Sleepwalkers' Glory

A Long Overdue Sayonara?

2006-07-12T11:31:00.000-07:00

Greetings, Any and All Who Are Left.

Recently, I was speaking with an acquaintance who mentioned that she had "googled" me and stumbled upon "a weird website that had your name on it and showed some stuff you've been reading. Is that you?" she asked. I played dumb (often easy for me ;) but it did give me a moment of pause because I was made aware of how far removed I've become from this creature. Call it writers' block or lack of inspiration or even a greater need for privacy, all of which I think I have already attempted to convey in the few last sporadic posts.

It was really interesting for me to go through the process of starting this thing up in very high-minded fashion and watch myself go through various machinations to establish a public voice that ended up saying things that were far from my original intention, i.e. my originally stated intention. And even now I am being wishy washy because I began this wanting only to say thanks and goodbye, while issuing an invitation to view my new baby monster, Medicine: A Soul Journey Home, but I see I'm not quite ready to give up the ghost.

Well, perhaps there will be new things here from time to time but no more promises of prolific regularity. Nor do I believe that Medicine will necessarily hold the same interest for the same people. In fact, unlike Sleepwalkers' Glory, Medicine is meant to be a quiet little spot to which I can retreat and that hopefully won't get ahead of me like this one did.

I think the real roadblock here came for me when my very good friend Brandon died earlier this year, quite unexpectedly. Already my energies in this direction had waned, but I remember that I felt this great, great need to write something about him and to write for him and even for his family. But I couldn't do it, and that kind of stunned me. Even now I feel sort of bad about it. Believe me Brando, I have many words for and about you. But I guess that was the beginning of this private thing and of me finding that there are actually some things I have to keep to myself.

I come from a background in which family business is family business. Our secrets are our own. While there's something to be said for not airing one's dirty laundry in public, as I got older, I became stiffled by that because I associated keeping quiet with feeling shame, and I didn't feel there was anything about which I would ever need to be ashamed. I'm not a total exhibitionist, but I do believe there is some power in being able to state your truth and not really give a damn who is listening.

I even had a friend comment that I should watch the things I say in this forum in case I ever decide to run for office. First of all, don't worry: I will never venture to be your ruler. Second, that was just sad to me because that's very close to the heart of what is wrong with politics in this country. We long ago ceased to select from falliable humans with all their foibles, now choosing to vote for shiny machines with broken parts. If I were ever to run for office, I could only run by admiting the whole of who I am so that in representing you, you, or you, all would know who I am. And that, my friends, is nothing but sheer idealist liberal gibberish at it's best. What day and age am I living in, right?

Then I started recounting some of my more or less charming escapades, and while that was enormous fun, even that came back to bite me on the ass. I went out on a date with a woman about whom I knew little more than her name, but she had also "googled me,"--in search engine fashion, not as a euphemism--and knew more about my dating forays than I found was probably ideal, especially because there's no way to take back any sort of poetic or literary license once it's been used.

And then my 9-to-5 life, which I'd voluntarily changed up, became severely detrimental to my physical and emotional well being ... and then Brandon passed away, and I found I had nothing left with which to defend the notion of sleepwalking. The glory was gone.

So anyway, I think I've said all this before, a few months ago and then a few months before that. I don't know how to end it. Breaking up is so very hard to do. I so much perfer leaving the door open rather than securing it firmly shut. But I do, as I said, invite you, to my new little blogspot. No promises, but I think it shall be nice.

Adieu. For now. And thanks for all of it.

-M

Midnight Confessions

2006-04-18T23:54:00.000-07:00

have you ever felt like you're going to crack but you know you won't? it's all so tedious sometimes. i start to get worked up and then i remember that ultimately it doesn't really matter. but lately, i've been confused about that because i used to think things don't matter in the long run because you die and then it's over. but lately i've been coming around to the belief that this is only part of our existence, like an extension of our real selves. if that's the case, and we're really here to experience some kind of growth that wouldn't otherwise occur in the "main" part of ourselves, then everything does matter. in fact it matters more than if you think this is just an isolated instance of consciousness. isn't that a bitch.

really though, i don't know what i'm talking about. i'm tired, it's late, i feel crushed by the weight of this stupid work shit. but if that wasn't the crush it'd be something else. but at the same time i'm very happy. i've got this nice thing going w/ this girl, spring is here, i've been financially stable for a while now (although this current crisis is a real threat), and my spirituality has been taking off exponentially. but the dichtomy between the happiness and the crush is exactly what has thrown me into the knowingness that this consciousness, this self that is writing this, is, in some ways less real than my dream selves and even less so than the selves of which this self is unaware.

this mind can barely grasp these concepts without also holding steadfastly to a belief in gravity. gravity must exist because if it stops ... well, i just can't picture it.

The Gift of Gab, or Attack of the Main Yak

2006-02-03T18:17:00.000-08:00

yak 1. congnac. as in the brandy. 2. cocaine. 3. to eject the stomach contents in a forcible manner. 4. a jewish fellow from a rich white community who gets no respect. 5. One's girlfriend or wife. Usually used as a casual term of affection 6. short for Yakuza (Japanese organized crime). 7. To talk most indefinitely. 8. The designation of plane types for the Yakovlev company, a Russian plane designer. 9. a long-haired humped domestic bovine found in Tibet and throughout the Himalayan region of south central Asia.

I rolled the dice, and it came up seven. So, why haven’t I addressed you, my audience of one, for oh-so-long? Yes, I’m talking to you: why oh ewe.

Just kidding, I’m not talking to anyone in particular—and that’s why I haven’t said anything worthwhile in such a long awhile. It got a bit weird. Writing and posting started to feel like exhibitionism, which in a sense, it is.

But that’s of no consequence now because even if I’d wanted to address you—and I did—I haven’t had the time. Can you believe it? It’s true.

Mpho at the beginning of 2006 is quite a different animal than the Mpho who, last year, began applying herself to bringing forth the glory of the sleepwalk. That Mpho had an epiphany of sorts (recall the magic circle; see "The Abracadabra of Silence" and "La Dolce Vita") in Fall of 2005. And now that Mpho has become this Mpho, who is only at the beginning.

Nah, that’s all bullshit. I stopped writing because it all became too personal, and I started to feel too exposed, and the exposure made me feel beyond buck naked, and I started not to like it. But now I’m ready to try again, although the exhibitionist in me is keeping her hood and sunglasses on. I’ll try again because I believe firmly, truly, deeply that there is nothing to hide. The hiding is only force of habit. Once that fear is overcome next comes transcendence. That’s a lot less risky than me packing a suitcase, leaving my tennies at the end of my bed and taking an overdose of bennies to await the little green mennies, isn’t it?

So where should I start? Don’t say at the beginning because every moment is a beginning and being so, every moment was an end. Thus, to be fair and do this right, I must start in the middle.

For those on patrol of my lovelife, I met a girl. One particularly auspicious weekend, I met a few girls actually … but I’ve honed in on one, letting the others fall by the wayside. Though probably if you asked them, they’re the ones who’ve bypassed me like drunken cardiac surgeons. This girl is not without her complications—what woman isn’t. But she’s the real deal. Still only time will tell. What I mean by that is when we look into eachother's eyes, it’s not a war of wills or will nots. It’s good. We’re just getting to know each other so no predictions can be made. I won’t even say, “if I were a bettin’ person….” All I’ll say is that what I know of her is pretty real, and pretty great, and pretty hot, and pretty exciting, and pretty caring, and pretty tender, and pretty diamond in the rough, and pretty in black, and pretty special—and I don’t, for once, mean like special ed. Perhaps more on all that later, perhaps not.

Or there’s my 9 to 5, which is currently an 8 to 4:45 or something like that. When last I wrote I was still living in a glass cubicle office with a bunch of aristocrats er I mean executive recruiters. It had its moments. It had its ups and downs. I was terribly excited by the fact that despite being in a fish bowl, I had a door. But then one day I was just kind of done. Like the three wise men, I saw a star and followed it. Just like the wise men, I got duped a little bit. They got duped ‘cause look at what the most visible Christians have done to the legacy of Christ. I got duped because despite all the lessons I’ve learned in the past several many years, I crossed my intuition. The star turned out to be a corporate logo not a celestial symbol, let alone a spiritual beacon, and now I’m re-living corporate hell in conglomerate style, complete with brimstone and a badge that must be (s)worn (at) at all times. But it’s okay. I’m learning from it and am making plans to overcome that part of my karma by finally learning the lesson. Probably more on that later. Probably.

More important than wealth is health, and mine is not bad per se but there has been an outstanding issue that may come to a head sooner rather than later. But as with the previous two big sectors in my life, there are challenges that if handled well, will set some long term positive change in motion. And I binge on health fanaticism, which might come in handy. It's the pendulum binging on unhealthiness that's the thing to keep an eye on. I think definitely more on this. We’ll see.

Next up in wealth, is the number and kind of a woman’s friends. I lost a good friend recently. All of 35, and his business on this plane of existence has been concluded. I'm debating, but probably there will be something about him here soon. For the friends still among us, there've been some seismic shifts in alliances and probably there will be aftershocks. Might decide to go there here. Or maybe not.

I’m not trying to be a kok (possibly more on that spelling later) tease; as I toss out the kindling, I want to see what catches a spark and what doesn’t. I want also to remind myself that I am not as bereft of writing material as I have been feeling. There is my spiritual growth to talk about, and there are always current events or the fact that I’m so out of the what's-going-on-in-the-world loop that it’s pitiable. I’d like to tell you why I’m so uninformed, and why I do think it’s pitiable. I take full responsibility on that one.

I’d like to give you status reports on all the projects I’m working on. I’d like to share my travel plans to see my dad for the first time since my mom passed. I’d like to tell you in depth why I find The Dears so dear, and why I’ve been collecting rain water, and what it felt like to take my bike for a spin after a long-overdue tune up, and what it was like to wind up at the ocean after much much too long an absence from it. I’d like to tell you how I wound up with fuzzy orange socks and what happens when you _________, and where ___________ and when the next astrological omen is due.

I left the blanks in for a reason, just to show that I have been bereft of words, not things to say. It’s true. I’m not gonna hide it. For some reason, in the past couple months every time that I’ve sat down to tell you something, I’ve encountered gaps. It’s been frustrating, ‘cause it’s not like I’ve nothing to say. Even when I was in the magic circle I had something to say. But these days, I start writing and then bam there’s a hole. I suppose it’s natural and nothing about which to be much concerned, but I guess it’s made me feel like I’m not really up to the task of keeping you informed or of spilling my guts, the former of which, let’s face it, is really more about me than it is about you. Am I an egomaniac or a plain maniac? Maybe I’ll work that out for you here too.

Thanks for listening, again.

What's So Dear about The Office

2005-12-05T22:54:00.000-08:00

"Life is just a series of peaks and troughs. And you don't know whether you're in a trough until you're climbing out or on a peak until you're coming down, and that's it, you know. You never know what's 'round the corner, but it's all good.... If you want the rainbow, you've got to get up with the rain. Do you know which "philosopher" said that? Dolly Parton. And people say she's just a big pair of tits."
—David Brent, Wernham Hogg Regional Manager

The Perverse Ganglia of Human Complication

2005-11-27T11:59:00.000-08:00

Let me be my own fool
of my own making, the sum of it
is equivocal

—Robert Creeley
“A Counterpoint”

“Today, everything in the landscape seemed in an act of relation, reflected in and reflecting. Shadows of trees dappled the water; the river, refracting sun, played on the tree trunks. The children were part of the pattern too, their eyes were on each other. And what, then, of me? Would there ever be a way to balance [us]?”

—Hettie Jones
How I Became Hettie Jones

Robert Creeley died this year. I didn’t know until just now, eight months later. He wasn’t a friend of mine or anything like that, but it strikes me nonetheless because I’m writing a play in which one of the characters is always mentioning well known people who’ve died earlier in the year, unbeknownst to her. She won’t be mentioning Creeley, but it would be just like her to do so.

Let me be my own fool, a counterpoint, if you will, to Sinatra’s “I did it my way.” Just what the hell any of us are doing is the question.

Earlier this year—August, I guess—I experienced the magic circle, certainly not the first time I’d ever done so, but it was the first time that I attempted to deconstruct the experience whilst in the midst of it, with the explicit purpose of creating a sort of standard operating procedure for future reference. Actually the singular procedure is as follows: leave it alone; or go with the flow; or ride, Sally, ride. They all equivicate.

There is no magic circle for me today, which is somewhat of a positive fortune, I think. No need to repeat that so soon. But there is another kind of geometry at work, and another kind of occult-ish phenomena. Refraction? Refarction? Go ahead, make words up.

Case in point: yesterday I went out on what would prove to be the last date of a short-lived liaison about which I myself was feeling ambivalent but not necessarily so ambivalent as to have closed the door on the situation that very day, particularly as just days earlier I had worked assiduously to extricate myself from a foot-in-mouth situation that threatened the very outcome that I had hoped to avoid—at least until I was certain of my own desired outcome. I was beaten to the punch, not in that I wasn’t the first to deliver the news (though I wasn’t), but in that I wasn’t the first to reach the foregone conclusion (which bums me out a little bit but only in an ego sense: if someone says to you “I’m not interested in you in that way” you wanna be able to say “well, I wasn’t interested in you in that way before you weren’t interested in me in that way” and not have it sound like the sour grapes that it is even if it isn’t. But I blew that and could only cover by offering a refreshment whilst hoping that she would decline because I didn’t really have anything in the house). Does it matter? Not really. That’s the nature of ambivalence after all. But in the awkward closing moments before she walked out the door, she asked, “so what are you gonna do tonight?” I hadn’t thought, let alone felt, that far in advance, having had it all backwards. (See Tsvetayeva: “It’s precisely for feeling that one needs time, and not for thought.”)

Rewind: Just as I was leaving the house for the date, I heard someone call out “Hey!,” and lo and behold, it was a woman I sort of know from around the way. She was getting into her car, and apparently was directing her shout out to another woman who took one vicious look at me and then drove off, kicking up a little dust. "Get in," she said as I sauntered over. She asked where I was headed, and I told her BART. She said she'd drive me, though she seemed peeved. "What's up?" I asked. Her reply: "I just got in a fight with my ex-girlfriend. She thinks I have a thing for you." Have you ever felt steel jaws clamping shut with the whole of you trapped between the metal plates? I had no choice but to chuckle. "Oh, great," I said. "What perfect timing." She turned and glowered at me. But really, how messed up was that to walk into the midst of someone else's angsty moment, completely unaware that you're the false heart of it, and then jump in the car for a ride to your own ill-fated moment?

These are my neighbors for fuck's sake. That minor exchange was the longest conversation we've ever had, and that's the whole of it. It didn't even occur to me to ask if she even does have a thing for me. Who cares? The truth becomes relative in those moments. Had I stuck by the notion that hay is for horses, I might not have even turned in her direction. I would have proceded along to BART on foot. Even if I am a suspected interloper, I could have remained in the dark about it. Filled with an unwittingly blissful ignorance, I might have gotten to the Ferry Building late instead of early. And if I'd have arrived a little late, I wouldn't have been waiting inside the building instead of outside as we'd agreed, and maybe we wouldn't have started off on ever so slightly a wrong foot, although there was nothing else in the course of the day spent together that foretold of the way the day would end. Except that I had my reservations.

Fast-forward: She leaves. I get a call from A., a lovely man who dangles music before me, which I accept, hook, line and sink her. We end up at a very happening, newish little spot in the Tenderloin called El 222 Club, which immediately becomes a placeholder for my unloved, wounded ego. I fall so in love w/ El 222 that I am jealous that it’s not in my neighborhood because it would easily become my home away from home… except that if it were in my neighborhood, it would immediately become overrun with urban hipsters, the lack of thereof being a large part of its appeal.

The hipster factor, at least last night, was like college hipster as opposed to urban hipster. College hipsters bear a subdued sort of intellect that has less to do with age and maturity—they’re actually quite mature, wearing it on their period piece, patch-covered elbows as they do—and more to do with the fact that they’re nerds who know how to live it up. Urban hipsters pander more to whatever movie scene they think they’re reading for. Anyway, I felt right at home in my past… could easily have been an undergrad evening spent at my grad school haven of choice, Ann Arbor’s sadly defunct Del Rio. And that was the beauty of it for me: I could have been in Michigan. For that matter, it could have been Portland. College hipsters transcend place like that. Urban hipsters, like the ones that overrun the Mission every weekend, are definitely a product of place. Poised side by side, New York hipsters have a look quite distinct from LA hipsters, and there’s likely no mistaking Chicago hipsters for San Franciscans.

