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Dear Sisters of Funk,

You have read my tales through many years of everything it is to be a woman. You've cooed with me through the sweet in life, rejoiced with me in victory; you've died laughing at my antics and the funny in life, and reached out to me through the painful.

I know life has me by the nape of the neck right now; I haven't yet figured out how to take control of everything on my plate, though with more free time now I'll be able to make that happen. But I haven't been there for you lately, to leave the supportive comments on your blogs, or in your email boxes, like I should and like I used to.

But...I know you're still there for me. The last couple days I have really appreciated your support. You remind me of who I am: Delena of the Funkywild. You help me see that right now I'm only trapped in my insecurity, and that my own exhaustion and overwhelm helped make me susceptible to my Inner Flaming Narcissist once again.

Because as we all know, being the Divalicious Funkmasters we are, that insecurity is nothing more than self-absorption married to fear.

Inspired by your love, my sisters, and drawing from your strength and support as my own strength has waned lately, I hereby summon my Inner Flaming Narcissist and banish that bitch to the little box in my head where she belongs. Instead of waiting for someone to come to me, to help me get out of this, I called on a friend instead. I called her.

Led by your example, my sisters, I called upon someone I knew beyond a shadow of doubt would be there for me...and she was. I'm getting ready to go meet her right now, so we can have fun together, and she will help me lift myself back up, and remind me of my beautiful soul, and show me the world keeps turning and the sun keeps rising and every breath is a precious gift.

I woke this morning feeling so lost and desperate, and just the memory of it makes tears burn behind my eyes. I don't understand why it's so damn difficult to find someone worthy of me, and what inspires someone to want to tear down a Funkmaster and treat her like shit. Works of art are we, and I never hear of anyone wanting to spray-paint obscenities upon the Mona Lisa or throw a rock through the windows of Notre Dame.

But I'm getting up. I'm making myself get up, and I'm going to banish my Narcissist and eat the damn frog of Insecurity. He's a bastard going down, that's for damn sure.

But I'm fucking eating that frog, godsdammit. My sisters, I was strongly moved to tell you how much I love you all, and how much I have to attribute today --the first day of my recovery-- to your strength. I agree with all your comments you've left the last few days. I love you all for them. Especially all of you; you all said something that hit me to my core. Thank you for keeping me on the right track.

I love you all.

winterbells

OMG!

it's freakin' adorable, and just so damned cute!

my score was 69,640 my 2nd run through...my 1st score being 360, until i figured out what was going on. OMG! cuuuuuute!

try it.

new project

dear wyrd, destroyer vulture goddess, who constantly burns heaven to the ground in a viciously benevolent desire to remind us to use our power lest we be devoured for those who would use it;

oh great trickster goddess who's always mutating my archetypes faster than i can keep track of them;

dearly destructive jiggy snake, you pyrokinetic rockstar with the hottest games since the Big Bang bonged;

i pray...

...for forgiveness that i should forget you in my search for the next biggest challenge;

...for pardon after rejecting the idea to welcome wetter, wilder, and more interesting problems to solve;

...for an amused chuckle at my presumptuousness, that a simple serenade would be all that was required to tame my Inner Flaming Narcissist;

...for understanding, because i am exhausted and bereft after my latest sojourn into ba'hara, lilith's third garden; after my dance of the bones on the hook where ereshkigal hangs the corpses; after the morrigan's ravens ravaged my flesh when her berzerker rage was done with me;

...for mercy, as i am confused and heartsick and unsure and afraid;

...for thanksgiving, as i am grateful my wishes for a new pruning were heard and answered by the following business day;

...for celebration, that the old has been shed and will continually be shed in the name of renewal;

...for gratitude, that i was created in your image as a gorgeous genius;

...for laughter, as i gather my freaking genius powers and fearless imagination every day to gaze into the maw of happiness, rather than be like those media-brainwashed automotons who gather their insipid courage to peer into the horrifying abyss;

...for love, because in all its beauty and gruesomeness, all its treasure and trash, the pearl and the puke...this is a perfect moment, and in gratitude and love i thank you for my life during this irreplaceable, priceless moment which has never been seen before and shall never be seen again.
for all these things, i pray. amen. a-woman. ohhhmmmm....and hallelujah.

