(this has a perky circus-ish melody)

Eases for your body make you feel good
Freezes to your heart make you cry
Mem’ries haunt you, make you want to
Breezes in the trees make you sigh

It’s the sound of peace in the song of heaven
With a chorus of angels in your mind
When the ground is down and the sun is shining
Let your load drop, let your love be blind

Keys in your pocket for the doorway
Teases you with everything you feared
What if, what next, changing context
Bees in your bonnet make you weird

It’s a plea for peace in a round of pain
With a circus of fleas in your mind
When the ground is gone only darkness remains
Let your guard drop, let yourself be blind

Here in your shadow can you feel me
Stars in your nighttime make you mine
Seizing moment make you potent
Fire in your belly make you fine

Gee, it’s getting easy, can you feel it
See, you were trying much too hard
We’re in this place, painting faces
Like little kids, playing in the yard

It’s a song of peace in the sounds of pleasure
With a forest of fairies in your mind
For the world is round and it just keeps turning
Let it all drop, tra la la la la
Let it all drop, zippedee doo dah
Let it all drop, dumble deedle dah

I’ve been raving about this camp for the last two years I’ve been going. It’s wonderful, juicy and sweet, a time to connect and get nourished in a group of women. The Times-Colonist has done a pretty decent story about it, interviewing various women connected with camp, so I thought I’d post the link here. There will be a writing coach this year, for the first time, Fran Skene, and I’m definitely looking forward to that!

women’s camp story by the Victoria Times-Colonist

Sometimes a new idea lands in my brain so hard it seems to bounce. It sets up a shock, a confusion of awakening. This happened to me just a few moments ago. When the dust settled and I got a good look at this shiny new idea, I thought, “Holy wow! I’ve just solved global warming!”

Many will take exception to the thrust of this article, pointing out evidence they have come across that purports to prove that neither humans nor rising carbon dioxide levels are actually the cause of global warming. With so many conflicting voices and convincing evidence on either side, how to know who to believe? Still, hear me out. I think you’ll agree that my idea, if implemented, can only be good for the planet even if the GW theorists are wrong.

Better brains than mine have struggled with this problem for ages and haven’t come up with a clear direction going beyond the usual tired ‘use spiral fluorescent bulbs and recycle’ stuff, and who am I? I’m no scientist, that’s certain. Still, this idea is radiating obviousness and I simply must pass it along. Please, somebody, let me know if I’m missing something here. Or if this idea has already been proposed and rejected, and for what reason. Where’s the harm?

It is well known that plants and animals are complementary forms of life, having evolved to consume each others’ wastes. Plants emit oxygen and consume carbon dioxide, while animals consume oxygen and emit carbon dioxide. Unless there is some conflicting scientific lore I am not privy to, this simple equation seems to point toward a straightforward solution to the problem.

Problem: Too much carbon dioxide emission.
Solution: More plants to suck up the excess CO2 and replenish it with exhalations of oxygen.

Here it is: go forward with mass plantings of all forms of greenery all over the planet, everywhere we can. Let us all plant trees and gardens wherever we can, and thickly sow every possible niche and cranny with weedy perennial wildflowers, edible plants and other hardy greenery. If we plant in the places where nothing else yet grows, we will increase the ratio of plants to animals and thereby reducing the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere.

Parking lots would all need to have a certain percentage of their area dedicated to plantings. This wasted space could be freed up by reducing vehicle traffic and decreasing the need for parking space, through encouraging or enforcing the use of public transit and alternative means of transportation such as bicycles. All new buildings (this is actually happening already to some extent, at least in some cities) should be built with rooftop gardens. Terraces devoted to greenery should be included in building design whenever possible. I’m not just talking potted plants on the balcony; these should be planted thickly, solidly and abundantly.

The socio-economy-communal benefits that could result from such a greening of formerly barren environments are enormous, even notwithstanding the global impact. Multiple problems would be addressed:

1. The sheer ugliness of modern cities and suburbs: Beauty is a fundamental human need. Modern humans are compelled to satisfy their basic hunger for beauty through consuming of various media simply because natural beauty has become less and less available outside our own doors. Green growing things, especially in abundance, are tremendously aesthetically pleasing to human senses.

