A Goddess In Love

On The Giving of Thanks

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:30:00 +0000

So the only reason I didn't say this last week is that it's taken me a minute to come down from this season of Giving Thanks.

After spending the entire prior week with my family in a way I haven't done with them in nearly 15 years the warm and fuzzy feelings just kept coming.

Clay Lamps for the Hindu Fall/Winter Holiday of Diwali
Source: Creative Commons

Getting to cozy up to my parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings for a few days to celebrate a wedding was more heart filling than I could have imagined.

There were many moments and still this might give you an idea.

I was all by myself on a dance floor of children when my Dad tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to dance.

He then proceeded to take my Mama and my sister for a spin too.

And there was lots and lots of love. My smiled filled my face.

After a few days with some goddess friends' of mine in San Francisco I went to Seattle for a tick.

There I had the best meals I've had in years most of them with my friend Greg. The home cooked loving goodness in his house spilled out into the restaurants we chose to visit too. It was the company and the familiarity that did the trick. I got to eat and eat and laugh and laugh and that felt so very good.

I came back home to Portland and soon was enjoying The Muppet Movie on it's opening day. Which, of course, made me feel even better about feeling so good.

Then there was a Thanksgiving dinner for the record books. My friend Nessa sets a beautiful and deliciously warm table.

That food, booze and revelry were so good the bar has been set sky high for this Champagne Season.

Since then I've been celebrating.

Celebrating my good fortunes, the things that are just as I always dreamed them and all the things that are soon to be.

I mean Christmas is coming right?

When I know that the next fabulous step in my dreams coming true sits waiting for me all gussied up in paper and ribbons (for the surprise's sake) how could I not be bursting.

And then there's still New Year's to come after all that?

What?

So far I've sang, I've danced, I've held happy healthy babies, I've had meals I can barely describe, I've seen dear old friends and made a great many new ones. And don't get me started on those dreams come true.

It will suffice to say that I have kissed them all.

10,000 Monks Praying

So now I only ask that every day from here to that new year be an amber hazed, champagne bubbled, gift wrapped, fire cracker of potential, filled with your own excitement.

Oh beautiful Life, cheers and thank you.

Full Man Strength

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 22:30:00 +0000

Having written quite a few times on the subject of adulthood and when it actually 'begins' in ones life. I am finding that the differing opinions on the answer have something to do with a difference of experience.

I know twenty somethings that are convinced they are there and have always been there. (Personally, I recall that I felt the same way when I was twenty something so...)

I know thirty somethings that are so relieved they aren't where they were because here feels so much more nearly there, it's amazing.

For every ten years more in age I hear another level of 'boy, sure are a few things I know now that I sure could have used then.'

These things I hear from both men and women and yet lately I've been hearing it from you guys more often.

This matter of perspective phenomenon stayed on my mind while reading the book The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida.

(Click here to read my review)

In those pages Mr. Deida does a superb job honing in on the soft spots and awkward edges of boyhood that many of you will be able to relate to. Looking for where there is room for improvement is how David plays the friend.

Willing to listen and honestly reflect you back to you.

Being told 'All Women Are Not Liars' or to ' Live as if your Father is Dead' (actual chapter titles) help to release the holding posture of protection around the soft spots through simply acknowledging their existence.

Somehow giving that inner boy an opportunity to seek relief from the tender ache of his fears can transform them into a strong and pliable Source. Rendering him a Man capable of providing deep, long lasting, sensual pleasure to his whole world.

Those rough edges get some attention too. Chapters like 'Own Your Darkest Desire',' She wants the "Killer" in You' or 'Enjoy Your Friends Criticism' asks whether you are ready and willing to take yourself to the grindstone that is being a Man.

I have posited before that becoming a fully grown being in this world has lots to do with fully owning ones sexual essence and all the ways it informs the story of our lives. I also am coming to believe that once we have settled all that we can get on with the compelling work of creating our next beginning.

As Mr. Deida said in his preface to the 2nd edition of the book:

When you have mastered the challenges of women, work and sexual desire be willing to forget you were ever born. Eventually - and I'm telling you in advance, just like I was told - the way of the Superior Man renders obsolete everything that can be known or experienced.

My experience with men of all ages tells me that as ya'll grow up you appear to get this evolution of purpose from an 'I know just what you mean' sort of place.

How do you know when you've reached (as I love to call it) your full man strength?

Do you feel already honed into that strong and polished gem that is your gift to the world?

Are you wondering if you ever will?

Book Review: The Way of The Superior Man

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 18:00:00 +0000

The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire by David Deida

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hey guys I let you know now that David Deida does a bang up job as your new best friend.

Giving men an opportunity to be heard, affirmed and admonished by one of their peers. Giving them the sort of challenge that only another man can pose.

His blunt simplicity in tackling the real issues men face when moving into their 'full man strength' - as my girlfriends and I call it - is as educational as it is entertaining.

And just when you are comfortable with this book as an Oprah-era self help tome, all neat and tidy for prime time, Mr. Deida hits you with a raw sensuality and Taoist connectivity that finds you with your hand down your pants (or up your skirt, as it was in my case.)

And in order to unlock the Heart of every matter along the way he paints lines of prose with Haffizian precision. You learn to leave it open, even if sometimes it hurts.

Gentlemen, be prepared. Completing the challenges posed by this book may have you feeling beyond all grown up.

View all my reviews

Douchebag Lessons Learned

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:30:00 +0000

Since I wrote Douchebag Dilemma much has become clear.

I freely admit that I was feeling, as my girl Cynthia would put it, a bit salty.

After fielding the question of Dane (see comment here - just scroll down to bottom of post) I was moved to consider how I could find my gratitude for the douchebags in my life.

And wouldn’t you know it, the Universe delivered.

A few weeks ago I was in San Francisco, wondering how I was going to make my way Home to Portland, OR, when lo-and-behold who should appear on Craigslist rideshare with an offer to do just that but Douchebag #2!

Yeah.

Funny.

So, did I take it?

You better believe I did.

Did I end up shouldering more than my share of the responsibilities – driving, gas and snacks?

Did I find myself asking the forgiveness of several strangers for his clueless behavior?

Did I find myself enforcing the three foot rule with him, over and over and over?

When the ride was over did I breathe a long, deep sigh of relief?

Yes, yes, yes and yes.

Before you roll your eyes in disgust at my potential stupidity we must ask the most revealing question of all.

Did I manage to exorcise my douche baggage once and for all?

Hell yes.

Just after the road trip 8 hour mark the clouds of confusion parted.

It appears that I have had a penchant for a particular type of douchebag, The Knight-in-Shining-Armor Douchebag.

They offer to rescue and next thing I know I start imagining that I need to be rescued.

Suddenly I reduce my many faceted self to the flatly typical damsel in distress.

I remember the first time I was aware that this was happening.

I had this Volvo wagon. Had it from my junior year in high school through my (deeply troubling to the car as neither of us were treated very well) marriage.

There I am!
Just kidding, I don't know who that is

One single gal day years later it had nearly had enough and wouldn’t start after being parked on a quiet Seattle street.

I was broke and had no idea how I was going to take care of this increasingly difficult possession.

I figured out through doing some reading with the hood up that my spark plugs may be the culprits. Having never changed one I was feeling a bit in over my head.

This I revealed to some random guy I met at a party around that time. He claimed that ‘he knew a thing or two about engines’ and that he’d be happy to work on it for me.

I bought some new spark plugs and made a date to have him come check it out.

I can say that after 5 minutes of him fumbling around under that hood and chatting me up it became obvious he knew jack shit about working on an engine.

After 30 minutes of this sad sight I let him know that I was busy and would have to be going soon.

I came back an hour later, did the job myself and drove away.

He was pissed, I was annoyed.

Apparently he was hoping that I would find his offer to help endearing and attractive, even if he couldn’t actually deliver.

Apparently I couldn’t believe he would offer to do something for me that he couldn’t actually do in an effort to get closer to me.

One thing I now realize is that the only one who got what they wanted in the deal was me.

All it cost me was the time I could have saved believing in myself and taking the risk. I was 100% to blame for the entire depressingly pathetic interaction.

And this is where I can have gratitude for my recent douchebag interactions.

The clearer I am able to see myself the more I attract men who can see me just as clearly.

I am finding that the good ones rarely offer assistance.

Instead they patiently wait until I make a request and they then deliver when and on what they can.

