Eleusinian Mysteries and Drugs, 2012

I thought I was being wise and proactive when I got a flu shot last week, so of course another dangerous woman came to work with a cold, coughed open-mouthed all over me and now I’m recovering from a bad case of bronchitis. What is it with women and their desperate need to race into American offices while virulently sick, infecting people?

On a more positive note: (1) thank you again to all the men who have the brains to stay at home and whine, and (2) at least I don’t have the flu?

Erratum: "CBS Sunday Morning", not "CBS This Morning."

Eleusinian Mysteries 2012
Given the time of the year, I went back to studying the Eleusinian Mysteries. I’ve discovered a few things: first thing is that a few of the present day crop of secretive societies, the Masons, the Rosicrucians to name two, and I’m sure there are more, have made it a point to study the Mysteries, so many of the papers and books written on them are often aligned with those types of societies, presumably because all of these societies want to align their initiation ceremonies with other ceremonies: "Pythagorean, Hermetic, Samothracian, Eleusinian, Drusian, Druidical" – list is from Dudley Wright in his Eleusinian Mysteries and Rites, a Freemasonry paper-turned-book.

As Freemasonry admits only men - while the Mysteries were open to men, women, slaves and freeborn alike as long as they spoke Greek - if Freemasonry draws from the Eleusinian Mysteries (or, as they claim, inspired them, although there is no proof anywhere of that), there was one heck of a patriarchal perversion somewhere along the line, to the point where they lost all contact and respectability.

As for some of the others, I don’t know enough about them, to support their supposed connections or not. There is a Pythagorean Society (created 1945, Plymouth England), and every math club in every high school on the planet called itself "The Pythagorean Society", after the original. The Samothracian Mysteries venerated mysterious deities called the Kabiri. The Drusian seemed to be connected with both Lebanon and China. The Druids are ... well, the Druids.

Magick
The second thing is a bit harder to pin down, but it seems to be that no one believes in magick anymore. Or is it terror, experienced by our present day crop of christian-Americans (to distinguish our home-grown nutballs from some of the saner varieties in other countries) or science inspired students, when something happens that they cannot explain biblically or rationally? In those cases, one has to reduce the 2,000+ year old Sacred Mysteries to drug-induced mindlessness, rather than admit that both their christian heroes and gods of science destroyed something so irrevocably precious and real? Even the new age twinkies got in on the act:

"The human intellect is not capable of comprehending the god-force directly."
Ventimiglia, Mark, The Wiccan Rede, p. 6.

Says who? Has anyone ever tried? Who made the attempt? When? Under what circumstances? I really dislike these blanket, sweeping statements, that authors hit you with, out of nowhere. And we, the readers, are all supposed to sit here, nod like bubble-heads on dashboards and intone, "*Duh*, okeydokey," without even questioning it. I mean, did the author try, and fail to "comprehend the god-force"? A mere 520 years ago, most people thought that "human beings would fall off the side of the earth if they sailed west", and look where I got deposited!

On the other hand, here’s a contradictory version of that:

"Once, when my mind had become intent on the things-which-are, and my innermost mind/understanding [nous] was raised to a great height, while my bodily senses were withdrawn as in sleep, when men are weighed down by too much food or by the fatigue of the body, it seemed that someone immensely great of infinite dimensions happened to call my name and said to me:

What do you wish to hear and behold, and having beheld, what do you wish to learn and know?"
The Corpus Hermeticum, "Poimandres to Hermes Trismegistus", Book 1, Salaman, Van Oyen, Wharton and Mahé, translators, p. 17

"Someone immensely great of infinite dimensions" seems a perfect a description of the "god force" to me. So we have a first hand account of an encounter with the god-force from a time before Moses and not only having absolutely no problem doing it, but having the same god-force offering to answer any questions he might have!, and a guy from 2003 stating unequivocally that no one can even comprehend this god-force – and without any explanation as to how he came by that rather startling irrefutable announcement.

So which version are we going to go with? Sorry, Mark – I’m going with Hermes on this one.

Still, what is disturbing about these sorts of exposés on what was supposedly the REAL mystery behind Eleusis is a complete failure of any of these people to understand basic magick – the force of the will. It never occurs to them that when participants reported witnessing Demeter ... that those people might have, in fact, witnessed Demeter ... simply because of the force of their will. Many of those same poo-poo’ers would be the first to believe in, say, the shroud of Turin, or the appearance of a woman who looked nothing like Jesus’s Jewish mother could possibly have looked and yet claimed to be her, at Lourdes, or any number of christian miracles, but turn up their noses at Eleusinian ones. No, they say, it had to be drugs.

For example, this is the second time I’ve read The Road to Eleusis, but it appears they’ve done more research on the Kykeon, moving away from an ergot concoction to possibly a fasting and ergot or shroom combination. Also, I don’t recall reading about Socrates’ "impiety" – which is why he was handed hemlock to drink - being in reference to holding drug-addled "Mysteries" parties in his home for high-born Athenians using a stolen recipe for the sacred drink. Where did that come from?

(Mayan mushroom figurines, 1000 BC through 500 AD, Guatemala)

Of interest is the comparison between the use of mushrooms by (possibly) both the Greeks and the Mexicans. Damien used one of their paths: the fast. Used by both the Greeks and the Meso Americans. The Greeks, according to the authors, mixed barley water with mint as a base; the Mexicans used a chocolate drink.

In both Greece and Mexico both eggs and alcohol are taboo, the alcohol for 4 days. In both cases, the ceremonies were "guided" by shamans or skilled practitioners. Twinkies who stomped all over the Mexican forests and offended every native they encountered were considered to have corrupted the sacred purpose of the mushroom. R. Gordon Wasson, one of the authors of Road to Eleusis, was said to have promised the shaman he learned from, that he would never reveal her secrets. As soon as he crossed the Mexican border, he did just that. He sold her "children" – as she called her sacred mushrooms - to a pharmaceutical chemist to be torn apart, examined and eyeballed. He is getting richer by the day from books like Road to Eleusis; she died in poverty.

