Lust, Libido, Crones and Cowsills

The homework assignment for this month included making a presentation on the Triple Goddess concept, to which, I’ll admit, I’ve never paid that much attention. 

The aspect to the concept which bothered me somewhat – okay, bothered me a lot – was what seemed to me the greater emphasis placed on the maiden (virginity) and the mother (childbirth), and less on the Crone which was described in many sources as “wisdom, repose, death, and endings represented by the waning moon.”  Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Goddess_%28Neopaganism%29

In fact, I objected to this rather vociferously in the last class.  Reason:  my reproductive plumbing was surgically removed from me a long time ago – in my 30’s – and trust me when I tell you I have never regretted it, given the monthly agony I went through at the time.  Did it affect my biological urges?  Not in the slightest, as you can tell from various posts on this blog.  But my point is, based on this overall concept, I was surgically made into a “crone” in my thirties.  I still went “over the moon” during sexual encounters just as readily as I did before the surgery.  I never lost my creativity, my lust for life, my energy.

I will say that immediately after the surgery, there were several months when I did think I had lost my libido.  The most handsome hunk in the universe could have laid (lain?) down naked at my feet and I would have yawned and stepped right over him.  Naturally, I found this disquieting and went to see the doctor.  She prescribed a short-term prescription of a hormone (estrogen I assume) with a “testosterone kicker”, which, she predicted, would “restart” my libido.  It would take a few weeks to build up in my system, so she warned me not to expect any changes overnight.

Okaaaay.

So a few weeks pass.  Nothing.  I’m starting to get worried, because I’m envisioning a really pleasurable part of my life fading away entirely.  I made plans to see her again.

And I’m sitting on the commuter bus to Manhattan from my home in Orange County, New York.  I’m reading something.  All of a sudden ... without any warning whatsoever ... an intense sensation of heat floods my entire body, as though someone had taken a bucket of warm water and poured it over my head.  And with THAT sensation came an intense rush of lust so overpowering I was stunned.  I swore later that I would never make fun of teenage boys going through puberty ever again – they always say they thought of sex every :30 seconds and were basically consumed by the need for it.  Yup!  That was me – on a bus!

It was bizarre.  I’d be walking down the street thinking, “Oooh, HE’S attractive ... yes, he’s 80 years old and has no teeth but I can live with that ...” – it was bad, folks.  But whatever she had prescribed had worked.  Luckily, my body eventually absorbed and adjusted the hormonal balance after that first all powerful rush, but until it did ... hoo, boy, was it weird.

My point remains:  I may have been surgically made into a crone in my thirties, but the ONLY thing missing was my ability to reproduce.  Does that make me into someone who embodied “wisdom, repose, death, and endings represented by the waning moon”?  I don’t think so!!!  I was still as vital as I ever was.

I’ve spent today importing cd’s into i-Tunes ... and listening to “Il Divo Live in Japan” at the moment ... wow, those guys can sing!  Am reminded again of how glad I am for the whole “classical crossover” genre – guys like this got me through the last decade or so of appalling American home-grown awfulness – which is, actually, still going on, judging by the ridiculous appearances on the Grammy’s and the American Music Awards.  Makes you wonder if the American music industry has any idea that they’ve alienated millions of people with their ideas of  the cacophonous misery that constitutes “American music”.  Nah ... they’re way too stupid.

So, “Winter Storm Damon” blew through here last week – it was the first time driving home from the commuter rail station in Newburyport that I honestly wasn’t sure I’d make it:  the rain and wind were so heavy there were times when I couldn’t see the road, the center line in the road or the car ahead of me.  I couldn’t even see a place on the side of the road I could pull off and wait it out.  I have never driven as blinded as I was – thank goodness that ALL of the drivers on the road with me were of the same cautious mind and slowed down to a crawl.  No crazy idiots in SUV’s trying to blow past everyone else, we were all of us driving extremely slowly it was such a horrendous hurricane-force wind driven downpour.

There was also a lot of roadway flooding, so I hit some puddles (translation:  small lakes) so deep that I wasn’t sure I’d come out on the other side.  Did I ever mention how much I love my gutsy little Saturn?  She just plows through everything without even a hint of a sputter or a slide.