When they cannot they tell me simply and trust my ability to find my own way through the issue.

This I love (especially in the ones I’m hot for.) A mirror to keep me alert to my level of authenticity in any moment.

So, to my dear douchebags I say Thank You for helping me find my Edge, my Power and my Grace all at once, once and for all.

A deep and gracious curtsy in your direction (and yes, that is my middle finger too.)

So, do you know what sort of Douchebag you fall prey to?

Is it the Lying-Sac-of-Shit Douchebag?

Is it the I-Need-a-Mama Douchebag?

Is it the Self-Esteem-Boost Douchebag? (This one works in both directions by the way.)

Their style can tell you a lot about where to make the adjustments in yourself.

Tell me and I’ll do my best to be your mirror.

The Douchebag Dilemma

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 19:30:00 +0000

I have a mother that was very direct about a certain number of things. One of these is acceptance of all bodily experiences - as they are.

Natural child birth practices, breast feeding in public and keeping at least some body hair had her vocal support.

One thing I remember her telling me was, “Don’t ever put anything near (or in you) that tries to smell like something it isn’t. However you smell is exactly how you are supposed to smell.”

The feminine products aisle (AKA ‘Hygiene’) got very little love from her.

I have to say that given time and experience I agree with her thoroughly. The smell of powdery fake flowers that wafts from that place makes me gag, to say the least.

Only I am certain that without much experience, specifically in the available brands of douches, I may have missed a very important lesson that I am now learning.

First of all, I had no concept of the number of styles, scents and packages they came in!

And just like my blindness to the stunning array available from the pharmacy shelf I've been dangerously ignorant of the vast variety available in the douchebag men of the world.

Wall O'Douche by litlnemo
July 11, 2010 Seattle WA

There’s the Spiritually Seeking Douchebag, the My Life is Against Me Douchebag, the Mr. Over Compensating for Something Douchebag, the My Mother Betrayed Me So I Have Reason to Hate You All Douchebag, the Emotionally Stunted Only You Can Save Me Douchebag.

It’s finally hit me that if I am ever to rid my life of these, and the innumerable others that qualify, I must be comfortable calling a spade, a spade.

I must admit that I have known them, I have let them know me and for that, I am completely responsible.

The Douchebag Distinction

What, we may ask, makes a douchebag a douchebag?

First we must admit it ladies, some of us ‘like’ them.

(Fabulous men the world over will attest to this fact as they watch their mothers, sisters, friends and would be lovers fall all over themselves for an opportunity to be the warm place they stick it.)

And if you know any, it is how they show up for you that matters.

If things worked any other way, they wouldn’t even exist for you.

So, in my research I have found the following douchebag experience to be true:

They are generally ‘attractive’ – at least one can see how they could be, to someone
When you meet them you are wondering what’s going on in there, you find yourself curious
Somehow their behavior and story - no matter how dead beat, no good, lousy and low life it is - elicits a bottom-lip-protruding ‘poor baby’ response from you
You may not like them... at first. (They wear you down like a crying puppy.)
They have a ridiculously large number of female ‘friends’ that you are suspicious that they have, are or will be sleeping with at some point (And for this intuitive hit they attempt to make you feel silly, childish, less evolved.)
You somehow know that you better be a 'useful' addition to their life and as the definition of ‘useful’ morphs you work overtime to keep up
You are always picking up the tab, in more ways than one
When you express discomfort with any of the above somehow the tables turn, their feelings trump yours and you find yourself apologizing (perhaps later wondering WTF!?!)

It is always ALL about them. Even when you think it might be about you, in the end, it’s all about them and all they do for you.

You should just be grateful.

Sufficiently grateful yet?

Pzrservices on Typepad

That Not So Fresh Feeling

So what’s a gal to do?

I recently had to ask myself this question as I attracted a couple of absurdly douchebaggy dudes into my life over the last year.

Not that I hadn’t known any before. These guys just stood out as exceptional when compared to the amazing Men I have surrounding me of late.

Increasing my confusion was the fact that these guys were not consistent members of my community. They were ‘friends’ that would pop up with what appeared to be random infrequency.

A phone call or instant message would come in from them. A couple of times things came my way I thought they might enjoy, so I got in touch.

I started to notice the above list of qualities was appearing in our even distant relating and still, I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Damn that curiosity part.

Then last month, by some cosmic not-so-funny-joke, we all ended up in the same city round the same time.

This is when I came to understand.

I found myself feeling powerless in a way I thought I was incapable of feeling anymore.

Angry that I didn’t kick them in the nuts or out of my moving vehicle in response to their douchebagginess one thing I did manage to do was supply some support for the women they were running full court press on.

I usually stay out of this sort of thing. You know, let the chips fall where they may because it’s none of my business.

Not this time.

I carefully placed them under the wheels of the bus, ran them over, then threw that bus in reverse and did it again.

And again.

I have to tell you – it felt really, really good.

Yet I had to ask, what frequency did their existence in my reality point to?

Question:

What was I putting out in order to attract this type of guy, even as an acquaintance?

Answer:

‘Don’t hate the playa/hate the game.’

(I my search for voices of reason in this world and Ice-T answers with an alarming frequency.)

When I applied this sage advice to my situation I found out something very interesting about myself.

Before I tell you about that though, I want to know your DB horror stories.

If you know one, if you are one, if you are scared you might be one, please share below.

I promise to listen.

But I must warn you, even if you smell like a rain fresh morning, do not be surprised if I kick you in the virtual nuts.

By almostjaded Jan. 19, 2009

On the Road...

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 19:30:00 +0000

I've been traveling. Traveling, traveling.

Back in February when I said I was hittin’ the road I had no idea what that would mean. And I am some sorry to say that I have done little to keep you in the loop.

And now, now that my fantastically magical lucky streak has come to a gear grinding stall out, I decide to let you in. My, oh my how fabulously tricky that little ego can be, eh?

Been all over the West the last eight months, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Tacoma, Portland. And I will tell you what, this shit’s been real.

Right now it’s 4am and I’m listening to a playlist on my new computer comprised of the Sample Music Folder (oh boy,) enjoying a cup of freshly brewed coffee at the one and only Hot Cake House.

Dairy Fresh Non-Dairy Creamer
by Fuzzy Gerdes, May 2007

(To paint a picture - the available coffee additives at the Hot Cake House are half & half, vanilla creamer and non-dairy creamer all in the cold thermoses generally reserved for soy, skim and cream, to ensure a healthy serving. The Hot Cake House is from another time zone.)

At this moment, with my bacon and egg long gone, I feel like recounting some tales of true abundance.

When I started this adventure I had no money and when I say no, I mean no, money.

Around the end of January I sent an email to my parents to let them know what was about to become of me. (They live in Taluca, Mexico and our contact time is all about briefing and debriefing.) I didn't get nor did I expect a response to this heads up.

And then, I received a great surprise. A $600 check from them four days before my departure date (a date I had only recently chosen.)

I paid a couple of outstanding IOUs and the remaining $150 got me up and out.

I remember most vividly enjoying a ludicrously inexpensive oyster festival ($6 a dozen anyone?) seeing Spike Lee live (free!) and watching Tangled in 3D for my birthday presents from myself and a couple of friends.

Then I got on a train to Los Angeles.

I met a stranger on that train, a young German creative writing major from Berlin full of beautiful melancholy. The train was late arriving at Union Station and the Metro had stopped running. So naturally I invited him to spend a night on my brother’s couch.

He spent the rest of his California holiday, all four days, taking in the breathtaking view from my bro’s window, feeding me Salvadorean food, buying me roses, holding my hand and loving me.

I’ll just say wow.

Every step from that fantastic introduction to this day here has been an exercise in a wildly optimistic level of Faith.

I used to believe that the amount of safety and support I enjoyed could be directly correlated to how hard I worked.

(At one point I was working four different jobs in one day. From the lawyer or architect’s office in the morning, to a lunch service shift, to happy hour bartender clear across the city, finishing it all off with a cocktail shift at a night club back downtown.)

Finally I called bullshit on that.

I just stopped moving.

I stood still, very still, exhaled and lifted my eyes from my feet.

We have talked about this before, about all the realizations and enlightened moments this suddenly afforded me.

Like the realization that my abundance, being a naturally occurring thing, was anything but earned. Like sunshine and rain blessed flowers I was a smiling many petaled thing that truly could want for nothing.

Thing is hitting the road with little to nothing in my pockets and no defined destination was bound to put all that calm eyed focus and presence to the test.

