literary landmark

okay, so recently i jumped back into the writing gig. and aside from a little snag --y'know, not really having 'that writing feeling'-- things are going pretty well. there's a scene in the heartbreaking work of staggering genius that apparently needs a lot of work. it's a necessary scene for more than one reason, but when the writer of said scene is actually bored out of her mind writing it, then there's a problem.

i mean, what reader is gonna be interested in a scene that the freakin' writer was bored with? c'mon...

anyway, so...landmark!

okay, back in the blueprinting stages of construction, i was developing characters, discovering their life stories, what made them tick, what their motivations and secrets and flaws and abilities were. this was actually kind of fun, figuring out who these people were and how they were all affecting one another, and why it was these particular people who were now shaping the world. why now? why these people?

discovering this was a wonderful and thrilling, heady experience. they didn't reveal everything to me all at once, and most of the time they were deceiving me with one thing while concealing something else that was closer to the truth...and they didn't even know they were doing it. they'd lied to themselves so well, they believed something else for truth. others just plain didn't want me to know what they were doing, furtive and plotting and ambitious, or protective and noble and yet guarding their secrets no less fiercely.

i love writing. have i mentioned how much i love writing?

so, there is this one character, and he was so furtive he didn't even want me to know his name. for the longest time he kept me in the dark, well after i'd already had most everyone else's stories pretty much sorted out. so i was left with no choice but to refer to him as "the toad-sucking boot licker" because, well, that's what he is for most of the story. well, not most of it, but for long enough that you really, really just despise him. or, at least, i hope that's the effect he'll have on my readers.

naturally, i couldn't let this go on forever, but it went on for a good four months or so. he was the toad-sucking boot licker. eventually i got his name out of him. well, one of them.... actually, come to think of it, i still don't know his real name...

oh, *shakes a finger* that's good. he's good, i tell you.

so, being in the 1st draft stage of construction, i've finally gotten to the scene where my heroine calls him "toad-sucking boot licker" for the first time and it's...well...it's just magic, i tell you. magic! i feel i should be breaking out champagne or something, except i hate champagne. maybe sushi.

of course, in writing this scene, a few snags have come up that i never foresaw in the flesh-out stage but i suppose i should have. i mean, two people can't have a murder and a noisy bowfight in the middle of a plaza at dawn and not have the city guard come and crash the party, right? i just...didn't see the fight getting so noisy and emotional, y'know?

gods above, have i mentioned how much i just fucking love writing?

duh

i've known this for a while, but i had to put it out there:

every man i've ever been attracted to has been either emotionally absent and made me feel like shit, or been incredibly needy in a sad, small, pathetic way and made me feel guilty and selfish.

i'm changing this as of, um, a while ago.

and before you post me comments like, "well duh!" or "i could have told you that," or "it's about time," or some stupid shit like that, look again at the title of this entry and then read the first line again.

certificate of exemption from enlightenment

This document certifies that

Delena

is immune to the lust for enlightenment and is exempt from the need to
seek enlightenment.


This document also certifies that

Delena

has seen through the fraud of the enlightenment con game and is
excused from further clawing and scraping to own a piece of that
specious reward.


This document further certifies that

Delena

is free from the temptation to be consecrated as enlightened by any
guru, saint, holy person, or religious organization that claims the right to
do so.


Finally, this document certifies that

Delena

has already been enlightened a million times in a million different ways
anyway, and that seeking even further enlightenments would be
redundant and even greedy.


To ensure the continued validity of this document,

Delena

vows to regularly renew these three understandings: that it is impossible
to ever reach a complete and permanent state of enlightenment; that
there is no single state of awareness that constitutes enlightenment; and
that since the nature of reality keeps changing, the nature of
enlightenment keeps changing as well.

do you think...

......that iGoddess is like poetry. The words and thoughts are meant to be read, felt, reacted to, then re-read... and really thought about.

~greggo

methinks i've been given too much credit, but then again, maybe not. and like poetry, iGoddess is not for everyone.

brezsny-on-the-blog

CAPRICORN (Dec 22-Jan 19): The bumper sticker I saw today said, "Having abandoned my search for the truth, I'm now looking for a good fantasy." Though it's meant to be sarcastic, it's actually a perfectly useful piece of advice for you right now. Consider this: The truth is overrated. It's so complicated and ever-shifting that it's impossible to pin down. To earnestly persue it is often a waste of your valuable time and energy. Besides, why bother to "understand" the nature of reality when it's more important and productive to aggressively "shape" the nature of reality? Another bumper sticker says, "Life isn't about finding yourself; it's about creating yourself." In light of these meditations, Capricorn, I suggest you drum up some fresh, fun, fabulous fantasies.

again with the, "well..." reaction.

thank you for your patience while iGoddess took a much-needed break. i've just been so tired lately. even now, i'm fucking tired, but i'm posting because i've been thinking about it for a few days.

it's kinda funny that mr. brezsny would tell me this today. last week, i was to be the paint, not the painter. let myself be shaped, created, influenced into a masterpiece. and i did. i sought knowledge, information, advice, painful and fun truths. i did exercises and meditations of the painfully psycho-therapudic variety.

they were tough. i did them anyway. it was actually rather purging and satisfying to be so painfully honest with myself, like once i got it on paper i didn't have to keep the nasty secrets anymore. things i've never even dared to consider saying out loud before. secrets i either minimized or completely kept from myself. i let myself be molded...or, rather, de-molded.

i was the paint.

this week, now, i am to create myself and find myself a damn good fantasy. and believing as i do that the spiritual creates the physical (thought creates reality), those fantasies are going to turn into reality. maybe not soon, but they'll be created at some point. sooner rather than later, because i believe it, dammit.

brezsny says it so much better than i do. truth is like a parfait, yeah. truth is like an ogre (hehe). "truth is so complicated and ever-shifting that it's impossible to pin down." i like that a lot. the truth is also open to interpretation, and everyone's truth is true. some are more true than others, i.e. when someone says it's truth that it's okay to do murder.

yeah, that's just wrong, but for them it's true. of course, then it becomes true for us to have to incarcerate people for whom truth like that is real. it's all true.

wow, it's too late at night and i'm too tired to keep up that train of thought.

for some reason, the words of tyler durden play in my head when i think of some fresh, fun, fabulous fantasies: in the world i see -- you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of rockefeller center. you'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. you'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the sears tower. and when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway...

i remember the dream i once had of the megillah breaking the world, of scouting a family who abandoned their beautiful baby son and bringing him back with me to the enclave where one more mouth would be a trial on the provisions already spread thin.

i remember the dreams i've been having lately, of taking the throne rightfully mine in a kingdom that has been awaiting my return. the procession of my royal cousins heralds my entrance in a grand hall where the vast royal family, nobles, and my subjects rise to watch me take my place as their queen, every single one of them joyful beyond words. or the dreams of me finding abandoned children, infants who can't even lift their heads yet when i find them, yet when the mother in me responds and i pick them up, suddenly they're grown and don't need me, and there's an ache inside so terrible i have to wake up from the dream in order to get away from it. i dream of lovers who want someone else or who are oblivious to my love, and i say "fuck it" and leave them, because running free and hurting is better than staying and compromising the dignity and self respect of the queen on her throne, if that makes any sense. i dream of trying to get somewhere but having the wrong bus ticket.

no wonder i haven't been sleeping lately. no wonder i avoid sleep until i pass out from exhaustion. seemingly contradictory dreams. i know they mean something. they're not the fantasy-reality i want, though.

bah. who wants to understand the nature of reality, anyway, when it's much more important and productive to aggressively "shape" the nature of it? lots of things happening, though. i think i'm still in "be the paint" mode.

the dark side of Funk

forgive the lack of new material here at iGoddess lately. however, judging from the complete lack of comments or blog-generated emails, and the fact that my site meter shows 85% of viewers staying for two seconds or less in the last, oh...two months, lack of new material will not be so painfully missed, i think.

