every day

every day i wake up women and girls, even really little girls and really horrible women i might not even like and some who could be violin virtuosos or mathematical polymaths, are sold. literally sold. every day i wake up and i know women and girls are being sold. every day i am not sure whether living is collaborating in that slaughter of life or not. i try to come down on the side of or not. but i'm never sure how much my freedoms are bought at the price of theirs. it bothers me. every day. sometimes when i'm cranky for no reason, there's a reason.

dates and times

contemporaneous to the writing of the old testament there is evidence of the writing down of the demeter/persephone/hades myth. so the stories were alive enough to be written down during the same few hundred years time, in the vicinity of @ 1500 BCE

i have always easily grasped hades' perspective as glad to have a spark of youthful grace and beauty to spend time with while otherwise engaged in the pursuits necessary to keep hell running smoothly. and demeter's shock and grief at the sudden disappearance of her daughter is staple stuff on every tv prime time night; so, clearly we almost all of us understand her plight and the emotions that she expresses.

but persephone. it never occurred to me to wonder what she was feeling. how she was thinking.

we have a hint: that persephone kept herself calm while she was being abducted and flown through the air (before plunging into the earth) by singing to the world. and the world, in sympathy, carried the vibration of her song to her mother.

persephone is a singer and a brave soul.

and, initially surprisingly, you never hear of her complaining while she's in hell. even when she comes up to the surface again, when the deal is cut so that persephone is able to return for half the year to help her mother make the world beautiful with new growth, persephone never complains, objects or even gossips about what it's like in hell.

i think she likes it there.

i think hades, like most introverts and geeks, is a sensitive guy and, like the elemental gods, is well practiced in sexual intimacies. i think she doesn't actually mind it in hell and maybe even thinks of her time with her mother above ground, traveling all around making sure the plants are growing and the people are eating, as work, duty, something owed. but playtime is in hell.

another possibility is that persephone is merely a cypher, used by both her mother and her lover and none of her life is expressing anything that she wants to do or believes in.

but i don't think the daughter of zeus and demeter could possibly have turned out w/o a personality or purpose of her own. her story, though, has not yet been of interest to the story tellers.

faith

demeter, da mater, the mother, the sea; also known as ceres cuz some people think that the de or da was barley and this is the barley mother, the grain mother, the goddess who knows how to grow things to feed people; and, through the combined disciplines of an agricultural life (astronomy, meteorology, planning, saving (seeds) and storing in an easily restorable manner i..e. creating systems of abstract organization, cooperative work, mechanisms to ameliorate greed and theft); she is also credited with presiding over the concept of a law-abiding community (as opposed to the kind of community run by a "strong man" also known as a bully, a dictator, a prince, a king, a tyrant)

persephone was stolen from the earth by zeus to give as a present to his brother hades, who apparently was not satisfied with the females in hell. little is known about the relationship between persephone and hades. but much is known about how demeter dealt with the disappearance of her beloved daughter.

demeter goes nuts. she doesn't let anything grow. after this traumatic incident, she will teach others her knowledge and it won't be up to her alone any more to keep the necessary crops growing for the benefit of the community. and also, a new cyclical approach is introduced. an approach that incorporates the darkness, the silence, the lack of growth.

and when the community becomes responsible for feeding itself, it must face the challenges of the disciplines necessary to successfully carry out self-care.

what did demeter expect? persephone was the result of a rape. zeus, yup, the same zeus who kidnaps persephone and gives her to his brother hades, that dude, demeter's brother, rapes his sister, demeter, and then steals their daughter, persephone, to give to his brother, hades - and these guys were worshipped? yes, for centuries. and by new names, they are worshipped still. in fact, this myth sounds suspicously similar to the mechanics of the typical post-modern corporate maneuvering.

pluto

when their parents, time (kronos) and space (rea), moved further into the past, their 3 sons divided up the rulership of the invisible world, zeus took the sky (air), poseidon the under(water realm, and pluto took the under(earth realm. all, earth, air and sky, then mysterious invisibles. not today of course: we see far into the sky, deep into the ocean; we have sophisticated maps of her terrain. and the earth, we have explored much of those heights and depths, to climb, to mine, to paint, to live, to hide.

so then one day, apparently, according to the story which is sort of like trusting the star to tell the truth today, zeus abducted persephone for pluto.

well, what's with that? pluto couldn't do his own abducting?

is pluto the shy one? the geek maybe? the guy who likes being in the dark with the germinating life and the endless creatures and mechanisms of decay breaking down what was once alive so its matter can compost for the living germinating?

