The Fall

(Inspired by Dean's Awen-inspired blog entry last night).

Before It All (refered to as BIA from now on), you had nothing but your Bird Spirit, which is your Godself, your personal Kami/Loa. It had all powers and all stories to tell. But then, since BIA had no listening ears, Tribe.net blogs or physical sex, your Bird Spirit was bored to Death (even though BIA is another name for Eternal Life), and It decided it was time to begin a long, winding process called The Fall.

Your Bird Spirit has the capacity and the nature of attracting to Itself all it wants and needs, so it attached to Itself a couple of malleable, minor spirits in order to extend and live in what It meant to be a world of Creativity and self-expression. If It intended to go physical, the natural thing would be the ability to communicate, impress, form and be formed by circumstances. Shifting between active and passive. Like gay anal sex, or like Tango.

Your Bird Spirit contained (and still does) a seed of the tree you were supposed to grow up to be, your ultimate creation. But after the Fall, other Fallen people who fell before you did also had "seeds" of trees they thought you were supposed to be. You're clever, you can guess the two seeds don't match, and because other people were bigger than your physical body, had more cunning and expertise in the physical matters, and held positions, authorities, titles and wands of several colours, they began weaving patterns in your minor souls through physical abuse, repetition and lies they might actually have believed were true themselves. And suddenly, you forgot it all about BIA as the Fall moved on to the next stage.

All kinds of wicked vows and locks were woven in your minor spirits, including a giant barrier between what you now were calling yourself and your Bird Spirit. And your original/ORIGIN-all seed. And everything BIA. You forgot the reason why of the whole thing, and dressed up, made up a name and a cool pose, sacrificed your daily freewill, made lots of money to buy many things you don't really want, pretended you were on your way, and destroyed every possible thing you met along the way, whatever the way you were going was. And of course, forced other Fallen newbies a seed to a tree you planned for them. Nevermind what they had in mind. Or in Spirit.

But the Bird Spirit will always be there. It was BIA and will be when you wake up from the nightmare. Hang in there.

One Word

You can only type ONE Word!
Not as easy as you might think. Now change the answers to suit you and pass it on. It's really hard to only use one word answers. You can only type one word!

1. Where is your cell phone?
Table.

2. Where is your significant other?
Marbella.

3. Your hair?
Head.

4. Your mother?
Brazil.

5. Your father?
Brazil.

6. Your favorite thing?
Close.

7. Your dream last night?
Interesting.

8. Your dream/goal?
Elusive.

9. The room you're in?
Cool.

10. Your hobby?
Superheroes.

11. Your fear?
Loneliness.

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years?
World-roaming.

13. Where were you last night?
Everywhere. :D

14. What you're not?
Stable.

16. One of your wish list items?
Book.

17. Where you grew up?
Shithole.

18. The last thing you did?
Websurfing.

19. What are you wearing?
Underpants.

21. Your TV?
Off.

21. Your pet?
Marbella.

22. Your computer?
Here.

24. Your mood?
Bored.

25. Missing someone?
Boyfriend.

26. Your car?
None.

27. Something you're not wearing?
Socks.

28. Favorite store?
Basurama. :D

29. Your summer?
Hot.

30. Love someone?
Yes!

31. Your favorite color?
White.

32. When is the last time you laughed?
Now. :D

33. Last time you cried?
June.

34. Who will reply to this?
Aster.

Life in the Fun House

Cocks inclined to the left, so common in our civilised culture, don't exist in tribal societies where men go naked or at least are allowed baggy pants during adolescence. Even though my old, useless people unsuccessfully raised me to be straight, I turned out not just bent, but mainly crooked, too. After talking to many parents, kids, Peter Pans, evil stepmothers and Faery Godparents, I've come to realise that although a kid needs many things, above everything the greatest blessing one can have when growing up is trusting oneself. And you cannot trust yourself without trusting in your feelings.

