interview with a mantissa, act two

this question, for obvious reasons, deserves its own post.
so ... without further ado, i present to you
question number 3 of the cruel virgin's interview.
~ i'm still working on the final question ~

3. As a Canadian, what is your view of America?

Over half a century ago Simone Weil wrote that " ... uprootedness is the great plague of the twentieth century ..." In one of her books, The Need for Roots. I have found myself, for the past several months (since 'discovering' her) very drawn to her words and concepts of existence and spirituality. She considered America " ... a nation consisting of uprooted people bent upon uprooting the rest of the world." Indeed. I agree. In fact, in poking through some of my past, and more philosophical posts I came across this, which I wrote, about myself :

she sees the world thru her markedly mosaic lense. she realized how it colours her vision of humanity. it raises her expectations of humanity. for the beauty of a mosaic lies in its contrast of differences. she believes in the principle of equality. and so, she cannot accept that differences must all be melted into some sort of sluggish paste. that view, she sees as intolerant. equality for all means respect of each and every individual. she believes that this view makes her quintessentially canadian. the poetic beauty of the mosaic embodies, symbolically, the canadian identity.
~ me

Thus begins my answer to this question.

I grew up in the Canadian Prairies, just two hours from the 49th parallel. We visited the neighbouring state from time to time. From the people that make up the American nation, I have only received exuberance of spirit, a larger-than-life attitude toward living, the greatest (i.e. retail) service and big hearts that open up with a willingness to help when need arises. Here's a story to illustrate. Once, when I was about 8 years old, my family (4 of us - my parents and my sister, and I) went camping in a trailer my uncle let us use for a week or two. What makes this trip stand out is how complete strangers in that campsite - an American man and his family - helped us out when we desperately needed it ... when something went terribly wrong with the sewage hook-up of the trailer. We did not have a car to move the trailer (my uncle had moved it to the campsite prior to our trip) and this nice man did not even think twice ... he grabbed his truck ... hitched us up and moved us to a new spot in the campground. That's how i see the average American person.

As for the nation that calls itself America ... I sadly, and sometimes with fire, say that I see it as largely misguided ... by its lust to uproot the world at large ... by its lust for glamour, power and domination in all realms of existence ... by its lust for retribution, revenge ... and the single-minded egocentrism with which it approaches all world negotiations ... by its schadenfreude-ness ... by its exaltation of violence and destruction (the right to bear arms, WWE Raw, film/TV) ... by its refusal to reside in the world as an entirely SECULAR state ... by its spiritual egocentrism ... by its hypocrisy and sheer STUPIDITY in villifying addicts and addiction, misunderstanding addiction and in declaring a moronic war on drugs ... by its 21st century 'smoke-em-out' western-style colonialist attitude ... by its refusal, as a collective of individuals, to realize the beauty in that which looks so different as to appear alien.

I will stop now. I'm sorry to all who read this ~ i know the vast majority of you reading this answer are American ... well ... it's likely an answer you'd rather avoid reading, perhaps. But ... I have only merely answered a question asked of me; and ... many of you know of what I write intrinsically ... deep down ... whether you care to admit it ... since its your nation of which I speak, here. Please ... I hope no one flames me for this answer. I'm Just being honest.

If you wanted to swallow blue pill, I'm afraid, dear reader, that you've come to the wrong spot! ;^]

golden apple

his soul sings silently,
threaded
in gauzy and golden light
my heart impales itself
on this melody
my soul cleaves
to his lyrical luminescence

his great, flowing essence
quenches my thirst ~
this scorching yen
that scars
of successive past lives
have woven
into my very essence

he washes me
away from myself
leaving me bare,
somewhat macerated and bare
exposed ~
for all my frailties and wounds
... he sees ... he knows ...
he hears the whispers of the universe, too

that sacred light
of his core
flickers softly,
and with each flash,
he carves
another spark
into my weak, low-burning ember

in the glow of his mantle
his innocent generosity cascades
endlessly,
scented with divine wisdom
the beauty of him
touches that raw, pulsing
and forbidden corner of my heart
which eats fire

cherished ~
the grace of his movements ~
cherished ~
the gentle contemplation
of his speech
cherished ~
my golden apple

soaked

i hear the universe ~
softly and steadily
she breathes
thoughts
into my soul.
softly ~
like the glistening petals
of a rain-drenched flower.
steadily ~
like the unceasing energy
of the rich torrents
that cascade
from the heavens.
i feel the universe ~
she infuses me,
soaking me ~
like the heavens
permeating
the deep, red earth.