i can only plead a low spirit lately, and mental exhaustion. ever since my last post --and, indeed, even before it-- my mind has been in overdrive. considering the memories it's bringing up, my heart is a bit tired, as well.

a huge difference between former delena and Delena of the Divine Wow is that, after a week like this, i'd have been up to my eyeballs in depression and emo-fucktardism.

yes, jesus said blessed are the fucktards, but still. doesn't mean i want to be one of them.

i'm just tired, and really don't feel like writing.

i forgave the bio-dad the other day. well, not forgave, forgave. but i did let go of my resentment and hatred. i'm not angry about it anymore. i figured out where fits the Funk. there was gonna be this beautifully and funkily inspiring post about it in brezsny-on-the-blog, but i'm just...tired. there may not be forgiveness yet, but there's understanding (which i believe is more important and imminently leads to forgiveness) and...sympathy. and sadness. he couldn't have helped how he treated us, not really. not without a lot of intervention which, naturally and not entirely his own fault, he would have mightily resisted.

as i resisted. without even knowing i was resisting.

and, honestly, there's no other way i could have been raised. honesty is a painful thing, but i've always strived to be honest.

honesty is like an ogre, which is like an onion, and if you haven't seen shrek you so totally won't get my joke. but anyway, honesty's like an onion. you peel away one layer which is true, only to find a layer beneath which is even more true than the layer in your hand. that doesn't make the peeled-away layer any less true. it's just...the truth beneath is a more distilled version of the truth in your hand. they're both true, even if one contradicts the other.

"make a vessel of the self where the self is not," and...

"power lies in yielding, to spring back upright, eternal, having let all cruelties of the world pass over you. having marred the vessel, perhaps, but not the self."

one of these quotes is mine, one is not. and all of them have to do with why i'm just so damn tired. mayhap iGoddess will be back next week, fresh and funky as ever.

where fits the Funk

i've given up trying to understand my own, peculiar delena grammar. i used to be such a grammar queen. then i was promoted to "grammar nazi," which was then shortened to "grammazi." all lower j's dotted, all p's and q's minded, capital letters at the beginning of sentences, "for which," and "for whom," where it was proper, and no dangling participles. then i saw maganda.org, created by someone i grew up with, made paper dolls with her and the clothes that went on them, swum in her pool, fell in everlasting love with dried mangoes in her house (mmm, dried mangoes...), and where i learned about somewhere that wasn't the catholic church or mexico-americo: the filipines.

she wrote, back then, in all lower case. since she's always been more creative and intellectual than me by miles and miles, i thought it was just so chic and smart-looking, so i did it, too.

now i resent having to press the SHIFT key. kind of like when i moved to oregon. now i get indignant whenever i'm expected to pay sales tax.

go figure.

wow, what a tangent... what made me think of it was because i wrote this title, where fits the Funk, and had to go back and capitalize the "f" in Funk. Funk's just one of those that has a permanent capital letter here at iGoddess. some capitals come and go, but Funk is Forever.

for all of today and most of yesterday, the Funk has been somewhat un-Funkalicious in me. oh, it's still there, believe me. but my letter of obligation has gotten me seriously thinking. the pain of what i lost in the Summer of Funky Kali Love is like an old injury that flares up now and again. i really want to write that letter. i do. i just don't want them to think the horrible things i know they think about me.

i'm a good person. i am. i feel guilty swatting flies inside the house of dragons' rest. i detest spiders, and i still escort them outside to continue on their merry, eight-legged way. i go out of my way not to offend someone, and will endure years of agony and mental and/or emotional hurt to keep someone else from hurting. all without even really giving it a thought.

i know. most of it was conditioning, programming. as erica jong says in the poem i love so much --the one that inflamed me to be a revolutionary freedom fighter for beauty, truth, and Funk-- years of training are required to be the best slave. in my reading, i'm noticing something that the authors don't mention, but i'm seeing to be true across the board.

and yet, there is something to be said for simply possessing a kind, truly empathic nature.

codependents are not cruel people. most of them don't possess a malicious or conniving bone in their body. they're all highly empathic people who wouldn't dream of hurting anyone, and who were so hurt as children they do naught but live each day trying to protect themselves from ever being hurt like that again. they live in fear so ingrained, it's etched in their bones. they only want to protect themselves from that fear, to ensure they never again feel the overwhelming, out-of-control terror against which they were powerless to protect themselves.

i feel no animosity toward them, no enmity. i feel aught but compassion for them, much as i've been accused of lacking in it. compassion, however, only goes so far when i sense i am once more being placed into the house of oppression and someone is my self-appointed bio-father.

i imagine it must sting painfully, receiving love like i wholly give it, trusting with abandon in the beginning, only to be pushed away and not know why. i used to be very private and somber as a child and teenager, except i was accused of reprehensible things. who calls their twelve year-old daughter a slut, accuses her of being a drug addict? backstabbed, again and again, by family and best friends, all because i kept my own counsel. my own bio-father had taught me trust was poisonous. but after the years of accusations and suddenly losing friends because of something someone else had accused me of --and me lacking any proof other than my word-- i promised my life would be an open book henceforth.

everyone would know everything about me, so no one could sling mud. i aired my family's dirty laundry to our church groups. i flaunted my abusive relationships at school. i was a right hellion at home, butting heads with my bio-father and saying, "fuck you all," right in my bio-mother's face.

i uttered other words, moved in other fashions, but all the same i was screaming at the top of my lungs for someone to get me out of there and help me, because i was sinking fast.

story of my life: no one heard. not for almost thirty years.

i was superbly trained for it, conditioned from a right early age. as soon as i came of age, i began my codependence in earnest...without knowing that's what i was doing. and i didn't know that i didn't know. y'know, in my heart of hearts, i wish i were born in the 1500's where i could have led the life of a courtesan in italy. i've actually studied a lot of the artful subjects they studied back then, and when i'm comfortable, i engage in them. things like debate, art, writing (duh), dance, music, voice, poetry, logic... i thought they would make me desirable as a female. in truth, there are quite a few people who still remember me so powerfully they remain in contact, or try to, anyway. only one, *ws* i've kept as a friend.

where was i going with this? only here: i've tried to be good, but the profession to which i was conditioned was far different from what i would have chosen for myself, had i been taught i was worthy of the power of choice. i've tried to make myself good, and desirable, and approved, even unto educating myself with archaic professions late into the night. i used to be a compulsive liar in high school...a good one. i stopped that habit cold turkey when i realized the truth was far more powerful.

but the fear... the terror and hatred and revulsion, knowing down to my soul that i was so corrupted every breath i took was a crime against nature... all anyone had to do was just look at me with even an ounce of authority, and i knew my place was so far below them. when i felt myself being discounted, disenfranchised, treated carelessly, i did the only thing that was in my meager power: i hid. and those people who hate me now, they accuse me of using people, of creating a pattern of lies, of abusing trust.

an old injury that complains now and again.

all they knew was that, over a long period of time --in some cases two years-- i had pushed them away, little by little, and they did not see it until they were so distantly left out that what they thought i was about did not coincide with events transpiring around them. all they saw were lies, and as my greggo has said, it's easier to blame someone else rather than see fault in your own self. to me, they simply were no longer trustworthy to keep close in my heart, so they had no clue what was going on, how long it had been going on, or how deeply it terrified me.

living in the house of oppression had taught me many things, especially how to keep secrets and a straight poker face, even in the midst of bodily violation. they had no way of knowing i had pulled away. i loved them. they loved me. my distrust of them, while earned, hurt them. i feel remorse for hurting them, and wish to rectify it.

i don't want to leave myself open to further pain, however. and while i know my intent is to deliver my letter of ownership, nothing more, anything other than gladness and willingness to forgive would pain me. the abused child in me is afraid they would use this new strength of mine, find the shadow side --the vulnerability-- and use it as a weapon.

