"you can be right or you can be happy"

aaahhh, there's the rub.

I'm holding up a mirror to myself today. I'm asking the question "why?" and finding answers in the oddest places. The New York Times, of all places. An extension of the "nobody listens until they're ready" discussion.

that all of the fluff and thoughts on "why things happen" and my thoughts on gender and societal bias is pretty much going to stop, on this blog and in general... It doesn't really matter if I bring these discussions up or not, and, even though I've long since stopped being upset about most of it, there's still judgement and opinion threaded through that may not be taken terribly well by the reader...

and really, I can drop all of this. I don't need to be an activist in this way, the fever has run its course...

...the best thing I can do is live a life that is good, joyful, and happy, and handle what is in front of me, not in front of everyone else. ... Living within the context of my life, as it is, and letting go of the fight... I just don't have the energy to take this on anymore!

Each person is responsible for their own life, and, releasing all of this energy back to each person to make their own choices without my opinion is the best thing I can do... For me.

acupuncture, yin, yang, and my fluxing nature...

I've been receiving acupuncture lately, and am being presently treated for "excess fire in the stomach"... anyone who knows me should not be surprised by this... I'm also on an herbal supplement to bring this excess heat out of my system, and I'm finding that other things have gone with it...

... like my relentless pursuit of actively going after what I believe I want... which, actually, is a good thing.

I've given in on, given up on, something completely, something that I feel would be fantastic for me, that I believe would be good. Something that requires the cooperation, input, effort, collaboration, and leadership of another person. Something I think would be fun to try out, even if it's just for a test drive.

But there are some tricky things in human nature, like another person's choice, that, even when offered Belgian chocolate for free, some people will smell it like you're trying to poison them. Some simply do prefer something else (someone else will have to fill in the blank here... I got nothin). Some others will question why this thing would be valuable at all. Some will only do it if they discovered it themselves. Some will yell at you for offering them something that might cost them something, like their own Hershey status quo security blanket. Some will send you email articles about the terrible conspiracy of Belgian Chocolate makers with the Bilderbergers to ensure Hershey remains lower quality and waxy (I made that up. The conspiracy, clearly, would be with the Swiss chocolate makers. :) ).

In short, my own judgement about, well, anything, is prettymuch not worth much to other people, unless they actually wanted to listen to what I have to say/feel/think to begin with.

The only thing I, or honestly anyone else, can really do, is to follow my own desires, my own bliss, my own judgement... and, at some point, in the unforseen future, when I'm lucky on things, naysayers come back around.... and act like they discovered Belgian Chocolate all by themselves. Which, really, to them, they have, because ya know, the last time that stuff was totally poisonous.

What I've grown to understand is that no matter what I do, other people will follow their own path. And unfortunately, I can't change their minds or hearts.

And so, in the nature of human desire to share, my peers are limited. Peers with whom I'd gladly share a bowl of M&Ms and discuss the mysteries of the belgian chocolate conspiracy, just for the sheer pleasure of their company, if they'd only try the belgian once in a while and not assume I was in on the conspiracy. Instead, i'm having to choose from among the belgian, french, and swiss chocolate fans, and they're somewhat further apart and fewer in number... and trying to figure out who's less closed-minded.

But I once read a book that said once you learn how to properly play tennis, you can't simply go out and hit the ball anywhichway. There is a more effective way to hit a tennis ball, and that does mean your options on how to hold the racket and hit the ball are fewer than for those with less training.

But when we're not talking about tennis or chocolate, its often very hard to tell which person has had more training. Very hard.

But, right now, what I'm getting is that none of this really matters... If there's no game there's no game... and the best I can do is follow my desire to play, and find more suitable friends to play with.

this comment has been postponed until further notice...

Yes, I most definately have something to say. ooooh yes. Involving the apparent impossibility of avoiding having other people thinking terrible and false things about me and my character, and the negative impact this has had on my life and my perception of myself. But based on today's horoscope:

Friday, Apr 3rd, 2009 -- You won't be able to avoid a confrontation that's right around the corner, yet rushing into it prematurely won't necessarily help. It may be better to let the tension build until it reaches a critical mass on its own. Don't push for resolution today or you might stir up more of a hornet's nest than it's worth. Paradoxically, your intentional avoidance of a troublesome issue can be just as dangerous. Allow feelings to surface naturally without judging any of them as right or wrong.

I think my best bet is to postpone this post. This has come up for me for basically my whole life, and involves several different people pulling this nonsense, so, whats another day or two... its not like they've noticed anyway...

The S... Forget Everything I just Told You

(Dear Reader: Please Disregard Parts 1, 2, & 3, posted prior to this, as None of them have much to do with S-Factor at all...)

www.sfactor.com

I take S-factor because it is my way, my path, into an amazingly deep, full, rich, present, experience with my own divinity. When I dance at the S-studio, I disappear into the music, and become part of the fabric of an irrepeatable experience.

