sometimes in hard copy, sometimes online. But, unlike artists who can remember their inspiration upon waking, I lose the thread when my eyes open to consciousness.

And I was given a suggestion in my dreams last night that has helped to lift the burden of guilt from my shoulders that keeps me from a disciplined, consistent spiritual practice -- that is, when I wake up too late and miss my a.m. opportunity to balance, I tend to feel very bad about myself and get caught up in a cycle of avoidance, which begets further guilt. I seem to have found the off switch in that programming loop.

Winter continues to grace us with snow, although Spring is defiantly poking her curly head up and giggling at us. This lengthy Rocky Mountain Winter runs contrary to my desert-rat conditioniong. And since I have moved to extreme climates during the most extreme time of the year weather-wise for the past two years, my body has become more estranged from the natural world than is healthy. For the past month, I've been struggling to connect with myself in the absence of connection to Gaia. I found myself spiraling, not exactly downward, but in a constant whirlpool wanting to suction me down, as the storms continued to dump inches and feet of snow, further delaying the muddy season which eventually gives way to Spring as we know it in the flatlands. As we drove into town today, I noticed how little snow there is left, and how in the wake of the New Moon things look so much greener in the canyons, mesas, and mountains I now call home.

The oppressive weight of cabin fever is giving way to a lightness of spirit and renewing sense of mission within. It's flurrying outside, but it's also sunny. I can carry storms at the same time as I carry sun.

I'm crossing my fingers that hiking is not a long-off possibility.

And dreaming of fine poetry.

Dreams

2007-04-11T13:07:00.000-07:00

Last post's passive-aggressive grunt aside, things are improving in the underwater caverns of my psyche. When the recurring nightmares faded to be replaced by dreams of being in the Sopranos, I realized I'd turned a corner.

There's much I could say about that, but I'll leave it alone for now.

I do not submit

2007-04-09T10:08:00.000-07:00

P.J. Harvey says it best on "Uh Huh Her":

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. You."

You know who you are.

Mountain Stomp

2007-03-14T15:21:00.000-07:00

Quiet, on the wind, looses sound
only when it chooses
and the mountains, perched on spring
release rocks and boulders --
the resolve of stasis crumbling
to appease gravity's pleas --
yet the mountains, immobile, still possessing
the power of motion
shudder from contact
the weight of matter
into the chaos of descent.

Tumbling angles fall
open new holes.

On Bleeding from the Inside

2007-03-07T10:32:00.000-07:00

Last week, a tragic event put everything into focus. A friend's daughter tried to kill herself by overdosing on prescription medication. Within that horror, I found myself gazing back at my self of a year ago: shattered woman huddling in the bathroom with a knife, drawing it over her skin, slashing a little deeper each time, wondering how deeply she would have to cut to pierce her veins, how much it would hurt to end it. I happened to catch Girl Interrupted on the tube before I heard of this young woman's desperate pain. It's almost as if the events leading up to the eclipse were spirals leading me into my own heart of darkness, into the past, from which I have emerged, am emerging.

For those who have never contemplated suicide, it is unfathomable. For those who are gifted with the everpresent ability to gaze at life with wonder, even the roughest times are not reasons to pursue the ending of one's breath. But for those born with chemical and hormonal deficiencies that rob them of the ability to experience life with wonder, suicide and its partner, ideation, are everpresent companions. Death is longed for like a lover. You gaze into that bleeding chasm of your brokenness and beg for escape, search for it with your tongue, swollen and cracking, unable to utter the right explanations or descriptions of your pain. Of anything.

As I gaze back, I see how my despair convinced me there was no escape from the pain. I see how my self-hatred became a living thing, determined to trap me in its slimy grip. I see how I spent almost ten years of my life living in agony or fear of the agony returning to rob me of my joy. I see how I emerged from that repeating cycle, but only with the love of my family, especially my mother and my partner, supporting me, could I reach out for the help I needed but didn't believe in. I see how Effexor woke me from my nightmare.

A year later, I see how change and transformation are possible, even in the bleakest circumstances, in the harshest climates, the most stifling fears. I am proof that life is worth living, and that it is beautiful. I am proof of the alchemical properties of love offered without condition.

May healing find and restore you, my dear. May healing find and transform you and your mother. May you receive all the love you need and more. May you be blessed with joy for years to come.

So mote it be.

Wascawee Wabbits

2007-01-03T17:15:00.000-07:00

Telluride loves me.

After this afternoon's interview, it turns out that, pending an interview with the administrator, I will, fittingly, be working for Rascals daycare. It's not exactly preschool, but it's kids, and that's all that matters.

Me? Excited? Uh-huh.

I feel like diving into a pint of Ben 'n' Jerry's but will likely settle for a chocolate shake.

What's next, I dunno, but this news is damn good.

The third time really is the charm.

"Water Where God Wills It"

2006-12-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

The above is a direct quote from the wise ones of Gilead, passed on to us from Roland Deschain of Steven King's Dark Tower series. It popped unbidden into my mind as I was walking this afternoon in the brisk December air under a heavy sky. I finally appreciate the wisdom in these lines, and I have abandoned myself to The Hanged Man for the time being. I am in the pose of surrender. I walk on. I grit my teeth. And inevitably, I come to water.

In the stillness, when no path is apparent, I listen.

Sometimes the voice of stillness is easier to hear than others. Sometimes only the silence echoes inside of me.

Ka, Roland. Ka.

Equine Breath

2006-12-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

To love a pony or horse is to also love the sweet scent of their breath, the green smells of hay, oats, grass greeting your own nostrils when you greet each other through your breath. I've learned to always let a horse get my scent before I reach up to scratch hir neck. They are shy creatures, easily startled, and the breathing introduction is instinctual. Affection follows the exchange of breath, and then another kind of communication ensues. Watching a pony or horse tilt hir ears to the sounds of your words and stroking the softness of the muzzle, reaching around underneath the neck and then up behind the ears for a good scratch usually makes for a fast friendship. Being greeted by nickers and whinnies is a delight to human ears. Perhaps the approach of our footsteps and the waft of our scent delights them as well.

Soft brown eyes usually say yes.

Really Not Right Yet At All

2006-12-18T21:13:00.000-07:00

Night stretches toward dawn, beckons the sun.
And you, cat-like, lithe, wrap round my ankles
to spring up, and settle in my lap
less like a cat
more like a lover
less like a lover
more like a drug
opium scented sheets
lilies of the valley in vase and bottle
thyme sprigs mixed with lavender
ivy twines round my body, your vine
my mind, your harbor.

Quick, rise to meet me
before the light of that prying orb
changes the shadows that fall on soft features
and hard
scents of curry in your hair
salt on your neck
fingertips trail moonbeams across your chest
your fine, strong arms

Sugar Cubes for Sugar

2006-12-13T11:01:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the best thing about having a pony when you're a little girl is that all little girls want to have a pony. My grandmother figured that my sister needed a pony after the house burned, and the trailer and little Shetland named Sugar were her gifts to my familly after the fire. I do not remember a time when Sugar was not a part of my young life. I assumed partial responsibility for his well being and comfort when I was young, maybe four. Trundling down the long driveway, downhill then uphill to greet the gentle nickers of a shaggy chestnut gelding with his blonde forelock curling down between his eyes, punctuating the white stripe running down his nose with a comma, my biggest concern was if there would be mice or barn rats in the oats when I opened up the dark storage space where his feed was kept.

I liked to bring additional offerings to Sugar, who was a fan of handfed snacks. Carrots, apples, potato peelings, fresh handfuls of grass, clover, and the treat that he was so fond of, sugar cubes. I was never afraid of feeding him as a little girl, my trust in my pony's implicit goodness and gentleness overruling any shadows of fear that many people experience when encountering a horse's grinding teeth for the first time. The lips grab, and the tongue and teeth take care of the rest. Sugar never harmed me, not even when he bucked me off when lightning struck or something else spooked him.

Where the River Flows . . .

2006-12-12T09:19:00.000-07:00

She came to me in my dreams again last night. Her hands moved through the air, above her head, fanned apart as they opened, describing the air, the air breathing colored fire where her arms were. A snake formed and spread its long body out, liquid air birthing flame, becoming a dragon, unfurling its wings, and vanishing.

I stood there in awe, breathing the scent of fire, ozone in the air. Her form, back to me, erect and knowing. What's now in the rainbow was there in her body. The ink breathed and moved on her, the symbols written there no longer two-dimensional, but three.

