MY READINGS OF THE POEMS FROM 29 OCT 2012

I made these videos in my dining room so you could hear me read these poems if you want.

This is me reading my poem, AUTUMN WEARS A RED DRESS:

This is me reading Marie Lecrivain's  SHAMANIC DREAMS VIA THE INTERNET AND PROLONGED RNC COVERAGE:

This is TS Eliot's THE MAGI, read my way:

AUTUMN WEARS A RED DRESS

Tonight I went to Chance Operations. I heard two poets and I read three poems.

http://chanceoperationsstl.blogspot.com/

I bought a book by Drucilla Wall, and I already love it!!  The Geese at the Gates!  She invokes the genie locii of every place she visits- a true Shameness!!!!

Also hear a wonderful Frenchman expatriate, Marcel Toussaint.  Loved his poem about the lady driving the red car, and collecting speeding tickets!

The first poem I read was The Magi, by T.S. Eliot.  I gave "quite a different reading of it, than as is usual" and I knew where I was going with it, and "it was very good to hear it new," was the verdict.

And that is good because I love T.S. Eliot a lot, and in a way I cannot describe, short of loving him the way I love the colour green, or Venus shining in the twilight.  And when I read something great I want to be worthy of it, of course.

Moreover, along with all the other spirits- and right now it is every spirit that ever walked the earth!- T.S. Eliot is here and roaming the poeted and poetic haunts of his old home town. So it was wonderful to read some of his poetry so near to his birthplace.

And the poem, The Magi, is fitting for this period in history, when those of us that are shifting into the New Age, are indeed "no longer at ease here, in the old dispensations" and the "alien gods" are being clung to fiercely.

I also read Los Angeles poet, writer, and editor, Marie Lecrivain.  I read her great poem "Manifesto of a Sexy Librarian" last time I was there. Tonight I read one of her latest poems "Shamanic Dreams Via The Internet And Prolonged RNC Coverage".

I also read my own poem.  It takes me a long time to finish a poem.

Edit: This was originally written just after Katrina and dedicated to the annual Red Dress Run in New Orleans (which actually occurs in Spring.) This is a poem that seems born (or bourne) by hurricanes. I finished this and read it on October 29, 2012, as Hurricane Sandy was arriving in New York City.

EDIT EDIT: This poem, however, is NOT about hurricane Katrina or any other hurricane.  It is about both the season of Autumn in nature, Samhain, and also about women's bodies, if nature and the four seasons were the same woman.  
 

AUTUMN WEARS A RED DRESS

Autumn comes gaily clad,

Cooling the skin, but enflaming the eye;

She is the raucous harbinger of

Winter’s silent and unprotesting

Final death; the immodest,

Elderly grey,

Corpse to be concealed

Reverently beneath

Modest, white morgue sheets

Of snow and ice.

Autumn, she comes,

Crying and wailing;

Beating her chest,

Exposing her distress;

She can not be consoled,

Until that tantamont tango,

Naked and whole,

At last.

From the Debutante Spring

That grew like a wallflower;

Danced bare-legged and

Gawky limbed;

Rode her Papa's toes

Like an awkward colt.

Through to Summer ,

A Fine and Generous Lady

Ample bosomed,

Carnal and knowing,

Her skirts full and lush,

Fertile and green;
Her suitors, potent;

Her children, many.

Comes Autumn, then, finally,

Liberated from decorum and duty,

By the windsong echo of

Death-bone rattling drumbeats

Of thanks and praise;

Blessings.

Autumn hosts a feast! A party!

A festive Crescent City Wake,

Held just before the

Last rites will be given.

Autumn dons her gayest dress;

Flaunts her harlot fashions,

Taunting like a Hollywood starlet

The phantom that approaches

To claim her last dance.

Bare legged again,

But veined now, and thinner skinned;

Shedding her accessories

Coyly, one by one,

She boldly leads

Mourners dressed in riotous color;

And Dixieland bands,

Trumpets gleaming, toot sweet,

Through dream-soaked streets,

Announcing

The Year’s last breath.

Dressed in bold finery,

With nothing to celebrate

But certain death,

The Old Year is carried jubilantly

On the shoulders of the parade

To the Midnight of the Seasons.

On this Eve

The pyre is lit;

The uninvited and the dead

Feast with the living;

And the soul of

The unborn New Year

Runs mad with prophecy

And redemption in the streets.

