So, after chuckling a bit from reading my last post here at Sacred Whore – my month off was a little out of my control.  My computer got sick this time (not me), and spent a month at a computer shop ignored and neglected.  *sad face*

Now, I guess I COULD have blogged at the library, but there I’m only guaranteed a half-hour, and I like to take my time when I blog.  Shit.

I also COULD have borrowed the time to blog on my mother’s computer, but again, I am limited in it’s availability there, too.  Double shit.

So, I used the limited time to check up on email briefly here and there.  Sadly, I was very much into the groove of blogging when I last visited here, so therefore I’ll look at this as an ample opportunity to get back into the habit again of writing a post every day, or at least every other day.

But, for what it’s worth, Happy New Year everyone!

I’ve been on a small roll lately.  Our computer has been weird and stupid – which seems to be an annual thing for us – and we’ve been hit with a computer virus.  Also, the kids are back home again after a two-week visit with their biological dad.  Combine these with the habit of blogging most every day for a bit and you get ample opportunity to practice meditation and generating bodhichitta through patience and enthusiastic perserverence.

Tonight, Dear Husband and I will be throwing a party with our friends and some family.  So soon I’ll be finding myself immersed in shopping lists and to-do lists and honey-do lists for the man…….but I wanted to take this time to reflect a tad bit on how this year has gone.

I’ve seen some of my romances flourish and falter; my health decline and bounce back; our finances stumble, grow, and then dip again from the medical bills; our garden in the back yard bloom and then wither; Dear Husband’s facial hair grow back; and finally a Dharma group that I’ve been involved in establish itself with a steady group of regular meditators and practitioners.

Much has been said about impermanence, and 2008 has been no different.  It has provided this simple Whore with dozens of curveballs to practice, practice, and practice the Dharma.  I have nothing but enormous gratitude for these many opportunities for me to train the mind – constantly.

And therefore I look forward to 2009 to offer even more lands to explore and more challenges to meet.  More senses to delight in and more g-spots to tickle.  And whatever merit that has been created from the hopefully ever-increasing bodhichitta, I offer it to the great enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.  I therefore dedicate every ounce of my good merit to all of you in the universe.  May you be blessed with great fortune and happiness.

Happy New Year.  *kiss kiss*

Dear Husband and I had two holiday parties to attend this past weekend – one with his family, and the other with his company.  Now, the company party was in a convention center/hotel where we all could feel safe to get trashed with no driving involved.  Just stumbling here and there to get from point A to point B.

I’m a lightweight when it comes to alcohol.  I love wine, and that is my drink of choice 90% of the time except for the occasional Crown and Coke.  But I can’t have a whole lot before I start slurring my words.  One glass of Cabernet, and I feel warm and toasty.  Two glasses, and my shoes are coming off and I’m hitting on the owner’s wife of the company.  Three glasses, and I lose all inhibitions and usually need a babysitter.

Saturday night, I had three glasses of wine.  Silly Thalia.

I do remember not only hitting on the owner’s wife, but the owner himself AND Dear Husband’s immediate supervisor.  Yes, my shoes came off and I boogied my way through the “We Are Family” songs, the “Yeah!” songs, and the “You Shook Me All Night” songs.  But I also kept kissing everyone and cozying up to them in my Marilyn Monroe-style low cut dress.  And I joked that the owner was trying to get me pregnant – some people thought that was funny.  Most people didn’t and found it a little awkward.

So, let’s just say that Thalia was throwing caution to the wind.

When the party was over (and after I scored the owner’s wife’s phone number, WHOOT!)…….Dear Husband asked me if I wanted to continue partying with some friends at a local bar that’s right next door.  I knew I’d already had enough to drink, and that if I had any more, I probably would be camped out by the toilet.  So, I only wanted to suffer embarassment and not my health, and I declined the offer.  He wanted to go, however, and so I told him to be careful and to call me if he was going to be more than an hour or so.

A couple of hours later after I had crashed on the bed in our suite, I get a phone call from a woman named Carla telling me that I needed to get some jeans and a t-shirt on since we’re all going to Steak and Shake.  The room was spinning, and I was feeling a little queasy, so I knew I was coming down from my drunkenness.  I asked to speak to my husband…..it took a few minutes since she was drunk too.

Dear Husband gets on the phone and asks if I can come along.  I can hear a group of people in the background yelling “THALIA!!!  THALIA!!!  THALIA!!!”  Understand that rarely am I a party pooper.  But that night, I didn’t have it in me, and the suite itself was super-awesome with the king-sized bed, the jacuzzi tub in the huge bathroom, the safe and the bar in the living room area…….I wanted Dear Husband to come back and spend at least a couple hours with me in a little lap of luxury before we fell asleep for the night.

So, Dear Husband heeded my call to come to me despite the protests from the crowd.  He’s a good guy.

Back at the suite, we’re both drunk and hurting, and I swear there ought to be a medical term for “whiskey dick.”  I wasn’t all that sexy either, since I was tired and my speech was slurred, and I didn’t make that much sense when I tried to seduce Dear Husband with my words. 

