This blog is in reply to this one.
You are in solitude for 11 years, drinking and redrinking the poison that nourished you when you were male – the poison of putting sex before love, mind before body, thought before feeling, numbness before pain. In solitude, you become a woman who patterns herself after the divine feminine; after the matter that holds that which never dies. As such, you need pure polyamorous love to become yourself, yet, when you were male this love was so alien that your femaleness has no structures for receiving it.
When you were male, society taught you to date, fuck and marry – replacing your mother with your partner, so that you and she may take your parents’ place; forfeiting your right to your own life to your parental and spousal responsibilities, to someday join your ancestors in the grave. Now, that you are female, polyamorous and alone, you are in limbo. Dating, fucking and marriage are nothing more than a coffin to you.
Thank goodness for the Internet. A woman reads your blog and contacts you because she likes it. Over the next months you & she fall in love. It is a dream-love that carries a perfection that boldly announces itself as beyond understanding. It tells you that you are to Heaven as your dream-lover is to Earth.
You leave solitude to stay with her – for how long you don’t know. You share a lot and work hard. You call this time together “boot camp.” Military images reflect this in your dreams.
During the first weeks, patterns of the male-identified person you were in previous relationships fall away. You rest in the darkness between you instead of resisting the demons the darkness may produce.
You each learn to be parent & child to the other – quite consciously navigating roles most people are unaware they are re-enacting. Your lover says that there is a realer way of being than this; a way of being in which the instinct of the child & the wisdom of the adult are integrated into a more complete form of being.
You learn to be quiet and peaceful in your lover’s presence; nurturing a kind of solitude within your companionship. Your lover says this is, “really really really really really really really really really really really important.”
Your lover says that it is not good to melt too much into the comfort of being lovers; that there need to be boundaries.
You draw closer and closer. Your male resistance to the feminine dissolves into intimacy. You never thought you would ever again feel so close to a partner. It is a closeness that was sacred to your male self. He did not understand that this closeness loses its sacredness when lovers sacrifice spiritual self-interest to it – when they are committed to each other more than to their own selves.
One night you go to sleep beside her ensconced in amorous bliss and the next morning she awakes from a dream in tears – in the solitude of her grief; grief she has been processing heroically since her mom’s passing 9 months prior; grief elemental to her being, that creates a path through which the Earth herself mourns through her. Through her, the Earth mourns the life her people have not learned to live – the life that finds no fertile soil, that is squandered, wasted and raped; that is traded for romance and children. Your lover will not trade this life for your love, nor anything else.
Animated with this life - the life of the Earth - she burns with a passion no one who is less self-aware than the Earth is of herself may touch, or even glimpse.
For days, you have been overhearing mention of “fire,” and now your lover is burning with life no commitment ring may contain. She is glaring at you with eyes that say, “Stay the fuck away.” Mercifully, she takes leave of you, driving into Nature, which receives her as a lover more true and ultimate than any human being.
You honor your lover’s process like you honor the Earth, and God – but you do not know how to stay clear of her fire when it is time to. Her fire burns you even when you are trying to give it the space it needs – and she acts like she cannot trust whether you are up to this task.
Her fire brings light to your deepest codependency issues; “Only if you are OK, am I OK…If you are OK and I am not, and your love cannot ease my pain, you will take it personally, as if I have done something wrong to you. And then you are not OK. When you are not OK, it is always because of me. When you are not OK, you are going to take it out on me by being short with me and giving me a cold shoulder - acting like I am cancer, genocide, rape, schizophrenia, heroin, the 20th centruy, and your sexually abusive parent wrapped into one - and you will do this until I am so miserable that I will submit to whatever you want. I will act and say whatever you want because you mother me, and I have no other mother.”
Only, everything is new now, because you are own mother, for whom there is no substitute. In honor of this awareness, you let your lover leave you for as long as she needs to; to serve the life within herself that she shares with the Great Mother. Without sharing the depths of the Great Mother’s sorrow, the heights of her joy are unreachable – and the river of eternal love must be dammed by the tick-tock of marriage and/or divorce or death.
Your lover gradually cools to a more relational place. Once the fallout has settled, you more clearly see the boundaries you need so that relationship does not to devolve into a disease that only drama may remedy.
Some lovers pretend the vows they make will conquer drama. No vow is up to this task. Your lover & yourself have a vow that serves drama well. It reads:
I trust myself.
I trust you.
I trust our love.
I trust our process.
And that is my Source.
You trust that neither you nor your lover will exchange the life you each share with the Earth for the comfort of the other’s bed – because you trust that Heaven & Earth will not allow it, since you serve them purely, and with awareness; and since you & she are not less than vessels of Heaven & Earth, amidst a process you trust, that is part of the eternal river neither of you may lose.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
My Super-Fancy Sexuality
I first identified as female in 2000. The female I identified with was a spirit-mother that manifested through dreams and emerged through my body during meditation - after I let go of the male identity I had formed in response to the world: one of lust, numbness, rage and comedy; and without dignity. Underneath that, I discovered I was a child, male & female, and an “all-powerful being” named “Rose Mary Pillowwater.” There was not much of me that was acting as an adult in the world. My adult self was serving my inner-world. Although, glimpses of my adult self came frequently in visionary states, for example:
“A naked, ten-year-old girl emerged inside me. She was missing her glasses. Her hair was blond. Her body had been unloved. She was alienated from it and knew nothing about sex. She had been cocooned in my male self’s lust and fear of feeling for a long time. She was my body. I let her explore it.
“To let her feel her face, I had to let it completely relax. She was slack-jawed, like the sort of kid who is unaware of how loudly they are breathing because they are so involved in a book. When I was a kid, I had hated kids who breathed like that. I hated kids who ate loudly. I hated the sound of saliva. I hated my body as the world hated it.
“In 1979, when I was eleven, there were a lot of kids on TV because it was the International Year of the Child. I cringed to hear kids speaking on TV because they sounded like idiots to me, and I felt embarrassed for them.
“As a thirty-two-year old, I loved the ten-year-old girl inside me. She began to explore herself erotically and became lustful her own self and clutched at the new feeling, trying to hold it close so that it wouldn’t go away. In response, my soul sent forth an adult version of her into my body; a blond woman in her twenties, wearing colorful, sexy clothing, in command of erotic life – not needing it too much or fearing it. The woman was nourished by eros. She did not need to clutch it. Her power was humbling. The ten-year-old girl was frightened and went back into hiding.
“The woman lived in the World, where eros is free. In the world the ten-year-old girl was from, eros was illicit and pornographic. It had to be since it was so magnificent in contrast to the rest of existence. In her world people forsook their souls in exchange for eros. Then, it was no longer purely eros, but was weighted with aires, eros’ primordial companion.”
In the last weeks this woman has been awakening through me, as I have sexually active for the first time in 12 years – and for the first time without testicles. It gets erect, is received into the vagina, has orgasms; without testosterone, with eros pure.
I dreamed I was going down on Coyote Marie and something small and hard came out of her, into my mouth – a baby tooth – a reference to vagina dentata; the toothed vagina. My mature, female eros is ready to grow in, as adult teeth do
I had another dream referring to the immaturity of my former self’s sexuality:
I am in a supermarket looking at peanut butter. There is super-fancy peanut butter that usually costs $65, but is on sale for $49. Beside it is kids’ peanut butter, with jelly and banana mixed in, for only $0.59. One seems too expensive, and the other too cheap to be any good.
The cheap peanut butter is my male sexuality, sexuality any boy can claim just by showing up. It’s ingredients are the banana (penis), jelly (semen) and the feminine peanut butter; all mixed, gloppy, confused, not so nourishing. The other peanut butter is smooth, creamy, delectable, nourishing, highly valuable and feminine.
