Friday Night Nosh

I got together last night with my friend Wendy and her friend Marjorie for nibbles and libations. Wendy's house is gorgeous, southwestern earth tones and a lime-olive green bathroom. Wendy is a quilting queen, so lots of quilts hanging on the walls and a table of handmade goddesses (which I must look at more closely next time). She showed me some double zero (tiny!!!!) knitting needles and thread which she used to make amulet bags for her pals last xmas (solstice). I was amazed and impressed and excited and inspired.

Toward the end of the evening we got to talking about celibacy and religion. It began when I was talking about my training as a yoga teacher. One of the swami's told us that tantra didn't exist and then in the same sentence said it was a left-hand path. (does it exist or doesn't it?) The bottom line was they advocated bramacharya (in the simplest sense, celibacy).

So the question we left the night with was: Why are religions so hung up on sexuality? Why is celibacy necessary in order to reach spiritual enlightenment? It's across the board with most Western religions and at least what I learned of eastern (Hindu) religion that I studied at the ashram.

My first thought was that when societies were matrilineal and women had ownership of land, they had the power. At some point in western history, male priests married women (landowners), got their land, then declared that women had no rights and witch hunts ensued, etc., etc.

Sexuality is fluid, feminine. Subjugate women, subjugate sexuality.

Fertility/sexuality was also where women held power. Women are the givers of life, they also knew what to do/what herbs to take in order to prevent pregnancy. Furthermore, women have the capacity to have sex ongoing whereas men can ejaculate a few times a day and that's it. From a purely biological, propagate-the-species-point-of-view, maybe women are built this way to a) have the capacity to receive a lot of pleasure to make the pain and danger of childbirth worth it and/or b) have the capacity to have sex with many different partners so that the sperm of the healthiest partner gets through, hence, hopefully guaranteeing stronger, more fit offspring. (Of course, if you don't believe in evolution . . . what can I say?)

That leaves another problem for men. It means that they can never be sure if they are the baby-daddy. (Well, now that there's DNA testing and Maury Povitch . . . )

Getting away from the "power over women" point of view, having a healthy sexual relationship with a person (whether it's male/female or same sex), requires the ability to be loving and trusting and vulnerable. It takes time and energy. It requires us to be open with our feelings and accepting of our partner. We must resist the urge to control or be controlled. How many of us actually have the willingness to go deep, to surrender? How many of us have had the experience of letting our egos go so utterly completely with another person that we realize we are "One with the Universe" and that the love we are experiencing is expanding in that universe? (It's the grooviest experience ever!)

Some religions teach that the only way to really experience total surrender is to actually physically die. So, perhaps a reason to fear sex? Some people even fear meditation for that very reason!

From a yogic standpoint, when you have sex with someone, you pick up your partner's energy and they pick up yours. You exchange karma, essentially. Not just from this lifetime, but from all the millions of past lifetimes. So, if you're focus is on releasing your karma and ceasing to be reincarnated, then it would make sense to just avoid sex altogether.

Or how about this -- if we are enjoying life and our partners, maybe we won't be so compelled to acquire more "things". Maybe we'd realize we don't have to consume so much, make more money, submit to slavery. That leaves less tithing money for the church (temple, synagogue, you fill in the blank).

Or maybe we'd we feel so good enjoying our sexuality, we wouldn't have to go to church at all? We might start beginning to have our own ideas about spirituality and enlightenment. We might even decide to make up our own rituals.

Every person has sexuality. Make people feel ashamed about sexuality, and you have power over them. When our view of nature is distorted, we can't be sure of anything. Instead of looking within and listening to our own answers (because now we are stupid and afraid and "sinful"), we look outside of ourselves for what is "right". So the preacher in the pulpit who makes us feel shame and guilt must be right, or the talking head shouting at us from CNN or FOX must be right, or our neighbor with the SUV and the Prada handbag must be right. Whatever makes us feel inadequate must be right, no?

Since we're looking outside of ourselves for validation, we must also look outside of ourselves for what is "invalid". If we are harsh judges of ourselves, how harsh are we going to be on others? The more we look outside ourselves for what is wrong with everyone else, the less we know ourselves, and, the more "evil" we see in the world. As we further lose sight of ourselves, we lose personal power. It's a cycle, because the more powerless we feel, the more we need validation. The less we know what really makes us happy, the more we need someone (or a talking box) to tell us what is "good for us".