2. Urban and sub-urban alienation and isolation (not knowing who your neighbours are): when people tend a garden near one another, they interact. It’s human nature. As they interact, they come to know each other. Connections are made, an end to isolation and the beginnings of true community.

3. Nature Deficit Disorder: Modern children, for various reasons (including increase in texting, video gaming, web-surfing, television watching, any and all free time occupied by school and parent-organized activities such as soccer and lessons in this and that, as well as parental fear and over-protectiveness) spend vanishingly little time experiencing the natural world. Schools need to include gardening in their curriculums, and with actual gardening, not discussion of the theory of gardens.

4. Poverty and hunger. As much land as possible should be dedicated to community gardens, fruit trees and various wild perennial edibles such as dandelion, chickweed, lamb’s-quarter etc. These should be planted and tended by those members of the community at large who benefit from them, which as much as possible should be the poor and homeless and any who have no other space in which to plant. The affluent and those with homes where it’s possible should be encouraged to plant in their balconies and rooftops. All homeless folk should be given a plot of land along with all the seeds they need, and a place to sleep near their plot, too. Food banks should begin providing seed packages along with their groceries.

5. Stress, anxiety and depression: Greenery is soothing. Gardens are places of peace and harmony which have been shown to relive stress, soothe anxiety and lift mood.

6. Shrinking wildlife habitat: Increasing the greenspace will also increase wildlife habitat. All parks should be allowed to revert to a wild state, with paths for walking, jogging and cycling winding through thick woods and wild meadows. Wildlife also should be encouraged to re-inhabit these parks. The modern obsession with creating ’safety’ through control and suppression of nature has run its course. We have already paved, cleared, killed off and polluted an insanely high proportion of the arable land on the planet. It’s time to begin to give back what we have taken, to become true caretakers and tenders of the land.

We are growing increasingly out of balance with the natural world, but it is not too late to shift that balance. It’s time for a real green revolution, and I don’t mean just recycling your plastic or shopping at the local farmer’s market. If government will not cooperate with this plan, we each must become seed revolutionaries, planting gardens in unlikely places. Plant and encourage others to plant. Lobby, blog, petition, protest and persist until government accedes to a mass-mandated greening of the world.

This truly could truly become, in relatively short order, a world of abundance for all, and not in some mystical, airy-fairy sense either. Plant. Plant. Plant.

You have my permission to reprint, reproduce and forward this article freely, but do please remember to credit me and provide a link to the original article here.

It’s Friday the 13th today, and you know what that means, don’t you? That’s right! Expect good luck! Only the best! Miracles are bound to happen today. What’s that you say? Bad luck? Who says?

If you have to have a superstition, why not have a positive one? I like to turn these bad luck things on their heads. I love black cats, whether they cross my path or not. Black cats were originally considered bad luck because of their association with the Goddess and all things feminine, sexual and therefore frightening. Friday was a bad luck day because it was the Goddess’ day, and the number 13 is bad luck also because of its associations with the feminine side of things.

So, as a lover of the Divine Feminine (as well as the Divine Masculine, the Divine Child and the Divine Unity where they all dance together), I say, let’s celebrate this day as a day of blessings, miracles and bliss! I personally expect to have very good luck today.

For example, I plan to drive into town today without my contact lens, though I technically need lenses to drive with. I am doing this because I need to pick up a temporary replacement lens and what better day to accomplish this slightly risky feat than this day of good luck and blessings? My eyes aren’t that bad, and I anticipate no difficulty, so see little need to worry. Still, why tempt fate? Take advantage of all lucky talismans and days, I say.

Afterward, I am off to a party at which I will swim in the ocean, play music, dance, enjoy life and receive who knows what magical blessings?

Miracles happen. Why not today? If you’re going to be delusional, this is a lot more fun than the other way.

Hey, it’s cooled off. What could be bad?

