Fearing women

It is my assessment that men fear women. They fear women because they do not understand us. Feminine logic escapes them and so they cannot predict us. They fear us because no matter how often they join their bodies with ours, seeking to know and be known -- no matter how often they experience the shuddering release of their essence into our bodies -- they know, even in that moment of ultimate sharing -- of orgasmic bliss-- they know they've never really penetrated the mystery of our otherness. And never will. And for the male of our species, the systematizers, the catalogers, the knowledge-seekers -- what cannot be dismantled, discovered, or known is feared. Sure, there are other emotions mixed in there -- respect, for some, and for others, dread, and a need to conquer or destroy -- but for the most part, consciously or not, most male interaction with the feminine is characterized by fear.

I usually manage to over-ride the feelings of exasperation, irritation, indulgence, and superiority with which most women greet the male fear-response to our impenetrable otherness. Usually. Occasionally, though, I cannot help it.

For all that I am very female, I have a rather masculine mind. I am highly intuitive, but I am also very logical. The combination of the two can be very formidable. I have excellent reasoning / critical thinking skills and am in the top 1 percentile for intelligence. Science, math, economics, programming, trouble-shooting / complex problem-solving -- these come easier to me than to most women. And quite a lot of men. I've been called a polymath by people I respect, though I think of myself as a dilettante. Its not that I'm lacking a polymath's abilities. I'm just lacking the ambition. Winning stopped mattering to me when I realized that other people felt hurt by losing. A rather feminine characteristic.

So, because I am a warm, loving, non-competitive woman, some men underestimate me. They fear me for what I consider the wrong reasons. And this peeves me. And not just me. It peeves quite a few of my peers, women who are feared because they are female but also unrespected because they are female. Because we know that women are capable of terrible things. It just so happens that we rarely tap into the place where that capacity lies dormant because it takes special circumstances to awaken it. For millennia women have made the terrible choice of life or death -- history is full of stories about children exposed to the elements for coming at the wrong time, for example. We've gone to war and when we fight, there are no rules and there is no mercy -- just blood and gore (Go Boudicca). We've pitted man against man, country against country. We've brought down empires as matters of personal vendettas, to right wrongs perpetuated against ourselves, or more often, against those we love.

But men think that women's history of needing to manipulate them to achieve our ends still stands today. They seem to think we cannot fight our own battles and thus they disregard us as martial threats. They forget that we can do battle on the field of the intellect, and that this new Information Age is a great equalizer -- superior physical strength does not matter here. We, too, can fight wars with keystrokes.

Something happened recently in which someone I care for was wrongly accused of something, to the point that evidence was manifactured, and that falsified proof used as a reason to act against him -- and incidentally me. It is nothing illegal, merely a matter of inter-personal politics (ie grudge), but I am enraged nonetheless. The one who accused him has spread fear and paranoia that he will exact revenge.

The irony is that they fear the wrong person. What lies dormant in this woman is awakened when those I care for are threatened. I have the skillset and connections to make Cooper's life in his little world hell should I wish it. If he is not careful, I just might choose to live my life in such a way that when my feet hit the floor in the morning, both he and Satan shudder and say 'Oh shit....she's awake!'

I am woman. Fear me, oh man. Fear me now while I'm still rumbling. Because you do not want to hear me roar.

Being Known

Why do you fear being known?
I ask when he says
I know him too well
that echoing well deeper than his voice
He does not want to be predictable,
dull, uninteresting
But it is deeper than that


I know
the fear of being known is fear of intimacy
I know

I know this fear. I lived it
Lived it like the babe uprooted from his mother's breast
It goes back that far, yes
for all of us

We fear losing our mystery, we fear
losing what makes us compelling strangers
lest we lose what we fear most to embrace

Our intimate other selves
So we dance, dear
dance with our fear and the Other
who might be mother or father
in addition to lover

Know me, I challenge
stripped bare of pretense my body a gift
Here are my mysteries, touch them see
how my skin pebbles
fingers playing tumescent flute
same song every time

yet novelty is not lost
right now
in the moment
in the primacy of here-now

Why flee this intimacy, savor it instead
like tongue savors nipple tasty
forbidden pastry sugar-sweet
as carnal knowledge of one's beloved

I nurture you
penetrate me
Know and be known
Some things can not be lost
Some things will not keep

Gratitude

(Thank you PS for the gift of your breast.)

Tears blur my vision, dripping onto the keyboard. My heart is filled with Gratitude. So much Gratitude for so much Love in my life.

Two years ago I created for myself the possibility of being fully self-expressed. And as I manifested that in my life, I found myself struggling with freedom, with feeling truly free to be myself, to be whatever I wanted to be. And then something happened. I had a breakthrough in 'being' and found that I was free to fully express myself as Love. Mahatma Gandhi once said, "be the change you want to see in the world." And this freedom to be the change I want to see in the world, to Be Love, has enriched my life and the lives of those I touch, and the lives they touch. It is a wonderful thing, to know love and to be love, and to feel its presence in my life when it comes back to me, manifold.

In my heart there is sadness and longing and anticipation and joy and... so many things simple and complex. But gratitude and love are foremost. It seems that every day I've been in Portland this year, an extraordinary person has come into my life. And there has been such a sense of urgency to bond with these people, to make that connection that will withstand distance. I'm trying not to mourn the loss of easy access to my friends new and old. At times I am more successful than others, but I am comforted by experience: I know I can maintain deep and meaningful relationships over long distances. And I do plan to come back to Portland often. The sense of community here is so amazing. There is so much going on, so many people committed to doing good things, great things. People committed to helping others and growing and being and sharing and co-creating a livable world.

The pain and loss this year have broken me open in a way that I always feared. These feelings are at times so intense that I find myself unable to breathe, unable to stop the tears. This is what love feels like--the other side we don't want to think about--the side that keeps many of us from being open to love, and to Life. Everything superfluous and unreal, every barrier and mask and inauthenticity was burned away from me and I am standing naked to the world, exposed, pink and new and vulnerable and terrified and people have responded with unanticipated love and tenderness and kindness. Who knew there was so much lovingkindness in the world?

It has been a whirlwind week. Work during the days, play during the evenings, repeat as necessary to satisfy myself and my friends. I have hugged, kissed, nuzzled, danced, wined and dined, tried butter shots, licked chocolate off of body parts, slept snuggled up to a wonderfully curvacious bottom, wandered the halls of a hotel during Orycon in my pajamas, enjoyed an impromptu cleavage convention, watched lap dances, fire dances, and asses dancing under floggers. And that's just the PG to R-rated stuff ;)

And as it hits home that I am leaving this wonderfully expressive, connected, touch-positive community this week, I know gratitude, and love, and grief. But my world is not ending. I am embracing what life brings next, and I will carry this community in my heart and mind, and I will create it anywhere I go, because I am Love.

Kahlil Gibran wrote:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your
understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the
sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life,
your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always
accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Winter is coming, and soon the Spring. I will sow the seeds of a new life in a new place and find joy in discovering what grows out of my efforts. Thank you, my friends, for letting me love you. And thank you, so very much, for returning it ten-fold and more. Truly, I am blessed.

Jealousy, posessiveness, fear, change, LOVE

Possessiveness, territoriality, the hoarding mentality -- those things have always been so difficult for me to handle in loving relationships. When I was a child, I learned that the harder I tried to hold onto something I feared losing, the more of a certainty that fear became. So I simultaneously arrived at two things: In recognizing that loss was inevitable, I stopped fearing it. And, perhaps fatalistically, I prepared for it. In my past three long term relationships, which ran from 1988 through 2004, I had the same conversations with each of them: That nothing lasts forever, that no one person can be all things to another, that attraction to others is inevitable, that if one of us meets someone else we will be happier with, we should give our blessings to them. The happiness and well-being of the ones I love is essential to my own.

