Athena Graceland is morphing into new dimensions of HALLELUJAH!!!
Yeah, I’m in love with video now.  My intention is to raise YOU up!!!!!

Are you ready to explore new frontiers of ecstasy, delight, gratitude and wonder?

If so, you have come to the right place!!!

Let the SHRI resound through your sweet slice of infinity within!!

 

Sloppy God-Drunk Tonight!

Nobody told me that surrender would lead to the harder stuff!  Jesus.  For the last couple of days, I’ve felt quite compelled to let go of agendas… and just see what the unfiltered, unrefined, unadulterated present moment has to offer.  It’s been pretty nifty.  But now in my candlelit bedroom, I just want to flop around and act like a stoned teenager.  You know, paint my nails (metaphorically, not literally…), flip through teen magazines, drool and dream about losing my virginity to the stars of Beverly Hills 90210 (you should have heard the way I laughed at THAT one.  Sheeezzz.  I’m really enjoying deepening my friendship with Athena Grace lately!!!  She’s a hoot!)… God… the grown-up version of unstructured bedroom time would probably be knitting and watching Divine Nectar, the female ejaculation movie… or flipping through spiritual books, taking gluttinous notes in my recycled spiral notebook and watching the candle light dance my walls to the end of love.  Or even…actually WRITE poetry… I mean like in a notebook made of paper with an inky stick writing device.  I think they call ‘em “pens”…

 

MORE!!!  Give me MORE!!!  This moment is NOT enough… I want to feel MORE fulfilled.  More BLISSFUL, more happy and peaceful and in LOVE.  Oh God!  Saying all that is making my heart cackle, squeal and screach.  A dam of relief has burst inside my chest because those sentiments have gone unspoken for too long.  I mean, honestly, those deep seated longings are the root of most of the bullshit in my consciousness.  As if there is anything truly BETTER than right f-ing NOW!  (What could I say instead of F-ing?  Right Sigmund Freudian NOW.  As if there’s anything truly better than this epic relic of angelic songstress conferencing on the all pervading tip of God’s tongue…)

 

Shoot.  Landing here on the page, it is apparent that droves of unicorns are thundering recklessly about my inner planes and trampling my rhyme, reason and ability to color inside the figurative lines.  This blog is turning out to be an irreverent scribble all over the inner walls.  And you know what???  It’s turning me ON!  The next thing you know, the screen of your computer is gonna split like the seat of too tight pants and I’m gonna burst through and do a vivacious, random dance for you as I fling prismatic vegetable confetti everywhere.

 

ONCE AND FOR ALL… What is the stinkin’ meaning of life?  Please!  Can we all just stop trying to be so damn “good” when we answer this question?  Honestly.  Let’s make the meaning of life TO BE FULLY, unapologetically OURSELVES tonight… Screw all this good Samaritan bull-og-na.  Just at least for tonight.  Let’s let our hair down, rip our shirts off, hurl darts and radically miss the board on PURPOSE and sing operatic versions of our favorite songs of all times!!!  Let’s dump bags of flaming Cheetos all over the ballroom floor and STOMP ON THEM, savoring the sound and sensation as they crush beneath our holy feet.  Let’s put on our finest pearls and then RIP them from each other’s necks and watch them scatter chaotic elegance about the roomy halls of Infinity!   I’m not kidding, people.  I think I am drunk.  The moral of the story?  Be careful what you name your church (says “Our Lady of God-Drunk Grace”)… Hahahahah… I am absolutely cracking myself UP tonight!  This would be too good to be true… if it wasn’t true right now.  But as far as I can tell, this 3D experience, involving breathing and laying on my belly on my foam pad of a bed listening to enigma as candle light flickers on the enlightened faces of my guru posse is about as real as it gets.  Not that I’m asserting its realness… No.  I’m just saying… this is about as real as I can fathom right now.

