como la bruja

Going so soon? I wouldn’t hear of it. Why my little party’s just beginning.
—Wicked Witch of the West

I think that all women are witches,
in the sense that a witch is a magical being.
—Yoko Ono

They still believe in God, the family, angels, witches, goblins,
logic, clarity, punctuation, and other obsolete stuff.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer

The number of witches had everywhere become enormous.
—John Jewel

~*~

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
—Shakespeare, Macbeth

lilac sky

spirits & ghosts

This September, Glitterati will publish Douglas Kirkland’s With Marilyn. As I paged through the blues last week, I was overcome. This book is filled with the eternal spirit of Marilyn Monroe or Norma Jean Baker, or whoever She was.

Make that Is. Because she never left. These pages are a testament to photography as magic. A magic we do not understand. I’ve been thinking a lot about this. About what the Native Americans felt. Something is captured on paper. Why? How? The spirit travels through light. Light on paper becomes the image. But it’s not what we see before us. It is the ether. Captured. Forever.

I don’t even have words…

it’s like telephone ~

We are speaking when I see it. Black and white print, tip on, cream linen cover, gold leaf. It’s sweet. I speak. I say this. He tells me he just saw it. I am saying, Yea. I put it there.

It’s like telephone, he says.

compassion ..

Last night I lay in bed, exhausted, unable to sleep. Thoughts always flow in and out of my mind, and usually I organize them into verse so that the rhythm of the words relaxes my nerves. But this time, I didn’t have the chance to compose my thoughts into prose poetry because before I knew what happened, I found myself swept away and deposited into another person’s body.

She was lying in bed, unable to sleep. Thoughts spun around in her head, making her sick. This is wrong! This is wrong! She kept saying that over and over again. What have I done? She felt guilt, shame, horror, remorse but she couldn’t bare it. It couldn’t be her fault, yet it was. But she had to share the blame. She turned her head to the man lying asleep next to her, thinking he felt nothing at all. She hated him, resented him. It was all because of him, it always was.

Only, now it wasn’t so simple. One plus one equals three. And she lay there sick with worry, sick with grief. Sick, making herself sick, pumping cortisol into her body. She filled her body with death, and death began to take its toll, first on the that which she had been given to protect. But she was hurting  so bad, she couldn’t make it stop. Her mind started spinning and her body started to throb. She started to unravel, so desperate for help, so vulnerable, so lost. She called out, and that is when He came.

I shot back into my own body, the most awful ache in the center of my being. This horrible, horrible thing I never wanted to know was suddenly something very real. All I could feel was her truth, and I don’t know why she wants me to know. I know I would like to create meaning, I would like to understand this in a way that makes some kind of sense. Because, for all the things I have seen and heard and felt, this was absolutely the worst.

Up until now, I took a kind of pleasure and humble reverence in these unlikely communions, because they didn’t hurt me. I could understand the essence, even if words failed to explain what the chills and goosebumps told me. But this time, I went to a place of deep and unending pain, a pain that lives to this day, a pain that has become a rage, a rage that lives unabated and acts out in distorted ways.

I have a thousand interpretations in my head, but none of them feel right. Because, I am beginning to understand that there are no interpretations, there is only the experience itself. To feel it without meaning, to accept it without condition, to allow it into my heart, to feel the pain without trying to control it. And to remember that this isn’t a curse, but a blessing. Because if I am to be feeling other people’s pain like this, I must be learning compassion.

there is no judgment among the dead

Those who do deny are dense like stone. They block the flow of energy, and that is fine—for them. But for me, it is like being stuck in a castle, or a prison, or simply behind a wall. And the more I tear down my own, the more open my soul becomes.

Ever since that fateful day that I told Mr. Brown, “You inspire me to find the divine and bring it to life,” everything has changed. It is normal, even admirable, to speak the words, “I found God,” although it took me some time to let go of my own prejudices. But opening my heart to God brought me to something else. For years and years, I have had psychic abilities. But I dismissed them, because I feared… that life was like a movie and I would see bad things.

But life is nothing like a movie. And there are no bad things. And this was proved to me the day I knew two people had been hit by my subway train. And nothing about it scared me, because I was told to watch and to listen very carefully. And because I did, I was given the understanding that the spirits will not harm me. But other people, they are not listening and insularity can be a painful and anxious thing. I was on the train and, other than the police and the conductor and the dead, no one else knew what had happened. But, as typical New Yorkers, eighty five percent of them grew irate with having to wait five—ten—fifteen minutes to go on with their lives. But God has blessed them because they have lives to go on. And I said a silent prayer because I knew the dead were at peace but that so many others would feel left behind, that two families would be in shock and mourning in a matter of moments.

