If This Archetype Chooses You – You are surrounded by magical possibilities. Are you dreaming of eternal bliss? Floating in connectedness? In Love the boundaries of the other disappear, all is forgiveness. Merge fearlessly, knowing you will be able to get yourself back any time, soothed, improved, and healed.
We Are Creatives for Love – Love is the spirit that animates the empty spaces between humans. Once charged, these spaces become a powerful force for growth and change – uncharged they are so much dead air. This is the space that creatives protect. Love is the longing to be truly alive and to share life with the Blissed, Blessed Others.
Our Yearning Defines and Connects Us – As children we thought we knew about miracles but it seems we have forgotten. As creatives we fight for our ancestral memories of trust and closeness. How we long to be reminded of the ecstasy of selflessness, to re-experience the borderlessness between creatures that makes a dead universe come alive.
Love Is Our Armor – It’s a spiral, our labyrinth, remember? We can’t go back, we can only go forward. We practice techniques and invent others as we design and redesign purposeful maps in a threatening and uncertain world. We have the collective confidence of all the brilliance of the creatives who came before us. Someone loved us once, eternalizing the golden moment, now we can re-create and perpetuate that magic by creating our own miracles.
Creative Danger – Danger lies in narrowing, exclusionary definitions of what ‘can’t” happen, what “won’t” work. Creatives explode restrictions all the time. Love must ever open outwards. As soon as we turn Love into a zero-sum game with a shut-off valve focused on our own narrow gratification, Love dies.
Creative Opportunity – Love Is always a Miracle – It can restore the dead to life. It can open minds, it can awaken hearts. The possibilities of a creative are endless because we have chosen, with our flexibility and our sympathetic understanding, to be endless. Close your eyes and assume yoga’s starfish pose. We are open to what the universe longs to teach and once we commit to pass it on, we form an unbreakable chain, free at last from the bonds and the limits of selfishness. Clasp the hand (or paw) that generously, trustingly takes hold of yours. Let’s venture forth together.
Models & Mentors – ‘to love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides” – David Viscott
“Miracles don’t happen to you, they happen through you.” – Mary Davis
“Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, only what you are expecting to give, which is everything” – Katherine Hepburn
“Love gives you a piece of your soul you never knew was missing” – Torquato Tasso
“You’ve got to see the miracle to be the miracle.” – Jandy Nelson
“Love is the gift of oneself” – Jean Anouilh
“I love you for who I am when I’m with you” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
#Haiku: Love Transfer
The secret of breaking Any bad habit Is to love Something more
We were amorphous seacreatures once. We breathed liquid through our gills and rubbed our silvery sides against our mates. In the womb we roiled and reveled in our oceanic environment. Whenever we float, eyes closed, we channel what it felt like, shivering and shimmering in an upside-down world. So is the dexterity of melting into a concatenation of dizzyingly different avatars a souvenir of ancestral past or a premonition of some liquid, undiversified future? What can it tell us about recognizing our soulmate?
We are reminded of skills we haven’t even tried yet, and our deep connections to inhabitants of universes we cannot even see. In the tantric garden, sex, gender, and identity are fluid; compromised constructs we create and share only with the Beloved. Let your imagination billow outwards, absorbing the Other. Our bodies express our memories, personhoods, dreams; evoke our aspirations and our lives. What does it mean to be truly open to another human? The level of trust must be so great the future vanishes into an endless present.
God knows, we are willing. To be full of another is the ultimate mindfulness; we touch brains, hopes, memories as well as skin.
I see myself in you –
Moth to flame Your meteoric dust Drips ash into my upturned mouth. I taste stars. What manner of being Have you become? I only know you’re something that I need Your mirrored endlessness partakes Of nothing human; suggests an Completion. I’ll take that promise; your shadow arches Like an angry lover Refusing satisfaction. My hunger burns more purely in the titillation of neglect. Without you I’m just myself With you I’m everything; God of Worlds. Anyone can be born: eternity is The lover’s privilege.
The Labyrinth – Complexity – Last night I dreamed of being at a resort where people were able to run across the top of the ocean playing a curling game – but they had to move fast. I couldn’t figure out what kept their feet above the waves. Later it was my job to provide lunch but the food at the little store was appalling. Very little bread, all stale – some weird canned vegetables, no protein other than some very suspect cheese. In the dream, I felt actual agony at the paucity of my choices. Then, on waking, I had to laugh at myself and my tiny fake “dilemmas”!
Do you Experience “Problem-solving dreams” you can’t seem to solve? Life is very complex. We are bombarded with daily reminders that many of its problems are too big for our tiny brains to tackle alone. We need help to decipher the maze – legions of engineers, mathematicians, philosophers and artists – living and dead. Our mythic history has always been: Tiny Helpless Human Confronts Huge Hostile Universe.
You Are A Problem Solver – There is a always a way out of the labyrinth. You can follow string, leave breadcrumbs, mark walls, climb higher to get a birds’ eye view. My favorite cartoon shows a goat calmly eating his way through the maze. The key, problem solvers tell you, is not to panic. Whole years of primary education are devoted to getting you to sit down, breathe calmly and divide the problem into steps. Remember what you have been taught. Open your Dream Journal and recall your goals.
