"Haunted...

...of your precious love. Of your precious love."


I noticed today that I posted on St. Patrick's Day in 2010, 2008, and 2007.
I don't have much to add today. The world has gone mad & will get worse with the current struggles in Japan, Libya, Wisconsin & Egypt. According to the end of the Mayan Calendar, we may be done in on December 21, 2012.

We all have the true Luck of the Irish. So "may the road rise to meet you and may the wind be always at your back."

"Don't ask, tell...

...I tell you such fine music waits in the shadows of hell."
-- Charles Bukowski

I don't have the tolerance to swallow the bullshit anymore. I am terrified of the whole I have been breathing through for seven years. I am a pussy. But I endure. I get up and I go to work and I bust my brains and my boss says I am not up to this work anymore because my short term memory is scarred. I am a pussy. My exboyfriend called me a pussy once. I told him pussy was tougher than cock. He said yes. Pussy is like good tires. It stretches and flexibly spreads around the road's barriers. Pussy is the toughest mover and shaker. I am a pussy.

I am not me. I lost myself nine months? seven years ago? I am waiting for my map.

I probably drank too much tonight. Right now, I perceive a level of vision that lets me see through the trauma drama bullshit that I am supposed to live up to... that I could never live up to. Tomorrow I will face my come-uppance when I am pointed out as incapable of fulfilling my occupational requirements. I fulfilled them yesterday and I was still called a failure and they were never my calling or destiny in the first place.

I am going to hell. Thank god, I don't believe in it.

This is not where I belong. I haven't walked the road home in twenty years. Actually, I don't even remember what my house looks like. What home is. I do see my sisters of mercy on the road and I don't want to leave them. I don't want to disappoint them. And I can't find my way back home.

There's no place like home.

Suck it up, bitch. Quit being such a pussy. Go to hell. I tell you such fine music waits in the shadows of hell.

"Every Day Is a Yellow Day...

... I'm blinded by the daisies in your yard."

-- Prince

Margaret, my psychic friend (or friend who is psychic), told me I'm all yellow bursting solar plexus, right now. I'm hiding out at home with a low-grade fever and sore throat and can feel my flesh burn, chill and hum and letting dreamland envelope and possess me on my couch all day, again and again.

Once upon a time, I was a psychic friend. Sad and freaked out people would call the 900 line and they would get to talk to Mia (one of my AKAs) and she would tell them yes, of course, the cards and the stars and my guides say yes, you will be loved again. That's what most callers wanted to know.

Then, I moved to New Mexico because it was new, said so in the name. I used to do romantic things like move across the country to a place with a poetic name and get paid to be a charlatan with an AKA and sleep with strangers named Krishna I met at the river and believe the stars could guide me to my heart. (Now, I'm logical and practical although I still believe in dreamland and evidently my solar plexus has started bleeding yellow in the psychic plane.) Anyway, in New Mexico, I met Margaret an expat Scot who lived in a trailer in the foothills and owned a store called the Lyceum where she read playing cards. Really, she had you pick seven cards and she would hold them to her cancerous breast and recite all of the harder truths you knew but didn't feel like realizing and you could fit them into whichever context you felt you could hold in your palm without spilling them on the floor. Later, she cut off her right breast and started predicting with amazon precision via telephone which is how I learned to always bet on green and that today I am pouring yellow.

Illogical Evolving Equinox, Combat and the Saint Patrick's Day Blues

The equinox is almost here and my body is conspiring to get knocked up on me again, as it does every year when dark and day share nicely. Sharing perpetuates itself in its selfishness.

St. Patrick was a sharer in another way -- well, first he was a slave and then a priest and then an orator. He christianized the Irish (an act which may be blasphemous) but also convinced them to abolish slavery 1000 years before Columbus dug the Middle Passage. So that probably mitigates any personal gripes I might have with monotheism and organized religion. But still, Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular are such BDSM institutions like heroic (modern Western) medicine. This post pretty much seems to be about me opening the assault rifles on any institution I'm supposed to have surrendered to or am currently selfishly sharing with -- so you may want to look away quickly. And recently a friend of mine said it's always combat with me. That must suck, knowing me like that. My presence is never restful or soothing, unless you're an infant or going through a bout of psychosis. I can rock colicy babies to sleep on my knee and I can calm someone experiencing active psychosis. I could describe the steps I take in both of these cases, but it probably wouldn't make a logical pattern -- it's more like when your physics professor tries to teach you calculus or engaging your lover in combat. On second thought, it's nothing like that.

