his grace is hoped for to lift the veil of delusion and release awareness from the darker areas of the mind to soar within.

consciously merge into the inner being of yourself, and you will know your guru when you find such guru.

how is that we can break out of this hypnosis of the norm. ??

that is where the power is. reach to the other side. shake things up. change reality. move reality. flexible reality.

altered consciousness altered consciousness altered consciousness

see through the illusion.

last month i was really  a let down to myself.

to my birthday expectations.

i wish for the fear to be devoured.

like kali holding the decapitated head.

strike when the iron is hot.

that should be my mantra.

some opportunities come just once.

take it. be bold.

dont be a let down to myself.

my life must have meaning.

i cant be numb. must feel. must feel. must feel.

today i was crying. it felt like anguish at the time.

yet, part of me was acting im sure. i dont really feel sad.

must call in the new. must call in the new me.

mother moon who sanctifies me, hold my hand and lead me. make my path clear as clarity.

the computer is swallowing me. the computer is me.

great goddess set me free.

There are certain things I will never forget.. of course Mardi Gras and Jazzfest and French Quarter Festival and Voodoo Festival and so many, too many concerts.  But, I might venture to say that meeting Big Mardi Gras Chief Alfred Doucette is a highlight of my grand affair. How he became our friend and took us in to a sub-culture i could have never even imagined in my most far out dreams. Allowing us to walk with him at Super Sunday…  when only years ago white people were not even allowed to attend. The Mardi Gras Indians elaborate costumes of thousands of beads and feathers which each told their own story that took all year to design; the second-line music with dancers and drummers and ‘spy boys’;  the dance-off  that would then take place between Chiefs and neighborhoods; the generations of tradition of a poor people that was really one of the most rich things my eyes have ever witnessed. (And Los too was with me and can confirm that it was NOT just a glorious and colorful drug induced vision that never actually happened.)

Although I did not personally know the man, i did in fact know of him because he is a New Orleans legend. I remember being part of Big Chief Tooties jazz funeral procession in the streets attended by hundreds and hundreds of folks dancing and crying and singing and yelling and instruments and the heat- while what I think were the Nation of Islam soldiers carrying his body dressed as Royalty in a huge casket in a display box from the church and out into the streets where it all erupted into a mass of emotions of joy and sadness and amazement and loss and music. I never knew this little white girl could be a part of something so monumental and so real. And Los and I held hands as we danced in the streets with the mobs of people heading towards Congo Square.

Then of course there was the outdoor concert I went to in Metarie. Not even sure how I ended up there; but I knew i had to be there. The only white girl at the concert in a sea of black. I had my dreadlocks then, so no one gave me a hard time. I just smiled and danced and I have to admit I felt very special; very proud of myself for coming so far in life. In that moment, I felt I was truly living. And even when the main performer of the evening got on stage and began to hate on white people, and i began to feel the cold stares of a hate and bitterness that had been bred a long, long, long time ago, I felt even happier to be there. That’s right; let me be the one to break the mold and shatter the segregation and conformity! I just kept on dancing; I couldn’t see color, I could only see the music.

And boy, was that something about Ms.NOLA that was quite a shock for me; the segregation and racism that still exists. Growing up in Southern California, I have to admit that racism was never something that crossed my door. Truthfully i thought it was something of the past that had been abolished in the seventies! Ha! What a naive fool was I before New Orleans. The segregation line was sharp and jagged and so well pronounced. Just the landscape alone would tell the story from the huge, rich colonial style mansions on one side of town to the ghetto shantis on the other side of town. The statues of General Lee at every main segment of town to be a constant reminder. I was even told by many not to ever worry about trouble with the cops if I was ‘white’ and in the ‘bubble’ called ‘uptown’ (unless i was to urinate on the street in public oddly enough!).

And I guess thats one of the reasons why they call New Orleans the dirty, dirty south because everywhere you went you could count on this awful stench in the streets of a rank combo of vomit, urine, alcohol and putrid rot. Oh that smell! And that was even before Katrina!

Oh and after Katrina, God help New Orleans!  The destruction is indescribable. The ruin. The despair. …. Yet, somehow that city, those people, the spirit, that music just played on! It was like that big jazz brass band never skipped a beat! The people were down, but I tell you the Spirit of that dirty mistress is just so deeply rooted in its folks that the celebration just got up, dusted it self off, had a stiff drink and played on!!! The strength of people amazes me. The music has only gotten richer and filled with even more emotion and feeling than ever.