So, sex isn't "bad". What's bad are the power trips surrounding it that are bad. And because sex is so powerful, there are a lot of them.

OK, my 2nd chakra rant of the day is done for now. I think I opened a huge can of worms, and I could keep going. These are just general ideas, perhaps I will go back and work on more comprehensive drafts. Right now I need a shower and to stretch my periformas and psoas muscles.

First Lie

I’m sure I lied before this, but it’s the first lie that comes to mind….Santa Claus!

In first grade, I was walking home from school with my friend Eric Berkowitz. He told me that Santa Claus wasn’t real. He was Jewish and didn’t celebrate Christmas, so I thought he was just jealous. To my shock and 6 year old horror, my mother confirmed what Eric had told me.

I really didn’t understand why I had been duped. I mean, why tell a kid that something is real when it’s not. Was it some kind of sick and cruel joke? Couldn’t I have handled the truth? Wouldn’t I have enjoyed Christmas just as much if I knew the gifts were coming from my parents and not a fabricated story of a man in the red suit?

I wanted to bust out and tell everyone, but my mom insisted that the story is for little kids and that I shouldn’t ruin it for them.

So, at my uncle and aunts’ Christmas party, there I was, in the living room with a few of the younger kids, lying about Santa with the adults. I was telling them that Santa was as real as anything, while winking at Aunt Barbara, making sure that she knew I knew the deal. I was now one of the holiday grown ups. And I was both proud and disgusted with myself.

Years later, an Atheist friend told me there was no God. After years of researching that one, I figure it’s true. There is no old man with a beard sitting on a cloud watching your genitals. Never was, and never will be. No lie.

Who created you? Well, I don’t want to ruin it for you, but remember your mom and dad? Yup, they did it again.

Follow your Dream!

The first thing I think about is the Tarot conference in Florida in 1998.

I remember seeing the flyer for the Tarot conference and just knowing that I was going to go. This was a strange revelation, because, I barely had any money and no way to get there. But I was deeply into my studies of Tarot at the time, and felt I had to go.

So I got myself a map of the east coast, and I wrote the date of the Tarot conference (February 1998) with arrows pointing form NYC to Florida, to the small beach town about an hour or so south of Orlando. Then I hung the map up on the wall across from my bed, so that every morning it was the first thing I looked at. I would wake up and say, “I’m not sure how, but I am going to the Tarot conference in Florida.”

I was working in a witch shop doing Tarot readings, and I kept talking about the conference because I knew I was going to go. I just kept saying “I don’t know how, but I’m going to Florida.”

I began to write a booklet on understanding the court cards, called “Order in the Court”. I made as many copies of it as I could afford and planed to sell it at the conference to $10 a pop.

When I made money, I would save a little aside, and finally had enough for the train ride down. The Train was about $70 to ride the Silver Star, all day and night to Orlando. I visited a college friend in Orlando, then went to visit a high school friend in Melbourne. I still had no idea how I was going to get to the conference, until my friend graciously let me borrow her car! It was this hot red sports car, and I felt really cool and magical arriving at the conference in it.

At the conference I sold all of my books, but I still didn’t have enough money to get home. I was going to just return to my friend in Melbourne and see if I could somehow work there, when friends of mine from New York who were at the conference just lent me $50.

I got a bus from Orlando to NY. The ride was torture, even though I was grateful to be going home, and I was surround by these hunky marines, who had just finished training. I don’t recommend a 24 hour bus trip! It was the only hellish part of the journey. I would take a train any day instead of a bus for a long trip.

I never asked for help from anyone, I never expected anything form anyone, I just went with the thought that I was supposed to be there, and that I everything would work out. It’s one of the best little adventures of my life.

oiuoi;ew7ly;o8

The fisrt kiss was wet. I did'nt feel much of anything so I whent home and watch Flinstones cartoons.
Then I practiced kissing on my own hand.
And then I felt something soulful in my brain .
Then I kissed another girl and I did'nt feel anything, so I went home and listened to Black Sabbath records.
Then I fell in love , in lust, and now I feel every bit of kiss when I do.
If I do.
The first one was nothing.