I don't like myself at all today and I'm also thinking one million pornographic thoughts. So maybe ego stroking and self-loathing are an expression of selfish sharing which is quite likely the driving procreational force in humanity.

During finger therapy all of the OTs cryptically discuss amongst themselves how snappy and cruel one surgeon can be. Personally, I find him to be very compassionate and kind of sexy. But I don't work for him, either. Of course today, a second-tier somebody else mentioned in a whisper that Dr. That Guy just really needs to get some. But once you start speculating about what someone else is getting, it might mean that you aren't getting enough either -- or maybe you just want to be the one to give it to them.

Doesn't everybody get turned on by cruelty at some really basic, reptile brain level? And truthfully, all of us guilt-ridden girls just get juiced-up love panties for doctors. We want to marry them and sue them and do what they tell us and then blow them in their exam rooms or maybe we just love surgeons in self-defense because there they are convincing us to let them pierce us to the bone even though it hurts and costs and scars. We let them tie us to the table and slice apart our skin and maybe knock us out and maybe keep us awake -- completely at their discretion and we never, ever question the choice, really. We just surrender.

But then we catholic girls are fed guilt and surrender on toast from baptism and we're told to die virgins like St. Maria Goretti or second best, surrender to the yoke of holy matrimony and pop out lotsa babies in 10 month intervals so there will be more catholics and consequently we have lots of weird sex & worthiness issues because the only ones really enjoying sex in our religion are the child-raping priests since only they can absolve sin which came to earth via Eve, etc.

Probably all of that crazy Catholic sex between Yahweh & Mary (not Joseph) and St. John Bosco & the oratory boys and even Adam & Eve actually happened on the Equinox which can never be a birthday but is often a conception date which is why the pope tells you life begins at conception but we girls know it doesn’t really count until it comes out like the sun, so really its solstice you’re waiting for, Holy Father, you just didn’t notice because of all of that blinding sunshine.

(The top image is a painting called Lady Doctor by John Woodwark. The Birth of the Sun King is by Hetty MacLise. I found it on her blog.)

"There is no Sanctuary!"

Last night I dreamt that I was given access to view an archeolgical site in order to further my studies. I was permitted to fly -- without a machine -- over a kind of stone shelf with intricate carvings and pools. No one exaclty understood what they signified or who made them, but they were vast -- something like a Mayan city stretched flat, but Celtic in it's symbolism (and also somewhat influenced by the aesthetics of Logan's Run which I watched last night). I had to record everything mentally and take my findings to class...

...which was taught by the Franciscan Brother who was my extremely gifted high school philosophy/ theology teacher who was probably one of the most talented educators ever and whose lessons are still "exploding like a time bomb" in my mind twenty years later. He passed away in January. Brother Mc debriefed me before class and it was agreed that what I learned from the stone site was part of the lesson plan. But I was just a tool -- he knew the over-arching theme of the lesson and me and my stones were a mere instrument to be used to advance the lesson as he conceived it. I was to learn the lesson, too. It was like I was a secret weapon against ignorance, but my utility didn't lessen my own lack of awareness. Class was held. I came to realize that the point of this lesson would not be made clear in one class but would unfold slowly over the course of a year. My stones were not mentioned. I was confused.

Then the brother was informed by the mean, ignorant Department Chair (nun) that he would be required to use the syllabus she was handing out as a template. He had to turn it in for approval. He and I understood that the goal now was to continue the class as he designed it but to somehow disguise the plan to fit into the very rigid and useless construct being handed down so he could teach us undisturbed. I was scanning the sheets and helping him edit parts to look like a rubber-stamp approvable plan ... my shoulders ached and my vision blurred and then grew black...