Challenge – It is not necessary to solve the entire problem to solve the problem. Even a blind rat can get through a maze one step at a time. Algebra is the manipulation of unknowns. Guessing at the existence of x using the behavior of surrounding particles allows us to see without eyes. Many “hacks” are clever, and certain innovators have a gift for adaptation and reconfiguration. We can always get help. Repeat after me: “All my problems have a solution.” Often the solution is to view the “problem” differently. Maybe it isn’t a problem. Maybe it’s an opportunity.
Danger – Primary dangers are panic (inability to think) and defeatist thinking (lack of imagination). The lovely movie The Martian shows a scientist literally conquering the impossible. If you ”give up”, you never get there, but retreat, reconstitution, changing training regimens and getting help are NOT giving up. “Sleep on it” is always good advice, as is viewing the difficulty from some other angle or changing the definitions of the entities considered.
Opportunity – Key to success is fostering excitement about the challenges. Our high school used to dump couples in the countryside at night and give a prize to the first couple who found their way home! (Following roads and train tracks always a good idea.) Scavenger hunts and orienteering cover much the same territory. The fact that a problem is difficult only makes it more fun. Ask chess players.
Models & Mentors – “The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity” – Douglas Horton
“The labyrinth combines walking and thinking to open your power of imaginative perception” – Lauren Artress
“Willingness to be puzzled is a valuable trait to cultivate” – Noam Chomsky
“In a maze, find the center, in a labyrinth, find yourself” – Alysse Aallyn
“Life is a puzzle, missing pieces guaranteed and you can’t cheat and look at the box” – Anonymous
Mantra – “I solve”
Meditation:
#Haiku: Brainworms
Cruel Thoughts niggle; Threatening Hijack: Breathe deep: Swipe left Swipe right Float Up
Spirituality – Do you dream of sunflowers? Mountains? How about other-worldly events? Parapsychological and out of body experiences? Like flying and breathing underwater, these are freedom dreams that tell us much about who we are. Our spirituality is a reaching out for connection with the numinous – something others might insist is not even there. But we feel – very strongly – that it is.
Who’s right? Hundreds of years ago mathematician Blaise Pascal argued that we have so much to gain if supernaturalism is factual, and nothing to gain if it isn’t, so the calculus becomes simple. When you act as if the universe was richly designed by a Carer who promotes Goodness and rewards Love, you create the ideal conditions for human flourishing, whereas, as we all know, pessimism about outcomes dramatically lowers their possibilities and benefits. Certainly one could argue that our communications with each other are fraught with – mistake and misapprehension, but that’s an argument for increased effort and insight and not a quitter’s mandate.
Follow Your Sunflower Path – Turn towards the light. Develop a plan in your Dream Journal that focuses on increasing your ability to tell health from sickness. This will help you find the right path and the right people. Goodness does not seek your diminishment and enslavement – but – the ruthless pursuit of human power does. Reach out to the wavelength you can feel is alive and beneficial in the universe. Bask in its reassurance.
Challenge – The language of dreams is here to help. It allows us to explore our fears and answer Immanuel Kant’s immortal question, “What can we hope?” Jesus focused his ministry on healing and met virulent rule-focused pushback. His life as well as his words teach us that the “Letter” kills, but the “spirit” gives Life. It is up to us to find and nourish that spirit. Once you feel the angels around you – (I picture them as nosing deer,) your fear subsides.
Danger – Organized religion is helpful to the extent that it leaves you free. If you feel you ae being enslaved and ensnared, you probably are. Limiting your potential and demanding money are warning signs.
Trust requires us to follow where we cannot see the path, and so sometimes we lose the path. Sometimes we must hack out our own path through an absolute wilderness. Sometimes we realize even a trusted guide looks for what we can do for THEM. There is no journey that is free of this danger. We must maintain our ability and reserve our right to legislate for ourselves, to reverse course, to tell malignant spirits “You no longer represent me” and to seek out a healthier progress.
Opportunity – We are never alone. All around us are pilgrims struggling with the same things we’re struggling with. Sharing and caring knits us together. Our two party political system benefits from stirring up hatreds to protect itself from change. Don’t accept it. We are not each other’s enemies. The possibilities for friendship and connection are huge, but hatred and anger lead in only one direction.
Models & Mentors – “The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper”- W.B. Yeats
“You need not work to become spiritual – you are spiritual. You need only to recognize that fact” – Julia Cameron
“The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love” – Marianne Williamson
“Happy people build their inner world – unhappy people blame their outer world” – Dalai Lama
“The power of God is with you at all times, through the activities of mind, sense, breathing, the emotions, doing all the work, using you as mere instrument.” – Bhagavad Gita
Mantra – “I seek”
Meditation –
#Haiku: – Spirituality
We are all Planted; connected by Dirt; exploding our Seeds toward Light
Time to check your consciousness levels – How comfortable are you with the very existence, not to mention the depth, of your conscious/subconscious/
unconscious/collective unconscious levels?
Consciousness is your awareness of the Now.
Subconscious are all the memories and ideas pushed out of the Now into “Later”. With effort, you can become aware of these.
The Unconscious you are completely unaware of. It takes considerable mining effort to get down there, but it can be done. This is where you store everything you’ve heard, everything you’ve seen, even peripherally, even without bringing into awareness at the time. The Collective Unconscious is the most controversial. Do you believe you are a historical repository of other people’s memories, including those of whose existence you are entirely unaware? I do.
