Rampiance

. . . Plus Sunday Night at the Movie

2010-07-21T02:37:00.001-05:00

Kieffer also had the idea to catch Sunday's late show at the theater instead of the evening show, which opened up a time slot we hadn't talked about before. I figured it would work out okay with my children, so I said yes, I'd like to go. We went ~~ the show was cool ~~ and we both feel like we had a great weekend together, not at all what it sounded like at first, which was nonexistent.

Easy Peasy Picnic

2010-07-17T18:32:00.003-05:00

What an easy way to spend a hot, humid Saturday afternoon. Kieffer grilled hot dogs and we ate a picnic of leftovers from his fridge out in his shaded rock garden. Easy conversation, easy vibes. We had figured on lunching together ~~ an hour, maybe two at most.

Things were going so well that after lunch we headed to the pond. He swam while I swung in the hammock under the shade trees. Then another conversation ~~ this one revealing some facets we hadn't talked about before. And still easy and comfortable.

Mmmmmm, nice. :)

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photo credit: prefers to be unnamed at this time ~ ~ contact Jolene for permissions

His Hot Head, My Cold Feet

2010-07-17T05:08:00.001-05:00

Truly, I am very happy that Kieffer cooled off and called back. But I feel so strange ~~ strained is more the right word ~~ and instead of looking forward to seeing him on Sunday morning, I'm dragging my feet ~~ my suddenly cold feet. Anxiety ... dread ... I finally settle on "apprehensive" to describe my feelings to Kieffer in an email. I know if I don't, I'll end up being late and adding stress, or I'll cancel at the last minute, again causing regrets. So I write ....

And he writes back. Three times. With lots of new ideas. And I feel a LOT more cherished and NOT squeezed into a cramped little slot. Whew!

Then all of a sudden, like some curse has been lifted, my weekend opens up. A morning-and-afternoon session is rescheduled, a half-afternoon appointment is found to be non-existent (my record-keeping is haphazard), and I must say this feels like the goddess of fortune blessing our weekend with grace.

Around here they call it the support of nature, and it happens when you let go and let god.

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photo credit: prefers to be unnamed at this time ~ ~ contact Jolene for permissions

He says, "Impatience got to me"

2010-07-17T04:12:00.001-05:00

Kieffer calls me the next morning to say, "Sorry about last night. I had a bunch of stuff to take care of after getting back and I got overheated and too impatient."

"Aw, that's too bad," I say as my brain grinds into gear. "How are you feeling now?"

"Better! A lot better," he sounds relieved. "I went for a swim in the pond last night. It was so beautiful. I would have called you last night after I cooled down, but I didn't know if you were still up."

"Oh, I'm a night owl," I laugh, remembering that I was up all night blogging about our phone call, but I don't mention that. High on coffee and too hot to lie down, I felt fine sitting up doing something worthwhile. Before journaling, I had seen only two layers of our interaction ~ the words and the heat just underneath them. The heart's layer had been hidden until journaling jogged the memory of his heart's silent conversation with mine.

So because it had enough time to get its charge together, luck strikes again. I have no resentment or irritation on my side about his earlier impatience. I feel like Kieffer and his heart deserve a break, not an interrogation.

Kieffer explains his call, "Usually I feel uncomfortable about stuff like that, but I felt easy about calling you to apologize."

I'm happy to hear that! "Thank you, Kieffer, I'm glad you called."

So we decide to meet Sunday morning, a possibility that had been overlooked in the heat of moment of the night before . . . .

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photo credit: prefers to be unnamed at this time ~ ~ contact Jolene for permissions

Busy, Busy

2010-07-15T19:35:00.005-05:00

On the surface it's just a conflict of schedules ~ he's busy, I'm busy, and there isn't much free time in the next four days to get together. Getting together on the phone happened after each had left a message for the other ~ less than an hour of delay in total. Not so bad, I thought. But haggling over schedules is starting to feel stressful.

"So maybe we'll get together next week sometime," he says, with a shade of impatience in his voice. "Since you're so busy with your new classes, call me when you have some free time."

"Sure, I'll do that," I reply.

But I get the impression he doesn't want to wait for my call. He pushes for faster resolution. "You know, I'm busy every night of the week," he says, "but I make time for my priorities."

"Well, yeah, that makes sense," I return, "I do the same thing."

He explains, "I'm busy because there's nothing else to do. It fills the time when I'm not dating anyone."

Whoa.

Dating?

Now it's clear. The impatience isn't about scheduling. It's about expectations for two people who are dating.

We're dating? *I* hadn't seen the memo. Oh, wait a minute ~ he did say (I had thought it was a joke) that "our first official date" was a family movie night with my children. Hmm. I was explicit about NOT dating, pointing out that, besides the fact that I DON'T DATE FOR COURTSHIP, some of his up-front minimal requirements excluded dating me. Sure we spent some pleasant time together ~ mostly with other people, once on our own, and we had two late night conversations about our worldviews. Oh, and the last time we saw each other we shared a most amazing hug. His heart told mine of his passionate nature and of his alarm about opening to vulnerability again.