The main reason we were there was of course- the band. Los’ band. ( & Patience, Steele, Nick, Margie) This gave us our reason. This gave us a ticket in. This gave us backstage passes to all the best shows. (And of course all the best drugs.) The music was all original and unique. It was simple and not well polished, but it was different than all the jazz and blues and reggae surrounding the city and within it carried some pure and sincere truths. The music we brought lifted peoples spirits; I know it did. We stood out. I mean, we came from Hawaii, we had aloha all over us without even trying. We made great friends in an instant. We had our tight little krewe and we had the time of our lives. Tipitinas, Bank Street Bar, Maple Leaf, Dragon’s Den and Cafe Brazil were some of the favorite gigs. It was incredibly fun, it was over-indulgent, it was unhealthy, it was disgraceful at times; it was the absolute best! With the music leading our way and with the help of a good and irie friend in Nor. Cal., we ruled a portion of that scene for a small moment in time. The Big Easy was in fact easy. That slut just spread out her glory to us for the taking. She just offered it all night after night. “Here, take it”, she said. “Take more; take more”. She was always accommodating. Looking around the whole entire city was intoxicated with her delightful, rhythmic and sensual poision.

I will never forget that last dirty and sultry summer we were there, June 2007. We lived on Dante street ( a street near hell I’m sure) down the street form a favorite bar, The Maple Leaf. That horrid apartment that was built in like 1918 or so and I was told it used to be an infirmary. What an apartment! The windows that were jarred shut, the cracks in the floor filled with decades of grime and disgust, the stairs that creaked and felt as though you may fall through. Thank God above for that magnolia tree! One  beautiful grand magnolia tree towered over the apartment and its branches hung so near my bedroom window I could smell that sweet smell on those humid and balmy nights and at times it was about the only hope i had. Thank God for that Magnolia tree that also covered up the smell of putrid decay in the sewer just outside my front door. Oh that dirty filthy place i called home… and yet i felt like a Queen in my castle. I felt untouchable. I felt priveleged. And i was.

Thanks to my friend in Nor. Cal., and the grace of God, and the ever loving party hedonists of New Orleans, that summer, I was there and sitting on stacks of cash and i had a plan. I had a plan to escape that city. And that plan was to rescue my true and noble King who had been tempted and coerced and drugged and stolen away by that dirty, filthy sexy whore! I would not let her have him; I had to rescue him and rip him from her clutches. Oh Ms. NOLA, you put up a good fight. When your painted red nails dig into the flesh of a mere mortal with pain and pleasure the battle can only end one of two ways.

Thanks to God and Goddess and all things good she had some respect for me in the end. She saw the depth of my joy she had given me. She saw how i was filled with her culture and Spirit and how I was awe struck with her filthy beauty. She saw how I would always keep her in my heart and how she had changed my soul… and she let me have him. She let me steal back my King and we ran far, far away from her.  Oh and how I would like to say we never looked back. But when a sensual, sultry, seductress as New Orleans has had you , she will always and forever be whispering in your ear… sending little messages, little reminders that will send chills down your spine, or make you blush, or make you cringe with disgust. I know she will never really let me forget her; nor would i want to.  I know she will always be taunting me to return and teasing me about my once again ordinary life.       …….But you know, once you’ve been filthy dirty, you can never really be pure white again.

Oh and some days in the beginning it seemed he may never give me a break. They say ‘feed every three hours’. Well I think that is a general idea. He definitely wanted to eat more than that sometimes. It was hard often. The hard part was really my lack of sleep and that my whole sleep pattern of the past had to be completely disrupted. We were up every three hours for  the first entire year. He was like a clock…. every three hours. Uggg, it was the 3am and 6am that really was getting to me. Sometimes I would just cry. Sometimes I would be mad as I listened to my husband snore. But, I endured. Most of the time though I felt so overwhelmed with joy that I could nurture my baby with no outside help at all. I was finally a mama and it was so fulfilling. To look down and see his eyes and his little milking mouth is just indescribable; a feeling of primal instincts would take us both over.

