11.14.11

I make it real. I make it happen, whatever it needs to be, whatever I’ve prayed for, it’s me. Not much other mystery. god, and everything, willingness, desperation, disease, disorder, sleeplessness, dream, exotic erotic, detailed, diaphanous, triumphant and ashamed, all at once. What once was. Changing every second, millisecond, orbit of time, reversing, trajectory moving forward and farther from self, from form, listless and disjointed. Community, dream-sphere, alignment, attuning, manifesting what besides our own desires, coupled with purpose, thinking we understand. So limited and so expansive, so endless, beautiful and romantic. Just being here. Evolving into characters, taking shape, our body, our head and hands.

Much rather look into mirror, painted over with white, gloss-less, pointedly truthful in ways that don’t reveal, don’t conceal, don’t become real in any way beside just being what already is. I’m going in circles, more than circles. Unclosed forms and shapes, unopened lines. Negating time. Same story, retold. Same names, whispered, yelled, fractured, fallen. Words falling all around me. Frozen in space, in a race to fall. Ground is missing. Ground is covered in leaves. I step onto them, hear the rustle, and fall more.

So then there’s more. Begging to be addressed, paid attention to. Am I false? Question rings out like a gong, mallet hit upon crystal, infinite echo. Perplexed. Wondering yet again, as always, like I’ve always wondered, wanted to know, am I real? What of all this congestion? Conjecture? Doubt, self-doubt, pity, mystery, same old wonderment, coming to no conclusions, no decisions. She’s wanted to become something no one had been before. Nothing like a good day spent all on one’s own. Privacy. Solitude. No one intervening.

“Release wisdom, perspective, triumph over recklessness. Emotive love-soaked truth and full disclosure. Potential. Transformation.

His skin is so soft that laying beside him was like laying in the sky itself. Absorbed into ether. One with cloud and unity of flesh and soul. His essence filled the morning-sunlight-drenched room with molecules of softness seeped into even the corners. He is the softest and his sex was the smoothest hardest most beautiful it could be… Now eliciting fear in me that I won’t get to have him.

But must grow and learn to not possess…

Maybe our softness together can work an unknown magic over him. Please feel my love and passion and reciprocate. We would be so great together. I am growing by the second. Millisecond. Not the same girl who would cry and pine. But instead, am appealing to the universe to help me. Just want to be with him.”

Only a girl’s mind. Only affectations. A soft pink blush upon willing cheek, undone, un-hidden. True to itself if to nothing else.

“Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.” – Leo Tolstoy

He was her great mentor. Dead for a hundred years, sure, but still her mentor, always. She reread and reread every word he wrote, and he was alive to her. He would always be alive to her. Sunshine, chanson, unending unbending unwilling song. So warm, hot, delicious delirious, agitated in its state of excitement. For itself. Its own honor. Being, blessed being.

ink drawing, 2006

10.15.11

I saw you in my visualization, in my imagination, on a horizontal plane, arched a bit, in the distance and then near. Sunlight warmth, or of another star, cascaded over my face, closed eyes and hidden smile, I saw you, elegant silhouette, reluctant sphere of inevitability, love and tenderness, talent and regret, knowing it’s wrong, knowing it doesn’t matter.

Singing, for hours, sweat and vibrating floor. Thinking of you only once or maybe three times… And thinking of another, the movements of the violin player’s arm, hand, face turned in profile, dark skin and discernible aura so vivid and musical and enchanting, just the way I’ve always loved and preferred.

Nothing to make of these sensations. Adding them to already boiling emotion and passion for that which I cannot name, that which has no word yet assigned to it. That which is no entity, no invention, no discovery. That which is a solution not yet configured to a question not yet asked. An un-posed hypothetical situation, an anti-situation. Your love. Its grace. Beautiful because it exists nowhere. Undefined. But burns without even a flicker, constant and poised somewhere to the top diagonal right of my periphery, my heart’s sphere of magnetism, my echo of self, its dreams and ideas… you’re included. The unknown you. The one strong enough for me, the one stronger, the one to lead and hold me. The one to fall into, yes, it is alright to be slightly dependent, only once the strong one has been revealed. Show yourself, one day. Soon. I await, I ready myself, I prep, to be good for you, to be strong myself, to be the sorceress of only good magic and love, real love like nothing ever defined. In subjective time.

