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punks at the wedding

I don't know if it is a good thing that I had completely tuned out that the royal wedding was going to take place this morning, I mean I knew it was happening at some point and I've seen some cheeky/sexy outfits on Kate in the past months, but I didn't have any idea that the world was waking to that long slow horse and buggy ride, sitting on the edge of their seats, not til I turned on my computer.

My live stream was so tortuously slow so I got bored but I do remember a more exciting wedding (for me), back in the punk days in Boston, oh I can't even say, back when I was a teenager when Dini and I woke up before dawn to dress in coveralls and carry plastic machine guns to crash this posh royal wedding brunch we knew about in the South End.  Dini was a rock star and I had a great hair cut and I think they were a little afraid NOT to let us in, but once they did, we were not afraid to drink loads of champagne and wreak havoc and give everybody a some real GOD SAVE THE QUEEN, turning over tables, tying people to chairs, and even duck taping a few moustaches. The hostess tried to play it cool and take credit for the whole conceptual madness, so it didn't go as well as we would have liked but still, it was more fun remembering than watching the lurching Ustream this morning.

Too rainy at the moment to go out and scan some punk pix, they're coming, promise.

how to write from your heart

(from The School of Invisible Arts)

There is a sinking down inside the body that enables us to open the door to creativity. There is information inside of us that is trying to speak. Essentially there are always two things happening simultaneously: one, we are experiencing and two, we are remembering.

This is how we make sense of what we are experiencing: we remember something and this something creates order of what we are experiencing.

The problem with memory is that sometimes it "corrects" experience so that we feel safe. It creates order where perhaps there is none. Sometimes it creates a lack of safety when there is actually nothing to fear.

The problems with memory in regards to creativity are legion and yet it is still so essential. It is what makes us who we are. The way to deal with memory in a way that thickens who we are, in a way that makes us more substantial and more textured without killing the immediacy of our experience is by utilizing what Buddhists' call detachment.

This detachment is also an important component of one of the most important tenets of The True Love Project:  equal value ~ everything (and everyone for that matter) of equal value, everything essential, no over-valuing good or beautiful or light or happiness over bad or ugly or dark or sadness.

If there is detachment in regards to memory then experience can filter in at its proper pace instead of being compressed and altered by the past.

Use the example of preparing food. You begin to cut the tomato and you are struck by the intensity of the red, the feeling of the skin of the fruit giving way under your fingers, the sight of the seeds spilling out under the cut of the knife. This is all experiential, sensory information arriving fresh to your being. It could be anything in front of you. You do not have to have prior information in order to appreciate the beauty there.

However you have a recipe in mind. You are preparing salsa. Perhaps this is something you have prepared before or maybe you are following a recipe. You need to search inside of you for this information or you need to read out of a book (an action that activates memory). This reading interrupts the inward, direct flow of experience of the tomato.

This inward searching in and of itself is not a problem for creativity. Memory is a huge treasure box of inspiration, pungent with imagery, emotional fragrance, narrative and abstract content.

The problem is the speed of memory; how quickly we reach for the known, the proof, the defined.  This where the need for detachment comes in. Because of the intensity of memory – memory (at least the memory that sticks with us, thankfully there are the memories that wither and fall away over time) has a tendency to ferment in our consciousness – the sad becomes sadder, the beautiful & tragic become more beautiful and more tragic.

Memory is concentrated stuff.  It only takes a tiny bit to color one’s entire present reality.

Another interruption of memory on creativity is the phenomenon of the trigger. Although a trigger does not always activate memory, we are such porous beings and our brains have such a huge capacity for storage, we don't always have an accurate method of storage and retrieval. Memories are often hidden away deep within us. We don't remember them until something sneaks up on us. They don't call it a trigger for nothing . . . a slight experiential, sensual moment can open the floodgates of emotion, your whole experience can turn on a dime and you are suddenly and completely in the past . . .

We are not discouraging memory, as a matter of fact we are encouraging it. What we are encouraging here is a mastery of the memory field -- mastery not subjugation.  Think of your memory in two ways (for now): like a wild horse & like a small child. For simplicity's purposes, this is the combination of techniques I am asking you to use: a sweet calling forward and a steady gaze, a delicate but authoritative tether, a firm belief in the path and a respect for wandering, a lack of judgment on trauma, intense experience and boredom.