You Have Multiple People Blending Their Lives With Yours – Do you ruminate about past events? Are you haunted by what was done & left undone? Do you feel nostalgia for a past that never was? Do you have a favorite period in history or a fantasy universe that you wish you lived in, instead of this one?
You are the Heroine of Your Goddess Saga – Accept your centrality in your own myth. It doesn’t matter what other people think – they are the bit players. Think of your past as a Quest Saga. What did you want? How did it change? What blocked you? What tools have you got at your command? Where do you go from here?
Rewrite the Past – You absolutely CAN, but first you first must face its full horror and the effect on you. Generally, because we were immature, we didn’t understand what was going on, were co-opted by our persecutors and prevented from fighting back. Things are different now! The hardest thing to accept is that beloved caregivers didn’t want the “best” for us – they only wanted us to be just like them. Let’s begin bringing those levels of consciousness into symmetry.
“I Don’t Believe in Ghosts but I Never Met a Person who Wasn’t Haunted” is a very wise saying. What haunts you exactly? Or who? Ghosts are malignant – if they weren’t they would be power spirits, fairy godmothers or guardian angels. What malignancies from your past are out to get you and how do they make themselves known? One of Freud’s contributions was to point out that people prefer their neurosis – ie imprisonment – to liberation. Why? What’s in it for them – or you?
You Define YOU. Yes, Goddesses have scars – those are bragging rights! You have been through the wars! ‘Rewriting” the past means understanding what really happened, the limitations of those who surrounded you, and exploring your chances and choices today. Just because parents, teachers or “society” sentenced you to play a role, you can step out of it at any time. Buddhist thought is very helpful here. Buddha teaches that life itself is an illusion – a dream. It changes depending on how we think about it. In the present, inside your mind, you hold all the keys to your own liberation. Re-visit Pema Chodron’s Noble Heart and Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now to explore how you can assume immediate control of your life and your mind and turn your past into fuel to power your growth.
Goddesses Know Who They Are – Remember,you’ve got a purpose. You’ve got a future. You’ve thought about your past and worked out conflicts with a mentor and in your Goddess Journal.
Goddesses Develop A Sense of History – You understand that history is a spiral, not a circle – the same things do keep coming around but in a different form. You see all around you the operation of karma.
Choosing Evil is Choosing Chaos – and condemning yourself to death. It can’t ever work out except temporarily. You understand the battle between darkness and light and you have committed yourself firmly to The Light.
Goddesses Are Storytellers – You emblemize the message with your life, with your words, with your body, with your very presence. You have become one link in the unbreakable chain of Eternal Perfection and you will gain eternal reward.
Models & Mentors – “You never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory” – Dr Seuss
“Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things” – Cicero
“In the end, we’ll all become stories.” – Margaret Atwood
“Your brain forms the same neural connections and muscle memory whether you are imagining a task or actually doing it”- Yo Yo Ma
Should You Ever Wake up? The first thing that is obvious to an incipient, infant goddess is that Reality is often abhorrent, that everyone knows this and that they are not doing enough about it. Everyone insists they are just too small to tackle or challenge this massive Thing. And yet the incipient, adolescent goddess notices the Power of the Idea. Particularly the Self-Fulfilling Notion of Self-Determination. It’s not easy to become whoever you want, but it’s impossible to become anybody without wanting it. Your dreams “know” everything before you do.
Do you long for caretaking? Are you eager to give over the reins of your life to someone else? If so, you are not a goddess. The deepest desire of Goddessing is not being interfered with on out majestic passage through Eternity. But people will keep trying to take charge of you and redefine you. They will tell you ridiculous things – such as, Imagination is Bad, or it’s a waste of time. Remember – As Goddess, you’re the Pilot.
Are Your Dreams Scary, Unmanageable and Unsatisfying? Then it is time for you to take charge of your power – to admit that you are in control of your own brain.
Look forward to dreaming. I like waking up in the early dawn because when I go back to sleep I can set an intention for dreaming – all the best dreams (and the most memorable ones) happen at the very end of sleep while you are coming up through the layers of sub- to semi-consciousness.
Goddesses Are in Tune With Their Inner Voice – Jung tells us that in your dreams, you are everyone. Every life you have ever lived and every life you will ever live comes to you through your dreams.
Goddesses Are Seekers – We are self-defining. Self-validating. We are on a quest. Goddess experience to the fullest the nature of having a self. Become alert to the possibilities inherent in this particular incarnation and explore. Feel free to release your imagination.
Dream Journal – Start a dream journal. Date it, and write, “I want to dream about…” Fill in the blank. Be as detailed and specific as you can manage. It is OK to allow your waking mind to construct desirable dreams – great works of art got their start in just this way! You may hear a voice… someone from the past who discouraged your “day-dreaming” and wanted you to focus on your work, on the present and on them. Explore this memory fearlessly. It is not rejecting or “hating on” that person to disagree with them – there are certainly times when the priority is to focus on other things – but right now you are exploring your own brain and testing out its powers. Clearly that’s an important and necessary project. Gently take control from this Remembered Forbidder and say, “This is my time now. I am in charge.”
Goddess Danger – We all know the cautionary tale of Scary Guy Who Lives for Video Games and Doesn’t Have a Life. Do you secretly fear that the power of dreams and the pleasures of daydreaming will suck you away from Real World Competence? They won’t – so long as you are reality centered. You will become a fount of different outcomes and speculative futures with a gift for turning powerful desires into workable avenues of growth and advancement.