Death and Life

On Saturday May 31, a friend of more than 20 years died. We saw each other sporadically over the years, but always the same fun, joking friendship. He lived in a different world than I. He always said he appreciated that I never judged him. He'd say there was "a place in heaven" for me. I'd tell him there was a place for him too. He'd ask me to put in a good word for him.
Here's the good word, Rich!
He's at peace now, no drama in heaven, that's for sure. He was a man of soul, heart, love and great humor. That fully SHINES now - no more tarnish of the material world. FREE.
Saturday, June 7 - Funeral - Open casket. Certainly not the man there.
Due to bodily or embalming fluids, there appeared to be a dry tear under his right eye. I heard that when his 2 ex-wives, 2 daughters & son viewed the body, the tear came down & the boy said, "Look, Daddy is crying." Never really knew the wives or the kids. But many of his friends remembered me, some looked like Bart Simpson "grown-up" with square heads and thick necks and all were wider than their athletic past selves.

Sunday, June 8 - Baby Christening in NJ
My niece's 2nd child - James Patrick, 3 mos. old. It's also his Dad's name, but he's no Junior!
Dad is Jim and he's a James.
I purposely slept late and missed the church.
James was in the living room on the couch being held by my mother, his great-granny.
I came in kissed Mom, Sis#1 (the granny) & sat on the table in front of him and I had him in my gaze. Holding his hands, saying in a sing-song voice, "Is this your special day?" " Did the priest put water & oil on your head?" I'm touching his little cheeks and forehead too and he just lights up like Times Square. He responds with a giant smile and little coos and moans. His little old man wrinkled forehead, no hair & giant blue eyes.
Amazing that the eyes remain the same - the only part of you that doesn't grow!
Sweet Baby James, as my mother will say about 20 times an hour, because of Alzheimer's.
A perfect little match to his big sister, Hollie, 22 mos, cherub faced pixie.

Sis #2 drove me home with Mom in the car. Sis#2, "Miss Worrywort of the Century", says, "I hope there's no traffic", more than 10x (shades of Mom?). All signs lead otherwise, but she keeps talking about it. Finally Mom, even in this kind of limbo she's in says - "Why worry? You can't control it. I've always been that way!"
And she has - Thank God, because that saying is why I am a sane and happy person today.
Accepting, having enjoyment in life with enthusiasm for what's to come using the baby steps and conscious participation. Hallelujah!

What pulls me?

Restlessness is pulling me out of bed at 4am. Don’t know if it’s spirits or something with in me, but I can’t get sleep right now and I’m getting angry.

The moon is making my brain crash up against my skull. It’s high tide in there. I am completely at the mercy of the moon. It’s like a band playing in my room, one that I can not ignore. Or a song that I can not get out of my head. Or the construction that will start pounding the pavements and shaking the foundation of this block, by 8am, for sure.

Maybe it’s someone else’s anxiety seeping through the walls. A constant vibration of my room mate or neighbor, or perhaps a god, who’s torturous head is now disturbing my sleep.

Resentment is pulling at me. For a life I thought I would have, for a government that I know is rotten, and I’m not sure I have the tools to weed that garden. For hatred and prejudice and suspicion that lives and breathes in the streets of New York. I am an empathic sponge on the riotous silent subway.

Thank Gods that creativity is pulling at me. The computer longs for me to write. The page calls me equally with dreams and thoughts and tarot card readings. Music is pulling at me too. The sound of my voice brings a vibration of healing and sanity to the restless and torpid.

Dance pulls me. The rhythm of my toes and heels and whole foot stomping, flapping, shuffling, hopping, jumping, ball changing and stepping. I can not stop my feet. The drum pulls me too. A joyous and free African sound, Dum dat dat Dum …pa dat. The pulse of life, a heart beat.

Luckily my heart keeps pulling in the tides of my blood. There is something constant I appreciate. The electronic shock that continues to jump start the muscle in the center of my chest. My heart is a vampire for air and joy and love.

