On The Edge Of Pleasure

I have discovered that our bodies have been set by our egos to only
allow a certain amount of pleasure to be experienced. It is as if we
have determined in our ego's sub-basement where all these decisions
are made that if you feel too good, you are doing something wrong.

Wilhelm Reich said that it is from "armoring" which only allows us
to experience a certain amount of pleasure before it shuts the body
down. This armoring acts like a reactionary right-wing religious nut
and shuts down the energy system within our bodies the second we
begin to experience pleasure beyond a certain "set point". It won't
allow us to be free to feel free and happy.

Bad armoring! (envision me spanking my armoring on the behind)

I am currently working on allowing pleasure into my body in amounts
which I have not been accustomed to experience. Through deep
breath work and some other techniques I am pushing myself to enjoy
the simple act of being alive. As this happens I find that everything
about my life has been coming to the fore of my mind and I am
re-living experiences from my childhood which I had buried and am
now having to acknowledge and with which I have to find peace.



I find that by opening myself up to pleasure, I am opening myself
up to everything. Also I am sleeping a lot. I suspect that this is
a reaction by my body to the radical changes in energy levels.

Meanwhile I am really enjoying the act of being more and more.

It sure beats the alternative.

It's All A Pain In The... Head

I have been lying here in bed thinking about headaches. This,
of course, while I'm in the throes of a nasty mind-splitting
headache of the first water. This is the kind of nasty, gripping
and demoralizing head-buster that makes me wish that opium
was still available over the counter. Miserable.

What causes these things? I know it's not the brain, I know
that the brain cannot feel pain and that the pain actually comes
from the outside the skull and has to do with the blood vessels
in the scalp but I really feel like there's someone driving a nail
through my brain.



Nothing is funny about this. I have found one treatment which
works fairly well... I turn on the shower and set down and let
the hot water flow over my head while I slump down and try
to forget that I exist. At least for a while. This helps.... but
not much.

Really I would like some opium... does anybody got any for
sale?

Angels We Have Heard On High... Tell Us To Go Out And Buy

Christmas may be coming but we've not even passed Thanksgiving...
So Tell me why the decorations are coming out so fast and why
the sales have already started?

I'm not buying but one Xmas gift this year. I refuse to jump onto
the consumer bandwagon. I just want hugs from my friends.



"...And God so loved the world that he created a really great
excuse for consumer spending once a year..."

What To Do About Demons

One day a man came upon a bottle in the sand of a lonely beach. He looked at it and, realizing that there was a cork in the bottle, opened up the bottle. Immediately a demon, contained in that bottle since the building of the temple, jumped out and told the man that he was going to kill him as vengence upon all humanity and his incarceration.

The man looked at the demon and laughed! He said, "I don't believe you! You couldn't have come from that bottle! It is so small and you are so huge! It's a trick of the eye! You didn't really come out of that bottle did you?" To prove the young man wrong the demon shrunk himself down and re-entered the bottle whereupon the fellow stoppered the flask and looking through the glass said, "Ah! You are trapped again! Now I think I will bury this bottle under the largest rock I can find so that you can spend a large portion of eternity in there!"

The demon beseeched the man for release. He made the man a promise, he promised that not only would he not hurt the man or his family, he would give the man three wishes of whatever he wanted.

So the bargain was struck and the demon released.

Then came the wishes which the man chose.

The first was for riches and a huge pile of gold appeared in front of him.

The second was for a beautiful wife to make him happy. And a bejeweled and veiled beauty appeared in front of him.

The third was that the demon be stuck back into the bottle and be forced to give three wishes to the next man who found the bottle. At that, he threw the bottle out to sea and let the waves carry it away.

So... remember these things...

* There is some truth behind the "genie in the bottle" myths.

* If you find the bottle and open it, you will get three wishes.

*Always make sure that your third wish is to re-bind the demon.

Herein ends the lesson for today...

...I Don't Like Mondays

"...and the silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload."

This line, a lyric from The Boomtown Rats song "I Don't Like
Mondays" which provided a bit of the soundtrack of my childhood,
reverberates in my mind and like that bad jingle which I cannot
forget, lures me over and over again to reflect upon the story within.
I loved that song because it gave voice to that performance angst
which is the school-child's lot. I'm sure I don't have to tell you
the story which this song is based upon which is that a young girl
hosed down her schoolchums early one Monday morning as they
went to school. When asked why she did this heinous act, she
replied, "I don't like Mondays." It was infamous.



Now, years later, as Bob Geldorf spends his middle-age years
basking in the glow of his well-deserved knighthood. "Sir Bob"
must have to ask himself if that song did more than comment
upon this strange and painfully poignant world. Did the boys
who jumped up on the desks in the library and cried upon each
other's shoulders at Columbine H.S. before going to their own
apocalypse have that song in their hearts? Does the zeitgeist
of our times call for a direct approach the way the Gordian
Knot was approached by Alexander? Is the violent voice of
our age overshadowing "the angels of our better nature"?