Another thing about peanut butter is that the oil in it makes me sore and a bit slow. Sex will do that, too, leaving one in a pacified stupor if it is too frequent.
One thing I love about being a woman with a woman is the absence of urgency. There is nothing in the back of my mind thinking, “Ok, let’s cut to the chase and get on the penetration.” Sometimes intercourse happens – sometimes not…I am exquisitely aware of my scrotum empty except for the sensuality of labia…Eros is no longer visual – I keep my eyes closed most of the time. Instead of seeing what I am getting, I feel what I have. Erotic sensibility is self-renewing, erupting in slow-motion.
Coyote Marie had this dream:
I’m at school. The dorms are spacious – a big building with library and computer lab – grander than in waking-life. Amy and I lay close on a twin bed, on our backs, our legs up and out, resting there. And two girls are laying supine on the bottom half of the bed, their heads beneath our uplifted thighs.
Amy and I make up little games to play – sweet learning-playing games. One is a spinning mobile with charms, toys, dolls, etc. We play by spinning it and then reaching in and taking out one of the hanging things and showing it.
Then it’s time for the morning line-up. I step out into the hallway, outside my door, Chippy sits in a chair. We’re having a lovely chat. All around people are rushed – rather amok, and we’re all, “What’s the big deal?” We’re right where we need to be, on time, here, now.
The door opens again and Amy steps out. Chippy and I look at her and see how beautiful she is. She stands with shy confidence. Her outfit is stunning: a shiny cream shirt layered with a shiny spring green top peeking out, and a wrap of peachy-orange – all of it silky and flowy and light. Behind her right ear is an open peachy darker-orange hibiscus.
The day after the dream I felt deeply in touch with my erotic being – not in a horny way, but in a self-possessed way. I told Coyote Marie, “I want to give you my body,” something that would not have occurred to me to say when I was male.
As it turned out, she was called away to make a delivery of flowers. I told her, “I still want to give you my body.”
“When I get back,” she said.
The delivery was of flowers – of the exact colors I was wearing in her dream, and they were to a “Rose Mary.”
I was humbled.
The next day I threw out the old, kid-sized toothbrush I had been using, and unpackaged an adult-sized one.
On Monday, Wednesday and Friday updates are posted to Amy George’s other blog Ask the Dream Queen, for which she interprets reader-submitted dreams.
“A naked, ten-year-old girl emerged inside me. She was missing her glasses. Her hair was blond. Her body had been unloved. She was alienated from it and knew nothing about sex. She had been cocooned in my male self’s lust and fear of feeling for a long time. She was my body. I let her explore it.
“To let her feel her face, I had to let it completely relax. She was slack-jawed, like the sort of kid who is unaware of how loudly they are breathing because they are so involved in a book. When I was a kid, I had hated kids who breathed like that. I hated kids who ate loudly. I hated the sound of saliva. I hated my body as the world hated it.
“In 1979, when I was eleven, there were a lot of kids on TV because it was the International Year of the Child. I cringed to hear kids speaking on TV because they sounded like idiots to me, and I felt embarrassed for them.
“As a thirty-two-year old, I loved the ten-year-old girl inside me. She began to explore herself erotically and became lustful her own self and clutched at the new feeling, trying to hold it close so that it wouldn’t go away. In response, my soul sent forth an adult version of her into my body; a blond woman in her twenties, wearing colorful, sexy clothing, in command of erotic life – not needing it too much or fearing it. The woman was nourished by eros. She did not need to clutch it. Her power was humbling. The ten-year-old girl was frightened and went back into hiding.
“The woman lived in the World, where eros is free. In the world the ten-year-old girl was from, eros was illicit and pornographic. It had to be since it was so magnificent in contrast to the rest of existence. In her world people forsook their souls in exchange for eros. Then, it was no longer purely eros, but was weighted with aires, eros’ primordial companion.”
In the last weeks this woman has been awakening through me, as I have sexually active for the first time in 12 years – and for the first time without testicles. It gets erect, is received into the vagina, has orgasms; without testosterone, with eros pure.
I dreamed I was going down on Coyote Marie and something small and hard came out of her, into my mouth – a baby tooth – a reference to vagina dentata; the toothed vagina. My mature, female eros is ready to grow in, as adult teeth do
I had another dream referring to the immaturity of my former self’s sexuality:
I am in a supermarket looking at peanut butter. There is super-fancy peanut butter that usually costs $65, but is on sale for $49. Beside it is kids’ peanut butter, with jelly and banana mixed in, for only $0.59. One seems too expensive, and the other too cheap to be any good.
The cheap peanut butter is my male sexuality, sexuality any boy can claim just by showing up. It’s ingredients are the banana (penis), jelly (semen) and the feminine peanut butter; all mixed, gloppy, confused, not so nourishing. The other peanut butter is smooth, creamy, delectable, nourishing, highly valuable and feminine.
Another thing about peanut butter is that the oil in it makes me sore and a bit slow. Sex will do that, too, leaving one in a pacified stupor if it is too frequent.
One thing I love about being a woman with a woman is the absence of urgency. There is nothing in the back of my mind thinking, “Ok, let’s cut to the chase and get on the penetration.” Sometimes intercourse happens – sometimes not…I am exquisitely aware of my scrotum empty except for the sensuality of labia…Eros is no longer visual – I keep my eyes closed most of the time. Instead of seeing what I am getting, I feel what I have. Erotic sensibility is self-renewing, erupting in slow-motion.
Coyote Marie had this dream:
I’m at school. The dorms are spacious – a big building with library and computer lab – grander than in waking-life. Amy and I lay close on a twin bed, on our backs, our legs up and out, resting there. And two girls are laying supine on the bottom half of the bed, their heads beneath our uplifted thighs.
Amy and I make up little games to play – sweet learning-playing games. One is a spinning mobile with charms, toys, dolls, etc. We play by spinning it and then reaching in and taking out one of the hanging things and showing it.
Then it’s time for the morning line-up. I step out into the hallway, outside my door, Chippy sits in a chair. We’re having a lovely chat. All around people are rushed – rather amok, and we’re all, “What’s the big deal?” We’re right where we need to be, on time, here, now.
The door opens again and Amy steps out. Chippy and I look at her and see how beautiful she is. She stands with shy confidence. Her outfit is stunning: a shiny cream shirt layered with a shiny spring green top peeking out, and a wrap of peachy-orange – all of it silky and flowy and light. Behind her right ear is an open peachy darker-orange hibiscus.
The day after the dream I felt deeply in touch with my erotic being – not in a horny way, but in a self-possessed way. I told Coyote Marie, “I want to give you my body,” something that would not have occurred to me to say when I was male.
As it turned out, she was called away to make a delivery of flowers. I told her, “I still want to give you my body.”
“When I get back,” she said.
The delivery was of flowers – of the exact colors I was wearing in her dream, and they were to a “Rose Mary.”
I was humbled.
The next day I threw out the old, kid-sized toothbrush I had been using, and unpackaged an adult-sized one.
On Monday, Wednesday and Friday updates are posted to Amy George’s other blog Ask the Dream Queen, for which she interprets reader-submitted dreams.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Popess Sophia to Excommunicate Cultural Christianity
Transwoman Jo Clifford stars in a one-woman performance called “Jesus: Queen of Heaven.” A synopsis of the performance reads:
“Jesus is a transsexual woman. And it is now she walks the earth. This is a play with music that presents her sayings, her miracles, and her testimony. And she does not condemn the gays or the queers or the trans women or the trans men, and no, not the straight women nor the straight men neither. Because she is the Daughter of God, most certainly, and almost as certainly the son also. And God’s child condemns nobody. She can only love...”