72 virgins

i bet that many men, in many cultures, and of various ages, if offered even a day with 72 female virgins, much less eternity, would be exceedingly happy in the thought. i can even imagine that gay men, in many cultures, if offered even a day, much less eternity, in the company of 72 male virgins, would be exceedingly joyful in its contemplation. however, i cannot imagine or bet that any woman in any culture, or any age, would find the prospect of being alone with 72 male virgins even remotely a happy prospect, even for a day, much less for eternity.

mary & the holy ghost

what about mary and the holy ghost? what goes on there? is the holy ghost the mother in the trilogy of father, son and ? ghost? i never once had a ghost fuck my husband (well maybe once or twice) or do the dishes (never) calm one of the children (never) make appointments (never) keep appointments (never) clean toilets (never) so what kind of mother is this holy ghost? a floating ephemera? a chimera? an inspiration? a muse? kept around to be amusing? to lift stray objects and move them around the house?

i think that's how i often feel. like an invisible wraith passing through and among the full bodied souls of men. we women are everywhere and nowhere. we mean everything and we are so small inside our own assessments of ourselves that we put up with the most egregious abuse.

chappelle and pryor ran to africa to be among equals. to take a break from the enrelentingly superior gaze of oppressive masters. i think i understand the urge. but how can i understand the results? where is my africa? and i don't want an amazon state, somehow like israel, created because of past abuse, sitting amidst her enemies all around. no, i choose to accept my integration with the community. i am in it and i cannot escape it, if i am to have any dignity it must be found and/or created within it.

and mary, the sea. the ocean that all life emerged from. the essence of the natural world. as long as we hate, blame, despise nature for our conditions, we cannot genuinely appreciate mary. but we can't get rid of her either. i mean, we somehow sort of, kind of, can't help having to acknowledge, just a little bit, that we need babies to be born. we need life to continue so we can hate it some more. so keep those babies coming mary while we deny your power, your glory, your partnership with the eternal aesthetic abstract we call god.

venus: a life in dreams

how do you overcome who you really are without losing the whole point of being alive?

we love too much. or is it not enough?

the speed of dreams

transcend meaning and hide me beside you

let me dream
let everything come true
let me fall never land
let the tidal wave recede, suck but leave me on the beach, dazed
still here

sun above
sand beneath

if it were up to me
we would walk there now
to the place i can imagine us
to the place where we are visible to one another
clear

i am getting used to the dance
used to the masks, the gowns
the timbre of a life in love
on the street of dreams

reverence & rage

the problem with identity
in a materialist conception
of one's uni-verse, is that
the perception is of an
object


NOW - STOP - DO - NOT - GET - AHEAD - OF - ME - HERE

this is a path of pebbles floating in the air
over a canyon from Pirates of the Caribbean pebble
by pebble we will
proceed

science has shown us that we can only perceive
either
the object
or
the process
you can either observe the qualities of a person as object
or
view the qualities of a person as a process

both cannot
as yet
within the present
ranges of western
europeanized imaginative
nor scientific skill
be perceived simultaneously

women primp and prepare themselves
to be perceived as objects

women compete among themselves
as to who will be perceived
as a more valuable object

women (men too of course - we're pebbling on about women right now)
are sold in imagination
as models making another
object more attractive
to a viewer
so that someone - who? will buy
the proffered object

standing next to the object for sale
the woman comes
to be seen as also available
for sale

and many of us are
and it's expanding
this sale of us
not contracting

so, enough, we have reached the far side of the canyon
must we pebble step our way back?
not at all. we can fly

the solution is simply to live
as you wish to be

if you wish to live as a free
woman, practice freedom
in any way presently
permissible and allow
your conceptions of freedom
to deepen into more self discipline
not be thrown away on some
new master