Anyway, it was a good night. My friend’s roommate is part of a brother-sister act. Calling themselves The Culprits, they have been described as “accomplices in the dark art of black market beats and old timey torch songs.” Madeline, the sister, is a red-haired chanteuse who was clad that evening in a long black dress that upheld her classy jazz singer demeanor. Counter to that, brother Nick spends most of his time bobbing and bouncing like a sprung spring whilst manning the iBook that spits out their self-de-re-constructed beats—say for example, a lo-fi Duke Ellington breakdown that melded with this listener's own beating heart in a manner that whispered Lamb—which is a good thing in my book. When he sings, Nick’s voice reminds me of Arto Lindsay; when he moves, he reminds me of Danny Elfman's words "oingo boingo."

The preceding act Beatheart vs. Warmen Fussi was also ear-catching, with their “live hardware-based ambient tek-house cubase abuse.” I was particularly plussed by the moments that bespoke the influence of old school Detroit Techno. Yes, sonically and spatially it was a night that made me feel right at home in my metaphysical homelessness… except I couldn’t shake the feeling that my friend wanted to be more than friends….

Rewind: Aside from the fact that I’d been scratched off of one dance card only hours earlier, the immediate irony was that such attention would have been welcome oh about a year and a half ago, when I’d had a little crush of my own that seemed totally unconcerned that this friend is a guy. ‘Cause you know I don’t do that anymore. Eh, you snooze, you lose. Maybe that explains things: I slept ‘til 2:30pm on Thanksgiving Day.

Now: I can’t wait to go to Osento in a few hours and sweat away the sins of my foolish ganglia. Waiting to be released in the salt of my pores is a week’s worth of misnomers, misfires, misanthropies, and personal missile crises. I can give you an example of each. I spent my birthday and Thanksgiving with my ex-girlfriend (having turned down other gracious offers to have me) who has so thoroughly excised that part of our relationship that I am convinced that for her, it never even happened. Thus, even labeling her as an “ex-girlfriend” is a misnomer. Revisionism speaks, and when it does, it sayeth we’ve always just been pals. And good pals. I mean, were she to be reading this, I wouldn’t want to offend. It’s just that one of us lugs around the unexpurgated, people’s history version while the other one’s King James is a lot lighter in the binding, if you know what I mean. That said, she’s always been good company, for real, and that’s all that matters in a world that prefers reality television to reality.

For instance she insisted I do something for my birthday and the next day twisted my arm into doing a Thanksgiving, too. I’m not saying that either of these things were important or necessary to me within the isolated context of preordained dates on a calender, but I will say that they were enjoyable interludes for which I am grateful. I know it's a commercial but it's true: you can't put a price tag on memories. Certainly if I had stayed home alone as had been my plan, I would have been fine because I wouldn’t have known what I was missing, but the fact that I actually had a good time, nay a truly very lovely time, was a much grander vision than I had anticipated. Kudos to her.

Anticipation is what drives a misfire, i.e. the “failure of a model to make an official flight when its launch is attempted.” So there was this totally hot chick at Thanksgiving. She sat right next to me, exuding hotness. Then she shanghaied the entire table’s attention, holding court as it were, with what turned out to be a completely nonsensical spewing of nonsense. I think she went on for about 10 minutes, during which time I don’t think anybody knew what she was really going on about, though we all bore polite smiles on our faces in between forkfuls of grub. Occasionally, some one among the 10 or so of us women, would venture to ask a clarifying question that regardless of the words spoken actually translated to “what the hell are you talking about?” but her exasperated answers (“Rebel Without a Cause! I wrote it!) served to confuse us all more. I didn’t get it. And that’s when my friend J whispered to me “go for it.” Go for crazy? Thanks, already been there, with each and every one of you. Psst, there’s your misanthropy.

Which leaves the missile crisis. Enter the one whom, for the sake of this discussion, I shall refer to as The Scud. The Scud and J and I all met on the same night about a year ago. Apparently our tri-mutual friend had meant to set one of us up with her, and apparently J and I didn’t follow instructions, having gone home with each other. (I believe that account holds true in both the People's and in the King James). The Scud, by the way, is … you know … great ... owns her own business, owns her own look—no mistaking her in a crowd…. She cornered me in the kitchen and asked me what I was waiting for. I thought she meant which of the four mouth-watering desserts that lay unmolested on the table. No, silly. I thought it might be easier if I asked what she was waiting for, and she said, "the right woman." Even if she didn’t know it, I knew it wasn’t me. That’s when my stomach started cramping, and I got diarrhea. I think I ate some bad eggs earlier in the day. My many trips to the bathroom made her think I was avoiding her and my destiny as la numera una. It got to a point whereupon I did want to avoid her, but honestly, I was simply having gastro-intestinal issues. During a holiday party. At some else’s house. Oh the humanity.

Had I really answered the question of what I was waiting for I would have gotten into big trouble. I won't say it now either because I don’t know what eyes shall rest here. See there’s enough trouble in my love life or lovelorn(a)ness, defined as a persistant and pervasive lack of not love but something that's missing, for me to be cautious. I’m not trying to make myself seem like a loser. I haven’t run out of self-esteem, though I do, after these little bush forays (ha ha see I haven’t lost my sense of humor yah, these little bush skirmishes, bush runs, bush whackin’ yah all that…) I do run out of steam sometimes, and for one who is steam-driven (fire sign + water sign) that can be a matter of some concern. It’s like when a steam iron runs out of steam and things get fouled up. Turn the heat up and the iron starts melting and burning the cloth; turn it down, and the wrinkles get stubborn and refuse to lie flat.

So I called Shan, the mother of John's three kids and my dearheart, and she spoke a truth to me, the only one who would. "Come home," she said. I sighed, expelling what little store of hot air was left in me at that moment. Oh Christ. It comes to that, doesn’t it. I go back to Detroit and let them fawn all over me and get me all pumped up, and then return to Cali, get back in the ring, and I go down after a few blows to my emptiness.

But wait! All is not lost. For one thing, I have my increasing faith in the occult. Though as a rootin’ tootin’ American, in God I trust, I can’t put any faith in him nor in myself. But hoodoo, now that’s the ticket baby. They don’t call me Black Magic for nothin’. (See now this is when I knew that girl wasn’t right for me. I can’t even casually hang out w/ someone who doesn’t understand that the concept of blackness itself is vastly comedic when its source is someone like me. Even J. gave me a high five for that one. I mean c'mon!) Anyway, there’s a botanica at the end of my block (that’s why I love this neighborhood—Osento, the voodoo store, and overpriced produce all within one block), which is convenient for me since putting my faith in dripless wax figurines seems like less of a stretch than anything else these days. Besides, candle-burning is the most practiced and most simple of the magical arts.

Art, baby. Now we’re gettin’ somewhere. Like the another art that I believe in, astrology. You know what the skies portend this week? First off, New Moon in Sagittarius this Thursday, which means the opportunity for a fresh start every which way one can look. It’s not unlimited though. The waxing phase of the moon is only two weeks later, so there needs be an urgency to get a jump on any of these little projects I spin my wheels on day in and day out. Meanwhile, Mercury will turn direct on Saturday, ending the last retrograde of the year—another harbinger for cosmic relief. So maybe being written off by a singular audience of one girl yesterday was a blessing that I have failed thus far to acknowledge as such, lost as I am, in ungroundedness. Yes. I feel pretty good, actually. Cut the ballast. Move on. These are my true confessions for the moment, though they are subject to change.

Still Life

2005-11-23T08:22:00.000-08:00

“The womb bears all sorts of people, thieves and priests.”
—Chenjerai Hove: Marita
Bones

Today’s my birthday. A day I typically dread because what one can presume to be the good intentions of others often ends up making me feel trapped and hunted. But I can’t lay the blame elsewhere. My day of birth is also always a time of self-assessment, kind of like how New Year’s Day is for a lot of people, sans the resolutions. Even if I choose to grade myself on a lenient pass/fail scale, it’s a look backward that tends to worry me. Other people are giddy to have a day they can call all their own. For me, it’s just pressure.

I am always surprised, therefore, to remember that I arrived three weeks early even though I was also two years late, but this story is about what my day of birth means to me. It means that I have a purpose, a reason to exist. For 38 years now, I have been struggling to remember what it is, which means that the quest to remember is my current purpose. Nice that it works out that way.

I guess I don’t have anything else to say about it except that I’m neither a thief nor a priest. Yet.

Fall Back

2005-10-31T22:23:00.000-08:00

soft grass
drowning in pale light
remnants of a fierce glowing
beyond the kissable gloom

I miss the color change of a Midwestern autumn, though you can still tell it’s fall by the light, which takes on a nostalgic quality, puts on wistful hues. The clouds herringbone, like cotton candy dirgibles flocking for the winter journey south. Then comes the rain. I don’t miss being in the snow, though I miss the muffled sound and downy softness of a fresh snowfall. While I don’t care for the rain, I take it gladly over snow. If the rain were accompanied by a large thunderclap and a dance of jagged white light rising from the earth to the clouds, I might appreciate it or at least respect it. But the rain here, once it starts, never stops. It is cold and clammy, making one's clothes codependent as they cling for dear life. I tread water as it flows into my boots. But all that is yet to come. Now’s the time for lazy infielding, taking in whatever last days of regal rays existing. Fall finds me fondling trees and grass in the park and looking skyward always….

Ms. Rosa Parks (1913 - 2005)

2005-10-24T21:31:00.000-07:00

Miller: A lot of people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidences and things. They don't realize that there's this like lattice of coincidence that layers on top of everything. Give you an example, I'll show you what I mean. Suppose you're thinking about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly somebody will say like "plate" or "shrimp" or "plate of shrimp" out of the blue no explanation. No point for looking for one either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.
Otto: You eat a lot of acid, Miller, back in the hippie days?
—from Repo Man

"I did not get on the bus to get arrested. I got on the bus to go home."
—Rosa Parks

"What a long strange trip it's been."
—The Grateful Dead

"If you don't stand up, I'm going to have you arrested," Blake warned me. "You can do that," I told him. Blake then parked the bus in front of the Empire Theater and telephoned his supervisor. "Did you warn her, Jim?" his boss asked. "I warned her," Blake said. "Well then, Jim, you do it; you got to exercise your powers and put her off, yuh hear?" Blake called the police, who arrived in a few minutes.
—from The Narrative of Rosa Park

The most mind-boggling thing to me about the Rosa Parks incident, if I may call it that, is contemplating who was that bus driver and who was waiting for her seat? It’s not that they are more relevant, but I’ve always felt like if it was such a strange fate to be the catalyst for a social movement, what must it felt like to be the other side of that? Did the bus driver [who died a few years ago] and/or the passenger to whom Parks was supposed to defer—did they proudly tell their children or grandchildren, “I was the one?” Did they later come to believe they had been in the wrong? Did they ever apologize to Parks, or did they feel wronged by her and by history? What must it have been like for any fo those who where there, in that time, in that place?

It's true that Rosa Parks wasn’t the first to be arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus, and some have claimed that Park's refusal was premeditated and dictated by civil rights strategists. But even if her feet weren't tired that day, she was tired—and she was the one. Most of us will never know what that kind of fate feels like. She changed the world. May she rest in well earned peace.

Small World, Big Music, Old Friends

2005-10-23T18:48:00.000-07:00

Nappy’s in town, ostensibly to help me out while recuperating from the now-postponed surgery that was schedule to take place on Thursday. When one door closes, another opens… I get to spend a week out in the world with an old friend instead of trapped in my dark studio recovering. One unexpected pleasure was scoring last minute tickets to see World Saxophone Quartet (WSQ) play Hendrix at the Great American Music Hall, San Francisco’s “oldest and grandest nightclub.”

I think I may have known about the show, but the date slipped my mind since I should have been in the hospital that night. By the time we had all our ducks in a row, even the tickets that were still available on the web despite “sold out” status for the 7:30pm show were gone. I didn’t relish the idea of a 10pm show, but I would have gone for it if all else failed.

Fortunately, the night was nothing but success-laden. Nappy came down to the Embarcadero and we caught the 38 to the ‘loin, hopping out right in front of the infamous Mitchell Brothers, where Behind the Green Door was made. We had a good laugh about my ridiculous evening there with Shan’s hubby, when he came to town last year—but that’s another story. Nappy and I headed to the box office to be told that we should try back later. This was an hour short of show time on what was a blustery sort of day, too cold to wait long in any sort of line. We decided to pop into the martini bar Olive for a spell.

While there, we reminisced about our first visit to San Francisco, back in the day. We stayed at the youth hostel in the Tenderloin, one of the city’s more notorious neighborhoods. The thing is, we didn’t realize it was supposed to be a bad neighborhood and coming from Detroit, it was a bit of a walk in the park. We thought the front staff were joking when they warned us to be careful going out our first night there. “This is a bad neighborhood? This?” We instantly fell in love with the city. Later we were serenaded at 4a.m. by a drunkard in the alley outside our window, two or three stories down. It seemed to be an Irish drinking song with a repetitive chorus punctuated by angry neighbors yelling “shut up” every time the song began again. It was about the fifth or sixth time that we realized that the Irish drinking song was actually Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly, slurred in a thick ale-laden brogue.

A few years later, when I had been ensconced in the city for a while, my friend Vani was dating the Ron, who lived at Leavenworth & O’Farrell while I was dating someone who lived at Hyde & O’Farrell, the upshot of which is that the much maligned Tenderloin holds a dear place in my heart, and I was happy, on the night of the concert, to be hanging there with an old friend. A chocolate martini (Nappy had a mojito) and appetizer plate later we went back to the box office where the security woman winked and gave us a thumbs up, pointing to a spot on the sidewalk where we should wait. We stood next to a young guy who struck up an odd but charming conversation that began with his embarrassment over having inadvertently matched his shoes and shirt and ended with his removing one of the said shoes to show me a scar on his foot. I found out he works at Golden Gate Park and I was immediately jealous until he said, “yah, everyone is but the pay is pretty low, and I don’t have health insurance.”

Our new friend, Thomas, had been first in line but his friends had pulled up, and he was throwing his backpack into the trunk when the ticket agent approached us. Then came a little bit of Abbott & Costello "Who’s on First," when the woman came and asked who needed tickets.

Me: Us (pointing to me and Nappy)
Nappy: Us two (speaking simultaneously)
Me: … and that guy
Thomas: (from the street) I need one
Ticket woman: You need two (to me)
Me: Three (including Thomas)
Thomas: Me too
Nappy: Us three (said while looking at the person in line behind her)
Me: We (pointing to Nappy). I mean one each
Thomas: Two (including me)
Ticket Agent: Two or too?
Etc.

After a few moments we got it all straightened out. Thomas disappeared ahead of us, and Nappy and I patrolled the layout determining that we might have gotten tickets but general admission meant that we appeared to be shit out of luck. We couldn’t find any seats that offered a view of the stage—until we saw Thomas waving us over. He’d managed to save two seats for us as well as seats for his friends. That’s why I love SF. The guy was definitely off-kilter, but he was good off-kilter, the perfect prelude to the free funk extravaganza about to unfold.

During his brief career, Hendrix relied increasingly on open-ended improv, a form that lends itself well to the blowout excursions characteristic of avant-garde jazz. Upon the release of WSQ’s Experience, All about Jazz interviewed David Murray (tenor sax) , who voiced his opinion that, “If there weren't so many people pulling on [Hendrix], I'm sure he would have certainly been some kind of jazz musician. His thing just attracted so many different styles of people that it was obvious that he had to be a rock musician during that time because he had all the ingredients. Jimi could have dropped in any era. If he came ten years from now and landed on our planet, this guy would be on the biggest stage, with the brightest light because he was the best guitar player. I think Jimi Hendrix could have played with anybody. I heard he was doing some stuff with Miles Davis up at Woodstock. He could have played with the Sun Ra Arkestra if he wanted to.” It was with that attitude of respect and reverence that the WSQ took the stage—but they weren’t afraid to make the music their own as Hendrix did with everything he touched.

