the love artist dot org

the lost doubloon

"It is in this realm, from romance to love to making love, that loners are perhaps the most grossly misunderstood.  Love & sex are such personal pursuits, so intrinsically

*private*

that it seems impossible to make snap judgments about who wants what or with whom.  Yet, private as they are, love & sex have been rendered public through the huge lens of the media. . . The search (for love) has gone worldwide.  So a process that begins with only two -- two hands touching, two minds, two souls out of six billion -- is presented to us as a mass movement . . . think of the mathematics. it could be anyone . . . (for loners) opening lines, small talk, seem repulsive . . for loners, spending time with strangers, again & again . . what currently constitutes dating . . is the definition of surreal . . .

. . . as for sex, that level of intimacy lies at the end of a journey whose navigation no loner can take lightly.

Social creatures . . can keep up a light conversation in a crowded bar, have a knack for telescoping those stages between

strangerhood & sex.

Between them it is just understood.  And between them it seems easy to make casual arrangements of the sort Benjamin Braddock, sleeping with a woman twice his age in The Graduate, likened to "shaking hands." At least it looks that way to a loner, for whom every stage on the journey looms large.   Just realizing that someone else is near, not even looking sparks a loner's instinct to escape.

. . . Prejudiced minds think in extremes, imagining that all loners want to be all alone at all times.  That even die hard loners might let someone else in, someone, just one in but all the way in simply messes up the stereotype . . "You said leave me alone," the world argues . . Even anchoresses, the reclusive medieval nuns who sealed themselves inside tiny cells for life, were known to now & again to relish meaningful (passionate) relationships.  The 11th century British nun known as Eve of Milton, for example, crossed the Channel to live near Angers in France to share her seclusion & . ."a wondrous love" with a male anchorite named Hervey. 

It has been said before, and let us say it again: "loner" is not a synonym for "misanthrope." Nor is it one for "hermit," "celibate," or "outcast." . . .

. . .Loners, if you can catch them, are well worth the trouble.  Not dulled by excessive human contact, not blasé . . loners are curious, vigilant & full of surprises. 

They do not cling.

Separate wherever they go, awake or asleep, they shimmer with the iridescence of hidden things seldom seen.  The pearl, the swallow's egg, the lost doubloon, the jewel in the lotus, membrane.  You don't need to be told this. You know."

from party of one -- by anneli rufus







I love people all the time, whoever is in front of me, either by choice or by chance.  This loving takes place intentionally & usually without question.  It doesn't mean it is easy for me.  I am always examining my own apprehension to love, my desire to move away, to close the door.  By examining the door stays open a few minutes, or perhaps seconds, longer than it would have years ago, before I pledged to love the world one person at a time.  In those moments something happens, a fragile little space opens up in that place inside, that place I am currently learning is another little brain, one not fraught with nostalgia or melancholy or automatic shut down memories but an intelligent mass all the same, --

my heart.

This little space that opens when I stop to question my desire to push away, gives me a little bit more air to breathe, a little more space where I am not owned by anything or any fear or anyone.  All these small moments have, over the last six years, added years on my life, and opened up rooms of freedom, like those rooms you find in your dreams that you had forgotten about.

I have no idea how to make small talk.  I know those of you who have sat with me will not believe how raw I feel when i am getting to know you.  I know I can be charming.  But it is all treacherous for me.  Kind of excrutiating  Really.  But I am selfish too.  By loving you, I get so much.  And you know how it goes, no pain, no gain.

I am by nature a loner, that's why it's so crazy that I put myself in all these public situations, why I give strangers so much access to my heart.  But I am addicted to growing. 

I was on this raw foods retreat a few months ago . . it was amazing how comfortable everyone got discussing their colons.  It started out kind of awkward, on the first few days when no one knew each other . . this was totally to be expected, of course . . but as everyone realized that the friendlier & more respectful they were with their respective colons, the higher and more blissed out they felt, it got kind of out of control . . . the more curious everyone became about each other's digestive & elimination systems . . and the more glamour was placed around attending to them.  I guess you had to be there.

Anyway, in one of the colon seminars, the teacher was describing how easily our colons get encrusted with the debris of our lives,  like for years & years, CENTURIES EVEN . . .of course food debris but what really cements that food inside of us is our emotions . . fear, stress, anger . . .

I bring this up here because these seconds where I am negotiating tiny little bits of space for another person in my heart, in these seconds I can feel the crust around my heart cracking away . . not only can I feel it crack away but when I freak out about something or go on automatic pilot & shut down, I can feel the crust forming again . . & I can stop it by being awake to the love.

Now the love I am talking about here is perhaps different than the passionate loner love discussed above, but at this point I don't think it makes much difference.  I am here to stand beside myself as a loner & I am here to make that intentional space to love.  These tiny moments are not about small talk.  They are about opening & surrendering a membrane.  They give back, tenfold, hundred fold.

But it took me accepting how awkward it was to let anyone in,

to start.

beautiful & messy/revealing/borderline embarrassing

my first profile ever (on nerve.com). . .