women have the right to be free

certainly women have as much
right
as men do
to be free

and i don't mean to be all
greek soothsayer doomsayer
but -
if you allow women
to be slaves, it's not
long before men will
also once again be
slaves and not
long after
that
children will once again
work as slaves to invisible
elites who cannot perceive
process
the rotting of their perspectives
from their politically
and socially
cannibalistic self expressions

people who keep slaves are always
themselves enslaved

until power over oneself is achieved
it is the only creative power
available to an individual immersed
in materiality/form
once power over oneself is achieved
many other powers come willingly to avail

if you use force on yourself
to more quickly claim
self empowerment
you will have simply enslaved yourself
and will find yourself still
on that torture wheel
so oft described
by eastern mystics

question pour essayer

what is the difference between opinion and preference?
and what difference, if any, does that difference make?

i welcome you to comment, essayer, a short literary composition on this question, presenting a personal view. or a photojournalistic essay. a poem. a testing or trial of the value or nature of the question.

a balance of powers

if we put ideology aside, for the purpose of shining a social science engineering glance at power, how it seems to function at this point in the world as we are living in it, in the cultures playing more noticeable parts on the world stage. my limits: i have no experience with the power dynamics of jungle tribes, or mountain communities, harems, cabals… in my experience, limited as it is, i see a pattern of sorts. there are two kinds of power: centralized and diffused, it is called totalitarian and socialist, but how does it function, this two power concept?

the more fundamental two powers, the famous ones, power over others or power over ourselves... we abandon for now to concentrate on systems governed by conceptualizations having to do with power over others.

in a biological, material world such as ours, immersed, as we are, in an emotive-psychologically entrenched view of power as influence over others, there are two ways to do this - we can cooperate and organize ourselves into a group which is then powerful enough to wield power over others, or we can be vicious and deadly enough that we can extend our two year old need to be the ruler of the world long past its sell-by date. those are the two ways to power over others.: organize and dominate or simply bully. (the ways to achieve power over oneself are infinite as are the beings who might wish to do so)

global power, historically, male told and made, his-story-call, has fallen to the individual who successfully combines hatefilled, infantilism with a skill for organization i.e. combining the two sorts of power to create an hypnotically appealing reality for those people still enthralled by power-over stories. as far as i know, there is no "cure" for this dynamic. this is the "wheel" that brings suffering.

venus has many faces but not one of them is organizing, this is left to the household goddesses who have vanished in our days to disturbing images of slutted out housewives polluting the air space with greed. a perfect balance to the sheiks covered in white concealing their secret insecure selves beneath even more insecure images of highly competitive means of cooperation.

genuine cooperation is conversational. as in the first meanings of the word. to turn together, through the days. to communicate by living together in the circles that our lives encompass, delineate, reveal. this type of functioning is the highest form of household "management" i.e. no management at all but an awareness of power within as the guiding light of each and every one of us.

women stay away from power over, this is not just because the political situations keep women as second class citizens, this is also because her-story will have to be about power within and, until we can manage that in ourselves, we cannot lead it or teach it or even represent it, especially not largely enough, politically enough, to be noticed, noted.

the emergency emory board

so this is what happened
exactly as i can be
i had split my nail and it was coming
very near the nailbed and i didn't
have an emory board
so i was in manhattan
where you can get anything you want
and i walk about ten blocks, then
fifteen and there's lots of places
to pick up matches
but nowhere a girl can get an
emergency emory board
this, thought i, is exactly how we know
that this world is organized for the benefit
and to satisfy the fantasies of men and not women
if we were matriarchal, i would be able to acquire
a single emory board for 5 or 10 cents along with
my solo cigarette
i am now half a block from my destination
a two hour bus ride awaits me
with ample opportunities amplifying in my imagination
to split my nail into its nailbed
suddenly i see a beautiful young
woman dressed in white
spandex pants, a flowery short shirt
under a sporty leather looking jacket
long blonde hair, ten inch heels
she towers above me - what eyes!
and was not a man
a sweet mien met my request
for an emory board
she looked quizzically at me but
just for a moment while
i was showing her this split
and then offering that
i didn't have any diseases
or anything
like that
she was reaching into her purse
bringing out and reaching towards me
a wide emory board decorated
with pink 1960's deco flowers
back and forth the emergency emory board
eased the split in my already
very short nail
quietly realizing
her jet black
pimp was standing next to me
and
perhaps a few customers waiting
was the explanation of the men lurking
all around us, shoulder length away
i finished - nail smooth
handed her the emory board
said thank you so much
she smiled - what a smile!
said to me
"welcome to new york"
i ask you: does this woman
not deserve free health care?