And what of my wish for our world? Dear one, to dance in it together, how do we even make sure it survives? How can it thrive? What’s going to happen, what needs to change? So many words and actions, debates ideas theories and programs to implement, but how and why does it never ever seem to make a difference, it stays the same, it worsens, it improves, it stagnates, it explodes, it rots and is reborn and the cycle is repulsing and beautiful and hopeless and too much of a mystery. Our beings. Small? Powerful? Breath and clouds. The colors of our eyes. The warmth of blood, the scents of skin and hair and exhales. Our consistency – godlike, tense, agile, strange and typical. I’m dishing words recklessly. No meaning and no through-line. My heart is neutral numb and on fire. My heart is electric with want and with release, with surrender, desire, absolution and imagination. Possibility, a dead end, and no words.

You, lover, recluse, aching soul, your feet on which ground, on which floor of which world, under which roof of how many burning stars, endlessly reflecting the sunshine in your eyes. You, stranger, desperate kitten and child. My heart contains you, my ravaged voice has claimed you. And I hold no prisoners. And I release my own self to the very redemption I sought and sought and sickened myself for. It’s been worthwhile, I’m healed, I’m getting better. Again, nonsense.

The feelings of my skin, inside. My cells, their talks and giggles. Snide rumors between joints and bones, stretching illusions, wickedness, angelic vibrations, dawn, fauna, a helicopter tour over the Amazon, and I’ll be well. With you. The one I do not even know. I’m back to pining for you. As I did when I was a child, a young teen, a mystic already then. More so sometimes than now or years previous. I dreamed such heavy vivid dreams and drew. And heard, told stories, to self and dreamland friends, svelte entities strolling through infinite deserts, purple skies and solitary buildings, screens and needles. Dreams. What other side?

This brain of mine, this particular wiring, this particular lineage, origin, history. Claim. God, claim. Take it. Me. Fill it with purpose beyond what we already manifest for ourselves and happiness… but show me how to affect something real, tangible change, help, saving… a sensation. Warm star light upon face, closed eyes, a child’s face, a sense of comfort, warmth like enveloping mother’s arms, holding. Secure. You can do this, correct? You being God? Take each child, envelop him and her.

Circumscribe each soul with warmth.

Please exhibit for us some possibility of grace. Here in this world, not hereafter, not on the cusp of another horizon, not only in imagination. Help, please, now. I stand for you. I will stand, I can. What else is needed to prepare? What do I need to know?

It’s not knowing.

It’s not words.

It’s not ideas, thoughts, or even prayers, anymore.

Simpler than you think?

Elegant.

Please help, how.

_______________________________

There’s an army of warriors,

that carries no weapons.

They’re patrolling the heavens

and the story now happens.

There’s politeness and freedom

there’s taste, smell and touch…

Where there’s sight and redemption

armies don’t suffer much.

Am I seriously meditating every night on how to save the world? Yeah, seriously. It’s a strange question to keep pondering. But there’s a solution and it’s simpler than I think, right? And it’s not just my internal world and my confidence and awareness. Something is passing through me?

Vessel.

10.12.11

Tonight she had done everything she could to avoid her feelings. Hers was a neutral form, albeit feminine and at rest while standing, she counted and sorted her pieces of jewelry, prepared her gym bag for the next day after work with toiletries, sneakers, flip flops and a change of clothes – and hummed away the evening. By the midnight-and-a-half or so when she sat down to be with her thoughts, he had sent her a thought, she could feel him. But she wasn’t ready to think about him just yet.

It was the very glowing very bright full moon that rose over the very lavender sky tonight on her drive home that had made her simultaneously more tired and easily at ease.

At home she wasted some more time not thinking, not feeling, just filling empty space with her own emptiness and letting the nighttime minutes tick by as if it didn’t matter that she would be that much more tired in the early morning. That long long drive to work, those identical cars to her own, so many pods traversing the two-dimensional.

And now it let off, the emotional angst of longing, missing, wanting. What? A caress and a stare, a low-pitched voice of delicious timbre.

It’s truly been her biggest challenge to not give in to her whims this past year or so. Well, make that about three months, feels like a year and more. Heart having exploded and melted and rebuilt and crushed and mended and lost and polarized, numbed, humbled and set free, and still, a rush of heat through the vessels, and then all there is is sensation. Longing. A big fat full moon against the periwinkle dusk, and her impatience, her solitude, her penance.

