understanding love

I was given a mantra when I was 18
directly after a two week introduction to yoga
i used it for a year with regularity
then sporadically
when i was 29 I was given a mantra by Amaji
I used it only once
but what was given to me with that was a translation of the first manta: “Love”

last month
I was given another manta
again, containing that same sound
he translated it as “the supreme creative intelligence”
which is
of course
the same as Love

I was hateful and unloving as a child
or desperately otherwise, but failing
til I soured into bitterness
then cooled into numbness
at 21 I fell in love with a man
i thought I’d never do that
imagining coupling to be a waste of time
as evidenced by my parents
desperation begetting misery
begetting more desperation and misery
but there I was
singing “love” to myself long enough to
“fall in love”
it didn’t last too long
but when I cooled from the burns
I realized I still lived him
and now wanted to
earn his love
( instead of getting the love he gave freely in our falling state )
in order to be fit for loving
I realized I had to
be a better person
Love=growth
oh
raise me up on Eagle’s wings
I was amazed to witness that Love should inspire me to make myself a better person
while all the hatred had convinced me I should rot til final death
and the apathy left me uncaring as I bounced through life’s events
Love demanded I become Better
Grow
succeed
surpass

I forgot all of that
my heart crushed repeatedly
not just by that man
his inability to be present to my attempts at growth
but all others past him
a wild succession of failed lovers
so I performed
even the world stealing my love
and breaking it
I was left emotionless again
just with my abstract ideas
a memory
what it would be like to love
a useless desire
look into the horizion
no star nor sun in sight
but drive on
for it will make the world a better place
this wasteland filled with only self destruction
misery
and despair

where I was born again

at least I had my imaginary guide now
and I did push on
I do
the landscape is like the southern Arizona desert
(where perhaps I never left)
and occasionally it rains
and then there is color
which often fades back into hardness
friends with the tarantulas and coyote
the mountain lions and rattle snaked
all who keep themselves hidden
leaving mr with cactus…
what kind of succulent am I?

how did I get here again?
Venus Retrograde.
perhaps I’m still on that acid trip
God Alone In The Desert
have fun on your own for eternity
Your Imminence

(maybe if I smoked Salvia with strong abandon I could wake up from any of those nightmares of hallucination and have another chance to walk on into the light of dawn and join the living… is that where I left my heart)

this whole writing this morning was inspired by my sister leaving me a voicemail
“I’m outside at Louis’ house, smoking a cigarette. i’m being shamed for being drunk…”
i woke up thinking about the baby, Connor. my nephew
how could you be drunk around him?
not two years old
how could you exhale breath tainted with tar and other poisons?
he’s new and fresh
only loving and needing and curious
receptive of everything
a baby is a ball of pure love
even though they are needy and oddly shaped
everyone sees them as beauty and longs to touch them
to feel their constant love and joy of life
isn’t that the same thing as my imagined Father or Husband?
doesn’t that love inspire us to be a better person?
to want to purify ourselves
to purify the air
to purify the world
for a chance for that child to grow up pure?

shouldn’t we?

but… I always forget… Humanity
the baby will have to get dirty
blind and ignorant
only through that can he yearn for perfection

I am a person where perfection was always in the past
everything tending towards entropy
progression a long decline

neither is true
of course
perfect is what Is
I know

but it’s how I am..

But on mornings like this
where I can wake and remember Love
and chew it my mighty jaws
while dreams fade of Swiss rivers of beautiful blue, me on my bike… with a friend, a lost back pack
forest there, an opportunity to escape
the reaches of the tangled city with all its potential
live and desire

oh
I’m glad to remember love
and the uses of love
and the prevalence of love
even as I masticate it
and leave my mouth empty again

time to get up and make some tea

.iP

.flickr-photo { }.flickr-yourcomment { }

how do we Americans use this word wrong? is not what you are is narrowed against America? closing your heart to it?
I once used to say I never got bored
except by other people
and if I stayed with them anyway
with awareness of that boredom (boring, like a drill through my skull or heart) I got frustrated: knowing my ability to free myself but not acting in that way for some other reason: to support the person.. or garner respect from them. frustrated with the knowledge I could end my suffering
if I stayed like that for any length of time I tended to get angry
which tended to make mr stupid
and forget that I had the ability to walk away and entertain myself in a more pleasurable way
I’d usually get so stupid i’d try and change the person who was boring me
which was the stupidest of all
then we’d probably fight

until one of us left.