Then he left for a week. Now he's back in town calling to arrange a get-together.

Not just a hey-great-to-see-you-again-let's-find-more-time kind of a get-together, which could be tucked into any of several points of almost any day. Nope. It has to be an entire evening or a whole afternoon, something significant. Signifying, probably, some kind of commitment so he can justify opening his heart and his passion to me.

So it's a lucky thing that our schedules are so conflicted ~ lucky that he doesn't want to give up any of his nothing-else-to-do activities ~ lucky that he expects me to give up my enjoyable-new-stuff activities because he liked it better when I didn't have as much to do and scheduling was easier for him.

I say it's lucky because I have no desire to cast away my pursuits ~ my energy is limited and by the time I actually decide to pursue an interest, it's because I'm really turned on about it during that time slot. I still have plenty of free time in my days, but my free times don't match up with his free times. In four-hour blocks. During the coming four to seven days.

Whew.

And it's lucky because he really is not ready to open his heart and his passion to me. Part of him hopes he's ready, but part of him knows he's not.

"So maybe we can try in the fall after your classes wind down," he says, now with an edge to his voice.

"Um, yeah, looks that way," I say, glad, like the Roadrunner, that the warning signs of impending doom were so easy to see.

No need to dig any deeper here ~ less said is less regretted.

With a wish goodnight, we ended our call.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

photo credit: Love Noose created by icrush

Cherries For Me

2010-07-14T00:26:00.003-05:00

This is another little piece of evidence that in a past life, I was an artist of sensuality in Japan.

Although I eat more apples than any other fruit, I have always preferred cherries, whether blossom, fruit, or wood. During hours of searching to find the right photo to illustrate "My Apple Orchard Goddess", that preference became obvious. My favorite illustration shows a cherry orchard in Japan. Panning up and down gives me the feeling of being in the orchard, peeking from behind a branch of blossoms, trying to spy the goddess in the mist among the trees.

My literary inspiration specifies apples and Western symbols, but my inner landscape specifies cherries and Japan. So far this lifetime has been spent in midwestern America, where I befriended an old apple tree in my childhood backyard. When I moved on to other places, they just didn't feel like home until an apple tree was rooted in the ground.

My mind's eye sees the Apple Orchard Goddess playing hide and seek in the warm, wet, early summer drizzle among fuzzy new green leaves and pretty five-petal blossoms, and later, a round, firm fruit to fill your hand. Comfortable, familiar images give the Apple Orchard Goddess the playfulness of the goddess-next-door ~ someone to laugh and giggle with, to push on a rope swing, to chase to the pond and splash and tease.

But cherry blossoms in Japan give a different sense ~ more refined, subtle, exotic.

You hold a cherry between your thumb and finger, like a gem. Cherries are softer, sweeter, and juicier than apples. In North America, cherry trees are rarer and more tender than apple trees, but cherries love the climate of Japan. Cherry juice is red as blood. There are more symbols ... but maybe that says enough about cherry blossoms illustrating my apple orchard.

Born and bred in the midwest, I might seem as wholesome and familiar as a sweet, crisp apple. But as the everlasting native of my earthly temple, I'm like nothing you've ever known ~~ at least, that's what everyone says who gets to know me beyond hello.

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space for potential illustration (permission pending) ~ see it now
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Original source of apple orchard illustration by Emily Grandin

Goddess of the Forest

2010-07-09T12:23:00.007-05:00

As the goddess dances among shadows and trees, you see a flutter, you hear a whisper, but was it she? Or the leaves? Or the sigh of the wind?

The mystery lures you one step and another, and as you reach out to touch, it floats away, evaporating in a mist.

She flirts like Aphrodite, she shines like Venus, she laughs like a lover and plays like child. Running the river and riding the wind, the goddess draws you nearer the One. When you become one to run with the River and flow with the Wind, when you learn to laugh and play and dance, then you wonder why you ever thought she was heartless and mocking. The goddess was calling your yearning soul, singing songs of ages to draw you toward primordial grace, because the darkness of the depth would not have drawn you without her charms to delight your way.

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Image credit: "Track near Breakfast Point Lookout" posted by Joan Elizabeth (edited by me)

My Apple Orchard Goddess

2010-07-09T12:15:00.004-05:00

The goddess is in the garden now. She is dancing in the rain, singing songs of the ages, peeking out from behind the bud-filled branches as if to remind you that the fruit of knowledge is growing just beyond your reach.

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Excerpt tweaked from Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code", page 550.