But I happened upon someone who had the same reaction to the "Eleusinian Mysteries initiates were drugged" explanation as I did. I absolutely loved this:

The initiates were purified. They fasted. They walked in a very long procession to the site from Athens, along the way singing and engaging in ritualized acts like the bawdy jokes. They danced where Demeter once sat. They spoke sacred formulae. They were led together in a series of rituals older than they could even comprehend, on sacred ground, in a place where the veil between this world and the underworld was thin. They had a good deal of psychological investment and religious faith in the process. They built up anticipation and expectation.

And of course, the gods were there. They set up the Mysteries in the first place, and it was a revelation of the gods’ power that formed the climax of the ritual. Now, most scholars don’t believe in the gods, and so this isn’t a factor they can take into consideration, but it’s certainly something we need to remember.

This was from the "Forest Door". Loved the blog so much I subscribed to it. The author, Dver, "is a spirit-worker on the margins of Hellenic polytheism, with ties to English, Germanic and Slavic folk traditions as well. A priestess of Dionysos, and also devoted to Hermes, Apollon, Persephone, Hekate, and a host of personal and local spirits, her main practices include oracular trance, pathwalking, bone-working, and devotional worship. Dver resides in the lush, green, nymph-haunted Pacific Northwest."

URL to the Eleusinian Mysteries opinion: http://forestdoor.wordpress.com/2012/08/16/ergot-and-eleusis/?shared=email&msg=fail

URL to the blog: http://forestdoor.wordpress.com

Check it out.

Damien Echols: Life After Death. And Me Complaining (Again) About the Wiccan Rede

Reading Sirita d’Este and David Rankine’s Wicca: Magickal Beginnings, recommended as a good source reference on the "do as ye will" Wiccan rede, which makes me so uncomfortable. On August 16, the "Sex, Sin and Sumerian Magic" entry, I wrote:

"... the point was that, in those days, people went to the Sumerian magi to not only get protective spells, but to get love potion spells, zap people with curses, etc. First thing you read in the "girly-girly" books on "How to be A Witch" is "Never use spells on other people without their permission!" And you think, "Well, what’s the frackin’ point, then, you pinhead?" If everyone fell in love with you on their own without even blinking, you wouldn’t need a love spell, now would you? You can get some idea of why Aleister Crowley finally got so fed up with the "girly-girly" version of witchcraft he stomped off in disgust and became known as "The Great Beast". True, a lot of women who knew him personally also thought of him as the "Great Perv", but there’s not much I have to say about that. Same thing with the injunctions against using dream walking to spy on people. WHY NOT? Because it’s rude? If we’re all connected, how much privacy could we each have, to begin with?"

Actually, I was a little backward on that. According to d’Este and Rankine, the wiccan "rede" as it now stands actually did originate with Crowley, but not in the format it now has. Crowley’s was (paraphrased slightly): "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the Law, Love under will." I haven’t read his writings yet, but "True Will" was extremely important to Crowley, so perhaps he explains this in that context.

Doreen Valiente is the source of the revised version, "An’ it harm none, do what ye will," which she partially got from Crowley and re-fashioned.

The incorrect belief that it was a traditional tenet of wicca apparently came from Gerald Gardner: "And for long we have obeyed this law, Harm None." Not sure what he meant by "and for long" – he and Doreen Valiente were in the same coven – so, "for long" appeared to mean, "for the last week" or something.

But, ultimately, even d’Este and Rankine concluded, "we cannot definitively state the source of the Rede". They suspect Crowley, but have no proof of it. Their next sentence boggles my mind:

"The need for a practical ethical code has always been paramount in magickal and spiritual systems."

[Stop] [Blink] [Frown] Say what?

Well, THAT was an uncited, unprovoked, "a priori" clump of hoo-hah for you.

WHY was there a need? And who decided there was a need? And who decided that this supposed need was "paramount"? Because of what deficiency? Did something happen to make the adoption of an "ethical code" so vastly important? Who was being unethical? And what is their definition of "unethical"? Not everyone has the exact same code of ethics.

The people who already "went over to the dark side" aren’t going to pay the slightest bit of attention to any "practical ethical code", no matter whose code it happened to be, and those who AREN’T should be able to use their own "practical ethical code". Why should they adopt Valiente’s? Crowley’s? Gardner’s? Anyone else’s but their own?

And then – without anyone even bothering to question it, as far as I can see – it just kept getting passed along as gospel, so to speak.

Sorry, but this sounds to me like christianity and its tight corseted victorian biddies sticking their nose into everybody’s bidness but their own. Or a PC, twinkie "Miss Manners" version of wicca that hadn’t yet encountered modern physics, to wit: a particle and the source of that particle react simultaneously to the same external stimuli. If we all originate from the same source, our reactions are going to reflect that source. Dark matter, light matter. It’s part of our DNA, our gut instincts. There’s the source of our "ethical code", not rules. Regulations. Following the "straight and narrow" or get yourself condemned by the girly-girly white glove wiccan church police.

I’m on the verge of writing to those authors and asking them where they came up with a statement like that, apropos of nothing. This is so NOT traditional, it should be tossed out of wicca altogether. And then stomped into the mud. And then torched. And then salted so it never takes root again.

As for Damien, I’ve been reading, listening to and watching all sorts of media as part of his book selling: Opie and Anthony, Anderson Cooper, CBS This Morning – and his Moth event also became accessible.