There have been some touch and go moments but none in 8 months compares to tonight. (Being at a Las Vegas resort an hour from the strip at 12am, after a harrowing plane and taxi epic, with not enough cash for my first night’s stay for some ‘high level’ business meetings meant to last a week comes in a close second.)

After some barely detectable flubs today I find myself without shelter and running water for the very first time. And wouldn't you know it, in my haste to get myself to a guest house, that I found all too late, I dropped my phone somewhere in the street.

Left my little ol’ self in the lurch, as they say.

Up creek, no paddle.

And yet here I am still breathing, still moving, still smiling.

After a very enjoyable number of hours at the Gold Dust Meridian I took myself on a long moonlit walk to the only independently owned 24 hour spot in the city.

And hooray! I managed to NOT get molested by the really drunk guy named Jose that started following me. In fact, I made five bucks on the deal. Don’t ask me how because I really don’t know.

I just kept smiling and telling him to go home now because I was sure he’d want to remember himself in the morning as a ‘good guy, not some weird, drunk creep. ‘

I’ve got a plane ticket to Los Angeles for Saturday afternoon and while that’s great I won’t be there long before I’ve got to come back up to Washington and get my ass to class and the trekking continues.

This post is just a long way round to saying my tramping days are coming to an end. I have finally learned the wisdom in quitting while ahead and with every visit Portland’s acceptance and reward of the faithful following of my Heart increases.

by Amber Case
August 30, 2008

Making a home here looks more attractive every day. (I find myself looking in vacant windows and lingering in vintage furniture shops with increasing frequency.)

In the mean time I’m gonna put Jose’s $5 in the juke box and see if I can’t improve my soundtrack.

Ah, Joe Cocker AND a sunrise?!?

Life is good.

Working The Four Man Plan

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 19:30:00 +0000

As I have been working my own version of Cindy Lu's groundbreaking dating formula (The Four Man Plan: A Romantic Science) I've had to look a bit more closely at my own dating history or, as I like to imagine it, Call to Insanity: My Trail of Tears.

Note: If you have heard of this book before, you are a lady AND you are reading this blog just go ahead and admit that you need some help and buy this book now!

Click here to find your copy

All the rest of you can read my review here Review: The Four Man Plan, A Romantic Science

I have always known that we ladies have a treasure chest of gifts to share with the world. Our wealth is apparent.

Thing is, until I started connecting with men who were honestly capable and willing to support my charge to do so, I tended to squander said gifts in an oh so, dramatically taxing manner.

Starved for emotional healing and affection, I collected the crumbs of romance I received like a castaway. Next thing I knew I'd wake up treading water in the deep end with the last guy to come sniffing around.

My Ocean of Feminine Essence

Now, this schmuck finds himself drowning, in lavish style mind you, in an ocean of feminine beauty having done little to nothing to prove he can be trusted to hold it sacred and consistently available.

He feels a bit like he's gotten something for nothing and thus the inevitable happens. He goes running off in some other direction, to some other relationship, where the scales might be a bit more balanced.

And there I was left standing agog, my hands reaching in the direction of his receding image.

The Four Man Plan gave me some much needed perspective as well as some practical structure to change my ways and get hip to the following possibilities:

That what you've told people you are willing to accept is exactly what you are receiving
That sometimes you only need change the way you ask in order to find that which you seek
That a girl becomes a Woman once she stands in stillness with her arms open wide.
That a man's way of treating other men is the truest test of his masculine maturity
That the man of substance stands out from all the rest
That the woman of consequence is an incomparable catch

It all becomes crystalline clear when observed from a greater distance.

We can meet in the middle

It's this type of distance that makes the dating game a sure fire way to grow oneself on up.

Review: The Four Man Plan by Cindy Lu

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 23:00:00 +0000

The Four Man Plan: A Romantic Science by Cindy Lu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Miss Lu does and excellent job of helping us ladies look in the mirror and tell the truth without getting mired in self introspective gazing. And somehow we don't go running out of the room in terror either.

Her humor and honesty in relating her own search-for-the-door-in-a-pitch-black-room experiences in the journey to her own brand of co-committed bliss let you relax and have a little fun at your own expense.

Her no nonsense approach to helping you learn the skills you have been sorely lacking is practical and structured in a way to ensure that you won't allow yourself to drown in the self-pity-pool-of-reflection.

I must admit that what I learned to do through this book is a huge part of how my work as a Courtesan came into form.

If you let Cindy lead you, your adventures of the Heart will change.

Imagine an adventure where you pick up men as easily as scoring some loose change. Then you are shown just where to go with them from there, all the while smiling lovingly at your increasing wisdom.

Your gift giving can then become a beautiful ritual that leaves you breathlessly ravished by your romantic life.

Believe me, ALL the men in your life will thank you for it!

Click on the image below to get it now:

View all my reviews

A Single Woman's Journey: In & Out of Love

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:09:00 +0000

A guest post from Tabitha's personal journal:

From the moment they were little, girls were already dreaming about the day they would someday walk down the aisle. Some even have all the details, from the kind of gown they would wear, to the flowers that would adorn the church, to the food that would be served to the guests clearly planned. The quintessential female is born to be a wife and a mother.

Society stereotyping women as inevitable better halves was fed largely by the media. TV shows, films, and books glorified the idea of females being like damsels in distress, waiting for their knights in shining armour to rescue them from witches, from wicked kings or princes, from a life doomed to misery and loneliness.

By Pasukara76 (Away on Vacation)
19.10.2010

Nowhere in fairy tales can you find single heroines living happily ever after on their own. Authors know only too well that that’s a recipe for tragedy, and tragedy don’t sell --- at least not among the younger, overly idealistic and romantic set. Growing up, girls can’t escape being constantly bombarded and conditioned by this kind of stereotyping. Society decides that it’s either you’re married or you’re a freak. It’s either you’re whole or you’re incomplete. There’s no middle ground.

Well, here I am, still single decades later. And while I have stared at the face of tragedy many times, I don’t blame my being single for that. In fact, being unmarried has been neither a direct cause nor effect of the problems in my life, but rather just a routine part of my life’s rich tapestry.

Oh, but I don’t shun the idea of someday meeting my prince, to be swept off my feet. They say a girl must kiss a lot of frogs before she finds her prince. Well, I’ve already kissed a lot of frogs, but none of them turned out to be the kind and handsome prince of my dreams. Life is no fairy tale after all.

Freedom by Leva Klevina
24.02.2010 at 20:12h

Rather than sit idly by and wait for my prince to land on my lap from God knows where, however, I intend to live my life as best as I could. If he comes, well and good; if he doesn’t, at least no one would find me in a corner cursing my wretched life. In my book, to be happy is to appreciate what you’ve been given. Any other blessing that comes after that is a bonus.

People ask me why I’m still single and look at me with pity in their eyes. You know, I feel that what’s more annoying than actually being single is the fact that some people keep asking you why! It’s as if being married is the be-all and end-all of human existence, that there’s no happy ending in a woman’s life story unless a man’s surname is attached to her own.

A woman is not incomplete just because she’s not the better half of anyone. There are a lot of unmarried women and men now who no longer bow to pressures from society to marry. I, for one, won’t let other people decide what’s best for me and treat me like some five year old girl who can’t fend for herself. The world is mine for the taking and no man, or the lack thereof, is going to spoil the fun.

About the author:

Tabitha works as a guest blogger for an Australian publisher: Hookmeup Online. Tabitha writes about topics relating to online dating sites Australia, relationships advice for men and women, and free online dating sites reviews.

Let Freedom Ring...

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 18:15:00 +0000

It's Fourth of July week here in the United States.

Hmmm. Just checking in to see how it feels...

I am spending this one in Salt Lake City, Utah and I spent some of the weekend repeatedly skiing down to the base of a snow covered mountain. All in summer attire.

Snowbird Resort
Salt Lake City, Utah

Yes, the lifts were still running on Monday and I am glad I had the opportunity to fling myself down an entirely unfamiliar hill in an entirely unfamiliar place on the 1st of July, on snow no less!

It was slushy and muddy at times. Hiking and a respectable ice rash (from a less than ideal path to the bottom) were also involved and still, it was a blast.

Being in the rather homogenized state of Utah, I am fairly certain that I was the only brown person on the mountain that day. (Here little tow headed children stop and stare, mesmerized by brown folks mere existence. Having no attached meaning to the novelty they are experiencing, their simple curiosity is endearing, at the very least.)