Moving on with the daybook project – courtesy of China Bayles Book of Days –  I’m supposed to bake gingerbread men for my holiday tree.  Long term readers are no doubt familiar with my annual misery with christmas tree lots, so here’s a definite no – I won’t be doing that.  I actually looked at fake trees in Lowes the other day out of curiosity and immediately said, “Nope!”  Have no issues with fake trees, just the price tags of fake trees.

The squirrels and birds are scarfing up seeds and suet as though winter were coming and they’re afraid they’ll run out of food.  OK, winter IS coming, but as I seem to have taken on the responsibility of keeping them all well fed, I doubt they’ll be at a loss for food.  A few squirrels who have happily discovered the birdfeeder look like they’ve ingested tennis balls they’re so round in the middle.

Back to the sonnet cycle – somehow, I experienced a glimpse, or a sensation, of the first opening of the Big Door ... which sounds like an odd way to describe what we know as the Big Bang.  I’m back with the Universal Mind, and how everyone says we have no ability, with our limited comprehension, to make sense of it.  Still, I almost did get a sense of the first thought, and the overwhelming joy of it was mind-blowing, that first sense of self-awareness.  If it was powerful enough to fill what we know as the known universe, can you imagine the power of the joy of it?

The sonnet structure for this one (blocks of 7 verses of four 10-count lines each and then repeat!) is wonderful to play with – the first sonnet cycle was a 12-count; I’m up to my fourth block, and how long has it taken me to get that far?!?  But I haven’t felt this creative in a long while. 

Next study of Ancient Egypt:  Thoth:  Architect of the Universe (Ralph Ellis, 1997) – this is an interesting comparison between the “divine dimensions” of the Great Pyramid on the Giza plateau in Egypt and sites in Great Britain – Stonehenge, etc.  I haven’t gotten to the part yet where he theorizes on the connection between all of these sites – i.e., how DID the builders wind up with the same dimensions of things?  He also touches on Atlantis a bit, but he has still another perspective on it; he doesn’t mention the stories of the Atlantic being as thick as mud for a long time afterwards, so it makes me wonder if he ever heard those stories.  He seems to fall into the category of people expecting to see ruins, but are you really going to see those after massive volcanic explosions?  I keep thinking that things would have been pulverized, so you probably wouldn’t see them afterwards.  Edgar Cayce did get it right, though – they found the Bimini Road right about the time he predicted they would.  Even though there are some who believe they are natural formations (and others just as vehemently don’t), the coincidence is pretty startling.  And it was Cayce who said they would find a “remnant” of Atlantis.  Back to:  the jury is still out.

Oooh, I think, for the first time ever, I may have won something in the most recent Megamillions lottery.  No, not the big payola, but $2!  (I think – in which case, I recovered the $2 I put into it!)  I’m not a regular lottery player – in fact, I pretty much fall into the “rarely” category - so I’m not even sure I did win anything, I need to have the clerk at the store where I bought it look at it.  If so, this will have been the first time – EVER – I won anything in a lottery!  I know, my enthusiasm over the prospect of having won $2 is truly pitiful, but there you have it.

So, I’m back to planning a trip to Manhattan to see a concert – I think.  Maybe.  The Cutting Room on April 11th, to see the Cowsills Anniversary Concert.  44 East 32nd Street, between Madison and Park.  Trying to find hotels; so far I see the Avalon and the Chandler.   This is going to be awesome.

Good Vibrations

Okay, I finally found something else that made me vibrate.

If you’ll recall, I was wondering ... okay, more like agonizing ... over the problem I was having with the voice of l’uno e solo making me vibrate.  I’d never physically felt anything like that before, and felt bothered, bewitched and bewildered by the whole experience.  Another synchronicity – because I have been looking around for the emerald merkaba ring I was given during my initiation, I came across the cd “Merkaba of Sound” by Jonathan Goldman.  Stuck it in the cd player and ... you guessed it!  Vibrations galore!  The effect was sort of mesmerizing.  That alone was so unsettling, I decided not to listen to it until I was actually meditating – if it did what it is supposed to do – I probably needed to be actually in a position where I could learn something from the experience.  More on that in a minute.

