Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th has always been a favorite day of mine.  The day and the number are sacred to the Goddess, Aphrodite/Venus in particular.  I went to an underground open mike cabaret, one of my favorite places to be.  The host knows just who to invite, keeps out the riff-raff so that every reader, poet, musician who comes to the stage is on this same spontaneous wavelength.  It was spiritually expansive, acknowledging the interconnectedness. Wow, it was like the Universe was speaking through them, reminding me that this is the change. It starts slow, but when all these creative types are speaking to the same thing, wishing for the same thing, bringing it down from the ethers through the distillation into language---my heart feels happy, it feels like the whole collective consciousness is shifting towards the desire for community and connection instead of competition.

These events are ever so inspiring to me. Having all that creative energies just fills me with verse.  Several poems came out from it, most very raw. A few I had to share privately, others with friends. it's funny, how sometimes you just don't have the words to explain. Sometimes you have to use symbol, metaphor.  And sometimes those emotions just have to be released, attached to words and put out into the world.  I feel lighter when I can get the words out onto paper, so they don't clog up my mind.

I am recognizing that this will need to be a practice for me, especially as I am desiring to put out more art, to create more. Drawing and sketching too. There are a few bodies I know that I'd just love to sketch or sculpt. I've always done better with 3-D media, sketches feel like intellectual exercises...translating something full into something flat. It can be fun, but it's only preparation.

So, writing, sketching, sculpting.  And I have to sew up a new diary, I finished mine this weekend.

Priming and Pampering (and sunburns, oh my)

This weekend was full of beauty rituals. I spent six hours getting my hair colored and cut. I think a good portion of that was the streak of magenta I had put in the back and she did an excellent job. It made Sunday evenings photoshoot so much better: my hair was freshly trimmed and glossy, and I even got a little education in doing hair and makeup!  I think a few are surprised to learn that was always more of a tomboy, and transitioning into this highly feminine world of curlers, primers, heels, palettes of eye shadow, hairspray, accessories...it's all very exciting and a little overwhelming at times.

Also had time for a little culture this weekend. A small group of friends gathered to take in a little Shakespeare. The company was performing Macbeth, which I hadn't seen performed yet.  I was so excited to go, I totally forgot sunblock, and my arms are a nice shade of cooked lobster.

Monday is here now, a sort of free day. Plenty of things to get done: preparing for my ordination, preparing for the sacred courtesan course in October, a few people I need to reach out to. A more permanent Incall space feels closer...I've called in a couple beautiful temp spots.  Might one of them become a Temple?  We can only wait and see.

The Way of the Superior Lover

I'm reading a pre-publication edition of a text, The Way of the Superior Lover.  It popped up while cleaning the house I'm cat-sitting at, and at such a good time.  As I'm coming into a new year of the sacred courtesan program, I am looking at what I want to learn, work on, and discover about myself.

I already knew a little bit of this....the tongue and fingers as energy directors, moving energy through the body with a caress, light scratches, biting, a nibble. These methods of exploring a body are my favorite, so I am looking forward to a week of practicing this.

The biggest trick, by far, is just to stay conscious of where the energy is moving, and where it wants to flow. Especially in the throes of pleasure, it's easy to let go and just merge with that pleasure, with your partner. To stay aware and to help the energy flow, circulating and increasing....to give that as a gift to your sexual partner, that love in the moment. Stepping back from the pursuit of climax, breathing through into new heights.

I have experienced these heights, stumbled into them really. It's the practice of becoming aware of these energies, and the practice of learning how to gracefully ease it where it wants to go. Taking yourself and ego out of it.