On the Beach

I am fortunate to live fairly close to a town that at its north end provides miles of fairly empty beach.  A little stroll up the beach, and you can find yourself alone with the ocean.   It is an experience that I have come to treasure more and more.
The ocean....imagine.. it formed 4 billion years ago, it covers most of the earth's surface.
Walking along the shoreline,  over and over hearing the sound of it.  Perhaps this is where the the sacred OM was first heard... the syllable of creation.    A few times now..lying in the sand by the ocean..i have had intense experiences... so intense as to be sexual.
The ancients described material existence as consisting of basic elements,  earth air fire and water.     The elements were alive and compelling at the shoreline... Earth.. turned to grains of sand by the ocean's power,  Air, the endless wind blowing ever shoreward, Fire  older than the ocean... heating my naked skin,  and Water...tasting it on the air.. hearing it,. smelling it,  feeling it... seeing it.. Mother Ocean, Goddess Ocean.
Two aspects of the experience have stayed with me.  First was the feeling of the greatness of this force that I was connecting with.  billions of years old, covering the earth, and that perhaps just an aspect, someone greater.  It was not difficult to realize my smallness, my momentary-ness.  And more i felt as if She was there all around, except for this darkness, or a fear, which was me.  I was that which resisted dissolving into the vastness for now.
The other aspect of this experience was that it was... sexual.  I found myself touching myself, particularly my breasts to enhance my consciousness of Her.  There is no question that the energies experienced in meditation have connections to sexual energy.  I have for a while associated intensity of energy in meditation with habits of controlling my sexual behavior from day to day, particularly refraining from orgasm.  ( Something which is easier for a girl on hormones than what those poor boys go through)   Still, this was an experience more like masturbation than meditation.   Specifically a fantasy of sexual encounter with Devi.  And you can't really say that a sexual encounter with the Goddess who is eternal, all pervading, and all knowing is a fantasy, at least I don't think you can.   At any rate, it is an experience that compels me, and I do want to repeat it.
But I may need to be patient.    Unfortunately,  even the most deserted beach i know is not completely deserted in June, and I need to feel alone to have this experience.  Worse, I spotted a green head fly near the dunes this week.. The foretaste of a horde.    The unforgettable experience of being repeatedly bitten by a swarm of hungry flies could be a kind of fore-play to a creature more splendid than I.   In fact, the only relief at that point is total immersion in the Ocean, though they do seem to have an uncanny ability to keep biting while underwater at least for a little while.  So I have a little time to think about my next encounter.  Being a lapsed Catholic, I am rather startled by the whole thing.  The little boy inside says... "that is not an acceptable way to know God. "  but then again St Theresa who is a better Catholic than I ever was, had experiences that might make a greenhead blush.
So following her example, i shall walk shoeless on the deserted shore, and seek ecstasy, just as soon as the flies leave.

You Say You Want a Resolution?

"He not busy being born is busy dying"

It's All Right Ma by Bob Dylan

The obvious interpretation of this scripture is that unless you continue to grow you will decay. A more subtle interpretation has lately been troubling me, that there are two conditions becoming and unbecoming. For most of us, we put a lot of chips on the square "being". This would be unfortunate, if nothing really is, and it is all becoming and unbecoming.

Last night I attended a small t-girl discussion group. I have participated in these discussions for years now, at a Lady friend who is a strong supporter of the transgendered community, and so most of the participants on this particular night were friends, with a few new faces. One topic was, what was the mistake in your life that you learned the most from. And the number one answer is... drum roll..... my (first , second, ... ) marriage. I would concur, having learned that hiding my "hobbies" doesn't make them or the issues that go with them go away.

Another question was .. "What is the big regret in your life?" With this group, not surprisingly the answer was not being born a girl, or not stepping out sooner, or not doing something about those pesky male parts when i was young. Again I would concur, at least regarding stepping out. I mean let's face it: The yound me would just look so much better in a red minidress than i do. But that leads me back to the premise. You cannot be something.. only become or unbecome something. And so to ask what do you regret not becoming.. as if you would somehow be that now.. is incorrect. The question is always the same... what do you want to become... so start to become it, before everything we call you has "un-become".

So for me there is the last new year's resolution I will ever make;

To live this year as if it is my last, and if it ain't .. well then try it again. Repeat as necessary.

And that means one thing..the operation!

That's right I am finally going to get my ears pierced! and i might even get my hair colored.. (une poquito)

Because, I refuse to regret not having become a physicist, I am becoming one, ..and so.. my gender model in the realm of becoming / unbecoming.. is the harmonic oscillation.. (no sluts.. not the harmonic osculation ) better known as hopelessly gender confused.

or as i prefer Hermaphrodite.