The heat is sweet while it is, but no escape lest I live near a lake, river or sea which welcomes spontaneity. Okay, the lake is near but it’s a long way to the closest pier, the public beaches are tiny, crowded and bounded by barriers, the whole thing singularly unattractive to me. There is the sprinkler, which I’ll be using soon, but in the meantime, let’s complain about this energy drain, the downward spiral of emotion.

Have I mentioned in this space how weatherbound I am? Too cloudy, rainy, hot or cold and my soul shrinks. There are things I could do to get through differently but I’m too damn depressed to bother: a classic catch-22. If I could cry me a river I’d have a place to swim, but the tears dry too soon, leaving me gloomy, heavy and disheartened.

Eh, fugeddaboudit, some sweat-streaming face-fanning part of me wants to grunt, who ceahs, so what (this voice has a Boston accent, which makes sense when you consider how uncomfortable my one summer there was), whaddayagonnado…

Somewhere down there I do care, but I’ve lost my reasons and don’t trust the ones I come up with. This heat (a classic example of ‘beware what you ask for’) is cooking my brains into a stew of insecurity and glue, wanting to stick it all onto you, whoeverdafug you are.

Nobody likes me, he likes her better, they don’t want me, I’m not good enough, I’m too much, too little, too intense, too bland, too short/fuzzy/fat/old.

He, she, we, they, it, them, the stew cooks as I use the heat of the sun as a gun to shoot my ownself in the foot. Nobody can be amazing all the time, and in these moments, I feel heavy, amazeless and dazed by my own past reactive triggerpoints, irrelevant though they may be to the actual moment happening now.

Still, I can gently allow my own tears and fears to swell and overflow until the squall has blown over and I return to equanimity. This is not calm, quite, but more a dynamic state of intense presence and insistent acceptance of what is, whether I like it or not. This includes, of course, acceptance for the fact of my like or dislike along with all the mess and baggage that come with being me.

The pendulum swings, yet forward motion appears to have taken place, for the background scenery continues to shift into brighter and more hopeful patterns. The world seems not as dark as once it did. The encouraging voice in my head remains accessible and responsive, while the discouraging scourge which once haunted me so loudly has receded into the distance, little more than a memory, and in those moments when its volume is raised, it’s relatively easy to recognize as the lie that it is. From this perspective, my downs are downright doable, while the ups are nearly too good to stand.

And oh my, these hazy crazy summer daze, so much happening, so little brain for taking care of business. Except for the money part, life is sweet and replete with delights and near-encounters with the antlered one who haunts my nostrils with his goaty smoke. Grunt! The dreamworld remains his domain for now, and I can’t complain, for my dreams become more solid all the time. If a dime were worth anything, I wouldn’t trade my life for a million of them (though I wouldn’t say no to an offering of the same).

Ah, the elusive carrot of cash. That, in fact, remains the sole septic hole through which my current of contentment threatens to flow, ’secrets’ and ‘laws of attraction’ notwithstanding.

Ooh, I feel a rant coming, take heed:

This New Age justification for greed makes me want to point bright mirrors at the spewers of so-called secrets. I call it a scam! They name their same-old formula of affirmation and positive thinking a ’secret’ to lure those who seek to be special, plaster the masses with mass media pointing them in the direction of accumulation, the right and only solution for all dissatisfactions. They name examples and repeat insistently, “See what I have manifested for myself! A million-dollar mansion! no! four million! and why stop there? You too can own more than your share if you dare to dream as big as me, for bigger is always better! If you find yourself scrambling to survive, obviously you did it wrong!”

Ha. This so-called secret is nothing new. Though there’s some truth in this secret thing, it’s tainted by an ancient and ugly agenda: screw the people while seducing them into thinking you’re out to help them. Then the power of their collective, half-asleep, hypnotized desires (in the form of cash shelled out for books, DVDs and workshops teaching them how to be more like the right ones) can be siphoned into a many-headed hydra controlled by the same old elite, leaving the poor ever-poorer, ever-hungrier, ever-seeking the same old goals defined by the ones on top claiming to be blessed. New faces, new names, but it’s aristocracy all the same.

