Son of a preacher, man.

I'd been single for about ten years in 2012, and after the Internet dating bubble burst, I went back to good ole' fashioned, face-to-face contact with the same limited results. Based on the sound reasoning that I'd made a female friend of sorts at an alumni function quickly after my return from out west, I invited a Korean friend (also somewhat lukewarm) from my dojo to an alumni function downtown that served as an equidistant meeting point between our respective subway commutes from Brooklyn and Queens.

My fair-weather friend agreed to the get-together, which was somewhat surprising to me after she rebuffed other fun invitations, but summer in the city makes even the most winter-shocked South Korean eager to be outside. The theme was a disco dance party, which made my older friend happy at the prospect of enjoying. Something was in the air that night, because soon after she showed up, we started doing shots, and then time seemed to speed up. The music got louder, the bar got more crowded, and after an older man hit on me early on, the younger office guys started showing up from their pre-game bar hops further uptown that led them to our downtown soiree.

It got blurry after that, but I remember a spinning disco ball with lots of flashing lights, and dancing in a group with a cute, dark-haired guy. We took breaks from the dance floor to talk to him on the sidewalk outside, and then we were too drunk to go on. I didn't remember getting home that night, which scared my middle-aged self a lot more than the younger version of me. The city was rapidly changing with this latest wave of gentrification, and a lot of the newcomers didn't know the rules, which made it even more dangerous than it'd been before, in direct proportion to their out-of-towner paranoia. You could see the tension in their eyes walking around.

It must have scared off my friend, too, because other summer alumni party invites got turned down right away with no hesitation. We even emailed each other over the contacts we made that night, with both of us given the same info for the guy we'd been dancing with. She declined the idea of dating him while we were at the beach in Coney Island, silenced by my bodysurfing in the same way a Filipino friend from another dojo would be during my first, successful bodyboarding attempt using his board. He also never accepted an invite from me again, and they'd both been afraid of the murky Atlantic Ocean.

So, my new alumni friend and I struck up an easy correspondence at the same time I'd met another younger guy at a second alumni party that summer. Ryan was in his 20s, though, so we didn't get as far as my other paramour in his 30s did, but I was working a freelance gig midtown that made lunch dates and after-work excursions easy to arrange. He was good company, too, of a sort that I'd been accustomed to for a long time: an intelligent, educated Nuyorican making good after leaving the 'hood. I was proud to see other hardcore city kids get through "The Ivy League" system a lot easier than I did. 

That didn't make life problem-free, though, on account of us being natives. The manager at his landscape design firm was a real bitch who kept hitting on him, years before this recent spate of sexual harassment suits y'all are thriving in began. Every time she knew he was heading out the door, she'd drop work on his desk due immediately, like she'd done for our lunch date he was late for, and now this dinner date he thought she was weirdly trying to sabotage. 

She was a much older, extremely aggressive, non-native blond lady having fun jerking the chain of a young brother on the rise, in a classic RISD "pas-de-deux" of sexual tension marred by intense career competition. Poor kid couldn't tell if he was attracted by all the attention or if he was afraid for his life, when I asked him about it over pre-dinner drinks, which worried me even more. She was a seasoned cougar accustomed to muddying the work-waters with her shirts unbuttoned just the right amount, so that whenever she leaned over his desk, she showed her thickly tanned "creasage" to the newest kid on the block, confused and stressed out as he was by making it to "The Big League" firms of Manhattan.

Based on that disclosure alone, plus the rapturous detail he supplied to me about the technical qualities of the soil in the street planters we passed as we headed toward our destination, I knew he was "hands-off" dating material for me, but I liked the warmth of a humid summer night on the water. We were going to see a Muay Thai fight at the Hudson River piers later on, so even if our dinner date didn't go as planned, I'd still see some action that night. We were finally seated in a really loud restaurant that seemed to immediately perk him up with its Hispanic-flavored appetizers. We got more drinks and with our entrees, I leaned in to ask him some serious questions, as the Mojitos started to give me a fuzzy "halo effect" I could see reflected on his now more-amorous face.

Alright. Let's get down to it: food, family, faith....all the really good stuff. Here, he faltered a bit as the evenings' sheen wore away, like I suspected. Just talking about his hardened single mom from Puerto Rico brought about a dampening effect, as we dived down into the reality of our respective situations. I'd come from a broken family that did time in the projects coming up, too. I knew that without a very solid foundation, and if our careers suddenly "went south", we didn't have anything or anyone to rely on besides the stuff that got us to this point in time, and I needed him to feel that pressure a little bit, because I was way past the age of random hook-ups. He started responding to it, opening up beyond the bland office demeanor we used to pass through midtown offices, but I could see his confidence was fading.

