Too Antsy to Blog!

Okay, I admit it, this 40 day Lenten commitment to Break the Silence every day is getting to me some.

It's going to be a beautiful spring day. I don't want to go to work. I don't want to blog.

I seem to have hurt my shoulder. It's been in spasm since early this morning. Maybe it's trying to tell me something.

At the same time, I'm still high as a kite from the darshan of the guru a couple of weeks ago – I kid you not.

Inside I feel completely different. I don't know what happened and yet I kind of do. I got to touch and be touched by complete serenity and love. It's like the center of the universe came by to say "hello" and left bliss with me . .  which is interesting in several ways.

Now, I can not only find that bliss, but It's been this way ever since darshan. It's still with me.

I know how gushy this sounds and I really don't care. Some people will understand and some won't. That's been the case all of my life.

But if this blog is really about my gratitude for incest and who I am because of it, I have to tell it all and this is the most sustained bliss I've ever had.

I'm tempted to talk astrology here, too, partly because I just received a blessing from a world-famous astrologer whom I love very much, but also because it's part of how I language my world. I think I'm beginning to understand some things that have eluded me my entire life.

On the other hand (a pun for those who know astrologers), most people don't speak astrology and this will bore you.

Whatever…

My moon is in Leo and that's part of the gift. I get to be emotionally center-stage and I love it there.

The astrological thing that is fascinating me most right now is my Sun conjunct the Galactic Core and transiting Pluto conjunct *that* right now, in the sky. Hell, in my heart.

I've been getting horoscopes telling me things like:  missing pieces will show up, what I've been missing in order to make something important to me work out will be provided, that sort of thing. At first, I had no clue. Now I think I'm beginning to get what they meant.

Maybe this very internal, very blissful, very connected sense of self is what was missing.

Maybe blogging with you helped me to touch that.

Maybe I'll feel this way tomorrow and maybe I won't. And it doesn't matter one iota. I've spent my entire life looking for ways to be closer to where I am right now (and beyond, because I'm not done yet, either). Maybe it's coming together.

I never know. Neptune is conjunct my natal Venus and that inclines me toward a fair amount of self-deception in matters creative, matters of the heart, and oh yes, matters of money. It's distracting not to have my money flow in order.

On the other hand, I've also been the kind of person who looks like she's never going to get it, never going to figure it out when it comes to physical skills, including money, but when I finally do, I go whizzing past what anyone ever expected was possible.

Neptune is the dissolver as well as the deceiver.

It took me forever (literally, years) to wrest that out of one of my astrologer friends who runs a magazine. She just had nothing positive to say about it. She's a Taurus and, as usual, she kept wanting me to "get grounded" and "be practical" and "realistic" whatever-the-hell-that-means.

I mean, what is real?

"Reality is kinder than our thinking – but only always." according to Byron Katie.

She's right. That's real.

Well, I seem to have blogged. Once I got over what I can and cannot talk about here and really let go and said what was on my heart and my mind, took the risk and let you in, this is what I got.

I don't need to "get grounded" or "get real." What I do need (did need) is a container and a structure. I lived on my Saturn midheaven line (look up astrocartography and Jim Lewis) for just 3 months this year. I picked up an in-body understanding of structure that I have never had before. I'm still integrating it.

This blog is one of my containers. The daily 40-day blog commitment is a structure.

See you tomorrow?

Love, Ann

Where’s the Sex?

Ralph, my Rolfer, says he is reading my blog now. He read the post a week or so ago where I said I was going to talk about sex. He said he kept reading because he was looking for the sexy parts.

I had to smile when he told me that.

It's funny. I can talk about all kinds of sex stuff, but that's not really what this is about. I am happy to answer questions and comments when there are some. I posted this link to a couple of Craig's List discussion forums today: spirituality, psychology and kink. It seemed like people interested in gratitude and healing would be reading that maybe.

I also emailed all my friends and asked them to send my link to email lists they are on.

Where's the sex?

Well, I don't just gratuitously talk about sex very much. I used to. I'd throw sex into every conversation I had. I still do it playfully sometimes, but not as much. So, if you want me to talk about sex, you're going to have to ask me, in the Comments, about sex.

