The Screen Phenomenon

So I am in a Dune Shack in the Province Lands here at the End of the Cape. And I am having a bit of battle, no that's too strong a word..push me/pull you...no electricity, yup, that's what we came for....yet the writing current has caught me and after months of fishing for the myriad trains of thought, I am finally pulling up fish after fish of image, word, whole paragraphs appearing before me. And urgent creature I am, I fear MY COMPUTER BATTERY will run out..which it will actually. So I am being parsimonious with how long the screen, that magic immediacy of now you think the word..aha here it is (which my creative mind now is entrained to desire)...is on.

Because I am relative, having earned it rightfully so by age, latecomer to the digital realm, I still remember the "screenless" life. TV did not come into my house until I was eleven; it had barely been invented. My parents, being wise in this at least, put limits on it; even so, I found its mythic flickering of story more safe than my family's drama. But I was also a child of nature; in this, I received that gift coming in.

So i grew up, lying on my back in the summer fields of the mid west, watching the slow, steady move of clouds. When it was all too much and it was for me much of the time, I had the great screen of the sky. Very stilling, very patient this sky screen and it was always there. That constancy was part of its healing counterpoint to never-knowing-what-I-would-get-when-I-walked-thru-the-door energy of my earlist life.

Then there was the ocean...another screen of shifting light, shadow, tide, contour, wave, froth, plume and crest. Oh how I delighted in that, never tiring to be near it, in it, playing by it. I made my mother's mornings miserable in the summer when we went, as we always did, to Rhode Island, cajoling and badgering her with desparate insistence to "get to the beach". But being an adult, getting out the house presented her with conflict...a phenomeon I now understand, being her daughter after all.

Now sitting in this little shack which is buffeted about with the sound screen of the wind as the dusk is settling into its night's nest, I am so happy for the sky and the ocean and oh by the way, did i mention, the constant dance of flame in the wood stove, another entrancing "screen". Yet as dark as it is becoming, I am frantically in front of my computer screen attempting to get this all down!

The Economy of Fire

Gaze into the fire. Observe the tongues of flame as they do their kinetic dance, moving according to some pattern of transmutation. It is natural what they do; the fire just moves and its energy is graceful, engaging...it calls us into its presence. We become quiet, that is to say, our mind quiets..our bodies, often around a fire, might just as naturally seek to move, inspired by the fire's movement.

This play of both movement and stillness is what we love about fire, why we generally just feel good in its presence...what is sometimes called " the wilderness TV" effect...the fire's rhythm and movement enables us to relax...as "something else" holds the mind's ceaseless talk, focuses it on this natural "screen".

Have you observed this experience when people are around fire together? No one feels the pressure to speak, motivated by the unconscious need to fill the social space, make small talk, as we say. If someone is quiet, we can see her across the fire and know they are with themselves and that's fine. The fire is holding the energy so we are free to engage or not....so too, the interactions between us then are more natural, more present, more honest, more spontaneous.

Consider that for most of human history before our relatively young industrialized paradigm took hold, almost all human activity took place around a fire. It is the first and central locale of culture. It is the hearth, around which the family gathered for cooking, eating; the holy place where all ceremony was enacted; where council was held; the source of light and heat; the sacred and the profane meet in the fire.

Fire is the egoless performer; its allows for freedom of expression without compromise, that is what we seek in all our "performances". Being the both the literal and symbolic source of energy, our exchanges before fire become sacred. Music, food, dance, prayer, play, discernment, all are "down to the bone" before the fire.

Having a group conflict, needing to listen more deeply in a relationship, unsure where to move next in your life, wanting to have a great party, desiring to teach a child an important lesson, don't know what to cook for dinner, wanting to deepen your practice...go to the fire, use its authentic economy of eternal flame.

True Commerce and Gift Economies

"True Commerce," is a phrase I coined which connotes the idea of value accruing via exchange that replenishes rather than depletes the commonwealth. We must conserve and expend, both. Every conversation I have these days is the same. Whether people enter in through the political, the spiritual, the environmental, we all know, some subliminally, others more consciously that it can’t go on like this--finitude of resources coupled with a paucity of integrity.