They began by playing a “Freedom,” a funky little ditty that nobody in the audience seemed to recognize, though it was good and received ample applause. “If it’s Hendrix, I didn’t recognize it,” I told Nappy. She nodded; then Thomas leaned to me and said, “I feel dumb, but I’m not hearing the Hendrix.” So it was unanimous. They also played “Hear My Train A Comin’” before David Murray grabbed the mike and explained that 29 years ago, he and the other members of the New York Saxophone Quartet received a cease & desist letter from another group calling itself the New York Saxophone Quartet. Oliver Lake (alto and soprano sax) chimed in, “We gave them New York and became the World,” then launched into “Little Wing,” which we all picked up on. Their rendition reminded me somewhat of Sting’s version and a little less of Stevie Ray Vaughn’s. It’s a song that I like but have liked less and less over the years because it is easily rendered bombastic. While I appreciated their arrangement, I felt Lee Pearson’s drumming was overwhelming. Nappy laughed when I said, “He’s playing like he’s in Led Zeppelin.” Next came a dynamite version of “Hey Joe,” in fact, the best I’ve heard aside from the original. Since the departure and subsequent death of Julius Hemphill, the second alto chair has been a revolving door, but Bruce Williams, who plays on the album, was really jammin’ during the lurid tale of Joe’s crime passion. He’s a big guy in whose hand the alto and soprano saxophones looked like toys, but he was shakin’ like he was fornicating that sax. It was really spectacular. Hamiet Bluiett, baritone sax, really shined on “Machine Gun,” letting lose a cascade of startling soprano-pitched squonks, and “If 6 was 9” was a fantastic showcase for electric bassist Matthew Garrison, the son of long-time Coltrane bassist, Jimmy Garrison; they closed with a beautiful rendition of “The Wind Cries Mary” that began with a drone-like dirge, the melody carried Craig Harris, clad in a long skirt and mudcloth vest, on trombone.

Mid-show Garrison had played a beautiful six-string-like intro, and Pearson had redeemed himself to my ears and eyes by throwing down an exciting, hypersonic solo starting with mallets in both hands, and then with no interruptions or breaks in the rhythm, he successively went to playing his kit with both hands, one stick in the right hand, switching the stick to his left hand, grabbing the other stick and playing all parts of the kit and the floor with both sticks. When he was done there was a split-second of stunned quiet from the audience before someone seated near us uttered a spellbound “gosh!” That one syllable cracked up everyone in the vicinity.

It was a totally great night. Nappy and I said goodbye to Thomas and his pals, who I believe were staying for the second show. Nappy wore a grin the entire way home and said she’d never seen anything quite like it. I was glad to have treated my pal to something that she’ll always remember. It was a nice homage to a friendship that back in the day included a lot of sharing of Hendrix's music: it was from her collection that I first heard Axis: Bold as Love. The next day, as I described the night to a coworker who had earlier disbelieved that anyone my age would have grown up with and appreciated the music of Hendrix, she determined that our friend Thomas is her brother. Small world made smaller by music. Right on!

Abbey Road

2005-10-18T22:47:00.000-07:00

the beauty of banter
was everything
to kiss by moonlight
or streetlight
a tonewood hum inviolate

Some nights ago I stumbled upon Abbey road after having gone to Mecca.

Earlier in the evening, a friend mentioned she was fasting. “For Ramadan?” I asked, but I said it all hipsterish, like I thought I was cool—because I did. “No, for Yom Kippur,” she replied. Truly surprised to be wrong yet totally tongue in cheek, I coolly said, “Oh. Am I being insulting?” “No,” she said, “just ignorant.” We both laughed, hearty-har.

When I say I went to Mecca, it’s not another religious crack, though I believe I mentioned a trio of miracle workers in an earlier post. Two of the three, Trish and Jane, were present at the pilgrimage, as was their friend Petey. Honestly, they are some of the best folks I’ve met in a genuinely long time: real people, few hang-ups (or least the decency to keep them under wraps), open, interested and interesting… it was really quite refreshing. They made my night; wrestling demons has never been so fun. Thanks girls and boy!

But no sooner than the next night, I bumped right up against it all again—that ever-present magic circle. I didn’t get sucked into it, but it’s essence trussed me up like a turkey for a few, long moments. I’d never noticed an Abbey street in San Francisco before, and I couldn’t help thinking how apt is was for me to be staggering down it, segueing in step with the end of the Beatles classic album. While innocently I sought “Golden Slumbers," the night reminded me that “Once there was a way to get back homeward / Once there was a way to get back home again”—and immediately comes the heads up: “Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight, carry that weight a long time.” It’s a yin yang world with comfortable unknowns and known discomforts.

For me it is often people. Some people are here to help, others to hurt. Take my office, which, of late, has turned into the Gulag. It’s so clear cut, who is on which side of the fence. But those of us who can actually read the fence are the ones most feared. We also often tend to be somewhat powerless in these contexts. I’m no superhero. Now that the spotlight is on me for associating with the one who has become the scapegoat, I’m bowing and pandering like the best of ‘em. I don’t have much a choice at this point except to bide my time. And maybe that’s one of the takeaways from my stint in the circle: you just gotta let shit play out however it may. That goes for all facets of life and all attachments.

Surviving the magic circle means that you’re on, like the curtain’s up and it’s showtime. So I put on the work show. I’m sure I’m not the best actress, but I’m creating the perception that I believe the organization to be of greater value than myself. My friend, the scapegoat, hadn’t learned yet that perception is everything. You can work your ass off, maintain the whole organization on your shoulders, but if the perception is otherwise, no manner of tangible results will work in your favor. If you sit around twiddling your thumbs all day while assuming the aura of someone who’s the most valuable employee of all, you’ll probably make the managerial fast track.

My friend was naïve. I warned her. I knew where the fence was. But people just don’t listen sometimes because they can’t. I don’t tend to listen either. But it’s really hard to watch someone on the take down and be 100 percent helpless to do anything. The only thing I can do is refuse to be bullied into ostracizing her along with most everyone else. She’s done nothing except refuse to wear the mask of pretense; she’s doing it now, but it’s too late. I’ve been standing my ground beside her, but there will be repercussions down the road, when they've succeeded in eating her alive. I know that. Those of us on our side of the fence all know that. It’s gotten so bad that we’ve taken to leaving through separate doors to create the illusion that we’re not going to lunch together or becoming adept enough to shift into client work jargon at the drop of a hat, which requires going from hurried, hushed conversation to purposely loud, go get ‘em tonalities. And are we really fooling anyone? It’s all about perception. Acting the fool is much better than being the fool. The office is simply a microcosm.

And in my personal life, I have suffered great betrayals of late. It’s another round of coming of age, I think. But everything actually is all right, in fact, so right because there is art in the world. There is the music that I love, there are the random, anonymous smiles of others and my own, there are moments of collective synergy in which everyone gathers at the same time—like the 31-hour grand re-opening of the De Young Museum inside Golden Gate Park. From noon on Saturday, October 15 until 5 p.m. on Sunday, October 16, the museum was open and free. Alex and I went on Saturday night, joining approximately 600 other people in long winding line. I guess there were that many because the official stat was that they were letting in 660 people per hour and it took us just under an hour to get into what is a magnificent space. More amazing still is that when we left at midnight, there were as many people waiting to get in as when we had been in line. As exhausted as I was from what was a very tiring weekend, I felt an immense pride in the city and in the miracle of people and art. Sure it was a “scene,” and I’m sure especially in the wee hours some of the twenty- and thirty-somethings were there simply to be seen, but a lot of people also brought their kids and a lot of people were older and seemed happily bewildered as if it’d been ages since they’d been out and about past seven o’clock at night. There were working stiffs and people dressed in brand new Armani. There were hordes of people, all drawn peacefully to a center of art. That just rocked my world.

And then I finished up the weekend in good company with a couple drinks and dinner and a splendid walk that ended underneath a streetlamp. I got to make art. The more I think about it, the only way to temper the 9 to 5 is to use the 5 to 9 for artful living and that includes more of the comfortable unknown.

La Dolce Vita

2005-10-09T18:15:00.000-07:00

Saturday a.m. I woke up still feeling what I will describe only as “the effects” of a party I went to the previous night, using such vague language a) so that you may use your imagination if you so desire and b) so as not to incriminate myself. An additional caveat: the party invitation made mention of “naked dancing girls,” of which I saw none, and suggested that one arrive wearing “ghetto boots,” a term which remains a mystery as everyone seemed to be wearing regular, every day, shoes unless I missed something. Lastly, I felt like my mojo, which has been on strike for a few months now, was acting like its carburetor’s been cleaned out (we’re talkin’ vintage 1967) and a new starter installed. I tried it out on three women and it was definitely a little rough, but later in the evening, when a fresh batch of women arrived, they got to experience a little bit of the well-tuned mojo on overdrive—and they loved it. Phone numbers were pressed into my hand as by turns they commented on how “cute,” “funny,” “fun,” “adorable,” “witty” my mojo is. I brag out of necessity. The return of the mojo was something I was beginning to doubt. Welcome back, friend.

I had a good night. Then, as stated, I woke up groggy, witless, with the certainty that I’d erred in partaking of certain party favors. But I wasn’t about to lose a whole Saturday to recuperation. Nope, I forced myself to run and run we did, getting lost somewhere between Land’s End and the Baker Beach stairs. Uh, yah. I’m not complaining. It’s just that I wasn’t really prepared for an eight mile run. Sure the fog in my brain cleared because it had to focus on the new stressors which I had chosen to introduce into the parameters of this American life, but when it was over with I had a new problem: how to make my seriously abused physical self feel wanted and loved. The solution: three-hours at Osento, mostly in the wet sauna … with brief interludes in the hot tub; a nude nap on the deck (warmed by the sun, cooled by the breeze); a frolic in the cold pool; a nap in the dry sauna….

And then I got a phone call from my Greek friend who was irate with me for not answering her calls earlier in the day. I explained that I’d been at the bathhouse. “For three hours?” she asked. “All the time you complain, complain, and you live la dolce vita!” I agreed to meet her, though by this time I was thoroughly exhausted. I tried defending myself when she found me at the bookstore with a copy of with an Edgar Cayce guide entitled Growing through Personal Crisis in my hands. I explained how I’d woken up stoned unimmaculate (your imagination has failed you so I’m helping you out now) and how I’d gone to the party without having dinner and I hadn’t had breakfast and I’d run for two hours nonstop because because because and she just repeated herself, “la dolce vita and all the time complaining.” The sweet life? Me? He he he.

Which brings me back to the circle thing from the previous post. See, what I’ve learned since then is that there IS a way out:

“When blocked, tap into the great block-busters: humor, friends, and nature. The specific preparations begin when I enter the temenos, the play space. In ancient Greek thought, the temenos is a magic circle, a delimited sacred space within which special rules apply and in which extraordinary events are free to occur. My studio, or whatever space I work in, is a laboratory in which I experiment with my own consciousness. To prepare the temenos—to clear it, rearrange it, take extraneous objects out—is to clean and clear mind and body…. When the demons of confusion and the sense of being overwhelmed strike, they can sometimes be cleared out by clearing the space.”
—Stephen Nachmanovitch / Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art

Of course. Evidence #3 (see previous post for preceding evidences)

Last week at Osento, I found myself in the wet sauna with a 400 lb. mustached woman and a Latina elder. The latter revealed her age to be 81, as I helped pull her literally into the steaming barrel edifice. She told us that she’s been going there for 25 years and that now her son brings her twice a week. She hadn’t gone the week before, we were informed, because she’d been worried sick about her sister, who had been missing in New Orleans after the hurricane. The sister had finally resurfaced and is being taken care of. Meanwhile, one can only hope the big earthquake doesn’t strike us soon, she said. But who knows with God so angry about these gays.

I had been drifting in and out of conscious listening so I wasn’t sure whether I’d heard what I thought I heard, but one look at the other woman’s distorted face and I knew my full attention was now needed. Justine, as she later introduced herself, was clearly agitated but handled the situation with much aplomb. Calmly she said, “Ma’am, I am very offended by your views. You’ve stated them once, and we’ve heard them but now I would ask you to change the subject.” The older woman became offended in turn, stating that she hadn’t said anything wrong and was just telling the truth. Her sister had rented her apartment to “those gays” and look what happened. But not her; she had had her children the natural way and raised them too. Her son brought her to Osento twice a week. But God is angry about the gays and especially about gay marriage. It’s in the bible. If that happens, we’ll all die. I interjected that we all die, and we all die for lots of different reasons, adding, “you’ve had a long life, and when you die I doubt it will be because of gay people.” “I hope not,” she muttered. “Why? Do you plan on marrying a woman?” I asked, winking at Justine. Indignant, the woman spewed a vehement "no" and asked why I would even say such a thing. I said, “Well you seem to equate gay marriage with death so I thought maybe you were planning on marrying a woman if you’re not so sure that gays won’t be the death of you.” Nobody said a word for a few moments and the only sounds of which I was aware were at that time were of the heater crackling and the sweat dripping down the side of my face. She squinted at me and asked, “Are you … gay?” “Yes, actually I am,” I answered. “Well that’s your business!” she squawked, visibly upset. “I know it’s my business,” I responded quietly, “but you asked so I told you.” She got up and left, as rickety as when she’d entered.

Justine introduced herself and thanked me for piping in. I shrugged and said, “She’s 81. What are you gonna do?” Not long afterward, I noticed that our unexpected enemy had left her comb in the room. Grabbing it, I went to find her. She was sitting nearby and looked at me suspiciously as I approached. “Is this yours?” I inquired. She hesitated for a moment then accepted it from me with a reluctant thanks. I went back to the sauna. About 20 minutes later, she returned. This time, Justine was elsewhere but another woman was in the sauna. With a fresh audience, the older woman started talking about the hurricane again, except this time she pointed the finger at the government. She was shaking with anger as she railed against the president, wondering how they could “leave all the black people and poor people and old people out there to rot. What terrible prejudice there is in the world!” she exclaimed. I couldn’t believe my ears, and I sat there mulling it over, wondering how she could feel that way but just moments earlier have exhibited such horrible prejudices against about gays. But I didn’t bring it up. I let her have her say, and I really listened to her. The two of us sat side by side, completely naked and vulnerable, and I just listened. The heat got to both of us at the same time. I assisted her out and then stood for a moment trying to decide whether a dip the cold pool was warranted. Lost in my thoughts, I’d actually forgotten all about her, but she was still there; she turned to me and told me her name: Amika. She clutched at my shoulder and said, “I’m sorry if I said anything bad before.” Then she crept away.

I was completely shocked by the whole thing. I mean first of all, I know that there are those who think that God is punishing the world because of gays, but I didn’t really, truly, know that people think that you know? Second, those sorts of views are not typical of what one encounters on a daily basis in San Francisco. Third, to have recognized! I knew, in that moment, that she had had a change of heart, in part, because I’d returned her comb and because I had helped her before either of us knew anything about the other. It was probably easy to assume that Justine is a “deviant,” if that's the way one's mind works, but clothing off, she couldn’t tell anything about me other than that I’m black and in this case, it wasn’t a liability. The entire episode filled me with a sort of wonder I haven’t experienced in a long time.

I also thought about my own prejudices. I have to admit that under regular circumstances, I probably would not willingly identify with an excessively obese woman sporting facial hair. I don’t like admitting it, but it’s the truth. But my own prejudice was easy enough overcome in that moment and in that small space, out of which came a new friend. Maybe two.

The magic circle, then, is all about transformation. It’s a locale which one enters, usually unwittingly. Often it feels quite comfortable until you realize that it’s like being in a tiny, invisible bubble that others can’t see or recognize. To them you’re acting strange for no apparent reason. Meanwhile, you’re trying to explain that you’re not acting strange given that you’re enclosed and cut off from the normal, every day channels of communication. Things happen in the circle that can’t really be expressed properly to others, though they are things you will want to shout about because they seem—are—so meaningful. It’s like trying to describe a dream and knowing that most all of it is lost in the translation. Thus being inside the circle can be terrifying especially if you try to fight it because to everyone outside the circle you seem engaged in pointless shadow boxing. They don’t understand you’re fighting for your life. However, eventually you will tire, like a baby crying herself to the point of sleep. It is exactly when you’re bereft of fight that you will begin to accept that you have been encircled, and, by default, begin finding your place within it, by finding your Self, extraneous to shared reality. Though you are surrounded by and seem to be in the midst of the life that everyone else is living, you’re not.

