We are all we ever need.

No one can diminish our worth by taking away their love and affection. Love is always with us, always within us.

Love and praise we receive from others is nice, like dessert - but we must set our own tables with the main course.


We generate it, we share it.
_____________

I guess the above was saved to a draft from several months ago. I still believe that, which I consider a positive sign of some sort of significant growth - or, at the very least, an indicator of consistency.

I'm motivated to write today by a number of things. Primarily, it's the other things I have to do. Secondarily, it's all these ideas I have swirling around my head on a number of topics ranging from love, sex and marriage, to life in a new place, to the study of Oriental Medicine, to the nightmare that is the McCain/Palin ticket.

I.
Learned a lot about love these past few months. These days I'm convinced that the notion of a soul mate is romantic and sweet, makes for good stories and songs... and is completely irrelevant, impossible, and unfair when it comes to real life. We grew up on these tales and shaped our expectations around this impossible ideal. As adults, we look deeply in the eyes of passersby for that spark, that moment that will change everything for us, that will jettison us into "happily ever after"... and spend long lonely nights sighing and wishing for it when it (inevitably) does not happen.

Recently thought I'd met my soul mate, and to be honest - in meeting him and getting to know him, there was a spark. And there was fire. And the glow of that fire was like the match that shows you the room you've been standing in is actually much larger than you originally thought. I felt love on levels and in ways I'd never imagined possible. What I felt was real, undeniable, true.

After just a few months, it became apparent neither of us were ready for it. The pressure we'd put on ourselves and what we were creating was too much - we fell into old habits as a result of unresolved issues from past relationships. So we agreed to give each other space to heal. I decided to love him unconditionally, to support him in his process, whatever that might be - including other relationships, total distance, all the time in the world, etc.

One day a couple weeks after our last conversation, I was feeling anxious and sad. Missing him, feeling empty and scared - all that stuff. But I was also feeling proud, like a patriotic warrior convinced of the goodness and rightness of my fight. Something - not sure what - made me stop and realize: I'd never given MYSELF unconditional love. I'd offered it more than once before, and to people I hardly knew, but I'd never given it to myself - the person I supposedly knew better than anyone else in the world. How the fuck could I give it to someone else if I'd never been there, completely, for me - no matter what?

A major shift occurred at that moment. I'd been longing for him, for his love, for the way he made me feel, for his spark. I'd been psychically reaching out like a person, again, with an electrical cord in a pitch-black room trying to find an outlet in which to plug a lamp. In that moment, I stopped reaching out... and I plugged into myself... and light flooded everything. All fear, anxiety and sadness disappeared - and it was like I saw myself for the first time. It dawned on me that I'd never taken the time to appreciate or truly love MYSELF, and I realized too that it would be a long, LONG time before loving myself was something automatic and unconditional. Had to ask myself - if learning how to love ME without condition was going to take a huge amount of practice and vigilance, what would it take to truly love someone ELSE without condition? I still don't have an answer for that.

I realized no one would ever be able to love me the way I wanted to be loved, no matter how badly I wanted them to - except for me. No one would be consistent, or present, or available enough to love me the way I wanted to be loved - except for me. This is not cynical, and I haven't "given up on love" in the least. But it feels right to say it's fair. To demand such love or wish for that from someone is unreasonable and unrealistic. I realized that's why so many people are regularly unhappy in relationships; infused with tales of lifelong romance, they expect the impossible from their lovers and then decide to be disappointed when their expectations are not fulfilled. They are hurt, or angry, or resentful when they don't get the love they want consistently and regularly - and all they really needed to do was find their own love inside themselves.

Everyone is struggling with their own demons all the time. Consistency of behavior or reaction, or intensity of LUUHV and support, is impossible under such conditions. And yet we expect and demand such consistency - even though we don't, and can't, honestly, deliver it ourselves.

So. The unbearable pressure in the idea of wanting someone to be - and being someone's - soul mate or "The One" also became suddenly clear. The "soul mate" thing, too, kind of sells us all short. Are we all half-people, looking for our other halves? What if the "soul mate" thing started out as an idea of finding our SELVES, of uniting the physical and meta-physical aspects within us? What if it just got distorted over time, and somehow the "soul mate" became some idealized individual outside of us?

And that "til death do us part" aspect of marriage?! Jesus Christ! How do people breathe under those circumstances? It is romantic, and sweet, of course. And I'm sure there are people who have successfully lived this, and believed in it, and felt immense reward in it. But one has only to look at divorce rates for evidence that the majority of people ultimately find such a commitment oppressive and impossible to fulfill. All we ever have is right now, all I can promise someone - and all he can promise me - is this very moment.