...I was driving a pickup truck through the country. I pulled into a gravel drive between a trailer with an intricate walkway/ deck and a shelf of ancient stone carvings now covered with grass and weeds. About a dozen of my classmates were there playing ball and my task was to get instructions from inside of the trailer that would explain what formation and steps we should take to clear the stones and open them to their ancient, intended purpose. I had to do this before Brother Mc came and none of my peers could know that I knew this. I had to make it seem to happen organically. I climbed out of the truck and up the intricate walkway but every door and window was locked. Then Joey (a weird dream amalgamation character) came over to see what I was doing and I had to pretend nonchalant mischief. I had just figured out (mentally) the way into the trailer and felt urgency because Brother Mc would soon be coming. I heard and felt a rumbling and looked up over the trailer to see the Brother was a 25 foot giant dressed like Paul Bunyan -- he was both Paul Bunyan and Brother Mc. He flashed me the briefest sideways glance of acknowledgement while bellowing about those of us who were content to watch the shadows on the wall. Joey dashed over the walkway and into the field. I used this momentary distraction to enter the trailer from a back window but before I got in I noticed Brother Mc was carrying a hairless, purple rodent -- it looked like kangaroo babies (joeys) when they exit the birth canal and have to crawl unassisted into their mothers' pouches. I did not understand but I was unafraid and glad and then I woke up.

Naiad

Today is a breathtaking gift of Nature all rolling green with her azure cap and puffy cumulus feathers. Wandering away from my house, I encounter brick-painted, huddling homes from two centuries ago built by immigrant Irish who saved a few pennies and built a new community in a triangle a couple miles removed from the death-stench stockyards of their employment. Today there still exists a few Irish and Poles but now it is mostly comprised of upwardly-moblie Mexican nationals who have yard sales on Saturdays and fiestas on Sundays.

The triangle is bordered by Archer Avenue (formerly the Road to Widow Brown's) which reaches out from Chinatown into the wandering desires of Resurrection Mary. This is the southern border of Mount Pleasant, which settles along the river. The Chicago River is now the home of haunted steel mills and scarred ports. Most of it is vacant although the passing trains graon on their tracks day and night like a grandfather on the porch warning against the transcience of our values.

Here, the river itself is spanned by several suspension bridges still studied today by rapt mechanical engineers. The river, far below me, appears in the sunlight as a chunk of amber hiding in its depths some winged prehistoric creature. With its ornaments of railroad ties and ordered train cars and abandoned factories and graffittied granaries it stands in stark contrast to the lake it flows from -- divorced from natural union by dynamite. Once I visited her here among the broken factories and prarie flowers and I came back with a baby. Once I led a parade to meet her at her contrived lake source and dyed her the color of envy.

I am never far from her for long.

Use Your Words

The definition of socialism from the Oxford English Dictionary:

1. A theory or policy of social organization which aims at or advocates the ownership and control of the means of production, capital, land, property, etc., by the community as a whole, and their administration or distribution in the interests of all.

2. A state of society in which things are held or used in common.

When greedy Wall Street motherfuckers and soulless bankers expect the tax payers to pay their multimillion dollar bonuses (not salaries, bonuses) that is not socialism. One could correctly state that AIG received the biggest welfare check ever written in the history of the world. One could correctly call AIG and every other corporate pirates of public trusts THIEVES and TERRORISTS holding America hostage in hard times. But that does not make Obama a socialist. Get it straight. Use your words.

This endless, unaccountable handout to AIG and the continued refusal to bring Bush and Cheney up on charges (for obstructing justice, treason, war crimes, torture, etc.) DOES make Obama and his party a bunch of wimps (especially when Obama tries to "reach across the aisle" to Republicans with their never-ending mantra of tax breaks for the wealthy... FUCK BIPARTISANSHIP AND THE REPUBLICAN FORKED TONGUE IT SLID IN ON. They lost 2 elections in a row by a wide margin. Stop kissing their asses because they have no cachet. You'd be better off reaching out to the Greens and Libertarians and let's all of us together shoot that elephant dead once and for all.)



