Hungry Entities Be Gone!

Well... stranger and stranger... I have just gotten off the phone from talking with one of my more, uhm, unique friends, who goes by the code name of mrose. I asked her if she had been to visit my blog. She said she had, but that she could not stay long, because she sensed the strong presence of many 'hungry entities'. Bugger!

I have not, I repeat, NOT authorized any hungry entities to hang out on my blog. I hereby command ALL unauthorized entities to LEAVE right now. (This does not apply to you, Dear and Most Welcome Reader!) I am on my way to bed, for much needed rest. But, to monitor the hungry entity exodus, I leave the nose of Artus the Large. He will sniff out any hungry entities that try to linger here on my blog. And now I feel a sense of peace surrounding me, and I know that all is well.

Blankie Bliss

Last night at work there was a dirty, and oddly smelly, blanket on the couch. I asked who it belonged to and was told it had been abandoned by a former resident, and then used to sit on outside in the dirt and straw. I picked it up and discovered that it was amazingly SOFT. I realized my cats would love it, so I wound up taking it home. I washed it, twice, and dried it till it was all warm and fluffy. Then I folded it up and put it on top of the dog bed on the floor. The cats had long ago taken over this bed, and within a few seconds of the blankie going down, Gamma, the matriarch of the cats, had settled down onto it. I could almost hear a great 'Ahhhhhhhhh' of satisfaction as she sank down into the softness. Then Rexie came to check it out. He stepped onto it, flopped down next to Gamma, and immediately became enraptured and sprawled out in total relaxation. Yes, the new blankie is a big hit!

The photos tell the story:

An Appendix Blooms In The Desert

Lazily rubbing my belly, before getting dressed

for the day, I became aware of the scar from my

appendectomy. This made me wonder about my

former appendix, which had been removed about

six years ago.

I knew, from living in such a small town, that the
Marcus Welby, MD type surgeon who removed my

appendix had since retired, that his wife had
died, and that he'd put his house on the market.
The monthly bills from him, though money was
still owed, stopped coming years ago.

But enough about him, no matter how charming

he may be. What I was wondering about, as I

prodded my scar tissue, was what might have

happened to that big, upset appendix that he
took from me... where did it go, and what
adventures might it have had??

Yes, perhaps it just went into some bag saying:
'Caution! Bio Hazard! Medical Waste Material'

and was incinerated to protect innocent people

from being assaulted by my appendix in the wee

hours of the morning.

Yes... I can almost see my appendix sneaking up

on these people, as they sleep, totally unaware
of the horrible danger they are in. Yikes!! 'Night

of the Living Dead Appendix'... (I am not going

to post images of this here, as they are simply
too disturbing for public viewing.)

But, perhaps my appendix escaped the fires of
medical waste incineration, and went on to have
a different sort of future.

Maybe it was just tossed into the trash and then
taken to the local landfill. Maybe it was dug up
by a wiley coyote and made into a happy late night
snack.

Then, later, after the coyote had trotted back
across the sage filled mesa, under the full moon,
coyote turds would have fertilized the desert
flowers with the digested remains of my appendix.

And those flowers would bloom brightly and

joyfully... new life from old, transmutation!

All this and more is possible, and that is what I
realized, rubbing my hand across my belly scar.

Blue Rose

For Miguel

For Miguel
(1970 - 1990)

Miguel, you came across the border
looking for the American Dream,
and instead wound up, at age 15,
a beautiful boy toy, selling your body
on the streets of Chicago.

And by the time you were 20,
your dream had degenerated
into the nightmare of AIDS,
of pain, sickness, and death.

You asked me to take you and your mother
shopping for your coffin, and I did.
In the car, on the way back,
I understood your mother's spanish,
when she sighed, and said:
"Oh God! We are here only to suffer!"

After coffin shopping,
you pulled me aside,
and told me your greatest fear:
That they would say you were dead,
when you weren't quite yet,
and you would be buried alive.

Later, when you were almost blind,
and you hair was beginning to fall out,
I was there when the priest came to call.
He told you that your suffering was a good thing,
because it brought you closer to God.
You turned your head to the wall.
And I think we both were wondering:
Who really wants to be closer
to a God who can be so cruel?

~ 2003 ~

Black Balls?

Take a good look...
How many black balls do you

see in the grid image below?