ABOUT ME:

I am sweet & sassy & insanely smart but my hand/eye coordination is way off . . .
I can be very funny & I am not afraid of anything . . .
I am complicated and I am trouble, but in the best possible way . . .
I love to be soothed and taken care of as deeply as I can do the same . .
I truly seek a partner

MORE ABOUT WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR

gotta be compelling & positive
gotta be perverse and wicked
gotta be focused, creative and at least know what it means to be fulfilled
gotta be able to dance with me and away from me all night
I get high on really competent people that are not afraid of taking risks
I want someone to see me alternately strong and fragile, beautiful and messy
and say

that is what I want

 

I do love men and women deeply and I'm sure I always will . .
been in long term relationships with both, equally and passionately . . .
PHOTOS ONLY . . . . . I am play curious but only with content . . .

lawn

    This can be your sacred practice
    first thought
    ironically courteous, breathing

    carrying dirt in pails

    I shall be mowed down
    all the same

    The young child neglects
    to send itself signals

    The horticulturalist, without knowing
    is unable to find any explanation

    accepts the unorthodox

    interpretation of angelic help

    We all know this fairy tale girl
    myself like casual fury
    making indiscriminate love
    indifferent thrust

    In everything
    the shimmer of creation

    slick life

    One must bow

    I have only this one dress
    No one can use me.

found letter

here

from kara. fana foundation/true love initiate

winter 2007

xxx

more xxx

I will have a new beginning soon . . .

answering any questions on love: real love, romantic love, cellular love, magickal love, messy love, clean love, serious/ridiculous love, lower/higher love, your/my love . . .

ask me

& come back soon

xox tla

dear love artist

who falls in love quicker, the girl or the guy?



Artist Formerly The Most Electrifying Man in Sales








dear artist,

I don't think you can generalize by gender.  The act of falling in love happens mostly in the mind & the mind can be a lonely place . .  a hungry place . . . hunger can color love & neither men or women have a corner on the hunger for connection. There is this kind of hungry falling in love & then there is the falling in love when you see the person in front of you, truly see them, without need but in more of a rampage of appreciation.  The speed at which you fall in love in either regard has more to do with how well you know yourself.

Since you cared enough to ask, I am thinking you have a tendency to fall in love quickly . .

Go slow & good luck.

I hope this was helpful.

Your daughters are beautiful.

xox tla

seduction

on receiving

it's confusing . . . you want it so bad but sometimes you just gotta go to the ball . . . there is absolutely no other solution . . .

the love artist on receiving

rainy afternoon

rainy afternoon 2

dear love artist / why I ask

dear love artist,

First of all, Thanks for the compliment on my girls and for such a thorough reply!  I love learning. 

The reason that I ask is because it seems as if anyone that I date seems to tell me that within weeks of knowing me and I question the validity. I realize that I should just chill and see where it takes me providing I'm interested.

So I was just wondering if females are more likely to catch those "feelings" first.


Artist Formerly The Most Electrifying Man in Sales


 



dear artist,

I have to say it makes me a little bit sad to hear that women are saying they love you within three weeks but then again, you were the most electrifying man in sales . . . :) . . not sad that they are saying it, but sad that maybe it makes the words less worth it, somehow . .

I have to say that those words come out of my mouth so easily too . . and it is not as if I don't mean them, but sometimes they just bubble out before I even realize that I have said them. 

Over the years I have become more present with myself and I have become very close with the sensation that births those words.  It is love, of course it is, but we all  have learned -- culturally, through movies, songs & tv as well as from watching each other -- we have learned a certain monumental & melodramatic meaning connected to the words i love you that has a very specific storyline, and that's what gets us in trouble, that's what scares us (being afraid of that storyline) or gets us into situations before we are ready (really really wanting that storyline).

So, to answer your question, I think the seed of that falling in love thing is something beautiful we all have inside & it grows like wildfire under certain conditions & it seems like women (a lot of women & particularly the women you seem to be meeting) have really stellar conditions to grow that feeling (& less impulse control on voicing it).

You don't seem to be complaining . . .


xox tla

fugitive imprint

for seattle boy sacred mantle

sometimes I remember it as if
my body was naked and so was god's.

there are hundreds of designated reincarnations
of spiritual deities around the world.

for seattle boy, scared mantle,
the next great teacher of tibetan buddhists in exile,
born, by grace or by luck, two blocks from a pizza hut,
for the rest of us, the holy & insecure, the need
for an extreme & coded love that will speak to us --

these moments are rarely blissful, more often like a train wreck.

freedom was outside the window
the day I heard the angels come.
it was the end of the world,
and god had risen to the top of the telephone pole.
he held some papers above his head, everyone was breathless
and he said, "where is my littlest apostle?"

my eyes burned as I rose to meet him, hovering first
at his feet and then I looked out at everyone
that thought they knew me.

the body knows the precise spot
on the beach 100 miles away
where someone it loves is waving.
it can feel the hollow shadow
beneath their eye. it knows the clouded leaf
behind the curve of the belly,
the forgotten trees.  it knows something
the size & weight of a small lemon, but smooth,
nutlike, close to the spine --

I am dreaming of a liquid world,
where the guiltless roam translucent,
like say we were in love & i was killed in your arms and then reborn
and many years later we found each other and the alien lover,
born within, would already know your body but I would not on first meeting --

I have a black eye & a white tattoo,
I know you will remember this,
thumbs pressed up inside
the braille of my skull,
a rose tattoo, like the inside of my eye,
a purple fragrant tattoo,
like the fugitive imprint of your hand,

the goodness of that quivering, bruised host --

dear love artist / i am disillusioned

dear love artist

i had a situation with this boy/man who knows in dec 06 and its been lingering - i'm very disillusioned- i've actually ignored that this kind of love exists - i think in the beginning i wanted to hold on - there wasn't a clear ending so that's what caused this dangerous ambiguity.

when i made it clear, i felt free -- then a few days later i can't stop thinking about it. i don't believe in baring myself any longer to men. in my work yes and always to the world yes and always , to my students yes, friends , to my unborn children yes - but not men. is that true woman hood? i am disillusioned at the events that happened and feeling drained and more than anything made a fool of -- any healing love remedies?

xo

ra






dear ra,

I want to begin by saying that I understand the feeling very well of being a strong woman on my own & also the feeling of losing traction when I let a man or woman into my life, really in, all the way in.  There is something organic about love that softens even the toughest hardest membrane or muscle.  I also think there is something in us that wants so much to soften, even when we have had bad histories or plenty of reasons not to love & I think there is a joyfulness inherent in that softening . .