And so I find myself in a relationship with a man whose love makes me a little bit giddy. Who says the sweetest, corniest things that lure my inner child to come out and play. Who has more kindness and constancy in him than I had thought possible in someone of our generation. A man who devilishly plays with my libido like it is a cross between a lute and a cat's toy. He delights in me, melts at my touch, makes me laugh, and supports me. But he also wants me all to himself. And therein lies the very heart of the problem.

I've asked him for 6 months. Give me 6 months. There is a lot going on in my life, my world, and choosing him--which something in me very much wants to do and at the same time is very afraid to do--would be a huge change in my life. Not just a change from polyamory to monogamy, but a change in place, which would mean leaving my community. But when I ask myself what I want, more and more, I find myself answering "him", and when I think about it, I recognize that if I do not choose "us", then I'll always wonder what might have been.

Where does the desire for personal freedom and self-expression find itself when two people merge their lives to form an exclusive partnership? I remember what happened to it when I was younger, less secure in myself, more eager to 'fix' others or to 'make them happy.' I am so far from that place, and yet , I know that it is my daily rituals, my affirmations of self and non-self, my me-time, the pure freedom to be spontaneous--that it is these things which maintain the self I know as 'me' me. And I have seen how easy it is to slide out of healthy habits and ways of being, to let things slip for love, and I find myself conflicted, clinging almost jealously to my current life and way of being in the face of... love. There is tremendous possibility there. I love him like I have never loved another, in ways I never thought possible for me, and I know myself for 10 kinds of a fool if I pass up those possibilities out of fear or possessiveness.

"Mine. I am mine. No one claims me. No one owns me," my inner child says while at the same time she reaches out to him, teases him, shares with him. Loves him.

I like things just the way they are, and yet I know that change is inevitable. He won't keep forever like a doll in a glass case. He's a person with his own needs and desires. I suppose I am faced with the choices we all are: shall I sit on the side of the path and wait for Life to happen and choose for me? Or shall I take action and choose for myself what I want from Life, even knowing the path I choose to walk may not lead where I wanted?

I am reminded of the final words of a poem by slam-poet Shane Koyczan that go something like this: "Its a game. You play, you win. You play, you lose. You play. The world is a window that holds a sign. There is 'help wanted' out there but if you are playing to win, the first thing you have to do is 'apply within'."

Six months. Six months to wrestle with my choices and then take a stand for my own happiness, for what I want for myself and my life. Six months. 180 days. So many days. Why does it feel like so little time?

Trading anger for peace

I used to be angry. Not an apparent anger--I wasn't irritable, abusive, bellicose or argumentative--but I could be stubbornly contrarian and there was this well of cold rage that sometimes surged upwards and radiated from me as a form of intensity that caused people to take a step (or two) backwards. I was told that I had this calm demeanor, but sometimes my eyes had flames in them, and I radiated an intensity that let people know I was displeased.

But I'm not angry anymore. And what is interesting is that the people who have come into my life the past few years don't believe that I've ever been anything but a very peaceful, loving person. I can tell them that I used to be introverted and angry and averse to attention and they don't believe me. One person, whom I've known just a year, even argued with me about my basic personality type etc. Eventually we agreed that I'm becoming what is possible for me, rather than being limited/stunted by the attitudes and expectations of the past.

I've gotten sexier, too. My appearance hasn't changed much. I don't have this great body or stunning good looks, but nonetheless, I'm more comfortable in my skin, more comfortable with honoring my feelings and being however I want to be in the moment, more peaceful and powerful, and somehow that makes me more attractive on a very fundamental basis. It is wonderful!

How did this happen? Therapy? Yes, but it only took me so far. Self-help books? A few, but there is a difference between reading a thing and 'getting' it. Self-help workshops and seminars? Just one three-course curriculum that transformed how I thought about life.

What happened was, I got a handle on the past and how it ran my life. I made my peace with it, which freed me to live in the present. But before I could do that, I had to understand the Power of Choice. That was the first major thing, and it was a moment of enlightenment. I suddenly understood that I carried the past around like a bundle of burdens and that it was my choice to carry it around or set it down. And I learned that I could set it down and walk away, or I could pick it back up and hump it around until I was ready to let it go. That was freeing, knowing I had the choice, that I wasn't losing anything by putting the past down and leaving it where it belonged--in the past. And suddenly, it all clicked, and I was at peace. Truly, deeply, at peace.

The second breakthrough was that I accepted responsibility for my life, for the choices I had made that brought me where I was, and in so doing recognized that I could create my future by intentionally choosing it--by making choices with my goals in mind. I found this very empowering and today I celebrate the small victories that reveal the incremental progress I am making toward the future I am creating for myself and my life.

The third was the breakthrough I had regarding 'fear'. I recognized that I was afraid. And I learned that everyone else is afraid, too, on a very basic level. And I learned that the difference between people who live ordinary lives and those who live extraordinary lives is that people living extraordinary lives acknowledge their fears and act anyway. They don't allow themselves to be stopped by fear or circumstance. They, to borrow Nike's trademark phrase, Just Do It. And so do I.

Fourth, I came to understand that mistakes happen, that mistakes themselves are often acts of creation, and that it really is ok to make mistakes. I am no longer paralyzed by the fear of making mistakes, and I no longer get angry with myself for making mistakes. I accept responsibility for them, do my best to clean up any messes and apologize where necessary, and then let it go and move on.

And lastly--I stopped taking Life personally. Life happens. It happens to everyone, not just me, and if I choose to take it personally-- if I'm always asking "Why does shit always happen to me?"-- then I'm choosing to see myself as a victim of life. And that will not do. When I stopped taking life personally I started living it fully and powerfully. I stopped feeling angry and helpless and stuck. I stopped sitting on the sidelines. I grabbed hold of Life with both hands and started taking big bites, started shaping it to meet my ends, and realized my own freedom. Today, I fully understand that my thoughts and attitudes are causal, creative forces in my life, and I get to choose what I think about my life and how I approach it. And as a woman thinketh, so she is.

Making connections

Its too easy to make a 'lesson' of the past, to take what happens and turn it into a decision about myself, the world, and others. A decision that is carried forward into the future, affecting how I participate in my life, frozen in time, like the water droplets in the photo above whose ripples eternally ruffle the surface of the tidepool.

In the work I have undertaken for myself in my personal life (encouraging sensual immediacy and connection) I have encountered all sorts of people. I thought that I have been operating from a place that was open and genuine in my dealings with people who have contacted me regardless of venue (my blog, Literotica, Yahoo, HypnoFantasy, etc) but the truth is that, while I have been genuine with people, I've used the experience with CD earlier this year as an excuse to shut down a bit, to be less open, to be wary of new people.

And thus I've been less connected.

But really, Life is about Connection. We live for ourselves, but who we are for ourselves is lived through our connection with others. And a life of self-limited connection and self-limited expression, well, its... unsatisfactory at best.

So fuck it. I'm not going to let the lesson I take away from what happened with CD be that I'm going to close myself off from others lest I get hurt again. Because of course I'm going to get hurt again. That is rather inevitable if one is living life. Really living life. And by that I mean... living life with gusto, experiencing every vivid moment of it, participating fully in it. And I like living life that way--it beats that shadow realm that so many people seem to dwell in, feeling disconnected from themselves and others, feeling like imposters in their own lives. I prefer to be connected. I'm jacking back in, 100%.


And speaking of new people and new connections...

I was contacted by Alicia Night Orchid last week. She asked if she could feature me and my writing on her site. I was very flattered and looked through her site. I enjoyed it immensely. She is a talented writer. So, I consented and she put my story "Jack" up on her site, here. Please do pay her a visit... reading her stuff has given me the impetus to get back to work on some of my story sketches... particularly a very hot little sketch taken out of my portfolio of personal experiences. We all know how it will end, but its the journey there that makes it so very erotic.

Everybody's got a story

So.. I was contacted by a gentleman via my stories on Literotica and we've entered this dialogue . He told me a bit about himself and asked me if I had any advice as to how he could be more sensual. I responded as follows:

If you want to be more sensual in a sexual way, more comfortable with your sexuality, then I would recommend that you make love to yourself. Masturbation, with self-love. I masturbate daily. I treat myself to long baths twice a week... I shave, oil my legs and mound, and retire to my bed for an evening of fantasy and voluptuous masturbation.

