Are We There Yet?

Enlightened Yet?

In contemplating “What’s it all about? What was this all for?” and being somewhat intimately involved with people who knew¹Terence McKenna I had to take a step back, give it the 50 mile high birds eye view.
So much was written, yapped about and tossed around in the name of “ascension” and “5th dimensional shifts” and blah blah blah in the last five years that I became sick of it.
I knew that this damned shift wasn’t going to be a massive affair. In fact, I seriously doubted that I would experience anything more than my usual empathetic sense when I tune in to the interstellar ESP channel… so I was somewhat startled when in the wee hours of December 19, at approximately 1:30 a.m. PST I had a phenomenal realization, sensation, awareness that everything was different.
I was sitting up in bed, flipping through my RSS feed on on my iPad, when it happened.
I wasn’t reading anything in particular, nothing that would trigger the emotional tsunami that occurred.

I’ve been trying to articulate the experience for over a week.
I can’t tell you how you feel when you travel to Europe, but here’s how I feel:
Weary. Elated. Confused. Hungry. Foreign.The first time I traveled to Europe, I went to Spain — cramped into small spaces on horrifically long flights, barely making our connection in France and then a wild cab ride when we landed in Spain. I wasn’t a young woman, I was 45 and recovering from recent adrenal failure that nearly took my life. In fact, it did kill me, I had an OBE but I was resurrected by my husband who noticed that I’d stopped breathing. Different story for a different day. Bottom line, I wasn’t a resilient youth.
Note to the Young’uns reading: for the love of God, travel now. While jet lag, weird food and more will not cause you despair. 
We drove to our small villa in Soto Grande, and watched the sun rise. It felt like a dream. We went shopping for food items, and even though the market was similar to markets in the US, it was all strange in a bizarre paradox. The language, the smells, the people — everything was wrong. Not just foreign, but‘wrong’.
Although, it was right. It was perfect for Spain, and for my husband who spent the majority of his childhood bouncing from Continent to Continent. 

Sitting in my bed on the eve of December 20, pre-dawn I had the impression I was back in Spain. I felt a jet- lag- vertigo- hungry- confused- elated- sensation. I looked around my room, recognizing that I was in my beautiful home, with my Beautiful Danish Dude (AKA “The Alchemist”) in my beautiful bed and it was in a foreign country.
“What the …”

Side Note II: Let it be known that for several hours the word “fuck” was not part of my vocabulary. Actually, it hasn’t been a part of my typical speech in the time since. Not because I despise the word, or that it doesn’t have it’s place, it just doesn’t sit in my mouth the way it used to. I’m still very fond of it, I just haven’t felt the need to toss it around as gratuitously as before. Huh …

I woke The Alchemist. He opened one eye, “What?”
I said, “I feel weird.”
He propped himself on one elbow and looked at me with both eyes, “Why?”
I pondered this. He’s used to my very bizarre world (he lives in it) and so I said, “I feel like we’re back in Spain.”

He narrowed his giant blue eyes and tilted his head, “You’re going to have to give me more than that.”
I explained that I had a “moment” and that this world, this dimension was identical, but different.
He nodded and laid back down, “Oh, you must have shifted. I hear it’s all the rage these days” and promptly went back to sleep after chuckling at his own humor. Damn alchemists, they aren’t surprised by anything. To his defense, my husband has been waiting patiently for humanity to wake up. He’s an arrogant bastard, but very patient. He’s also been very underestimated by most. He doesn’t care. I think he’s quietly laughing at everyone. In a nonjudgmental way of course — he’s the least judgmental person I’ve ever met, but I digress. And so here we are. Here I am.
Nothing changed.
Everything changed.What was it for? What was Terence trying to do?

If the simplest answer is the most correct, then I believe that it goes something like this: If enough of us give a damn about each other, we’re going to be okay.If there are truly those around who are “Ascended” then they will be like those who have come before.
Like the loving Goddess before recorded history.

Like Krishna.
Like Buddha.

Like Christ.
But, instead of ONE … there will be many. Just enough for a tipping point in consciousness. Just enough for a critical mass and just enough for the rest of the Universe to pay attention, and help us to help ourselves. 

————
¹Terence McKenna started all the 2012 mania in a jungle with a few friends back in the 70’s.
Yeah. It was his idea. Follow the link above.

Hypocrisy. It’s my middle name.

I’m struggling with my own hypocrisy.
Feeding the freaking raving lunatics on the city streets in places that I’ve lived has always been an issue of mine. When I was much younger I volunteered a great deal of time and effort in places like Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, Los Angeles and San Francisco. I would feed the raving lunatics. Sometimes I fed them from my own home, sometimes I fed them from a mission kitchen.
I would give money to that guy standing on the corner with the sign, “Mothership left me. Please help.”
I would give money to that guy knowing that guy would probably buy a beer. A joint. A syringe.