so . . . . when we soften & we don't get the chance to be joyful & our hearts snap shut on us, we are burnt, disappointed & we've lost what seems like valuable time and momentum in our all consuming quest in the world . . we get pissed at the lover, pissed at love, & pissed at ourselves for getting distracted.

maybe I am projecting myself too much but maybe, just maybe I can hear you nodding.

this is my healing remedy for you:

-- let this one go, all the way.  if he was right for you, he'll be back.  peel your fingers off completely, whether in love or in anger

-- find ways to practice being soft other places than madly in love -- just softening your morning for example, or your evening, leaving time for the random, the inexplicable, the seemingly trivial

-- practice touching more . . touch your friends & let them touch you

-- & the next time you are with a man you might like (and there will be one and probably more than one more in your life) do 3 things: don't expect him to be everything & let him show you who  he is slowly & cherish who he is even if it is not what you thought you needed/wanted

& most importantly, no one is made a fool of by loving, no matter how it feels.

I did a little psychic surgery on you, hope that was alright.  your question was hard to get a good grip on!

love you xox tla

half & half

so yesterday me & the boyfriend (who will now be known here as pdaddy . . btw, that is what he likes to be called ;) . . ) were about to sit & meditate together in the morning & he being the super wrangler of time that he is, was about to put the pot of water on at a very low temperature so that it would be ready for our coffee right as we finished our sit (which is totally how I love to start my morning - high & higher) but alas, I am a cream girl & the pdaddy informed me that there was no cream . .

now you have to understand that I had left for the city days before & on that day there was no cream & I had to make due with ice cream, like a super java chip something or other, & that was totally delicious & I had also made the horrendous trip up to the bermuda triangle strip mall shangrila on my way back from the city & fully informed the pdaddy & was not alerted as to the continued cream crisis . .

so . . .

I pouted & pouted, all the way into my meditation & through it, I am embarrassed to report & then  made a coffee date down the street at the french cafe with a co-conspirator of mine & I am really embarrassed to report that this scenario turned into a major process like ALL DAY LONG

but this is the thing:

one -- this is just to show that even (especially) the love artist can be a total total baby girl (keep those letters coming -- do not be embarrassed to send me even the most petty question cause we all most certainly need guidance in the love department)

two -- we are about to move in together - yes - so what was his turf as the pdaddy in making everything royally romantic & perfect for his love child (me) is suddenly becoming the domestic refrigerator politics of what's for dinner & that was scarey & odd & romantic in a whole new way for both of us & we were both acting as if we had a handle on it, having both been married & kids & so cool (as we thought we were)

three -- I know this is horribly retro, but I really think that being the curvy sassy thing that I am & the care & finesse that I bring to that job deserves my man going out right across the street even if he is in his pajamas & getting the cream when coffee is one of my royal sacraments . . . it's not like we live in the wilderness or anything . .

four -- I am still learning how to love

I hope this whole scenario doesn't disillusion all of you.  Just being honest.

It actually illuminated a whole slew of misconceptions & fears around the living together threshold we were about to cross, are in the process of crossing.

& btw the night proceeded to be gorgeously romantic after all that cooking & percolating & steaming.

love you xox

dear love artist / what do I do

dear love artist,

what do i do when i feel like i am in love with the whole world?

femme de la maison







my dear femme,

I bow to your knowledge in these regards my beautiful fellow pilgrim, but I also know that sometimes we need to be reminded of what may seem like common knowledge over & over again (see cream entry below).

There is always both enough love & enough space within us for love, for all love of all beings, for all love for all time. The idea that there is not enough (although I understand that this is probably not your problem) or the idea that we might explode out of our fragile & on the verge of hallucination physical realms due to our own intensity is just a limitation of the mind. I know you know this. But knowing or not the mind gets in the way.

So we might as well use the mind to help us love more & bigger.

I was recently at the Wigmore Institute in Puerto Rico and while detoxing there, one of the biggest toxins to arise out of me was the fear of not being loved. Although the polar opposite of your dilemma, I think the answer may be the same or at least one of the answers, worth a try:

I could hear the rush of the ocean so loud in my apartment that I could hardly hear myself think (a good thing). Perhaps there is a sound out there in Jackson that is similar, a silent howl across the landscape, under the stars. In any case, as I listened to the ocean I imagined love coming in and going out of me, without effort and ceaselessly . . I gave it the same value, in & out, the love was made from the same molecules, the same consistency, just stuff, manna, oxygen, life, flowing in & out. There was more than enough of everything (for me) and for you, my love, there was an even pacing so that you can rest assured your love will touch everyone & everyone will know & you will receive & give & give & receive.

sorry for the delay in answering . . perhaps you have found your own answer by now.

miss you xox tla

the cream crisis / in the trenches

it has been a long 48 hours.

& still no cream if you can believe it.

crazy.

outside it is snowing, big & fat & wet, it is tax day, for those of you who are stressing, but then again, a sunday, so a reprieve, a refuge

it's so weird how your mind . . well, i don't have to go much further than that . . it's so weird how your mind . .

can change things from the most deliriously yummy thing to the most abandoned tundra of despair . . like this snow in what should be spring.

I love blizzards.  I love submersion, deep dark quiet, like the bottom of the ocean, like the inside of a conch shell, obliteration washing over me . . I want so much to be dissolved . . take me . .

so it is sunday & I am alone for the day w/ pdaddy & there are no plans, this is what I live for

but we have been in this lockdown position since the cream incident, so trivial but now so primal like we are the last man & woman on earth deciding the future of the whole new world.

we were moving towards this moment of physically manifesting our union like spontaneous ignition  from the first minute we touched each other, so why does me moving JUST my clothes in, bunches of clothes right from my closet to his, with hangers dangling, cause such crust to form on our hearts . .