i don't wish forgiveness, honestly. i don't wish for compassion, or friendship, open discourse, or any of it. i only want understanding, as i've grown to understand myself, codependence, and addiction. actually, for my entire life, i could never forgive myself for my life...until i understood it. and myself. for the first time ever, i can forgive myself, and i'm ready to learn what love really means. i wish i could make a double of me, so that i could hold my head in my lap, stroke my hair the way the bio-mom used to do when i was young and ill with flu or bronchitis, and just hold me while i cry.

the past couple weeks, i've felt this sudden, powerful upsurge of tears. it starts somewere in my womb, or maybe even deeper, and shoots like a geyser up my body and thunders against the backside of my face. my throat clenches up so tight i can't breathe, and my vision blurs.

i want to cry so badly, and it's almost there. all those tears i knew were there and wanted to finally get out but never could... through the power of loving my family, my mom and dad's love and patience, my new understanding of codependence, my newfound self-forgiveness, and the Supremely Funky Jive of the Cosmos, the tropical floodgates have opened upon the barren wasteland of my soul. but i still can't cry. i don't know if it's just long-standing habit --for a single tear was punishable by the belt, with generous helpings of shame-- or if i'm just not there yet.

all i know is, i'm left wondering where fits the Funk in all this. the Funk permeates all: our daily lives, our love, our little daily deaths, and our melancholy. aside from a not-so-little death, i don't know yet where to place this in the song of Funk.

barkeep, make mine a flaming narcissist

apologies for the lack of posting lately. i've been *gasp!* doing things. actually, it's been so long since i went out and enjoyed life that it's all a little heady. a few weeks ago i went out with my cousin and some friends. the other night another friend called me up and invited me to go with her to the bagdad to see "office space," since she'd won tickets on the radio to their midnight movie madness. it was a blast.

and i'm learning to crochet! somewhat in the spirit of satori in the name of spaghetti, i decided to just say fuck it, and eat. i've been wanting to learn how to crochet for years and years. once upon a time, my bio-mom bought me a crochet needle and expected me to just know how, or to pick it up elsewhere. over the years, there's either been no time, opportunity, or sometimes people just flaked when they said we'd sit down one afternoon and show me how. so, while at jo-ann's with *cc*, we picked up a cute little kit in the kid's crafts section and i just followed the instructions. i'm a very visual learner, so unless things are spelled out for me in complete detail, i have the damndest time with things. i have to read them over and over, too, to make sure i get what's being said. kids' books, i've found, describe things in a way that i can actually envision things and duplicate them, unlike adult beginner instructional books. sometimes it makes me feel stupid, learning from kids' books and needing as much demonstration as i do, but that's just how i learn.

ironic, i think, since every test in the world says i'm a phenominal word warrior. ah well.

but aside from my normal everyday, and being "crochety," i've been thinking. for the past week or so i've been thinking about composing a letter of...not apology, but ownership. i would address it to those individuals formerly known as the fucktards of the world. unfortunately, fun as that phrase is, continuing to call them that only promotes resentment and hatred, and that goes against the grain of the Funk.

here at iGoddess, we're about rocking into oneness with the Surpreme Funk, not holding onto petty human failings.

anyway, so i would address my letter of ownership to those individuals who had supporting roles last year in my Summer of Funky Kali Love (Who destroys the old so the new may live, remember), simply owning my disease and taking responsibility for my behavior resulting from my codependence. i would apologize for any soul-ache that it may have caused. part of conquering this fucking disease is no longer accepting/believing i am powerless (not just choosing to be powerless, but "knowing" i am as powerless to be autonomous as i am to fly around the room under my own power), and even though i was powerless Then, i am not powerless Now. therefore i will take the power of my destiny and individuality into my own hands, however with power comes responsibility.

part of me is very afraid. even just typing this entry, i have this roiling, sick feeling in my stomach and i'm actually getting liver pains just thinking about it. well, not thinking about the letter, persay, but thinking of their possible reactions. i don't want this to seem like i'm taking responsibility for everything that happened, even unto what other people did, and apologizing for it all. i'll take responsibility for my part, but i also know --being the apocalypticians they are-- they've gone around convinced there's nothing wrong with them and the inner apocalypse is all inside me, that i'm the only one with the problem and they're all fine, dandy, healthy, functional, and not nearly as fallible as i am.

but then...i have to fight and resist the urge to justify myself, to explain, to seek understanding. it's my flaming narcissism that cares about what they think, how they'll react, what they'll believe about me whether it's the truth or not. we here at iGoddess (ha! meaning "me") are firm believers in everyone owning their own truths and creating their own realities. maybe in their reality i'm nothing more than a selfish, conniving, malicious, doomed little pissant, and that truth is as concrete for them as water being wet. it may pain me to know this --it may really pain me-- but i must make a curtsy in respect for their reality and let it be. i know it's an aspect of my codependence to want to control everyone's opinions about me, therefore i must face that part of my inner apocalypse and slay it with love. transform it into a creative expression of the Divine Wow.

but oh, it's hard.

i've spent the better part of this last week composing bits of it in my head. if i write this letter, they're going to think i'm crawling back and kissing their feet and saying i was all wrong and oh, how horrible i was and everything they did to me was justified. nothing could be further from the truth. my flaming narcissism is worried and afraid that's exactly what they'll think, though. the only reason i haven't written that letter yet isn't because of my fear, but because i've been trying to examine what my true feelings are about writing and sending that letter. it's been difficult. my flaming narcissist has been clamoring quite distractingly about it.

it's kind of funny, actually. it's been using every trick in the book: upset stomach, sinking feelings in the solar plexus, headaches, extreme worry, insomnia, chronic heartburn, nightmares... i can almost feel the terror as a palpable thing. silly flaming narcissism... i feel kind of bad for it, though. i mean, where would it be without me to feed it?

yesterday i went with *cc* and my mom to pick up our new dining room table (yay, table!), and mom's jacket smelled just like willow. i caught this whiff of sweet spring and comfortable country home, cozy and comforting. i was filled with missing her. one difference between the delena of my former life and Delena of the Divine Wow is that, before, i would have been filled with remorse and guilt and shame and self-pity and oh, what a horrible person i was, down to the core, to have made such a good friend hate me so terribly.

my poor, mistaken, diseased former self. she can't help who she is. she's been programmed at such an early age, there's just no helping her. she's not a bad person, really, or malicious. it's just that, growing up, fear and extreme levels of emotional and psychological discomfort were her norm and became, in essence, her comfort zone. she's not comfortable unless she's uncomfortable and filled with self-hatred, if that makes any sense. so i pat her on the head and send her off with a hug to go sit in her corner. i slay her with love.

but not Delena of the Funky Ya-Ya. yes, i missed willow. and with each whiff of that carried that willow-scent, i breathed deep and remembered how much i love her...

ah well. spilled milk and all that.

but i think that moment helped me learn a little bit more of how i really feel about things. i've gone my whole life shut off, not knowing how i felt or what i thought about anything. like dizzy told me once, i reminded her of a squirrel because i'd been going through my life, gathering things that might help me get through life the way a squirrel gathers nuts. she's right, though. i've also been gathering people's opinions and feelings and philosophies and fundamental beliefs, trying to graft them onto myself because i didn't know who i was. i was shamed and abused any time i tried, until i finally just shut down inside.

one day here soon i'll find out how i feel, and if writing that letter of ownership is really and truly the right thing to do. i still got some wrestling with my flaming narcissist, though.

maybe i'll make it fun, make it a jello wrestling match. hmm?