So, we wound up giggling our way through the sex with our stumbling and bumbling.   About four hours later after we had our fair share of orgasms and had fallen asleep, I woke up wanting a shower, and Dear Husband woke up wanting to vomit. 

The rest of the day yesterday was spent recovering from our hangovers, getting something to eat, cleaning up the house, and then having sex while sober. 

Maybe we were making sure we got it right the second time and that we hadn’t lost our touch. 

I’d like to focus a bit on Rachel Felix – performer extraordinaire.  And around my height too at 4′11″.  WHOOT! 

Rachel was known mostly by her first name only, but she was brilliant as an actress in works of tragedy.  Back in her day in theatre in the early 19th century, most theatrical works were overloaded with stylistic sweeping arm gestures and body swayings and grand posture changes.  Rachel revolutionized this style by keeping her movement kiniesphere to a minimalist standard, all the while broadening the depth in her acting in her voice.  For the patrons, this shook them to their core, and Charlotte Bronte was quoted as saying that she “shuddered to the marrow of her bones.”

That’s some pretty heady stuff.  And that’s only how she affected people while she was ON the stage.

Her personal life was much more interesting and passionate.  Rachel took on many lovers, and never married in her short life.  Born in 1821, she grew up quite the gypsy, singing in public for money at 9 years old.  She was taken off the streets by a stranger to the Ecole de Musique Sacre to train as a performance artist.  Once there, she flourished, albeit with some stories of her trouble-making as a growing feisty young woman.

She dared to call her own shots while still in her primary education years.  And by the time she was 17, after being transferred from school to school, she was mentored heavily by Svengali, and she debuted in the show Horace.  She was an instant hit in Paris.

She shortly became involved heavily with Dr. Louis Vernon, but she was never monogamous.  Dr. Vernon was entranced with her, and cared little of her infidelity with other men.  This was never meant to be out of disrespect for her lovers, but more of a commitment to her autonomy and independence.  She has been quoted as saying, “I am free…and mean to remain free. I will have renters, but not owners.”

After many trips around Europe and a final trip to America and Broadway (where her wild sex-capades were discovered by the Victorians, and demonized her at every whim), Rachel lost her long battle to tuberculosis and died at 36.  In spite of her long illness, she never once stopped ravishing and seducing the world.

Wiki has a good entry of Rachel Felix  -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_(actress)

R.I.P., girlfriend.

Every now and then I am reminded of how samsara continues to mess with our heads – whether it’s from delusions of grandeur, of craving, and in this case how the U.S. can maintain discriminating against an entire demographic because of a fear of losing “traditional” values.  It’s a major sticking point with me and the upcoming elections.  I can expect the mindless diatribe from the McCain-Palin ticket that must include the phrase one-man-one-woman – but I am even more annoyed at the Obama-Biden ticket for the double-talk surrounding “civil unions.”  Sure, let’s give those nice folks in the GLBTQ community a bone and some scraps from the table of protections and benefits……..but please do NOT let those miscreants take OUR sacred term of “marriage” away from us.

I call bullshit.  We’ve been through this “separate but equal” party several times before in our nation’s short history, and it has never worked.  We had anti-miscengenation laws where specific races were banned from marrying whites until as recently as 1967 with Loving vs. Virginia.  We had laws where women were banned from voting or owning property or couldn’t get court protection from their own husbands in cases of domestic violence or marital rape.

Back then, “traditional” values were brought up as a smokescreen again and again, in the hopes that the public at large would be frightened enough to listen to this “separate but equal” crap.  At a certain point, people stood up for the rights of the disenfranchised, and had the courage to say enough is enough.  Women and minorities were never treated equally under the eyes of the government as long as the state maintained that it can define who gets what rights so as not to shake up the sensibilities of the status quo.  I am telling the government to back the hell off the GLBTQ community, and to open the doors to marriage rights and protections to every adult couple that so desires. 

One thing that I’ve mentioned before and that I still feel, is that as a practicing Buddhist, I see marriage as a social construct,  like defining a “race”, like educational philosophies and methods…..and it is not a sacrament.  While I respect the ecclesiastical courts their right to disagree with me, I do not respect their insistence that the government defines my marriage by their sacrament.  It is what this really boils down to, isn’t it?  Terms like “sacred” or “traditional” are thrown around in order to strike fear into people’s hearts that if you somehow redefine marriage to include those that aren’t mentioned by God as acceptable, then society will be ripped apart at the seams, and we’ll all go to hell in a handbasket.

Yah, I call bullshit again. 

Marriage HAS been redefined throughout history by the government again and again.  Think about issues surrounding polygamy, interracial marriages, defining the age of consent to prevent children from marrying,  women’s ability to own property within a marriage, common-law marriages, allowing “no-fault” divorces………..criminy, the list goes on and on.  And samsara continues to blind us with ignorance by attempting to paint gays and lesbians as people who aren’t us but something other.