Among all the little details of this deeply personal growth (which I feel compelled, apparently, to share with the internet), the coolest thing about my experience with this person is that he showed me the infinite capacity for loving - ourselves and others - we all possess. I thought I needed him to feel as amazing as I'd felt when he was in my life, but now I know - the love I felt coming from him was always inside of me; he just did me the huge favor of shedding light on it.

you can call. you can invite yourself over. it's a mere 480 miles or so, won't take more than a day. i'll have plenty of time to clean the place up. you can say, "you know... i was thinking..." and i'll know exactly what is next. i'll know exactly what you were thinking, but i will let you finish just so i can hear you say it. i won't interrupt you, for once.

i had a dream the other night. i didn't know anyone, but i was in an exhibit of heather gargon's work with a bunch of other people. we were floating through the exhibit, which consisted of giant paper cut-outs hanging from some invisible ceiling. they were suspended in a space-like atmosphere, black and lit with stars. the cut-outs were meant to resemble certain mundane elements of reality, nothing special, just the things that hang in front of us every day that we hardly ever notice. one of the cut-outs was meant to be a self-portrait, a bust, and had moving paper parts. heather's voice came over a loud speaker and, as she began to say, "i have always wanted to lose myself in the internet... my eyes, my ears, my lips," and as the paper heather's paper lips moved in time with the words, the entire exhibit was jarred violently.

it was as if something had hit us, but nothing had struck from the outside; the jarring was internal, on an atomic level, simultaneous and inside each and every atom of all matter surrounding us, and within us. a rapid shift began to take place as the cut-outs began falling and disintegrating, and all of us exhibit-goers right along with them. the stars hung in place and we fell, disintegrating as our molecular structures changed, through an endless space. in my memory, the space was like the pictures you've seen of the eagle nebula - colorful, populated by stars of every size, shape and color.

i saw people around me go from solid matter into mere silhouettes, all different-colored themselves. we kept falling, conscious particles that we were, and there was no fear in the falling. it occurred to me to try to see my hands, to see if i also had disintegrated. i felt disembodied, but i held my hands up in front of my face as i continued to fall. they were still there, but i couldn't deny the feeling of no longer being a solid mass.

i felt a flash of sadness when it dawned on me i was dead, or dying, or passing on to someplace else, and i hadn't said goodbye to my mother and sister and other people i loved. immediately, the sadness was replaced by an overwhelming sense that they were with me, even as i fell, and i was with them. all i had to do was think of them, and their presence was part of my present consciousness. not only was i with them, and they with me, but all of humanity - ALL of US - were "in this together." the most intense feeling of love and warmth and support came over me, and i was suddenly buoyant, reassured, calm. joyful.

we were all in this together, sharing infinite consciousness, unconditional love, the ultimate truth. "reality" had dissolved, literally disintegrated, and what was left was the most beautiful, pure love i have ever known in either my waking or sleeping life.

i woke up around 5 a.m. from the dream and waited to open my eyes, thinking i might be dead. i listened with my eyes closed: silence. i wasn't sure where i was, wasn't sure what i'd see once i opened them. when i finally did, i found myself in the same position as when i'd fallen asleep. and i found myself nostalgic for that euphoric place i'd just been.

in spite of the nostalgia, and not being dead and all that, i realized throughout the course of the day i could access that same feeling of ultimate presence, of unconditional love and support, simply by choosing to give it and perceive it in the people i met and experiences i had over the course of the day.

a very different kind of good dream. i feel fortunate to have had it. the feeling that everything is different as a result of it, that "reality" is truly an illusion that holds power over us when we let our egos take the lead, has remained with me since. so has the feeling that it's only right to share this experience with anyone open to the potential power within it.

i just did that -
got in the sun.
hiked around baker's nursery today
that was nice
laid down in the greenhouse for a minute
and stared up at the sky through a hazy ceiling
steph said
she could make this,
it's just
pvc pipe and plastic
i thought: yes
and watched shadows of leaves
fall upon stretched sheets overhead
parts of a second, secret tree
few ever see
pebbles stuck to my hands and hair
but i sunk -
i really did sink, like -
ribs falling into lungs pressing into heart resting on ribs settling in
to the ground
through stones, i felt the earth
receive me
and i thought: damn. i'm tired.

seven years...
my eyelids were painted
to resemble open eyes
i watched from inside
projected
against a fleshy screen
images scrolling
from a future life,
a lucid dream starring
a sensing, sentient
and happy me

it's a wonder
i avoided as many
light posts, road signs
speeding cars, what with
all the sleepwalking and
silent movie watching

survival happens when you least expect it
joy arrives as predicted, yet
unannounced
a pleasant surprise
if ever one existed

You know what I love about Normal?

Normal is an illusion.

A trick the vast majority of us fall for.