I want you to call memory forward courageously but do not be surprised by the extreme wild approach.  Keep eye contact.  Your feet are open and relaxed to the earth. You can be touched but not moved from this connection. You are the master but you are so in love with experience that everything is cherished and you realize by this inclusiveness that you are cherishing yourself and by cherishing yourself, you are calling your intuition forward and now your life can begin.

 

today

 

Lately I have been sleeping so hard and waking up not knowing where I am.  I slip into this state fairly easily throughout the day: in the bathtub, after yoga, in the train.  This morning, when I woke up, I was sitting in my kitchen, looking out the window at some tulips and a robin, just as the sun was coming up and I thought to myself, they could both be me.  Later, after yoga, I laid down on the floor and I heard someone walking on the sidewalk, I heard the train, I heard a plane high above, I heard the birds in their nest under the eaves, I heard my neighbor making coffee, I heard the rain on the skylight and I thought, that could all be me, that is me, I am all of that.

vine epiphanies (boston)

Tonight I will be in Boston performing a story for the Evolver Boston's brand new Ayahuasca Monologues with Jonathan Talat Phillips, Joe Moore, Kara Trott, The Medicine Hunter and Adam Elenbaas . . . my storytelling debut, off the page, off the leash . . . 7:30 at the Central Square Y, it would be great to see you there . . .

an excerpt from EL JEFE:

At this point in history, there is absolutely no way of predicting the outcome of anything, even, say, breakfast, no way of knowing anything beforehand, really. From one moment to the next, just like a car wreck, just like twisting your ankle, just like falling in love ~ one minute you are one way and then the next minute, no really the next second, the next nanosecond, and you are altered for life. You cannot prepare for this. On a daily basis, there are moments where you realize there is absolutely no going back, ever, whatever happens~ you will never be the same again.

 

 

the letting go

 

Last summer, I was in a sweat lodge during purification at a Sundance, way upstate near Canada and a woman in the lodge sang a song that moved me. It was in English, which is unusual both in the tipi and in the lodge and it was so clearly a song for Love:

High above the mountains, across the sea, I sing to you, I know you can hear me

High above the mountains, across the sea, I call to you, come pray with me

Hey Yanna Hey, Hey Yanna Ho, Hey Yanna Hey, Hey Yanna Ho

Hey Yanna Hey, Hey Yanna Ho, Hey Yanna Hey, Hey Yanna Ho

 

I wanted that song.  I knew I needed to sing that song. 

This is how it goes with songs in the tipi: you need to pray, you want to pray, you need to find your voice, you need to not be afraid, in order not to be afraid you need to find the songs that you absolutely must sing, there is no holding back.

Then the songs become yours, so you must really choose your truth.  Other people will pick up those songs, other people will share your songs, but you will be known by your songs.  The more songs that call to you, the deeper and more intricate and more whole your prayer becomes.

The true way to learn a song is for someone to sing it to you.  Sure, plenty of songs are learned off of YouTube and CDs but really, you need to go up to someone in the morning after listening to them sing all night and you need to find a place to sit down and have them teach you how to pray.

I asked Stephanie to teach me that song.  She told me she had sung that song in sweat lodges for years, looking for her mate, someone to take her on with her pack of kids, and she found him, her chief.  She still sings the song anyway.  We didn't have time though, I thought the song was lost for me.  I couldn't find it anywhere.

One night in the middle of the night I got a phone call and it was Stephanie on her way to work out in Seattle.  She sang me the song once, because she was in a rush and then she sang it again onto my voicemail.  I learned it that way, playing it over and over.

My daughter Nola was in Cuba then, and I called her there in her boarding house, where they had to call her down to the lobby for her calls.  I taught her the song, she sang it back to me right there by the switchboard with a card game going on in the background.  It was like $1.00 a minute and we were both crying and sniffling a little.

I told Stephanie's sister she taught me the song and I said I was praying for a partner.  She laughed and said, no that is an ancestor song, that song is to call your relatives close to you, to help you, to guide you.  But, she said with a smile, let me know if it works out the way you want it.

That was all over six months ago.  Last night, I was in a sweat with about 30 women, virtually right on the street in the Bronx, in a community garden.  We were packed in tight and the stones were hot.  We went 5 rounds.  Almost every song was in Spanish, but on the last round, Nola's voice rose from deep in the lodge, across the way from me: High above the mountains . . .