The Old Year's breathe rattles

Like kindling,

And under a sickle moon sky

She lays to rest
Upon the dead wood crackling orange
Against the smokey black night.

And Autumn wears a red dress

To the funeral.

Copyright 2005 and 2012 

EDIT: You can hear me read all three of these: http://laladyrae.blogspot.com/2012/10/my-readings-of-poems-from-29-oct-2012.html 

FULL MOON IN TAURUS 2012

Tonight is the full moon, 2 days til muggle Samhain and 9 days til the day itself. There is a huge storm and plenty of energy for spells and wishes, in fact, maybe it wouldn't hurt for the magickal folk to drain a bit off, because Haiti was hit hard.

This is also a good time to cleanse yourself of all negative emotions: de-FRAG I call it, get rid of fear, resentment, anger, and guilt.

These emotions attract punishment. It is a magnetic attraction. These emotions, or thoughts of "judgement" (when you go over and over an arguement again and again in your head, trying to prove you were right, etc), can often become very powerful and attract predator

s and problems, on your own life.

If you see someone behaving in a way you don't approve, or someone does something to hurt you, or you feel guilty about your own past emotions, stay secluded until you can rid yourself of them (meditation, fasting, intense exercise, laughing at comedies, my new fave kundalini yoga, singing, dancing, etc).

This is not a time in the world right now to be out among other people with negative energy. Focus on the good, and receive the good. Be guided by a good-feeling heart.

So I say to the Lady, who goes into the darkness to shine her light for us all, give us the illumination to really see all the love and healing and prosperity and creativity that surrounds us, and how blessed we are to all walk upon this earth with each other... 

Happy Magickal Full Moon!!!!! 

JESUS WAS A RAPE BABY

I have been trying to write about these rape comments- actually started with Akin-- and haven't been able to finish because it is like the hydra's multiplying heads.  These beliefs are very deeply rooted and begin very far back in human society, and intertwine with many other beliefs.  (Rape might be a cornerstone of human civilization up until now.)

 But one thing that really bothers me is the foundation these beliefs create when put together- this platform of
1) an autonomously breathing female body being less important than an egg fertilized by a One and Only God
and,
2) rape being a method that this God may use to fertilise the egg (and indeed, this God, as the Holy Spirit, raped a Virgin, and moreover, if Jesus is God in flesh, actually raped his own mother).

 So what is next? Rape for Jesus? Give Jehovah a chance to make some more souls?

And, please,  non-insane Christians, I am not talking about your or your Jesus.  I am giving these right wing Neo-Cons their own logic back at them.  I LOVE Jesus, and I do understand the Immaculate Conception of Mary.  But enough is enough with these people. 

EDIT: 
 Oh, AND Jesus got the death penalty!  You know, now that I think about it, the Jesus story, whether you see him as God or man, really embodied a lot meanings and viewpoints.

Somewhere I was reading someone saying "what is the difference between Jesus and Hercules?" and viewed this way, they are VERY similar-- selfish, Divine fathers raping mortal women, superstrength in the world of men but handicapped in the world of the Gods... etc..

Will Good Christian women be required to thank their rapists for impregnating them with God's seed?  Apparently it doesn't matter if the rapist is Christian, his sperm belongs to God.  I am a witch and my womb still belongs to Jesus.

I wonder if they could get their way, if the age of consent would become when a woman can get pregnant? Even if she was 8, as is the case with girls reaching puberty younger and younger?  

This is a seriously impotent God that these people worship.  He only motivates through punishment.  And the rewards he promises are very vague and limited.

His followers say they feel great joy and God is Great blah blah blah, if only they could change every other single person on earth to conform to their beliefs.  They don't have to proclaim a Christian jihad, it is already inherent.

Everyone but the 144,000 that are written in the Book of Heaven are going to hell, and you'd better rescue a lot of fetuses and do a lot of praying and evangelizing while you are down here if you want to HOPE that you will be on that very short list.

And, no, I am not kidding about that. The Rabbi that figured out the exact Biblical date of Genesis will back me up, as well as many fundamentalist preachers that I have heard personally in my lifetime.  That is somewhere in the Bible.  It has something to do with the 12 tribes of Israel times 12 and then multiplied 10,000 times, or something.