By the time we got around to religion, he was almost done talking to me. I spoke haltingly about my traditional Catholic upbringing, and I could tell from the chill falling over him that "The Ivory Tower" we attended was still unreceptive to people of faith. Oh, well. I stopped talking so I could listen to him describe his mothers' descent into the extremes of Evangelical Christianity brought on by the stress of single motherhood, including demonic possession and public displays in the churchs' aisles while writhing on the ground speaking in tongues. Huh. I did not have that kind of upbringing. Candles, yes. Stained glass, yes. Beauty and discipline, si. This shit you sayin' to me? Uh, hell, no.

I truly did not know what to say back to him. He told me as his mom worked her way up the small, storefront church hierarchy, she'd egged him on to make up phony scenarios that would promote them even higher within the parish, by babbling gibberish and making a false conversion. "I lied about it", as he laughed uncomfortably in the face of my genuine experience. Yeah, I hesitated, but your moms...."Oh, I know!" He said it too loud and too quick, which meant he wasn't over anything. "She's totally nuts!" Right, but, that doesn't mean your spiritual life is over, I gently advised him. You're Hispanic. Catholics can always come home. And I meant it. He was my Brother-in-Christ. He was more insistent on putting all religions in the same category as UFOs and Bigfoot sightings. This brush-up with sincerity? He disliked that even more. It had happened to me more than once at RISD, so I knew the deal: the door was officially closing.

When he saw the stage version of my real-life warrior act down at the pier, I knew we'd reached the end of our destination. Now it was his turn to be silent over post-fight beers at a makeshift cabana by the water. "So, that's what you trained in, huh?" Yeah, my man. As the sun set over the river on a romance that was never-to-be, he suddenly seemed to want the evening to go on, with another round of beers and a renewed sense of energy, in pursuit of a feeling that left quickly with so many fighter men milling around the bar, dressed in tight t-shirts emblazoned on the back with a trendy design motif: two big, graphic angel wings with the feathers articulated in a highly realistic, line-art style. And just like that, it was time for us both to go home. Alone.

Happy Feast Day to Our Most Blessed Mother, The Holy Virgin, 
Our Lady of Guadalupe. Forever She Reigns as Queen of Heaven.

Walking Dead

We've learned about different types of soulless humans inhabiting this sphere with us: how to suss them out, bust them on their egregious bullshit (which usually sends with them running away), while keeping our heads above water. It isn't easy. I've known people so wrecked by life that they become easily programmable drones with nothing to lose (besides a soul that's gone), and those are the most dangerous types of people we have on this planet. What do you say to someone who's been brain-washed since birth to accept death as a part of their human sacrifice to some fictional netherworld? It's hell, boy.

And that's what this culture of death and fear is about: getting you to accept the premise that life is pain, and the only way out of it is through your death. But, how can that be? His Holiness the Dali Lama recently posted on Twitter that human problems require human solutions, and it couldn't be any truer. You don't want to know the life conditions divinity exists under, and be glad for it. Celestial levels exist for a reason. Faith requires trust, and nothing erodes trust faster than fear and pain.

I've seen rotting souls up close, and its even uglier than some bloody cartoon made for t.v. You couldn't put on television the horrors that warriors deal with excellently every day. Those taped-up rooms full of broken bodies are not sights for the uninitiated. It's take a lot of focus, discipline, and training to overcome the worst humanity has, to see through to better days. In our religious world, we repeat the sayings, prayers, proverbs, and gospels that carry us to the promised land of light and hope, but how to reach the ignorant and insane? Repetition helps, as does a solid foundation in education.

The analogy I've always used in my work with the disordered people I'm closest to, my own family, is that they need much more help than I do. I am their "Anne Sullivan", so if I don't get through to them who will? Doctors? Pharmaceutical companies? Therapists? Television? It hasn't worked so far, has it? So what if some nut plays head games with me? I can break through any mindset borne of sickness, because I'm healthy. No matter the stimuli or conditions, I will endure to survive. 

I was talking to a lovely older African-American woman here at the library the other day who is struggling from job loss, economic instability, and the destabilization of her family unit that comes with sudden changes in her life. Right, been there: "If Mama goes down, we all go down!" And she knew exactly what I meant when I said it. She's been through it before. But, why me? She wanted to know. "Because G-d always chooses the strongest to challenge, not the sickest and weakest among us." We laughed about it, as she nodded her head in agreement, because the cornerstone of our faith is the juncture where the warrior meets their own inequities to adapt and change to. 