There is a link below every post that says "Comment."

Click and ask. Your name will be posted. Feel free to disguise your identity if you want. I know this may be a place where some people don't want to be seen with me.

Love, Ann

Body Maintenance

Someone asked me about the idea of taking care of ourselves and avoiding re-abusing ourselves and our bodies.

Good question!

I still have some bodily neglect and self-abuse to heal. It's true. But a lot of the less than loving behaviors of the past are ancient history.

I admit this is the area where I can really move past the past a lot more. At the same time, I'm thrilled that my fears and reactions moved me to find more fun, health and healing in my body. When I break through and find something that really works, I totally get off on it.

I get blissed out on the following things:

Breathing
Sex
Meditation
Wind in cottonwood trees
Rushing streams
Conversation
Gazing into someone's eyes
Chiropractic adjustments (Flow Chiropractic)
Chanting
Darshan (blessing of the teacher)
Movies
Presence with one or more people
The Work of Byron Katie

Up until 1985, I was, like many of my cohorts, drinking, sexing and taking drugs to excess. When I found out that I could get higher by breathing, I stopped all drugs except coffee and mostly stopped drinking. I didn't need it anymore at all.

An addiction
is anything we
habitually and compulsively
try
to substitute for God in our lives.

- Ann O'Johnson

Anything we use in place of God is likely to hurt, or at least not help, until we have our focus on God. Once we focus on the Source beyond the "thing" anything can take us closer to God. In fact, everything does.

God.  Yes. That's what I said.

That's a charged word for a lot of people.

Play with it for yourself. I like the word. But you can say anything you like in place of God.

Try Truth, Source, Universe, Spirit, Goddess, Helmann's Mayonnaise… anything will do.

I was so unconscious of my body for so long. I still am to some degree. I couldn't feel it much until 1985, and when I did there were all these painful emotions and cramped tendons and muscles to deal with. So I ate, drank and stuffed it. I cried a lot, too. I still do that, but it's different now. I used to wallow. Now it's more of a release.

I now consider drugs, alcohol, even coffee and foods I'm allergic to as forms of self-abuse. I notice when I am avoiding something by eating sugar or drinking coffee. Or by eating "comfort foods." Really. When did I ever really feel "comforted" by a food? I just feel full.

Oh, sure, sometimes a cup of hot tea or a grilled cheese sandwich can feel good. But there's a limit to how much of this I can do before it is self-abusive. So, I limit it.

Once I found breathwork I learned a new way to feel in my body that was fun and enjoyable. It literally gets you high to breathe that way. 

Breathing. Yes. Just that.

I liked it because I could just lay down and breathe. I didn't have to do jumping jacks or run or swim or any of those things that scared me so much.

I have experienced such profound peace and bliss. I don't have words for this. It's something you have to experience for yourself. There are so many ways to get there. This is the mystical experience. This is the peace of God. This is what I live for.

We used to think there were only 2 responses to a threat: fight or flight.

Wrong. We can also freeze. 

That's what I did. I froze. Almost completely. I couldn't move well. Walking hurt. Riding a bicycle hurt. Swimming hurt. Roller skating hurt. I suspect that somewhere in my body is an intense desire to run… to run away.

And of course, since from the time I was little I never really moved and exercised, I got winded easily (that I still do), put on weight, and lost the flexibility a child should have in motion. I was both act repressed and act supressed. In other words, messages from both inside and outside told me to sit still, don't run, freeze.

Yoga, dancing and sex are the only forms of exercise I've ever done very much for very long. I've played with Qi Gong, Aikido, walking and a few other things, but never for very long or very regularly.

I must be feeling an impetus toward more of this lately. It's been on my mind and in my blog. Sometimes I have visions of running or moving more fluidly in my body. I've been getting Rolfed. (Look it up.)

I've been starting to run my beliefs about my body and movement through the 4 questions: Is it true? Can I absolutely know that it's true? How do I react when I believe that thought? Who would I be without that story? Turn it around.

I'll keep you posted on the results.

Love, Ann

"Health is a result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly."

A Course in Miracles

"To empathize does not mean to join in suffering, for that is what you must refuse to understand." 

