Tag: the written word

Indigenous Peoples Day

Here are a few posts which share in this day of celebration…

Excerpt From To Ride A Painted Pony Wild

All life was fresh, new and exciting. Elton and Bernie were our insightful friends. Experiencing nature and reading stories about the lifecycles of American Indians is who we were. Our horses were part of this mystery as well. Whom we were all together was important to us and our horses were everything. Bernie and Elton’s song Indian Sunset off their Madman Across the Water album was our warrior song.

Often, we rode barefoot. When cold we had our parents’ go shopping to buy us moccasins. We read about the history of the Medicine Wheel and experimented with our innocent religiosity.

The Medicine Wheel is based on the wisdom of the Native American belief. The four directions of nature are part of the medicine wheel circle representing the four seasons.

While riding we carried a compass to know which direction we traveled. Spring is the direction of the east which is also the time of brave eagle. Summer is the direction south which is time of trickster coyote. Autumn is the direction west. This is the time of retrospective bear in his cave or sometimes owl and the setting full moon. Winter is the direction north and is time of wise buffalo.

We were robust girls misfiled along a line of make believe. We used our imagination, developed our spirituality and because of our horses, we united these two qualities into an earthy reality.

Lake Onondaga, Tree of Peace
My Medicine Wheel

Proclamation Indigenous Peoples Day

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/10/08/a-proclamation-indigenous-peoples-day-2021/

Cheers to Tito, books out @ Pre-orders…

“When you’ve jumped the fence into the bath

we will understand if you have the last laugh.

Just as things seem as they were before,

down with the field up with the air conditioner.”

~GBH Forbidden Zone.

Before we got our new fence it was a forbidden zone for our cats. The fence had holes and was leaning over into the neighbor’s yard. To make a long story short we decided to just go ahead and fix it with a new fence…

“A flash of lightning. Dionysus becomes visible in emerald beauty.”

~ Pg. 65 Dithyrambs of Dionysus / Friedrich Nietzsche  

No longer a forbidden zone, it once was a dark night when the rains came with lightning and took our Football kitty away from us. Was it the hole in the fence and the neighbor’s German Shepherd? Was it the nasty drug dealer now gone due to the dumb bloke being taken away by the police? Or was it an alien mutation … it sure looked like one. If you do not know what I mean look it up? Finally, it could have been the other side fence that is also now new. It was replaced a couple of years ago. A jump over by local twister trickster coyote? Coyote told me this,

“Nope not me.”

What was once a forbidden zone is not forbidden anymore.

This autumn has its forbidden zones. I must be honest my once explored forbidden zones have become zones of good fruits of wonder.

I am turned on because a hearty harvest has come in. It feels good. Here are some projects I’ve been part of. Here is the harvest…

Where The Wild Gigs Were –~ Tim Hinely & Friends, HoZac Books.

https://hozacrecords.com/where-the-wild-gigs-were/?fbclid=IwAR0UFeZvrMwWWWWDJcrgfMkPDgw8Y6MSyEwQ_M8wU1rkLoZfGA95uJPZqZg

New Wave Chicken, Steve Hart, Art Issue, Fluke Publishing,

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 185246509_1785559494950149_3029390388761368667_n.jpg

https://fluke.bigcartel.com/product/new-wave-chicken-9

FORBIDDEN BEATS S.W. Lauden, out on Rare Bird Books.

I must say the “wheeling and dealing” is fun and sometimes hope filled activating. A learning experience. Contributing in a new way I am like our new red western cedar dog ear fence.

I am shining from the inside out.

The back door man is not someone I deal with … it is all up and up now.

It is amazing when a major film company takes the time to mail you an original designed t-shirt. It feels nice to be valued and treated with respect.

So, the new fence got some dirt, mulch and a couple of lavender plants.

Universal Pictures Feature Production, Universal Pictures is in production on a theatrical horror motion picture by Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us).

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_3576.webp
Tito Larriva Los Plugs. Oct/8/2021 Origin ID-AHCA Alex Bovaird t-shirt.

Innocuous Surreal-intrinsic

One of the three sister goddesses known as the three Graces who are the givers of charm and beauty in Greek mythology…. I call upon her now…. we need real beauty….,

You may think the story I am about to tell you is a bizarre story, but it is real, we are living it… yes now… it is redundant.

I have foresight. It means I can see things. The Covid-19 and all variants are not what you may think. It lives and expands through our bodies. Spreading from human to human …

If you could see it like I can, I encourage you to change your mind about things. If you are playing it safe, you will understand that what you are doing is for the common good of all human beings.

