Dionysiac Rights, Lefts, and Third Roads
Jul. 18th, 2005 09:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonAs I'm driving home from my Krin (log drum) workshop on Friday evening, I had a religious experience in the car with Dionysus in the form of Allison Krauss. Not the kind of thing one expects while on the road, but y'know, in-spiration comes where and when it will, tho' there are no doubt far safer places to have conversation with deity ;> I had my ancient iPod on shuffle, and this song came up. I'm sure I must have heard it before, but this time it was Dionysus singing to me, and oh but it was perfect. I played it through a few times, it seared itself into my brain, and I may steal all or portions of it for some work this Fall at Tejas Camp, where we will be working intensely and intimately with Dionysus and the Moirae (Fates).
ALISON KRAUSS
"Take Me For Longing"
Don't choose me because I am faithful.
Don't choose me because I am kind.
If your heart settles on me, I'm for the taking.
Take me for longing or leave me behind.
I would be, for you, a fire in a rainbow,
I would be, for you, an opening door.
Time and hard lessons are one kind of wisdom.
Try to forget them or love me no more.
I'm not asking your heart to believe me.
I'm not asking for promise or pledge.
Whatever the answer, it's yes that's the question.
I am the fool dancin' over the edge.
Don't choose me because I am faithful.
Don't choose me because I am kind.
If your heart settles on me, I'm for the taking.
Take me for longing or leave me behind.
-------
Yum.
Afterwards, Dionysus and I had a wee chat, as it were, and one of the pieces of information and inspiration I got was the strong advice and admonition, "no mediocre longing." The general upshot of the musings was that life, time, ecstasy, is far too precious to waste with the lowest common denominator, with the ordinary, the usual, the norm, the bare minimum. So open yourself and dare to make your lives and loves and passions and deeds truly legendary, the kind of things tales and sagas are written of -- take no compromises, seize the day, the hour, the minute, this very second, and don't settle for anything less than the extra-ordinary, that which can take you beyond what you even dream is possible.
Of course, even now I can sense the Fates pulling in the other direction, saying that what you get is what you get, and to be mindful and grateful for the blessings of what you have, because the bottoms of cliffs are littered with the bodies of dead Fools who let themselves be discontent with their fates and were seduced into the leap by dangerous longing. How to balance Fate and Ecstasy, or is the question, how do you make living a life open to ecstasy and joy, as well as contemplation, stillness, and the ability to survive and thrive from day to day, your fate? What juicy Work.
The phrase "mediocre longing" jogged a memory cell, so I did a search and found it in one of my favorite writings by one of my favorite writers. For anyone who hasn't seen this before, you're in for a treat, and for those who have, I hope you enjoy it anyway.
Yours in ecstatic bliss, and graceful stoicism, and a third way with them both,
--Chelidon
A Prayer For You
Rob Brezsny
http://www.freewillastrology.com/beauty/prayer.html
I'm happy to announce that this is a perfect moment. It's a perfect moment for many reasons, but especially because I have been inspired to say a gigantic prayer for all of you. I've been roused to unleash a divinely greedy, apocalyptically healing prayer for each and every one of you -- even those of you who don't believe in the power of prayer.
And so I am starting to pray right now to the God of Gods ... the God beyond all Gods ... the Girlfriend of God ... the Teacher of God ... the Goddess who invented God.
Dear Goddess, You who never kill but only change:
I pray that my exuberant, suave and accidental words will move you to shower ferocious blessings down on everyone who reads this benediction.
I pray that you will give them what they don't even know they want -- not just the boons they think they need but everything they've always been afraid to even imagine or ask for.
Dear Goddess, You wealthy anarchist burning heaven to the ground:
Many of the divine chameleons out there don't even know that their souls will live forever. So please use your blinding magic to help them see that they are all wildly creative geniuses too big for their own personalities.
Guide them to realize that they are all completely different from what they think they are and more exciting than they can possibly imagine.
Make it illegal, immoral, irrelevant, unpatriotic and totally tasteless for them to be in love with anyone or anything that's no good for them.
O Goddess, You who give us so much love and pain mixed together that our morality is always on the verge of collapsing:
I beg you to cast a boisterous love spell that will nullify all the dumb ideas, bad decisions and nasty conditioning that have ever cursed the wise and sexy virtuosos out there.