Click on the image to see it larger, if you want...

Our Capacity for Evil

Here is something that got me thinking today. Aldon Hynes wrote on his blog, Orient Lodge:

"We all have the capacity for violence and cruelty and we all have different ways of dealing with it. We can talk about the media or changing laws. We can do charitable works to balance out our capacity for evil. Yet, I think my friend is wise in encouraging us to all acknowledge our capacity for evil, as part of our efforts to build better defenses to contain them and keep them at bay."


I agree with this, and it made me think about the rage of the Virginia Tech shooter, and it also made me think about my own inner rage, especially that which burned within me as a child after my parents died. That anger, in retrospect, seemed to have burned so hot that simple kindness and human decency were incinerated. And the world reflected this harshness back to me. At the boarding school I was sent off to, at age 11, the other children sensed I was dangerous creature and kept their distance from me. When people say they can't understand how someone could go on a killing spree, I find myself pausing and thinking, not without revulsion, that I DO understand. Then I wonder for a moment if I'm somehow monstrous to have that understanding. I think not. I think I am simply one who has looked at some of the darker, uglier, and less acceptable aspects of my self, and they have looked back at me, and we've nodded at each other in silent recognition.

And I see now also, in retrospect, that there have been several key turns on my path, or places that I've rested, that have sweetened me and helped to distance me from the rage. One huge one was living in a gay community, Provincetown, during the late 1980s, and working with people who were dying of AIDS. And so many were dying. For those of us who loved them, and lived among them as they died, our hearts were ripped open over and over. Experiences like that have a way of shifting perspectives, and bringing in a different focus.

Another huge rage softener has been humor. Laughing at the world, laughing at myself, laughing at things that more tightly laced up folks don't find amusing at all... while I won't claim it has kept me 'sane', it has indeed been my best medicine through the years. Being on Planet Earth, wearing a human outfit, is a very funny activity. It's hard to be in a murderous rage while you are laughing. Or, put another way, as a friend once said to me, it's hard to be angry when there is a cat on your head.

Remembering Temple

Tomorrow, April 21, would have been the 47th birthday of my little sister, Temple. She killed herself 14 years ago, slitting her wrists after drinking a bottle of vodka. She was thirty-three years old, five years younger than me. While Temple had been having trouble in her life since she was a teenager, battling addictions to various substances, and perhaps mental illness as well, I always thought that someday we'd be old ladies sitting on the front porch together, laughing about it all. But it just didn't turn out that way.

Summer 1960 ==> Me, holding Temple the cat,

and Wylie holding our baby sister Temple.

Temple and I were the two youngest of six children. I used to pull her around in a little wagon, up and down the long central hallway of our house. She was a typical bratty little sister, putting pink lipstick on my white and grey cat, dumping out the little bottles that came with my chemistry set, and stealing the money from the 'Please Help Us Feed Our Cats' collection box I put out at one of our parents' cocktail parties. Our personalities were very different- while I dressed in oversized sweatshirts and played with cats and cowboy guns, Temple wore pink ballerina outfits and played with make-up and other girly stuff. My favorite children's story was Alice in Wonderland. Temple's was The Wizard of Oz. She had the soundtrack to the movie on a record, a red vinyl record, which she played over and over again. I seem to remember that one of my parents finally broke the record in two because they just couldn't stand hearing it any more.

Temple at 15

An odd footnote to Temple's life... A few years ago, just for the heck of it, I entered her name into Google and did a search, to see if anything would come up. I got a hit for a cheesy low-budget vampire movie, called 'I Married a Vampire'. Temple was listed as one of the actors. I ordered the video. If anyone reading this has actually watched this movie, Temple plays the supporting character Portia. It was an awful flick, but it was very cool for me to watch Temple in it, and hear her voice again. It was like having her pay me a strange sort of visitation, 10 years after her death.

So... Just to let you know,

I'm still thinking of you, kid...

Happy Birthday, Temple!

A photo montage that was
made for her memorial service

(click on it to view larger image)

VisualDNA...

Hah... just played with VisualDNA for the first time.
Here are my results:

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Cho: 'YOU MADE ME TO DO THIS'....

When I read the headline that was plastered all over today, 'YOU MADE ME TO DO THIS', coming from 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter, it struck an unpleasant chord in me.