I was hypnotized, in a trance, power surged through the air, and still I stood there, wanting to move, not knowing how. Her back to me, walking away. I heard later of how she birthed a peacock from the air.

But I was not there to see it.

G-L-O-R-I-A

2006-12-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

"Jesus Christ died for somebody's sins, but not mine."
-------- Patti Smith, "Gloria"

Sunday mornings have always been sacred times, whether I was lucky enough to be watching The Muppet Show (if I was sick and able to stay home from church) or sitting here drinking coffee and revelling in the beauty of a morning in a day devoted to rest. I like to keep my sabbath holy, even if I'm no longer a Christian.

"My sins only belong to me."
--- P.S. "Gloria"

Me.

Me.

Lincoln City taught me how to bellow at the wind. I remember standing on the edge of the ocean as a storm blew up, curled over the fence of the sea wall, still broken even though it'd been repaired from the searing winds and edges of frothing water that beat upon it, reducing it to rubble. I howled poetry, anything I could think of, after a sea gull shit upon my coat, not once, but three times. Audre Lorde's poetry, my poetry. I invoked Tiamat and howled obscenities at the clueless yuppies who deny the reality of global warming, the need for caring for the poor and hungry, whose ideas of "sharing the wealth" extend to their wills but miss the daily tread of feet searching for a way to make enouogh for bread.

I listened to Patti Smith's "Horses" and felt understood. I understood her, and finally, I seemed to be connecting with her voice and her guttural ways of distorting words and phrases. I practiced, found the art of bending and elongating vowels with the proper staccato consonant bark, hitting it hard and coming off it into the vowel. Now when I sing along with her, I sound pretty badass. I sing "Gloria" the best, and it's no wonder. The lyrics are profoundly personal, and I understand where she's coming from, as I've stood there many a time, warbling at the wind, weeping heartbreak, assailing the winds with the power of my voice and vocalizations. I learned this from Patti Smith. I will always be grateful for this lesson in vocal acrobatics and mastery.

P.J. Harvey would have broken new ground without Patti Smith, but consider how different her music would be without Smith's influence. The power of P.J.'s roaring, howling dissonance and her croons of silver magic into the ethers of desire, despair, pathos, eros, tortured, languishing longing, would be diminished somehow without the echoes of what she learned from Patti Smith in her guitar riffs and driving bass rhythms.

So on this Sunday, instead of thinking about Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, I'm thinking about Patti Smith and P.J. Harvey and wondering where the hell I put my Ani. I'm resting, but I'm not apologizing and I'm not about to justify or defend the choices I've made. My sins only belong to me. And as I unfurl my tale, you will come to appreciate why I've chosen this path, always the path least chosen, favored by mystics and poets and zealots and gypsies and wandering vagabonds of this perilous age. I chose love, at every turn, and I've chosen naive trust more than is wise, but this is my nature. My heart is pure, my will is strong, and my love is fierce and true, and I am a wild woman who is learning to listen to the Old Ones, as I consult my heart and tend to the healing of my body and bleed my monthly prayer for renewal. As I breathe, I bleed, and I remember the sacrifices that have been made so that I could flourish, realize the blessings of life and my own potential.

I honor these sacrifices, as I honor my ancestors, and I thank the women who have struggled to give me what they could only dream of. I have found my voice, and I breathe in the mountain air, and I speak with it every chance I get.

I am a daughter of Pluto and Mars.

Following Lines (Chapter One)

2006-12-07T22:23:00.000-07:00

The Old Apple Tree

I can picture the orchards now, the huge apple tree across from the old, burned out garage, the one that stood in front of the ashes and ruins of the farm house that burned the night after my parents had moved all their belongings in. I wasn't born yet, so the burned out remains were all I ever knew. I rode my Hot Wheels and tricycle on top of the garage, after stepping onto the burned metal of the window on top of the hill upon which the trailer stood. I was taken home from the hospital to that trailer. That trailer was home.

You can see how I have a problem with the term "trailer trash." Or "white trash." Working class shouldn't be equated with trash, ever. Redneck and hick are terms I can live with, but when you label me a type of refuse, my hackles go up and I can't help but snarl a little. Or a lot, depending.

The old apple tree that surveyed the rest of the orchard -- cherry trees, peach trees, other, smaller apple trees, and a weeping cherry tree that enchanted me to pieces as a little girl and, later, as I approached adolescence and met it, head on -- symbolized something really important to me. After it was leveled with the rest of the farm, I couldn't quite believe it. This symbol of permanence and longevity and resilience and strength was no more, its deep snarl of tangling roots stripped from the earth that supported and nourished it those long years. When I finally saw it, I wept, sweaty, snotty tears, black eye makeup streaming down my reddened face, puffy cheeks and red eyes unable to contain the flood that cascaded down my eighteen-year-old face. How could a supposed friend of the family do such a thing, even though he had purchased the land. What could be gained from such wanton destruction, what acres acquired for farmland? Gary Reese was a man I learned to hate as a result of that one harsh, cold, hateful action. Gary we'll return to later.

That beautiful old apple tree withstood the fire, and the deaths of family members past had not stunted its growth, its towering reach extending low to the ground where I stood, dropping apples for my bending frame to scoop up in bunches in my shirt so I could eat them, grubby dirty hands turning muddy with juice. Early apples were green and sour and tasted good, but they turned my stomach into knots and produced flatulence that riveled the drunkest sailor's night wind.

Blue Skies, Mountain Style

2006-12-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

"Nothing here to fear. I'm just sitting around being foolish when there is work to be done."
--Tori Amos, from Scarlett's Walk

The San Juans are amazing mountains to behold. Those jaunty peaks, poking defiantly up at the sky, winking at gravity and charming the moon. Montrose is a more working class kind of mountain town, and it's here that I'll be staying until we round up the cash for a townhome in Ouray. I need to go apply for a loan today, and soon enough, I'll be able to present the Mythville Business Plan for a mountain cafe here in sunny Montrose, Colorado. How does Mythville Mama's Mountain Cafe strike you? I dig it. A wide variety of locally obtained herbal teas and elixirs (to be mixed, we hope, courtesy of the knowledge of the wonderful Sheila Manzagol of Ridgway, Colorado, where she grows high altitude herbs, cultivated and wild, at Shining Mountain Herbs (also where I'd like to work as her apprentice). Italian dinners will be offered on Friday and Saturday nights, to start with, and we're thinking a simple steak dinner on Thursday nights, from locally ranched cattle (where we can buy from the rancher direct and know the cows were treated humanely and lived well on the range before being humanely and quickly slaughtered, with no hormones or anything else synthetic -- organic will probably be too pricey to buy at first, though, but the label doesn't have to be on there for it to be as good as organic). A nice side salad with local produce, herbs from Shining Mountain, and big baked potatoes with a side of cowboy beans and a roll. Pie for dessert. Hearty, western mountain food. Our neighbor, Shannon, is a baker, and she is interested in renting space from Tina, our current landlady, in the same restaurant, so there will be fresh baked goods as a draw. Add some energy drinks and a funky earth/water vibe, and you'll have Mythville Mama's.

Many things are in the works. I am desire. I crave so much. Yet it is the attachment to outcomes that is hanging me up.

I told The Peaks where they could politely stick it, after learning of their practices regarding maternity leave, which are not in line with their policies. That I do not need, nor will I support it by working for a corporate entity that is sexist and discriminatory in practice. Enter Shining Mountain Herbs.

I spoke with Sheila a couple years ago about working for her, around the time Doug and I were seriously sick of Phoenix the first time. We moved to the Verde Valley in Arizona instead, and lived there for eight-nine months before relocating to Lincoln City. I am home, finally, and finally able to work for Sheila and help her make her business profitable, while hopefully also affording her the luxuries of relaxing and taking breaks from her relentless work schedule. Ostensibly, anyway.

I must take off and get my fanny working. This has been a wonderful morning coffee break.

And next time I'll tell you about the little tortie kitten. Sweet!

Snowbird

2006-11-30T16:45:00.000-07:00

I have been offered a job as a line cook in a resort in Mountain Village, Colorado, above Telluride. It's a swank place, and the executive chef and I hit it off. His assistant is a cool guy as well. Ski pass and benefits. It's my first offer, but it's a fucking great one, making good money and learning tons about the culinary arts.

There's more. Lots. But the altitude is making me feel really spacey and dull in the head, so I'll sign off for now and wish you all happy dreaming.

It's never for naught.