And because he'd not had much success in his intimate relationships the past few years. I asked him some questions:

You say that the women you have been with in the past you were able to be open and sensual with, but now, you aren't sure you can. What has changed? What happened in your past that you are getting hung up on?

He responded with his story. A good story, a painful story, an honest, self-revealing story that moved me and inspired me. A story of a man who suffered a profound loss and still went on to create an extraordinary life for himself. I responded with:

As for what you wrote.... There isn't anything wrong with you. Really.

I think that what went awry for you in your relationships is what happens to most of us, including me. And it has to do with Fear.

The thing about Fear is that we will always feel fear. Our fears will never go away. We may resolve some of our fears, but we will always encounter situations in our lives that cause us to feel afraid. And most of us respond to life out of fearful places. We let our fears get in the way of living life. We allow our fears and our pasts to dictate how we respond to the current situation instead of being present to what is really going on. But I've learned that it doesn't have to be or stay that way. Before I tell you what I've learned, let me share a bit of my story with you, so we can establish that I do understand where you are coming from and why you feel as you do.

My mother left me with my grandparents when I was 10. My grandfather died that same year. My father got custody and moved us to a new town, and he moved my sisters and I nearly every year from then on. I lost my mother, my friends, the life I knew, over and over again. I was so tired of the pain of loss, and so afraid of losing people, that I stopped bothering to form attachments at all. When I entered romantic relationships, I insisted that my lovers understand that the relationship would end, sooner or later, and that I could not, would not, be possessed. I was an emotional coward hiding under the guise of being a 'free spirit', and I knew it, and I knew myself for a fraud.

In my early 30's things started changing. I faced the fact that the way I approached life and the methods I used to cope with the stresses, disappointments, problems, and fears in my life were not working, and I went looking for something that did work. I read self-help books, did two years of therapy, wrote in my journal, conversed with people, attended worshops, and contemplated my life.

And one of the things that became apparent was that I needed to be courageous. I needed to have the courage to face that I would always have fears and problems--that there was no magic wand that would smooth out the road of life ahead of me--and that I needed to find the courage to not let those things stop me from living my life right now.

One of the Christophers in my life told me that I also needed to stop trying to plan and predict life. Intellectually, I understood what he said. I understood the argument that if one can plan and predict life, then one is not living life... one is re-living the past by over-laying it on the future. But recently, I GOT it. I got what he meant on a visceral level. I got the whole thing Jung said about neurotic suffering. I got the whole thing about fear of the uncertainty of life causing me to pull as much of the familiar past forward into my future as I could. I realized that in my fear I was forcing myself to re-live the past, even though I really didn't want to. I really, really, don't want to relive the past. It is dead, and there is nothing for me there.

Today, the future is wide open. It is a vast nothingness, a place of potentials, and I have the power to chose to either fill it with the expectations and fears and disappointments of the past, or create the life I want to live out of it. And I want to live an extraordinary, vibrant, fulfilled life. And since I want to live an extraordinary, vibrant, fulfilled life, I am choosing to BE an extraordinary, vibrant, fulfilled person. But in order to be those things, I had to accept that fear would always be a part of my life, and find in myself the courage to not let it stop me from living the life I want to live and being the person I want to be.

So there it is. That's my story, and my advice. Find the courage to let your fears remain where they belong, in the past. Sure, you may open up to someone and you may get hurt. That's Life. That's the risk we take. But being hurt isn't so bad, and adults are by nature far more compassionate than we give them credit for. So open up to lots of people. Play the odds. Keep trying. Keep living. Keep being the person you want to be, and you will find that others will be drawn to you, to that person you are being, and you will have the love and companionship you have chosen for yourself. Really.

It will be interesting to see what happens next.

The delight of surprise memories

Life is full: rich and colourful, dark and painful, replete with abundance, plagued with scarcity. For all these reasons, I've not posted to my blog in too long. I have several thoughts started, but a scarcity of time has prevented me from completing them. I will, though.

For now, though, I feel an urge to post this: Earlier this week, two memories surfaced for me. They were good memories. Memories of my mother, and my maternal grandfather. I was talking to 'Doc' (Bob) at HypnoFantasy about the possibility of doing hypnotic scripts. I told him I did not know much about hypnosis and wanted to understand it better before I attempted to hypnotize anyone else.

At some point in the conversation, I felt some internal pressure, some resistance to the idea of hypnosis for some reason, and I took a moment to examine it. And when I did, I suddenly remembered why I've always found it so easy to meditate, to fall into trance--I remembered that my mother used to hypnotize me and my sisters. WHAT?! I felt this little jab of panic as my old distrust of her surfaced. What did she say to me, when I was in trance, what suggestions did she make? I've no idea. I'll never know, because she is dead. I have decided to trust that the suggestions she made to me were intended to be beneficial. It is difficult for me, this trust, because she demonstrated so little in the way of maternal feeling, and I have so little childhood knowledge or memory of her.

But I found it inside me to trust that when he hypnotized me, she meant well, because I carry that memory of her brushing my hair when I was a child. I remembered the pleasure of the brush scraping lightly against my scalp and pulling gently at the roots of my hair, running down my back, and the waves of gooseflesh that ebbed and flowed with the rhythm of the brush... I remembered the sun on my face and on my skin, warming me as I sat naked before her, my knees pulled up under my chin. And I remembered her voice, her beautiful, mellifluous, soothing voice, saying my name. And I was grateful for that one memory, and I held it until it glowed, and I basked the light of my mother's love once again--and the pressure, the resistance to the idea of hypnosis, faded. My unconventional, counter-culture mother helped make me the woman I am today. And I like who I am :)

The other memory was of her father. He died the same year she took off and I have very few memories of him. But I was talking to someone about voice-over recording, and microphones, and I suddenly remembered Grandfather. He had a radio show! I could feel laughter burbling up inside me as I remembered. He, too, had a wonderful voice, which he learned put to good use as a missionary evangelist. He was one of Aimee Semple McPherson's students, having graduated from Life Bible College at Angelus Temple in the late 1920's, and she had a radio show. So did he. Even during the years he battled cancer, after he retired from the pulpit, he was on the air. I remember that he had taken over one of the closets in the guest room, the one that had the pull-down door to the attic. I remember him sitting in that little room stacked with books and papers, with the big microphone in front of him and the reel-to-reel tape machine running as he sermonized, his voice resonant and his blue eyes blazing. He put the 'charismatic' in 'Christian', Grandfather did.

So here I am, by some cosmic convolution, sitting at a desk, surrounded by books and papers, with a big microphone hanging in front of me, spinning tales on sexuality in my mother's voice for an audience that likes to be hypnotized. It makes me smile. There is something fitting in that.

Dawning comprehension

I participated in the Landmark Forum this weekend hoping I would discover new tools for tackling those fears and problems that I felt were taking up too much of my energy. I wanted to free myself up to pursue a happier, more fulfilled life. I walked away with full and complete comprehension of three things: that I would always experience fear, that I would always have problems, and that the tools I wanted were too small, too specific. Instead of discovering the magic wand that would make fears and problems disappear, I now have something more important: the tools to live an extraordinary life despite these difficulties. Now all I need is practice!

One of the things that really hit home with me this weekend was the distinction between knowing a thing, and comprehending it. I have a tendency to collect knowledge, to learn as much as I can about something in hopes of finding the answer(s) to my questions. But answering my questions about a thing does not mean I comprehend it, that its mystery has unfolded for me, that I have truly 'gotten' it.

This weekend I learned how incomplete my understanding of what it means to be human is. How incomplete my understanding of the human condition is. A lifetime of empathy, two years of therapy, years of gathering information and evidence, of reading books like Tolle's The Power of Now and Heidegger's Being and Time and Batchelor's Buddhism Without Beliefs--I learned much from these things, and I intuited some wisdom from them, but my understanding was (not surprisingly) incomplete.