 

This morning when I was jogging Hanalei Bay, from a distance, I saw this dude taking pictures of himself.  What a narcissist, I thought… but I was tickled.  As I got closer, I saw that he was photographing himself in front of a beautiful peace sign made of vibrant orchid petals!  Though I hate to stop in the middle of a work-out (and let my heart rate drop), I HAD TO this time… For YOU.  Because I want to share my world with you.  Because it is so beautiful, so often… And you might think I’m making it all up if I don’t cough up some evidence once in a rainbow moon (someone told me today that the moon does sport a rainbow halo around here now and again!).  So this “stranger” of a man with God pouring from his smiling brown eyes, he and I photographed each other with this auspicious random, anonymous act of beauty.  It was such intimacy we shared.  And then we parted ways.  Maybe forever…  I have included the photo.

 

Now I’m gonna sign off and swan dive into my bubble gum, adolescent fantasies, dark worlds of uncharted soul secrets and the ever-arduous task of resisting the bliss of being.

 

Dear God… Please, oh PLEASE… Leap through the screen of every single reader… dive into their open eyes, make a huge, ecstatic splash in their heart, so that they feel the drunken joy of Love’s holy, eternal presence.  God!  I’m counting on you!  Please bless them all by igniting their passions and breathing infinite space into their wells of peace.  Thanks you bitchin’ All Pervader!  I love you!

 

Amen!

Frolicking With My Wizard Friend

I’m not sure if I’m capable of blogging on the beach… Because I am being inundated by excruciating beauty from all sides.  But I’m gonna give it my all.  My wizard friend, Jack took me to one of his favorite places on the south side of the island today, Maha`u`lepu.  I was skeptical, because the south shore is known for being more of a spoiled tourist mecca.  But come on, what did I have to lose?  Plus, Jack’s enthusiasm alone was worth our pilgrim’s slog.  Turns out, the magic here is thick enough to spread on toast!!!  I just tried to take a couple of pictures for you… but I don’t think they do much justice to the transcendent exquisiteness that I am marinating in right now.

 

Even just the fresh sea air alone is worth writing an entire opera about.  It’s a steady, determined breeze that forces its soft, salty, satin way into my lungs and under my fluttering clothes. I’m sitting on a mat in the sand, shaded by these native Australian trees.  Jack says the aborigines called them “talking trees”, because of the self assured tongues they speak in when the wind plays in them.  They’re tall, slender, scraggly evergreens.  But of course I’m saving the best for last.  The water!  It is like an immense, undulating patchwork colored jewel. (Jack called it “sea bling” as diamond light shimmies about the surface.) Towards the shore, it is pale, lucid aquamarine.  So pale, you can see to the sandy floor.  As it sprawls out, the aqua becomes emeralds, turquoise and jade.  Beyond that, it dances into a classical oceanic indigo.  Oh, and let’s not leave out the creamy, white froth that spontaneously leaps into existence like feisty punctuation.

 

This wet, swelling bejeweled body has stolen my heart.  And I say, Mama, it’s YOURS, take it!!!  Her tides have lured my heart into a state of fevered devotion.  I want to be by her side forever.  If I am too dense and human to remember the All Pervading Ocean, at least I can remember this vast though finite earthbound version of the Infinite with which my heart thirsts to be merged once more.  (And yes, I know that once merged, always merged.  I know that I have never left the Ocean, and neither have You, Blessed Friend… But it’s this silly game of duality.  Bites us on the butt every time!)  A seal just swam up to the beach for a little resy-poo.  Auspiciousness!  I love watching her blubber jiggle as she shimmies along the golden sand.

 

Now that I’ve set the scene, I want to tell you about Jack.  We met a month ago tomorrow.  He was my forth poem customer on the island.  I told you before that sometimes I have an immediate knowing that certain people are going to approach me for a poem.  I recognized Jack the moment my eyes fell on him.  Actually, I mistook him for my dear friend, Phoenix (who originally brought me “Home” to Kauai seven years ago)… from the back.  I thought, “Phee would have told me if he was coming to Kauai, wouldn’t he?”  But then I saw Jack’s pale, lucid blue eyes, which happen to be portals into an etheric, mystical dimension of which I am still not entirely acquainted… But I do know it’s a heavily enchanted land of wizards and other such wonders.