-=[~]=-

for the next thirty days, i will not be posting here. well, maybe i'll post pictures, and haiku, maybe little one-line quotes i find here and there (i'm a sucker for quotes). but i won't be writing to express my heart and mind. i'm tired of my thoughts being used as weapons against me, so i'm taking a hiatus.

instead, i'll be posting for all of you, out there in my lovely and nurturing iVillage. i'll be posting comments, leaving prayers and poetry, love and light, well wishes and snippets of lyrics. it'll be my own version of what brandi-licious does with her metta meditations.

i'm going to dance more, love and laugh and pray more. i wish i could say ima have sex more, but oh well. can't win 'em all, i suppose. i'm going to validate myself more, and get back into the habit of my daily dee-lite. i've lost two (maybe three) people i loved, and it's thrown me. might take me a while to learn how to be a boomerang.

so today's the 14th. i'll be back on my birthday.

one small step for the Heartbreaking Work...

...one giant leap for me and my creative process.

the other day i wrote about that little voice that crowds you and demands to know, "who do you think you are?" and i decided to simply stand up and declare, "THIS is who i think i am, who i know i am!" and i just did it.

at first i was tempted to explore who that voice sounds like, who it resembles, where it came from and how long i've been letting it tag along. but i stared at those couple of paragraphs for a few minutes, reading and re-reading them. they looked really good. they were written well. and they were totally beside the point, so i chucked 'em.

the only point was who i think i am. who cares where it came from? all that matters is that i packed its bags and sent it on an extended vacation to hawai'i. a voice that grating, nagging, unhappy and unable to be satisfied definitely needs a trip to hawai'i even more than i do.

have fun, little nagging voice. come back when you're rested, tanned, and eager to show off souveniers.

i'll be over here, conquering a chapter in the Heartbreaking Work that had kept me in writer's block for fifteen months!

you read that right: i conquered my over-a-year-long writer's block.

i just did it. just like i said, i just sat down and wrote, and i didn't care about whether it was good, or legible, or publishable, or marketable. i didn't care. i just wrote. all that mattered was the creation. let the fingers fly over the keyboard and who gives a damn what comes out.

incredibly, what happened was that i fleshed out a character that was entirely theoretical up until now, discovered new motives to my antagonist that i had no idea were there...things that made this hatred of my heroine intensely personal. i saw the first interaction and definition of the dynamic between heroine and antagonist.

it was beautiful.

i am so damn proud of myself! i took myself out for mongolian to celebrate, sang "comfortably numb" by pink floyd and "all these things that i've done" by the killers at the top of my lungs in my car on the freeway. i wore my hair down in public (it's so long i always tie it back), enjoyed the gorgeous weather with the windows down and the sunroof back...and just reveled in the feeling of accomplishment.

you'll see my name on the bookshelves only too soon. "what [wo]man can conceive and believe, [s]he can achieve." --napoleon hill

damn straight.

sacred life sunday: prettiness is in the eye...

proof that i can actually a.) sit still for a camera, b.) smile, and c.) look pretty (with lots and lots of makeup and hair attention).

this is me in the hotel yesterday after the hair and makeup, but before the dress. there are tons more pics of me as a bridesmaid stuffed into the red thing, but aside from the professional photos, there's only one pic in the slew where i'm actually just smiling and behaving. everything else is just proof that, if a camera's pointed at me, i ain't gonna take it seriously.

but i whipped out my phone and took this one because i wanted proof that yes, even delena can be pretty sometimes.

sacred life sunday: all good things

as the colors change,
and the colors of my heart,
i contemplate fall.


about three weeks ago, *cr* and i talked about how It had happened: the color of the sunlight had changed, had taken on a warmer, golden hue. we'd noticed it over a month ago, only a fortnight after midsummer, but three weeks ago it was very, very definite.

and today i saw my first tree turning down the green for the vibrancy of orange, salmon, burnt sienna, saffron, cinnamon, cranberry...