There were times in my life I was *this close* to being That Guy. I would not have used the money for drugs, which is why I was probably only *this close* — but now I’m being judgmental. Not everyone on the street is an addict or mental. Oh hell, I guess I put the mental in judgmental.

My dilemma today comes from working with homeless shelters, food kitchens, and food pantries in the USofAye. I know what goes on behind the scenes. I know about how we in the kitchen have to ration our portions because the money is so tight because the fat asses in the offices need to pay themselves a shitfuckton of money to sit in the offices to decide how much money we get to spend in the kitchen.

It pisses me off, and I stopped volunteering in shelters.

Now I live a couple hours away from a mental wonderland of homelessness and crazy. When I walk the streets of Seattle, I am confronted with beggars. Sometimes you’d think we were in a slum in India. I’ve never been to India but I do read.
In Seattle there’s this one angry, presumably homeless black chick who hangs out in Pioneer Square with giant green boogers streaming down her face, doing the heroin shuffle. She accosted me and a friend of mine a couple of years ago and I was so shocked, horrified and filled with compassion I gave the angry green booger lady ten bucks to move away from us. I just wanted to enjoy my fifth or sixth cup of Starbucks that day. Ms. Booger shook and rattled and blew snot in gracious grossness and then turned to my friend and demanded more money.
Crazy. Just crazy.
I told angry green booger lady to fuck off. She did.
When she approached me (she was still doing her snot shuffle) a few days later, I crossed my arms, tilted my head and gave her the “no no no” sign. She ignored me and moved in for the snot attack. I narrowed my eyes. She narrowed her eyes, and when she was nearly in my lap I said, rather loudly, “FUCK OFF! And wipe your fucking face. You’re not stupid. That ploy is disgusting.”
Intelligence lit up in her eyes. I’m serious. She was stone cold sober. I saw it. We had a moment.
She half way grinned and moved away from me. These days when we see each other, she will go out of her way to avoid me.
She’s still out there, in her raggedy, stained, unkempt dread locked nasty-ness with the boogers. She might be a Seattle landmark.
Dunno.

So why am I a hypocrite? Because I don’t want to give any more money to homeless shelters, food pantries, etc. in America. I realized it earlier this morning. The realization of it stuck in my stomach like a pile of hot goo, or green streaming boogers on a beggars face in Seattle. I watched an amazing video about a man, Narayanan Krishnan. He has brought more than 1.2 million hot meals to India’s homeless and destitute through his nonprofit gig “Akshaya Trust”. So for shits and grins, I googled “how many meals are served daily by Seattle Homeless Shelters” knowing that I’d not get a straight answer. I did find one place that claims they have been giving a hundred meals a day for about ten years. That’s cool. What I wanted to do was get on an airplane and fly to Narayanan and give him a high five. And then start feeding people in his kitchen. I am a hypocrite because I have often said, “Why are we paying so much attention to people in other countries? We need to focus on our own backyard.”

Sure, I could split my donations. I could choose Narayanan and a Seattle Shelter. I could. But I don’t want to.
I perused the pages and pages and pages About 4,050,000 results (0.63 seconds) of results regarding my query, and became more distraught than I was when angry green booger lady accosted me on the sidewalk in Pioneer Square.

I must examine where my feelings are coming from. Why they are there. What I’m going to do about it. This is going to be an on going series with me.  This examination of homelessness, hunger, where to put my donations and why … you’re welcome to come along for the ride.
Comments are cool too. Share your thoughts, please.

Homosexuals Are Weird

Love is the answer.

I know they’re weird because A) I dated several (yes, SEVERAL) gay men and women and B) I was pretty certain at one point in my life that I’d rather Kiss A Girl. College was fun, did plenty of women in the college daze. Working a strip club was not so fun. I discovered that I did like the guys better than the gals and relegated myself to the tag of “bi-sexual”. Meaning I’d have sex with just about anyone, but I’d only have a LTR with a man. Turns out one of the best LTRs I had in my youth was with a GAY man! *gasp*
I should have known something was up. He was so fun to shop with, brushed his teeth (why the hell don’t you men brush your teeth every day? At least once?) and refused to have sex with me on the terms it wasn’t right in the eyes of God. His God and my God were different. But wow, did we love each other. Passionately. The last time I spoke with him he said, “You were perfect. If you had a penis, we’d still be together.” I don’t doubt this. I say this to my BFF all the time. Several people have presumed that she and I have been lovers because we’re so damn close. We love with a solid, unconditional sort of love, but it stops there. We’ve laughed and talked about how others have viewed our relationship, but she doesn’t “do it” for me and I know I don’t “do it” for her. And to the best of my knowledge, she’s never been with a woman sexually anyway.