My viewpoint was too fixed, too limited, too focused on questions and answers and meanings. I was asking questions and then neglecting to question the answers until the point of irreducibility. For example, the question at the heart of all human angst is: What is the meaning of life? And the answer I arrived at was: Life has whatever meaning I ascribe to it. And I was close, oh god I was so fucking close, but my understanding was incomplete. The answer to the question What is the meaning of life is, Life has no meaning in and of itself. Life is simply life. This is irreducible--it has been stripped of all romantic notions and religious interpretations. One might even think that this answer also strips life of all hope of meaning anything. However, (and this distinction is the most important part) our lives, individually, have whatever meaning and purpose we choose to create for our lives.

My life has whatever meaning and purpose I choose for it. Now that is a powerful statement. And arising out of the flowering of that powerful and empowering comprehension is a question far more powerful and pertinent than What is the meaning of life. It is, What meaning and purpose do I choose to create for my life? And the answer, right now, is, I don't know. Yet. I need to find a problem that I feel is worthy of my life, of dedicating my life to. For now, I choose to create the possibility of being consistently awake to the fact that I am perfect, complete and whole as I am, of passionate commitment to loving myself as I am right now, and being open to the possibilities that love brings into my life and the world. Baby steps, right?

(I enjoyed re-reading my blog entry from 9 days ago. I've taken 'choice' to the next level, I think.)

Sunday's epiphanies

An online acquaintance contacted me for my perspective on something. We talked about what was going on with him and once we'd discussed his dilemma, he asked:

"So life has been hectic for you this past week--you get it all resolved?"
"Does one ever resolve life?" I responded.
"Your question intriques me. Is it possible for a person to resolve life if they isolate themselves from society and all influences?"
"I think that is the wrong approach"
"What is the approach?"

And the answer to his question pulled from somewhere deep inside me. I didn't think about it. It was like something in me was waiting for that question to be asked.

"One resolves the ambivalence of life by ceasing to attempt to impose expectations on the present in order to influence the future."
His next question showed that he was misunderstanding me. "So just exist? For me to take that approach in life--would be death--not to have expectations which I equate with having goals - direction or path in life. So with that I guess I really don't want resolve my life. Or am I missing your point?"

The past few months of living sort of gelled and this moment of clarity illuminated me. I felt like I was glowing, like I was a beacon of metta. I had this sensation of overflowing with love and gratitude and compassion.
I said, "We put the past into the future. We carry it around and our expectations create a future based on our pasts. And by 'expectations' I dont mean goals and what not.

I'll use an example to illustrate what I mean... Lets say you call you mother, and it seems that every time you call your mother, she says 'so when are you getting married' and it annoys you. So you avoid calling her, because you KNOW that she will just ask you when you are getting married. And when you do call her or talk to her, you already have expectations of what she is going to say, and you already know how you are going to react. So you aren't really being fully present to the moment...you're clinging to expectations of what will occur in the future--carrying unresolved issues from the past forward. And thus the phone call goes more or less as you expected."
He is a quick one. "This I understand. My body and mind are ready for the question--I am ready to pounce back--I should make the call for the right reason and and approach with an open mind and allow the moment to create itself. In speech communication we talk about not allowing outside influences - verbal, auditory, past experiences etc to interfere with the moment--to shut it all out--exist in the moment--so If I understand your approach in life--you have learned to do that in your life more than most --and thus why you are so clued into all that is going on around you."

I wasn't sure if he was trying to flatter me, or if he was being genuine, but I responded to his words at face-value. "I still do it. Its not a matter of tuning it all out. It is a matter of accepting it all, and then none of it clamours for attention."
"Ok understood," he said.

And then we embarked on a conversation about various topics that eventually lead to me saying that lately I've been finding it a challenge to communicate with others lately, and how it bothers me.

Eventually he said, "Is that what bothers you--that people fail to understand why you respond the way you do--that they can't understand your belief system?"
I tried to think to the best way to explain. "I dont care about being understood, in general. I dont feel misunderstood, I dont feel a need to be understood. But when someone asks me a question, and I give them my best answer, they sometimes look at me like I have three heads. Like the question and answer session about 'can you ever resolve life', but worse. I've responded to others to relinquish expectations of the future, and most people dont get it. Really dont get it, that we drag the past, kicking and screaming, into our futures."
He answered, "I understand what you are saying: let go of your past so you can move on in you life. It is difficult for most people to let go of the past--right?"

I knew he was missing something, a nuance, something I'd been working out the past couple of years. "Its funny--when we think about letting go of the past...we think about discarding it. Wadding it up and throwing it away. But really, uts about not clinging to it. Letting the death grip of fear go, and accepting the past--all of it. And then it is where it belongs.. in the continuity of the moment."

"Yes, but there is a difference between not forgetting, and allowing the past to influence. There is a distinct difference..."

He was close, but he wasn't getting my meaning. So I decided to use an example again. "Did you read about that dream I had, the one about being hit over the head while I was travlling, and panicking about my suitcase being empty, and how it seemed so important to be able to prove who I was?"
"I did."
"My analysis of the dream is that I have anxiety...Over the past two years I've emptied the emotional baggage, but I'm still towing the empty suitcase along... because w/o the baggage, I am afraid I won't know who I am. My ID, Everthing that made me 'me', everything that I identified myself with--was in my baggage. And so I am anxious to figure out--to prove--who I am."

He said, "Well - you are the sum,of your past. But today and tomorrow can add / change who you are. Letting go of the past does not mean giving up your ID."

"I am a vessel. Emptied and filled continually... what happens changes me, but does not become me. I am the container, not what is in it. Does that make sense? And one day, perhaps, I will release the container too :) Perhaps that day I will be enlightened?"
"So you don't believe what happens to you today--that in 2 yrs when you look back--is not a part of your new id?"
"What happens changes me, but does not become me. I can feel fear, anxiety, joy, pain. Do they become a part of me? Or do they effect me? And don't I have the ability to decide how much?"
"Why can't they be both?"
"I never used to feel afraid. I used to BE afraid. As a child I was convinced of the inappropriateness of my emotions, so I ceased expressing or feeling them... I pushed them down, deep down... and they became a part of me in ways they were not meant to be."
"If I remember correctly -- enlightment is what buddhism strives for."

"No. The end of suffering. Release from the wheel of suffering."

"Mmm... ok. Now here is something I have observed in life. Very talented writers, producers, muscians - artsy people - all have unusual suffering in light but give us positive views on a number of subjects in life. Life without suffering is less interesting. Jesus had to endure suffering -- so we know he was not a buddhist."

"Ah, but there are some compelling argumnnts for the idea that for the period of Jesus life of which there is no record--that he disappeared into Asia, and came into contact with Buddhists. Jesus, out of love, suffered for the sins of all mankind. His sacrifice was supposed to release his followers from suffering. They were supposed to be assumed into heaven during their lifetimes. They were supposed to become enlightened."

"Well it didn't work did it?"
"Apparently did not."

"I can't wait to talk to my dad about Jesus converting to Buddism," he laughed.
"I think that... Well...it is blasphemy to some, but I think the Rapture is a figurative expression of what it is to become 'enlightened'. I think that the imagery for early Christian texts, the attempts of the writers to give people something concrete to imagine what enlightenment was like... have been taken too literally. The inducement to give up one's clinging to pain and fear and suffering and 'sin' by one person's suffering for all...was apparently not enough.
Jesus said: This is my commandment, that you love one another. And love/lovingkindness/metta is the foundation of what Buddha taught. Loving yourself, loving your neighbor, your family, and your enemies... this is part of metta meditations. 'Love thy enemy as thy self' is so very buddhist."

"There are basic commonalities in most religions."
"It is amazing...How it all fits together... all the religious teachings. You are correct. They all say the same thing: Let go of your pain, your fear, your hatred, your 'sins', and love instead, and send it out into the world, and you will be set free--you will find the way to heaven / nirvana / paradise."

"Yes it is, and yet we can't seem to get along."

"I think the judeo-christian-islamic 'sin' is actually 'holding on to negatively charged past experiences.'"
"Interesting observation."