The same people that think that Satan put dinosaur bones here to trick us, or that God has an assembly line soul factory composed of mortal women's wombs, believe this Book of Judgement literally.

144,000.  No wonder they are all so rabid.

Maybe the Christians are engaged in some sort of  pre-Rapture/Armegeddon Gladitorial games to win those spots in Heaven. Like Fight Club, you know, where you don't talk about it to outsiders.

 Goddess, I hope that Rapture comes soon. Right after the re-election of Obama would be nice. By bye Fundies, have fun in Heaven!

HOW I FEEL THESE DAYS

When I read the news these days I feel like this:

NEVER LESS ALONE

You are never less alone than when you die.

Or when something really significant is happening.  Like being in surgery or feeling suicidal or being hurt in anyway, by anyone or anything.

Having been through those things, and having felt so alone-- even when I was functioning as a Medium and psychic!-- I know that many people might disagree with me.

Because in all those situations I felt so lost and alone. Even though at those times I could hear my spirits louder and clearer than anything.

In fact, in one situation my Guides shouted to me so loudly it prevented me from getting killed.  At that time in my life I was actually afraid of this voice in my head, because of the hereditary mental illness in my mother's family.  (I was also living an extremely dangerous lifestyle, as a 13 year old runaway in Orange County California.)

It did not comfort me at all, that this voice was so often correct.  And only in the last few years have I really come to understand just how devoid of emotion even the most urgent message is.  (Higher Love is the source of all emotions, but does not necessarily feel like an emotion.)

My Guides, and other entities living on other planes and dimensions, have told me that it is very difficult generally, to manifest on this plane.  And somewhat draining for them.  We are deep in the depths of what I call "density".  We are in a very matter-dense dimension.

It is reportedly easier for lower astral beings to manifest, meaning Ghosts, but it is difficult for them too, and does require a lot of energy from the human or humans they are interacting with. (A ghost cannot go "bump in the night" without a living person to hear it, basically.)

In fact, the more belief you have, the easier it is for any entity on the spirit plane to manifest. One of the reasons my Guides were so drained in my early experience, is that I was so resistant to them.  They had to work very hard to get through to me. They also projected a very clear picture of my own dead body to me, lying face down in a ditch on the side of the highway as I heard the "NO!"

A true non-believer or skeptic would not feel or hear anything.  The thing is, there are very, very few non-believers.  Since most people do believe that there is something else, even if it is just something that can occur as a realistic hallucination in your mind, ghosts can usually feed off anyone.

A Guide or Angel would not try to consciously reach a true non-believer.  But even people at a very low level of awareness can sense ghosts and lower astral entities.

When I was lying on a surgery table in a hospital I could actually see a lot entities, including lower astral.  (Hospitals are filled with astral stuff, OMG!)  I have only seen my Guides in dreams, and physically their energy is always at my back, behind me.  But I felt them very strongly.

But on that surgery table, so narrow and cold and hard, my feet and knees anchored in stirrups, the room sub-zero, waiting for the anesthesiologist, who had been held up in another surgery, I felt more frightened and alone then ever.

And that is because these experiences that bring up the fear of death, and that are so totally rooted in this dimension and this reality, in who we are as individuals in these particular bodies, can separate us from Source, Divinity, and just our Higher Power and feeling of connectedness generally.

What I wanted was the loving touch of someone living.  Someone to be witness to this experience which left me so completely alone.

Not to alleviate my fear, but just to be present with me as I experienced it.  If I was going to die, I wanted someone to watch me leave, even though I knew that everyone I had ever known, living or dead, would meet me in spirit if I should vacate this body.

Had I been on a higher spiritual awareness at that moment I would have been able to derive that comfort from the nurses and surgeon's assistants, who really did do what they could to reassure me both that I was in no danger and that everyone- even those that were getting elective or routine surgery -felt fearful in that cold, sterile, tomb-like room.

(It is so important, in my opinion, to send people good thoughts when they are going through something difficult or scary, to send them that energy to help them get up there, where they are connecting to people on that higher level and do not feel that  fear, even if they are facing certain death.)

What I wanted was for solid evidence that I was loved and would be missed in this life. 

And non-human and non-living entities can't really do that.

Ghosts are peeking, remembering, and like the living they have their own agenda.  Guides and Angels are there with you, but emotion is really something specific for our human lifetimes.  It does not translate well the higher you go.