A Course in Miracles

Text, Chapter 16, 1st sentence, Page 330

Bodies & A Course in Miracles & Gurus

A Course in Miracles says:

"I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me."

That's one of the things I like about A Course in Miracles, it kinda gets me where I live. It talks about everything I do and think about in the most healing ways. I heard about A Course in Miracles from the rebirthers I was working with in 1985. One day I was in Constellations, a metaphysical bookstore, and I saw the 3 blue hardcover books with gold lettering on a shelf. As I reached for them, energy shot up my spine. It felt wonderful. I knew the books were going home with me. They were $40 and only available in hardcover. It seemed like a lot of money at the time, although they were actually fairly reasonably priced. I don't think they ever sold for more than that amount for years.

Lesson 1 - Nothing I see means anything.

Lesson 2 – I have given everything I see all meaning it has for me.

Lesson 3 – I do not understand anything I see.

Lesson 4 – These thoughts do not mean anything.

Lesson 5 – I am never upset for the reason I think.

Lesson 6 – I am upset because I see something that is not there.

 It goes on like that for 365 of the kindest lessons I have ever read. It basically says, "relax." It says I haven't done anything wrong, nor has anyone else. That includes my father. It never glosses over how powerless or angry or sad I might feel sometimes. It addresses that full on and tells me that I can live in the cruelty and misunderstanding for as long as I choose. But it makes it very clear that it is a choice and that I can and will choose again. Peace is inevitable, eventually.

I have been noticing the choice lately in what I choose to eat, how I choose to move, (okay, whether I choose to move), and generally in all my choices about my body. I have some fear about how flexible or comfortable it can be in here. It feels like it will take some work to be comfortable in my body. But when I think about it another way, it's easier to do the things that make me comfortable here. Holding the tensions and less-than-constructive habits is really more work.

I found a quote while I was paging through that is like the one from Katie that I used yesterday:

To empathsize does not mean to join in suffering,

for that is what you must refuse to understand.

A Course in Miracles

Text, Chapter 16, 1st sentence, pg 330

At the same time, when I think I'm in pain, I just need to be there. It doesn't help to pretend I'm not. That actually makes it seem more real than it is. When I experience it, it falls away by itself.

Bodies.

There's another place where ACIM says that bodies cannot join, only minds can join.

But that's another story for another day.

Or maybe not. I seem to have some time left before my ride to work gets here.

I/we/you (multiple choice pronouns) try every day to use our bodies to connect with other people. We hug, we kiss, we touch, make love, dance, look at each other. Nothing does it.

"Only minds can join" was made very real for me about 3 weeks ago when I met Shakti. I had never met this man before in my life. We had exchanged a couple of emails. That's all. Then he called me. I felt more connected to him than I do to . . . I don't know. . . my mother. . . any husband I've ever had, any lover. And all we were doing was talking and sitting in silence on the phone.

Part of me tries to give him all the credit for this, and it's true that he is a naturally gifted healer. That's just who he is. He's young, and maybe by some standards he connects indiscriminately, sure. But he connects. You've got to give him that. There is no doubt. Ever since, I can feel him the way I've only felt husbands and lovers and maybe a teacher before.

I seriously doubt our bodies will ever connect more than to hug. Really, there's no point. We're already so connected.

When I broke up with Lee a couple of years ago, I said that the only way sex could get any better would be to have the spiritual/emotional connection. Physically, he was everything I had ever desired and then some.

On top of that, he liked everything I liked. Not like the male-to-female submissive crossdressers. Sure, I get turned on by whatever turns on the other person. That's easy. But for someone to be turned on by what turns me on? That had never happened before.

And now, here is this boy who can connect energetically and emotionally before I've ever even met his physical body!

I don't know. Maybe the Universe is trying to tell me something.

I still long for a body, a man to connect with in both ways, all ways, always.

In the meantime, I'm learning a lot about energetic connections and permissions and being aware in that space with another. (Thank you, Shakti.)

Then… a guru visited our town last week.

I've enjoyed darshan with a few different enlightened persons, and every one is different. This One, well, I don't know how to talk about it. I have tried. It doesn't come out right.