~written by the.red.mantissa~

house of blue leaves

its love. of some kind. a really old and deep connection. one that develops over the course of several lifetimes ... over the course of several cycles of the samsara. its love ... that connects us. an abstract, visceral, soul-full love. the venn diagram that has become our lives finds us bound and unbound, simultaneously. in the house of blue leaves. blue leaves that never die. and the remains of the day ~ hidden, from view ... in that untouchable part of the heart.

~cs lewis on hearts~ [nerd post]

just taking this hide/show script for a test drive. many people use it in their sidebars, to reduce clutter. susan, aka cruel virgin, uses it in her sidebar ... and so does this powderpuff geek blogger.i wanted to see if it would work the same way in a post. so let's see, then ... if you wanna know what cs lewis wrote about hearts, click on the +/- ... here goes, babe! +/-

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

duality? dichotomy? light & dark

i find myself here - between light and dark. no colours exist here, a void that lies between a blinding shaft of light and the velvet blanket of darkness. i find myself here, today. no words. many, many thoughts. and the feeling of a presence, despite no one else being here but me. its sort of disturbing to feel the feelings of one who has recently been violently murdered, one who was not ready to die, one who desperately wanted to accomplish so much still. they've found me, these feelings. its left me feeling sort of ... inward ... hermit-ish. that's all, really.

inro by hr giger

oh, wait! there's a few more details. 1. ellen deGeneres can make me laugh even when my body just wants to purge, purge, purge (yes, i'm camped out on the couch with an unhappy gut today)... 2. even if its not fuzzy yet, or still smells good, don't use that 10-day old pasta sauce when you make dinner. you'll regret it, trust me. just do yourself a favour ~ THROW IT AWAY!... 3. indeed, its a wonderful world. like louie says. even if i feel saturated with sadness and ugliness today ... its still a wonderful world. does the tree make a sound when it falls in the forest, and no one hears it? indeed it does. and so, the world continues its wonderment, despite this bothersome fog i feel.

~something new i learned~

IMAGE-MAP. yeah. its essentially an image that you make into a map of links. you select certain rectangular-shaped areas of the image according to its co-ordinates and you associate/attach a URL to that area of the image - these areas of the image we then call hot spots. surely, after that very primitive explanation you can see why this would amuse me a great deal. particularly when i have developed a particular sick fondness for some of hr giger's works. and so ... here's the link to the image map. mouse over the image and you will find the link-able areas. intuitively, you should know from the image where the hot spots reside. each of the linked sites will open in a new window/tab in your browser.

here's a legend to the image map, for those who need one - the image detail and associated link i have listed below.

1. right breast --> mantissa
2. left breast --> cruel virgin
3. umbilicus --> spilled to bloodlessness
4. eye/penis --> x-dell
5. goulish creature that reminds me ferry man, a la river styx --> dead like me tv show site
6. dog --> sparring k9
7. female perineum --> vagina monologues site
8. monster on which the f/male perineum pours a golden shower --> link to the good father ~ pedophilia in the RC church.

the garden

"the fruit's [the fruit of the tree of knowledge] office was not confined to conferring there mere knowledge of good and evil, it conferred also the passionate and eager and hungry disposition to DO evil. prone as sparks to fly upward, in other words, prone as water to run down hill -- a powerful figure, and means that man's disposition is wholly evil, uncompromisingly evil, inveterably evil, and that is as undisposed to do good as water is indisposed to run up hill.
~ mark twain from schoolhouse hill

today i'm inclined to believe this. i like the notion that the knowledge of evil provided enough of a taste to make humanity thirst for another taste. and another. and one can never really feel satiated, can one? and ... in the most miniscule ways, throughout our days, don't we often act on that thirst? particularly the sour and salty taste of personal betrayal makes me thirsty for tasting evil, for tasting revenge. i suppose that makes me not much different from any other who reads this blog.



i wonder does the cool, smooth texture of revenge render us incapable of tasting the warm richness of love? we know, intellectually, what we should do, how we should behave. and ... when provoked, we run to our comfort drink ~ evil. thoughts, terseness of attitude, a desire to spread the suffering of one's own hurt ... we experience these, in some measure, at some level of existence and consciousness. when struck and wounded by another, it seems so easy to forget the path of love. it seems dimly lit and thorny. forgiveness and acceptance provide the thorniest of challenges, whilst struggling to remove the shards of hurt from one's own Self. and so, i once again find myself humbled at the fact that i lost sight of love. that my faith melted into a vapour once more. and that, once more, the powers of the universe have restored my misplaced faith. ~i speak here not of the religious kind of faith .. but of faith in my marriage ~

the art of hans ruedi giger

"...swallow everything out of the preacher's mouth..."

