Truth and Understanding

My time in San Francisco had a pervausive theme: sexuality, control mechanisms and boundaries. As I penetrate the light, I am faced with the things that I allow to distract me and my relationships and boundaries surrounding love and friendship is definitely one of them. More and more I am learning to be absolutely honest, blunt with less regard for the feelings of others and more esteem for the truth of the situation at hand. I am coming to learn that it is a gift that I can give to those around me; a way to avoid wasting time and to show that I trust in their ability to handle the truth.

It turns out that my trip to San Francisco was vitally necessary for some of my dearest friends who live there and for my own soul. Rocklette was in a depression and difficulty that seemed to be acting as a loop within an enlightened life that does not warrant that sort of hardship. Cherry, one of my oldest and dearest, was facing a huge life change as life moved her to be brutally honest with self and others--including me (haven't we all been through that? If not, look forward to it). I shutter to think what would have happened had I not been there to support, listen to and reflect her.

Rocklette is a generous and often angelic being who lives a life almost wholly composed by beauty and creation. He spends much of his time and energy helping others and contributing to their passions while pursuing his own which surround the documentation of life as it, in turn, dances for him. The trouble with being a powerful entity of manifestation such as himself, is that when he emits worry or pessimism, it often comes true. I was able to notice a mantra he was repeating that was probably contributing to the freekish difficulty that was occuring.

When we use the word "I", it is like putting a definition of self out to the universe. The universe then seems to put whatever that definition is into being--and why not? What else does it have to base one's life on but their own definition of self? When one refers to a lack of time, a busy state, an influx of bills or things to do--the only thing that will come out of that is more of the same. We often don't notice when we've adopted such a mantra-as there is a fine line between this and a statement of place for others who might be able to offer some assistance or understanding. It is nice to be that friend who can identify and feedback--so that person might have a chance at developing a new mantra of hope and happiness that they can put into effect. Whatever energy goes toward darkness can also be directed toward the light.


Cherry ran into a situation where it became necessary for her to be absolutely honest with first herself about her desires for her life and for the nature of her relationship with her lover. She then found it necessary to be honest with me about an aggressive tendency that I've used since our childhood together--mainly a desire to talk her into things...anything....And finally honesty with her boyfriend about a need to let go of patterns that were no longer serving them. I got to be the special girlfriend who was there through the whole thing to offer an outsider-who-knows-her-well perspective. Friendship and bearing witness is truly magical and vitally important.

This is a movie about giving, starring Cherry Seville....Enjoy (and turn your monitor sideways)!

(From now on I vow to make short films with my camera only in the upright position.)

For myself, there was a meta-level to my vicarious experience through Cherry. I love my naivety and intend to preserve it. This offers some challenge among those who wish to harden in a world that-as far as I'm concerned-is my responsibility exclusively. As an affectionate and understanding being, it is difficult for me to delineate boundaries within those gray areas where comfort zones are sometimes stretched and deteriorated through mental challenge and bonding turns into passive-aggressiveness and subversive violence. To effectively manuver through this, I must bypass reasoning totally and rely on intuition--thus acting on initial feelings of discomfort and trusting my own instincts exclusively. I come to this conclusion in so many situations.

Within a meeting of minds, which pat on the shoulder is a show of genuine appreication and desire to connect energies and which one is an effort to explore and stretch my boundaries? My energetic movements are obvious--why do some choose to ignore them when I seem uncomfortable in favor of some animalistic desire to touch me? The comfort and ease with which I converse is what attracted in the first place--why would that person then seek to break through that into a space where neither one of us are enjoying ourselves?

I am not alone, many women my age, younger and unfortunately older ask themselves these questions all too often (it was a subject of conversation often throughout these days). We are forced into a choice between brutal and blunt honesty or discomfort with those whom we start out wanting to converse with by men--older men and men in our age group--at least a few times a week. This makes it difficult for me to go out and be myself without feeling vulnerable and mistrusting of my desire to get to know my fellow human being. It also makes me suspicious of people who perhaps don't deserve it.