I thought I was connected to Shakti? This guru was amazing. I was there for hours with my friend and roommate, Jared. We sang, we laughed, we cried. And then it was time to go before the guru for blessing.

I've never been looked at… looked into… or touched that way before. I wanted to run and I wanted it never to end.

He held my head and placed his finger, with sandalwood paste, on my 3rd eye. He held it there forever. I felt so much. I'm still feeling it. I want to always feel it.

When I looked into his eyes, I felt Presence.

My body is just how I got there. He was so connected and his connection allowed me to go deeper. I've seen a couple of the female gurus, too. The experience was also very high, very connected. Maybe I'm more open than I was the last time I did that, about 5 years ago in Santa Fe with Ammachi. Her love was motherly.

This teacher is 28.

That was hard to believe. Age had nothing to do with anything he was. He ….

It's time to stop writing for now.

I am almost reliving the experience as I write. It was awesome.

Am I rambling? Maybe so. But that's what this blog is for.

See you tomorrow?

Love, Ann

Suffering is Optional

In 1985, my life changed.

I went into counseling for the anger and grief over the incest that I was still feeling at that time. There had never been any place for these feelings. I ate, drank and drugged it away because I didn’t know what else to do with it. Even though I was out of my father’s house nearly 10 years by then, I was still following the rule of silence, the rule I am breaking now in the most public way I have ever done.

So, instead of talking through and feeling through whatever was seemingly causing me pain, I lashed out at those around me. I cried a lot.

In 1985 I was referred to a counseling center in the gay part of town by my cooking teacher, who knew about the violent relationship I was in. Mary never hit me, but she did punch a hole in the bedroom wall. Just like my father, for all I knew, I was next. I was frightened of her, but I loved her, and I didn’t know what to do. She was, and is, an alcoholic. I still love her, but I figured out quickly that I could no longer live with her, no longer put myself in that situation . . . with her or anyone else.

My counselor, Mallory, referred me to a group of people doing Rebirthing Breathwork (another form of this is called Vivation). I loved it. It was the beginning of a whole new phase for me. Finally, I was around people who were as philosophical as I was, who were learning a way to really experience the truth, beauty and love we knew was possible, but hadn’t been able to find in our seemingly tortured lives.

We said, “Suffering is optional.” and we meant it.

When we go into the pain, sit with it, breathe through it, it either dissipates or it becomes okay with us. It’s an amazing thing. We learned the 5 Element method taught by Phil Laut (and Jim Leonard). It’s still out there. You can find it on www.vivation.com.

Suffering really is optional.

I was re-reading Byron Katie’s Loving What Is this weekend, and there in 16 point type, all alone on the page is this sentence:

You move totally away

from reality

when you believe that there is

a legitimate reason

to suffer.

It’s right before the Questions and Answers page. Right there, in black and white.

How do I explain that to you in a blog? I don’t know. I can only do as we do in 12 Step Groups. I can share my experience, strength and hope. Maybe you’ll find yours. I don’t know.

A Course in Miracles spends 1200 pages explaining and retraining us to understand that suffering is optional. One of the lessons is “There is nothing to fear.” It’s in the Workbook, look it up, www.acim.org.

Katie’s 4 questions and turn around sum it up, too.

How do I do that?

Mother still gets annoyed when I quote others. It isn’t her way. I don’t have a problem with it. Fabulous speakers across the globe do it. But I do hear her fear or concern that I might not tell it in my own words and it might be harder to hear in some ways. I sit with that.

Jesus used parables. Katie asks questions. A Course in Miracles gives 365 meditations. What can I do?

It’s time to go to work to pay the bills.

I’ll see you tomorrow?

Sex, Dancing & Deep Conversation

Those are the 3 things I've always known can keep this Morning Person (TM) up until way past her bedtime, especially when I'm with a gorgeous man with long hair, piercing eyes and a melodious deep voice.

It's 9 in the morning just now, but I've pulled out a kirtan CD that was sent to me by a friend in California. It's called "Enchanted" by Scott Medina. Some of his kirtans are quiet, but intense. The one I've been playing on repeat and dancing to for the past hour and for an hour before that while I soaked in a hot bathtub is Durga Ma. He really moves me with that one. I could listen to it all day, and might. It's been 2 hours so far.