But what of the spirit and guidance for which she was preparing seemingly all evening? All evening resisting and resting (televisions and sofas were definitely involved) and putting all the ‘thinking’ off till just before bedtime, when it’s truly the halfest-assed it could be. When not enough energy remains in order to actually bring pen to journal page, and some mediocre typing can occur at laptop but for the most part, all she can think about are the flannel sheets and how she will shortly be dissolving into them and into her flannel nightgown. Soft textures and moonlight will adorn her slumber tonight, and her prayers and meditations will just have to wait for the morning… There will be plenty of time in corporate traffic on the way to her non-corporate job to spend thinking and praying… and asking dear lord god and universe and all love and consciousness to please pretty please save our world for yet another day. Day by day.

10.6.11

Feeling how to channel “Higher Self.” A feeling I’ve always known. Remembered from teenage years and previous. Creative poet soul awakening each day each minute. Compassionate and risk-taking. Dangerous love and hot heart. Needing to breathe much more, more whole each time, more depth and more spirit. Aspiration. Perspiration.  Inspiration.

Tears down my face watching Cirque Du Soleil.
Iris, the soul of cinema…

Contortionists in gold glitter / absolute ascension / masks human-flames laughs and weak-chinned hero I couldn’t take my eye off. Twin brothers in aerial flight beyond belief, tears down my face, tears and tension in my heart, wanting so deeply, as I have since before I was born, to fly too, to dance. This life is my chance… I keep regretting, but no. There’s time and there’s will. There’s potential and possibility and blessedness… such that we were even upgraded to front and center seats tonight… my dear parents and I. How much it means to me to walk the boulevard with them and see this majestic show… it was truly a night on earth in heaven.

Deaths and happenings, protests, confusion, excitement, contagiousness. Blurry.

Rainbow during today’s drive home, and wanting to use words that no one uses, or at least not use the words everyone is using… portal. I don’t believe in that concept. It’s deceiving, as if something outside ourselves. There can be no portal like the mind or heart or soul or essence of ourselves… what is union with oneness and “All” and what is understanding? I’ve always understood mostly cynical, or mystical, or surreal things… and beautiful.

Hard work, I’m up for it. Giving up, I’ve done it so much before. But now want to reclaim my powers and stamina. Want to reclaim my ability to make dreams come true.

I was light, and am. Rawness and flesh and traffic and my shaken voice, my bitten choices meowing to me from the adjoining room, the bloom of wisdom, costly, detained, effervescent but near, earned, earning, almost, almost dear.

 ______________________________________________

There was a lightness to her memories as if they hadn’t actually happened to her, but were stories she’d read in a novel while riding the subway. Including the rushing blackness out the window. Including the announcements of location from a robotic voice. In her mind, times and places glittered but also dulled. Lengths of time-periods were subject to the distortion of emotion attached.

There was a trepidation to her walk, not a limp but at least an extra degree, or ten, of hinged separateness from one leg to the other, as if her skeleton was not that of a human at all, but that of a machine designed by another world’s architect of flesh.

Her flesh ached and also swelled with truth, something that could never be defined, but it was truth nonetheless. No one could tell her otherwise.

Not that she herself was aware of it. She had a hard time waking in the morning, and her tiredness hung about her alien frame till at least noon, by which time an over-indulgent cup of coffee might break through the barrier of sleep and help welcome her to the normal day. She’d try her best to have the most normal of it that she could.

A. Her name was A. I could never quite think of what the rest of it should be, her mother had written. Letters locked away in shoebox. Discovered quite late in life. A mother of disappearance and rumor, coming ‘round the play-yard searching for her child… no one wanted to point her in A’s direction. The kid was sleeping anyway. She could never get enough rest. She much preferred dream-time. All kinds of details were simply right in sleep.

10.4.11

This morning I emptied.

Please remove from me all sense and thought.

Please empty me, dear God dear essence of air and space, and life, simple and dense, feared and exalted.

A character of very much whimsy. Fluctuation.

Tears in traffic.

Sun and slow fast slow-moving clouds, seeming so close, closer than ever before I saw such sky… loud fountain before me, falcon, grass, lunch. Moon – its crescent bright so bright and also so near. Horizon subjective more so than before. Lost-ness. Mystical memory. Memory of mystical self-ness. Once upon this very room this very floor inside these walls, same walls, same ceiling and how many times has now the sky rotated over head, taking along with it the celestial map.

Truly it is consequence.

Karma, truly, undefinable, and inconstant, but tragically on key. Senseless sentences. Words drowning in their own shallow pool of nonsense, and meaning, and nonsense and meaning, over and over and over again.

Tone of sadness?