"The catholics tried to make it easier for people to let go by 'absolving them'--by giving them a ritual by which they could release their sins / regrets / pains... but it all got twisted. Eventually, you had to buy absolution. One way or another, you had to pay. It is all so very clear to me. I've considered posting some of this on my blog, but I'm worried someone would track me down and burn me for being a heretic :) The fundamentalist movements in all faiths create such zealots."

"You are a female -- witch burning in Oregon will pass."
"I'm only 30 minutes from Salem :)"
"Yes and now killing is ok to defend your beliefs."

"The world is crazy. But what is crazier is that every day it becomes clearer and cleared what the insanity is. And it is too simple, and people would not listen."

"So - simply put you would recommend?"
"The insanity is fear of the uncertainty of everyday life. The solution is accepting that uncertainty, and loving every moment you have.

And it is fear of death, dying, going broke, loss... Fear of loss. Fear of the unknown. That is why we project the past into the future... why we drag it along with us. Because it is familiar. We know we can survive what we have experienced before."

"Fear keeps us stuck."
"You have come along tonite for me at a perfect time... to help me put into words what I have come to understand intuitively but felt unable to express coherently."
"So you better understand yourself?
"Its not about understanding myself. There is nothing to understand :) The bags are empty."

"Sure they are "
"Right now, in this moment, they are."
"Got it - :-)"

"5 minutes from now, tomorrow morning, it may be different. God, I sound like..."

"Your grandparents?"
"Such a... such a smug ass."

"Nah--I understand and relate to what you say."

"Good to hear. Maybe others will."

On the foundations of sexual psychopathology

[click here for audio / podcast]
I expect that, to the average American, I would seem to be a "sexual deviant", however, I think it is fair to say that my spontaneous, free-flowing eroticsm is but a extension of the way my mind works. I am a divergent thinker, and so I consider myself "sexually divergent" rather than "deviant". But again, that is a question of semantic nuances, I suppose.


Which leads to my next topic.... sexual psychopathology.

My morality, ethics, and sexuality were heavily influenced by two diametrically-opposed lifestyles: the hippie-hedonism of my parent's communal lifestyle, and the fundamentalist Christianity of my missonary evangelist grandparents. Perhaps as a consequence of being caught in the middle of their battle for my mind, body, and soul, I have long been aware of, and fascinated by, how the socio-religious regulation of sexuality is internalized to produce sexual psychopathology. I have long wanted to understand what it is about our society that creates 'child molesters' such as the one I fell prey to when I was 11. What I have learned over the years is that children have always been eroticized, but that the abuse factor is a fairly recent evolution in response to the Church's attempt to bring sexuality and reproduction under its control. It took centuries for them to bring marriage under the umbrella of Its authority, proscribing fornication and adultery, and condemning all non-procreative sexual practices as "unnatural".

The history of sexuality in the West is rather interesting and very convoluted. The Hellenic (Greek) culture tolerated pederastic and male homosexual relations for centuries. It was not uncommon for men and women to reserve feeling of higher 'love' for people of their own gender, or for children. It was understood that sex was required for procreation, but that loving sexuality was fluid in its expression, rather than static. Sex was recognized for the primal and necessary bodily function that it is, rather than being wrapped in and confused with 'love' like it is today. This ended rather quickly with the rise of Christianity--the pleasures of the flesh were directly at odds with the prospect of salvation in the imminent 'last days'.

In my readings, I found it interesting to learn that being a catamite in Hellenic days was not only accepted, but expected by those of honoured houses. It was an honour even, to the family whose boy was chosen. And homosexuality was no more looked down upon then as heterosexuality is now. I also find the evolution of prostitution from something accepted and deemed a necessary, if not always desirable thing, to the apparent abomination that some view it to be today. In fact, a great many things viewed as 'immoral' today were not so before the rise of Christianity.

In the 19th century, Darwin's work began to influence most aspects of Western Thought, and through it, religious views on sexual difference were provided with a biological and eventually an evolutionary logic, which then in turn was used to determine that departures from sanctioned demonstrations of heterosexuality were not only 'sins', but pathological deviations from physiological norms. The emergence of what could be called 'scientific sexology' at the end of the nineteenth century completed these developments by identifying as sexual 'deviants' the prostitutes, masturbators, and perverts whose sexual practices supposedly posed a biological and moral threat to the health of families, nations, and the 'race.' This was the pivotal moment in the modern history of sexuality -- when homosexuality, sadism, masochism, and the other 'perversions' were invented. It was not a simple medical or scientific conspiracy, but a decisive cultural revolution that,
when interwoven with the upwelling of charismatic Christian evangelism during the same era, left pyscho-social marks so deep, indelible, and socially transmissible, that most people in America assume that this 19th century construction is both natural and eternal.

In the end, I think it all comes down to pleasure. Pre-Christian cultures elevated pleasure and happiness as goals to be achieved in daily life. Early Christians, believing that Christ would come again within their lifetime/generation, embraced an ascetic lifestyle that renounced pleasure today in favour of the rigors needed to be worthy of the joys salvation in the afterlife. When it became apparent that Christ was not coming as soon was originally promised, the emphasis shifted to control, to controlling pleasure and pain, marriage and procreation through fear. The eyes of the Heirs of Paul ceased their inward look and turned to those whose lives were free of the oppressive fears of their Christian brethren, and seeing them as threats to the continuation of the Church, sought to bring them under the authority of the Church lest they influence new converts to return to the 'old ways'. Little did the Church elders know that the use of fear to control sexuality would last for thousands of years, and mutate to turn expressions of non-procreative sexuality into an underground phenomenon perpetuated from generation to generation by guilt and oppression. Christianity, and the culture it spawned, has a dark, twisted, and seedy underside. It makes sinners of its subscribers, who, knowing they are powerless to prevent themselves from participating in the cycle of Original Sin, become twisted by fear and the need to exert power and control -- over themselves and others -- in the most deeply personal and private aspect of their lives: their sexuality.

Perhaps, for ha-has, I should begin identifying myself as a Fundamentalist Pre-Christian, and begin dialogue on getting back to sound, healthy, pre-Christian values: de-nuclearization of the 'family' in favour of a return to the community as the basic social unity; the return of sexual worship to temples and other sanctums; rites of fertility and sexual initiation; placing procreation back in the hands of women, who, after all, bear children, and who for millennia, made the decision to bear or expose to the elements children born 'untimely'; viewing masturbation as a healthy and desirable expression of self-love; all as an effort to root out the sexual psychopathology, guilt, and repression rampant in our current society. I can just see their faces now. Wheeeee.

The pulse of a new and better year

Perhaps it is the pagan in me, but I think the new year begins the day after winter solstice. The day after Longest Night. But for most people, the New Year begins according to the Julian calendar.

And so, according to this modern calendar, my New Year began with dreams. Dreams fuelled by post-orgasmic endorphins. Endorphins from one of the strongest orgasms I've ever had. I was on edge for well-over half an hour, and when I climaxed, it was like an earthquake hit me--rolled through me in successive waves of orgasmic aftershocks. It lasted for a long long time, and when I was done, he urged me on again to one more. He knows I love the torment of trying to reach another climax on the heels of such an intensely satisfying cum. And when I was done, I fell immediately asleep. I know he spoke to me, but I do not remember the words, just the sound of his voice... and then sleep. And dreams.

I dreamed of all sorts of things.

One dream was that I was travelling overseas and was hit over the head, and when I came to myself I was walking with my bags rolling behind me, and they seemed to be too light. When I opened them they were empty, and I was panicked because my ID had been in my baggage. There was no way to prove who I was. It seemed very important to be able to prove who I was.

I dreamed of my sister, the one who has been ill. I was looking for her. I never did find her.

I dreamed of K as a swashbuckler. He strode up to me in his kilt, with a bottle of cognac in one hand and his hand on the hilt of his sabre. He pulled me to him for a kiss. I opened my mouth to him and time stopped. We fell into a dreamy place where kissing is the most intimate, sensual exporation of another person.