Somehow, though, I've never really developed the dance part of this late night trio. Partly becase that is usually a late night thing and I just love my mornings so much that it's hard to stay up for dancing till midnight. I haven't really had a partner in years. Really, I haven't even dated anyone who danced at all. None of my husbands did, either. Remind me of that if I say I'm thinking of marrying someone, ok?

So, everything that most people channel into various active pursuits like biking, hiking, skiing, diving, whatever it is you more active people do, got channeled almost exclusively into sex for me. Except for a few years in my teens and early 20's, I have barely danced at all.

Oh, that's not totally true, either, now that I think about it. I love Dances of Universal Peace. I get to sing. I get to dance. It's spiritual. And the dances are short enough that they don't wear me out. I haven't been getting to those very much in the past year, but I love it every time I do.

Now that it's getting to be spring, I'm likely to do more of that. Maybe this week. I've got to move my body more. It doesn't seem to matter how, just as long as I do. I've noticed that just a little . . . well, that's not totally true. I don't ever do just a little. And it needs to be really intense to move me to move, usually.

Like Tina Turner said, "We nevah evah do nothin' nice … and easy. We always do it nice… and rough." I'm that way with well, lots of things. Dancing is one of them, but my body just doesn't sustain it.

More music. More dancing. This blog is working for conversation to some degree, but I do long for a companion who's into this stuff with me.

So.

Remember how I said I do the "freeze" response of the fight, flight or freeze trilogy? Un-freezing has been a challenge to me. I want to. The desire is there. It comes and goes. But actually doing it after so many years of inactivity is a real challenge. It's a real joy, too, when I get it right.

I chair dance when I chant kirtan. Eventually, I have to get on my feet, though, if it's really moving through me. Then I have to sit down again.

Sex, dancing and deep conversation. I suppose I could qualify all of them with deep. I'm not interested in anything particularly shallow. Even my popcorn reading, like mysteries and sci fi serials have some meaning to them. I am not interested in much else.

The deep conversation part has almost always been covered. I have good friends for that.

I'm dancing in my chair to "Durga Ma." It distracts me a little from the writing. I stop and move for a while staring at the page.

I think I'll get up and dance now.

Ah, Saturday and the Luxury of Blogging at Noon

Most days since my Lenten commitment to “break the silence” every day for 40 days, I blog between 5 am and 6:30 am before I go to work.

I meditate for at least half an hour and then I jump out of bed ready to write. I love it.

I actually jumped out of bed ready to write this morning, too, but I got distracted with my emails and setting up some bill payments and things, and then I had a hot soaky bath with Batherapy minerals. Quite luxurious, really.

Then I got dressed and ready for Audrey to come over for a while. Audrey rides a Harley. I declined a ride on the back. I have things to do and I’m ready to get on with writing.

Now I’m eating a salad with salmon and tomatoes while I blog at the leisurely hour of noon, vaguely considering a cup of coffee at some point. Isn’t this just the life?

Loretta called earlier, too. (Yes, when one is from Arkansas by way of Tennessee, one really has friends named Loretta. It goes with the territory.) I hadn’t heard from her in weeks. She has a new job working at a nursery, so she’s busier than she used to be. I know that feeling!

Oh, don’t worry. I’ll talk about sex some more. Just in case you’re wondering.

It’s just that not everything is about sex.

Oh yes, I can and do make a case that it is.

If you’ve known me for five minutes, you’ve heard me do it. That’s easy. It goes like this: Sex is an expression of the energy that created us (so is breathing.) The Universe is literally pulsing with that same energy and life. Therefore, everything is sexual.

See? If it’s all energy, it’s all sexual. It’s just energy.

Expansion and contraction… that’s sexual. What else is there?

It’s all about sex? Well, it is and it isn’t.

Sometimes it’s all about coffee and croissants.

Oh wait. That’s a sexual experience, too. Maybe I should quit while I’m ahead. (I know!  Head is definitely sexual.)

So, where was I?