Still Here

I've change my name. I want to list my kids t-shirts on etsy.com & would rather not have these scribblings come up when googling my previous name.

The name comes from Granpda Patrick Mc. He babysat me & sis #4. I'm sis #3. We were about 3 & 6. She was Magoo, for the giant blue eyes & I was hairpin.
He watched us in his apartment a couple blocks away from ours. Every so often he'd go over to his kitchen cabinet, take a shot glass, fill it and drink it. Sis #4 would say, What's that Grandpa?
Oh, it's just my medicine! I think I'm hairpin because I knew there was no medicine in that bottle. I never said it, but I kinda got under his skin.
Nowadays Magoo has her own Patrick - who is in fact a bonafide Hairpin!
Takes one to know one.

Derscibe waht hpapnes wehn you are adandnoed.

Describe what happens when you are abandoned.

I was aenabndod the sencod the umilicbal chrod was cut Mokterfucher!
Jsut kidndig, I was tnryig to snoud toguh!

Soeetmims anandonbmet deos not maen “Unelovd” but we mgiht feel taht way.
Ppeole can be slef cernteed to the ponit of aanidonbng otrhes.

For exalmpe I dno’t bveliee Hloly has aanndobed us, I bevleie she silmpy did not go on lnie for a few dyas due to incnonenievce or seh’s jsut hanvig too mcuh fun otershwie.

I flet anandobed by my fridens in Long Isnlad 21 yeras ago, tehy wree all on dgrus and
not contneced to the orb of copaosmsin.

Tehy wree slef ceenertd twtety yaer odls on dgrus.

I sitll kokw and astsociae with thsoe gyus taody, and the mian difcferene now is taht if sonethimg geos arwy wtih a cerw meembr on the smae baot tehy will try to rceah out and see if eneryove is ahlgrit, as lnog as it deos not intuerrpt tehir weed smnokig!

I hvae flet aanenbdod by weomn. I was ocne twteny yreas old and did not hvae a flul undenrstandig taht pepole dno’t crae all taht mcuh, they sommeties act or seem lkie tehy do but tehy wlil look out for theeselmvs fisrt.

Smoe pleole lrean taht to tkae crae of otrhes IS TO TKAE crae of ones slef.
We are all in the smae baot tegethor, if one cerw memebr gtes scik dno’t tsos tehm oevr borad, no mtater how contouagis ……. uenlss tehy are scik wtih a dsseaie cellad “Lcak of Compassion” Then I say toss ‘em.
Hwo’s taht for snonduig tguoh?

How do I taste?

A Mosquito tasted my blood. Metalic and slightly sweet. I’ve got my sugars down to a semi normal level. He used to get high on the taste of my saccharine blood. Now he doesn’t come around to bite me so much anymore. Guess he found someone near the new Dunkin Donuts.

A lover tasted the salty sweat on my skin, and kept licking and lapping me. That was nice. This was in P-town, so I was the essence of coconut with a touch of chemicals from suntan lotion 15 proof. He wanted to taste me from top to bottom, I stopped him before he went too far…I mean, I hadn’t showered.

Hope licked my knees the other day. She was wagging in and out of our little circle, sampling us all. Sometimes she gets a taste of me in her mouth and she’s gotta go for a whole hand meal. Maybe I’m a sort of puppy chow to her palette.

Sapho likes to taste my face. Guess she’s trying to see if my stubble can handle her sandpaper tongue. She wins. To a cat I taste soft and human. She’s not in it for the flavor though, cause she is finicky. She just want me to pet her.

It's a matter of taste

I taste the air today in New York, so hot and humid, it tastes like water just to breath. Not quite as swampy as a Tennesee Williams play, but definitely as thick. Maybe it’s more sweaty, like kids playing basketball in the park across the street.

I taste excitement and anticipation cause I’m going to Carnegie hall tonight. Going to see the concert of Show Boat. I expect that the air will be good and cool in there. Who knows though, it is a mercury retrograde.

I taste, I taste, I taste the air conditioner in my room, the cool air leaves a metallic feel on my tounge.

There was a time once when I tasted people’s emotions, I was doing these metaphysical meditations on the senses. The advice was to take it slow and do one sense at a time. I did all five and cracked open like an acorn.