Breastfeeding is such an amazing responsiblity. Sometimes, in the beginning, I would have nightmares that I was lost and couldn’t get to my baby to give him milk and he was crying and there was no one there to feed him and he might starve. To realize this little life is totally and 100 percent dependent on you is a heavy thing to bare. And even though my sweet husband was so supportive in all ways, when it came to the feeding, I was on my own. Of course, within the second and third month I tried using a breast pump to get the milk so my husband could feed him and i could go work some. But, I found pumping extremely awkward and my son at times would just not even accept the pumped milk. In my opinion, the main thing that the child gets from the breastmilk is LIVE antibodies. So, I feel if the milk is pumped and left in the fridge or freezer or what not, then the milk is no longer filled with the LIVE antibodies which is the crucial ingredient. (Yet, I feel pumping is of course way better than formula and I realize most moms have to get back to work to maintain their income.)

From the start I said, ‘ok, i will do it for the first month.’ Then after completeing that first month and seeing how little and seemingly fragile he was i said, ok, i will do it three months.’ Well, three months turned into six and by six months it started to become a pattern and started to actually become easier. Still some days I would feel ‘i’m sooooo over this’. But, the alternative was to switch to bottles and/or formula and if you read the ingredients on formula it sounds pretty crappy. Especially because most of it is not organic and the organic ones are way to expensive. Another great thing about breastfeeding is it is absolutely free. Free!

I will say that for the first year I felt tired almost all the time. I did my best to continue to take pre-natal vitamins for at least 6 months after he was born to ensure we were getting what we needed (especially iron). I probably should have taken them the whole time, but I didn’t. I really just went about my normal pattern of eating… actually I was probably eating alot more than ever. But, a great thing about breastfeeding is that on average you can burn about 500 calories a day. After three months of breastfeeding I was back to my pre-baby weight! (Yipeee!) Another great reason to breastfeed.

When my son was about five months he ate his first bite of ‘real’ food. (rice cereal fortified with iron) (the organic non-gmo kind). It was an amazing contemplation to realize for five whole months of his life he lived completely on breast milk and I might add here that my son is now 26 months old and has only been sick twice. period. Both times he was sick with a cold (small fever, congestion, green muscous) (but not enough where i ever had to suction his nose or anything) and he got better very quickly. I really contribute his great health to the breastfeeding.

So, around 5 months he began eating a little here and there. Rice cereal with coconut milk and hemp seeds was his regular diet for the first few months. (5 mos. to 7mos. or so) I never once gave him cow milk or formula. I believe that 1 in 3 people are lactose intolerant. I believe cow milk is just too congestive for our bodies. (Of course, I was raised on cow milk. I started drinking it at two months old I believe. I feel now that the cow milk contributed to me being constantly sick as a child. I constantly had colds, coughs, congestion, bronchitis and pneumonia. I was sick so often before age 7 that I became immune to the antibiotics they were always giving me.) I did not want this for my son. I wanted him to have a strong immune system which I am told is one of the greatest benefits of breastfeeding your baby as long as you possibly can. I have read that a child’s immune system in not fully developed until about age four or five.

The very best thing I feel my son and I have gained from breastfeeding is bonding. Now I cannot believe my mom did not breastfeed me. I mean how could she just put me in a crib with a bottle? (I know it was doctor recommended at the time) When I think about it, it seems so unnatural. Babies need to be touched and held to develop properly. Because of breastfeeding, for the first nine months my son slept right next to me each night. I could hold him while he slept. If he woke up in the night, he could feel me there next to him. This has to provide a security in life that crib-bottle babies just don’t get. After nine months, we put a futon mattress on the floor near our bed so I could just feed him then jump to our bed when he was satisfied.  I could hear him sleep. I could hear each breath, each noise. Whenever he needed me, I was there for him. As he got older, after age one, breastfeeding would be our little ‘time out’ in the day. A time to be quiet together. A time to connect and a time hold him and rub his back and his head. A time to just fill him with not only milk, but with good feelings of love and comfort. I would not trade this special and sacred time for anything in the world. This is the closest me and my son will ever be. A team; a union. Breastfeeding is a great joy of being a mother; maybe even the greatest joy.  How I wish every mother and child could share this bonding. So, this worked for us; I realize there are many reasons why this might not work for other families.

In the beginning, I guess my reluctance to breastfeeding was due to the fear of such grand responsibility and the fear of it hurting or discomfort. Well, at first the uncomfortable part was when my breasts would fill up so full. But, I would remind myself that they are filling up to ensure my baby’s survival. After about three months, this feeling mellowed out and then they just produced just what the baby needed.  Then the sucking part did not hurt. It felt strange and foreign (almost the whole time), but for me, it did not hurt. Then when he started to get teeth, my son just seemed to kinda know what to do with them. I could feel them sort of, but it did not hurt. Although, he did bite me twice, but that was because he was playing around. (and that hurt like hell.) But, other than that, it did not hurt in any way. The woman’s body is so amazing! Women in our current society are not worshipped even half enough for their grand creative powers!