Unbecoming male .. becoming female... unbecoming female... becoming male.. ... Now that when occuring in the absence of friction is eternal.

"Shive ShaktyA yukto yadi bhavati saktah prabhavitum....

Leela

"Put on a gown that touches the ground

"Float on a river forever and ever" "

Pink Floyd

And why does Devi choose to cause a universe of befuddlement, a universe that includes gender confused along with all those other poor confused souls etc.   The devotees of the Goddess say  Leela, sanskrit for playful enjoyment.  I love that concept.    the religion of my fathers was one where we asked, why did God make us.... and were diligently drilled in the answer,

"God made us to show forth his goodness, and to share with us his everlasting happiness in heaven. " but actually in the day to day... it seemed more like a trial.. and the consequences of disappointing Him...well... they were sort of extreme.

So on the chinese menu of religion I choose one from column B... Leela.

It is just the loveliest idea. And I think if I can align my issues with the grand play MahaLeela

And what better way than a gown that touches the ground. It worked for Emily.

tintinnabulation

Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! Edgar Allen Poe

I haven't had a cigarette in six years, quitting with holiday bronchitis. Generally healthy since, but now I have been sick with respiratory infection for 7 weeks. And after 30+ years of smoking cigarettes, living through my father's tribulations with the wages of this particular vice, I felt a few times a sort of terror, and at least once I verged on an anxiety attack. Luckily my history of mental health is such that I recognized the condition, so I didn't march off to the ER.

Some seek the consolation of philosophy, but it is thin gruel. I prefer the consolations of religion, which for me is meditation, and the reaching out for the divine that I find there.

I wasn't terrified by death so much as by life; the invalid's life. How much of my life is frocking around with younger friends, making up for lost time, creating Belinda. How much of Belinda is dependent upon Eros. After all Belinda arose out of sexual fantasies and sexual desires. But when you are sick enough, there are no desires, only the desire to be well.

For me, throughout my life there have been intrusions, or manifestations. Events subject to interpretation. A sea aged plastic ornament red hearts connected by an arrow found on the beach on Mother's Day, a few years ago... and going way back... insects droning doom doom doom on a hot summer night and falling confused into conversation with my homosexual neighbor (married with kids, so quite a surprise) but that is a whole other story.

So with renewed religion, studying Goddess, Laksmii, Tripura Sundari, Devi... She of many names and modes of worship, there is sometimes, connection. There are the constants, ocean, birds, winds, the constituents of nature, or MAyA. Kinds of a feeling that it is all pretty good, pretty right. In fact I just wrote on the topic just a couple of monthes ago. Butterflies.

So in my battle with depression sleeping poorly ,waking early, I heard something, and I really couldn't place it. Finally I decided that it was sleigh bells... though we are short of snow and sleighs here in New Jersey this time of year. But later that morning, I was reading the Saundarya Lahari... the Flood of Beauty. Reading verse seven,

Kvanat kajci dama .. from the sound of Her belled and garlanded waist...

purostAd AstAm nah. ..... may she be in front of us...

Not all divinities are outfitted with girdles with bells, and I had certainly forgotten this detail, the Goddess manifest in a sound.

Synchronicities. Divine Coincidences. Some of us seem to need them, and blessedly we receive them. Anugraha... Grace. Small miracles which suggest rather than compel. I am never quite sure what to make of them, and not sure that I make of them what I should, which may be the same thing.

Definitely feeling much better now. Going out Saturday Night... returning to old habits, good and bad. Yet it is hard to deny that everything that you hold onto, clear thought,... Belinda.... goes.. and for me the terror wasn't the going, so much as being left behind... the shut-in. But that is for another time.

Nama Laksmii... Nama KAli

A case of miss-taken identity

"Genetic abnormalities such as gynandromorphy also occur from time to time. In addition many butterflies are infected by Wolbachia and infection by the bacteria can lead to the conversion of males into females"

Wikipedia Entry on Butterflies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly

Oh dear! I think I may have caught a touch of Wolbachia.

So the other morning a butterfly lands on my knee, and just sits for five minutes, ample time to get a few pictures with the camera phone.

But what does it mean?

Well ... it is said by those who study them that butterflies land on you because they need more salt than the nectar is supplying.

So if you have been involved in discussions with a dear Lady friend who wishes to become Herself authentically as a Domme, and if butterflies are caterpillars that decided to live authentically, then so what.

Would you see signs of divine communication in every rustle of a leaf?

