salvation a la mode, and a cup of tea...

y'know, i didn't even realize it when i posted it, but i hit a milestone the other day. iGoddess has seen 100 posts! huzzah! and it was my "declaration of independence" which was the 100th post here. how awesome is that? definitely significant.

anyway, so i realized something today. i had an inkling, but it was percolating in the back of my brain and wasn't really anything to which i could give words. there was a lot of positive response to my declaration of independence, but something still sat wrongly in my gut about it. i really don't like saying, "fuck you!" to anybody. it's harsh, but i couldn't think of any other way to say what i wanted to, which is more of a "back the fuck off," rather than a "fuck off." y'know? i know what i'm doing more than anyone ever gives me credit for. most of the time, however, it's intuition and other things i can't put to words, so it looks like i'm doing something for no other reason than i'm stupid.

which i'm most definitely not.

because i'm not trying to be defiant or rebellious. i'm simply free, irrepressible, passionate. don't take hold of my sleeve to hold me back, because i will turn back to look at you and then pause only long enough to shake you off before jumping off the cliff to fly.

i've always been that way. even my physical eyes have always been farsighted, and my brain has always been able to see into the future through many possibilities. i've been called the "contingency queen" many, many times. i'm a phenominal planner. when i know what i want, i know many paths are possible to get to where i want to be, and it's a talent of mine: finding how to have my cake and eat it, too, and can intimately plan every step of the way.

there's nothing wrong with cake. "you can't have your cake and eat it, too" is a phrase created by the doomsaying apocalypticians of the phallocracy. pleasure is inherently evil, they say, and not to be trusted. feel guilt instead of pleasure, feel shame when you're naked, and feel uncomfortable when things are going right.

they're the ones who take hold of our sleeves when we're about to fly, trying to hold us to the ground with them. they're the ones who will even go so far as to sabotage opportunity, fill us with doubt, and guilt-trip us into believing gravity cannot be defied.

and yet i'd sat down earlier today with mr. brezsny over a cuppa tea, and this is what he said to me:

"According to Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, Judas was actually a more exalted hero than Jesus. He unselfishly volunteered to perform the all-important villain's role in the resurrection saga, knowing he'd be reviled forever. It was a dirty job that only a supremely egoless saint could have done. Jesus suffered, true, but enjoyed glory and adoration as a result.

"Let's apply this way of thinking to the task of understanding the role that seemingly bad people play in pronoia.

"Interesting narratives play an essential role in the universal conspiracy to give us exactly what we need. All of us crave drama. We love to be beguiled by twists of fate that unfold the stories of our lives in unpredictible ways. Just as Judas played a key role in advancing the tale of Christ's quest, villains and con men and clowns may be crucial to the entertainment value of our personal journies.

"Try this: Imagine the people you fear and dislike as pivotal characters in a fascinating and ultimately redemptive plot that will take years or even lifetimes for the Divine Wow to elaborate."

now, this made me think of soulmates, and the ultimate lessons we all come down, lifetime after lifetime, to learn. everything is here in our lives because we have put it there; what we choose to do with it is up to us. many people in our lives are present because we agreed upon it beforehand. the lessons we came to learn, the interactions, even those trespasses we have committed against others as well as those against ourselves by others were nothing more than pre-agreed-upon scripts we wrote ages ago and are now playing out

whether to learn a lesson that's on our cosmic syllabus, to even-out karma, or because we felt it would be a grand-funky adventure, it's there because we have put it there. that's not to say there's no such thing as serendipity or providence, but even those things of chance are there because we drew them there.

our thoughts, after all, manifest the universe.

mr. brezsny took a sip of his tea and complimented the lemon curd i'd made for the scones, then continued. "There is another reason to love our enemies," he said. "They force us to become smarter. The riddles they thrust in front of us sharpen our wits and sculpt our souls. Try this: Act as if your advesaries are great teachers. Thank them for how crucial they've been in your education."