She struggles with old technological advances like computers (typical for her generation) and as we talked, she realized that we were the same person, because I told her honestly than no one has ever helped me with my work. I'm largely self-taught, because there are no classes, or books, or television programs, to become "Master Illuminator". I've also been alone and challenged as the people around me fell apart, and it's always me that pulled me through. 

In this modern world of psychotherapy that fails so many ailing people, I consulted an expert on her turf and conditions, under my family's threats of financial hurt (as is typical for them) when 1) I lost my job in the economic crash, like so many other people around the world 2) my friend committed suicide practically on Facebook 3) I got punched in the head repeatedly during MMA training and 4) I finally lost my beloved and very aged grandmother—as my psychotic aunt guarded her hyper-vigilantly so I couldn't see her during her last days, caught in the grip of paranoia that marks schizophrenia—as the last good link to my maternal line, because if my world goes under, so does theirs. 

The woman I consulted under my then-doctor's recommendation already knew I was extraordinary, but she still wondered about my state of being. I couldn't help but smile when I brought her back in a full circle to my troubled family as the source of my lifelong woes (the place I always come back to, because it's true), which led her to ask me (and for this question, she leaned in, with her eyes shining brightly): how? I told her the truth: I am the source of my strength. Huh...but who supports you? Ah, yes, the language of any typical psychology student in these troubled times that we think are so unique to today. It always comes up short in the face of superior technology, doesn't it? I couldn't help but laugh to myself during this last session with a human healer who wants to be on the forefront of this new world with us; my very own Counselor Troi on the USS Enterprise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deanna_Troi). "I do", I told her. 

Normally so poised, she shuffled in her chair, adjusting her notepad on her lap, switching her pen to the other hand. She waited a moment to see if I would go further, so I did what I always do with people who are light years behind; I repeated it. "I am the one who supports me." And that's "my truth", a recurring motto of these times lifted from pop culture, as a justification for an insanity that cannot be explained away. I am the one who supports me. It's me. I am the strength I need. I am the one I seek. I have been all along. And so I became the one she sought after, too. I hope it was worth it, Dolores!

It couldn't have been easy for our breach into your usual patient confidentiality clause, but I'm sure you'll forgive me. Same with you, Dr. Elizabeth, and my fellow confessors. It's disturbing to be known like that, isn't it? There's no secrecy in our world. But, now you know and you can never not know it. Now you know the truth about transparency, and living a life beyond reproach. See you on-board my ship. Hope you make it! Until then, fight. Fight back with all your might. That's what I do. Life is worth it, all of it: the good, the bad, the ugly, and the indifferent. That's my mantra. Life is beautiful. So...what's next?

"Everyday I Write The Book"

Don't tell me you don't know what love is
When you're old enough to know better
When you find strange hands in your sweater
When your dreamboat turns out to be a footnote
I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions
And I'm giving you a longing look
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book
Chapter One we didn't really get along
Chapter Two I think I fell in love with you
You said you'd stand by me in the middle of Chapter Three
But you were up to your old tricks in Chapters Four, Five and Six
The way you walk
The way you talk, and try to kiss me, and laugh
In four or five paragraphs
All your compliments and your cutting remarks
Are captured here in my quotation marks
Don't tell me you don't know the difference
Between a lover and a fighter
With my pen and my electric typewriter
Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal
I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel

  

Sacred Earth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_America_Beautiful

Ever since I can remember, I've had values, ethics, and morality attached to conservation, with a genuine love for nature. It's like breathing to me. So, when I encounter ignorance (whether real or fake) about what it takes to keep our environment clean and safe for future generations, I know it's total fucking bullshit. Toddlers know not to litter, because fouling one's own nest is contrary to every living species on this planet, except for those sick humans who want to die from their own filth, which is about as contrary to any life-force as you can get, but that's the walking dead for you. Hard to talk to about, like, stuff.

One of the most successful anti-littering campaigns was widely aired during my prime t.v. viewing years as a kid, and as an adult GenX'er, I knew someday I would grow up to help my crying native friend, because I felt his disgust at this Hollywood version of Anglo hatred toward our planet as keenly as he did (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Eyes_Cody). Luckily in this century, we have genetic testing and a DNA database to protect our tribal affiliations. It was so powerful an experience for me as a little girl that I've never forgotten its impactful imagery. A lone "native" man stands looking at all the waste European colonists have wrought upon the landscape with a deep sadness, along with many other genetic diseases that we don't really need in this "new" world of yours discovered by humans more spiritual than you, motherfucker, but I digress.