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photo of a cherry orchard in Japan by Emily Grandin (c) 2009 ~ originally published here on her blog

see the larger-than-screen full size to get more immersed in the scene ~ ~ ~ panning up and down gives me the feeling of looking for the goddess behind the blossoms among the trees

Why cherries instead of apples?

Our Highest Calling

2010-07-08T16:55:00.004-05:00

I found this proverb floating around the web. The original wording was attributed to the Cherokee nation and then I changed it just a bit. These words resonate with me ~ ~ ~

A woman's highest calling
is to lead a man to his soul,
so as to unite him with Source;
her lowest calling is to seduce,
to separate man from soul,
to leave him aimlessly wandering.

A man's highest calling
is to protect woman,
so she is free to walk the earth unharmed.
His lowest calling is to ambush,
to block her path,
to force her way to his.

Bubble Up Kisses

2010-07-07T08:22:00.027-05:00

"Your kisses aren't what they used to be," he told me.

I had been slipping aside or pulling away, reluctant to engage a full-on kiss, and he wanted to know what was going on.

"I like to give you kisses," I said. There were other people around ~ we were going to get interrupted ~ and I didn't know exactly what words would carry my meaning ....

The next time we met, we had a few moments alone.

"You still don't want to kiss?" he asked as we stood cheek to cheek.

"I like our kisses," I said, "but I don't like them taken for granted."

"That's why I waited this time."

"I noticed."

With his arms around me, we were nose to nose, and I breathed his essence, felt his ease with the moment and his delight to be sharing it with me ~ o sweetness! His delight sparks my delight and fires up a mutual delight spiral. I felt the energy between us mingle, and my lips tilted into his. Swirling, breath-taking, this was like our first kiss, with fireworks popping off and making me dizzy.

He was turned on, too.

I call them bubble up kisses, because they bubble up to the top when they are ready, like bubbles from the bottom of a pot of water warming on the stove. If you stir the pot when the bubbles on the bottom are tiny, you get tiny little pops at the top. But if you wait and let the heat build, let it take the time it needs, the bubbles on the bottom get bigger and bigger until their buoyancy makes them bubble up by themselves.

Or you could say they ripen. After you pick the first ripe mulberries of the season, you have to wait for the next ones. Impatience gets you pale, sour mulberries that aren't what they used to be. But if you wait, they become dark and sweet and soft and juicy ~ they melt in your mouth and you feel the buzz of the sun soak into your tongue. Birds aren't the only ones who get drunk on really ripe berries.

If you try to pick a mulberry that isn't ready yet, you need to pull it ~ it resists ~ but a fully ripe mulberry drops into your hand with just a touch, a suggestion.

And if you try to take a kiss that isn't ready, you need to hunt it and chase it and pull it from her lips ~ but a fully ripe kiss drops right into your mouth like it was always meant to be there.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Image credit: Bubbles wallpaper 4787

Silence, Eloquence

2010-03-03T03:30:00.010-06:00

In a tender moment,
let silence s t r e t c h
into resilience,
eloquence.

When words get awkward,
give them rest from weary work,
from tiresome demands
for precision,
discrimination,
explanation,
completion.

Words are overworked and underqualified
to carry our deepest messages ~~
to carry truth pure and real
from one heart to another.

Hold beyond nerves,
beyond tension,
beyond that grinding habit
of dumping words into aural spaces ~~

delicate aural spaces

that yearn for

silence:

vibrant,
round and ringing,

resounding,

and
singing ~ ~

those
profound
pulses

of silence.

My Four-Wing Is Showing

2008-05-31T10:56:00.011-05:00

We were sitting in the Thai deli eating lunch when I told Teo What I Want From Sex, (in short, stardust and magic), and he smiled at me and said, "Your Four-wing is showing."

I didn't catch the reference at first, and thought maybe a shoulder is like a forewing and my sleeve was torn and gaping. Then I remembered that canards might be called forewings, and wondered where the corresponding point would be (a moustache? ~ what?! I HAVE A MOUSTACHE?! ~ ears? collarbone?) Teo noticed all the gizmos grinding in my brain, and filled in the missing piece, "Your enneagram Four-wing."

Ahhhhhhh.... yes, it all snapped together and I laughed with relief. It had been a long time since we had talked about the enneagram, and even longer since we talked about me having a Four-wing.

I used to laugh it off. I thought I was quite unlike a Four. Fours are so dreamy, so lost in their imaginations, so, um, romantic, from the shooting stars above their heads to the flower petals below their feet. In fact, some enneagrammers give the label Romantic to the Four. But this time I couldn't easily dismiss it. Just recently I wrote that Yes, I'm a Romantic plus the subtitle/intropoem of this blog says "this is the essence of love and romance." I chewed over these thoughts and remembered how indulgent these writings are to dreams and imagination, in other words, to Four types.