So, now at 26 months, I feel we are done breastfeeding. I told myself after one year that I would just do it until he was two. Then when his 2nd birthday rolled around, I started setting my intention to feed less and less until at about 26 months I felt we were done. Something changed. I finally knew that it was time. And not to mention he started getting bossy and cranky about it all. So, I had a talk with him and told him that mama was done now and that he was becoming a big boy and that the milk was all gone. He understood. The next day after the talk, he didnt even ask for it. It seemed he was ready too. It was much easier than i thought to stop because I think we were both ready. So, I feel proud of myself. Of course, I could not have done it without the support of my husband. I am so thankful that he helped give me the freedom to be with my son fully the first years of his life. (As did the occasional help from our parents.) It was a struggle financially, but it was just so important to the both of us that our son have that solid foundation.

So, I write this to encourage any new moms or parents-to-be. I never thought from the start that I could do it. Then, I never thought I would do it so long. But, I did it! And now that it is finished, I know the sacrifices I had to make don’t even matter because they don’t even compare to the gifts my son and I have received from the journey. So, mamas, even if you can do it one day, or one month, or one year or even four years…. each drop is beneficial in so many ways. Blessings to you and your baby!!

*every dirty bit of new orleans. all the tons and tons of great music. carlos and the band and the wild fun.

*every trip to kallalau valley, kauai, hawaii. (from 2001- 2008); farming in kauai; living at peters and bo’s with carlos…. those dreamy mornings and nights filled with water and sun and long strange trips and stars out to the universe.

*jamaica with carlos (2005 or 06?). that first night swimming in the ocean. pure magic and love in the air.(side note about that night: we both felt ‘our son’ in the ethers that night wanting to ‘come in’ (be conceived).

*then of course the obviousness of my son being born. seeing his face for the first time. that little being all squishy and cute. then the first time he took my breast for milk. how amazing.

*dancing at the mayan club  Los angeles, approx year 1998.  the best dancers ive ever danced with. the gorgeous people. the short skirts and costumes. god, i loved that place. (thank fiona for that connect)

*empire ballroom, newport beach, california. 1996 0r 97. i will confirm these dates. hot disco. the hottest people on earth arguably. what a good party. i felt so young and beautiful. i had the best clothes. the highest shoes. i love/d dancing disco.

*dancing at club rubber, santa ana, california. same time as above (later). the overall experience of that place sucked because the guys running it sucked, BUT it was the very first time that i got paid to dance. (ummm, maybe the only time) that first time i got to dance on stage in front of all those people and get dressed in the dressing room with all the other dancers,,, it was awesome. but,,,, i probably looked like a dork!!

*drving through Zion (Utah) after rainbow gathering Idaho(2001)…. the majesty of that place was beyond breathtaking. words would only limit the power of that place.

*of course all the concerts with Shell. i think our first one was Bon Jovi and Skid Row. (they’re geeks dude) so many after that, Scorpions, Tesla, Maiden, Dio, Ozzy, etc etc; crusing in her car down to balboa. singing the kung fu song and dancing in her car; bathroom dancing haha;

*fun with Phil. gigs, musicals, trips to the mountains, ……… so much more.

*sitting in the bathtub holding Jimmy and singing in his ear a karen carpenter song… realizing we were so in love. feeling the past and the future and feeling everything was good in the world.

*my first day in kauai with eric sky walking down the road to secrets beach. seemed like a dream. i made it to heaven.

*dancing with my mom when i was little to ‘solid gold’ in the living room. laughing with my sisters (on seperate occasions) about silly things.  me and serenas trip to SF, throwing cherries at passing cars, going to humboldt and climbing on trees, laughing.

*of course the saddest moment of my life, that changed my life forever, jimmy dying in my arms while i sang to him ‘kum ba ya’ (who knows why that song came to lips?) and told him to go find his mom and dad while he tried to cling to life and cling to me.

* my uncle letting me ‘drive the car’ when i was about 6 through the south side of chicago. at nights, sleeping in my grandmas big bed with her while we sang songs until we fell alseep… ‘someones knocking on my door, someones ringing the bell’. my cousin crystal and her sweet little laugh sleeping in my bed and cuddling.

more to come……. so many memories in no apparent order.