By Pandora Peoples
When Anita closes her eyes
By the fountain in her dentist’s office,
She sees the Virgin of Guadalupe
Covered in blue sky and yellow stars,
Standing between the horns of a bull,
Fresh tears from last night's clouds
Cascade down her rocky bower,
Roll down her cheeks,
And drip onto her palms in prayer,
Lacey maidenhair fern surrounds Our Lady,
And pink roses on glossy tiles
Behind her porcelain form,
Shine in the afternoon sun
Indian women with thick hair,
Pencil skirts and flats,
Sell watermelon and cantaloupe
Outside of church with their daughters,
Chopped papaya and cucumbers
Have more soul
Marinated in lemon juice and cayenne pepper,
Even wrapped in cellophane
And squirted with concentrate
From a plastic lemon grenade,
Inside a picnic basket are warm tamales,
Pink cookies with sparkles,
Cokes in glass bottles with real sugar,
And home-made, candy-coated cactus fruit
She recalls scenes from her former life,
While an exuberant fan overhead
Goes into pterodactyl over-drive,
Hypnotizing her with air-conditioning,
Humming and squawking
For the duration of her root canal,
In the waiting room
Pages of a magazine on an empty chair
Turn in quick succession
On rainy mornings with her rosaries
Gathered around her fingers,
Young and matronly in an apron,
With boat shoes on,
She plucks cilantro
And jalapeños from sandy pots by the door,
While stray dogs growl and whimper
Wandering the streets,
She waits for sunrise,
The bust she sculpted of Jesus in thorns
Hangs over her bed and
Turns orange as day breaks
Roosters crow demonically from three AM,
While rats run through holes in the houses
Of sleeping families,
And cockroaches swarm the earthen floors,
Tarantulas crawl over keys on pipe organs
In a building that clangs on the hour,
If you listen,
Through chain-linked fences,
Thieves in rags trade five-cent donuts
For the orphans' new shoes,
An orphan with nails through her bloody shoes
Is afraid to take them off,
These are the only shoes she has ever had
A pregnant teen falls to the floor
In a heap of sobs,
Motherhood is the best feeling,
She has a new life growing inside her,
Sleepless she folds the clean sheets
Into a neat pile by her bed,
Before falling asleep on familiar surface
Of the rough bare mattress
On the dock under a thatched roof,
Lime-sweet shrimp cerviche with hot sauce
Makes new men of carpenters,
A raw oyster plate turns lunch for an out-of-work musician
Into an afternoon date with God and a paper-bag-cerveza,
Barbequed tortas and tacos
Bring smiles between familiar faces,
Some too stubborn to speak broken languages
Stale bread and potato potage
Is on the menu again for the Sisters of Mercy,
With a babe on each hip,
And a class full of sixty hungry barefoot children
Whose saucer eyes long for every quiet moment
Sitting on the cement floor
With their loving teachers
Sister Anita opens her eyes,
To the smiling dentist in pale blue polyester,
She returns home with a capped tooth
And goofy, sardonic smile,
Residents have been quarantined,
It's lock-down at the Acropolis of Assisted Living,
But they still get happy hour in their rooms,
Just no religious services,
All the former nuns blame the stomach flu on Fred,
The man with the dog in 202 who still likes the ladies,
He’s always coming and going
Christ-child key chains
Dangle from fists as she scoots across the carpet,
With her walker on neon green tennis balls,
Petroleum-based beauty products
Make smooth her kind face,
Sticky round perfume gels ooze
Into a pretty dish reflected in the mirror on her vanity,
Lysol sprays and bottles of carcinogenic substances
Cover every inch of counter top and medicine cabinet
Unoccupied by baskets of fake daisies and glass geese,
With checkered bow-ties
Anita misses the marigolds on Dia De Los Muertos,
The tugging strings and blasting horns of the mariachis,
Candle-lit parades with brightly colored-costumes,
The worship of Mother Mary in every corner store,
And Los Hijos de Dios
Monday, February 13, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Vacation on Isla Mujeres
By Pandora Peoples
The apple belly of a fish woman
Rolls along the shoals
Until a smooth dolphin
Slides beneath her and
She throws her arms about his neck
Their chakra colors mix
But are fixed
And never fuse
Like oil and water
In the lava lamp blues
Sea stars walk down chalky reefs
Like creeping hands
Into the iron sands of a shipwrecked cruise,
Where platoons of plankton explode
Like fireworks, when they get too close
The bee bopping troubadours of the trident
Harbor no resentment to the inclement
Infringement of the air breathing
Land creatures whose indictment of nature
Indicates an addiction to toxic substances
Gaia shifts and moans
Her body on loan to alien people
Who don’t recognize their own home,
The soul invasion
Thrusts into her throne like a sword made
Of skull and bone
The apple belly of a fish woman
Rolls along the shoals
Until a smooth dolphin
Slides beneath her and
She throws her arms about his neck
Their chakra colors mix
But are fixed
And never fuse
Like oil and water
In the lava lamp blues
Sea stars walk down chalky reefs
Like creeping hands
Into the iron sands of a shipwrecked cruise,
Where platoons of plankton explode
Like fireworks, when they get too close
The bee bopping troubadours of the trident
Harbor no resentment to the inclement
Infringement of the air breathing
Land creatures whose indictment of nature
Indicates an addiction to toxic substances
Gaia shifts and moans
Her body on loan to alien people
Who don’t recognize their own home,
The soul invasion
Thrusts into her throne like a sword made
Of skull and bone
Monday, February 06, 2012
The Mermaids and the May Flowers
by Pandora Peoples
Where the sighing of mermaids
turns into the calls of sirens,
a World War II veteran
lingers over a shoebox of memories,
his heavy footsteps in the attic
and the smell of cigarettes
give his whereabouts away
A tree branch in the backyard
splits from the trunk,
sacrificing itself to be used as a modern temple,
sweat lodge, or Fort Apache,
depending on the configuration of rocks
around the Druid marriage tree
The ghostly soldier stoops over his wife's empty flower bed,
and a single rose bush
seems to have special meaning for him,
when a child's toy truck appears at its base
under wild winter blossoms,
chaos like bitter regrets flies through the kitchen
among a group of gathered friends,
"I guess some people don't know how to let go"
"So you do it for them"
"Yeah, bury the shoebox."