I was also participating in what my Caucasian friend Blaine labels a 'honkie (in this case read that, rich White people) activity.' The other sports that would qualify, I can only imagine, are tennis, golf, croquet and polo.

Here I must point out that being a US citizen since birth, and having been a skier more years of my life than not, apparently everything I am into could qualify. Somehow or another, whenever my life involves the public, it appears there are always rich White people there too.

Point?

Here I am on a 'holiday' centered round the power of Independence and Freedom and I've got to wonder how much Freedom we actually allow ourselves to enjoy.

I am 'free' enough to be sitting here early in the morning considering whether the demographics of the snow sport playing population (or the entire nation in which I live) is or is not to my liking! Whether I am or am not acceptable among their ranks!?!

With all the other potential 'injustices' of the world, the threats against 'Freedom,' is this really the sort of thing I want to concern my being with?

Check out this video before I answer:

Joe Rogan - The American War Machine

No, it really isn't.

I also will not spend my freedom angry and indignant with the innumerable distractions that political issues provide.

Instead, I choose to use my Freedom to open my eyes, open my mind, open my ears and open my every lovin' heart and feel.

I have the power to be Free from the whole damn thing.

This way I can Love it all. Everybody, Everywhere, including myself.

Once You Go Black...

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Tue, 17 May 2011 17:00:00 +0000

There is something I have been meaning to tell you.

I grew up in mostly white communities. And while that is common for a minority of my age in the United States I don't just mean mostly white, I mean nearly all white. Hunterdon County, during my teen years, was 97.3% Caucasian.

Which means all the 'others' took up a measly 2.7% of the human space.

I tell you this to make it clear that I have heard just about every racist, xenophobic, dismissive and minimizing stereotype you can think of. (Now the one about Blacks and Asians not trusting each other didn't reach me until my late twenties. I was totally bemused, I guess I missed that memo.)

Shu-Fen & I
(She's Asian - so far, so good;-)

Between family and living in thoroughly mixed communities in my adult years I have seen this from ALL humans, not just the majority classes. It appears to be something we do.

Attempting to categorize and define what we see in order to help our minds comprehend what our Hearts are feeling about what we are seeing.

What this has to do with me is that while I survived the experience, I have also spent a lot of life energy attempting to become living proof of its evolutionary backwardness.

This has been both conscious (I spent many young years avoiding watermelon at picnics) and unconscious.

Unconsciously it has appeared in various arenas. The desire to not ever need help (a 'hand out',) to dampen down my successes ('don't be too flashy',) to get educated but not act too smart ('don't get all uppity') and the list goes on.

You can see that my unconscious reaction has been evolutionarily backwards too. So, whenever I discover a new spot where this pattern is playing out I attempt to exorcise it immediately.

After Really Pretty For a Black Girl, I began to notice how many older men, and by older I mean 55+, wanted to ask me about my dating experiences. (Mind you, these were men I had never met before.) They wanted to know what it is like for a 'single, childless, thirty-something, Black woman dating in this day in age.'

As I went in to explain how it is for this "single, childless, thirty-something, Black woman" I was taken aback to find out that what they were really asking was, "How's the sex?"

Now these were appropriately lecherous older men. Nothing criminal or creepy about any of them. So, I had to know why they wanted to know this about me, a total stranger.

It turns out that in every case they admitted that their earliest memories of sex talk with their buddies and father figures included something of a report on how each race of women were known to behave 'in bed.'

You know, that Asian women were sadistic pleasure givers, ball busting tigresses. Nordic women? Nurturing Madonnas and what man doesn't need that? Life can be very cold at times. Speaking of which, Anglo Saxon women are known to be frigid but at least you can bring them home to meet your family. Italian women are irresistibly fiery. A good fight makes for great make up sex. The Latinas? Passionate and crazy which can be a really good time.

That's right.

And doing a Black girl? It's like fucking a wild animal, boys. Taming the untameable - a virile man's dream.

Oh shit, right. I 'forgot' about that one.

Now, I give you the most base version of these stereotypes in hopes that you recognize them. I also hope that they will trigger that knee jerk defensiveness with which any educated and sensitive human would respond to such awful generalizations.

I myself responded that way to these beliefs in the past for certain. (The 'once you go Black you never go back' expression always got my dander up - I've heard much more explicit versions from the mouths of non-Black men.)

But, after these conversations with well meaning, curious men I had to look a bit deeper.

I started asking my younger male friends (from all over the world, not just the US) what sort of stories they heard about sex, women and race growing up. And it appears that these ideas persist.

Best story collected was one from my friend who grew up in Alaska. His introduction to the Black girl sex stereotype came from the mouth of his 9yr. old, female, African American class mate! Alaska, is not exactly teeming with Black folks. This must be a rather loud and long time belief to have reached that baby's consciousness.

One friend, after sharing his memories and experiences on the subject, pointed out, "The real question Kimberly is, does the stereotype apply in your case? Is it True?"

Oh man... I think, that in this case... no, I know that in my case, it is. It's True.

Ms. Mae West - 'Diamond Lil'

Wait, wait, wait. Hold on a minute! You mean that a huge piece of repressing my full sexual expression may be an unconscious avoidance of this stereotype?

Damn.

In the end, it doesn't matter why I'm great in bed or how I learned to do it well.

Regardless of how many terrible sexual experiences healed it has taken for me to feel Free in this regard, it looks like it's time to own my Truth on this one.

I have Magic in this arena and it's one of the gifts I was put on this planet to share.

Watch out boys, watch out world, the Mae West in me is primed and totally ready to roll.

I want to ask you all to please voice your opinion on this one! Share your race impacted sex beliefs and stories below!

Mothers & Daughters

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Mon, 09 May 2011 19:43:00 +0000

Since beginning this conversation with you all I've written ad nauseum on my relationship with holidays. It appears that I feel a need to justify a fascination with their history in the world and more importantly, their relevance or lack thereof in my life.

You see, I spent the first 21 years of my life in curious ignorance of them. (While celebration is a common theme in the culture of Jehovah's Witnesses, active observance of ritual is not.)

Mother's Day has come and gone with some more serious consideration than I've ever given it before.

Mostly I have experienced it as a much dreaded day of work through years in the hospitality industry. (The behavior of many a family during that brunch-to-end-all-brunches is enough to turn you off of having one, A family that is.)

Here I am, a woman who has yet to give birth to any human children. A woman with no immediate plans to do so. And with this true fact in the back of my mind, I recognized how I've used it to discount the mothering I have done in my life.

I had a 'husband' once, I was 18 when I met him and he ceased being my 'husband' by the time I was 23. And, while there was a signed certificate of marriage and a judge stamped decree of divorce, that relationship was not what I would call a marriage.

And through that life adventure I received one of the greatest and most challenging gifts I could have ever imagined.

My husband's daughter was just four years old when we met. She played a shy one but we were certain and fast friends. We impacted each other deeply in the few years we spent together.

When her father and I went our separate ways it was definitely not a time to stick too close for us. We had no contact for ten years. I can thank Facebook for the heart mending reunion about a year and a half ago (see Recess is Now in Session)

I find that our conversations since then show clearly that the most potent quality of our relationship is its honesty. A preciously dynamic thing that keeps us from having preconceived notions of what that relationship should be.

When she was a little one her father, mother and I all got to tell her the mythical stories of the world including our own. Now that she is a young woman I get to share the stories from life that reflect where she finds herself today.

One thing I am most glad to share with her is how my other relationships with the beings in this world, including her Father, have shaped my life. How they have played a role in this world of my making. The stories where growing pains proceeded amazing creations are still her favorite ones.

And now, just as when she was a precocious seven year old, she layers those stories on top of her own experience and patiently waits for the information to filter down deeply to where her Truth resides. It's been an incredible priviledge to have been allowed to participate some in the knowing and remembering of her own Heart.

And with some research into how Mother's Day came to be I am certain that the greatest lesson for me in this Holiday is that when Women honor their own path with microscopic honesty and share their strong, wide open Hearts, then they've honored the Hearts of little girls becoming ladies in their care.

Happy Mother's Day sisters!

In celebration of all the mothering done for you and all the mothering that you do for others. If you are an auntie, a sister, a friend, a mentor, an employer or a caretaker you should definitely be celebrating too.

And if you have yet to try any of those hats on for size I would suggest going out and doing it as soon as possible. The Joy of giving and receiving with ease will most certainly overwhelm you.

