I'm Still Angry

In my dreams I am victorious

I am not just a kid

My innocence abounding

Still silly and giddy

Unaware of my womanly body

I am not meeting your pretty girlfriend

The next day; glaring at my bruised wrists

Seething and terrified at the sight of you

Lumps of rage forming in my throat

You are not luring me outside

‘cause you need “to talk”

You are not forcing my body

Against the fence and reveling in my struggle

You are not telling me

Not to worry about having your baby

You are not stronger than me

With alcohol on your breath

You are not pushing your lips on mine

You are not holding my hands down hard

You are not telling me you’ve never liked American girls

Quite the way you like me

In my dreams I am victorious

I am luring you out to the alleyway

Giving you that come hither look with my eyes

I am standing provocative fingering my pocket knife

I am letting you take control while I take a slice

I am strong and fierce and oh so grown

I am aware of my surroundings despite this foreign soil

I am speaking your language succinctly

I am telling you not to worry; I don’t want your baby

You are shocked at the sight of your blood

You are humiliated in your own terror

You are wise enough to start to run

You are the same as me now; untrusting

I am not still so angry a decade later

I am not wandering in alleyways and parking lots

Looking for men that look like you as I’m fingering

my knife; seeking redemption in the form of revenge

I will always say I’m a pacifist except

In the case that I should see you again

I’ll give you that come hither look with my eyes

Lure you into an alley for a night you won’t soon forget

Come here and let me show you

Just how much I’ve grown

Just how much I’ve grown

In my dreams I am victorious

Femme Fatale

Stop by my bed tonight
Wordlessly strip down
While I sit to watch
I don’t want to speak
what I could communicate with my body
And when I’m done tonight
Don’t call or text
Just wait around ‘til I call again

You’ll think it’s something more
Than it is and I just wish
You’d not worry your pretty little
head about it
Just undress me slowly
And let me kiss you tenderly
as though I’ve known you for years

Oh, it was the wine – must have been
I have to go, or maybe there was something more?
I don’t care, I don’t know
And I wanted all of you really
But emotional investment’s so costly
So I’d just as well let you keep coming to me
Until I get close enough to snuggle
to your warm chest,
say how much I love your scent
Reach inside; rip out your pumping heart
Carelessly tossing it in the pile I’ve accumulated
and you were so special baby, special to me

All I’ve ever wanted
Was to scare the shit out of you
Be reminded of my helpless fear
When my innocence was taken so young
I would have preferred a choice in the matter
But I don’t want to talk
So come here and show me what you’ve got
Then lie there in your bliss and your quiet

while I get close enough to taste your blood

All the names you’ve called me:
The Femme Fatale, so coy, so naughty
As though it might be you that hurts me
But I alone, do a good enough job of that already
And when I’m done tonight
Don’t call or text
Just wait around ‘til I call again

Don’t worry your pretty little head about it

Don’t worry your pretty.little.head.

The Magic Between the Living and the Dead

“Have you ever seen a deer so small, it’s like the size of my dog,” Brad* said.

“I didn’t realize it was dead,” I said when we decided to get out of the car.  Its head had been smashed in.  It was the smallest fawn I’d ever seen and the blood had collected in a small puddle around its ear.  Its eyes were open and lifeless.

I stood over the body and the cars seemed fast so close to us as they swished by.  This is man and nature colliding, I thought.

“We can’t just leave it here,” Brad said.

“I’ve got my medicine bag in the car,” I said as I crossed the busy street more carefully than the doe had attempted.  We didn’t have a lighter so we prayed over the body and sprinkled sage and copal over it.  Brad closed its eyes before lifting its body and carrying it into the woods to place behind a tree.  We both squatted there and Brad and I both saw it breathing.  Brad said its body was stiff, though I hadn’t touched it. 

The sunlight crept through the trees and the shadows danced on the fawn’s belly.  The belly inflated and deflated again.  Brad and I crouched there looking at one another in disbelief.  This was magic.  This was sacred.  This was real.  We both bore witness to the miraculous dance in the time that exists between the living and the dead.