Positive Dreaming Deepens and Enhances, doesn’t evade reality. It’s just that reality is so much wilder – and we are so much more powerful than we can credit!
Dream Group – Reaching out for allies is always a good idea. Form a Dream Group with others to share the content of your dreams and listen to their fresh interpretations. You can even try Group Dreaming. Lie on the floor holding hands in semi-darkness playing drowsy music. Share whatever comes up. These are models for your future. Goddesses believe growth goes on forever – even after death. But this path must be chosen.
Models & Mentors – “I dream things that never were and I say, “Why Not?” – George Bernard Shaw
“A dreamer finds his way by moonlight…sees dawn before the rest of the world.” – Oscar Wilde
‘You have within you the strength, the patience and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world”
– Harriet Tubman
“I’ve had dreams, and I’ve had nightmares. I overcame the nightmares because of my dreams.” – Jonas Salk
Some People Prefer Risk. They don’t feel alive unless the situation is dangerous. What kind of goddess are you? The dangerous kind? Can you rush eternity? A hastened Immortality might not happen. More typical is ambivalence. We both want and don’t want – at the same time.
How Many Different Goddesses Are You? Sometimes we dream disturbingly about things we don’t want and people we aren’t. Feminists dream of rape, vegetarians dream of meat, pacifists dream of fighting. It’s confusing. What gives?
Language Isn’t Subtle Enough to Explain You – Your personality manifests all feelings, all thoughts, all ideas, rippling through you in a vast subconscious river. Everyone’s does; not only those who choose to be Immortal. Your unconscious connects with the “collective unconscious” of all other humans – dead, alive, even fictional. They ripple through you regularly. That’s where all your ‘strange thoughts” and “other personalities” come from.
Why isn’t “hate-love” a word? You experience that regularly. How about “fear-attraction”? Common! What I’m suggesting is that we need to accept the fact that a “personality” is a dynamism, not a label.
Goddess Challenge – Facing your own fluid multiplicity might seem the toughest part, but it isn’t for artists, who routinely “play” along their edge, peeking over it and imagining life on the other side. Art is the best way to express this, an enormous relief since it’s non-committal. You can stop experimenting any time you choose. It’s a goddess power also. Of course, you’ll have to face the surprise of your relatives when your work becomes public: “Where did THAT come from?” But if truth be told, we’ve always been surprised we’re related to those people.
Goddess Danger – Society seeks to label, limit and stigmatize. Everyone is afraid of becoming what they fear but Goddesses need to explore and ultimately manage our fear. A simple safe word won’t work when people – bankers, politicians, therapists, employers – are so fundamentally untrustworthy. That is why our identification of ourselves as Brave Goddess is so vital. The vastness of our potential can never be controlled by language. We will never be butterflies pinned down in a museum box for the instruction/curiosity of others.
Goddess Opportunity – Appreciate your Multiplicitous Self. Don’t slam the door on any of your potentialities too soon. Sometimes the worst labeler, the most determined jailor, is our own punitive psyche. We are deeply afraid of wandering in the forest and losing the way to get home safe. But Goddesses carry Home within them. As Nelson Mandela used to quote from his prison cell, if we are the captains of our souls we can be the masters of our fates. (Henley.) We can learn to tolerate a little ambiguity/uncertainty/ambivalence.
Goddess Tolerate Uncertainty – Being a goddess is all about balance. The experience of balance-seeking is indescribable linguistically – it must be felt experientially. Goddesses learn to live in a world beyond language where we can savor uncertainty and foretaste eternity.
Goddess Relish Paradox – Two contraries not only exist together but empower each other – that creative tension is the lifeblood of emotion, imagination and personality.
Goddess Coast on the Knife-Edge of Ambivalence – The desired is undesirable, the only possibility is impossible and the act of wanting forbids getting. In the Multiverse (Eternity) all your impossibles are actually happening. Goddesses must become comfortable with the pleasures of this dance: “My future dissolves in beads of sweat, my present is my mirror, my past’s a shape-shifting whirligig.” (Aallyn)
Even Leaders Must Contemplate the Power of Surrender – We contemplate Everything. Physics is magic and dreams embody history. This quantum world of “spooky entanglements” is one in which we goddesses become expert. We accept not only that the cave we fear holds the treasure we desire, but that we are both cave and treasure, indeed, fear itself.
Models & Mentors – “It seems we are capable of immense love and loyalty and as capable of deceit and atrocity. It is this shocking ambivalence that makes us unique.” – John Scott
“Ambivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own.”
– Erica Jong
“The Simpsons is about alienation and the ambivalence of living with a family who you love but drives you crazy”
– Matt Groening
“Poetry is the home of ambiguity, ambivalence and uncertainty.” – Billy Collins
To Become a Goddess Is to Accept Your Power. But power is fearsome. We are all familiar with fires that escape control, rage-fueled emotional spirals, explosives that blow up their wielders and the dangers of endlessly escalating weaponry. Once the Goddess’ unleashes power, much can go wrong.
The Power is there whether you claim it or not. To abjure your power is to deny your personhood – something women and marginalized groups have always been commanded to do. If you try to get in touch with your personal power, won’t you tempt established Power to come after you?
Power is About More than Control and bending unfriendly circumstances to your desire and will. It is the process of fulfilling your natural growth pattern, becoming the person God always intended you to be. You have an immortal mandate but you must claim it.