 

“Welcome home,” he told me a month ago… and something in me knew without a doubt that he *really* was welcoming me home.  He’s singing a song right now.  He is often singing a song.  He lives in a tent on an orchard in Moloa`a and spends his time slurping the copious island beauty through a straw and spitting it back out into sketches, paintings, poems, songs and a general [aloha] spirit of reverent, wizardish merriment.  He adores me.  When we’re together, I feel like a queen… but not the stuffy Queen of England variety.  NO!  The queen of enchanted nooks and crannies.  The queen of the inner space formerly know as “outer space”.  He is ever zealous to share everything wonderful and overflowing with me.  He’s enthusiastic like an unspoiled, awe-struck child, yet wise like a man who has lived a long, full life in a School of Knocks of Diversified Intensities.  I am very discerning about the company I keep… and Jack is top notch.

 

But if I was all caught up in appearances, bound by rigid expectations about the form in which my true friends would appear, I would certainly have missed him altogether.  I mean golly, he’s a short, balding fifty four year old man with a mutton choppy beard and a vibrant slew of button down Hawaiian shirts.  I’m glad my head is not SO far up my ass that I would miss him… and all of the other Beloveds whom God has delivered in such a clever diversity of packages.  Though I must say, I have a proclivity toward older men.  The quality, heart-FULL ones make stellar company.  Maybe because I’m not all preoccupied with having sex with them… I suppose they probably are of me… but they’re well behaved and seasoned enough to appreciate me in my fullness and they blossom in my vivacious company.

 

Jack told me today, “I wrote in my journal the other night that you have the sexiest mind of anyone I’ve ever met.”  I had to laugh, because Dan, another one of my all time favorite Beloveds (a sixty two year old piece of Holy Artistry) used to tell me the same thing often… Sexy mind…  Okay, I’ll try that on!  It’s one thing to be incessantly tangled in this “sexy” mind of mine… and entirely another to see it all neat and tidy from the outside.  Next time I’m running myself in mental dervish circles, I’ll have to remember that it’s actually sharp and SEXY, in addition to being chaotic, crazy and SO beyond unruly!

 

My tantric philosophy teacher, Douglas Brooks loves to remind his students, “You are the company you keep, so KEEP GOOD COMPANY!”  When I’m with Jack, I am fully alive, passionate, unlimited, inspired, grateful, regal, appreciative, magical, generous, compassionate, useful and wide awake!  I like me this way.

 

I guess I’ll keep him…

 

Amen.

 

PS~ It worked out okay… blogging in wind whipped paradise.  God?  Slip me some skin, All Pervading Pal!

 

Ice Cream, Second Chances and First Impressions

The last couple of blogs I’ve written have earned me some extra positive strokes… which I’ve interpreted were a result of being “deep” and “profound”… two words I love to be associated with.  But this morning, I’m noticing that I have piled some pressure on myself to keep it up.  I LOVE getting comments.  They make me feel HEARD (which is a big one for me), valued, connected.  (Thank you all who have shared your thoughtful and inspired depths here!  And those of you who haven’t…I would LOVE to hear your voice!  Please share your magnificent heart and mind with the class.)  Alas… Sometimes “digging” for the profundity can pull the wool over authenticity’s googly eyes.  I strive always to free my mind.  And therefore to free Our mind.  Even if that means talking about ice cream.

When I wrote poetry at the farmer’s market the other day, one of my modest handful of customers was a young boy-man, accompanied by his silent, exotic, deep seeing girlfriend.  He handed me a stack of four quarters and I asked him what was in his heart in the moment.  He mused effortlessly for but a moment and then said, “I’m gonna eat ice cream when I get home and I’m really excited about that.”  His manner was the dictionary definition of matter of fact.  It knocked me sideways, since I am the queen of the deep… Ice cream?!?  What in God’s frozen decadent name do I have to say about ICE CREAM???