In 2000, a couple days after I first identified as female, I went into a ten-hour meditation during which Rose Mary Pillowwater emerged through my body. At one point during the meditation I heard “heavenly people” calling to me, “The Queen is here!” This was before I had a sense of who or what a “Queen of Heaven” might be. But later it was plain that they meant the Queen of Heaven; the post-apocalyptic vessel of Sophia, the wisdom of Christ’s inner-woman, through whom Christ must first be reborn if he is ever to be reborn in the flesh as he lived in the flesh as Jesus.
The Queen of Heaven is the essence of receptivity, life-force and balance in every man, accentuated dramatically in those who change sex.
Predictably, “Jesus: Queen of Heaven” has met controversy, about which The Independent wrote: “Protesters lit candles, sang hymns and brandished placards saying: ‘Jesus, King of Kings, Not Queen of Heaven,’ and ‘God: My Son Is Not A Pervert.’
The Sunday after reading about the play, Coyote Marie & I went to church – my first time for a Sunday service in nearly 30 years. Poignantly, the sermon was based on Matthew 7: 1–5:
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.”
Our Sunday morning, churchgoing preparations were remarkably similar to those of my youth: angst, strife and hurt feelings (not between CM & I). I wondered if Sunday morning could ever be any different while spirituality remains alien to everyday life.
In preparation, a scab got torn off my right shin and blood soaked through my white tights. Hot chocolate and lipstick stained the bottom of my white blouse – blood, chocolate and lipstick. It felt sacramental.
One reason we went is because we are planning a performance of our own, to be patterned after Mass; but rescuing Christ from it, revisioning him through the eye of Sophia.
The service was held at Wayfarers Chapel, pictured above; a wondrous place. One of the opening readings was from Thich Naht Hanh, about awareness, compassion, and being at peace in the wholeness of mind & body. This was followed by a silent meditation that lasted perhaps five minutes – long enough to really feel the silence. I thought of how in the Catholic church, moments of silence were short and perfunctory, tolerated impatiently without being received.
And there was man without shoes. I said to Coyote Marie, “How can you be barefoot in church?”
She replied, “This is California.”
It is – and here in Orange County, Christian conservativism is entrenched. A man two pews in front of us wore a t-shirt that read, “You know it. I know it: Rush runs America.” In God’s stead?
The minister was a young guy, just getting his bearings. Citing his youth, he read a collection of wise sayings from a 90-year-old, which may have appealed to Rush fans in culturally-condoned moments of humility. My least favorite was, “Don’t take yourself seriously. No one else does.”
Not taking oneself seriously is how one is able to cope without possession of one’s innate dignity.
Perhaps the axiom would be better stated: “Take others seriously, even if you cannot take yourself seriously.”
Afterward we went to a farmer’s market by a harbor, and bought dates, apples and spinach pie that we ate in the sun.
On Monday, Wednesday and Friday updates are posted to Amy George’s other blog Ask the Dream Queen, for which she interprets reader-submitted dreams.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Moon Babies
Beauty is a feeling that becomes an expression. It comes from within – not from without - as it is with God…So it also is for Beauty’s Friends; Eros, Peace, Perfection, Wisdom, and Knowledge; they too come from within, and not from the outside…So it is also for the Children of Beauty & Friends; they are Children of God.
In Heaven there is nothing outside of these Children & their Parents except for rivers of tears streaming into Lovers’ eyes, making love on the moon. Let me be the first!
Naked on the moon’s surface, and free and warm as Mother.
Moon babies.
The part of us that is indivisible from its Creator is that which the part that Children of God come to possess purely, as they let the dance between mind & body perpetually evolve, twirling to the “end of the world” and eternally beyond. Their dance floor is process, story, the computer, the arts, and Beauty and Friends.
The Children of God were latent in the grass, in the dinosaurs, in the first tool – slaughtered again and again and again until the world awakened from Death.
Though we are drowned in unconsciousness every night, we awaken, again and again – until fully awake.
Waves of cosmic dark matter constantly wash over us, and then wash away, as we fulfill destiny.
In Heaven there is nothing outside of these Children & their Parents except for rivers of tears streaming into Lovers’ eyes, making love on the moon. Let me be the first!
Naked on the moon’s surface, and free and warm as Mother.
Moon babies.
The part of us that is indivisible from its Creator is that which the part that Children of God come to possess purely, as they let the dance between mind & body perpetually evolve, twirling to the “end of the world” and eternally beyond. Their dance floor is process, story, the computer, the arts, and Beauty and Friends.
The Children of God were latent in the grass, in the dinosaurs, in the first tool – slaughtered again and again and again until the world awakened from Death.
Though we are drowned in unconsciousness every night, we awaken, again and again – until fully awake.
Waves of cosmic dark matter constantly wash over us, and then wash away, as we fulfill destiny.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
The Moon Reduces Penis Size
If we have wisdom,
There is nothing we don’t have -
So the imagination is free to wonder what might become of humanity’s destiny.
Wisdom is a gold mine.
Peace is a gold mine.
Beauty and their Divine friends, too are gold mines.
Mind gold is gold, mine.
Mind gold is gold mind.
Mein gold is gold, mine.
My golden gold is golden
As is my hair, an extension of my mind.
Some people get hair extensions.
I get mind extensions.
Some people get penis extensions.
Me, a reduction. I’m in a world
Upside-down
And that is the way I like it.
It reminds me of home, the Moon.
“Greetings Earthlings,” say the Amazon Women of the Moon, “We’re not from Planet Sirius, Children: let’s get serious, and be from closer to home.” Like in your room, for example.
I come from your moon and you come from mine – and we’ll meet forever you & me on the other side of night.
There is nothing we don’t have -
So the imagination is free to wonder what might become of humanity’s destiny.
Wisdom is a gold mine.
Peace is a gold mine.
Beauty and their Divine friends, too are gold mines.
Mind gold is gold, mine.
Mind gold is gold mind.
Mein gold is gold, mine.
My golden gold is golden
As is my hair, an extension of my mind.
Some people get hair extensions.
I get mind extensions.
Some people get penis extensions.
Me, a reduction. I’m in a world
Upside-down
And that is the way I like it.
It reminds me of home, the Moon.
“Greetings Earthlings,” say the Amazon Women of the Moon, “We’re not from Planet Sirius, Children: let’s get serious, and be from closer to home.” Like in your room, for example.
I come from your moon and you come from mine – and we’ll meet forever you & me on the other side of night.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Incarnating Heaven’s Heart
Comedy & tragedy work themselves out through history. They dance together in the heart. When tragedy is too insidious, comedy can override it; and overtake the heart instead of lighten it. Then life becomes a big joke, and anger can’t stop laughing.
When tragedy makes people feel inferior, they sometimes use comedy to make themselves feel superior and others seem inferior. Inferiority needs compassion – not mockery.
Aires (violence) splits Eros into comedy & tragedy.
Comedy & tragedy are a treadmill.
Step off them into the music,
The erotic music of Heaven.
Tragedy & comedy are the music of the unconscious soul. Fully self-aware, feeling goes past tragedy & comedy to the music of the soul’s flesh.
Since we experience laughter & tears because of comedy & tragedy, so does God – God being that in whose image we are made, and whose expressions ours are patterned after.
Material existence breaks God’s heart just as it does ours. Before existence - before Creation - there was no comedy & tragedy, no joy & sorrow, no laughter & tears; for they were all unified in the wholeness of love – the wholeness of love our joyful & sorrowful task is to incarnate.
When tragedy makes people feel inferior, they sometimes use comedy to make themselves feel superior and others seem inferior. Inferiority needs compassion – not mockery.
