By Maria Padhila
The Poly Living 2012 conference was being held at a fairly nondescript chain hotel outside Philadelphia. Mostly, you couldn’t tell the polyamorists from the rest of the hotel guests without looking for the lanyard and the name badge. Occasionally, there was someone with distinctive clothing or hairstyle or jewelry — oh, wait, there was one kilt — but mostly? We looked like the people next door. The people you’d see on a casual day at work, or at the grocery store, or at the café or the chain restaurant down the street. At the WalMart, even. No one hanging all over each other, no tongue kissing in the elevators. No conspicuous display of lingerie.
And this is what knocks me out every time. Because we’re not all that special. Not all that different. A bunch of Clark Kents, we are.
Because then, someone would open his or her mouth, and I’d think: Superman. (Or Wonder Woman. Or something in between.)
As I was reminded in several presentations, the three most important things about polyamory are communication, communication and communication. That’s where the polyamorists start to look different. If you’re deep enough into it that you’re coming to an event like that, you’ve got your masters or maybe your doctorate in communicating. I myself am not there yet; not in public, anyway. I can do it somewhat in writing. But this was amazing to see and hear. People would talk freely about all the things we have always been told not to talk about: sex, love, conflict, the problems with marriage and relationships and coupling, and also, the joys. What they love, who they love, and what they love about who they love.
How often do you hear people relate stories about how someone has loved them? Or how they love someone? How often do you talk about what you do for others, what you do for yourself, what you’re willing to do for others or yourself, and what you’re not? How often do people articulate what they want in a relationship, beyond the online dating level of ‘I enjoy a sense of humor and good coffee’?
And here’s another revolutionary act: None of us looked like models, or people who would be invited to Hefner’s Mansion, or even ‘reality TV’ stars. Yet there was no question, not even a bit of doubt, that everyone there was fully entitled to be a sexual being, a romantic being, a loving being. This, at the same time that the ‘real world’ tells us all that unless you look a certain way, the pleasures of love and sex cannot belong to you. It’s as if such self-effacement, wished on us by the crushing force of every unavoidable form of marketing, had simply never occurred to these people.
I don’t want to sprain my arm back-patting ‘the poly community’. I’m not even sure if there is such a thing, or if I belong to it, outsider that I often am. But I have to give these people props.
At the same time that the most dissociative, disconnected conversations were taking place on the public stage, these people were doing the hard work of saying something honest.
As politicians were trading carefully crafted and well-memorized sound bites, they were struggling for ways to express never-before heard emotional states and stories from a realm no one is coached or trained to speak of.
As the TV above the bar squawked with male politicians and pundits bickering about how yet again to rule, order, hurt and restrain women’s liberty and their bodies, I heard men speaking thoughtfully and deliberately about how they believed that women were people, were free to do as they pleased, and how they managed their own emotions so that they wouldn’t stand in the way of that freedom. I heard men speaking with love.
I know polyamorists don’t own the field in communication. I know there are just as many honest conversations going on tonight, as I try to express this, between friends, between monogamous couples, between a person and the page, even. But I need to take a moment to tell you how struck I was over that weekend, listening to men and women alike. They told about the times they’d been heartbroken and disappointed, and they told about their happiest times, and how for many, this was the happiest time, right here, right now. They talked about the efforts to listen and to respect others, even when what they were saying and doing conflicted with what they wanted for themselves.
Why are they revolutionaries? Why is talk and action like this as strange and uncommon as these people’s sneakers and sweaters were ordinary? Why are you, reading this, considered the odd one because you speak of your heart and spirit?
Why, when the truth is that you and me, we’re just like everyone else?
The politicians talk about “the people,” “the middle-class,” “ordinary people,” and, the worst of all, the “real Americans.” To me, the people at the polyamory convention are real. They’re ordinary. They’re working, they’re voting, they’re taking care of families. We may be the one percent of love, but we’re the 99 percent when it comes to everything else. Who are these politicians talking to, if not to us?
As I’ve been weaving through my own polyamory path, I’ve held onto the thread of a deep truth, something I believe without knowing why: There are no ordinary relationships. The marriage ideal being sold today is being sold for a reason; it hasn’t worked for at least as many as it has worked for, and it hasn’t always been this way. People have found all sorts of designs for living to suit themselves and the ones they love.
In fact, Loving More, which puts on the Poly Living conference, is doing a survey of attitudes and realities about relationships. It’s fast and confidential. All the information, including who is collecting the data and why, is here.