PS .... The OED is the greatest book ever written and if one insists on reading ONLY one book in their life (which I think is stupid, demented and pathological) then please, do the world a giant favor and make it the Oxford English Dictionary instead of that gory collection of ancient Hebrew myths and the re-working or the Osiris legend as told by the Holy Roman Emperor Constantine to keep an unwieldy empire in check. The OED is much more relevant and much less incendiary. Thank you for doing your part to make a better humanity.

Tightly Clichéd

I haven't been reporting because I don't feel like being anything but me and lately I don't make for very good copy. Here are some infinitive forms which currently describe my life: to work, to mother, to granddaughter, to daughter, to sister, to aunt, to behave, to economize, to dodge bill collectors, to heal, to be healed, to sleep, to dream, to plan, to laugh, to master, to rest, to renew, to recalim, to befriend, to enjoy the occasional solitude, to not take things very seriously.

As I said, it doesn't make for interesting reading but it makes for good living.

The biggest news is that I'm trying very, very hard (and not so very perfectly) to kick that devil nicotine once and for all. Please, no comments about how the only way to quit smoking is cold turkey. It isn't and all cold turkey does is make me a homicidal maniac. Nobody wants to see that. Nations will declare jihad on the US because of the large, foul cloud of bad vibes and violence emanating from my aura. It would be very, very bad -- as in hell on earth, armageddon, etc.

The other biggest news is that I'm working on an application for a Master's in Science program offered at the university/hospital where I work.

And in other news...

My son now drives and we just spent the holiday at my mom's eating cold turkey and watching a brazillion bootleg movies.

Also, I wish Blog Ho would post because he's practically my last enjoyable vice in this life since I cut back on the booze and the loose men. Practically, not totally or definitely, so please, still no comments about cold turkey. I don't want to hear it.

Have you noticed that many "loose" men aren't "loose" at all, but rather uptight when you get down to it? So the term "loose" is not a very good one when applied to men of leisure and easy pleasure. Let's change it to "tight" since "tight" is the second syllable in "uptight" and "tight" can also slangily mean drunk and/or a really good mesh of skilled and talented musicians during an improv jam session or (mistakenly used in reference to) a recorded song which sounds very good only after about 10,000 takes.

I have some new girlfriends and some blast-from-the-past girlfriends popping out of the woodwork and I've been having lots of fun hanging out with the girls and doing cool things at cool places and not really caring if you think I'm cute while doing it.

Mostly, I hang out with cool chicks, but I do still know some "tight" guys, in case you were concerned about my ability to be heterosocial. In fact, it was a couple of "tight" guys who helped me relocate my super powers a couple of weeks ago at an improv show during which 2 troupes performed; one female troupe of improvisers called Children of a Lesser God and one male troop of improvisers called Uncle's Brother. The male troop contained some famousish people. The female troop was "tight".

Yeah, during the show the one "tight" guy friend started asking me for a bunch stuff because he is not a boy scout, but rather a journalist. Meanwhile the other tight guy friend was suffering from the adverse effects of a reiki sneak attack coupled with acupuncture, allergy season and a musty rug at the IO, which may cause runny nose, sneezing, watery eyes, ague and overall fatigue. Yet somehow all of the symptoms, wacky energy, extemporanea and general hilarity were strangely regenerative, kind of like an eclipse on Heroes or possibly more like the way the destruction of Alderaan and the death of Obi-Wan brought the gang closer together and led to the eventual triumph of rebel forces against the Empire.

So once again, I have the magical ability to pull any necessary item out of my purse at any given time, for which my superheroic alter ego, Single Mom, is rightfully renowned, and if you ever run into me while drowning in a river I promise to dig you out a straw or a self-help manual on survival or somesuch -- or maybe I'll just dig you out of the current so you don't die.

Not on my watch, pal.

Mi amor, mi chingador ... te conoceré en el infierno

Four hundred eighty-eight years ago today Cuitláhuac led the Aztecs against Hernán Cortés and his Spanish merceneries, driving them out of Tenochtítlan.

Cuitláhuac was dead of small pox within a few months. (Bioterrorism was created by the Western man.)