You Are Iconic –Goddesses invoke more than magic, they exemplify the inherent magic that is especially, irreplaceably Individuated Self. You have a power no one else has, incorporated in your being, your possibilities, your desires and your memories. This takes a lifetime to accept because we all nervously want to be Someone Else and experience existence through the armor of Having only an Outside instead of just the very vulnerable Inside in which we all feel imprisoned.
Only Illegitimate Power Will Fear You – The Universe that God created accepts a glorious new creature fulfilling their immortal mandate, while stolen power – the desire to crush, to control and to drain – will be forced to reveal itself in the fullness of its jealous evil.
Dreams Will Instruct You – Your dreams bring all these passions together as psychic poetry, elucidating what you think you want, what you hope you want and what you are afraid you want. The ultimate magic is to seize conscious control of this potent power source.
Goddess Challenge – The challenge is to truly connect with others, reveal our world Inside, and avoid blasting their apparently impenetrable Outside with our terror, our longing and our fear. As the demons come after you, you will deploy the skills and techniques of dissembling, transmutation, transformation, mirror-magic and emotional mastery. The demons are hungry, pathetic in their eternal emptiness.
Goddess Danger – We cannot take hostages and we must never become a hostage. Freedom is a fine line to walk. If we wish to reach out, we must treat those struggling to stand upright with respect and demand like respect for ourselves. Accept your “experiments”; do not fear them but allow them to take you where you need to go.
Goddess Opportunities – There will be stumbles and terrors aplenty, also successes that LOOK like stumbles and terrors, but which we only realize on reflection were real leaps forward. This is why we must carefully assess our daily efforts without being harsh with ourselves. Speak gently to yourself as you would to a most beloved child. You are the Universe’s Own Beloved Child. It is not selfish to commit to this belief, it is simply placing the oxygen mask over your own face FIRST so that you can administer this life-saving force to others. Find someone with whom you can share your journey, without fear or judgment. This connection will teach us everything we need to know about how to connect with others.
Fear & Trembling: Where would we ever get the courage to become goddess? Human history begins with an enormous fear of the Almighty or whatever is causing all that lightning, those earthquakes and striking everybody down. Killing small helpless, pretty things was meant to be flattering and propitiatory to this God (I don’t get it either.) Then Jesus arrived with a message about how God was really loving, generous and wanted the best for us. We know how that turned out.
Becoming a Goddess: As children, we struggled to understand where we fit on the power spectrum. I tried killing a snake, and experimented with bullying other children the way I was bullied. I didn’t care for it. The only relief was in thinking about, researching and understanding the philosophical concepts about what was going on. My earliest researches, as for many children, were in astronomy and dinosaurs. The cold magnificence of the planets and the complete wipeout of the dinosaurs gave me a way to stand back from the immediate suffering of the schoolyard. I then moved on to the early Egyptians who tried to solve their problems through magic and art. The art was visually appealing and the magic was emotionally soothing.
Pick Your Battles: I saw that most schoolyard fights were a reaction to the immediate suffering of pain or confusion, and that they magnified, rather than solved, those problems. There was a manifest holiness about this discovery. It rescued me from the torture of everyday life and elevated me to a plane where every other contributing thinker had already become immortalized.
Study & Strategy: I read everything I could get my hands on in history and biography (research) and in fairy tales (magic). When I fell in love with the novels of C.S. Lewis and Rumer Godden, the world judged my taste good – when I discovered Agatha Christie, it did not – but it turned out everyone else was reading her too. Agatha is a short course on human nature (original sin) and a proponent of both the scientific and Socratic methods. She’s great training for a Goddess. I wrote it all down in my Training Journal.
Claiming Your Power: By the time you’re a teenager you can see you have some power – some mental, some physical. The question is developing it and finding appropriate gurus. It is key to step out of the dominance/submission game.
Keep Going – Recognize that you have been touched by the goddess and honor her by being grateful for the glorious gifts of life.
Models & Mentors: “I did not deceive you. I permitted you to deceive yourself.” Agatha Christie
“An Indian proverb says everyone is a house with four rooms – physical, mental, spiritual and emotional. Most of us live in one room or the other but if you don’t visit each room each day you are not a complete person.” – Rumer Godden
“You are never too old to dream a new dream or set a new goal”
(Ordinary dorm room with desk lights, two twin beds, built ins. JAZZ feels her body as if to reassure herself that it’s still there. CORSO – bare-chested –is sitting on one of the beds, studying a laptop)
CORSO
Lose something?
JAZZ
I lost everything. What are you doing here?
CORSO
Installing fun software. You seem distraught– your mood begs improvement. Come over here into the light and let me look at you.
JAZZ
I’m not distraught, I’m disgusted. Hey, that’s my laptop.
CORSO
Nothing human disgusts. Take it from me, you’re going to love your new social media interface.
JAZZ
The thing that disgusted me wasn’t human. Is your software a game?
CORSO
Everything worth doing devolves into game. As your administrator, I’m in charge of upgrades. We’ll do Mr. Quinn next. Any idea where he’s been hiding?
JAZZ
Stevie Farrell, din’t you mean? How did you get in here?
CORSO
I’m loco parentis, poor, suspicious little Jazz, just checking up. You’ve been keeping such bad company. And Stevie’s not the worst of it – there’s a prowler around campus who seems to have it in for you. Let’s hope it’s not too late to put your feet on a better course.
