The Perfume of Reckless Abandon

notes from joshua tree desert where i slept on a buffalo skin, ate the oracle and drank the moonlight:

sunday, may 16
joshua tree national forest, california

the medicine man says that snake medicine is about the sacrifice of shedding skin to transform. the snake must crawl out of it's skin, and there are a few moments where it is raw before a new skin forms and hardens to protect it from the demands of it's environment and during this time it cannot see, it is completely blind to predators, like a newborn baby. but it leaves the safety of it's old shell of skin because it must. because there is a deep natural calling to do so, to be in the rhythms and cycles of nature. it surrenders to risk the unknown because it's instincts say there is something essential on the other side of the safety of the known.

sunday, may 23
los angeles, ca

i ran into an old lover's lover sitting outside dance class in her van
she said, "it's kinda scary how grounded i can feel sitting in a car"
i melted into the feminine space of her presence
she said she talked to "our" lover the other day and he was sad to be leaving
a new lover to travel
she said she'd never heard him so sad about a woman before
well, i guess it wasn't me
breaking his heart
damn

and i shed the skin of another dream
i take my feelings to the dance floor and begin molting
i am molting in the purples, reds and yellows of my emotions bubbling to the surface of my skin and i begin cooking from the inside out
from the canned heat of my unleashed
most innermost me
that has laid coiled and contained
waiting to re-introduce itself
the part i work so hard for nobody to see

the music vibrates my most innermost me
searching like tiny fingers my supple inside moistness
beating and hammering out my supressed s.o.s. with strobe light rhythm and precision
erupting like honeysuckle droplets of sweat
my sweat that rises like little waves cresting on the ocean of my skin
and i remember there is no end and there is no
begin
just nakedly, unashamedly
now

and i see my friend sarah and our playfulness meets in our eyes
we are hooked like fish into a dance
and i pray at the temple behind her left ear
parting the soft curtain of her blonde hair with my
nose
her temple smells of the left over morning bath offerings of raw coconut oil and afternoon female dance sweat
i dance at the temple of she

and i dance at the temple of he with a man
who is pondering whether this constitutes infidelity
this flagrant enjoying of each other bodies, breath and eyes while his wife is at home
we roll on the floor
like puppies wrestling and then
stop
i am hovering above him
we are safe and enclosed in the wandering tent of my dark gypsy hair
we are
invisible
and our eyes meet in a dare and i say to myself...
"many lifetimes"
as i melt into him and we become one
for a moment
if you let this much love in you will feel it's loss

and how many of us are drying and withering up,
buying insurance policies
cages and prisons to guarantee somebody won't leave us
and we think it's because we don't show them all of
who we are
all of our hunger
and desire
to be sweetly fucked by life

and then we resent this person, like the inmate resents the jailer,
but clings to the safety of their cell
we see this person as a sentence that encloses our truthfulness into silence
rather than worship them as a flower unfolding our fullness
a hummingbird teasing our nectar out

i pound my rhythms into the wood floor
worship with the bone-flesh-beat of my feet
and something rises and a scream comes crawling out of my mouth
like a baby testing the bravery of it's lungs
testing the capacity for the snap-shut-jaw,
the keep-your-secrets-to-yourself-jaw to unlatch and birth this sound
the scream neatly ties itself up to end in a ribbon of humming

truth is a sound, not a shared language,
just a vibration
truth is my own pungent sweat dripping onto my own
parched lips
it tastes like...
freedom
it smells like...
reckless abandon-
my favorite perfume

and there is this moment
(do you know what i mean?)
before i put on the skin of another meaning
of another dream
of another illusion
when i stand naked in the now
blind and vulnerable
closer to my soul touching the earth
where i just feel (yes) this is it
it is enough to be breathing
and i am thankful for
Alive
when i have fought Life for so long
is this heaven?