Clear Your Sinuses

This has been a season of many flus and colds. The cloud-seeding is definitely effective at bringing down temperatures and bringing rain, but the toxic sulfates are wreaking havoc on immune systems. Be empowered. If your sinuses are inflamed, or a virus has you down...take olive leaf extract, cook garlic and ginger in warm meals and soups, eat slippery elm lozenges, take an acidophilis supplement for your digestive and immune health like "Good Belly", and drink pau d'arco tea!

All Kinds of Cannibalism

In my dreams last night, the virus of a client warned me not to mess with it like a big bully, I found my nail clippers, and author Gabor Mate showed up in a refracted chamber of my subconscious. He seemed increasingly tired of folks like me who buy books like his, only to leave them on the nightstand for gentle osmosis. Still, I could sense a lightness of hope in his heart, like he was stream-side, in a Puerto Rican cabana. Inside the realms, I stepped into the book and it read some of itself to me like a poem. As if Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs and all of their demons spinning in a transgender waltz, were offering me words from the book in a Greek-chorus-union of their drunk symphonic voices.

Katrina Valenzuela on Healing Wisdom

Professor of Arabic culture, language, and dance Katrina Valenzuela is on Healing Wisdom this morning talking about Egyptian customs, the Eye of Horus, hypnotism, and sacred sites. She's been giving Egyptian sacred sites tours of 40 years. She'll be in Ireland with a tour this August! Here is the podcast interview: http://www.womr.org/podcast/professor-of-arabic-culture-dance-and-language-katrina-valenzuela/

Goddess Photoshoot Today

My client wanted to embody the warrior goddess aspect of Athena with the magic of the moon Goddess of the Underworld Hecate. So, between a date with a snake, swords, and black attire, and I think we nailed an Athena-Hecate hybrid. Hecate is the Goddess of sorcery, herbal knowledge, and magic. She embodies the trinity of the Mother, Maiden and Crone aspects of the sacred feminine.

The Goddess Within

So, my answer to all of the ailments of the world is women rising up, being authentic, speaking their truth, and seeing their worth and value. It's reclaiming what has been lost, knowledge that they are a reflection of Divinity. To know the sacred feminine within, is to be free to live your dreams.

The Dead Prom Queens and the Inferiority Complexes Women Get

Disclaimer: This is a rant, not an essay. Do not let the paragraphs fool you.

Thank God for incredible hormonal mood swings. The angel work makes me so upbeat and even-keeled that it takes a number of house clearings, and shamanic clearings on the grumpy-night-of-the-soul-side of my menses to throw me into muddy waters. Working energetically and spiritually in helping clients release memories and energy in the body connected with miscarriage, molestation, rape, and battery, is very fulfilling. Sometimes it's a challenge for me to completely release that which I help to extract.

Being half-dead and near-lifeless, from the stone cold floor of a castle to the ditch by the roadside, is such a common archetypal feeling, like the fear of dying while giving birth. Most of my childhood was spent fantasizing about having tuberculosis, the black plague, and other haunting wasting diseases. (My seven-year-old games which involved me playing a pimp with a motorcycle who masqueraded as a photographer taking pictures of my best friend evolved into writing historical plays and less mundane tragedy.)...(Where do kids get this stuff?) I thought it would be beautiful to die tragically, chained up in a frozen castle tower. All the beautiful heroines die tragically. I wanted to walk straight into the ocean until I perished from aspiration of sea water, while my dress billowed up around me. And when I came here, where I found a dozens other women just like me. We can blame Masterpiece Theater and literary works. We can point fingers at Hollywood for perpetuating the glamorized death of cute girls in horror films and the abuse or death of prostitutes and strippers in other exploitative fare, but ultimately it runs deeper than that. It's nestled into our genetic makeup, a collective memory and a harsh reality.

Romanticizing death and associating beauty with death is just one piece. Historically, women have been sold into marriages in all global traditions, treated like property and considered inferior and subservient in our religious texts. It is no wonder little girls, teenagers, and women can be so self-disparaging and self-loathing. In high fashion from around the world, look at the emaciated, malnourished, and starving women whose bones are being usurped for energy. Actresses are not much different, and most careers are built on a few ventures into highly exploitative endeavors. These initiations of young actresses are almost a prerequisite to stardom and worship by society. It's part of a death cult, a death/violence/pain culture. Look at the news. The promotion of the post-Victorian-size-0 ideal and the magazines as henchmen for the beauty industry and I'd argue Hollywood as a whole, place the woman who cannibalizes herself, sacrificing her life force to the machine, on a pedestal. The effect these images have on the balance of female-male power, relationships, marriages and partnerships is huge. Look at domestic violence statistics for one. Look at self mutilation and eating disorders in girls. The effect that growing up in these cultures has on women's self-esteem is huge.

