Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Random Things

Current Food Addiction:  Greek Yogurt with Honey and bowl of fresh strawberries.  Can't get any better than that.

Currently Listening to:  Claire Lynch (Bluegrass) "Love Light"

Current Clothing Addiction:  Corsets (yes I said corsets) I have three so far woo hoo!!

Currently Reading:   "The Jewish Book of Days"

Natural medicine can be very effective

Drinking green tea regulary can add years to your life


Monday, June 28, 2010

Some of My Digital Collage Art Work

I thought I would share some of the digial collage that I have created the last few days.  Enjoy!


"Life Force



"Heaven"


"Melancholy Child"

Camera in Hand

The talking oak
To the ancient spoke.
But any tree
Will talk to me.
- Mary Carolyn Davies
 
I was surrounded by trees most of this weekend. Cycling through forest tracks strewn with pine cones. The scent of needles perfumed the spring air. Like a magpie and the many forest wood ants I was attracted to the glittering sap resembling summer rain drops or icicles.
 
 









Saturday, June 26, 2010

Walking Home On A Night In Midsummer


A firefly followed me home last night.


Bobbing and bouncing like a fairy’s torch, it appeared at my shoulder and remained there all the way to my door, a tiny glowing escort, perhaps sent to guide me through the mystery of the twilight. Past the tall poppies holding court in the garden on the corner.... was it my imagination, or did they cease conversation at our approach? On down the side lane where the precocious nicotiana breaches her borders and lolls about in the pathway, scenting the warm air with a heavy perfume that makes it quite difficult to think of a serious thought. I wonder, did I hear a hint of a throaty giggle just as we passed? And behind the weeping willow tree, or beneath the white gardenias.... could those have been scores of green eyes, widening and narrowing as we went by?


It was not yet dark, but not quite light, as if the daytime had lingered a bit to flirt with the night before traipsing off to sleep in her silent bed of violets. The magical hour of an ordinary day when cabbage leaves turn to velvet and the glow of a rose paints the air all around us with the pink gauze of a dream.


I made my way, all alone in the lane, with my own blithe spirit aglow just beside me - mt very own Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, Cobweb or Moth - and as I opened my door, the firefly nodded and wove his way off in the dream of a midsummer’s night.
 

The Honey Moon

In pre-historic times, summer was a joyous time of the year for those Aboriginal people who lived in the northern latitudes. The snow had disappeared; the ground had thawed out; warm temperatures had returned; flowers were blooming; leaves had returned to the deciduous trees. Some herbs could be harvested, for medicinal and other uses. Food was easier to find. The crops had already been planted and would be harvested in the months to come.

Although many months of warm/hot weather remained before the fall, they noticed that the days were beginning to shorten, so that the return of the cold season was inevitable.
The first (or only) full moon in June is called the Honey Moon. Tradition holds that this is the best time to harvest honey from the hives.
This time of year, between the planting and harvesting of the crops, was the traditional month for weddings. This is because many ancient peoples believed that the "grand [sexual] union" of the Goddess and God occurred in early May at Beltaine. Since it was unlucky to compete with the deities, many couples delayed their weddings until June. June remains a favorite month for marriage today. In some traditions, "newly wed couples were fed dishes and beverages that featured honey for the first month of their married life to encourage love and fertility. The surviving vestige of this tradition lives on in the name given to the holiday immediately after the ceremony: The Honeymoon."

In June, we're beginning to see some early summer fruits and vegetables (a great time for strawberry crops!), and the days are getting longer and longer. It's a far cry from the darkness of winter, and we typically try to spend as much time outside as possible. Also known as Lover's Moon, Long Sun Moon, it's a time for bonding with friends and family, and forging what connections we can. Nurture your relationships, your garden, your career, and your soul this month.

Correspondences:

Colors: Sun colors -- gold, yellow, orange

Gemstones: Topaz, agate

Trees: Oak, maple

Gods: Isis, Cerridwen, Persephone

Herbs: Parsley, mosses, skullcap, mugwort
Element: Earth

This is the month where magical workings are well suited to maintaining and enhancing things you already have. Weed your garden, prune the bushes, give your lawn all the tender loving care it needs. Take time to let your personal life blossom as well - focus on things that improve your job or education, as well as your relationships with family and friends.



Friday, June 25, 2010

Dear God, I really need some answers please

Dear God,

I am in need of some answers.  I really do not know what lessons needed to be learned.  Some insight would  be helpful in my understanding of all that has transpired. 

Several months ago, you let an old friend back into my life.  Someone I thought I would not have any contact with since the last time I saw him.  For those months we communicated as friends do, catching up, talking about old times and new things.  Then our conversations turned deeper.  My friend was troubled and upset.  We talked through this several times.  I never asking too much, he never revealing too much.  But we talked.  Then just as quickly as you brought him into my life, you let him leave my life.  Yes, we have talked twice since he left.  But God,  I miss him.  I miss our conversations.  I miss our teasing.  I miss our laughter.  I miss his wit and sarcasm.  I know he needs to work through some things.  He thinks he needs to do this alone.  Maybe he does.  But still....why did you bring him back in my life for such a short period of time and then let him slip back out?   I do not see the lesson here.  I only have an empty space where my friend once was.