His book, Life After Death, arrived, and I dug into it eagerly on the commute to Boston. After a few pages, I frowned, looked at the cover a second time, and asked, "Why am I reading Almost Home again?" Because it did seem that’s what I was doing – in fact, I’d read his first book so many times there were whole passages I could almost recite from memory. And here I was, reading them all over again.

Naturally, in an effort to compare the two books, I came home after work and tried to hunt down Almost Home. You have to understand, if I were ever to be accused of hoarding anything, it would be books. I have 10 bookshelves in my home, divided between the living room, bedroom and study. Not a single shelf contains anything other than books – meaning, I don‘t use the bookshelves to display, say, clocks, small houseplants and ceramics. Nah, they’re all full of books.

Could I find Almost Home? Of course not! Then I wandered around aimlessly, trying to remember where I might have put it. I do remember carrying it around in my backpack, back and forth from the office, for weeks – what the heck had I done with it? Oh, with my luck, I’d accidentally left it on the train, and some other MBTA commuter was happily reading it now.

I did read a review which explained the re-packaging of the first book – can’t remember the exact wording – something about Almost Home sinking into a black hole of publishing oblivion or something. I sulked at that.

"Well, I read it!" As an Almost Home reader and enjoyer, I resented being referred to as a "black hole of oblivion", or whatever they said. And I even read it, like, five times, so that made me a black hole times five. Should I complain? Send rude letters to the editor? Get all prissy and offended? All three?

In any event, until the weekend, when I could find the time to do a good search for Almost Home, I had to work from memory. I eventually figured out that it was a somewhat revised Almost Home. For example, I noticed the mean teacher who liked girls but hated boys was gone – not sure why. The shack in the middle of a field – later captured by an artist - was still there. And in the first book, when he was jogging in place in his cell and bleeding into his socks, he had written a riff on pain being the only path to wisdom, which made me ask, "Is that true?" when I read it the first time.

I have no doubt that HIS pain led to wisdom; I just doubted that was true for everyone. I remember stopping, the first time I read that, and trying to think of exceptions, so even then he was sending me off in thinking directions, even before I nicknamed him "Mr. Signpost".

I thought of the first Greek philosophers and Sophists who awed me when I realized that the majority of their thoughts about spirituality, science and philosophy were never based on anyone else’s thoughts, because there weren’t any "others" who had their thoughts before they did. Original and brilliant. I didn’t remember them going through a lot of pain, except perhaps Socrates, as I’m guessing the hemlock did a major discomfort number on his digestive system, before he croaked. And he wasn’t really considered one of the Sophists anyway.

I did think of the christian Jesus, who was probably pretty wise, but his really intense experience with pain was the tail end of things, not the instigating force – he didn’t seem to be in a lot of pain when he was preaching.

Buddha – I dunno, maybe. He went through self-deprivation, anyway.

Or Paramhansa Yogananda – whose Biography of a Yogi was awesome as well - I don’t recall him being in a lot of pain in order to become wise. Then it occurred to me that, as far as wise people went, I didn’t actually know a lot of ascended masters personally, so I really wasn’t sure if that statement was true or not. Supposedly, if you chanted the name of the ascended master Babaji like a mantra, he would appear and could possibly clarify that point, but the guy’s something like – what? 1000 years old? Older? Can’t remember. In any event, he’d scare the crap out of me if he suddenly did appear, so I’ve never tried chanting his name.

I do remember concluding – at the time – "Well, fuck wisdom, then," because if pain was necessary for it, I much preferred staying really, really stupid – and blissfully pain-free. As I confessed in the flogger entry, I am so not good with pain. Or perhaps Damien meant "wisdom" in the sense that other people meant when they talked about "sub space" – a different level of awareness or reality you achieve through pain. I’d never had that experience, though. And again, wasn’t all that fired up with eagerness for it, either.

Back to hunting for Almost Home!

The Eleusinian Mysteries

I, at Eleusis, saw the finest sight,
When early morning's banners were unfurled.
From high Olympus, gazing on the world,
The ancient gods once saw it with delight.
Sad Demeter had in a single night
Removed her sombre garments! and mine eyes
Beheld a 'broidered mantle in pale dyes
Thrown o'er her throbbing bosom. Sweet and clear
There fell the sound of music on mine ear.
And from the South came Hermes, he whose lyre
One time appeased the great Apollo's ire.
The rescued maid, Persephone, by the hand
He led to waiting Demeter, and cheer
And light and beauty once more blessed the land.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 – 1919)

Day Before Yesterday, The Asormos.

Yesterday, the Holade Mystai, the Day of Purification. Ritual bathing to purify yourself for the ceremony to come. Day is dedicated to Demeter and Persephone, with, Stein says, "strong influence of Isis".

Today, the third day, offerings of barley and grain, "the life force".

Last year, I started reading about the Eleusinian Mysteries – which you may recall, got me started on waking dreams – which you may also recall, came to a screeching halt when I was prescribed medication to halt the leg cramps, and temporarily lost my ability to remember dreams, due to the drugged state the medication inflicted on me. I have hope that the ability will return. A year has passed, and I again picked up my reading on the Mysteries. The more I read about them, the more enthralling they become. I still want to go back in dream time into Greece for the Mysteries. I can almost taste the excitement the initiates must have felt.

Meanwhile, I found the mythology that may have eventually developed into the Greek and Egyptian Mysteries:

Telipinu was the Hittite god of farming. He was the son of the weather and fertility god according to their mythology.

In one story, he grew angry at the world and left his house, causing the crops to fail. Hannahannas, the mother goddess, sent a bee to find him; when the bee did, stinging Telipinu and smearing wax on him, the god grew angry and began to wreak destruction on the world. Finally, Kamrusepa, goddess of magic, calmed Telepinu by giving his anger to the Doorkeeper of the Underworld.