Desperation?

Cynicism?

Complacency? Never!

At least there’s that nuance… of never surrendering to complacency.

The rainbow from Friday or was it Thursday, the perfect dome, the pink sky and the walk with Mom to the supermarket roof parking… the lavender I felt, the dusk. Eye contact with strangers. And no one is a stranger.

Wanting to dance, endlessly.

Movement itching to spread throughout each capillary.

Still I sit, incubating.

Ideas float. Dreams and goals, or desires, or wishes… sowing seeds.

Planting hopes, useful, useless, tilted, angular structure of healing heart, diagram of self, noncommittal. Not even to a full sentence. Fragmentary. Safe. Dangerous and safe.

Flushing.

Opening.

Please empty me. And fill with…

 

9.29.11

Something tells me, write. Purity and polarity. What is so deeply sitting? Words fall onto page, both reluctant. Both words, and page, both hands typing, both mind and heart, reluctant. Thinking and judging self, critiquing before it even becomes anything. Never need it be defined, any thing, any word or phrase on any page. Never need it be read, pronounced, delivered, shared. Yet, there are undefinable indescribable intangible deliriously smart or heartfelt things, ideas, loves, deep inside the “me,” myself, this girl, this woman. Searching always for true self. Erasing. Allowing. Forgiving, denying, balancing, weighing, countering, digesting, jesting, dreaming. Understand without words. Something hurts, continues to hurt. Daily. Nostalgia or heartbreak or whatever it is – may it translate into something productive. Please. Balancing-act of decades of life. Atonement. Remorse, layered between self-respect, forgiveness, accountability. Desires, minimal. Grinding clockwork, stagnant, refined, frozen. Set in motion. Frozen. Set in motion. No difference. When too much inspiration and beauty, emotion, idea, longing, revolution… poetry… relief, relief in stanzas or short lines or fragments. Or counting years since grandmother’s death. Or candle in darkness and crystal and oil and mantra and closed eyes and prayer, vibration, alignment. Or none of it. Or deep peaceful sleep. Sweet sweet life. Living. I pray. 
I shed false beliefs. Shed illusions. Shed denials. I confront. Pain like harp strings. Pain like pond ripple for no one to see its circles and bounce, its reflection in itself. Darkness, corners, wood and feelings. Scent. Texture of touch, skin, remembrance. Love. Loss, illusory. I pray. Maintain, hold, let go, release, fly free. Let inspiration come, for use. For creativity. Make something.

A Climb towards Authenticity

longing, whimpering. failure after failure. loss of “temper.”historical emotion. epic, useless, tired, gray skin. so much love and mystery, it is somehow shameful.

so little sense.

such tension. hot heat of summer hotness, heated, warmed, sweltering, bare and brief and exposed towards mirrors that only keep showing the

same

same same. wishing to change one’s name. seeking movements instead of words. shaking the head no. quarreling. fidgeting within the heart. uncomfortable fate. changing position. nervous shipwreck. steering, unbalanced, the higher the harder to keep. balance. the harder to keep balance. thought to thought to thought.

pursuit of ideal. pointless and encircling. rash words. embarrassment. absolution no longer absolving. healing barely healing. a soft touch and gentle word barely enough to quell.

and still, surrender.

and still, the bowing of the head, the tears, the shame.

another difficult year. chalk it up to another difficult year.

rising toward something?

simmering from past pain still? braving the courage which is lacking. seeking it, mightily and losing ground, again. not making sense. not making full sentences. afraid of subject/verb/adjective. principle. time and place. character. form.

breath and sadness.

innocent layer upon layer. work. hard work. definitions of questions of miserable repetitions of human character withdrawal and judgement and fear. planetary loss. universal eye-rolling. moon-dancing. senselessness. paranoia. obsession. jealousy. resentment. fear fear fear. love. humble love. mystery, atoms and equations. colorful air. the air. the sound of the air. the pressure of it, the whimsical memory of breakdown. the relapse. the avoidance of such. the sanity. the look-how-far-we’ve-come. and breath and sadness. animal madness.

righteousness. no such thing.

heaven and dreams.

views of such beautiful things. such love. such a gifted girl… what she touches turns to gold…

what a gift, this imagination of ours.

it hurts. it languishes and rots and blooms again and bows. my shy existence. when can the shadow come out?

 

nerve-control is proving impossible.

notions need changing. goals, once set, are destined to not be met.

ok so no goal. so what?

anger does not heal overnight?