The sailors and sea captains
and their wives may be wearing Pats jackets now,
but they can still catch a bullet with their teeth,
thick ankles like tree roots
stretch into white tennis shoes
striking punching bags with roundhouse kicks
like beasts,
like innkeepers who know how to keep bar flies in line,
before there was the wild west
there was Provincetown
Curvy forearms are balletic
with heavy wet blankets
on the clothes line in the crisp winter sunshine,
there's no such thing as a missed opportunity,
everything has more value on an island,
these sassy broads are the great-granddaughters
of merchants after all
There's always a curio cabinet
with found shells and matrioshkas
and little potato-faced dolls
with missing eyes on porcelain faces
in someone's house,
historical society bookshelves are full of stories
of widows who shorn sheep and slaughtered chickens
before sun-up on Sundays
No one gets gloomy about the yellow-green cemeteries
with lichen-covered gravestones,
in fact they are a source of pride
in the eyes and upturned mouths of locals,
red and blue flowers and American flags
are offered to strangers' tombs,
dotting the web of tangled streets
that course through the small cities
like the veins of prancing show ponies
in small town parades
Where the sighing of mermaids
turns into the calls of sirens,
a World War II veteran
lingers over a shoebox of memories,
his heavy footsteps in the attic
and the smell of cigarettes
give his whereabouts away
A tree branch in the backyard
splits from the trunk,
sacrificing itself to be used as a modern temple,
sweat lodge, or Fort Apache,
depending on the configuration of rocks
around the Druid marriage tree
The ghostly soldier stoops over his wife's empty flower bed,
and a single rose bush
seems to have special meaning for him,
when a child's toy truck appears at its base
under wild winter blossoms,
chaos like bitter regrets flies through the kitchen
among a group of gathered friends,
"I guess some people don't know how to let go"
"So you do it for them"
"Yeah, bury the shoebox."
The sailors and sea captains
and their wives may be wearing Pats jackets now,
but they can still catch a bullet with their teeth,
thick ankles like tree roots
stretch into white tennis shoes
striking punching bags with roundhouse kicks
like beasts,
like innkeepers who know how to keep bar flies in line,
before there was the wild west
there was Provincetown
Curvy forearms are balletic
with heavy wet blankets
on the clothes line in the crisp winter sunshine,
there's no such thing as a missed opportunity,
everything has more value on an island,
these sassy broads are the great-granddaughters
of merchants after all
There's always a curio cabinet
with found shells and matrioshkas
and little potato-faced dolls
with missing eyes on porcelain faces
in someone's house,
historical society bookshelves are full of stories
of widows who shorn sheep and slaughtered chickens
before sun-up on Sundays
No one gets gloomy about the yellow-green cemeteries
with lichen-covered gravestones,
in fact they are a source of pride
in the eyes and upturned mouths of locals,
red and blue flowers and American flags
are offered to strangers' tombs,
dotting the web of tangled streets
that course through the small cities
like the veins of prancing show ponies
in small town parades
Transpersonal Bookstore
By Pandora Peoples
Pairs of feet with toes curled
Around the fibers of burgundy carpets
Wiggle in the dusty sunlight,
Knobby knees cast shadows on fat Buddha statues,
Lively incense dances around
Cherub smiles and
Bearded faces focus on the thin white pages
Of leather-bound books
Gnome wind chimes clang
While patrons duck to avoid crystal fairies
Hanging from the busy ceiling above,
A woman with faux fur cuffs
Dips a hand into a bronze dish of candied seeds,
The kind of digestive treat you get at Indian restaurants,
The crunch of caraway and fennel
Make everyone feel a little more Hindu
And a little closer to the golden Lakshmi Goddess
Offering flowers mudra in the window
On their way out
A black cat hinges at the hips
With his out-stretched paws gripping
The Bangalore rug under a Balinesian coffee table,
Covered in carved pots with violet orchids
Dripping with peat moss,
The green marble eyes of the cat
Stare into the carnelian eyes of a Dravidian warrior Goddess,
Kali takes no prisoners with her sword brandished high,
A goblin head held by a mess of hair,
A bow and arrow drawn,
With a dagger and a pitchfork
Ready and waiting just in case,
Talk about multi-tasking,
This demon-slayer has got what it takes
To kick some serious assumptions
About neopagan feminism
And liberal hippies
The arty postcards and the free herbal tea
Bring students of life in
From the light wind and rain
Bouncing prayer flags on the awning outside,
Mandala art coloring books,
Henna tattoo kits,
Cup cozies made from recycled sweaters
By stay-at-home moms,
And shiny bindis by the register
Make chatting up the androgynous hipster
With a nose ring
A little easier,
The colored glass vulva pendulums
Casting rainbows on the Religion and Philosophy book cases
Are a great icebreaker but,
You still aren’t a hundred percent sure
If you are talking to ‘a girl or a boy’
Pairs of feet with toes curled
Around the fibers of burgundy carpets
Wiggle in the dusty sunlight,
Knobby knees cast shadows on fat Buddha statues,
Lively incense dances around
Cherub smiles and
Bearded faces focus on the thin white pages
Of leather-bound books
Gnome wind chimes clang
While patrons duck to avoid crystal fairies
Hanging from the busy ceiling above,
A woman with faux fur cuffs
Dips a hand into a bronze dish of candied seeds,
The kind of digestive treat you get at Indian restaurants,
The crunch of caraway and fennel
Make everyone feel a little more Hindu
And a little closer to the golden Lakshmi Goddess
Offering flowers mudra in the window
On their way out
A black cat hinges at the hips
With his out-stretched paws gripping
The Bangalore rug under a Balinesian coffee table,
Covered in carved pots with violet orchids
Dripping with peat moss,
The green marble eyes of the cat
Stare into the carnelian eyes of a Dravidian warrior Goddess,
Kali takes no prisoners with her sword brandished high,
A goblin head held by a mess of hair,
A bow and arrow drawn,
With a dagger and a pitchfork
Ready and waiting just in case,
Talk about multi-tasking,
This demon-slayer has got what it takes
To kick some serious assumptions
About neopagan feminism
And liberal hippies
The arty postcards and the free herbal tea
Bring students of life in
From the light wind and rain
Bouncing prayer flags on the awning outside,
Mandala art coloring books,
Henna tattoo kits,
Cup cozies made from recycled sweaters
By stay-at-home moms,
And shiny bindis by the register