The secret of the circle is that everything that you think is real—that stuff beyond the circle—is the illusion. Your perceptions of what you need, who you are shift radically. And don’t bother telling anyone that you’re in the real, and they are not because they will just think you’re crazy or selfish with all your "help me, I’m drowning, not waving" antics. They won’t believe you, but you best believe yourself because you have been tasked with finding your peace within the circle of enlightenment regardless of what others say or do. Pascal wrote: “It is your own assent to yourself and the constant voice of your own reason and not of others that should make you believe.” Only then will you find your true self back on the other side of it again, which is when you'll long for what you'll realize was a private world of tranquility and timelessness, a refuge from the true madnesses of life outside the magic circle.

This is an age old cycle. Among Japanese Zen Buddhists, there is a single brush stroke symbol drawn by meditating monks called the enso. “Most say that the enso is the all, the void and enlightenment itself. Some say the enso has no fixed, finite or static meaning. Some have said that the enso represents a continuing action through time. When the painting [a circle] is seen it communicates at various levels of understanding depending on the viewer.” Additionally, “as a symbol of the absolute, the true nature of existence and enlightenment … it is a symbol that combines the visible and the hidden, the simple and the profound, the empty and the full.” That said, ensos often have a slight opening.

I can feed you all the evidence I have accumulated, and you will not believe me nor will I succeed in extricating myself in such a manner. Conscious evolution is a very personal thing, embracing the tension between indestructible spirit and the death of ego. It is about transformation, constant, never-ending, sometimes taking place at a snail’s pace and other times occurring in nanoseconds that encompass the rise and fall of entire inner worlds. But coping with the chaos or otherwise unfavorable conditions ignites our creativity and in creating, we forgo a crippling sense of powerlessness that has previously prevented us from bypassing self-imposed obstacles. I have been in a magic circle. I don’t care if you believe me.

The Abracadabra of Silence

2005-10-04T22:19:00.000-07:00

“There’s no illness at all, I simply got into a magic circle that I can’t get out of. It makes no difference to me. I’m ready for everything. I got into a magic circle. Now everything, even the genuine sympathy of my friends, leads to one thing—my perdition. I’m perishing and I have enough courage to realize it.”
“You’ll get well my friend.”
“Why say that?” Andrei Yefimych said vexedly. “It’s a rare man who doesn’t experience the same thing towards the end of his life as I am experiencing now. When you’re told that you have something like a bad kidney or an enlarged heart, and you start getting treated, or that you’re a madman or a criminal, that is, in short, when people suddenly pay attention to you, then you should know that you’ve gotten into a magic circle and you’ll never get out of it. If you try to get out, you’ll get more lost. Give up, because no human effort can save you. So it seems to me.”
—“Ward No. 6” / Anton Chekhov

No, I’m not dying though I’ve felt a bit like I am, and I haven’t been too criminal as of late, but in case you’re wondering, yes, I’ve been in a magic circle. Not a hula hoop despite a burgeoning underground hula hoop community, but definitely a magic circle. I might still be in it, but I feel like the way out might be just around the bend. Notice I used the word bend not corner, for indeed it is circular, whatever this is. For weeks now, if you were to ask me what day it is, I’d have no friggin’ clue. I’ve been marking post-hurricane time by which episode of which season of the Sopranos I’m on. I am keeping a brave face thanks to Netflix and the anxiety of a fictional middle-aged mobster.

Steve, a good friend and mentor recently observed “your last postings seem tortured and full of Kierkegaardian angst.” Of course I was flattered in some pathetically silly way, given that Kierkegaard, my patron saint of irreverence, struck such a fine balance between the absurdly serious and the seriously absurd. Yet I recognize that this particular balancing act I’ve been attempting to perform, and which has more teeter in it than it should, is merely symptomatic of spiritual crisis.

I have lost my voice inside that circle. I’ve had so many things to say and nothing to say at all, so I hope you won’t mind if I borrow the words of others to prove the existence of said magic circle.
Evidence #1. Steve, for example, was writing to share his and his wife’s experiences as an American Red Cross volunteer deployed to Baton Rouge:

We went down to work the shelters but were assigned as couriers taking supplies and correspondence to the numerous Red Cross and community shelters strewn in the areas surrounding the main hit. We were stationed in the gym of a Baptist Church on the west end Baton Rouge, and our routes covered about 250-300 miles a day. Nancy's route went as far west as Lake Charles (where Rita made a somewhat direct hit), and my route was southwest, closer to the towns along the Gulf—places like New Iberia, Erath, and Abbeville—all evacuated for Rita. We sat out Rita at the gym. About 100 of us were sheltered there, and because Baton Rouge was on the eastern edge of the counterclockwise rotation of the storm, several tornados touched down. It knocked out the power. We assigned each person a secure place in a bathroom or the kitchen, because it appeared the roof would not make it. It did. The place smelled like a goatbarn. We were to return home Sunday from New Orleans, but the highway was flooded. We were finally able to get on a flight out of Baton Rouge to Houston. In Houston we were able to get on a flight to Detroit. Ironically seats were available because of the evacuation of Houston days earlier.

I have many thoughts on the failure of government and the Red Cross, and of rampant racism and classism and wish we could discuss them face-to-face. But I will leave this for another time. l wish I could tell you about each photo. They are places on our routes and from a day trip we made into Biloxi, Gulfport, and Wavelan, which took a direct hit from Katrina. You might not understand the details in the photos unless pointed out—the places where houses used to be, the railroad tracks suspended in air where the gravel berm washed out, the roofs sitting all over after being frisbeed off the houses, the plastic bags hanging in symmetry about eight feet off the ground in the trees—the receeding water line way inland. We will talk.

In the meantime, your last postings seem tortured and full of Kirkegaardian angst. Know you have family. A lady I was talking to, after having related burying a friend the day before, the loss of her home, and many other travails, ended the conversation by looking at me, and very sincerely said, "... but it’s all good, Shugah."

Be well,
Steve

Now if that’s not heartening and disheartening, I don’t know what is. What I found particularly inspiring and would like very much to appropriate is the “but it’s all good, Shugah,” but I doubt I can pull it off.

Evidence #2. Last Thursday I went to a dinner party where I knew only the hostess and the person who had invited me. One of the other guests was a woman from Germany who looked as if she’d stepped off the pages of a 1950s English novel. Her husband reminded me of my days in undergrad, which is not to say that he was immature, but he exuded a certain off-kilter zest that reminisced of the days when you’re young and less stuck on particular ideas about yourself and the rest of the world, largely because post-infancy, you do realize you exist and the world exists, but pre-mid-life crisis, you don’t yet realize that you and the world exist together, symbiotically. There was also New Zealander with the kind of face that could make a soft porn casting director weep. There was a gay Mayflower descendent and his boyfriend, a guy notorious for his mushroom tea parties. The friend who’d invited me has been battling the urge not to quit her current job; if she doesn’t quit, it will be the first job she’s held for more than a year in more than ten years. And the hostess, a masseuse by trade, had decided to pit her own vegetarian lasagna recipe against her own rendition of a Cook's Illustrated–inspired meat lasagna recipe, though she’s not a meat eater. In other words it was an eclectic group that actually gelled pretty well.

What was most striking to me about the evening was a pair of conversations. In one, the woman from New Zealand started waxing poetic about Burning Man. She was enthused in that Burning Man crowd sort of way—emboldened, starry-eyed, agog. I bristled next to her. Having little tolerance for what seemed to me an overly optimistic and naïve insistence that Burning Man will save the world, I felt compelled nay forced to explain that while it’s really great that 30,000 mostly white folks get together to do drugs and explore art in the desert, it’s not exactly the salve this world needs. She argued that each person can make a difference to which I replied, “Yah, whatever… I know that when a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon jungle, shit happens, but whenever shit happens, it stinks.”

Needless to say I wasn’t necessarily a hit at this party. Then again, I wouldn’t say I wasn’t. Some of the partygoers didn’t believe me when I opined that most people in this country probably don't even know what Burning Man is, and if you were to explain it they'd think it's bloody strange and possibly dangerous and definitely stupid and wrong. Then she started talking about how diverse the festival is. Diverse my ass. I asked her what she thinks would happen if 30,000 Arabs, or Blacks, or Latinos or Native Americans decided to convene in the desert for a week of debauched art, rave music, psychedelic drugs, etc. She replied that it would be, and I quote, "lovely." to my surprise, half the guests sided with her. I felt like jumping up on the table and bellowing, "Did Katrina not just happen?"

I did disclose that I’ve never been to Burning Man and not necessarily from lack of wanting to go. Nor would I seek to disparage the ideals of the present day vehicle of “counterculture,” bound as it is by it’s very nature to spread love and joy throughout the world. I’m all for a consensual group grope if that’s what floats people’s desert chariots. But it just doesn’t translate to the Heartland. I know because I’m from the Midwest and for as open as I think I am, some of it doesn’t translate to me. I found it hard to translate that sense of "doesn't compute" to my dinnermate, who I later learned is landed gentry with horses and such to eventually get back to should she get tired of water that flushes opposite of what she's been conditioned to experience.

No need to be snotty, I agree. I also agree that the world needs saving. Like my sparring partner who so clearly put the zeal in Zealand, I hope there is a salve for this wounded world, but Burning Man—the movement as spotlighted by the annual event—ain’t it. A bunch of dusty group hugs accompanied by trance music is not enough. But it’s hard, when you’re in the magic circle, to communicate with others who espouse viewpoints that aren’t just seriously absurd, but are, in fact, Absurd. "I’M SORRY," I said and returned to noshing politely until the gay folk in the room began arguing about whether gay pride is a valid notion. Why not just be proud of being human, one asked. "Turn on the news," I suggested. "We’ll find plenty of reasons to forgo pride on any level there."

To be continued.

Incomplete Strangers: May 10, 2001

2005-09-18T21:35:00.000-07:00

On May 10th, 2001, my head was aswirl with all kinds of meaningless shit. I hadn't written anything worthwhile in a long time, other than meditations, which weren't original. During that time I wrote: "I look back at these past four months of joblessness and think about all the time I've wasted, chasing love to no avail and to no sense of accomplishment other than destitution. That's what happens when you flirt too seriously: you can't stop, and you flirt with everything, even destitution.

Today I experienced the fear of God again. Standing on the platform waiting for the underground train and trying desperately to shake the feeling of life vs. death, me at that [temp job] that is just like Scient. God, no. Let me be employed, yes, let me earn a living; yes, but not in that environment. I don't know what I'd do.

Meanwhile, I sleep, and I sleep, and I sleep at odd hours. Crashing out in 2-3 hr. naps. I'm not a napper. Am I depressed? I dunno. I want to say no, but I know what J. meant when, describing his adverse reaction to cocaine, his self-propelled toxicity, that he feels 'it' lurking. I feel it too. All I want—and i've said it once and say it always—is a woman and a job. Proof evident that my priorities are fucked up. Shouldn't it be job first? Call me crazy because I am. I wanna be in love. 'Don't be like me, kid.' That's all I ever see myself saying in the future. 'I had a shot at great things, but I blew it.' And with that, I smile and go to sleep.

Afterthought: what I want to be in love with is my life.

1. i feel like a rat in a hole

2. sometimes when we unravel it's the most beautiful thing

3. and you recognize that her beauty is not the thing that's keeping you going after all

4. transfers are only issued at the time fares are paid

5. i feel like a rat in a hole.

this is the story of me and some of my friends and what happened to us all in the pursuit of life. there's a song by the pixies, frank black singing if man is five well then the devil is six and if the devil is six then god is seven and sometimes i just wanna bellow that from the rafters like jimmy cagney shoutin' 'top of the world ma, top of the world!' but i had this conversation w/ myself about it once, arguing that there's a fundamental flaw in the song's theory if you don't believe in the devil—let alone god.

we all believe in man, right? not all of us, i said to myself, no. but we wake up, look in the mirror, walk around, answer the phone, stand in line next to one another. IS THIS NOT EVIDENCE OF FIVE? the existentialists were never that convincing i insisted. then i decided to play devil's advocate with myself. aha—if i'm the advocate, evil must exist. i don't want to confirm the horned one's existence but i do as i sit in the station talking to myself in my rock and roll outfit. look the part, play it. that's right, i'm an actress. studying for the role of a crazy woman, in which i play myself: the crazy that was cured upon realizing that the devil is merely ignorance and god is indeed seven, thebiggestofthemall, because seven ate nine."

On this evening, September the 18th of 2005, not much has changed except that I've lost the playfulness. That was also pre-9/11, though. Our civilization has begun the great descent. We're at the point where the downward momentum is steady but unstoppable. Rock bottom is still a ways in the distance, but we're definitely making our way there. Events like 9/11 and Katrina will later serve as mile markers.

Meanwhile, people like me still want to carve our little slice of the American dream, which is really the world's dream. We think we're humble enough that our wishes should be granted, and we become outraged in being denied. Then someone like me picks up the paper and sees yet another picture of another person whose life has been uprooted by natural disaster or human violence or just dumb luck ... and that someone like me realizes there's no humble pie big enough on which to gorge herself. And yet, and yet, and yet, I still want what I want.

Waterworld: What'll Go Down the Drain?

2005-09-04T22:35:00.000-07:00

“The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves." —Carl Jung

Friday night a friend urged me to get myself in front of a television set. She said that she had never seen the media reacting as emotionally as it was that night, which was five days into the aftermath of Katrina. She described the on-air behavior of various broadcasters and insisted that I see for myself. She said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a race war.”

Well, I don’t have a tv, so I missed all of that, but I have caught sound bytes from various radio pundits and shows, and I’ve read Michael Moore’s open letter to Bush, Molly Ivins' much-read piece, etc. I’ve been voyeur, listening in on the conversations of other commuters, shoppers, library patrons and other people who've been places I've gone. I’ve talked to coworkers, my dad, a Nigerian cab driver who dropped me off at a friend’s place.

Basically, everybody’s talking about what’s going on in New Orleans. Everyone is talking about race, poverty, the Iraqi war, and President (whether you like it or not) Bush in ways that aren't usually so public or so consuming. I have been asked to share my opinion, but I haven’t been forthcoming because while I have an opinion, it’s imprecise. Still, I suppose it’s worth stating aloud.

For me, there are two emotions running at hand: hope and fear. My hope is that regardless of which side you’re on, regardless of who’s to blame for what, regardless of what could have or should have happened or been avoided, people will keep on talking and talking and talking and talking it out. My fear is that like HealthSouth (Scrushy who?) and Enron, the Florida and Ohio counts, and about a gazillion other situations and events that tarnish and diminish the good of this country, we’ll forget.

Let’s face it, we’ve got attention spans so short that collectively speaking, the national consciousness is a lot like that of the main character in Memento, who: “lives in the present tense. Unable to create new memories after suffering a head injury, he's left with fading images of his life before that point in time, and scrambles to make sense of events as they happen to him, moment by moment. Because he can't keep an idea in his head for more than a couple of minutes, Leonard writes notes … in hopes that when he looks at them, he'll know what he was telling himself. Trouble is, he tends not to remember what all these notes mean.”

This country has suffered a flurry of head injuries. 9/11 was a head injury, but Bush was already in office. I can see considering Election 2000 as a head injury, but that felt more like a blow below the belt. Besides, were things really so different before Bush landed in the White House? On the surface yes, but dig even a little bit deeper, and it’s not like Al-Queda only began playa hatin’ us in 2000. It’s not within the past five years only that minorities in this country have felt disenfranchised too.

I think we might be punch drunk from the assassinations of Medgar Evers, the Kennedy Brothers, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X right on through the trial and ridiculous verdict of O. J. Simpson; Watergate was one smack down, the events leading to the Star report was another. The imprisionment of Mumia and Leonard. Waco and Oklahoma City. The Patriot Act.

It’s been blow after blow for a really long time, and that’s just stuff we’ve delivered unto ourselves, though there are those who claim that Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were self-inflicted too. What better way to buy national buy-in and distraction than to take a near knock-out punch on the chin every now and then. Americans are infamously easy to rally once everyone’s on the same page, even if some people, like the Japs, Indians, or niggers have to be herded into internment camps, reservations, housing projects or jails, respectively. Or ignored altogether, like the 9/11 families or the Cindy Sheehans.

Go back to Memento and how the guy wrote notes to himself to try to retain facts. We’ve got media and art for that. The countless headlines and opinion pieces and captioned photos and broadcast archives. The artistic statements from flags in toilets and talking vaginas to the Vietnam Wall and Hollywood movies. Assuming they’re ever accurate, after time passes what do they all mean when taken out of the context of conception and restored in an altogether different context?