Imaginary Confession

2006-11-28T15:57:00.000-07:00

I've got a secret. And no, I'm not telling.

So there [imaginary tongue here].

I've been "losing my religion" in Phoenix, so to speak. (Or maybe losing my mind?)

Now I'm getting it back.

Song of Songs

2006-11-24T21:12:00.000-07:00

I. Aphrodite's Daughter

I saw you rise out of the sea foam
pale milky skin inseparable from waves
rolling, waves
crashing upon crags and hooks of the shore.

Aphrodite's own daughter
you are, a queen, born
of the ocean, baptized with fire
a meteorite crashed down beside you
when your toes first tasted sand.

Imagine how I have burned
since then
these long desert nights
gazing upon the Milky Way
wondering how your voice
raised up in song compares
to your voice raised up in lust
and who begot you, and when,
and what makes you cry tears of joy
whose name escapes your lips tonight.

Aphrodite, who favors you with beauty
and verse, watches you dance, your hips shaking
rhythm, your hands describing poetry
for poetry in motion you are, your belly coated
in moonbeams, your eyes unchaste and inviting
your scent, a milkweed sharpness,
your thighs breathing, opening, closing
sighing in the night, as I do.

And still I wait, and think on the moon.

# # # * * *

Draft I. In progress.

Comments? Suggestions for revision?

I'm starting at the beginning of my own Song of Songs. Love poetry, after the manner of Solomon, Sappho, Mirabai, Kabir, Rumi. It starts with the erotic, and branches out from there. It's how the Greeks felt about their Goddess of Love, as well as their lovers.

My offering tonight. I wait on a silent moon.

Emily

2006-11-23T19:17:00.000-07:00

Not McDaniel. Dickinson.

"The soul should always stand ajar, waiting to welcome the ecstatic experience."

Musings, Moving, Dreaming, and Whatnot

2006-11-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

I've been favoring LiveJournal lately, mostly because it's more interactive and aesthetically pleasing to me. I need to learn html in any case, which I've avoided long enough, and so much has been going on that I've almost lost the ability to explain the sequence of events that have led up to this surge of activity, and likeways, how I've managed to let myself be carried by this wave of good fortune. I am basking in the glories of abundance, a new profession, beauty, health, and friendship and love and amazingly good fucking. Or lovemaking. Whichever term you prefer. Sex is a very individual thing.

And there is a difference between the two, which I will cover another time.

I am now becoming a cosmetologist who does hair extensions, highlighting, lowlighting, coloring, cutting, eyelash extension, permanent make-up, facials, and pedicures, and I am going to become fully licensed in all the above areas, as well as learning from a masterful artist and my closest friend, Tammy. She and I are new business partners, and what I would learn in school I am learning from her in a fraction of the time. It's exciting, and never once a field I seriously considered. I am sporting amazing new hair, which I'll photograph shortly, as soon as we get our digital camera. I've found the one I want, and Doug has his eyes on another. Exciting, and about damned time.

I'm living in temporary housing and waiting to buy a house from Tammy's former boss, and we're firing up to travel to Albuquerque, Tucson, Chicago, L.A., and Telluride, as well as many other places as the website attracts new clients. It's a posh operation I'm joining, and I love the natural products and the scents of these luscious potions that create new colors and textures and thicknesses. Amazing.

I am going to be adopting a new puppy, a labrador retriever/pit bull mix. She's a lovely three-month old girl, and she grunts like a little piglet. Her coloring, white with tan spots, makes her resemblance to a piglet even more striking, and she little pot belly is cute, cute. She's a lover, and I believe her name is either Tasha or Tara. I'll photograph her as well.

We got the film from the Iowa trip developed, and you can definitely tell when we're not in Colorado anymore. I look healthy in the mountains, robust as we descended to the plains, and then progressively detereriorate as well cross Kansas, Missouri and enter Iowa. There was a period right before we left, after the shock of seeing the old farms and not seeing my so-called "friend" Casie, that I looked amazingly healthy and well rested. We went to a church called Sharon, an old Reformed Presbuterian church I used to attend during summer evening psalm sings. I tell you, the photographs document what happened there as a storm began to whirl around us. I'll scan those and post them in sometime after I'm done moving, probablly next week.

So all is well, and very busy, and I am taking a break from all the work to drink a beer, have some dinner, and relax with Doug's children this evening and his brother, Scott, and sister, Trisha. Scott has given us so much hospitality and love, and we are truly grateful for his generosity and helpful spirit in resolving our untenable living circumstances. Family, even if it's not your blood family, is unlike anything else. And so necessary. I am thankful for Doug's family, and even my own screwed up family, as I am similarly thankful for my new friends and circle of prosperity.

But I still don't celebrate Thanksgiving. So there.

Rape, genocide, reservations, brutality and systematic torture like that experienced on "The Trail of Tears." I don't really feel like singing "This Land is Your Land" today. I'm looking forward to calling this day what it really commemorates, and that is Gluttony. Gluttony and Sloth.

I prefer Lust, but that's just me.

On Birthing My Self Anew

2006-11-15T12:44:00.000-07:00

"These precious things, let them bleed. Let them wash away."
-- Tori Amos, Precious Things

In any process of becoming, of self-actualization, which is the natural impulse, and one Carl Rogers identified as the motivating force, there is the tug between ideal self and actual self. Phenomenological theorists, such as Rogers, posit that psychopathology is the result of too much discrepancy between the ideal and actual self. As long as growth is occurring in the individual, the tendency toward abnormal states of being is minimized.

My question is this: In a society, in a world, where violence exists everywhere, what do we do with our own personal dissatisfaction with ourselves and with the world we find ourselves occupying?

Consider Psychoanalytic Theorists, such as Freud, Jung, Estes. I find Freud's concepts such as the Id, Superego, and Ego very useful in understanding the battles we fight within ourselves. How do these manifest in our lives? What do we discover in our families of origin, in terms of maladaptive coping mechanisms, traumas, ways of relating to self and others? Jung and Estes broke new territory (and Estes is still breaking ground as I write) and provide us ways of understanding the internal processes alive within the psyche -- the soul -- in the form of archetypes. Animus, anima, shadow, predator. How do we uncover these elusive and much misunderstood psychic forces at work in our conscious lives?

I pay particular attention to my dreams, the symbols found within my dreamscapes, and through heeding these symbols and unconscious messages, have learned that my dreams are often predictive in nature. They foretell of events, people, relationships, as well as identifying traumas I have yet to process and/or release. Within my own interior spaces, I have met people I have not yet encountered on the physical plane. A skeptic might say that I am deluded, but I believe otherwise. My experiences thus far validate what I believe. Subjectively, we all dance round in a ring and suppose . . . but the secret sits in the middle and knows (a quote my high school English teacher wrote down on a scrap of paper and handed to me one day -- I still have it).

On this day, I regret my harsh words of yesterday about my sister and father. For healing to occur, I must learn to not be so harsh and inflexible. I must learn to temper my emotional responses so I do not sabotage myself and others with the potency of my emotional nature. I must learn forgiveness in much the same way I have learned, am learning, patience.

I forgive my sister, although some wounds still seep from time to time. I am working on forgiving my father. I am working on forgiving my self.

With compassion, patience, tolerance, and self-love, not to mention discipline, I believe anything is possible. So I cradle these things within me, and I blow on the flame of my own desire. I desire to be a creature of love. And so I will be. So I am.

Happy Birthday to me!

Love to you all.

Saturn Proceeds, El Sol Returns

2006-11-15T07:03:00.000-07:00

-- The Day Before Yesterday --

Ping pong. Never been much good at it. I serve well, then the game goes downhill from there.

I'd probably become really good if I practiced, though.

So I am turning another corner. Being self-disciplined. Practicing my shit.

The light I thought I saw at the end of the corner? That was a flicker of love in an otherwise endless path toward futility.

Who needs pipe dreams? Not me.

I hit what alcoholics call "the bottom" last night. I had no money for tampons, was experiencing my heaviest day of menstrual flow, and I was so cold from the nighttime temperatures of the desert this time of year as I shuddered, moaned, and called out my mom's name during the nighttime nightmares that stalk me when I sleep. Cold in the Tracker.

My mom and I are reaching for a new stage in our relationship. It is difficult. I cried a lot this morning at 5. And she was, as she always has been, my mom, who loves me regardless of what happens or what ouchies I sustain.