Remove, banish, annihilate and laugh into oblivion any jinx that has clung to them, no matter how long they've suffered from it, and even if they've become accustomed or addicted to its ugly companionship.
And please conjure an aura of protection around them so that they will receive an early warning if they are ever about to act in such a way as to bring another hex or plague or voodoo into their lives in the future.
Dear Goddess, sweet Goddess, You sly universal virus with no fucking opinion:
I pray that you will help all the personal growth addicts out there become disciplined enough to go crazy in the name of creation, not destruction.
I pray that you will teach them the difference between oppressive self-control and liberating self-control, awaken in them the power to do the half-right thing when it is impossible to do the totally right thing.
Arouse the Wild Woman within them -- even if they're men.
And please give them bigger, better, more original sins and wilder, wetter, more interesting problems.
Dear Goddess, You pregnant slut who scorns all mediocre longing:
I pray that you will inspire all the compassionate rascals communing with this prayer to love their enemies just in case their friends turn out to be jerks.
Provoke them to throw away or give away all the things they own that encourage them to believe that they are better than anyone else.
Show them how much fun it is to brag about what they cannot do and do not have.
Most of all, Goddess, brainwash them with your freedom so that they never love their own pain more than anyone else's pain.
Dear Goddess, You psychedelic mushroom cloud at the center of all our brains:
The curiously divine human beings reading this prayer deserve everything they are yearning for and much, much more.
So please bless them with lucid dreams while they are wide awake and solar-energy-operated sex toys that work even in the dark and vacuum cleaners for their magic carpets and a knack for avoiding other people's hells and their very own 900 number so that everyone has to pay to talk to them and a secret admirer who is not a psychotic stalker.
Dear Goddess, You fiercely tender, hauntingly reassuring, orgiastically sacred feeling that is even now running through all of our soft, warm animal bodies:
I pray that you provide everyone out there with a license to bend and even break all rules, laws and traditions that keep them apart from the things they love.
Show them how to purge the wishy-washy wishes that distract them from their daring, dramatic, divine desires.
And teach them that they can have anything they want if they'll only ask for it in an unselfish way.
And now dear God of Gods, God beyond all Gods, Girlfriend of God, Teacher of God, Goddess who invented God, I bring this prayer to a close, trusting that in these mysterious moments you have begun to change everyone out there in the exact way they've needed to change in order to express their soul's code.
Amen. Awomen. And glory halle-fucking-lujah.
ALISON KRAUSS
"Take Me For Longing"
Don't choose me because I am faithful.
Don't choose me because I am kind.
If your heart settles on me, I'm for the taking.
Take me for longing or leave me behind.
I would be, for you, a fire in a rainbow,
I would be, for you, an opening door.
Time and hard lessons are one kind of wisdom.
Try to forget them or love me no more.
I'm not asking your heart to believe me.
I'm not asking for promise or pledge.
Whatever the answer, it's yes that's the question.
I am the fool dancin' over the edge.
Don't choose me because I am faithful.
Don't choose me because I am kind.
If your heart settles on me, I'm for the taking.
Take me for longing or leave me behind.
-------
Yum.
Afterwards, Dionysus and I had a wee chat, as it were, and one of the pieces of information and inspiration I got was the strong advice and admonition, "no mediocre longing." The general upshot of the musings was that life, time, ecstasy, is far too precious to waste with the lowest common denominator, with the ordinary, the usual, the norm, the bare minimum. So open yourself and dare to make your lives and loves and passions and deeds truly legendary, the kind of things tales and sagas are written of -- take no compromises, seize the day, the hour, the minute, this very second, and don't settle for anything less than the extra-ordinary, that which can take you beyond what you even dream is possible.
Of course, even now I can sense the Fates pulling in the other direction, saying that what you get is what you get, and to be mindful and grateful for the blessings of what you have, because the bottoms of cliffs are littered with the bodies of dead Fools who let themselves be discontent with their fates and were seduced into the leap by dangerous longing. How to balance Fate and Ecstasy, or is the question, how do you make living a life open to ecstasy and joy, as well as contemplation, stillness, and the ability to survive and thrive from day to day, your fate? What juicy Work.