So, yes, dear Teo, I do concur. I do have a Four-wing, and it's been growing lately. This blog has been devoted to its exercise and, as a result, its accelerated growth and development. After listening to Teo talk about his own tendencies about intimacy and sex (Teo's an Eight), I decided it would be a good idea to branch out to more facets of love and romance, of intimacy and sex. People of all types bond, and they bond in their own special ways. It's a bit narrow to ignore all those other ways of bonding and sharing, so I plan to broaden the scope of coverage to include lovers of many stripes, not just romantics.

Originally I figured everyone needed their romantic nature nourished, perhaps even revived, and I still believe that. But now I figure a good way to do that is to support and nourish their life nature and also supply doses to fortify their romantic nature.

A translation of the paragraph above: every enneagram type has at least a little bit of each of the other types, including the Four. But each type lives and loves differently, so each main type needs to be supported along with the bit of Four. If you would like more attention for your own enneagram type, write to me and tell me about your situation.

~ with love from Jolene

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Image credit: The Enneagram Institute

Mm, Mm, Magic!

2008-05-22T23:37:00.010-05:00

I wanted magic, I got magic.   Wow.

In the wee hours last Saturday morning (or Friday night, depending on how you calculate), I wrote that I wanted sex to be magical.   Less than 24 hours later, a nice friendly visit with Deven sparkled into a scrumptiously delicious tryst.   Yes, there was yummy mm, mm, magic!

Deven and I have had our ups and downs over the past year, and lately it had been mostly down and declining fast until a week and a half ago when we had a breakthrough discussion and found that we still had some very good potential between us as friends.   I privately resolved to be a much better friend to Deven, to give us the best restart I could manage.   I also resolved to leave sex off the table (and off the bed and off the floor...) and I had actually become quite happy with that situation because it came with so many other good things, like appreciating him and us from totally new directions.   Besides, every time we joined in sex he disappeared from my life for a week or so.   It just felt crummy.   I much preferred having Deven with no sex to having sex and then no Deven.

So I had some reservations about Saturday night ~~ not wanting to be cut off from his company again just after we had been getting along with each other so nicely.   He said he wouldn't go away....

Well, so far so good.   Loving encounters with plenty of pixie dust on Saturday night plus Sunday afternoon AND Tuesday night, and then a friendly conversational visit this evening (Thursday).   Lovely.

No pullback so far.   This is mighty nice....

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Image credit: "Flower Power" by Jay Jacobson

What I Want From Sex

2008-05-17T04:12:00.017-05:00

I finally found the word to describe what I want from sex lately. See, for the past half year, I have not had my usual interest in usual sex (that is, with men). That might be an indicator for depression, except that I've had strong interest in unusual sex (say, with the cosmos). Now as far as I'm concerned, it's no problem: I'm happy with my situation. It's fascinating in terms of evolution, and I don't feel an urge to label or categorize or analyze or explain any of it to myself. I like watching it unfold at its own pace. I'll mention that while this strange, new direction has been developing, my buddy Saturn, the big, beautiful, ringed planet, has been a reassuring companion and guide.

On the other hand, there are those who do have a strong urge to analyze and label the phenomenon, who want to know why I don't have my usual interest in sex (with them). Those would be men, of course. To address their questions, I've been thinking about sex a lot lately, and now I found the word:

Magic.

I want to make magic. With no need to settle for anything less, I want to feel a growing sense of magic and wonder as we wend the way toward each other's souls, as we whirl in waves beyond ourselves.

This path is now revealed and I will practice sensing when enough magic is gathered to catalyze sex. But I wonder what "magic" will mean to my man who wants sex ~~ usual, unusual, whatever works ~~ he enjoys sex. What's wrong with usual sex? Nothing, darling, nothing is wrong with usual sex. But everything is better with magic.

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All the stars will tell the story
About our love and all its glory
Let us take this night of magic
And let us make a night of love

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I changed a few words above in a verse of the song "Surrender" made famous by Elvis Presley and written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman who rearranged a 1902 ballad by the brothers Giambattista de Curtis and Ernesto de Curtis. The verse was matched with the image, credited as "Surrender" by Federico Bebber who used an image from Marcus Ranum's stock gallery

Image credit: The Ringed Planet in Time magazine by NASA / JPL / AP /// Time's caption: "In this composite photograph compiled from images produced by Cassini in 2006, the Earth appears as a tiny pinprick of light in the upper left between Saturn's outer rings."

Leafy Green Feelings

2008-05-17T01:58:00.013-05:00

My habit is to blog when I'm on top of everything in my life, when everything is under control, when life is spinning along like a top.   So I don't blog much.   My life is hardly ever like that.

Just tonight I read some blogs by people who went through stuff and wrote about it as it happened.   It has a fresh quality, unprocessed.   Raw, so to speak.   Raw food is good for the bod, and raw feelings are good for the soul.   A workable theory, yes?   Instead of processing stuff first and wrapping it up in a package tied with a bow, I'll poop a pellet *plop* onto the page ~ ~ voila.