The Telepinu Myth is an ancient Hittite myth about Telepinu whose disappearances causes all fertility to fail, both plant and animal. This results in devastation and despair among gods and humans alike. In order to stop the havoc and devastation, the gods seek Telepinu but fail to find him. Only a bee sent by the goddess Hannahanna finds Telepinu, and stings him in order to wake him up. However this infuriates Telepinu further and he "diverts the flow of rivers and shatters the houses". In the end, the goddess Kamrusepa uses healing and magic to calm Telepinu after which he returns home and restores the vegetation and fertility. In other references it is a mortal priest who prays for all of Telepinu's anger to be sent to bronze containers in the underworld, of which nothing escapes.

But the Eleusinian Mysteries were much more extensive. Everything in the Greek world stopped for them. Initiates came from all over the Mediterranean, Adriatic and Ionian Seas, possibly further than that. Wars stopped. Travel to Greece that might have been banned at the time, was now allowed. The buzz in the air was audible, throughout the entire region. Preparations had been underway, and now there was no time left. The Mysteries had begun. THIS is the event I have always wanted to dream travel back to, and experience. Except for the medication screwing with my dream recall, I see no reason why I can’t do that. I just need to learn how.

I’m reminded of a past dream I had that was so immediate and so real I had trouble readjusting when I woke up.

I lived in Yonkers. Took a nap. Fell so deeply into this dream it became reality for me, for a time. This was the dream:

I was a boy of about 9 years old. There was a small group of us, sitting on the ground. A man of about 30-40 years was sitting on a rock. I knew the man’s name in that lifetime. I don’t want to say we were all wearing togas – more that we had cloth wrapped around ourselves by way of clothes.

The older man definitely had sandals of some sort on his feet; I’m pretty sure I was barefoot. He had salt and pepper hair and beard. He was instructing us in something, and I do remember him drawing the infinity symbol in the dirt with a stick.

I had just said something out loud, which was dry or sarcastic. I made the other boys laugh. The man looked at me, and as he reached out to cuff me on the side of the head for interrupting the lesson he was imparting to all of us, I distinctly heard him think (so in this dream, I could read minds as well!) that I reminded him of his younger self. But he cuffed me anyway, for being a smart-ass. As his hand impacted the side of my head, I gasped and said, "Wait! I know who you are! You’re ---", and I blurted out the name of someone I knew in my present life. He put his finger to his lips, and as he did so, I felt myself fall over sideways onto the ground, and side-slipped through time and woke up in Yonkers.

Two things: I did know who the older man was in this lifetime, and he actually confirmed it later on, without even being asked about it, by remarking that he was a man with the name I’d already been aware that he had, because of that dream. I remember every hair on my body standing up in shock when he said that.

The other thing: I was scared out of my wits to wake up and find myself a woman. I cannot describe the terror, because it’s one of those things I’ll bet not a lot of people experience. I’d identified so completely with the body and mind of a nine-year old boy that waking up as a woman was foreign and unfamiliar. I actually started crying out in horror and backing up toward the headboard of the bed in a panic to get away from myself, before I returned mentally and remembered I was a woman. Terrifying, let me tell you. And extremely odd.

I hadn’t thought of that dream in a long time, but a photo of Piero was posted. I looked at it, and suddenly said, "I KNOW him." Well, of course I knew it was a photo of Piero Barone, but it was the first time I’d felt a glimmer of "other recognition", for want of a better phrase ... and couldn’t figure out why. I’d just thought I loved his voice and hadn’t thought there may have been more to it than that. As though I’d known him from somewhere else. The reaction was nearly identical to the one I’d had in the Yonkers dream. Couldn’t place him anywhere else – I knew of only a few other lives I’d had: Venezia was one, and probably the one that left the greatest emotional impact on me. The boy of nine in a Grecian type settlement was another. There was a third one in Mesoamerica.

The Grecian one makes me think, "Might have been ..." where I may have encountered Piero, because I’d always thought that life took place in Greece or Magna Graecia, and Sicily has Grecian roots. No other reason for me to think that, though. I couldn’t remember why he seemed familiar to me outside of his role as "Piero Barone of Il Volo".

But because I’d said almost the same thing ("Wait! I know him!") – or close to it – when I saw that photo of Piero, I found myself wondering if he was a fellow student, or a brother or something in that life. Something about the way his body was shaped, or his collarbones looked, or the way his head was turned. I can’t find it again. I just know that at the time the sense of recognition happened, it sent a bolt of electricity through me, the ‘recognition’ was so startling. Would at least partially explain the period of obsession – with him I must have felt safe, even subliminally.

The point being: is it possible I might have been familiar with the Mysteries while they were actually taking place? After that "glimmer" happened, I was even more eager to see if I could dream-walk into the Mysteries.

"And thou shalt know the Source ethereal,
And all the starry signs along the sky,
and the resplendent works of that clear lamp
of glowing sun and whence they all arose.
Likewise of wandering works of round-eyed moon
Shalt thou yet learn and of her source; and then
Shalt thou know too the heavens that close us round –
Both whence they sprang and how Fate leading them
Bound fast to keep the limits of the stars ...
How earth and sun and moon and common sky,
The Milky Way, Olympus outermost,
And burning might of stars made haste to be."

Parmenides

Back from Manhattan

Thursday, September 6, 2012
I can’t seem to stop the urge to start crying. I’ve been walking aimlessly around my apartment, tears poking me behind my eyelids for absolutely no reason, but not certain how to get the sensation to go away. Not certain what’s causing it. Suspicion but there’s no proof, as the man in the crowded house says. Failure to ground New York City’s powerful energy? As soon as that thought enters my mind, it slides back out again. I forget that I ever had the thought and return to walking in aimless circles.

I know part of it – everything was perfect ... except me. And the weather. As soon as I left the apartment on the 4th of September, I was flying on a magic carpet, albeit a limp and soggy one. I think we – and by "we" I mean the residents of the East Coast - were in the remnants of Hurricane Isaac. Hot, stifling, humid, miserable.

