Dakota

A Brush with Krishnamurti

Webwandering early this morning, poking around in the Theosophy/Krishnamurti ranch, I found this quote from Krishnamurti:

"Why are you hurt? Self-importance, is it not? And why is there self-importance? Because one has an idea, a symbol of oneself, an image of oneself, what one should be, what one is or what one should not be. Why does one create an image about oneself? What awakens anger is that our ideal, the idea we have of ourselves, is attacked. And our idea about ourselves is our escape from the fact of what we are. But when you are observing the actual fact of what you are, no one can hurt you. Then, if one is a liar and is told that one is a liar it does not mean that one is hurt; it is a fact."

A very good point, especially for those who tend to idealize themselves. There's a whole other crowd out there. Those who have been persistently devalued as children, who do not know their worth as unique individuals, and feel fear when asked to present their true selves in any new situation. At the edge of the unknown, they project annihilation, and then, of course, they don't go there, thus losing opportunities for experiences that challenge their distorted beliefs about themselves.

It is a very good idea to face the truth about who you really are. Finding that truth takes courage and persistence.

Elmer Green on the Future of Religion

I guess I'll just transcribe this from "The Ozawkie Book of the Dead" Vol. III. I could transcribe the whole book here, but I will spare you (not to mention, myself). My copy looks like a field of Tibetan Prayer flags , with all the tape flags I have glued to important information.

"Had a long series of vision dreams in which the main thesis was that a world-wide religions would be established in which the development of etheric-energy technology would make it possible for people to go to a chapel and participate in a ceremony of transformation. It was as if "High Self" energies, focused by Teachers, would become visible.
* * *
This visibility was "symbolized" (but maybe was to be factual) by three vertical transparent tubes about two feet in diameter that extended upward to the ceiling, like huge organ pipes, on a stage behind the master of ceremonies (a minister?). As the ceremony progressed, various energies, shown as different pastel-colored flames, appeared in the tubes and the entire congregation was encompassed in the aura of these flames, which were both psychologiclly and physiologically energizing. While energy was flowing in the tubes, a stream of effervescent bubbles kept rising and vanishing upwards. This was a side effect of the transformatin process.

To aid my understanding of what was happening, in an ASIDE section of the dream, one of these tubes was shown holding a snarling wolf. When the energy was turned on , a chemical process began in the wolf's body and gradually metamorphosed it , with much bubbling chemical reaction, through a series of less carnivorous creatures. Finally, at the end, when the energy was turned off, a rabbit, the Chinese symbol of humility, was there in the place of the wolf. I immediately thought of Jesus' comment that " the meek shall inherit the earth".

Along with the symbology came the understanding that this process was not rapid (as in the example), but it was real, and physiologically measurable. And it signified that human wolf-like attitudes toward anyone outside the pack (outside family, state, nation) would be modified toward tolerance and forgiveness by the application of this energy. "

Green quotes Monitor , one of the channeled sources he stays tuned to (6 May 92) " In earlier ages, individual members of an organized religion had to rely upon mediatiors, priest and priestesses who held sacred office and intervened for the benefit of disempowerd individuals. Now the door is open for any individual to contact Divinity and express it in daily life. The Aquarian Age will see this trend carried to fulfillment. "

Let's hear it for finding the wolf parts of self and making friends. I'm not sure I want my wolf transformed into a rabbit (once I locate it, that is), but I'd go for a golden retreiver.

Female Aggression

Ah! Click here to see a creative female use of the blog in combat, girly style. I have been rather critical of male aggression here on this blog but that 's because they are making such a mess out of the world right now, I take that back, they have been making the same kind of mess for quite some time, over and over, but now they can affect more of the world, more seriously. Lives are being lost to death and, of utmost concern, trauma. Trauma produces tramatized, individuals who raise their children in the energy field of victim/perpetrator, fight/flight/freeze. A few generations of this, and there are hardly any good energy fields on the planet in which to raise children. Then the dark ages set in, we lose consciousness and have to start all over, oh well. It would sure be fun to see what would happen next, if we stayed on the consciousness path a little while longer. If we need a map, the Hebrew Alphabet, and it's encoded explanation for the structure of energy in the universe, seems like a pretty good one.

Dakota, Dakota, remember the cycle. Sometimes a big dark thing will inspire the biggest, brightest light, but there has to be balance. Rather if we aren't afraid to shine the light of consciousness onto the darkest part of ourselves, we may retrieve all of who we really are -- sometimes the most creative parts of ourselves. So all those guys out there doing destructive things are helping us build a desire for the light that is more powerful than ever. In non dualism ,( really have to read something about this before I go off) - there is no light or dark, good or evil. It is the action between the energy and the container that leads to resistance and then to life in existence. And it's happening all the time. Too bad we're not taking better advantage of the option to live in joy, because we do not know how to get to there.

But, as usual, I digress. I was going on about female aggression, which I know a little about. Sometimes women use their unique weapons of mass destruction when they are roused. Their tactic is to cut off energy and sever connection. Many have found it particularly effective, in relation to the opposite sex, to cut off second chakra energy. Cutting off sex really hurts the guys whose chakras are out of balance (most men between 14 and 55), and makes them pay attention. As men begin appreciate pleasure derived from other chakras, the heart in particular, things will get interesting. Appreciation for the energy of other chakras may only come when the testosterone machine slows down. Unfortunately, that scares the guys (because they think there is nothing else, read death) Currently, they are very relieved to have Viagra, so they won't have to face the dark unknown, and develop in other areas. No one is talking about giving up sex, just exploring all the possibilities. That's what Tantric sex is all about. Celibacy doesn't work all that well, as we can see from the great Catholic Church experiment, but balance and continence do, and should be encouraged. Elmer Green writes quite a bit about his exploratons in this area in The Ozawkie Book of the Dead .

Back to the ladies. Cutting off verbal communication is another thing women do when they aggress. Guys like that better. They often prefer that state of decreased verbal interaction, because they were not socialized to communicate in an intimate relationship, and don't feel competent doing it . Relief comes to the guy when the talking stops, since he no longer has to confront what Berger calls "male relational dread". But beware, the consequence of not communicating with a woman is that the commmunication goes elsewhere, and public humiliation or loss of the relationship sometimes ensues. eg the above hypertexted blogger taking her point to another arena. This is not to defend women who do this.

Cartoon seen: woman in a transparent negligee standing seductively in front of a TV football game. Husband fixated on TV. Caption:" He thought if he bought her a see-through nightie, he'd still be able to watch the game. " I'm not sure this is related, but it's funny.

I once sat with someone whose mother wrote a book about being married to a man practicing a particular profession (his father). It was a wonderful example of public humiliation. Fortunately, it wasn't a best seller. The book is full of terrible complaints about being victimized as a wife of someone in this profession, and the reader knows exactly upon whom she would place the label perpetrator.

Aside: His father was dense, but quite a well intentioned soul, so we wondered about the etiology of all the vitriol. We parsed the book, examining all the projections it contained, and were able to put together a picture of his mother's unprocessed aspects. Then he figured out what happened to him at the hands of her unprocessed aspects. Now, whenever he gets scared in the present, he comes and sits around the campfire while we figure out what happened to the aspect of himself, caught in the past, that's causing him to project something frightening into the present.

My particular unprocessed feminine aggression usually takes the form of the sadistic ice out. A plain ice out means not speaking to the person with whom I am angry. A sadistic ice out is one in which I not only don't speak, but I fill the energy field between us with wishes that the other person will suffer the same feelings I am currently suffering, as a result of their (ostensibly hurtful) treatment of me. Admittedly I am usually thinking about turning up the intensity of the pain by about 20 percent ---the percentage can be adjusted as needed. It's not pretty, but it's what happened to me, and if I don't watch out, I'll just pass it along. I'm trying to teach that part of myself to talk about the hurt rather than act it out.

Rachel Simmons in her book "Odd Girl Out: the Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls" brings to light the weapons that girls use in their aggression toward one another. It all takes place in the arena of connection and communication, like cutting a friend out of a clique.

Definition of a Great Teacher according to Abraham-Hicks

Esther Hicks, channeling Abraham , listed the qualities of a great teacher in her seminar in Washington D.C. on October 18, 2003. The following is a transcription from the tape of that seminar.

" A great teacher is a fabulous student, someone who understands where you are, understands where you want to go, and helps you to build easy bridges to get there.

A great teacher is always looking at where you want to go, and not looking at where you've been.

A great teacher never asks you to justify why you are where you are, but instead looks optimistically with you to where you are going.

A great teacher loves where he is, but doesn't demand that you be in the same place.

A great teacher honors where you are, and encourages movement from from where YOU are, to where YOU want to be, and leaves where HE is, and where HE wants to be out of your equation.

A great teacher will hide under the bed when it's appropriate." (that last comment was a joke about an earlier question) I think it means he'll get out of your way if necessary.

one more

One more of those sunset on ice photos, and one more woowoo thing about my appendectomy.

