Tantra

The word makes me nervous.

Every time I hear it or read it or think it my stomach twists in a knot just a little bit...especially when I'm overly caffeinated.
I have associations with my world being ripped apart, with my loved ones curling up uncovered in the arms of other lovers, of disease running rampant through the syphilitic streets of Victorian England, of Dravidian Indians carting the severed heads of Hindu priests to blood drenched temples, gaining access to circular ceremonies of sinister sex magic.

And it turns me on.

Even without the ooey gooey sex stuff, it turns me on. The unsettling path of transformation through destruction...deconstruction, through Kali fuckin' with my shit, it turns me on. There is a part of me that craves the annihilation.
There is also a part of me that screams for me to end the torture, to run fast and hard in the other direction, to take up a post as a bible thumping Baptist somewhere in the South, head in the sand of supposed salvation.

Oh, I'm offending someone somewhere, I know. And that twists my gut as well. Oh, well. It seems to be the way of the soothsaying truth sprayers.

I've embarked on a path of healing for myself and others, and fallen in love with my number one lover, and she with me which brings complexity. I know that these feelings that grow from the belly below tend to build a sense of forever, a holding that's clever and attachments that never want to let go...and it wrenches the everlovin' meat from my bones.

I know that this can't last. I see only demise on this path. The crazy ones, they're the faces I see, and yet I can't seem to turn away.
Leave some space for the Holy Spirit, I say.

A little quietude, not tryin' to be rude, just gotta handle my shit on my own like men do. Entrancin', enchantin', dancin' with you, Kali Ma, Durga Ma, Tara Ma, the fierce goddess mother that calls me under the covers for another smother...
Gotta break free and breathe. What a relief, a reprieve, no need to leave, just be...me. Alone. On my own. At home with the One.

Because right now it's gettin' a bit sticky, too many ingredients packed into this shitbrick, too much commotion and loco-motion.

Thank God for massage. Thank God for distant pods. Thank Goddess for God.

Ahhhh...Tantra.

my own row to hoe

Don’t come at me with this silliness.
Come to me in stillness.
My life is what it is because of my movement through life.
I’ve made my choices, I’ve followed the path I’ve laid through my days.
You’ve done what you do, said go here, over there, but I have chosen.
Did you teach me to emote? Did you teach me to dance? Did you teach me to speak the way that’s uniquely me?
Did you teach me silence? To find the moon in dim starlight?
You taught me to love what doesn’t make sense…passionately.
And I chose to.
And I choose to.
Of course I credit you, a very important turning point, a spot on the map, named and gilded, gleaming and missed fondly.
Longed for at times, even.
But the quintessential guru,
The forlorn and forgotten mother of your own myth,
That’s your trip, my dear.
Your yarn to spin.
One helluva lover, strong enough to hold me long after lights out.
Lover. Love Her.
That’s my call.
That’s my truth.
That’s you.
Ridiculous.
Beautiful.

another lesson...

ah, yes, expectation.

Today is Christmas, and as I'm away from family, I planned on spending this entire day writing. I've been so busy lately that I've been looking forward to this day for about a week. So here it is, the day that all the bubbling and percolation has been waiting for, the day of atonement and expression...and the tongue is clumsy, the well dry.

I want so badly to pen prose brilliant and beautiful, to spill genius on the page and...and...just fucking say something of value.

I suppose that the only thing of value to say is strike while the iron is hot. It's quite difficult to create the exact right environment for creativity, so when you feel it, flow with it. And when it's not there, don't worry...it will be again, I promise. Words have seldom failed me...

I guess it's time to watch a movie. Exhaustion is setting in. It's been a big day.
Merry Christmas.

west hollywood catfight

I watched a brawl in the streets yesterday.
A couple of West Hollywood boys engaging roadrage screeched their cars to a halt, jumped out and started throwin' blows.
It was fascinating.
For half a second, I thought, "I should stop this," but immediately I realized that this is what people do. The animal comes to the surface, and sometimes we bleed.
Necessary.
I was surprised by how calm I was in the face of such immediate violence...these men were less than 20 feet from me, and I stood there, with takeout pho in my left hand and my right hand in my coat pocket, watching.
Steady heart rate.
Zero perspiration.
It was like watching monkeys scratch their asses behind glass, only more exciting.
Their shrill voices cattily crying out insults and challenges as one of them pulled off layer after layer in the midst of the fray. Sweater on the ground, bloody t-shirt thrown at a car, belly jigglin' as he scrambled for firm purchase on the pavement.
The other pugilist shot carefully aimed punches and danced nimbly, lisping threats to call the cops.
And like most common street brawls, it was done in less than two minutes. The spirit left the scene, and the two men walked away from one another, got in their cars, and drove off.
Poof.
Humans.

Practice

Holy shit that shit makes sense.

I sucked last night.
I played with a few friends in a bar, as I'm prone to do on Tuesday nights...a funk quartet, a quintet of blues when I lose my shoes and step to the stage. Usually I bring it, unabashed, fashioned from funk and stone and the thick viscous grit of a thousand broken men's lifetimes, blown across the reeds of my Lee Oskar diatonic.

But last night I was feeling a little too sensitive, a bit too broken from a day of exhaustion and a momentary loss of integrity at evening's end. Head fulla hops and thc I took everything personally, and coupled with my recent lack of practice, I fell short, and everyone present witnessed the tumble.

