therapy on a crack pipe

hollywood, ca

oct 22

it is a tender process writing memoir. like therapy on a crack pipe.

cut my heart open and let it bleed in the sink

look for patterns in the blood lines

why are we here?

why are any of us here?

to sweetly fuck the abyss

writing the book is my way now of sweetly fucking and getting fucked by the abyss

time pass

yet i am so driven to do this

ever since i was a little girl, i wanted to be an author

so i wake up drink my coffee

look at the new lines on my face

wonder if i will ever be loved enough before i die

and get to work

persistently massaging this mass of grey matter into 

the clay i can sculpt from

make something of singular beauty

in a fleeting lifetime

everybody wants "spiritual teachers" to have the answers

i am standing on the side of the road with my pants down

shouting at the traffic speeding by

"I DON'T KNOW!"

"It's never too late"

Joshua Tree

Sunday, Oct 7

“It’s never too late”. My friend Alfred’s mother is dying of cancer, she is lying in a hospital bed after a seizure unable to walk anymore. He has been told that she will not leave the hospital again, he is praying for a miracle. Her long time boyfriend told him that he regretted never marrying her. Alfred told him, “It’s never too late”. His mother is not able to speak after the seizure, but she can nod her head yes and no. Her boyfriend proposed and she nodded yes. They held a small ceremony around her hospital bed. Four days later she passed away. Why do we wait until death comes to make peace?

I have not seen my own mother in 15 years. A history of mental illness and abuse. Stories I am tired of telling. I recently got a massage to relieve some of the chronic pain in my right shoulder. As the knot melted, a memory surfaced. I was 14 and my mother was kicking me while I was curled up in fetal position to protect myself. I remember looking up at her, angry that she was still beating me like a child as I grew into a woman. I looked at her with hate in my eyes, all the suppressed rage that I could not express in talking or fighting back. I had no power. So I found a way to have power- I promised myself that no matter how bad she beat me, I would not let her see me cry. Hot tears that stung my face betrayed my weakness, my vulnerability. She could beat my body, but she could not control my mind. I began to twist the scenario. She was the weak one for losing her temper. I was strong because I could control my emotions, and I made my face like a mask. I would not let her inside. That memory was so visceral and as the knot massaged out, I wept and wept all those tears that had been trapped inside for so long. I am tired of this anger inside me. Is this where I learned to control my emotions and keep people out of my vulnerability?

Over the years when the trauma and abandonment come up, I take myself to the shower to cry alone. I curl up like a ball on the floor and let the water fall on me like a powerful rain, something to wash me clean of all this pain inside. I let the water fill my gaping wound. Will I ever be complete?

I found a contact for my mother online last week. I left a message and she emailed me back. Now I am left to wonder what will happen when I call her back? Will she be verbally abusive again? She had her own pain that was so unbearable that it came out in rages of beating her kids. She had her own struggles and had been abused as a girl. How many generations do these patterns carry on?

I look in the mirror at the lines on my face. The wrinkles show my journey. What does my mothers face look like after 15 years? I think of Alfred’s mother, I think about making peace before death. My mom used to say, “You’ll be sorry when I’m dead”, when I talked back to her. I got tired of the death threat as a manipulation to get me to behave, to quiet down. I guess I am lucky that she is still here for me to try and make peace. I say prayers that it will be different this time.

What do I want? I want to lay my head in my mothers lap and have her stroke my hair. I want to receive all the mother love I have been missing. I want to be held. I want forgiveness and peace.

No Names...

Last night, I woke up inside my dream while I was sleeping, I woke up in a life I lived before, in the past or in the future I do not know, in dreams there is no time. Still this was no ordinary dream and I knew it was what people call a past life. 

I was a small girl looking out the doorway of my family’s mud hut as the sun was setting. At the edge of the village in the dust of the dust, the women collect their gathering baskets. Their skin is as dark as the dark blue corn they grind on  stones speckled grey and white. The girl is I, she is young and learning, her hands still get numb, sore and bruised. Still, she is proud to be doing the women’s work, the washing, the hanging of the white linens. It will not be long before the newness turns to resentment, not long before the honor becomes a chore.

It will not be long before the days of her life, the honor of duty becomes a fence that traps her beauty and the color of her dreams begins to bleed into the drab dusty earth of every day living. She searches the distant horizon for the man on the horse, for the messenger from somewhere far away, for the one who might come and take her away. To where she does not know, but it is somewhere far from the names that shackle her.  Daughter Sister. Mother.  She longs to go where she has no names.