I called to confirm a cancellation yesterday, and the gentleman said "It was a good thing you weren't in The Fiji". I agreed. Then I realized that I am going to a conference in Mexico on February 14 for a week. I have already been to the travel clinic for my many shots, and my sterile hypodermics to take along just in case I have to go to a Mexican hospital (the clinic's suggestion, I would never have thought of it). The nurse said that if I got into an accident and was really hurt, I should insist that I be airlifted back to the US.

Think of this. If I had had the symptoms that I had on Sunday in Mexico, I would have assumed them to be Montezuma's Revenge. They could have gone on for days without being identified as appendictis. My appendix might have ruptured, and I don't think I would have had the option to be airlifted to the US at that point. All in all, I am one lucky ducky. I will express my gratitude formally the next time I get to Theta .

Pagan ceremony

View larger image

A few entries back I was inadequately trying to describe this yuletide procession in the Alps, in which some of the local populace dress up as trees. My photo did not do the costume justice, as you can see from this one, that belongs to Cote Est (thank you, I hope it's all right to use it). This is the real tree costume. Pretty spooky, wouldn't you say? Looks like you could whip one of those together fairly easily, but who would ever think to do it?

Speaking of pagan ceremonies and past entries, here's a update on my emergency appendectomy -- it happened Sunday night, it is now Thursday night. I am really fine, so fine that I am abnormally fine. This may be due to the shedding of a vesitgal part of myself that was full of shit. I do have a lot of life force energy flowing here, and that could be it too.

Yesterday, the only symptom I had left was that my abdomen felt like I did 300 (down from 700) situps. Today I feel like I did twenty five. My shaman says my self is "up" around my thyroid, from the trauma and needs to move toward my coccyx. Of course I hadn't noticed. She suggested I sit on a heating pad, but I can't do that and blog. (without pulling out wires I won't know how to plug in again.) Later. She also thought I might have some barium or anesthesia left in my system. But that's it. My only residual symptoms are in the fourth and fifth dimension. Pretty amazing.

Playing around

The virtual universe allows us to play in another dimension of consciousness. Esther Hicks, channeling Abraham, says playing in another dimension is like asking for a book in the Library of Congress, it's a good idea to have a book in mind, or at least a subject, before approaching the librarian Many folk, statistics show, guided by their second chakras, are only interested in the pornographic section. Ah, but there's so much more.

This is an experiment with what Abraham-Hicks calls, the Law of Attraction. Let's see what is drawn to me, or you, and lets see where I'm drawn, and where you're drawn, and let's do it really fast, and document it. You are watching something here. An awakening into a different dimension. Jean Houston talks about this in her book "Jump Time"

How to tell if you are being grandiose. When you think that your creations are produced by you alone.

Prevention technique. Always understand that what you create is not entirely yours. You have been honored to be chosen as a vehicle for spirit bringing light (let's hope) to the plant. You have prepared your vessel (think mind/body) and your questions for the librarian of this dimension. But the material isn't coming only from you. Stay grateful and humble. Enjoy the synchronicity and humor that comes with connection to this reality. Move the material into consciousness with vigor using all of your talents, but don't get caught up in the worshipful throngs, in glamor and illusion.

I think I read an interview with Madonna (don't ask me where, perhaps while going blonde for spiritual reasons) who thinks of her gift and her success that way. She sure did pick a catchy name. She is also very interested in Qabala, but did not find quite the right teacher (see article about exposure) Perhaps someone will turn her toward Carlo Suares.

Time is even in question. Who was that guy who wrote from the future asking for computer equipment? He stopped writing after he got the stuff. Evidently he was angry at our cohort because of our wasteful use of resouces, and the hardships that has caused his cohort.

Denoument: I am waiting, but nothing is coming across. Serves me right.

Sunset on Icy Lake

View larger image

Just driving along the other day and stopped to shoot a few of these.

Appendicitis

First, let me say to all of you who have just arrived from google, my sincere apologies, and then refer you to the website that helped me make a differential diagnosis (I thought I had the stomach flu). Please read it even if you think it's only for children. I'm an adult plus, and it worked for me. information you need Come back and visit when you feel better.

Interruption: A dashing Sikh with a trim white beard, wearing an ochre silk turban, just rang my doorbell. He was such a spectacle in the falling snow, carrying a bouquet of red roses, that I wasn't even worried about opening the front door. I was so taken with him that I didn't notice the roses were in a vase, and almost dropped it as he handed them over. Nuts --- and my camera was right beside my computer. Missed shot extraordinaire. A girl has to stay on her toes even when she's home on a sick day. The roses were for me.

I called this entry "appendicitis" for a reason. Blogmentor provided me with a little program that tells me what terms people are searching for when they come upon Dakota F. I thought using "appendicitis" was kosher, since I just had a real life experience in that area. Admittedly I also thought it might attract a few more people to my blog. What kind of a desperate person am I? I would deem it unfair to make an entry entitled "elephantiasis" --- (do not explore this further; there is no hyperlink for a reason; where are my loose associations taking me?) because it is not in my experience, thank heavens.

My most popular search terms are "scratched comea" (hundreds) "elephant drawing"(many many) and "Gabor Mate" (a few responsive writer/readers). Let's face it, "appendicitis" is not going to draw a group that will pay close attention to the spiritual interpretions of my broken fingernail. Is this what I'm craving? Get a life, Dakota. Too many sick days of a mind make mush.

Photo comment: Here are the flowers and the meds as promised! Notice the bottle of Percocet on the lower left.

The meaning of all this

View larger image

So what is an appendix anyway? A vestigial organ, unnecessary, impacted with shit. Mine is gone, quite efficiently, I might add. After Sunday night and Monday in the hospital, I was discharged Monday evening with a handful of Percoset and four little punctures in my abdomen. I am glued, so I don't even have a bandaid. (Two more nurses liked my hair. What can I say. I didn't even have a hairbrush with me, they were liking it uncombed. ) Did I blow my gut with my hissy fit? Unlikely, since I have had a few of those in my day and something like this never happened.

Here's what I think. You know that little vision I was describing, I did have a singing bowl on my abdomen in my ladies group. Perhaps this event was a way to eliminate the unwanted that I embodied, licketey split. I was also wishing for more time to read and write, and look what I got.

The things that make me feel like this was a woowoo experience.

My friend was on line when I called so sick, and essentially made the diagnosis. I could have vomited for three days, thinking I had the stomach flu.

I was completely relaxed through the whole ordeal. Of course, morphine can have that effect.

The procedure was so fast and I feel so good two days afterward, like I did 700 too many situps.

Everything flowed, the empty ER, the surgeon being there already and knowing Bellruth, the laporoscopy rather than abdominal surgery

I had a new package of Belleruth surgery tapes in a pile and was able to listen to them.

Today, my dear friend, who is always booked solid, (one of the "ladies", of course) fortuitously had cancellations until 2PM. She came over and gave me a Reiki treatment, which she does for a hobby, and I haven't had to take any Percoset since. She said that she could see the Percoset was clouding my third eye, and we can't have that.

People over fifty don't usually have appendicitis.

And what happened next? Two days later

I did go to my brunch. Midway through, I had a bit of indigestion, just a bit. When I came home, I decided to take a nap in hopes that I would feel better. I didn't. In fact, nausea set in, and I had a terrible pain in my abdomen, unrelenting. The pain got worse. I vomited. I thought I had the stomach flu. And then, I thought I'd better start cancelling out my committments for the next day. My friend was on line when I called to cancel our meeting, and she punched in appendicitis . I had every last symptom, except I was rather the wrong age.

Here's where the Red Sea parted. I went to the ER of the local hospital, which I never would have done, had I not felt so terrible. It was almost empty. Unusually empty. I was taken immediately. They gave me an IV anti nausea drug and morphine, bless their little hearts. After that I was cool as a cucumber.

The ER doctor said that he had only seen three cases of acute appendicitis in patients over 50 in all his years. That's me, I'm over fifty.

They had to do CAT scan to see what was going on, and I had to drink a half gallon of barium beforehand. I was actually pleased to do so, because I was so thirsty. I was supposed to wait two hours for the barium to penetrate, but a surgeon came in to examine me after about an hour. He had just finished removing another appendix, and was, as he put it, "all warmed up".
I didn't know him at all, but was reassured when he was familiar with Belleruth Naparstek and her guided imagery tapes (I was bemoaning their absence.) He had trained at the Cleveland Clinic where research was done on enhanced surgical recovery using the tapes. I thought that was a good sign.
He palpated my McBurney's point, I screamed in spite of the morphine, and I was rolled into CAT scan immediately. We are talking no waiting. I have waited longer at a restaurant than I did in this ER.

Get this. The CAT scan technician, from above, told me how much she liked my hair, and asked me for my hairdresser's name. She lost interest when I told her she was thirty miles away. She was also impressed by my eagerness to drink another large glass of barium (I was still thirsty).