My father, on the other head, is dead to me for the forseeable future. I do not need him accusing me of bringing sexual harrassment on myself, nor do I need him accusing me of lying about being homeless. I can punish myself and ridicule myself and doubt myself just fine without his help.

My sister? Who knows? Who cares? She's about as supportive and helpful as a piranha in the bathtub. I have no desire to communicate with her, especially as long as she is holding Rimba Cholla, The Clawful, of Boat Loaf, away from me. Rimba, for those who don't know, is my one and a half year old female tabby. I raised her from six weeks. My sister doesn't want to give her back, even though it is clear that Rimba loves and prefers me. My sister, my abuser. Childhood fades, but pain and memories and scars . . . those take longer.

I have a roof over my head now. I have followed up on jobs I applied for during the last few days. I am waiting for more to appear so that I may apply for more. I am looking at a house today.

Speaking of that house, I gotta run.

28, alive. Tomorrow, 29.

But more than alive, really. And grateful.

Abundance, Power, Fortune

2006-11-12T12:58:00.000-07:00

The Chironian current of yesterday has ebbed. I am now in new territory, or almost -- this week's planetary parade in Scorpio has me poised for one humdinger of an experience. I plan to use all the power, and Powers, at my disposal to conduct the grand finale to this symphonic score of Mercury retrograde and the conclusion of my Saturn return. 29, alive. And ready for a new solar cycle.

I am grateful. Last night I heard Echo and the Bunnymen in a liquor store as I was preparing to visit friends Deena and Wade. Good omen. Whew! I gave the CD up, but there was that song.

"Lips like sugar. Sugar kisses."

Oh, baby.

23.

15.

29.

10.

Blessings on you and yours.

Folsom Prison Blues

2006-11-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

Well, I just got out of the slammer. You read that right. I spent three and a half hours, at least, being harrassed by the Scottsdale Police Force, crooked cops who tried to plant marijuana on the scene of their "lawful arrest." I was arrested. No denying that. My dog was taken away to Maricopa County Animal Control in Mesa, and I walked away from my mom as soon as she picked me up, saying,

"Well, you got what you wanted. My dog is in the pound and your homeless daughter was finally put away."

Now I'm in the Scottsdale Public Library, waiting for Doug, who was unlawfully detained just because he walked in on them arresting me. He should be picking me up soon. I hope so. I haven't eaten in 24 hours and I am weak.

There is no way to express how I feel. I was indifferent, then mouthy when they began harrassing me, then indignant that I be given my phone call, although I never was allowed to call my lawyer and report that my rights were being denied me. The arresting officer was a shmuck with no clue, and he planted the faulty evidence. I am one pissed off Willa, and I am ready to move the fuck out of this town if this is all there is left for me here: homelessness, poverty, unlawful search and seizure, crooked cops, and one very broke, very lost, very alone me. If it hadn't been for my Feri tools, I would have lost it.

I drummed out a very nice rhythm on the door as I was attempting to get their attention (in order to make the phone call I was denied). I chanted. I did the Ha Prayer again (which calmed me down and centered me). I sang. Then I shut the fuck up.

I fought the law and the law won.

Fuck.

But The Law broke the law. And that's not okay. So I will be meeting with my good buddy and attorney (former boyfriend) Chris on Monday, and I will seek out Justice. I pray that Justice be meted out with fairness and respect for my rights as a citizen, which were violated. As a woman, the other arresting officers were men (five, then four more arrived on the scene).

Why I have to deal with sexual harrassment makes no sense to me. It's humiliating, and it's wrecked my life. My lawyer and I will be going for the jugular now.

You better believe it.

Like Waves, Like the Sea

2006-11-10T13:44:00.000-07:00

Mars is one pissed off dude. I realize the retrograde is activating Martian energy, but this is out of control.

I went to sell some more CDs at Zias in the ghetto, and on my way into the store, I was almost a victim of a hit-and-run. No shit. I was walking briskly across the parking lot, and as I was almost to the sidewalk, a car with a deranged looking man driving it sped toward me (almost like a scene out of Stephen Kings' book Christine). This tweaker had *stepped on the gas* in order to hit me. If I hadn't been aware and aligned, the fucker would have accelerated right into me. As it was, he came a hair's breadth away from doing so. I reacted, once I was safe, by spinning around and yelling after him as he sat in his paused car, "Hey fuck you, ass!" as I mentally prepared for him to get out of the car in a tweak-induced psychotic rage, visualizing myself digging into my purse for my blade, ready to defend myself from said deranged freak.

I wasn't shaken, much to my surprise, and this must have something to do with me getting back on track with my practice. I decided he wasn't worth it, and as onlookers stared, I pivoted and marched into Zias. I can't believe they only gave me $3, and that's for three really good CDs, including Echo and the Bunnymen. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

So I'm feeling grouchy at the moment, as you might imagine, and I have vowed not to visit that side of the city again, at least, not any time soon. There's too much road rage going on, which is all too obvious if you watch the first five minutes of the evening news. Not that I do anymore. But I know from my last exposure, maybe a couple weeks ago, that people's fury is boiling over and violence is the result. Confrontations of all kinds are frequent occurrences. Although I am typically a peaceful person, that is, someone who believes in nonviolence, the more I'm confronted with unreasonable, aggressive people, the more I realize the necessity of being prepared and able to defend myself.

(Sigh.)

What else? Still homeless, but I think I may have found another really great house, as I wait to see if the approved applicants for the other house flake today on their lease signing. The new one is also in another historic neighborhood, this one downtown, which I am very stoked about, since I really love history, antiques, old things. And a decent rent (for sure).

Right now, though, I feel as old as the hills. Dust me off before you read me.

So I am ready for Fortune to spin me new luck. I am ready for Her to strengthen new friendships. Mostly, though, I am ready to finally let go of the chaos that's been stalking me.

I would rather be homeless than treated like a child.

Live free or die. But I'm tired of death. Tired of suffering. Tired of the self-flagellation that I learned in a home where abuse and anger ran rampant. Tired of the bullshit Christianity has produced and replicated in my life.

I welcome my new solar cycle and the end of my Saturn return.

A tip of the hat to Michael Lutin for shedding some light on all this darkness.

"I have pulled myself clear." -- P.J. Harvey "Horses"

Free Wheeling Literary References

2006-11-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

Why I have the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales running through my head would be mystifying, except for the springlike weather in the desert during fall. Diosa Mia, me encanta Arizona.

So the first few lines, translated, are in praise of spring -- when the Ram, Aries, is in the sky, in April. (Bear in mind that the wheel of the year has shifted since Chaucer's times -- sidereal astrologers, take note.)

I feel like new life is rushing up from the Earth into my feet, into my veins, my eyes, my smile. (So pricketh hem Nature in hir corages.)

Just like it sounds, Illumined Ones. Oh, who's pricking Nature in her corages -- ahem! -- this time?

Pagan symbolism, Pagan mythology. You figure it out.

Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.

Ah, yes, making pilgrimages to holy lands. The desert is my holy land, the place where I have been tempted, died, and risen again.

Oh, but for these distances! The beatnik urge to roam, free, unencumbered, like a hobo on a train.

"Oh, Mama, can this really be the end? To be stuck inside of Mobile with these Memphis Blues again."

Changed it up on ya this time.

"A hit. A palpable hit!"

Now I'm showing off my knowledge of Hamlet, but only because I love the play so.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are not dead. But where the fuck are they?

Where the River Looms and Stills Me

2006-10-26T16:31:00.000-07:00

At this time in my life, truth really is stranger than fiction. This time last week, I was rending my garments and weeping as I revisited my past and laid it down to rest, at last, in the grave. Many things have shifted since my last post. The current flux of my life finds me exploring new versions of my self, and I am amazed at the progression of events as the flow finally establishes itself.

I have never been much of a Buddhist because, in the words of Tori Amos, "I am desire." Releasing my attachments to outcomes is the name of the game now, and as I settle into my new skin in this unfamiliar terrain, I find myself angling for the still place, the quiet breath, brutal self-honesty, and compassion. But there is always the desire, pressing upward, aching from within, or less aching now, more craving, knowing that whatever meets this longing I carry is unknown. That may be all I really know right now.