Wait a minute.   That can't be right.   Manure is very highly processed stuff, and anything but raw.   Let's try that again.

I'll gather salad greens from my garden of experience (the tender, young shoots that have just sprung up), rinse off the grammar, and offer up the raw leafies for us to munch on.   That might be tasty!   Or it might be as eye-watering as onions.   Guess it all depends on what pops up in the garden overnight.

It just occurred to me that eating lots of raw leafy green vegetables is an excellent remedy for constipation of the gut.   Likewise, an excellent remedy for writer's block is penning raw, green words with no prep or dressing or even effort for presentation.

Raise your shooters of fresh wheat grass juice, everyone, for a toast in honor of turning over a new leafy green feeling for fresher, livelier vitality with special enzymes and ephemeral bioflavinoids intact.   Cheers!

~ with love from Jolene

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Photo credit: Jennifer Benner, (Fiddlehead ferns)

Sister in the Romantic Revolution

2008-03-07T04:10:00.016-06:00

A few days after Aja said he didn't really understand what would inspire someone to subscribe to my blog, Carol Allen replied to my request to quote her newsletters. She really summed up what's going on here.
Hi Jolene,
Thanks for writing!
Congrats on your blog.
I don't mind you sharing my stuff at all - there's a four alarm fire out there and we all need to get the word out about relationships and what works! People are literally dying over this stuff!
[snip some stuff about commerce]
Thanks for being a sister in the romantic revolution.
Thanks!
Carol

That really feels good ~~ a sister in the romantic revolution! Charges me all up to stride forth like Liberty Leading the People (or as the French artist Eugene Delacroix called his painting shown above: La Liberté guidant le peuple)

It Seems a Bit Scattered

2008-03-07T00:45:00.017-06:00

Aja and I were talking about getting the word out about my blog when he asked, "But what are you trying to do with it? What's the point?" He didn't see much connection between mood swings and L~o~v~e. (So I reminded him how mood swings had been so deadly for some of his romances!)

"Hunh," he said. "Well, it seems a bit scattered."

Yes, I agree, it seems a bit scattered, as does love when seen from our human viewpoint, because it reflects the nature of the human condition, which reflects the nature of life on this planet.   It all seems a bit scattered!

Life and love and romance are all buzzy, busy, wild and silly adventures when you're right in the middle of them.   In our reminisces, as we look back and try to find clues, it's easier to see patterns.   And I do see lots of patterns in life, love, and romance.   But if I tried to put them all down in their proper places, like a really nice website might have, you, dear reader, would have neither a website nor a blog.   Much as I would love to build an eleventy thousand page website given enough free time and a long enough life, I'm not going to devote myself to it right now.   But what I will do right now is post my thoughts as they occur, and brother, my thought stream is a scattered!   I'll get it down now and sort it out later, just like we do in real life.

The existential theme is a natural one for this endeavor.   In the first place, I cotton to existentialism as a philosophical framework.   In the second place, love is loveliest when experienced existentially, so that shows up in the content.   In the third place, the process is existential by default because the blunt truth is that's the only way I'll get the content to the web.

Scattered? Yes, of course, and ironically, in this world, that means perfectly aligned.

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Original context of photo by Charlie Morey

Romance or Nothing

2008-03-01T22:24:00.036-06:00

You would make me choose.   You would hope to make romance irresistible, and you would work hard, I know, but to better your odds, you'd take friendship off the table and then tell me, "Romance or nothing.   Choose."

You'd rather gamble for gold than settle for sunlight, such are the stakes that you see.   Gold is rare and coveted, and it even glistens like the sun so you would have it all, wouldn't you?   But sunlight ~ common, ordinary sunlight ~ anybody can have that.   It's no prize.   And you want a prize.

You have done this so many times, to yourself, to your lovers.   Oh, you haven't stated it in those words, perhaps, but the undertone was always there.   "Romance or nothing.   Choose."

So I did.   I hoped your words would come true: "Of course, friendship is important.   Of course, I'm your friend," even though I knew that as you said them, deep down, you didn't believe them yourself.   I felt the gamester lurking, the little demon who makes you say things because he tells you that's the way to play the game.

Well, darling, the little demon is right about one thing.   That's the way to play one game ~ the small game ~ the game for nuggets that you never win.

The illusion is so lovely, though.   The shining gold nuggets dangle before you, almost within reach.   Just a little more effort, just a little adjustment, or maybe a lot of adjustment, but look at those nuggets!   Make those adjustments, whatever it takes!   Believe what is false, avoid what is true, but adjust!   Sometimes you might touch one, just enough to make you think it's real.   But you never get close enough to really examine those nuggets, to really figure out what you're aiming for ~ certainly never close enough to win them, to finally hold your prize.