thursday thirteen #3

Thirteen Recipes I Love (and if you try them, I'd love to hear about it!) 1. Dhaal 1 large yellow onion, 6-8 stalks celery, 1 bell pepper, 4-6 carrots Dice each in food processor, sautee in olive oil and 2 T chopped garlic until the onions are clear. Add 4 c lentils, mix in with veggies well, sautee until the lentils sweat. Add 2 T red curry. Pour in 5 c veggie stock and 3-4 c water. Bring to rolling boil, then bring down heat to simmer uncovered, stirring every 10 mins (and no sooner!) until lentils are very soft and dhaal is a porridge consistency. Add salt to taste. Garnish with chopped green onion and cilantro. Also excellent with plain yogurt or sour cream! 2. Hummus 2 T chopped garlic, handful of cilantro, 2-4 T lemon juice, pinch salt, 1-2 T cumin, 2 16-ox cans garbonzo beans (chickpeas), olive oil Toss everything in food processor on high, adding drizzling in olive oil until hummus is the consistency of a spreadable paste. 3. Hummus Veggie Pita 1 bell pepper, 1 small onion, approx. 1 c sliced mushrooms, olive oil, chopped garlic, Pita bread, romaine lettuce, hummus, crumbled feta cheese Thinly slice onions, chop bell pepper, toss in frying pan with mushrooms, olive oil, and garlic, and sautee until onions are almost completely carmelized. Heat pita in microwave (to make it easy to open without tearing), spread hummus on one side, then layer with lettuce, veggies, and top with feta. Deceptively filling, and incredibly delicious! 4. Unionville Old Tavern Corn Fritters 1 c flour 1 1/2 t baking powder 2 eggs 1/3 c milk 15 oz whole kernel corn 1 T melted butter oil for deep frying 10x (confectioner's sugar) Combine flour and baking powder; set aside. In another bowl, beat eggs and milk, stir in corn and butter. Stir egg mixture into dry ingreds until just blended. In deep-fat fryer or skillet, heat oil to 375 degrees. Drop batter by heaping t's into oil, fry 2-3 mins or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels, sprinkle with 10x 5. Zucchini Quiche 4 eggs, plus 1 extra yolk 2 c whipping cream 1 bunch green onions w/stem, sauteed lightly 4 med zucchini, grated 1 T mustard 1 t salt 2 c grated cheddar Beat everything and pour into lightly browned pie crust. Bake 45 mins at 400 d's. 6. Veggie Divine Sauce: 1 large can cream of chicken soup, 1/2 c mayo, 1 T lemon juice, 1-2 T red curry paste 2-3 heads chopped broccoli, equal parts chopped carrots, celery, and sliced mushrooms. Toss veggies in 8x11 baking tin or casserole dish. Spoon sauce on top, bake at 375 degrees until veggies are al dente, then top with shredded cheddar and place back into oven until cheese is melted. (chicken pieces on top of veggies is optional, but will affect baking time) 7. Cheddar Potato Soup 4 large potatoes 2 c water 1 small onion, chopped fine 3 T butter 3-4 T flour 3 c milk 1 c shredded cheddar (1 c cubed ham or kielbasa optional) Peel potatoes and cut into 1" cubes. Bring water to boil, add potatoes and cook until tender. Drain, reserving liquid. Set potatoes aside. Melt butter in same saucepan, add onion and sautee until onion is translucent and tender. Add flour, season with ground pepper to taste. Cook approx 5 mins, then gradually add potatoes, 1 c of potato liquid, and milk to onion mixture. Stir well! Add cheese (and ham). Simmer over low heat 30 mins, stirring frequently. 8. Chile Rilleno Casserole For those of you who love chile rillenos, but abhor the work! (hehe, like me) Mix in blender: 4 eggs, 3 T flour, 1 small can evap milk, 2 T salsa In glass/pyrex casserole, lay whole chiles (2 16 oz cans or one large can Ortega green chiles), sprinkle w/grated cheeses (colby jack, or mixed variety). Add another layer of chiles and cheese, just like with a lasagna. Cover with egg batter. Bake 35 mins at 325 degrees. Sprinkle on top with spoonfuls of salsa, return to oven for 15-20 mins. Let set 10 mins, enjoy! *Tip: rinse chiles under cold running water first and pat dry, before laying in pyrex. Trust me on this. 9. Spicy Fish Soup 4 c fish stock 2" chunk fresh ginger, peeled & sliced thinly 2-3 lemongrass stalks, chopped (peel off outer layer) 3 kaffir lime leaves (1-2 T lemon juice optional) shredded bunch garlic chives (green onions work just as well) 1 bunch cilantro, leaves & stems separated, stems chopped 1 T olive oil 4 shallots, chopped 4+ T fish sauce 1-2 T red curry paste 1 lb fresh uncooked shrimp, with peels (and heads, if you can) 1 lb fresh white fish Pour fish stock into large pan. Add ginger slices, lemongrass, and half lime leaves (or half lemon juice). Add half the chives and cilantro stalks. Bring to rolling boil, set heat to low and cover, simmer 20 mins. In separate pan, add oil and shallots, cook over med heat 5-10 mins until shallots just turn brown. Add to stock. Add remaining kaffir leaves (or lemon juice), 2 T fish sauce. Heat until simmer, 5-10 mins. Add curry and shrimp, simmer 5 mins. Add fish and remaining lime/lemon. Season to taste. Garnish with the rest of the chives, and cilantro leaves. Fish Stock: Peel shrimp, place peels and heads into pot. Add 4 c water, cover and simmer 30 mins. Strain. Voila! Fresh fish stock. *Tip: If you've never used fish sauce before, be careful! It's not fishy, but it adds a salty taste to a lot of asian dishes without being, y'know, salty. It's very flavorful! If the soup isn't salty enough, add fish sauce a teaspoon at a time and taste! The difference between not enough and, "Holy crap, that's gross!" is a very fine line. Don't re-create my misadventures with fish sauce, if you can help it. Fish sauce can be found at asian food stores, and some grocery stores. A lot of the time it's also known as nuoc mam sauce. 10. Amaretto Cookies 1/2 lb blanched almonds 4-5 drops bitter almond oil 1/4 c sugar 2 egg whites 1 T 10x Finely grind almonds in food processor or grinder. Mix ground almonds with almond oil, sugar, and lightly beaten egg whies. Knead mix into firm dough. With moistened hands, form dough into 1" balls. Dough should yield approx 45 balls. Place balls at least 1" apart on baking sheet covered with baking parchment. Use a 2nd baking sheet if needed. Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Place baking sheet on bottom rack and bake 55-60 mins. Transfer cookies to wire rack. With sieve, dust cookies with 10x while still warm 11. Lime Jello Surprise I loved this as a kid... 2 pkgs lime jello 1 c boiling H2O 1 c iced cold H2O 1 lb cottage cheese 1 pt heavy whipping creame lg can crushed pineapple, drained Whip cream until light and fluffy. Add 1 c boiling water to jello. Stir well, add cold water and let gel slightly. Whip on electric mixer. Add other ingreds slowly, and beat. Cherries can be added for color, but ours never lasted long enough to matter. Pour into mold and let set. 12. Funnel Cake 1 c flour 3/4 c milk 1 t baking powder 1/8 t salt 1 egg oil for frying 10x In mixing bowl, mix flour, milk, baking powder, salt, and egg. Let batter rest for 10 mins. Heat oil in large heavy skillet until very hot. Drip batter through a metal funnel into oil, forming a spiral-designed cake. Carefully flip over when browned. Remove when browned on both sides a deep golden color. Drain on wire rack with paper towels. Sprinkle with 10x 13. Dragon's Breath Nog 1 dozen eggs, separated 1/2 c sugar 1 c sugar 1/4 t salt 1 qt heavy cream 1 qt milk 1 pt bourbon 1/2 pt rum In large bowl, beat egg whites until very stiff, then beat in 1/4 c sugar. In small bowl, beat egg yolks, 1/2 c sugar and salt until well blended. Combine contents of both bowls and mix thoroughly. Beat heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Add milk and bourbon to egg bowl and mix well. Add whipped cream, mix well. Add rum, mix well, and bottle. Age for at least 4 weeks in fridge; the longer it ages, the better and smoother it is. Recipe yields approx. 1 gal. Shake very well before serving! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

brezsny-on-the-blog

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Accountants at an Australian car insurance company have found that Capricorns are the safest drivers. Correlating birth data with crash rates, they found that your sign is the least accident prone. This probably has to do with your renowned patience and carefulness. While I applaud you for that accomplishment and urge you to continue expressing your attention to detail while operating heavy machinery, I also recommend that in the coming week you make room for happier kinds of accidents. You need certain educational blessings that only serendipity can provide.


