It's Christmas – a time when some of us do a lot of soul-searching and reflecting in a nostalgic sort of way. And it's not that I feel old; I really don't. I'm in excellent health, comfortable with my life except for obsessing over my Zahir, and I like to think I'm pretty much up to date as a techno-user in this new world of technology and gadgets. Yeah, I've got my computers, my BlackBerry, and I do quite a lot of semi-technical work. But the thing is I don't really enjoy all this hi-tech crap any more, and so much of it seems to me to be entirely unnecessary, or even counter-productive. I think it causes stress in humans, but maybe not in rats. Yesterday my BlackBerry mysteriously lost its Internet service, and between the time it went down and the time my service was restored, I was tense, irritated, sweaty under the arms, and upset with RIM – an outfit that prides itself in its technological expertise. When I finally got to talk to a real person about th...

Hierosgamos may be generally defined as an overt spiritual or sacred act of physical sexual intercourse between a deity and a man or woman for the purpose of gaining divinity for the human partner. Symbolically, the celebration of the Eucharist is the same thing. In ancient Sumeria, for instance, a hierodule participating in the act with a god became a deity of the goddess Inanna in the same manner as the taking of bread and wine represents the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist communion today. The roots of this ancient act run deep even today in some religious and neopagan cults, but the fact that it is also ritualized in many Christian faiths, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, seems to indicate that the myth of copulation between gods or goddesses and human beings is based in physical reality. Read no further into the Holy Bible than the 6th chapter of Genesis and you will find that sons of god marry daughters of men: "And it came to pass, when men began to...

For more than a year now I have been in love with and obsessed by a woman nearly twenty years my junior. She is my Zahir (as I have described in a previous post). Our relationship is one full of deep currents of eclectic waters converging from many tributaries, pushing both of us this way, that way, and pulling us down in whirlpools – sometimes together, sometimes separately. My love for her is boundless; her love for me is heartfelt platonic compassion. She is married to a fine man. In a sensual sense my love is unrequited. In nearly every possible way we are polar opposites, as far apart as two people can get in terms of human and spiritual interests, education, social standing, expectations, obligations, and family. She has an active robust life; I am a recluse. Yet, in our souls, we both know we are somehow one – kindred spirits – who belong together. For that reason we are mystically drawn together. We may never have a life together here on earth, but even if we don't we will ...

There was a time when the term sacred prostitute was not at all an oxymoron. As is so common in the altered meanings and definitions of language and the duplicity of our great patriarchal society, the spiritual has been separated from the sexual by men, for men cannot deal with the concept that the woman is equal, if not superior, to the man in every way that was ever meant to be – except perhaps for the hunter/gatherer/defender role. Back then, immanent sexuality and transcendent divinity were inseparable, for mankind understood intuitively the roles between the sexes; the business of life was pure and simple, mostly unfettered by the devious archons that dominate our lifestyles today. Just as night follows day, as peace follows war, life follows death, north opposes south, and love follows hate, our existence is linked together by a polar, yet magnetically attractive, consciousness that has been all but beaten out of us by the patriarchal way. It is called the union of opposites . I...

When I began to look deeply into Gnosticism – particularly Sophian Gnosticism – I found that underlying all the intellectual, spiritual and religious works and studies, the ecclesiastical rituals and ceremonies, the Eucharist, or all the aspects of the Bridal Chamber, there is a profound simplicity to the entire concept of its existence. Tau Rosamonde Miller of the Church of Gnosis explains it this way: "Gnosticism is better understood through art, music, and poetry and not through intellectual pursuit . . . . It is better understood in terms of Buddhism than of Christianity. I find that one of the simplest, truest ways of describing the experience of Gnosis is found in the lines of the Tao Te Ching, 'The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.' Just substitute "Gnosis" instead of "Tao". In this instance the terms can be interchangeable." But the simplicity of Gnosticism might best be understood by the term Wild Gnosis . The concept of Wild G...

My uncle, Albert Pendergraft, committed suicide in 1944, apparently from a longtime overdose of alcohol and depression. He blew his head off with an S&W .38 Special revolver. Born just three years before his death, I have no recall of the event, but Albert, no doubt unintentionally, left a life-long gift for me – or for anyone else who cared to partake of it for what it was. So far as I know I am the only one who did, though my older brother may have. The gift was what I believe was his suicide note – a poem of love for the land he roamed that depicted a key part of the philosophy of his lonesome life. For several years late in his life he was a ditch rider. For sure, he was a recluse: he had great love for Gaia, but little love for his fellow man or their gods. Albert was born on a remote ranch in Johnson County, Wyoming, in 1894, just four years after Wyoming became a part of the United States. The son of a Texas Trail cowboy, he spoke so seldom that he became known as Silent Al ...

In my September 30 essay, Muses About Muses , I touched on my new Muse – a woman who stole my heart and rekindled in me some of the confidence and zest for life that I'd lost while I was incarcerated. Prison existence destroys the ego, takes one's pride and confidence away, and leaves one with nothing but fear and self-loathing. The correctional system is designed to break one down to little more than a plasmatic puddle of subservient humility and self-pity. Perhaps this is what some public offenders need in order to re-enter society successfully, but in my own case the descent into useless oblivion was devastating to my sense of well-being and self-assurance. I trusted no one – not even myself – and I was angry and bitter toward any kind of authority or guidance. Shortly after my release from prison an employment counselor assigned to my case interviewed me briefly, looked over my impressive resume, and laughed derisively. "All I see here is all about you, you, you,"...

