Woman of a certain age and shape seeks soul mate

Must be willing to surrender everything to the one you love (me), to adopt my particular form as your physical ideal and to be my ardent admirer in all areas. The sound of my voice must thrill you and the scent of my body intoxicate you. I will become your drug.

I expect to occupy the center of your attention at all times, and while I am absent, you should spend your free time devising new ways to please me. You will be expected to pay frequent sincere compliments without being asked. It is essential that you know exactly what I am thinking at all times to ensure that you do not say anything that might hurt, shock or antagonize me. You must learn to consider my feelings and well-being to be a sacred trust which it is your task to nurture with the utmost care and tenderness.

I am unique, and I know exactly what I want. You will be expected to know what that is at all times, to serve me without question or complaint and to worship me as your Queen. I will not reciprocate the worship (though I will occasionally caress your flesh and feed you enough crumbs of affection to keep you enslaved) because living in a patriarchal society has put me off Kings. Women must rule! - beginning at home, of course.

Once I have practiced my domination technique on you and gotten it right, I will move on to conquer patriarchy and grind the former world masters under my cleats. I expect you to follow faithfully at my heels, for I shall require someone to keep me supplied with excellent coffee, chocolate and back rubs.

As a reward (if you behave impeccably in all ways), you will be allowed to retain your testicles intact. More or less.

The secret chambers of the heart
Are not for public judgment
Yet the urge to spill our hidden blood
Is irresistible

Hence the blogging craze in which we
broadcast everything including
bathroom habits (I pee on the ground),
Nose-picking proclivities (yes, when no one is watching)
And lovelorn afflictions (no, he doesn’t love me enough).

Spilling our whine is good for the soul
And that is why confessionals are popular
Reading others’ purgatories
Makes us feel better about our own hell

So do tell: spill your guts
but watch for those hungry crows

Everything is privatized these days
Save the self

I’m in my ‘issues’ again, glory be. I grew up in the wilds of Northern BC, and even there, I felt crowded out by louder, funnier, more attractive others. I lurked darkly in the corner, simmering with Leo Moon resentment at not getting the attention I craved, yet unable to ask for it.

I saw a video of my childhood a year or two ago for the first time. In every shot, I stand gloomily aside watching the others shriek and mug for the camera. I felt ever on the verge of tears, aching for what I could not have.

This is my central mystery, a pain that prevents me from performing open hearted despite my drive, my creative fire. I can’t imagine what caused it, and I’ve worked this wound from every angle yet it alone remains intransigent. Within, I feel a chorus of excited children trumped by that lone lost one, she who holds her hardened heart apart from my own growing life. I must reach her, teach her, touch her, yet she has me stumped. I would call to her, but she will not hear me. Her heart waits for proof of magic, a reason to live.

Now, I breathe past the hard place in my chest, heart beating in time to the rhythm of knock-knocking on the door to my life.

“Awake!”

The cry is a clarion but I am deaf, seeing only red flashing on my interior walls. Beset from the beginning, I forced myself to forget the regrets that dogged my footsteps until forgetfulness became a habit, ingrained as breath itself. Now seeking the denied sustenance of memory, I assign new agents to the task, sifting through the dusty aching past for clues to who I was meant to be and might still become.

The stakes are raised far beyond mere praises or roses. The ground has secrets to disclose, and it will. None can know the consequence of this stone telling, least of all the self which seeks to greet severed pasts and weave them into a web of self, a new way of wholeness. The stew cannot be seasoned for greater digestibility, nor can the crushed glass of broken dreams be sifted from the savouries and delights that drew us into this divine peril. Rising steam wafts and streams in oracular patterns; ever-shifting, truth exists only for those whose vision is adjustable.

It is time, now… NOW, the moment which never passes, this and none other. I take a breath, look around: it is still now, I am still here, and that alone can never change. I deceive myself with dreams of timelessness, imaginings past and future, but always now draws me to itself with inexorable gravitational force, and I land with a thud in reality.