There are many examples from indigenous society of an alternate commerce. In his book, "The Gift; Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property," Lewis Hyde references the Trobriand Island culture whose primary currency is denoted by shell bracelets. These bracelets are passed from household to household forming a gift economy where status depends on fluency of exchange. The bracelets' value increase in proportion to how often they are given away; the frequency of giving determines net worth.

Not surprisingly, the Internet has spawned the propagation of modern gift economies where, indeed, the "erotic" (as defined by a mediating principle of exchange) life of property becomes available via connection as opposed to commodification. The commons of the commonwealth begin to determine market force, and corporate control must bend or lose; the music industry being a prominent case in point.

Another example stemming from a mythic source: our word "money" comes from the Roman Goddess, Moneta. All coinage was minted in her temple thus making explicit the symbolic denotation of money. The Empire's money literally sprang from her loins, not accidentally as a female deity would best incarnate the feminine principle whereby prosperity is sanctioned through relatedness not accumulation. Hence, money's latent energy is released only when "spent"!

Where Digital Meets the Inidgenous

Indigenous societies hold wisdom borne from a time where the split between body and spirit, nature and culture or any of the many dualities who we moderns hold in the fabric of our psyche. As such, there is a rapidly becoming almost mainstream desire (and with that a “market”) to re-apprehend and integrate these earth-based technologies, ranging from the most primitive to highly esoteric. The Grandmothers’ ways are essential in restoring the sacred balance at this time on the earth.
Yet nostalgia is not an answer. We are in the paradigm shift that is wrought in part by the digital realm. But navigating that realm! How many middle aged women do I know who engage in a time honored exchange; help from young men with setting up their high speed Internet for dinner and some job advice. For many women my age (early fifties) especially those of us who are more intuitive than linear thinkers, the computers’ language, encoding syntax and expansive uncharted architecture can leave one feeling like they have stepped into a parallel universe, foreign exotic, unnerving. I have spent many a moment in front of the computer feeling vaguely caught and seen by cybergod’s blinking screen face, sure it can see my neurotic failures. Hence its power and possibility . But we know the Internet is a whole new arena where commerce and community meet so that, like Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the act of engaging its viral capacity changes the essential nature of the market network. Harnessing the Internet’s utility as integral to the planning of a project will generate both its structure and the market co-terminously...

This, too, even for those for whom the Internet has become a necessary tool and resource but less a destination, the technologies meet, the spark of dynamic tension synthesizing science and spirit into “techne”, an applied practice, internally balanced with indigenous tools for accessing and discerning the parallel realms of the spirit while expanding the true commerce vehicle for its manifestation.

A Valentine's Day Poem

"Throw my seashells back into the sea
cool the stings of memory
the past inside me has danced its dance
now is the time for now's romance."
-Dana Schechter

I've gone the distance,
taken a stand where I can
and not just in this instance.

Lost my heart
but gained my soul
having learned that breaking it
is the only way to make it whole.

Children dub me crazy and weird
so at last I know I have achieved
the state of highest queered.

Who am I?

I am the fire of your heart's desire
borne from the wounded deer
who does jump higher.

I am the poultice
whose alchemy does entice
the shadow of "its my and me,"
now seen
and sucked dry
of fear
so we can all just be here...

I am the the void, the gap, the space
where the willing allow
a change
now face to face.

I am a playmate,
the wind who blows early, often and late
who answers anxiety
with an invitation of levity, brevity and fate.

I am the tears we weep
when we must lose what we must lose
to keep what we can keep.

I am the practice morning, noon and night
aligning my whining
upwards on the stake in my spine,
releasing the fight
and just taking my time.

I am the phallus
living in temples and carved of stone
initiating an ancestral maiden's moan.
Modern women and men now choose to wear me
when seeking to unlock their power with
my ancient and essential key.