Make chatting up the androgynous hipster
With a nose ring
A little easier,
The colored glass vulva pendulums
Casting rainbows on the Religion and Philosophy book cases
Are a great icebreaker but,
You still aren’t a hundred percent sure
If you are talking to ‘a girl or a boy’
The Call of the Mountains
By Pandora Peoples
I have heard tell
That elk on your porch
In the morning
Is a fertility omen
And that mountains are capable
Of enlisting the service of wombs
To carry the progeny of elemental star beings,
Who are keepers of ancient knowledge,
And stewards of the sacred lands
I have this urge to pick up my skirt
And walk due west
Through mud, snow, and swamp,
Until the soles of my feet
Are like moccasins
And the rhythm of my feet
Dance to the drumming heart
At the center of the earth,
While the fire in my belly is strong
And the musky nectar of the black morning
Intoxicates every cell of my sojourning body
I will walk the Trail of Tears
And sleep on the fields of forgotten dreams
Where the rubble of homesteaders grows thick with weeds,
Listening to the ghosts of passenger trains,
I will confront the battles of medicine men
Taking up arms
In the flickering fire of my camp before day break,
With one eye open on tomorrow,
Piercing whistles and chugging engines
Will punctuate my dreams,
And I will awake with the taste of succotash in my mouth
With the sweet smell of sarsaparilla lingering
In the chilling first light
Up through wooded hills,
Down into moist valleys
Shin-deep in ponderosa pine needles,
I will wash in trickling streams
Munching on rose hips,
Shavegrass and the new shoots of tender ferns,
Falcons and eagles will check in on me
From time to time
And crows will steer me away from falling rocks
The buzzing afternoon
Will bleach my skirt
As I nap half in the shade of the thorny chaparral,
Snakes will coil and snap at spotted lizards
And a family of box turtles will lead me to water,
A coyote will stare me down,
A fox will sniff a puddle of my making,
Bats will flitter and flap overhead,
I will breathe in the desert sage,
And I will light a token fire in the sand,
An offering to the bright constellations
Pulsating with life from light years away
The fullness of my being
Will shed into the cool, smooth earth,
Fertilizing a blooming cactus nearby
With my uterine silver lining,
I will march through cornfields
Lounge under cottonwoods,
Meander over willows leaning into lakes,
Grope through groves of Maples at midnight,
And when I reach where the Pinyon Pine
Meets the alpine tundra,
I will climb that tree
Like a koala bear,
And perching in the top branches,
I will sing
To the eerie mating calls of the elk
I have heard tell
That elk on your porch
In the morning
Is a fertility omen
And that mountains are capable
Of enlisting the service of wombs
To carry the progeny of elemental star beings,
Who are keepers of ancient knowledge,
And stewards of the sacred lands
I have this urge to pick up my skirt
And walk due west
Through mud, snow, and swamp,
Until the soles of my feet
Are like moccasins
And the rhythm of my feet
Dance to the drumming heart
At the center of the earth,
While the fire in my belly is strong
And the musky nectar of the black morning
Intoxicates every cell of my sojourning body
I will walk the Trail of Tears
And sleep on the fields of forgotten dreams
Where the rubble of homesteaders grows thick with weeds,
Listening to the ghosts of passenger trains,
I will confront the battles of medicine men
Taking up arms
In the flickering fire of my camp before day break,
With one eye open on tomorrow,
Piercing whistles and chugging engines
Will punctuate my dreams,
And I will awake with the taste of succotash in my mouth
With the sweet smell of sarsaparilla lingering
In the chilling first light
Up through wooded hills,
Down into moist valleys
Shin-deep in ponderosa pine needles,
I will wash in trickling streams
Munching on rose hips,
Shavegrass and the new shoots of tender ferns,
Falcons and eagles will check in on me
From time to time
And crows will steer me away from falling rocks
The buzzing afternoon
Will bleach my skirt
As I nap half in the shade of the thorny chaparral,
Snakes will coil and snap at spotted lizards
And a family of box turtles will lead me to water,
A coyote will stare me down,
A fox will sniff a puddle of my making,
Bats will flitter and flap overhead,
I will breathe in the desert sage,
And I will light a token fire in the sand,
An offering to the bright constellations
Pulsating with life from light years away
The fullness of my being
Will shed into the cool, smooth earth,
Fertilizing a blooming cactus nearby
With my uterine silver lining,
I will march through cornfields
Lounge under cottonwoods,
Meander over willows leaning into lakes,
Grope through groves of Maples at midnight,
And when I reach where the Pinyon Pine
Meets the alpine tundra,
I will climb that tree
Like a koala bear,
And perching in the top branches,
I will sing
To the eerie mating calls of the elk
Sunday, February 05, 2012
Proof the Inquisition was the Persecution of Women
Malleus maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches) was published by Catholic inquisition authorities in 1485-86.
"All wickedness, is but little to the wickedness of a woman. ... What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an unescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil nature, painted with fair colours. ... Women are by nature instruments of Satan -- they are by nature carnal, a structural defect rooted in the original creation." Quote found at http://www.gendercide.org/case_witchhunts.html
Ah, another pivotal handbook on misogyny.
"All wickedness, is but little to the wickedness of a woman. ... What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an unescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil nature, painted with fair colours. ... Women are by nature instruments of Satan -- they are by nature carnal, a structural defect rooted in the original creation." Quote found at http://www.gendercide.org/case_witchhunts.html
Ah, another pivotal handbook on misogyny.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Left Hook, No Winter
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night." Dylan Thomas
Left Hook, No Winter
by Pandora Peoples
Though fish may turn upon their cheeks
To bob wide-eyed in stew so bleak,
Confused and tangled trees may peel
And fall to dirt which does reveal,
A bright blue sky, a stirring lake,
Ivy ambushed by the rake,
While asphalt ribbons glitter pink,
With ground quartz bling they shake and sink,
A fracking noise, a noxious gas,
Moot point warnings explode en masse,
A cruise ship in a foot of reef,
Chain letters on a slab of beef,
The slap of boxing gloves on mitts
Clears out the nonsense of the wits.
