Lovers, from Neruda & Oliver

"At night I dream that you and I are two plants that grew together, roots entwined, and that you know the earth and the rain like my mouth, since we are made of earth and rain." - Pablo Neruda

"How shall I touch you unless it is everywhere? I begin here and there, finding you, the heart within you, and the animal, and the voice; I ask over and over for your whereabouts, trekking wherever you take me, the boughs of your body leading deeper into the trees..." - Mary Oliver

Twelfth century orgasmic brain heat « Mind Hacks

Twelfth century orgasmic brain heat « Mind Hacks

"Hildegard of Bingen was a twelfth century nun, possibly with repressed lesbian desires, who had visions, was a proto-scientist, advised the Pope, composed music, and, er, wrote about the role of the brain in the female orgasm.

BBC Radio 4′s Great Lives just had a fantastic programme about her where they read out her description of the female orgasm and how it is driven by a ‘sense of heat’ in the brain.

Remember, if you could possibly forget, that this was written by a nun in the 12th century.

When a woman is making love with a man, a sense of heat in her brain, which brings forth with it sensual delight, communicates the taste of that delight during the act and summons forth the emission of the man’s seed. And when the seed has fallen into its place, that vehement heat descending from her brain draws the seed to itself and holds it.

I for one, certainly feel closer to God after reading that.

Hildegard is most well known among neuroscientists for the descriptions of her visions which Oliver Sacks has interpreted as likely stemming from migraines as these can can cause an array of visual distortions and hallucinations.

Although from now on, I shall give equal consideration to her interest in erotic brain heat."

Ding Dong She's Dead! ...wait, what? #uu

Yesterday someone took the microphone during "time for sharing joys & concerns" and said that she was celebrating with joy the death of her toxic step-mother, whom she'd had to deal with for 32 years even though her father died in 1980. The lady said that she would refuse any sympathies offered and instead she wanted high-fives and leaps of joy that this woman was dead.


I've been thinking about it since then. How, as a (future) Unitarian Universalist minister, should I deal with that? It's not my place to judge (despite my imperfect performance at judgment because unfortunately I judge far more than I want to). But one of the UU principles is to affirm and promote the respect and dignity of all.

As a minister, I think that I'd have a responsibility to the principle. And to hear this said in a UU service, to ask people to celebrate in the death of someone she hated... I just don't know how to deal with that.

Perhaps I should have taken a moment to remind everyone of that principle, not pointing the lady out in particular. (But I'm not skilled enough to be extemporaneous in that arena quite yet, for longer than a few moments.) Would have been wise, given the collection of quite-intelligent people in the audience? Would that have been wise, given that this woman was celebrating a moment of what to her was joy, no matter how wrong that I myself felt it was in that context?

In a private conversation as her minister, I'd want to point that out gently, that perhaps she'd want to be glad the toxicity was gone rather than be celebrating the death of a person she hated.

Confusion.

Our culture celebrates the death of the hated. But that is a terrible thing: I believe we must hate what's been brought about, but the person was simply human and also dead.

I think I might feel differently if it happened to me. On a small scale, I'm relieved that my paternal grandmother is no longer causing problems between my father and my mother and my father and his brother. In that way, I'm glad that she's passed. But I'm just glad that the toxicity is over. I'm not glad that she's gone.

I suppose everyone reacts differently. I know of someone in the same congregation who has gone through much the same thing. But when his step-mother passes away, I think he will be relieved that the toxicity is over, but I'm pretty sure he won't be asking for high-fives on Sunday morning.


Something to wrestle with.

I dreamt of being executed.

I had a dream this morning that I was being executed. I'd exhausted all of my appeals and now it was time for the end. I was dressed in some kind of grey nylon jumpsuit and the people around me in were in varying shades of lime green.

They walked me down the hall in my chains and brought me into the room. I was seated in a chair and a helmet put down over my head. Then I was asked to bite down onto something that folded up from the helmet.

Everyone left the room except for a soldier sitting to my left and a man sleeping on the floor. I could see people through a plexiglass window in the wall.

And then it was the wait. The wait grew so excruciatingly long that I began to moan in anguish. And then I saw the woman in the next room pick up the phone. And then suddenly they were back in the room and taking off the helmet: I wasn't going to be executed. I couldn't stop moaning because of the soul-agony of it.

And then they tried handing me a coffee pot and something for me to eat: an odd purple plastic cup filled with light-colored river stones and one single black stone. My hands wouldn't work, though, I couldn't hold onto anything. The glass coffee pot was burning my hands. And still I couldn't stop the anguish.

That's when I woke up.

One dream dictionary says that when you dream of being executed, you are harboring a deep guilt within. Another says that when you escape your own execution in the dream, it signifies that you will overcome your enemies and succeed in gaining wealth. Still another says that execution dreams deal with one's own paranoic thoughts on death and and evil and torture.


Yeah. Well, I've been thinking about Troy Davis quite a bit and what happened to him in the end, at the very end. And I encountered a lady in lime-green yesterday that was offering up cultural slurs. There were river stones at my UU congregation yesterday. And there's no question that I feel trapped in my life, with a certain degree of anguish.


No more execution dreams, please.

Little one missing signs

Signs have gone up in a section of town saying that a cat is missing - light tan, white tipped tail.

Last week I saw a cat on the side of the highway (in that same section of town) matching the "light tan" but I didn't see the little one's tail. The little one looked like he was sleeping, all stretched out. Don't think he was sleeping.

Not sure if I should call.

I would not want them to lose hope. But I would want them to have something of an answer if the little one never returns. But maybe it's best not to know. This is why I can't bear to let my critters outside.

Would you call?

The Light of Winter

Two hours and three minutes of sunlight left today.

That reminds me.

Yesterday at Wal-Mart I picked up a new RF modulator and corresponding video cable.

So.

I loathe having a tv in the bedroom - but - I think I will set up the bedroom with the television and DVD player on the dresser in anticipation of the frigid cold of winter. This way I do not have to sit at my desk all winter (sitting on top of the heater) and I don't have to use extra oil to warm up the living room. And, the babies can be near me. Plus, I can have the heater in the bedroom and that will keep it warm in there. Somewhat tempted to move a sitting-chair in there for the winter as well, to have a place to read, thus creating a lap for Missy and also a warm place to have dinner, now that I think about it.

One other thing, too, is that I can invest in a lamp or two for that room with some natural-light light-bulbs, working to help with the seasonal thing.

Yeah, this will definitely work.

How to make a Pac-Man ghost lamp | Daniel Hepper

How to make a Pac-Man ghost lamp | Daniel Hepper