That's how romance is defined for those who play the small game.   The nuggets are out of reach by definition because phony romance is defined by the pretense of mystery.   One must pretend to increase intimacy while at the same time pretending to maintain mystery.   What a paradox.   With true intimacy, veils are lifted and secrets revealed, and the two become closer as they understand each other more truly.   On the other hand, a phony romance is served by veiling the other with illusions to gratify one's ego, with fantasies to stoke one's desire.

This is why you would make me choose ~ for your ego, for your desire, but not for the bonds between us.   Friendship values intimacy ~ the real kind.   A deeper friendship means deeper intimacy means peeling veils and letting them fall one by one.

"You see," says the little demon, "stripping off those veils!   Next thing you know you're sittin' there buck naked in stark sunlight with nothing left for fun!"   And he snorts with contempt for the fool who would settle for the glare of sunlight instead of the glitter of dangling nuggets.

It's easy to fall for that zinger.   But remember for any endeavor that humans pursue, the more you know, the more there is to know.   The more you seek, the more you find to seek.   I'll add the refinement that the more depth you explore in intimacy, the more depth you discover.   Your discovery of another human being is limited only by the equipment you bring to the task.   Even more importantly, your appreciation and wonderment of another is limited only by your ability to appreciate the wonders of this universe.

That would explain why the game of phony romance is so appealing.   People don't have much faith in their ability to appreciate subtle wonders, so they try to conjure up excitement by using romantic illusion to focus their wandering attention on their chosen beloved.   That kind of romance floats for a while.   And then it sinks.

I learned to heed the little gamester's bluff and call it.   I learned to say, "Friendship first, or nothing doing.   I want to explore what is between us with open eyes and open heart."

Yes, I'll give up the gold and settle for sunlight.   I'll choose that which is so abundant it is expected, presumed, and taken for granted, even unappreciated by some who think it's common and ordinary and no prize at all.

Sunlight, giver of life and grace of the day, is taken for granted because it is so abundant and reliable.   But that's no common and ordinary thing.   Reliable abundance makes the sun our planet's blue ribbon, number one, most important source of energy for life ~ a high prize indeed.

Let us begin with abundant sun.
Come as a friend, blessed by the day.
Let us discover between us our bonds,
Growing as lovers, blessed be our way.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Carol Allen encourages a focus on the theme of friendship in this excerpt from her March newsletter.

Dangling earrings and heart locket as seen at girlprops.com

Not Stamped For Work

2008-02-23T13:33:00.009-06:00

NSFW is a web acronym meaning "Not Safe/Suitable For Work".   After reading the wikipedia entry, I declare that this blog is most definitely Not Stamped For Work, nor for any kind of situation that imposes mind control or numbing of the senses or emotions.

On the contrary, only half (or less) of the content here is at the surface in textual words and visible pictures.   The other and most useful half is in subtextual poetics and substratal impressions, in emotional currents, invisible patterns, and libidinal imagery.   Corporate and institutional environments (including most schools and workplaces) impose constraints on the mind and emotions.   Even the descriptive words -- corporate, institutional, environment -- are hard and dry; they numb and deaden life's juiciness.

So I beg you to avoid this site when you are at work or school.   The mix is like oil and water: you'd have to add alcohol, but work and school don't like that either!

From the 2007 Tokyo Sexpo

2008-02-23T13:14:00.007-06:00

The Tokyo sexpo assembled in July 2007, so this is old news, but I just found these pictures on Wired's website, posted in October 2007. Interesting to see how that side of life looks when it's on daylight display instead of hiding in shadows. At the very end of the series is a photo of ~ what are they, paperweights? ~ happy little phalluses plastered with big loopy grins and a look that says, "Ain't I cute? C'mon, cuddle me."

Babies DO come with instruction manuals... and so do lovers

2008-02-11T23:25:00.022-06:00

This article by Cori Young explains a few things about how we understand each other. As the third paragraph says, "To mothers holding their newborn babies it will come as little surprise that the 'decade of the brain' has lead science to the wisdom of the mother's heart."

The article gives some technical explanations for interactions between mother and child and shows some extensions to humans of all ages, but the section quoted below really clicked into place for me because it applies to everyone who is trying to figure out how to understand a loved one of any age. Emphasis is mine.

[begin quote]

Proximity: Between Mammals, the Nature of Love is Heart to Heart

In many ways it's obvious why a helpless newborn would require continuous close proximity to a caregiver; they're helpless and unable to provide for themselves. But science is unveiling other less obvious benefits of holding baby close. Mother/child bonding isn't just for brains but is also an affair of the heart.

In his 1992 work, Evolution's End, Joseph Chilton Pearce describes the dual role of the heart cell, saying that it not only contracts and expands rhythmically to pump blood, it communicates with its fellow cells. "If you isolate a cell from the heart, keep it alive and examine it through a microscope, you will see it lose it's synchronous rhythm and begin to fibrillate until it dies. If you put another isolated heart cell on that microscopic slide it will also fibrillate. If you move the two cells within a certain proximity, however, they synchronize and beat in unison."