I have no names when I disappear for fleeting moments in a lover's arms, 

I disappear in blinding pleasure to blot out the pain.  

More pleasure, more pain.

I die to live again.

 

---

"is tantra about sex?"

i received an email this morning from a woman who had talked to a tantrik scholar who had dismissed sexual tantra 

tantra is divided into right hand and left hand parctices
the right hand (dakshina marga) does not engage in sexual practices
the left hand (vama marga) does engage in sexual practices for initiation, kundalini awakening and enlightenment

the left hand accepts the right hand, but the right hand usually denounces the left hand tantras, that is why it is called the left hand, because in india the left hand is used to wipe the ass, it is unclean. this is called the "forbidden" path of breaking cultural, moral conditioning of taboos.

Q:
 They say that the intimate partner practices & left-hand pujas were discarded/ censored from strains of traditional Shiva-Shakti tantra (including Sri vidya) some centuries ago, and it's my experience with all my teachers that they are very much alive.

 A:
when did tantra begin and what is tantra? some people say it was a neo-hindu offshoot in reaction to the morality against sexuality in indian culture. i do not agree with this and i think it is a puritanical view point from scholars who do not understand tantra. their own discomfort with this form of sexual spirituality leads them to dismiss the power of the sexual tantrik traditions throughout time. tantra has always existed. the worship of the Mother goddess and sexuality as a sacred staircase to the higher states of evolution has always existed in all cultures and as a mystical hidden teaching of almost all religions and ideologies. look at the drawings in the pyramids in egypt...

the scholars tend to dismiss or denounce the left handed sexual practices. they are not usually practitioners of this form of tantra. depending who you talk to, it is higher or lower form of tantra, initiation and practice. a left hand practitioner will feel it is the true hidden tantra and a right hand practitioner will say it is less.

this stems from our own direct experience and what opens us up truly to the Lord.

we can only follow our gnosis, how the spirit and the Mother has stirred rememberence inside of us. this stirring has happened within my womb and my spiritual experiences have multiplied through my sexuality. they say tantriks are born not made.
the real question is, "what is sexuality"

if i look at a person from outside who is meditating and i do not understand meditation because i have not had the inner experience- then i would describe the outer experience i can perceive, "this person is sitting down not doing anything". if you practice meditation, you know that in your inner experience vast universes are blossoming inside you, you may have sublime visions or terrifying encounters with your own thoughts and fears as well as supernatural energies. the inner experience that can be felt is radically different than the outer experience that can be spoken of.

if i was not a left hand tantrik and i saw 2 tantra practitioners engaged in union, i would only see the outer container, 2 people having sex. of course, their experience is as different from normal definition of sex as the meditator is from just sitting around.

how can people understand what they have not experienced? i have compassion for those who still feel so much shame in their bodies and repression of their natural and spiritual sexual energies. it is unfortunate that in their lack of experience of the tantrik union, they have judged and persecuted tantriks throughout the ages. tantrik women adepts have been called witches and whores, or at the very least not given the same credibility and stature as the scholars. this also is a form of HIMSA (violence).

i think the world needs a tantrik enema....

"What is the role of a woman in tantra?"

TANTRA FAQ: "What is the role of a woman in Tantric meditation?"
I thought I would share a very good question that was emailed to me this morning:

Q:
in one of your talks, you mentioned "playing roles". 
within the context of a tantra partner meditation, is there a role that a woman plays?
or is it a crapshoot of experiences?  or both?

or when a woman softens to the energy of her partner, 
is her experience that of his energy and how that energy flows and what it needs?  
the sit then becomes a cutting through all the external structures to
a deeper understanding of how your energy interacts 
with the energy in front of you.
I woke up today wondering ;)