In general in our American society, girls are trained to seek male approval, whereas boys are trained to seek approval and validation from their male peers. We treat male and female authority differently. Most of us differ to men, because most of us were taught to do that. The bible teaches to follow the husband/father no matter what, because he has a superior connection with God, with wisdom. It's even prescriptive of violence against women, thus we have a whole conservative movement to physically admonish your wives through spanking and humiliation. No matter what dish Adam dishes out, no matter how condescending he is to your values, no matter how uncompromising, no matter how degrading, no matter how cruel...Eve this is your lot in life. Acceptance. Resignation. A double standard. Being over-ruled.

Look at how our toys focus on boys being active, action-oriented, goal setters, accomplishing tasks, and girls get pretty, frilly, imaginative, domestic and little in the way of concrete. Still!! Is it any wonder there is an epidemic in unnecessary apologies among women. Look at how girls and boys are still polarized in classrooms, how so much behavior falls down the manufactured gender divide that is promoted in blues and pinks. That's a recipe for projecting all of your animus or anima onto the opposite sex. It also promotes, what does Naomi Wolf call it, hetero-normative values which is probably part of the motivation behind what seems to be an agenda to polarize the sexes.

Cape Cod Women's Coalition held a delightful breakfast in honor of International Women's Day. It was well attended with well over 150 in attendance. These women are all concerned about improving the status of women and empowering Cape Cod women. Nice! However, in Mass in general, I feel like we're still living in the 1950s. I have no problem with people choosing the domestic life of being a full time homemaker and parent. I think that dynamic can lead to people falling into traditional binary gender roles, but even career women can do that with their male or butch/femme lesbian partners. I see it here, and not much in the country of Los Angeles where I'm from, that at family parties men gather together in one group and women in another.

The disparity in the way that men and women are treated, the double standards are evident. Look at the balance of power, the status of women, the ratio of female politicians, public leaders, policy makers. The death knoll rings, there's nothing like a dead prom queen. Is today's prom queen yesterday's Ophelia? That's a silly comparison, but so much of literature and film glamorizes beautiful tragic heroines. There's such a huge emphasis on what we look like. We're people first and foremost. It's just skin. People are so used to this paradigm, that it's hard to imagine a world filled with stories of women where their attractiveness and intrigue comes from their minds and spirits. If fat bitch was loud curvy Goddess? Imagine if frumpy was pleasantly-distracted by things that matter? A world where nagging is perseverance and the voice of reason. There are many unspoken things in this world. Some people's secrets eat them up alive. Exposing the darkness of humanity to the light of day, helps to bring consciousness, and where there is consciousness, the integration of mind-body-soul soon follows. Basically, dealing with ghosts and the pain body is intense, and my ass is whipped. I have to not let my essence get muddled when I use my being like Kali's demon-slaying sword. But I always come back stronger.

There is incredible violence, torture and abuse happening today, not just in war-torn regions, but in your city, on your streets. People keep hoping this whole feminism thing is gonna blow over. 'We all have equal rights now. Stop beating a dead horse. Stop bellyaching.' Well, it's not done in India, it's not done in Africa, it's not done in the Middle East, and it's not done here either.

It's time to celebrate International Women's Day. If this was ancient Rome, Feminism would be a Goddess that sits between Harmonia and Discordia. Like a crafty mermaid, Womr's IWD will drag the treasures of the ocean with her aboard ship, and we will all revel in their greatness. Starting Friday at midnight will begin with music, comedy, interviews, a radio play, live music, and Max Dashu's of the Suppressed Histories Archives Top Ten Little Known interesting and powerful women of history on at 9pm EST in my spot. Tomorrow on womr.org

Award-Winning Poet Lamont B. Steptoe on Healing Wisdom

This week, on Healing Wisdom, Lamont B. Steptoe discusses premonitions, dreams, ancestors, and the anti-war-hero climate for Vietnam War veterans. His fifteen books include volumes of his poetry and anthologies he's contributed to or edited. His own Whirlwind Press has published three collections of the late South African poet and activist, Dennis Brutus. Brutus was tight with Nelson Mandela and his anti-apartheid efforts helped drive out imperialist Dutch corporations and policies.

Without dance and full body exercise which regulates the emotions and mood, people can become stuck in thoughts, beliefs, and patterns which should remain flexible and fluid. Purging and starting over is such an important process for emotional, physical, mental and spiritual health. Sweating, cardiovascular exercise, burning fat, building muscles and bones, are as important as reading, teeth brushing, music, sharing storing and prayers of gratitude.

Today, I learned that things which appear innocuous may in fact be so, and things which appear insidious may not in fact be so. Life is full of checks and balances, a play of light and dark. Thank Goddess for friends and gyms. Let's go hug a tree and give it a smooch, because life is beautiful and trees give us oxygen.