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night." Dylan Thomas
Left Hook, No Winter
by Pandora Peoples
Though fish may turn upon their cheeks
To bob wide-eyed in stew so bleak,
Confused and tangled trees may peel
And fall to dirt which does reveal,
A bright blue sky, a stirring lake,
Ivy ambushed by the rake,
While asphalt ribbons glitter pink,
With ground quartz bling they shake and sink,
A fracking noise, a noxious gas,
Moot point warnings explode en masse,
A cruise ship in a foot of reef,
Chain letters on a slab of beef,
The slap of boxing gloves on mitts
Clears out the nonsense of the wits.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
My Kombucha Saved Me From a Holiday Hangover
by Pandora Peoples
Finally getting back into balance with Mother Nature by unplugging myself from holiday hangover addictions to 98.6 percent cacao chocolate, locally-brewed fair-trade organic Costa Rican coffee, and my own home-baked organic cane juice sweetened poppy seed-stuffed hamantashen. Sometimes delicious things are the cause of mood swings, spirals of discontent, neg'ing out from pop-culture overload, going gonzo over pole shifts. As they say on Portlandia, “Cacao to cacao.”
Kombucha tea is the health drink of the ancients. Kombucha imparts the wisdom of symbiotic life on this planet with every bitter sip. Kombucha is the hope for a better today and an amazing tomorrow. Hope has been shoved into a Pandora’s box of patriarchal misconceptions of the Goddess, propagated by misogynist poets of classical Greece and dragged through slogans by lying post-Marxist fascists, but hope is still powerful, undeterred by disinformation campaigns old and new.
Kombucha is an organism composed of beneficial bacteria and yeast containing active enzymes and amino acids. Its fermented tea contains amino acids, aids in the detoxification of the liver, improves digestive function, joint tissue, skin elasticity, increases energy and has been said to prolong life for thousands of years. It is often used by people with Fibromyalgia and in cancer recovery, and reported by them to have tremendous help benefit.
My kombucha jars are producing many thick healthy SCOBYS (symbiotic colonies of bacteria and yeast). They are part pet, part plant. It’s like having fighting fish, those solitary creatures recommended by pet stores for busy, reluctant pet-owners. No air filter, no thermometer, no heater necessary. These kocha kinoko, (‘red tea mushroom’ in Japanese,) are beautiful company and emanate healing vibrations, floating like happy clouds in their gleaming golden glass jars.
Drinking Kombucha gain has renewed my health consciousness, allowing me to drink a cup of una de gato tea when I want a piece of happy instead of eating chocolate. Eating healthier give me patience to brew tea instead of picking up a cup of coffee. These culture addictions are all the same, good mixed with bad. Coffee and chocolate are good brain stimulation but for many they are coupled with nervous energy, aggression, dehydration, poor indigestion and nutrient retention, adrenal and exhaustion. Now I’m juicing, steeping, and bonding with Shiva lingam stones from sacred Indian rivers. When we ingest nutrient-rich, highly vibrating foods, it becomes easy to tap in to REAL LIFE and what really matters in the RIGHT NOW moment on this planet.
Finally getting back into balance with Mother Nature by unplugging myself from holiday hangover addictions to 98.6 percent cacao chocolate, locally-brewed fair-trade organic Costa Rican coffee, and my own home-baked organic cane juice sweetened poppy seed-stuffed hamantashen. Sometimes delicious things are the cause of mood swings, spirals of discontent, neg'ing out from pop-culture overload, going gonzo over pole shifts. As they say on Portlandia, “Cacao to cacao.”
Kombucha tea is the health drink of the ancients. Kombucha imparts the wisdom of symbiotic life on this planet with every bitter sip. Kombucha is the hope for a better today and an amazing tomorrow. Hope has been shoved into a Pandora’s box of patriarchal misconceptions of the Goddess, propagated by misogynist poets of classical Greece and dragged through slogans by lying post-Marxist fascists, but hope is still powerful, undeterred by disinformation campaigns old and new.
Kombucha is an organism composed of beneficial bacteria and yeast containing active enzymes and amino acids. Its fermented tea contains amino acids, aids in the detoxification of the liver, improves digestive function, joint tissue, skin elasticity, increases energy and has been said to prolong life for thousands of years. It is often used by people with Fibromyalgia and in cancer recovery, and reported by them to have tremendous help benefit.
My kombucha jars are producing many thick healthy SCOBYS (symbiotic colonies of bacteria and yeast). They are part pet, part plant. It’s like having fighting fish, those solitary creatures recommended by pet stores for busy, reluctant pet-owners. No air filter, no thermometer, no heater necessary. These kocha kinoko, (‘red tea mushroom’ in Japanese,) are beautiful company and emanate healing vibrations, floating like happy clouds in their gleaming golden glass jars.
Drinking Kombucha gain has renewed my health consciousness, allowing me to drink a cup of una de gato tea when I want a piece of happy instead of eating chocolate. Eating healthier give me patience to brew tea instead of picking up a cup of coffee. These culture addictions are all the same, good mixed with bad. Coffee and chocolate are good brain stimulation but for many they are coupled with nervous energy, aggression, dehydration, poor indigestion and nutrient retention, adrenal and exhaustion. Now I’m juicing, steeping, and bonding with Shiva lingam stones from sacred Indian rivers. When we ingest nutrient-rich, highly vibrating foods, it becomes easy to tap in to REAL LIFE and what really matters in the RIGHT NOW moment on this planet.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Optimum Health and Time in Nature Go Hand in Hand
by Pandora Peoples
Indigenous people have developed an intuitive relationship with the earth that has proved beneficial to humanity and has developed over many thousands of years of human evolution. They understand the intelligence of the earth, and respect the consciousness within the natural world. They see how gratitude helps crops grow and know how singing to plants makes them grow faster. They see how the deeper their connection to the natural world, the more they can influence the events in their lives. Using ritual and ceremony to elicit helps from spiritual influences combined with the power of intention they manifest outcomes for individuals and for their communities. Honoring the cycles of the year and the life cycles of the human life, helps people to feel a part of the divine scheme of life and that their lives are in perfect harmony and syncopation with all that surrounds them. Seasonal festivals and rites of passages are vestiges of age-old understanding of the Cycle of Life.