 

la dolce vita

 

This last full moon slammed me, in the best and worst sense of the word.  It started out with my cousin Sylvia's wedding at the Jersey Shore on Saturday.  It was her third wedding and I don't think anyone expected it to be as insanely joyous and off the hook as it was.  I mean it's not like she and Greg are not thrilled to be beginning their new life as husband and wife but I guess I was thinking that maybe Sylvia would be more sober about the whole thing, having been there before.  Bad Love Artist.  I should know better.  True love is like giving birth, you get amnesia.  It really isn't til about a week before the baby was due, that I started to get that jumping off a tall building anxiety but, really, it doesn't even cross my mind until then, when it's too late.

Sylvia and Greg got married in a church, just like newlyweds, except that Sylvia's two daughters, 18 & 20, gave her away.  Greg had met Sylvia about 24 years ago at a party.  She was married to her first husband then.  After being introduced, Sylvia, just a little over 5 feet tall and always an over-sharer, showed Greg that she had hemmed her pants with masking tape on her way over to the party.  Greg was amazed at her guilelessness and never forgot her.  Her marriage fell apart, and then the next one did too.  Greg was still waiting for her. Not in touch, just hanging out in the wings, faith in love, faith in her.

Their reception was in a marina in Point Pleasant.  It was torrential outside, rain falling in frigid leaden curtains sideways and continuous all night long.  After we had all collected ourselves at our designated tables in a banquet room that was totally prom-worthy, the music started pounding quietly and then mounting into a crescendo.  We were all called out onto the dance floor in a circle and suddenly the MC was yelling into the mike like it was a monster truck ralley . . . AND NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME AS MAN AND WIFE . . .

They burst through the doors, two 50-something newlyweds, holding hands and running out in the middle of all of us and jumping up and down & dancing to GIMME SOME LOVING, GIMME GIMME SOME LOVING, GIMME SOME LOVING > > EVERY DAY >>>>>>>

And then we all started jumping up and down too and danced, really, all night long.  Once in a while someone would remind us that the buffet was open and a few people would straggle off, but mostly, yes, on the dance floor.  At one point, the MC called Sylvia: the happiest bride EVER.

There were always more men than women though my nephews held their own with their cousins, their aunts and they all took turns dancing with their grandmother.  After all, they were born into the tail end of this matriarchy, they had plenty of practice & humility handling their women . . . my grandmother, the matriarch & their great grandmother, was the oldest of 7 sisters, and from there, all the way down the line, generation after generation of all girls.

My grandmother wasn't there, though.  At 99, she was in a rehab in Florida after a mini-stroke & congestive heart failure.  It is the first big event that she hasn't ruled at.  It was a relief to not be faced with her discomfort, for a minute, but it was so strange to not have her there.

Oh god, I hate to be the party pooper.
 
One of the last songs was of course WE ARE FAMILY and we all danced in a circle.  I was next to my aunt, the mother of the bride, my mother's only sister, my second mother.  She can barely see, particularly in the dark, but she looked beautiful and she was still dancing and laughing. 

My daughters and I slept in a room together right at the marina. We ran across the parking lot in the rain and fell asleep like little puppies, in a pile.  I woke up in the middle of the night after a dream about high school filled with so much fear about the little things, being left out, people being mean, realizing that you have been delusional about many things, including who you are, what you look like, your face.  One of the those dreams that were so real, you can't figure out where you are.

This was the morning of the full moon.  We were still all together and it was still all love.

Brunch at the marina before leaving: a chocolate fountain with strawberries for dipping, cannolis, bacon, eggs benedict (for starters).

By the time I walked through the door to my love palace about 5 hours later, alone, I had already been crying for an hour or so. I didn't know why. I cried all night, I couldn't stop it.

the blue room

 

Sitting on the floor in Nola's dorm room, early morning, she is sleeping, still squished over on her side of the skinny little twin bed. I slept over. The birds are outside, speaking French as they usually do in the Spring.  The branches of the big tree outside her window are grey, wet & slick.  Last night we went out dancing in the Blue Room, a large room in the building with the dining hall that is reserved for social gathering, like dancing, making out, making drama, running around. Nothing new and everything new.  We were early because Mama was yawning, we cracked open the dance floor, but soon there were a bunch of girls (not us), seriously busy, writhing around on top of each other on the gogo risers piled up in the middle of the floor to Lady Gaga, Rhianna. Just when we were ready to go, the boys arrived.