Last spring, when I had a long wisdom tooth pulled, I sat watching a new flat-screen t.v. in a fancy dentist's office here in town as a welcome distraction, with the channel set to a Hudson Valley news channel. My procedure was over quickly, as I knew it would be, because the old tooth had descended fully and was weak from invading cavities. As I sat prone with instruments and humans poking around my mouth like they were interested cave explorers discovering an underground species of blind bats (I have some very unique and totally identifiable dental features), I was heartened to see a wonderfully inclusive ceremony involving a cute gaggle of kids, a rabbi, a priest, and a medicine man. Sounds like a fun joke, right? No joke!

A group gathered to bless our Hudson River in a honoring ritual that speaks of its importance to us as a giver of life. Uh uh! I grunted my recognition of such a great experience being filmed live and right near our shores. Yeah, fuckers! That's it!! You finally fucking did it! You got one thing right, and it's not a small one. Well done. It only took you a few centuries to catch onto our ancient relationship with this blessed Mother Earth, on this shining gem of a precious vessel that is your flying biosphere spaceship. Kudos. You're moving past children's entertainment to the real. Welcome to our happy valley, but be careful. We protect what we love here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_generation_sustainability

http://westchester.news12.com/news/blessing-of-the-hudson-river-held-1.10314127

The Third Eye (Blind)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_eye

Ever since my childhood bout with chickenpox (one that I don't remember), I've had a fairly visible scar on my forehead. My mom was worried about that, because I'm the only girl in my family, and she didn't want any physical evidence of sickness conflicting with my looks, which is the first real currency women are given in society. 

My market value as a marriageable mate is still very important (to her and to me), so she did what she could to keep a little toddler from scratching, including putting on those little mitts sometimes worn by newborns who scratch at night. Despite her vigilance, a few areas escaped her notice with my unconscious scratching: an area on my thigh, a little spot on the side of my face, and a big one almost dead center. Woe is me!

With time and the thickening of my skin, it's become almost invisible in most lights, excepting those occasions when it isn't. In my quest to normalize a semi-arid city out west, my then-boyfriend and I drove to a suburb of Denver that housed the one Asian section of that sprawling, modern (and almost characterless) city. He was still nursing serious internal hurts borne by an abusive mother and violent stepdad; abuses that included sexual molestation, as well as the usual beat-downs from a stressed-out, working class Brit trying to manage his émigré status, a new marriage with kids, and another country.

I was still licking my wounds from an aborted marriage, illegal as it was, due to my college friend's legal Unfit for Marriage status, so both of us were hurting from complaints not of our doing, but deeply effected by other people's collective traumas nonetheless. Because my ex didn't eat during his manic binge phases, I had greatly changed my lifestyle to accommodate his diseases, which left me in a serious deficit all around. I went a little wild with food on my own, eating and eating and never really feeling full. It was out of control, very uncommon for me, and really scary. I could see myself ballooning up daily.

I remember my mom visiting me in Littleton (right after the high school massacres that happened there), as I sat down to eat a 2nd heaping plate full of pancakes and sausage at the cheap kitchen table my dad and his wife bought quickly for the apartment I had to relocate to. My mom asked me what was going on, with the understanding that she already knew, because she did. I have always been a size 6 as an adult "Miss", but under the stress of earning a living and righting societal wrongs, I gave in to my new boyfriend's huge Scottish appetite. We ate at any restaurant we wanted to, revelling in our escapes from the incompetent horrors of other people's homes.

With this in mind, we sought out Colorado's version of "Chinatown" to look at exotic eastern goods and, of course, eat. He went into one shop to look around, while I stood on the pavilion sidewalk outside, smoking a cigarette, another teenage escape valve I still had in place. As I strolled around the storefronts, a gentleman dressed in the tourist garb of a "guru" stopped his robotic pamphlet distribution for "Ancient Eastern Readings" to open his mouth at me. I wasn't used to agape stares at the time, because weight gain and untanned skin is considered "ugly" out west, but this was more. He looked...scared.

After a quick recovery (like most immigrants learn), he began speaking to me in a language I didn't know, pointing at the middle of his forehead over and over again. My boyfriend was out of the shop he was in, and I was walking quickly away. "What did he want?", he asked me smiling, in the non-threatened, jocular way men who are 6' and 250lbs have with shorter, smaller, and darker men. "Oh," I laughed. I was constantly tired and hungry all the time, clear depressed signs both, and I knew it. Smoking had become a dull chore that made me feel sick, too. I hated my life; a life in a foreign land that felt stiff, colorless, dull, and flat, like an out-of-body experience, and I was acting out a role in someone else's boring movie.

