Monday, April 30, 2012

Goddess File #34


I recently saw a film on Maria Luisa Bombal, the Chilean author who was never fully accepted in Chile for her provocative writings. This poem is dedicated to her.  It's not for the faint of heart.  You've been warned.

The boys come so easy
The men come so hard
And I’m your mother
Your sister
Your daughter
Your wife
Your lover
Past in present
Future tense
Sex
I’m a phone call
A voice
I am my body
My legs
Fishnets
I am a fantasy
Baby bottles
Breast feeding
What is it that you need?
Innocence of a child
With a seductive grin
Come one
Come all
Playground style
Do I scare you now?
I gave birth
To dead crows
And the levity
Of my laughter
makes you forget
That I am your sister
Your wife
Your lover
Strapped to a bed
Pushing baby stroller
Down dead ends
I am the whore
Blowing you in your car
I am the angel
Spiritually speaking
Spitting image
Virgin Mary
Can you handle me?
The boys always come so easy
The men come hard

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Hot Button Issue: Unbottoning Down


My yoga teacher that evening was a thin muscular guy with grayish black hair and this fierce vitality that is both incredibly compelling and abrasive all at once. He’s the type of guy that swears in the middle of class so that all the serious yogis can let go of their “good/evil” references.  He can be really annoying when he’s telling you to get into these impossible contortions while maintaining complete awareness of your breath, tailbone, toes and fingertips all at once.  He goes out of his way to mimic the chatter in your mind during your practice, if only to point it out to you.

I had heard of those tricksters that come into your life to test you; the ones that will bring out your demons and push all of your buttons so that you recognize the buttons you have. 

“We cannot always control what happens to us, but we CAN control how we react.  That’s yoga; understanding your reactions and learning to control them.  It’s a discipline.”

I wasn’t controlling it. I was angry.  Didn’t he understand how impossible his commands were?  We were in yoga class, not some sort of military drill.  How do you remember to track your breath, toes, bhandas and alignment in four breaths?  Who does he think we are? 

“Now you’re going to shift all of your weight onto your left foot.  Keep those toes lifted! Push your right leg up towards the sky behind you and stack your hips.”  I struggled to find my balance and he came up behind me to pull my right leg back into alignment – at his touch I collapsed.  We tried again, and once again I collapsed. 

“Trust me; you’ve got to trust me!” he said in a not so gentle tone.   “One more time; you can do this.”  I did it for a few seconds before he walked away and said “just do your best.”

Button #1: Trust.  That’s a loaded word right there.  I’m barely learning to trust my own body to get into these poses, much less some guy adjusting me in yoga class. 

You’d be amazed at the things that run past your mind when you’re trying your hardest not to hold onto anything that comes into your mind.  Here I am in a balance pose remembering the day my body betrayed me.

I was in the fourth grade and had quite the audience awaiting my performance in my front yard.  The audience included my family and some of the older neighborhood boys.  I needed to prove myself.  I got into position: front foot perpendicular to my back foot; arms raised as I wind-milled my arms to the ground into a cartwheel.  The next thing I know, I’m in the car with my parents on the way to the hospital.

“I want the hot pink one,” I said to the nurse. There’s nothing like rocking a hot pink cast with all your boring outfits.  My right arm had suffered a sprain as I had put too much weight on it.

Back on the mat: I remember this now – the feeling of my body betraying me.  I was supposed to impress all of my friends with my amazing cartwheel and instead I collected signatures on my arm for six weeks.  Oh the humiliation!

My friend had a pin the other night that said “button free.”  I asked her what it meant.  She said that when she works with youth teaching them yoga or breath-work she teaches them to be “button free;” meaning having an awareness of their buttons so not to allow anyone else to push them.  

Damn good class (the swearing is to throw off all of the yogis).

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Serpents, Men and our Dying Roles


My favorite topic came up on my date the other night.

“It’s just in this culture we’re socialized from a very early age to have a one-sided view of women.  Women are constantly oversexualized and then pinned against each other on the basis of physical beauty or other petty materialistic and superficial concerns.  Women do other things in the real world but the majority of our representation in the media is not representative of that.” I said.

“You know, Jen, it’s really hard for men too.  We used to be the providers, the protectors and the breadwinners.  Our roles were clearly defined, but what is the definition now?  Women can do everything by themselves.  Even in dating, men don’t know what women want anymore.  What can a man do for you that you can’t do for yourself?  Men are in a state of crisis right now,” he said.

I sat staring at my Malbec and thinking about all the one-sided dialogues I’ve had with myself all these years about the topic.  I hadn’t thought about how difficult it must be to be man.  When I was confronted with the question: why do women need men anymore? My mind went straight to: why does the moon need the sun?  Why does the ying need its yang?  Why does the soil need its seeds?

I did a walking meditation years ago.  I asked for God/The Spirit/ Pachamama to teach me about the masculine and the feminine energies.  My senses sharpened; the sounds became crisper and the forest was ALIVE.  I saw a serpent: phallic and long, slithering in front of the hallow crevice of a tree and immediately I understood.  In nature, the serpents protect the feminine: the caves, the crevices and the shallow earth.  Males are built externally and women internally.  The internal: those caves that encompass you and provide shelter through the storms or the great wombspace we all used to inhabit.

In today’s world of challenging social dynamics between the sexes we need our men to understand and protect the sacred.  We need them to plant seeds and watch how they grow.  We need them to bear witness to our differences with respect while women learn to see them with awe and wonder.  Today, we need them to listen and support our new roles.  In turn, we will love and respect theirs.

The masculine and feminine isn’t just a matter of men and women.  All men carry feminine energy and all women carry masculine energy.  As a society we must learn to live with our constant duality.  A man can enter that intuitive introspective space in his mind and a woman can assert her strength sprung into constant activity.

The revolution is barely starting and our liberation exists in limbo ebbing and flowing from one day to the next.  Men don’t have to ONLY be the providers anymore.  Instead they can choose to be much more than the typical male script and fully come into their own as whole and complete human beings.

Feminism never was just something for women.  It is for everyone that wants true freedom from oppression.
I myself am grateful for all men: the one who raised me gently; the ones who I call when my intuition failed me and I’m in a bind; the ones I don’t need to explain myself to and the ones that show up in front of my house for a late night bike ride to get me out of my head just when I need it.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

The Evolution of Beauty


“Youth is beauty, money is beauty, beauty is beauty sometimes…”
-Ani DiFranco

We are brought up in a society that values the physical beauty of a woman sometimes more than other attributes such as intelligence, sensitivity, artistic ability or athleticism.  Often times women who are first or second generation in the U.S. fare worse with this because our active mother/father cultures tend to be more misogynistic. 

But you knew this.  You went to high school and you remember who the pretty popular people were, right?  They weren’t super cool because they had a bad case of acne.

We all know that story so I won’t tell it here.  What I do want to share is this: I am less concerned with being pretty; I want to be powerful. 

I’m not talking power in the western sense i.e. political power.  I’m talking the power of knowing yourself and your own merits without having to have anyone else validate them.  I’m talking about the power to know that your legs will carry you through rough roads because you’re strong and finding the beauty in that even if it doesn’t look like a postcard.  I’m talking about evolution. 

Know thyself, friends.