Would you please step over here so that we can give you a few medications that may help?

Well .. actually I would, not the drugs, but I have seen the divine hand in the commonplace or the marvelous.

I am someone who awaits the divine communication, who has received the divine communication.

Who hungers for, and feels Devi's touch in the antics of sparrows, or dunlins.

The next weekend, I plan to go to a mall with my friend who seeks authenticity. She has promised to be brutally honest in describing how and where Belinda falls short of the ideal.

The ideal? Not to pass necessarily, since height and voice, and unalterable physical appearance can make that unlikely at best, but to strike the observor as feminine, in every surface detail, and at the bottom of my soul.

Now if the soul is gendered, then that is authenticity, but only the Catholics, Muslims, and a few others sects think that it is. In my heart of hearts I know that it is not.

How do I know?

A little birdy told me.

Full Moons, Pheromones, and I Phones

The full moon occurs on new years eve, and I realized it was coming this morning when i woke up with such powerful femme feelings, a need to touch my swelling breasts, and imagine myself all woman. I love the idea of having a secret cycle which peaks at the full moon, and that it has a reality of its own now, though at one time I consciously cultivated the concept. Woman may not agree, but i feel it is so wonderful to have a cycle, and so I seem to have developed one though it is not so much about fertility, as my feminine sexuality, and also my meditative consciousness. My peak meditation experiences occur around the time of the full moon as well, and of course that makes sense because i chant the pancadaza, the 15 verses, which are the name of Tripura Sundari who is embodied in and rules over the full moon, which contains the 15 Nityas, + Tripura Sundari, on the sixteenth day of the waxing moon, the sixteenth day, the day of the full moon.

see http://www.astrojyoti.com/lunarphasesandthenityadevis.htm for a concise description.

And then there are hormones. Of course, i am a male who takes estrogen, so I don't experience the holy cycle of hormonal changes, rather I just am on hormones, day after day. And I of course love my hormones, and what they do to me, part of my secret self, which is both in the world and out of it. I imagine, and sometimes it seems to me that all that estrogen..well you can smell it can't you? I mean that old gentleman sitting there at the bar, or the coffee shop. Isn't there something about him? something incongruous, and yet.. something... appealing. I have always loved the smell of women, and imagine it works below consciousness, the kingdom of the olfactory. I find ..well it is a little embarassing, but I know a few people, men if you must know, who seem to respond to me, in a way that is almost inappropriate, and I don't think they are particularly gay, nor is the interaction in any way overt, but well maybe it is just me, who can say.

Well ok let me ask my I-Phone Or rather my magic eight ball app. SIGNS POINT TO YES Well part of my journey has been one into fancy, and i the analytic one, the rational one. I don't mind the eight ball's dismissal. After all, the ringtone says "I am he, as you are me." but that can't be! I am she! WITHOUT A DOUBT. That's better. The I-Phone is my Xmas present from my daughters, and well i was never an acolyte at the altar of Apple but.. I love the I-Phone! Who knew? it isn't really a phone that is the secret. It knows where you are, and where the closest pizza is at all times? The Bhagavad Gita and Rg Veda, in Sanskrit no less are there for reference whenever I am in a contemplative mood, and soon it will be telling me what birds surround me, wherever i am, and playing their sweet songs for me. All that and I have only had it a week. Should i download Dress Up and Makeup? or Girl Wars That is listed for Girls only. At any rate the possibilites are endless, of course with a phone full of fab girly apps I will probably need to explore phone security. If it falls into the wrong hands? gasp! i would be mortified.

If only the I-Phone could smell. I think we could have quite a relationship.

Pressing Buttons

Isn't that what it is about? pre-wired like my friend on the left or dynamically wired. Touch it and I shiver. Rub it and I sigh. At one age it was, touch that.. touch that warm round breast, and the feeling was a thrill and a hunger, which cried out touch more. (step close to my friend and she rises up, Devi, in anger protecting) At another age it is touch my warm round breast, and i .. melt and sigh and want to kiss you. (step away from my friend, and she returns to idleness and the complete indifference of the goose to human concerns) So you get re-wired, by way of a fetish, which is morphed to a fantasy, which evolves into an obsession, which resolves as an identity. boy becomes panty wearing boy becomes sissy boy in dresses, becomes the girl inside the boy who masks the girl. but it is still buttons, pressed, and buttons rubbed, and buttons fingered. Keys are pressed and the sonata is a thousand bouncing babies, the Goddess in Her lila, turning and tranforming us, over and over and over. A cock to a clitty is pretty minor. Do you recognize any of those eggs there?