Oh yes, sex. I think I’ll close this post and start a new one on that.

Sex After Incest

Like I said yesterday, I cannot cover this subject in one post. But it isn’t the whole blog, either. There’s a lot more than just sex to talk about. Isn’t that great?

I started my sexual explorations very young. A lot of children do, I know. Incest does put ideas in our heads that might not have been there quite so soon or in quite the same way. I have to say that usually I had a great time, and I am totally grateful for all of the sexual explorations that I’ve enjoyed in my life.

Yesterday I said that I responded differently than some people with incest in their history. Some reject sex and sexuality or try to stay within rigidly defined boundaries about it in an effort not to repeat their childhood patterns.

Not me. I went the other way. My rigidly defined boundary was to have no boundaries.

I tried everything. Well, nearly. I know there are lots of things I did not try, but compared to some people it’s going to look like a lot.

It may have had to do with the times. The 60’s and 70’s in the US were the “Sexual Revolution” years. Sex was coming out of the closet after the repression of the 40’s and 50’s, or so it’s been said. It’s just the pendulum swing of this dual world we live in. Notice how it’s trying to go back into the closet lately?

I don’t want this to become a chronology, but I keep wanting to just state some things along a timeline, so here goes:

I remember being sexual with others as early as 11 or 12, which is the time when I thought the incest with Daddy began. The summer I was 12, Andrew and I were making out for our entire lunch hour during Spanish summer school. We came from different schools, so I didn’t see him again until the summer when I was 13. By then, I had “lost my viginity” to a senior in high school who was engaged to someone else. There’s a pattern repeat: being the other woman, something I did do for several years, up until my second marriage.

At that time, I said that “Dynamo Hum” by Frank Zappa was my theme song. The chorus is:

“Dynamo Hum, Dynamo Hum.
Where’s this Dynamo comin’ from?
I done spent 3 hours and I ain’t got a come
From the Dynamo Dynamo Dynamo Hum.”

sings Zappa.

“I got a spot that gets me hot -
And you ain’t been to it.”

Is her response.

Back then, I had little trouble with orgasm from anything but intercourse. Oh, it took a little work and I had to really focus to let go, but I could get there with fingers, tongues and vibrators, but not intercourse. Many women still believe this is just how it is.

It’s not. And it can change. It did.

As far as I know (That’s the way I always talk about this because I remember new information at times), as far as I know, my father never penetrated me from the time I was 11 to 16 when I told my mother what was happening and stopped.

But a couple of years ago, I realized that he penetrated me as an infant. I was in a healing session with my friend, Jake, and suddenly had a “body memory.” It was as if it was happening again. I was in my early 40’s, so you can imagine how surprised I was to be thinking anything of the kind. I knew I did not remember everything. I didn’t remember the first time I went down on Daddy, so there had to be other things I can’t remember. But I never expected to find that anything had started so early.

I called my mother and asked her about it. The first thing she said was, “Well, that would explain why he suddenly stopped changing your diapers.”

My sense of it is that he did not want to be tempted. He had some sense that this was wrong and this was his way of trying to control himself. As far as I know, he never touched me again until I was about 11. As far as I know.

Interestingly, Daddy was always saying, “Now, if you ever think there’s anything wrong with this, tell me and I will stop.”

Looking back, I find that rather foolish. How is an 11 year old child going to know what is right and wrong? And isn’t it her father and mother who are supposed to be teaching her right and wrong? Hmm?

Well, whatever. That is what happened, as best I can remember it now.

When I was 16, my mother took a vacation for 2 weeks to visit a friend back in Tennessee. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was thinking of leaving my father after 16 years of marriage.

When she came home, I met her at the door and said, “I cannot live in this house another day with that man.” She asked what was wrong and we agreed to talk about it later that night after the other 3 children (all younger than myself) had gone to bed.

That night I told her that I had been going down on her husband since I was about 11.

The first words out of her mouth, bless her, were, “How can I support you?” I said, “Let me move out.”

I was 16. I was a straight A student (except for PE) I could finish high school by December. I would be 17 by the time I moved out in January. I moved into a home my mother and father owned. I got my then-boyfriend to move in with me. I didn’t want to be alone in a house my father owned and probably had a key to. I was scared.