Cortés had been greeted by the Aztecs as a god. They believed him to be an incarnation of Huitzilopochtli, god of war and patron of Mexico. This was because Cortés' lover la Malinche told him how to act in order to best the Aztecs. and so Cortés ended up lucky in love and money.
According to legend, Malinche was sold into slavery by her Aztec mother after her mom remarried and wished to leave her land to children by her 2nd marriage. (Aztec inheritance was matrilineal). Malinche was in the way and so she was placed on the auction block.

She passed through many tribes and ended up translating for Cortés because she knew so many languages. He was a conquistador thousands of miles from his wife, so he lived up to his name and conquered Malinche and with her help (the Spanish never would have succeeded without her) he conquered the Aztecs.

According to other legends, Malinche had several children by Cortés and when he left Malinche in order to return to Spain and his European family, she was so heartbroken that she drowned her children and herself.

Malinche was doomed by all of the gods in all of the heavens of all of the religions to search the earth for the souls of her children and not to return to the gates of heaven until she finds them. Her dead children of course, are hiding from her, seeing as she drowned them. So she tears at her hair and she keens and moans in her grief and that cry will turn your blood to ice in your veins and because of that cry, the ghost of Malinche is called La Llorona.

And to this day La Llorona snatches little children from the shore and drowns them. Perhaps she mistakes them for her own, she has been searching so long. Perhaps, she hopes to trick the gatekeepers and sneak into heaven with someone else's child.

Today, in Mexican spanish, a malinche is an unforgivable traitor. and La Llorona is a folk song and a cautionary tale used by parents to warn children away from the water.

Today, Tenochtitlan is el D.F. (Distrito Federal) or Mexico City as we call it in english-speaking countries. The city's residents speak spanish, not nuahtl.

The wheel turns.

Tin Foil Hats

Contrary to popular folklore, tin foil hats will not protect your brain from radio waves, televison rays or cell phone interference. According to a team of researchers at MIT, this widely circulated rumor ... is likely to have been propagated by the Government, possibly with the involvement of the FCC.

In a pilot study performed on themselves, these dedicated researchers found that tinfoil hats actually magnify the intensity of power transmitted to the head, thereby making the wearer of this protective device even more vulnerable to radio wave mind control than those not wearing aluminum foil hats. The research did not investigate the ability of aluminum foil to protect the human brain from extraterresterial technology. We also can't be sure if tin foil may have once protected people, as all modern foil is now aluminum.

St. Patrick and a Triple Brigid, Brought To You By the Banshee

Patrick, is of course, Patron St. of Ireland and Ireland has produced hundreds of saints, so that's quite an accomplishment. Patrick did bring Catholicism to Ireland and is credited with ending slavery there about 500 years before it was abolished anywhere else.

Patrick is reputed to have driven the snakes out of Ireland. The snakes are considered to be a metaphor for paganism / druidism / nature religions. However, if you grew up Irish Catholic as I did, you understand that the savor of the old religion has never left us entirely. For example, I was told to dedicate myself and my son to the Blessed Mother (which is what I was taught to call her -- Mary, the Mother of God or the Blessed Mother and hardly ever did we call her the Virgin Mary).

We have a saint to act as patron and go-between of every possible human concern, so St. Dymphna (an Irish Princess) is patroness of mental illness because her father tried to seduce / marry her and cut off her head when she denied him.

St. Brigid is patroness of Ireland and also blacksmiths, chicken and dairy farmers, fugitives, midwives and children whose parents aren't married. You should also pray to St. Brigid to prevent house fires I and once heard that she is credited with inventing whistling -- but that might have been the pre-christian Goddess Brigid, who may be the mother of both the saint and the Lwa Maman Brigette which closes a major loophole for me as I have always figured Irish catholicism to be as much of a syncretic religion as Voudoun and Santería.

Maman Brigitte intrigues me. She is noted for her enjoyment of rum flavored with many hot peppers and her beautiful and sensuous dancing. She lives at the Cemetery Gates near her husband the Baron.

Together they bridge the crossroads between left and right, life and death, and this and that. Her rulership of death and sensual beauty puts me in mind of another Irish other -- the banshee.