But I tried to ignore the fear voices and give myself over to the endlessly gurgling font of the muse.  I banged out a very short poem about ice cream.  I kept rereading it, wanting to add something… wanting to plump it up, pimp it out.  But it was stubborn as fuck.  It dug its inky heals into the ground and refused to move.  I shrugged inwardly and pulled the shameful paper from the archaic, indifferent machine.  Sweeping my embarrassment under the expertly woven rug of my ego, I read it to him and his enchanting consort.  I couldn’t tell much what he thought.  They stood up and thanked me and then confessed that they were both writers.  Oh no!!!!  I made a fool of myself in front of other writers!  (Remember that character from the early 80s version of Sesame Street… The piano playing puppet who was always screwing up his songs and getting ensnared in the hellish twists of self depreciation… and banging his head violently on the piano keys?  That was me.  Inside, I was banging my head on the typewriter keys, pounding out miles of linguistic gibberish.) (Note to reader= I am exaggerating.  Please do not identify me entirely as an exacerbated ego maniac.  Sure, I have that voice in me… and in the interest of this story, I have turned up the volume on it… but it is just one facet of my sweet, gleaming rock of a self.  Thanks.)

Sigh.  Poor Athena… lost her chance to dazzle.  Frowny faces and  Poopy diapers abound!  But this blog is a crystal ship setting sail to the land of second chances!!!  So I am going to take this opportunity to stab the topic of ice cream again.  And the beauty of the blog is that this is MY space, and nobody can storm upon me and put a stop to the frenzied sling shot bus stop cabaret of words.  Except me…

And now for a sock knockingly profound poem about ice cream!!!!!

A he and a she

Once upon a Sunday pounded

The corridors of gluttonous Infinitude

Screaming.

Creaming

their respective under garments

with the abandon of phantom

children.  Dreaming.

Dreaming of frozen jagged alps,

Melting in their eager mouths.

Sweeter than the nectar

Of a mother’s supple, dripping

Nipple,

Under-sucked

And over-paid.

They waded through

The endless slew

Of the thirty two flavors

That never quit.

Thirty two flavors of banana

Splitting,

Hardball hitting home run

Sunday night fevers

In a dish.

In a cone.

Home?  Oh Lover, this is it!

Phew!  I feel much better… Now I can die complete.  But I don’t want to die yet.  It was just figure of speech.  Okay God?  Make me live a long, long, arduous, growthful, uphill, sweat inducing human haul, okay?  (Making fun of my default orientation to Life…)

Hey, I need to practice poeticizing on the fly… so please toss me a topic (in the comment format), and I will knock it out of the park of my mind and back into the “out there” “great unknown soup”, back to you.  BRING IT ON!!!! Amen.

Who Knew Salvation Was Only A Haircut Away…

I think the barista must have forgotten how beautiful she is.  I kept finding my eyes lingering about her satiny platinum skin… entirely of their own accord.  And I felt this tough girl vibe from her, as if she was saying “what the fuck are you lookin’ at me for, lady?”  All this was very subtle though.  It’s the kind of conversations we have all the time as we swim about our blushing, incognito lives, amidst other racing humans, but mostly do not have the presence of mind to notice, except once in a while.  Anyway, if she had have remembered how beautiful she was, she would have felt that it was completely natural for my eyes to play about her flower petal skin.  But here she was, just slingin’ coffee for the masses and gathering crumpled wads of meaningful paper, smoothing them and organizing them lovingly in a special drawer.  Mundane.  This world seems to be designed for us to constantly forget our radiance.  This world is a plea for us to time and again and maybe even once and for all remember our radiance.  I’ve been in her shoes.  Someone is staring at me and I am thinking to myself, “Man, why you gotsta be all up in my she-it, back off, wouldja?”  But if I could just remember that they are merely a thirsty soul, feasting upon God’s divided beauty, I would graciously smile and open wider.  Next time…

Okay, there went that topic… Now what?  Where is the weight?  Where is the resistance?  What are the truths that I squirm at the idea of disclosing?  What would God have me say?