Transformation, Rebirth & Renewal

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:30:00 +0000

I nearly forgot how spectacularly revolutionary this season is...

Perhaps it is my life's way of sneaking up on me. Keeping me in the dark about the giant leaps of growth headed my way so that I do not turn and run in the other direction.

In this way my Easter was no different than last and while this one I spent with lots of friends and their families (I got a lot of Mom time in, thank you very much) I had plenty of time to reflect on it all.

Exactly three years ago I went sane. Though I had been working up to it for years prior, 2009 was the Spring I woke up. It had all the indescribable aspects of enlightenment. Most people in my life were sure I had lost my mind and they were absolutely right, I had.

Lost my mind and found my Heart.

The state lasted for months and while I was losing a lot of my previous foundation, all the things I had believed made me a success, I was gaining an indestructible connection to Source. (Where all we need, create and live for comes from anyway.)

And while this was epic and amazing, I still lived in a body and on planet Earth so my Life needed me to also participate in being Human.

What came the following year I was able to share with you. By April 2010 I saw the integration of this awareness and conscious connection to Source into my animal self. I hope that Who Am I Then? described this well enough.

Now it's April 2011 and change is again washing over my life and to describe it I will say this:

My family of friends and blood relations lost a sparkling member last week (see link to article here >> Gerard Smith.)

The simplicity of feeling that the death of a loved one can bring is a remarkable piece of Life. The sadness is so heavy it requires and full stop, conscious breath and a complete immersion in feeling.

To grieve this man that lived out loud, is to recognize the full value of Human experience. I find it to be a requirement of my Soul to live bigger and more intensely in celebration of Gerard's Life.

As Marianne Williamson said it so well,

"We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world... We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."

So, this Spring it appears to be time to share what I've learned and create big things from this integrated awareness of Life. I have found my Heart's true mission and the clarity of vision to fulfill it. And I am SO excited about it. I mean, if I don't fulfill my mission, if I don't live my Life, who will?

That's right, nobody.

I will, of course, tell you more about it in the weeks to come (it has much to do with the judgmental little eggs above :-)

For now I'd like to ask, how is Spring transforming your life?

A Love Letter

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:45:00 +0000

A Goddess in Love found a way to say how much she loves you, guys! Check out my article for our gentleman friends at luvblogger.com.

Click on the link or image below to find it!

How Do I Love Thee

Call Me a Fool

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 17:30:00 +0000

I have April Fool's Day on my least favorite of holidays list. This year, I am wondering why I would even care enough to dislike an all-in-good-fun, seldom-a-big-deal, sort of commemoration.

In researching the holiday history I found that April 1st used to be New Year's (my favorite) and when the Gregorian calendar switch came through it took years for some people to find out. Even after receiving the information some people refused to go along with the evolution. These stubborn individuals became known as "fools" and consequently the butt of a global, day long joke.

Funny that this definition of Fool flies in the face of the definition I have come to understand from my own life.

There is a distinct pleasure I am gaining from my ever increasing naivety. (Last year I was happily taken in by just about every joke played on me April 1st. Like a gold fish I found myself ever surprised by the revelation of more than a few quite obvious ruses.)

The wonder I have begun to approach life with has made me one hell of a gullible gal. If you feel moved to share something with me, I feel moved to trust you. No need to fear what isn't real, wouldn't you say?

I find it a much more expansive and enjoyable life to simply Believe, as often as possible.

Receipt of the Fool card in Tarot used to feel an embarrassment, now I find a smile spreading across my lips and into my eyes at this draw.

Check the following description from SuperTarot.co.uk:

The Fool card is the first card of the Tarot deck; it represents the beginning of something. It is almost impossible to predict exactly what will happen, since it is invariably something new, and not based upon what has gone before. The Fool defies rationality or logic. This creates an excitable sensation, a frisson or shock to the system.

The Fool can represent the desire for rebirth, or making a new start to life, but with the proviso that the future path is not mapped out. The Fool is Nothing and Everything. It is the Empty set that contains all within it. The Fool is associated with fertility and the primal energy of Spring with the connotations of birth, rebirth and transformation.

As a strategy, the Fool is all about avoiding the common path that everyone treads. It is finding new viewpoints, new ideas, shocking concepts, beliefs, or views.
The Fool is an indescribable state of consciousness that works on impulse. It can never allow an external influence - everything is from within.

For me the Fool is the essence of Infinite Potential from which ANYTHING can spring forth once the commitment to creation is made. Keeping evolution moving right along at an ever increasing rate.

In the end though, what sort of Fool would I be without a healthy dose of self-effacing humor.

Go ahead... Fool me.

I'll just blush and smile.

West Coast Blur, TV on The Radio, LoveAmigos & Ancient Technology

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 22:23:00 +0000

Man, its been a minute.

Here I was imagining that the open road would leave me ample opportunity to report in with epic regularity. Oh how wrong I was on this point.

With the ancient technological hardware I have (which I must say I am very grateful for even as I crave the relief of fast acting laptops and smartphones in both my waking and sleeping realities) getting in touch with you often is more of a challenge than I bargained for.

Still, I promise to persevere.

I am sad to say that I do not have a digital image capturing device, still or otherwise, in order to share the last few weeks of beautiful scenery I have enjoyed. The Western Coast rolling past car and train windows.

This will have to do for now.

Big Sur, California
by surfside

Currently I am working on articles from a table way in the back of one of my favorite coffeehouses Stumptown Belmont SE Portland, OR. The soundtrack of heavy guitar licks, indiscriminate chatter, clicks, clacks, bangs and pssssts of the room are driving me to my iTunes library.

Happy to say it contains something from my brother's new record. You can download it for free too if you want. Just click the link now.

Caffeinated Consciousness from TV On The Radio

TV On The Radio
Nine Types of Light Cover Art
Photo by David Andrew Sitek

Even better, just order the whole album:

TV On the Radio - Nine Types of Light

Lots has been going on since last I wrote, including introductions to fabulously enriching colleagues, beautiful friends and heart expanding lovers in the business, pleasure and intimacy departments of my life.

One smart result: starting in the next two weeks you will find A Goddess in Love's musings on e-dating for LoveAmigos.com. (I will be sure and leave links to these articles right here.)

More from the road tomorrow and next week.

Love.

What 365 Days Can Do

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 18:55:00 +0000

As of Monday it's been year since A Goddess in Love began.

This also means that I turned another year older just the day before. It was my 34th birthday and as I have stated before, see New Year, Birthdays are my absolute favorite Holiday (this way, if I love enough people, it could mean cake every single day) so, celebrate (both loudly and quietly) I did.

Only two months ago I was feeling Aging Angst for the very first time in my life. I just didn't feel ready to move on from 33 yet. This, having never happened to me before, was disconcerting.

Perhaps it was advancing past the age of famous Deities (now my martyr complex really has to go.) Or maybe I was falling into the trap of the Should. Am I disappointed in where I am, compared to where I think I should be by this time in my life?

It took me some moments of full immersion in the feeling to realize I just hadn't finished all the growing that a year, as potent as the last, has to offer.

I resolved to pack all I had left to discover into the eight weeks still left to go. As usual, once the decision was made the pieces just fell right into place. Take the last year and put it into hyper drive and you get the basic picture.

I've had a couple of epically short, fun and learning stuffed romances, embarked on a new career direction (an amalgamation of all the new and old things I love to do, all at the same time) and made a commitment to creating a new home town for myself.

Not bad. In fact, amazing. I am excited beyond reason for what comes next.

So here and now, on our Anniversary week, please join me in saying Goodbye to the old and Hello to the new.

Goodbye to all my Heart's armor plating, the chain mail is too heavy for the Now.
Goodbye to meditation on a pillow, hours at a time
Goodbye to insisting on Love anywhere it is unwelcome and not received
Goodbye to anxiety at the edge of the unknown and unknowable
Goodbye to minimizing the feeling just to survive the situation
Goodbye to not knowing where you end and I begin
Goodbye to underestimating what I've got and where I am going
Goodbye to the insidiousness of water, be you warm or cold, I want you where I can see you (my PNW friends know just what I mean ;-)

Hello Horus

Hello to an open road headed right back to Who I have always been
Hello to being clear that my Heart finds the way forward - hands tied and blind folded
Hello to learning more and more of whatever it is I still don't know
Hello to Loving constantly, consistently, easily as a soft and pliable exterior
Hello to Knowing deeply, faithfully, tenaciously as a strong and powerful interior
Hello to my Life as meditation, as prayer, as offering
Hello to feeling everything in it's fullest form, making the most of every situation
Hello to enough Sun to keep the water in it's place

I really could go on about the Hellos still to come. Only, we've got to save some things for the next 365 days.