Aires (violence) splits Eros into comedy & tragedy.
Comedy & tragedy are a treadmill.
Step off them into the music,
The erotic music of Heaven.
Tragedy & comedy are the music of the unconscious soul. Fully self-aware, feeling goes past tragedy & comedy to the music of the soul’s flesh.
Since we experience laughter & tears because of comedy & tragedy, so does God – God being that in whose image we are made, and whose expressions ours are patterned after.
Material existence breaks God’s heart just as it does ours. Before existence - before Creation - there was no comedy & tragedy, no joy & sorrow, no laughter & tears; for they were all unified in the wholeness of love – the wholeness of love our joyful & sorrowful task is to incarnate.
Monday, October 5, 2009
The Spider’s Rhyme
This is a poem I wrote for my mom’s 66th birthday. Six birthdays ago I wrote her another spider-themed poem, which is why this one is called “Another Spider’s Rhyme”:
At 60 - six years ago -
Was the first spider’s rhyme
Now’s ripe for another time;
Another web stretched ‘cross years,
The dew of its filaments sparkling like tears
Ultra-delicate, ultra-sound.
Its maker, the Earth, eight-legged and round.
Weaving one season to the next
And before we are ready, she’s woven novel context
To teach us what we knew before
We stepped inside and shut her door.
Another year of lessons learned,
Another year the planet turned,
Longitude and latitude never budging from their spots
Their global web connecting dots
From Katmandu to the Florida Keys,
From chattering birds to life-giving trees,
From the mysterious and unknown
To the heart’s cradle inside the home
From everything we do and say
To the place the children play.
To celebrate your birth
Dear, dear mother
I weave a web, yet another,
Where plovers soar and waves crash
Where all illusion is but ash
Where all time is in our hands
Where there’s nothing left to understand
Where care is but a high flying kite
And every moment has birthday light;
Let this be my wish for you
That your noblest birthday wish
Does come true, so true.
Happy Birthday, Mom.
with love, Amy
At 60 - six years ago -
Was the first spider’s rhyme
Now’s ripe for another time;
Another web stretched ‘cross years,
The dew of its filaments sparkling like tears
Ultra-delicate, ultra-sound.
Its maker, the Earth, eight-legged and round.
Weaving one season to the next
And before we are ready, she’s woven novel context
To teach us what we knew before
We stepped inside and shut her door.
Another year of lessons learned,
Another year the planet turned,
Longitude and latitude never budging from their spots
Their global web connecting dots
From Katmandu to the Florida Keys,
From chattering birds to life-giving trees,
From the mysterious and unknown
To the heart’s cradle inside the home
From everything we do and say
To the place the children play.
To celebrate your birth
Dear, dear mother
I weave a web, yet another,
Where plovers soar and waves crash
Where all illusion is but ash
Where all time is in our hands
Where there’s nothing left to understand
Where care is but a high flying kite
And every moment has birthday light;
Let this be my wish for you
That your noblest birthday wish
Does come true, so true.
Happy Birthday, Mom.
with love, Amy
Friday, October 2, 2009
Let 2010 Be Yours
Be God’s, at least three minutes a day.
It’s more convenient than Islam’s five-times-a-day and has the same effect on the psyche, only you can do it alone without being distracted by others.
Write a revolutionary holy book for Islam. Call it “Koran Squared.”
Fractals of God spin through one mind into another thru music.
God refracts through us into art.
God doesn’t argue. God explains through illustration.
With the faith to lose yourself to your imagination, you can know God for sure…through psychosis…psychosis always ends in God.
It unravels before God into clarity.
Disease unravels before God into health.
Let’s work off death.
God uses wisdom as mortar.
I carry my house on my back
It is a church
That is how deeply I give myself to God
An eternal lover
A brutal lover until the brutality resonates with love… toning the frequency of the flesh
Of the mind/body organ
I meditate on what belongs to me, and on what I belong to.
Turn all trash into giant sculpture
Just throw garbage all around it
Make it into a mountain somehow, some chemical that melts it into beauty.
Turn eyesores into art.
Tear the world apart with beauty. Terrible, menacing beauty. Beauty is the monster under the bed.
You live for the heart alone
There is no other reason to be alive
That is why God wins
The terrible beauty of the Heart
Waits until we are tired and beaten.
Gives us new names.
Takes away identity,
Gives it back cleansed.
You are reflected in every person you see, but you alone are yourself
See everyone’s life
Feel their lives as your own
Perfect empathy
Perfection awaits you
Pretend you are from a book that is greater than you can imagine coming from. That is where Life - everlasting life in the body - is at. Let’s work off death.
It’s more convenient than Islam’s five-times-a-day and has the same effect on the psyche, only you can do it alone without being distracted by others.
Write a revolutionary holy book for Islam. Call it “Koran Squared.”
Fractals of God spin through one mind into another thru music.
God refracts through us into art.
God doesn’t argue. God explains through illustration.
With the faith to lose yourself to your imagination, you can know God for sure…through psychosis…psychosis always ends in God.
It unravels before God into clarity.
Disease unravels before God into health.
Let’s work off death.
God uses wisdom as mortar.
I carry my house on my back
It is a church
That is how deeply I give myself to God
An eternal lover
A brutal lover until the brutality resonates with love… toning the frequency of the flesh
Of the mind/body organ
I meditate on what belongs to me, and on what I belong to.
Turn all trash into giant sculpture
Just throw garbage all around it
Make it into a mountain somehow, some chemical that melts it into beauty.
Turn eyesores into art.
Tear the world apart with beauty. Terrible, menacing beauty. Beauty is the monster under the bed.
You live for the heart alone
There is no other reason to be alive
That is why God wins
The terrible beauty of the Heart
Waits until we are tired and beaten.
Gives us new names.
Takes away identity,
Gives it back cleansed.
You are reflected in every person you see, but you alone are yourself
See everyone’s life
Feel their lives as your own
Perfect empathy
Perfection awaits you
Pretend you are from a book that is greater than you can imagine coming from. That is where Life - everlasting life in the body - is at. Let’s work off death.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Love-Pots
♣ Coyote Marie ♥: I trust you, and I trust our love, and I trust our process, and that is my Source.
Faith in God evolves into trust of friends
I trust you totally, like I do the will of God.
I can be the lamb
You can be the lion
Today
And different animals tomorrow
You echo on the waters of my dreams
And I do yours
Swirls of love swell in the pot you stir.
A thousand kisses, each unique.
♥ S ♣
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The Day of the Wounded Man
Yesterday was a day for managing the Wounded Man – three of them. First, “Señor,” with whom I was learning to be a dominatrix,” until the morning of September 2, the morning of our second playdate, when I received an email from him saying, “I will not be able to continue. I’m hurting very badly inside and need to do more healing. Please respect this and let it be and don’t contact me. It was a mistake on my part to be involved in any way. Peace, Señor.”
I really wanted to write back saying “WTF?” but respected his wishes. Then yesterday, to my mailing list, I sent out a notice of most recent publication on Reality Sandwich, Holy Weirdness, co-written with Coyote Marie. Señor replied, thanking me, and said, “Sincere apologies for disappearing like that. That’s not really like me. Did you have a nice visit with your friend? Also, is my stuff still at your place [a paddle, rope, clothespins, lubricant]?”
Amy: Thanks for asking about me. My week with CM could not have been better. I am going to California to be with her in November.
That was pathetic of you to disappear like that. So disrespectful toward me. I needed us to have at least a little open discussion about it - and then it would have been fine.
Of course your stuff is still here.
Señor: Thanks. I'm glad it is working out for you with CM. I understand your feelings about the disappearance. Apologies again. I would love to stop by some time and pick up that stuff and if you choose you can take your frustrations out on me.
