One day I was feeling bored, so I decided to summon my guardian animal spirit. I placed a bunch of rabbit figurines on a table along with a candle. I lit the candle and gazed at the rabbits for a half hour while allowing my mind and eyes to go out of focus (there is probably a better way of contacting animal spirits). Then I blew out the candles and went back to being bored.
The next evening, as I was getting out of my car, a half circle of rabbits surrounded me in the parking lot. I didn’t really know what to do. I hadn’t really thought about why I was summoning animal spirits, and felt kind of awkward. I just sat there, with the car door open, staring at the rabbits. After a few minutes of this, I just walked away (guiltily), the rabbits scattering.
Later, I decided to try the same thing with unicorns. I placed unicorn figurines on a table, lit a candle, and proceeded to stare at them through unfocused eyes. But this time I just fell asleep, and I never saw a unicorn either.
I used to believe in “Silver-haired soldiers,” which is more or less the notion that older men are wiser and more benevolent than younger ones. Unfortunately, while they may be wiser, I have learned the hard way that they are by no means more benevolent. Personalities can soften and harden, hearts can open and close, but wolves never seem to turn into sheep, no matter how much time you give them.
But I do think older predators tend to take on more lofty and benevolent personas than younger ones. They are more subtle and shrewd, and very rarely seen outside of their sheep’s clothing.
As for whether or not people get wiser over time, it is hard to say. Time brings perspective and experience, but also pain and unresolved emotions which can thicken into phlegm and finally dry into a hard crust inside our hearts and brains.
But still, I do think we have faculties that continue opening up to us throughout our life, including psychic and supernatural ones, even though many of these may be outside the vision of our culture.
“Let no one beneath the age of 84 years call himself a man.” -Confucius
At some point while living in Santa Fe, I decided I had to change my favorite colors if I wanted to be a true musician. Pink would no longer do. I felt that blue- with a little green mixed in- was the true color of music. The true purpose of music, as I saw it, was to tap into parallel realities so that the expanse of our everyday world could be increased. Blue is open and expanding, while green gives things a wicked twist helping us to see things from non-human perspectives.
I see life as a big green expanse of land with roads cut through it. Life itself may be grand, but our perceptions, thoughts, and even emotions are generally limited to travelling the roads that have been carved out by others. Sometimes this can get a little claustrophobic, depending on how many roads we have access to. A limited view of life can also cause pettiness and greed, as we try to grab as many donuts as possible from the tiny tray in front of us. Some people try to expand their reality through drugs, but if you’re not careful you could end up off-roading it and never finding your way back. Some people join spiritual cults and religions, which helps to liberate pieces of them while locking the unacceptable parts in cages. But music, on the other hand, is just about communicating with new realities while trying to keep your feet planted in your current one. That way you can gradually learn about new roads to travel, and even find some places to build new ones.
So, I thought blue-green would help me accomplish this. Too bad I was so poor that the only way I could change favorite colors was to buy a blue teddy bear sweater I saw on clearance, and wear it on my head like a hat.
I started painting nude women to please my husband, and then at some point I started painting nude men as a form of rebellion. It was very satisfying and I never went back. Even now when I see a “Cowboys in Shorts” calender it makes me feel giddy with feelings of freedom and power, like a bird flying out of its cage.
Not that by nature I like nude pictures of men anymore than the average person (who I know from experience is not fond of them!) But I do think that in a culture where women are frequently objectified (some call that a phallocracy), they are funny and refreshing.
Once I started hanging around my nude male paintings, however, they became a lot more than just refreshing. Once the shock value wore off, I started to find feelings of great comfort and safety in their presence. Nude men like these will never let anyone hurt you. And they are every bit as sensitive and caring as they are strong. They are true blue and have nothing to hide. They will be there for you forever and ever.
I guess through my own paintings I was able to envision men who were givers, not takers, and supportive rather than narcissistic. I don’t think this would have happened if I was painting men with clothes on. It is through their musculature, organs, and the shape of their bodies that these men reveal their true natures. Sometimes a face can be a mask, but organs never lie.
I wrote this song in Santa Fe, but it is still following a “rule” I established for myself at some point in Nashville, which is that every song must have the phrase “making love” somewhere in the chorus. Why did I establish this as a rule? I don’t know- it just gave me tickley feelings inside…
The phrase “making love” reminds me of something that in high school we used to call a Jinx-99. A Jinx-99 is a man with oiled hair, a thick mustache, and a tank top who gives you red roses and chocolate body oil on Valentine’s Day. He is just too much man, like having to eat a whole stick of butter with no bread. The phrase “making love” reminds me of that, too sticky & sincere to bear, which is what made it irresistible.
