En Garde!

Photographer Seth Sabal - September Issue of 944

freedom.

The Whore of Babylon

Art shouldn't be a reflection of ego & vanity, but birthed from an honest place of love and passion.

Awakening Aries

It's happening.
I can see Jupitar.
Uranus has entered Aries.
I feel the tides moving inside me.
Seven years of this heaviness

Je vois la vie en rose

caret initio et fine

I'm writing the most glorious story, one page at a time.

"I am in between stories. The old one is gone, and the new one is just beginning to take shape. When we already have a story we are heavily identified with, whether we appear to like this story or not, it is difficult to stay awake, to watch our thoughts and feelings without letting them dictate our actions. A clear story about who we are makes it hard to wait and let our actions arise from the deep and open emptiness of experiencing who we are right now, makes it difficult to allow actions to arise that may be inconsistent with how our story says we should move."
~Oriah Mountain Dreamer

from page 168 of The Call: Discovering Why You Are Here

I look at you and smile because I'm fine

Your callused fingers
unapologetically pried
apart the space between my thick ribs
expanding the cage holding me so tightly in
like a surgeon preparing a patient for open heart surgery
Turning my cadavar into a breathing vessel
laid on the pale ground
catching c o s m i c sprinkles
majestically f.a.l.l.i.n.g
a celebratory shower of champagne
or fireworks from a long overdue kiss
dripping so confidently from tiny holes
in the canopy of our universe.
it's happening
& it's nothing short of m.a.g.i.q.u.e

Jazz and Brando

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
-Pablo Neruda

I've got SUNSHINE

IT WILL BE SUNNY THIS WEEK!
The weather forecasters do not know what they're talking about!

Writers Blocked

Calling on Ginsberg
HELP!
This shallow hand
keeps smudging the ink.

“My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.”

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside your own house
4. Be in love with your life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don’t think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see your exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You’re a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven


Thanks Jack.

Loving you is cherry pie

"Life has become very dear to me, and I am very glad that I love. My life and my love are one. "But you are faced with a 'no, never never'" is your reply. My answer to that is, "Old boy, for the present I look upon that 'no, never never' as a block of ice which I press to my heart to thaw." - Van Gogh, September 7, 1881

Good morning, on July 7

Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I need a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? My angel, I have just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once - Be calm, only by a calm consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.

ever thine
ever mine
ever ours

July 6, in the morning

My angel, my all, my very self - Only a few words today and at that with pencil (with yours) - Not till tomorrow will my lodgings be definitely determined upon - what a useless waste of time - Why this deep sorrow when necessity speaks - can our love endure except through sacrifices, through not demanding everything from one another; can you change the fact that you are not wholly mine, I not wholly thine - Oh God, look out into the beauties of nature and comfort your heart with that which must be - Love demands everything and that very justly - thus it is to me with you, and to your with me. But you forget so easily that I must live for me and for you; if we were wholly united you would feel the pain of it as little as I - My journey was a fearful one; I did not reach here until 4 o'clock yesterday morning. Lacking horses the post-coach chose another route, but what an awful one; at the stage before the last I was warned not to travel at night; I was made fearful of a forest, but that only made me the more eager - and I was wrong. The coach must needs break down on the wretched road, a bottomless mud road. Without such postilions as I had with me I should have remained stuck in the road. Esterhazy, traveling the usual road here, had the same fate with eight horses that I had with four - Yet I got some pleasure out of it, as I always do when I successfully overcome difficulties - Now a quick change to things internal from things external. We shall surely see each other soon; moreover, today I cannot share with you the thoughts I have had during these last few days touching my own life - If our hearts were always close together, I would have none of these. My heart is full of so many things to say to you - ah - there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all - Cheer up - remain my true, my only treasure, my all as I am yours. The gods must send us the rest, what for us must and shall be -

Your faithful LUDWIG.

Is it possible to love someone too much?

There's always a Ryan Adam's song for different times in my life....
this is todays.

The only one for me are the mad ones

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” - Jack Kerouac



Photo by Allen Ginsberg: " Jack Kerouac wandering along East 7th Street after visiting Burroughs at our pad, passing statue of Congressman Samuel “Sunset” Cox, “The Letter-Carrier’s Friend” in Tompkins Square toward corner of Avenue A, Lower East Side; he’s making a Dostoyevsky mad-face or Russian basso be-bop Om, first walking around the neighborhood, then involved with The Subterraneans, pencils & notebook in wool shirt-pockets, Fall 1953, Manhattan.”