I work with youth ages 16 - 24, many of whom come from a background of disfunctional families and abuse. It is common for them to have a lot of anger over the hand they have been dealt in life, much as it appears Cho Seung-Hui did. And that's understandable. The problem, from my perspective, comes when they take NO responsibility for what exists in their lives. It is so easy to view themselves as the innocent victims of circumstances, and of powers beyond their control. Then it becomes habitual to look outside of themselves to place BLAME for anything that is not the way they want it. The attitude then becomes, "You made me do this" to excuse any behavior, from being irresponsible in daily life activities, to being verbally abusive, to going on a shooting rampage.

And the basic belief at the core of that is one of powerlessness in one's own life. And that is a very frustrating belief system to live with. Humans try to soothe themselves with belief in an external Creator, or Deity, who they can petition to for help or protection. But that is still placing the power outside of oneself. If things go right, or things go wrong, the credit or the blame can go to the Deity. This is a belief system of limitation.

I have come to believe that limitation is NOT the truth of who we are. I believe WE are the Creators of our own lives. The good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful- all of it is our creation. We are the Cause. Everything we experience is the Effect. There is no OUTSIDE source of power acting on our lives. The BEST explanation of this concept I've found is in Robert Scheinfeld's book, Busting Loose From The Money Game .

Rexie Now On Twitter!

Great News! Rexie has just gotten his very own account on Twitter. He is very pleased. Actually, he is sitting with his back to me at the other end of the desk, facing the feeding station, but I can tell he is very pleased, underneath his aloof posturing. If you are on Twitter, and you want to add Rexie as your friend, his screen name is RexiePuss. Warning: He will hit you up for cream donations.

Virginia Tech Tragedy

Playing With Mud in 1960

I was an early proponent of the
benefits of mud baths!

Jaya's Moon Landing!

Jaya's To Do List

Update: I did get everthing on my list done that day, except for #5... Winning the Powerball Lottery is proving a bit resistant. I won $30, but I was going for the millions. Maybe I have to be more specific in my requests. Hmmm... Well, back to the manifestation shop. I know there is an alternate reality out there where I HAVE the millions... I just need to perfect my reality jumping techniques a bit further. Yeah. Something like that.

One Planet, Many Worlds...

OK... I don't know if it's just me, or if others are also encountering this. I'm finding when I mention my blog, or twittering, or my Cyber Twin, to people at work (the only people I'm around, since I can't avoid them), they back away from me slowly, as if I might be dangerous, while waving their hands around in front of them, as if to disperse a bad smell. They also tend to have an upset look on their faces, something like this:

So, I'm becoming more aware that there are those who have online 'lives' and those for whom the term 'online lives' holds no meaning at all and is actually a bit disturbing. It's as if we are living in different realities, side by side, here on the same planet. But the online life is becoming more and more 'real' to me. And the value of it is becoming more clear as well.

Take 'Twitter', for instance.... it's an difficult concept to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it. Most say, 'Well, WHY would anyone want to do that?". So, I was pleased to read what Grace D. wrote on her blog tonight about the value of Twitter. She made a tweet on Twitter, saying that she had a new post on her blog, so I went on over. And Lo and Behold, she was writing about what happened on Twitter tonight- how the info about the earthquake in Mexico was first sent around the world THERE. Not on internet news pages, not on TV news. No, on Twitter. You can go to her blog and read it for yourself. I think it's pretty interesting.

What I'm sensing with all of the online connections, though things like Twitter, is a matrix of connections that is weaving itself between people all across the globe who would never meet in 'real' life, or even know of each other's existence. For instance, some fellow from China started 'following' me right after I joined twitter. Now 20 people, from all different places, are following me. And I am 'following' over 30 people. I love this. And I can't really explain WHY I love it... Why I like to read what someone 1,000 or 5,000 miles away is having for dinner, or what clever or goofy thing their kid did today. Maybe the attraction is the same as for reading about other people's lives in books, or watching it on TV. Except this is REAL people, giving us their own up to the minute peeks into their lives. Anyway, what I do see is that this web of internet connections is sort of a Cyber Mimic of the REAL energetic web of connections that actually does exist, mostly outside of our awareness, between all humans. Cool stuff!

Kurt Vonnegut Dead...