There have been many studies done where people don’t see things because they  don’t expect to see things.  How many things do we miss in our awareness because we believe it to be unbelievable or perhaps unexpected?  The mind is a very powerful thing - it can train itself to react to a very strict reality, but what happens when you begin to open those windows of consciousness? When those rules that dictate reality begin to bend so slightly? How much more aware will you be?  How much more will you see?

*The name was changed.  

The Spider Above My Head

LISTEN TO IT:

Background music: The Cinematic Orchestra, Awakening of a Woman

READ IT:

Melancholy looms over me like a spider hanging on a thread

I've been spun into its web; cocooned inside

I've been eating only the gnats and the flies

I've been faking it for the sake of congeniality

I've been acting as though my limbs don’t all connect back to me

I've been fearful of my own progress

I've been living inside my head instead of the present

I've been putting things in my body I cannot justify or defend

I've been battling my own duality

Oh Noble Tigress

Oh Regal Lioness

Remember your Divinity

I've been crossing busy streets without looking

I've been dancing in crowded bars just to feel bodies touching

I've been sneaking in fruits of pleasure from forbidden trees

I've been playing that same sad tape on repeat

I've been looking only through dirty windows

I've been acting as though that’s all that I deserve

I've been getting distracted by cheap shiny objects

I've been cocooned staring at a spider’s red under belly

Passionate Woman

Unleash that Tigress; set her free

Watch that lioness consume the decay of me

It’s my unraveling

Beautiful Warrior:

So much love all around you

Widen the periphery of your heart

And see beyond

That melancholy looming over your head

Like a spider dangling on a thread

The Mirror

I haven't been a nice person lately...to myself anyway, possibly others.

There are 8 limbs of yoga: yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and samadhi.

The yamas generally mean abstinence or restraint and the niyamas have more to do with observance.  Together the yamas and the niyamas form a sort of code of conduct for yogis, similar to the 10 commandments for Christians.

The first yama is ahimsa: non-harm or non-violence. 

Yoga is a mirror

In yoga, we attempt to bring our practice from the mat into the real world. We allow the experience on the mat to be a mirror to our experiences off the mat.  

Ahimsa is not harming your own body for the sake of perfecting a pose i.e. not pushing your knee when it’s in pain.  Yet, as with everything in yoga, it’s much more than the physical practice of not being violent.  As powerful beings we are able to cause much harm by our words i.e. bullying.  Even our thoughts can cause pain and violence, especially to ourselves.

In yoga we always start right from where we are.  Ahimsa teaches that even right now, from where I am sitting in my chair writing this I can choose to practice or not practice ahimsa.    If I slouch I am harming my future self.  Taking it a step further I could choose the way of ahimsa by having compassion for myself, not judging my failures and treating myself with kindness especially in my thoughts.  When I compare myself to others it harms me.  When I am critical of others it is also self-harming – it is but a mirror to how I think of myself. 

When we are trying to change habits, like learning not to slouch or think violent thoughts about ourselves it is helpful to remember that each moment is one we've never lived before.  Right now is a fresh moment to start practicing.  

Ahimsa is important because we must have compassion for ourselves before we are able to have compassion for others.  The same goes for ahimsa, if you can’t practice ahimsa in relation to yourself, you cannot practice it off the mat or in relation to others.  

Don't we all want to be a little kinder and nicer, starting today?

When the Smoke Clears...

Her daughter has failed her in all the important things.  She is doomed to spend her life alone because she cares nothing for finding a husband.  In fact, she’s completely contrary to the idea of dating.  You can tell – look at her boots – they are old and worn and she’s had that dress for years…  Her hair is never done; she dislikes makeup and what God gave her just isn’t enough.  How will she ever marry if she can’t even get the basics down?

What a failure she’s produced!  She, after all, gave her children everything and to see them now; worse than penniless beggars, they care nothing for a better life for themselves.  What selfish spoiled brats after all she’s done for them – how can they not want the same things she wants for them?  How can they not do everything in their power to please her?