The banshee is sidhe, a lovely youthful fairy woman who invented the fine art of keening (mournful screeching laments for the dead) and has attached herself to certain Irish clans. She appears to warn us of impending death within the family or clan and is reputed to sound that warning with her unearthly keening.

As one with whom the banshee visits, I can tell you that she doesn't necessarily screech, but rather lifts the veil between this side and the other. What that means is just as she shows me who is leaving us, I am also blessed to know who is coming to us. Unfortunately, having a veil lifted briefly often displays a scene without a context and I believe more strongly every day that our time of departure is pretty much chiseled in stone ahead of time. So for a variety of reasons, I am often aware of the pending death of a loved one but powerless to change things. Knowledge is a mixed blessing.

That said, the banshee hasn't recently been by to visit with any death reports -- however there seem to be a few healthy, happy babies on the way.

Love, La Weirdo Sirena

Lakota

A delegation from the Lakota Nation has brought all of their nation's broken treaties to Washington D.C. and announced their plans to secede from the U.S. of A. Anyone living in their land (parts of Nebraska, Minnesota, Wyoming, North Dakota and a whole lot of South Dakota) are welcome to join the Lakota Nation. You won't have to pay taxes. You will have to renounce your U.S. Citizenship.

Currently, the Lakota delegation seems intent on establishing some international diplomatic ties. Here is an article about the secession.

Gentle Readers, I must admit that I am quite tempted to join them. I've always wanted to live in a tipi. And frankly, I admire the Lakota worldview. In addition to their belief that they are part of Nature and Nature is a bountiful provider and teacher (as opposed to our view that we are Nature's Dominators and Nature is something to be feared and tamed) the Lakota approach music as a dynamic entity (the drum as an icon and teacher).

The Lakota also believe that the place of dreaming is its own equally important reality and what we do during and how we and with whom we dream is as important as our waking lives. I feel that way about dreaming and often learn things and make connections in my dreams, but that is devalued in our culture. Someone actually once said to me, "If you don't stop paying so much attention to your dreams, they are going to turn into your nightmares." Of course, he was one of those people who can never recall dreaming. As far as I'm concerned, that's the equivalent of a double amputee telling me what to do with my legs.

I long to live in a cooperative collective versus a collage of isolative individuals -- out for "number one" -- who refer to both their most sacred of relational unions and their most destructive weapon as "nuclear".

I don't want to be nuclear or radioactive or isolated or destructive anymore.

Good Night, Ike

He was a famously cruel abuser, a controller, a cage. He arguably created one of the first rock and roll albums ever. He recently won a Grammy for an album of downhome blues. He was a gifted musical writer and arranger. He could bring out someone's shining light and then threaten to snuff it out forever. He was bad, mad, hard, funky and blue. Goodbye Ike Turner.

The wise man said:Don't ask me

All i know is you'll be sorry

Sorry when i'm dead

Dead and gone

In a bitchin' blaze of glory

Holding a grudge can take a lifetime

And there's a lot that i got to say

I'll tell it to the world

On my deathbed

Someday

Na, na, na, na, na, na

--Deathbed, Ike Turner

She Had an Abortion, So You Don't Have To...

I would like everyone to get acquainted with Kayla. She has a thrilling career in financial auditing! But like many of today's energetic young women, she has a lot of time on her hands -- time she could be spending frying up salmon patties for the homeless or tutoring kids with her mad math skills. But you see Kayla wanted to do something a little more original...and a lot more despotic and narcissistic with her free time. So Kayla has offered her services as one of the postergirls for VoteYesForLife.com, one of the mastermind organizations behind the South Dakota ban on abortion.

You see, Kayla had an abortion a few years ago in South Dakota, then felt bad about it later -- so now she wants to make sure that no other woman gets the same legal access and control over her own medical care. Kayla was a sad, sad person after that abortion -- a sadness so profound it's given her a kind of omniscient wisdom so powerful that she must decide what's best for everyone in South Dakota faced with an unplanned pregnancy. Kayla even got to speak before the House State Affairs Committee in South Dakota in February. Here's what she had to say:

Have you ever felt like a vapor; a mere mist dissolving in the life surrounding you? Empty? Invisible? No real substance, just a vapor? A vapor is how my abortion left me.