Perhaps this is why most mothers instinctively place their babies to their left breast, keeping those hearts in proximity. The heart produces the hormone, ANF that dramatically affects every major system of the body. "All evidence indicates that the mother's developed heart stimulates the newborn heart, thereby activating a dialogue between the infant's brain-mind and heart," says Pearce who believes this heart to heart communication activates intelligences in the mother also.

"On holding her infant in the left-breast position with its corresponding heart contact, a major block of dormant intelligences is activated in the mother, causing precise shifts of brain function and permanent behavior changes." In this beautiful dynamic the infant's system is activated by being held closely; and this proximity also stimulates a new intelligence in the mother, which helps her to respond to and nurture her infant. Pretty nifty plan--and another good reason to aim for a natural birth. If nature is handing out intelligence to help us in our role as mothers we want to be awake and alert!

[end quote]

To use computer terms, the baby's electromagnetic pulse pattern triggers the mother's embedded executable files to download the baby's instruction manual. The manual is written in Emotion, not English. So as the auther said, being awake and alert helps, but I'll add that being sensitive and receptive helps also.

When my babies grew into small children, our hearts continued to have conversations. After a distressing nightmare, a little one would cuddle close, heart chattering away in fear until it was persuaded by my bigger, steadier heart that the harbor was indeed safe. Only then it subsided into gentler rhythms.

I believe that not only babies communicate heart to heart with sets of instructions, but adults do, too. With my lover's heart next to mine, sometimes I sense intense emotional torrents of pain or sorrow. Here is one conversation, translated:

"I hurt! I have hurt so long!"

"How dreadful! There, there, tell me all about it."

"All closed up!" {anguished cry}

"Mmmmmmmmm...." {soothing steady beat}

"You know how it is?"

"Yes, I know how it is."

It all happened in a jolt of one or two seconds, but that was the gist of it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

One time, a lover's heart conveyed a long groan of anguish, like a release of unutterable despair held for years, maybe decades.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I have become more sensitive and receptive since those conversations, and now feel announcements with more subtlety. These guide me to meet my lover's needs with understanding and precise yet wordless depth.

There are many vulnerabilities a man may be too proud to admit, but his heart is not so afraid. His heart will gush a full and honest account of its troubles to a compassionate listener in just a few seconds of profound clarity and wholeness. This is your map for finding buried treasure, your personalized guidance system for navigating emotional waters with him, your instruction manual for that one-of-a-kind, custom-designed, some-assembly-required, togetherness thing.

The native language of every heart is Emotion ~~ let your heart start translating for you.

Hugs and kisses ~

Mood Swings

2008-02-09T01:46:00.006-06:00

Sometimes I feel inflated enough to say to myself, "Jolene, you are the Goddess of Pleasure and the Queen of the Night." And sometimes my partner feels enraptured enough to say it out loud.

But other times I feel so deflated I wonder if it's all a cruel hoax. One of these days, I mutter, someone is going to notice that I'm actually a hag, not a siren, and then life as I know it will cease.

Mood swings. They are all the rage lately (sometimes literally), hitting the tabloids with Britney Spears' high-profile meltdown, making headlines with breakthroughs in diagnoses and treatments, and getting published as memoirs and blogs. Mood swings have catchy buzzwords, like "bipolar disorder," the old "manic depression," or the lesser known "cyclothymic disorder." Mood swings have been around for millennia, but now they have a DSM* entry and a list of treatment protocols to experiment with.

For myself, I'm sticking with the term "mood swings". It sounds more organic to me, like something to live with as part of the human condition (which it is) instead of some kind of victimization issue. Nevertheless there are some very important aspects that deserve attention, and I am happy that mood swings are getting coverage even if it means getting a Latin name and at least three levels of diagnostic discrimination.

Due to recent coverage and because some people close to me have announced their struggles with bipolar, I've learned a lot about it lately. For one thing, I learned that bipolar behaviors are an eerie match for some behaviors of my own that have been quite annoying, for example, the hag/siren dichotomy.

An upswing bestows the siren ~ I feel young and energetic and in the mirror my cheeks are round because I'm smiling and my eyes are sparkling (and my talk is giddy with run-on sentences). People respond to my irresistible charm. Colors are luminous and earth is a good place to be alive. A downswing draws the hag. I feel old and lethargic, my skin looks dull in the mirror, circles darken below my eyes, colors are washed out, and I avoid the world and everyone in it.