From another realm the Covid-19 virus is like a vast spider’s web. It takes and expands. It goes around and around. Humans are just a source of temporary expanding blissful glory of this multidimensional expanding life force.

It hovers and attacks those who are unaware and stupid. It can read minds and goes after those who play this death game. Some humans are in on it. They think they have control, and they want other people to die. It is a form of mass hysteria of denial that the virus picks up on. It is not stupid. It wants to survive. Until the very end.    

I can see it. My foresight tells me to tell people to beware, be careful… yet they play a lost game of denial, ignorance, and defiance. They tease it. This only makes it hungrier. The common good of humanity is not their concern.

I wait and watch from my cave. Deep grieving I feel.  I see it all from my electrical fire. I see the variant spreading. A dancing organismic virus web going around and around… and every time I see it from a distance, it sees me very aware.

I give it the finger because mine is cleaned and watched, my mask is on and I social distance. That is the one thing this creepy multidimensional monster hates.

I hope you know what this vast nympho wants… close together people, human beings who sweat on each other, jumping up and down against each other. It is a nightmare, Surreal-intrinsic… and all I can do is watch from a distance.

Innocuous in my cave around the electrical fire, for now… what a real sickness I see…

My Punkalullaby

Excerpt from MY PUNKALULLABY a paperback Memoir

I fell into the punk underground, but I was not a groupie or reject from an earlier

music scene. I was one with the punk scene,

and I tumbled into the mystery of it. I had a

voice again like I did when I was that young

tomboy. The punk scene was like Halloween,

Christmas, horror films, and freedom all at

the same time. Overwhelmed, I felt as though

I was in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,

mimicking Puck— taking on the images that

were around me without question.

I was becoming one with my punkalullaby. I coined the word punkalullaby.

It means that the whole time I was in the

punk rock scene, from beginning to end, it

was all about a song. One song to the next

pulled me throughout the scene. Once that

loud music got into my blood there was

nothing like it. I was socially awkward, wild,

and morally uncultivated. I was a perfect

product for the Los Angeles punk rock scene

because I was someone that the normal

culture had completely abandoned. Yet, here I

was, welcomed into an underground

counterculture.

It was my turn to create a name for

myself. I became a punk rocker. I would spit

in your face if I hated you. I’d hit you if I

loved you. For the first time in my life I felt

power.

I cut my hair, painted my nails black and lips Revlon Blackberry.

My bellbottoms

were thrown out and replaced with black

straight legs. I shopped at thrift stores and

navy surplus stores for my clothes.

For twenty dollars, I could buy a

complete wardrobe. I wore cowboy boots or

rain boots. I collected badges and put them

on my shirts. These badges were of local

bands and images that were important to me!

I started buying punk rock records and

listening to punk rock music and continued to

listen to the radio.

Wicked Men

Alexis Zorba: God has a very big heart but there is one sin he will not forgive. [slaps table] If a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go.

I viewed two films last night. The films are Wicked Woman and Zorba the Greek. They are in general both particularly excellent films. One is a 1950s film noir and the other is a cultural film from the 1960s.

Each film captures a time in history. A snapshot of how things may have been. Characters in both films are believable, realistic while also having a diabolical and magical edge.

As a woman a motif came forward that bumped up against my conscious feminine. Both films are from a winning male psychology. The men can fuck up, screw up, cheat, lie and even kill. They get away with it and so a happy ending for them. The women on the other hand always get the short end of the stick. They get let down, lied to, abandoned, used, and killed.

In the film Wicked Woman Beverly Michaels as Billie Nash is an independent woman who is on the move to find a place to put her roots. Roots within a man and a place in the sun. Billie keeps playing One Night in Acapulco by Buddy Baker, on the jute box. She is tall, smart, and has a graceful walk. Men are after her the whole time. The one time she focuses in on a man he takes her, and they plan a sinister plot that falls through. Richard Egan as Matt Bannister gets off the cheating hook and Billie is blackmailed, seduced and must split on a bus. She must beat it.

She is the Wicked Woman that gets the blame. Billie is smart and helpful, yet the man traps are all around her. As a bar server she is wise with her words as every man tried to get her. She even helps her victim drink all the booze she wants even though her husband says no. This bar did not have mixed drinks only shots and beer. I like Billie’s character and understand her. As a woman I cannot tell you how many times I had to take the short end of the stick and leave on a train or bus for something I did not do. Even if she is guilty so is Matt and his drunk ass wife. Even Matt’s alcoholic wife sides with her husband over her friendship with Billie. I think that the two dames in this film should have been wise by telling Matt to go screw. They could have sold the joint and headed for Mexico. To lie in the sun a little bit, drink and have fun. As Billie said. “They like women with Blonde hair and light skin” in Mexico.