Now, I have a few unsettling issues with Goldman himself:  reading the booklet, he credited Drumvalo Melchizedek with teaching him about the phi-oriented counter-rotating star tetrahedron being synonymous with the term merkaba.  I’ve read about Melchizidek.  Not at all sure I trust the guy, or maybe that’s just me – too many distasteful and unpleasant complaints cropping up about him.  But just trying to learn about phi (The Golden Ratio) (as opposed to pi) was something of a challenge for the mathematics-challenged.

Source:  http://www.sacred-art.org/product/blue-merkaba/

Here’s my next question I’ll probably never know the answer to:  why did Piero’s voice cause the same vibrations as the “Merkaba of Sound”?  According to this description, Goldman uses “resonance of the divine name as well as an intoned sound as well as incorporating phi as a sonic ratio to create a new experience in sacred vibrations.”  (And no, I have no idea what means, really.  Just that it made me vibrate, just as Piero’s voice did, the first time I heard it.)  Sooo – Piero’s voice also incorporates phi as a sonic ratio??  And his brother has an ouroboros tattoo?  Interesting brothers, those Barone boys.

While looking “merkaba” up, I ran across the world’s weirdest website, “Human Angels”, full of people announcing they were human angels – the traditional concept of “angels” being the sort whom one would assume were relatively intelligent beings – in unintelligible sentences chock full of misspellings and other idiocy.  Can’t find that website again, as I closed it with an expression of utter disgust on my face, but found another example of merkaba-related lunacy:

“Dear children of light, we come to you yet again with another upgrade for the heart center of your being. We ask you allow the emerald green energies to enter you hear center ...”

Source:  http://sacredascensionmerkaba.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/next-72-hours-3-days-emerald-green-heart-code-upgrade-716-719-1000-p-m-us-est-1001-p-m-us-est-pleiades-high-council/

Yeah, you read that right.  Upgrade?  “Enter you hear center”?  What the heck is a “hear center”?  Is that my ear?  I’m supposed to allow “emerald green energies” to slide down my ear canal?  After that, I’m thinking that maybe they should forget sliding down my ear canal (all together now:  “Ewwww ...”) and instead open an elementary school for self-proclaimed “Human Angels” who never made it out of third grade.  You’re telling me this woman is supposedly channeling higher beings – who never heard of “spell check” or “dictionaries” – or even proof-reading?

And you know me:  the minute you hit me with the smarmy, “Dear children ...” of anything – light or otherwise – I’m outa there.  Legitimate deities know me better than that.  Neither Sekhmet or Thoth said anything even remotely like that.  In fact – now that I think about it – neither one of them said anything at all – they communicated with actions, which were unmistakable, and thoughts.

Another one:  Merkaba.org.  Here’s their pitch:

“We are now teaching our ancient wisdom and techniques in a new way using modern words and examples in a series of downloadable recordings and CDs. Our wisdom and techniques when fully taught in the proper way, 5,000 years ago, required 14 years of daily classes for graduation.”

Uh huh.  Their ancient wisdom.  Raises the point:  if they’re channeling anything – which is highly unlikely already – it would simply be “wisdom” – present tense – not “ancient” wisdom.  Isn’t time an artificial construct?  “Ancient” already presupposes a distance in time, and a separation based on that distance.  The beings supposedly being channeled are distant from themselves?

As for the “14 years of daily classes 5000 years ago”, since there are no papyri or hieroglyphics actually covering any such teaching, we’re supposed to buy their knowledge of a “proper way of teaching” from 5,000 years ago?  I don’t think so.  Especially when they’re charging $105.00 for one cd.

Source:  http://www.merkaba.org/basicadvancednew.html

I dunno – here’s my alternative:  try contacting Thoth yourself – he’s infinitely more knowledgeable, he actually WAS as present 5000 years ago as he is today, and he isn’t holding out his hand for your credit card.  My initiation was awesome, life-changing – and oh yes, while I paid for the classes, the initiation was free of charge.