And God, this next one, I really do not understand at all.  I wasn't looking for or thought I needed someone in my like romantically.  And out of the blue, you dropped this person into my life.  WHY?  God, I had these feeling under control.  Feelings like that were not meant for me.  I knew that.  I was living with it.  And with a blow to knock me off my feet.  You brought this man into my life.  My life will never be the same.  These feelings I have for this man, I can not bury deep inside of me to save my soul.  And just when I thought that maybe, just maybe,  it was really meant for me....just as suddenly you took him away too.  {roving again to me, that I was never meant to be loved like that by anyone.  What lessson are you trying to teach me?  What is it that I am not getting?  The empty space here is so wide and so deep and hurts like hell.  This one God, really hurt.  This pain, will be with me for as long as I live.  This one God, the tears come at any time without notice.  And all I want to know is why?

I do not think that I can take much more God.  I was doing fine with being alone, being lonely, knowing love was not in the cards for me.  I could live and be content without ever knowing any of the things that transpired in the last few weeks God.  Why did you let me feel those feelings?  Why did you let me fall in love?  So I could know heartache?  Why?  The love between a man and a woman has all I ever asked you for, wished for, dreamed about.  You dropped it into my lap without warning.  And you took it away.  To what purpose?

Dear God, I really need some answers here, please.

Yesterday's Tomorrow

Walking towards tomorrow,
Slowly coming to a pause
Staring at the face of a stranger
One who remembers,
One who is lost…
“Leave behind the facade,” She whispers
“Forget today the meaning of why, remember who you are, wake the Soul inside…”
Walking away from yesterday
Taking moments time to reflect
A glimpse of an old face, a distant place
One which has yet to rest.

“A minute seems like years,” He states
“Moments in eternities, time is an uncertainty…”
“Remember my friend, and take this to your stage… remember my life, for meaning is worth little when the play has yet to arise…”
Standing in this moment,
Before the fork of time.

One path brings tomorrow,
One can bring back time…
For now I shall wait at yesterday’s tomorrow
For now I shall stay,
In Now…

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Penetrating the Darkness


Penetrating the Darkness



Wisdom of the Owl


Owls are the holders of wisdom, capable of seeing the unseen. With keen eyesight they glance into the soul and are totems of truth.

For as long as humankind has recognized animals as teachers, wise men and women have recognized traits worthy of respect in both wild and domestic creatures. The cultural and spiritual significance of certain animals transcends geographical boundaries, unifying disparate peoples. Not so the majestic and mysterious owl, which has over many millennia served as the focal point of numerous contradictory beliefs. Though owls have been regarded with awe and fascination, they have also inadvertently served as agents of fear. Since owls are nocturnal, human-owl encounters tended to occur at night and likely when the bird was swooping silently down to earth to grapple with prey. Yet even as some shied away from the owl, calling it an agent of darkness, others recognized the depths of awareness in beautiful owl's eyes.

In the classical Greek tradition, an owl could often be found perched on the shoulder of Athena, goddess of wisdom, while owls could ward off bad luck in Roman lore. It is in Native American mythos, however, that the owl attains its own unique identity. Owls are patient messengers, bringers of information and the holders of wisdom, and they are capable of seeing the unseen. With their keen eyesight, they can glance into the soul to discern meaning and motive, and they are totems of truth. Unlike our distant forebears, we may never encounter an owl in the wild, but we can nonetheless internalize the wisdom of the owl by attuning ourselves to its most venerable qualities. Fully integrating the medicine of the owl into spiritual existence is a matter of considering how we might open ourselves more fully to the wisdom that can be found in the larger universe.

Should you find your efforts blocked as you commune with the owl, remember that it was not always revered as an icon of wisdom. This denizen of the nighttime has overcome many prejudices in its long association with humankind. To reveal those hidden elements of the self that impact your life for better or for worse, you must often make your way through the darkest parts of your soul as if you yourself are the nocturnal hunter. There is indeed darkness both inside the self and outside the self, but like the owl you can transcend it by drawing nourishment from the insights you receive when you penetrate it.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The WIld Child is Letting Her Hair Down

Ok, cool it gang.  Enough with the emails.  And by the way, Finn and Mary Kate, you are in Ireland, please don't call me.....I will not talk to you in the wee hours of the morning.....we are not going on a road trip!!!!

In regards to the previous post about my circle of friends, My closes friends, the ones right in the center with me, are screaming at me through emails and threatening early morning phone calls, if I do not explain more of the wild child that I am.  They tell me I did not do it justice.  I need to explain more.  So I've thought about this and I think this will satisfy them, make them laugh so hard they....well you know what happenes when you laugh so hard.