well, i suppose no car accidents can definitely make up for the fact that delena is totally accident prone everywhere else. hey, i didn't break 22 of my toes on purpose, y'know. and my funkmates are quite accustomed to hearing me cry, "Wahhh!" as i randomly lose my balance for no reason whatsoever and crash into something that has a better relationship with gravity than i do.

and oh, the temptation to crack open the box of bad jokes about my attention to detail while operating heavy machinery! of course, if all my closest friends didn't already know that i use my hot pink recreational device purely as a visual punch line rather than for its original purpose, i probably would let the jokes roll.

but anyway. happier kinds of accidents? now, we're not talking about accidents like the time i forgot i was wearing a bunch of bananas on my head for the entirety of that grocery trip, are we? "you gonna leave the store like that?" my bio-mom asked.

"like what?" and i blinked at her with that genuine WTF? expression.

or like that time i didn't know the e-brake was on, and didn't realize anything was even out of the ordinary until a mile or so down the highway when a car rode alongside us and the people were pointing to all that white smoke billowing out behind us.

or like that time i accidentally left the spoon in the bowl when i went to nuke my cereal.

or that time when i was nine and i threw that pineapple upside-down cake together, except i misread the measurement for the oil. or when i was making old-fashioned popcorn, and that was the night our neighbor rang the doorbell because no one was home at her place and there was some emergency . i noticed a faintly odd smell and went to the kitchen, totally having forgotten i was heating up popcorn oil. i lifted up the lid, and this blazing fireball went up in the kitchen that my bio-dad could see from the street, which is funny because the kitchen was in the back of the house...

really, i'm not accident-prone. i'm just slightly forgetful with a horrible sense of balance. really.

lately i've been rather accident-free, and i'm trying to keep it that way. but apparently i should be making room for accidental serendipity. i'm getting the strong feeling, however, that this means i need to be going out a bit more. here at the house of dragons' rest, the house tyrant and i --the clan mother-- like to keep our lair as a bit of a controlled environment. not much room for accidents...or even serendipity, for that matter. order, serenity, and kitty zen are the prevailing senses one gets when one walks into our den.

accidents and even serendipity are more likely to happen Out There. that sounds kind of ominous, especially since lately i've been keeping indoors and focusing on looking inward, and rebuilding and restructuring my fragile inner self into the bombastic and funky shining being i strive to become. perhaps my incubation period's come to an end, and it's time for me to hatch and take a look outside the rookery, see what's Out There that's Good.

well, what better armor could i possibly have to serve me? my thoughts create my own reality, what i see is what i get, and the universe is even now and ever conspiring to shower me with blessings.

credendo vides.

what's that word again?

the oxford-delena dictionary

bohemian
adj.
1. pertaining to or characteristic of the unconventional life of a bohemian

n.
2. (usually lowercase) a person, as an artist or writer, who lives and acts free of regard for conventional rules and practices
3. a person with artistic or literary interests who disregards conventional standards of behavior
4. iGoddess

this week's word was almost "iconoclast," but that held too many connotations of warlike, rebellious, and destructive behavior. "attack" was in nearly every definition, and i'm definitely not attacking anyone or anything. challenging? yes. scrutinizing? absolutely. attacking? never.

y'know, iGoddess was nominated as an entrant in the Battle of the Blogs, (PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK AND VOTE FOR ME!!!) for which i am deeply honored. okay, okay, so i went to MySpace and posted a bulletin for my friends to nominate iGoddess. so sue me! i'm trying to increase traffic here so that more people can see that it's not all about venting and griping and being cynically hilarious about their day, whilst giving their life no more thought than, "this is what i did, this is what i thought about it. insert snarky comment here, the end." there's more to life than cynicism, fundamentalist materialism, and ego-centric american humor-for-the-lowest-common-denominator. so go vote for iGoddess and show those blind apocalypticians there's something better out there, and its name is pronoia!

what about beauty, truth, freedom, and love? what about finding that one thing you're absolutely passionate about, and taking up the flag and becoming a revolutionary freedom fighter? what about finding that one drummer that plays your beat, and marching to it? what about finding your inner Funk, about experiencing those things that grip you right in your solar plexus, or the base of your spine, or your ass chakra, and never let go of you until you have filled yourself with mind-altering and wildly romantic excitement until it just bursts out of every part of you?

(yes, insert obligatory fart joke here)

and no, i haven't died and been reincarnated as pollyanna. i'm not channeling the chipper and annoying spirit of gidget. and no, i wasn't melanie hamilton wilkes in a former life.

i'm talking about going to convention's table --filled with all the solid, heavy, fat-ridden and greasy foods of realism, materialism, egocentrism-- smiling at all the apocolypticians seated around it, and upending it with all your might. throw off the old ways of thinking that keep you mired in anxiety and fear and jaded cynicism! yes, laughing at fucktards is fun, and i indulge myself in the sport from time to time. but i also think about what they might actually bring to the world, i remember they're also manifestations of the Supreme Funk, and without them, we wouldn't be able to have genius and common sense. you can't have light without the dark, and you can't have the Funk without the fucked.

c'mon, beauty and truth fans. be fantastic, iconoclastic, bohemian bomastic revolutionary freedom fighters!

credendo vides!

seeing is believing.

what you see is what you get.

you can't see what ain't there.

ever say these things? usually, these are people for whom fact and absolutes are the only reality. unfortunately, we have a character in christian fiction --doubting thomas-- who blows my whole point out of the water for many people. too many people are like doubting thomas in that they must see it, touch it, feel it to know it's real. how many homilies had i sat through as a roman catholic, listening to how much we are like doubting thomas, and how he's important for us as a reminder not to doubt the existence of god, especially since it's already been proven. why, just look at doubting thomas.

*smacks forehead*

if that's not a beautifully subtle way of programming people to only see to believe --telling them not to do it only after planting the idea in their head that they should-- thereby leaving them entirely closed to any other reality or possibility other than what the church tells them is there, i don't know what is.

sometimes i weep for that, but for the most part, i try to teach myself --a little at a time-- to love them more than i love them. because, really, i could love them a whole lot more than i love them...

anyway, seeing is believing. what if it weren't so clear cut? what if our experience of the objective material realm we perceive with our five senses and measure with our instruments (thank you, mr. brezsny) was nothing more than a mass hallucination we all subconsciously agreed to have at the same time and call it "reality?"


"seeing is believing," my metaphorically pronoiac ass! that is nothing more than a snot-nosed, cynical little catch phrase people use to support the disguised religion of fundamentalist materialism: an arrogant assertion that the scientific method is the sole arbiter of the ultimate truth; an absolute certainty that the metaphors of science deserve to trump all other metaphors. scientism is an obsessive emotional investment in results that can only be perceived with the "five" senses, or repeated within tightly controlled experiments, or measured with instruments that have already been invented.

at least judaism and christianity have ten commandments. the zealots of scientism have just one: Thou shalt have no other realities but the One True Consensual Hallucination Known as Habitual Waking Consciousness! (the televisionary oracle , robert brezsny pg 113)

now, don't get me wrong. i like science. in fact, i love science! i like velcro and the internet, indoor plumbing, lava lamps, and my collection of stylish-yet-affordable shoes. but science isn't the only reality. there are other things out there we can't see yet, and will never see if we don't look for them. and, even if we do, they'll suddenly changed into something else. sometimes the very nature of a thing is changed simply by trying to quantify it, study it, measure it. the Prime Directive is a pipe dream.

they discovered this in quantum physics, with the EPR Paradox. kind of like schrodinger's cat, only far more serious and dramatic. you see, once upon a time these three really smart guys got together (not literally), einstein, podolsky, and rosen. and they said, " what if, once upon a time, there were these two particles flying in opposite directions at the exact same speed? since we don't know how fast they were moving, we have to use this nifty equation called a wave function to describe them. someone then measured the speed of one particle, however according to other rules knowing the speed of one means you instantly know the speed of the other, and therefore its state has been changed. you can't describe it with that nifty wave function thingamahoozie anymore. however, if affecting one particle affects the other, then this goes against the laws of relativity."