The strenuous denial of this reality by politicians and marketing leave me feeling as if I’m being gaslighted on a grand scale. And I needed the reality of these revolutionaries — much like the people who read this website — to ground me again.
I’ll write more about people from the conference in coming weeks; I’m waiting for permission for some materials and quotes. Being a polyamorist isn’t a full-time job for anyone (it just feels that way sometimes), so sometimes things take a little longer.
But I really wanted to get across to you some of the reality I encountered, and how grateful I am to interact with what’s real. And revolutionary.
I haven’t been to a poly convention yet (would love to, but $$$!), but I do look like a RockStar, albeit a 70’s RockStar!
Ladies: I am still in this discussion; but my schedule has heated up. May not respond until the weekend; but I definitely will. Have a lovely day… 🙂
Monina, if menopause – Susun Weed’s book is excellent. I’m almost at that threshold. Nearly there!
“But I seem to get aroused much more of the time now. I like being this way. It is just so much more than about sex. And I did not know that when I started down this path; but I know it now.”
I felt that same way last year. I don’t now. I suspect those feelings were due to the hormonal surges of menopause. I am not saying you are experiencing the same; I am saying it is something to consider and to weigh your actions against. These hormones don’t remain as strong so does it make sense to maybe mess things up that you already have because after the hormones tamp down again, will the after effects be ok then? It is just something to think about. Hormones control us far more than we realize; I learned that last year in a very visceral way. Fortunately, things worked out for me and now that the strong erotic feelings have subsided, I feel fine with the outcomes.
If you are experiencing the hormone surges of menopause. it might be a good idea to ask yourself whether or not you are willing to turn your life upside down for something that is not permanent. The hormones will die down eventually. I always look five steps ahead and make choices based on that and it has served me very well. Looking at long term and the bigger picture really does help give perspective.
no! mistaken! all juices flowing, just being alive
Monina I wanted to thank you again for your kindness, and to Amanda (point taken about the poly ‘community’ – thank you) and to Carrie. Sometimes it seems that saying something clarifies and modifies at the same time.
Again seeing how subliminal my anger still can be – and how important to root it out completely. It is there tho I wasn’t feeling angry when I retold you those stories Monina, but at the end of the day I felt that anger again over those stories – and its not useful, as you said every day is a new start. Better to concentrate on what can be done! Thinking about what you wrote (in reply to Carrie and me this last time) made me think about how I was when I started smoking – that gentle pull for the next smoke, and I may be quite mistaken – in which case forgive me please. I found smoking impossible to stop. I managed (finally) to not smoke at home at all, but every 10 days when we went to town I smoked 3 straight off in long draughts (drafts perhaps if it is smoke?) and couldn’t do less than that. Luckily I got pregnant and breast fed for 3 years which broke the habit (mine was a thing with a cigarette in my fingers like a security blanket). Twice I had periods of about a week a couple of years after the breastfeeding finished, where I wanted to smoke and I thought if this carries on indefinitely I’m going to crack. But each time I dreamed that I smoked and that broke the craving in real life. The second time I was still addicted in my dream and I smoked 2 cigarettes straight off, my body was ill, I felt terrible but the addiction was stronger than me, smoking made me feel violently ill but I smoked two all the same, compulsively. And since then, clear! But I’m still not safe to smoke again I imagine?!
All the best to you and yours!
xxxp
Or we are already home!
From now on I’ll cut and paste.
Hi Monina. Thank you back!
Yes I have no difficulty with what you say except perhaps the erotic people you are with are they in the know too that it is ‘work’ only. I agree utterly with you about self development – probly can’t then make a ‘movement’ from it being made to measure: the exception proves the rule sort of thing perhaps, or there are no rules only aware and appropriate effort. Something.
Having masturbated every day from 6 onwards to mid 20’s, my ‘need’ was to develop relationship, communication, clarity and even continence?! Always with an eye to limit the (collateral) damage from my developments (that wa.
love Pam
From the poem (perhaps only for my own interest). As though by chance I saw the Constant Gardener yesterday.
The darkness. It is within her, within all of us, and to the extent we don’t pin down our shadows and own them and name them and integrate them, constantly as necessary, they join the shadow of the collective unconscious, until the collective unconscious is polluted by them and throws out shadows of its own like current corporate interest, current Republican (and world?) politics, financial policy in Europe, the cynicism of the EU in allowing the new member states to join in full knowledge that the existing states would gain either way, the power of lobbying (money/intimidation/corruption). Or maybe have a war after Fukushima so that if the nuclear industry falls there is oil to hand.