So when you first meet me, I am quiet, shy, just sit back and take everything in, trying to figure you out, how much of me to let out and so on.  When I am comfortable with you a magic transformation happens,  I open up, talk, laugh, do crazy things and so on.

In other words, oh Finn you're going to love this.......the shy retiring Madame Librarian turns into the Wild Child, the Mistress of Ceremonies, at your service, ready for anything, almost at a moments notice, if I'm not the one coming up with the ideas.  It's like night and day.  It's like a light going on and off.  We can just be sitting around telling stories, talking about anything and everything, laughing and crying, sometimes at the same time.  Other times, we off on road trips, camping, exploring, looking into haunted houses, museums, art galleries anything that just catches are fancy at the time.

For thos of you who do not know me quite as well, I know you are thinking, there's no way, no way at all, she's too quiet, too shy, some of you might even be saying she can carry a conversation?!?  Yes I can, you would be surprised at what I do.  I surprise myself sometimes too.  (Quit laughing Finn).

So if you want to see Madame Librarian turn into Mistress of Ceremonies, just stick it out with me for a little bit, and I guarantee you she will emerge.  I really, really can't keep her hidden, this wild child.  She is wanting out more and more.  Oh boy is she wanting out and it is all because of someo.......well that is private between  me and ............. And when she does get out, I wonder what kind of trouble she's going to get me into......................


Madame Librarian



Mistress of Ceremonies

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Circle of Friends

I had a conversation the other day with some acquaintances about friendship.  Just general stuff we talked about.  How we make friends, or not.  Who we let in or not. But it started me thinking about those things in a more deeper sense. 

How do we make friends?  For some it is very easy.  For other, like me. it is much harder.  I had to think about this for awhile.  And I realized that I have distinct circles of friends.  Each circle, like the rings of a bulls eye target.  Each one, getting smaller as it comes closer to the center.  This center, in this instance, is me.

The outer ring, are those friends and acquaintances I have casual conversation with, can say hello to when I see them out and about, but I am still standing back from them, observing, quiet, listening, not really letting them really get to know me. Just casual acquaintances.  They too, are not really taking the time to look past my quietness to find out what lies beneath.

The inner ring, the inner ring are those few, and they are few, who have piqued my interest and I want to let them in further.  And they are curious enough about me to want to be allowed into this circle.  These are my friends that when we are together we can talk about anything, until all hours of the night.  We laugh at each others jokes.  We cry with each other when we are sad and when we are happy.  These are the ones who understood the quiet and shy person I am and stayed around because they knew there was a more open and talkative person inside.

And then, there is the ring, right before the center.  There are very, very few friends here.  These few are the ones who have stayed the course, curious enough to want to know more of me.  I do not let many people in this close.  This ring is for those who know that there is something inside which I do not let out often.  The wild child.  The gypsy dancer.  The dreamer.  There are very few here that get to see this side of me.  They hear the same music I hear in my head.  They dance the same dance.  The get my jokes.  They get my sarcasm.  They let me let my hair down and be wild and free and daring.  They are the ones you can call at 3:00 am and say "Damn I feel caged I have to get out of here, let's go for a road trip"  And they are knocking on your door 15 minutes later saying where we going.  They are the ones who will let me get away with being silly sweet because they know I'll counter it later with being wickedly wild.  They prefer the wild to the sweet.

These are my circle of friends.

Something's Gotta Give...........

There are times when this intuition of mine, this "gift" of knowing, is right on the money.  Those times are usually when I know things are not working out for me.  Then there are times like right now.  When I "feel" that something is going to change or happen.  These feelings permeate my entire being.  They resonate deep inside.  I cannot place these feelings.  I cannot tell you what they are.  They are just there.  It is a feeling of "something's gotta give...."

In my life right now, something's gotta give, something has to change.  Perhaps that is why this "feeling" is so ....so what? what is the word or words I am looking for.  Bubbling inside, bursting, wanting to, no, needing to get out.

Quite a few things have happened in my life recently.  Some not so good, some extremely pleasurable.  Some I can fix, some I want to fix but feel I've lost the chance at that, and others still need fixing.

Right now, this very moment, 5:15am Tuesday, I would walk out the door of my apartment and never come back.  I don't know where I'd go or what I would do.  But I would never look back.

This is not a "dark night of the soul" kind of feeling.  Been there done that.  This is I've got to make, I need to make changes.  And I need to do it soon or I will lose the battle.  But what am I battling?  Who am I battling with?  And why do I have to be so alone in this?  All I ever wanted was a soft place to land, a loving heart to share, someone to love me and I to love them.  Just simple things that seem so out of reach to me right now.

Oh my, something's gotta give..............