"this just can't happen!" shrieks einstein. "seeing is believing!" you see, for one particle to affect the other over distance, this would have to happen instantaneously (faster than the speed of light), but for that to happen, it would also have to travel backwards through time. so you can see why einstein just flipped his wig.

of course, you don't have to be a scientific brainiac to understand it. just read douglas adams: "there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. there is another theory which states that this has already happened."

so what does all this mean, anyway? "c'mon, delena," you say. "how does all this --fundamentalist materialism, the mass hallucination of supposed "reality," quantum physics, and the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy-- have to do with seeing is believing, killing armageddon, pronoia, and your loving war against the mass genocide of imagination?

only this, beauty and truth fans...

credendo vides. by believing, one sees.

what if there are worlds beyond the ken of your five mortal senses? what if there are colors, ideas, people and dreams and "magic" powers that are happening right in front of your face...and yet you cannot see them because you are not looking for them? because you don't believe? what if your very unbelief is affecting them right now? what if there are worlds and possibilities that are completely closed to us because we've closed our minds to them?

thought is power. thought is the power. thought created the universe. true, what the Phantasmagoric Succubus of Eternity thought was to play 'pop goes the weasel,' and The Word was "Wee!" but still. it was a thought! thoughts define our day, our individual realities! that chair you're sitting in? someone had a thought about how much more comfortable it would be to sit on something other than the ground, or a rock. that computer you're using? that mouse, the monitor by which you're able to navigate to and read iGoddess and thereby steer your own Divine Wow closer to your own inner Funk...someone had a really neat thought, a funky and totally crazy-whacked idea about a machine that could calculate thousands of equations a second. someone else had a thought about sharing information over vast distances, all from the comfort of their own laboratory (the original idea of the internet was so sciententists could share information), and from that thought came creation. those clothes you're wearing? someone thought, "man, i'm cold. i think i'll invent 'the shirt.'"

where did those thoughts come from? where does it all begin? the imagination! our imaginations are what fuel and move the multiverse! imagination, invention, entertainment, surprises, relationships, science, spirituality...it's all imagination! so you wake up on the wrong side of the bed? hey, your thoughts are crappy. and you're so busy having crappy thoughts, you don't pay attention to the "No Turn" sign, and get pulled over by a cop. you think bad thoughts and turn those thoughts into bad words and bad attitude to give to the cop, who then picks up your bad thoughts (via your bad mood, created by your bad thoughts) and slaps you with every traffic violation he can think of. you go to work, grumping and crabby and thinking even worse thoughts, snap at everyone, who then pick up your bad vibes and the aura in your workplace degenerates into one big clusterfuck. you go home, bark at your family, get heartburn, don't sleep well that night, wake up with really bad gas, and do it all over again. your thoughts have just created your reality. but seeing is believing, right? it is because it simply is.

but credendo vides!

i believe the universe is secretly conspiring to shower me with blessings. i wake up on the wrong side of the bed, so i think of my brother and sister on the other side of my bedroom door who will be glad to see me when i come out of my room. i take an extra ten minutes alone for myself because i'm feeling crabby. i get up, go pee, wash my hands and face, and when they see i don't look entirely like my lovely, sunny dee self, they ask what's wrong. i could turn my crabby, grouchy thoughts into crabby, grouchy words, but i'm being showered with blessings at that very moment.

"oh," i say, "i just didn't sleep well again, that's all. ngh. need tea. the tea is the life." *cc* chimes in with, "the tea is the life! yay tea! ommmm...." and this makes me chuckle. *mj* rubs my shoulder, showing me his affection and sympathy, maybe even encouragement. this makes me smile and, while i may be tired, i'm not crabby. my thoughts have defined my reality.

what if what you see really is what you get? how cool is that?

conspiracy theories

you are being lied to.

you have been brainwashed!

you are so freaking deluded that it's not even funny.

no, actually it's quite hilarious. iGoddess is my quest, a goal i strive every day to achieve by dying a little each day. it is a place to exist within myself. it's a state of being. it's a blog and a concept and a very real Thing. homer had his Odyssey and huck finn had his Adventures. i have my iGoddess, as i find the Funk and get down with my pronoiac self.

i remember this project i had my senior year of high school. we were given one of shakespeare's sonnets and told to a.) memorize it, b.) decipher it, c.) recite it for the class, and then d.) write a short presentation on its meaning. mine was sonnet 148. "ah me! what eyes hath love put in my head/ which have no correspondence with true sight!" i instantly fell in love with it. it's not one of his better known sonnets, filled with sarcasm and irony as he mocks the negativity and "well-seeing" majority who love to find fault with everything.

i chose to go close to last in this little project. oh my Funky Ya-Ya, if shakespeare were alive today, i think he'd flip to realize just how depressed and cynical and down on love my class thought he was! the thing of it is...they'd been lied to. they'd been brainwashed! they were so freaking deluded it wasn't even funny!

they were taught love was supposed to be this grand, heart-wrenching thing in which pain and suffering heartache were the templates used to measure it! angst and night sweats and performance art drama were the stuff of great loves. bah! the bard had it right, and instead of interpreting according to the lasting beauty and truth handed down through the ages, they put on their drama-colored glasses and interpreted according to contemporary values.

the poor, poor fools. i love them more than i love them.

being i was already in my own tempestuous (in a good way) affair with the bard myownself, i had to do him complete justice. i approached my sonnet with the idea of Love firmly affixed in my brain. "love is patient, love is kind, and envies no one. love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude nor selfish nor quick to take offense..."

in the end, i recited my sonnet speaking from my own heart, as if i'd written it myself. my interpretation came from the definition of love, not twisting the definition of love to fit my teenage angst and what i thought the sonnet meant. the result being, the entire class held its collective breath as i recited and breathed a quiet, "Ohh..." as i finished. my teacher smiled and said he had found a new favorite in the sonnets. i smiled, bowed, and took my seat. the next girl after me was kind of embarrassed to follow after my performance, and i asked her about it later. she said it was because here i'd captured the essence of love (no, i merely summed up what shakespeare already captured), and there she was sounding bitter and cynical. she was too young to sound so bitter!

so, too, do i approach life every single day. the universe is secretly conspiring to shower me with blessings, and yet we've all been deluded into thinking that life is primarily an ordeal! shame on the entertainment criminals of the phallocracy for deluding us! shame on us for letting them! instead of vomiting it back up at them, or converting to metaphorical entertainment veganism, or eating it and breaking it down into its base elements to then use in constructive and creative expressions of ecstatic love and funky happiness, we just let it pass right through us. garbage in, and garbage out. garbage out to our children, our spouses, our co-workers, and our poor bodies that have to work that much harder as they're stuck in the muck and quagmire of our negative delusions!

love it more than you love it, beauty and truth fans of the world! take it and break it up, break it down, like a beautiful flower bed uses the death of other organic matter to nourish itself and thus create beautiful flowers with crystalline colors and gorgeously seductive fragrances and blissfully orgasmic nectars for insects to eat and grow, which feeds the birds and reptiles, which feeds larger animals and plants, which in their turn feed yet larger animals and plants, which feed us, who feed yet larger animals out there in the wild.