i love the stunning vividness of autumn, i really do. but a part of me is alway so sad to see summer go. we've had our late summer "tropical" storms (warm rain, thunder showers, humidity like a thick and comforting blanket as i sleep naked listening to the rain outside my window), and there's a quivering anticipation in the air. the waiting game has begun, the guessing game of, "how long?"

how long will this warm weather last?
how long will we continue to see the sun?
how long until there is a touch of ice returned to the wind?
how long until the rain freezes?
how long until there is frost on my windshield?

not that i also don't love the fall and winter. father christmas, jack frost, and the snow king are coming. the sun child has lost his laurel crown and grew into the hunter's horns, but now he will be supplanted by the holly king. then will come lughnassadh in full celebration (barrelling for us with the ungodly speed of "egads, this year's gone by fast..."), and john barleycorn will die.

time, then, for the crocheting to come back out, and the needlepoint. time, then, for lentil soups; sweet cornbread; pumpkin custards; acorn squash with butter, honey, and cinnamon; hard squash breads, baked apple pudding; almond butter; raisined cherries, currants; game hens stuffed with wild rices and shining with a white wine and apricot glaze; sweet red mulled wines; port and cider while reading tarot to the family by candlelight...

with that one tree changing her green gown for the vibrant reds and oranges for one last burst of autumn gaiety before sleeping until spring, my thoughts already turn toward the longer nights, stocking up my house to keep my family comfortable until the light comes again...

...and i can still hear the warm summer rain outside my window.

from iGoddess to you

(i'd told this to a couple of dear friends of mine, and these words came from my heart. i thought i would share them. from me, to you. because i love you more than i love you...)

now, beware. i love you, so i'm going to remind you (lovingly) that you are god, walking in the shoes of a person who looks just like you. you can fill these shoes because you are god being a person, not a person trying to be god. you are actually second-generation star stuff come alive, a shining being who thought it'd be fun to come down and play the part of You, with particular challenges like yours. like an actor on a stage, you are playing the part of Yourself and experiencing your character's trials and triumphs. you did not become your trials and triumphs, just as you did not become your emotions.

you are not depressed, nor are you in the black pit of darkness. you are not despairing, or hopeless, or any of these things. you are feeling depression. you are seeing and feeling the darkness. you are not the crude matter of your body, just as you are not the emotions or thoughts that your crude matter is feeling or thinking. like an actress playing hamlet feeling despairing, you are playing Your part. you --the real You-- is a cosmic shining being who was there before time began and will be there when it ends. this cannot touch the real you, and it cannot consume the real you.

now...

you and i both know i haven't said anything here that you didn't already know.

but still, may the Funk be with you.

NIN

i pretty much took that picture just for proof that i was there. that was after their last set, before the encore.

it effing rocked last night! i had so much fun...

it was kinda strange being in seattle. the last time i'd been there was in '02 when i was visiting with *k*, my estranged older sister. it feels really good to be able to imprint better memories atop the crappy ones of pretty much the entire state of washington. i really don't like WA all that much: it's where i was married, after all, and where a lot of people live that used to be friends. the only reason i drove up there was for them, or back when *j* and i were together i'd drive up to see him. so i didn't have a whole lot of reason to even give the state my time of day. but a NIN concert?

yeah, i'll do that. =) and it was great!

i got pics of the space needle, also to prove i was there. "for blog posterity," i said. there was a parade going on at the same time, and some sort of decorative military function, so it was c-r-o-w-d-e-d! but after kinda taking a roundabout route amidst horses and baton twirlers, floats, and drumlines, we finally made our way to the key arena.

i took this pic along the way, because i'd forgotten to ask *ks* if i could borrow his camera. i had my phone, though. my new, wonderful slinky pinky with all-powerful camera action! woo! so i was playing with it and had the opportunity to prove that yes, i do in fact go out and do stuff. i didn't know it, but we had floor tickets, so we landed ourselves a spot dead center four bodies back. when i say that trent reznor was right there, i mean he was right there. it was pretty incredible...