whirlwind

one of my daughters explained her view of the venus mars debacle: women think men are retarded. men think women are crazy. i get that. my other daughter says that, when in doubt, thrive; you are in the system so your thriving brings thriving into the system. i get that too. my new vision of utopia is a world of thriving retards and crazy people.

impertinent scowls
watch me live
stay on your side
the moral divide
feel horribler and relentlessly horribbellerrrr
stretch your skeletal muscles
hold yourself biased braced for the pain
inflicting yourself choosing
affront your life with the constant threat of your death
we walk one road
consciousness can only track one reality at a time
in this framework each step
is both concluding and resuming
as we conclude damage, our new step brings brokenness
as we conclude with faith, we resume with grace
and, if we place our stance in joy?
flying in the door
smacking me in the face
whipped cream madness
honey in my hair
plant roses ease despair

est-il dimanche? lundi?

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just past the equinox

i have
the right
to live my life
to love my life
whatever shape she takes

i can even choose peace
isn't that almost unbelievable?
i can live peacefully in a time of war
wollstonecraft living on the outskirts of paris

fraternity
means equality in relationships - a relationship between equals
a dream as distant as a safe way to dispose of radio-active substances
but i have faith that the boys in us will figure it out eventually

what could sorority mean?
women coming together as sisters?
is fighting for the advantage in the pursuit of wealth and the alpha male - is that the best we can do?
could sisters come together
using their agencies, their agentic selves
not to recreate rigid lines of value
hierarchies of pain
i respect this genetic memory of a biologically-based protocol
but um
when
does our responsibility to evolve
into something less lizard-like
kick into gear?

balls flash

how can you stop a poem
when she wants to be written?
how do you stop loving when
the wall goes up
the wall that screams - don't touch me!
i can't feel anything
without raging
sounds an odd harmonic
while the loneliness in their being cries
connect with me please fuck
me please touch me, lick me, kiss me
jangling blues rocks the daydream
men flash balls then
quick as night
hide behind walls
searing fear, a comet searching for a war
a fiendish fear passing over
the star on my door
a baby on board
driving through the dark imaginings
headlights on the highway

2 kinds of good

on my spiritual path, i've found that there are 2 kinds of good: one is the kind where you toe-the-line of some tradition and/or expectations (yours or anyone else's). the other kind of good can only be reached by being bad first (or simultaneously).

the left-hand path to enlightenment resolves the duality between the shadow self and the persona, integrates the personality without falsely unifying it.

as i prefer democracy and diversity in the patterns of my love and life, the ecology of my beingness, i prefer the left-hand path as it feels more responsable and courageous (i.e. responsive and heart-centered). and walking this path has made me steadily healthier and happier.

my observations of people walking the toe-the-line paths is that the inner violence they must perpetrate on themselves to repress so many of their own inner urgings/voices/desires/talents, their light so hidden under such a heavy bushel, that they either crash headlong in some kind of saturnian-inspired reality check or dissolve irrevocably in a narcotic neptunian illusory projection.

my observations of people walking left-hand paths is that they sometimes experience deeply disturbing passages and emerge from each one lighter and more effective in their love.

love is a kind of madness

love is a kind of madness. especially exstatic or passionate love. but it doesn't have to be sexual to be mad. sometimes the love i've felt for a friend or a child is as intense or more than what i've felt for lovers. madness and magic are the realms where we generously admit to not knowing what is going on. love is a really great place to be when we are trusting ourselves and feeling confident and not so fun at all when we are feeling shaky, shattered or melancholy.

identity & mythology

what relationship do mythologies have to our identities?

what difference does it make that, presently we have no female gods, any fertile goddesses in western culture?