I arrived in the ER at about 6 and I was in the OR by 10. Impressive.

Denoument: I had an emergency appendectomy, via laporoscopy, Sunday night. Too bad I hadn't the presence of mind to ask for a little liposuction too.

Sorry, I have to wait for enough light to take a photo of my flowers. I could photograph my bottle of Percoset, but there is identifying information all over it.

HAIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am triggered -- I am insane again for the stupidest reason -- my hair --I cannot stand it when I get a cut like this. I rushed my sweet hairdresser (thirty miles away, so repairs are most inconvenient) because of that stupid movie, and now I have this THING I will have to deal with for months--- HHHHHHHHATE---I experience this insanity, around two things; my hair, and my bushes - both about being cut, badly. Perhaps early intrusion? Whatever the etiology, I have to find a better thought. Where do I want to be, other than insane, out of control, raging, homocidal, suicidal? That didn't improve my thought. My hair will grow back. It can be fixed. I will have to drive another sixty miles at an incovenient time. This will help my stupid preoccupation with my hair. Let it go, don't pay attention. I have to go to a brunch . Take my spirit and energy to the party. Do not spiral down to the depths of self hatred and shame. It's a chance for self exploration. Lucky me.

And besides, next weekend with my Psychomotor Group and Al Pesso has been cancelled. What fates intervene to destablilze. I love my Psychomotor group which has been meeting for twenty five years. It is one of the most valued things in my life, but I am not nearly as upset about it's cancellation, as I am about my hair. That gives me an indication of the extent of my hair neurosis.

Photo note: This is as close as I could come in my archives to the essence of my haircut. It was added later when my sense of humor returned, because what I wrote about IS NO JOKE!

Odyssey

Morning Ms. Dakota, you're up early, was it the muse that wakened you to the velvet cave of newly morn?

Air,
icey
thin
Cold Mountain

My lofty throw of purest down envelopes me,
opening to the clear drop
of thought manifested.

and makes me wish I had those nifty fingerless fleece wrist warmers that the guys at the toll booths were wearing last night.

So, what really awakened me at 4 AM, robin perky were my knee fascia, softly screaming "Why did you take us to that damn three hour movie yesterday after sitting for damn four hours at the hairdresser?" My knees never swear. "Well," I reply,"The hairdresser was pathwork". "WHAT?? Now I've heard everything."

I'm going whiter and whiter folks. My sweet hairdresser, is one of the charter members of the Abraham-Hicks Interpretation and Discussion Society, told me that she's planning to go white like me in a few years. She's a committed brunette, and hangs out in a salon environment where that committment is free and available all the time. This is a conversion. A true change of heart.

Alert, furnace off -12 degrees outside --better hop to. Bye bye muse.

Interrupted a second time for a Furnace Information Seminar, which was sorely needed, but strongly resisted as I was mid labor. I lost practically a whole entry. The heat is off. The dishwasher is in pieces on the kitchen floor.
Mercury's probably in retrograde, to throw a term around.

I sit with someone who went from being a brunette, to platinum, to white with salt and pepper. She is an authentic soul. She makes beauty wherever she goes. She started out Vogue, then victorian, went to simple, primative simple, always ahead of the crowd ............(another interruption eeks! I didn"t get up this early for this . grrrr...rr brrrr...rrr)....... To resume, now she's headed for French simple. Wherever she is, is always beautiful and people like to hang there. It's her energy. I sit with a number of folk with that ability. Everyone always wants to marry them.

I spent four hours yesterday with my knees bent going more platinum, I like it here, and will linger awhile. Isn't it wonderful that we have technology on our side, as we stride along. hair bleach, the internet, Theta wave producing tapes, ---We must be careful not to damage the body, that sacred machine with technology -- like the hormone thing -- which has kept women out of their cronehood wisdom. The pharmaceutical industry could be cast as evil right about here, but all we have to do is ignore them. Let's not get caught up in their mercenary fear vibration. Now that estrogen is such a bust, they're trying to sell the fellas on testosterone supplements. Like the sticker says, "If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one.

I spent the next three hours with my knees bent, watching "Cold Mountain".
The Civil War was a terrible event. When are we going to stop fighting for freedom, and start living for freedom --- trauma trauma trauma "Cold Mountain" shows the Civil War in all its gore and soul murder. An adrenalin experience that kept my little amygdala on the edge of its little chair. To what end? Inuring me to the horror?

Had I known that "Cold Mountain" was based loosely on the Odyssey, I would have read the pony beforehand, and enjoyed the movie more. I could still read the pony, and review for myself the book group questions. But who am I kidding. I was upset that I missed this point in all the fine reviews I read of the book - I did know enough to grab "Cold Mountain" off the audio shelf as soon as it came to the library near me. It is beautifully written. I guess I wasn't reading to the end of the reviews, and missed the Odyssey part, daah. All that walking should have tipped me off.

In the movie, Nicole Kidman, purity, started out knowing all things of the mind, some of the spirit and none of the earth. She learned about earth, but not without pain, taught by Renee Z. who had a mattress spring in her stride. Renee wasn't doing pretty in this film, she was doing energy. I admire her for that. Nicole, let me say, had put her nose in storage and was lovely throughout. The worst beauty compromise she had to make was that her golden ringlets came unloosed.

Had I to do it over again, I would just read the book, and save myself exposure to horror.

Wish you were here

View larger image

If you were here, I could show you the photos in Cote Est, the $129 magazine that is lent to me, of this pagan Christmas ritual. I looked all over the web for a visual, and got three cliche Swiss village photos and alot of hotel sites, so I'll have to describe the spectacle as best I can. See the evergreen in the lower left corner above? That is a crude facsimile of one of the costumes. Have to go check on that goddess, she is, as yet, unidentified.

In the Hiver 2003 issue of Cote Est there are photos of this ritual practiced in "Suisses Allemands de la Region D'Appenzell" that dazzled me. Since I can only read every third word of French, I can't tell you much more than that the pictures are amazing and spooky. It seems that it is a tradition in the region to dress onself like a tree, and join a procession on the mountain.

There are several types of tree (etc.) costumes pictured. Twelve guys have pulled dried brambles from the hillsides and completely covered themselves with twigs about a foot thick, creating the relative shape of an evergreen. The result is a little ominous-- man-sized, dried out Christmas trees, with legs, walking down the mountain. A couple have red berries on their brambles. I wonder if these outfits are handed down for generations, or are made freshly on an "as needed" basis. Actually they look like they might be hundreds of years old.

Many of the little girls have green boughs attached to them, (also about a foot thick) and pointy moss and balsam headresses, tied under their chins. A sweeter, more frivolous version of the tree men. Adult women have elaborate headresses that look permanent -- halos, four times larger than their heads, beautifully hand painted. These are added to the usual dirndels and familiar alpine attire Some of the men, shown on skis, have headresses also, shaped like plump birthday cakes with scenes from the village atop. Large cowbells abound (with circumferences the size of large pizzas). Forgive me for mixing my European metaphors.

Oh dear, I'm fact dumping again. The photography in this magazine is spectacular. I think it's time to get a scanner.

Busy day tuning up the spiritual motor

Today I had two ladies' groups back to back.

In ladies' group number one, Psyche and Eros were very prominent. Two of us are launching new relationships, both of which have guided qualities about them. Two of us, not the same two, have new pink underwear. (I bought six pair of new black panties this summer, it wasn't me.)

I, personally, had three interesting experiences there. The intention while working on me was to draw "self" further down into my body, moving it toward the coccyx. During my "turn", we were all heartily toning, and a little brass singing bowl sang just below my navel. Following the usual soul wrenching coughs, I had a bit of a vision. Not a very vivid one, mind you. I even hesitate to mention it. The vision was of being someplace white, like a pyramid or a temple, outdoors, under a very blue sky, (later it was suggested to me that it was the Aegean, Mesopotamia, Crete -- that kind of white stone construction with that kind of blue sky). I was wearing white robes and was being initiated, (don't know whether that's the right word), worked on, by women. They were doing something to me, I was lying down on a white stone platform. It was a nice something, a sacred something. Nothing sordid about this scene. All clarity and light. I think I had long flowing yellow hair.

Writing about these kinds of experiences is what makes me keep my blog anonymous. Our leader said it was a memory. Okay...if it was a memory, it happened a couple of thousand years ago --- no wonder it was vague.

I played percussion! Until I got self conscious, I was drumming a pretty mean heartbeat on the flat drum. I lost it when I thought I was drumming so badly that our usual percussionist, who was being worked on at the time, was distracted. That was a situation where I could not put my ego aside. As a child, I was shamed about my inability to "keep a beat", my "lack of rhythm". (I was so hypervigilant, I couldn't relax into the rhythms around me -- I still can't dance, don't ask me). I drummed well for about five minutes though. I also saw a face in the clouds during another members' work. I thought it was her mother, but it seems that it was a friend who had recently died. Maybe it was just a nice puffy white cloud, Dakota, honey.