In writing this today, I know that no longer shall I judge those who deny in order to protect, imprisoned by their own (demons) (fears) (lies) (self absorption). And because of their walls, they refuse the beauty that awaits them at every moment they walk this earth. I don’t fault them for any of this because I am no better. I am no worse. I am perfectly flawed, just like you are.

Only now I try to be conscious, because I have removed the greatest walls from my life, and on doing so, the spirits have returned to my side ten fold. I was laughing the other day, saying it is okay for me to say I have found God but when I talk about spirits, I know people want to look at me sideways. Only, here’s the thing. I reached out to God. I called to Him. And in doing so, He appeared. And that is easy to understand. But I never call to the spirits. The spirits come to me. And I have learned things I never asked to know, and I have seen death in many ways.

I never ever seek them out. That is why I trust them. Why I believe. Because they know I am a writer, a publicist, and something of an iconoclast. And for being this, they know I will speak on their behalf. Without fear. With love. And humility. Because I know that the spirits speaking to me does not make me special. In fact, it does just the opposite. It reminds me that I am exactly like everyone else. That we all possess this gift. Some of us just… deny it.

It is funny, as in sad, that I had to learn what would happen when a spirit was denied. I was told to tell someone something, and it was flat out rejected, and the result was the spirits stopped talking to me as long as I allowed this person into my heart. Not that they took it personal, or were punishing me. I think they understood that I was dealing with a nonbeliever, and they wanted to leave me in peace.

But the thing that is sad is that I had a message for he who does not believe. And he didn’t want to hear it, and that is okay. Because the spirits didn’t fault me or fault him. There is no judgment among the dead.

.. in a parallel universe

It is last year…

We are in that magazine store by Union Square looking to see if L’Uomo Vogue is out. Would never expect to write that sentence. But he is in Vogue. Men’s Vogue. Imagine that. That’s the strange place where my imaginary world meets his, and somehow, something between us est como la bruja, tu sabes?

I live in a parallel universe. And it tickles me—reality, I mean. There is what I believe, and there is what is happening, and though the two are rarely related, sometimes, just sometimes, they meet.

We are in that magazine store and L’Uomo Vogue is not. And it is the perfect spring day and I want to be outside. I want to smell the fresh air, polluted with endorphins and distortions, and stand in the sun, basking like a beached whale. I want to be outside but he wants to look at magazines so I stay quiet and let him do his thing.

And then he sees her, Amy, on the cover of something. British I am sure because the Americans gave up a long time ago. Everyone wants a comeback but she does not care because why should she care?

Being a star was never her bag. Being an artist, maybe something like that. But that’s still second. Being in love, that’s all that she ever wanted. But it didn’t work out so good. I feel you, girl. Pick the wrong one, call him the right one, and hold on for as long as you can.

“You remind me of her,” he says over his shoulder and I feel my back go all the way up. How dare he know things he does not know. I don’t even wanna go on…

it was all a dream ~

FUUUCHK

fifteenth anniversary of his death is in three days

my life is based on a true story ~

Be notorious.
—Rumi

“Go fuck yourself,” I replied, always the lady.
—Ava Gardner

I am a thing of beauty.
—Frank Sinatra

you only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough

There are no good girls gone wrong —  just bad girls found out.

A dame that knows the ropes isn’t likely to get tied up.

Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.

I’m no model lady. A model’s just an imitation of the real thing.

Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often.

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.

Quotes by Mae West
Photographs by Mariel Clayton

Queen of Cups

Because she has a sweet, loving and sensitive nature,
the Queen of Cups has a kind word for everyone
and never reacts with anger or impatience.
There is a gentleness about her that soothes and calms.
Compassion is her watchword. Her reactions to the world are guided by her feelings.

In all matters, she lets her heart lead the way.
She senses emotional currents and knows what others are experiencing
without having to ask. She understands moods and their influence.

She trusts her intuition
and so is more open to knowledge that comes from within herself and beyond.
She is often moved by the beauty and tragedy of life.
The Queen of Cups feels deeply and has a reverence for all aspects of God’s creation.
Her love includes and embraces everyone and everything.

In readings, the Queen of Cups asks you to think and feel as she does.
Do you trust your heart?
Have you received an intuitive message? Have you been moved by another’s pain?

This Queen can also represent a man or woman who is like her,
or an atmosphere of gentle love, acceptance and respect for feelings.
Her energy has meaning for you at this time.
Let yourself be inspired by this Queen in whatever form she appears in your life.

rhymes with bitch

A Complex Crime

A Complex Crime

A Complex Crime

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Complex Crime

The Nazca Lines