Barack Hussein Obama will be sworn into office as the 44th president of the United States on January 20, 2009. Maybe. But first George W. Bush must step down. My question is, will he? On December 19, 2000, less than a year into his presidency, W made this statement on national television: "A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." Yes, he offered up his nervous laugh when he said it, implying, I suppose, that he was just joking. But that nervous laugh, if you follow it through his presidency, seems not to indicate humor at all. What would it take for W to become an instant dictator? The fact is, not very much. His administration has spent eight years undermining the fabric and power of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights , usurping legislative branch power for executive branch power through various nefarious means, usually by playing the terrorism fear card, including taking unilateral illegal action under a vague interpretat...

"Every organized [patriarchy] works overtime to contribute its own brand of misogyny." - Robin Morgan Considering the huge flap over the Halloween-influenced hanging of Sarah Palin in effigy, I wonder what today's social circles would think of the real thing -- the actual hanging of an innocent female -- except that in this case the murderers were the politically and socially elite ones, and the female victim the scapegoat for those men and women who had come before her and an inhibiting omen for those who would come after her. It happened on a July afternoon in 1889. The following is excerpted from the Preface to my historical novel manuscript, presently in an edit iteration, The Sweetwater Conspiracy: the Legend of Cattle Kate. In the summer of 1889, during the settling–up of the American west, a sensational news story drifted off Wyoming's high plains, making international headlines, and shaking the resolve of the westward pioneering spirit. The story told of th...

During nearly three years in the Nevada state prison, I completed six handwritten manuscript drafts of novels, and had begun a seventh prior to my release on parole in June, 2007. While in prison I was not allowed to draft the books on electronic media, which I am now in the process of doing. They are large manuscripts (more than 250 thousand words each) and still require several iterations of editing to condense and organize to publishable construct, and some research remains that could not be done in prison. Six of the novels comprise an anthology that I call “ Sophy’s Way: Parallel Worlds of the Moon ” in reference and reverence to the lost goddess Sophia, the Goddess of Wisdom, whose essence and presence saved my life and, yes, my very soul from certain death during my prison time. The underlying theme of the novels concerns man’s inherent cruel and duplicitous nature, but primarily the books deal with the lost intimate relationship between immanent sexuality and transcendent divin...

The following discourse, from my novel manuscript Moon Shadows: the Revelation , in edit, is a precocious girl's heartfelt address to an eclectic group of goddesses, humans, and aliens ensconced on a Wyoming ranch, who are engaged in an effort to overthrow and reconstruct the United States government and its constitution and laws. The little rebel is trying to express her discomfort with the prejudices, the oppression, the malicious overreaching and power mongering of patriarchal authority prevalent in the existing governance. Her statement is a simple essay on human values of good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice, and whether we humans know who we are and where we're going. The group is at a party – an outdoor dinner and dance with a western theme featuring live music from the Alabama band, which has just taken a break, and the raucous, somewhat inebriated, crowd has fervently implored her to speak to them, having been highly amused by her previous nationally t...

We are born into this world with no expectations, no hopes, no desires, except a certain hunger and the innate desire to survive – with perhaps a related fear. We are not conscious even of our own existence. As our brain becomes active, receiving, perceiving, we gradually become aware of ourselves and the plethora of the world around us, and our mindless innocence (the remnants of bliss?) begins to fade away, replaced with the first archons who will rule our lives from then on. Because of the archons, we will search in vain during the span of our earthly lives for happiness, repeatedly deluding ourselves into believing we've found it, only to realize, sooner or later, that we were wrong. It is, I believe, impossible for the human being, as we exist in this world, to find true felicity. And anyone who makes the claim that he is truly happy, is a liar living in one of those delusional states of denial. We can find love, but we can never find felicity, a term partly derived from, or a...

When I was in high school – my junior year, I believe -- I had a spirited young French English teacher. I can't recall her name these days, but she was thin and graceful – pretty and provocative. In class I would daydream about dating her, or of making love to her, and I remember wishing I was older or she was younger. She liked me; I knew that. And she knew I liked her, too. While I daydreamed I would often compose little poems in my notebook or on the back of a theme book. I never thought about what I wrote, barely aware that I was writing at all – kind of like doodling, I suppose. In my mind, she probably thought I was taking notes, though I should have known better. There was a girl who sat behind me every day, who was an excellent student of English and literature, and though I don't remember her name either, I liked her quite a bit, too. Whenever the French English teacher would say something poignant, the girl would lightly touch the back of my neck in a sensual way, the...

In prison, one of the novels I wrote ( Mansions of the Moon: the Recluse ) ends like this (in part) -- after 1,088 hand-written pages and 272 thousand words leading up to a seemingly anticlimactic conclusion: . . . Were we playing the animal farm game? Was it necessary to kill and sacrifice in order to nurture and love? . . . Perhaps only Jeannie had understood it all, for she had said long ago that our struggle is not about good and evil but rather the preservation and renewal of life, including saving Gaia . . . . She was talking about creation and sustaining life and the earth in our own universe, I suppose. The struggle would go on forever; I knew that implicitly now, for infinity is as infinity does, and the will to procreate -- or to create -- can never stop, since all universes must expand forever. Once the tiny spark of creation began there could be no turning back, for creation breeds creation without consideration or reflection, but rather solely in the name of existence. The...