JAZZ
I’m leaving if you’re not.
CORSO
Poor Jazz, what can we do to mitigate these fears?
JAZZ
(Throws herself impulsively on the other bed)
I’m not afraid of you.
CORSO
I see we have much work ahead.
JAZZ
(She finds his shirt – reacts like it’s infectious and throws it at him)
Why can’t you keep your clothes on?
CORSO
(Catching the shirt effortlessly)
Stevie and I were very informal; I was hoping we could be informal too. I gather he confessed his proclivities to you?
JAZZ
I heard a lot about how you can’t be trusted.
CORSO
Credulous Jazz! We must teach you discernment. Education is challenge, not safety or comfort – I strengthen minds and bodies to appreciate, manipulate and surmount reality. Recreate your own world. If you don’t want those things, then you’re fodder like the rest of them.
(fans himself with the shirt)
These rooms are very hot. Do you know the trick to opening these windows? Aren’t you feeling overdressed?
JAZZ
I saw your game.
CORSO
I borrowed bodies that weren’t being used! And aren’t you the better for it? Restful sleep, interesting dreams, AND a paycheck, now there’s a deal. I’ll throw in little Stevie to be your guide.
JAZZ
How can we converse when you pervert language? You pervert language and ideas. You pervert bodies.
CORSO
Debate’s not your forte, Jazz. I can assist with that. You entered this room requesting an upgrade in your selective amnesia. It’s something we all must have, otherwise none of us could function. I can help you control it.
JAZZ
If it comes from you, I don’t want it.
CORSO
Poor little Jazz! Who could you be channeling – me or him? Or perhaps it’s that desperado asking everyone for scuttlebutt?
JAZZ
I went with the flow till the flow tried to drown me. I’m becoming my own person.
CORSO
All freshmen think that. Is the real Jazz so robotic? You used to be so much more fun. You were quite the adventurer.
(laughs)
Let’s laugh together. Why so serious?
(mimes a ridiculously pulled down clown face)
Life unlocks all its secret pleasures once you master the key.
CHASE
(Bursts into the room)
Is the key murder? Soul murder, followed by physical murder to make sure the souls stay dead?
(JAZZ vaults to her feet, they hug, obviously drawing strength from one another)
CHASE
Stand up, you bastard.
CORSO
Oh, can the paranoia, little Steve. Victimology is so limiting. Jazz and I aren’tinvolved, if that’s what’s bothering you. We share a strictly business relationship. There’s room for you, too if you down your tools of self-destruction.
(Rises imposingly. He’s bigger thanCHASE)
CHASE
We have all the proof we need. You can’t get away with it.
JAZZ
The bodies are piling up.
CORSO
But they long to pile, and not feel guilty! Everyone wants to be a porn star!
CHASE
We know what you did.
CORSO
What a shame, then, that you felt the need to mime unconsciousness. When will feel your feelings and live your truth? Isn’t that what youth is all about?
JAZZ
Being drugged isn’t truth!
CORSO
Yet you – both of you – acceded to all of it. Names along the bottom line. The law says you’re adults.
JAZZ
I know what you did is illegal!
CORSO
Fashion to law, little Jazz, and with such startling speed! Too bad the law is amorphous, the law’s in transition, it’s a creature of fashion just as you were. Things that were illegal last year are perfectly legal today. People go to court and bankrupt themselves to “win” – ask your sad friend – but the law doesn’t help them feel they have won. They spend the rest of their lives trying to recapture the glow of surrender.
CHASE
You are vile and despicable – everything about you is saturated with evil.
CORSO
I see that you two have made loserdom your bond. It’s so unhealthy, all this focus on the past. You could enjoy both youth and wealth, but you consciously choose misery. Let’s try ratiocination for a change. Who gives benefits and who gives problems? Haven’t I made all your tiny dreams come true? You can have Mr. Quinn if you want him, Jazz, anyone can. Now let’s concentrate on upgrading these immature fantasies.
CHASE
What if we tell the Dean?
CORSO
Who, Bernie?I’m sure you’ll find Bernie doesn’t expect me to police my students’ very randy sex and dream lives.Bernie and I understand each other perfectly. People loveporn, everyone wants an avatar and to feel like a creator. Let’s consecrate all this blood and shit to transcendental purposes.
JAZZ
You use words you can’t understand.We’re soulmates. We’ve seen worlds of possibility, of universe and time.
CORSO
You’re welcome!
JAZZ
You’ll never know what we can do.
CORSO
Pretty sure I can guess. Everything except freedom?
CHASE
Your freedom is all fake. You’re nothing but an appetite. All youcreate are slaves.
CORSO
Oh. Slaves! In a limitlessuniverse, slaves are no fun at all. It’s such a bore always having to direct.
(fanning himself)
Jazz, how can you tolerate this hideous heat? I know there’s a trick to these windows.
(Successfully opens window)
Stevie, get us a drink. Let’s sit down and talk this over like grownups.
CHASE
Not a chance.
(BEXappears spot-lit on the TOWER LIFT, scanning with his binoculars, holding his shotgun at the ready. He sights his quarry & racks his slide)
JAZZ
Look out the window, Dr. Corso.
(She pulls CHASE away)
Tell me what you see.
CORSO
(Peering)
Who’s out there, Jazz? Bile stained, piss stained revenants skulking home for parietals?