~the amorphous fury of the biological organism that seeps from the matrix of this piece reminds me of faith in the divine~

It is a frightening thought that man also has a shadow side to him, consisting not just of little weaknesses and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism. The individual seldom knows anything of this; to him, as an individual, it is incredible that he should ever in any circumstances go beyond himself. But let these harmless creatures form a mass, and there emerges a raging monster; and each individual is only one tiny cell in the monster's body, so that for better or worse he must accompany it on its bloody rampages and even assist it to the utmost. Having a dark suspicion of these grim possibilities, man turns a blind eye to the shadow-side of human nature.
~Jung~ Two Essays on the Collective Unconscious




To make light visible God had only to postulate shadow. To manifest the truth He permitted the possibility of doubt. The shadow bodies forth the light, and the possibility of error is essential for the temporal manifestation of truth. If the buckler of Satan did not intercept the spear of Michael, the might of the angel would be lost in the void or manifested by infinite destruction launched below from above. Did not the heel of Michael restrain Satan in his ascent, Satan would dethrone God, or rather he would lose himself in the abysses of the altitude. Hence Satan is needful to Michael as the pedestal to the statue, and Michael is necessary to Satan as the brake to the locomotive.
~Levi~ Transcendental Magic



What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
~T. S. Eliot~ The Waste Land



In the Swiss soul, as all human souls, there are regions we do not know about...
~C. G. Jung~



"Human history in all ages is red with blood, and bitter with hate, and stained with cruelties ..."

"... death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind; death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness; death was man's best friend; when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free."
~Mark Twain, Letters From the Earth~

my dog has been dead exactly a year. i miss him ... terribly.

jeanine deckers ~ seour sourire

remember this song?
take a listen ~ its from 1963
... lemme refresh your memory ...
"dominique, nique, nique..."




remember? perhaps you've seen the debbie reynolds movie, the singing nun? well, its about the lady, a dominican nun from belgium, who wrote and composed this song. mostly the details of her provided in the movie are sucra-coated - you know, fabricated. but, nonetheless, the song's interest lay just as much in the intrigue surrounding its composer and singer - a nun from a cloistered order prior to the second vatican council - as in its cute, catchy tune.

the song, of course, tells the story of dominique, founder of the dominican order, to which jeanine belonged. originally. she recorded the tape/album of some of her songs - including dominique - for her own personal use - for gift to family and friends. phillips, a record company, signed her up to a contract. the song dominique became an instant hit across europe. and on its release in america, sent that song 'louie, louie' into second spot on the billboard charts. jeanine appeared on the ed sullivan show, in a pre-taped segment. her growing fame and the publics fascination with this simple, pious nun from belgium, did not sit well with the mother superior of the convent ... nor with the church. the mother superior almost blocked jeanine's ed sullivan tape from airing. the convent/church did, however benefit from jeanine's success, given her obligation (vow of poverty which all religious must make) to give all her earnings to her order. the church even took the step of patenting the name 'seour sourire' -jeanine's stage name - making it impossible for her to use it after leaving the order. the church/convent failed, however, to pay any taxes on any of seour sourire's earnings. ever.



eventually jeanine gave up her musical career and fame. she never wanted fame ... never wanted to be a 'somebody' ... she only ever wrote and sang music and played her guitar (which she named soeur adele) as an expression of worship ... for g-d. she retreated back into her cloistered life to pursue her religious studies. in the late 60s, jeanine took a change of heart, no doubt influenced by the turmoil of change the second vatican council brought ... and also the increasing sexualization and rebeliousness of the 60s. she left the domincan convent, prior to making her final vows. soon after, the record company dropped her contract ... it seemed her status as a nun, and not so much her music, served as the magnet to draw interest toward her. she wrote a song in the 60s/70s praising the pill, and came out against the church's stance on the pill. she faded to obscurity ... never able to achieve the level of fame she reached with 'dominique.' and so she took to teaching autistic children, even opened a school with her lifelong friend annie pescher, also a former nun.