If you can find it within please, tell me, because I want to know, what your Hellos and Goodbyes might be...

Ideal Is As Ideal Does

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 18:15:00 +0000

Now it is time to let my Ideal Relationship results reveal what I have hidden from myself for the better part of my dating lifetime.

What I want.

Happiness is the foundation of our unity, we bring pleasure to one another's lives. When challenges arise we treat each other with respect and communicate honestly. There is only one no - assumptions. We have an extremely satisfying and healthy sex life. We climb all kinds of mountains together. We both do work we love. Sometimes we find work that we love to do together. We make good money doing things we love. Somehow we are made constantly aware of the gift that this relationship is for us both. We are grateful. We remember to share things the other one enjoys. His successes are my successes. My successes are his successes. We grow wise, we grow young. Our birth families enjoy the connection our relationship creates between them. We are very excited to create together, to have children, prepared to pass on the Love and Wholeness of our hearts to them. We deal with any issues that arise as a gift to ourselves and a gift to our children. When the time comes to part in this life (as we remember that humanness and mortality both ensure that it will come by some means, at some time) the parting will be thoroughly mourned, forgiven, accepted and complete. We are better for having been together.

We enjoy the game.

To see the Wilderness from here

There, I have admitted to desiring this Relationship and found the words with which to ask for it.

I now choose to forget this final post of A Goddess in Love's inaugural year. Let my Heart do the work and watch in what miraculous ways my desires will be fulfilled along my circuitous 'treasure hunt' path.

As Kahlil Gibran put it, "All that spirits desire, spirits attain."

As simple as that. Bless it and let it go.

Thank you, for continuing to witness the journey.

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.And when his wings enfold you yield to him,Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.And when he speaks to you believe in him,Though his voice may shatter your dreamsas the north wind lays waste the garden.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.To know the pain of too much tenderness.To be wounded by your own understanding of love;And to bleed willingly and joyfully.To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;To return home at eventide with gratitude;And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

- Khalil Gibran on Love

An Ideal Relationship

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 18:30:00 +0000

I am very happy to report that I have completed my homework.

In the last article Making Ready I related how my friend KAT helped me see an overlooked step in my journey from Happily Single to Happily Co-committed. My assignment, thus discovered, was to conceive in ecstatic detail the features of my Ideal Relationship.

I was more than a bit gun shy.

I chose an odd time and venue for doing the work (a commuter bus ride, where I became so involved with my process I nearly missed my stop.) I believe I may have needed to pressurize the process to ensure its completion. (By the time I revealed this idea to you a week ago it had already been on my target list for several.)

Before I turn in my results to you and await your grade, I'd like to give you some background. (Another privilege of creating your own curriculum.) I will tell you a bit about my introduction to the concept of Co-commitment and how it gave me hope, even while traveling in the dark Wilderness of existential angst, that my Ideal Relationship was possible.

The principles of Co-commitment are an elemental piece of Conscious Loving. A relationship theory and practice developed by Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks. The first time I heard of these principles was in my therapist's office.

While thumbing through a file box of documents, intended for a self starting client's enrichment (therapeutic extra credit, if you will) the Co-commitment label jumped out at me. There was a single piece of paper in this file and it contained the following list:

Commitment 1 - I commit myself to full closeness, and to clearing up anything within me that stands in the way.

Commitment 2 - I commit myself to my own complete development as an individual.

Commitment 3 - I commit to revealing myself fully in the relationship, not to concealing myself.

Commitment 4 - I commit myself to the full empowerment of people around me.

Commitment 5 - I commit myself to acting from the awareness that I am 100% the source of my reality.

Commitment 6 - I commit myself to having a good time in my close relationships

I stared at this list a while, dropped the sheet back into its file and put the lid back on the box. My habitually dysfunctional subconscious wanted nothing to do with whatever this intimidating little piece of paper was asking of me.

As it turns out, the relationship I was in at that time had about as much chance as a little snowball has in hell of becoming a "conscious" one, given where he and I were coming from. Little wonder I put that piece of paper down and tried to forget all about it.

Try as I might, forget it I could not. Once the seed was planted roots burrowed into my psyche and the sweet fragrance of the resulting blossoms managed to remind my Heart of what she already knew.

She knew that these were the qualities inherent to the relationship of my dreams. She also knew that my perennial dissatisfaction with all of the relationships I had created up until this time were a simple reflection of this knowing.

Oh, the life we create. A perfect mirror for use in conscious evolution, if only we are willing to peer in.

As it was, I had one very important thing in my corner. I had made a commitment to myself some years earlier. I had made a promise to learn to live authentically.

Honestly, when I made that promise I had no idea what authentic would come to mean. All I knew is that I had this drive to attain it that created all types of problems in the life I had been living. (I recall my boyfriend of many years asking, thoroughly exasperated, "What's with you and this whole 'Change' thing?")

Notice that the Co-commitments can only be made from a place of crystal clear self-seeing. Here my journey into Authenticity was given a motivational boost. Now nothing less would do.

i found that one must remember that there is no destination on this sort of journey. Evolution is constantly moving the end point to someplace new. It's more of a treasure hunt through a breathtakingly beautiful, epically treacherous and all encompassing Wilderness where jewels of self realization are to be found. Sometimes in the most unexpected places.

First key in a treasure hunt is to get a list of clues - those Co-commitments appear to have been intriguing enough. Next, find a team - fearless warriors have been known to appear in my time of need. All teachers, healers, lovers and friends. Then, be sure you have a way to recognize the jewels when you come across them - I continue to find and hire the most adept of guides as the situation calls for them.

The most important step? Start. The rest basically takes care of itself.

I have to say that the first jewel I discovered was one of the most precious. As I delved deeper into the Wilderness, where the shifting of day to night, from light to shadow is forever playing tricks on the senses, Trust had to become my ever present friend. Trust made it possible to play at this game of Life rather than work at it.

A gift beyond description.

Next I will share exactly what A Goddess in Love's version of a co-committed Ideal Relationship looks like. Ask and it is given, right?

Making Ready...

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 17:00:00 +0000

We have talked plenty of the practice of “acting as if.”

That the only way to have what one wants, is to start by being it, which leads to doing of it (all the actions necessary to its manifestation, that is) which leads inevitably to the having of it (whatever it may be.)

I can readily admit that I have been being Single, very much Single.

And though I have bemoaned this state many times of late here I am still being it, still doing it… still having it.

So, do I really want to change this?

Recently a friend of mine KAT, feng shui expert and serious do-just-what-she-want Goddess asked me if I had written down what I was looking for in a man.

I jumped to say “Yes, of course. I have a mind map called ‘My Ideal Man’ on my altar at home.” (I created this, elegant picture of my heart’s desire years ago.)

Many days after KAT and I's conversation her question was still ringing in my ears (along with my too-quick-to-be-honest response.) And what I found, after letting the question really sink in, was that I had, in fact, been delivered a perfect fit to my order form for an 'Ideal Man' only a few short weeks after my putting his form to paper. That first one has been followed by a few more, over the last couple of years.

SO, WHAT IN THE WORLD WAS I DOING HANGING ONTO THIS THREE YEAR OLD ORDER FORM, as if it was a yet to be fulfilled desire?

If I have had my wish fulfilled, multiple times no less, then what, you may ask, is the problem?

Well, first of all, when I created this ‘Ideal Man’ portrait I did not have an ‘Ideal Self’ portrait yet. (It used to be a lot more fun focusing my attention on his qualities rather than my own.)

Now I do, and if you have been following this blog you have definitely gotten the gist.

Secondly, once I finally got the two of us outlined, I did not state what I would want to do with him once he arrived.

Oh.

Not surprising then, that those perfect fits keep on coming and I keep on staying Single.

So far, I have yet to write down what I want in a RELATIONSHIP - the joining of two disparate parts to hopefully create something that in it's wholeness, of a whole me and a whole he, is more than the sum of its parts.

Okay, let's burn the last receipt with gratitude for its continued fulfillment. It’s time to place a fresh request.

Now that I have a handle on these Ideals the results from the next phase is sure to be hard to top, right? We will see, we will see...

