playa bound

The car is packed and the kids are itching to hit the road. We'll be in Black Rock City around dark. Ooooooh Boy. Probably won't write until the other side --- expect unwisdom on labor day or thereabouts, V

Last night's Tarot Reading

Issue: Overturned Hierophant crossed by Oppression
Outcome: Princess of Wands

Issue: I have stored the oppressive voices of tradition in my bones and flesh. I have tried so hard to live outside that oppression, but I have carried it with me all my life. I don’t keep my house up for me, I keep it up for my relatives -- but not really, none of them live with me -- it is my brain that generates the voice of oppression and judgment. It is my brain that has forced order upon my life. It is my brain that wants to be both subversive and respectable. Okay, I am ready to give up the respectability and reclaim my wildness. I am ready to again become "She who makes loud noises in quiet spaces" "She who dances in inappropriate places." I don’t want to listen to the voice of the Hierophant any more.

Outcome: The Princess of wands drags a tiger by the tail into the path of creative freedom. She is on fire, riding the blaze of her self. She wields magic that changes the world. She changes the world that she touches: Her children are allowed to make loud noise, to make a mess, to tow each other down the street using bicycles and skateboards. She tears up her studio to rebuild it in the image of her own dream. She paints her car with poster paints, packs up the kids and all her costurmes and heads out to the desert to indulge in a week of experiential art and madness. Everything changes as I claim who I am.

Revolution

The problem with revolution, of course, is violence. It would be neat to take part in a non-violent revloution of inclusion, whereby the revolutionaries simply have a good laugh, and welcome anyone else to dinner. -- Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw

not tone deaf

I am not tone deaf. I was able to sing with a scale for 5 notes. I have songs to work on for my voice lessons. I am not tone deaf. I just need to get my mind out of the way.

My mind out of the way, I keep having to work on that concept. My mind is so quick and sharp that it thinks it can do everything. My mind is the most exercised part of my body.

Now I am going to get my mind out of the way. I am going to type with my fingers. I am going to let these words roll out willy nilly and not worry about editing them. Maypbe I’ll even stop hitting the pabakspace key when I make errors. Funny thing thought – microssott corrects many of the errors. In trying to sopstop myself form from ysins thte backspace key I fam writing slower. It is a habit. Mircrostt will not let me starat at sentence without a cpiatl letter. Ithis is goingt o be like reading james joysce. Good luck.

Guud luck ia asay. Imight have receated an exerciwet that got mymind more in the way athat out. Like like like idont know wyayt.

This isn’t art it is ra,mbling noncesne and I ma ma ma am gong to closenow and make summer breakfast…..

no studio wall, no dancing at all

The contractors are here!
Walls come tumbling down faster that I ever imagined. Suddenly I had to clean out a space I hadn't worried about getting too until later this week. I got a little snappy. So today my dream is not to snap at anyone.

burning summertime

Summertime and the living is easy....
We're sleeping in and getting ready to burn....
The world spins and we breath deep the changes....
Of dreams and a world that we choose to create....

Be well, create your life in an image that feeds your soul
Believe in the gods and goddesses that serve you best
Revel in the final heat of summer, dry grass, roses, and tanned flesh

We'll head out to Burning Man on Saturday.
Look for us in Kidsville or Contact Camp if your there too
I may not get back to the blog before Labor Day
The heady hot days of summer are calling too loudly for me to sit here and type

xoxo, Vajrana Lisa

revolution

There is a box I have hidden
I put in it all the parts of me
That I thought would destroy the world
They rumbled around the in box
Getting noisier and noisier

He once said of me:
“She liked to make loud noises in quiet places”
And that she went into the box as well
And the box rumbled louder still
Keeping me awake at night

With that box overflowing
I still did things I loved
I followed what was left of my heart
But my ego had too much sway with all that
Juice locked away in the box

I am opening the box these days
And discovering myself
Loud in quiet places
Laughing in the grocery store
Dancing in public, lifting young ones to fly on my shoulders
Singing out loud, being willing to yell to find my voice
Trying to be impeccable with my words

I also discover what I cannot abide anymore:
We went to China Buffet last night
Yuck. Well the sushi was acceptable and you could eat all the
Crab legs that you wanted
But I was revulsed by Americans eating “all they could eat”
Stuffing themselves to nearly popping
Using canes to hobble back to the food tables and fill up their
Plates once more

I was revulsed by our willingness to be gluttons,
To blot our minds with food and consumption
I was revulsed by the grease in which everything soaked
And the slippery insides that resulted
Allowing all clear thought to slide away

Who are we in this nation?
What have we become?
That we can twist teachings of love
Into stories of repression and violence?