In her great review of the film, PopMatters Film and TV Editor Cynthia Fuchs writes, “The relationship between meaning and memory is a complex one that most of us take for granted—when you remember something, like a face or an event, you also have for it a context and a sense of how it connects to other faces and events in your past experience. But what if you didn't have that context? How would you know which face is relevant to you? Which event has consequences? … The most unnerving effect of Memento's fragmentations and dislocations is [a] sense of doubt. At first, you're putting the narrative together… but then you realize that you can't trust your own assumptions or reading abilities….”

If you can’t trust your government (human-machine hybrid), who can you trust? We can’t even trust the ballot chads, and Soylent Green is people.

This is my fear. If we don’t keep this level of awareness, things will blow over because they always do. Whether the governmental response to a particularly destructive weather pattern that has forced us into deconstructing the origins of and validity of claims of racism or classism or heartlessness or political payback or opportunism or simply a major major fuck up, the undercurrent that’s been exposed is old. Real old. The New Deal gave way to the criminalization of proverty even before Bush claimed the throne, even before The Clash offered their public service announcement (with guitar) more than 20 years ago:

Know your rights all three of them

Number 1
You have the right not to be killed
Murder is a crime!
Unless it was done by a
Policeman or aristocrat
Know your rights

And number 2
You have the right to food money
Providing of course you
Don’t mind a little
Investigation, humiliation
And if you cross your fingers
Rehabilitation

Know your rights
These are your rights

Number 3
You have the right to free
Speech as long as you’re not
Dumb enough to actually try it.

There are those who subscribe to a three-world model, of which we usually only talk about the First World (us) and the Third World (them). But we rarely consider the two Americas. The shadow America (as I tend to think of it with a purposefully Jungian nuance) seems to exist within the denial of the empire America. Yet, when Bush said, “We face a dangerous enemy who wants to harm our people and our way of life,” he, representing the haves, was referring to the shadow self. I say that because the poor of this country, unbeknownst to themselves, share a socio-cultural identity (of poverty) that transcends nation-state boundaries in a very Fourth World way that belies the sharing of ethno-indigenous traits to create the sort of one-ness that might save the world.

Fuchs says, in the end, “Memento isn't about character development or change—Leonard is incapable of either. Losing meaning is a frightening experience, because you're so used to thinking you have it, that your identity remains constant from moment to moment, that your memory is who you are. If you have no memory, then who are you?” Who are we as a nation, and who will we be once the water has receded?

Summer Solstice

2005-08-31T21:50:00.000-07:00

eyelashes flutter against the single pane
like determined moths convinced they can penetrate
edison’s invention, confusing filament with fulfillment
just like I confused your presence with present tense
expecting you here now but you’ve gone
leaving only traces of yourself
tiny hairs on the pillows
stains on the sheets

thoughts race quicker than the fog rolling in
water vapor's smoky irridescence spaning the sky
lights and darks jumbled reminiscent
of unsorted laundry, your clothes in a heap
memories of a long, sensuous night
summer light puts on a winter pageant
special guest, I’m improperly attired
my shirt’s off as i press against the cold glass
and my nipples remain supple
awaiting your caress

ahhhhhhhhh
chill warmth of desire
your steps on the stairs
on what has been the longest day of a year
of waiting

Vacation's all i ever wanted...

2005-08-30T19:54:00.000-07:00

June Lake, California

Me and the Herman Boys II Men

Mammoth Hot Springs, California

Hot Sprung

The Truly Great Outdoors

Cap'n Homey

Candid Camper Camera

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2005-08-29T19:20:00.000-07:00

So I finally did it—took the plunge and left the city for a spell. Headed out on that highway, looking for adventure with the Herman brothers. Before I left, a coworker, a friend, another friend, and a stranger—all women—suggested that maybe it wouldn’t be wise for me to head into the wilderness "alone," i.e. alone with men. In other words, the speculation was that some harm might befall me, a solitary woman, in the company of unchaperoned men. In fact, I’m putting it in much nicer terms than the cautionary comments that were levied my way, including the very blunt, “You’re gonna get raped.” I have to say I found these well meaning reactions to be very bizarre and … well… quaint. I’ve known the older Herman brother for five years now. We’re buddies. The other brother I’d only met once before, but we got along right well. It never for a moment crossed my mind that I might be endangering myself by agreeing to drive to Central California with friends.

Anyway, I wasn’t worried and given that I’m back in one piece, well, hey. Women and men can be friends without anything untoward happening. The only injury I did receive occurred on the first day of our trip, when I sliced my hand open right nicely, while trying to shove a pinecone up Soyboy’s ass. He was bent over, stretching or some such. I saw a pinecone nearby and couldn’t resist. I charged him as perhaps my reproving women friends thought might happen to me. He batted it away in such a way that the edge ripped into my hand. But what’s a little bloodletting among friends? The next day, from a distance of about 30 feet, I lobbed a desiccated mushroom at him, nailing him right in the back of the head. I was rewarded with sound of it striking a hollow gourd. Violence doesn’t stem only from men; musta been all that fresh air.

The trip itself was grand in its own way. We spent the first two nights in a tent cabin in Mid Pines, about half an hour outside of Yosemite and the third night at a tent cabin in Curry Village, at the heart of the Yosemite Valley. During the days we explored the Wawona area, Lemke and Pothole Domes, Lukens Lake, Dog Lake, the Merced Grove and Tuolumene Meadow. On Day Four we drove to June Lake and pitched proper tents for a couple days of more "primitive"-style camping.

The trip actually began on Monday evening. Marc had arrived earlier in the day, flying in from Ft. Lauderdale. That night he and I met at Azie, the French-Asian fusion restaurant where Soyboy dallies as a sous chef. We had a number of tasty treats as well as the treat of watching Soyboy in action. Highlights there included some damn fine short ribs; duck w/ mashed edamame and stewed cherries; heirloom tomatos, goat cheese, and bacon; oysters w/ wasabi tabiko; and cinnamon rubarb gelato. Marc and I also had the chance to interact a bit more than we had during his previous visit. After dinner, he and I left Soyboy to his work. During the walk to our respective homes, Marc recounted a recent trip he’d taken with his brother and his brother’s friend. Apparently this woman and Marc didn’t quite hit it off so well. Interesting as it was, I wanted to know why he felt compelled to share that with me. That’s when he point blank asked me if I was going to be a bummer during the trip. I told him I couldn’t make any promises….

The funny thing about his question is that for possibly the first time in my life, I had difficulty slipping into vacation mode. I was a bit stressed out for the first couple days, and while Marc’s question probably helped me keep it under wraps more than I might have, holding it in probably didn’t help me feel better. Still, I really can’t blame him. Vacation is sacred.

The truth is, I’ve really needed a real vacation, and it’s simply been too long, especially under high stress conditions. The first couple days I worried about everything it was possible to worry about, mostly cash flow and how to resolve or learn to accept some situations at home. The other factor is that I was extremely ill-prepared for the trip, which is not my typical vacation m.o. I even had to stop and get trail shoes immediately after the guys came to get me, and many items that I'd had in my hands somehow never made it into my bag, including my camera. Fortunately, the tenor of the trip was that we were flying by the seat of our pants the entire time, which was part of the adventure. We didn't have any firm plans or ideas about where/how we'd be staying except for the last couple nights when we'd be meeting up with a group of Marc's friends from L.A.

I’m surprised I didn’t loosen up right from the get go, when the boys arrived with the rental: a PT Cruiser. When Soyboy called and sheepishly said, “I just picked up the car. You’re not gonna believe what they gave us,” I knew from the tone of his voice that it had to something ridiculous, and I was right. There’s hardly anything more ridiculous than driving to Yosemite in a gold PT Cruiser. The car actually handles pretty well, considering that it’s a glorified Neon. It got pretty decent mileage, which was particularly helpful given gas prices these days. We did have to fill up at one pump that was going for a very painful $3.50/gallon. But overall it proved to be a worthy, if utterly silly, vehicle. We had fun making fun of ourselves in it.

The first two nights we ended up at The Yosemite Bug Lodge, Hostel & Campgrounds, located in Mid Pines, which is 25 miles from Yosemite Valley. We wound up in a decent tent cabin—a canvas tent set upon a wooden frame—surrounded by a lot of pine trees and oaks, which we explored in the dark the first night we arrived. After congratulating ourselves with a bottle of Jack Daniels, we scrambled up a series of boulders until we reached a plateau upon which we laid ourselves out, beneath the canopy of stars and a textbook Milky Way.

The next day, we criss-crossed the park, hiking in and around as many spots as possible, and as sunset neared we scampered up some rocky explosions to watch the sun take a dive, its fiery light cast upon the Sierra Nevadas as if it were a real-time film projected on granite. We toasted the occasion with Tecates and burning sage.

My fear of heights and subsequent vertigo kicked into gear more than I would have liked on the trip, but for the most part it didn’t keep me out of the game. There were moments, for example at Lemke Dome, where I simply got to a point where I wasn’t willing to ascend any further, but I told the boys to continue onward and they did, waving to me from the top. Meanwhile, I discovered that I was sharing my resting place with a rattler that I heard but never saw thanks to a highly motivated rapid descent on my part. I also experienced pretty acute vertigo while steering the Cruiser through the Tioga Pass with both boys napping soundly. After that, I refused to take the wheel for the rest of that day.

We never saw any black bears, although we heard plenty of tales and received several warnings. On one road, bear lockers were strategically positioned next to a turn off, and at Curry Village, we were told the next day that bears had ripped into a couple cars in the parking lot. Not our little Cruiser, though; no, our car was attacked by crab apples from the tree we’d unwittingly parked beneath, having arrived at our overnight home in the middle of the night. That morning as we were packing up to leave, several deer came into the vicinity, absolutely fearless. It was kind of sad, actually to see these wild creatures completely turned onto human ways: raccoons climbing on picnic tables, chipmunks and ducks willing to be hand fed.

While we were in Merced Grove, the least oft visited of the Park’s three giant sequoia groves, I thought about how on the one hand, environmentalists and conservationists such as John Muir, have done an amazing thing, preserving all these natural resources. But I also thought that if a Native American from way back were brought to this day and age via a time machine, he or she would surely cry for what we have done.

At June Lake, we met up with a group of Marc’s friends—Ed, his girlfriend My and her 14-yr-old sister Christine, Brian and May, Tim, and Rachel. The group of us had three campsites and pitched our tents in proximity of one another. There were plenty of shenanigans punctuated by microbrews and a variety of sakes and wine, distributed amongst the large group. We also had many fine sober moments of boating and troll fishing on the lake and an excursion to nearby hot springs. The last night was filled with star-gazing and a campfire joke-off between Marc and Ed. Then came morning goodbyes and the long drive home.

And that was my summer vacation: granite peaks, glacially carved valleys, meandering meadows and glittering lakes. I don’t know how I’m gonna swing it, but going away made me realize I must manage to do it more often.

Doldrums

2005-08-22T23:20:00.000-07:00

How soon things change. A few weeks ago I was high on the golden hog, and now it’s a struggle just to keep my eyes open amongst all the chill and gloom of August. If you're living in the United States, you probably have no idea what I mean unless you live in Alaska. Or San Francisco. Believe it or not, last week it was even colder here in SF than it was in Anchorage. The culprit: fog.

Sure, there is a certain beauty to the vaporous gatherings of the marine layer. The San Francisco Chronicle recounted environmentalist Harold Gilliam's picturesqe depiction of the many variations of Bay Area fog, including “wreaths and domes over Alcatraz; arches over the Golden Gate Bridge; eddies and fog falls that look like cascades over Twin Peaks in San Francisco and the Sausalito hills; surges and combers over the Peninsula and past the top of the hill in Daly City; rivers of fog at places like Candlestick Park; and the so-called fog decks, where fingers of fog skip over the bay and into Berkeley.” I’m certainly down with all of that. But that’s just it. I’m down!

Generally speaking, I’ve acclimated to the weather here more than I would have thought possible upon my initial arrival five years ago. I landed here in a July and spent the first six weeks in Pleasanton, across the Bay. The entire time I had to re-live the daily shock of leaving the house in the morning, say around 90°F and emerging from my 40-minute journey on the Bart to low 60s of San Francisco’s Financial District. It only got worse when I moved to the Oceanview and Richmond districts, where it was usually in the high 50s. I don’t think I saw the sun more than 10 days out of the six months each that I lived in those neighborhoods. In particular, mentioning the Richmond always makes people smile as they wax poetic about the bustle of Clement St. with its Asian and Russian vibes and about the proximity of Golden Gate Park. As charming as they are, those elements were not enough to keep me in what felt like a perpetual deep freeze. I maneuvered from living situation to living situation until I finally ensconced myself in the Mission and don’t think it was an accident. The Mission is one of the sunniest, warmest neighborhoods in the city, thanks to Twin Peaks, which serves as a kind of natural fence that the fog tends not to breach. But even here, we’ve been hard pressed to see the sun lately.

Of course fog forms in other parts of the country, and, in fact, the absolute foggiest spot in the nation, says the Chronicle, is “the aptly named Cape Disappointment at the mouth of the Columbia River in Washington state.” But San Francisco isn’t called “Fog City” for nothing. There’s some kind of science behind it, my understanding of which goes something like this: as the summer heat settles in the nearby Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, the warm air rises, creating changes in the atmospheric pressure. This produces winds, which push the warm air over the much cooler temperatures of the ocean surface and voila—fog. Maybe I only get partial credit on that answer. The important thing, as meteorologist Jan Null says, is that "you have to think of the air as a fluid, and that means it takes the path of least resistance.''

Gilliam again provides an apt description of the end results: “Fantastic fog forms may develop as the advancing white mass encounters obstacles. It may come in surges like a slow-motion surf, exploding into spray on the ridge at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, forming a standing wave over Sausalito, whirling horizontally in eddies around promontories, and pouring over Twin Peaks and the Peninsula hills, where it forms fog falls and fog cascades down the leeward slopes. If it comes in low on the Bay surface, it is likely to billow in domes over Alcatraz and Angel islands. At times a fog deck will appear part way up the Berkeley Hills and build out toward the Bay."

With this river of fluid air weaving its way through and around all the 43 hills and valleys of a city surrounded by the bay on three sides, we’ve got microclimates up the wazoo. Even on the mornings where I’ve been lucky enough to see a hint of sunrise, by the time I travel to work in the Financial District, fuhgetaboutit. Sometimes we get a little burn off in the blocks around my office, but it remains nearly impossible to see the East Bay, which is ironic, because the sun is probably blazing there. On the reverse trip, I know I’ll see the sun for an hour or two, but by then who cares? I’ll be inside rustling up dinner or trying to decompress and by the time I get my druthers up to go back out, the grey will have us back in lock down.

Of course some people actually like the cool mist, or at least see some humor in it. Me, I’m just ready for the fog machine to wear itself out so I can quit having to wear garments that 30 years of living in Michigan has convinced me are only meant for winter. Groaan, this fog. God knows it can be beautiful, sweeping across the city like a ballerina with nimble feet, but that’s mostly when it’s in the distance. When it descends like a vulture and just sits there, I start to feel claustrophobic, like I’m one of Camus’s ill-fated characters. I notice I've been wringing my hands a lot lately and listening to melancholic "AM Gold" music, like Glen Campbell’s version of “The Wichita Lineman” and The Kink’s “Young and Innocent Days,” while having flashbacks to several of Andrei Tarkovsky’s pictures. I keep thinking about The Stalker, which I only saw once but which has stuck with me, lines like "My conscience wants vegetarianism to win over the world. And my subconscious is yearning for a piece of juicy meat. But what do I want?," sneaking up on me under cover of this pea soup weather. My mind likes especially to recall a poem used in The Stalker, one that Tarkovsky’s father wrote, of which I found a translation by Maria Pearse:

Now summer has passed,
As if it had never been.
It is warm in the sun.
But this isn’t enough.

All that might have been,
Like a five-cornered leaf
Fell right into my hands,
But this isn’t enough.

Neither evil nor good
Had vanished in vain,
It all burnt with white light,
But this isn’t enough.

Life took me under it’s wing.
Preserved and protected.
Indeed I have been lucky.
But this isn’t enough

Not a leaf had been scorched,
Not a branch broken off…
The day wiped clean as clear glass,
But this isn’t enough.