For example, I met a British Mathematician in a bar. He was an older gentleman and it was his first two days in the US for the first time. He had always assumed that he would hate Americans, only to find that he really liked us. Who wouldn't want to have a conversation with this guy? I was certainly interested and we had a good talk for a while until I felt the desire to go back and enjoy the people whom I had come with. Towards the end of the conversation, he must have touched my shoulder or something-which I thought nothing of, but then he came over to us later and wanted to hug me and touch my hand and my shoulder-with me growing obviously uncomfortable. I was there with male friends who had known me for a long time and even talked to a few people whom I found attractive, and no one else wanted to touch me with such urgency.

Was it the magnitude of his conversation with this eccentric American woman? Was this a new experience for him? Was it this barbaric sexual desire that seems to enter so many situations unwelcomed? How was I to tell? I've been in both situations and wanted to believe that he enjoyed the meeting of minds as much as I did--but it seemed as though he was trying to get as much physical contact and attention as he could before we parted ways, though it was unwarranted by convention (vast discrepancy in age) and my lack of reciprocation. I ended up feeling a need to virtually ignore him and our connection died. I could have told him to stop-but why should I have to when I'm screaming at him to do so with my actions? I wouldn't ignore such unsubtle hints--why must I be forced to bluntness that embarrases in these situations?

I refuse to walk through the world being afraid and suspicious of people because of their age or gender. In fact, confronting this head on prior to my trip to Houston prepared me to recieve the unconditional love of my grandpa, father, and uncles--and to then see the some of the differences between that and the latter. I am still convinced that I can make affection unconditional and innocent by believing that it is--or at least that it can be....


I write this with a fantasy that the men who get out of line and make off with my blogspot address will learn something from their lack of respect for the boundaries of women whom they meet like myself. It really is exhiliarating and mutually satisfying to have true friendships with people whom we could be attracted to, but choose not to be. The nature of love is often confused with other things in this culture with the influence of mass-media, advertising and the lonliness of those who don't know how to recieve positive attention. An act of true understanding and sensitivity towards each other that is free of alterior motives or desired ends can do much to lighten and contribute towards real lovely love.

Goodbye to Malevolance

Reduced to my smallest most delicate self, the seeds of me humbly kiss the feet of the towering mystery of choice--in this world that allows for every possibility and concerns itself not with the outcome. This summer was spent navigating through an existential crisis; seeking a foothold after abandoning dichotomy in an effort to understand perfect union. This has led me to embrace my fear of nothing and savor the notion that to forgo is the same as experiencing in this world without duality. This opens the way for many decisions and proceedings according to my own volition without fear of inhibiting the natural course of reality. The way to contribute to Maya, the great illusion, is to regret an action or to wish for something other than my place in a moment--for there is nothing but this and this encompasses everything--according to this line of thought.

Yesterday this brought me to Anna. Anna is one who has explored the darkest darks to aid her in her hunt for the lightest lights. Among many things, she is a member of a small but elite group of people with whom I lead a parallel life of sorts--inexplicably and beyond our intention. She contemplates a life unadulterated by outside affectors and experiences this to the ever-changing best of her understanding. This is a game that I play at times and it currently makes for some deep conversations--as I've just returned from the trenches and crave only light. As far as I can determine, the only way to avoid outside influence is to stop relating to everything, to stop breathing, to stop desiring experience--which is nearly impossible to do without dying. So this currently leads us and many others on this path towards a deep contemplation of our association with each thing that we come into contact with.

So we went to the arboretum in Santa Cruz. I took pictures of flowers for a painting project about realism that I'm working on. We found many duck cocoons—and things that looked like hungry vaginas. Even the sculptures intended to follow the movements of plants looked like vaginas…or breasts…The conversation was so stimulating, we hardly noticed where we were going—often wandering out of the garden proper, into staging areas and storage. I became a preacher-teacher, administering ancient knowledge about the advantages of silence and listening. Anna, one who has journeyed to planets far and wide, asked me how to merge with the infinite and I gave her at least a dozen different methods. We finished the evening with dinner at a fifties-style vegan/vegetarian diner and some throat chakra, pre-sleep dream meditation and I made a solemn vow to do six full sun-salutations a day for a month…oops…..