(BEXclimbs awkwardly out on the tower lift, hooking his leg, trying to get a good shot)
CORSO
(Waves out at the world)
Run home, littleoneironauts! Your memory cards expired!
(JAZZ grabsCHASEand pulls him to the floor. Shots ring out.CORSO, looks down at his chest as red stains bloom across his back. Plummets slowly out through the window. Recoil causes BEXto lose his footing – drop his gun – throw his arms up – cry out – fall)
JAZZ
Set a demon to catch a demon!
CHASE
May the aspirations of murderers always overreach.
JAZZ
And those of lovers override.
CHASE
Time to free the others? Whether they like it or not?
JAZZ
Kiss me.
(They kiss.Sacred music, pink glitter.DARKNESS. FINAL CURTAIN)
– KITCHEN set, bar with overhead wineglass and pot rack, burners steaming ( ZOYAorchestrates the food)
ZOYA
Stevie, could you open the wine and let it breathe?
(Clutches her own throat)
No one wants a strangled wine.
CHASE
Jazz drinks any kind of wine.
ZOYA
Jazz? What kind of name is that?
JAZZ
It’s a nickname. My name is Jasmyn Suzino.
ZOYA
(Thawing. She is cautious and protective, not mean)
If you’re important to my son I’m so glad you’re here.
CHASE
She’s very important to me.
ZOYA
I hope you like Welsh rarebit and Coquille Saint Jacques.
JAZZ
Sounds delicious. I hear you do your own cooking?
(CHASE takes bottle and opener from his mother.)
ZOYA
Love is the main ingredient, I always say. Red or white?
(She pulls down wineglasses from the overhead rack. There are several bottles of wine.CHASEopens them one after the other. JAZZ looks a little scared as if she might have to drink all this)
JAZZ
Oh, whatever. May I have ice, please?
CHASE
(Being a Farrell)
No.
ZOYA
Oh, for heavens sake let her have whatever she wants! Lemon, sugar! Anything! This is a party!
(Slaps out an ice bucket)
CHASE
Taste it without ice first. It’s Christmas wine from Lebanon.
JAZZ
Wow. Delicious. You’re right….forget the ice.
(JAZZsits at the bar – ZOYAblots the corner of JAZZ’s mouth with a napkin, lays napkins down. What with spoons and potlids, she gives an impression of sacred priestess juggling sacred tools)
CHASE
Mom made all this lace herself.
JAZZ
Awesome. Exquisite. I didn’t know humans made lace.
CHASE
Mom was beaten into submission by nuns. You propitiate the gods by giving them lace.
ZOYA
(Raps him sharply with a spoon)
Stevie, you heretic! What will our guest think?
CHASE
“Make our damn lace or be consumed by the Holocaust!”
ZOYA
Stevie! Oh, what’s the use? You’ll never change. I forgive you.
JAZZ
Uh, the flowers on that cake look almost real.
ZOYA
I love making sugar flowers. Those are lilies and camellias. I wore them at my wedding.
CHASE
Mom studied pastry making at the Cordon Bleu in Paris.
ZOYA
It was just a summer course. Canapés or crudités?
CHASE
Crudity always.
JAZZ
(ToCHASE)
Paris! Were you there?
CHASE
Naw. I was just a bullet in my father’s bandolier in those days.
ZOYA
Oh, Stevie! You’re such a silly! How I love you! No, he’s never been to Paris. We’ve not been back. That was our honeymoon, so long, long ago.
(Seems like she might cry)
It’s so hard to keep the rarebit from separating.
(sniffs – offers a plate)
Duck pâté?
JAZZ
Er, sure.
(ZOYA and CHASE toss off their wine, he refills their glasses. JAZZ holds hers against her chest. ZOYA reaches down a platter)
ZOYA
I love to cook! Following a recipe to make things right. I wish people ate more, but they’re always on such weird diets. Cyanne’s a vegan who won’t eat gluten. Everything’s changed. I used to pick my own watercress but now I’m afraid of the fisher cats.
CHASE
Fishers eat squirrels, mom, not people.
ZOYA
Somebody needs to eat those squirrels. They’re too assertive. But it’s the fisher cats who scream – like someone being murdered.
CHASE
They’re nocturnal, Mom. And watercress is out of season.
ZOYA
(Fighting back tears)
So how does your family celebrate grand occasions, Jasmyn? I’m sure it’s something more splendid than a homely family party.
JAZZ
(nervous)
We make a lot of toasts.
(She lifts her glass. ZOYAandCHASEboth drain their glasses and immediately refill as if that’s what etiquette requires)
ZOYA
Stevie, you say the blessing.
CHASE
You’re going to have to stop calling me that, Mom. My name is Chase.
ZOYA
But that’s a stupid name. It doesn’t mean anything. Steven was your grandfather’s name.
CHASE
But he’s gone. You want me to be gone?
ZOYA
I’m praying you never leave again.
(Lifts her glass)
Zemlya pukhom!
CHASE
It’s your birthday, Mom. We toast to you.
(He raises his glass)
ZOYA
(Abashed, almost frightened.)
No more bad luck. I’m not fit to catch God’s eye. Dolgaya zhizn!
JAZZ
What’s that mean?
CHASE
Long life.
JAZZ
Long life!
(They drink. A moment of happiness. Enter CUTTER FARRELLdressed as if for wild weather. CUTTER slowly removes outer gear but continues to play with belt – appraising the group as if wondering who to use it on. He is a cold, cold-eyed man, a paler, blockier version of CHASE. Accepts drink from placatory ZOYA)
CUTTER
Filthy night. What have we here?