It’s obvious I’m weird too. I am learning to celebrate my weird. It’s taken me about forty years to get here. In grade school they mocked me, “Weirdo! You’re a freak!” I never knew what to say because they were right. I just didn’t subscribe to the belief it was something to be ashamed of.

Now that my weird and queer friends can be legally married to each other in my beautiful state of Washington, I’ve been building a new website for the last few days for my BFF and I to perform the “Happily Ever After” realm of vows. For all of 2013 we’re going to perform wedding ceremonies at no cost to same sex couples who want to seal the deal, if they decide to have their wedding here in Port Townsend. I’m intensely delighted that the “powers that be” have decided to make this possible. It’s about fucking time.

I’ll have the “reveal” of the site in a few days. [update: HERE!]
In the meantime, I’ll ponder the reasons people have been so afraid to let weirdos marry.
It’s a mystery to me.
Never understood the fear.
What do you think?

Duality & Yes, I’m A Narcissist

Duality | Yin Yang

I had the post-op for my shoulder at Virginia Mason in Seattle two days ago.  The Big Guy & I took the Silent Shogun out for lunch, the kid is just about to graduate from College and he’s wondering what the hell to do for all time and eternity, or at least the next couple of years. It seems possible that he may go in to the Air Force for a few reasons.
On our way home later that evening I began to doze off when I was hit with the most disturbing thought:  that the Silent Shogun would be killed in this senseless, endless fucking war we’re having with the Middle East. Thus, I began chain smoking and when the Big Guy (who mildly tolerates my nicotine enhanced lifestyle) asked me why, I explained that I was having a moment of sheer terror and was succumbing to the idea that the Universe was conspiring to destroy me.
We spent the rest of the ride home discussing my paranoia. Which is hypocritical because I preach in the belief of PROnoia: the idea that the Universe is Conspiring with you. Not against you.

We’re all gonna shiFt

Mayan Haab Calendar

My BFF and I were kickin’ it late last night on the back porch, enjoying her latest triumph: the end of a month long writing challenge known as NaNoWriMo. Part of me seething with envy, part of me cheering madly and jumping around ecstatically. I was envious because I wanted this to be our moment together. I came up with the damn idea to do the challenge! I’ve been attempting NaNoWriMo for years. The excuses I have for not finishing the event range from pathetic to tragic. I did not join her this year because my right shoulder decided to stop working and required a surgical procedure. I know in my soul that the BFF completed this challenge — in part — because she was doing it for us both. Historically we’ve had some issues with seeing personal projects through to a satisfactory end. We are often the driving force behind community projects, and when others are counting on us to maintain integrity for a common good, you want us on your team.
As we sat in the afterglow of success the BFF looked in to the night sky and said, “Possibly the last full moon, ever.”
It was a joke.
I knew this yet I was still triggered into that deep chasm of “Oh for fucks sake.”

Born This Way

Now that I’ve decided to dump being important, I’m finding it easier to breathe. Part of my dilemma came last year when a “Very Big Deal” picked me up for syndication and BigNess. I agreed to be Important and they agreed to tell the world how Important I am.  They agreed to publish me and show me off and send me here and there and places and things.
I didn’t understand that I wasn’t allowed to post, “Do Epic Shit” on my Facebook. I hadn’t signed my contract with the VBD people yet. The Big Guy and I wanted to hire our own attorney to look over the details to make certain that the price of my soul was satisfactory.
I was told by the VBD folks that “Do Epic Shit” wasn’t in line with their protocol and that I should remove the offensive post or make it private. Of course this was the end of our brief love affair. The VBD folks and I parted ways without signatures on dotted lines or hard feelings. They were incredibly gracious when I declined their offer to join the fold of VBD. I did get a phone call from one of the Big VBD people and she said, “While I appreciate your spirit, I think you’re foolish.”
She didn’t need to explain why, though it still puzzles me that they were so agreeable with a name like “The Cosmic Hooker”.
This name doesn’t conjure images of pink, fluffy bunnies or sparkling dewdrops on magical meadows.  One would expect a Cosmic Hooker to make a statement like, “Do Epic Shit”.

I’ve been struggling with being me ever since.
There was a moment at the Labyrinth Gathering this past October when I was enjoying a wonderful meal with friends (I’m avoiding name dropping here by sheer force of will, but they are VBD’s) and I was asked, “If you didn’t have your history, if you weren’t a call girl when you were 19 or psychic hotline master, would you still call yourself The Cosmic Hooker?”
Oh, excellent question. Wish I’d thought of it myself!