In my second group of the day, the Abraham-Hicks Discussion and Implementation Association, we decided that hot flashes were a way of reattuning the body to accept more life force energy after attention is freed from child rearing. The girls' equivalent of the sweat lodge.

One of us could not attend because her boyfriend of seven years was moving into her house that very minute, a juicy manifestation. One of us is considering going to Brazil to study shamanistic healing in the rain forest, and the other is a bit dismayed that she still has two or three more years of intense motherhood, and can't go anywhere exotic. We reminded her that dead people are always communicating with her (truly, mostly as guides, but every once in awhile. she will lose someone in her field, and they will ask her to help with incomplete business on this earthly plane.) We told her that she's lucky that she can stay home to do her spiritual work, it's cheaper and more efficient.

I reported on my project ---to take a curious and optimistic stance toward those around me, and to hold faith that their paths will emerge with more and more clarity. This is easy to do with friends, more difficult with offspring, and totally challenging with self. So far so good. It actually seems to be working.

Today I missed some stunning photos of ice and waves in the blue, blue sea. You will have to imagine it, since I simply did not have time to harvest the shots. Let me see what I can find in my archives with a blue sky, white stone theme. This is the best I could do. The colors are right, the period wrong.

If a lady goes to jail

From: Dakota Feinstein, Arbitrator of Fine Taste in Daily Life
To: Martha Stewart

Should you be convicted and sent to prison, I (what a nerve) have an assignment for you.

Every woman in jail has experienced trauma, if not before her incarceration, from the incarceration itself. When a person has been traumatized, they are hypervigilant and autonomically hyperaroused. This causes them to continually survey their environment for possible danger, like a rabbit or a zebra.

It is difficult to see beauty when you are looking for something quite the opposite, and you think your life depends upon finding it. Many of the women in jail have never known any other state of being. For most of them the experience of beauty would be entirely new. The experience of creating something beautiful with limited resources, would be most empowering.

Martha, you have the gift of being able to create something beautiful, often out of nothing. You could teach that in prison. You would have to loosen up on that perfectionism though.
Corrie TenBoom in her memoir, " A Hiding Place" describes the jail cell of her visually gifted sister. [They are arrested for their participation in the resistance, and held in a Dutch prison before being sent to a concentration camp.] Each item in her sister's spare cell is positioned for maximum aesthetic impact. Bedding and clothing are folded, rolled, hung and color coordinated --the presentation is beautiful.

Teaching traumatized women to create and perceive beauty in the environment is healing. Their attention is always on dark possiblities, danger, so that their projections into the world are ominous. The practice of consciously looking for, or creating beauty, enables the traumatized person to perceive reality ---which is at least 40 percent fine most of the time -- a big improvement, from 100 percent dangerous. Experiencing beauty is a challenge to frightening memories from the past which, so often, get projected and superimposed onto the present.

Remember Jean Harris , the Madiera School headmistress, who was sentenced to prison for the murder of Dr. Herbert Tarnower of Scarsdale Diet fame? She published three books while imprisoned, as well setting up education programs for parents who were prisioners.

Maybe you won't be there long enough to have an impact, but I know you can do something fabulous with blue and white mattress ticking and those orange jumpsuits.

Fasting

The clip said that "going without food periodically may extend life and have health benefits similar to dieting-- even if you eat so much on other days that you don't cut overall consumption a bit... the health benefits of sharply cutting calories include longer life, less stress and less risk of diabetes" The material was excerpted fom the Proceedingss of the National Academy of Sciences.

While meditating the day I saw this, my holy humunculus got all excited. "I can do this, I can do this!!!" it shouted, and thus an exploration was launched. My intention was to bring consciousness to eating.

Here are some things I have learned, over several months.

1. A long swallow of water satisfies hunger very nicely. If you use Fruit 2 O you can even have dessert water. I drink lots of water when I do this.

2. Hunger isn't really the issue, in my case. This comes as no surprise.

3. These are the conditions under which I eat unconsciously. When I'm anxious. When I'm tired. When I'm in transition and can't think of, or decide what to do next. When I am at the edge of the unknown (everyone gets anxious here, an entry to follow on this subject). When I'm trying to think.

4, The flow of quiet energy in my body increases after the first eight hours of the fast. I have more clarity. I am both alert and at peace. At these times, I wonder why I am not doing this more often. (Note: it does seem that a bunch of major religions have happened upon this technique for calling up life force energy.)

5. It's not a great weight loss tool, at least in short run. Bringing consciousness to anything, however, will always have a benefit.

6. Fasting creates space to do other things. Food prep and dining are big time consumers.

7. Chewing gum stimulates the salivary glands, which, I think, increases hunger. Besides it contains either unwanted sugar or chemicals.

8. It's a good way to track unconscious aspects of self. Everytime I want to put something in my mouth on a fast day, I try, instead, to greet the part of myself with the impulse, in a friendly way. (Generally I exude judgement and hostility toward aspects like these.)

9. Fasting for two days is fine, three days is too much, one day is what usually happens.

10. Recipe for fasting broth that I use, especially when I'm doing two days. In a large pot boil a clump of chard, three beets, a leek or two, celery, garlic, carrots and whatever is limply left in the produce bin of the refrigerator. I try to use organic vegies for this. Simmer for two hours, cool and strain. I freeze what I don't use for next time.

Maybe this is the entry for the dead fish with a smaller dead fish in his mouth photo. No, I'll save it.

"The Complete Idiots Guide to Fasting"

The Joy of Internet

View larger image

I am finding that having a computer with access to the internet in my little hot hand is alot like having a digital camera. The odious tasks of learning about F-stops and aperture openings, which always prevented me from taking photographs, are whisked away magically by technology. Now, with the the flick of a mouse, I have access to important material without having to schlep down to the nearest university library and xerox for five hours. (Those of us with damaged attention spans, do not truly have that option.)

You can tell that I am only about twenty years behind, here. It's just as well, since others have spent those twenty years entering data, and now I can just push those buttons, like I do on my dishwasher, and have it.

Jean Houston addresses the miracles of the internet in her book "Jump Time"

My day job is getting in the way of my blog. NOOOOOO. .. my day job provides me with material for my blog.

Stumbling Across

Though I generally think that there are plenty of bloggers out there covering the news with great aplomb, and it's not my beat, thought these items pertinent.

Here is a piece, Reservations, about a group of people who are trying to overcome shame and integrate split off parts of themselves, inadvertently encountering George Babbitt, whose split off parts of himself were not traumatized in the same way --thus the shock and outrage. I thought it was funny.

When looking up Sinclair Lewis' novel "Babbitt", this is the site I found selfknowledge It has Maslow's heirarchy of needs at it's head (leaving out, interestingly, trancendence). [Note: Transcedence appears on the heirarchy of needs pyramid, right where fat appears in the food pyramid .] My kinda place -- worth further exploration. I haven't read "Babbitt" in forty years. I thought it was about the emptiness of existence for the middle class American. Now, I see in the summary, that George was a seeker. That part of the message was completely lost on me. Perhaps I will have time to go back and read it. Sure.

Here's a fabulous essay about misplaced male aggression and the futility of war that might even make The Group that Runs George W. chuckle and reflect. Of course, reflection isn't their forte.

Dave Barry's column on leafblowers. Actually,here's a summary in case the link disappears. Two male neighbors start a leafblowing war. Dave has many amusing things to say about the leafblowers and their male owners. Here's the important part -- "No, really, the deputy couldn't determine who was at fault, so he decided not to charge either guy. I don't know what the situation is now, but it would not surprise me to find out that both guys -- having learned a valuable lesson about how a stupid little dispute can escalate into a potentially dangerous situation -- have purchased bigger leaf blowers.

Speaking of which: A LOT of leaves get blown onto the United States from Canada. When are we going to fight back? When will the Defense Department launch a project to develop a tactical nuclear leaf blower, code-named Screaming Wind?

Until that happens, I urge you guys in northern states to grab your leaf blowers, organize into units and patrol the Canadian border, intercepting incoming leaves and blasting them back where they belong. You should wear camouflage. Also, of course, dust masks. No point in taking chances."

Commentary on the Aesthetic

To the Art Editor for Kleenex:

What has become of your pretty packaging? I can hardly find a box these days without those thick petaled, carnivorous, creepy, tropical flowers set upon an ominous brown background.

I cannot imagine that anyone is drawn to these designs. Who was invited to your focus groups?

What happened to the Parisian street scenes, the gay, country calicos, the spring bouquets on white and pearl? What about plain white? plain black? plain red?

I am thankful that I have two permanent kleenex cozies covered with exotic animal skins, but they do not disguise my extra supply of hideous tissue boxes, stashed in the corner like cudzo, ready to entwine a victim.

Please feel free to use any of my photos on future Kleenex box editions. I have one of a dead fish, with a smaller dead fish in it's mouth that would be an improvement. Unfortunately, it is not, as yet, on view. I am waiting for just the right moment to post it.