Screen Shot from the Film Something New, 2006
Kenya McQueen (Actress Sanaa Lathan) is finding out
if her Ideal Man (Actor Blair Underwood) is
"all he's cracked up to be."

Next, Ms. KAT is going to answer my questions on the subject Feng Shui, the story of the spaces we choose and the ways we maintain them, and that stories' power to attract the relationship I want in my life. And you readers, get to listen in and help keep me accountable! Thanks.

PS - The image above is from one of my favorite films on the 'Ideal Man' subject called Something New. Watch it ladies and see what you learn. You could also try an Ideal Husband but that's a discussion for a different day :-)

Valentine Confession

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 18:30:00 +0000

Having grown up in the Holiday free zone of Jehovah's Witnesses brand of Christianity, I find that now Holidays grab me fully, either with a deep and ecstatic desire to celebrate or a numbed out indifference to their existence. When I am numbed out, I wonder...

I was early visited by the Ghost of Valentine's Past this week. With her help I found a telling pattern that has me trading in my habitual cynicism on the subject for a sappy tune.

I recalled the intensity of expectation that rippled through the classrooms of my childhood in the days leading up to Valentine's. The riot of red and pink craft creations, doilies in overabundant use, red dye #5 coated tongues and the distinctive smell of candy coated chocolate mingled with construction paper.

As little ones the conditioning began. How did it feel to be the one who didn't get a valentine at all? Even worse how did it feel to get the same valentine as all of your classmates from the one person you had hoped would treat you just a little bit different?

As we got older, it just got worse. The carnation bake sale in which the girls vie for decent placement, suffering throughout, with the boys deftly handling it's booby traps through numerous evasive actions. The coveted red (it's true love) the sad little pinks (at least I'm in "like" with you) and the dime a dozen whites (guess it's gonna be "best friends forever.")

Not to even mention those of us with desires yet to be sanctioned by authority. Maybe you weren't looking for attention from the opposite sex. Where were you left to turn on that fateful day in the classrooms of our youth?

Secretly, I was immensely grateful that it wasn't on my list of obligations.

Then I left the JW way of life and started dating men that assumed I knew how to participate in all that history of expectation. Mine was more the history of a train that never left the station. Figured it should just stay right there, a guaranteed way to avoid any stops at Heart Break Hill, Dysfunction Junction or the tear filled Valley of the Unrequited.

I didn't even know how disappointing this could be for a man to have, on the day reserved for ludicrous displays of affection and romance, his lady friend forget it was happening at all. The first time I saw it in my partner's eyes I made a mad (and successful) dash to purchase a very thoughtful gift - I am thoughtful so, I already had my eye on something. I just hadn't been thoughtful about the delivery date.

Ever since, if I had a special someone on Feb. 14th I would go through some sort of ritual, if they wanted to. Otherwise, I just let it pass me by without as much as a nod of acknowledgement in its direction.

This year I am willing to see that for exactly what it is. A fear of feeling deeply, feeling with abandon. If you are willing to feel any one of your emotions fully - even the fun ones - you are bound to begin to feel them all - even the not so fun ones.

No love without heartbreak, no desire without disappointment and no all consuming passion without still and quiet sadness.

This day, Valentine's Day, is a day for shouting your feelings of Love from the rooftops with lusty and feverish abandon. And who you are giving this love to is really the point. It's your Love and you get to give it wherever you want to. And you don't have to give it anyone you don't want to give it to (Valentine's for everyone? Friendship flowers? Those practices really miss the mark.)

So, in the interest of fully thriving and living life I say, "Bring on this Valentine's Day with it's full and undeniably scary force!"

I LOVE YOU

(and you know who YOU are.)

And just so YOU know, on this Valentine's Day and every one hence forth, I am totally game for the following:

Flowers, cuddling in the blankets, sweet things in my mouth (and my ears,) passionate love making, feeling adored, feeling special and feeling loved.

I promises I will keep reciprocating like a chocolate fondue fountain, a never ending cascade of syrupy sweet sensuality.

Come and get it, lover... Be My Valentine.

On Letting Him Lead...

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:00:00 +0000

While I am very appreciative of the Beauty and Grace inherent in my life as a Single lady, the realization this week of a very necessary skill, still missing from my relationship toolbox, was anything but.

At the very end of a two day back-in-the-party-girl-saddle-again-extravaganza I followed one of my favorite Goddess girlfriends Ina Church to The Century Ballroom for a salsa night last call.

As my friend was whipped from one set of talented feet to another (this proved to be the longest last call in Seattle history) a brave man named Tony asked me to dance.

Truthfully, I would have been content for once to watch from the sidelines. Sara and I had just finished a very late and very large dinner (hey, a girl’s gotta eat.) I was wearing way too much clothing all around, these boots were not meant for spinning. And while I have been a dancing fool plenty of late, it’s been many years since I last danced salsa and a few years since I participated in partner dancing of any sort.

But hell, I’m nothing if I’m not game.

And here is where the learning began. About half way through the first number I decided to state the obvious, “Tony, you may have noticed that I have a serious problem.”

He smiled and nodded politely, “Yes, just a small one.”

“Yeah, it turns out that I have never really learned to let a man lead…”

‘Yes… I can see that.”

To his credit, Tony did not give up. As the Universe would have it he’s a dance instructor so I can only imagine I am not the first wild pony he’s been charged to tame.

Tony let me make a real mess out there for the last few songs, all the while whispering in my ear.

“I can take you through every fantastically sexy step in the book but not if you keep fighting me.”

“See that, you are following just fine, then bam! You take off on your own!”

“You are the Queen! It is my job to make you look amazing… let me.”

And even though I had a seriously difficult time letting him spin me without hurling, I clumsily progressed through enough numbers to at least learn what it is I still have to learn.

On the long drive home, after watching my girl just killing it out on the floor, I admitted to this decidedly unfeminine shortcoming.

“Oh,” said Sara, “I had the same problem when I started. I was so afraid I was going to fall I just couldn’t trust any of them. I had to stay in complete control at all times. Then I met Johnny, Johnny Bravo. Sunglasses at night, a fur coat, skinny jeans and heeled boots. I became his little darling and he showed me the way.”

And I must say, what girl would imagine being able to control anything that looked like that?

Sara claims that, “Now, just letting go, fully surrendering to it, is the most fun I can have.”

I realized as we talked that, while I'm not so much afraid of falling, I am very much determined to know what step is coming next. You know, so I can be sure we get it right.

Trust you to take care of it? I don’t think so. Just let me in on it before hand, then I can be sure you know AND I will know too. Aren’t two heads better than just one?

When I put it like that, it sounds insane. It’s DANCING for crying out loud. Talk about taking all the fun and adventure out of it.

And the relationship correlations that follow are too many to list here.

This is not surprising since most of my long term relationships have been with individuals that I never fully trusted to take me anywhere safe or fun.

And if my old adage “you do it, like you dance” is true I am in some serious trouble.

I was reminded of the one time I was successful in allowing a man to lead me out on the floor.

We were finally alone after leaving a wedding reception and we’d been drinking for hours. He turned on one of his favorite tracks and just started whipping me around the kitchen floor.

And here’s the important part, I let him.

I was very much in love, complete surrender. I let go and let him. Who cared what steps came next, I was totally in.

As Sara sagely observed, “The best part of Salsa is that you can be sure that the man knows the steps. Otherwise he wouldn’t have asked you to dance in the first place.”

Oh, right.

Really Pretty for a Black Girl

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Today, I would like to talk about being "Other."

And by Other I mean the label. Meaning different, something other than the typical, something other than the majority.

This is not a subject A Goddess in Love writes about, let alone thinks about, very often. Still, in honor of the "solemn" observation of Dr. King's Day, here I am.

(And why this is to be a solemn holiday I do not understand, who ever heard of a solemn holiday?)

We all have ways in which this label, Other fits us. Being or not being an Other can change from moment to moment depending on the context. The standard we are measuring our Otherness against.

For some of us though, our Otherness is not only obvious (through the color of our skin, texture of our hair, the shape of our eyes and lips) it also comes with a very long list of painful assumptions and beliefs on the part of those who do not share in this same type of Otherness.

So, I will just say it.

Beautiful minority women, of all kinds, are subjected to some of the most ridiculous, ignorant, downgrading and dismissive showers of "admiration" in the history of Female adoration.