Certainly past, future and dream have their place, but that place is here and now, along with everything else that ever has been, will be or might become.

This moment is roomier than I had believed.

“Honey, I shrunk my life!”

This, the cry of the modern, semi-sentient human. We think ourselves so much smaller than we are meant to be; therefore we shrink ourselves, for thoughts are things, articles of intention, particles of magic.

Why diminish ourselves, deny the glory of our true heritage?

The answer is simple, but the question is not easily resolved. In the beginnings of things is the source of fear: change. Once, we had a beginning of bliss and beauty and we sought to preserve that perfect moment forever. When we failed, we feared, and as we feared, we failed.

The mystery is resolved, the ‘ornery, miserable child’ revealed in naked identity: she who remembers. Too aware of what I ought to have been, she could not accept what I was forced to become though I myself did the forcing, compressing my burgeoning self into ill-fitting molds for the purpose of presenting an acceptable package to a world that rewarded falsity.

I did this well, as I did most things, and my inner purist hated me for selling my soul to the devil of convention. Now, as I quest to restore my Self, I bless that child her bitter intransigence.

This gives me chills to read, and I’m the one who wrote it. That is, I think I wrote it, unless I have a puter poltergeist, a crazy poet hackmeister who slips strange pained ravings into my system. I thought I’d post it here, in part because it typifies (or perhaps justifies) the title of my blog, in part to challenge myself to reveal a voice that tends to stay hidden even from me.

——————-

I seek release of ancient death, the kind that lodges in shoulders and makes its home there forever, never shifting, expanding or serving any shred of hope on the platter of my life. My flesh and bones are home to much that is not me, entangled in my roots and veins, training my new cells to become like them as the old ones grew and died. The torment takes place on levels too small and multiplistic for me to be aware. Even if I could, there is another issue besides what is held in my tissues and organs. I have a resister in my psyche, a hidden lifehater which keeps my motivation at minimum. I have a leak in the basement which leaches out life force, and desire cannot catch fire for there is no container in which it can grow beyond its vulnerable infancy. My tiny flames are extinguished in the drafts that whistle through my breached borders, claiming all in the name of ancient agreements someone made for me, claiming to know my mind.

Where was I at the time? I have sought to answer that question, quested, but that triggers a contest between my seeking self and the resisting strictures that control my very soul, saying, “Thou shalt not, no matter what, grow beyond the bounds of your bonsai pot.”

I say, I care not what contracts were signed in my blood if my consciousness was not aware of the signing and if my will and body were not aligned with the action. My heart’s desire is new, now, a tremulous fire held sacred in the deep places, jealously guarded and hoarded by my patient lifelover which has waited eons. It will not chance the loss or risk a cost beyond my capacity to bear.

I writhe in the agonies of twisted essence seeking release. I groan and moan with the need to adopt postures impossible for the flesh I bear, I jitter and twitch, I itch and stagger. Calling in light and help from the core of creation, that which fosters growth and continuity, I commit to enduring what must be endured for the sake of what may be born in its aftermath. I am patient, or I am composed of partly-patient parts which is nearly as good. I am ready to meld myself together, to align into a living force in the world.

I think I am ready. I want to become ready. I seek readiness. Help me, those ones whose role it is to help, who seek pieces like me who have fallen through the cracks and now struggle to find our way back to the light. I open to receive to the extent that I can, to the extent that I must.

I’m having a hard time getting going. I wonder if I qualify for a label (like ‘Chronic Fatigue Syndrome’) that would serve to explain me? I’m tired of calling myself ‘lazy’ and variously chastising, cudgeling and castigating myself for that crime. The one-sided battle rages in my head, the loud angry voice of thwarted ambition screaming, ‘get off your butt and —–‘ (fill in the blank with some necessary task upon which my surivival depends).