In the last hundred years in the Unites States, agriculture has transformed from being predominantly composed of family-farms to being almost exclusively commercial and corporate farming. With this advent of the industrialized farming culture, new generations have quickly forgotten the importance of connecting to the earth and looking to the natural world for comfort and understanding.
In my practice, I have seen many depressed and melancholy clients come away from the cloud hanging over their head into the sunshine. Spending more time in natural seems to be the single most important factor in bringing about an immediate and striking shift in mood, which fosters positive feelings of self-worth and renewed sense of life purpose. Whether they walk in the park, sit at the beach, plant in their garden, swim in a pond, bike a wooded path, or hike in the mountains, spending time outside is more than simply absorbing vitamin D.
Connecting to the Natural World is often superior medicine to pharmaceutical drugs. Many so-called chemical imbalances can be cured with some combination of sunlight, dietary changes, herbal supplements, dance, making music, or a yoga practice. Could doctors or the medical industry make money if this was widely practiced and understood? Anything that you can do for yourself at home or in natural isn't profitable for the big business that is the medical industry. Sunlight is free. Dance is free. Making music is free. You are free to move your body how you choose. When you take your health in to your own hands it is a very powerful and rewarding experience. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort for people to break through their inhibitions and fears of being present and moving in their own body. The uneasiness of self-consciousness and the awkwardness of self-discovery is a small price to pay for journeying on the path toward optimal health.
The natural world teaches us about regeneration. When we live in cities and spend most of our time surrounded by man-made structures, tools and machines, we are surrounded by things which weren’t pure creations of the Universal Intelligence. Theses objects do not vibrate at the same level of the natural world and they do not reflect back to us positive affirmations about life. In fact, cell phones, computers hum, lamps and other electrical devices, create audible and inaudible noise, which affects our brain waves and our nervous system, leading to stress, lowered immune response, and disorganized thought processes.
The natural world, teaches us about ourselves. Humans are animals, but we tend to forget it. We belong with our feet in the earth, our hands in the water, our hair in the wind, playing like dolphins and monkeys, and huddling together around campfires and the hearth. We belong to one another, as resources of our communities. It is our duty to ourselves to be diligent in striving to find our unique life purpose, and it is our duty to others to stick with our skills and talent to improve the lives of others. It is the duty of every person as neighbors, friends, and coworkers to help support others in finding that place in the community where they can contribute from the heart and offer their unique skills and talents.
Being status-driven and driven by individualism, many people have become so self-focused, that they have forgotten to share. The difficulty sharing seen in young children is a reflection of the adult world they mimic. It is endemic only to industrialized cultures. Most families do not share meals on a daily or weekly basis. Most families only share meals at holidays. Most people go out to eat when there is nothing in the fridge, instead of going over to a neighbor of friend’s house. Most people buy things they will only use once instead of borrowing.
What would the world look like if instead of buying snowsuits and power tools, we shared them? Would we start trading? Would we discover our own values over those sold to us in magazines, television, and film? Could trading services and items ever be a trend? If there were no advertising for it, if no corporation could profit from it, would it catch on?
How different would you feel about your neighbors if you could stop by their houses every time you needed something, such as sugar, butter, an ax, a chain saw? How much gas and anxiety would you save without gratuitous trips to the local stores? How would you feel when you could help a widow, a single mom, an unhappy couple, or an over-worked family by giving them potatoes, bread, a bushel of wood, scotch tape, a dozen nails, or an electric heater you never use when they are in need?
Tribal wisdom also understands the value of developing a relationship with the natural world, instead of attempting to control it. Their respect for all life, all plants and animals and elemental forces, gives them humility, which keeps them from living in a paradigm where they are motivated by greed and the desire to subjugate and exploit the resources and suffering of other people.
There has been a campaign aimed at convincing industrialized nations to see all indigenous people of Third World countries as impoverished, in an effort to justify bringing big business to countries with unexploited potential workforces who are sitting on top of numerous natural resources including rain forests, oil, gold, diamonds, coal, and the list goes on.
Indigenous people have developed an intuitive relationship with the earth that has proved beneficial to humanity and has developed over many thousands of years of human evolution. They understand the intelligence of the earth, and respect the consciousness within the natural world. They see how gratitude helps crops grow and know how singing to plants makes them grow faster. They see how the deeper their connection to the natural world, the more they can influence the events in their lives. Using ritual and ceremony to elicit helps from spiritual influences combined with the power of intention they manifest outcomes for individuals and for their communities. Honoring the cycles of the year and the life cycles of the human life, helps people to feel a part of the divine scheme of life and that their lives are in perfect harmony and syncopation with all that surrounds them. Seasonal festivals and rites of passages are vestiges of age-old understanding of the Cycle of Life.
In the last hundred years in the Unites States, agriculture has transformed from being predominantly composed of family-farms to being almost exclusively commercial and corporate farming. With this advent of the industrialized farming culture, new generations have quickly forgotten the importance of connecting to the earth and looking to the natural world for comfort and understanding.
In my practice, I have seen many depressed and melancholy clients come away from the cloud hanging over their head into the sunshine. Spending more time in natural seems to be the single most important factor in bringing about an immediate and striking shift in mood, which fosters positive feelings of self-worth and renewed sense of life purpose. Whether they walk in the park, sit at the beach, plant in their garden, swim in a pond, bike a wooded path, or hike in the mountains, spending time outside is more than simply absorbing vitamin D.
Connecting to the Natural World is often superior medicine to pharmaceutical drugs. Many so-called chemical imbalances can be cured with some combination of sunlight, dietary changes, herbal supplements, dance, making music, or a yoga practice. Could doctors or the medical industry make money if this was widely practiced and understood? Anything that you can do for yourself at home or in natural isn't profitable for the big business that is the medical industry. Sunlight is free. Dance is free. Making music is free. You are free to move your body how you choose. When you take your health in to your own hands it is a very powerful and rewarding experience. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort for people to break through their inhibitions and fears of being present and moving in their own body. The uneasiness of self-consciousness and the awkwardness of self-discovery is a small price to pay for journeying on the path toward optimal health.