"It's my chickenpox scar." Where? He didn't notice things like that about me, busy as he was staying alive and staying afloat, despite the dragging down qualities of his life, too. "See? It's right here. In the middle of my forehead." And just like that, he promptly forgot about it, because that's how little spiritual significance I had to a big blond, tan, western guy with a very large and showily dramatic depiction of "The Rapture" tattooed prominently on his forearm for all the world to see, because that's exactly how limiting the scope of America can feel to someone who is perpetually outside of the cultural norms.

He lasted ten days in the cushy second story of an extremely wealthy and well-appointed Park Slope townhouse that I secured for us, upon my return home. Ten days, before he bugged out to drive back home, to a dull place where generic red trucks for good ole boys are respected as having more value than the people who sleep next to you for years. Ten days. That's all I got to right his world for him, as my world turned upside down, once again. Ten friggin' days.

Leatherbound

Pressed leaf from a Ginkgo biloba tree.

As a publisher, I have books of all shapes, sizes, types, languages, and purposes. Most are for reading, but I am media-independent as a creator, which means I do not experience biases based on other people's preferences. 

A junior staff member from a small family business I worked at years ago was horrified to discover that my priceless going away gift, presented to a homesick Midwestern admin, was actually a one-of-a-kind art piece crafted from a hollowed out duplicate of a hardcover classic that's been in print for hundreds of years.  

A gift of a leather bound journal for whatever I want. Thanks, Jang!

Yeah, I know. It's why neither former female employee (not the gift getter, nor the assistant) works in publishing anymore. They don't understand that a book is more than text communication; it's also an art object. The very essence behind my success lies in my ability to transcend individual intentions (which are probably wrong) to ascertain real value, make something from it, and present it to all of you. That does not mean the people around me necessarily "get it", or see worth right away, because they can't. My job is to see.

I use bound materials the way any artist uses any medium in a serious way: by pushing it further than you ever could, and that's what keeps it so fun and fresh. Plus, I really enjoy the feeling of "shock and awe" on your faces that rings in "frontiering". Hey, parents get bored, too! Have fun this weekend and go make something, will ya?


"For those who fight for it, 
life has a flavor that the sheltered will never know."
- from the movie, Sucker Punch.

Murderer

You should know by now that I openly express my disdain about people who use and abuse their so-called "religious beliefs", because I've published a lot of information about the continued erudition behind the scholarly traditions that comprise my religion. It ain't easy, yo. And that's why serious faith is mishandled so often, because it is so very hard to do. That's why, as Catholics, we say we are "practicing" our faith. 

Of course, I've been chosen to receive the greatest of G-d's gifts, which I try to gracefully submit to, in service of those greater strengths, but that doesn't mean average people like it or understand it. Many people are held tightly in the grip of their inadequacies, and that was burned out of me a long, long time ago. I do occassionally brush up against rank ignorance, though deeply ingrained prejudices tend to stay in remotely isolated areas, but it can happen anywhere in the world. 

The quickest social distortion begins with our easily understood written text that originated as the spoken word of firsthand testimony and witness, through books that hold our most sacred human stories passed down from our ancestors as they developed a higher, burgeoning consciousness that'll ultimately connect us back the universe, through what we call "Universal Truths". To deny that logic is an everyday mindtrick I won out against a long time ago, too, because in my world, it was called "childhood": http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2015/03/acts-of-creation.html.

Just like our ABC's, the first intentional misunderstandings of our faith start with those basic rules called "Commandments", with the understanding that to err is human. It is through His Most Divine Mercy that all can be forgiven with His Infinite Grace. We also believe in a greater technological understanding than that which currently exists, which means we actively seek to evolve into unity with the sentient universe that is forever, to reside in what we call "The G-d Consciousness". I know it's really hard. That's why people of faith are the most educated.

We do not define "G-d's Consciousness" specifically as an old man with a beard who lives on a cloud in the sky, but we do understand that our ancestors tried to explain their striving through a visual pictorial that was an expression of our belief about a benevolent universal truth, which we are also ever-expanding (just like the universe) through our continued exploration of the vastness that is our inner/outer space, which is also extremely hard to fathom and explain. And so, our ancestors started on a path to enlightenment with rather crude (to our eyes) representations of an inner space that's also at the core of our being. It's a very intimate place to be, like fragile newborns with their new parents. Try that on for size one afternoon, as a collegiate teen smoking and drinking with friends around a campfire. "Whoa, dude! All we are, is, like, dust in the wind." Yeah! I know! Stardust, "twinkle-toes"!