So, anyway, I wrote this song in Santa Fe, where, as I’ve mentioned, I lived in a weekly motel off the side of a highway, a very isolated and unenriched location. Before this, I had lived in Nashville, where I had a car and was constantly going here and there. Now I did not have a car and was stuck in the middle of nowhere. All day long, while my husband worked, I sat in a tiny motel room. It may be hard to understand the effect this has on a person’s mind unless you have experienced it yourself.
Although I had rarely watched tv before, I now spent countless hours being tortured and brainwashed by Country Music Television. It made me nauseous, but I couldn’t turn it off. Eventually, I had to return the television to the front office.
In a desperate effort to not die from lack of stimulation, I began prank calling people everyday as part of my morning routine- 11 people first thing every day before breakfast. I covered all my clothes in rhinestones, sequins, and other reflective surfaces (one of the lies they told on Country Music Television was that you could never be depressed while wearing rhinestones). I hoped that wearing these clothes beneath the bright desert sun would somehow energize me. I started wearing feathered headdresses, hoping that they would draw more energy from the air into my brain. And sometimes, I would walk alongside the highway carrying a red ball so large I could barely hold it, hoping it would draw attention from the people driving by, hoping their psychic energy would somehow keep me from going insane. But it was too late- I already was.
Insane people are like corpses, though, they point to a mystery- what happened to this person, who did it? Generally people do not murder themselves, and generally they do not drive themselves insane.
When I lived in Santa Fe, a man asked me out for a drink. He was a slime ball and I was married, so I knew it was a bad idea. And YET, my (horrible) philosophy was to say yes to everything lest I accidentally miss a golden opportunity in disguise. How could I be certain he wasn’t really a magical unicorn planning on teaching me the secrets of the universe?
Still, I had been around the block enough to recognize a predatorial man when I saw one, and I knew I should take some action to protect myself. Being a practical person, I decided the best protection would be to fill my apartment (a weekly motel suite) to the brim with giant pink pyramids topped with bunny rabbits. I figured he would walk in, see all these pyramids topped with rabbits, and then… well, I just figured he wouldn’t mess with me after that.
So I spent the next week walking to a nearby lumberyard to buy bricks, which I carried home, painted pink, covered with iridescent silver stars, and then stacked into pyramids. I ended up making seven pyramids (in a very small motel room), each one topped with a candle, a crystal, and a rabbit figurine. It took the whole week and all my money.
When the big day arrived, the man didn’t even show up. I wasn’t surprised, actually, since standing people up is a hallmark of this particular breed of predators. They forget an engagement, the jilted party calls them (angrily) to remind them, they apologize and ask to make it up to you, and then the two people meet again, with the predator on slightly higher footing. My disappointment (after all this work!) was equal to my relief, and all in all I took it as a sign that the rabbit pyramids had protected me, just as I’d hoped.
Later, while living in Brooklyn, I saw a movie this man had made which described his romantic philosophy of cutting people’s pride in order to seem more desirable to them. A very low down approach to life, but still, probably better than saying yes to everything.
I wrote this song while living in Santa Fe, a city run by women, including a few mean ones, such as the one who inspired this song.
By the way, when I mention a black man in the song, I don’t mean an African-American, but a being whose skin is pitch black, similar to a human, but with legs that are 5 feet long and as thick as an elephant’s.
I wrote this song while living in Santa Fe, in a weekly motel off the side of the highway.Perhaps if I had lived in a different part of town, I would have enjoyed it more, but as it was the only things I liked were the pinon coffee and the gazillions of stores that sold stones and crystals, which was the beginning of a new hobby for me. Otherwise it was a harsh place to live- expensive, windy, dry, and so far away from anything else! People say it is a spiritual place, so I tried to tap into that by decorating my motel room with dream catchers and Mexican blankets, but ultimately I concluded that desert plateaus are not the place for me.
If I remember correctly, the archangel Sandalphone is responsible for the souls of those who die as infants.
One day I was feeling bored, so I decided to summon my guardian animal spirit. I placed a bunch of rabbit figurines on a table along with a candle. I lit the candle and gazed at the rabbits for a half hour while allowing my mind and eyes to go out of focus (there is probably a better way of contacting animal spirits). Then I blew out the candles and went back to being bored.