Sheila Kelley describes S-Factor as "Organic Feminine Movement". That, to me, sums it up completely. Through S-factor, it has become abundantly clear to me (a heterosexual woman) how beautiful the body and movement of women are. These women are my sisters. They are each uniquely gifted with different things, and each of us is having our own beautiful experience, evolving our own dance. We witness each others movement, triumphs, and tears.

I have had no experience more closely aligned with Spirit / God / Universe / Zen than I have inside that studio. I have become Light. I have felt a metal pole become wet clay on the suggestion of my teacher. I have danced raw emotion. I have shed deep tears that had been held in my hip flexors for several lifetimes, while in a meditative "Ruby's Pose", to the song Hallelujah (as sung by Rufus Wainwright).

I danced the grief of Woman (with a capital W) to songs like They Dance Alone (Cueca Solo) by Sting and Three Weeks Shy by Jim Boggia. The centuries of ungrieved loss, that resides in our cellular memories, so easily accessible, and so desirous of expression. I dance my ownpersonal ups & downs, and can feel the voice of my body and appreciate Her as something with her own separate expression from my brain. And good god, is she smart and wise and intuitive.

And yes, if another person could be a "fly on the wall" in this experience... if this could be all the things it is in the sacred space of the room that is the studio, and at the same time performed for a group of observers, I'm quite sure that we would each and all blow the observers away... That anything that the observer thought that they were about to see, would evaporate completely, in the presence of what real, living, moving beauty would be present before them.

I once had was graced to coreograph and perform an S-Factor routine for a group of women, as a performance... And the thing is... the coreography was almost entirely improvised, but I created a structure inside which that improvisation could happen... We made the audience cry with the beauty of us. and... quite a few of us were above a size 8.

When S-factor classmates go out for a drink, you will see a variety of ages, sizes, and races, all sitting together, being women. It does not escape me at all that this experience is precisely what would move international relations... if heads of state all took an S-factor session together. As it is, it's so irrelevant that we're "different". the language of dance and of being a woman transcends anything we think we are.

And yes, we are beautiful when we dance, our experience of our own beauty and strength, joy and grief, will turn you on, will mesmorise you, make you scream, sigh, laugh, cheer, and cry... but that's because we are experiencing and dancing raw juicy life.

So, before you dismiss your friend / daughter / sister / wife / colleague for this "thing" she does that you don't understand... Consider that she is quite possibly experiencing grace itself... all under the umbrella of something that some fools may write off as a profane waste of time... consider yourself very blessed to know her. And even moreso if she allows you the privelege of seeing her sacredness.

The S... Part 3

Have I blown your mind yet? Have your paradigms been shattered to bits yet?

Guess what kiddies... if you have ANY negativity about SFactor, especially if you know nothing about it, you are living in a totally outdated paradigm, from my perspective.

I mean really, consider this, SFactor charges $480 for a class that goes on for 8 weeks. Why are women like me paying for this class? What is the value in it, if it is all the nasty, raunchy, base things you heretofore have believed?

how about this... have you ever seen a kid, boy or girl, running in circles with one arm on a subway pole or a railing? WHEEEEEEEEE!! what fun!!!!! (when was the last time you had as much fun as that kid?)

this post is pending... this is the good stuff. but I gotta work...

Oh, and by the way, for anyone who's already here, ya know, gets it, please understand that these posts are for all those people who need to be caught up to what reality looks like to me. Sort of like I was listing the assumptions before I begin a scientific experiment. I haven't even yet gotten to what I wanted to say, at all... but then again, the people who actually need to "get it", and who "don't understand why I do SFactor to begin with", need to be brought up to what reality looks like to me.... otherwise, why would I even be discussing this question at all?

come back later and read more (i am such a tease...)

(P.S.S.,this is why its so hard for me to have normal and effortless conversations... I have to "unpack" and list all the assumptions upfront, because a lot of people aren't living under the same set of assumptions and definitions I am... 3 blog posts of disassembling other people's assumptions to bridge where-they-are to where-i-am before I get to the meat of the topic, what I wanted to say to begin with.)

Explaining the S... Part 2... Societal Bias

(and for those of you "out there" who are a little slow, I'm simply going to refer you back to this post, a year or two from now, when I haven't quit, and you still "don't get it")

S-Factor, more than anything else is a moving meditation, closer kin to taichi than to a strip club. Yes I'm serious.

And... here's a really long way to get to where this gets explained.

See... here's the thing... we do live in what evolved as a "patriarchal" society. That's just what it is, and I don't think we can change the past. And I'm not bringing this up because I'm angry or upset about it (and I'm sure someone out there is going to bring up the word "feminazi" simply because it is SO SCARY that there might BE another, different point of view... a variation on the paradigm you've been living in, ohhh... for about 5000 years... and if you want to know who you are (proof that you are living in that old paradigm): right about now your eyes are glossing over...on the other hand, if you're getting pissed off at me saying this, there is hope for you, you're going to wake up sooner...).