Monday, June 21, 2010

Eco-Kosher

I have a friend who has been teaching me about Magickal Judaism.  What she has taught me has opened up new paths of discovery for me.  Made me think about some of the paths I have chosen and why.  She gave me a key to the door between the worlds. I don’t think she ever knew — or to this day knows what a catalyst she was in my life.
She has created what she calls her List of Seven Principles of Belief.  The idea came from RamBams’s 13 Principles. They are as follows:

1. “Thou shall have no other God before me.”

2.  “I create as I speak”.


3.  The Torah is a Tree of Life


4.  The Renewal of the Soul


5.  The Messiah


6.  The Power of Blessing


7.  Blessed are those who keep the Sabbath


All very powerful beliefs.  All have meaning in my life right now.  I thank my friend for showing me this path at a time when I needed it the most.
 
But on to the Eco-Kosher.  My friend is Jewish married to a non-Jewish man.  She has devolped this document about Eco-Kosher and I wanted to share this with you.  I find this probably one of the easiest practices of being conscious of what we eat, how we eat and as I follow this and study more it becomes second nature to me.
 
"I believe that my soul is directly intertwined with the world around me. A blade of grass contains a spark of the Divine, the same as any animal or human – I must respect not only my body, but also the animals and plants that are sacrificed to maintain my body. For my magick to be effective, my word must be true and in harmony with the Divine energy in all things.



אברא כדברא — I create as I speak.


To this effect, below I present my definition of “Kosher” eating and living. What is presented is an ideal. Each lifetime is a process of learning. Just like in school we strive for 100% on an exam, but are not crushed by receiving an 85%. My goal is to receive high marks, even if, being human, I do not reach perfection.


This document, like life, is a work in progress.


Ethical Living


Honor the Divine in all its forms.


Honor the Elements, the Spirits of Nature, and Heavenly Beings.


Honor the Ten Commandments of Moses.


Honor my Ancestors.


Speak honestly and behave in an upright fashion.


Put ethics above material gain.


Live each day fully. Live with joy. Live with excitement. Live with intent.


Harness my natural talents, provide opportunities for them to grow, and share them with others.


Encourage the dreams of those around me.


Live in harmony with nature. Care for the Earth to leave a better world for those who come after me.


Choose “green” products over more harmful ones.


Creatively re-use products whenever possible.


Plant native plants and landscape in a way that is beneficial to my environment.


Ethical Eating - (Explore Sacred Food around Washington, DC)
Sacred Eating Practice Recommended Reading


Whenever possible local agriculture should be supported through an active effort to purchase locally-grown/raised/produced foods.


Eat foods that are in season, to keep my body in tune with the natural cycles of the world around me.


Support smaller, independent food producers should also be actively supported.


Organic and non-genetically modified food products, fruits, vegetables, and grains


Food products sold by ethical, eco-conscious companies


“Clean” Animals raised in an ethical manner


Cage free / Pastured


No growth hormone or unnecessary antibiotics


Fed natural healthy food – no animal byproduct for cows, chickens, etc.


Slaughtered in a responsible manner that does not cause unnecessary pain or distress.


Limit consumption of high-fructose corn syrup which is used to enhance the profits of manufacturers


Avoid all food products that contain Hydrogenated Oils and Partially-hydrogentated Oils, which serve no value for the body, potentially cause great harm, and only are used to increase the profits of the producers.


Do not be ignorant of what I am eating — read labels


Return what I do not eat to the earth (compost!)"









Open Arms


Lying beside you here in the dark
Feeling your heart beat with mine
Softly you whisper you're so sincere
How could our love be so blind
We sailed on together
We drifted a part
And here you are by my side
So now I come to you with open arms
Nothing to hide believe what I say
So here I am with open arms
Hoping you'll see what your love means to me
Open arms
Living without you living alone
This empty house seems so cold
Wanting to hold you wanting you near
How much I want you home
But now that you've come back
Turned night in to day
I need you to stay
So now I come to youwith open arms
Nothing to hide believe what I say
So here I am with open arms
Hoping you'll see what your love means to me
Open arms


Sunday, June 20, 2010

Anais Nin - Forbidden Fruit - Erotica In Literature


There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.

Anais Nin
 
 
Anais Nin, 1903-1977

Writer and diarist, born in Paris of a Catalan father and a Danish Mother, Anais spent many of her early years with Cuban relatives.  Later a naturalized American citizen, she lived and worked in Paris, New York, and Los Angeles.  Author of avant-gard novels in the French surrealistic style, she is best known for her life and times in the Diary of Anais Nin, Vols. I-VII. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1966-1980; and the Early Diaries of Anais Nin. Vols. 1-IV. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978-1985.

"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection." Anais Nin

As an unsuspecting adolescent searching my local library, I was lured into the smoky den of literature by Anaïs Nin's erotica.

Ah, the public library circa 1970. The workhorse institution of the community, a perpetually underfunded repository of stuffy reference books, underpaid librarians, used book sales, tax forms, broken microfiche readers -- and pornography.