ZOYA
Stevie brought a friend to my birthday party! Isn’t that exciting?
CUTTER
(Takes drink, cranes his neck insultingly)
Little Stevie brought a date? Where is he? I don’t see him.
(JAZZsteps up bravely and offers her hand)
JAZZ
Hi, I’m Jasmyn Suzino.
(CUTTERtakes her hand and presses it to his chest, looking her up and down at his leisure)
CUTTER
Where did this dark-eyed beauty spring from? Be still my loins. I’m Cutter Farrell, young lady. Pleased to make your acquaintance.
JAZZ
(Awkwardly)
I go to school with Chase. Er – Steven.
CUTTER
Bet you met him yesterday.
(JAZZ reacts as though this might be true. CHASE steps forward, detaches JAZZ’s arm)
CHASE
Pick on someone in your own weight class, Dad.
CUTTER
And that would be you? I’ve heard braggadocio but I’m getting tired waiting.
ZOYA
(Panicky)
Please don’t fight. It’s my birthday.
CUTTER
I don’t like surprises. That’s all.
(Pops some savory in his mouth and drains half his drink)
So. Suzino. What kind of a name is that?
JAZZ
It’s Portuguese.
CUTTER
Is there a Dad in your picture?
JAZZ
(After a beat)
Not really.
CUTTER
That’s the Portuguese in him. We Irish, now, keep families together. We hang on till every lost dog is drawn and quartered.
(ZOYAsnaps tensely atCHASEwho is eating)
ZOYA
(Spanks his arm with her lace napkin)
Don’t double dip, darling! It’s disgusting!
(Blots her forehead)
I’m sorry.
CUTTER
(Poking freely among the crudités tray)
When’s dinner?
(ZOYAclatters pot lids hopelessly)
ZOYA
Half an hour. Forty-five minutes.
CUTTER
Just enough time for a private pow-wow. Bring your drinks, kids. You’ll need them.
CHASE
No thank you.
CUTTER
I’ve got a business proposition for you. Come along now: fair’s fair. You’ve got to give me a chance to get my money back. All the cash I spent on you…
CHASE
I’m not putting my money into any of your schemes.
(CUTTERtakesJAZZ’s arm)
CUTTER
Fine. Then your little girlfriend and I will have a sit down. You stay out here with Mummy the way you always preferred, Jasmyn and I will have a heart to heart and find out what’s what.
ZOYA
(Desperate)
Cutter, please!
CUTTER
You cook, dumpling, I’ll entertain our guests.
ZOYA
By arguing?
CUTTER
I only stand up for what’s mine.
(ToCHASEwho’s sliding unwillingly off his barstool)
You’re going to wantto see this. Believe me. It’s the next biggest thing, and I’m offering you a buy-in on the ground floor.
CUTTER’S DEN- SCENE XIV. Macho and dark; leather furniture, deer head, creels and powder horns, gun rack
CUTTER
So, what are you studying in this college of yours?
JAZZ
We’re participating in a research experiment.
CUTTER
I’ll bet you are. Anything to do with the Internet?
JAZZ
The Internet?
CUTTER
(Shaking his head as he looks atCHASE)
Where do you get these girls? You haven’t heard of the Internet, young missy? The World Wide Web?
JAZZ
(Blushing but controlling herself at a warning look fromCHASE)
It has nothing to do with that.
CUTTER
(Studying her speculatively)
Well, I can’t answer for how they behave in Portugal, but it’s possible you were pimped out without your knowledge.
(Picks up a video controller. CHASEandJAZZstares stupefied at a screen that flickers dancing shapes over their faces)
CUTTER
Look what your boyfriend got you into! It’s a game, see? You can make them do any combination, anything you want.
(Struggles with his controller)
How do you make this thing go frame by frame?
JAZZ
Oh, my God. It’s US!
CHASE
Turn that thing off!
(CHASElunges for his Dad, they tussle, CUTTER playing “keep away” with remote)
CUTTER
Wait, wait –the good part is coming up!
(CHASE succeeds in dashing controller to floor, screen light goes off)
Here’s a fine thing for a father to have to see! You could at least ensure they disguise the faces – but you all make yourselves so recognizable with those tattoos. Nice birthday gift for mommy, wouldn’t you say?
(CHASE lunging – they are full-on wrestling)
CUTTER
This idea’s worth millions – unless you sign away your rights – AGAIN. But that’s what you do, isn’t it? Anything rather than take dad’s advice! Why don’t you hit me, since you’ve been longing to. Go ahead – hit your father!
(CHASEmanages to turn off screen, throw remote, pushes CUTTER away)
CHASE
Come on, Jazz, let’s get out of here.
CUTTER
I suppose you’ll claim that was art.
(Heavy fake Irish accent)
Will you be taking it around to the festivals now? Put it up for the booby prize?
CHASE
You’re dead to me.
(Dragging JAZZ away)
CUTTER
I’m dead to you, you spineless party pooper?I’mdead toyou?
(ZOYA appears holding a wine opener pushed to her neck)
ZOYA
I’m dead to everyone and nobody noticed!Nobody even noticed!
(JAZZ tries to go to her, CHASE pulls her away downstage – lights off on FARRELL RESIDENCE)
Alysse Aallyn 