So, we accept that it might take several lifetimes (or less, depending on the human being/situation) to achieve this actualization of the self, and that you may not attain it, like, ever, because you suck, and heaven is for holy people ONLY. That's why we study so friggin' much. It's driven by a noble quest for the truth that's out there, as part of what can sometimes be an insatiable curiosity to find Our Maker within the beginnings of all life, like an epiphanic (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/epiphany) flash of light and heat and collision and implosion that's expressed as an outward explosion, in a great BIG BANG! We want to propel ourselves backwards and forwards through time and space, seeking out an intergalactic journey that's also occurring simultaneously as an inner space within the apex of our human consciousness: on earth, as it as in Heaven. What is within us is also out there. Dude.

You kinda need to understand a lot of stuff (or not, as the case may be), and that includes basic reading/writing skills. I've come across learning disorders and other common brain disabilities/impairments so often that I've learned to group my spiritual gifts of understanding, compassion, and erudition in the rare class it belongs to rather than, say, your flawed interpretation of the rules.

For now, I want you to focus on what "Thou Shall Not Kill" really means, which is actually a ban against having a maliciously murderous intent towards your neighbor (as in, "Love Thy Neighbor"). Many extremist iterations exist that supposedly work in service to The Ten Commandments, and, as such, are likely be totally incorrect. That's the price you pay for a shaky foundation, like not knowing how to spell or simple mathematics. How do I do that? Oh, good! Here we go. Again.

I want you to spend this upcoming weekend contemplating that somewhere in the world, you are considered a murderer, because you have killed. The ridiculous "fruitarian" from the movie "Notting Hill", who only eats stuff fallen to the ground, considers you to be so, because you "murdered" the harvested carrot on her plate that is her belief system, fucked up as that is. Of course, that's just the surface that masks her mental illness(es) and eating disorder(s), like today's marketing-induced "gluten-free" jerk who merely seeks to trendily mask their fussy anorexia behind a legitimate case of Celiac's Disease or genuine gluten intolerance. Trust me: you don't ever want to feel that sick, even if you lose a few pounds from violent diarrhea and near-constant vomiting. Asshole.

Someone else's indifference to killing a spider in the bathroom is another person's holy fiat, as a Buddhist monk so strict, he carries a broom to sweep the ground before his feet, so as to prevent himself from killing anything. Yeah, it's extreme, but it's also this guy's legitimate cultural belief, because it was developed before they knew that life exists outside the limitations of human sight. It's kind of batshit, but he came about it honestly with what he had on hand technologically, at the time. He also thinks he might come back as a fruit fly if he screws up life badly enough, as a just punishment for his very human undoings. In truth, it's technically involved and spiritually in-depth, which is why you totally shouldn't do it. Their version of reincarnation is not your genetic inheritance, because you definitely don't have the Nepalese in you to do it correctly. Trust me, wigga. Yeah, you.

But, posers do it all the time. They deliberately misappropriate from another culture to hide whatever fucked up stuff they're too chickenshit to face directly, so they borrow someone's deep faith that's been passed down from their ancestors for millennia, like that yenta from yoga class who was totally reborn in an expensive ashram overseas (way spiritual, way existential), before returning from her vacation as the insufferable "guru" at your local gym, as self-righteous and obnoxious as ever.

And so it goes. To the faithful Hindu or Buddhist, you are a disgusting, meat-eating blasphemer blindly consuming their sacred cow. Think about that this weekend, while you bithely grab some hamburger patties to char during your backyard barbecue. Or, perhaps the next time you hero-worship that guy who slit women and children's throats during his "Fog of War" overseas while fighting our "enemies", who's now trying to cope with horrific flashbacks all day every day, while he sits in a lawn chair drinking a beer right next to you. He's a killer. I want you to openly wear the moniker of "Murderer" this weekend, as you go about your day-to-day life. 

Think about how you look to someone outside your particular set of cultural references. From this starting place, we will move forward to the more difficult questions facing society. That's all for today, "Mes étudiants". Live well, and with great intent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/murder

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_%28United_States_law%29

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kill

Badass Dragonfly

Me and a young dragonfly, on a beautiful Spring day.

Last week I walked out of the library on a beautifully sunny, warmly seasonal day to spot one very active dragonfly flitting about the entrance. I could tell right away that it wasn't a full grown insect by the size of it, but this little guy already had moxie. I watched it fly around it for awhile before I took out my smartphone to snap a few pics, fretting that the automatic door to the library would draw it in and seal its' young fate forever, before life really began. 

Within minutes I had a lot more to worry about, because I inevitably began attracting attention, which happens every single day of my life. Often I can channel those attentions and energies into more constructive actions, but not always. 

First, some older guy passing by wanted to pick it up and move it after I pointed it out. He worried in imitation of me, upping the conversational ante a notch by saying that the youngster would immediately get crushed by a passerby. He then went one "douchebag" move further, placing his socked Birkenstock foot right next to the bug to make it fly away, supposedly making his point about its' safety by its' immobility. It hadn't moved at all in response to him, unlike the fluttery open-wing display the young bug had flashed at me when I got closer to it earlier.