If anyone were to ask me, I would say that the concert started for me at about 3:00 in the afternoon, when Amtrak hissed to a stop at Penn Station. I commuted most out of Times Square (the 1 to Van Cortlandt Park) and later the Port Authority Bus Terminal than Penn Station, but Penn Station was still so familiar it even smelled the same as it always did. The other part of it may be that I’ve fallen headfirst into my own love poetry. An absolutely terrifying place to be, lost in your own unrequited love poetry. As soon as that thought occurs to me, I start holding back tears again again. Not that I wanted HIS love, particularly, but that I found myself to be so pitiful.

I had said that the first thing I planned to do was inhale energy in big gulps and that’s exactly what I did ... we drove up 10th Avenue, through Hell’s Kitchen, past the back side of the Lincoln Center Library complex, onto Amsterdam and jogged left, pulling up in front of the Beacon Theater. All the way north I was inhaling deeply, whispering, "Please heal me." Everything felt welcoming and safe, despite the high heat and humidity, which was enough to flatten you in seconds. When I was here, days like this – especially when the AC in the subway went on the fritz – liked to have killed you, but today it felt familiar and perfect.

I tried to remember why I left in the first place. Oh yeah. That annoying necessity of life: work. After glancing at the Times’ Help Wanted section recently ... I conclude I’m still better off, opportunity wise, in the Boston area, but damn! I am still so miserably homesick for New York.   Even on days like this.

The hotel, by the way, sucked: room the size of a closet, no amenities, no ice machines anywhere, no ability to cool the room down unless you were in it – i.e., as soon as you left the room, the AC went down, and you had to re-cool the room every time you returned. The process was so slow, I had to step into a cold shower to cool down every time I came back to the room. And for this, they charged a huge amount of money.

You walked into a dripping sauna every time you walked outside. I made a few acquaintances, and after picking up our tickets agreed to go out for dinner, only to find lines out onto the sidewalk. Change of plans. We wandered into a local beanery, just to get out of the heat and humidity.

Naturally, this wouldn’t happen in a million years if I were hoping and planning for it – but the very first man we ran into, just walking in the door, was Piero’s father. Next, a lovely older woman who wanted to know if we were there to see her nephew. After I raised both hands in the air and swore I never touched her nephew, I got around to asking who her nephew was.

Oh, her nephew was PIERO! Well, that put a new slant on things. Bless the women, she had no idea how much I was there to see her nephew. Surrounding the two of them were a handful of other Barone relatives – I have no idea who they were, cousins maybe? Huge and loving family who obviously adored Piero, these Barone’s.

After that, there was no time for dinner, so I wandered back to the hotel to try and reapply all of the make-up, which had run off of my face in the high heat. My hair was hanging on the sides of my face in wet ringlets. I look at myself in the mirror and ordered my dream to come true. Just looking at the ticket number didn’t really tell me how close to the stage I was, but ... I dunno, Row B seemed pretty close. I cast about 20 spells that my dream – i.e., that I never had to worry about him seeing me and could just enjoy the concert without feeling self-consciousness and miserable – would come true.

And my dreams came true! Thankfully, Row B in the Beacon Theater alphabet is not the second row; it is the fifth. Apparently, and I’m certain solely under the force of my powerful witch’s spell, the Beacon invented a new alphabet, where "B" was the 5th letter. Might have upset some people, not me. The moment I saw the seat, I practically danced with joy. There’s NO WAY he was going to see me back there. And as far as I know – until he grabs me on a street some day and yells, "I know you! You were in the fifth row in the Beacon Theater!" – (in Italian, that is, in which case, I might just stare at him stupidly) - he never did.

Note to self: casting spells that people not see you when you really don’t want them to, actually works!

Friday, September 07, 2012
I cannot believe it is Friday already. I have been recovering from the lack of sleep I enjoyed on the 4th ... yesterday I would wake up, putter around for 2 hours and sleep for the next two. Did that all day. Tomorrow I run off again for an overnight stay in Boston. Today I have to pay homage to the endocrinologist by getting my blood sucked out of me, or she’ll withhold all of my medication. Love being held hostage by doctors.

I was also thinking of getting my hair cut today.

To finish up New York: There was, for me, only one man on that stage. This is no reflection on the other two – they are wonderful. But Piero ... cameras don’t do him justice. He has the most exquisite face, the most heart-fluttering, rakish smile, the most delicious high-powered sensual energy that he exudes. I never saw the other two, there was only Piero. I spent most of the concert with my eyes fixated solely on him.

I could see why girls propose to him, declare their undying love for him, want to follow him to the ends of the earth – he’s that intoxicating in person.

After belatedly grounding the powerful NYC energy sparkling and thundering around inside of me – geez, no wonder I was such a mess! – I feel much better. Rule #1 of magick: always ground the energy you raise! I had forgotten that, too.

Saturday, September 08, 2012
Il Volo now in Boston, by way of Westbury, Long Island. The endocrinologist neglected to mention that she had prescribed a fasting blood test, not a regular one. I hadn’t fasted ahead of time. We had to reschedule: this morning at 7:30 a.m. in Haverhill. I contemplated reporting her to ... whatever organization it is that you complain about idiot doctors to ... for messing up yet another peaceful Il Volo concert day, much like VIP Nation had stressed me out for the first one. Hit the road at 7:00 am and made it to the lab at 7:30. Hit so many potholes speeding back to North Andover, the "service engine soon" light came on. Oh, of course it did! I’m ignoring it for now.