'cause let's face it, much as humanity's self-absorbed and ego-centric, we're not the top of the food chain. just ask sharks, lions and tigers and bears, oh my. we're pretty damn tasty.

the universe gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it. you are exactly where you need to be, even if it means being on the menu of some african lion's lunch. and hell, if you really believe it, turn around and say, "hello!" to the nice kitty. extend your hand in greeting. you may just discover he was only chasing you 'cause you were running.

brezsny-on-the-blog

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): There are two basic approaches to manipulating people. In one, you manipulate people solely for your own good. In the other, you do it equally for your good and their good. In the second type, moreover, you deeply empathize with and even become more like the people you want to influence. You allow them to work their magic on you at least as much as you work your magic on them. Guess which kind I'm urging you to express right now, Capricorn.

okay, mr. brezsny, this is getting creepy.

i've been learning a lot about manipulation, control, fear, and surrender lately. the thing about codependence is, one and all, codependents came from dysfunctional homes. i hesitate to use the word "abusive," because people usually think of domestic violence, sexual abuse, or something of that nature. there are a lot of forms of abuse, i'm learning. and the root of codependence is equal parts avoiding the pain of those events down to the subconscious level, and making sure it never happens again.

of course, in order to "guarantee" it never happens again, control and manipulation are of the utmost importance. poor things. ironically, those coping and defense mechanisms learned in childhood to survive and adapt to those abusive conditions only serve as tools of spiraling destruction in adulthood. which leads to more avoidance of pain now in the present, along with more manipulation in order to control the environment and reality around them.

example: as i had little to no self-esteem (and never learned how to have it within myself), i want to be able to think nice thoughts about the kind of person i am. but i need other people to believe in me so that i can believe it. i use other people to gauge how good a person i think i am. which is very unhealthy, by the way, but you already knew that. anyway, in order to do that, i have to manipulate you so that i can influence and even change your mind about me --even though i don't even know that's what i'm really doing-- so that you can think what i want you to think about me and therefore i can believe it myself.

fucked up, huh? what breaks my heart is that healthy people don't have a clue what's really going on with a person suffering (and truly it is suffering) from codependence, and so not only do they have no compassion within them for the codependent, but they really treat the person like shit.

i have many personal accounts of that very example in action, and last summer is prime material of being treated like shit due to lack of compassion and understanding.

of course, i didn't know that's what was going on, but you'd think years of asking for help and saying, "i don't know how to get out of this, someone please help me," would have been a clue.

nope!

anyway, so yeah. y'know...every week i stand up, bare my breast, and let mr. brezsny take a shot right at my heart. he never misses. then again, it highlights exactly the ability i'm striving for --radical intimacy. so sayeth the oracle:

"i would like to quote now from the book that, with your help, i hope to write someday. it's called the dictionary of tricky love. please listen to the definition for the term 'radical intimacy.' ahem. radical intimacy is a virtuoso art that requires me and my freaky consort to master two seemingly contradictory skills: naming and nurturing the highest, holiest, best in each other, and thriving on the fact that our relationship will inevitably draw out and ask us to redeem each other's ugliest ignorance."

"so what you're saying is that the deeper you and i fall in love," i replied, "the more uninhibited we'll both feel about unveling our worst qualities?"

"it's a good thing," jumbler murmured, ..."because it will give us great ongoing practice at killing the apocalypse right down at the most microscopic levels."

"yes, i suppose that's true," i allowed. "each of us, even great masters like you and me, carry a little portion of the apocalypse within us."

"jung called our personal portion of the apocalypse the shadow," she said, taking the pen and drawing an oval on the sole of her left foot. within it, she printed "do not look at this" along with a picture of a single eye. "it's the unripe or wounded part of us," she continued. "it becomes evil only if it's repressed."

"so radical intimacy," i replied, curling into the fetal position to stare into the off-limits zone she'd just created, "i get to practice killing off the apocalypse in you, and vice versa? sort of a corollary to jesus' plea to love thy neighbor as thyself. 'love thy neighbor's shadow, and work with all thy tender adrenaline to summon its most constructive expressions.'"

"hmm, i like that. but i was thinking more about how i will kill off the apocalypse in myself because i have such a high regard and attraction to you. and you'll do vice versa."

"so like when i suddenly turn into a jerk because my flaming narcissism has demonically possessed me, i'll rise up with a banishing spell. 'begone demon, for i cannot allow you to trick me into hurting the feelings of my sweet groovemate.'"

"yes, exactly," she laughed. "you won't just naturally assume that the demon to be exorcised resides inside me. which in itself is so contrary to the style of the six billion apocalypticians on the planet that you might just shock armageddon into expiring right then and there."

"...as jung said, we tend to attribute to other people the very stuff we hate and fear most about ourselves."

(and here is what i love the best about this conversation...)

"radical intimacy means we kill the apocalypse at the source."
--robert brezsny, the televionary oracle (pgs 354, 355)

die, apocalypse, die! get behind me, demon! i swallow you down and break you up into your most basic elements so i may then use those materials to construct myself into my own funkiest groovemate, and thereby kill the apocalypse within me by transforming my shadow self into constructive expressions of the Divine Wow! i shall endeavor to find equality, equilibrium, and interdependence with my funkmates in order to allow them to manipulate me as much as i manipulate them, so that we all may work our magic on each other and manifest all of our potential!

so mote it be. amen. a-woman. ommmmm. and hallelujah.

grace isn't just "god's neat, let's eat!"

the fact that there exists beyond ourselves and our conscious will a powerful force that nurtures our growth and evolution is enough to turn our notions of self-insignificance upside down.

for the existence of this force, once we perceive it, indicates with incontrovertible certainty that our human spiritual growth is of the utmost importance to something greater than ourselves. this "something" we call God or Creator (and which delena calls the Supreme Funk). the existence of grace is prime evidence not only of the reality of the Great and Jubalicious Wa-Hoo, but also of the reality that the Heroine With a Thousand Ruses’ will is devoted to the growth of the individual human spirit. what once seemed a fairy tale turns out to be reality.

we live our lives in the eye of the Wealthy Anarchist Burning Heaven to the Ground, and not at the periphery but at the center of Their vision. the human(e) race is in the midst of making an evolutionary leap, and whether we succeed or not in that leap is our personal responsibility. grace is the Funky Chicken With Soul's gift to all of creation in the Multiverse. through grace we know we are being welcomed, the Universe --aside from secretly conspiring to shower us with blessings-- is a stepping stone and has been laid out for us. we ourselves must step across it, one stone at a time.

grace indicates humanity to be in oneness with the universe. we are hardly lost in the universe; we are part of the whole and can never detach from it even if we wanted to. remember, we were there when the Multi-Versal Jiggy Snake sent the universe spinning into being with one excited "Wee!" one can learn religions, but to know spirituality is to feel it. it's a unique transition and transformation you feel when pain transforms you...and you let it.

some fight against it. how to surrender is the key. when you are at wit's end and you think the pain couldn't get any worse, one of two things happens. either you let it conquer you and die a little inside, or it happens. surrender is all about letting go of control. it's not easy, because everyone wants it and works very hard to achieve it. but once you do surrender, you can't go back. you feel very different, like all of a sudden the world around you is different. it is different.

that's what it means to find the Funk. when the Divine Wow within you connects with your true self, your own inner funk. you find the Funk, brah. find the Funk.

what's that word again?

from the oxford-delena dictionary

amalgam
n.

