Dancers can be so competetive. Having just returned from a magical visit to the seaside sanatorium - my homeopath said the sea air would be good for my bronchioles - the scales are falling from my eyes. There certainly is a lot of whispering and gossipy giggling, a lot of manly "'sup dude"'s conspicuously not directed at Lenya, certainly quite a bit of griping about our modern dance instructor. Now one of the lovely ladies I have grown to admire, Raina, tells me she is thinking about leaving in December. Well, there's still a long time between now and December. Just visiting the sanatorium helped me keep a broad perspective - just think, Lenya could come back and dance at the sanatorium some day, and that day may not be too far off. Yes, we just need to surround ourselves with people who are working on the difficult lifts - not people who want to go cutting the tips out of our pointe shoes, as they say.
Well, it turns out that the Carolina Chocolate Drops are performing a little show tonight, and I'm thinking about going even though we are having individual pirouette critiques on Friday...

Date: 20 September, 2008
Event: Yard Sale
Location: Olive Street, Media PA
Condition: Mint
Format: Vinyl
Price: US $1.00

The Mayor's Bench

Ludds, I remember painting the barn and listening to this voice.

Ludds

In my waking life not much is happening besides social adjustment and "hard science," and by that I mean "hard Etruscan grammar". But my dreams have been more rich. Here's another one:

I am at Friends' Central, though I am not a child. Rachael L. has been kidnapped by a cult and killed and I vow to go back in time to rescue her. I think about recruiting two friends to come with me for help, but logistically this doesn't work out. I go by myself, but the dream quickly becomes a nightmare when I try to infiltrate the cult but I get found out and they kidnap me and they're going to kill me, and THEN kill Rachael L. I think to myself, "What a waste, both of us dead!" The cult is made up of men who are very athletic and strong. Actually Sol is one of them, and when I interact with them, I don't sense malice and I don't feel vivid fear, just the clarity of their physical dominance over me. I try to imagine what I can do to escape, and my mind is filled with humiliating images of them holding me down with little effort as I struggle and tire.

But then, when I least expect it, my chance comes - they are distracted, the stays are slackened, I escape by my wits! Stealthily I sneak away, from the back playground toward Shallcross and the lean-to. I can just see all the people, and FREEDOM up by the new Science building...I walk a little faster, I'm almost there - but the Men are looking for me - they've noticed I am gone. I see them searching back by the playground - two have spotted me! I run but in my mind I know how much faster and stronger they are. Almost immediately they are bearing down upon me. I can still see the people by the new Science building. I am screaming for help but they don't hear me! I think to myself in a panic, "If only Abel was here to fight them off!" Then the two men have pounced. I am on the ground reaching out in the direction I was running. They've caught me and I know they will kill me.

Its not about Gender, its about the Agenda.

* Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of
rape or incest. THREE SUPREME COURT JUDGES COULD BE SEATED BY THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION, AND JOHN MCCAIN IS COMMITTED TO OVERTURNING ROE V. WADE!
* She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000.
* Her pastor said that attacks on Israel are because the Jews haven't accepted Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.
* Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.
* She's doesn't think humans are the cause of climate change.
* She was elected Alaska's governor a little over a year and a half ago.
Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside
Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.
* She's solidly in line with John McCain's "Big Oil first" energy
policy. She's pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables
won't be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for
listing polar bears as an endangered species--she was worried it would
interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.
* How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once
at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called
her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.

I've learned my lesson

Mixing pop and politics, one of my new class mates asked me the other day about what I've been doing the past few years. I told her and she responded, "Good for you!"

Siyavash was giving a lesson in the Persian art of dream interpretation, and he told me that one never interprets the early morning dreams by the same rules as the deep-sleep dreams. But he never instructed me on the interpretation of these early morning dreams. At 6:15 this morning, I began dreaming that I was back in Santa Clara in the woods near the top of the Hill. I was working with some amalgamated dream character in a barn when a door to door missionary came in. I hid in the hay loft to listen, where I heard the missionary tell my mentor (for I was an apprentice), "What you are doing here is wrong. Its going to come to an end one way or another - either you end it or God will. Who is listening up in the hay loft?" So I came down. I knew the missionary was referring to abortion. She took me aside gently and said, "You're going to be pregnant again soon." (By the way this is not true) I said, "That's all right because now I want to be." Then I came down the hill and there was some camp-like gathering of people. Abel and I were declaring our eternal freedom from marriage. I walked to the edge of the quarry-pond, speaking on the tin-can to Ian Letters. He had met Bryn, said he liked her very much and she had climbed naked under the covers with him. But then I said something wrong and he was upset and upset with me. We discussed the situation vehemently while I walked through the woods to a quarry pond. Things were resolved, we parted on good terms, and as I looked out over the water, a ghost-like figure in a black gown was gliding toward me ethereally. The realization came over me that this was Kevin Messman. As he floated closer, his mesmerizing stare turned into more of a playful smile, and he told me enthusiastically that if I wanted to go swimming, I better do it now because the pond belonged to Kate Marks' parents and they happened to be out for a few hours. "Right, Kate?" and there was Kate Marks, suddenly sitting on a soft bed of pine needles, nodding. "I myself would come here every day if I could," said Kevin.
I think this dream means that I miss my friends and good swimming holes.

What a whirlwind the last few months have been - a Whale-Tribe initiation ceremony. Not initiating her into the tribe so much as the silent touching of foreheads, the cultivation of radical honesty from the beginning. There was a special order to whom we touched foreheads with, it made a particular kind of sense. For Lenya, she thought she understood the logic from the beginning, but she wasn't quite right - she was humbled. There were blessed trips to Morocco, Nebraska, Chicago, Santa Clara, and Providence. A feeling of tender devotion to the present time and to the future was growing, as evidenced by:

- Rosa bravely moving to San Francisco and now having an apartment that overlooks the Bay (!?!)
- Zoe and Luca's handfasting ("You are the jewel buried deep in the Earth.")
- Lynn and Mike giving Lenya the honor of being their Doula during Lynn's pregnancy and the birth of their daughter
- Jim and Jesse diving with Lenya into a cold ocean and a clear pond and floating there, trusting that they wouldn't sink and drown, and the sun shining down on them
- Siyavash teaching Lenya to let go of the romantic dream of realization, them instead opening their eyes and absorbing the Universe - "There is the joyful face you've been longing to see!"
- Jophet instructing Lenya in Tandava, the Sacred Dance of Shiva, the origin of all movement, suspended naked in dark blueberry space
- Jophet and Lenya preparing feasts of calcium-rich foods, adding strengthening layers to their Whale-bone.
- Jophet beginning/continuing the intensive study of mycology

While these events were occurring, Lenya thought she was preparing in some quiet flicker in her mind, for her reunion with Abel Santamaria. "These moments, beautiful present, not laden with painful nostalgia but thriving in a deep sweet soil of history, will give me a frame of reference so I will be less unsettled when I see Abel again."

Lenya, did you really think that?