I sat in on a weekend intensive in the fall called AWAKENING THE MIND lead by Dan Siegel, a teaching psychiatrist & neurobiologist from UCLA & John O'Donohue. an Irish poet & ex-Catholic priest, that looked at the natural instinct of the mind to seek out meaning, larger meaning, from just walking through life . . I mean why do we look for something deeper, something hidden, something more, when all we need to do is, in my situation, see that the need for cream has gone unmet, and go and get it?

(which by the way, I did do & I put my boots on over my pajamas & went back to my house to get the extra coffee beans & my kundalini mantra just for extra protection on the trip back to the temple & pdaddy)

At that weekend retreat, Dan explained that there are two contrary movements going on in our brain as we go through life:

*experiential: our brains experiencing everything new & wondrous . . he configured this as a growing upward motion, like seeds or grass, coming up into consciousness like you couldn't stop it for anything

& then there was *memory: what we already know, where our mind skips ahead to, oh I know how that works & you move on to the next thing, & this was a counter motion, clamping down & stopping the growth of experience

like you see a horse running through the field & you begin to feel the exhilaration & move towards it & your mind goes, oh that is a horse, I've seen that before & in your head you see an old horse, one from years ago & the exhilaration stops, it's lost like the dream upon waking . .






so pdaddy & I have been stuck, right in middle of our delight in each other we lost the horse we could have been riding together, lost in our own private moving in together hell of the past . .

even though we knew better.

I felt the love stuck in my chest where my heart should be & it hurt not to give.

I couldn't be compassionate, my arms wrapped around myself.

I brought back the mantra in the snow (& the coffee & the cream) & scraped us into some kind of form that resembled two light beings and placed us gently on the pillows.

& I said to mr pdaddy, not because I am so wise but because I was so desperate:

something like

you can't do it (love) the way

you think it should be

you have to turn down the volume of you

& feel the kiss coming

if I think I know how it should be

I don't get any

I have to get really quiet with Love.

Pdaddy is a brave man.

We're so much better now.

Still snowing.

the magic position

obvi . . . <3 . . . xox



www.theloveartist.org

dear love artist / my heart has been covered up

dear love artist,

My heart has been covered up with sadness
the past few days...Hard to put my finger on it...
That's the most frustrating thing, Is when I cant' put my finger on it.
I'm happy to let it go, even if I don't know what the "it" is.

Do you have any suggestions?

Your sister in love.

love u

absolut





dear absolut,

I know that feeling, when you don't know what 'it' is . . I feel it as sadness often too, though sometimes it creeps in in other forms, like fear, but with no substance to it, just a wind, sometimes just the smell of it.  I have been sitting, minding my own business & felt sadness enter the room like a person, a stranger just walking in, somehow with their own key.  I envy the europeans who allow themselves the luxury of melancholy & existentialism.  We americans are so uncomfortable with the undefined, even when we practice.

Well none of this is particularly helpful, I guess . . let me see what I have for you in my bag of tricks . . why don't you take it in your arms rather than try to let it go?  maybe there is something precious for you . . maybe there is something shy . . even if it is something that rocks you to the bone or something that just wrecks your whole day, maybe it is something that needs to be known.

Babies get really grumpy before they do something big for the first time and they couldn't possibily know that that horrible feeling inside means that in a day or two they will walk upright for the first time or put their fingers together in a certain way that will enable them to touch the thing they want perfectly.

Maybe it's something like that.



xoxx tla



 

hey mommy

Here is the Kurt Vonnegut quote.  Its from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.  I gave a little more context for you at the beginning.  Sorry my phone ran out of batteries by the way.


       

"And what do you intend to do there, Eliot?"

"I'm going to care about these people."

"That's-that's very nice," said Sylvia bleakly.  This was a pale and delicate girl, cultivated, wispy.  She played the harpsichord, spoke six languages enchantingly.  As a child and young woman, she has met many of the greatest men of her time in her parents' home-- Picasso, Schweitzer, Hemingway, Toscanini, Churchill, de Gaulle.  She had never seen Rosewater County, had no idea what a nightcrawler was, did not know that land anywhere could be so deathly flat, that people anywhere could be so deathly dull.

"I look at these people, these Americans," Eliot went on, "and I realize that they can't even care about themselves anymore-- because they have no use.  The factory, the farms, the mines across the river--they're almost completely automatic now.  And America doesn't even need these people for war-- not anymore.  Sylvia--I'm ging to be an artist."

"An artist?"

"I'm going to love these discarded Americans, even though they're useless and unattractive.  That is going to be my work of art."

love nola

dear love artist / I'm feeling so raw

dear love artist,

I'm feeling so raw and vulnerable exploring this new position: allowing/trusting to let the love come to me . . . i have spent most of my life going for it . . .more control. . .less risk. . .what if the love doesn't come . . yikes! This huge raw truth about my m.o. of love came when you so lovingly pointed out to me that i was always being the kisser versus the kissee . . . letting the kiss/love come to me sounds simple but it has rocked my world . . . heartbreaking open . . .

Any tips for staying with the process even when it hurts ?

pdaddy




my dear beloved pdaddy,

first I must tell you, that the love is coming, no fear, it is here actually, it is here already . . not just my love, there is love everywhere.  I know this sounds ridiculously optimistic, but why not go for that truth, if you were to choose what to believe in.  I know it is difficult to have faith in goodness when people are running out & doing insane things, killing innocent people everywhere, but not having faith in goodness & pervasive love only hurts you.  The fear that the love is not coming only hurts you.  It serves no other purpose so why not believe that you are loved, simply loved.