It takes some to get some, damn it. If the window of opportunity opens for you, it’s because you’re in a position to take advantage. If you live on the mean streets where windows don’t open, all the wishing in the world won’t change your fate without action and a bountiful helping of help.

Let’s call this thing by its name: it’s just another fake-o spirituo-materialistic pyramid scheme to feed the greedy monster of capitalism which has already sucked out half our brains. I’m not immune; I too am easily seduced by pretty toys, bright colours and flashing pictures of possibility. I lust for that same carrot even though I know it has been programmed to dangle always just out of reach. Still, I see the man behind that curtain. I know his name.

Desire is human and I’m okay with wishing, but now I choose to change the direction of my intention. And here it is (drumroll): I want to live on the ground in a world where sustainability is mainstream and love is the new normal.

Speaking of desire, let’s not forget our antler-headed man Pan, nor the sweet softness of his mama and main squeeze, Fat Naked Woman. If evolution happens (and it does) then our forms can be no accident. Our bodies of mostly water have evolved for a purpose, and it is obvious: our upright stance, sensitive naked skin and kissable lips clearly indicate a predisposition for coziness. Snuggles, sexy touches, strokes, licks, sniffs of pits and other niches are our real jobs, though our many layers of clothing and the multiplicity of ways we outlaw pleasure seem designed to force us to forget it.

The truth is, we are sensual creatures and our arms are made for hugging; evolution is leading us inexorably toward more love. It all adds up to God.

Love is our job, and let’s face it, nobody else can do it. Cetaceans have the bare skin required, but not the arms, and the other primates have the arms, but not the bare skin. And thanks mostly to our own doing, there are now far more of us than there are of the other so-called higher mammals.

People, awaken! All our fantasies and distractions are intended only to take our minds off our evolutionarily-mandated heart’s desires for intimacy, sweetness, funky pheremonic stews and pleasures of the flesh. Once we have what we really want, we won’t need bigger, better, faster cars or castles of gold. We’ll be too busy feeling the sensuousness of bare feet on soft soil and the sweet breezes in our hair. And really, this is exactly what we most fear and why we struggle to save ourselves from our own inexorable fate.

Resistance is futile. We will be assimilated into the grand orchestra endlessly playing its ever-evolving love song, which, though softer than the screaming sirens of greed, is so much more reliably rhythmic, musically melodic, happily harmonious and sweetly seductive than all the crass blandishments and tinny come-ons of the commercial world that once we tune in, we won’t be able to get it out of our heads. Love is a virus, and it is catching.

The song says, the time is here, the time is now. It’s time to crack the shells of the eggs which have incubated our life’s true purpose and discover that, lo, what we have most feared is our own selves! And yes, we are sensual animals, yes we love pleasure, yes, we love to say yes.

YES! Yes to life, yes to love, yes to the beauty of each precious and perfect moment, yes to fomenting a soft revolution to gently crumble the barriers separating each hungry lonely heart from its own sweet self, its Oneness with All. It’s time to fall in love with the world, our own faces in the mirror and all the weirdness we once feared.

Beauty is free, you don’t have to pay
Just take a look around
Beauty is free, beauty is everywhere
In the air and on the ground
There’s beauty in the eyes of the ones
Who stand right next to you
It adds up to harmony,
Beauty is free

All things are soft when you soften
Colours grow bright when you see
It’s not what you do nor how often
It’s all about how you be

Beauty is free in a mother’s love
In the eyes of a child
Beauty is free in the city
No less than in the wild
There’s beauty in your eyes
A beauty that never lies
So be careful how you see
Beauty is free

The juice is so sweet when you taste it
When you tell the truth, you’ll believe
You can’t use up beauty or waste it
There’s no way for beauty to leave

God is truth and god is beauty
God is love and god is joy
God is in the baby and momma,
God is in the girl and boy
So look into the eyes of a stranger
Look in the nighttime sky
When you truly see,
Beauty is free

Don’t live your life for duty
Don’t waste your time loving me
Save all your love for the beauty
That shines in us all for free

Beauty is inside, beauty is outside
Beauty is under your skin
Your birthright is all about beauty
You don’t have to wait to begin

While it’s true I blog mainly about me, I do keep up with what’s Out There, to the extent that I can absorb it before I begin to feel faint. I know about Global Warming that is and isn’t caused by us (or Them), and the moebius-like logic to justify why the answer to the question “Is Global Warming caused by people or is it a naturally occurring event?” should decide whether or not we clean up the choking mess we’re making of our (and everybody else’s) environment. I know Paris Hilton is a media-created celebrity, who is famous for, well, being famous. And blond.