Astrology for March

Today, it's official Mercury in Retrograde is finally over, after taking a particularly large swipe of flesh with its claws. After being raked over the coals, it's time to get in gear for the new moon today. Enjoy the shifting energies. The spell has most likely been broken. People and events from your past have less power over you. Today Mars goes Retrograde. Therefor, bringing Mars energy to endeavors which were previously begun is the primary focus, otherwise you might feel like you are swimming against the tide. So says my mom, who has been an astrologer for forty-four years. Sorry I got the dates wrong on my radio program, never check astrological dates online, when your mom is an astrologer. Seeing the hidden gifts in challenges faced helps bring resolution to setbacks during any retrograde, and that's where your intuition becomes very important. In any case, this retrograde favors folks with Aries and Scorpio prominent in their charts. For the rest of us, embodying the ways of the peaceful warrior who knows how to negotiate, and using the inner god of war to find strength and push for those things we began career wise is probably the way to go. Between now and May 18th, avoid beginning new relationships. Visions for your future based on past work are still favored on the new moon today March 1st, March 20th (Spring Equinox), and the second new moon of the month on March 30th. This year Beltane falls early on April 30th, folks, so try not to squabble to much.

Cerebral Fainting and Flying to the Congo on the Wings of Isis

Writing a poem is like masturbating in public, it's usually embarrassing and most times, it doesn't go over so well. You either have to be a fool or a megalomaniac. So much poetry winds up in the junk files and transfer stations of our souls. On the bright side, in a culture of slogans, sales pitches and propaganda, anything naively trite, overly sentimental, or generically heartfelt is a breath of fresh skunk roadkill to the soul of the artist right? My poems are like my acne, inevitable, not pretty and caused by the consumption of organic dark chocolate.

Cerebral Fainting and Flying to the Congo on the Wings of Isis

I can smell you in my hair
Long after you’ve gone,
You tell me that you don’t wear any perfume,
And I don’t want to believe you,
Because I’m hypnotized by your disembodied essence.

You’re waiting for me in my collection of old books,
You’re trailing me down the stairs at night like a ghost,
You’re hiding in the clothes of strangers,
You’re even in my dance class,
Where I travel to the Congo,
Just to get away from your Egyptian soul.

I hold my breath,
Because breathing you in is like a trip to Mount Parnassus
With its sacred flame and hallucinogenic passages,
Under the influence of your glandular beauty,
I’m falling victim to your sting operation,
Between the rumbling faults of our nation,
Under the Apollo sun,
Or, maybe I’m just smelling stain remover,
The kind everyone uses in the Winter,
When life gets messy.

A portal of Shout
Swallows me up like a honey trap
Into a chamber of wagging serpent tongues,
We’re living in an age where the chemical reactions of cleaning agents and pheromones
Are writing our futures,
The Greek Gods never cared about rug burns or heartburn,
Living it up and lighting a fire to it.
Why did they have to be so goddamn bad?

*** By the way, many of the coolest people have been Egyptian at one time or another. So, fear not, for your love of papyrus scrolls and arcane libraries. You are among friends.

George Perez on Healing Wisdom.

This week, I'm interviewing screenwriter and producer George Perez about his TV series called, The Life. The show looks at sex trafficking in the United States. The show will aired Thursday at 9am EST on WOMR 92.1
Listen to the Podcast Interview here: http://www.womr.org/podcast/anti-sex-trafficking-advocate-and-creator-of-the-life-george-perez/

Author Sandra Ingerman on Healing Wisdom This Thursday

My next radio guest is Sandra Ingerman MA, shamanic healer, licensed Marriage and Family therapist, Professional Mental Health Counselor, and author of eight books including Soul Retrieval, Medicine for the Earth, Shamanic Journeying: A Beginner’s Guide, How to Heal Toxic Thoughts, The Shaman’s Toolkit, and Awakening to the Spirit World: The Shamanic Path of Direct Revelation. Thrilled to be speaking with her soon, as our conversation was delayed on account of one of our recent blizzards.

International Women's Day is nearly upon us...

I feel like that owl, pensive and melancholy...school vacations keep me from working as much as I'd like to, although if it weren't for them I wouldn't get to spend all day in a cape and a bellydance skirt with a Secret Agent Transformer, fighting crime and grime with crazy space age martial arts moves. The snow has me in a deep freeze, but the fullish moon is casting light on the deck and lighting up the ice pond.

Huichol Shaman on Healing Wisdom This Week

Huichol Shaman and author of Plant Spirit Medicine, Eliot Cowan, will be on Healing Wisdom this week Thursday at 9am EST, on 92.1 WOMR, 91.3 WFMR and streaming at womr.org (And it will be podcast on the site as always.)

Here is the podcast for my interview with Mr. Cowan! http://www.womr.org/podcast/author-and-healer-eliot-cowan/