I love you & that is not all. You love yourself enough to ask the question.

The thing I use as a guideline for keeping myself open to both being loved & being loving is how I feel, truly feel both in my mind & body. If I don't feel well, if I feel tense or angry or if my body hurts, a headache or I have a stomach ache then I usually look for a way to feel better. 

I take the pressure off in that I don't try to necessarily make a particular situation better.  I mean, if there is something specific going on that I can change, that I know I have the power to change (& that I am ready to change), then of course I make every effort to do that thing . . but often I have no idea why I feel bad, or what it was . . or if I know, I may not be ready to change or know which route to take. 

But you can make yourself feel better by just bringing in new energy -- doing things that make you more open & comfortable & able to love yourself (the practical stuff: air, exercise, tenderness) or turning obsession into meditating (turning thinking about one thing into thinking about one thing/nothing) or doing service (as joyfully as possible) . . just about anything for someone else (but the trick is to do what they really need, really listening & doing what you can).

If you aim to feel better & you take action, even one tiny action a day, you will begin to soften, I guarantee it.

But you are already softening. I saw it with my very own eyes. 

xox tla

sweet spot

sweet spot addendum

oh and then, mr pdaddy . .

thinking about your question & my goody two shoes answer, please forgive me . . I have a ridiculously optimistic love/work ethic.

this morning, while laying in your arms, I had these insights:

just for clarification, when your heart is broken, whether by someone else or just by the sheer courage of your own self examination, it is good to do something & not just ponder the brokenness . . but do something with intent . . I had a poetry teacher who counseled me when I fretted over the 2 hour blocks of time I had to write poetry when my kids were little & I was so worried to waste the time.  She said to do small fruitful tasks, one after another, leaving no time to fret . . even if it was as seemingly meaningless as (she actually said) like decanting your shampoo . . . & then, in the middle of this tending, the creative impulse would just happen.  I do my best writing while driving the car , for example.  I know you don't like to think of these things, but it is so true . . I do it without looking of course (writing not driving) & then it becomes like  automatic writing & my hand is loose & free.

That is like the healing of the heart. Point your vehicle to a destination & move there with your whole being.

& the other thing:

. . by action with intent, you put yourself in the fire.  When heated, the bread can take the butter in & it takes less and goes deeper, spreads wider.  This is what I meant by softening.

see you later  xox tla

sweet spot / sweet ego / love

The way to kill the ego is to kill it with love which means you do not kill it at all.  Another name for ego is evil inclination.  Soul and good inclination are related in the same way.  Killing the damn ego is cursing the ego, it only makes the ego stronger.  Welcome your ego with love and respect and then your ego will become your friend and be one with your good inclination. 

(lovingly quoted from robert cohen)

mouche et al

repetition / i love you

<

..>..>

dear love artist / raw base sexual chemistry

dear love artist,

My question on LOVE, one of many, is:

Is raw, base, sexual chemistry and desire between two people necessary in or fundamental to a long term relationship? I understand that other kinds of love can grow and would probably be more satisfying than ONLY this factor, however, I am not sure I could have a long term relationship where this didn't exist. But I haven't found the two together yet. A possible separate question: would 'making love' be the only alternative in a deeply loving relationship where the feeling of just-thinking-about-them-makes-you-breathless doesn't exist? and do you think this kind of sex would ultimately be more fulfilling?

love,  crystal








my dear crystal,

lovely girl, to begin with, two basic answers:

1. as you have so perceptively pointed out,raw, base, sexual chemistry & desire is not the best foundation on which to build a relationship

IF

it is the only basis . .

in other words, often times those that rock your world do so because they are so distracting from a life that we are having a hard time facing or being responsible for, not because it is so unbearable necessarily (although sometimes), but because we are (pick one or several of the following): tired, stressed, self-critical, unfulfilled, insecure or doubtful or actually just plain human, doing the best that we can under often seemingly superhuman conditions.

When one (or several) of the situations occur (& I am not inferring that you are in denial about the above situations or that any of them apply to you, though as said, so human) it is normal to want relief from them & raw, base, sexual chemistry works better than almost anything, especially in an attractive package . . if you are so lucky . . . but the long term prospects of such distraction are questionable unless mixed with other quantities. 

we are not a patient generation and often times love (even mild infatuation) comes with such a rush so we can convince ourselves of anything & everything.

which brings me to my second answer:

2.  if you have a relationship that is intelligent & insightful & respectful & cozy & fulfilling in all regards but does not have that, how did you put it again "raw, base, sexual chemistry" in at least a dilution of say 50% (obviously put your own favored percentage in here -- mine is 100% I must admit) . . I , as the Love Artist, in all my years of experience .  .  . don't see it working out.

Even biochemistry backs this up . . Helen Fisher, PhD at Rutgers in Anthropology who has written tons on the body's reactions to love in regards to the evolution of the species enforces this by recounting the body's emission of dopamine, a highly addictive substance on the level of cocaine, that is released during the early stages of relationship to insure the proper cement so that babies can be raised in a (somewhat) stable environment.  This is a combination of pheromones (just sniffing or sensing the right mate) & physical attraction & sexual arousal . . this arousal state lasts, on average about 12 -18 months before moving into the other chemical stages of love & attachment, that I will discuss at a later time, but suffice it to say that even nature requires that thing, that indescribable thing that you seek, be mixed into a satisfying partnership that has legs (so to speak) . . .

of course, balance is everything but even nature, these days, does not live in a perfect world . . .

xox tla


ps.  'making love'

is

the only alternative, always . . . but then that is only my opinion . . if it doesn't feel like love you are making then you are with the wrong person . . 

xox yr love artist

anonymous love

you needn't have your face or privates posted all over the internet you know . . I rather fancy the old fashioned style advice column with bylines like

Guilt Ridden

or

Driven by Lust

or

Love Puppy

or even slightly pervy ones and so forth . . . I especially love the shy ones

shy on the outside tough on the inside & vice versus

you are my favorites

crystal

You came all this way to live with me for a week or so.