Monty Python couldn’t be weirder. I know, or at least have a sense of (I can’t handle long exposure) the bizarre barf-inducing dreck that is peddled as ‘news’ in these pathetically polarized information-dazzled days. I know how hilariously slapstick and Bizarro-worldish the world has become.

With all their special effects, razzle-dazzle and sleight-of-hand, still they’re playing to an audience with a primordially low sense of humour, heavy on the pratfalls, Keystone Kops and slapstick. It bores me. It’s not my thing. Why is everybody so riveted by the show? Everybody, that is, except all we eye-rolling irony-detectors and gag-reflectors. In my world, we are the majority. The people I meet are nearly all conscious, caring, aware, good-hearted humans. So who is deciding these issues? And who gave them the power?

Out there, nothing is making sense. So I take it inside, shine my light and apply my attention to me, myself and I. I peer into my chaotic and confusing psyche to view a mixed-up crew of would-be do-gooders, vanquished victims and bemused bystanders. I watch my own show (more entertaining to me than any Hollywood star vehicle could be) as these fated friends fumble toward some kind of forgiveness, finally figuring out that there is no villain.

That’s right. Nobody doing the bad stuff. It’s just happening. Compulsion. Divine Will. Whatever. But we’re doing what we do, people, because we can’t help it. We’re made that way. We fumble, we fall, we struggle to grow and we’re getting better. Yes we are. Look into the eyes of the human next to you if you don’t believe me.

So now, while this enlightenment takes place in its slow-graying northern-daybreak way, western society stumbles to a gasping conclusion and we all applaud the final curtain’s fall.

And of course, the green world grows, as it always has and ever shall. And early next year, Pluto, the Mother-force of collective emotional will, is moving into Capricorn, the sign of physical reality and responsibility. And dwarf planet or not, when Pluto changes signs, watch out. Pluto’s entry into Sagittarius in the 90s brought on the religious fanaticism we’ve seen the fallout from. Aids and the discovery of mass institutionalized child sexual abuse marked Pluto’s transit through its own death-and-sex-and-power sign of Scorpio.

So hey. It’s working out. Mom’s going to make us fix it, soon enough, in a way we can’t argue with, and the ones who can’t get with the program won’t be allowed to be reborn here. It’ll be slow, (being Capricorn) but it’ll be certain. Since Pluto was in Capricorn’s opposite sign Cancer at the time of its discovery, its transit through Capricorn will mark our collective Pluto Opposition. Time to grow up, humanity.

As Rob Brezsny would say, Glory Halle-fucking-lujah.

I realize many fleeting things
Words which seek speaking, leaking
Pressure building, questions unasked
Slip into the past while possible answers
Dance in sketch-comedy skits
On the flickering screen of my-nd

Behind me they drag, bits and bytes
Alphas and betas of failed insight
One-way communication skating
On one leg, clapping one-handed

I want to know where the boundaries are
Where the electrified fences, defenses,
And Thou shalt not passes have grown
In the shadows outside our speaking

Hints and mixed messages spawn
Guessing games, speculations running wild
In curiosity’s brain, desire thwarted
By careful adherence to etiquette of
Unspeaking agreements

If I know where not to go, be assured
I will scrupulous be but this nebulosity
Is breeding insanity

In case it fails the test of ‘obviousness’
Let me say, this is not your doing
But my own
My unspoken words live here
Etiquette defined by my own fear

Don’t talk, don’t trust, don’t feel
The litany of life in the twentieth century
This new millennial venturing into faith
Still fails as often as it feeds

So, the question is asked; my task now
Is to release it.