Sincerely,

Dakota Feinstein
Arbitrator of Fine Taste in Daily Life

Distorted, Fragmented Church with Stoplight

View larger image

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Transcription

I am transcribing some letters at the moment, completely immersed in a compelling correspondence. It's a little like reliving the events described.

Doing this, calls to mind one of the weirdest, creepiest things that my mother ever did. She transcribed my letters, which were written home to her, from 1958 until September 1963. She rewrote them by hand, in a blue, spiral bound notebook. This was no small task, since I was an only child of that bygone era, and considered it my duty to write home weekly (at the very least). The notebook is 450 pages long. I asked her what she did with the originals. She threw them away, along with letters after September 1963, of which there were some.

My transcribed letters are full of 1. cultural activities (even now I am impressed by my high level of participation ) 2. reports of exotic encounters with people who did things like put pineapple in their gourmet rice (we did not do that, or even think about that, in the Midwest) 3. The condition of my body, specifically it's minimally fluctuating weight, with which I seem obsessed. (I do not mention the condition of my health, hair, uterus or skin, so I must have thought my mother would be interested in this aspect alone) 4. Profuse thanks for various items of clothing that had been lavished upon me.
5. Being smitten by love --- the details of an idealized transference.
All in all, an interesting glimpse into my late adolescence and slightly beyond.

I would have welcomed the letters, had they been given to me all tied up in blue satin ribbons --- it was the transcription part that gave me the creeps. It felt like my mother crawled into my life and lived it vicariously on all those long evenings of copying. (I have to admit, I did leave out a few major things, so my life sounded, on paper, a bit better than it really was at the time.)

The transcribed notebook is a metaphor for the way my boundaries were invaded. The notebook was, after all, a gift that had taken hundreds of hours to create, and it was well intentioned. But it felt so intrusive? To this day, I am sometimes confused about what is and what is not a violation of my boundaries. Take my word for it, differentiation from my mother was a challenge; one that took weapons of mass destruction to accomplish. I'm still not finished.

Theosophy and me

View larger image

I spent my freshman year at a "cow" college in the Midwest, because my father was an alum, and I never considered anything else. I bunked with a dear, farm girl and a blond, urban sophisticate -a shiksa, raised in a fancy Jewish neighborhood in the city. (I have begun to believe that close connection with Judaism has had significance in my life, because, among many wonderful things, it has provided proximity to the Hebrew alphabet. I have had Jewish college roommates, bosses, mentors, therapists, boyfriends, best friends and husbands. All, after growing up in a community where there were none, and antisemitism was rampant.)

Aside: Jews were "chosen" to preserve the original texts of the encoded parts of the Bible, and a mighty good job they have done. Here's the catch, in order to preserve the Hebrew alphabet, they could not fully know the extent of the treasure they held. The responsibility would have been odious, and could have aroused unwanted interest by self serving parties. Jews, as a consequence, have had to remain blind to the true meaning of the Hebrew Alphabet. This is no longer the case.

Note: Carlo Suares has written several books, decoding the encoded parts of the Bible, buy using the energetic meanings of the Hebrew alphabet. Abraham Abulafia , the Jewish mystic, gives instructions on how to chant the Hebrew alphabet so that you call the kundalini , the power of the spirit into the body. That's what happens to the speller in "Bee Season". Rather than calling up a visual image of a spelling word, her dad, a kantor who has been studying this stuff, teaches her to "feel" the letters. "Bee Season" is an instruction book on how to call up kundalini. It is also a cautionary tale. This is powerful energy. The protagonist decides against living with the embodied spirit, at least for the moment. In the book, the protagonist's mother seems psychotic, as well as on the Asperger's end of the autism scale. With a split off part of herself, she builds a breathtaking shrine in a storage unit, using stuff she has shoplifted all her life. It is glorious. Misspent spiritual materialism? Oh dear, I've spoiled the story.

Back to theosophy . Maureen McKittrick was my roommate.( I used her real name here, because I thought she might someday google her maiden name, and come upon this) (I just did it, look at the nifty results ) For those non clickers, this is really too good to miss. Maureen had parents who were theosophists. At that point in my life, Lutheran was exotic to me.

Maureen told me a story in 1960 about walking home, as a child, from a horror movie with her father, asking him if there were such a thing as werewolves. Her father answered,"There are, if you let your mind dwell on them." Well, that stopped me from pursuing the unknown for the next forty years.

I had enough of a trauma history that about 85 percent of my projections into the unknown were pretty darn werewolfie. Who, in their right mind, would voluntarily step into that landscape. Not me! It took me a long time to empathize with enough aspects of myself so that I could unclutter the path enough to glimpse it.

So here is theosophy coming up again, in Alix Taylor's book, "A Door Ajar". This time I'm ready to pay attention.

Spiritual Chewing Gum for the Mind

I am just reading, if I don't lose it, a novel called Bankok 8 , which I bought as a Christmas present for someone who has spent time in Thailand, and then commandeered. The protagonist, Sonchai Jitpleecheep, is a Buddist detective on the Royal Thai Police Force. The thinking in the book is all Buddist, and it is a delicious way to immerse oneself in the principles of a belief system.

I feel the same way about Tony Hillerman's detective series , starring Joe Leaphorn, a Navajo policeman on the reservation in Four Corners, Arizona. The plots are saturated with Hopi and Navajo beliefs, practices, and differences.

Although I gave away two for Christmas, (I'll borrow one back) I understand that The DaVinci Code popularizes the principles of Gnosticism . Fascinating that it's a best seller at this time in history. I am assuming that the novel exposes ways in which Christianity has been distorted to serve the self serving powers of the patriarchy/papacy.

Then there are Mutant Message from Downunder" , a walkabout in the Australian desert with Aborigines , all of Carlos Castaneda , for the Yaqui traditions, and the Celestine Prophecy, for what it's worth.

I forgot "Bee Season" which, surprisingly, deals with Jewish mysticism and Abraham Abulafia .

Denoument: Carlo Suares , using the energetic meanings of the Hebrew Alphabet, decoded the real message of Genesis . His books are scholarly and dense. They are crucially important. Packaging is everything. We need an novelist here. Any
volunteers?
Hm....m..mm

Found in a Deep Pile

Unearthed: A flyer for The Transformation Game . It was developed by the Findhorn Foundation. According to their website, "The Findhorn Foundation is the educational and organisational cornerstone of the Findhorn Community, and its work is based on the values of planetary service, co-creation with nature and attunement to the divinity within all beings. We believe that humanity is engaged in an evolutionary expansion of consciousness, and seek to develop new ways of living infused with spiritual values. We have no formal creed or doctrine. We recognise and honour all the world's major religions as the many paths to knowing our own inner divinity."

I have wanted to play this game for a few years, but have yet to find the proper playmates. I once gave it to someone as a wedding present. She said it was fabulous, but quite complicated to learn. I think it is best played with an old hand. As Esther Hicks, channeling Abraham, would say, "and I can't wait to see how the players will manifest". Maybe I'll have to go to Scotland.

Photo note: I was hoping to find a photo (on their website) of the famous forty pound cabbages grown in the spiritually enhanced energy fields at Findhorn. This is as close as I can get, from my own collection. The cabbages are of plain, grocery store variety. Little known fact: grocery stores do not like you to take photos on the premises. Sometimes I surreptitiously shoot, especially at the organic market where they stack produce so prettily. I am quite impressed that I thought to photograph any cabbages at all. This was taken in November 2002. When I browsed my collection, the cabbages were right on top. And I thought I would have to use my leek picture. Synchronicity.

Deep Pile Plunging

View larger image

This, you will be relieved to know, is NOT MY PILE, charming though it is.

In search of an important piece of paper with bookkeeping notations upon it, I did some deep pile plunging. Secretly, I hoped to unearth "Scattered". No luck yet.

In spite of my piles of disorganizaton. quite unbelieveably, I rarely lose things. I have some kind of eidetic spatial memory, that allows me to picture the place I last saw my desired. That memory spans years. For example, I was able to locate a gas mask that hadn't been used (rather, toyed with) for fifteen years, in less than five minutes last Halloween. If I did not have this idiot savant ability, I would have a tidier personal space, since I would have tired long ago, of looking for misplaced objects.

Did you know that good spellers picture the word they are trying to spell in their minds, spellcheck it visually and then proceed? Those people who cannot picture the word, are terrible spellers. The kind odf spellers that cannot use dictionairies because they can't imagine the first three letters of the word they are trying to spell. Ask a person to spell something and see if they look up. According to the Neurolinguistic Programming people, if they do, they are experiencing a visual image.

I once spent a week immersed in Neurolinguistic Programming Land, where I was told that I am too content oriented. I probably am, whatever that means. NLP is nifty twist on hypnosis. Sadly, what started out as a therapeutic tool, seems to have been voraciously consumed by the high powered sales community. They use it to reach self serving ends. Forewarned is forearmed.