It seems like we both just knew that we should be together.  You came to The Love Shack in Manchester last year & like in a minute we fell in love, of course.

I know that is the premise of everything I do supposedly, falling in love, but sometimes you can just touch the air between & call something to you, call something home, call something home like finally, like relief. We talked about almost nothing: bad boys & astrology.  It was brief.  You were bold.  You are bold. You kept writing me.  I kept writing back.

We hardly know each other.

I am bold.  I asked you to come. Fortune favors the bold.

It was cold & rainy when you showed up the other day on the train.  We had some kind vague arrangement on the phone.  I was going to help you with your visa & you were going to help me in the love studio.  Mostly we google clothes & boots for my performances & a lot of the time we google Dita Von Teese.  Over & Over.

You said Dita doesn't own anything casual.  She just wears silk.

At night I go to my new home at pdaddy's.  Every morning you are more comfortable at my house, curled up like a big luscious cat . . on my computer, drinking tea, reading my stuff, my journals, my books, watching my movies, even eating the energy soup (at least once).

I need you here & I don't know why.  The last few days I have been pretty much in bed with a toothache. I come to visit you in what now seems like your house.  I have let go of whatever I thought this time together would be. 

Today after emergency root canal surgery, I came home to (y)our house.  You had stretched out your make-up all over the studio table and were painting your face & back combing your hair.  Nothing else mattered.  Everything counts.

Meow, love.

from crystal in response / love artistry

Dear Love Artist,

The first night I slept in your daughter's princess bed ( I had a princess bed, too) I cried out twice as I felt myself falling asleep. I have never done this. The first time, it took me a minute to accept that it wasn't someone else. It seemed too close.

It was some sort of release that wasn't fear, (your precious cat was guarding me).



Your blog today:
'sometimes you can just touch the air between & call something to you, call something home, call something home like finally, like relief.'

Coming to you, the Hudson train ran by its great, grey river, and I thought about the same journey made by a man following a migration home:


Geese honk outside your window. I think of V's. I think of familiarity. I think of hope.

'The Sunshine Stories 1', Tifenn Python

I said to you, "I hope there's hope for me". You repeated this to me, I don't know what you were thinking.. I scoffed, embarrassed. But I do.

You apologised in advance in case I thought you were mothering me. I thought, "I would never complain about you mothering me". I feel cocooned here. You cocoon me.

Perhaps I have come home to myself.


LOVE ARTISTRY

1)

To:[email protected] Subject: les questions Apr 18 9KB

There are so many.I am just going to let them tumble forth. I was writing this morning about how I was worried that my questions would bore you or they would be questions you had been asked many times before. And then writing, that in the spirit and aim of learning to love (myself included) more honestly and fully, I can only come with myself and what I have to ask. Even if I am not as articulate as I am capable of being, or my mind is not tailgating and catching up with its sharpness as much as I know it is capable of. Perfectionism is exhausting. I am trying to be a recovering perfectionist. The phrase that came in my head was that i was 'grasping with silky fingers'. As in, I am trying to not try too hard, but at the same time, push myself to catch at the something more that I know is there to wonder about, and that i want to know. Do myself justice. But the 'justice' is my ego, which needs love, silky fingers, gentleness, unperfection.
So here goes:



I littered you with questioning hearts.



When you walked in to my questions, Romeo was bleeding.

Your first question to me, when we met in The Love Shack, was something like, "Are you in love with anyone?".
I hesitated and said "I am trying to be in love with myself".

Romeo is still bleeding.

2)

The State We're In:
Flux

Yesterday we surrendered to the state, synchronitically.

Your beautiful teeth played up.
I gave up on whatever I thought I should be doing too, and played.




You enable me.
Just by being yourself.

C xxxxx

from Crystal

dear love artist / SO

dear love artist,

why do I love so much?

slink





dear slink,

why do you ask? if it's not a problem, then, of course, no problem sweetheart . . .

I want a picture of loving SO much . . do tell mr slink.

love you to pieces xox tla

sunshine through the rain

kurosawa "dreams"

xox from the bottom of my heart xox tla

full & empty at the same time

"The kabbalists teach that

desire is a vessel that holds the Light. 

When our passion wanes, so goes the Light.  This pretty much sums up a lot of negative patterns in our lives; we have a lack that stimulates our desire, our desire draws Light, we lose our passion, we fall back into lack, our craving is reawakened, and so on and so forth.

A person with a true desire for life has an appreciation of what he has, yet he still craves more.  He knows he is in possession of wonderful gifts but he also knows they can disappear at any moment. 

He feels full and empty at the same time . . "

yehuda berg

I am a high flying girl & I love you & I feel I have so much gratitude . . but can there be more, this is always the question . . I have a tendency to fly too close to the sun & singe my wings.  Is this too full?  I am learning how to maintain my equilibrium by maintaining this valve of emptiness, a form of decompression.  It is so hard to be specific, to let just that much emptiness in without the total pressure drop, the plummet .

*the answer in holding it all, is of course to not hold anything too dear*

. .  sucking in the sunshine today, laying low, having forgiveness for myself, remembering that if love is everything, I need do nothing, breathing . . .