i thought of dizzy then. she said that having a shitty mother forced us to become strong and self-reliant, which can be a double-edged sword. i have to agree. i can only speak for myself, but having shitty, shitty bio-parents only sharpened my own strength and independence, intelligence, and resourcefulness. i'd never have learned to land on my feet if my bio-father hadn't thrown me on my back so many times.

now, my agility is astounding. physical, mental, and practical.

i don't waste time nursing my hurts now, wasting valuable time being too vulnerable to recover and keep going. i don't find someone to cry to. i don't freeze when trouble hits, but instead hit the ground running and take care of the problem myself. most times, those people closest around me don't even know anything's gone wrong until after the crisis is passed. for those abilities, i suppose i really do have my bio-mother to thank. i'd never have been so independent, versatile, flexible, and capable if she'd actually given enough of a shit about me to help me figure things out when i was a scared, confused pubescent girl.

but, alas, it is a double-edged sword, as dizzy also said. i might have the strength to take a massive beating and keep going, but i also don't know when to stop. a large part of me has forgotten how to identify my body's and spirit's limits...simply because i had to get up and keep going, again and again, world without end.

i also have a very difficult time asking for help, or even realizing i might need it. i don't know how to receive kind behavior, like should someone want to hold a door open for me. i've always held open my own doors, pulled out my own chairs, slain my own dragons. there was no one to watch my back, and quite honestly i don't know how to be any other way. and no one's ever shown me. that dog bite i got a few weeks ago? yeah, i got it because i put myself at risk so that another one of the groomers wouldn't be bitten. i'll take the hit myself, and i've been like that since time out of mind. and i don't know how to feel anything other than guilt or failure should someone actually do likewise for me. i'm used to being the only target out there.

double-edged swords...




"Consider one more possibility," he said, polishing off my last lemon scone. "Imagine that the evolution of your life or our culture is like a pregnancy: It needs to reach full term. Just as a child isn't ready to be born after five months of gestation, the new world we're creating has to ripen in its own time. The recalcitrant reactionaries who resist the inevitable birth are simply making sure that the far-seeing revolutionaries don't conjure the future too suddenly. They serve the greater good."

my scone lodged in my throat. i tried to wash it down with the last of my earl grey, but my throat glued itself to the gummy scone and i choked and sputtered instead.

THIS was what i'd been trying to get at! somewhere, in the back of my brain, i'd been struggling to find the exact words mr. brezsny had just dropped into my lap. in pronoia, the universe gives us exactly what we need exactly when we need it, including the bad guys and bad things that happen when they happen. they're the whetstone upon which we are sharpened, but for what purpose? only we can figure that out. why? because we have drawn them there, and we need whatever it is even the Big Bad has to give us.

even those that stand on the sidelines and call me a fool for existing so thoroughly in my Passion. they'll never stop me from finding my passion, from living and being everything that is Delena of the Funkywild, but they'll serve the Big Picture of Fingerpainting Awesomeness that the Funky Wow hangs like a mural in the Menstrual Temple of the Funky Grail. they'll help ensure that the far-seeing, dream-filled, revolutionary Passion gods and holy succubi don't go crashing into the future with such thunder it triggers the sundering of this plane of existence due to 6.6 billion people all crying out in a Funky, bombastic, phantasmagoric supernova of blinding bliss as the psychedelic mushroom cloud explodes in all their brains all at once.

their recalcitrance is necessary for the very fabric of reality to hold on to itself. the eagerness of the far-seeing revolutionary dreamers is such that it would rip the world apart with the power of creation, like a blade of grass punching through concrete, only Cosmic.

now THERE is passion!

thus is pronoia: everyone and everything is necessary and therefore to be loved. revolutionaries, pronoiacs, philanthropists and peacemakers, as well as gas company moguls and terrorists, recalcitrant naysayers and litterbugs. and yes, even fucktards.

love them more than you love them.