Amy: I forgive you sweetheart. I would like to talk about what happened with you, if we may - and yes I may be open to taking my frustrations out on you.
Señor: Thanks. I would also like to talk about it with you. Talk in person? [fin]
So, he is coming over this evening.
I really need to experience this. It so empowers and balances me. Normally, around people I am like a lamb, and as a dominatrix I can be a lion.
Wounded Man #2 was my brother, who had a psychotic break a couple weeks ago. Now, he is in a hospital being treated for alcoholism and bi-polar disorder – neither of which he has. He does have a serious gambling problem.
His psychotic break is being overlooked as the avenue to the new life he says he wants. Part of his psychosis has involved suddenly stepping outside of the constructs that used to define him – a dream where he kills a bloated, disgusting personage of himself. He thinks he is a sort of second Jesus whose message the world needs.
I wrote him a note that read in part:
“I have been living outside of social constructs since I was 13. And let me say that money is a construct you are still enslaved to. Jesus doesn’t gamble.
“It is nothing new to the world that you stepped out your old constructs. There are libraries documenting how people have been doing it. In fact, there is a whole school of philosophy about it called “Deconstructionsim.” You don’t have anything to say that is not already known, although there may be people who need to hear you say it.
“Outside of worldly constructs there is whole universe of spiritual constructs you know next to nothing about. I would be glad to offer some reading suggestions.
“It really stinks that you and others have passed judgment on me without listening to me and without reading my writing. I know you will say you didn’t have enough time – and admittedly, to understand where I am coming from takes some time – but I am worth it; and you treated me like I wasn’t worth it.”
Wounded Man #3: let’s call him “Myron.”
Myron: It's great that the week with Coyote Marie lived up to your expectations. It sounds as though you are in love.
I would be interested in talking with you about the experience, as well as about the situation with your brother, but, given our lack of communication over the last few months, it is not clear that we are still really friends. [fin]
I let that steep overnight, and in the morning received this note from Myron:
As to whether or not we are "spiritually out of sync"--I have no reason to think that we are. As friends, however, we seem to be definitely out of sync. There comes a time when passive lack of responsiveness becomes an active statement of disinterest in the friendship. Sadly, we are approaching that point. If we do have any issues to resolve, I hope you will fill me in.
Amy: That I did not promptly respond yesterday to your first email was not a sign of passive disinterest. I was very busy, and had every intention of responding today, which I am doing now. Perhaps it seemed like disinterest because you were sending me a signal that you feel I am neglecting our friendship. Frankly, I am not eager to respond to such signals.
Numerous times your insecurities about my investment in our friendship have caused me to assuage them, and I did sincerely, even honoring you with the blog about the library security guard. But maybe you did not need to be assuaged so much as for me to be more consistently engaging with you. I engage with you as I am moved. For me that does not mean we are not friends.
You know of Kelley, my cyberfriend. We were very tight for several months; and that lightened. I just wrote her for the first time in a couple months to ask if she could refer me to good professional help in Virginia – where she and my psychotic brother live – since she used to be a psychologist there. Now that she and I are less in touch, I don’t think either of us feels our friendship is threatened in the least. Friendships have seasons. For me, one season feeling warmer than another does not mean a friendship is on the brink. I have never been in a friendship where the other person was so critical of my engagement in it.
I feel like you take my unwillingness to trek to your city as a sign of my distance – seemingly dismissive of how terrifically stressful it is for me to travel. Also, it is really stressful for me to speak on the phone. I don’t feel that you appreciate either of these difficulties, which makes me feel you are more concerned with what I have to offer our friendship than for my well-being.
The demanding attitude you have had of me is unlike anything one would expect from an enlightened being such as you. My sense is that comes from damage to your feminine side, to your receptivity; a fear of abandonment. I don’t abandon people. I’m a river. I go where I will; and if I flow through your town, then great, if you flow through mine, then also great.
I hope I have said nothing to further offend you, and if I have please let me apologize in advance.
Please let’s just be friends as we are.
Myron: I am very much aware of how stressful it is for you to make the trip to my city….Believe me when I say that I appreciate all of the efforts that you made in this direction.
I do think that I have developed a good sense of how your strengths and weaknesses and insights and fears and sense of higher purpose and vulnerabilities fit together. I celebrate your complex nature, and would not ask that you be anything other than you are.
You may perhaps have less a sense of what my weaknesses and fears and vulnerabilities are, or of where they originate, or of what throws them into high relief - but trust me, they are there; and they coexist with whatever enlightenment I have managed to access. I would ask that you honor all of the contradictory aspects of my nature, as I do yours.
Amy: I certainly do.
Myron: You are dealing with many challenges of your own, and I do not wish to subject you to any unnecessary stress or any unreasonable demands. Please forgive me if I have done so. There have been times when I have felt that our communication has been unexpectedly cut off, and this has been frustrating since I have come to look forward to your feedback and your insights.
Amy: Sorry about that Myron. It’s just how I flow from day to day – not predictably enough to participate in the wage-earning workforce for nine years.
Myron: Part of my frustration, however, has nothing at all to do with you. Over the past year and a half or so, I have made a systematic effort to put myself out into the world again - to post work, to initiate new dialogues and to contact friends with whom I have long been out of touch. So far, I would have to say that the results are mixed.
This experiment is not something that I have really discussed with you.
Amy: You have discussed it with me some.
Myron: There have been old friends with whom it has been difficult to reestablish a shared world. There have been new contacts - such as Mr. A and Ms. - who, after some period of infatuation, have become unexpectedly harsh and judgmental before breaking off communication. So yes, I do feel a bit vulnerable at times, and this stirs up unresolved childhood issues.
Amy: I appreciate that.
Myron: BTW: You probably have your performance planned out down to the last detail. If you wanted to add another presenter to the bill, however, I would be interested in reading a piece or two at the beginning or the end.—Just an idea.
Amy: I do have the performance planned in detail, and while I would love to have you on board, this is a time for me to be utterly alone in the spotlight. It won’t have to be that way in the future.
Myron: No problem. Just thought that I would offer, since this may be our last chance to do a performance together before your move to California.
You wrote, "You know of Kelley, my cyberfriend. We were very tight for several months; and that lightened."--This perhaps goes to the heart of our misunderstanding. From the time that I first began to post comments on the Internet, I have not been sure of what to do with this concept of the "cyberfriend." Perhaps this is a kind of generational divide - those who are comfortable with the concept of the "cyberfriend", and those who are not.
Amy: Yes, I think it asks for more fluidity than traditional ways of building friendship.
Myron: You are the first person that I met in this fashion, and the only one with whom I have maintained a relatively consistent dialogue. With the other people that I have met in this way, and who continue to be important, communication is, as you describe, sporadic.
It is no doubt unfair of me to expect our communication to be otherwise. It is clearly important to you to maintain a fixed - or at least carefully controlled - emotional distance –
Amy: It’s not carefully controlled. I am following my instincts. They control me. My instinct is not been to flow away from you (although it is when I feel you are being demanding) – it is to flow toward a multiplicity of things of which you are one.
It is true I have emotional needs you cannot fulfill. One reason is that you speak more to my mind than to my heart. I enjoy and admire you immensely, and love you – but I don’t feel you are naked enough for me to be fully naked with you. I can’t be naked with anyone who is at all demanding.
Myron: It is clearly important to you to maintain a fixed - or at least carefully controlled - emotional distance – as evidenced by your statements, "I engage with you as I am moved." and "I’m a river. I go where I will; and if I flow through your town, then great, if you flow through mine, then also great." This sounds very grand - statements suitable for a goddess -
Amy: I never thought of them as such.