The natural world teaches us about regeneration. When we live in cities and spend most of our time surrounded by man-made structures, tools and machines, we are surrounded by things which weren’t pure creations of the Universal Intelligence. Theses objects do not vibrate at the same level of the natural world and they do not reflect back to us positive affirmations about life. In fact, cell phones, computers hum, lamps and other electrical devices, create audible and inaudible noise, which affects our brain waves and our nervous system, leading to stress, lowered immune response, and disorganized thought processes.
The natural world, teaches us about ourselves. Humans are animals, but we tend to forget it. We belong with our feet in the earth, our hands in the water, our hair in the wind, playing like dolphins and monkeys, and huddling together around campfires and the hearth. We belong to one another, as resources of our communities. It is our duty to ourselves to be diligent in striving to find our unique life purpose, and it is our duty to others to stick with our skills and talent to improve the lives of others. It is the duty of every person as neighbors, friends, and coworkers to help support others in finding that place in the community where they can contribute from the heart and offer their unique skills and talents.
Being status-driven and driven by individualism, many people have become so self-focused, that they have forgotten to share. The difficulty sharing seen in young children is a reflection of the adult world they mimic. It is endemic only to industrialized cultures. Most families do not share meals on a daily or weekly basis. Most families only share meals at holidays. Most people go out to eat when there is nothing in the fridge, instead of going over to a neighbor of friend’s house. Most people buy things they will only use once instead of borrowing.
What would the world look like if instead of buying snowsuits and power tools, we shared them? Would we start trading? Would we discover our own values over those sold to us in magazines, television, and film? Could trading services and items ever be a trend? If there were no advertising for it, if no corporation could profit from it, would it catch on?
How different would you feel about your neighbors if you could stop by their houses every time you needed something, such as sugar, butter, an ax, a chain saw? How much gas and anxiety would you save without gratuitous trips to the local stores? How would you feel when you could help a widow, a single mom, an unhappy couple, or an over-worked family by giving them potatoes, bread, a bushel of wood, scotch tape, a dozen nails, or an electric heater you never use when they are in need?
Tribal wisdom also understands the value of developing a relationship with the natural world, instead of attempting to control it. Their respect for all life, all plants and animals and elemental forces, gives them humility, which keeps them from living in a paradigm where they are motivated by greed and the desire to subjugate and exploit the resources and suffering of other people.
There has been a campaign aimed at convincing industrialized nations to see all indigenous people of Third World countries as impoverished, in an effort to justify bringing big business to countries with unexploited potential workforces who are sitting on top of numerous natural resources including rain forests, oil, gold, diamonds, coal, and the list goes on.
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Ecstatic Birth: In the Company of the Goddess
Five years ago I gave birth to my son at home, surrounded by my midwives, a doula and my husband. Our tiny Venice Beach apartment was filled with hanging ferns and heart-shaped jade pothos vines. Beeswax candles flickered next to my supremo labor lemonade on a makeshift altar which displayed an array of herbal concoctions for which any witch doctor would be proud. My head sank back into the inflatable pool we bought at Target for $29.99 off a summer display. We'd been tipped off by a Malibu couple in our birthing class that this Rainbow-Brightly-colored, clover-shaped kiddy pool was the secret to success for their ecstatic home delivery, and we were determined to do the very same.
“To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you." Genesis 3:16
The belief that childbirth is a painful sorrow we must bare as women as a punishment for Eve’s original sin, is a belief that is imparted through tradition. The vestiges of that belief can be found in most images of birthing mothers in film and television.
If at one time it was known that childbirth could be pleasure-filled, women must have felt rather self-possessed and empowered by their life-giving experience. Were women empowered life-givers, would they submit easily to being subjugated and governed by their husbands?
In much of the bible, God rules man and man rules woman. In that paradigm, there is an implication that women do not have as direct a connection with God. Their rule comes second hand, giving men a higher spiritual status. Within the above quotation, why are these three ideas linked together? ‘God will intensify pain in birthing your children. Your desire will be for your husband. He will rule you.’ Is it possible that there is a message here meant to control women with fear? Does this message reveal a fear of desire being felt during the birthing process? Is this perhaps a desire which would make a woman rebel against the rule of her husband?
Perhaps it is a desire felt during childbirth for something more divine and enigmatic than a husband? Perhaps it is a kundalini upwelling of life-force energy surging within the birthing mother as she releases and surrenders to the pure ecstasy of her own body as she inhabits the spiritual territory of Life Giver? Is birth such an empowering experience that a woman may remember that she can rule over herself or that she is connected to a divine feminine force? Perhaps she may even feel that she herself is created in the image of the forgotten face of the Goddess?
Before God was a man, God was a woman. In indigenous cultures over the globe, the image of the goddess giving birth to humanity abounded. What kind of differences in female self-esteem are there between women growing up with the idea of being ruled by their husbands and their single-parent Father God, and those growing up with the idea of answering to a Mother and Father, God-Goddess team?
Not having a divine female role model, has a lot of implications. This relationship to God described in the above quotation, implies a huge inequality in the status between men and women. It automatically puts men in an authoritative role over women, and diminishes the role in creation women play in their own lives. Would this kind of value system put women at risk for physical and emotional abuse suffered at the hands of their spouses?
What unconscious programming is operating in the self-esteem center of the modern birthing woman? Is she able to access her inner Goddess? Is she able to intuitively find the point where pain stops and pleasure starts? More and more women are finding doctors and midwives who understand the need for peaceful low-lit environments where women have control over who is at the birth, how they move and the positions they take during labor. Music, aromatherapy, quiet spaces, and unhurried low-lit environments found in birthing centers, at home births and with mid-wife or doula- attended hospital births, produce more successful, ecstatic and non-medical births. When birth is treated like a medical emergency or a medical procedure, the body tenses up, and natural birth becomes much harder to achieve.
The most effective birthing postures are active. The squatting position opens up two more inches of space in the pelvis of the female anatomy. With a catheter inside a birthing mother cannot walk around, and follow her natural instinct to contort her body. Hanging from a bar, rolling on a chiropractic ball, walking, being on all fours, sitting on the toilet, and sitting in seiza between contractions are all great positions which help the birthing process along, and relieve pressure and tension.