I was tasting peoples emotions. At the time, I was in a play, and this actress had to play “angry”. She spewed this hateful fierce and fiery rage that felt like little darts in the back of my throat. It was a disgusting taste; very hard to swallow.

Bitterness is also hard to taste, and it usually comes with a side serving of gossip and criticism; phrases like “they don’t know who they’re messin with” and “she ought to know better” and “it’s not fair”

Sadness closes up my throat, I can choke on it. It’s kind of a mixture of salty tears and something acidic. Wonder if I’m allergic.

Joy and happiness are pleasantly sweet, unless it’s forced, then it’s like putting too much salt water taffy in you mouth.

How do you taste the world?

Current

Here, under the soft flat leaves of the pond's surface

I stir the sediment

I draw in the world, sieve it through my mouth, my gills,

tasting, returning it.

I am met by the pulse of movement from the outside.

Time flows through my body with the ease of water.

I shift position, yield my gaze. The element

chooses my direction.

I draw my mouth shut and I hear my praise ascend

against stillness. Others hear it. They too,

hold themselves against the pressure of the depths.

I am drawn by that tattered leaf, by the trails

of water bugs written on the surface, the taste of currents pulsing

from the spring.

I recognize the charge that every thing possesses.

How changeable a signature—I have seen a touch bring death.

I live amid particles and waves, blood, currents,

secrets. In the darkness, I keep still

the questions.

The answers themselves

return my gaze.

From Week 1 in the Root

Raw Root Quotes

Day 1
“Imagine that the world is waiting for us, for me, for my involvement. For all of the western religion babble about the evilness of the world and the body, I’m suddenly struck by the sacredness of these things.

What a gift to incarnate! What a beautiful thing.”

“We are all travelers on this journey of life, and we are all getting dust on our feet from the road, even if we stay in bed, the dust from the road finds us and settles upon us. We are the dust.”

“I wonder how we keep coming together and apart. What is it? I’ve heard that we are all a sacred song; a vibration that calls together these certain molecules and everything that is us. Is that why learning someone’s magical name is so dangerous? Can someone sing us out of existence, disturb our song?

Guess that’s abuse and all the other negative things that go on here on the earth plane; The things that disturb the song.”

Day 4
“Yesterday I found a book at Virgin Records called “Who Shat That?”, it showed animals and the kind of poop they have. I guess there is nothing quite more root chakra than that.”

“…. Here’s another thing to think about. We often smell like the food we eat. So that makes me possibly smell like eggs and cheese, Kamut bread, salmon, chicken, manna bread, cereal and milk, lettuce, pistachios, avacado… etc.”

Day 5
“Crap, my head is a trap.”

“This is getting very deep. I really do have the idea that if I was around normal beautiful, open minded people who are on their path and not fucked up by their fears that I would totally flourish. Is this an absolute fantasy? Do these people exist?”

Day 6
“Now I am hearing Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. I still feel the vibration in my head. I wonder if that is a part of the brain, deep in the center that hears music. It’s actually like a ghost in my ear. Wow. The Swan Lake, the main theme is so moving and passionate. It pulls at grief in my throat, and I see deep blues and murky greens.”

“How do I paint a song. Is that something I should consider on a regular basis. What is the color of this song in general, and what is the color that I am bringing. Seabreeze green, like a ship sailing away, with sunlight on the water is the end of that song (Annie Lenox NO MORE I LOVE YOUS).”

write about orange

Orange. The crisp smell of sweet citrus as you are sprayed with the juice of an orange being peeled. No, a clemintine. Orange is both bitter and sweet, both fiery and wet.

The strange smell of fake orange scented things, like banana, science has not really been able to capture the natural essence of orange.

Carrots boiling in a stew; orange is the soft almost candy taste of cooked carrots or yams.

Cream popsicle, summer day, the drop melting on a child’s lip. The sherbert that I don’t want, I prefer the green or pink or white. The M&M I eat before the green, red and blue. Do I eat orange or yellow first? I go brown, tan, yellow then orange.

Orange is the sunset, no the sun. Our sun is yellow and red and orange. Blazing reflection of bursting colored sunset clouds.