Not exactly uplifting I know. That’s just it: Like a friend who overstays the welcome, the fog discomfits me. I feel nostalgic, burnished (having recently lived golden) but burnt. It’s as if I have cotton between my ears and rustling tin cans where my heart should be. I alternate between feeling clammy or raw, and I can do nothing but retreat into my dreams. I fantasize about a different life, a life of sun and girls and evergreen nature. I spend more time in The Other World and consequently am easily startled out of a reverie madness into another of horns blaring, doors shuddering, pigeons fluttering too close, homeless people shouting at invisible enemies. The noise—everything hovers too close. I just wanna put on my chamois shirt w/ the hoody, retreat into myself, and come back out when the fog is elsewhere, where I can point to it in awe of Mother Nature’s artistic talents. That’s why I’m getting’ the hell out for a few days. Yosemite take me away! When I come back, either the fog will have dispensed or if not, perhaps I'll have refreshed my capacity to live amidst it and not be afraid.

Then again to human is to be fickle. I actually love the fog. It’s just that I’m satiated. Feast or famine. Always feast or famine.

That Which By Any Other Name

2005-08-12T13:28:00.000-07:00

Genghis Khan - Fashion Statement

I have been restless lately, and in my restlessness, I have pictured myself in far-flung places. Like Mongolia. Last summer an amazing cultural event took place there, one that hardly made a splash in the news in the U.S., but that I haven’t been able to get out of my head: everybody named themselves. What a powerful thing it must have been to label oneself, a pronouncement of who you are condensed into a few syllables or less, and to do so en masse.

The facet of language constituted by names is fascinating. In my own heritage names are very convoluted. For one thing, my mother’s maiden name turns out to be my grandfather’s mother's name, not his true patronymic surname as was used by his brothers. Meanwhile, all of my dad's male siblings share one last name, the same one that I bear, but his sisters all claim and share as their maiden name one that is different than their brothers’ surname. The boys were long on grudges and refused to carry a name of Portuguese origin that is too much a reminder of colonialism.

I was shocked some years ago when my Portuguese cousin Montezuma (who, after spending a few years in England now goes by Monte, pronounced "Monty"), told me that in Portugal, parents must choose names for their children from an official list of government-sanctioned first names. In other words, in Portugal it's possible to have an illegal first name. This new knowledge put his first name in a whole new perspective, not to mention those of his siblings, Anastasia and Boaventura.

The cultural significance of names cannot be understated. MAR (Minorities at Risk) "tracks 284 politically-active ethnic groups throughout the world from 1945 to the present—identifying where they are, what they do, and what happens to them. MAR focuses specifically on ethnopolitical groups, non-state communal groups that have 'political significance' in the contemporary world because of their status and political actions. Political significance is determined by the following two criteria:

The group collectively suffers, or benefits from, systematic discriminatory treatment vis-a-vis other groups in a society

The group is the basis for political mobilization and collective action in defense or promotion of its self-defined interests."

For example, though Chinese have been in Indonesia for centuries before the Dutch colonialism of the 1800s, "the group has been compelled to abandon their Chinese names and adopt Indonesian-sounding names in order to acquire [Indonesian] citizenship. Since 1966 Chinese language schools and the use of Chinese language are prohibited." Surnames have such significance in China that a Tenth Century document entitled "The Hundred Surnames" has survived the ages and is still in use. The ancient work is written in poetic form to aid memorization by school children. The 438 names contained therein, "still account for 90% of all Chinese surnames in use. In fact, the top ten surnames account for 40% of the population," with Zhao the most popular.

One name that is easy to remember is that of Malcolm X, the "X" symbolizing among other things, his rejection of his birth name "Little," which he regarded as a legacy of slavery. Black Americans have suffered much owing the loss of the names. Daniel Atkinson, in the liner notes to the Howard Wiley Trio’s Twentyfirstcentury Negro, comments on the process by which “we as blacks have been painted into a social, economic, and cultural corner.” Amongst the few weapons of slavery he lists is “changing our names and destroying our languages.”

In 1920s Mongolia, a Communist effort to eradicate the clan system, class structure, and hereditary aristocracy, led to the abolition of all family names. Gradually, over decades of existing only on a first-name basis, the majority of Mongolians all but forgot their ancestral names. As Gordon York noted in a Globe and Mail article, it was “a system that eventually became confusing when 9,000 women ended up with the same name, Altantseteg, meaning ‘golden flower.'” Don’t laugh. I read elsewhere that in some areas of Germany, it’s not uncommon within a family for all the sons or all the daughters to bear the same first name, most typically Johann for the boys and Anna for the girls.

However, as far last names go, genealogist Rhonda R. McClure states that surnames are a “modern contrivance.” The Romans were the first to use cognomina, or family names, but the concept didn’t really catch on in Europe until the 13th and 14th centuries, tracking the development of commerce. Countries and regions known for trade adopted the institution of surnames more quickly than in places that were primarily agricultural or pre-modern. More modern yet then is Mongolia.

After Mongolian democracy was reestablished in the 1990s, a law was enacted in 1997, requiring the people to take on surnames. However, the changeover was not immediately embraced. The majority of Altantsetegs and everyone else only got on board with the new ordinance when a system of mandatory citizenship cards was instituted. Still, by last year more than 10,000 of the country’s 2.5 million people had not yet complied, despite compelling reasons to do so. York noted, “One name might be enough when most people were nomadic herdsmen in remote pastures, but now the country was urbanizing. The one-name system was so confusing that some people were marrying without realizing they were relatives.”

It makes me wonder what other names were in vogue for girls besides “Golden Flower.” For instance Donna Przecha’s “The Importance of Given Names” affirms comically that some of the virtue names of Victorian-era New England—names like Prudence and Charity and Patience—“appear quite strange to modern ears. In view of 20th century meaning, ‘Freelove’ does not seem to be an appropriate name for a daughter!” I’ll say! A name like that would definitely have caused confusion in San Francisco, let alone Mongolia.

But it’s usually surnames that identify familial relationships. Last summer, the Mongolian government cracked down, fining anyone failing to get a citizenship card before the national election in June. Virtually overnight, civil registration offices were flooded with those eagerly or reluctantly awaiting the opportunity to legalize their last names.

How cool is that? It's like birth of a nation’s collective consciousness, with thousands of people simultaneously transitioning into a different order of metaphysical significance. That may sound melodramatic, but names are wrought with many things that affect us, even subconsciously, and don’t think the Mongolian’s didn’t know that.

Many chose carefully. The director of Mongolia’s Central State Library, Serjee Besud, published Advice on Mongolian Surnames with maps and lists of regionally historical names. In addition to suggesting that some choose the name of a mountain or river in their ancestral region, York paraphrased Besud’s comments that “others prefer the name of an ancestral occupation: Blacksmith, Herdsman or Writer. Some names are linked to clans: White Camel or Black-and-White Horse. And some names have more obscure origins. One surname in the book … is Seven Drunk Men.”

Elsdon C. Smith reports that in the United States, 43 percent of surnames are based on a location with most of the remaining names being either from the father’s name (patronymics), reflective of a job or occupation, or derived from some kind of action—like seven men sittin’ around gettin’ smashed.

The most popular name chosen by these modern Mongols turned out to be Borjigin, meaning “master of the blue wolf.” A reference to Mongolia’s creation myth, Borjigin is also the tribal name of Chingis or Genghis Khan. Said Besud, “It’s like fashion. But it has no meaning if everyone has the same name. It’s like having no name at all.” A factory payroll manager whom York interviewed said, “I don’t like [ the idea of appropriating the Genghis Khan name]. You should have your original name. If you use a different name, it means you have different blood.”

His comment reminds me of the institution of women changing their names when they marry. I’m not saying that it’s wrong or bad, but I don’t think I could do it. I always think, how could I be one person my whole life and then suddenly become someone else?” because that’s how I’d see it. Other’s clearly don’t view it that way, or, if they do, they are happy to become this new someone. One friend of mine changed her name when she married and almost immediately she became a more confident person. She was able to leave a lot of baggage behind by shedding the name associated with her childhood self.

In The Healing Wisdom of Africa, Malidoma Somé writes, “A person’s purpose is … embodied in their name, thus constituting an inseparable reminder of why the person walks here with us in this world.” I suspect he was referring more to given, or first names, but a similar degree of importance attached to names is present in many Native American belief systems as noted in the Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees:

“The Indian regards his name, not as a mere label, but as a distinct part of his personality … and believes that injury will result as surely from the malicious handling of his name as from a wound inflicted on any part of his physical organism. This belief was found among the various tribes from the Atlantic to the Pacific and has occasioned a number of curious regulations in regard to the concealment and change of names. It may be on this account that both Powhatan and Pocahontas are known in history under assumed appellations, their true names having been concealed from the whites until the pseudonyms were too firmly established to be supplanted. Should his prayers have no apparent effect when treating a patient for some serious illness, the shaman sometimes concludes that the name is affected, and accordingly goes to water, with appropriate ceremonies, and christens the patient with a new name….”

Maybe that’s why an unasked for nickname can rub the wrong way: you neither want to admit that you are what others see reflected in you or you don’t want to become that which others ascribe to you. Canadian Albert J. Parker, founded The Kabalarian Philosophy in 1930. Followers adhere to "a logical explanation of mind and its relationship to mathematics, language, and consciousness," which extends to names. A brief analysis of my first names (I consider myself to have two) was most interesting in that the names couldn't be more different from one another and yet, the traits attributed to both of them are pretty similar and do seem to be representative of me. I'll leave you in suspense on that one. Try your own name out though. Also keep in mind that in the Kabalarian belief system, one's birthdate and the family surname must be considered together to present an accurate picture.

During the same reverie that got me down this trail, I thought changing my name to Genghis. Then I found about that by Kabalarian definition, the name indicates: "You could organize the work of others, though in your impatience to see the job done efficiently, you would likely step right in and do it yourself." Genghis doesn't seem like the the right type of name for someone who is most naturally suited to living a life of leisure. Maybe I'll put Mongolia and the name change on the backburner.

Living My Life Like It’s Golden, Pt. III: My Inner Baby

2005-07-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

The next morning I awoke fresh as the morning dew, sparkly as the sun alit upon the anticipated opening of new bud. I got the urge immediately to prowl, so I suited up and inserted myself into the day. I hadn’t walked more than 100 yards before bumping into a ritualist trio of Water Clan ilk—Steve, the teacher from Virginia; Matt the children’s author and his teen son Gabe—plus one of the Stones and Bones people.

The five us explored the paths that led through the Green Gulch organic farm and gardens, past the horse corral and the gorgeous Pelican Inn, connecting to the fire lane and pristine wilderness, a path leading all the way to Muir Beach. Along the way we found and picked fresh berries and cherries that weren’t quite ripe yet, a creek with several inlets, and more nature than I’ve had the pleasure of being surrounded by in quite some time. The grounds are a natural habitat for quail, the male of which is blue feathered, and I found a black salamander wi th an orange belly. The beach was fantastic, reminding me a page from John Calvin Batchelor ’s The Birth of the People’s Republic of Antarctica. The entire time I felt transported; I wasn’t far from the city but it felt like the other side of the world. The water people kept scouting for locations. They seemed further along than in the process than I was. The night hadn’t brought me anything other than a good sleep.

After dallying a bit we headed back. I was pleased to discover very hot water and impressive water pressure. The gong sounded, a cattle call for food. I loaded up on steel-cut oats, eggs and bacon, then headed to the yurt.

Inside was a free-for-all, people mingling and talking out of clan. Once Somé appeared on the scene, it was time to get down to brass tacks. He began by asking each clan to share their ideas with the group, and of course he started with the Fire people. We really hadn’t gotten that far, and I don’t know about the others, but I hadn’t the foggiest notion of what was going on. That was the funny thing about it. I was absolutely clueless. Someone from our group mentioned the embryo of an idea that had been suggested, something about dancing to represent the kinetic movement of flames. Somé wasn’t too jiggy with the Fire Clan's lack of preparation, and the other clans had better developed plans. For example, the Water Clan wanted to anoint everyone. But generally speaking it was clear that none of us knew what the day would bring. Because we had to adhere to the Zen Center’s meal schedule, we had to work quickly to come to consensus. What we arrived at was that Fire, Water, and Earth seemed like a natural grouping and Nature and Minerals seemed like a separate pairing. We also decided to hold our rituals in a clearing adjacent to the yurt, rather than elsewhere in the Zen acreage. With that, we were set in motion. Therefore, I don’t really know how it happened, but we, the Fire Clan, actually came up with a ritual.

I think the pressure of being least ready kind of propelled us into whipping up something appropriate right on the spot. We decided to set up a small fire at the farthest end of the field, bounded by eucalyptus trees on three sides. Tino had ceremonial tobacco and a portable charcoal burner. We decorated the area with various pieces of red cloth and fabric that people had or that we found in the yurt. A few people had brought candles. When I thought I had nothing to contribute, someone pointed to the memory wire necklace I wear almost every day, comprised mainly of red beads. Another enterprising someone had cayenne pepper and a couple people had brought ceremonial sage.

I shouldn’t and won't reveal the intricacies of our ritual but essentially, we created a space for people to enter individually, a place in which to reach some clarity about what each person would like to release or let go and what they would like to ignite within themselves. Each person was allowed as much time as necessary in front of the flames, a place for meditation, self-confrontation, and for asking for ancestral guidance.

After going through the fire ritual, participants next partook of the water ritual, which involved being led blindly to bank of a stream and doused with shockingly cold water. The Earth people created a ritual that reacquainted one with the feeling of being a child and touching the earth with that first awareness of grass under one’s feet or soil between one’s fingers. The yurt served as a village, replete with drummers—mostly djembe, and a set of djun djun.

Once each of the ritual spaces was ready, we gathered at the yurt to learn a song inviting our female and male ancestors to be with us. One by one, we led one another through each of the rituals. I was able to watch the first several people go through our ritual before I led them to the Water Clan spot, which was my Fire Clan post. People seemed really excited and eager to welcome whatever experiences were about to unfold.

I was surprised that some people took a lot of time before the fire. That was my first inkling that ritual is almost more about you put into it—the mindset with which you enter into it—than about structure. When folks emerged from the Fire ritual, you could sense a change. If they had meant to let go of something, they had. If they had meant to kick start something within themselves, they did. But I still hadn’t experienced it first hand, so I remained open yet puzzled. How did it all work? So you did a fire walk (w/ cayenne as a substitute for fire) and sat in front of a little Weber grill. How or why could that initiate change?

I didn’t really understand it all until it was my turn. After about 10 or 15 had gone through, initiates, I was relieved of my station so I could be a stand-in at “the Village.” Those who had cycled through the three rituals were led back to the yurt, where the song continued to be sung and beaten out on the drums. Meanwhile, those of us who had either already gone through or who were waiting our turn—we, were there to cheer those returning from their journey. I noticed that without fail, the returnees were utterly transformed—jubilant, radiant, exhibiting a lightness of being, glowing. I didn’t get it. For one moment I thought to myself, “eh, a bunch of hippies.” I mean this is the stuff of cults, right?

Then it was my turn. Claudia, walked me down the valley at wedding march pace. She asked me if I was ready, and I felt that I was. I also felt a little odd being walked like an old lady or an infirm person, but it was nice too. It felt … different. Because I was part of the Fire Clan, I knew what to expect. Or so I thought. I was asked if I was ready, if I had clarity of intention. Sure I did. I did the fire walk. I sat on my knees before the fire. I closed my eyes. And I don’t know why, but I was there for what seemed like an extraordinarily long time. In fact, it seemed like all time stopped and it was just me and … not thoughts, not feelings, just simply being. I thought about my mom and the ancestors whom I could name and those who I couldn’t. I thought about things that I have allowed to hold me back in this life. I thought about the things I’d like to accomplish. I say “I thought” but it was more like images parading before me at a less frenetic pace than the aversion therapy scene in A Clockwork Orange, though it was a much more pleasant sensation. When I passed what had been my station and was handed over to the Water Clan, I already felt like “huh” or “hmm.” Questioning but not really questioning what had just happened.

Then I was blindfolded and led down a small path where I could hear water babbling and smell it too. And that was a thing in itself—remembering that water has a water smell. Like the trust fall used in team-building programs, the inability to see did require surrender. In the dark, I was folded into a seated position and asked to think about purity of mind. Just as I began, I was shocked by a shivering cold trickle of water that became a thorough dousing. I felt like I’d plunged into a river, embarking on an under water swim. Then I was led to the Earth clan, where I was invited to dig my hands in a mound of freshly dug soil, to experience it like I had as a child.