Lurking right there in the open stacks of my suburban public library was enough smut to blow my impressionable 13-year-old mind. My life changed the day I spied Anaïs Nin's "Delta of Venus" on a shelf in the fiction section. I quizzically studied the photograph on the cover. It showed a girl in strange clothing contorted on an old armchair, her dress hiked up to her hips, revealing a stocking attached to a lacy undergarment. "Erotica" the cover said. I cracked open the book to see what was inside.

Down the rabbit hole I fell into Nin's world of courtesans, artists, showgirls, lecherous old men, voyeurs, prostitutes and cheeky schoolgirls, all cavorting in a European world of shabby gentility. I felt a twinge of excitement wash over me. I'd found a dirty book, but not like those my mother hid in the cubbyhole of her headboard, like "Forever Amber" or "Princess Daisy." My literature radar began to whir. I sensed that there was something more to this book than cheap thrills.

Beautiful smut in hand, I glanced around to see if I was about to get caught by a disapproving librarian. As an adolescent I was unaware that most librarians abhor censorship, and one of them had probably put that book in the general collection for a reason. I felt like a secret agent finding clues to my next assignment in the middle of a public space. I put "Delta of Venus" in my "keep" pile and glanced back up at the shelf.

Sandwiched between V.S. Naipaul and Larry Niven was a companion volume by the same author, "Little Birds." That cover photograph was even more interesting: a girl (woman?) of indeterminate age poised as if sitting in a chair -- only there was no chair there. She had a big bow in her hair and wore a short baby-doll dress that was magically suspended straight out to her sides. She rested her chin on her hands and exhibited an unmistakable "come hither" stare. I placed the book face down on my pile should my mother come to see what I was up to.

I was full of questions. I was drawn to the compelling cover photographs as much as to the words inside. Instinctively, I knew Nin's stories belonged to another era, but I didn't know which. The books' copyrights were recent. I felt as if I were gazing through a keyhole into another world. I longed to throw open the door, cross the threshold and don one of those unusual outfits myself.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow describes what he calls a "peak experience," a seemingly mundane moment in which a sudden insight takes you to a higher plane of understanding about the world and your presence in it. Discovering Anaïs Nin in my public library at the tender age of 13 was my peak experience. Not only had I found words to sate the extraordinary appetite of my raging hormones, but also awakened in me was a thirst for knowledge about the world, a way to put all the disparate elements of this literary mystery in front of me -- these strange images, this European miasma -- into their proper context. This chance encounter at my local library did what no teacher in eight years of public education could do: It made me care about art, literature and history.

Suddenly, I knew there was more to life than the strip malls and subdivisions that were popping up overnight in my Midwestern suburb. There was more to life than school, movies, television, records and shopping. "Delta of Venus" and "Little Birds" were about sex, but not the kind of sex the high school kids had in the backs of cars or at home while their parents were in Florida. Nin's tales of sex were woven into a shimmering blanket of unfamiliar cultural mores. Sex for her characters came naturally, in the way one would visit the baker, or stroll along the Seine, or clip a stocking to a garter.

Sex was not crass or defiant; it was part of life. Sure, sometimes it was risky or forbidden, like in her story "The Woman on the Dunes," which describes a woman who allows herself to be taken from behind by a stranger at a public execution, but above all it was pleasurable. If you kept your eyes open for eroticism, Nin implied, soon enough it would scamper out of the bushes and start nibbling from your hand. Having been steeped in American culture too long, I found this idea revelatory and could barely wait to pursue it.

Nin's books were more than a sexual awakening for me; they were also the beginning of my love of literature. The stepping stones of my self-education went something like this: Nin to Henry Miller. Miller to Jack Kerouac to Allen Ginsberg to Tom Wolfe and Ken Kesey, and finally back to Paris with the Lost Generation expatriates: Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I crossed paths with many other writers in my meandering, notably Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, and respected their writing, but mainly I saw them as supporting cast members to the original group (Nin, Miller, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Wolfe and Kesey) that really interested me. Somehow, James Michener, Truman Capote and Norman Mailer got mixed in the fray, too.

The discovery of these authors was sweeter for being my own. I dug into their novels during summer vacations when I had a break from the standard public school fare of "Oliver Twist," "Romeo and Juliet" and "Gulliver's Travels." In time, I began to sense the evolution of 20th century American literature. I began to understand how a place -- Paris -- could beget a literary trend. I studied maps of the city's layout. I searched the library -- to no avail -- to find more photographs like those on the Nin books' covers. Along the way I stumbled onto Man Ray and Lee Miller. Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali were not far behind. I developed an eye for Art Nouveau. I slowly began to understand the interconnectedness of all art as each path of research I took eventually collided into a name or an idea I'd run into before.