It’s one-sided because the target doesn’t argue. It simply shrugs, slides lower into the seat and sighs, wishing it could disappear. If only.

My mind, the overbearing voice of authority, endlessly assigns tasks which are resisted by my body, the weak but passive-aggressive servant which shirks any work it can. I need a mediator, some neutral yet caring third party who can help me get my mind off my body’s back while motivating my body to get going, for its own sake. Both need to happen.

I’m not neutral. I swing back and forth, one side to the other, completely emotionally invested in whichever side I’m being at the moment. My psyche is a mess, which may be the human condition, but damn!

Maybe I’m still metamorphosing. Yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket…

Sun slanting in through picture window
Loving this rotational global warming
Naturally blessed with reliable light
After cold spring, I despaired,
Waiting for temperature to rise.
Weather connects strongly to mood
I’m hardwired to depression in grey and cold
And my upliftment in spring’s sun is
Positively Pavlovian.

I bask, glory in rays that radiate
From nuclear furnace in the center of sky
I resist not. If cancer wants me, it can have me.
Sunworshipper, I seek shade if the sun is too much, but
Shan’t slather chemicals on my skin to
Separate self from the oldest god there is

It was my brother Bruce’s birthday on the fifth. He spent his birthday in hospital, self-admitted, plagued by voices despite medication. He takes such care, for he knows the power of those voices to confuse and compel his unwilling hands.

Where do the voices come from? Whose thoughts are they? I have had theories, but they are uncertain, unscientific and subject to change. Worlds are multidimensional, sources of thoughts mysterious, while science fumbles in ignorant darkness, claiming ultimate knowledge until the next ‘discovery’ overturns today’s truth. Chemistry is a facile label, explaining nothing. There are no true explanations, and while there may be causes, they are multiple, complex, unknowable.

When my brother was a child, he pulled his pants down in company to show a new friend his scab, and was met with a storm of grownup guffaws at the sight of his small naked bum. I remember with pain his little-boy bewilderment, his agonized terror and shame. How stupid, how insensitive and cruel, twenty drunken righteous fools laughing at a five-year-old. I want to go back in time and scorch them all.

He remained shy about showing skin for years, insisting on long sleeves and buttoning to the neck in the fiercest heat. It takes so little to damage tender hearts.

He’s a man now, dealing with greater afflictions than most of us imagine, struggling to survive in Vancouver’s downtown east side with his label, a nasty multi-syllabic that means, ‘not a valid person’. Though the history is a long and complicated story, the upshot is that he has reason to fear his own mind.

What would you do if voices told you to kill, voices so compelling that you could not say no? What would you do if you woke from a fugue state to find yourself holding a bloody knife buried in the belly of an innocent toward whom you held no ill-will?
You should know, I consider my bother a hero, a wise and incredibly brave man, as well as a brilliant artist and poet. If you walked in his shoes, you might be less complacent about the world.

I’ve seen minds wasted by the ravages of disease
Like the rotted frames of boats left standing on the beach
I’ve seen liberals become conservatives
Bearing the poisons of bigotry and the authoritarian hand
Of stone that dirties all it touches
I’ve seen great birds of steel rise over the deserts
And drop their eggs of fire upon the cities
I’ve seen faces suffused with the mask of madness
Go slack with the nonentity of slavery
I’ve been with rebels, ate of their food and kindness
And lived to see them delivered to the gates of hunger
With the ache of weakness in their voice
The strength of their conviction worn away by illness
I’ve been with illness and touched its sores
I’ve seen poets forge the iron heart of poetry
In dark dreary caverns at the edge of cliffs
Wearing animal skins. No one could look into those eyes
And not be changed immensely or else be afraid
Forever
And now as I write, universities are filled
With young minds eating of dried bread
And blood; the poppies of illusion
Suffused with the tears of hallelujahs
Now as I write books are bound and so are minds
Now as I write I feel the sadness of a broken heart
And the ink lies as opaque as death
Beneath my fingers

- Bruce Ray
“Verses of Renunciation”

My mom, another hero, wrote an excellent award-winning book telling my brother’s story:

“The Ghosts Behind Him” by Doris Ray

more information on the book

I planted peppers, basil and sweet peas today, and also cut the grass. I’ve never mowed a lawn before, though this enormity hardly qualifies to be called a ‘lawn’. It’s more of a field with contours, fences and obstacles to manoeuvre around.