Daddy never hit me that I recall, but he did become violent at times, mostly throwing food and raging verbally. He was very graphically violent in his threats. I remember he threatened to “cut us up in little pieces and hang us on the clothes line if we didn’t behave.” Scary enough without ever hitting us.

My writing time for today is up. 

You may wonder how I can still say I’m grateful?

Just keep reading. I am.

Remember when I referred to Victor Frankl in one of my first posts? It’s like that.

When nothing around me seems safe, I can find safety inside that is way beyond anything the world can offer.

I have. I’m not always in touch with it, but I know where to find it. And not just safety, either, but a sense of profound bliss and joy at being alive, no matter what circumstances around me seem to be. And thank God for those circumstances. Because through them, I found this . . . inner peace.

Keep reading.

Sex: Beyond Victim & Perpetrator Behavior

I’ll bet you wondered when I’d get to that.

I was talking to my friend, Kurt, on the phone last night and realized that I haven’t talked about sex here at all.

It is one of the areas where I’ve got the most to be grateful for. But not everyone is going to understand that. And more importantly, not everyone responds to incest the way I did.

Probably a lot of you know that anyone who has been “victimized” in any way may be inclined to repeat the behavior either as the “victim” again or as the “perpetrator.” In “Firefly” by Joss Whedon . . . long may he live! . . . there is a class of characters called “Reavers.”

SPOILER FOR FIREFLY & MOVIE SERENITY

This is a spoiler, so if you want to read past this, it’s fine, I’ll make the point another way in the next paragraph. Skip the next paragraph. Begin reading after the all caps “end of spoiler” line.

“Reavers” are actually human, not an alien race as some believe. They’ve been tortured and experimented on by the Alliance and turned into madmen who imitate the behaviors of their perpetrators. In one episode, we see a ship where the Reavers have been. There is one “survivor” left. He saw his crewmates tortured, killed and cannibalized. So, in his effort to survive, he becomes like the Reavers. He starts attacking others.

END SPOILER

This is how most of our perpetrators got started. I would say, theoretically, that most of them were incested or abused as children and they are repeating what they know. This is very likely true of my own father. He was abandoned by his mother to a foster home around the age or 3 or 4. He was adopted into a family by the age of 5. He had a biological sister who was in the foster homes with him and who was adopted with him. Both of their names were changed… their first names, too.

So, what does this have to do with sex?

Well, on the theory that my father was sexually abused in the foster home, and I may never know this for sure, I suspect that he formed his beliefs about what was acceptable sexual behavior with a child from his own experiences.

Daddy was always saying to me, “I don’t see why you have to love just one person.”

I know people like that. I used to follow that idea myself. By the time I was a teenager, “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein was very popular. The “free love” of the 60’s was being practiced all around me as I formed my own sexual choices. And, of course, I was going down on my father.

I needed a way to figure it all out, make it make sense and make it okay. Now, I’m not going to say there is anything wrong with any of this. Not at all. My choices have changed since then, a lot, but I have absolutely no problem with where I’ve been nor do I have any problem with others who still choose polyamory and other alternative forms of relationship. I’ve tried most of them myself. They just didn’t work for me.

Sex. I was going to talk about sex here today.

This is the background in which I formed my sexual self.

I didn’t want to be a victim and I didn’t want to be a perpetrator. So, I tried to find a way to go beyond that.

Instead of cheating, as my parents did, I loved more than one person at a time in polyamorous relationships. Yes, I cheated when I was younger. I was still lying to myself, still trying to work it all out.

I did have one polyamorous relationship that started when I was 13 years old and lasted until I was about 19. With Andrew I could be upfront and honest about the fact that I was having sex with other boys. He was seeing other girls. It didn’t matter to either of us. We just wanted to share our sexual explorations. What we did when we were not together didn’t matter much at that time. I’m actually pretty proud of that one. We did okay. I don’t know where he is today or I’d call and thank him.

Later I defined my polyamory as “upfront honest in-advance communication about who I’m seeing and having intimate relationships with.” The in-advance part was important. I hate surprises, so I didn’t want to surprise others or be surprised.

