I love Los Angeles for a million reasons, but the fact that the LA hip hop scene is finally jumping off again is not a small part of my satisfaction with this city as of late. There's some great music coming out of the mainstream, commercial hip hop world right now, too (especially on the production end of things.) Still, it is really nice to hear that the level of sophistication and creativity coming out of the bedrooms of 19 year olds in this city is on par with the platinum club bangers. These guys are killing it daily. The new west, listen up...
so that you could not decide in an instant to say it,
so that upon reflection you could stop
in the middle of saying it.
*******
Let us touch each other
while we still have hands,
palms, forearms, elbows...
Let us love each other for misery,
let us torture each other,
mangle, maim,
to remember better,
to part with less pain.
*******
Enough painkilling, heal.
Enough cajoling, command,
even if your fiery joys
mean endless inequality
and melt our vessels
that are dispensable.
Enough rehashing, create.
Enough lying to the sick:
they will not get well.
*******
On my back, alone,
I feel your seed dying in me,
feel its fear, feel its wish to live on...
I wonder if I can carry
so many deaths inside me, as I nurture
my own?
*******
The wholy feminine poetry of Vera Pavlova. Her words are the words of Kali, of Quan Yin, of our universal mother Mary. Here is an interview of Vera by her gorgeous daughter, the psychologist Lisa Pavlova:
Responsibility. Response Ability. Is there a difference between being responsible and being response able?
In order to be responsible for one’s affairs or behaviors, inner or outer, one must have a response. The response is a result of being response able. What we choose to do as a result of our responses is an ethical matter. The ethical quality of the response is consciousness. Are you behaving ethically when you take responsibility for your response?
We are not designed to have total control of our emotions. Fight or flight. The collective, the creator, the chemical have the ultimate reign over our emotional experience. So, although becoming consciously responsible is a developmental process, it is not as much a matter of getting better at it as it is a matter of growing into it- becoming comfortable in our lack of control over our own fundamental experiences. That is written in stone. The meaning we choose to make of our responsivity is our conscious, responsible choice. Maintaining mindfulness even as the tsunami, the earthquake, the fire and the flood innundate us, inside and out, is the practice. Responsibility is the outcome.
This part's for my love of old How the rose in your heart you hold Still all the water in your wells won't make it grow Oh, the call of the nightingale How I love beneath the ghostly sails We move like gypsies 'neath the mist and beneath the gloom
This part's for my love of new How the bulbs in my heart are true They send the shoots through my fingers into your bones Oh, the call of the collared dove How I long to be your one true love We'll move like gypsies 'neath the stars and beneath the moon
Oh, how the river flows under the ice and snow The keeper of the flame The rose captain knows our names His perfumed breath we breath For you my dear, my love will never leave
The vernal equinox is here! This is one of 2 times in the year when the amount of light and the amount of darkness are nearest to equal across all parts of the world. The sun, rising toward the pinnacle of light that is the summer solstice, appears in the sky halfway between its highest and lowest path on the vernal equinox. This is a sacred and rare balance that occurs for only 2 out of 365 days every year. Because it is march in the north, lightness of being is on the rise while the shadow gets shorter and more condensed in response to the height of the sun. This is the day/night in which the sun begins his highest ascent to melt off the masks we wear and warm our authentic desires.
The equinox is about balance between bodies in relationship to each other. This balance can be between our own physical and energetic bodies, the celestial bodies or the actual bodies of lovers, family and friends. For those of us who have invited new bodies close to us within the last six months, now is an excellent time to harness the energy balance of the universe and align ourselves with not only our true centers, but with the true centers of others around us for the first time. This is a time of accelerated creation potential for the qualities we want in relationships within and around us. Now is the time to sow the metaphorical seeds that we wish to nurture and warm with the natural cycles of the sun. Dysfunction has the potential to realign with function to create a new, healthier balance. All we have to do is surrender our awareness to any lack of balance that exists inside and around us. Consider what hardships the darkness of winter carried into consciousness and imagine them realigning with the sun, the earth and the moon, with your heart, mind and soul. Like darkness and light, surrender and raw, impulsive action are balanced today and will carry us into alignment if we desire. The doors are open for 24 hours, if you want to- walk through. What we plant and cultivate now will pay off with a high yield when the time comes to gather our harvest in 6 months, at the autumnal equinox.