And equally, to the extent we each individually own our shadows, if we all do this and integrate them into ourselves so that we have integrated our shadows and now exude qualities of contributing rather than ‘getting for me’, the collective unconscious restores itself as a well of creativity which may be hidden but is no longer shadowed. As ACIM says, there is no darkness, it is only our own prejudices and anger that hide the light from us (these are not the exact words).
There is no going home, either because our ignorance prevents it or having owned our own shadow there are other things to do/be, until we all arrive at a human(e) scale. Try the Earthsea sextet by Ursula le Guin.
Thanks to Pam and Carrie. You gave me much to think about; sparked many thoughts. Here goes:
@Pam–I very much agree that each of us are responsible 100% for our relationships; ourselves, too. Each meeting with anyone and having yourself totally present; honest–that is certainly something I strive for now.
I admit to having self-interest. This life for me is about my work. I try to do the best I can at all times. When I fall short on a daily basis, it’s the reason I greet the next day with gratitude. Another day to evolve…
It is as true as anything I have learned; women do express themselves differently as they age. It’s even more than that; it’s actually a wonderful thing. Women can grow, evolve, mature, and become freer as they age. This is my experience. Over 50 now; and they’ve been the best years yet for me. Some of the things that have come to me are my delight in my own body; my discovery of how good it feels to love your own body; masturbation–oh lordy yes!; and the sweet, sensuous, steady pull of erotic desire.
For me, it’s been less about everyone having a good time; and so much more about feeling desire strongly. Feeling it well up inside of me; and realizing that it may have been stimulated by others…but it is mine. In my life, the person who acted as a catalyst is in my life in a way. It is not a “regular” relationship–it is one of the slow tease, the lingering look, the quick touch, long kiss, a grab and slap…highly erotic. Most times I take care of myself at night in the dark or standing up in front of a mirror. (I’ve learned a lot from dear Eric on this subject.) I can’t say how important it is that we all become totally responsible for our own orgasms; satisfying our own desire. I think a lot of things get totally messed up for women because we don’t accept responsibility of pleasuring ourselves as a valid way to LOVE ourselves.)
Oh, Pam. You said, “The important thing is to be living towards death as consciously as you can.” That is what I, too, have come to see as the goal of life. It’s the reality that is always present. And it speaks to me–regardless of whomever you may partner with in a relationship or relationships–that life is about dealing with yourself. You can only control yourself. Ultimately your life is about you getting it right; not as a married couple, or a poly relationship, or whatever–it is each of us alone.
So this erotic relationship has lead me to value my erotic self. And I am able to share that with my husband. I am so re-energized. And it has not in any way diminished my love for him. My erotic side cried out for more stimulus than he could give me. And I learned to distinguish love from erotic, sexual activities. It took time; it was something I had to work out for myself. I think that is why I have been successful. I worked hard; it was not easy. I want to continue the erotic exploration; the terms were set at the beginning…no one was falling in love and spouses must be told. Both were hard for me to do; but I did it. And I have to say that for me, it has worked and it is right.
@Carrie: Sexually transmitted diseases are scary. There is a lot you can do that is very erotic; but short of risking transmission. Eroticism encompasses all of life: nature, food, beautiful bodies–caressing them, caressing your own. It’s really not just about sex. I think what I’ve done is change my approach not only to sex but to experiencing life. I find so many people attractive now; so many more than I used to. I don’t want to have sex with all of them. But I seem to get aroused much more of the time now. I like being this way. It is just so much more than about sex. And I did not know that when I started down this path; but I know it now.
Thanks for your replies. I want to craft a response and will. Be back asap.
Monina,
“Is it a marriage that evolved, grew, became strong enough that my husband was not jealous nor threatened by the need of his wife to safely and soundly explore a part of her that had changed over the years?
So, Carrie. Would this be a way you would consider going…or not. And why?”
I would not consider going that way for several reasons:
First, my husband would not feel comfortable with that kind of arrangement at all; he has let me know it would be painful for him.
Second, I do not want to deal with the time and effort it would take to add that aspect to my already very busy life; I am not as much an extrovert as that.
Third, I am (as Eric said in the recent parody of Pluto in the signs article) Pluto in Virgo which means I haven’t had unprotected sex with anyone but my husband since 1985. The idea of sexually transmitted diseases scares the crap out of me because not only am I at risk but my husband also.