All of this sounds innocuous, perhaps childish or silly, certainly not potent. I can’t explain to you how it very much was. It just was. But even I didn’t realize the extent to which it was until I was led back to the village. As I walked up the stairs to the yurt, those at the village clapped and cheered and as soon as I reached them, I felt arms wrap around me as we hugged and clasped one another. If you know me, you know that isn’t my thing, but the feeling was indescribable. I knew I had that same triumphal glow that the others had. I don’t know what others experienced but for me I felt like this is what happens when you die. You crossover from one existence to another and there are people or entities on the other side to welcome you back and they’re so excited to see you and you them because it’s a true homecoming. And I knew that that was what my mom experienced.

Now, ask me what my beliefs about death, dying, and the existence of an afterlife were prior to that moment. I hadn’t any. Certainly nothing succinct like that. Nothing that was a knowing. It didn’t faze me a bit. I basically had a dry run at passing out of this life into another. I’ll say it again, I can’t really explain it. If you were to tell me that I would sit in front of grill, get water poured on me and get some dirt beneath my nails and that afterwards I would feel profoundly different, I would have told you to go smoke some more crack. Even if you’re not entirely skeptical, it’s hard to swallow. All I know is that something changed in me, and that was just part one.

Later, when everyone had gone through the first set of rituals, we gathered together to do the remaining two rituals—Minerals and Nature—as a group. Mainly we banged rocks together. Seriously. We banged rocks and some things were said. The analogy of a butterfly was used. Then we danced. We were all giddy. It was great. It was so good.

* * *

Then we cleaned up, packed up, and went home and for days afterward I was quite spacey and not entirely in my body. Several days after the workshop, I was with Six whenI mentioned how I was still feeling like I wasn’t quite on this plane of existence. A little disturbed she said, “You know, I didn’t want to say anything, but you look weird! You look really different. Something definitely happened to you.” During that period coworkers commented on how unusually calm I seemed, like a “refuge,” one said, in the midst of chaos. I’d go running in the morning, and it felt like nothing. Not effortless, per se, but almost as if I was numb to it. I wasn’t in my body at all. It was a lingering after-effect that for the most part was more than welcome until almost a week had gone by. The lightness started to freak me out a little and to make matters worse I stayed up much too late one night, getting exactly two hours of sleep. The next day I started to feel anxious and the anxiety built all through the weekend. Whatever I’d done at Green Gulch seemed undone or as if it was becoming my undoing.

The ritual weekend made me vulnerable in a certain way. The mundane seemed dangerous and taxing. I couldn’t filter stimuli. But it did contribute to the finding of my inner baby. My senses were quite keen. The day after I got back from Green Gulch, Shez and co. invited me to Russian River. We went in Sharon’s camper, which was great for me. It meant I could lollygag in the back, be the spacy-invader without consequence. In Guerneville, we parked the camper in a supermarket parking lot. Shez and I were talking about race relations among other things when of the sudden I stopped and looked straight down. There, at my feet, was a tiny black infant, I’d say about the size of my thumbnail. She was tiny. It’s not like I was down near the ground tying my shoe. This was a tiny speck of child, dark brown against the black top, and I stopped at her like a buick stopping on a dime.

Finding her was really odd and bizarre and par for the course; I haven't figured out what to with her yet, but she has permanent resident on my shrine. And so back to the question, "how can we do, if we don't know what it is we're supposed to do?" The biggest thing learning I had was the answer to that question. Ritual is like life. The whole of it is about doing, most of the time not knowing what it is that we're doing. Sometimes not even knowing why we're doing it. Like we get up each morning and breathe, just because. Doesn't matter if we like it or don't like it, doesn't matter if we want to or don't want to. It just happens. The years stack up, and we end up with a life to look back upon. We didn't have a road map or an instruction manual or a blueprint. While we're looking back, it so happens that we still in the midst of living. Of figuring out by doing. As a corollary, therefore, a lot of life is ritual. After that weekend, I realized I am involved in numerous rituals, some daily, some monthly, some annually, some irregularly. But ritual is life, living is ritual with intention.

My intention from here on out? Let's just say it's a work in progress.

Living My Life Like It's Golden, Pt II: Sacred Ritual

2005-07-24T21:32:00.000-07:00

But I left off talkin' 'bout how I've been living my life golden. Yah. So two weekends ago, I went to a weekend workshop on Ritual and Sacredness. I had no idea what to expect other than the description provided by the course sponsor, the Institute for Health and Healing (IHH):

In the indigenous world, ritual based on the magic of Nature plays an essential role in village life. Many people find that African healer Malidoma Somé helps them reconnect to the natural, old instincts of their souls in ways that strengthen their own beliefs and self-understanding. Experience earth-based ritual and teachings as a doorway to self-discovery and community-building.

The only preparation I had was the self-imposed reading of Somé's autobiography, Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman. In it, he desribes several rituals performed during his initiation. Whether the described events were literal or figurative, I knew that some serious shit was gonna happen.

That Friday, I had an ultrasound in the morning, and while the technician couldn't give me any diagnosis, I knew she'd found something. Meanwhile, I still had to figure out how I was getting up to Green Gulch. The sun was hot and bright, and I had the day off with no schedule to adhere to. I decided to eat first and figure out the travel logistics later. I took a leisurely stroll to way to the vegan stylings of Cafe Gratitude. Sitting in the sun at a sidewalk table I enjoyed a cup of "I Am Grateful" (Cat's Claw tea) and a bowl of "I Am Luscious" (live wheat with young coconut juice). I know, I know, it's hippie dippie, but I had to get in the zone.

Once fed, I called Golden Gate Transit and found out how a couple of buses could get me most of the way there, so I threw together a bag and hightailed it to Civic Center. Once boarded, I resumed Of Water and the Spirit, though part of me felt like reading it was cheating. Instead, I let the hum of the tires lure me into sleep. I awoke when the bus pulled into Mazanita, across from the Buckeye Roadhouse. I couldn't resist; the vegan was tasty but not quite filling. I parked myself in a booth and enjoyed pan roasted artichoke with creamy tarragon dip and grilled ahi tuna with wasabi cream and pickled ginger.

I'm relaying all these seemingly mundane details in an effort to convey my mindset, which was that I was very open to simply enjoying life, taking things in stride and living in the moment. Yet, I also wanted to work through some things. In my bag, alongside Somé's book, I had some letters from my mom, a journal, and a pen. A cab carried me and my belongings the rest of the way to the Zen Center, where I found a delightfully austere room with my name on the door.

After a quick self-tour of the grounds, I unpacked my bag, fixed my mother's picture so it was overlooking me from the headboard, and settled down to finish the last 20 pages of Of the Water before the workshop began at 7pm. Those are the pages in which he conveys the outcome of his initiation, and I felt they might give me some clues in what to expect, which is why I sort of felt like it was cheating. In his telling, he notes how the elders insisted that the less he know about what might happen to him, the more effective—and less dangerous—the process would be. Too much knowing ahead of time engages the analytical brain instead of the instinctive center of wisdom, i.e. working intuitively from within. Part of me wanted to go into the weekend oblivious to the possibilities and part of me wanted to be as prepared as possible. I went for my comfort zone—preparation.

The evening was quite chill. I threw on a sweater and hopped into the bed, settling down to finish Somé's story. That's when I discovered that the book had vanished. Disappeared. Some might call it "lost," though when's the last time I've lost a book? I thought back on the day—Gratitude, my apt., the bus, Buckeye. At each, I'd had the book. I'm certain of it. But somehow it was gone, and appropriately so. So began the unknown. Shocked but not shocked, I fell asleep again.

I dreamt strange dreams before awaking to the clanging gong that announced meal service. The dining hall was just across the way. There I made first contacts with some of the other participants as well as mixing with the Zen temple residents. Silence is observed for the first ten minutes. We newbies tried to be respectful, but I spied whisperers and twiterers scattered about the room and knew they were my fellow initiates. We introduced ourselves and surrepticiously sized one another up. At my table was Steve, a teacher from Virginia. I believe he came the furthest though later I met a children's author and his teenage son, both from Royal Oak, Michigan. I sat next to a woman who is a healer who works with the homeless population and across from a woman with spiritual beliefs that led her to the workshop.

The workshop was held in a yurt on the Zen Center's grounds. About 30 people were signed up, of which a handful were men. The youngest participant was the aforementioned teen, but I'd guess most people ranged from late 20s to early 60s. I may be being slightly too generous on both ends of those numbers. I don't believe I saw any Asians, one or two Latinos, and I was one of four blacks (three women including myself and one man). Many of the participants, but certainly not all, were affilitated with IHH, meaning that many are healing arts practitioners such as masseuses or accupuncturists or Western medical professionals with an interest in integrative medicine. The IHH librarian was there as well.

We got seated in the yurt, some on chairs, others like myself on zafu, or meditation pillows. Upon entering the space, I made a beeline for the coal-burning stove, next to which was a mudcloth-like rug and two chairs. When I announced my intention to take one of the seats, Toni, a participant and facilitator shook her head, saying "there's where Malidoma is sitting." I'd figured as much, but hey it was worth a shot. I grabbed a cushion and parked my bad ass on the floor with everyone else. One thing I noticed from that vantage is that the law of nakedness extends to feet. At nude beaches and other venues, it's always the people that you don't want to see naked who are always the first to strip down. Shoes had to remain off and outside of all the Zen Center structures, even the rooms for overnight guests. But that didn't mean you couldn't wear socks. I saw some ugly toes that night, real ugly. Woof.

Across the way from me were a few drummers. Again, some were participants who'd brought their drums and others were there specifically to drum, particularly the next day. Drums figured prominently in the events that were to take place and eventually led to my newest acquisition—a djembe—but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Malidoma and the woman who was introduced as his partner, sat front and center, or at least what goes for front and center in a round space. For an hour or so he regaled us with his unique blend of sagacious knowledge and irreverent humor. He is softspoken but in a way that allows his speech sound like it's directed intimately to you rather than simply being difficult to hear. He made some general comments, similar to the one's I'd heard from his mouth this past March. I received his words differently though. A relaxed yet simmering excitement was present that was different from the delight I'd experienced hearing him speak in a Jewish Temple, with a couple hundred people seated in pews. His talk then was also more structured: during the temple lecture, Somé had been "the respected indigenous healer" who came to deliver an interesting talk about theoretical ideas, i.e. the kind that you think about and possibly internalize. In the yurt, Somé came across more as an older brother with thoughts to share about actionable ideas, i.e. tips and suggestions culled from personal experience that might come in handy but hey it's up to you, take 'em or leave 'em, I mean who am I to tell you what to do? It's your experience. The effect was both daunting and comforting. He was telling us that he couldn't tell us what we would experience because we would make the experience. He told us that he wouldn't tell us how to the make the experience because the experience would be made and only then would we know how it had occurred. I thought, "what the fuck is he talking about? what is he doing? correction, what are we going to do? how can we do anything if we don't know what it is we're supposed to do?" Hold that last question.

The questions were free floating in my mind, rather than barrage style. I wasn't stressed out about it. I was simply confused. Maybe a little anxious, like when you can't wait to turn the page in a book or see the next scene of a movie 'cause something is gonna happen, it's gotta, but what? It was fun. Like an amusement ride but a mild one, something better than a ferris wheel but just as gentle. Using the last number in the year of our birth, we were divided into clans. The Fire clan. The Water clan. The Earth clan. The Mineral ("stones and bones") clan. The Nature ("witches") Clan. Each clan was given the same mandate: devise a ritual for that element. That was it. During his "sibling chat," we'd touched upon these elements and some of their potential meanings, but we'd done so in the larger context of what is this crazy life about? There were no hints of "this is what you should take from this" or "listen closely to the next clue" or any kind of instruction. We didn't know anything. We didn't even know we'd be divided into clans, let alone expected to create ritual.

To do so, we began with community. Getting to know our clan selves. I was/am Fire Clan. We flamers gathered together and made sparks, introducing ourselves and sharing our ideas about fire. In my group were two French women, one from IHH and another, Natalie, who was there in part because her brother had died in Togo ten years ago under mysterious circumstances and she wanted to make peace with it, with her ancestors. We had Tino, a facilitator who has been working with Some for years. We had Christy and Kit, also from IHH. We had a woman who is some kind of spiritual leader, I can't recall now of what denomination; I believe of an eastern sort of religion. And we had me, also there seeking ancestral connection following a death in Africa.

We talked about fire—its power, its danger, its usefulness. How it's a force of change, how it transforms whatever it touches. We talked about it in the negative and in the positive. Fire as the igniter of passion, I said, and compassion, Tino added. Before we'd had much chance to delve into this ritual business, however, it was time to get some shut-eye.

We wrapped up around 9:30. Leaving the yurt was tricky business; night is pitch black out in that zen wilderness, despite torch lit paths. I wasn't surprised to quickly find myself off the path without having noticed; it was only when someone called to me that I realized I'd kind of tranced out on the crunch of the wood chips underfoot. I had lost my sense of time and place already; I was on fire, thinking how funny it was that just a day earlier Juju and I had debated my astrological fire/water conundrum and how she'd be tickled to know I'd been dubbed fire through and through.

Called back, I fumbled my way to my door and entered my temporary home sweet home. Out there in the woods, I worried that I might discover other little roommates of furry, winged, or crawling kind, but there was nothing for which I was grateful. Then I washed up and got back in bed, thankful that it had actually gotten a bit warmer, as often happens with kooky Bay Area weather. I was able, thus, to hunker down with my mom's missive, something she'd given me before I'd even left Ann Arbor, something I'd never been able to read all the way through. But that night she was in the room with me, and I felt oh so empowered. Tino suggested each of us see what the night's dreams might bring us in terms of ritual. I slept eager to see if Doris would plant any seeds in my head.

to be continued...

Gay Heaven

2005-07-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

I'll admit it. I was trolling Craigslist: looking at apt. listings, jobs, and not looking for chicks, per se, but I did want to know if Mango, the infamous girlie "tea dance," i.e. afternoon party, was going on, and where better to find out than the "women seeking women section." That's where I stumbled across the following anonymous posting in response to someone who had written, "WOW! when i moved here i thought i would be in gay heaven. but i was very wrong. i moved here from an area in america where there are no open homos. i am from the upper midwest. i came here expecting something better than where i left."

While I can sympathize with the gal I've dubbed, "Disappointed from Dubuque," my beliefs are more in line with this savvy someone's response:

First of all, SF hasn't been "gay heaven" for a long time. Basically since the dot-commers chased a lot of community out. It's still more of a mecca for gay white men, but a lot of women and men of color couldn't afford to stay here. Some of us have been here long enough that we're either in rent controlled apts. or have had time to establish ourseleves in business, careers, or whatever.
Secondly, I've been here almost 20 years, but I grew up in a small town in the midwest also. I think what you desire out of the community is an unrealistic, idealistic fantasy. It sounds great, however, the fact is, we DO come from different backgrounds, religious beliefs (or non-beliefs), education levels, socio-economic classes, cultures, political backgrounds. We DO have different morals, standards, goals, and desires.
Not all of us think the gay marriage issue is the most important issue in the world right now. Some of us don't want to emulate heterosexual marriage. Some of us would rather put our energy and resources into other things going on in the world like all the innocent people being killed, and who we put into office, and AIDS in Africa, and alternative fuel sources etc. Some of our community are actually Republicans, and I for one, will never see eye-to-eye with them and have no desire to stand next to them in the fight for them to get married when I can't stand anything they represent.
There are thousands of "straight" bars in this City and people can choose where they want to hang out based on whether they are with like-minded people, the kind of music they play there, the dress, the bartenders etc. We, lesbians, [however] have limited places to go, and sometimes it's difficult because the minute you start talking to someone you realize you have absolutely nothing in common other than you're both homosexual. She starts talking about some kind of music you've never heard of, the latest reality show, the latest pop idol etc., but has no clue as to who Karl Rove is and doesn't care. Maybe all she's interested in is what kind of car you drive and when you tell her you got rid of your car and bike/walk everywhere in the City, she doesn't understand that it has nothing to do with your income level and rolls her eyes. Do I have to like that person? Do I have to support her?
Do I have to support the Republican woman who voted for the Governator and wants to cut back education, police and fire-fighter funding? Do I have to support the woman who can't hold down a job, has two kids at home but is out drinking and doing lines in the bathroom? (nothing against drinking and doing lines). Do I have to support the ftm who hits on my girlfriend and grabs her ass and acts more misogynistic than any of our straight male friends? Do I have to support the woman who approaches me and tells me her boyfriend is at home and wants her to pick up a woman so he can watch us? (unless you're into that).
Basically, I do not like all the lesbians or gay men in this City and don't feel any connection to them. I hate the Castro with all its homogenized shallowness. I love this City and have a lot of friends of all sexual identities, ages, races, and sexes, and we support each other in our goals and dreams and day-to-day troubles because we share the same ones. I do not share the same everything with the entire lesbian community so I cannot support the entire lesbian community. So ... that's my rant for today and now I'm going out to enjoy this gorgeous weather with the people—straight, bi, and gay—in my life. Hopefully you will find your group of peeps.