I had a dream three years ago of a snake, a great water snake that carried me upon its back upriver through the trickling waters of a dwindling river. I rode the snake, secure, almost as if I were water skiing, and it carried me to a dam, where I could clearly discern the source of the blocked waters underground. Separating myself from the snake, I descended below to the chambers where laborers were hauling giant boulders, only they were not voluntary laborers, they were slaves to an invisible master who punished anyone who dared to defy him. I fell in beside them, toiling to lug the stones into place so that the water would eventually cease its flow altogether. When they trudged off to another chamber above, I hung back and began to undo their work, as quickly as possible tugging at each boulder until the waters were stronger than the force holding them back. Escaping the surge, I ascended back the way I'd come, where the snake was waiting to carry me back downriver. When I was riding upon it once more, my fear fell away and I knew I was safe, the mission had been accomplished, and the waters would again rise, the river would reestablish its flow and the entire system would return to its natural state of balance.

That was the end of the dream.

Last week, as I drove all night through the rolling hills of Missouri to the Mississippi River, where I was to re-enter Iowa for the first time in three years, I considered the dream. Bleary-eyed, too broke to stop anywhere to sleep, I scanned the roads for the reflections of deer eyes in my high beams, I drove and drove. Time seemed to stop, and within the mists and narrow, winding roadways, I traveled. During the last hour before sunrise, I passed through an enchanted land where no towns were to be found. As a streak of deep purple appeared in the eastern sky, I drove into Keokuk Iowa, thinking of the field trip I'd taken in fifth grade to explore the locks and dams of the Mighty Mississippi. I thought of tubing on the river. I remembered the time I thought I'd lost my hymen during an incredible waterskiing crash (my swimsuit became some kind of horrible thong-snuggie torture device when I hit the water, and the blood I later discovered gave me pause to wonder if I was no longer a virgin -- I am still not sure if I lost my virginity to the Mississippi or not).

I thought of my dad's affair with the Republican woman from Keokuk during my middle school years. I thought of the bald eagles' nesting high up in their eyries on the banks of the Mississippi, viewed through magnifying lenses. I thought of the forest ranger who demonstrated the wing motion of eagles in flight with her own arms. And as my eyes prepared to meet the expanse of water I have always loved, I realized why I had driven so far so suddenly. I had come to unblock the river so it could flow again within me.

My life is full of blessings. I am blessed with so much love. I am blessed with so many opportunities. The beauty of the Earth and her people catches me when I fall, face down. Love catches me and restores me to health.

As I prepare to write my own Song of Songs, I am reminded that where the sidewalk ends is where the real fun begins.

Shel Silverstein was my first favorite poet. I've always treasured his words from the poem "Listen to the Musn'ts" (I believe that's the correct title): Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.

So it seems. I believe.

Homeward Bound

2006-10-20T14:56:00.000-07:00

I am, in a word, exhausted. Southeast Iowa, where I grew up, is certainly beautiful in the autumn, but damn if I'm not looking forward to heading back to the Southwest. I never fit in when I lived in Iowa, and I certainly don't fit in now, but at least I've become enough of an anomaly in the area that I attract attention in the small towns of the Heartland.

I'm in Fairfield, Iowa, in a coffee shop that is giving me a warm feeling and a place to regroup after all of the craziness of this trip. I've always been more of a sprinter than a distance runner (until recently taking up jogging), but it is phenomenally hard to maintain that kind of pace. I am slowly easing into the pace of this season, especially as Samhain approaches and I feel the spirits of loved ones who have passed beyond the veil around me, especially my late, and very beloved, friend Deanna who grew up next door to me, after we moved from the trailer (which was perched directly above the remains of the house my parents had moved their stuff into -- later that night it burned to the ground) to the farm in Wyman. I have much to relate about my experiences here, but now I am going to feed myself and continue sipping this wonderful cup of coffee.

Fairfield, incidentally, is home to many elements of the counterculture, most likely because of Maharishi International University located here. We used to joke about the Maharishis when I was in high school, but the joke was really on us, because this is one funky little town, especially for Iowa. Decorah and Fairfield are worthwhile towns to visit if you're ever in Iowa. Otherwise, stick to Iowa City and exploring the landscapes. Small towns come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors.

I sure am glad I don't live in one anymore.

And I ran the energy of the Iron Pentacle when I was standing on the grounds of an old country church I used to attend -- a sister congregation of the Reformed Presbyterian (Calvinist) Church I was indoctrinated into. I remember singing alto at psalm sings inside Sharon (the name of the church, dirty mind), the a cappella harmonies weaving throughout the old, old building, passing outside into the hot summer evenings to the cemetary outside. Here, upon land once inhabited by Native Americans -- a Sioux nation, I believe -- I baptized myself with new energy, and exhilirated to the sensations of wind in the elemental foreplay before an Iowa thunderstorm. I laid upon a stone bench afterwards and attempted to drink in the sky. It didn't work. Standing underneath two oaks, I was reborn.

I also found a curious headstone marking the grave of one Andrew A. Dunn, who died October 11, 1870 at the age of 36. The tombstone was so old, and Doug photographed it. Immediately after he shot the picture, the camera broke. I poured libations around the stone and offered my unknown ancestor a kiss upon his tombstone before leaving, free, invigorated, and ready to go back home.

I have some research to do. I have a ton of writing to do (although I passed on investigating or interviewing anyone associated with the murder in Bonaparte. I could swing by there easily enough, but the community is torn up, people are grieving, and I will respect their horror, pain, and time of mourning by getting my ass safely home.

Home. I love that word. This ivy's roots prefer the desert to cornfields any day.

I should be back in Phoenix by tomorrow night. I remember the title of Dan Eldon's book The Journey Is the Destination. Love that. So true. During this afternoon and evening's journey, I get to see the sun set on beautiful Missouri. Driving through Kansas to Tulsa, where I will sleep like a little baby, I will breathe and breathe and listen to beautiful music.

And dream. And dream. And dream.

Ivy in Winfield, Iowa

2006-10-19T14:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm a sucker for a select few astrologers. Learning this stuff my damn self is making me swoon less when I read scopes that say prescient things like this:

Four planets in Libra fill your house of fantasy and dreams this weekend as you gear up for these same planets to immerse themselves in deep Scorpio waters. Once this happens, there will be no coming up for air for awhile.

(My html-challenged salute to Madalyn Aslan's weekly astrologer Kristin Fontana: http://www.madalynaslan.com)

Looks like I've got some poetry to post next time as well as some exploratory writing that pertains to my renewed commitment to being publically here and queer.

In order now . . .

1. My first love was a woman.
2. I am seeing Casie, her partner (a fellow Scorp!), and their one and a half year old son in Morning Sun, Iowa, this evening.
3. I am swooning again from desire, love and lust. Again, for a woman. (Not the women mentioned above.)
4. Just because a Scorpio says she is interested in exploring her sexuality within the realm of relationships doesn't mean you should earnestly begin to deduce the safest, most accessible routes of escape. It means you should hold her hand, look her directly in the eye, and sinuously, pointedly, ask her all about what she's feeling and thinking.

Proceed from there when ready.

And that begs one helluva post next time.

Purple Brush

2006-10-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

Forget that I've ever mentioned I'm a copy editor. I ovbiously canot edit frsht if you take my last two posts as examples.

I apologize.

Writing you from Canon City. Chasing a fox down the twining road -- hoping to make Wichita or better yet, Kansas City by end of today.

Most of my writing is poetry on the road. I'll post some tomorrow.

This morning before leaving Ouray, I ran into the perfect puppy, or rather, the perfect puppy ran into me. I'd never even heard of the breed, Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, but the love at first sight thing happened. When that happens, what are ya gonna do? I melted. And am going to beg my father for a combined birthday/Christmas/belated graduation present in the most reasonable way possible. I've never raised a puppy before, been responsible for its training and socialization. And Raja loves the girls, and he especially takes to smaller dogs who won't challenge his dominance. He adored her, she made eyes at him.

I'm hoping to have another companion for the final leg of my journey. I'll keep you posted.

On to the plains . . .

The San Juans: Homing Instinct

2006-10-16T20:59:00.000-07:00

Greeting from Ouray, Colorado. Doug and I barreled into Lizard Head Pass before sunset, Patti Smith bellowing poetry at the loudest levels the speakers would allow.

Ouray, Colorado, is one of my favorite places on Earth. I want some chocolate down the street so very badly -- really it's the best, straight out of Chocolat -- but, alas, it was closed when we pulled into Ouray after a blast through Telluride. Our friends there will be getting a long-overdue phone call tomorrow morning. You betch yer bottom.

I am headed east toward my roots, toward home. Being a stone's throw away from the publication of Ivy in the Cornfields has made me long for the plains and ties to paternal family. Off to southeast Iowa I go, and off to gather information for my book (essays, not novel). Truman Capote ain't got nuthin' on me.