* be with me * love *

for more on emptiness

xxx

dear love artist / you must be very brave

when crystal arrived, i showered her with reading materials: love letters & memoirs, love project proposals, old journals. as previously mentioned, we are on a love trajectory both elegantly slender & gorgeously thick . . . (as often happens in love & art, i am in the midst of an intricate plan i have yet to form or understand . . is this the beginning of a series of love mentorships . . oh if i could only be so lucky . . to house & love & honor & school those on the path of becoming love artists) . . she will leave soon & I am only beginning to answer her brilliant questions.


dear love artist,

You must be very brave and strong . . . don't you feel afraid or incapable when people offer so much of themselves up to you so? It seems like it could be an incredible burden/responsibility; when someone gives themselves to you? Does the time limit on your appointments help you to deal with that? So that the burden has a holding-life, as it were?

I know that you 'meet' people with what you have to offer too, but in your position as 'artist' and they as 'patron, it suggests you have more power, (and therefore? not necessarily) responsibility to/for them.


love, crystal





my lovely crystal-line, love initiate,


first let me reiterate my love mission for those new to the True Love Project (s), that six years ago I was given the vocation of loving the world one person at a time, for one day, one hour, one afternoon or one evening from some voice, some arcane Joan of Arc divine intelligence --& that I see these love "appointments" as performances & therefore I see myself as the Love Artist (or one of them).

i don't think of myself as brave necessarily, tho I do get scared, so that definitely defines moments of courage . . there is a quote somewhere, for some reason I think it was winston churchill (?)


courage is fear holding on a moment longer . .


I do feel like I am often negotiating how much to give, what part of that giving is because I a) want to give, b) feel like it is my responsibility because I said I was going to love them or c) is just flowing out of me.

In the first two situations, worrying about my own needs in loving or worrying about the expectations of the patron or lover, then I think I am often afraid.

Being the Love Artist started almost as a conceit . . I was spending so much time flirting, seducing, intriguing &, eventually but not always, actually loving . . . I figured it was more economical to just make this loving my art . . this was both an embarrassingly egotistical & immature &  ridiculously huge task.  But then again, we all love the difficult.

Now it is different.  Now I focus on the flow out of me.  I want the flow out of me.  I want to be in the letting go.  It's not easy but it feels so much better.  I focus on making my vessel of love as clear as possible. 

(I am sure that vessel has not appeared very clear in the week that you have been here, with my moaning & apology, my piles of papers, my brief dalliance w/ you & yr cigarettes . . but flow also means no apology for imperfection, just moving forward with the most grace you can muster)

I will leave it at this: I do my best to completely respect my love patrons for who they are & to make them the recipient of my full attention. That is the True Love Project. When they leave, I do my best to let them go completely.  I sometimes fail & that hurts.  But I always do it again.  I guess this is courage.

As far as the power relationship inherent whenever you invite another into your life, whenever you extend a gift,  I am who I am & the project has it's parameters . . I cannot control how those that sit with me respond to that. 

That is also courage.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx tla

the short version crystal

I realize I didn't really explain how I let the love patrons go.  If I could.  It is just like everything else. 

I practice.

Sometimes I don't want to but I know in the long run it will give me more than holding on.  It is not a dismissal but more of a knowing.  Knowing that it was enough, the time together, the hour.  If there needs to be more, the opportunity will present itself  . .

(like your own presence now, in the love palace, that I so in awe of, your return into my life, a miracle).

acquiescence / crystal's new response

from crystal






*

acceptance ---> intimacy

*

I am learning to accept. I have put myself in a situation where I have no choice.
Accepting people's kindness and generosity is letting myself be held up by a yellowy-golden duvet of hands.
I am repeatedly astonished at people's capacity for giving to me. I love it. Most of the time I feel like I don't deserve it but other times I let it be ok.

*

Kathe shares her life with me.
Here is a woman who is wide open.

She makes no apology and feels no guilt or shame in accepting only what she wants into her life.

She told me a story about being pursued at the start of a relationship which turned out to be long term. She had said: "I'll be your friend. And I love being taken out to dinner".

At first I was a bit taken aback at such flagrant and fragrant self-fulfilment.

But doing the utmost to love herself, letting love right in, lets love hurl out of her.

Love is her manna.

*

G is finding it hard to breathe. His body is weak. I fed him from a distance, it was all I could do. He accepted.

*

I was overwhelmed by having no place of my own and having to rely on others for somewhere to sleep. M said "Don't be silly, I want you to stay here. Tell me why you feel bad". I couldn't tell him. I coudn't tell him I also didn't want him to leave me to sleep with someone else. He had cut me keys already. I couldn't accept.

*

W told me that hot tea kisses were better than normal kisses, and said he would show me. So he kissed me with his soft lips and I fluttered. He picked up his cup of tea, drank, placed it down. Then he kissed me again with hot lips tasting of spice and I was enveloped with warm. "Which one do you prefer?". He smiled at me in that lazy, knowing way.

*

Y: "Hey- no problem C. I had those things that you needed".

*

"Sometimes it is lonely to be sure". G reminded me of the widest door to intimacy. To being intimate with myself. "You don't need to be taught anything. You already know".

*

The Love Artist said to me, on love, "I think you're doing great". I accepted.

*

scent rather than color

slink's love

mr.slink, what does your love look like?

My love looks like a photo booth photo crammed with three or four people. Cramped. Spontaneous and self-conscious. Goofy. Funny. Nostalgic. Black and white.

Love You.




slink

scent rather than color

scent rather than color

crystal is gone

heart vortex

pdaddy & I are in it. eyeball to eyeball. up to our knees. waist. exposing our soft parts. the other side of infatuation.  it is thrilling. news from the frontier tomorrow.