Denoument: I bet you thought there wouldn't be one. Had an idea of how to organize all those little clippings and scraps of paper that contribute to my paper peaks. Use transparent, 8 1/2 by 11, sheet protectors with three ring holes. Slip a clip into the protector and put it in a three ring binder. I shall start now. Before and after photos to follow - maybe. I put my printed photos in them too. Makes a nice little album/portfolio.

my early days in South Dakota

View larger image

My father was Jewish and my mother was Sioux Indian. They named my brother Whitefish. Just kidding. I was playing the Google game again. I wll be interested to see what happens.

The mohel used a tomahawk at the bris. For my Bat Mitzvah, I had to go on a vision quest to a synagogue in Brooklyn.

I had better stop here, before I really get offensive.

more mirror images - fragmentation

View larger image

View larger image

The fragmentation of personality is a response to trauma. A split off part of the self is created in an energy field of shame and abuse. Like most good organisms, the personality, in an attempt to heal, vacuum seals the split off part of self from the whole. When this process happens on a daily basis, multiple personality disorder is created.

Do not sit smugly by and assume that you are exempt from fragmentation. We all experience trauma to differing degrees. Therefore, we all have those unconscious parts of ourselves that guide us in directions we might not chose, should we be operating in full awareness.

Reclaiming and integrating those parts of ourselves is quite a project. It is often painful. Having those fragments hanging around on the periphery, repeating the same old hate phrases to the self, providing fuel for addictions, and other destructive unconscious behaviors isn't that pleasant either. So we might as well get started.

sumac - step by step to a better thought

A touch of color is returning. A good sign. Unfortunately, a thought has not bubbled up from the darkness. We're all waiting.

Unfortunately, there is no spell checker to be found on Moveable Type.

Unfortunately, the most interesting thing I can think of is what's for dinner. Chili, made from Alice's Restaurant Cookbook, the Alice of Arlo Guthrie fame. I bought it when it first came out. Just like my mother bought her Fanny Farmer Cookbook personally from Fanny. Do I date myself?

I only make chili once a year for my Psychomotor Group. This is the overrun from that batch.

Yet another group? This one is very special, in that it has been meeting every year for twenty six years. There used to be ten of us. One moved to New Zealand, one bullshited himself right out of the group. Now we are eight.

Albert Pesso leads the group. He facilitates a "structure" for each of us. Every year, one by one, we each confront an aspect of ourselves that needs healing. The antidote to the trauma is always contact with an ideal parent (skillfully played by one of the group) who would have helped "back then" in an empathic and soothing way. Unlike psychotherapy, which is all words, Psychomotor is done with the body. The body, in fact, leads the structure, with it's signals, twitches, constrictions, desires to move in one direction or another. Al tracks body language exquisitely and helps each of us to find the center of our truth. We have witnessed one another's development and unfolding over the years, learning from a brilliant teacher. The Group is a precious gift. One that is not available in a catalog.

swamp on ice

This is a picture of my dendrites rooted in an icy swamp. Bleak. My weekend abroad has precipitated another blogdown. Oh well. I shall take my own advice, meditate and open my pores to the wisdom of the universe. If nothing else, it will be good for my complexion.

mirror image

View larger image

Reconsidering Caffeine

Gabor Mate, in "Scattered" has an excellnt metaphoric explanation of why stimulants work for ADD. I have to paraphrase here, since I still cannot find my book. He likens the brain to an intersection with six or seven feeder roads. There is a policeman in the center, directing traffic (I believe the policeman is the frontal cortex, which has a hard time starting up in people with ADD.) When the policeman is on duty, all goes smoothly. If the policeman falls asleep, there are accidents, traffic jams, gridlock. Stimulants awaken the policeman, and traffic moves again. Caffeine is a stimulant.

Last week a member of my peer supervision group was discussing her difficulty recently as she struggled to give up caffeine. She got completely disorganized, lost her short term memory, her keys, you name it. It seems that caffeine was helping her ADD.

Though I missed the article the day before yesterday, evidently caffeine helps to prevent Type II diabetes and Alzheimer's.

I stopped drinking caffeine about three years ago, in the evidently mistaken notion that it wasn't good for me.

I just ground me up a big batch of Starbucks French Roast. Let's see if there's any improvement.

Gone Fishing

Can you see the fish? I'm away for the weekend.

dilemma

I have been missing meditation for blogging. Feels like Sophie's choice. What is the the ultimate purpose of meditating anyway? For me, not that it always works, mind you, it's to get myself producing theta brainwaves . (Click on this link. Love the pictures and they got buried). Brainscans of Tibetan monks meditating in caves for several years at a time, show that they produce theta waves. With lots of help, sometimes I think I can get to theta. The question is, what are my choices when I get there?

Here are the guidlines I am currently using. No science involved, all speculation.

1. Practice getting yourself to a state where you are producting theta brainwaves. In the past, this has taken a lifetime of meditation. Now you have options. Use all the technology that you can get. See a shaman who is interested in the light. Do biofeedback. Color mandalas. Recite the Hebrew Alphabet. Tone. Do whatever works for you.

2. When you are able to access this state, you have the opportunity to connect to universal life force energy and wisdom. See Elmer Green. You can simply hang around in the bliss and contribute to the good energy here on earth, like the birds and the dogs and all the sweet creatures that have no frontal cortex. That's always very relaxing,

3. You can go a step farther, since having a frontal cortex gives you the ability to be conscious. This is what makes humans unique as a species and as individuals. Consciousness helps you to form and funnel universal wisdom into existence in time/space, to create - adding to what is.

4. Try not to get too big for your britches when you land a thought. You may not have originated it. Heed Elmer Green's warning. Don't get caught up in "glamor and illusion"

Esther Hicks, channeling Abraham, says that entering into the state where you have access to universal wisdom is a bit like visiting the Library of Congress. It helps to know what book you are looking for. You don't just say to the librarian, I'd like a book. She will undoubtedly ask you to be more specific.

The trick is to strike a balance between tapping into universal wisdom and sanity. John Nash's experience in "A Beautiful Mind" is a great example. He says that he didn't know that he was delusional, since his delusions seemed to come from the same state of mind that supplied his brilliant and original mathematical constructs . Be sure to tell me when I start sounding psychotic.

Given that schema, my instructions to myself are to meditate until I am connected, get the thought stream flowing, and then do something constructive/creative with the material that is available.

Writing in my blog, therefore, takes precedence over meditation. It's one step further along in the process. It's what I can do with my unique little mechanism
at my particular state of development.

antidote to armadillo

A friend told me that my armadillo purse photo was the most disgusting, perverse, gross thing she's seen since "Aliens". I think she hated it. So much for working in a different genre. I guess it's back to hohum pretty for awhile.

transitional object - the launching of a meme

Photo note: This is an armadillo purse from my prop closet. I thought it an appropriate illustration for a transitional object, given that I am an armoured person. No teddy bears here. I hope it doesn't give you nightmares.

So here's the story how transitional objects came into consciousness. In 1941 during the Blitz, children were evacuated from London to the countryside for reason of safety. They were taken from their parents and placed in strange homes. Needless to say, this was traumatizing and they had lots of trouble. Donald Winnicott, a pediatrician, psychiatrist and meme launcher, was hired to consult in the hostels of Oxfordshire that housed the most disturbed children. Clare Britton , the woman who was to become his second wife, was the social worker for the hostels.

An excerpt from "The Untold Story of Donald and Clare Winnicott" :
"Throughout Clare's writings, themes and language commonly associated with Donald's work emerge repeatedly. In some instances, her references to certain ideas clearly preceded his discussion of similar concepts. A notable example of this is Clare's observations of transitional objects. During the War, Clare traveled to London to seek out the parents of the children in the hostels. When she found them, she asked them to prepare a note or "give me something to take to them" (Interview by Alan Cohen, June 27, 1980). In recollections of "Jane," an adolescent evacuee in her care, Clare specifically notes the significance of a gift of grapes from Jane's abusive mother. Also, after Jane stole a valued ring of a hostel parent, Clare asked her to lend Jane her ring on Sundays--to tell Jane "it's very precious to me but you could have it one day a week" (Interview by Alan Cohen, June 27, 1980).

In 1947, Clare's unpublished case notes of her work placing a foster child in an adoptive home illustrate how Clare supported the child's use of a toy duck in the transition to a new home. Several years later, in 1950, Clare describes this phenomenon in evocative detail:

The moment of uprooting is just when a skilled child-care officer is needed to see that what a child clings to in the past is brought with him and accepted in the new environment. ....there are many stories, which now, it is hoped, belong to another era, of children clinging to their own clothes and being given an anesthetic to enable the clothes to be removed, or favourite but filthy teddy-bears and other possessions being taken away and burned, but these did not belong to the past, and something became damaged and lost when the familiar things were taken away. These possessions stood for everything the child brought with him from the past and he could not afford to lose so much. (C. Britton, 1950)."