Not bad when you’re trying to get beyond the lying and cheating to find a way to be neither a victim nor a perpetrator. It almost worked some of the time for me. But not really. I was still using sex and relationships in addicted ways.

My definition of an addiction is “anything we habitually and compulsively try to substitute for God in our lives.” (You can say Source or Universe or whatever term you’re comfortable with.) I came up with that definition sometime in the 80’s as I was finally getting into counseling for the incest and anger I was feeling about it.

Obviously, I won’t be able to say everything I have to say about my sexual explorations in one blog entry.

Tomorrow, if the Spirit moves me, I may talk about power exchange in intimate relationships. I explored BDSM, (bondage, domination, submission, sado-masochism) as part of my healing about power in relationships.

Or maybe I’ll talk about transgenderism. That’s not something I do, but I’ve had long term relationships with men who crossdress. It was another place where I wanted to go beyond duality and the male-female duality is one of the most obvious and basic dualities of being in a physical body.

My point is that I’ve “looked at love from both sides now” in many ways. Victim/perpetrator, Dom/sub, male/female.

It’s all part of the path to … well, that’s not really true. I don’t know that there is any “goal” here. It’s just what I did.

I do feel more whole. I do prefer the times and the ways in which I can be in a place that is neither black nor white, that place where “spontaneous right action” just arises, naturally, without the ping ponging of duality.

And that’s why I’m writing this to you. It’s for my own awareness and yours, if you want it. I’m getting a lot out of it.

“If you want to stop a thought, write it down.”

- Byron Katie

Love, Ann

Cruci-Fiction

Last night I listened to Marianne Williamson’s lecture, “Truth Cannot Be Made a Lie” for the umpteenth time. I love her lectures. (Find them at www.hayhouse.com)

Apparently, the week before this lecture, she talked about the crucifixion… cruci-fiction? Hmm. Never thought of the word that way. I just mistyped it and noticed that. Now, before you start getting all offended, read on.

Marianne does a good job of discussing the difference between someone who misuses mysticism and metaphysics by saying “It’s not real. Just get off it.” and someone who realizes that this world, as we have created it, is cruel and dangerous.

It is. No argument.

What Marianne Williamson, Byron Katie, myself and many others do argue with is whether or not we are helpless victims of this world. We’re not.

Marianne’s text for the lecture was Lesson 31, “I am not the victim of the world I see.” This is like Byron Katie’s statement, “No story. No world.”

The minute we stop lying to ourselves about the world we see, we are free. I mean immediately. We cannot go back to believing the lies. Ever.

Katie lives in the California desert. She tells how she was once taking a walk and saw a snake coiled near her. She was petrified. Then she looked a little closer. It was not a snake at all! It was a rope! She fell down laughing. She just couldn’t stop laughing. There was no way she could look at that rope again and think it was a snake. And every time she thought about it, she started laughing again.

Laughter happens when we integrate a paradox, when we operate from the whole instead of duality, the circle of the yin-yang symbol, not the black & white.

Once we know the truth, the lie has no power over us.

We’ve all talked to people who “yes, but” everything. In our good intentions, we try to show them how things are better than they think they are or how their story about things just doesn’t hold water. They continue to whine and complain and we just have to give up. A Course in Miracles says, “Illusions are as powerful in their effects as is the truth.”

They are. Until they’re not.

Marianne was saying that the crucifixion has effects for 3 days. Then we rise again. It’s limited in its effects.

When we say “yeah, but,” she says we are denying the Christ. She’s right. We are denying the power of the truth and preferring our illusions. We have that choice. That’s free will misused. We can suffer over nothing for as long as we wish. And while we are suffering, it’s not “nothing.” It is very real to us. There’s no point in someone trying to knock us out of that when we’re entrenched.

That’s a time for compassion. We all know what it’s like to be entrenched in our pain and suffering, to think there is no way out, that nobody loves us, everybody hates us and it’s time to eat worms.

But once we see the truth, lies have no power.

We rise again. The cruci-fiction is over.

I’ll talk about that a lot. Right now I need to go to work. There are bills to be paid.

Blessings, Ann