Be honest. You have too.

Smoke and mirrors, Normal.

David Copperfield's dreams are all of an illusion, and of an audience, of such magnitude, as Normal.

Is there a sweeter and more honest human urge than to have faith? Faith in something, faith in someone. Faith in love, faith in a God or gods, faith in a better place?

And is there a more hateful practice than the manipulation of the faithful through the exploitation of their faith?

But is there anything across history's record more commonplace?

And any act more commonly committed in the name of... "LOVE?"

somebody said you had no talent. somebody got that sobering feeling of embarrassment on your behalf when they read what you wrote, what you put out there for the rest of the world to see. somebody said at least you try.

so what?
_________________________

just after waking i took
each minute and plucked its petals,
dropped them into a jar
half-empty on the windowsill
to dry
little heaped tombstones
in a graveyard shaft of light

how do we know we're not already dead?
asks a man inside my head
again and again.
so what's the point in giving up
if you can't be sure you haven't already?

what's the point of caring
and what, exactly, again
is the point of fear?
what is the point of your self-preservation,
what is the point of hiding?

and if you're wrong, if all the time you DID have something to lose
and you find when the lights are going out
you were always ignorant of the risks -
wasn't it bliss? didn't you enjoy the rides
in your pinhead century of amusement park?

an unusual night
in december
1:30 a.m., rain
two long embraces later,
we say goodbye
and i step alone
onto a slient
tiny midwest city street
slick and cold
audible drops thunk
on the polyester of my down winter coat
white light-rung wreaths hang
in darkened 2nd story windows
above the new place for barbecue
i take long strides through an empty parking lot, and think
of the loneliness
in always having something to prove

does a snake have an irrational fear of death when it sheds its skin?

TCM is playing the silent film version of the story of Jesus right now. It's called King of Kings.

Mary Magdalene is swooning in the carpenter's presence. See Mary swoon. Swoon, Mary, swoon.

Transfixed, she stands
A slightly transparent Mary appears to slide from her side
"I am LUST! Hold me fast Mary, my arms are the gates to life!"

Another transparent Mary...
"I am GREED! I drain hearts, but I fill thy purse - let him not take me!"

And another...
"Keep me, Mary - I am PRIDE! Through me thou hast enslaved kings!"

And FOUR more!
"We are GLUTTONY, INDOLENCE, ENVY and ANGER! We teach thee to FORGET, to HATE and to CONSUME!"

several near-transparent marys
dancing and writhing all around
a glorious exorcism
"Look! He doth cleanse her of the seven deadly sins!"

All seven, just like that. Jesus is so efficient. I think about when this movie came out - must have been in the late '20s - and the innovations that allowed for eight Marys to appear on the screen, all at once. Must have been like magic to those who saw it for the first time. I'm always impressed by some of the tricks of film these old silent movies employed. It's one thing to do these things digitally, something else pretty much unfathomable (to me) to do them manually, "the old-fashioned way". What an art!

Now Jesus is admonishing the crowd who would stone the adulteress, writing Ancient Hebrew phrases in the sand that represent the true nature of the judging men. Slow fades reveal to the men who look over his shoulder the words "THIEF," "MURDERER," and "ADULTERER".

Anyway, speaking of magic - I've had some (a ton) of free time on my hands over the past couple of days, which has allowed me to catch up on some serious TV watching. I learned about Criss Angel and his levitating tricks, watched him swing from four hooks over The Valley of Fire (or wherever it was) from a helicopter. When he landed, everyone was crying tears of joy and relief. Sweet of him to provide them with such an opportunity to emote. It's not that I don't get it, it's just that - I can't believe I watched like three episodes of his TV show with my mom yesterday, still in my pajamas at 2 p.m.

There's more, but this blog is ridiculous as it is. Going to stop right here.

Oh, but wait. Re: "The story of Jesus," I can't help but hear Bill Hicks' voice doing a bad English accent when I read that phrase, as in, "Look, Mummy! There's a Lincoln Log in me sock drawer!" *Gasp* "It's the story of JEEEsus!"

There are just those things that once you hear them a certain way, or once someone tells you something reminds them of a certain thing, you will never hear nor see those things their original ways again. No matter how hard you try. For example, ever since my friend Tim Dibble told me he hears "I've got two Tim Dibbles and a microphone" in place of "I've got two turntables and a microphone" on the Beck song "Where It's At," the song just hasn't been the same. And that was YEARS ago. Also kind of like the other day, when my mom told me she wasn't sure she liked my new glasses and dye job, and that I actually now kind of look like Tina Fey. I used to love those glasses. And my new strange hair. Now I will never see myself, my glasses, my hair... nor Tina Fey the same way ever again.

Really?