A:

well...the masculine and feminine dynamics are fluid in both males and females
some sits with a man i find they move more towards the shakti feminine energy expression and i sit in the grounding shiva masculine position
think of the male/female sacred energy dynamic like the positive/ negative ends of a battery
and then think of that range as being fluid, no one is entirely feminine or masculine energy

the "role" of a woman in the sit, i think is to be in self-enquiry of the experience happening inside herself and awareness of the play and exchange of energy with her partner

when i have sat with a very solid "base" male partner, i find that the serpentine energy really begins to flow and move because it is grounded in safety, and i really enjoy this feeling of flow in my body and appreciate being based to have that experience

there is a lot to look at here, when we think of the "role" of a woman both in tantra sitting partner meditation and in how we live in the world...
in relationships, i think that the feminine needs to be able to surrender to the masculine, but that it is difficult as a woman to surrender to men who are not stable or safe
of course we are all evolving, so there is no "perfect partner" who makes us feel perfectly safe
but as i travel the world and see so many communities where the women have become the bread winners and the mothers, and there is a wounding in the masculine causing alcoholism and abuse, i see a deep pain in the soul of the world
a deep pain in the sacred masculine soul and the sacred feminine soul
i hope we are finding ways to mend this deep soul pain mirrored in the masculine and feminine

the "role" of a woman in these tantra practices is not the old idea of woman= passivity
i have been told before that i can be masculine, because i can be very directed and dominant
but look at the tantric goddesses, they are very powerful, so i think there is a place for a very powerful woman to meet with a very powerful man
and both give and take the dominant position in a natural flow
this dynamic calls both partners to be in their power, to face their weak places and to be humbled and grow
but what do i know?

an open letter to my father on fathers day

fathers day 2012
venice, ca

hey dad
i wish i could honor you but i'm still so angry at you
and that's just the truth
my heart doesn't understand and still beats with love for you
but it's got no where to go, no where to flow
you won't see me face to face
all your shame of the past has you hiding from me

i'm 37 dad...
it's been over ten years
i wonder, do you miss me?
i wouldn't know how to walk away from my son
he's 19, i started young
you know the math
so many girls who have been abused have babies young
i pray everyday to be a good mom to my son
i'm still working out the shit from my own past

all around the world i work with women who are angry from the abuse of men
where can the healing come from?
we are all One

i wish i could see you, i wish we could have a cup of coffee
i wish i was free to pour my heart out to you
so i do it here
in an email
i always hated hallmark cards and holidays that are supposed to hide all the problems we have
happy birthday, merry christmas
and now happy fathers day
i wish i could honour you dad, but i'm still so angry at you
but i'll send this wish
cuz it's all we have
happy fathers day

i miss you
i am waiting for you
don't let it die this way
let's make a new story between a father and a daughter
i am waiting for you

viking heaven

tuesday, may 1
topanga canyon, california


can a dog go to valhalla, the viking heaven?

its 3pm, i have 2 hours and 50 minutes with my companion left

dogs love unconditionally

is it possible that this is our last cuddle?

the last time i cry and he is with me to lick my tears?

but this time i am crying to let him go

we both know it is time

we have cheated death for 2 months since the vet found the tumor that is growing so aggressively in his right shoulder. the tumor makes joey lame so he propels his body around by jumping like a bunny rabbit, but he has been in a lot of pain. this morning even the morphine didn't ease his pain and so his pain out weighs his joy and it is time to let go

i call the vet and make an appointment for 5:40pm 

strange to make an appointment with death

we've had a good run

the road trips and the hikes and the nights we have slept together

i am not putting my dog down i tell myself

i am putting him "up"

i held him in my lap and wept at his death and my grief

"i just want him to be ok" i cried

and then his pain subsided, he stopped crying and relaxed in my arms to sleep

i realized that he is going back to the Mother

to lay in her lap

from the great womb where we are all born and consumed in death to be re-birthed in countless forms

people comfort me, they say, "he is going to a better place"

well this was a pretty good place

i watched him sniff the air a few days ago as he stood outside

no more sniffing the air

it's the little things

my friends mom who was passing from cancer told her

"i haven't eaten enough ice cream, i haven't watched enough sunsets"

i wonder, has joey chased enough squirrels?

i feed him raw steak and cheese, he should die like a king

i curl around his warm body for one of the last times

i will drive him to the vet, to the appointment for the time of his passing

i got him when he was 3 months old at the pound

i didn't ask permission from my room mates and i didn't really have the money to take care of him and my young son

but i needed his love

to make up for all the love i was missing

unconditional

i have to stay strong for him now, who has been strong for me

strong enough to know when to let go...

Valhalla Viking prayer

Lo, there do I see my Father..
Lo, there do I see my Mother
And my Sisters and my Brothers..
Lo, there do I see the line
Of my people back to the beginning..
Thay do bid me to take my place among them..
In the Halls of Valhalla,
Where the Brave may live forever.

travel well, little brother, unconditional companion, i will miss walking with you on the earth

may the valkyries, the fierce angels, escort you to heaven

may your spirit be free