I dreamed of my friend J, that we were snuggled on his couch, and his belgian shepherd licked my bare thigh, making me squirm against him, and he hugged me and his fingers found my nipple... and then I slid into another dream.

I dreamed of M, who said he was inherently monogamous and he wanted me to be the same, that it hurt him, knowing I loved others, and so he pushed me away and disappeared behind an emotional wall. And I was a little girl again, banging on that wall, and there were so many things I wanted to yell over it, but I knew he would not hear me because I'd lost my voice.

I dreamed about planting bulbs -- that no sooner did I cover the bulbs with soil than they sprouted and started flowering. There was something frightening about it, about the accelerated growth, and I started putting the bulbs in the ground as fast as I could, to get them out of my hands. I was frantic, and when I realized it, I stopped, and sat back on my heels, and breathed, and in that moment I realized that I did not have to plant all of the bulbs in my hands, that I did not need to fear the sudden blossoming of the bulbs that I'd touched.

I dreamed of C standing before me, so tall, so fucking tall, reminding me that he is a patient man, but not a saint. He appeared again, later on, tugging on nipple-clamps while his fingers worked inside me, even as I flogged G's wife, my pretty little pony. The dream-memory of the pink stripes on her ass and the horse-tail dildo sticking out of it makes me wet, even as I type this.

I had many other dreams, most of them just little flashes in my head now. I slept until nearly noon, awakening groggy from last night's cognac to an oddly quiet world. There was a soft light coming through the bedroom window, soft and diffuse, and when I got up, I knew why... the sky was bright and white with thick mist, and a light rain fell. I moved to the kitchen to brew coffee and while I waited, stood at the window and watched the rain fall on the bamboo leaves. Beyond the bamboo the golf course glistened, glowed with the green of new grass.

I settled into the armchair with a lap rug and my lap top computer and began my New Years conversations with friends and loved ones, still fuzzy from my rest and dreams. I resolved to do nothing today, especially no chores, and to do minimal cooking. I am a human being, not a human doing, and it seems like I'm always 'doing' something.

I have high hopes for this New Year. I dare to have hopes. Certainly 2006 was one of the most difficult years of my life, more painful in ways than the year my mother and grandmother died. And yet I've survived, and more than that, thrived. My resiliance astonishes even me, at times. And despite shattering news from someone who has become a very dear friend, I expect 2007 to be a good year. The year I turn 39. Year three of the new me. Whee!

(Regarding the photo: Can you see the one heart, formed by cock and cunt?)

2006: The year of love and friendship

In the past year, especially, I've learned the value of open and honest communication, and more, of putting myself out there emotionally and being vulnerable. My awareness of the world and my inner life has deepened with both therapy and my meditation practice. I've had some insights and put into effect some changes in my life and I've found that my ability to relate with others has increased dramatically. Yes, in putting myself out there, I risk emotional pain, but life is as transient and uncertain as it is beautiful , and I've realized that if I'm unwilling to embrace the possibility of negative consequences, I'm not really living my life--I'm playing it safe.

These flowers are from a friend I've made this year. A wonderful man of intelligence, wisdom, and kindness whom I never would have met if it was not for the changes I've made in my life this year--of my choice to take risks, to be spontaneous, to follow my intuitions.

A retrospective of 2006:
I am, mostly, well. 2006 was a tough year--My sister spent January through September in and out of the hospital and I did a lot of travelling back and forth to Massachusetts. She seems to have stabilized, but the medical estabilishment says it will be another year before they know what the lasting effects of the illness will be, and if she will require convalescent care for the rest of her life. We did not think she would make it to her 37th birthday, but she is a stubborn wench and surprised us all. Work has been awful--so short-staffed that I was asked to stay on even after I offered to resign because I was having to leave for MA for weeks on end and at a moment's notice.

And yet, for all that, it has been a great year, too. I've been dating some amazing men, completed two years of counselling/therapy, seen friends and family, and done a fair bit of travelling. I am participating in an ecstatic dance group, have been exploring tantra and intimacy, and I've been developing my abilities as a writer and a photographer with the encouragement of professionals in both fields.

This year my friendships have deepened, and I've learned just how secure a support system I have. I've learned that I don't always have to be 'strong' and that it takes more courage to lean on others than it does to be the one others lean on. I've learned that I can feel fear without embodying it. As a consequence of my sister's illness, which was partly brought on by self-neglect, I've come to the realization that I need to learn to live in and with my body--to fully inhabit it--rather than driving it, or using it as a tool. The seat of my self-awareness and the source of my connection with reality are my flesh and my senses, and neglecting to care for my body means that there will likely come a day when it is unable to furnish my needs.

And so, while I am not the sort of person who participates in the New Year's Resolution ritual, I am committed to making 2007 the year I make peace with my body, learning to inhabit it fully, ceasing to use it as a shield between me and a world whose attentions I'd become so averse to.

I am off to the Coast for the weekend for a quiet retreat in a little 1920's cottage, where I can recuperate from 50 to 60 hour work weeks to the sound of wild surf and blustry winds. I expect to sit by the fire, read, watch movies, and enjoy the opportunity to write and photograph.

Home from Thanksgiving Vacation

Home.

I am sitting at the dining table sipping jasmine tea and nibbling on dark chocolate with bits of crystalized ginger in it, watching the black bamboo and the sweet orange osmanthus sway in the breeze. It is silent except for the deep thrum of the windchimes and the tap of my fingertips on the keyboard. I forgot how much I relish silence.

Ten days of travel. The joys of seeing family and friends and children. Road noise, airport announcements, beeps and flashes, the annoying endless loop of television programming.

And now, home. Silence. People say silence is golden but I think few really understand what that really means. It seems to me like so many people fear being alone with their thoughts, fear the silencing of the external noise that drowns out their internal dialogue.

And now that I am alone, I'll let my thoughts flow, unedited, from my fingertips...


The photo above is of my niece gathering up the golden leaves of the ginkgo tree. I braided some of her hair and put ginkgo leaves in it to form a crown. She looked like a princess with golden butterflies in her hair. A lovely child of four, with mossy green-brown eyes, so solemn and wide, and hair the colour of tobacco, brown and gold, with the same curls as mine. She resembles my mother in ways, particularly her mouth and chin, and she has the permanent sun-kissed tan that mom always had and which my sister's and I did not get. Lucky girl. I brought her Dr Seuss books and read to her, and she read the stories back to me, even mimicking the accents. She is so articulate, so expressive, so impossibly bright. I taught her fencing poses and lunges one day last May and she still remembered them. When she wrapped her arms around me and told me she loved me and missed me I fell in love with her all over again. My sister and her husband have done a fine job of raising her.

My nephew is a source of wonder to me. In January he will be 14. He is 5'9" already, and wearing a size 13 shoe. His hands are larger than mine, and mine are large for a woman. He is big and fleshy, poised for another spurt of growth. His nature is similar to what mine was at his age... he is very empathetic and kind, good-natured and friendly. He is popular with his peers but does not seek it. He does phenomenally in school--my sister was concerned that he was not bringing home any school work and met with his teachers, but the truth is that even with the GATE program he is hardly challenged at all. He finishes most of his homework before he leaves school for the day. I was prepared to find him at that age where teenaged boys don't want anything to do with their family--that age when they are exerting their independance and withdrawing from their family in favor of their friends. But he's not there yet, and perhaps never will become that self-isolating. For now he is thoughtful, affectionate and snuggly. I loved snuggling up to him and listening to him breathe, listening to him talk about the things that are important to him. Manga. PS2. Yugi-oh. Movies. Swimming. School.

We talked about girls. He said there are girls at school who say they are in love with him and I could tell that it confused him. "I'm too young for a relationship," he said to me with such seriousness. I always have condoms with me and I offered to leave him some but he blushed said he was fine--my sister has made some available to him but he doesn't plan to use them any time soon. I like him. Smart, articulate, brave, sure of himself in ways few teens are. He knows he is loved. My sister marinates him in it. I have faith that he will survive adolescence with his 'self' more or less intact.