How do I mean this? Well in its most obvious form it goes something like this:

Scene I

(Bar interior; lot's of attractive men and women, dressed like sex on a stick, talking, laughing, drinking; dance music thumping in the background. Man approaches woman.)

Man:

Hey, how's your evening?

Woman:

Fantastic! I really love this DJ.

Man:

Cool... Can I ask you a question?

(Doesn't wait for her response.)

Where are you from?

Woman:

The East coast.

Man:

No, I mean where are your parents from ?

Woman:

(Confused.)

Um, New York and New Jersey...

Man:

No, like what are you? What's your background?

Woman:

You mean to ask, what's my ethnicity?

Man:

(Nods, relieved to have her say the word.)

Woman:

(Some annoyed, still carrying on pleasantly enough.)

Oh, well, pretty much African American. I mean, I'm American so I'm lots of stuff in varying amounts. Hard not to be, wouldn't you say?

Man:

(Stopped listening after her first sentence)

Are you sure? Both of your parents are Black? No Islander, Spanish or something?

Woman:

(Shaking her head no, for multiple reasons.)

Man:

Huh. Well, I hope your not offended, like, I mean this as a compliment - you are really pretty for a Black girl. I mean seriously, I'm not usually attracted to women, you know like Black women, but you are really beautiful.

(Woman is left with nothing to say. Man looks at her expectantly...)

WTF! Did that just happen? I am here to tell you that yes, it has and yes it does. I am also here to say it has happened too many times and with too many different men and women (of all races) to count it as the ramblings of a single, sad miscreant.

While the number of horrifically ignorant moments in the scene are too many to list, please notice that there were also multiple moments in that conversation where something else could have happened. Wide open opportunities for the man to connect and see that woman clearly. And yet he fumbled over and over because all that was on his mind was this:

And when this is the first thing you ask me about myself, in the first 30 seconds of our budding relationship I have to wonder if you aren't hoping to add another pin on your sexploit's international bucket list.

The scary thing for me has been that this preoccupation with race in romance is not always as obvious as in the above example.

There have been times I have dated a man for a long while (much longer when I was younger) before I recognized the blacksploitation elements of his most intimate of carnal fantasies.

When I start to hear him say things like, "you really intrigued me, I was curious about you, you're totally different from who I am usually in to" I can feel myself begin to recoil, cringing at the thought that their very next words might just be, "You are just so... exotic."

Exotic may be the worst back handed compliment for women in the English language. It turns the whole of her into a sort of comic book-reductionist-parody of self. (While preparing this article I put the words exotic + women into the search bar. I wouldn't post most of the pictures it came up with.)

My girlfriends and I used to call this the Princess Leia Slave Girl effect.

Remember the scene in Return of the Jedi when Princess Leia is taken prisoner by Jaba the Hut? The metal bikini, the chain around her throat?

While the imagery has long been seen as erotic (just imagine it, a woman who's only job in her entire life has been to insure the sexual satisfaction of men, that's hot right?) how do you think this makes a woman feel?

It's the Slave Girl effect because it's abusive in nature, degrading and humiliating. And as an Other, I have experienced plenty of degradation from the world at large without adding in another helping through a man I am sharing intimacies with.

Here's the kicker though.

I love being Other in every way and in every situation I find myself to be Other in. I came into this life a woman, I came into this life Black, I came into this life different on a multiplicity of levels.

I am so very grateful to be all that I am in this life and I relish all the differences in everyone that I can find since we are so much more the same than we are different.

I'm just asking that this week that we "solemnly" consider what we think those differences mean, if they need mean anything at all.

A New Year...

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:21:00 +0000

I just got to celebrate A Goddess in Love's favorite Holiday.

New Year's Eve has become my Christmas Eve it seems. I spent the evening alone in contemplation and as the hours wore on my entire body seem to vibrate with expectancy.

There are several reasons why the celebration of a New Year makes me feel like a 4 year old and yet those reasons can all be summed up with on idea.

The New Year is your World's Birthday.

The only Holiday that can even compare to the New Year is my Birthday and your Birthday too.

Birthdays fill me with wonder, with awe, with tear filled gratitude for the beauty that is wrought simply by one's coming into existence. The infinite possibilities all collapsing on a singular moment that is you.

And then that singular moment continues to move, to vibrate, ever changing and evolving. You are conitnually renewed and remade. What came before is not the determining factor in what comes next, you are the only factor.

And on the day of our birth we have an opportunity to remember that we did this in an incredibly massive way at some point. We got ourselves born, a very big deal. We went from not here, to here, just like that. Our very own Big Bang.

Seriously? What could be more spectacular, more miraculous, more worthy of fireworks* than this?

Experiential proof that we are the Goddess and God, Magician and Priestess. Whatever we truly wish to be, comes to pass.

And on New Year's we've all got that Magic. The Creator within speaks loudly at these times asking us to pay attention and accept the responsibility.

On the New Year the whole world gets to ask itself, "What now? What amazing and fabulous Life are we going to live into this year?"

Change, while constant and active without exception, is not necessarily apt to take us anywhere fulfilling if we allow it to unfold unconsciously.

So what do you want? What would truly fulfill you?

If you allow that "still, small voice" to answer these questions you just might get a great surprise and a brand new Life to boot.

I asked these questions a few days ago and my world is still reeling from the following answer:

To share my Love, my Light, my Gifts at a volume that is somewhat intimidating. Change the base of operations from the comfortable and familiar to the intentionally uncomfortable, give those Gifts an opportunity to shine.

So, A Goddess in Love is moving. Moving her business to Oregon and her body to Los Angeles.

And while this is a blog, I must say, enough about me. I want to ask...

What are you doing?
Have you gotten yourself Happy yet, or what?
Do you know how to get yourself Free?
Do you know how to put the Magic into your Heart's employ?
Are you having trouble answering this questions?
Are you in need of some help in making what your Life is calling you to do a reality?

Well, in the spirit of a New Life in a New Year I offer you some Life Support.

My new book

The Business of Your Life Program

Personal Development for the Intellectually Advanced yet Evolutionarily Challenged

>>CLICK HERE FOR A SAMPLE

>>CLICK HERE TO GET IT NOW

*To be clear, A Goddess in Love was a firestarter in another lifetime and is sure to be a pyrotechnician in the next. I just love me some fireworks.

... On Traveling

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Laura Mychal Malone) — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 18:45:00 +0000

Now there are lots of ways to perceive the idea of travel.

Sometimes we call it "taking a vacation" ~ freedom or release from duty, business, or activity.

As many of us can attest to, this can be done anywhere, anytime if even just for a moment. It does not require the physcial relocation of your body, only the conscious focus of your mind and attention.

It's leaving behind your familiar inner world (that's actually become quite uncomfortable) and being willing to risk, trust that what you will then find is goodness, truth and beauty.

It's taking a moment to breath, both literally and figuratively.

Up until three months ago I spent the better part of two years on exactly that type of trip.

While I physically moved through the motions of everyday life (very close to home) I was fully focused on an inner stillness, an inner period of rest and Freedom above all else.

And while this type of journeying is both readily available and monetarily inexpensive it is also epically unique, rarely embarked upon in achievement driven societies.

Having this time was both a blessing for myself and a real gift from many people close to me. My gratitude for the opportunity is to them and to the part of me that was wise enough to allow myself the space.

And while it was a release from duty the results of the "work" it required can be seen in the smile on my face and the Happiness that is my daily reality.

As that period has ended and another "life scenario play" emerges a different definition of travel has taken center stage.

Travel ~ to move or go from one place or point to another, to proceed or advance in any way.

And in this way, I have most certainly started traveling. (My beautiful inner Home going along wherever this new being, having and doing takes me.)

And while the results of this type of journeying will be somewhat easier to share (due to the tangible nature of outer activity and acheivement) on the pages of A Goddess in Love I want another definition of travel to become apparent.

Travel can also mean to pass, or be transmitted, as light or sound.

Here I want to pass along the light, the love from within that creates any and all outer results.

As we go along you will see ways in which all of our journeys can be captured in books, art, music, film and familial communion.

It's so exciting, I can barely sleep lately, like a kid on Christmas Eve...

PS - The photo above is from my last period of this type of travel, getting myself "lost" in the outer world. They are Mansanas de Agua or Water Apples, lovely central american fruits with a delicate constitution, a short and intensely sweet season of giving, and the bouquet or roses. (All symbols of love, youth, beauty and happiness.)