~*~
obsessional type stuff
like, things I kinda dig?
I don't know why, but for absolutely ever I have had these dreams with tornadoes in em.
Maybe i saw "Wizard of Oz" one too many times a s a kid? dunno. Anyway. I have never seen
one in real life, but they still kinda fasinate me. There ya go.
Another thing I've always been interested in, ever since I saw a Ripley's Believe it or Not
segment on it, was this bizarre church in the Czech republic. It's called All saints (I
think) & it's in Sedlec. I've never been yet in person, but a grrl I knew from Olympia did &
sent me a photo. The whole place is decorated in bones!! Later I found out there's another
similar one in Venice Italy, this Capuchin monk crypt at Santa Maria della Concezione. I
just have this weird love & fasination for bones & for cemetaries, so if any of you ever go
to these, please send me pictures??? ohh, please please, PLEASE!!!
Another thing a bit like that, (but with only one skeleton) I'd like to see someday is
Peterskirche in Munich Germany. There resides the bones & other relics of Saint Mundita, who
is the patron saint of single women. At least so I've heard...none of the Catholics I've
ever asked have ever heard of her! Maybe she was only canonized locally? Or it's just one of
those mix-ups... (again, Germany visiting friends? send me postcards!!! you can get em right
there in the church, apparently!!!) which, i suppose, brings me to the itchy topic of
spirituality....
that's me in the corner...that's me in the spotlight...
my beliefs
Just a disclaimer... whoever you are reading this, whatever YOU may believe, thank
you, but I am content where I am! so please, save your typing fingers or breath if you
disagree with me....
NO PROSTELTYSING!!!
I mean. just to speak my piece, I never COULD get the kinda ppl who think that what works
for them MUST work for others. or that God, goddess, Spirit, whatever you wanna call it,
needs humans to fight It's fight, or explain or defend it.But I digress.
My mom, for whatever reason, never told me about death when I was a child. Found out about
it in school, when a friend's doggie died. I came home dutifully holding a poem & piccie
about said dog & explained (no doubt in childlike breathless tirade mode)
"MOM!there'sthisthingcalleddeath&youdon'tmove&youdon'tbreathe&theyburyyou&yrallalone&YOUNEVE
RGETTOSEEYOURFRIENDSNOMORE!!!" to which she calmly replied,
"It's ok. You don't have to do that if you don't want to."
..if I don't want to... I chose to go to Sunday school. Never got forced to it, I just
wanted to because all my friends did. So, naturally, like many people, I was brought up
Christian. am I Christian now, you might ask, dreading me being one of those scarey
prostelytisers. Well, that depends largely on your view of what a Christian is. To me, the
stickler is always this stress on having a "personal relationship with Jesus". so yeh. I
have a personal relationship with Jesus.
ssh. it's a secret. between me & Him.
Me. & Him.
nobody else's bloody business.
That aside, yeh, I'm bisexual, I'm a feminist, I'm half Indian. my tendencies were not built
to fit into a mould of the sort most ppl consider "Christian values". So on to the other
influences...
Like a lot o' teenagers, I went through my little 'evil' phase. I always thought this sort
of thing kind of cute, really, because com'on, Columbine excluded, how evil can a teenage
Goth be?
I picked up a copy of the Satanic Bible just to be seen reading it, & of course
like anyone literate enough to actually go out and read the thing, found out Satanism had
nothing to do with the devil at all; it's fundamentally a philosophy, not a religion. Anton
LaVey's watered down version of Neitzsche with a bit of mocked Catholicism to shock.
I've never really seen proof, and I've studied a lot in this field, of anything actually
like what the church'll lay on you about 'devil worship'. Frankly, even LaVey says if you're
so stupid as to really believe that there is something outisde of you can force you to do
things, you have serious issues with not taking responsibility for your own actions!