The hormones released during transition, free the mind to connect with the spirit world as the world of the baby
Personally, I can attest to an ecstatic birth being a rewarding experience. As soon as I surrendered my fears, listening to my body, I began trusting that I was being protected by the energy of the earth Mother and guided by my spirit helpers. I rocked back and forth in my birthing chair into my husband’s arms, and suddenly pressure was released. It was like scratching an itch, it felt good. My son was born with his hand first, not an easy birthing posture! He was also one in four babies who is occiput posterior, facing my abdomen, causing back labor which is said to be more difficult.
Something shifted for me when I realized "there [was] no going back". Letting my inhibitions go, I decided to elicit the help of oxytocin. Oxytocin in the "love hormone" occurring naturally in the body, which increases with the distension of the cervix and uterus. I added kissing my husband, making eye contact, and hip circles to my formula, strengthening my uterine contractions and dilating my cervix.
Gradually, the rocking of my pelvis (led by my yoni) turned into an exciting and deeply satisfying sensation. It was a kind of sexy feeling that went deep through me. It was a timeless ecstatic sensation as the kundalini surges moved through every energy center of my body. I gave birth to my son ten hours after contractions started in a $20 child’s pool I got from Target. The water was tepid and there were rainbow stripes around its edges.
With all of the wonderful hormones coursing through my body, I finally fell asleep 36 hours after my child's birth. Getting stitches didn’t faze me one bit, as I belted show tunes and all of my favorite songs at the top of my lungs through the suture done by my midwife’s assistant. I spent all my post-birth time bonding with my baby, watching him sleep, nursing and "making sure he was breathing". In my practice I have met many natural-birthers who have had similar experiences to mine. For those to whom natural childbirth is available, consider reading Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. Meditate on the subject and see what you feel drawn to do.
The most important and empowering element of the journey is that you know your choices and do what feels best for you. Connect to your baby’s spirit. Go with your instinct. Make that telepathic connection with your baby and you will begin connecting on a deeper level with your own soul.
Let go of all the baggage which keeps you from feeling empowered in your life before the birth. I rifled through ten boxes of writing, letters and diaries, before throwing seven of them away. I realized I was holding on to old stories, personal mythologies, and beliefs which were limiting me from reaching my full potential. I didn’t want to pass this legacy on to my child. With my pregnant intuition, I examined old letters in a new way. I had new insights, new forgiveness, new self-love and new acceptance. I felt in harmony with the universe. I walked in nature every day, connecting to my body and the elements, the earth and the sky, in a deeper and more aware way than I had before.
After crying at the ocean during a final emotional release, I asked for assistance from the universe. During prayers and meditations I connected with my guardian angels. I asked for assistance from the divine Mother, from God, from my ancestors. Weeks later during labor's transition, I felt a cold water washcloth on my forehead. Peace enveloped every fiber of my being. A silent message of love and courage overcame me. Opening my eyes I realized I was alone in the room, alone with my angels, in the company of the Goddess.
It's quite empowering to know that we are capable of breaking through fear into a pleasure-filled and joyful experience of birth.
“To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you." Genesis 3:16
The belief that childbirth is a painful sorrow we must bare as women as a punishment for Eve’s original sin, is a belief that is imparted through tradition. The vestiges of that belief can be found in most images of birthing mothers in film and television.
If at one time it was known that childbirth could be pleasure-filled, women must have felt rather self-possessed and empowered by their life-giving experience. Were women empowered life-givers, would they submit easily to being subjugated and governed by their husbands?
In much of the bible, God rules man and man rules woman. In that paradigm, there is an implication that women do not have as direct a connection with God. Their rule comes second hand, giving men a higher spiritual status. Within the above quotation, why are these three ideas linked together? ‘God will intensify pain in birthing your children. Your desire will be for your husband. He will rule you.’ Is it possible that there is a message here meant to control women with fear? Does this message reveal a fear of desire being felt during the birthing process? Is this perhaps a desire which would make a woman rebel against the rule of her husband?
Perhaps it is a desire felt during childbirth for something more divine and enigmatic than a husband? Perhaps it is a kundalini upwelling of life-force energy surging within the birthing mother as she releases and surrenders to the pure ecstasy of her own body as she inhabits the spiritual territory of Life Giver? Is birth such an empowering experience that a woman may remember that she can rule over herself or that she is connected to a divine feminine force? Perhaps she may even feel that she herself is created in the image of the forgotten face of the Goddess?
Before God was a man, God was a woman. In indigenous cultures over the globe, the image of the goddess giving birth to humanity abounded. What kind of differences in female self-esteem are there between women growing up with the idea of being ruled by their husbands and their single-parent Father God, and those growing up with the idea of answering to a Mother and Father, God-Goddess team?
Not having a divine female role model, has a lot of implications. This relationship to God described in the above quotation, implies a huge inequality in the status between men and women. It automatically puts men in an authoritative role over women, and diminishes the role in creation women play in their own lives. Would this kind of value system put women at risk for physical and emotional abuse suffered at the hands of their spouses?
What unconscious programming is operating in the self-esteem center of the modern birthing woman? Is she able to access her inner Goddess? Is she able to intuitively find the point where pain stops and pleasure starts? More and more women are finding doctors and midwives who understand the need for peaceful low-lit environments where women have control over who is at the birth, how they move and the positions they take during labor. Music, aromatherapy, quiet spaces, and unhurried low-lit environments found in birthing centers, at home births and with mid-wife or doula- attended hospital births, produce more successful, ecstatic and non-medical births. When birth is treated like a medical emergency or a medical procedure, the body tenses up, and natural birth becomes much harder to achieve.
The most effective birthing postures are active. The squatting position opens up two more inches of space in the pelvis of the female anatomy. With a catheter inside a birthing mother cannot walk around, and follow her natural instinct to contort her body. Hanging from a bar, rolling on a chiropractic ball, walking, being on all fours, sitting on the toilet, and sitting in seiza between contractions are all great positions which help the birthing process along, and relieve pressure and tension.