Decorah, Iowa, my old college town, looms large on the horizon. Oh how I have changed since those days!

Delightful things afoot. I'll keep y'all posted.

Hope the fall delights you wherever you are.

A New Telling of Profane

2006-10-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

Tonight will be the first night I've slept alone in quite a long time. Two and half years, in fact. Oh sure, I've had my share of sleepless nights, but I've always had someone to crawl next to, a body a snuggle away from one of my fiercer nightmares, the recurring high school dream, or the dream in which I am one bad-ass knife-throwing, machine gun wielding warrior bitch who has to deflect knives thrown at her or else yank them out of her flesh when her Neptunian reflexes are not suited to the ways in which she must bend, dive and contort to miss the death daggers filleting the air around her.

My dreams lately have taken on an ethereal quality that is new. There is the sense of being connected to something larger than myself, at least through the foggy lens of my dream recall, and an elegant awareness and supple ability to manuever throughout the maze of psychic synapses of my sleep-induced inclinations.

I am now working on the novel. This may become psychologically difficult work for me, but the past is dead, and in order to lay it to rest, I must exorcise it once and for all in an autobiographic text -- a biomythography, if you will pardon my appropriate of Audre Lorde's terminology for her own memoirs -- and slay those dragons which refuse to transform into peacocks and dolphins and jellyfish and seahorses.

And as a member of my improvisational virtual audience, you, Illuminated Reader, will, of course, be privy to my most intimate secrets.

Let us embark upon this journey with wisdom, compassion for self and a bawdy sense of the ridiculous, absurd and profane.

You don't get to hear the staggering heartbeat of a wounded healer every day, now, do you?

Cruise Control

2006-10-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

I think I've almost achieved lift-off as of last week's cascading energies. I am finally calming now down that the moon is waning, and I am trying to relax into the next gear I've shifted into.

With my first self-published book of poetry coming out, and with this autumnal season, I find myself focusing on new projects and visions, but I have currently done as much as I can to lay the groundwork for what is to follow.

What that is, I have no idea.

But I am so looking forward to finding out.

Black Tides under a Restless Night

2006-10-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

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 sunnuvabitch, 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.

Full Moon Blessings (Mars & Venus in Love)

2006-10-06T15:51:00.000-07:00

I think I *may* have found the perfect place to live. Big dogs welcome, cats too.

I will also soon be working as an Adoptions Counselor/Animal Trainer at the Arizona Animal Welfare League part-time on the weekends. Fun -- much better than just taking care of the animals, although that would be stellar as well.

Staying at Arcosanti tonight. An awesome room in an awesome place. All for $20/night, folks. How about that? 50% discounts rock. (And I haven't even told you about the Sky Suite. $35/night. Seriously.)

Going to pick up my new girl tonight, Swish. She's a white husky mix. Gorgeous, darling, smart dog. Her kisses are the best.

I love this. All of it. Blessings abound.

And may they heap themselves on you also.

(Poetry book nearing publication date. Stay tuned. Ivy in the Cornfields. Finally done with the edits, but still designing the front cover (back is all ready to go).

Wowsa.

Not a Koan

2006-10-02T15:21:00.000-07:00

I've always heard that wanting something is better than having it.

What a bloody lie.

What awesome, paradoxical truth.

River Styx, paved in olives

2006-09-26T15:11:00.000-07:00

While looking for a family tree for my paternal line last night, I delved into a folder I had not opened in years. Literally that long it seemed more as if the time between then and now had opened into a space in the bubbly lagoon where the Furious Bandersnatch and Rimba the Zeber-Zeeber had finally been deposited after the cyclone sucked them up and spit them out into a badly soaked hanky.

Within the file labeled "One Monster After Another" okay that's a lie a complete lie you can't believe how hard it is for me to lie deliberately and how poorly I do it when I feel like I should not reveal something about myself but how convincingly I must nod as the sheer pink of one of the only presentable tank tops I own suggests more than contours, offering a glimpse of my curves in the sunlight, the way my well muscled back and shoulders so proudly thrown back tilt and wave with a bosom that has not unforgottenly suggested these boobs are made for bobbing as I weave, my hips swaying in a rhythmic suggestion of movements most white women do not openly display in public for fear of seeming too sexual or unseemingly or even worse loose, a whore, a skank caught in the sights of the nearest disapproving stares of older women and women less brave and sure of the sexual storehouse of wisdom that flows from hips wide enough to birth the babe for which she has no seed. An egg an egg a target without a missile fuck that military propaganda that destroys our notions of positive penetration, creative thrusts not concerned with bursting forth in a savage spew of radioactivity and force and random violence, these random bloodbaths visited upon the unchosen ones. We keep ourselves clean by forcing po' folk to do all the killin. Cuz we reel strong that way. We point and click, don't make no business of getting dirt underneath our fingernails. Blood don't come out so good. Stains. Waits for an acrylic to be rubbed upon the inside surface of the protected thumb, the prehensile organs of tactility and grace. These fingers upon those keys make a solemn music, a rogue balderdash of discilees and thysileeves. In the most plural form.

Sisquit. Blank stare. Siquit. Silence, puzzled eyes. A crimp in the brow indicating comprehension has not penetrated. Not been known yet, not yet, not yet known. Shapechanger, she said. Fox. Outside in the parking lot where I work after the first day's 5 had passed.

But what I really meant to say is I found my grandma's obituary from 2001 and remembered her powdered face and rouged up cheeks no longer soft and supple, but kiln-dried artifice of breath whose expulse I never did see. Casket in the ground, my grandma, a devout Catholic who never knew any better than suffering and suffering and suffering, ad infinitum, jubilate deo.

But how she loved and how she cooked, the best food ever to pass these lips cooked by her own misshapen hands, gnarls of flesh seeming as the driftwood floats beached high on the beach. The red roots, her arteries, the mass of branches, her veins.

I miss you, Grandma. I carry your name, even the name you forgot, the one you believe you never knew.

Or so you thought, once.

In Flight

2006-09-25T20:05:00.000-07:00

Wow. I have been delighting in what is on the other side of that corpse of a boulder. I am suddenly, amazingly, breathtakingly, upliftingly, soaringly, proverbially, emacipatedly . . .

BEING MYSELF.

It's amazing how much changes when you find discipline and devotion and passion and begin to develop a steadily improving sense of pride. My life is suddenly a map of potential, whereby I am part navigator, part adventurer, part lusty seaworthy vessel.

I am in love with this moment. I breathe in, and give thanks.

Blessed be.

Pow, Low (Soul Airy)

2006-09-20T23:18:00.000-07:00

Co san ti. Co san ti. Co san ti. Co san ti.

Not just a great-sounding chant. String all the syllables together, with emphasis on the second.

That's where I work now.

I may be working for a man, but not The Man. The antithesis of The Man. Among other things, this man, timeless in his appearance, is an artist, a visionary, and an architect.

The dream I had a few weeks ago now makes a heaping mound of sense. Strega. Bronze. Fire.

Phoenix.

Me.

Me vs. The Dead-Ending Stinky

2006-09-18T14:41:00.000-07:00

Something big that's been in my way is finally starting to dissolve. Or decompose -- that feels closer to what I mean. It's decaying, the edges are getting soft, and I am peeling away the crust of it and I am hooking my fingernails underneath porous chunks of its hulking, rotting mass.

It doesn't stink anymore, at least not in a way that makes me gag. Now it's smelling more like earthworms and horse dung, wet dog food, parsley -- many weeks forgotten, left in the back of the fridge -- apple juice long past the expiration date. I didn't know this thing was organic. I didn't expect it to decompose. I figured I would have to either find a way to crawl over it, despite its fetid stench and, failing that, find a stick long and sturdy and flexible enough for me to learn how to pole vault, or else tunnel underneath it, maybe find a passageway around it. Never would I have believed the nature of this impassable monstrosity would change in time, allowing me to tear it apart, piece by moldering piece. Never would I have guessed that I would be able to destroy it, exposing the layers of its insides, and one day, not far from now, continue on.

I have no doubt that it would have remained viable enough to torment me for many years to come, however, if I had not learned a few tricks of my own. This time of (seeming) stagnation is finally, finally passing.

And for this, I am deeply happy. I am grateful. I am full.

Purest Hell

2006-09-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

The writing is not happening. The tiger is not free.