But that's not all, folks. Two pale hipster chicks with matching skinny jeans, face piercings, and large tats wanted to "help" out, too! I warned one of them away by pointing out her big dog jerking about on a small leash, with the well-known fact that dogs like to chase and eat bugs. Amateurs. One of them decided to get a piece of paper from within the building for emergency bug transport, thus opening and closing the very door I was trying to keep shut once again, which I kept repeating futilely to the small crowd. 

I think she thought she was an expert on all things related to bugs by stint of the rather odd and prominently displayed tattoo on her forearm of a lady's head inside a set of spider legs. It resembled her and her friend, who looked almost the same to me, but apparently I was way wrong about that, too! Oh...that's not what I meant by "Animal Behaviorist", out-of-touch hipster. They always kinda suck.

Finally, one of my older retiree friends from yoga saved me from the gathering crowd by simply passing by. It had gotten way out of hand over this one bug, so I just walked away from the situation. 

We chatted as we walked uphill about tai chi, yoga, seasonal storms and flooding, how water always flows downhill, and realtors that take advantage of your relative ignorance by selling you a place on the cheap that floods with each passing storm because you didn't research water tables before buying the house you now own (which is really about the inanity inherent in the human condition), and then finally, I looked at her tote bag printed with Northwestern Native motifs from her cruise to Alaska, because I know about that stuff, too. She looked a bit pale and exhausted as we parted ways at the corner.

And that's called "Mid-afternoon" to me, kids. I have a feeling me and the juvenile dragonfly I left by the library are going to be just fine without a group of well-intentioned helpers. Let's just call it "instinct" for today's lesson about appropriateness.  Enjoy the weather today. It's perfection.

The Handprint

The Handprint  (Pearl River, May 2015).

In certain lights, a mysterious handprint is clearly visible on the door that opens from the studio's kitchen to the living area. From my futon, I can see that it's the size of a man's hand. It's strangely comforting, like a "good" ghost turning on the lights for you before you enter a room (if you believe in that sort of thing), or a benevolent, helpful robot (like Rosie from "The Jetson's") that has fresh coffee and homemade donuts ready for you every morning. 

http://net.indra.com/~dheyser/rockart.html

I've had this feeling before, and it is a deeply spiritual experience, not unlike looking at a picture of an ancient cave dweller's hand through the sands of time. There's a link between he and I that transcends time and space. We connect through this old house as humans who were (and are) here. 

We will always have this space to enter into, as people who have shared and bonded through a particular set of circumstances that ties us to this place forever more. Do you know what I mean? It's way metaphysical. Enjoy the cooler weather today, New York.

Beautiful Mushrooms and a Gorgeous Feather

I love collecting beautiful samples during my daily walks around town, sometimes shooting a bunch of images that go together well. So, instead of an individual Instagram and/or Twitter post (which you should totally check out for different content I publish on there, too), here's a bevy of natural beauties that are out there on G-d's green earth, just like you. Enjoy the last warm breath of summer this week!

Everyday magic, in a Fairy Bonnet mushroom.(Coprinellus disseminatus)

The mark of a fearsome predator, the Red-Tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis).

My man, St. Francis! What's up?!

A spot I hadn't noticed that before.

I took up the practice of Roman Catholicism again several years ago, after leaving the faith of my youth for many years. After my parents divorced (a huge "no-no" for strict Catholics), my mother asked me to continue with my religious studies until Confirmation, the rite of passage that marks our early teens, after which I would decide for myself whether or not I wanted to continue with church and religious practice. I didn't continue, for a bunch of reasons. I was a teen, I needed a parent to drive me, and during that time, both of my parents were uneven, sporadic churchgoers at best.

What is that? A statue?

But it had always been my intention to fold it back into my life later on: after school, work, and travel, I would return home and settle down, at which time I would become reacquainted with my faith, in order to practice it alongside my future husband and children. Despite a brief marriage that was not my choice by design, I've held on to that life plan. I hadn't really considered getting married until 40, long after I'd seen the world as an artist, and so it has come to pass.

Yep, it is. Lemme guess, who could it be?

I wanted to reintroduce myself to Catholicism, so I could discuss and lead the conversation with my family, building a common base of values, ethics, culture, traditions, and practices that would continue long after I was gone, and so that will be, too. We are in the year two thousand and fourteen, in reflection of that very same practice amongst our followers. Because our faith is among the strictest branches of religious practice, it was something I deferred picking up until later, which I did at a parish in Brooklyn, named after a saint in the tradition of my man Francis.