If you're looking for the proof of the patriarchal nature of western society, that would be a whole 'nuther blog post (or twenty) and a bunch of books that I'd hand you to read. Suffice it to say, the 'gender-neutral' in pronouns, and in the gender of an infinite being, aka "God" (which therefore has no gender unless it has both genders...) is male. If you want to take up this discussion with me, ask for another post. Next...

As a result of this societal earth-is-flat bias (sort of a social determinism...or an experimenter's bias... something from a basic chemistry class comes to mind here... as do Schroedinger and Heisenberg (and then I start thinking that really its no accident the faith healer Bruno Groening was around at the same time...and was German...as when the quantum physics - thang was going on... but I very much digress...) ) the body of a woman, her natural-born gifts of curves, curls, wiggles, and giggles, is basically seen as profane. Without even trying to attract or seduce. A 4-year-old-girl is asked to "cover up" her top (no different than the boys tops at that point) at a public pool because some grown-ups are uncomfortable... that 4-year-old girl gets the clear message she is Different. Set-apart. the message is, her body isn't good enough. And Why is a woman's body considered profane? because the people who are making the rules are turned on by it (and ya gotta teach 'em young... right? nip that in the bud.). Without her making an effort to do so. The power of a woman's body to turn-on, to attract, is SO powerful... her light has to be covered up under a bushel basket (or a burka)... Because a woman can cause car accidents Just by feeling good about herself and walking down the street.

But I hear men of all ages, "loving fathers", say they are going to lock up their daughters until they are 30. The message is, it's the girl's fault that boys and men respond to her. The sin of Eve, played out all over again. And that somehow, it is "supposed" to be controlled by men. That she, because she is a woman, is never, ever going to be good enough.

The power contained within a woman is seen (by men) as overwhelming and "out of control" unless, that is, someone (a man) is in control of it... News Flash: it is far better to have the woman, and the girl, be in control of her own power.

So here we are, in 2009, and the attitude towards womens bodies is still split. Either you are a whore or you are a virgin. There's little middle ground, unless you are a socially-acceptable mother. And your men want to PROTECT you from other men at all costs. Because, of course THEY know how DANGEROUS men are. So its the daughters who have curfews, get put under burkas,... and end up not owning their own bodies. Not out of their own selves, but out of an overdeveloped FEAR in the bodies and hearts of their men. End up hating themselves, thinking they are ugly (that one was mine for about 30 years...), or destroying themselves through eating disorders to meet an ideal, one that was set up by men.

Women's bodies are not profane. Our curves, our lust for life may bring you to your knees, but that is just who we are. And its a good thing womens bodies are designed to attract too, otherwise you-all would have completely descended into a world filled with detatched non-interaction as you all sit at computers, televisions, comic books, and spreadsheets and books, and forget to go out into the sun and have fun. You'd spend all your days playing XBox and Wii and ordering pizza. Unless you're at war, or a football player. (yes, I'm exaggerating!!!)

what I'm saying is your assumptions about women, about protecting women, about the seductive nature of women, is skewed, by the fact that this culture is built on the belief that God is a man. And therefore, we women-folk, are secondarily derived creatures, simply because we're not men.

In the words of Jessica Rabbit, "I can't help it, its just the way I'm drawn." damn straight, girlie.

Again... your assumptions are skewed. Not completely wrong, but skewed.

and really... how fucked up is it that WOMEN have to be limited and protected because MEN are "dangerous"? Have men grow up and have some self control instead! Duhhh....

(and if you're looking for yet another extreme point on the "acceptability" of this type of behavior by men, consider this: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-04-04-afghanistan-law_N.htm I get the feeling there are going to be a lot of women with "headaches" in Afghanistan!!!)

So...all that brings us to SFactor, as I see it. please page forward to Part 3...

Explaining The S... Part 1... The NOT-Whys

http://www.sfactor.com/

As some of you may know, I take pole dancing classes.

And, I've found, a lot of you have absolutely no comprehension as to why... and your guesses as to "why" on the matter of these classes seem really, really, bad... and the reason I say this, is because there are a lot of you-all who won't even discuss about it with me, but will make jokes about it in the distance. (Which tells me that you think I'm some kind of bizzare freak or something... )

First, I'm NOT taking pole dancing classes to be "subservient to men" (yes, someone made that comment)... In fact... men aren't even allowed in the studio.

Second, I'm NOT taking pole dancing classes to learn to be seductive to anyone else (seducing myself is another matter entirely)

Third, I'm NOT taking pole dancing as a means of rebelling against an overly-constrictive upbringing.

Fourth, I'm NOT looking for "a second career"

Fifth, I'm not doing this for you, or for anyone else. (I'm doing this for me.)

Sixth, I'm NOT doing this because I'm some kind of freak.

Now that this is all cleared up (and really, if you can think of any other really bad reasons you think I'm taking this class, feel free to send them, so I can tell you, no, that's not the reason either!)

Now... for part 2...