Supercuts had already destroyed whatever thoughts I might have had of enjoying a Meet & Greet with Piero. They’d chopped my hair so short I looked like ... well, let’s put it this way: Gertrude Stein’s heart would have leapt for joy upon seeing me. I, on the other hand, went back to my car, banged my head on the steering wheel for a while and cried my eyes out when I saw the result. I’m hoping to somewhat ameliorate the result with either lots of make-up, lots of dangly jewelry, lace, a push-up bra, eye-popping cleavage and a diving board nailed to the side of a bottle of perfume. Or maybe all of them combined. No, then I’ll look and smell like a brothel hooker who just got diagnosed with head lice.

It doesn’t matter anyway. As my facial nerves began to reawaken – I assume that’s what they’re doing – the entire right side of my face began to twitch. I was staring at myself in the mirror before I left and watched in horror as the eyelid, nose and chin area all began to twitch simultaneously. The effect was astonishing, and I looked like I had a serious nervous disorder and required large doses of tranquilizers one might use on a charging rhinoceros. At least that side of my face was moving again. New York City had done something amazing to me when I asked her to heal me. Unfortunately, because of the power behind the transformation, it was uncontrollable and startling when it did.

Monday, September 10, 2012, post Il Volo Boston concert
Again recovering. This is a more difficult recovery, because it was the last concert until ... who knows. For this Boston concert we all needed to construct an ark. Not just rain, but a typhoon: thundering downpour, and wind later clocked at 50 mph in Boston, blowing rain sideways through the concert arena, the stage, the performers and the audience. A few songs later, the three members of Il Volo were actually inspired to break into a spontaneous chorus of "Singing in the Rain". Make-up ran off my face in rivers. I looked like a drowned raccoon. Of COURSE I did. I wasn’t even surprised anymore at my increasing state of hideous.

People to the right of me started shrieking as water poured off of the roof on top of them. I don’t know if Piero could see or hear them from the stage, but he had just started "The Theme from Love Story" when it happened, seated on the stage riser. I could see his eyes flash left, more in curiosity than anything else, because I suspect he saw some audience reaction but wasn’t certain why he was seeing it – but he kept singing, as wind and rain blew across him sideways from Stage Left. Such poise that boy has ... more than I do, that’s for sure – I promptly ducked, expecting a rare New England F5 water spout to hit land at any moment.   He, on the other hand, didn’t even flinch. He really is fearless.

Afterwards, I swore that the first thing I would do after kicking the bucket would be to kick the Sky Sadist in the nuts for this stunt alone. Wait until Il Volo appeared and then level me with Bell’s f**king Palsy and all of its horrendous side effects. Then have Supercuts ignore a simple set of instructions and turn me into ... I can’t even describe it. Then douse me with water – AGAIN! I did go to the Meet & Greet – not to meet him, but to see him off stage – and he was as beautiful off stage as he was on. Calm, peaceful, beautiful. I left before the boys got to me, and went back to the hotel. I couldn’t bear to meet any of them with this grotesque buzz cut and the broken, dripping face the Sky Sadist painted on me.

I really need something to break this curse.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012
I dread anniversaries of September 11. Guy in my (North Andover) apartment complex stopped me as I was going grocery shopping to urge me never to forget 9/11. I glowered at him in disbelief. Like I’m ever going to forget the day that still gives me nightmares. I hate this day. I hate peoples’ obsession with this day. I hate all the TV specials. That is the day I can point to as a direct line of causality to my being trapped in exile in Massachusetts – not many people remember that the New York economy tanked after that, and I had to find a new line of work. It’s the reason I acted like a neurotic asshole when the Boston Red Sox sent an air force jet over my head to celebrate the opening of the baseball season, and I cursed the entire franchise and prayed for their immediate destruction – from my fetal position on the ground in Cambridge.

On the other hand, I can generally ignore all of the nightmarish memories because of the beautiful weather – it’s now cool, crisp and perfect. I opened all the windows and am basking in the freshness.

Thursday, September 13, 2012
Meanwhile, back to Mr. Signpost. His book is being released in 5 days and Penguin Books is holding a drawing: send in a question that Johnny Depp will ask Damien, and you’ll get a copy autographed by both of them. A mischievous thought flickers through my head briefly, followed by the inevitable self-correcting ridicule which tosses it back out again, "No, you can’t ask him the incubus question now, you idiot!!!" Darn.

I seem to be surrounded by quotes from other contexts that I wish I could send to him. Two of my favorites that made me think of Damien as soon as I heard and/or read them:

"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." Jonathan Swift

Sometimes you can only find Heaven by slowly backing away from Hell." ― Carrie Fisher, "Wishful Drinking".

... although maybe that second one applies to me as well.

Since I’ve gone back to work, I’ve also gone back to reading on the train. All sorts of things. I pulled out my old Latin primer, and am stumbling around muttering fascinating pronouncements like, "Ego poeta et non nauta!/I am a poet, and NOT a sailor!" – in elementary Latin. Not that I expect to be proficient any time soon, I just thought it might eventually be useful to know ecclesiastical Latin if I wanted to read the old vatican nonsense on witches of days gone by.

The doorbell rings and some delicious perfume I could have used to compensate for the Gertrude Stein buzz cut arrives. Those who’ve followed this blog know that I am usually enchanted by the silliness of perfume descriptions – which I find about as entertaining as the even sillier descriptions of fine wines – the latter of which is completely driven by the "ew" factor, as well as being unintelligible, most of the time. I still remember one of my favorite Spanish tempranillo wines described as "redolent of tar and pungent dirt" or something disgusting like that. And it was heavenly, the best wine on the planet that year. Go figure. (And tasted NOTHING like tar or dirt).

Descriptions like that make you want to toss professional "wine reviewers" off the nearest cliff and then toss an "Acme" safe right after them. Meep, meep. And then dump a piano off that same cliff onto the perfume advertisers.