Myron: I cannot help but question, however, whether this is not a means for always acting and speaking from behind a mask of omnipotence.
Amy: It’s not a mask. It’s an explanation.
Myron: It can be uncomfortable to accept that someone has seen behind this mask…
Amy: I’m not that superficial.
Myron: For whatever reason, from the beginning I have placed you in the more traditional category of “friend” as opposed to “cyberfriend”, and this has probably led to a certain amount of confusion.
Amy: It’s all right. Let’s just be friends – whatever that means….
…Lukumi separates us. I can only be so close to anyone who willfully channels spirit as such. I accept fully that it is your family’s practice to embrace that, and pass no judgment on it, but I must say that it alienates me because it is contrary to my orientation.
Myron: I have no idea really what you mean by this. In any case, I have as much of a tangential relationship to Lukumi as I do to all other systems and traditions.
Amy: How Lukumi and other systems alienate me is the same across the board; and can be summed in this dream you may have seen before:
A teacher tells me that everyone is looking outside themselves for a name so that they can tell the world they are one thing or another, thus fusing their identity to something solid and agreed on by everyone as perceivable. The great teacher of the dream found his own name. His philosophy and practises resemble those of a certain obscure religious sect, but really, as he is, as everyone ultimately is, totally unique and naked in the world. Religion is relative to him. There is no need for him to alter himself artificially for the sake of religion
The slightest hint that religion may eclipse The Stooge alienates me.
I don’t believe in Christianity. I believe in Christ. I don’t believe in Buddhism. I believe in Buddha. I have never felt that anyone really understand what I mean by this except for Coyote Marie.
Myron: I do think that I have developed a good sense of how your strengths and weaknesses and insights and fears and sense of higher purpose and vulnerabilities fit together.
Amy: While you may to an extent, there are depths to these that are hidden from you by my inability to be naked with you.
It’s one thing to remark neutrality on a friend’s behaviors – and it’s another to say, “I get you.” When you imply that you do, I immediately feel clothed and alienated.
And this I found smug and patronizing: << "I engage with you as I am moved." and "I’m a river. I go where I will; and if I flow through your town, then great, if you flow through mine, then also great." This sounds very grand—statements suitable for a goddess;>>
Myron: Please forgive me for calling attention to the fact that over the past few months we have barely been in touch. I should not have mentioned it - or at least not in the particular way that I did - and would prefer to have not set any negative dialogue in motion. For this, I must take full responsibility.
Nonetheless, your comments over the past few days have stuck me as harsh and opinionated and hurtful and judgmental. They have upset me greatly, and I really have no idea of how to respond.
I don't believe that email is serving us well at the moment. Before things spin any further out of control, perhaps we should reboot our communication, and do whatever may be necessary to treat each other nicely. I value you greatly as a friend, and do not wish us to be at odds.
Amy: I'm sorry that you feel hurt. I had no intention of hurting you.
I know that was you calling before - and I did not pick up because of how it hurts me to talk on the phone. I can't apologize for that. I don't think I can apologize for anything I have said either. I was being forthright, nakedly honest, unhidden - I would not offer a friend anything less. Anything less would be disrespectful.
CM & I have compiled over 700 pages of correspondence this year, which does not leave a lot of time to correspond widely with other people. I'm in love with her - not you - and for me this does not have to be such a threat to our friendship...When people pair off it's just what happens. You know that.
What have I written that was judgmental?
Myron: Misunderstanding seems to have piled on misunderstanding. I could not be more delighted that you and Coyote Marie have found each other, and it is not a threat to our friendship in the least.
After my initial, poorly worded emails, I have done my best to be conciliatory. It does not seem to have had any effect. At the moment, I feel that I am walking through a minefield, and that anything I say will be taken the wrong way. You seem intent on prolonging and escalating this conflict which I inadvertently set in motion.
As to why your comments over the last few days have struck me as “harsh and opinionated and hurtful and judgmental” - I suggest that you look at almost any of them; if this description doesn’t resonate, then there is nothing that I can really do to fill you in. This is totally unlike you, and I have no idea of who I am dealing with.
To describe or attempt to respond any further to what I see as judgmental comments would quickly force me to appear judgmental in return. Again, I can only ask that we “reboot” our conversation, and move on to subjects that are of greater benefit to us both.
Amy: I’m sorry. I can’t reboot the discussion. Friends have discussions like this. They don’t shy away from conflict when it rears its head. When a friend rubs us the wrong way, friendship obligates us to address the issue – regardless of the emotions and feelings it may call forth. Friends can do that because the essence of friendship is trust.
If you meant my comment of “smug and patronizing” was judgmental – I can’t imagine what else could be construed as such – I have the right to express how things you say make me feel. Or would you rather me be hurt by what you say and not say anything?
These issues that are coming up are not novel. They have been brewing the entire length of our friendship – so many times have you accused me of not holding my end of the partnership. Frankly, I am tired of the accusations and feel it is time to address the underlying issues from them, which are yours not mine. If anyone is seeing under a mask, it’s me; and our dance has led us there.
If you feel threatened, there is no need to. I’ll never judge you. All psyches are babies in my hands. If think I am full of it, then you don’t know me.
<>
I am not intent on prolonging and escalating conflict. I am not even experiencing conflict. You are calling discussing personal issues “conflict,” and I won’t.
I feel as if calling you to task really calls up your defenses. I am not attacking you. I feel you feeling attacked, and I wish you didn’t, but I am not responsible for your feelings.
<>
Like I said in my previous email, you don’t know me as well you think – and to anyone who does not know another person as well as they think, I would say this is a symptom of not knowing oneself as well as one thinks one does.
You try to control the friendship more than me. Friendship has to be let happen, or it cannot easily go forward. Any relationship needs to be let happen, which is why I am a polyamorista.
My sense (not a judgment, just a sense) is that the paradigm you are coming from is one in which the world is so empty that a friend needs to be contained. That world was an illusion.
On the Internet there are so many people to dance with, in ways as different as each of us. I have had dances of all types - very intense short-term, light and longer term and all permutations thereof.
While airing out all the laundry, let me add that your response to my relationship with Christ – last summer – acting like you understand something about it that I don’t was hurtful and alienating.
Let me say, too, that this note is not about me knowing things about you that you don’t. I am dancing with you, and there is nothing I can do about it if the dance is hurtful and alienating.
I am naked and I let my friends be, too; regardless of whether my naked dancing is perceived as conflictual. I write this and anticipate you mocking me for having delusions of grandeur: “Fine for a goddess, but…”
How can the world end if these issues are not addressed?
My sense is that facing issues that have come up could be productive. You have so much untapped to offer the world. Your insightfulness can be brilliant, but only speaks to the most highly spiritualized. Nothing can be more moving that the simplest story. What was it?: “Anthony and the Dinosaur”? But even in that story, how you poeticize it will alienate many readers and keep you obscure. Maybe you don’t care how obscure you are – you are purer than a sell-out. But I really believe inviting the collective in while artfully speaking of deeply meaningful issues is a great achievement for an artist.
To all wounded men:
heath & goodness & peace & hearts
Amy
On Monday, Wednesday and Friday updates are posted to Amy George’s other blog Ask the Dream Queen, for which she interprets reader-submitted dreams.
I really wanted to write back saying “WTF?” but respected his wishes. Then yesterday, to my mailing list, I sent out a notice of most recent publication on Reality Sandwich, Holy Weirdness, co-written with Coyote Marie. Señor replied, thanking me, and said, “Sincere apologies for disappearing like that. That’s not really like me. Did you have a nice visit with your friend? Also, is my stuff still at your place [a paddle, rope, clothespins, lubricant]?”