the two shared their post convent years together ... jeanine working on her art from time to time and even trying to revive her musical career in the late 70s/early 80s. her untimely and tragic demise occured as a result of the belgian government's demand that she pay $60,000 in back taxes for all her earlier earnings. she had no receipts to prove that she gave her earnings to the convent ... and so the government held her accountable for the heavy tax bill; they shut down her school, removing all hope and replacing it with only deep and heavy despair.

on march 29, 1985 the two women wrote their last letter together - a suicide note. and then they committed suicide by ingesting barbituates and alcohol. annie and jeanine begged g-d's mercy for taking their own lives; they had lost all hope and despair became too great for them both. g-d had seen them suffer, surely he would welcome them with open arms. they could not suffer anymore, simply could no longer endure. and so, they lost the light and succumbed to the despair. how anguishing must it have felt, for two deeply religious women to decide to take such an unimaginable action - take one's own life? how much struggle, torment, despair, and deep unrelenting suffering filled the lives of these ladies in the years that followed their departure from cloistered religious life? not to mention burdensome-ness of the obtuse rumors about their sexuality ... unfounded, as far as i can tell. and, at any rate, none of our fucking business (ha - excuse the pun).

so ... there's another tale in which the church just sucks the juices out of its individual prey ... and then tosses aside the remains. the financial part of this story just kills me ... really. along with the way in which we all make assumptions. along with the way the church just simply must squash absolutely every opposition that comes from within its own ranks. there's a word for that ... totalitarian comes to mind.

RIP ~ jeanine deckers ~ october 17.1933 to march 29, 1985

value

we spend so much of our time placing value on the things in life which have none: stuff. and then ... devaluing that which holds the most value: people. how odd. particularly for a race of higher order thinkers.

know what i think?

that we all know nothing.

the good father

3 years of prison for 47 counts of assault [that we know of ... that number grows still, as more women come forward]. he served only 3 months before dying in prison of natural causes. here's the sordid story.

47 counts of abuse. (can you compute that? that's 47.) over a period of 4 decades. numerous little girls between the ages of 9 and 15 years. 'touched' by father charles sylvestre. and many of these girls did what we have all always told children to do: told an adult they trust. only to hear things like ... 'well you seem ok, so we'll just drop the whole thing.' numerous counts ... numerous complaints ... all had fallen on deaf ears. the catholic church KNEW of these incidents. in fact, made frequent, weak attempts to rehabilitate father sylvestre with routine trips to counselling, etc.

however, at no time did any of the church hierarchy see fit to REMOVE canada's worse pedophile priest FROM ACTIVE MINISTRY! in fact, at one point the church even removed him from his post as parish priest before the police could get to him for questioning, under the guise of sending him to a 'retreat' in montreal! father charles sylvestre has since passed. and his victims continue to suffer ... and suffer ... and suffer. and so do all of their intimate partners and spouses. as for the church, they have mishandled this whole issue from day 1. alas, how could they have dealt with it any other way? i mean, a large group of sexually repressive, celibate, and for all intents and purposes 'asexual' and undersexed men ....? charged with the welfare of children? GIMME A BREAK!

what struck me about this whole story? the blatant perpetuation of lies, and abuse and the oppression of truth all with a view to 'protecting the institution' ... with a view to protecting a family's reputation among fellow parishoners. how am i, or any other believer, supposed to in all honesty, attend to, participate in or support an organization that protects criminal activity of the most horrific type, all for ego and reputation? how i am supposed to believe any priest when he says those words, read from his alter book, 'whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me' ...?

for years, i have had only the shakiest regard for that overgrown elephant known as the catholic church. i have known the greater part of my life that catholic hierarchy concerns itself with reputation, public relations, and their mythical vision/notion of sexuality, marriage and family life (like, none of them can purport to teach any of us how to manage a spousal connection, given they know JACK FUCK about conjugal life!) at the greatest cost to individuals, their personal suffering and any injustices contained therein. many-a-priest, and my mother's own parents turned a blind eye for almost 20 years while she received the most awful abuse at the hands of her husband. at least 4 miscarriages, several tumbles down flights of stairs, and a broken leg. and still, the party faithful could not bring themselves to step out from under the oppression of their rules to stop the suffering and save a family.

sure, i believe. i believe that no institution has carved a private golden road to heaven or g-d. i believe that the church represents a lying, power addicted corruption and that its had a hand in covering up the injustices of much suffering in this century alone, let alone in its long history. i believe that many paths lead to the promised land. and i will surely AVOID the path which that catholic institution insists upon. i don't know about anyone else in the crowd, but i cannot support, condone, or find any favour with any individuals or organizations that deliberately cover up such horrific abuses of children.