Fourth, my kids would feel very insecure if I began doing that because, try as we might, parents cannot hide such stuff as well as they think they can. Everyone would notice Mom’s time being focused elsewhere and they would KNOW something was up. Kids are far more intuitive than anyone gives them credit for; any ripple in the status quo and they FEEL it viscerally.
I have always said, no 30 second orgasm is worth all that disruption of everyone’s lives and I do not want to deal with more relationships so I choose to stay right where I am and that’s working for me very well. I just don’t have a strong urge to go out there and find other sex partners. It isn’t that intense any more now that the menopause hormones have settled down.
I don’t condemn anyone else who wants to do that; to each her/his own. Just because I feel the way I do doesn’t mean everyone is like me; if they were the world would be a very dreary and boring place. Diversity is a good thing in whatever way you define it.
And equally if it isn’t too personal, why your husband doesn’t feel it’s a deal breaker and how the erotic friendships have value (or is there some other value system/exchange) when your primary relationship is solid.
The examples I have witnessed was one: a young woman whose mother had died who was poly everything. Was that pain or profundity.
The other, a young woman in a relationship where her guy was poly from the start so she had adopted it also, and the young guy she was with other than her guy wanted more. He had fallen in love with her. She was in love with her boyfriend, she’d told him that, he thought he could woo her. Her boyfriend was easy come easy go, she was one of ‘many’.
I’m interested in any responses to these if anyone would like to comment.
Equally a young guy (many years ago) who had a hot hot hot affair with a girl in a relationship – her partner never knew. A lightning strike. The next girlfriend he had was also in a relationship, she broke off that relationship because she had fallen in love with him and wanted to be with him. He then told her (in effect and not straight away) O but you are just a summer romance. The next girl was in a relationship with one of his friends (who was travelling and they had decided to call a halt while they thought about what they wanted to do so technically she was free, he thought her boyfreind wasn’t territorial), and this one didn’t feel right to him so he stopped. I couldn’t bear this sort of trend. None of my business but it was so painful to witness. He told me, but I would never do that to my own girlfriend. I couldn’t see the difference.
Hi Monina. Hello. With pleasure. I think you discussed it with your husband that’s valid.
I agree my ‘stuff’ is coloured by pain. I only realised with my mother that I couldn’t do anything about her suffering, I couldn’t save her from it or lift her out of it. Finally I found something that helped her stand/orientate herself within it. My feeling is that I have seen enough pain to not seek it out. That pain will come in life, that the important thing is to be living towards death as consciously as you can. This is perhaps the mentality of exile, poverty, fragility, life’s glorious colour.
In turn if you could show me how you can explore your erotic encounters without suffering that would help me enormously!
xxxp
Amanda and Carrie. Great replies. Thank you both.
this pc does weird things a mind of its own – sorry
What is pluto in virgo is the worry of not making it, myself or others. Having not done enough.
This is perhaps off the wall but it was very helpful to me yesterday – like going through the eye of a needle. I don’t know why worshipping a mountain would bring you to darkness. Perhaps worshipping anything is like an addiction. But I don’t know. An elephant in an indian poem is surely a vehicle for a maharajah. Or the experience of being on an elephant is prestigious and/or grand scale.
The young woman sounds rebellious. She doesn’t want to ride on a donkey. Yet a king rode on a young jackass once when regulus was in virgo.
Then walking is the universal mode of transport. Lowest common denominator? Depends on the viewing point perhaps. I thought about bulls and virgins vaulting onto them.
I thought about the cellist playing Albinoni. And reconstructing life/hope. I thought maybe polyamory brings kind sex into play in general and if that is so perhaps it is not a bad thing if you are looking for sex. Instead of social chaos, can more sex be the echo and first step back to hope and life? I don’t know.
I thought about how my expectations/needs are lower. That I am glad merely to come across kindness. Am I so hurt I can’t deal with more at this time. Or is kindness enough often on its own. I thought of a dream I once had of seeing a white bull. I have experienced black bulls in my dreams. I passed it. i wondered if I was supposed to sit on it. I looked at the bull. I thought why would I sit on a bull unless it was a two way thing. One bull tried to kill me (in a dream) just for standing on a table in a crowd to try to get a better look at it. I believed this bull could be kind to the core because he was white. In a certain sense there was nothing to know about him – I knew in detail all the darkness of the two black bulls. I could imagine all the good qualities of this bull from that. I looked again: he looked perfectly happy as he was, being rather than waiting I thought. I was content with that. Is that bad or good.
Why can she not go home. I for one don’t see any reason. As a reader I don’t feel too right! she can’t go home! Let her go home if she wants.