 Anyway, here’s a partial description of this particular fragrance:

"The fragrance inspired by love and romance ... an audacious chypre with a citrusy freshness and a jasmine heart. Sprinkled with fruity notes and underscored by the elegance of patchouli, this chic and daring fragrance is a new classic." Italian Mandarin Essence, Egyptian Jasmine Absolute, Indonesian Patchouli Essence. Pure. Precious. Elegant.

Riiight. So, basically: orange, jasmine and patchouli. Audacious? Daring? These are among the three oldest fragrances on the planet – how did they become "audacious" and "daring"? Like no one’s ever heard of them – or put them together – before. And how are they "precious"? They smell heavenly but they’re as common as dandelion fluff.

I look up jasmine on Google: Jasmine is used to treat depression, insomnia, nervous tension and infertility. Its aroma is soothing and calming and can bring about a restful state to those who are suffering from emotional trauma. It is said to act as an aphrodisiac.

Well, alriiiiiighty, then!! Wait, how can it be both an aphrodisiac AND bring about a restful state? Aren’t those contradictory? You’re restful but horny? Overwhelmed with lust, but have an urge to sleep it off? I don’t get it.

Patchouli, apparently, also works on depression and on the libido ... er, while it’s repelling bugs, and making you pee every five minutes.

Patchouli oil stimulates the replenishment of skin cells, so that it is very valuable in speeding healing and preventing scars from wounds. The therapeutic uses for patchouli oil are in fighting depression, to kill bacteria and cleanse wounds, to enhance sexual desire and performance, to cleanse oily skin and hair, repel bugs, deodorize, and rid the body of excess water.

But first I run to the bathroom with a small bottle of patchouli oil, not to pee, but to smear it all over my head scar. WHO KNEW??? And why didn’t anybody tell me this before I went running off to New York City and into bayside Boston?? (*sigh*) I don’t know if it will work, but my head scar is quite fragrant now. Finally, Orange:

Orange oil is a good diuretic and is most useful in balancing water retention and obesity. Its lymphatic stimulant action further helps to balance water processes, detoxification, aiding the immune system and general well-being. For the digestive system, orange oil can help with constipation, dyspepsia and as a general tonic. It is also useful in cases of nervous tension and stress.

Why is everyone insistent on getting water out of me? But you can sorta see why the copy writer chose to avoid some of these homeopathic properties: if it helps to alleviate both constipation and water retention ... the best copy you could get out of that would be something like, "lose ten pounds in 10 minutes on the porcelain throne!" which might make the FDA raise a few official eyebrows.

In any event, despite the questionable advertising copy – which is not the fault of those who actually made the perfume itself – this actually is a delightful fragrance. Really. I’m turning MYSELF on, that’s how aphrodisiacal it is.

Riff between Piero and Ignazio on Piero's difficulty with English, specifically pronouncing the word "world".  They were about to introduce a solo by Gianluca when they did this.  Westbury, Long Island.


 
Saturday, September 15, 2012
The Asormos.

The First Day of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Gathering of the Initiates. I can easily imagine how excited those initiates must have been, when this day arrived. Everything in the world stopped for these Mysteries. Wars stopped. Travel to Greece that might have been banned at the time, was now allowed. The buzz in the air was audible. Preparations had been underway, and now there was no time left. The Mysteries had begun.

 

Another Day as a Fright Mask

(Photo: Woman in a Hat, Pablo Picasso)

A day before I leave. The steroids have partially worked, as I said, but my mouth is still lopsided, my face is still swollen, I can’t smile, speak well or pronounce some words. The other unexpected side effect: if you do rather poorly on steroids to begin with, coming off of them is also problematic. I’ll be simply minding my own business and suddenly discover perspiration running down my face in a river and into my eyes, down the side of my nose and off of my chin. The doctor said, "Yes, that’s normal," and all I could think of to say was, "How is it normal?? I wasn’t on them that long!"

Doesn’t matter. If you have a pronounced sensitivity to steroids, you don’t have to be – and apparently, I did. Uncontrollable rage, swollen face, puffy eyes, exhaustion, nausea, sweat running down my face and dripping off my chin – gee, let me go on steroids more often, what fun!

And then, to top it all off, let me go sit somewhere in the first ten rows of a concert, right in the midst of a herd of really bitchy, vicious women, all in desperate need of industrial-strength Midol, all in heat and lusting over the same three guys!!

Grrrr ..... well, actually, the way I feel, I’ll fit right in with that crowd.

Marie Claire sends me a face cream sample – guaranteed to rid my face of ... well, not lopsidedness, exactly, but I’m thinking: it may soften out the swollen eyes a little bit. I try it. Hmmm. It actually does seem to even out the skin tone so that my eyes don’t look so bruised ... but I no sooner think those words when my nose starts running again.

Yay. Allergies. First thing that works and it makes my nose run worse than it did a few minutes ago, along with giving me some badly bloodshot eyes.  I spend the next twenty minutes blowing my nose vigorously. Rinsing my face off doesn’t help.

Next, I develop a phlegmy allergic throat clearing that reminds me of Mo Collins’ character, "Lorraine" , from Mad TV, who did the same thing: cleared her throat with a loud "ahem-hem-hem!" every 30 seconds. Now, I sound just like her, thanks to this godawful allergic reaction. All I need to do is wear a pair of polyester stretch pants pulled up to my tits, like ‘Lorraine’ did.

I can see it now: during the Il Volo concert, Piero begins to sing his solo - soft, peaceful, romantic. He’s interrupted by a loud, "Ahem – hem – hem!" from the fright-mask wearing, drooling chick in the 3rd row with snot running out her nose. He stomps off the stage in a rage, snarling, "I can’t work under these conditions!", except he snarls it in Italian, which makes it sound so much more sexy than in English. Deprived of Piero, the enraged audience tears me to pieces and leaves my bloody body bits strewn over the streets of Manhattan . Yup. I can see it now. Hey, but on the bright side, at least I’ll be back home!