"We probably could have saved ourselves, but we

were too damned lazy to try very hard ...

and too damn cheap."

~ Vonnegut ~

11/11/1922 - 4/11/2007

Hot Tubbing With Tesla

So... last month I, along with a large group of other humans, was invited to a party thrown by Tesla. Yes, I know, Tesla is dead. But those Dead Guys (more politely called 'Not Currently Incarnated Guys') DO like to party.

I can't say I recall much of the party, as I was in an altered state, but I WAS able to bring back this one photo of Tesla himself, taken as he was waiting for me to join him in the hot tub. And while I don't remember much, I'm sure I had a lovely time.

Those Baggy Boys

A Florida preacher has started a new 'Pull Up Your Pants' campaign... it's about time. I have to refrain from yanking up the drooping pants of some of the teenage boys I supervise at work. I've seen way more young men's undies than I need to.

I also must admit to being amused by all the recent stories about young criminals who have been caught by police while making their get aways because their baggy pants fell down and tripped them up. For some reason the baggy pant wearing boys at the zombie free youth shelter where I work did NOT find those stories as funny as I did. Maybe wearing baggy pants somehow messes with your sense of humor?

A Gruesome Discovery...

While heading from the living room to the computer area, I noticed something lying on the little rug by the back door. I am quite nearsighted, and was not wearing my glasses, so I could not make out what it was, and bent down for a closer look. At first I thought it was one of the furry fake mousie toys I've brought home for my cats to play with. But then, as I got even closer, I realized it was the remains of a REAL mousie toy my cats had gone after, caught, and carried home. They are quite generous with these little gifts. This one was rather less appetizing than usual, I thought, as someone had already eaten off the head. Yuck.

Happy Easter

Puka, Bunny Therapist
(Tell him what's bothering you- he'll understand)

Living On Love Mountain

Painting by Jaya

Meet Elysian Fields, AKA Fieldsie

A gentle giant of a cat, with a roaring purr that is music to my ears. When Fieldsie was just a wee small kitten, his tiny sister and brother kittens were carried off and killed by a dog. The dog came back and was carrying little Fieldsie off in his mouth when I heard Fieldsie scream in terror. I rescued him, and have been having the pleasure of his presence in my life during the seven years since then. He is by far the largest of all my cats, an enormous and WONDERFUL fellow!

The Inner Alien...

The Inner Alien

Choices, Choices... YOUR Choices:

Tea Time...

While I was sleeping today, my order from Adagio Teas was delivered. I got a lovely white tea, called Silver Needle. It's a bit too subtle for my tastes, I will order something that's more robust next time. But still, I sure did love having this special tea delivered to me... put a smile on my face. It arrived quite quickly, too. It may seem silly to order teas, to those of you who live in cities where you can easily find all sorts of great teas to buy. But I live in a small New Mexican town where the pickings are slim. We have to get a lot of stuff shipped in to us. It used to come by burro. Now we have cute little FedEx and UPS drivers bringing us gifts. This is called progress... I like it. I do miss the burros, though.

Dreaming the White Dragon

I've just woken up from a marvelous dream. In the dream, I had tons and tons of money. For some odd reason, I decided that I wanted to have my very own shopping center. So I commissioned to have it built. The very next day, it was completely done!

I spent all day wandering around in it. It was very beautiful, very luxurious. I began inviting friends into it.

Then, I came to one wing that had some strange looking large rooms. There was a woman with me who knew all about it, and she took me in and showed me what was inside. It was like an amusement ride, and when I went in to one end of the room a HUGE head of a friendly, talking white dragon came out from the other end of the room. It came right up to me, and talked to me, too. It knew my name, and it was loving and wise. It was supposedly only a machine, but it seemed VERY real. It made me laugh with pure delight and joy.

It was a dream, but I think on some level, or in some dimension, I actually did meet this wonderful white dragon!

Am I Hallucinating?

~ A Teletubbie Moment ~

Drifting off towards a much delayed sleep,

I suddenly found myself surrounded by

dancing Teletubbies. What do they want?

Please Stand By...

Blog Construction In Progress!

This blog is still being born.
Now I'm thinking about it...
Thoughts are stewing, and
brewing, in my busy brain.

So please DO come back later.
I'll be here for you and the site
will be changing. Maybe I'll have
some cookies and tea for you...