It all started with those throwaway stories of Nin's. They were -- and are -- such fun. Louis, from "The Woman on the Dunes," takes a midnight walk along a beach in a French coastal town. He peeks into the window of a cottage and witnesses a couple having oral sex. Later, he sees a woman in a billowing cape run to the edge of the water, strip and jump in. He jumps in after her and soon enough they're frolicking like lovers. Back on the sand, Louis proves impotent. The remainder of the story is a very explicit how-to guide in regaining sexual functioning in a pre-Viagra era.

The feeling imparted by Nin's stories is more flowery than her actual words. The dreamlike language of her opaque novels is gone, and she is reduced to the bare descriptions of love and sex and how people get it: "Mathilde was a hat maker in Paris and barely twenty when she was seduced by the Baron. Although the affair did not last more than two weeks, somehow in that short time she became, by contagion, imbued with his philosophy of life and his seven-leagued way of solving problems."

This matter-of-fact tone serves nicely to bring out the more erotic undertones in otherwise bizarre situations. The story "Artists and Models" includes the character of Mafouka, "the man-woman of Montparnasse," a hermaphrodite who manages to be mysterious and beguiling, rather than freakish, as such a character might be in the hands of a less talented pornographer: "'Mafouka,' I said, 'what are you? Are you a man or a woman? Why do you live with these two girls? If you are a man, why don't you have a girl of your own? If you are a woman, why don't you have a man occasionally?' Mafouka smiled at me. 'Everybody wants to know.'"

Nin's reverence for sexuality in all its guises helped lay the groundwork for my healthy view of sexuality. Her female characters frequently have as much or more power than the men in her stories, and most of them approach sex with a sense of awe, or at least a bit of mischievousness. Her characters enjoy sex, fall in love, have affairs, wear great clothes and talk about it all to other people. Nin was the original Carrie Bradshaw. Through osmosis I came to think the same way. I came to expect that I would have sex to fulfill my own sensual needs, and not the needs of someone else. I could entice men, but I would never submit to them unless I was in control of my own submission.

Sex could be mysterious and sensual, but it was to be a dance of equals. Partners were to be appreciated on their own terms and never forced into roles they didn't want to assume, in the bedroom or otherwise. My notions may have been somewhat romantic, but they were tempered by realism, and they worked. I had precious few sexual encounters during my teenage years, but they were all good.

In Nin I found a literary complement to the Stevie Nicks music wafting from my stereo. The female figure in "The Woman on the Dunes" could be Rhiannon herself, who "rings like a bell through the night" tempting men and being taken by the wind. Both Nin and Nicks had carved out their own niche of feminine sensibility smack dab in the middle of a man's realm. Neither has ever received the respect from the male establishment they are entitled to, and feminists have derided both women as superfluous figures in the quest toward gender equality simply, it appears, for their dogged devotion to flouncy clothes.

Since the 1970s, Nin's reputation has ebbed and flowed. Her admirers have been saddled with the tacky sobriquet "ninnies," but Maria de Medeiros' portrayal of Nin in Philip Kaufman's 1990 film "Henry and June" artfully captured the sensuality of her early career. New configurations of her work continue to be published, notably the unexpurgated version of her diary, which hints that she may have had an incestuous affair with her father when she was a young woman.

Two biographies have appeared in recent years by respected writers, Noel Riley Fitch's "Anaïs: The Erotic Life of Anaïs Nin (Little, Brown, 1993) and Deirdre Bair's "Anaïs Nin: A Biography" (Putnam, 1995). Both works treat Nin respectfully and help smother the negative criticism she received for years from the likes of Gore Vidal and others.

"Delta of Venus" and "Little Birds" are widely available and at my last check ranked around 6,000 and 14,000 respectively on Amazon's sales chart. More than 20 years after her death, the life and works of this "major minor" writer, as she is often called, still have the power to attract new fans.

Nin dismissed her erotica as nothing but cheap stories churned out for the amusement of a wealthy patron. But to me they were much more. They lured an unsuspecting adolescent into the smoky den of literature. They used sex to ensnare me in the larger trap of the liberal arts. It was a sneaky bait and switch. I still regard my discovery of Nin's erotica as a defining moment in my sexual and cultural awakening. It was the right discovery at the right time to fuel my imagination.

Always Daddy's Little Girl





I will travel a couple of hours today to see my daddy.  I am looking forward to this very much.  He's alwasy been there for me.  He'll always be there for me.  He taught me many things, the least of wich was that no matter what....love can move mountains.  He and my mom would have been married 53 years this past May.  He taught me to love books, music, history and art.  He taught me that even though I was a girl I could do anything that I set my mind too.  No matter what distance lies between us I am and forever always will be Daddy's little girl.