is the answer, then, to open more?
turn the other cheek? or ear?
hear more? compassion more? vision more? interest in whatever was so boring anyway? let it lap like a wave… fall like the rain… open to what is…
does that quell Anger?

what else, then… what else is anger?

.iP

.flickr-photo { }.flickr-yourcomment { }

so, what’s happening?

everything is a success
life is moving along wonderfully
there are beasts with teeth in all the shadows
but so it goes
and how goes it?

Last year I flew to Indiana
to have a few days there on my own
in a rental car
old friends
and daddy bears
then to surprise my mother on her 60th birthday
at her work
she didn’t know I was there

I forgot her birthday this year
and so
she was very ill
my mind’s in pieces

my best friend is dying
BFF
.

I went to Ireland last year with my mother
brother, sister
we were there a week
I was the hero of her story
my siblings weren’t so enthralled

I intended to make a book of some of the thousand pictures I took
I couldn’t seem to focus on it
keep my hands on the keyboard
and off myself

I returned and drove upstate with two bitchy old queen alcoholics
Lake George
the colours were spectacular
their psyches like mosquitoes

I returned and set about planning my next trip:

return to Ireland on my own
rent a house
or flat
stay a month..

oh
the over to Berlin to stay at Patrick’s new place
for a month

yeah
then down to Cairo
to stay at the beddouin’s

um
Home?

I was learning about home
of course
a friend
who used to be a lover
and has never been a good friend
pointed out my flaw to me

it only took a few days of mulling that
that I instead decided to have a new Adventure
and not leave Home
Stay Home
be Grounded

I am a character obsessed by transformation
I have
forever
wanted to burst forth
with wings

I keep crawling
that’s what it is
the tedious pace of the quotidian

but that was exciting
some door opening
more opportunities
unearned
just present to
no great progress on the front of love
happily, or not, settling into the mundane

I was speaking with one of my house sitters last night
admitted that one of my Goals had been to learn to choose

in that
most of my life I’ve merely acted in what was available
and had little control to stop myself
Nafs

if there was a chocolate bar
have to eat it all in just one sitting
entire pint of ice cream
all doritos and dr pepper childhood
take what was available

in my years of living rural
I was at peace
for lack of options
but when I came into the cities
I would gorge myself on my desires
pizza, sex, gelato…

I had forgotten
but noticed last night
I rarely eat pizza now
though I still love it
and often have uneaten pints of gelato in my freezer

the lust is wearing off

I’m hoping this will allow the concentration to birth the fruits of my imaginations and passions

I was settling into studying music with my manic mystic
teaching yoga with my bears
and following my pace through my days

all interrupted by death
so I got back from Lake George last year October 19th
though I had other plans
Leo has always been the top of my SpeedDial
ever since I had one
He’s not just a Daddy Bear
he’s my Father Figure
my Father
Father Leo+

I flew out, today, the day after my full year of not traveling

well
only one-day car trips
sleepovers
never away more than a night

now I’ll be gone for many months
at the Hermitage
walking the ghost
Ireland… Berlin… Cairo…
Kelseyville

I have no idea what this will be like
I hope I learn how to cry
I hope I write his memoirs
I hope I follow his soul to see where it goes