Anthony Quinn as Alexis Zorba is our male Zorba the Greek. The film is a cultural phenomenon. It is what it is in an absurd way with a very excellent soundtrack. The hard edge Greek patriarchy is saturated with tradition. A village that is self-sufficient with a thread of history and honor. Every man in this film is an asshole except the fool. Zorba is a creative natural genius that has a compassion that is appropriate at times. He teaches Sirtaki to Alan Bates as Basil. A wonderful Greek dance which shows how Zorba relieves his pain of living life while confronting death. Charming in a way.

Lola, Madame Hortense, and the Widow are parts of this film if only indirectly put among the friendship between Basil and Zorba. It is correct when Zorba tells Basil that the whole town of men are jealous, and all want the widow. A lovely young thing.  Kind of like all the men wanting Billie in the Film Wicked Woman. In this case the lovely young woman is trapped, stoned and then has her throat cut. Premeditated murder by a whole community of men and their old crone women. They are jealous of her youth and beauty. Madame Hortense dies in this film thinking she is married to Zorba to cover up for his earthy affair with a younger woman named Lola. Regardless of this unbelievable cruelty the men dance away their pain.

These two films are part of the winner male psychology. As a young girl growing up, I had this crap dumped into my sensitive unconscious psyche. This kind of male world. I am glad I am wise to it now. I can enjoy these films for their place in history. Yet, I wanted to affirm they are playing against the feminine rules.

Man, at bar, “How about having a drink with me?”

Billie, “I can’t it’s against the rules.”

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_1231.jpg

One drop of rain

cropped-euphrosyne1.jpg

SEVEN YEARS ON WORDPRESS !!

I have Chiron square Mercury in my 7th house…

At the The VIVA May 21, Photo by Daisy Obetsanov

I didn’t speak much when I was young. Was not interested in writing either. Only a few poems. I played with my friends, but I found it more and more difficult to communicate at school. I felt restricted, invisible, or persecuted by my own peers. I was wild and not awake to the pounding of an education that seemed incredulous to me. I now realize I had foresight, creativity and a natural spiritualism that could not find contact. Nature was receptive! My mom and dad tried with lots of watercolors and paper.  A giant black board was painted in my room. Endless chalk drawings were created and erased, drawn, and erased. The old player piano in the boys’ room is where I spent hours playing any song I wanted that I learned by heart only.

Vesta 001

Did I not express myself in school because of fear? Was it the constant fighting and alcoholism in my household which pushed my mind down into myself? Was it dyslexic, autism or a painful shyness that was the bewildering issue within me? We the children were not diagnosed back then.

Having foresight was a curse when no one listened!  I did not have the proper device, neither did I have the wise ability to reach out towards others. I did not have a voice!

Now at 60 I realize my heart & mind are mature and keen enough to reach my inward growing child. That is my reasoning currently to create a hub like The Seminary Of Praying Mantis.  To share my voice and reach a global community! I believe this is the truth. Finding one’s voice and sticking to it is wonderful. The last seven years WordPress has helped to make this happen for me.

holy-baubo

I am celebrating 7 years with WordPress. My HUB in a global community.

While spending a few hours observing nature this afternoon. I know that the many voices were loud and some subtle. The chirp-chirp birds, to the black crows on tall cypress trees. Above me high in the sky are the circling hawks and the commercial jets. Sounds of life. One drop of rain touched me. I am one drop of rain too.

I invite you to support The Seminary of Praying Mantis and celebrate with me. I have words to read, items for sale and images to make you laugh. I have grown as a writer, author, and artist.  It is amazing that so many tools are available where one can publish ones’ works! It can be achieved very cheaply and sometimes even for free as with Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. I have taken the core of my punk philosophy, wild nature, foresight, and freedom to communicate with the world. I found a place to express myself. It is colorfully rewarding….

Massage as a profession or occupation

At about 8 o’clock PM.

The unpredictable Crazy days are far behind me and the routines of life have set in. Family and cats bring the little rituals of life which brings symmetry into the chaos of living such as; racing through traffic and surviving, watching current politics and not having a heart attack, and realizing that we all die. It is comforting to know that we live in a recycling universe, or so it seems. The point being within the light and darkness of life are the routines of everyday living that does bring joy.

Last night was a normal trash night. The difference in the routine is when husband said that there are two cars parked in our unmarked-marked trash can places. The usual sounds of annoyance on his part made me think about visiting with our new neighbors and asking them to move one of the cars so we might have a place for our trash cans.

The green sweat coat with 1976 on it pulled over my shoulders and I was off. I found myself in front of the neighbor’s house. Placing a knock knock and then pushing a ring ring upon their door and door button. Something expanded when I heard the ring ring.