He he he. I'm so glad I'm not the only disgruntled dyke in town. : )

On the subject of gay marriage, I'm all for it ... but it's a mixed bag. I have concluded that for gay people of my generation and younger, it's not something we were pre-disposed to think about as a realistic possibility, and so we're not trained in the longevity department, i.e. we don't necessarily have the "'til death do us part" mentality. Sure, I know all about the divorce rate in this country, and yes, I know there are plenty of gay couples who have been together for years and years, but my personal experiences in SF lead me to believe that we homos are time bombs ready to go off at the slightest trigger when it comes to commitment.

I will allow for the fact that quite possibly it's just me. I haven't made it more than six months with anyone out here, with the average being about six to eight weeks. The one woman with whom I really thought and felt I could and would want to be with—we lasted about four months. When I relay these facts, people often say "well, you must be a commitment-phobe." Usually, they don't know that I had much longer relationships in my 20s. Years not months, i.e. real relationships. I don't know what the hell to call my experiences these days; to use the term "relationships" to describe my SF liasions would be stretching things wider than the elastic on Fat Albert's pants.

I also like the part Miss Anon wrote about how "maybe all she's interested in is what kind of car you drive and when you tell her you got rid of your car and bike/walk everywhere in the City, she doesn't understand that it has nothing to do with your income level and rolls her eyes." I recently was on the 5th or 6th date with a girl who seemed simpatico until I "forced" her to walk from 14th & Market to my place in the Mission—about 10 blocks. She got pissed, and whined the whole time, telling me I need to get a car. Then she exclaimed, "Walking reminds me of when I was 15 and didn't have a car." I responded, "Walking reminds me of the 15 years my mother slowly lost the ability to walk—before she died last year." You like that? I got plenty of 'em. War stories.

Sigh. Gay heaven. I don't know about that. Though, like Anon, I also despise the Castro, I'd much rather it exist than not. Put it this way: We have our freedoms in SF, that's for sure. I don't take them for granted, but they come with a high price as do most things in this city. I may sound bitter about it, and sometimes I am, but lately I've just been working on accepting the situation as it is and taking it from there. In other words, I'm working at making my peace with it: the courage to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference as they say. I hope "Disappointed" is able to make her peace with things here. I'll be rooting for her. Hell, I'm rooting for myself:

"One wonders. One doesn't quite understand. But the truth is that the intimacy and closeness was all an intricate hoax, an ingenious dream, a subtle but half-hearted mirage. That is what I thought once I'd entered the city. And so I concluded: don't be strong; don't be alone; don't be proud; it's your only chance ever to understand anything at all. Be fragile, be tender, humiliate yourself, and let the discoloration of dream close in on you. Do that, and oddly enough you'll remain healthy; you'll be yourself; you'll discover the best way to live in this particular most fruitless and tantalizing of possible worlds. The reality becomes a cruel dream while the dream fades into a tender man-made reality."
—Frederic Prokosch
The Asiatics

And Now an Announcement from Our Sponsor

2005-07-21T01:07:00.000-07:00

I wanna tell you why my life is golden, really I do, but before I get back to the previous mental travelogue I've gotta make a pitstop, which may, without my telling you so, be confused with the previous steam of consciousness. Whichever way you decide to call it, here's the deal: tonight is not only a full moon, but it's the most powerful full moon of the year. In Hindu, it's called Guru Purnima, guru meaning "one who dispels the darkness of ignorance"and purnima meaning "full moon." This is the full moon for thanking one's teachers whether affectionate and loving or dispensers of harsh learnings. Having experienced the benefits of ritual firsthand, I am eager to partake. I was going to cut my hair [see previous posts], but I've decided to postpone. It's enough, for now, to very publically, and I hope graciously acknowledge some of my teachers. To each and every one of you, I owe much of who I am.

There are people I like, many people I love, and a few I hope to never have to cross paths with again. But they've all taught me things about myself and about the world at large. Even this process of identifying my teachers has taught me something: of all the people I've known, only a handful of you on this list are truly assholes. Cynical me, I thought there were more than a few. Glad to be wrong ... for once. Ha!

Living My Life Like It's Golden, Part I

2005-07-19T21:28:00.000-07:00

I finally got my hands on the “new” Jill Scott. I used the quotation marks because it came out so long ago that it’s practically a museum piece. Anyway, I was absolutely thrilled to give it a spin, but after a listen I realized I’d set myself up. I mean it’s aiiight. It doesn’t do me like the first one got me done. But, one track has been lodged in my brain for a few days now as it’s the perfect description of how I’ve been feeling the past several days, particularly the line, “I'm livin' my life like it's golden, golden, golden, golden, golden, golden.”

Yah. I got a little derailed at the end of last month, but a lightness has come upon me. I should add that it’s not yet a steady as she blows kind of lightness. For one thing there’s no particular “she” involved. But the overall effect of these mostly ups with a few intermittent downs, is one of buoyancy. A bobbing along, like I’ve been uncorked and the cork is making its way into some exotic somewhere. That said, let’s consider the following rambles to be part of a travelogue of sorts.

I’ll start with some astrology—always good to check in with that. Saturn entered Leo last week. Bully for me! Saturn’s been like a straight jacket on my karma for the past couple of years; I couldn’t be happier that it’s moved on. I’m sure it accounts for a great deal of this lightness I’ve been feeling. But Saturn in Leo, if you believe in all this stuff, has some potentially ominous learnings for mankind at large. I encourage getting familiar with it because according to astrologer Lisa Dale Miller, the next two years could be a doozy for some of us. She writes, “Humanity stands on the threshold of Saturn in Leo, having rejected mastery of the compassionate, loving action of the heart; the highest lesson taught by Saturn in Cancer. Though I have never been one to tout doomsday scenarios, based upon how poorly our species navigated Saturn in Cancer, my assessment of Saturn in Leo is bleak at best.” Those of you who know me, know that I’ve always been one to tout doomsday scenarios, so I didn’t need her to lay out her case, but she did, and it’s worth reading even if you find it all to be mumbo jumbo.

Even I admit that “the-sky-is-falling” tone Miller takes is a bit much. For example, I do heartily love this sentence: “America's vision of itself as the 'superpower' will be threatened during this next two years. Seems the time may not be too far off when we may have to cede this title to China.” You know, I’ve always wondered about China. Since about 1985, in fact. That was when David Thornbury, arguably my first boyfriend, started taking Chinese in college, which was a pretty odd thing to do in Michigan in the mid-1980s. But he had this whole thing about the Chinese having their day one day and how he would be one of the few prepared, which basically was a function less of his political savvy and more of his megalomaniacal opportunism. Some might argue that the political savvy and megolomaniacal opportunism are the same thing, but there’s a slightly different nuance between them.

Anyway, it was only days after reading Miller’s prediction that Six told me about the nuclear warnings made by a China’s General Zhu Chenghu, should the U.S. interfere in China’s dealings with Taiwan. He even went so far as to declare "We . . . will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds . . . of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese." I mean that’s pretty hardcore.

Now, before I get people screaming at me, this does not make me happy in the slightest. But this is the kind of stuff that pushes me from merely surviving to thriving. Danger has a way of making one feel really, truly alive, abuzz. Sure I’d rather be safe than sorry, but I had to let my mind wander to the dark places so I did, and I took Six with me. One recent twilight we talked about this stuff. First she wanted to know how many military soldiers the U.S. has. We spent some time doing the math: total number of US soldiers (Army, Air Force, Marines, and Armed Reserves) vs. total number of North Korean soldiers vs. total number of Chinese soldiers. You don’t need me to tell you how lopsided it is. Actually, I would love to tell you exactly how lopsided it is, but I got the info last week from some pages on The Federation of Scientist’s (FAS) web site and guess what? Tonight I get “This resource is no longer available on the FAS web site.” How’s that for paranoia-making?

The FAS, by the way, is "a nonprofit, tax-exempt, 501c3 organization founded in 1945 as the Federation of Atomic Scientists. Our founders were members of the Manhattan Project, creators of the atom bomb and deeply concerned about the implications of its use for the future of humankind. FAS is the oldest organization dedicated to ending the worldwide arms race and avoiding the use of nuclear weapons for any purpose." There's a project worthy of support.

Meanwhile, I don’t have the gumption to dig up the actual raw numbers again, but we concluded that given the state of things, nuclear weapons are the only resort. I mean if there are only say 500,000 American soldiers and triple that everywhere else and everybody hates us, what else can we do? Again, I am not pro-war, and I’m certainly not advocating the nuclear alternative. I’m just looking at some stark realities. If you’re interested in some other ones, check out the FAS’s Nuclear Bomb Blast Calculator, an “interactive tool [that] illustrates the devastating effects of a nuclear weapon detonation in selected U.S. cities. Follow up with The Fallout Calculator, which“demonstrates the profound range of fallout from a potential nuclear bomb detonation in various inhabited regions of the earth.” Yah, it's pretty trippy. Then jump on over to Global Security.org, poke around and get completely depressed.

Their somewhat convoluted mission is as follows: "GlobalSecurity.org is focused on innovative approaches to the emerging security challenges of the new millennium The organization seeks to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons and the risk of their use—both by existing nuclear weapons states and those states seeking to acquire such capabilities. GlobalSecurity.org aims to shift American conventional military forces towards new capabilities aligned with the post-Cold War security environment, and to reduce the worldwide incidence of deadly conflict. The organization is working to improve the capabilities of the American intelligence community to respond to new and emerging threats, reducing the need to resort to the use of force, while enhancing the effectiveness of military forces when needed. GlobalSecurity.org also supports new initiatives utilizing space technology to enhance international peace and security."

Then jump back to Lisa Dale Miller. Remember the cork bobbing up and down? We’ve just taken a nasty post-cold war plunge, but I have promised lightness and it's coming. Miller reminds us that art is one of the many counter-weapons we have at our disposal. Indeed, “a discussion of Leo is not complete without calling up the artist. Leo rules creative self-expression. That means expression of a creative gift that is uniquely yours. There is after all only one you." Yet, don't pat yourself on the back just yet. She also notes that "Saturn in Leo could be a very dry time for many creative people who don't take their craft very seriously. Frankly there is an epidemic of mediocrity in movies, music, visual art, dance and theatre; fueled primarily by a growing fear of telling the truth. We have become addicted to denial as a means to explaining why we do terrible things. If we are lucky, the art world might recognize its tremendous power to influence, and become more responsible about the tenor and quality of the work it produces.”

Ah yes, art. Yes, that’s an upward bob. What else? Ritual, community, nature … shamanism. Last weekend, I went up to Green Gulch for a spell, no pun intended. Green Gulch is a part of the San Francisco Zen Center, Soto lineage, if you’re in the know. Nestled on land that lays between Muir Woods and Sausalito, it is gorgeous and peaceful and was the perfect setting for a day-and-a-half long Ritual and Sacredness workshop with Malidoma Patrice Somé, whom I wrote about back in March. Sponsored by the Institute for Health and Healing, Somé led some 30 of us through self-community-created fire, water, earth, minerals (“stones and bones”) and nature rituals.

Lemme say a few things about it because most of it I actually can’t share for reasons ranging from too personal to too indescribable to the warning that Somé gave us that in being disclosed some of the magic will lose its power. So a few things. One is that I have never felt closer to complete strangers and though it was not necessarily a lasting effect, I have come to understand that we are all one and it’s quite possible for humans to experience the one-ness of all things.

Another is that the importance of getting back to nature as often as possible cannot be understated. Even if the only bit of nature accessible to you is the tuft of grass growing between the sidewalk in front of your house, nurture it. But if that’s all you have, it’s worth considering the impact of a dearth of nature on your life. I thought my once or twice a week ride to the ocean was enough, but a day in the woods, a half hour with sand or grass beneath your feet every single day, a nightly gaze at the stars … those moments will erase everything untoward in your life and prepare you to “step into your individual responsibility to actively heal the pain and problems of this world,” as Miller suggests.

Lastly—and this merits some serious consideration—prior to this weekend, I thought it was just the gay guys who are having sex, but I think probably the hippies are doin’ it all the time too. Free love never really died for them, that’s why they’re always twirling around and being looking upon each other with doe-eyed looks and really feeling and touching each other and everybody. They can’t keep their hands to themselves. That’s another thought that made me buoyant. And made me feel like I should become a hippie.

I have reverted to irreverence, my comfort zone. I would apologize for the disjointed nature of this, but I’m not going to because I am disjointed and I’m golden, too. And I have so much things to say, but I’ve had technical difficulties of myriad sorts. But I’m still golden. Do you know what it feels like to be golden? I will try to tell you.

Next: How I found my inner baby.

The Last Pot of Nineteen Fifty Pu-erh

2005-07-11T21:10:00.000-07:00

Halleluiah, I'm back. At least for now. No, I haven't abandoned you, but I have suffered a technology mutiny. My wireless connection at home is no more. If you own Jane Addiction's "Been Caught Stealin'," nows a good time to give it a listen.

But more importantly, Vani and The Ron will be in Israel for the next coupla weeks, during which time I've agreed to take care of Sampson aka Sammy aka Rudy aka Rude Boy Tabby, and what better way for me and him to bond then for me to do my thing with the blog. So, matzoltov to Tel Aviv, catnip to Sammy, and well, fuck, I don't need any special cheer.

I might need some special cheering up, but I'll save that for later. Just know that though women are trecherous, my madness for them rarely stops (in time). That said, Sammy is much worse shape than I am. That is one sad pussy. But me, I've always got more than one game going at a time, so if one goes tilt it's nothin' but a little eggggo, know what I'm sayin'?

Yes, this particular entry is just me stroking myself in public. Hey, somebody's gotta do it, little goat that I am. Chuckle. Ah, that did make me smile. Women still suck though. But before I grouse all night about that, and believe me I can, here are wiser words than I can craft at the moment. And yes, they're from a chick (no, not the tea house girl, but from a paisan in the land of the lost whose compass works better than mine) received a few weeks ago, but they never fail to remind me that all is well:

Last night after I saw you I went to my meeting. It is a meeting where we write for 25 minutes then share about what we wrote or just get current on what’s happening for us today. During the writing I hit upon the root of a tree that I thought I had yanked out years ago, and it sent me into such emotional upheaval that I had to leave the room for a few minutes to cry heavily.

I already had an appointment scheduled afterwards, and we had agreed to meet at Samovar. I arrived 30 minutes early, dazed and still teary eyed. I ordered a tea soup and white tea. Of course, I couldn’t help looking at the pu-erhs. On the 1950, it was noted that "this is the last batch," and I noticed that the price had jumped significantly. I decided to practice shopping therapy and asked to purchase a quantity. Have you noticed the price for 150g of 1950? Yeah, I was willing to spend. I was feeling QUITE emotional!

After Rick called a manager, who informed him that there was no more that could be sold (NO MORE!?!), he brought out the last pot of 1950 and placed it before me.

THE LAST POT OF NINETEEN FIFTY PU-ERH.

I saved the leaves and will enjoy them again for breakfast. I have brought with me to work my tiny elephant tea pot. I have brought my camera to take pictures that will be attached next time. I have also brought one of the pu-erh cups you gave me for my birthday. What else can hold this magnificent elixir? What present is more appropriate? Whose cup more worthy?

This morning, Lorna Mabunda, I share with you the last infusions of 1950 Vintage Extra Aged Pu-erh.

Aw shucks. Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in. I love wenches er women. Meanwhile, stay tuned for comments on trannies, my prediction for the next superpower contender, a meditation on my new found personal life optimism (yes, I said optimism and I've got a whole box load of it though I'm not quite sure where I set it down), a grouse about the workplace, and all the usual shenanigans.