The hormones released during transition, free the mind to connect with the spirit world as the world of the baby
Personally, I can attest to an ecstatic birth being a rewarding experience. As soon as I surrendered my fears, listening to my body, I began trusting that I was being protected by the energy of the earth Mother and guided by my spirit helpers. I rocked back and forth in my birthing chair into my husband’s arms, and suddenly pressure was released. It was like scratching an itch, it felt good. My son was born with his hand first, not an easy birthing posture! He was also one in four babies who is occiput posterior, facing my abdomen, causing back labor which is said to be more difficult.
Something shifted for me when I realized "there [was] no going back". Letting my inhibitions go, I decided to elicit the help of oxytocin. Oxytocin in the "love hormone" occurring naturally in the body, which increases with the distension of the cervix and uterus. I added kissing my husband, making eye contact, and hip circles to my formula, strengthening my uterine contractions and dilating my cervix.
Gradually, the rocking of my pelvis (led by my yoni) turned into an exciting and deeply satisfying sensation. It was a kind of sexy feeling that went deep through me. It was a timeless ecstatic sensation as the kundalini surges moved through every energy center of my body. I gave birth to my son ten hours after contractions started in a $20 child’s pool I got from Target. The water was tepid and there were rainbow stripes around its edges.
With all of the wonderful hormones coursing through my body, I finally fell asleep 36 hours after my child's birth. Getting stitches didn’t faze me one bit, as I belted show tunes and all of my favorite songs at the top of my lungs through the suture done by my midwife’s assistant. I spent all my post-birth time bonding with my baby, watching him sleep, nursing and "making sure he was breathing". In my practice I have met many natural-birthers who have had similar experiences to mine. For those to whom natural childbirth is available, consider reading Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. Meditate on the subject and see what you feel drawn to do.
The most important and empowering element of the journey is that you know your choices and do what feels best for you. Connect to your baby’s spirit. Go with your instinct. Make that telepathic connection with your baby and you will begin connecting on a deeper level with your own soul.
Let go of all the baggage which keeps you from feeling empowered in your life before the birth. I rifled through ten boxes of writing, letters and diaries, before throwing seven of them away. I realized I was holding on to old stories, personal mythologies, and beliefs which were limiting me from reaching my full potential. I didn’t want to pass this legacy on to my child. With my pregnant intuition, I examined old letters in a new way. I had new insights, new forgiveness, new self-love and new acceptance. I felt in harmony with the universe. I walked in nature every day, connecting to my body and the elements, the earth and the sky, in a deeper and more aware way than I had before.
After crying at the ocean during a final emotional release, I asked for assistance from the universe. During prayers and meditations I connected with my guardian angels. I asked for assistance from the divine Mother, from God, from my ancestors. Weeks later during labor's transition, I felt a cold water washcloth on my forehead. Peace enveloped every fiber of my being. A silent message of love and courage overcame me. Opening my eyes I realized I was alone in the room, alone with my angels, in the company of the Goddess.
It's quite empowering to know that we are capable of breaking through fear into a pleasure-filled and joyful experience of birth.
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Emotional Detachment and Intellectual Rationalizations
Emotional detachment is a breeding ground for intellectual justifications, from which depraved rationalizations spring forth. When we fail to listen to signals from our emotional bodies, we become numb to our primal and survival instincts. Our bodies fall into disrepair when our mind/body/soul wisdom is not integrated and in syncopation.
If we hold back on speaking the truth, our throats tighten and sore throats manifest. If communication is too long repressed over years or decades, thyroid conditions may form. If messages from our heart centers are ignored and unheeded, tightness in our chests occur, and breathing may become belabored. Over years, sublimated or stifled feelings may lead to the build up of fats or calcium deposits in the arteries, high and low blood pressure, or even heart attacks. You may just wind up with pig valves at the helm.
The thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers (who represent a global council of each original tribe), have been warning that during this spiritually pivotal time, heart attacks will be significantly on the rise. This has proved to be so, and it is a leading cause of death in industrialized nations.
When we become detached from our hearts on a soul level, we forget the feeling of being connected to life, humanity as a whole, and all our brothers and sisters on the planet.
Failing to listen to the wisdom of heart, paves the way for rationalizations which devalue the quality of life of others, allowing justifications for the inhumane treatment of others, be they of another religion, culture, economic status, or country. National policies would be quite different, were there not huge divisions perceived between countries of different faiths, or world leaders and the working and poor people. A sense of entitlement over the welfare of others cannot exist in a world where both our unique essences and our collective consciousness are honored.
It's a small planet, a living ecosystem, an organism. When we pollute the water and air in one country, it becomes a global problem. With all this war and defiling of the earth, we are collectively acting like an organism with an auto-immune disease, trying to slough off the very aspects our system which keep us alive and regenerating.
If we hold back on speaking the truth, our throats tighten and sore throats manifest. If communication is too long repressed over years or decades, thyroid conditions may form. If messages from our heart centers are ignored and unheeded, tightness in our chests occur, and breathing may become belabored. Over years, sublimated or stifled feelings may lead to the build up of fats or calcium deposits in the arteries, high and low blood pressure, or even heart attacks. You may just wind up with pig valves at the helm.
The thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers (who represent a global council of each original tribe), have been warning that during this spiritually pivotal time, heart attacks will be significantly on the rise. This has proved to be so, and it is a leading cause of death in industrialized nations.
When we become detached from our hearts on a soul level, we forget the feeling of being connected to life, humanity as a whole, and all our brothers and sisters on the planet.
Failing to listen to the wisdom of heart, paves the way for rationalizations which devalue the quality of life of others, allowing justifications for the inhumane treatment of others, be they of another religion, culture, economic status, or country. National policies would be quite different, were there not huge divisions perceived between countries of different faiths, or world leaders and the working and poor people. A sense of entitlement over the welfare of others cannot exist in a world where both our unique essences and our collective consciousness are honored.
It's a small planet, a living ecosystem, an organism. When we pollute the water and air in one country, it becomes a global problem. With all this war and defiling of the earth, we are collectively acting like an organism with an auto-immune disease, trying to slough off the very aspects our system which keep us alive and regenerating.
Friday, December 02, 2011
Is It Medicine?
When in doubt ask yourself, is this medicine? The effects of everything you encounter can be broken up into two categories, medicine and not medicine. Is this food, exercise, music, hobby, or relationship "medicine" for your being, or, does it in some way impede, impair or create undermine your psychological, emotional, mental or spiritual well-being?
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