She liked to make loud noises in quiet places.
She should have started screaming in the restaurant.
She feels like wailing when she walks into department stores
She can’t be a good submissive American anymore
She is doesn’t want to wait for the revolution anymore
Maybe it is time to destroy the world as I know it
And dream a new one in its place

ramblings

Yes, I believe in Gods and Goddesses. I see you on the street everyday. I see God working things out, figuring out how to do human life. Clearly Goddess hasn’t got this figured out yet. There is still too much pain in the world to believe in a divine plan.

For, God is manifest in the homeless addict that I sat next to at the bus stop last week. Goddess is manifest in the grossly obese woman who ate a ‘super-sized’ breakfast next to us at Burger King yesterday. God is manifest in the woman whose car has broken down in front of my house and who is struggling to get it running so that she can get to her new job in Salem. Goddess is manifest in my transgendered 60 year old friend who is worried about breast cancer. God is manifest in the settlers being evicted from Synagogues in the Gaza Strip and Goddess is manifest in the soldiers carrying them away. God is manifest in Cindy Sheehan camped on the roadside in Texas and Goddess is manifest in George Bush cloistered and protected in his Texas ranch. God is manifest in my gay neighbor and his beautifully tended garden and home and Goddess is manifest in the rambling yard filled with second hand toys and too many children that I drove by on the way to the hospital yesterday.

I see Gods and Goddesses everywhere. If I believe in God, then I must also believe we cannot be anything but equals in this great equation and experiment of life that God set in motion. I must believe that we are all equally manifestation of Goddess. And it is an odd toss of the historic dice that has concentrated gives religious credence to George Bush’s actions that kill and maim and concentrate wealth in the hands of a few while ignoring the pleas of Cindy Sheehan, a grieving mother, who camps out along a roadside. Mr. Bush does not have access to divine will any more than does Cindy Sheehan. It is each of us who must choose our actions in the world. Why do we allow our president to ignore her? Why do we continue to allow the wealthy, the male, the heterosexual able-bodied person to so dominate our culture and economy? I think we are all on a highly addictive drug called conspicuous consumption, affluence and comfort. We don’t question the status quo because the status quo is too comfortable for too many of us.

second chakra

Most of this blog writing has been about finding my voice. I am learning to write and speak my thoughts out here in public. It is about opening up my second chakra and trusting the flow of the universe. I have things to say. I am tired of speaking in closets.

I want to change that. I want to learn to speak bigger and louder. And so, I started this blog last year. I started writing and revealing and being in the world. Some people read it, you, and I thank you. Some people comment, I thank you too. But there is still a bit of hiding involved here, I write in my room by myself and post it on this page. I rarely look you in the eye.

Yesterday I took my first voice lessons. I have a lot to learn. I am not tone deaf, no matter what any one said to me as a child. I got some bad lessons that messed up my ear and make it hard to find myself on the scales. But I can hear the differences and I can feel when I am on pitch. Lyle says I will learn. Lyle told me to journal, this work will be as much about emotions as about singing, so here we go. I journal in public now so you get to hear about the finding of my voice. Here is what came up:

I felt confused.
I couldn’t find myself.
I felt off balance.
I don’t know where to be, soprano, alto, even lower.
I don’t know my range.
I can’t tell the difference between being in harmony and being on pitch.
I can feel when I am on but not when I am off.
I hold tension in my neck, jaw and shoulders.

The tension kept creeping back into my throat. I could feel the tears just below the surface. I didn’t cry but I probably will soon. Ahhh, yes, this work is probably also about learning to cry more spontaneously.

Sometimes I wonder why I have to confront all this stuff in myself. Why am I so compelled to walk into the hardest emotional work I can find? But there you have it. I am compelled and I am going to walk there. If you choose to read this you'll get to listen to the process. Thanks.

gratitude

I read Dear Abby nearly everyday
It offers some condolence to my heart
After the horrors of the front page
Reminds me of the small tangible tragedies
That my mind can manage
I don’t understand plane crashes and wars
I do understand broken hearts

I feel guilty when I don’t read the paper
Dreaming a life of ease and safety
Not that this town is without tragedy
(they have finally arrested young Brooke’s killer)
But our tragedy’s are of the expected kind
And we spend our long summer evenings
Watering the flower beds and chatting with neighbors

That reminds me, I need to go turn on the
Garden water before the heat of the day
Make instant oatmeal before taking my sons
To sports camp and oceanography lab
Take the dog for a walk and wash the dishes, begin my day
When I read the papers, front page disasters or Dear Abby heartbreak,
I am filled with gratitude for my simple life

breaking silence

The words have left my house.
The silence is gigantic.
I have forgotten how to speak.

I set out a heavy cut glass vase
To sparkle in the twilight
And hold a memory of the impossible.

The vase has been empty for years
Waiting at the back of the shelf,
it held the silence and a bit of dust

I wash it clean and enjoy the sparkle,
consider placing flowers in the vase.
But instead prefer the emptiness

Its silence and its emptiness are sacred and useful.