I Love You Daddy

Your Little Girl


Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Morning Dew - A Magical Potion

The world awakens each day from its nightly slumber, transformed by a sparkling layer of morning dew on the grass, on flower petals and leaves, on cars and car windows. These glistening droplets last only a little while, an integral part of what imbues the early morning with its aura of magic. If we sleep too late, we miss the magnificent display of sunlight playing upon an infinite amount of tiny crystal balls. To step onto the dew-covered grass is to anoint our feet with a form of water that comes only once a day for a short time, a rarefied gift of the night air that will soon evaporate in the full light of the sun. If we inhale slowly and consciously enough, it is almost as if we are drinking in this magical elixir formed in the boundary between darkness and light.



In one myth, morning dew is believed to be tears from heaven, and in another, the droplets are poured from the vessel of the goddess of dawn. When we see the earth draped with these shimmering drops, it is easy to imagine fairies bathing in the water, or a sky god weeping from a longing to be closer to his beloved earth goddess. Seeing the sparkling beauty of the earth emerging from darkness, we may understand this longing in terms of our own gratitude; how blessed we are to be here.



Perhaps heaven really does long to be here on earth, and perhaps that is why we are here—as conduits between the divine and the earthbound. As we drink the morning dew in with our eyes, our skin, our breath, it is easy to imagine that it really is a magical potion, a gift from heaven, a reminder of our true purpose, and a daily opportunity to be transformed.



From The Daily Om

Monday, June 14, 2010

When in the springtime of the year
When the trees are crowned with leaves
When the ash and oak, and the birch and yew
Are dressed in ribbons fair.

When owls call the breathless moon
in the blue veil of the night
When shadows of the trees appear
amidst the lantern('s) light.

We've been rambling all the night
and sometime of this day
Now returning back again
we bring a garland gay.

Who will go down to those shady groves
and summon the shadows there
And tie a ribbon on those sheltering arms
in the springtime of the year.

The sounds of birds seem to fill the wood
and when the fiddler plays
All their voices can be heard
long past their woodland days.

We've been rambling all the night
and sometime of this day
Now returning back again
we bring a garland gay.

And so they linked their hands and danced
'round in circles and in rows
And so the journey of the night descends
when all the shades are gone.

A garland gay we bring you here
And at your door we stand
Here's a sprout, well budded out
The work of our Lord's hand.

We've been rambling all the night
and sometime of this day
Now returning back again
we bring a garland gay.


 

Rain

Rain
Beautiful Rain
Wash my sins away
Drown my sorrows in the
Purifying elixir

Rain
Beautiful Rain
Drenched in the sweetness
Droplets fall from body
In soulful delight


Kathys Comments

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Storms

“Tell me more about the impending storm, it will rage, I feel it, yet I can not explain its nature.”

She sat back, her gaze fixed out the large windows in the center room. They focused on the darkness looming in the near distance. She sighed and began again.

What is it about storms? They bring signs and bring warning, yet once they are upon us, they leave nothing. They batter and deplete their surroundings, leaving only the strongest to stand. The rest to recover and grow once more with time”

I simply couldn’t come up with something appropriate to answer. So I sat silent. Watching. Listening.

“Do you see? Tell me you see! Tell me you understand the nature. Tell me you know of the strength it takes to withstand a storm. Please tell me of its nature!”

With this she sat and gazed sadly out the window. I gazed sadly out the window. In silence I turned to her mirrored reflection and simply cried.


I was feeling for the answers, reaching for the courage to face my other… I was grasping for something. Anything.

The storm is upon us now, it shall pass. I know not how long it will last, I know only of the warnings and signs of which you speak. I know only of the hallowed reflection I gaze upon in that mirror…”
 
I stopped. As I stood there, looking in the direction of my outstretched arm. I saw it, once more. I saw it for what it had become. What it was going to be. I saw its nature.

Would I let it be? That is the question. That is the reality.

“… through the window you see me, you see what I do not. You see the storm, feel the power, feel the meaning… and know… yet what I feel is so much greater. It burns in my hallowed chest. It rings in my detached thoughts. The truth. I see its nature. Yet to see is not enough. To feel is not enough. It is in understanding that we truly can be…”

“Truly can be what?”

Her voice rang clearly in the silence of my mind. Her eyes were haunting my thoughts. Her gaze penetrating.

"You know.”

I simply watched the seconds passed as she reflected, the minutes as she mused and then she knew. A faint smile graced her beautiful face. I felt better. So then did she.

“Yes… I suppose I do…”

With that she turned back to her window in the center room. The rain had begun.

To No Longer Feel The Solid Ground

The Swan

This laboring through what is still undone,

As though, legs bound, we hobbled along the way,

Is like the awkward walking of the swan.

And dying—to let go, no longer feel

The solid ground we stand on every day—

Is like his anxious letting himself fall

Into the water, which receives him gently

And which, as though with reverence and joy,

Drawback past him in streams of either side;

While, infinitely silent and aware,

In his full majesty and ever more

Indifferent, he condescends to glide.