It was sort of fun, at first, involving a certain amount of strategizing and problem-solving. Then it became agonizingly difficult work, when the lawnmower decided to stop propelling itself and became a monstrously heavy manual push-mower. I quit before I was quite finished, then I collapsed, an empty sack. A hot bath has restored me to life. Blessings.

Tomorrow I embark on a pleasurable adventure, destination Friday Harbour. I mean Friday Harbor, which is on the other side of an imaginary line where things are spelled differently.

This gathering of women, our final organizing meeting for PWCA-camp this summer, will span the spectrum from business to pleasure. We’ll be at the business part all weekend, punctuated by feasts, celebration (my birthday, among other things), an evening workshop, drumming, laughter, hugs, sharing of souls and who knows what all.

When I return, I must get on with the business of my life, the reason I’m here on Vancouver Island.

I need a plan, and to act on it. Time to get out there somehow. Not just with astrology, but cards, dreamwalks, workshops, singing my songs, whatever it takes. I might be a misty-minded mystic, but that doesn’t mean I can’t support myself. I don’t need to get rich, but a living would be nice. I’ll travel, I’ll even cross imaginary lines.

When I shed this shyness enough to market myself without shame, things may fall into place. I hope that doesn’t mean thickening my skin and getting tough.

‘I’m sensitive, and I’d like to stay that way.’ - Jewel

Bare hands in black dirt, a good thing. Sinking seeds deep or dusting them gently as required satisfied some ancient gardener gene from who knows where, for I was raised mostly without gardens. A past-life thing, my Taurus South Node, or merely the romance of it all a la Green Acres (‘shoosting up into the air’).

The first thing I noticed when I went to the garden was a furtive brown form darting away at my approach, which triggered an immediate atavistic reflex. Intruder alert! Kill the enemy! Though normally adorable, that rabbit sprouted vampire fangs in my mind’s eye.

Here at the new place, the daffodillies are browning but the other flowers haven’t bloomed yet. I need to get out there to plant veggies, but it’s raining, so I’ll catch up on my words instead. I’ve fallen behind on blogging, what with packing, moving and general all-around busyness. Even at the moment, I can’t think of much fascinating to write, just making lists of what I need to do. Unpack boxes, plant garden, pick nettles to get them started drying, start indoor seeds (hoping it’s not too late), buy seeds I don’t have like squash and cucumber, and tomato bedding plants.

Thinking about it all is so much work it makes me tired. I’m leaving for several days on Friday morning so won’t have time over the weekend while the weather is (supposedly) nice. Still, it will be worth it, a business vacation with goddesses on San Juan Island. Feasting with friends will jumpstart my lagging batteries and I plan to return full of vim (love that word).

Meantime, I huddle in locked-in confusion, having unpacked little but my clothes and food. What else is there? Lots. I have way too much yet still not enough.

Immediate goals: water plants, unpack sewing machine and materials, start making hats, stash things I can’t unpack to make room for other things, rearrange furniture, put Albus together, make money, get back to work on my novel, create a myspace page, blog, make money, walk the trails, ride my bike.

I can’t put flowers out for sale because I’m between crops (what with brown-edged daffodils and nothing else up), and in a way that’s a relief. One less thing to do, but… need to make money. Mostly I need to remember to breathe.

Add breathing to the list of goals. Breathe, believe, be here now. There, that’s better. Hey, the sun’s coming out! Gotta go… the garden calls.