Like with most adults born after the Counterculture and before artificial baby-making, there are many very natural things I've been led to believe I don't have the right to. For instance, finding people, situations and places boring.

"They're the majority, you need them, they don't need you."

- Come again, dad??

"Only you are unsatisfied. Clearly, there's nothing wrong with them..."

- What does that exactly mean, doc?

"Your arrogance is tremendous. You think the world is an extension of you, not you part of a larger whole."

- Sorry, mom. I didn't mean to.

Fact is, some people sometimes might be boring. But just verbalizing it to myself is still very hard, and when something just feels wrong, my very well-trained mind just channels all the insatisfaction, dullness and annoyance back at me, and suddenly I'm Mr. Boredom because all these people at the table have been daydreaming about a safari or complaining about my vegetarianism for the past three hours.

And because I haven't been doing my meditation sessions regularly, and because I'm chemically addicted to the hormones and enzymes associated with the pattern, the agony haunts me until it's time to renew it with another name-calling backfire stroke.

After joining the gay men therapy group last month, I've been stirring tremendous shit, the kind of emotional junk you learn to supress when living as a couple. I look at my surroundings, feel sick and immediately and without any reasoning or sound judgement from my own part, I just invert the game so that I can play safe with other kids, and apply the label-who-cannot-be-named to myself. Suddenly I feel like I'm a boring person.
Gods, I know I've been whining A LOT here, and I do know how to call MYSELF boring, but because this is my blog, I'm entitled the right to use it to organize my ideas, sort through my feelings, open up for insight and increase the chances of breaking mental/emotional ground.

I need Iron Pentacle work.

The Youtube!!

I've uploaded a very brief footage captured with my mobile of the performance yesterday. The song is incomplete, the pianist screwed big time and the audio sucks (not to mention the video quality!), but at least it's online, to prove I've done it. I'm so proud I've got something to show! :)



It's also on my Tribe.net profile. Thanks for being up there with me, gang!

One for our home

From the creator of "The Secret", Rhonda Byrne:

"Every good thought, every good word, every good emotion, and every act of kindness, is lifting the vibration of your being to new heights. And as you begin to raise your vibration, a new life and a new world will reveal itself to you.

There is no limit to how high you can increase your vibration, because there is no limit to the good thoughts you can think, or the good words you can speak, or the acts of kindness that you can do. Other than transforming your own life through lifting your vibration, you lift others' lives too. The positive vibration of your energy emanates out like a stone thrown into water, touching our planet and every living thing on it. As you rise higher, you take the world with you.

The Secret Team has created a gift for you. This clip features our beautiful Planet Earth. As you experience this clip you will emit positive forces of energy across Planet Earth that will reach every single living thing on it. You will lift yourself, and as you lift yourself, you lift the entire world.

The magnificent music was composed and graciously gifted for this clip by composer Jo Blankenburg.

From The Secret to you, here is Planet Earth - our home.

May the joy be with you,

Rhonda Byrne"

Size Matters

Especially for us who grew up in the Fun House, size is a matter of time. It's a little tricky, even more when you're in a new group and you're expected to form bonds of some kind. For some reason, I'm prone to going way too fast in opening my heart, embarassing as it is to admit (and even more to BE), and very slow in finding my true size within groups with people of different sizes. A matter of adjusting. Therefore, potentially not so simple and definetely not so quick to learn.

Last night, I joined a Gestalt therapy group for gay men born from within my yoga and meditation group. My very first group therapy experience ever, and my first profound community experience in a considerable time and another language. In a situation like this, the ancient voices of trainings and conditionings rise their volumes higher than the size you currently believe you have. I've been spending a day and two nights now worried about things I might have said or not said, how I might have performed, and, of course, what the guys there think about me now. Basically, quests for the Fun House mirrors of my childhood.