~the end~

visit the link ~the good father~ to see the website of this documentary, entitled 'the good father,' which includes a link to the documentary in full, interviews with father sylvestre's victims and the horrific, forty year timeline. indeed, its some splendid journalism. albeit on an ugly topic. we all must face the ugliness in order to appreciate the beauty of this life.

suffering

'when we witness abject horror, pain and heinous suffering an unspeakable number of times, do we become the suffering?'

questions, no answers

... questions posed some time ago in an email ...

here's what i wonder.

1. regarding the real and the illusory present ~ the present = my truth, i believe. that means the actions and behaviour i currently execute ~ they exist in the REAL. all the structure of society that surrounds me ... that's the illusory part. i guess, what puzzles me is the notion of this existence as a dream state.

does that mean, then, that when our spirits cease to reincarnate, we finally wake up? that when we stop 'living' (corporeally) we finally leave the dream state? what then? what then ... when we 'wake up' ...? i wonder ....

2. you would agree with my analogy of the human entity as a vessel, correct? then ... why, i wonder, do so many humans live as though filling their vessel(s) will make them lighter? by filling i mean possessiveness, jealously, greed, urge to dominate. and, i mean lighter, in the sense of peace and happiness. perhaps the answer to this one partly lies in ego, and our inherent inability to release our Selves from its grasp?

3. do you think that the spirits of those who have died can visit us ... such as in our dreams? do you think dreams can serve a purpose ... like a visionary purpose ...? or do you think of dreaming as purely neurological?

4. your analogy of compressing/oppressing the spring and agitation of the human spirit~how clever; i feel like that spring you spoke of. i wonder, how does one stay connected to one's spouse, without feeling stifled by the connection?

a curse of sorts?

*i am quite pre-occupied with school deadlines, having three in a span of just as many weeks. i have almost reached the end of deadline purgatory ... then i shall return to participating more fully in the blogosphere. missing you all, if you still bother to visit this site ... know i'm thinking of y'all ... here's something i wrote in may and never published ...*

a family curse, perhaps? perhaps. mental illness, thy name spells mystery ... and cursed, searing pain. not the simple, physical kind. oh, no ... i speak of the more elusive, the insidious, mental, spiritual, emotional sort of pain -- anguish. desperate anguish. the type of interior sensation that will eat you alive ... the type over which a vulnerable, frail psyche has no control.

a maternal uncle had a labotomy in the 1940s. that's what the course of treatment consisted of, for the ills of emotions and the psyche, in those days. just cut out a piece of their brains - they don't need that part anyhow. of course, i don't have to tell you that it only exacerbated the problem.

my maternal grandmother had the curse, too. i recall her energy as feeling quite morose, quite 'heavy' of spirit. i do not recall ever seeing her smile. a soul in torment, i believe. mother speaks of grandmother simply having these times when she 'took to the bed,' leaving grandfather to tend to the household and the five kids. recall, this is @ in the late 1920s, the 30s, 40s and 50s. not typically an era in which men did anything domestic.

in fact ... all of her children have the curse ... the darkness ... the beast that feeds on souls. lifestyle - a cummulative manifestion of choices and attitude taken through out the course of one's life - appears to influence the severity of the beast's affect upon daily living. in my humble opinion ... i'm sure those of whom i speak would vehemently disagree. of course ... of course they would.

my mother. waged life-long struggles with the beast. some she won. many she lost. and her children ... all touched by this darkness. in some manner of speaking. and ... history repeats itself. lifestyle remains strongly related to the beast's strength and his influence on daily living. how does this pattern get disrupted? can we disrupt it? i wrote in an email to a dear friend recently that i believe mental illness/imbalance has a spiritual original, in addition to a physiologic origin. if we change our spiritual behaviour patterns, can we shrink the beast?

EDIT:
can the spirit provoke changes in physiology? do some of us require chemical assistance, to tame the beast? or, to tame those external visions - (i.e. = pathological awareness/channeling of external energies)? i summarize my eccentric Self by writing, 'i know things and i don't know how i know them.' this knowledge frightens me sometimes ... sometimes thrusts me in deep black pools of despair ... sometimes compels me to drown my spirit in comfortable numbness. and still, as a stoner the sense remained. though the visions had less clarity and intensity.