I am the vulva, the yoni, the pussy,
(we never really know what to call me!)
as entering my recess
you access
the passionate mystery.

I am the screw driver in the purse.
I am the one who needs a nurse.
Who is over sexed and underlaid,
over worked, under paid.

I am one, perhaps two
a dyad, a triad, a trio or trinity
sometimes a quartet, four
but really I am the world at your door,
you very own gate
to infinity and fate.

I am your father's death, your baby's birth.
We swaddle and suck.
We decide not to fuck.
We stand at the grave,
embracing both memories and enemies,
leaving, at last,
not turning back,
Pluto's cave.

I am all of your exs, some of both sexes,
telling the truth when it matters most,
finally enfleshing that childhood ghost
letting go of every last hurt, lost and angry boast.
And now we do sit
ungrief stricken
to simply have some fried chicken.


Today when the moon is in the seventh house
and Jupiter aligns with Mars,
The water bearer fills our cups, right up
and we commit to Love,
now and again and now again,
to steer the stars.


I am just a human woman,
messy and queer,
eccentric and hectic and dear.
Of course I am only talking, balking and stalking
this great "I am" of this thing called love,
that innocent, precious and ephemeral dove,
and hope like a dope
still stuck on luck
we will all expand
and burst
into a new universe.

This is my tale of the pilgrim's passionate way
with all of the intimates I hold in my heart,
having traveled the end back to the start.
Thank you for listening to all of my say as I offer my part
on this Valentine's day.


KCM, Valentine's Day, 2009
with inspiration by and plagiarism of the words of
Dana Schechter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Thich Nant Hahn, May Sarton, Emily Dickinson, & St. Paul.

On not feeding the brain worms

In the bright dark wood of love, we wander, some days clear, on the path; others, scratching our heads or our butts, depending on the amount of "stuff"...you know, all those obstacles, mostly self-created that keep us in the endless round of psychological association either projecting the future or dragging the past. In a twinkling, a blink, in that tweaky specific moment the Buddhists call "the gap," the place between breaths, a dead zone, no man's land, the void where every choice is possible, we have the opportunity to do it differently, change the encrusted architecture of our memory, minds and nature...breathe in innovation; breathe out possibility.

If you are anything like me, I awake every morning with a conscious attempt to recognize the delicious newness of the day..."aha, I say, oh God, I get another chance to try it again." As I pad downstairs, let the dog out, check the bird feeder, put the water on, crack open the computer, I find the sneaky brain worms beginning their practice, too. They are hungry and are checking to see if I will offer them food...they love doubt, fear, anxiety. And if finding an appetizer, they could easily wipe me up into a veritable feast of main courses...panic, anger, hysteria. That's their job, of course, to get me, their nutrition into such a state of paralysis that they don't have to go hunting for other prey, having found a good kill on which to feed.

You may think I am speaking symbolically but this experience, that of allowing our minds' thought patterns with their concurrent emotional content provides literal energy to real entities which "need" us in order to maintain their existence. The Yacqui indians and the Toltecs call them "the parasites"...Echardt Tolle references this as the "pain body."

There is only one antidote for this madness; staying present. And the technologies for staying present abound, naturally, that is to say, there are many, as many ways as we humans have of being human with our unique and troublesome prefrontal neocortexes. I keep bashing my proverbial head against the paradoxical truth that "it's not about trying to figure it out." Rather to become more present, I must become more natural. The divine flow of nature is the source of our vitality..the more present I am, the more exchange I receive...and have to offer.

So what about those pernicious brain worms? They do their job, if we choose to walk a path of awareness, of forcing us to exercise our power of choice. It's always an inside job, I keep finding. Today, I am putting my mind to good to use by writing..that's an appropriate exercise of mental energy...and the worms, they dissappear when I don't let me fool me into identifying with one of myriad, self-deprecating "talking tapes" they spin in my head. Time now to don my winter fur and go out into the bright, white winter day.