(COME ON, KAYLA! That's how you address your state assembly -- trite comparisons and predictable imagery, smeared with a whole lot of egocentric adolescent angst?!? Honey, please... I encourage your use of your right brain, but you need a less destructive outlet. Can't you scribble down some poems and attend an open mike somewhere? Or purge yourself with thru spiritual vomiting by writing in a journal or a blog?!?!)

Since today is Genesia (ancient Greek festival in which offerings are left for the dead), I submit this entry to the zygote or embryonic cluster that Kayla chose to terminate. And I hope this offering brings Kayla some peace -- because guilt and grief aren't good company.

Also, today is the feast of Artemis the Huntress. She is associated with both fertility and destruction, as they are 2 sides of the same coin.

Today is the Feast of the Furies...

...honoring Nemesis and the Erinyes, Old Greek Goddesses who punish murderers, abusers, and exploiters of others.

Maybe if we call on them as the kindly ones they will protect us in this world gone mad...

(This painting by Bourguereau was done in 1862. Titled Orestes Pursued By the Furies, I borrowed it from a site maintained by Beloit College. (www.beloit.edu)

It can also be found on Wikipedia -- but there they call it The Remorse of Orestes. )

In related happenings, Bush says he won't be pulling the troops out of Iraq as long as he is in the White House and the Boston Globe reports that up to 2500 discharged marines will be recalled to active duty.

In which I kinda gush about witches

My favorite summer TV show is Rock Star . In case you are unfamiliar with the concept, 15 rock singers compete to front an established and famous band. Last year it was INXS and this year it's Supernova -- Tommy Lee's attempt to put a super group together. But that's not really the point...the point is watching the artists performing with the houseband.

So last Wednesday was the season premiere and about 3/4 s through the show Dilana (the woman to right) performs...

...and I thought Hecate herself must have stepped down to possess this woman...

I'm sitting there, entranced and excited, wondering how in the hell Hecate got past the Theocracy's censors...

(which was pretty profane and stupid of me, since she is the triple-faced gooddess of the crossroads as well as the queen of all witches)

Anyway...Dilana is amazing -- you should tune in some Wednesday to watch her perform, or you can watch her last performance on the Rock Star website.

...Beware: She's a hard rocker, witchy type of songstress. Don't expect a soulful harmony. This is the singing of Hecate -- it's the raven croaking tunefully while shooting lightening out of her fingertips. I couldn't sleep for hours after I first saw her. I wanted to go dance in a thunderstorm. Then I had a very detailed spiritual dream which ended with the Igraine helping me pack / unpack for my magic exams...?!!?...

oh and Happy Birthday Dear Oli!!!

The Mammary Monologues

Or "Love, the Queen of the Breast"...(a topic of mythic proportions).

(that is a rough translation of Gwen Teir Bronn, the early Welsh goddess of fertility, about whom I can find absolutely no more info -- at least on the internet.)

Both of my sisters (Nora & Liza) have been boob-blogging, and I feel I must nip in with something about the funbags.

So I started with Venus of Willendorf, but there seems to be just a lot of articles by men riffing on their own cultural biases re: obesity in a fertility goddess (clearly, they've never been to Hawaii).

Anyway...re: my relationship with my own boobs...I like them a lot! Of course, compared to my sisters', they're rather small -- although in reference to the rest of the breast universe, I've quite the rack...I wish I had more -- like so.

There are all kinds of multi-breasted goddesses, but it's kinda hard to find the myths about them. (Incidentally, if anyone is looking to give me one of my dream jobs -- hunting down myths of all cultures would be just peachy, as far as I'm concerned.)

This particular goddess is Cybele/ Artemis and she and her rack o'boobs reside in modern day Turkey at the Ephesus Museum.

Linguistically and historically, Cybele may be known as "She of the hair" or "Mountain Mother" (not to be confused with Mountain Fiji, you former G.L.O.W. fans). Naturally, Cybele is a fertility goddess.

I mean, do you really believe that Paris Hilton would breastfeed? ("Like...wet-nurses are hot.")

Do you like living in a society where she's a sex goddess?

Now click here and fund a mammogram.