1. a mixture or combination of diverse elements
2. what the thoughts running through delena's mind are. hmm...maybe not running. more like streaking

[streaking: (v. intr.) to run naked in public, especially as a prank]

so yeah, the thoughts are an amalgam of a lot of different things going on in my life right now. *mj*, *cc*, and i have pretty much settled in our new apartment and we're absolutely in love with it. there are only a few boxes left, but they're nothing majorly important, so if we had anyone come over now we wouldn't be embarrassed. the kitties have taken their rightful place on their little kitty thrones as sovereign rulers of all they survey.

i'm getting a bit more sleep than i used to, which is great. resting my head at the Shrine of Knowledgy Sci-Fantasy Goodness helps a lot, too. hell, just having my stuff is a great comfort to me, sitting amidst familiar things that let me know i'm me. and there's a lot less stress in the house. the apartment's a lot cleaner and neater, which really makes me glad. and relieved, honestly.

*ds*, *ns*, and *kas* have their own apartment now, with their own space, which i know is best for everyone. the three of us here at our apartment no longer feel ignored, disregarded, and disenfranchised in our own living space anymore. now that everyone's had a bit of time to calm down, we can get back to focusing on the friendship, which is the important thing. when people live together, there's a lot to be said for consideration of another person. i found myself not even wanting to be in the same room with *ds* the last few weeks before the move, and i knew it was a living habit clash, not a friendship clash, so i held my tongue.

but i think that's partly what helps *mj*, *cc*, and i. there's consideration all the way around, so no one's getting fed up with anyone else.

i've been doing a lot of reading, too. if you missed it before, i read the televisionary oracle by robert brezsny and very, very highly recommend it. it's largely the source for the tone and spirit of iGoddess, the Funk, and my silently explosive relationship with the Funky Ya-Ya recently. but even more recently (AKA night before last) i finished reading women who love too much and...just wow.

i devoured it in three days, i think. it's really got me thinking now, which is good. i've known for a few months now that i've been codependent and i've accepted it. the realization was the hard part. i almost killed myself, i was so horrified and disgusted. but then, i also realized that the horror and disgust was because i was hearing the bio-dad in my memories, watching his expressions, hearing his tone, seeing the way he'd shudder when talking about those "weak, disgusting codependent people," the way he'd be so derogatory. he didn't even speak of child molesters and serial killers with a fraction as much revulsion as he would when talking about codependents and abandonment issues and insecurity.

no wonder i buried it as deep as i did, to the point of not even knowing it was there, either consciously or subconsciously. when i realized something might possibly be wrong, it was literally like a newsflash. it was long after my summer of hell, long after a fight where i launched myself onto someone and nearly ripped out his eyeballs, and found myself facedown in the gravel, screaming and sobbing and wishing i would die. i almost did it, too, with trazodone and foxglove.

that was the darkest night of my life.

i went to my lovely and understanding, comforting parents instead, though. coming to them that sunday afternoon felt like i've always imagined having loving parents would feel like. all i have to do is think of them, and i get that same warmth spreading from my heart outwards, and i can't help it. i can't help smiling. not that i try, mind you.

anyway, on that horrible, horrible night, a tiny voice stirred. "i think something needs to change," it said in a very, very small voice. too small to be heard, and almost too small to be felt. "because this isn't working." and then...something inside me rubbed the fairy dust out of the corners of its eyes, yawned a great, tremendous yawn after a lifelong sleep and took a look around. it was too quiet, too subtle to be heard over the shriek of my depression, but it's what drove me to call my parents and ask for help.

so since then, i've been doing a lot of things, but most importantly i've been educating myself on codependence. looking more closely at it, i'm beginning to wonder if i'm even really bipolar at all like the shrinks said. the women in these books i'm reading sound so much like me, from early childhood to adolescence, to stupid relationship after stupid relationship. their behavior, the symptoms, are identical to my own behavior...things i truly and honestly believed were one thing, but subconsciously were another.

the people who hate and rejected me were completely oblivious, and they were wrong to condemn me, but now i can truly see that they were detrimental to me anyway and it's very, very good they're gone. i can feel relieved about it now, and stop hurting so much.

but...the outbursts, the stress, the rollercoaster emotions, even the stress and anxiety and hallucinations...all of it looks more like codependence. a disease of the mind and heart, not a chemical imbalance to be alchemically rectified with no regard to the turmoil in my soul. no thought for the injured child delena still terrified of, dehumanized by, and warped from life with her bio-parents.

and take into consideration lately it's just been life with us in our apartment and visiting the parents for sunday dinners, i haven't needed my tinctures at all. at all. there's still stress, and insomnia's still driving me crazy (hence the blog entry at 2 in the a.m.), but i'm more physically and mentally active than ever, there's still stress, and *cc* and i go out just about every day on some quest or other. and yet...no agoraphobia, no depressions, no aggrivation, no withdrawing, no twitchy tension. that's saying something.

it's so totally saying something. i think i'm finally --finally!-- on the right path to figuring myself out, and healing. i was talking to dizzy about it earlier tonight, actually. among a great many things, she asked if the Funk was really coming through in my life and that she could tell i'm in a much better place than ever before. and since she's been with all the incarnations of iGoddess since 2002, she knows what she's talking about!

so yes, the Funk's really coming through in my life. me, and the Orgasmic Funk.

grey matter of a different color

usually i don't post these things here. i save personality quizzes and fun blog knicknacks for other things, but this one entertained me to no end. it amused me because i couldn't decide how to answer one particular question, because two of the available answers were very powerfully true. so i picked one, and got this answer which, i'm sure, doesn't surprise anyone.

Your Brain is Purple

Of all the brain types, yours is the most idealistic. You tend to think wild, amazing thoughts. Your dreams and fantasies are intense. Your thoughts are creative, inventive, and without boundaries. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking of fictional people and places - or a very different life for yourself.

What Color Is Your Brain?

so...then i changed my answer, and got this other result. again, not quite surprising, because i can do this, too.

Your Brain is Green

Of all the brain types, yours has the most balance. You are able to see all sides to most problems and are a good problem solver. You need time to work out your thoughts, but you don't get stuck in bad thinking patterns. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking about the future, philosophy, and relationships (both personal and intellectual).

What Color Is Your Brain?

just imagine: a creative, inventive, idealistic problem solver who can see all sides of the situation. a balanced, objective, practical intellectual with an intense imagination that knows no boundaries.

hehe...there are some days i just love looking in the mirror!

sunday scribblings

the topic this week was "crush," and the first thought to go through my mind was, "ew." no, seriously. i never had crushes; i had obsessions. every heartthrob was a potential white knight who would save me from the bio-parents. and if he couldn't save me, at least i could pour all my attention into him so i didn't have to face what was going on in my own life.

ah, denial is a beautiful thing.

so thinking about my own past crushes just makes me uncomfortable. i just got finished reading women who love too much by robin norwood, so i've already done a lot of pondering and reflecting on past crushes, thanks. on the other hand, as i've gotten older i've heard a lot more of people who had crushes on me. and, y'know, i never noticed. never even realized anyone was walking around with feelings like that. and for me!

and flirting! i never realize when someone's flirting with me. i just figure they're being polite and gentlemanly, so i'm polite and ladylike right back. i think it goes back to my non-existant self-esteem once upon a time. it just never occurs to me anyone could look at me that way. kind of like gravity, you just take it for granted and never think about it. it just Is. well, except for when you accidentally drop something and say to yourself, "yup! gravity still works. just checking."

not that i'm saying i still have non-existant self-esteem, just that i'm still in the habit of being totally oblivious to romantic affection.

it's like that time i was out with the parents and *cc*, and we went to this mexican restaurant they knew. our server was totally blown away by the fact he tried to trip me up speaking in spanish and i spoke it right back. his eyes went wide, everyone laughed, and i said, "gotcha!" he was really nice, though. i was uncomfortable with the conversation i kept trying to politely end and he kept trying to revive. *cc* finally saved me by pulling me outside into the sparkling, frosty night. a good girl speaks when spoken to, right?

oi vey, i still have a ways to go.

i blinked, waiting for my dad to unlock the jeep. "...was he flirting?"

"DUH!" came the universal reply, practically in 7.1 digital surround.

see? accidentally drop something, seeing if gravity still works. "oh." blink, blink. "just checking."


read more crushes!