Amy: Thanks for asking about me. My week with CM could not have been better. I am going to California to be with her in November.
That was pathetic of you to disappear like that. So disrespectful toward me. I needed us to have at least a little open discussion about it - and then it would have been fine.
Of course your stuff is still here.
Señor: Thanks. I'm glad it is working out for you with CM. I understand your feelings about the disappearance. Apologies again. I would love to stop by some time and pick up that stuff and if you choose you can take your frustrations out on me.
Amy: I forgive you sweetheart. I would like to talk about what happened with you, if we may - and yes I may be open to taking my frustrations out on you.
Señor: Thanks. I would also like to talk about it with you. Talk in person? [fin]
So, he is coming over this evening.
I really need to experience this. It so empowers and balances me. Normally, around people I am like a lamb, and as a dominatrix I can be a lion.
Wounded Man #2 was my brother, who had a psychotic break a couple weeks ago. Now, he is in a hospital being treated for alcoholism and bi-polar disorder – neither of which he has. He does have a serious gambling problem.
His psychotic break is being overlooked as the avenue to the new life he says he wants. Part of his psychosis has involved suddenly stepping outside of the constructs that used to define him – a dream where he kills a bloated, disgusting personage of himself. He thinks he is a sort of second Jesus whose message the world needs.
I wrote him a note that read in part:
“I have been living outside of social constructs since I was 13. And let me say that money is a construct you are still enslaved to. Jesus doesn’t gamble.
“It is nothing new to the world that you stepped out your old constructs. There are libraries documenting how people have been doing it. In fact, there is a whole school of philosophy about it called “Deconstructionsim.” You don’t have anything to say that is not already known, although there may be people who need to hear you say it.
“Outside of worldly constructs there is whole universe of spiritual constructs you know next to nothing about. I would be glad to offer some reading suggestions.
“It really stinks that you and others have passed judgment on me without listening to me and without reading my writing. I know you will say you didn’t have enough time – and admittedly, to understand where I am coming from takes some time – but I am worth it; and you treated me like I wasn’t worth it.”
Wounded Man #3: let’s call him “Myron.”
Myron: It's great that the week with Coyote Marie lived up to your expectations. It sounds as though you are in love.
I would be interested in talking with you about the experience, as well as about the situation with your brother, but, given our lack of communication over the last few months, it is not clear that we are still really friends. [fin]
I let that steep overnight, and in the morning received this note from Myron:
As to whether or not we are "spiritually out of sync"--I have no reason to think that we are. As friends, however, we seem to be definitely out of sync. There comes a time when passive lack of responsiveness becomes an active statement of disinterest in the friendship. Sadly, we are approaching that point. If we do have any issues to resolve, I hope you will fill me in.
Amy: That I did not promptly respond yesterday to your first email was not a sign of passive disinterest. I was very busy, and had every intention of responding today, which I am doing now. Perhaps it seemed like disinterest because you were sending me a signal that you feel I am neglecting our friendship. Frankly, I am not eager to respond to such signals.
Numerous times your insecurities about my investment in our friendship have caused me to assuage them, and I did sincerely, even honoring you with the blog about the library security guard. But maybe you did not need to be assuaged so much as for me to be more consistently engaging with you. I engage with you as I am moved. For me that does not mean we are not friends.
You know of Kelley, my cyberfriend. We were very tight for several months; and that lightened. I just wrote her for the first time in a couple months to ask if she could refer me to good professional help in Virginia – where she and my psychotic brother live – since she used to be a psychologist there. Now that she and I are less in touch, I don’t think either of us feels our friendship is threatened in the least. Friendships have seasons. For me, one season feeling warmer than another does not mean a friendship is on the brink. I have never been in a friendship where the other person was so critical of my engagement in it.
I feel like you take my unwillingness to trek to your city as a sign of my distance – seemingly dismissive of how terrifically stressful it is for me to travel. Also, it is really stressful for me to speak on the phone. I don’t feel that you appreciate either of these difficulties, which makes me feel you are more concerned with what I have to offer our friendship than for my well-being.
The demanding attitude you have had of me is unlike anything one would expect from an enlightened being such as you. My sense is that comes from damage to your feminine side, to your receptivity; a fear of abandonment. I don’t abandon people. I’m a river. I go where I will; and if I flow through your town, then great, if you flow through mine, then also great.
I hope I have said nothing to further offend you, and if I have please let me apologize in advance.
Please let’s just be friends as we are.
Myron: I am very much aware of how stressful it is for you to make the trip to my city….Believe me when I say that I appreciate all of the efforts that you made in this direction.
I do think that I have developed a good sense of how your strengths and weaknesses and insights and fears and sense of higher purpose and vulnerabilities fit together. I celebrate your complex nature, and would not ask that you be anything other than you are.
You may perhaps have less a sense of what my weaknesses and fears and vulnerabilities are, or of where they originate, or of what throws them into high relief - but trust me, they are there; and they coexist with whatever enlightenment I have managed to access. I would ask that you honor all of the contradictory aspects of my nature, as I do yours.
Amy: I certainly do.
Myron: You are dealing with many challenges of your own, and I do not wish to subject you to any unnecessary stress or any unreasonable demands. Please forgive me if I have done so. There have been times when I have felt that our communication has been unexpectedly cut off, and this has been frustrating since I have come to look forward to your feedback and your insights.
Amy: Sorry about that Myron. It’s just how I flow from day to day – not predictably enough to participate in the wage-earning workforce for nine years.
Myron: Part of my frustration, however, has nothing at all to do with you. Over the past year and a half or so, I have made a systematic effort to put myself out into the world again - to post work, to initiate new dialogues and to contact friends with whom I have long been out of touch. So far, I would have to say that the results are mixed.
This experiment is not something that I have really discussed with you.
Amy: You have discussed it with me some.
Myron: There have been old friends with whom it has been difficult to reestablish a shared world. There have been new contacts - such as Mr. A and Ms. - who, after some period of infatuation, have become unexpectedly harsh and judgmental before breaking off communication. So yes, I do feel a bit vulnerable at times, and this stirs up unresolved childhood issues.
Amy: I appreciate that.
Myron: BTW: You probably have your performance planned out down to the last detail. If you wanted to add another presenter to the bill, however, I would be interested in reading a piece or two at the beginning or the end.—Just an idea.
Amy: I do have the performance planned in detail, and while I would love to have you on board, this is a time for me to be utterly alone in the spotlight. It won’t have to be that way in the future.
Myron: No problem. Just thought that I would offer, since this may be our last chance to do a performance together before your move to California.
You wrote, "You know of Kelley, my cyberfriend. We were very tight for several months; and that lightened."--This perhaps goes to the heart of our misunderstanding. From the time that I first began to post comments on the Internet, I have not been sure of what to do with this concept of the "cyberfriend." Perhaps this is a kind of generational divide - those who are comfortable with the concept of the "cyberfriend", and those who are not.
Amy: Yes, I think it asks for more fluidity than traditional ways of building friendship.
Myron: You are the first person that I met in this fashion, and the only one with whom I have maintained a relatively consistent dialogue. With the other people that I have met in this way, and who continue to be important, communication is, as you describe, sporadic.
It is no doubt unfair of me to expect our communication to be otherwise. It is clearly important to you to maintain a fixed - or at least carefully controlled - emotional distance –
Amy: It’s not carefully controlled. I am following my instincts. They control me. My instinct is not been to flow away from you (although it is when I feel you are being demanding) – it is to flow toward a multiplicity of things of which you are one.
It is true I have emotional needs you cannot fulfill. One reason is that you speak more to my mind than to my heart. I enjoy and admire you immensely, and love you – but I don’t feel you are naked enough for me to be fully naked with you. I can’t be naked with anyone who is at all demanding.