Orange is the belly of a shell, and the crustacian living inside. The butterfly wing of a monarch.

Pumpkin fields in October covered with the mushy bumpy sight of orange. The color of everything in the fall, from muffins, to pies, to cider to falling leaves.

Orange is bold and beautiful. It can be fresh or sickening. It can be enlivening or halting. It is a strong color.

Orange light is barely ever used on stage, as far as I know. You can get orange gels, but more often people want pink and red and blue and golden yellow, even green. Orange can be too exotic. It can be eastern and middle eastern; the color of oriental pillows and Indian saris, the Egyptian perfume bottle, the desert harem tent or the carpet in Arabian nights.

Orange is almost a state of emergency.

The Past Decade 2008- 2018.

Happy 2018 everybody!
We made it through a lot in the past decade.
This year we have a winner for the build your own house contest, It’s Henry Muchmore from Intercourse Pa. with his home built entirely out of corn cobs!
Now, put that in yer pipe n’ smoke it!
As you know there have been protests all week long against the treatment of headless people. There have been several “Picket” lines, even though no one ever uses a Picket, only cardboard tubes, where signs have read, “Help save the Headless people !... from them selves”
There were also banners that expressed a different angel , one read, “Let the Headless run on their treadmills , there’s bigger problems in the world”.Unquote.
Problems yes, but Miracles as well! In 2015 we saw the come back of the bumble fly honey butter bee which nearly went into complete extinction, but thanks to the good folks at Monsanto, the bumble fly honey butter bee is out there making the world a more flowering fruitful and survivably fascinating place! The genteticly modified insects are now onsale.
The larva start up kit is now Available in the non stinging variety in bulk at your local Walgreens.
Available in striped Violet and glow in the dark and Monarch black and yellow.
In 2012 President Knock on Wood Obama was asked what he thought about the final closing of the MacDonald’s franchise . “ McDonalds was a franscise that made many people happy, but many people very sick” Said President Knock on Wood Obama . “The law suits against the hamburger giant were righteous due to years of producing a product of negligent quality” Unquote.
The past decade has also seen many inventions. Who would have thought that a water purification system could be so effective on such a large scale? The floods along the Mississippi have been cleaned from Memphis all the way to New Orleans and the water that was siphoned and cleaned is now 100 % purified. One can hardly tell the bottled flood water from a bottle of Poland Spring which now goes for about 10.00$ a liter .
We have met quite a few people here at this point in history, we have seen an influx of Tibetan Monks into the USA who have helped shape our ideas , and we have seen the corporations tower so very high and we have seen them collapse onto them selves and eachother. However no one will ever forget December 2012 when the world ended.
Mayans and regular working class folks from allover the world both agreed, “That was a total BLAST, a real BLAST! " Unquote.

2nd chakra coming soon

Hello!

On June 3rd, New Moon in Gemini, the next round of writing prompts will begin! If there is anything you'd like to write regarding the 1st chakra, please go ahead. Also, check out the prompt that TJ sent - interesting to wonder how the world will be 10 years from now!

As we move from the 1st to the 2nd chakra, kundalini starts to rise. This is where kundalini release begins - orgasm, exercise (movement, fluidity), and creativity. This is where we begin to put ourselves out to the world - we take what we experience and reflect on it. We first notice people and things "outside" of our tribe between the ages of 3 and 7. We like to make things, and push boundaries and we develop our unique "taste" for things.

There is a push and pull with the 2nd chakra. It is where we develop our sense of personal identity, and at the same time it is where we develop our relationships. It is through relationships that we become conscious of who we are. Every relationship, whether casual or intimate, has a lesson for us. The 2nd chakra is our ethical center, where we develop our sense of honor, where we make choices creatively, sexually, and emotionally. This is where our emotions begin to move, and where we need to be fluid enough to let them inform us so that we may continue expanding our consciousness. This is where we must balance fear and faith, control and choas, creativity and finances.

Often our society regiments creativity, our connection to our emotions, and our sense of curiosity, right out of us. This is where we get to claim what is our birthright. This is where we allow our inner-freak flag fly!

Much joy and many discoveries in this next 3 weeks of exploration!~