I got to experience my sense of entitlement. I sat back and watched as small waves of anger lapped against my sands, spurred by little triggers.
As others stepped to fill the solos I wouldn't take, I got angry, thinking, "NO. This is my time to shine. I'm on the stage. I'm with the band."
When another singer walked in the door I thought, "NO. You're not supposed to be here. I'm singing tonight. I'm with the band. "
The bratty little child inside held on tight to this sense of entitlement...just because I'd been invited to show up, I felt that all others should step down...EVEN IF I WASN'T WILLING TO STEP UP.
And of course, the Big Mama laughed and sent me home broken, feeling the pain of those thousand other lifetimes, that I may know my own.

Thank God I dropped into the witness. Even as I sucked and blew, I laughed. This too shall pass. I dropped into my body, and felt that this wasn't gonna shake so easy, so best to rest and write.

Breathe...

These cats are good. I'm gonna have to practice to keep up.
Thank God.

Patience

Patience.
What a nasty game this is.
Essential for faith and understanding and advancement but brutal and bewildering at times.
Patience.
Waiting with the faith that everything is okay one way or another.
I long for the way we made love through prose, ones and zeroes across the globe typing first thing in the morning and last thing at night, fighting, confessing, loving unconditionally and burning endlessly...
I love a woman and sometimes I wish I didn't, but in loving I see myself...In loving through it all I see the face of God and that is irreplaceable.
Inescapable.

Oh, but it burns!
My mind fills with fantasies of what to do to make it better. I feel like maybe I've done something wrong...my egoic pursuits have left her cold, my harsh words have hurt, my whatever has done some ill and now I am hated.
I've been ugly and I must once again do something extraordinary to prove myself worthy of her love...to get back in good graces, I must love stronger, have greater shows of faith, I must save face and win a few points...
I know at my core that this has nothing to do with me. She's on her own trip...off on pilgrimage sifting through the sands of a Turkish desert in search of full acceptance of Self.
The vision clear she seeks from others will only be found through this.
Through losing her own shame, those seeds of debilitation that cripple a soul as quickly as a bullet kills...She's living her life and figuring her head and heart and I've played several of many parts...

My life continues on this continent.
Generating content for volumes left unrested deep within this heart of mine.
The books I am to write. The stories I am to tell. The man I am becoming.
I can rest in that. Sit easy in the driver's seat of my own internal spaceship.
This shit makes me queasy.
My stomach twists in knots sometimes. I am in a wretched state of love. And the lesson I've learned and felt time and again...What does my heart say?
My heart says, "Go Love Some More."

I woke this morning with the taste of yabyum yoni on my tongue.
I awoke with a burning desire to love through physical form, knees back, thighs squeezed around a juicy, pungent cunt, my face buried deep in that blissful pillow.
Juicy Puja.

Too many memories now flooding in coming through too many projections and fantasies of what has and may have happened in my absence too many uncomfortable moments in my head and so I sit and breathe and burn through them all, seeking solace only in this pen scratching this page in an age-old comfortable way, leaving ink smeared in clear lines to say exactly what's on my nasty mind.
Why! Why! Why! Why! Why!!!
Doesn't matter, Son. Why is not the question. You know that you move in divine time and order. Why is just a question of the mind, a function of the ego. A need to place blame on another name, to pin a crime to another man's vest when no crime has been committed. An omission of trust perhaps, but really just a collective of humanity seeking to know God through the form of ones and twos. Seeking the rhythm of the formless through the form of flesh, melted in gentle whispers and awkward fumblings.
Grace tasted like earth.

Patience.

A salve. These understandings and ramblings are beeswax and olive oil mixed with herbal words to pull the infectuous jealousy and wear to the surface that they may be released to the ethers. Trouble me no more.
I don't need that woman to experience my life. Shakti sits with me, as the peace from these pages scrawled upon shows. I have it all inside, and in hiding that light I deprive myself and my tribe of the knowledge and experience of divinity playing with me,
through me,
as me.

Ah, to play...

You see the milkmaids toiling yonder in the barn? Squeezing drop after drop of sweet creamy amrit from the teat of the beast...Do they know where they are going at the end of this day? Maybe some of them play fantasies of where they'd like to end up...at the bottom of a cup of tea in a lover's hands, in between soft sheets in a mother's bed, at the tavern till midnight to awaken hungover and do it all again...but at this very moment, there is only the music of milk in the bucket and a crisp tune sprung forth from fresh reds, rooted in the heart of youth.
Be as this milkmaid coven. Whistle your tune and work merrily. The beloved has it laid, and it's made of moments like these. Even in misery find your music, muse or no muse. Grind the wanting into words and through this experience, see and know your God.

Patience, sweet child.
And Love.

fear felt and transformed

i wake up to a day of deliverance
sinless possibilities play out perfectly impermanent
change is the order of the day
transformation
this is the play station
dread met me at first light
another day started in anxiety and quickly reined through the righteousness of divine breath
embodied awareness
consciousness stilled to distill existence to liquid that fills my morning martini cup, brimming with barely held bliss that comes from this mystery made manifest through release
let go
let go
let go
and let god take over
realizing that god is plotting nothing short of awe, and living within, asking for surrender.
i chose this story, this scenario, this lifetime.
i,
as the i and i,
as the divine chose this lifetime to live and play gaily,
givin it up daily
sometimes crying and going insane only to come back out another way
slaying old self to keep on praying playfully...
yeah, this is what i wanted.
i've lived a million lifetimes to get here, and now all i need is line-layin.
deep breath...
game on.