Clarification:  I have no issue with legitimate teachers charging for their time and experience.  But using  the classes I’m attending as an example, if they hadn’t produced tangible results for me, I would certainly not consider giving them a dime for the second year.  And not once did the instructor make a ridiculous claim like that or I would have looked at her in disbelief with both eyebrows raised up to my hairline.

So while I did find a few useful things about the merkaba (and believe me when I tell you THAT website I cited wasn’t one of them), I wasn’t able to find a replica of the ring I was given during my initiation – although I would imagine it would be enormously expensive if I did.  I also  looked up the properties of emeralds:  “a stone of inspiration and infinite patience”, “the stone of successful love”, “eliminates negativity”, “can heal negative emotions” – I can see why they gave me the ring!  The emerald was surrounded by diamonds - one of the diamond properties: “protection against cell phones”!!!  Quick – give me more diamonds!!
 
Meanwhile, Mr. Signpost tweeted, apropos of I don’t know what exactly,  “You are going places you never imagined. Time to get excited about the future.”  Well, actually, HE was in my future, and as for excited ... truthfully, stomach-churning was more like it.  But before showing up in class with mascara running down my face from another crying jag, I thought I’d get the trip down first, and took a practice run to Salem and back.

Utter nightmare.  Route 114 was having construction done and provided a completely unmarked detour; I was in a fury at the abysmally-run State of Massachusetts again before I even got there.

Salem, Massachusetts has to be the most claustrophobic place on earth ... street signs are erratic, street names don’t match maps and their appallingly miniscule streets are one-way and the width of a sidewalk.  In short, an utter nightmare getting there, locating the place where the class was to be held, and getting back out again.  Coming home I suffered through the unmarked detour again and then sat in traffic on Route 1 because the town of Topsfield had decided to have a fair that backed up one of the most heavily trafficked roads in the country for miles – and then some guy driving a mail truck had decided to have an accident at the same spot.  Nearly four hours for a trip that should have taken me 40 minutes.

Thank goodness Mr. Signpost cancelled – I was seriously thinking of doing the same thing after that experience.

On top of everything else, I’m coming down with a cold – and many thanks to the woman on the Newburyport line who coughed all over me last week.

Not that I’m all that concerned about either one, but there are two killer viruses racing around the globe right now, killing people, and we still have women going to work, taking trains, taking subways, all the while toxic as hell, spewing germs all over the place.  The coughers, sneezers, saliva-spewing narcissistic cows wandering around in public killing people are ALWAYS women, I have no idea why.  When they’re not microwaving you with their psychological and emotional addiction to their cell phones, they’re spewing killer viruses all over you.  Reason for the next mass extinction of a species on the planet earth?  WOMEN!!!  (You heard it here first, folks.  And just because I am one doesn’t mean I don’t fully appreciate the utter narcissistic lunacy of my own gender.)


Interestingly enough:  it was a woman exiting her car in the Market Basket parking lot in Seabrook who was wearing a flimsy hospital mask over her mouth and nose, as though she expected to get infected by the Ebola virus in Seabrook, New Hampshire.  I just stared at her in astonishment.

Lastly, I’ve been reading Aleister Crowley’s The Book of Thoth.  Amazing book.  And the first time I’ve had a question answered about the Kabbalah, to wit:  if the concept predates Abraham, which it sounds like it does, why are Hebrew letters involved in the discussion at all?  Shouldn’t we be discussing Phoenician, Sumerian or Egyptian hieroglyphics instead of Hebrew letters?  Crowley had something of the same issue – although you can’t really count up the numerical value of hieroglyphics, can you?  My personal issue on the subject is that something in me objected to employing a letter-counting analysis of a thoroughly distasteful monotheistic and patriarchal suppressive belief system that generated the two awful others:  christianity and islam to be specific.  Crowley’s discussion of the tarot deck he and Freda Harris created is so dense and instructive I’ve been making it through only a page or two a day, but it’s utterly fascinating.