Myron: It is clearly important to you to maintain a fixed - or at least carefully controlled - emotional distance – as evidenced by your statements, "I engage with you as I am moved." and "I’m a river. I go where I will; and if I flow through your town, then great, if you flow through mine, then also great." This sounds very grand - statements suitable for a goddess -
Amy: I never thought of them as such.
Myron: I cannot help but question, however, whether this is not a means for always acting and speaking from behind a mask of omnipotence.
Amy: It’s not a mask. It’s an explanation.
Myron: It can be uncomfortable to accept that someone has seen behind this mask…
Amy: I’m not that superficial.
Myron: For whatever reason, from the beginning I have placed you in the more traditional category of “friend” as opposed to “cyberfriend”, and this has probably led to a certain amount of confusion.
Amy: It’s all right. Let’s just be friends – whatever that means….
…Lukumi separates us. I can only be so close to anyone who willfully channels spirit as such. I accept fully that it is your family’s practice to embrace that, and pass no judgment on it, but I must say that it alienates me because it is contrary to my orientation.
Myron: I have no idea really what you mean by this. In any case, I have as much of a tangential relationship to Lukumi as I do to all other systems and traditions.
Amy: How Lukumi and other systems alienate me is the same across the board; and can be summed in this dream you may have seen before:
A teacher tells me that everyone is looking outside themselves for a name so that they can tell the world they are one thing or another, thus fusing their identity to something solid and agreed on by everyone as perceivable. The great teacher of the dream found his own name. His philosophy and practises resemble those of a certain obscure religious sect, but really, as he is, as everyone ultimately is, totally unique and naked in the world. Religion is relative to him. There is no need for him to alter himself artificially for the sake of religion
The slightest hint that religion may eclipse The Stooge alienates me.
I don’t believe in Christianity. I believe in Christ. I don’t believe in Buddhism. I believe in Buddha. I have never felt that anyone really understand what I mean by this except for Coyote Marie.
Myron: I do think that I have developed a good sense of how your strengths and weaknesses and insights and fears and sense of higher purpose and vulnerabilities fit together.
Amy: While you may to an extent, there are depths to these that are hidden from you by my inability to be naked with you.
It’s one thing to remark neutrality on a friend’s behaviors – and it’s another to say, “I get you.” When you imply that you do, I immediately feel clothed and alienated.
And this I found smug and patronizing: << "I engage with you as I am moved." and "I’m a river. I go where I will; and if I flow through your town, then great, if you flow through mine, then also great." This sounds very grand—statements suitable for a goddess;>>
Myron: Please forgive me for calling attention to the fact that over the past few months we have barely been in touch. I should not have mentioned it - or at least not in the particular way that I did - and would prefer to have not set any negative dialogue in motion. For this, I must take full responsibility.
Nonetheless, your comments over the past few days have stuck me as harsh and opinionated and hurtful and judgmental. They have upset me greatly, and I really have no idea of how to respond.
I don't believe that email is serving us well at the moment. Before things spin any further out of control, perhaps we should reboot our communication, and do whatever may be necessary to treat each other nicely. I value you greatly as a friend, and do not wish us to be at odds.
Amy: I'm sorry that you feel hurt. I had no intention of hurting you.
I know that was you calling before - and I did not pick up because of how it hurts me to talk on the phone. I can't apologize for that. I don't think I can apologize for anything I have said either. I was being forthright, nakedly honest, unhidden - I would not offer a friend anything less. Anything less would be disrespectful.
CM & I have compiled over 700 pages of correspondence this year, which does not leave a lot of time to correspond widely with other people. I'm in love with her - not you - and for me this does not have to be such a threat to our friendship...When people pair off it's just what happens. You know that.
What have I written that was judgmental?
Myron: Misunderstanding seems to have piled on misunderstanding. I could not be more delighted that you and Coyote Marie have found each other, and it is not a threat to our friendship in the least.
After my initial, poorly worded emails, I have done my best to be conciliatory. It does not seem to have had any effect. At the moment, I feel that I am walking through a minefield, and that anything I say will be taken the wrong way. You seem intent on prolonging and escalating this conflict which I inadvertently set in motion.
As to why your comments over the last few days have struck me as “harsh and opinionated and hurtful and judgmental” - I suggest that you look at almost any of them; if this description doesn’t resonate, then there is nothing that I can really do to fill you in. This is totally unlike you, and I have no idea of who I am dealing with.
To describe or attempt to respond any further to what I see as judgmental comments would quickly force me to appear judgmental in return. Again, I can only ask that we “reboot” our conversation, and move on to subjects that are of greater benefit to us both.
Amy: I’m sorry. I can’t reboot the discussion. Friends have discussions like this. They don’t shy away from conflict when it rears its head. When a friend rubs us the wrong way, friendship obligates us to address the issue – regardless of the emotions and feelings it may call forth. Friends can do that because the essence of friendship is trust.
If you meant my comment of “smug and patronizing” was judgmental – I can’t imagine what else could be construed as such – I have the right to express how things you say make me feel. Or would you rather me be hurt by what you say and not say anything?
These issues that are coming up are not novel. They have been brewing the entire length of our friendship – so many times have you accused me of not holding my end of the partnership. Frankly, I am tired of the accusations and feel it is time to address the underlying issues from them, which are yours not mine. If anyone is seeing under a mask, it’s me; and our dance has led us there.
If you feel threatened, there is no need to. I’ll never judge you. All psyches are babies in my hands. If think I am full of it, then you don’t know me.
<
I am not intent on prolonging and escalating conflict. I am not even experiencing conflict. You are calling discussing personal issues “conflict,” and I won’t.
I feel as if calling you to task really calls up your defenses. I am not attacking you. I feel you feeling attacked, and I wish you didn’t, but I am not responsible for your feelings.
<
Like I said in my previous email, you don’t know me as well you think – and to anyone who does not know another person as well as they think, I would say this is a symptom of not knowing oneself as well as one thinks one does.
You try to control the friendship more than me. Friendship has to be let happen, or it cannot easily go forward. Any relationship needs to be let happen, which is why I am a polyamorista.
My sense (not a judgment, just a sense) is that the paradigm you are coming from is one in which the world is so empty that a friend needs to be contained. That world was an illusion.
On the Internet there are so many people to dance with, in ways as different as each of us. I have had dances of all types - very intense short-term, light and longer term and all permutations thereof.
While airing out all the laundry, let me add that your response to my relationship with Christ – last summer – acting like you understand something about it that I don’t was hurtful and alienating.
Let me say, too, that this note is not about me knowing things about you that you don’t. I am dancing with you, and there is nothing I can do about it if the dance is hurtful and alienating.
I am naked and I let my friends be, too; regardless of whether my naked dancing is perceived as conflictual. I write this and anticipate you mocking me for having delusions of grandeur: “Fine for a goddess, but…”
How can the world end if these issues are not addressed?
My sense is that facing issues that have come up could be productive. You have so much untapped to offer the world. Your insightfulness can be brilliant, but only speaks to the most highly spiritualized. Nothing can be more moving that the simplest story. What was it?: “Anthony and the Dinosaur”? But even in that story, how you poeticize it will alienate many readers and keep you obscure. Maybe you don’t care how obscure you are – you are purer than a sell-out. But I really believe inviting the collective in while artfully speaking of deeply meaningful issues is a great achievement for an artist.
To all wounded men:
heath & goodness & peace & hearts
Amy
On Monday, Wednesday and Friday updates are posted to Amy George’s other blog Ask the Dream Queen, for which she interprets reader-submitted dreams.
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