A few things.  Mykael gave himself a haircut the day before yesterday.  Finally.  He was only threatening to for the past couple of months.  And then, Wednesday night, I come home from dinner with my fantastic friend Dan, and there’s Mykael, dressed to kill in his gray briefs, lily skin and the pinkest nipples, standing ankle deep in a sea of his own copper mane.  His hair looks awful.  It’s fuckin’ short… and very jagged and sloppy.  I panic, because I have already been feeling repulsed by him, and now he doesn’t even have his endearing eighties sit com heart throb hair.  He looks like he’s been drafted by the military.  Great.  It’s getting on nine o’clock.  He pleads for my aid.  I don’t want to, but I feel compelled to clean up his terrible mess.  I give him a couple of hopeless swipes with his dull scissors before realizing that I am not the messiah that he was hoping for.  He keeps at it.  A buzz here a few snips there.  Buzz, buzz, snip, snip, while I slither between him and the bathroom sink to slather my toothbrush with white, minty paste, stepping in his stunning auburn puddle, tracking sticky locks about the house.

Once when I was maybe fourteen, I cut my mom’s hair on the front porch of our house in San Leandro.  It was a very traumatic experience for me.  I snipped a bunch off, realized the seeming permanence of my actions and panicked at the unruly, erratic slop I had made of her hair.   But there was no turning back, so I fought the fear, and I kept snipping my way to attempted redemption.  But the more I snipped, the more helpless I felt, until I finally gave up and fled to my room in tears where I refused to come out.  My mom finished the job herself and looked seven eights decent upon completion.  Good job, mom.

Time out, because a man just left the café with a large sized cup of something… topped with a bountiful squirt of whipped cream.  He took an eager, glutinous sip as he strode toward the door, and whipped cream clung to his bushy salt and pepper mustache.  I was captivated.  I couldn’t help it.  My eyes were magnets that stuck to his endearing, cream strewn ‘stache.  He was one of those manly men, who looks like they’ve lived a full, manly man’s life, driving big rig trucks down the long, lonely road of life, his stony heart riding shotgun, he stops every few hundred miles to fuel up on chicken fried steak and eggs and a black, steaming cup of folgers at the desolate diner along the endless, rural highway.  He felt my eyes burning holes in his cream coated anonymity and soon enough his wily, leather tongue emerged to lick himself clean the way only a man can.  Priceless.

Time in.  The moral of the story about my mom’s haircut is that haircuts just aren’t my bag.  And that’s okay.  It’s just a horrible feeling to see that I have made a mess of someone’s appearance (!!!)  and the weight of the pressure to fix it crushes my delicate psyche.  I mean, it would be a different story if I knew what I was doing… if I had some actual techniques or something.  But I don’t.  And so I shant give any more haircuts… until I go away to beauty school, once and for all.

But I brought up Mykael’s haircut to say that something has shifted in his being since he cut his hair.  I can see glimmers of hope.  I had been totally wearing the dick in the family. (And loving it and HATING it, but mostly wanting to leave my pathetic pussy whipped man) But now, with his short, almost stylish faux-hock, he pushes back, and I am forced to reorganize my orientation toward our power play.  God, I can be such a sorry little drill sergeant.  Such a punishing father.  But only when I have a willing accomplice to carry out my steely commands.  This new rendition of Mykael hasn’t been so willing.  I think I like this, though it is a bit startling.  It’s kinda funny to notice our dynamics and poke fun at them.  This morning I was feistily teasing him about how big my balls were; how much space they took up in my briefs.  Listen, I don’t want to make a habit of this game… but it’s refreshing to reveal the covertly ruling, subterranean energies playing out in a relationship and then act them out in a comical way… just to let them know that they are no longer slipping under the radar and dominating.  Just to let them know that they are not so mighty and all powerful.

I announced my enormous balls as I attempted to pin him down on my bed.  “Surrender to me.  Surrender to my huge balls,” I commanded, as I exerted my full force, pressing down on him, feeling like a semi-domesticated tigress.  But thankfully, after not too much struggle, I was the one pinned, entirely helpless and choking on my own peels of exhausted laughter.  Thank God.  Maybe there’s hope for us after all.