I am content to walk.
Yes, Carrie. I agree; both sides are valid.
I want to go even further and ask a question. Is not everything valid between consenting adults?
What if I was in a monogamous marriage for many years, and naturally evolved into someone who wanted a wider range of friendships? And that some of those friendships were sexually charged? And I wanted to explore those relationships; but in a limited way because my main consideration and love was for the marriage. And my husband and I had discussed this growing need to explore the erotic aspect of some of these relationships…and he did not want to know about them and did not consider the situation a deal-breaker.
That’s not monogamy, and not poly either. Is it a marriage that evolved, grew, became strong enough that my husband was not jealous nor threatened by the need of his wife to safely and soundly explore a part of her that had changed over the years?
So, Carrie. Would this be a way you would consider going…or not. And why?
And Pam. What would your feelings be about a situation like this one? And why?
I am so very curious what your answers would be…
Amanda,
I agree with the part about poly people wanting to be accepted but I have seen a tendency that often acompanies a group of people being maligned; the tendency (not in Maria’s writing but elsewhere) to imply that monogamy is somehow inferior, based on lies, based on self denial and so on. In other words, stereotypes lobbied at poly folks (they all just want more sex, they don’t care about other people’s feelings, they are selfish, they don’t think of their kids or family’s feelings, blah-blah-blah) are similar to the ones being lobbied at monogamous folks, (monogamy is rooted in self denial, is full of lies and game-playing, promotes cheating, blah-blah-blah). Both sides need to cut the crap and start validating each other.
I am monogamous by choice despite the fact that I like sex with multiple partners. I just don’t want to deal with all the hassles of communicating and working on that many relationships so I am not poly. I am the stereotype most anti-poly folks are talking about; I like the idea of having more sex with more people but don’t want to have to deal with the relationship part. Hence I am NOT poly because being so would require me to make relating important. I like the security of only having to deal with ONE person’s baggage, issues, demands, hang-ups and so on. So I give up having multiple sexual partners because I just don’t want all that relating.
If only more people like me would step up and talk about the fact that we don’t want to be poly BECAUSE being so requires us to do the relationship stuff, perhaps the misinformation would stop. And also if more monogamous people like me would step up and tell how our relationships are NOT based on self denial, games and dishonesty (my mate knows how I feel about multiple sex partners and relating and he feels THE SAME), then monogamy would also not be so maligned.
Both sides are valid. BOTH.
wow… so many assumptions popping up in this comment thread, i don’t have time to address them all. but: from what i have seen, most of the active, relatively “out” people in the poly scene tend to be over 40, and many over 50 or 60. definitely not a bunch of 20-somethings “coming into their own” nor older women “servicing” others. what i’ve seen are mostly people in various forms of committed, loving relationship to more than one person at a time. there are easier ways just to “get more sex” than trying to coordinate multiple intimate, communicative relationships in which everyone is striving to be honest.
“Who are you called to be, what is your note.”
exactly — i think this is what most people involved in a poly life are doing, or feeling out. i’m not sure there is a “poly argument” — most people aren’t trying to persuade everyone to “turn poly,” so much as they’re looking for the freedom to live their loving truth in peace, and wish others to know that there are many ways to love and to relate. and that there is community and support for “non-traditional” choices.
PPS I feel I should clarify so you know where I’m coming from. if you read Illyrian Spring by Ann Bridge that has been my experience. I cannot say that I am beautiful as she was, but the mood and conclusion are the same I came to when I was working out these things. The poly way may be valid, but let’s make sure that it is an expression of honesty (as I think yours is Maria, tho my heart is with your husband!) rather than honesty being within poly
xxxp
well that sent itself unfinished. perhaps here is not the place for other views, but marriage in its conventional form – a vehicle for men and inheritance and guarding the succession aren’t enlightened either. Not necessarily coupling that is bad just the format. Even there?
xxxp
apropos of neptune and being honest au fond. This is my honesty. Maria I love your honesty, you may not believe it reading what I write but I recognise your honesty.
I think honesty and honest meeting come from you, it’s not a poly thing. Someone once said to me that we are each 100 percent repsonsible for our relationships. Shocking or encouraging but true. Each meeting you have can be that honest, whether you are buying a paper or whatever. It comes from you.
You can argue from nature about horses or antelope or chickens or swans for different types of mating groups, but the real question is where does the buck stop, and is it ok to use people as long as everyone has a good time. Is poly living just a way to have more legitimate sex. Are you being ‘loving’/honest to have more sex: cos that’s manipulation. Finding out about your sexuality by doing it, and honest with your partners – chapeau to you.