 

from the vault: dear love artist / can there only be one 'special'

 

Dear Love Artist,

You describe in your book that your patrons feel (or want to feel) as if they are the 'special' one, or they that they are the one you were going to love the most, or they are going to show you the real way, the ultimate embrace . . . even if they know, even if they really understand, that you will only love them for one day . . .

When you love your patrons, do they become 'special'? Can there only be one 'special' or do you retain all the others at the same time? If everyone is equal then surely no one is more special than the other, but at the same time, don't you think that you can't feel fully loved unless you feel (at least a bit) more special than everyone else?

Do you think that to feel 'special' is, or should be, the priority for Love?

Beyond the Pale



Dear BTP,

First of all --

They are, You are, I am Special.

 I think it is a shortcoming of such a luscious word that in order to call it to oneself, it is inherent that no one else can own it, or only a very select few.

I think the need to feel special comes from the need to feel safe, for if one feels so special, so rare and in need of the most divine & devoted attention, then certainly no one would let anything happen to you, certainly not your one & only, your beloved.

This need to be safe has become so huge in today's world of code-orange-just-about-everything that it has caused this enormous hunger, the need to be special & this hunger only separates one from their mates & just exhausts everyone.

The True Love Project loves the whole world one at a time & I believe that there is more than enough time for people to come back for seconds & thirds . . . I certainly have no concern about the time, or the redundancy & I get excited everytime I get the opportunity to love.

The idea that

there is all the time in the world

is a huge antidote to a compulsive hunger for love. Couple that with

we could all go tomorrow

& you have the perfect formula for love: pay attention & love the person in front of you with your whole being . . it's like the breath of fire where you concentrate on a forceful exhalation, breathing very quickly, always focusing on the exhalation . . you know you will automatically inhale, the body wants to inhale, there is no need to worry . . if you pay attention to the most exquisite details of the being in front of you, even if it is the cashier at the Mobile Mart, & focus on love, the love & specialness will automatically come back to you, probably at least tenfold.

Spread it around my love & thanks for reminding me of that, so much xoxox TLA

P.S. BTW, A pale (beyond which you obviously grow) is an old name for a pointed stake driven into the ground to form part of a fence and — by obvious extension — to a barrier made of such stakes, a fence. So you see your chosen alias pushes the limitations of such a fence or a safeguard, barrier, or any limit beyond which it is not widely permissible to go . . . <3 xxxox

(april 2007)

this is what love looked like yesterday

I'm pretty sure it still looks this way today too, last time I checked anyway.  Today is Anne's birthday.  Yesterday I was madly in love with her for 24 hours, from midnight to midnight.  It was effortless. It was difficult.

It was effortless because she was so game about the whole thing, so receptive.  She had faith.  She really believed that I was loving her, from the first minute, she woke up bright & shiny & feeling loved.  I think she might have been the first person ever in the entire history of the True Love Project that wrote me first.  Which was a good thing because I was kind of a mess on Sunday morning ~ due to 8 days of fever, I felt weirdly bright & shiny too but kind of carved out & a little empty, like someone else, with a beautiful, divine amnesia in my better moments & the disposition of a cranky 2 year old in my, well, cranky moments of despair.

But Anne was like, "Hooray! No thank you! And good morning sweetie!" from the first minute & "Oh that is so hot! Even when you are drawn a little bit like you have baby bear ears you are super beautiful." (I was modeling for someone at the time, staring at the light fixture, thinking about God & of course, breathing into my heart & loving Anne.)

(drawing by Nicholas Kahn)

To which I responded: "I love that you have a sense of humor about love . .& that is hot . . .tho I think I was supposed to be a bat . . kinky ;)"

I feel like most of our significant loving came later in the evening, when I was so tired & we were endlessly emailing back & forth in a form of pillow talk that was so precious, simple. I mean there (at least seemed) was no agenda. I could hardly pick my head up from the pillow and then Anne decided to put our true love on Facebook as complicated, not even really as a joke, because I mean, IT WAS REALLY TRUE but then everyone was all over my page with support & hugs for my new relationship & I got even more queasy & feverish . . . not that I need to explain myself, ever really, but . . I did have a conservative moment though, I really did.  I thought to myself, "I don't want to be making fun of other people who take so much time to decide whether or not to go public on Facebook with their relationship" and then I thought, Kathe, you have got to be kidding . . you are in love in the world, you are the love artist, be bold . .  & I had to think for a minute: what is real??? & more importantly, what is love???? 