I'm in the belly of the canyon. I can't come up with any reason. Why a ghost is following me. Why a ghost is following me.
I've got some feed for the longing. I've got the pill for the bad dreams. The apparition dancing with me, stepping down all over my feet.
There is no key to my gate, but you can still come around. Lean your ladder against my window and I'll come down. I'll come down. x x x x x x You can still come around
Kelis is the baddest bitch. She's been ridin' the beat like a bicycle since long before Gaga, Rhianna, or Nikki. The world would be so much different/better if bad bitches like Kelis were in charge. I hope we get to witness a bad bitch take back of this horribly unbalanced and confused culture in the very near future. The Boss Bitch Revolution of 2011. 2012? Los Angeles is the best city for a bad bitch takeover to originate in. Paris and Miami would be allies. Not to mention Rome or Rio. The problem is that we have to stop fighting from within, organize with the fire of Kali and the fascination of Medusa deep inside us all and get bossy. Give 'em a taste, they'll want some more. This is difficult when so many of us still have fights within ourselves, not to mention within our relationships.
Yes, magic happens when the genders unite. Unfortunately, that seems next level for our culture at this point. It's impossible for over 50% of our adult society to live in harmony with the opposite gender on a personal level. If only one gender can hold the power it must be the women, the creators and nurturers of life. Looking around, I see that so many archetypal relationships are out of whack. We are disorganized- in thought, in attachment, in communication. The earth needs to get knocked around a little, kicked off it's axis and determine a new center that we all spin around. I would really like for bitches like Kelis to be at that center. Diamonds on her neck, diamonds on her grill.
*NOTE: Rorscach cards framed on the wall in Caught Out video. Shout out to Visual Understanding!.
Take your practiced powers and stretch them out
until they span the chasm between two contradictions... For the god wants to know himself in you.
-Rainer Maria Rilke
Surrender yourself to death, return what was loaned to you.
Give up your pleasures, your pains. Give up your friends, your lovers. Give up your family, your past.
Surrender what you hate, what you desire. You will know nothingness.
It is the only reality.
You will no longer want to possess.
Possession is the ultimate pain.
-Jodorowsky
Transition is all around us. All that you count on will change. It is an amazing blessing to watch the lotus unfurl and amazingly painful to watch the petals decay back into the mud. These concepts are not so hard to grasp, yet it still feels like a shot to the heart when we lose things we thought we would always have and gain things we didn't even know we were missing. We are unfortunate to live in a culture that buries so many fundamental elements of reality- anger, death, evil, intimacy, altruism. Here in modern America, we are not allowed to see these things, instead they must be hidden under our masks and we are trained to be terrified when they ooze out into the light.
Something must die, if anything is to live. Every decision involves excluding the non-chosen options. I believe that energy and matter are finite, cycling back into themselves at all times. When we let go we aren't really letting go, per se, but more likely performing some energetic alchemy, some psychomagic. Transformation is undoubtedly a healthier, more connected process than banishment, repetition or repression.
We all resonate in each moment with a specific vibration that is only attractive to some. Sometimes our vibrations are out of tune and the result is that we don't resonate with any other energies or beings that actually compliment us. Defeated, some of us recognize our mistakes, take the time to clue into our true selves and try again with a clearer heart. Others among us have never been in tune, born with the karmic debt of learning to expect dissonance in relationship with others instead of harmony. These people walk the gray line between blessing and curse and may feel destined to be either alone or surrounded with people that block them from cultivating the very areas of their soul that need to be watered most. The possibility for each path lies within each one of us. In the eyes of God, we are all equal.