I must change myself. Inside-out. Completely. yet again.

Debut nearing…

Just finished my second art class with my neighbor kids. I’ve recently moved into a studio in Echo Park with my boyfriend. We’re building it into our dream-studio (he’s doing most of the actual building, I’ve done a lot of the dreaming). The plan is to have art classes for local children (already in progress woohoo!), dance and movement classes for all ages, gallery showings, theatrical events, studio rental (by others), and private use (by us). I’ve started using the space for yoga and drawing, but soon to come will be the all-out dancing, when we put in our wood floor, and mirrors as well. Lots of fundraising and saving still needs to be done, but the vision is gaining clarity, and the impossibilities of just a few years past (in my life) are now becoming very near-by inevitabilities. I can’t believe my dreams are coming true right before my eyes.

We have been racking our brains for a title for our studio. After many tryouts (including our cat’s name, the address, and dubious albeit original suggestions by friends), we have narrowed it down to… still don’t know! Can you believe we’ve been in here a whole month now, and still don’t know what to call it? We’ll be getting a business license and [hopefully several] grants, so it needs to be something sensible, marketable, interest-catching, and authentic. I don’t mind taking our time with such a decision. But I do need to get cracking on our grant proposals! Those three-hundred square feet of bamboo floor planks aren’t gonna pay for themselves!

Although the hope is, once the floor and mirrors are done, it all will pay for itself. We’re willing to work hard and see.

I’d love for our little spot to be a haven for creativity. I’d love for it to be the little port onto which we can dock all our grand ships and sails of our imaginations. I believe most strongly in our creative powers, our talents and beauties. They are infinite and just waiting for us to play with them. I cannot wait!

 

A Bit of a Rant

In the new studio...

There is so much space for fear, it can be filled so easily, I am overwhelmed with my own emotion, and nothing feels better until I choose for it to be so. It is in my hands, after all. So, it is with much self-conceit and undefinable pain and sadness that I now come to the keyboard, caffeinated and almost troubled – by a good mood. I want to be honest and am still learning how. I’m juggling questions, complaints, and feelings of many depths and shades. The world is so beautiful, an ache inside of a teardrop. Surrounding individuals intimidate, inspire, confuse, and entrance me. The noise of the street, the hopping bird with a broken wing outside my gate, the mystery of what is really happening, the freshness of watering my plants, the sweet soundtrack of a voice in song lilting from the woofer – floating over to me from the room that is to be my dance studio. For you see, I sit now in the home which my love and I have procured for ourselves. We have already blessed it with loud arguments. I have already apologized to its lovely ancient brick walls. And it has forgiven me, since it knows that it’s my dream-land. This so-far quite empty space has leant itself to my whims, but not quite yet materialized into any of them. Hard work lies ahead, and has already commenced. My dear Mikie has been tireless in building our lofted bed and benches for art-class and audience seating, as well as trucking over furniture and large houseplants, all the while working a hundred hours a week. I treasure his charisma. He is my Bear.

Holding the heart’s most desired

is the promise of dissolution and wonder

an ancient question

upon realizing

that you’ve got what you wanted,

and where do you go from here?

Or perhaps it’s just the waking up with oneself, one’s thoughts and sensations still residing in another realm of consciousness, pulling the realities to and fro like melting cheese spilling over the edge of a piece of bread. And one rises from the bed, still in stupor but ready somehow for a whole other day, a whole new day of being in the world, in the endless flow, the ceaseless wheeling, the whispering grind of eternal being-ness, never knowing why it even has to be. One stumbles to the toilet, one exhales. Thoughts begin to flow in from the day that already is. There is no moment for reflection, everything just keeps stirring.

Again, apologies. No need for such complaining. Gosh, I can characterize my twenties as the age of self-doubt, depressive can’t-do attitudes, and tremendously horrific self-sabotage. How dare I? What can I do to finally make it stop? Nothing changes overnight? I’ve already improved so much? At least I’m here in this country and not insane and alone somewhere halfway across the planet? Yes, yes, yes. But still. I need to toughen up. Strategize. Follow my heart. As I’ve been doing. And still. Much much work needs doing.

New Work

Toying with symmetry. Crawling figures unwinding themselves and re-tangling. Darknesses, unexcused and unapologetic. Contrasting flames of shadow. Same-ness. Exploring nothingness full of too many details. Representational yet meaningless. Colorless. Void. And full. Its own question. No answers necessary. 

Mirror Mirror - Ink and Photoshop