 

FROM ANNE'S TRUE LOVE QUESTIONNAIRE: 

 

TELL ME THREE IMPORTANT THINGS ABOUT YOURSELF:

I am awesome. I care deeply. I have a lot to learn.

NOW GO AND LOOK IN THE MIRROR.  LOOK INTO YOUR EYES.  REALLY LOOK IN AND TELL ME ONE MORE THING ABOUT YOURSELF.

I feel like I live in an earthquake.

TAKE A MOMENT TO THINK ABOUT THE WAY YOU LIKE TO BE LOVED, NO NOT JUST THE WAY YOU LIKE TO BE LOVED, THE WAY YOU NEED TO BE LOVED TO FEEL REALLY TRUE AND RELAXED IN YOUR SKIN.  THESE DESCRIPTIONS CAN TAKE ANY FORM.  IT CAN BE A LIST, IT COULD BE THE CHORUS OF A POP SONG, IT COULD BE AN ANIMAL, IT COULD BE A NUMBER OR IT COULD BE PURE PUNCTUATION.

The only times I have ever consciously felt loved, and said at the time, to myself, “this is what it feel like to be loved, you have to remember this, this is very important,” was when people spontaneously dried my hair with a towel after a bath or shower. It’s only ever happened with my parents—probably, both of them did it, even though I don’t know that they ever did much beyond that to ensure that I felt loved—and with the person who is my very best friend in the world, with whom I continue to have a sort of complicated connection to. I’ve asked people to do it before, explaining, “look, this makes me feel loved, this is important,” but it was always inadequate or somehow unpassionate.

TELL ME A COLOR YOU ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT.

I like a lot of colors. Maybe I think of orange as the most exciting.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE TIME OF DAY?

Mornings after I get enough sleep, spring evenings.

ADVANCE LOVE OPTION:
WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE THIS DAY WITH ANYONE? (IF SO, FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO THEM AS WELL AS FORWARDING ME THEIR EMAIL ADDRESS.  REMEMBER THIS COMMUNICATION COULD TAKE A LITTLE TIME, SO GET STARTED WITH ENOUGH TIME.)

No, actually I am going to take this day and be emotionally monogamous by conscious choice. I hope that’s ok with you! I’m doing it out of an interest in concentrating, and not because I require or demand that of love or whatever. 

sunday prayers with the love artist

 

(photo by laura mulley)

(photo by Edward S. Curtis)

 

 

(please let me know if you recognize this image, cannot remember origin . . )

 

Oh my loves, it has been a long road through the fevers of isolation this week, in & out of really not feeling well & utter exhaustion, but, as you might expect, I LEARNED SO MUCH . . .

 

Despite invitations to so many spring tipis . . I am at home, still recovering, still so tired but fever gone, fingers crossed, emerging tomorrow in time to teach in Woodstock at the Sage Center for the Healing Arts . .

 

Currently working on a piece about metta, everything is everything, I am the water & I am the wind & you are the water & you are the wind & you are me & no exclusion, but til then, come and pray with me . . . or, no more separation ~ bring me to you, it's better when we all pray together.

 

I love you.

 

 

Sunday April 10th-- 3:00pm-6:00pm

MANIFESTATION: CLARITY, SURRENDER & LEARNING HOW TO PRAY

with Kathe Izzo 

In this three hour workshop we will first clarify our both our needs & discomfort ~ second, list & loosen what we are willing & able to let go of ~ & lastly, in very practical & specific ways, utilize a combination of heart opening techniques based on Kundalini kriyas combined with writing & partnered work to develop a new working relationship to prayer.

$20 contribution.

Call For more info: sagecenter@earthlink.net / 845 679 5650 www.sagehealingcenter.org

SAGE Center for the Healing Arts 6 Deming Street, Woodstock, ny, 12498 www.sagehealingcenter.org