There are two things I haven’t managed to reconcile. One is on the wiki page for the kala chakra ceremony, it speaks about orgasmic union as the final element of the ceremony. And the dalai lama comments that he would hesitate to go that far, he is not sure he could guarantee to be completely without self interest. Maybe that is not a reason not to try but it is something to think about – is it just relevant to him, do you ha.
And the other is that civilisations in decay have social mores that are breaking down and more sexual licence. Then there is being cut off from growing our own food and so from nature, and having time on our hands to think up what needs we have or make sex banal and extra curricular. I bet the women in the poly movement are mostly young enough that they are still coming into their own. Perhaps older and providing a service. Perhaps liberated sexually. perhaps. (I think mostly women express themselves differently the older they are. Nothing is forbidden, nothing ever is, but there are various considerations to the lucid mind that bear reflecting on, more important things mostly to put this energy towards – definitely not codependence. Yes to respect, yes to value. Love is not without value. It usually has a work to do that works on both of you).
Other things occur to me: the Lord Aragorn and the enemy feeling fouler even if they looked prettier. The Lord Aragorn wasn’t poly. Why? He had something important with the woman he loved. Something that called forth the best in him. Demanded it. Their lives depended on it. The lives of others also.
How is polyamory not gross self indulgence dressed up with pretty words. What about if swan energy is the energy that is called for in this astro climate as one contributor suggested.
What about AIDs (yes yes I have pluto in virgo, no I haven’t had safe sex since 89: because I like to be close and personal. Would I have free sex if there was no threat of disease? No because I like to be close and personal and I happen not to buy the its ok to use people as long as everyone has a good time. I like to be hungry also. If I’m honest with myself there are very few people I can honestly have sex with( if I am honest), and part of it is that I am free: I am free. And I freely choose to consider other people and their needs as objectively as I can. Did anyone die from not having sex. Isn’t education (I just typed zen by mistake) more important than having more sex. Are you saying that if you don’t have sex 3 times a week or on call you are going to be violent? In that case isn’t working on your issues with violence or anger the way to go rather than having more sex.
Get an alotment, read the cellist of sarajevo (yes a slight book but it says something about choice ), listen to HHDL, brush off your self respect and curiosity and care for others. Find things which speak to you. Ask yourself what you value enough to be inspired by – talking about ‘the one’ is just as miguided as the poly argument in my view: what is the greatest grandest expression of your life. Who are you called to be, what is your note. And I’m pretty sure it isn’t servicing multiple people and their and your sex drive.
Is it poly? Is it?
I read Alan’s address and thought it was honest enough, his post here more fulsome.
We aren’t looking for the lowest common denominator, nor to ‘get by’ or spread ourselves around, we need to grow.
Sorry if this offends
Talking about vesta – talk about trafficking, how do we address that.
A friend sent me this today – I don’t know if it speaks for or against me but it speaks – perhaps it holds the poly view and the non poly one too:
Why Mira Can’t Come Back to Her Old House
Mirabai, Mirabai poetry, Yoga / Hindu, Yoga / Hindu poetry, Vaishnava (Krishna/Rama) poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry, poetry by Mirabai
(1498 – 1565?)
English version by
Robert Bly
The colors of the Dark One have penetrated Mira’s body; all the other colors washed out.
Making love with the Dark One and eating little, those are my pearls and my carnelians.
Meditation beads and the forehead streak, those are my scarves and my rings.
That’s enough feminine wiles for me. My teacher taught me this.
Approve me or disapprove me: I praise the Mountain Energy night and day.
I take the path that ecstatic human beings have taken for centuries.
I don’t steal money, I don’t hit anyone. What will you charge me with?
I have felt the swaying of the elephant’s shoulders; and now you want me to climb on a jackass? Try to be serious.
Yes, yes, hit that link and read that!!! Says what I’m trying to much more clearly. Olympian communication skills and ability to amuse ourselves w/o Stuff are survival skills, not optional frills.
(And I always warn people I’m invisible, but they don’t believe it until they don’t see it.)
Hi Maria. I’m so sorry we didn’t recognize each other in person at Poly Living. I had no idea you were there.
I got my keynote talk up online at last:
http://polyinthemedia.blogspot.com/2012/02/my-keynote-speech-at-poly-living-2012.html
Do we know how revolutionary we are? Well that’s kinda the point of the talk. I think.
Hugs in abstentia,
Alan M.