The phrase "mediocre longing" jogged a memory cell, so I did a search and found it in one of my favorite writings by one of my favorite writers. For anyone who hasn't seen this before, you're in for a treat, and for those who have, I hope you enjoy it anyway.
Yours in ecstatic bliss, and graceful stoicism, and a third way with them both,
--Chelidon
A Prayer For You
Rob Brezsny
http://www.freewillastrology.com/beauty/prayer.html
I'm happy to announce that this is a perfect moment. It's a perfect moment for many reasons, but especially because I have been inspired to say a gigantic prayer for all of you. I've been roused to unleash a divinely greedy, apocalyptically healing prayer for each and every one of you -- even those of you who don't believe in the power of prayer.
And so I am starting to pray right now to the God of Gods ... the God beyond all Gods ... the Girlfriend of God ... the Teacher of God ... the Goddess who invented God.
Dear Goddess, You who never kill but only change:
I pray that my exuberant, suave and accidental words will move you to shower ferocious blessings down on everyone who reads this benediction.
I pray that you will give them what they don't even know they want -- not just the boons they think they need but everything they've always been afraid to even imagine or ask for.
Dear Goddess, You wealthy anarchist burning heaven to the ground:
Many of the divine chameleons out there don't even know that their souls will live forever. So please use your blinding magic to help them see that they are all wildly creative geniuses too big for their own personalities.
Guide them to realize that they are all completely different from what they think they are and more exciting than they can possibly imagine.
Make it illegal, immoral, irrelevant, unpatriotic and totally tasteless for them to be in love with anyone or anything that's no good for them.
O Goddess, You who give us so much love and pain mixed together that our morality is always on the verge of collapsing:
I beg you to cast a boisterous love spell that will nullify all the dumb ideas, bad decisions and nasty conditioning that have ever cursed the wise and sexy virtuosos out there.
Remove, banish, annihilate and laugh into oblivion any jinx that has clung to them, no matter how long they've suffered from it, and even if they've become accustomed or addicted to its ugly companionship.
And please conjure an aura of protection around them so that they will receive an early warning if they are ever about to act in such a way as to bring another hex or plague or voodoo into their lives in the future.
Dear Goddess, sweet Goddess, You sly universal virus with no fucking opinion:
I pray that you will help all the personal growth addicts out there become disciplined enough to go crazy in the name of creation, not destruction.
I pray that you will teach them the difference between oppressive self-control and liberating self-control, awaken in them the power to do the half-right thing when it is impossible to do the totally right thing.
Arouse the Wild Woman within them -- even if they're men.
And please give them bigger, better, more original sins and wilder, wetter, more interesting problems.
Dear Goddess, You pregnant slut who scorns all mediocre longing:
I pray that you will inspire all the compassionate rascals communing with this prayer to love their enemies just in case their friends turn out to be jerks.
Provoke them to throw away or give away all the things they own that encourage them to believe that they are better than anyone else.
Show them how much fun it is to brag about what they cannot do and do not have.
Most of all, Goddess, brainwash them with your freedom so that they never love their own pain more than anyone else's pain.
Dear Goddess, You psychedelic mushroom cloud at the center of all our brains:
The curiously divine human beings reading this prayer deserve everything they are yearning for and much, much more.
So please bless them with lucid dreams while they are wide awake and solar-energy-operated sex toys that work even in the dark and vacuum cleaners for their magic carpets and a knack for avoiding other people's hells and their very own 900 number so that everyone has to pay to talk to them and a secret admirer who is not a psychotic stalker.
Dear Goddess, You fiercely tender, hauntingly reassuring, orgiastically sacred feeling that is even now running through all of our soft, warm animal bodies:
I pray that you provide everyone out there with a license to bend and even break all rules, laws and traditions that keep them apart from the things they love.
Show them how to purge the wishy-washy wishes that distract them from their daring, dramatic, divine desires.
And teach them that they can have anything they want if they'll only ask for it in an unselfish way.
And now dear God of Gods, God beyond all Gods, Girlfriend of God, Teacher of God, Goddess who invented God, I bring this prayer to a close, trusting that in these mysterious moments you have begun to change everyone out there in the exact way they've needed to change in order to express their soul's code.
Amen. Awomen. And glory halle-fucking-lujah.