I imagine starting my own business
Thanatos Inc
come be with you while you’re dying
record your life
or just help you let go of it

ah
anyway
the plane doors are opening now
time to step into the light

.iP

.flickr-photo { }.flickr-yourcomment { }

I’m most comfortable naked
listening to sounds of nature
letting myself smell as I do
letting my hair be how it is
with no where to go
but with seemingly endless opportunity in any direction
to climb trees
walk across rocks
lay in the sun
trek
discover and rest

living here
with constant Dominican soundtrack
endless staring at electric screens
riding underground with stale air
rough vibrations
incredibly jarring cacophonies of metal grinding and personal emotions
to rise into polluted depleted air
amid hard angles in brick, stone, metal or glass

it’s not easy
I am not happy

though I am much more at ease here
where I never have to drive
and only have the options of big box stores for my shopping and entertainment

like many people here
I have made sacrifices to live here
and have become quite addicted to this city’s offerings

though I don’t often go to parties
discos
fashion stores
museums
galleries
openings
and bar nights

I like knowing I could at any time
and sometimes do

sometimes I enjoy it
sometimes not

I love looking at the people I stand and sit right next to
vaguely imagining their lives
desiring or loathing them
loving them and pitying them
blessing them and practicing un-cursing them

the joy I get in being in close proximity to these masses
outweighs the irritations of the people surrounding my apartments
and the annoyances I feel from the people I’m most intimate with

my own damaged and abrasive style of loving gets more inflamed and more salved here than do I get benefitted by the neglect found in isolation

i squeeze in my gigantic sense of self
to fit in this fantastic toy-box of a town
and I’m anxious about leaving
I do not fear nature or solitude
nor even the difficulty of helping my best friend die
as much as I’m feeling desolated by the loss of the sense of freedom, versatility, opportunities and adventures I am leaving behind

but the place I’m going is very dear to me
and it is the last time I will ever be able to go to it with the sense that it is home
this trip will remove Leo from it
and the last of my possession(s)
any time after
it will just be nostalgia
in this trip
I pay all my rent from past debts here
and close the deal

grasping
grasping
grasping and aversion

and squeezing myself into places to almost feel comfortable

I will return here another person
perhaps my path will be clearer
another destination
or another way of being
apparent

and I will make more offerings of my wasted talents
to the mill of New York
to provide me with food for my further journeys
no matter how static or peripatetic they may be

I feel a certain in this
however it may come

thank you

thank you anyway

.iP

through the tunnel

.iP

good night
sleep tight
don’t let the bed bugs bite

.iP

all my leaves are falling…
how did this happen?
have i failed…?

.iP

all summer i’ve had the hot water turned off in my bathroom sink
it was banging
then it was dripping
and i couldn’t turn it off all together
so i shut it off below the sink

today the weather has a chill
and i didn’t like the idea of going through the winter (what of it i’ll be
here… or my house guests) with not hot water for rinsing the mouth and
hands
so i set to taking apart the bathroom faucet
to…
maybe take it to the hardware store and get a new one?

but no
when i took off the handle for the hot water and the cold water
i noticed a distinct difference
the little screw in the bottom of the valve of the hot had come off

i just screwed it (and the rubber washer) back in
put it all back together
and now it works fine

So Easy.

(so so so many things that intimidate me are really so simple.. i just have
to do them and they’re done)

i just bought a plane ticket.
i’m flying to SF on the 20th…
one way ticket to be with my friend Leo til he’s better or not any more.
i’ve managed to not fly anywhere or leave my bed for longer than one night
for a year
well, i got back from Ireland last year on the 12th, then went up to Lake
George for a few nights (by car) and returned on the 19th
so i get 366 days of HOME
and then..
well
are my wandering days over?
“does it mean that i’m getting boring? you tell me.”

all sorts of excitement and apprehension
but
Away We Go.

The Daddy does it like no one else

I hate myself
I love myself

“and it’s all because of you
all because of you
all because of you
ou-hoo…”

.iP

.flickr-photo { }.flickr-yourcomment { }

.iP

.flickr-photo { }.flickr-yourcomment { }

who turns artifice to life

.iP