'Better Every Day'

I just saw pictures of a friend of mine back in treatment. I just don't understand why she keeps choosing her disease over LIFE? She is one of the most intelligent, funny, and compassionate people I have ever met, but what she does to her body is so ugly to me now. I'm praying for God to surround her in Light and Love, to help her realize how perfect she is, to choose Life over death. That is ultimately the decision one has to make when battling such a deadlly disease.

I remember when I made that choice. I remember how hard it was, to just 'let go' of the one thing that felt like my best friend. That was nearly 2 years ago. It has been 8 months since I've purged. I am so proud to say that. I remember when I we use to celebrate a decrease in the amount of times I would throw up in a day, then we'd move on to days inbetween purges, then weeks. I remember having to have my boyfriend come over and sit with me while I ate a meal, when my family would have to coach me through dinners, when my step mom use to have to plan and serve all my meals, meal planning, counting calories, measuring everything with total accuracy - it was always SO hard, so much work, such a dramatic struggle, but now it's been MONTHS! 8 months, almost a whole year! It brings tears to my eyes, tears of joy and pride because I WON! I can't even recollect that last time I thought about throwing up my food or had the urge to.... and I use to struggle making it through a day. After nearly 8 years of hating myself, I have embraced the divine perfection that has always been 'Me.' I SURVIVED! I BEAT THE STATISTIC! I CHOSE LIFE!

I use to be embarrassed of the demon I was living with, but it is part of my past, it no longer defines who I am now. I WAS an anorexic & bulimic since I was in 7th grade, but that is 8 years ago, today I am Alicia Rose VanOverbeke: a daughter, a sister, a part of one crazy dysfunctionally brilliant family, a friend, and a student who will one day put a positive stamp on this World. I am so proud of the battle I won, and the woman I have now become. I hope one day I can inspire others to choose life, it may be the more resistant path but it is the only one that guarantees a future, happiness and freedom!

Thank you Dr. Maureen Gardner and everyone at the RCC who was fighting with me and for me, Dr. Bethany Helfman, Mom, Dad, Lisa, & the whole family, Samantha Meux, Brittany Guttenburg, Alex Wojcik and all my other friends who showed me so much love and compassion and stuck with me when they didn't have to, everyone at MASC Leadership Camp [especially Kadi Judd and Kris Edler who told me I was "Dark yet lovely"], and to everyone else who has inspired and supported me to keep fighting, to get 'Better Every Day.' You all saved my life, and I am forever grateful.

The Giving Tree

It's you in my head, it's you in my heart.

Waiting on something good

"You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise."
~Maya Angelou

Who's stoned? I am merely traveling incognito.

"Neely, you know it's bad to take liquor with those pills."
"They work faster."

Oh Spanish Moon, Fall & Rise.

JUST IN CASE...
for the sake of being cautious
[but when have I ever been 'cautious']
Well, just in case
we,
it,
this is another tragedy
never again our bodies at the same coordinates
- at that same time-
[like the one time we woke up with sand on our feet
and ocean in our hair, and our limbs tangled together]
Well just in case we never build a sand castle together again
and my name is never on the same page
of this book called 'Life"
as your name...

I want you to know.
So listen obtusely
I'll always carry a piece of 'you-ness' with me
A reminder of the adventure life can be,
if we just 'let it be.'

A reminder that my chest cavity isn't as empty as I'd like to think it is...
there's a heart inside there
a heart that remembered to skip a beat when it was
your hand
in mine.

So just incase our life lines never cross
or mine ends too soon,
thank you
for all the memos
reminding me why I love life
and short kisses on my cheek
and neck
and...
and....
and even the ones that broke down the walls
[that i've spent YEARS building]

It may come as a surprise
Only love is real.
Fear is an absence of love.
There for fear is an illusion,
a lie the ego tells our 'selves'
But in the name of LOVE:
This vulnerability feels safest
Stronger than the fortress I was building inside my chest.

The thrill of the chase

Manhattan is where she grew.

I have no desire to be kissed...