Psychological Work (Big-Big)

2006-09-12T15:11:00.000-07:00

I took an unexpected left after that last post. But to set it up, I need to go backward.

My morning routine got switched to afternoon so I could help D with the final stages of some writeups for New Times. During this process, I re-realized that DAMN, I'm one fine copy editor, while also feeling secure in the knowledge that I don't ever want to devote 40 hours per week to that task again. It's fine as a hobby, but wow, is it dull otherwise. I have tried very hard to force myself into some badly adjusted stirrups when it comes to jobs, and the past few weeks I believed I'd made heady progress in that department. I thought I'd come to a new understanding of my work goals and made the proper adjustments to the stirrups so riding wouldn't feel so impossible. Turns out, though, that the problem wasn't in the adjustment after all. The problem was that the stirrups were too long for my legs and couldn't be hitched up any farther. My tack was wrong. I just realized this last night. (Oh that poor little horsie.)

Now that I have developed that analogy as far as I care to, I'll write in more concrete terms.

All my life I've been groomed to become an upstanding, professional member of the middle or, preferably, upper class. This despite being working class. I have been validated for accomplishing great things, praised for excelling. In my family, that kind of attention was rare. So as I matured, I busied myself becoming the best and most perfect at everything I could. My ability to continue to overachieve broke while I was in college, and this was due to a profoundly severe descent into depression. (This was Depression Big-Big.) In between bouts with this demon, I have busied myself trying to pick up where I left off in my great mission to become incredibly successful in socially ordained ways.

I have been walking wounded and divorced from my power to be authentically me, and I have stagnated in the pursuit of my "potential." Because of a lack of health care and a stubborn insistence that the only legitimate way to treat depression is through natural methods, I have failed thus far to become who I always thought I would be when I grew up. I have felt like a colossal failure. I have believed myself to be a L O S E R. And I have been so deeply ashamed of who I am. This shame has been internalized. Even so, I've hidden it as well as such as thing can be hidden, which is by pretending well.

But now that I have found a way to treat this nasty illness, I have come to realize that it has also functioned to help free me from my bondage -- the bondage that existed before it ever came along. My recovery from depression has forced me to reevaluate everything about me and propelled me to plumb the depths of my psyche. Only recently have I made a commitment to a path that is giving me the tools to uncover myself and my true potential as a human being. And I have just begun to realize -- Gods -- how I have been conditioned against being me. So much of my identity is caught up in external achievements and the ability to project some kind of impressive (and nonexistant) social status. Only now that I cannot even pretend my battle-scarred, poor, working-class self away can I begin to claim my self and my Self -- oh yeah, capitalized, baby -- for me.

This new insight is loaded with other stuff that is too exhausting to explore right now. I feel vulnerable even admitting it in writing. I have to do something differently now, see, and the kind of change I'm looking at is intimidating, okay, more accurately, it's scary. But change is an ongoing process, as I'm so fond of reminding myself in the face of the sneers of impatience that greet me in the bathroom mirror. I will continue to flush my system with copious amounts of water. I will continue to focus on my breath. I will continue to meditate every day. I will continue to exercise every day, unless I am sick. I will continue to practice the Prayer for Alignment every day. I will continue to learn new tools for knowing myself and learning how to be true to myself and live a lifestyle that is authentically me.

I'm done with aspiring to be proper. I'm done with submitting to people and things. I am not my sister. No one controls me or tells me who I should be. I decide that.

Me and my three? We're blowing this shit outta the water.

Rings, a Round, the Rosy : Memory

2006-09-12T10:22:00.000-07:00

The way the shadows are falling tells me that autumn is almost nigh. This is my favorite time of year. Although brief, fall

(ashes, ashes, we all fall down!)

[giggling, rolling in the fragrant grass, sustaining the green stain that mother always shakes her head at as she sucks her tongue; raking the gold and orange and yellow crimson purple amber bronze into piles for jumping, before these autumn fires of leaf scent the air, already thick with smells of decomposing matter, succulent, dark earth]

recalls a part of me normally tucked beneath my rib cage, just posterior to my heart. I want to rake up those leaves, run a few paces back and charge! (ahead, Mr. Sulu, warp factor 1) the pile seeming to swell for that moment before the four-point leap. The breath being knocked out as the whooshing thud sounds in the ears. But a soft landing. Rolling into a prone position and kicking legs into air to gather momentum and oomph for a rise to standing so the rake can be got and wielded for another round of pile-making. And so it continues until suppertime.

I ache for the Midwest this time of year. Cacti don't allow for such games.

[The buzzing whine and drone of leaf blowers outside reminds me that there are leaves here, but they are of a different sort. Brown crinkly things that seem to advise against leaf piles and jumping.]

Gotta go consider this feeling.

Inside/Outside

2006-09-10T23:09:00.000-07:00

"Gold lion's gonna tell me where the light is."
---Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Pluto Freestyle

2006-09-04T15:00:00.000-07:00

I don't know if it's possible to feel the (perceived) forward momentum of a planet as it goes direct. But I am definitely feeling something very heavy and energizing right now, and I am attributing this sensation to Pluto.

What happens if I just free flow with the keyboard?

There's a sound Tori Amos makes in her song "These Precious Things." It sounds like a wail from the deepest parts of her inside -- the fleshy seat of feminine enfoldment -- this must be the sound it makes. I am feeling that sound within me and I don't know what to do with it, what expression to give it. I am in the napping house and cannot make a sound. It is deliriously hot and humid outside. To enter the air carrying the residuals of Hurricane John in the heat of desert summer is to become a sweat slick that more oozes than walks, more pants than breathes. Being outside in this kind of air makes you want to scratch your skin off or peel it down, like a wetsuit, for the frosty nostrils of the deepfreeze. After a few hours in there maybe it gets wearable again.

So so tired, like I have just passed through the heart of the world by burrowing through the layers of crust and mantle and molten core with my teeth. Air here almost drinkable. Are the clouds going to perspire soon? What happens if you drink your sweat? Has anyone studied this? Maybe we bottle it. Market it. Give Gatorade a run for their money.

Cake. I just ate chocolate cake. As I'm reveling in the thickness of that ochre flavor I'm thinking wouldn't this feel good smeared all over my body? Or maybe just as an outline around the curviest parts? But enough. That'd be messy.

Alpha

2006-08-31T22:48:00.000-07:00

I feel like a newly birthed lamb just getting the hang of gravity. All this time I've been trying to run without properly knowing how to stand.

Now, finally, I am learning.

Self-appraisal

2006-08-30T21:50:00.000-07:00

I want to portray myself as one who has her shit together. I want to be a whole person. But honestly? The shit is not together. There are holes -- lots -- inside me. I finally had to admit to myself that I do not know where I am heading and I do not know what I want to be when I grow up and I am not sure where I am. Pluto and me, we're hanging out again, and that is one helluva disorienting experience.

Identity lost. Vocal cords stripped. Heart thrumming a steady "not me/not me." I will not continue to deny my need to be known for who I am, even if it reflects the tragedy of my condition, my hideous glory.

I'd reached the end of the road. And man, it's beautiful. And deadly. Me: washed out, doppled misfit, driven to lower my sails. I was shipwrecked, humming dirt, waiting to return to the chlorinated effects of a sprawling mass in the desert.

Oh deserted me.

_ _ _

Finally got my hands on a copy of Thorn's book. This is exciting because I have been wanting it for the past year and just didn't have the funds to buy it. Turns out I don't need to buy it just yet. All hail the wonders of the Phoenix Public Library system. I was wandering in the nonfiction section in the low 100s and there it was. It was warm when I picked it up. Made my hands tingle. That's a first with me and a book.

I realized today that part of my loneliness comes from the dissolution of friendships based in addiction. It's a good thing to realize.

Dunno. Really wish I had something inspired to say but I don't. It's good to just admit that to myself and let myself putter around words without any inclination of what to do with them.

My First Aphorism

2006-08-26T01:36:00.000-07:00

Generally speaking, watching network television sucks ass more than sucking ass does.

Movement, Change, Patience

2006-08-23T14:34:00.000-07:00

The thing about metamorphosis . . . is that it requires so. much. patience. And I can't sit around contemplating, merely incubating ideas. No. I have to act, thrust myself forward through space, even if it's uncomfortable, to give birth to the ideas with my will. Even if it's hard. Especially so, I imagine.