So much for the face cream.

Don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but we’re not in a drought zone. Well. Obviously that’s a good thing but I didn’t want to sound as though I were sneering at those who were. Yesterday I was able to get ahold of some New England corn-on-the-cob, and am noshing away on some as we speak. I can’t get enough of it.

The sonnet cycle (Cover Page, Acknowledgements, Introduction, Table of Contents, a whole messa sonnets, Author Biography) has now officially been sent out in three different directions – all three publishers (who have no problem with simultaneous submissions) will make their decisions by December, so the cycle is now officially out in the world, awaiting judgment.

I had the strangest reaction when the third of the three went out from the post office. I discovered I wasn’t so much concerned with whether or not it garnered recognition or praise, or even acceptance, but more relieved that it was away from ME, as odd as that sounds. In the hands of others the Cycle was in the realm of the possible, however remotely, while in my hands, it was in the realm of the, if not the land of the Dead and Dying, at least the land of the Doom and the Gloom, which is where I’ve been camped out for a while.

Truth be told, I don’t expect anything resembling recognition, praise or acceptance. Not that I think I’m turning out crap, but because poetry as an art form has long ago fallen into the hands of the Ivory Tower PIP ("Preciously and Irritatingly Pretentious") Squeaks ("Insignificant rodents who squeak"), who write such ridiculous nonsense that no one on the PLANET has any idea what they’re preciously and pretentiously squeaking insignificantly about.

[Graphic courtesy of inkbot.design. Text courtesy of the dictionary.]

And again, I point accusingly at the University of Michigan Hopwood Awards people, most of whom need to be kicked widdershins around Angell Hall in their cellulite-laden, pretentious, prissy, squeaky and wobbly buttocks – for the crime of never even acknowledging submissions – and from students!, who have years ahead of them in the real world to be treated like crap, and don’t need to be treated like crap by their own alma mater, when they haven’t even started out in the world. Not that I’m holding a grudge or anything. Really. :p

The poetry that has fallen out of favor – accessible poems that most normal people enjoy quoting and memorizing because they’re readable, inspirational and actually make sense – don’t have any outlet except perhaps Reader’s Digest, and I don’t know anyone who reads that anymore. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time I’ve seen a copy, except in a doctor’s office, packed to the gills with medical advertising so detailed and nauseatingly specific it was sickening.

Need proof of the pretentiousness of today’s poetry? Go search randomly through inspirational or moving "Quotations" that people use, and if it was a quote drawn from poetry, Carl Sandberg was probably the most recent poet quoted. Maya Angelou occasionally. MAYBE Billy Collins. Pretty much everyone else has been incomprehensible. And that ought to tell you something.

All the other poets quoted are the classics. Browning. Dante. Byron. Shelley. Pound. Eliot. Thomas. And THAT ought to tell you something, too.

I swear, after I retire I’m going to publish a poetry anthology called, "Poems for REAL People", or perhaps "Poems for SANE People" and deep-six every single poem that reads even remotely "pretentious".

Conversely, every poem written by, "Joe Schmoe of Schmoe’s Farm, Nebraska" in praise of his pet cow, Daisy Mae? Shoehorned right in there. No joke. Some people just deserve to be heard.

[Pause]

Okay, maybe not. But still.

As a perfect example of my insane world, this trip to Manhattan. Naturally, when I had made the various reservations for things, I had printed out the receipts and itineraries. As I was actually getting ready to pack, I couldn’t find any of them. I had to spend most of yesterday calling all sorts of places and asking them to confirm reservations and re-send receipts. Huge waste of my own time.

I discover that the itinerary that I was supposed to have received from VIP Nation for the tickets had not arrived in the mail as promised. I only have a receipt, not the instructions about where to pick up the tickets, or at what time. I call them. The most appalling response I’ve ever heard: if your concert is in less than 5 days from now, you have to e-mail us; we won’t talk to you on the phone. SAY WHAT???? I begin to feel nauseous, anticipating the worst.

I e-mail them with all of the pertinent information I have on the receipt. Here’s their response:

Thank you for contacting VIP Nation. If a response is applicable, we will get back to you as soon as possible. Regular business hours are 9:30am – 6:30pm Pacific Standard Time, Monday – Friday.

I sent them the e-mail at 2:00 PM my time, which would make it 11:00 AM their time. They had until 6:30 PM on Friday to respond intelligently. They did not respond.

"If a response is applicable"??? The concert is on the day after Labor Day. These cretins have disappeared for the Labor Day holiday, since, according to this e-mail, I will not hear from them before the concert, as I’m leaving for New York the morning of the 4th. I have no itinerary for this. No instructions. My stomach begins to clench into a rock hard knot, as yet another event that could have made me happy is destroyed by the stupidity of VIP Nation, who doesn’t give a crap if they kill people by viciously dumping them in a vat of anxiety and stress or not. And then people wonder why I feel uneasy leaving the house.

An e-mail – Itinerary, Beacon Theater – arrives at 1:10 a.m. Sunday morning, as I’m on the verge of cancelling the entire trip. Apparently, they just enjoy torturing people for the fun of it. They send me a revised version of the same thing on Monday. I’m left staring at all these e-mails, wondering, "WTF?"

I call for the car service; reserve a trip to South Station tomorrow morning. By this time tomorrow, I will be in Manhattan. I know exactly what I’m going to do as soon as I get outside of Penn Station – soak in energy. I am so much healthier, more at home, more confident when I’m home. Massachusetts sucks your energy right up; Manhattan pours energy directly into your veins and capillaries. I’ve been so starved for it. Passing through her in a state of anxiety and grief was ineffectual. Tomorrow will be different.