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.