...until i realized that i was standing in the dead center of the mosh pit. at first it was actually kinda fun. i was getting high on the energy of so many pressing bodies all frantic in the heated worship of angry, industrial rock. i laughed, thinking, "wow, i can kinda say that i've now had hot, sweaty sex with about 300 people. cool." there was that kind of charge to the mob. i flowed with it, leaned with it, ran with it, pressed with it, jumped with it, screamed with it. at one point, neither of my feet were touching the floor and i was being carried along by it.

cool.

but y'know, if you've never been in a mosh pit, all those bodies crushing against you, all that heat, all of them screaming and gyrating and pressing tends to suck all the oxygen out of the air. some of it i'm sure gets burned up by the sheer energy of the crowd. i couldn't breathe. i now do not doubt the power of mobs, or their deadliness. when people say they couldn't get out of it and were carried along by it, they don't mean that figuratively.

between that, and all the skunkweed being smoked in the pit, i almost passed out. but i was with *cr*. he stuck by me...i don't know how. that crowd was wild. but when i turned to him and said, "yeah, 'kay, i'm done," he threw his arm across my chest and pulled me, lifeguard-with-drowning-victim style, through the crowd and out. i was like, "aw, my hero. he fought through a mosh pit for me." a guard saw me staggering, and he escorted us out the rest of the way, put me with the floor guards. it was kinda cool.

afterwards, when we were resting our feet (i took my "comfortable" walking shoes off and was happier barefoot, for which *cr* laughed at me), i saw a guy running around wearing balloon art. it was hilarious. we laughed, mused about it, laughed more, and finally i got up and asked the guy if i could take a picture of his lovely balloon. he was a nice guy.



then we had to split up because we had taken two cars between all of us, and we wanted to meet up at mc menamin's just for some place to sit and enjoy something to drink before heading out. traffic was kinda nuts. it was hilarious, listening to the guys try to figure out which would be best, least confusing, most efficient, and fastest. of course, being that *cr* doesn't know seattle, and i'm directionally-challenged as it is, i said, "well, why don't we all just get a picture of the map instead of you guys trying to memorize it?"

and then there was silence.

crickets chirping. befuddled guys blinking.

"dude, that's a good idea!" and "wow, that's a good idea!" and (my favorite) "why didn't we think of that? that's a really good idea."

me: "what would you do without me?"



and then, because it was there and beautiful, and it was a clear night, i got another shot of the needle.



all in all, it was a really fun night.

rainbow dreams: the movie

lovlies over at sacred suzi's have been making their dream boards for the full moon. i made one last month and it was a blast. i actually have it saved as my wallpaper on my computer.

but i wanted to do something a little more fun this time around. something that would jazz me up a bit more, get my blood racing and my Funk revving.

i bring to you...

...rainbow dreams: the MOVIE!




i am grateful to all the abundance in my life that made this movie possible...

sacred life sunday

this entry was nothing more than a desire to put my palms together in the prayer position, to close my eyes, and to bow to you.

thank you for the support you have given me through the years and evolution of iGoddess.
thank you for your wisdom.
thank you for your perspectives, from all your walks of life, in all corners of the world.
thank you for your faith in me.
thank you for reading.
thank you for being who you are.

for all you are, for all you do, for the people who love you and appreciate your smile and your presence in their lives...


...i love you more than i love you.

sacred life sunday

my beloved kitten, Rumblestrut, whom i saved on snowy christmas
and introduced to the good life: catnip mousies, wholesome food,
clean water, warmth, luvins, a soft bed,
and an endless array of things to get into.

i had tried to get a pic of him napping on the kitty tree,
but of course he pouts because i killed the kitty zen.
delena the zen-slayer.
rumblestrut the guilt-tripper.

he helps me find my inner kitty...

sacred life sunday

(yes, my bathroom is this clean. it is delena's haven of scensual delight and beauty. inside the funky orange jars are different homemade bath salts; the soap is wild honeysuckle from bath & body works; the different perfumes are surrounded by small jewelry boxes, scrunchies, and a set of my tarot cards; the green candles in the background are dragons with rhinestone eyes; and yes, the money is next to my blessings candle, hard-earned tips from grateful customers. and yes, the bath curtain is pink...)