I flipped a coin upon leaving the next morning to decide if I should take the sensible option and go back to San Francisco or drive the hour and a half to Bolinas and free myself from my dance with those who dance with the devil. Of course the coin demanded I move forward with the gigantic ceremony that had been taunting me since my Petaluma detour and off to Bolinas I went.

The Church of Mary Magdalene greeted me at the corridor. I parked my car in almost the same place and the tide was out, allowing my return to the beautiful epicenter, a favorite place for the bliss that could justify such violence. Armed with rainbow leaf, labradorite heart and camera, I made my way across the beach.

I prostrated in the sand and attuned to the energy that cycles through my body, the earth and the sky (and everything else--is there anything else?). I went back through the evil that I’ve seen and allowed myself to be subjected to. I acknowledged my curiosity and the notion that I would learn things about life from this darkness, that I would know more about people from experiencing their violent lows and infused the feeding/nurturing cycle I had established with this violence into the leaf. I then crumpled the leaf into dust and fed it to the place, to the music, to the ocean, to the sky, to the wind.

I gave some to the musician and the base of the sculpture there lay a dead bird and a dead crab on a child’s bike. The walk back across the beach revealed spiral after beautiful iridescent spiral after heart concave after spiral shell. I stopped to meditate for a while and do my six sun salutations and looked up to see that the vultures had collected and were circling above me.

I have killed many things in these last days. I slough off layers of self and resurrect a little nearer to the infinite. Today it is death to the warewolf. I left its carcass for the beach to feed on. I am here to feed the light. I am free…..

Soft Landing

I drove and drove and drove—first like a bat out of hell….unwilling to stop anywhere until at least mid-Oregon. Like a fifteen-minute orgasm, Seattle shot me out violently, slowly as the next place, the next phase screamed at me to hurry….


Hypnotic books and flips of coins led me here to Mendocino. An onion to protect spread magically throughout my path. It was Dusty and Jerry with Fidel the Gypsy-priest in reluctant tow that embraced my halt.

Dusty is one who helps travelers. I can’t argue with her position as people are buying me tea and following me down the street with gas money from the moment I meet her. I knew that I would spend the morning at the beach with some characters—I always forget how these things work until I am in the midst of them.
"We need more good mothers in the world so they can bring up good children", she says, "They are here to save us. They save everyone--even the villains; the ones who don't deserve it--they save them too.” Does this make it ok to have them as sacrificial lambs to feed the walking dead and dying? Are children the type of precious that should squirt onto our plane in small and heavily anticipated doses? Or should they pass through every available procreation session— flooding this world with exponential savior versions of their predecessors and melting away their parent’s ability to concern themselves with anything that rivals their future boone?

I learned about Warewolves today. Dusty went on and on about the power of onions to keep them away and even pulled me close to mother onion as Fidel attempted to catch my eyes and sniff at me with his silver tongue. While weaving me into a conversation of a lifetime with a Cuban ancient works restoration painter—one who had painted too much on the very works of masters for whom this was a way of life, he lifted his hat to reveal his gray hair and lowered his glasses to show me his black eyes as Dusty whispered to me about the Aztecs and their blue eyes.

Needless to say, onions followed me everywhere—surrounding my car and emanating from my pores as I danced further and further away from those who change, from the Jekyll and Hyde, from those who justify with duality while they give their demon anger over to another being that is them.




A walk on the beach alone frees me from the gentle ties of a vortex beginning--like a seed germinating detaches its microscopic fronds from a paper cup as it is transplanted. Having given and taken--intonations and pathways--these people disappear, or I do. I realize there is nothing more there to exchange-conveniently, as they have relocated. I move on in my cherry bomb with a mind full of Tennessee Seeds.

Onward to Wild Iris Pass where I feed my fear of breathing to the ocean. It laps it up hungrily, politely--assuring me that it needs it more than I do. It releases me to the song of Hoyhona--the warrior priestess who resurrects from the dead. I head towards Bolinas, a space of progeny to feed bits of our tenure back to the earth and find myself in Petaluma. A sacrifice must come at its perfect time.

My skin heals--I heal it with salt and flowers. I rinse my body and find that I don't want to ever soil it. I am no longer curious about the outcome of destruction--I seek to bear witness and nurture beauty. I know what will happen... I nourish myself with the things that unfold in front of me.....