There was a short, heavy, breathless silence at the table. Everyone present froze for a moment. I briefly pondered to think of where I want to go and who I want to reach with my personal brand of healing, transformation and enlightenment. I thought of Osho, and how he encouraged us all to be ridiculous. He said, “To be an individual is the hardest thing in the world, because nobody likes you to be an individual. Everybody wants to kill your individuality and to make a sheep out of you. Nobody wants you to be on your own.” I thought of my experiences and while I might not have come up with “Cosmic Hooker” I could have been a “Psychic Slut”. *side note: The Psychic Slut is an astrologer.

I was pleased to admit that I embrace my Cosmic Hookerishness. I love being this person. She is me.
So as I fumble around with tossing the idea of being in the VIP line with other VBD’s, I am becoming more comfortable with this skin. I don’t have to try so hard.
And I’m having more fun.
Life is becoming enjoyable again.
And I get to be the hostile, anti-social, quasi misanthropic bitch I am without apologies.
cue the happy laughter

The Color Red & My Ego Trip

We were having a meal together. Many of us.
Maybe not “many” but enough of us that I remember it. But nothing I remember is true. Just ask my kids.

Some of the previously mentioned “many” with names I will mention often, and some I won’t.  The Girl said something that sounded like, “Sheldon crashed his car” and The Big Guy said, “That sounds like the name of a band.”
I agreed. I think I thought it first and he just said it out loud. I think a lot of things first. Maybe it’s just that telepathic power I possess that allows me to hear what everyone is thinking around me. Whatever it is, I tend to think it and the people around me verbalize. Who knows? Perhaps everyone in the world is telepathic. Maybe we’re all tuned in to the same channel and some of us are quicker than others to shout it out. Or patent the product.

Regardless, the name has bounced around in my head for a few days and I have to start somewhere. I married the two things about five minutes ago to create the blog.  Two things:  The name and the desire to start writing again. I can’t call the blog anything I’m associated with because I’m done with all that and I’m re-creating everything. Even if I keep doing all the other stuff, and I will for awhile — I need to start writing just because I enjoy writing and not because I need to teach or heal or create a media event.
I’m sick to death of not being a writer.

I’m sick to death of keeping all my emotional detritus swept under my burning futon. It’s a burning ‘futon’ because if I called it a ‘burning bed’ the implication would be different. If I was going to murder my abusive ex I would have done that years ago when I was angry.

Oh. Anger.
Pffft. I’m still angry. The color of my anger has changed from the cherry red satin sheen dripping wet wax R E D to more of a blue based matte with sequins at the hem kind of red. It’s sophisticated and refined and dangerous. It says the word “fuck” with authority and I’m the woman in the line who — when you hear her say it — causes you turn your head with interest instead of disgust. You think, “If she is angry and saying ‘fuck’ then I must pay attention because I might want to say ‘fuck’ too.”

I’ll explain my reticence about sharing personal thoughts within an online journal format later.
It mostly has to do with my ego and wanting to be someone else who was somewhere else. All that changed yesterday. I’ll explain that later too.

For now it’s about the bundle of pain I keep tightly wrapped on a shelf in my head somewhere between the rubber bands and the nicotine patches. I took it off the shelf earlier today not because of my usual desire to have a pity party and reminisce for the sake of poking that bruise — but because The Girl found her high school senior memory book and shared it with us before breakfast.
She’s got her own pain. I don’t know if everyone has a bundle that they keep on a shelf in their soul like me, but I suspect that most do.

I watched with the same kind of fascination and horror that causes every single one of us to slow down as we pass an accident. We all think, “Oh thank god that’s not me or someone I know.” We all think, “Man, I remember that time when ___________.”
What happens when you pass an accident and you recognize the car; when you do know the people involved in that “jaws of life” pry open spectacle?

I’ll tell you what happens. You lose your shit. You lose your mind. You are filled with regret and hopelessness and you feel helpless.
The accident already happened, dammit. There’s nothing you can do except prepare for a future that might involve a large amount of rehabilitation and adjusting.  You can kick yourself in the ass for not inventing the automatic seat belt, the force field bubble and shield to protect the vehicle; but what good does that do? The accident happened.

I was face to face with the horror known as “The Teenage Years of My Children When All We Did Was Struggle To Survive Because dot dot dot“.
I should change the title of this post to “Because dot dot dot“.

Or maybe I could become intensely peppy and call it, “We made it! We survived! Everything es bueno!”
I could.
But I won’t. Because.
dot dot dot