That said...I picked up my copy of the book at a store (no longer in existence) called The
Magickal Childe. Mostly this store sold books and statuary for the interests of those who
believe in Wicca. Wicca, for those not in the know, isn't devil worship either; rather, it's
a nature based religion claiming roots in paganism of old Europe, but actually invented in
the early 60s by a Canadian author. The beliefs include a god AND goddess, with more being
put towards the goddess, after all, which sex actually gives birth? which sex actually
nurtures?
Shortly after I'd discovered Magickal Childe a new store opened, Enchantments, down on the
Lower East Side. They had classes not only in Wicca, but also in shamanism, and various
other New Age type things; I spent a goodly amount of time going to these things.
By then I was doing a lot of acid and was playing something I liked to call 'the god game'-
I was gonna figure out which if any of the religions practiced throughout the world had the
real truth to offer!
Living in NY as I did then, it was easy enough to find a cornucopia of different places of
worship to attend, who were friendly enough to pilgrims. I took tea with Sikhs, chanted
kirtan with Hare Krshnas, went to hounfour with vodoun, and zhikr with Sufis. I went to
synagogue with Anni's still-Jewish mom, & checked out damn near every form of Christianity
that had a church or some nutball with a pamphlet who was willing to show me what they'd
got.
As an herbalist, I still have a lot of Wiccan tendencies, altho I don't practice actively. I
had some very cool and very real spiritual experiences with the Sufi mosque I took hand in,
and with a more or less Hindu? guru called Karunamayi. I'll always have certain aspects of
spirit and gods I find very cool from religions I don't practice (although they're a bit
more than plain flat myth to me, I also don't actively worship them). A great help to me
also had been the letters I exchanged with author Bo Lozoff (who wrote We're All Doing
Time; I'm not sure he'd want to be tied down to one label, but most of his philosophies
seem to be Buddhist and Christian).
In spite of it all, I guess I still believe in Christ because IF the words He says in the
Bible are true, He's the closest I've heard of a compassionate Prophet. IN SPITE of ppl who
claim to talk for Him by bombing abortion clinics & beating women. I mean, where does this
hypochristian sexist thing come from????
according to the story, where'd Christ come from? From God, & a woman.
MEN had nothing to do with Him at all.
Point is tho, it's about actions, not words, neh? and I've been out on the road, doing the
pilgrim/wanderer thing more than once in my life. I've been homeless. And I've been lost,
stoned and can't-find-my-way-home ish as well. It was usually Christians that bailed me out-
bought me food, or a tent, or found me a place to crash. No matter how warped some of the
churches can get, no matter how hypocritical and full of hate or completely off from the
words actually said by Jesus, if the end product is to make people want to be nice to
others, it's got to be a good philosophy to live by.
I think the most important aspect of human spirituality, no matter what path you choose to
follow, is compassion & empathy. I don't buy into a God who damns His creations for the
things we do. If It's omniscient at all, it knows why we do everything we do already. I do
believe it's important to have some sort of belief system, just not to place the system over
the creatures we share the world with. We're here to interact, people,, while we, & our
family & friends & the world still has time.
Even if there is nothing beyond all this, I figure we need to be kind, to other people, to
animals, to the plants & environment, because if there is nothing, this is all we have, &
the good we do is all the good there is! & this is all the time we have...the duration of
our lives, to enjoy life & each other. And on that note, maybe I'll get really risque & tell
you what I think of love & sex next....
But that can wait a few. enough controversy for now.
BTW, all of this is simply my OPINION as Bruce Lee once said "Absorb what is useful. Reject
what is useless. add what is completely your own." I apply this to everything. I also LIKE
my opinion just fine for now. So, if yours differs, again, please, DON'T bother me with it.
If I'm wrong, well, again, s'between me God, goddess, whatever. I'll discuss it with them.
If I'm wrong about the afterlife, tell me there not here.& remember, YOU clicked to
read this...Thank you!!!
people who have influenced me spiritually...
this is me with Mari Earl,
teen suicide interventionist, cool Christian lady,geetar playah,
& Kurt Cobain's aunt, also.
ok. you've been waiting long enough, on to to the SEX...
*~*