<

one year ago (in the beginning) alien love

it was night & pdaddy was showing me a mediation that we could do together.  we had had the slightest whiff of a joint, i mean i just looked at it really, but it didn't matter cause what was going on between me & pdaddy was sky scraping anyway . . we sat facing each other & started out by holding hands, lightly barely touching, one hand just lying on the other & moving them slowly back and forth, synchronizing the movement with our breathing . .. then we stopped and stared into each other's left eye & said inside ourselves

you love me

and then we started saying it out loud . . .

you love me

. .  .

you love me

. . . instead of

I love you

and it changed everything & there was a sense of wonderment in our voices  that started from somewhere we had both never been before.

he said it in this really slow deliberate way that kind of didn't sound like him at all . . & it was almost scarey . .  I think that's when my little hallucination started . . . starting with his om, he was so not like the pdaddy I knew . . . it didn't sound false, but pure & beyond personality, so when he started saying

you love me

like that, it stopped me & caused me to really look at him . . . like you might look to hard at a simple word you that see all the time, one without substantial meaning, like

the

& suddenly you don't know it at all, it becomes a wondrous alien thing, an unknown thing

so pdaddy became unknown, and his eye, his left eye became so old & the skin around it a strange texture like leather or hide and it felt as if something or someone was peering through that eye . . .  like peering through pdaddy's physical self was a creature from somewhere else, & all of a sudden I knew that that something or someone else, this other being really loved me so much and was so moved by my love of him . . .

& it was then I had the thought that this was it, this was the positive feeling that some abductees (UFO) had, when they were abducted, that they were being found, like being born, by someone of their tribe, like they had been waiting for so long without even knowing that they had been waiting . . . and I thought, this is how it happens, this is happening, he came for me and he has waited all this time and he is here to teach me this path & take me home . . and I worried for a second, but the insane thing was that I was ready to go with him, oh my god, and I delusional, pussy sick or

is this love?

I just hoped he would let me come back or at least say good-bye to my kids . . .

& then later I said to him, very somberly,

I have something to tell you that you will either laugh at or you will tell me I am right and then that will totally freak me out

and he laughed and said

that's a great choice.

He then explained to me in his most cavalier daddy voice, that there's nobody here but us, us humans, it's

a closed system,

that there are other things going on out there but in here it's a closed system . . . & then he said with that wicked glint in his eye

but of course that is what an alien would tell you, so

how would you know . . .

repetition / today this is my heart

this morning & for many mornings, I sat with myself & wondered why my spirit was not as open as usual . . why I was focusing on what I didn't have cause you know lack & fear of lack only leads to lack & fear of lack

& I admitted to myself & all the invisibles that were witnessing my prayers that

I didn't know how to change my way of thinking

that

I couldn't stop myself

& I got this: 

put green grass where your heart is & breathe into that

chlorophyll

i thank you

love

come to daddy

aphex twins love maya deren

lovemaking & enlightenment

"Many people think that they are enjoying sex, but, in truth, they are not. 

They are simply getting exhausted. 

Enjoyment comes when you have some degree of control over something.  When you say that you are enjoying a horseback ride that implies that you are in control of the horse. You know how to turn, how to make the horse gallop or stop.  That is the real enjoyment of the horse ride.  But, if you are clinging for dear life as the horse gallops away, who will believe you when you say, "I'm enjoying the horse ride." 

You are waiting for an opportunity to jump off. 

Instead of controlling the horse, the horse is controlling you and simply carrying you all over the place.  Then you are not riding the horse; the horse is taking you for a ride. Sexual energy is like the horse.  If you have it under control, you will have a good time.  You can develop mastery over that sexual energy and use it well at a time of your choosing."

Swami Satchidananda

iamlove / example

dear love artist / can there only be one 'special'

dear love artist,

you describe in your book about your patrons nearly always feeling like they were the 'special' one, or they were the one you were going to love most, or they were going to show you the real way, the ultimate embrace . . .

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

all 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 not many.

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 & 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

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

demons (love)

just the facts

1. pdaddy & I are in love.

2. it took almost 4 years & minimum of 2 breakups each to make the space to be together.

3. once this space was cleared we fell crazy head over heels for each other, barely taking time to breathe & occasionally taking time to mutter insanely i love you

over & over

4. it's been approximately 1 year & a half (the high end of the expiration date on dopamine, the brain junk that we humans can't get enough of . . . it's called the satiation response !!?!! -- this is our bodies taking responsibility . . .)

5. we have taken no less than 7 extended "honeymoons" in that time to celebrate our amazement at our union.

6. Dr  Helen Fisher (MY CURRENT & ULTIMATE HERO, LOVE SCIENTIST EXTRAORDINAIRE) divides love into three categories involving different brain systems:

a) Lust (the craving for sexual gratification), driven by androgens and estrogens;
b) Attraction (or romantic or passionate love, characterized by euphoria when things are going well, terrible mood swings when they're not, focused attention, obsessive thinking, and intense craving for the individual), driven by high dopamine and norepinephrine levels and low serotonin;
c) Attachment (the sense of calm, peace, and stability one feels with a long-term partner) driven by the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin.

(oh, and also, btw, Dr. Fisher says don't copulate with people you don't want to fall in love with . . . )

6. we are now rather skittishly cohabitating, tho I have my studio nipping at my heels & calling me to attention.

7. yesterday I accompanied my man to an event where a brother of the non genetic variety, with whom pdaddy had lived through many trenches & many lifetimes, was celebrating his life in the face of aggressive cancer.     many other brothers were present.  they held each other close.  pdaddy introduced me as his partner. i stood behind him & a little bit above him when the big crying was happening (on the inside & not) when all the men had their arms around each others waists & shoulders.  later i placed my hand on pdaddy's shoulder.

8.  i loved it, it hurt so much, i loved it more.

9. i feel like i am growing up & i don't know what that looks like.

10. i feel unsure.

11. i feel cranky.

12. i love him.

13. i want to grow into this.