(It is an addiction to certain strong emotions about a person or place that often keep spirits in the lower astral.  They don't want to ascend and become complete and whole again.)

And the non-human entities, like certain Guides and Angels, etc, they LOVE, but a higher octave of it than even the highest octave of our experience.

That is why so often the messages and warnings do not reach the person.

The dead, actually, feel very cold to me and many others.  (I believe there is an empirical reason for this: even as spirit energy, for ghosts to form words in a person's mind, or be a soft breeze on their cheek, or ride a white moth around them, and they have to borrow the energy of air, and the heat has more motion in the atoms and molecules than cold, so when they use the energy of these molecules it gets colder.)

The dead feel cold too because they are gone and cannot create emotion of their own-- so even if they are so happy to make contact with the living, whatever they say comes across devoid of any feeling or personality.

(Which is also why often ghosts will appear as someone or something else, either deliberately, if they have that capability, or due to name confusion, etc. Ghosts are the spirits of individual people, and after death separated from the part of their eternal soul, which contains all lifetimes of that person. And it is surprising how much the familiarity of someone in this incarnation is dependent on that wee bit of the soul, barely discernible to even the Third Eye., much less the other two physical ones.)

That lonely fear I was feeling was the space between the happiness and satisfaction of how my life really was, and how I wanted it to be.   (And I was in a hospital with no home or even certain place to stay, and no money or resources, so I was really feeling the gap.)

When a spirit is leaving this life, there is a suspended moment-- the moment when the persons life flashes before their eyes-- and they feel how deeply they loved even the most horrible moments of their lives.

But when facing the fear of death, or the possibility of death, the spirit in the body is often confronted with the areas of life that are most lacking and unsatisfying.

And that is probably the true source of the fear-- that there are so much of a gap to close.

And in some cases perhaps this feeling can be overwhelming, and perhaps the person will wish for death, to get away from the gap.  Or feel more resolved to live a different life.

But I can say for certain that a person is never less alone, never more surrounded by helpful spirits and entities, and receiving more Divine assistance, then facing something frightening.

It's just that fear does not really translate.  Our emotions are our Guidance and Navigation system.  Emotions are really just Love and Not Love, in a lot of fancy configurations.

But "Not Love" as fear or pain or anger or regret, is simply telling us that we are not connected to our Divine Source.

There is no reason to fear any situation, even death.  The fear is a warning that you are cut off from your True, Authentic, Powerful, Eternal, Immortal Self.  That you are experiencing something in a way that makes you feel powerless.

And you can change that.  Whatever it is, I gaurantee you that your Angels and ancestors and Guides and Guardians are closer and more with you than ever.  But they are also harder to feel unless you are tuned to higher love.

Moreover, your Higher Soul may need to experience this frightening experience so that you will change or learn to overcome your fears.  When I had to go the hospital, I was very resistant to it.  My Guides were insistent that it was for the better, that I was too weak to heal myself without allopathic medicine, and that I needed to change my circumstances.

I had to learn to really love myself, and become such a good companion to myself that I knew I would never be alone again, even if I could not communicate with my Guides or Angels for any reason.

Even though we generally do not remember our past lives, we have all lived and died many times. 

Don't be afraid, you are not alone. And everything is (eventually) going to be alright.  Just Love yourself and keep the faith.

Blessings!!!!

SPIRIT VISITATIONS: BIRTHDAY AND DEATH-DAY ANNIVERSARIES

Today is John Lennon's birthday.  In addition to being a famous musician, he was a great mystic and highly evolved spiritual person. I do think about him on this day, and celebrate with his music.  However, I make a bigger to-do, generally, about the anniversary of his death,

Same with the anniversary of musician Marc Bolan's death.  He died on September 16th and was born on the 30th.  Some folks have wondered why I focus on the anniversary of his death?

It is my understanding that with most spirits, and especially "ghosts"-- that is to say, those trapped in the lower astral, like Dicken's Jacob Marley-- that the birthday is about blood and kin and very close friends.

Death anniversaries are about the fans.

And celebrities and those spirits that become well known seem to have some sort of ability to enter the consciousness of masses of people. (I think this is why so many people think they were Cleopatra or Caesar or Marilyn Monroe, etc, in a past life.)

So Happy Birthday, Mr. Lennon!  I look forward to communing more with your spirit in December!