As for my sisters, both are well. The one who was ill, well, she's getting better physically, but she drifts around a lot, somewhat out of sync with reality in ways that are hard to pinpoint. Some of that is being on morphine for pain, I know, but some of it is residual psychosis from advanced Beri-beri. She is existing right now... exisiting, and not in a place to care much for herself or others... she keeps falling asleep with lighted cigarettes in her hands, leaving burn-holes in carpets, blankets and clothes, freaking my other sister out. They fight over the smoking... my youngest sister fears that she is going to wake up to her house burning down. And so it goes.

Wednesday night I made yellow curry with vegetables and chicken for everyone. I decided it would be a good idea to have something completely different from what we'd be eating on Thanksgiving. Its a speciality of mine and my brother-in-law and my nephew were dubious, but find themselves enjoying it rather a lot.

Thursday's Thanksgiving dinner was delicious. My sister cooked the turkey in cheesecloth, which kept it very moist. There was cornbread stuffing cooked in a muffin pan, acorn squash, green beans with bacon, mashed potatoes, yams, and cranberry sauce. Dessert (much later) was pecan pie or chocolate cream pie. I had the pecan pie, of course. The best part was snuggling up with my nephew for a nap.

Friday the six of us drove up into the Sierras to Shaver Lake, which is located about half-way between Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon. We had some of the best pizza I've ever eaten and strolled around the town a bit. The kids got their photos taken with Santa and my brother-in-law snapped a photo of my sister and I clowning around at the base of the town's Christmas Tree. It is a good photo. I think I'll have it printed and send it to my sister.

During the course of writing this I've gotten several phone calls and IMs. It is good to be home and good to know I was missed. I'm ready to resume my life here in Portland, even with the spectre of 8 weeks of 10 - 12 hours days at work on the horizon. Ah well, the joys of being in the accounting field.

Absent the need for certainty: growing a friendship

Absent the need for certainty: growing a friendship. Enjoying being present. Facing and discussing what arose. Struggling to remain open and vulnverable. Allowing energy to flow.

I had an interesting evening with a friend-in-the-making who asked perceptive questions that made me think, and because I was open to him, often triggered emotional responses.

Opening to possibility (Me: One of the first things I tell some one when we get into a relationship is: "I promise I will hurt you. I also promise I will never hurt you intentionally." He: Wouldn't a better choice of words be "I may hurt you.." The way you word it you are guaranteeing it will happen instead of allowing for the possibility of it. Me: Its a certainty. Miscommunication happens. Things happen. No matter how hard we try, the ones we love still feel hurt by things we say and do. So, that choice of words is deliberate. He: But wouldn't you rather chose an option that allows for the possibiltiy of not hurting the ones you love? Me: That is possible, but improbable. He: Still, we're not talking about statisical probabilities here. We're talking about relationships and allowing for the possibility.. why do you feel it necessary to set those expectations? Me: I am pragmatic. Its a warning, an acknowledgement that at times I will hurt the ones I love unintentionally. And a reminder to myself that the ones I love will hurt me, as well. Hmm... I will consider what you are saying. You are right that such wording does negate the possibility of not hurting someone.)

Opening to fears (He: Are you afraid of connection? Me: Yes. He: Why? Me: *hesitation*. He: Don't think, just answer. Me: Some of it is that childish abandonment issue from my mother disappearing when I was 9 or 10. Some if it has to do with Love. Some people stop loving, and I don't. The relationship may change but the reasons I love people are still there. I still love them. I don't understand how people can just stop loving someone, loving me. And that hurts. But more than that, it confuses me, baffles me, rocks the foundation of my inner-reality (love). So I'm very cautious about who I build connections with.)

Opening to what we want or need from each other. Expectations of our relationship, or more suitably, lack thereof. What we sense can grow between us -- there is a sense of boundless intimacy. That question I have--will he become a friend of the soul? I would like that.

Talking about the difference between being terse and being succinct, and my tendancy at times to be the former in an attempt to be the latter. Discussed Polyamory and Monogamy. His desire to educate not only the monogamous masses, but those struggling to make polyamory work for them so they don't participate in a string of divorces or serial monogamy. Awareness that one person cannot be all things to another, and even if they are, that such a state is unsustainable. Jealousy, and my statement that I do not feel it or experience it, and how this hinders my ability to understand it in others.

My face pressed to his chest, hot tears for no real reason. Simultaneously knowing it was alright, and fearing this release would be too much for him. I fiercely hate crying. But he is far more comfortable with tears and emotions than I am, and he did all the right things. And in that moment, one of the petals of the lotus unfolded. And that first petal was trust.

Honoring what lies between us

Sprawled in his bed, spent, the burgundy sheets pulled up over one thigh, draping my hips. The other leg thrown wide, toes flexing occasionally as orgasmic aftershocks jolt me. I feel a bit like a boat bumping against its moorings. Him sitting up against the headboard, drinking water, the blond hair on his chest glistening dark gold with sweat. My head resting on his thigh, inhaling deeply of the scent of 'us' that rises from his groin. Such an amazing scent. I smile, basking in that scent. Start to doze off and start awake. It is late. I move to slide away. Its a half-hour drive home. Large hands cup my breasts, long-fingered and deft, o so deft as he tweaks one of my nipples. "Stay", he says, softly. No intonation, nothing for me to object to. I shift onto my side, my body forming an 'L', toes brushing the headboard. I look up into his face, wanting to gauge his reaction. "Mmmm.... but I want to sleep in my own bed." He sighs. Leans forward. Rests his forearms on his knees. "Would it help if I got a tempurpedic?" he asks, not for the first time. "I like your bed," I tell him. Its very comfortable. A luxury pillow-top, like the ones at my favorite hotel chain. I reach out, stroke his calf, trail my fingers along the crease between it and his forearm. He takes my hand, kisses it. His nostrils flare a little and I know he can smell my juices, mild as the scent is. He is remarkably attuned to my pheromones. "You don't want to stay with me because you are afraid." He looks into my eyes, his expression expectant. "Absolutely," I agree. This surprises him, because I usually stubbornly refuse to admit fear. "You are so afraid of committment," he ventures. I think on that for a moment. In the past, I've not been afraid of commitment. In my previous relationships I readily admitted my feelings and took that dive. But right now... "I'm not afraid of commitment. I just don't want a serious relationship right now, for good reasons. Yes, some of it is fear. I have this aversion to depending on people that I still need to work on. I'm afraid I've not done enough work to break past habits. I'm afraid I'll make the same old mistakes again." I push myself up, leaning on one palm so we are eye-level. My other hand slips up his shoulder, squeezes. Tangles in the hair at the nape of his neck. I hold his gaze with mine. "And part of it is that I'm really enjoying being single and seeing lots of people and having fun. And staying here, with you, implies a commitment that could later be used as a wedge between me and the life I so enjoy leading." My heart fills with love for him. I project it outward even as I lean forward to kiss him, brushing my lips against his. "Stay anyway," he whispers, "No commitment implied. I miss the feel of you snuggled up against me.". A hard kiss. His fingers cup my head, slipping through my hair, still damp from exertion. He breaks the kiss. Leans his forehead against mine. "Besides... I love what you do with the morning wood." Ah! Devious man! I grin and relent. I stay over so rarely... We settle into the rumpled bed, my head pillowed on his arm. His body spoons against mine, chest pressing into my back. His slightly tumescent cock nestles just under my ass, at the top of my thighs. I wiggle my bottom against it in a silent promise. Just wait 'til morning, I think. "I want to see how you blog this," he says, giving his consent. Smiling, I press my lips to his bicep and then dive into sleep. [click here for audio]

Befriending the Shadow

R. and I have been so busy--we both realized that three weeks have passed since our last time together. We talk regularly on the phone and on chat, but its not the same, and after a while we miss that energy flow between us. So, needing that ki-fix, we had a contemplative, conversational dinner at Papa Hayden's. We both have a fondness for everything from mythology and archetypes to phenomenology and existentialism to fin de siecle French art and literature, so we rarely run out of things to speak of.