I have occasion to sit with a woman, T, who lost her transitional object. She grew up in a household with a narcissistic, Italian mother, of the beauty queen variety. The sexual energy between her parents palpably saturated the energy field in the family. T. shared a room with her younger sister, who hated her and often destroyed her possessions. She was passionately attached to a stuffed dog with whom she soothed herself to sleep every night. (Her parents, with foresight, had given her sister an identical dog, so that Fluffy was fairly safe from destruction.)

When T. learned to masturbate, at about age 9, she involved Fluffy in the process. One day Fluffy, her beloved, was gone. T. was despondent, certain that her sister had taken him. He could not be located, so she learned to do without him, believing that he disappeared because she was using him for wicked purposes.

Two years later she found Fluffy in the back of the linen closet. She then surmised that her mother knew she was masturbating, and had removed Fluffy to put a end to the practice. She was flooded with shame, and felt helpless to reclaim her beloved.

How this traumatic template has influenced T's life.
Whenever she feels a passionate attachment to another person, she believes the relationship will vanish into thin air. She suffers terribly from this projection, and is in an almost constant state of feeling abandoned. She dumped her first love because, acting on her transitional object template, she was convinced that he had abandoned her, because he decided to play a professional sport instead of attending college which entailed a geographic move. In spite of the fact that he pursued her mightily for almost three years, she could not allow herself to believe that he was, in fact, still around.
She avoided passionate attachments after that, and chose to marry a nice man, toward whom she felt affection. She knew that he loved her more than she loved him and therefore would not leave her. She is dissatisfied in her marriage.
She is passionately attached to her children. She just couln't avoid it. She weeps when she imagines her children leaving home. Each grade change for each child is a step closer to the day they will vanish.
.
Of course, the story is more complex, but that's a good deal of damage from the disappearance of one little stuffed dog.

me and my baby - the transitional object

View larger image

A friend once teased that my backpack contains my collection of transitional objects (of course). My camera is my most cherished transitional object. I carry it all the time. I have left it behind too many times only to come upon a spectacular scene which goes unphotographed.

It is a Canon s40. It fits my hand perfectly, like a bath size bar of soap - quite cuddly, really. I feel fascile with it; my third eye. The experience of getting to know it has been like learning to type so fast that I no longer have to think about what I'm doing. It weighs about a pound, small enough. Sadly, it does add weight to my backpack.

(Learning to meditate, to sit with myself in some sort of reverie, has eliminated a pound of novel from the load that I feel compelled to carry around.)

My camera is transitional, really, because it helps me to connect with someone who isn't present for the experience, when I'm alone. An innane example: I took a picture of the hideous, new carpeting in my mother's complex to show the folks at home. I anticipated that they would be as horrified as I was when they saw it.

I just had the thought that I have written about this before, I'll have to look. Apologies

Clarification: the man in the picture is not my baby, just a stranger passing by.

scrambled chi

Yesterday I was on the floor having a chi gong Tui Na treatment . I asked my practitioner what she was doing. (She spends hours gently pulling on my finger and toe joints, "making space".). She said I have lots of ja chi (think that's how its spelled, can't find it on the net) life force energy in the wrong place, misplaced chi. I told her that her methods reminded me of playing those little, enclosed hand games which require you to seat loose silver balls in the proper holes by gently moving the container. She said her metaphor was finding little ducklings that have wandered off into the grass and gently guiding them back into line.

Growing up in an aversive energy field (and, I'm beginning to think that it is a rare person who doesn't) can really scramble your chi, stopping the free flow of life force energy into the body. Believe me, it's a big job to put it back in the right alignment. It's taking all the kings horses and all the kings men.

Enough Eye Candy - Addictions

I will try to paraphrase what Esther Hicks, channeling Abraham , has to say about addictions, because I think it's a helpful perspective. You can order the whole spiel on tape from her website. You will have to get past her booming "deity" voice, (which has softened over the years).

She says that an addiction originally develops because it feels good when you do it. (Esther, et al, are heavily into feeling good, since staying in good feeling acts as our guidance system, and let's us know when we are on the right path. We feel bad when we are disconnected from life force energy.)

Back to addictions. An addiction generally starts out as a feel-good experience, an experience that does help us to connect to life force energy; that's perfectly fine. In many cases, that means softening the focus on reality, because it may be painful. Drugs and alcohol do the trick here. The use of a substance only becomes a problem, when it stops feeling good. The kicker is that we often don't notice when that happens. By the time a feeling-good experience becomes a habit, becomes an addiction, we find we are searching for the old positive connection, hoping to recreate it by doing something that makes us feel terrible about ourselves.

Developing a new, powerful desire is the way out of an addiction. Identify something else you want passionately (you know, like health, beauty, consciousness, freedom, reconnection to life force energy). The passion will help you maintain your excitement while you are going through withdrawal from the addiction. It will help you stay in a place of eager anticipation, curious about what will happen after you stop doing what is currently making you feel bad -- your addiction. Of course, this is easier said than done.

arch

vanilla lick

sorbet

Trauma and images

In today's NY Times Magazine, Jeffrey Rosen has an essay about trauma and images affecting perception, essentially causing people to willingly give up constitutional rights out of fear.

Speaking of the TV coverage of 9/11 "When presented with image of terrifying events, people tend to miscalculate their probability. A single memorable image - of the World Trade Center collapsing, for example - will crowd out less visually dramatic risks in the public mind. This explains why people overestimate the frequency of deaths from disasters like floods and fire and understimate the frequency of death from more mundane threats like diabetes and strokes.

He continues "How can we protect ourselves from our psychological vulnerablilites? First, we can turn off the TV. A study of psychological responses to 9/11 found that two months after the attacks, 17 percent of the American population outside New York City reported symptoms of post-traaumatic stress related to 9/11. High levels of stress were especially notable in those who watched a lot of television. This anxiety is only heightened by cable networks which have converted themselves into 24-hour purveyors of alarm.

But cable TV isn't the only institution of democracy that has an incentive to exaggerate risks. We've seen the temptations for politicians to pass along vague and unconfirmed threats of future violence in order to protect themselves from criticism in the event that another attack materializes."

Dakota insert: Or to use our fears to convince us that we should, and can give up all constitutional rights for the false promise of "safety", thus mindlessly putting ourselves at the mercy of those who do not have our best interests at heart.

Back to Jeffrey Rosen "Ultimately, our success in overcoming fear will depend on political leadership that challenges us to live with our uncertainties, rather than catering to them. Mayor Rudolph Guiliani understood that the greatest leaders of democracies in earlier wars did not pander to public fears; instead, they challenged citizens to transcend their self-involved anxieties, embracing ideal of liberty and justice larger than themselves. It is hard to imagine Franklin D.Roosevelt instituting a color-coded system of terrorist alerts.

The viscious cycle at this point should be clear. The public fixates on low-probablity but vivid risks because of images we absorb from television and from politicians. This cycle fuels the public's demand for draconian and poorly designed laws and technologies to eliminate the risks that are, by their nature, difficult to reduce. We have the ablility to rsist this dangerous cycle by choosing leaders who will insit on lawas ans technologies that strik a reasonalbel balande between freedom and security. What we need now is the will."

So here's the problem. We must understand the physiology of trauma in order to understand why people literally cannot use their full mental capacities when considering these issues. If so much of our population suffers from PTSD as a result of 9/11 broadcast images, they are operating out of their amygdalas, their ground hog brains. They can be lead like lambs to the slaughter. They do not have access to their frontal cortex, seat of cognition, thinking, consciousness. They are literally scared out of their minds. See studies done by Bessel van der Kolk and his colleagues for more information.

Michael Moore's documentary Bowling for Columbine is a striking illustration of "the fearful heart and soul of the United States.

The Culture of Fear: Why Americans re Afraid of the Wrong Things By Barry Glassner

organ recital

When friends over sixty get together we often talk about our bodies, and their failings. My friend last evening called it an organ recital.

Well, I am in fascial seizure, have been since yesterday, especially at the parties. Fascial seizure (I just made up that name) feels like wearing a tight, thin latex wet suit to which you are slightly allergic. It doesn't fit exactly, and the latex is rubbing against your skin, causing an irritated rash, catchiing the tiny hairs all over your body and pulling them out. Two out of every three cells in your body are experiencing this sensation simultaneously. Goodness, I could be the Frida Kalo of the blog world, describing my pain.

My Psychotic Aspect says: It's really not that bad. There are plenty of more terrible things that could be happening. Don't pay any attention to it.

My Higher Self replies, trying to keep the sarcasm to a minimum,"I think we've given denial a pretty good try for the last sixty years, why don't we try something else."

Esther Hicks, channeling Abraham, would tell me to focus on something else, don't attract any more pain. Then she would relent, and say "Well, if you REALLY, really must pay attention to it, try to get to a better place about the pain.

Spiritual interpretation: I called up alot of information/energy yesterday, because I was so relieved to have it back. However, I stopped working abruptly. The energy I had called couldn't slow down fast enough. It met some body resistance as a result.