"They are many, you are only one." For adults back then, wisdom and truth was a matter of quantity, you see. "You need them, they don't need you." And seeking to be part of the larger quantity was the purpose, spice and meaning of life. "You have to please them." Yes, they DID say that in these exact words, but in Portuguese.

In perfect harmony with Natural and Universal Laws, that evening we had a trance journey to visit a statue that was us, become that statue and then learn and absorb lessons from them. As I shifted back to flesh and bones, my statue had given me the blessings of growing in size, deep peace and a veil of water all over as an non-oversized protection.

Then again, it all comes down to time. You're usually growing larger all the time, you just cannot see it because the nature of growth is going big then smaller, then big again and then a little bit smaller, and so on until you're big for good. When you're not growing, something is out of Order.

If you can't believe that, fake you are a Giant. If all you know is the Fun House, then just look for the swimsuit shop mirror, not the rearview.

For the Order, the good guys back in the Fun House and the Giant in all of us, here's Melissa Etheridge's groovy theme "Giant" serving as the Red Thread for so many heroes, giants, jerks and distorted mirrors:

Image: My fiancee and me on a mirror somewhere in Salamanca. March '08.

Away With The Faeries

I am on the verge of Midsummer. Now is the time when the Sun King sacrifices Him Self at the apex of His power and gives way for Auberon's retinue to teach lessons the Trickster way. Good times; and, as experience might have taught you as it's taught me, the best time of the year for culling.

Today I've let go of one of the choirs I've been involved with. I joined this choir last September, following an ad at the municipality's musical library requesting tenors for a young people's choir. Truth is that I've been really uncomfortable in there for the whole year. Sexism, classism, arrogance, veiled discrimination against me for being a Latin American gay living in a working class district, and scandalous hipocrisy. As any Brazilian person is highly trained to, I simply shut my eyes and denied the atmosphere. I refused to recognise severe disrespectful actions of many kinds for several reasons: I was new in town and desperate to hang out with my own people, developping my own social circle and not relying on Jose's; I wanted to continue practicing my favourite art form and maybe get heads-up for coaches, recitals and local movidas; I knew the best way to learn fast the language was coexisting regularly with natives who couldn't speak Portuguese.

But since the other choir last month, when I was given the solo and rediscovered the joy of singing free from anxieties and OCD, enjoying the best about being an amateur, I knew I wouldn't fit this choir anymore. So I resisted almost two months of very boring rehearsals, early-morning Saturday sessions, awful singers getting laurels because they fitted the director's delirious fantasy of "good" choral performance (that really doesn't exist except for maybe in the newest CDs produced with hundreds of audio softwares on the recorded voices).

This morning, I decided to "cut the string that makes the hammer strike", as John Dowland used to sing centuries ago, and step out into the mushroom circle. The talk with the director was excellent and very honest, and I did wonderfully. I was very respectful, almost didn't stutter, thanked him for all the great help he gave me when I began in his choir and said that I planned to come back when I was good enough for them, bringing with me the scores of Brazilian music I still have in my parents' house whenever I went back home for a visit. He said the door will always be open for me, and I was relieved that I at least left on good terms.

Having a good time is the whole point in all of this. Everything less than a good time is a suspicious sign and Midsummer is the messenger of letting-go.

Image: Puck. I've never been too good in saying no to him.

The Solo

My performance was of course less than brilliant, but I'm really proud for certain reasons: I earnt it with hard work, my voice or technique didn't falter before the audience, and finally, I gave my very best given all the circumstances. I was shrouded in encouragement and inundated by support from all sides. The audience--mostly our own friends, families and significant others--loved to bits, and applauded standing up.

I had a good time, and actually enjoyed myself.

In the end, people in the church would say "¡Felicidades!" or "¡Enhorabuena!" to me. I felt a little bad for not really deserving so much appreciation to be honest, but I do realise I now have a choice, like I always do: I either commit to improve and bet even more on the faerietale, or I give up for good.

Since creative accomplishment is a spiritual pathway, I pray for Faith now.