A philosophy major, he is also well-informed on schools of psychology, particularly Jungian. We talked a bit of my therapy, how it was going and my general ambivalence, about my consideration of transitioning to a "life-coach" instead of a Jungian analyst. As we conversed, he asked if he could say something, and I said, "Of course."
He said, "You need to befriend your shadow."
I grinned at him, and I joked, "Jung's shadow, as I recall, was a brown, leathery dwarf. What is mine, a salamander?"

And so we launched into a discussion of what Jung discovered or theorized about the "shadow". Jung believed that what people fail to integrate into their conscious "waking" selves tends to collect into increasingly complex and autonomous mini-personalities. R. reminded me that these are comprised of the "unowned" or "disowned" aspects of ourselves and most commonly manifest in dreams and fantasies. The most prominent of these is the "shadow", the depository of most of what we consider negative, ugly, inferior, unpleasant, and flawed about ourselves. In our dreams, this shadow is always the gender of the dreamer and usually manifests as a figure that is strange, alien, threatening, or abhorrent. It insists on approaching us in our dreams, seeming to pursue us, no matter how hard we try to escape. These things "chasing" us in our dreams are the things we do not like about ourselves -- they are our insecurities, our fears, our rage, our sublimated drives -- and the shadow embodies it, and in refusing to be abolished, strives to fulfill the drive of the self to become whole. The shadow is only a terrifying creature because we fear it, but for those who learn to embrace it, the shadow becomes a benevolent figure who simply returns to us those aspects of ourselves which we discarded and which it has held in safe-keeping.

R. surmised that I am trying to heal while still encapsulating my shadow, while still retaining some of my locked-and-barred compartments. He said that therapy and self-examination are for pulling things out of the bag, airing them out, and then putting them away again, repeating the process again and again, until we understand that what is in the bag is a part of us, and not so awful a part after all. He said I need to befriend my shadow, because until I do, I will not be whole.

After some consideration, I think he is right.

Reminders

This has been the week of reminders. Reminders to live each moment fully. Reminders of why I decided to be more social--and why I had stopped. Reminders as to why I started therapy. Reminders that I do not own my fears--and they do not own me. Reminders that love is the most powerful force at my disposal. Reminders to be responsible. Reminders of who my friends really are. Reminders to let go of my need to control and manipulate reality instead of accepting and understanding that true freedom is simply experiencing life as it occurs, allowing myself to be truly spontaneous rather than habitual. I have been experiencing mini-moments of clarity, like the popping of ears signifying elevation changes. Something is up, I feel it, but I do not know what it is that is percolating in my intuitive subconcious--I only know that I am anxious about it, and that it, combined with an ear infection and inexplicable nosebleeds, has left me feeling weary. I am craving sanctuary with an intimate friend. C says come to him, and he will cuddle me--but I know where that will lead. And there will be no long period of peace, only moments suspended between interruptions. I would love a good long period snuggled up to B, but his social schedule is nearly as hectic as mine. I need nurturing, he said. And he was right. Nurturing, not sex... which is why I am at home in my own bed instead of C's. Weariness. Anxiousness. I tell myself there is nothing to be afraid of, and what does fear get me even if there is good reason? Readiness? Stress? I meditate, seeking the still mind, knowing insight and clarity will come if I can but calm the monkey brain long enough.
[audio entry]

Thoughts on order, chaos, and contemplative inquiry

I have a highly developed sense of order and symmetry. I have a very strong drive to systematize, to organize, to understand. At college, I was fully indoctrinated in the scientific method, spending 5 years hypothesizing, brainstorming, designing experiments, objectively observing, collecting and analyzing data, troubleshooting, proving or revising hypotheses. One might say that mine is a typically masculine mind.

And yet, I am also a 'feeler'. My senses are acute. My capacity for pleasure is boundless. I am conscious of things most people find beneath notice. Unless I am thinking deeply, I am aware, both physically and mentally, of every moment. My physical sensitivity to my environment, combined with a talent for systematizing, creates conflict and opportunity. I am (almost) always analyzing the output of my sensory array (the body), sifting, sorting, ranking, keeping the bewilderment of sensory bombardment at bay.

In my need to create order from chaos I am extremely aware that I use symbols (words) to describe my experience of life, and that the words I choose have nuances for others that are not present for me. The best example, I suppose, is that when I use 'sensual', people hear 'sexual'. And when I use words to describe my experiences, I am conscious that words are symbols ascribed to meanings, and that the world is so saturated with the meanings given to it that those meanings seem to reside in the things, people, and places themselves. I habitually assume that the world presented to me via my senses exists just as it appears to me. But that is preposterous, because what I sense is filtered through the unconscious mind. How I experience reality is coloured by the attitudes, conditioning, and habits of my emotional/psychological self long before it reaches the rational higher mind. In other words, the unconscious is tossing out the undesired variables so that the higher mind can do what it does best: create order out of chaos.

One of the benefits of meditation is that it brings me to the level of the unconscious, making me aware of all that 'white noise' it filters out for me. Breathing becomes something miraculous, really. I can feel my clothing touching my skin, my hair tickling my neck. I can hear the click of the freezer, the hum of the neighbor's TV, the sound of the river flowing by. The details of the moment flow one into the next and I am aware of the interconnectedness of things. My sense of myself deepens as well. I become conscious of my self-isolation, my insistence that I am this or that, my attachment to the idea of a fixed, 'core' self. As I breathe, as I 'listen' with all my senses to my body, to my environment, to my mind, it becomes oh so obvious that each moment is created out of the moment that preceeded it, and that I create myself in response to and interaction with my experiences, moment to moment. And it becomes oh so obivious that my responses are often conditioned by habit, by training, by the systems I have created, so that in my daily life, I am not really living today, I am experiencing a slight reconfiguration of the past.

Which is very comfortable and convenient, even predictable. It is much easier to think of conditions and consequences as 'things' with their own intrinsic (and manipulatable) identities, rather than as processes with no independent reality of their own. The reality is that no matter how much I want to make things singular, straightforward, absolute, and ordered, life is a matrix, a complex flow of interconnected processes. It is fractal, ambiguous, fluid, dynamic, imminent, transient, intertwined, unpredictable, and immediate. And I have choices as to how I respond to this reality. I can respond with fear, with the desire to create a mental map based upon past experiences that I can use as an overlay for present and future contingencies, thus shaping my perceived reality to suit an increasingly brittle, inflexible, habit-bound self which feels less and less comfortable with change.

Thus, the kind of 'order' that we humans create engenders tension. While it is natural to our ego, it is unnatural to our self. The ego is the 'I', the false-core, the part of us that denies change, denies unpredictability and impermanance. The ego clings to habitual behaviours and routines as a means to secure a sense of 'self', of wo we are, distinct from others; whereas the true self is comfortable developing the integrity of our identities aswirl in the transient, ambiguous, continually transforming world, knowing our selves as integral parts of a dynamic, inter-related whole, and thus free to create our reactions and ourselves moment to moment, letting reality teach us, instead of shaping our perceptions of it to fit inside our nice and tidy psychological boxes.

And the tension is more obvious to those of us who rise to challenge unconscious self-absorbtion with contemplative inquiry. We can continually question the assumption of the immutable 'I' at the core of our experiences. We can compassionately query ourselves about the validity of the emotionally charged notions we have of others. We can objectively observe our reactions to people and situations, examining the appropriateness of our responses to determine if we reacted to what actually occurred, or if we acted habitually, out of our preconceptions. And we can undermine the order of things with the responsive echos to these questions. Once we have gone to all the effort to put something in order, the last thing we want is for something to change. And so it is that even the seekers and the askers find themselves fighting against the habitual resistance to change.

In sum, order is not the enemy. The universe has its order. But neither is chaos something to be reviled. It is causal and creative; it provides opportunities for growth and spontanaeity that would otherwise be denied. There is always a tug between the two, between order and chaos, and tension in the minds of humans who want nothing more than to abolish the one in favor of the other.