Yep, it's my main man St. Francis as a birdbath, ever tending to animals.

It is more than a series of "rules", though to an uneducated outsider I could see why it seems so restrictive. It is an intellectual tradition. We attend school during the day through the state, and after hours, we attend parochial schooling: that's double than the American average, something I forget until I start conversing with someone who lacks the discipline and foundation that comes with a rigid and difficult educational background. Now that I practice it again, it's no surprise to me that these deeply held values have re-emerged in my life to manifest my commitment anew: I've been abstinent and celibate for years, a sort of baptism back into my faith, where once the doors were closed to my college partying and city lifestyle. Some coincidence.

Compassion, beauty, nature, gardens, a love for the outdoors. Yep, that's me.

Since then, I've had more of these supposed "coincidences" come into my life, like finding an almost hidden devotional garden tucked into a development near me that I hadn't seen for many months, even though I walk past the apartment complex almost every day. Usually I cross the street at a certain point, but one day I didn't, and then I saw it: a garden with a statue, tucked under some pine trees in a courtyard with table and chairs.

Hey! I bet whoever made this is like me!

So here he is, the leader of our Franciscan tradition, a movement so powerful, we continue to uphold his principles today: serving to love and protect the animals that reside within this garden that is our planet Earth, refashioned for us to reflect on as a birdbath. It's something me and my main man, the patron saint of animals, would do anyway; we'd provide a welcoming environment for all G-d's creatures to dwell in. It has affected every aspect of my life, even when I don't actively look for it. That's the power of mythology, the pull of a story so strong, it endures until it becomes an almost human type of forever.

You ain't gonna top that, honey, so don't even try it with me. Someone's got my back, big time: http://franciscantradition.org/about.

An Illuminator's Bible

My first "real" Bible.

My parents gave me a New American Bible (St. Joseph's Edition) by the Catholic Book Publishing Company of New York, printed in 1972, as a gift for receiving my first Holy Communion. My mom hand wrote my personal information on the presentation page in her perfect Catholic schoolgirl script, a relic from both of our youths: I was just a little girl, and she was a very young and relatively inexperienced mother by today's standards, way before my history presented itself to me in the form of a vocation, and her Multiple Sclerosis set in to give her hand bad tremors. Years later, my Malamute puppy would pick out a few of my books off the lowest bookshelves to mouth on while I was away at work, cutting his puppy teeth on them by soothing himself with my oldest and strongest scents. 

I'd come home for lunch in the middle of the day on my little purple motor scooter, to walk him so he could go to the bathroom while he was potty training, changing his wee wee pads, steam vacuuming up doggie doo doo, and picking up books strewn about the living room floor, or piled up in his doggie bed rat's nest, along with chew toys and my oldest clothing items, like a sweatshirt from college days he got out of the bedroom closet's laundry basket: "Doing a little bit of light reading, eh, Ted?" He had pulled out the oldest books I had in my collection by the corners that stuck out from the shelf, like my high school yearbook and this red bound bible, dogeared time capsules of my life up until now. Life; it goes by so quickly.  

Enjoy it as much as you can.

Moss and Wall

A moss-covered stone wall becomes a lesson about 

man and nature living together in perfect harmony.

Kiss the Sky

Hot, hazy day with clouds.

I've always loved looking up at the sky; not the moon, not the stars, but the clouds. It remains the essence of summer to me: gazing up at the fluffy, white clouds floating by on a warm day, with a slight breeze playing among the treetops, laying on a soft, rich field of grass under the protective canopy of a big, shade tree.

Bright sky above, darkness below.

When I'm in yoga class and the teacher asks us to meditate on some generic "happy" place (like a beach or a garden), I turn my head to look up at the tall windows that frame the tops of the trees outside and the blue sky behind them, because I'm already in one of my favorite happy places: a beautiful library. Or I think of the park right across the street, or maybe if I really want to stretch it, the park that I walk to sometimes that's several blocks away. 

Sky framed by trees.

Some big leap, I know. But it tells me that I don't have to look far or search hard for beauty, because it's always near me, and if it's not right under my feet like a patch of grass, then I can always look to the sky. It's funny that when I occasionally get pulled into a heated debate by someone who is disordered, they typically try to poke holes in that seemingly airtight defense called "perspective", something I've studied at length and in depth, and to them I always reply in the language of my constants: water is wet, and the sky is blue. 

Above, reflected below.

Except when it isn't, but then again, I also know about a thousand shades of gray, because I've studied that landscape a thousand times, too. It tends to be bring about an end rather quickly. Any questions? No? Color me not surprised, at all.

The end of day.