Tonight I'm going to dream that I'm Jo in Funny Face. Back in Paris, going fishing for the first time, jazz dancing in a smokey club, wearing Givenchy in the Louvre, and having a gem of a man like Dick Avery/Fred Astaire think that my funny looking face is something beautiful.

You're too sweet for Rock n' Roll

"Never take it seriously, you never get hurt. Never get hurt, you can always have fun. And if you ever get lonely, you just go to the record store and visit all your friends."

The opposite direction of this too-big world...

"...no girl had ever moved me with a story of spiritual suffering and so beautifully her soul showing out radiant as an angel wandering in hell and the hell the selfsame streets I’d roamed in watching, watching for someone just like her and never dreaming the darkness and the mystery and eventuality of our meeting in eternity.."
The Subterraneans, Jack Kerouac

Unpractical magique

I wish I could cast a spell that would erase the water mark of your existence printed on my heart.

He'll love me, always.

[one day.]

The weak's goal

I will be healthy.
I will dance.
I will be happy.
I will be proud.
I will laugh.
I will feel loved.
I will love.

Salty palm to a bare shoulder

I find love
in the most acute movements.

Débat intérieur

Her name was, Love.

"If you trust and love me, put your trust and love into action in every aspect of your life-emotional, sexual, spiritual, social, political-with my passion, my clarity, my unsentimental practicality. Know that my revelation is a revolution, a revolution that demands calmly a transformation of all the terms and conditions of life on earth. Establish justice for all in my world, in my name, and in my spirit of all-embracing, inexhaustible compassion. Let no one be poor, or discriminated against; may all sentient beings everywhere be cherished and safe and protected from harm by law and by love. Turn to me now and I will fill you with all the grace, strength, courage, and passion you need to transform the world at every level into a living mirror of my truth, my love, and my justice. If you truly love me, change everything for me."
~Andrew Harvey 





Dear Mother-Father God,
In Your name, I bless the world.
I commit myself to justice, mercy and compassion.
I consciously set my foot on the path of radical transformation.
May all of my thoughts and deeds reflect Your will.
Your truth is the fire that fuels and compels me.
Holy Spirit, come--abide in and through me now.
May love be the rule I live by.
And so it is.
Amen

Buried in my heart space

Things will get better with life in Your hands.

Dear God, I believe that You are present in each moment of every day.
Therefore, my spiritual practice is to notice Your movement,
to increase my awareness of Your presence.
As awareness grows, faith is strengthened and peace is established.
You are the both source and the journey of life.
Help me notice your handiwork and share Your love with my fellow travelers.
Thank You.

Fuck you, it's magic!

Unexpected moments

"But sometimes, unexpectedly, a quiet moment finds us and we drop down into
the life we have beneath all the rushing and the trying and the endless
daily details, sinking into the fertile soil of the sometimes neglected
inner life, where the seeds of remembering what matters are planted. What
comes from that place when we give it half a chance flowers in our lives and
the world, creating unexpected changes in the direction of our journey and
offering unanticipated blessings to us and those around us."
~Oriah Mountain Dreamer

A young man of extra-ordinary personal beauty

Witching hour
taps on the door
Memories
of your last night
assertively
creep into bed
Haunting the left side
sliding closer
between every
suppressed e x h a l e
The faint smell
of bourbon
filling space
between the pillow
and my bitter cheek
That space
your face
pressed against mine

New York I love you, but you're bringin me down

"I don’t know what it means to be a New Yorker anymore. I guess if you work for a giant corporation and you’ve lived here for more than six weeks, you’re a New Yorker now. I think I used to know what it meant to be a New Yorker. I guess if you don’t eat at Cosi sandwich shop you’re a real New Yorker. If you don’t go to Hopstop.com to find your way around the city, you’re a real New Yorker. If you make too much noise on the sidewalk at night and bother people living in overpriced apartments, you’re a real New Yorker. If you get mugged, and then immediately go eat a slice with the money hidden in your sock that they did not steal from you, you’re a real New Yorker. If you cross the street wherever and whenever you want, you’re a New Yorker. And if you walk fast, you’re a New Yorker. Nobody walks fast in this city anymore. Everyone walks slow, and then goes to Equinox." -Judah Freidlander, Daily Intel