One thing I have become very aware of is the necessity of regular, vigorous, aerobic exercise. If I don't exercise, say, over the weekend, I start to contract in upon myself in the throes of emotional angst, and this kind of angst paralyzes, seizes upon my will. The only effective method I have to wrestle free of it is found in sweat and heavy breathing (no, not that kind). In this way I free up the stagnant energy, and my self in the process.

Then there's the Martian surge to follow the effluvium of years of repression and fear. I imagine my liver as a snake, all coiled and twisted around itself, and the rapid process of it uncoiling and untwisting from a state of inertia to one of poised activation when the blood pump starts drumming out a new rhythm, almost an Irish jig of beats.

Engaging with myself on a new physical level is always the more exciting phase of transformation. If only the results could be realized at once! I am hungry for change and impatient with the process. But exceedingly grateful that I am strong enough to pursue new life after such a painful time of personal dying and death.

Echoes Moving Inside to Out

2006-08-19T22:51:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I was able to recall my dreams in any kind of detail. These days, the Neptunian flashes of the night before represent long, episodic sequences of action and feeling, so much so that I could swear days and weeks had passed since I laid down and felt my breathing deepen, stretch out and relax into slumber. For several months I was not sleeping at all, except after the sun rose, when I would drift into an uneasy lapse of consciousness, in between waking and sleeping. Night rolled by slowly. I would watch the heavens through the skylights when it was clear (which was rarely) and listen to the waves roaring onto the beach, which was constantly, and the rain pelting the roof, the branches tapping it, and gales of wind shaking the entire structure with a vehemence I had not experienced before. Nature's power was a constant sonic assault. I had never known what it felt like to be assaulted by the Earth before then, not really. Afghans wrapped around me became my armour.

Night was not exactly an infinity. Night was long, but not unceasing. What was unceasing was the damp, inky cold and succession of Pacific storm fronts. Night was the time my youngest, Rimba, was calmest, when her companionship was offered free of mischief, and my lap became her coziest spot, and I, the grateful recipient of her warmth. Nights were restless times when I would take Raja on walks we both needed, regardless of the cold and the wind and the rain. He would lead me bravely through the sledgehammer of coastal winter night and glance back at me periodically to assure me that, yes, this was a welcome respite from the shaking house, showing me what a gallant creature he was in his fearlessness of the storms kicking into the U.S. at the 45th parallel. When we were sufficiently exhausted from tilting against the elements, big Raj would lead me safely home. To sleeplessness within exhaustion, and madness that echoed on all sides, within and without.

Months later, my dreams seemed relatively unimportant next to the relief I got from being able to finally sleep. These last few weeks of dreaming, however, it is different. I am paying attention again. I am enjoying what my unconscious conjures for me to process and consider. Sometimes, it amounts to not much of anything. Others, it's anything besides not much.

Opening Line

2006-08-10T07:31:00.000-07:00

My mother came one swift kick in the ass away from having a miscarriage. Sometimes I really wish that's what I'd been.

Calabrian Rooting

2006-08-10T00:08:00.000-07:00

The wonderful thing about this new blog is my anonymity. I don't have to worry about being an exhibitionist or narcissist or a drama queen anymore. This is just a space for me to express myself without reservations because I do not write for an audience. I write for me. But It's still hard to express myself in a public domain for private purposes, even when I remind myself that nobody knows who the fuck I am. My think space. I don't even have to edit it. Straight scoop. No bananas.

What I'm not good at is expressing the emotional content that lurks in my underworld. I'm not good at expressing it to myself, let alone anyone else, because I am so deeply ashamed of the self-flagellating nature of these purposefully hidden, dark, internal spaces. When I write it down, I just think how fucked up it is and I judge it and shove it away and censor it into absentia. Out of shame, mostly, dislike of admitting my vulnerability. Repressing is a habit, both learned and innate. Letting the authentic experiences of my mind and body propel my fingers and animate my hands is freedom, but a freedom I'm not comfortable with. The wherefores and whys are tied up in religious brainwashing, done early, done well, and still a part of what keeps me bound and bleeding.

P.J. Harvey, arguably my favorite music artist, penned the words "Scare myself" in the CD jacket of her latest masterpiece "Uh Huh Her." The collage of images and phrases found inside the case displays some aspects of Harvey's creative process, aspects I find rivetting because her process is so raw and honest and primal in its genius. "Nothing matters but me and my story," she writes. And because she embraces the value of her life and experiences instead of shrugging them off, she is able to create some of the most compelling music out there. A pioneer that all recovering repressives like me hold in the highest esteem, like one of Audre Lorde's women of Dan who dance with swords in their hands to mark the time when they were warriors. Only when Harvey is pushing herself past her own fear of herself and what she has to express emotionally and figuratively can she create her trademark sound. Huh. How about that?

My goal here is to create without self-censorship so that I am pushing myself past my own internal boundaries into territory marked "Here There Be Dragons." It's only there, out past my fears and complexes and forgotten memories, that I can taste the wild freedom I see arch its back in my dreams.

One of my ancestors came to me in a dream last night and initiated me into my matrilineal line. (Or so I believe from the poignant and achingly vivid full moon dream.) I was as shocked as anyone to learn what she told me. It was, in part, a dream of power, wherein my third eye was activated and heated by fire. I woke up with a ferocious headache deep in the middle of my forehead and the sense that some gears had or were in the process of shifting inside me, and a new hope and resilience awaking within me, along with something else I cannot yet name, but feel, and am grateful for. Thank you, Old Grandmother.

Now I know what Marge Piercy was writing about in her poem "Moonburn."

Nocturnal Transmissions

2006-08-01T22:53:00.000-07:00

Wonder of wonders: it is nine 'til eleven and I'm feeling sleepy. Naturally. Nothing synthetic making me yawn.

Belly full, and smiling. I spent three hours on a mushroom lasagne that gave me a buzz after I ate it. Since I'm sober these days, the consciousness altering aspects of music, exercise, and food (with the right energy invested in its preparation) have not gone unnoticed by me. Natural highs striking. Even better than desert lightning.

(sleep oh sleep)

I've somehow finally decided it's okay if I exchange my B.A. for a pooper scooper at a local no-kill shelter. My ego may protest at first (listen to me, I speak like I've already bagged the job -- and listen further: I am nervous that I may be deemed unqualified to scoop poop and dish out kibble. no shit), but the Iowa farm girl will no doubt eventually take over and I'll find the work soothing, educational, rewarding. No better way to learn the intricacies of animal behavior. And no better way to flush out those lurking demons who just LUV to sabotage me into hearty quacking.

Perhaps most mundane of all: I crave literature again.

Pillow sighs grow louder. Off I go to silence them. And my weary head.

A Chicken Goes Quack

2006-07-30T22:40:00.000-07:00

Before moving back to Phoenix, I realized that I had become a rebel addicted to conformity. In the past I've displayed my unusual spots for all to see and not given a hang what anyone thought, and gleefully, with disdain for the cloned masses of Gap-clad shoppers and rubber-booby babes. I stopped doing that at some point because I began to loathe sticking out like a sore thumb.

A rebel should be someone as apt to conform as a chicken is to quack. But if a chicken doesn't know it's quacking, then what? I suppose what happened to me is what: my whole life fell apart and I became Humpty Dumpty (where all the king's horses and men were off to, I don't know, but they never came a-running). In the process of putting H.D. (unintentional allusion to glorious modernist poet acknowledged but not meant in any way as a likening of self to she) back together again, I've realized how poorly I quack, and how lost I've been attempting to try.

I figure it takes major falls to wake us up to parts of ourselves we refuse to see, and deny even if we glimpse them.

Having been unable to write, reason, or speak coherently for the past six months or so, I have been voiceless, probably afraid of even trying to write lest a big honking "Quack!" come out. Writing and self-expression in general are still pretty uncomfortable and awkward these days, but at least possible again. I mean to help reanimate these bones by learning what sound a chicken makes. I may become "She of the Roosters' Last Attempt To Infiltrate the Henhouse" until I get the hang of that magical "bock-bock-bock-bock-bocka" chickie cluck. But I am going to figure it out and do it with pride and verve.

What I wonder is what happens if I discover I'm not a chicken after all.

From Dirt

2006-07-17T23:48:00.000-07:00

When you water a plant
listen for the sound of it drinking
and know each is delivered from thirst
differently.

By distinct voices and sighs, each is known
no silent moon greets your offering.

Know a leaf sounds a particular song
and a root, quite another
when it drinks.

Further, know all is music, if only you know how to hear.