Medical Interpretions: I had hepatitus A and B, typhoid and tetanus shots Friday, and I am having a reaction.
I have diabetes
I had too much sugar and starch yesterday and it's causing an elevated blood sugar.

I met a woman at party yesterday who told me about healing her hip with energy. This is the second time The Center for Integrated Manual Therapy in Bloomfield, CT has come to my attention. The Center is just opening a branch in the town right next to mine. If you thought you were being guided, I know you would go too.

I can be grateful that my body is signaling me in a way that motivates me to work, doesn't scare me half to death, and allows me enough, painfree, to be able to think. Esther Hicks, channeling Abraham, would say, "Good, you have the information, now get your hand off the hot stove". I do not/cannot take my hand off the stove because I can't quite see it.

Association and Pay Dirt: Alix Taylor is quite taken by St. Theresa of Avila in her book, "A Door Ajar" I think she takes St Theresa's writings with her on a seven year desert retreat, but I'm not that far along in the book. Got the notion that I should google St. T. This is what St. Theresa of Avila has to say.(tell me, is this about my problem?)"[St. Theresa describes a mystical rapture.] [I]ts initial pain is so great that I know of no physical torture which can drown it. There is no relief to be found in these medicines; they are quite inadequate for so sublime an ill. A certain alleviation of the pain is possible, which may cause some of it to pass away, if the soul begs God to grant it relief from its ill, though it sees none save death, by means of which it believes it can have complete fruition of its Good. At other times the impulses are so strong that the soul is unable to do either this or anything else. The entire body contracts and neither arm nor foot can be moved. If the subject is on his feet, he remains as though transported and cannot even breathe: all he does is to moan -- not aloud, for that is impossible, but inwardly, out of pain." I don't know if I go that far, but the contraction part really resonates.

images that evoke strong feeling

When you see an American flag, when you see a phallic shape, when you see a swastika, you cannot control your immediate associations. What is it to wrest one's automatic associations away from an image and see it anew? How much do these automatic associations control our perceptions.

How have these symbols been perverted to selfish ends? How are they used to manipulate us?

Of course, there's lots of research on the subliminal influence of imagery, like Joe Camel, a thinly disguised, embedded phallus in a cigarette ad, ostensibly meant to lure innocents (who was that suppposed to lure anyway. men? elderly men? gay men? Certainly not women, though I can't speak for all of us) into smoking Camels.

I think what I'm trying to think about is something different. That warm rush of chauvinism that comes with seeing the American flag. I certainly don't get the same feeling with the Italian flag, pretty as it is, though I'm sure Italians do; the mild embarassment, the tittering, that is evoked by phallic shapes; the old gut roll of horror a swastika gives us.

SYNCHRONICITY ALERT: I just went to the internet to find an image of a swastika , and look who I found, India's swastika god , none other than Ganesha. You can follow my Ganesha trail , but, suffice it to say, that that little elephant has been showing up quite a bit on this blog, lately. To quote from the site: " He is the god that is prayed to at the start of any religious ritual or ceremony, or for that matter at the start of any new enterprise, such as marriage or the beginning of a journey. Being Ganesha's primary symbol, the swastika is thus regarded as the interconnecting point between two realms of being: the outer, mundane world of daily reality, and the inner, timeless realm of soul, myth and magic. " Isn't this a perfect example of transforming an emotional image? What was Hitler up to when he chose the swastika ?

In the copy pasting process, I got more than I expected, so I am including this too. You can skip it if you're bored. You don't even need my permission. I thought the masculine/feminine integration piece was particularly fascinating.

"Wherever you go in India, you'll find the swastika being displayed. It's used by housewives to symbolically guard thresholds and doors, by priests to sanctify ceremonies and offerings, and by businessmen to bless the opening pages of their account books. No ceremony or sacrifice is considered complete without Ganesha's swastika, a symbol which is believed to ward off all types of misfortune.
Ganesha's role of mediator between man and the gods is not unlike the role played by Jesus Christ in Christianity. In fact, there are a great deal of parallels between the two. Both are associated with a cross - the swastika being a 'hooked' cross; and both are sacrificial gods in the sense that they both suffer a physical trauma in the process of becoming the connecting points between man and the gods (or God).

In the mythology surrounding Ganesha, he is decapitated and has his head replaced with that of an elephant, as well as having half his tusk cut off, and his belly accidentally torn open. Similarly, Christ is nailed to a cross and is stabbed in his side with a spear.
Further parallels are that both offer their body fluids to their devotees: the blood of Christ on the one hand, and the musth that exudes from the head glands of Ganesha (a phenomenon observed in bull elephants on heat).

Just as there can be no Christianity without Christ, so there can be no Hinduism without Ganesha. He is nothing less than the axis around which this religion revolves, and the swastika - with its rotating symbolism - is a perfect expression of his essential being. Ganesha and his swastika represent a doorway through which the devotees can enter the realm of the gods, or through which the gods can enter the world of man.

The essence of the swastika - in terms of Ganesha - is that it is essentially a feminine symbol. In the Tantric traditions of India, Ganesha and his swastika are regarded as being symbolic of the yoni (vulva) of the Great Goddess. The elephant ears of Ganesha are likened to the lips of the vulva, his trunk is seen as symbolic of the passageway up to the uterus, and the discharge of musth from the headglands of his elephant head is synonomous with the intoxicating love-juice exuded by the Goddess. The association of the elephant with the vulva is also found in the Kama Sutra , in which a woman with large vulval lips is called a hastini (elephant woman).

The association of the female vulva with Ganesha is underlined by the central myth of this boy-god, namely his role of guardian of the door to his mother's bathroom in which she bathes. The bathroom is of course symbolic of the hidden watery essence of the goddess, with the doorway being the symbolic vaginal entrance into this domain.
In Indian religious thought, the vulva of the Goddess is seen as the doorway into her cosmic body and veneration of her yoni (vulva) is an integral part of Indian religion. The association of the swastika with the vulva is found not only in India, but in many other ancient polytheistic cultures. One of the earliest images of the swastika is one carved over the vulva of an ivory figurine dating back several millenia.


As well as representing the yoni, the swastika is also identified with the Muladhara chakra, the rootchakra at the base of the spine which is ruled by Ganesha and which houses the female Kundalini serpent energy. Meditation on the swastika is a means of awakening the Kundalini energy, enabling it to rise up through the other chakras to finally culminate in a state of ecstatic bliss when it enters the highest chakra.
An image of the Kundalini, the serpent energy that is found in the Muladhara chakra with which Ganesha is identified. The swastika itself can be viewed as two overlaid serpents.

Considering the fact that every day, for thousands of years, hundreds of millions of Indians having been focussing their mental and spiritual energies on the swastika, it is hardly surprising that this symbol exerts such a powerful force-field around itself. "

The drug Soma - which Gordon Wasson has convincingly argued was a hallucinogenic mushroom - was a major formative influence in the early development of Hinduism. Mushroom-like images (known as 'chattra' in India) often appear in association with Ganesha, who is appropriately the deity who connects mankind with the divine. Above, Ganesha is holding what most people would take to be an umbrella, but which is also identical to the thin-stemmed psilocybin mushroom, Panaeolus cyanescens, a highly psychoactive fungus found extensively in India.

But I do digress.

P.S. more information about the sculpture shown is available by contacting me directly.

Unclogging the passages

I just lost a whole big entry. Adorable message from Gabor Mate's daughter , retrieved in the process. So it was worth it.

As is plain to see, my thinking came to an abrupt end sometime last week. Because thinking is an entirely new activity for me, when it stops, I assume everything is as it should be. I have never even had to ask the question, "What happened to my thoughts?" because I never had any. However, I have been doing something here for a couple of months, and I can't seem to do it anymore. The good news is that I don't feel like giving it up.

I should also mention, on a somatic level, I have been sooo stuffy, unable to breathe. One would think it was the height of the allergy season. Just to show that synchronicity is not squeamish, Judy Forman wrote a column this week about Nasal Lavage, a new health and beauty practice to incorporate into your daily routine, like toothbrushing. I knew the universe meant this for me. Besides, I haven't added a daily routine in weeks. So I hopped right on the Net and ordered myself a "device". This one is a squeegy, but there are some that are electronic.

Yesterday I spent my entire shamanic session coughing and gagging. (I do so hate this when it happens. There are sounds and sensations coming out of my body that I know do not belong to me. Not in a bad way either. I definitely feel a presence trying to push through. However, it's exhausting, and I was having a dinner party right afterwards, just to give you an indication of how far I have strayed from the path. I have spared you the photos of the event.) Now my assignment, should I chose to accept it, is to figure out what happened to create this squash of my newly sprouting creative process, this boulder on the spiritual path. these globs of phlegm in my nasal passages (Sorry, but it's not pretty).

Denoument: Lookie lookie, I wrote a few paragraphs! Let me see if I can find a picture.