I wonder. I worry. I turn on my iPod and listen again.

Silent Sings The Crow At Final Light

Silent Sing The Crows at Final Light

There stands a hill like many hills that stand in
shade and light. It stands with rows of grass and
stones recalling names of those who fought and
fell in wars whose independence fades in numbered
similarity.

A place of flesh which mortifies. A place where
few will come. A place of many endings where
stands a man remembering his past.

The old man sat so lonely upon a settled stump.
Crumbled on its edges it served as mute testimony
of what had stood before the cabins came and filled
the open fields. They grayed together, stump and man,
sharing of the summer shade and holding down the
corners of the world.

In the boy’s eye the hair which downy fell upon
his aged pate became a halo shining in the
speckled light the last surviving tree let down.
It was a shining which—even now—the boy
could never say was not an inner clarity shining forth.

A spotted hand pinched the beard which grew in
grizzled confusion upon his chin. A chin which
knew not of beards in years gone past before the
hand grew too enfeebled for the blade.

There was a sound, moist and subtle, which framed the steaming
stench which issued from his pipe. A pipe which
ancient teeth, yellowed but firm, held in practiced clench.

The old man sought in the welcome of a smile to bestow
a blessing upon the boy, a child of children once removed.
Emboldened by the fond gentleness, the boy climbed the
ragged folds to a lap which held him in quiet embrasure
and spoke of safety.

These the man remembers. These he says are foremost in
a mind grown older with an adult wisdom both spurious
and proud. These are still what speaks in admiration for
what the generations passed down. The man has soaked
them into his growth.

The boy now grown sits by the stone which serves as
mute testimony of the man who stood before the stones
came and filled the field. The child now grown calls
to his own and mourns that part he never knew. The
absence leaves a hole wherein the demons of his night
come to taunt him.

Here/Now acceptance of farewell is
voiced. A silent finality chants what is written on the
stone. As peaceful grows the grass that knows the man:
Deep in weather-watch stand the stone.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

In honor of Veteran's Day, I post a poem written at Golden Gate National Cemetary...

Phone Calls From Nowhere

I'm getting those strange phone calls where no-one speaks when the answering machine comes on. Instead I get two or three seconds of silence and then the caller hangs up. I could use "Star 69" and find out who's calling but I think I already know. I know and I'm pretty sure that I am best not to talk to someone who isn't willing to leave a message.

Of course you can ask me why I am screening my incoming calls but to answer that I have to explain the paranoid/depressed state I'm in and the one or two people who I don't want to speak to without warning...

It's not that I don't want to speak to anyone, but I don't want to talk without warning. I want people to start to talk into the answering machine so I can decide whether to talk to them or not. I know it's not fair, I'm screening people and not being nice. But considering those who have called in the recent past and some of the e-mails I've received, it might be a good idea not to answer the phone right now. Maybe it is better to just hide.



I can say that until whoever's calling talks to my answering machine... I'm gonna be quiet.

Buffalo Gals

Buffalo Gals

The buffalo gals came out last night to dance.

Moonlight shone upon the ground as silver poured
and all the children laughed to see the merry play.
A dance (quadrille) with buck and fill, was called
and flute and fiddle sawed the tune and called the beat.

There in the light reflected down I wondered still.

A life intruded harshly in this dying nighttime dream,
care of morning flare bright wonder in my eyes.
No good can come of lingering there now
but snips and snails and puppy's tail still call
and once again I wish for what never was.

Reach out and win the sandman's kin with smiles.

"Bang Bang" he said and then he ate the banana.
The soldier, tired of war converted it to snack.
If only wars called finished by such whimsy
could rest the father's brow when bullets fly.
Our wars, fought over fences were not fatal,
to any but the dogs caught in the way.

The losers drank the kool-aid with their foe.

And Savage Max, returned from the wild rumpus,
finds that his sup, still warm, stands ready there.
And we sail away, for a year and day
and gladness sings a song. Alice's delight
the hedgehog's plight, they run into the hedgerow
where game is called and then we faced the queen.

Our heads, not safe to this very day, bow down to reason king.

Then campfire songs we sang, in rounds and chorus,
there were cat's who came back and ships that sank.
And guitar strumming, with "Don't give a damn!" songs,
Kumbaya My Lord and Mrs. Murphy's Chowder.
Our faces warm - our back cold we swayed and took notice
of how many bottles were left on the wall.

Our voices raw we slept on straw till sunlight called us home.

Now tell me tales of bags of nails and jobs we need to do.
Reach out to win the sandman's kin with pills and morning alarms.
And show your buckskin dresses off to compete with New York styles.
Bright balance sheet, will incomplete our days with meetings boring.
Please take me back, to mattress sack, old Coleman on the ground.
'Cause paymaster's song is feeling wrong, no profit can I find.

Come dance with me sing one - two -three, I do not like this world.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~