It was a different kind of ring ring. It being a tasteful and alluring sound. The front door was half window and I could see in as one of my neighbors looked back at me. I mumbled something about the trash cans. The neighbor’s eyes widened open. Dressed in a light blue robe, looking confused my neighbor opened the door slightly. Having a face that was angular like something out of a Pablo Picasso paining such as Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907 during his cubism period; caught me off guard.

The new neighbors had radically changed the format and structure of the house since the last owner. As the door opened there was only a white hallway that met about half way through the house. Directly on the wall before me was a giant painting of what looked like a  Toulouse-Lautrec, Jane Avril Dancing painting. Yet this painting was one woman with her leg up and a giant red dress like a blooming flower. Once there were two rooms here one leading right and one left. One into a game room and the other into the kitchen. Not anymore. Straight ahead was a veil into another reality.

Our conversation was quick. I told the neighbor our problem. Nicely I was told that each of them had a  masseuse come out for a special treat message and that the cars were theirs. I was also told that both of them were almost finished.

Like clockwork each masseuse left in their two separate cars. I put out my two trash cans under the crescent moon of a very dark night. Feeling nicely surreal and wondering about our new neighbors?

 

scorn and unbelievable

Ritual is good. Songs bring in the seasons. In this dark time ‘song ritual’ help to ease the scorn and unbelievable with something sane and consistent.  The skins of my large white beans are shedding away as they boil in the pot. There are times when I feel like these large white beans.

Today during my heart focused breathing I was surprised to feel a pin point of joy dance upon my heart. Faces of love smiled before me and I was grateful. I cried for those released from this Earth, this planet.

What a mystery it all is. I talked to my oldest son. He said he was listening to a tape about the The Ten Hermetic Keys of Hermes Trismegistus.

The mental origin of the world and of man. 2 Corresponding harmonics. 3 Dynamics of alternation. 4 Bi-polarity and complementarity. 5 Cyclic repolarisation. 6 Cause and effect. 7 Gender. 8 The astrology of the Ogdoad. 9 The magic of the Ennead. 10 The alchemy of the Decad.

This caught me off guard. So I looked it up. I showed him my watercolor that contains this in a kind of alchemical way.

Watercolor Rendering by Hudley  (Azoth-1613-Basilius-Valentinus-Beatus-Georg-rebis)

I have this image hanging on the wall in the living room to remind me everyday. To show me that in this mystery of life, in all of this chaos and discord of life and death … light and darkness, there is a ritual that is beholding to us all.

Summer Poem number 2



I used to see anarchy & 
chaos much differently. 
Today I see it as something 
I will not agree to. 
Yet the will of an individual 
can be applied for the benefits 
of all or for only oneself. 
To harm others without caring. 

I used to think 
it was to bring all others 
to the table 
and to change 
and make new ways 
of seeing the 
world creativity 
and imaginatively. 
An individual can 
uniquely inspire a generation, 
or a few people, 
to be good human beings. 

Or the opposite 
can happen when an ego causes 
dark chaos & 
we are witnessing this now.  
It is a time to consider this all,
....
as very important parts of who we all are!? 
So much for August… it does this to me.

Small books…

 

As a long time do it yourself and or self-publisher it is always about the process of doing things myself. It is not always perfect. I learn as I go. I am much better at taking criticism now than I was when I was in my twenties. My worst critique is my own mind. My goal as a self-publisher is to forget about thinking that some other publisher is going to do it for me. Make it easier for me. I sometimes lull into that trap. My goal is to be able to continue to do it my way. I would like to eventually print up, made from recyclable material,  small books. Hand-held books. Some hand-held hard cover books some not. I love small books. They are interesting to me.

“A chapbook is a type of popular literature printed in early modern Europe. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered booklets, usually printed on a single sheet folded into books of 8, 12, 16 and 24 pages. They were often illustrated with crude woodcuts, which sometimes bore no relation to the text. When illustrations were included in chapbooks, they were considered popular prints.

“The tradition of chapbooks arose in the 16th century, as soon as printed books became affordable, and rose to its height during the 17th and 18th centuries. Many different kinds of ephemera and popular or folk literature were published as chapbooks, such as almanacs, children’s literature, folk tales, ballads, nursery rhymes, pamphlets, poetry, and political and religious tracts. The term “chapbook” for this type of literature was coined in the 19th century. The corresponding French and German terms are bibliothèque bleue (blue book) and Volksbuch, respectively. In Spain they were known as pliegos de cordel.[1][2][3]The term “chapbook” is also in use for present-day publications, commonly short, inexpensive booklets.[4]”