Ranier Maria Rilke


this beautiful poem from Rilke found me again. I am so grateful that there are people in the world who can express so exquisitely an experience that we all recognize on some level. It is what I wish for in my relationships, and in my deepest self. And it is happening. As we all learn to let go of fear, let go of control, we will also learn to glide. Effortlessly. Beautifully.








Fireflies


Before you met me i was a fairy princess
I caught frogs and called them prince
And made myself a queen

Before you knew me i traveled 'round the world
I slept in castles and fell in love
Because i was taught to dream

I found mayonnaise bottles and poked holes on top
To capture tinkerbell
They were just fireflies to the untrained eye
But i could always tell

I believe in fairytales and dreamers dreams like bed sheet sails
And i believe in peter pan and miracles
And anything i can to get by
And fireflies

Before i grew up i saw you on a cloud
I could bless myself in your name and pat you on your wings
Before i grew up i heard you whisper so loud
"life is hard, and so is love, child, believe in all these things"

I found mayonnaise bottles and poked holes on top
To capture tinkerbell
And they were just fireflies to the untrained eye
But i could always tell

Before you met me i was a fairy princess
I caught frogs and called them prince
And made myself a queen

 
Before you knew me i traveled 'round the world
And i slept in castles and fell in love
Because i was taught to dream
I think the best and most precious things in life are:

Holding hands, big warm hugs, passionate kisses,

the smell of rain, daydreaming, walking through a field of wildflowers,

laughing, smiles from anyone ~ particularly strangers, soft cushy pillows,

anything chocolate, and lastly, being loved...




Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Random Things


1. A good kiss can save the day

2. Life is too short to only make sensible purchases ;)

3. Humus on toasted rye bread is so yummy

4. A mug of hot chocolate can save the day

5. I need to stop taking certain things so personally (because, shockingly, not everything is about me *winks *)

6. Anything you really want, is worth the effort

7. Italian, Mexican or Chinese? Italian

8. Every now and then you need to laugh until your ribs hurt

9. Its important to practice random acts of kindness
 
10.  Chocolate croissants - Lately I have been craving them alot (even right now I am wishing I had one). I love how perfectly they go with coffee and how totally decadent they are.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Special Things


There are certain things that make you feel good.  That make you happy inside.  That remind you of happy times.  That give you a feeling of peace.  That resonate deep inside of you.  These are but a few of those things that do that for me.

Fog.  A damp foggy night. To be enveloped in the fog is such an exhilirating feeling. Really!

Thunder.  The sound of thunder rumbling in the distance as you lay in bed late at night.

The purr of a cat.  Nothing is as comforting as that sound.

Sitting in a rocking chair on the porch on a warm summer night, with the moon in the sky, fireflies dancing, listening to the night sounds.

Roses.  Roses growing wild smell so sweet.

The sound of snow falling.

Vanilla.  The smell of vanilla, deep and rich.

Chocolate.  Deep, dark chocolate, what more can I say

Lovers.

The Hours Between Night and Day


The hours between night and day, those hours draped in the deepest shadows, keep calling to me.  It is as if someone is there, watching me, waiting for me, calling to me to come.  I am some what of a night owl, but lately, I am pulled deeper and deeper into this mist filled time.  I arise from bed many times to peer into these starless depths.  Searching, searching for....

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Joi de vi-vre


Pronunciation: \ˌzhwä-də-ˈvēvrə\

Function: noun

Etymology: French, literally, joy of living

Date: 1889: Keen or buoyant enjoyment of life...




Merriam Webster dictionary classifies this French phrase as a noun, but I wonder what it would look like as a verb, qualified by an adverb...




To EMBRACE the beauty of age GRACIOUSLY
To LOOK into the mirror of time BOLDLY
SMILE BACK CONTENTLY
and TO DO all in your power CONSISTENTLY.
To READ VORACIOUSLY
and REFLECT OFTEN.
 
To PLAY INNOCENTLY like a child
GET DOWN TO BUSINESS and DRESS UP REGALLY like a woman.



To SHAMELESSLY TAKE TIME for yourself
REST COMFORTABLY
PRETEND UNINHIBITEDLY



LOOK CLOSELY at your goals

and DREAM CONSTANTLY in the clouds
until you ACHIEVE your goals COMPLETELY on earth.



DANCE FEARLESSLY mes amies, in the golden shoes of a life, LIVED LONG and WELL with LA JOIE DE VIVRE!

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Back from the Wastelands (hospital,,,shhhhh)

Now maybe I can get some rest.  You don't get much when you are in the hospital.  You don't get much rest when you are in the critical care unit of a hospital either. You get plenty of attention.  But no rest. 

Sunday I was admitted to the hospital with renal failure due to dehydration with pancreatitis.  Kidneys are making full recovery.  They have improved greatly.  No more dehydration/  And the pancreatitis....never had pain to begin with....but they tell me that's OK too.

So my friends, it will take me a few days to get back in the swing of things, but I'll start posting again soon.

See ya