Her daughter knows that she’s nothing more than a series of measurements to her mother.  She is her salary, a husband, a dress size or in the least a good car as proof that she’s lived a good life.  These measurements become less and less important and she sits quietly through the explosions at home, smoke thickening more and more each night, waiting calmly for an approval that won’t ever come.

They both think the other just doesn’t get it, yet they understand each other all too well – it’s more of a disagreement of what constitutes a life well lived.  To her mother it’s a white picket fence, 2.5 grandchildren and a secret vengeance so her daughter will know the hell she was put through.  Her daughter couldn't care less for illusions of happiness or material success people tote around like trophies. 

She’d been so ashamed to admit how bad her devaluation had been through the years and all the damage done, but she works through it.  The tears each night come not from what she’s endured but a silent sadness for the blindness of her mother.  She knows the way you treat others is a reflection of how you treat yourself and she can only imagine how bad it’s gotten.

Oh, but she is so much like her – if you watch closely.  She was born with that killer charm and knows how to work a room with that type of joy that’s infectious.  She can’t sit still and carries around her fears in a metal locket; the one where she turns into the type of woman who takes her pain out on her loved ones; the one who’s black and white vision can never invite all the gorgeous color in or the one who can’t quite relinquish a control that was never there in the first place.

They are stuck together for life.  The mother, who only expects to be disappointed and the daughter, who’s only escape lies in seeking transcendence, sit together at the table.  One’s inflamed and angry and the other is finally learning to sit still through the turbulence.

They look each other in the eye because they are both still willing to try.  Where there is love, there is hope.

Weekend Confession

I left town without really telling anyone so it wasn’t a huge surprise that my family kept calling me.  Nor was it surprising, considering the circumstances, that I didn’t answer.

People have a tendency to fear what they don’t understand and I’d be hard pressed to explain to my Catholic family how important it was for me to be present at a sweat lodge ceremony in St. Louis, Missouri the weekend before I move.

But, remember how I promised to be more honest?  In efforts to demystify my spiritual excursions and to gain understanding and respect for my beliefs and practices I’d like to share something I’ve never shared publicly before.

The sweat lodge is a native American/indigenous ritual of purification.  This purification comes in several forms: the physical: sweating out toxins; the mental: watching that smoking mirror of consciousness; the emotional: that release of what no longer serves us and finally, the spiritual: offering prayers in the form of sweat, songs and words as a community.

I cannot do the sweat lodge justice in describing the various symbolic meanings or the precise ritual.  These things are meant to be experienced rather than read about.  Each lodge can be different depending on who is running it and what tribe they belong to.  At best, I can merely describe my own experience and what it means to me.

I placed my medicine bag on the altar after being smudged with the sweet smoke of copal.  I humbled myself on my knees and pressed my forehead to the earth before entering.  “Ometeotl,” I whispered to the earth.  The lodge was shaped like a turtle – I crawled on hands and knees clockwise with respect to the fire pit in the center before reaching my spot.  Everyone else followed suit until we were a circle symbolizing that we were all equal once we entered the earth’s womb, the temazcal.

We welcomed hot stones warmed by the morning’s fire and were sealed in complete darkness.  We prayed as the water pourer made it hotter and the air thicker. 

It is in the darkness with the support of a spiritual community that I am able to enter a different state of consciousness.  The heat induces me to see my higher self more clearly as the physical, mental and emotional toxins release from my body. 

Every time I enter the sacred temazcal I feel as though I go in a dirty towel getting dipped in water and then wrung out.  I enter so that I may become emptier of negativity and old belief systems that no longer serve me to make room to learn new truths and save space for more love and joy throughout my mind, body and spirit. 

In this type of belief system we honor the earth.  We ask the earth for wisdom and pray for her healing.  We are able to see more clearly that the damage that is done to her is done to ourselves.  The damage we do to each other is harm done to ourselves.  We learn to be more conscious of ourselves and of our actions through the lodge. 

I leave you with a beautiful poem and apologies to my family for disappearing.  I’ll tell you where I’m going next time.  I promise.  J