Planning is tricky when I don't know whether the hag or the siren will make her appearance. I subconsciously adopted some self-medication tricks to tip the balance toward the siren when it was really important. For example, before or during an appearance in public, I did things that could bring on upswings, like staying up through the night before, bingeing on sugar or starches, drinking caffeine or alcohol, cranking up music, or indulging in self-absorption. At home after an outing, there could be a crash with a depth proportional to the overstimulated height. Before I started investigating bipolar, though, I didn't connect the high and low events. It all seemed random and disorderly, and utterly beyond communicating to sane, solid, stable people. How ironic that such men attract me like magnets.

Mood swings seem rather anti-romantic in the harsh light of analysis except, perhaps, for the drama and excitement they might cause. There is a message here for those who would risk this kind of challenge.

What a lover needs to remember about a moody, chaotic beloved is that one's entire perception changes with mood swings. One's brain processes sensory information differently depending on whether one is up or down. So if you take up this challenge, don't assume that shifts in behavior are related to something you have done or not done, and don't get attached to what seems like your influence over your beloved's behavior. But by all means, do enjoy the scintillations, the thrills of surprise, and the everchanging scenery along the path you share with your beloved.

* DSM: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

Yes, I'm a Romantic (How'd you guess?!)

2008-02-08T01:41:00.000-06:00

Of course, I'm a romantic.

Let's try that again.   Of course, I'm a Romantic, with all the swirly flourishes and soundings of strings and cymbals included.

But I'm not a hopeless romantic.   I don't sigh heavily with disappointment, and I don't obsess over potential meanings in small gestures.   Nope.

On the other hand, I do sigh deeply with pleasure and I do obsess over subtle meanings in small messages I write in poems and songs.

I am a hopeful romantic.

The romantic in me pays attention to small gifts of beauty and joy that life brings us always and everywhere.   And hopefulness means that in times of uncertainty, I put more attention on the bright side rather than the dark side.

Embrace

2008-01-21T00:15:00.001-06:00

Let my fingertips touch your hair, my love,

Let my hands caress your face,

Let my arms enfold your body in my

enduring, unbounded embrace.

Regrets of the Great Seduction

2006-10-26T04:21:00.003-05:00

Four weeks have gone by since I first thought to write
of a misunderstanding of yin,
But then I thought twice, to get it just right,
to present it correctly within
the Grand Conception, the Big Idea,
the Ultimate Perfect Intent,
(One can't just start in the middle of something
without the beginning and end!)

Like the time I blushed with a rush of excitement
and wanted to touch you right there,
Just a moment, a trace, a flicker of touch,
but clothing encumbered desire.
And then came a thought, as I pulled at your shirt,
that you might to a greater extent
want a Big Production, a Great Seduction,
an Ultimate Perfect Event.

Took my hands off your shirt, put my thoughts to their work,
and began to plan the next turn.
But feelings fermented and soon felt regret of
what could have and might have been done....
Like tickling your tummy with the tip of my nose,
and whispering into your skin,
Like nuzzling the arrow that leads to your grove,
and breathing your muskiness in....

To start at your middle, your navel, in fact,
With no sort of warning before,
To end of a sudden, full flush in the act ~
Is so little too much to be borne?
I think rather not -- yes, you'd like the attack,
and be up to endure many more.
So what is this business of holding things back,
of suborning the now to the morrow?

Here I'll stop the meter and rhyme, and get to the publishing end. I've much more to write about earlobes and toes, of lickles and tickles and thrills. But if I keep on going, I'll fall to the lure and regret of the great seduction.

It seems to me that a Great Seduction is at its best as a solitary romp of imagination. There it can be edited and replayed, then rewritten or completely started over, all in a few minutes and with no confusion whatsoever -- just like in your dreams, where anything happens and everything makes sense, and weeks of time are compressed into seconds. The imaginary great seduction has no bounds, and can indeed be perfect.

A real and true encounter, on the other hand, is limited by our physical bodies and linear time. It's limited by the responses of the other person involved. These limits are the outlines of the here and now, and they make every real encounter unique and unrepeatable. Then there is the substance of the here and now -- the vibration and flow of the cosmos. Grab that substance and feel it twist through your hands as a lively, energetic thing, and feel it flow around and through your body as you respond to every nuanced suggestion.

Moment after precious moment ticks away in this encounter, not planned and never to be repeated. The preciousness would be unbearable, except that the next moment is coming, to be met and enjoyed, and then the next, and the next. No time for dwelling on sentimentality until it's all over and can be remembered at leisure.

So I ask you: What really is the Great Seduction? Is it something you do to your lover at a particular place and time with props and plan? Or is it something the cosmos does to your encounter? Subtle and smooth, it all seems innocently spontaneous ~ the cosmic flow so warm and silky, the cosmic hum alluring, soothing. You wish to abandon yourself to this great seducer, to surrender your small beliefs and fears. But still you might cling to distrust and apprehension, and reject this wooer's appeal.

Don't worry, my dear. You'll have other chances to welcome the overtures of the Great Seducer ~ with every new encounter you engage.

~ with love from Jolene