Obama wishes to grant civil unions to gay and lesbian couples?  But doesn’t want to grant them the title of being “married”?  BOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!  I guess his rhetoric of attacking the trickle-down economics by saying that those without health insurance are “on their own” applies to gay and lesbian couples with a civil union.  Say they want to fill out tax forms or a census without risk of fraud, or to move their family to another state that doesn’t honor civil union contracts, or wish to dissolve their civil union but can’t……..according to Obama, gays and lesbians are unfortunately “on their own.”

We still have a long road to travel before the American public is more accepting of the GLBTQ community, and who will see through the insidious discrimination that is mandated by our government.  Atheists can get married in a civil court.  In Colorado, people only have to live together for a bit, wear wedding bands for a bit, call each other a husband and wife for a bit, and file a joint tax return to enjoy the benefits that come with a common-law marriage (which, by the way, is honored in all 50 states if this couple moves).  A couple can also petition the courts to dissolve their marriage in a “no-fault” divorce, and the court will honor that. 

I don’t see the public up in arms about this reality like they are about the term gay marriage.  I don’t see the public railing against divorce because marriage is so darn sacred.  I don’t see the public upset that two folks can co-habitate for a bit and fornicate their little hearts out because marriage is so darn sacred.  And YIKES……..atheists getting married?  But isn’t marriage sacred?

This isn’t about defining what is sacred and what isn’t.  That’s not the government’s job, and it doesn’t matter what I think or you think or what Joe Six Pack thinks.  We currently have a Buddha Bar in New York City, but how many of the religious are lobbying Congress to pass a Defense of Buddha Act in order to protect the sacredness of one of the Refuges?  The government must act in a secular tone in order to ensure the rights and liberties of all free citizens despite personal feelings or religious leanings.  Christians can still receive the sacrament of marriage in their church and call it sacred even if homosexuals are allowed to marry in a civil court.

It’s insane.  It’s maddening.  And the discrimination must stop now.

Moving on from pt. 1…..

So you’re ready to go.  You got your webcam (or not) and you found a good community that you feel has some potential for like-minded individuals to meet and possibly get it on with.  A few things to think about specifically:

1)  Don’t think that the curtain of anonymity on the ‘net gives you a free pass for a cyber-horizontal-bop the minute you meet someone.  So, you start chatting with someone, she gives you her measurements and tells you what she’s wearing and that she’s already hot and wet…..sound likely?  Of course not.  This is the stuff of fantasy phone sex, and you can pay for that if you want.  But if you’re looking for something more organic, don’t look at the ‘net as an opportunity to use it as a way to objectify your potential partner.  That’s about as realistic as walking up to a nice-looking woman in a bar or a nightclub, asking her name first, and then asking if you could do her second.  999,999 times out of a million, you’re going to get slapped/banned.  So, develop a conversation and find out some common interests.  Sex is always much better in real life when you actually get along, correct?

2)  Keep the directions to an absolute minimum.  Don’t tell her to touch herself at one moment and to lick her fingers the next.  Let your partner decide what to do with his or her body.  And on that note, whatever you’re doing with your own mind and with your own hands is something that you describe and share with your partner – not what you can manipulate them into doing.  Think about this for a minute – cyber sex generally follows the rules of real life with the reality being that there is no sharing of emissions, eh?  But mentally and emotionally and visually, it can be as “real” as you make it.  And good sex happens when both partners allow themselves to be vulnerable.  If there is an element of dominance/submission in your encounters, be absolutely sure that you follow the same rules as you would in real life.  Have a “safe” word.  Ensure that there is complete trust between you two before anyone starts allowing themselves to be directed.  As you can tell, now you realize just how important point #1 really is….

3)  Cyber-love can and does happen.  If both partners return to each other time after time, and if the cyber sex is descriptive and hot, and there are loads of common interests between you two……it follows that this chemistry might produce feelings of romantic love.  I always say, “enjoy the ride.”  And this is where the practice of being aware of the suffering caused by attachment and craving can really help.  Despite the fact that the Second Noble Truth is applicable to real-life relationships, it can be easily forgotten in cyber-world, where one can be fooled by the notion that the ‘net can be one’s escape from reality.  Perservere with the awareness that any relationship on the ‘net can be just as wonderful and fun and vulnerable and mistaken as any relationship away from the computer. 

With that in mind, should you choose to continue, you’ll find some surprises along the way.  You’ll also discover your own specific tastes and turn-offs in the cyber-world.  And you’ll likely come across a point that I’ve overlooked.   I like to remember the first time I engaged in a cyber romance after I left my first husband, and I was quite a novice several years ago, I think about what my wise aunt once advised about it in a surfing metaphor:  just ride the wave, sweetheart.

Dear Husband and I have been together for over 7 years, married for over 5 years.  And I still drive him frickin’ crazy.  He still has a hard time keeping up with me.  I’m still amazingly unpredictable and strange and hormonal.  But hopefully I’ve been giving him the ride of his life.

Before we met, I was still getting over a very painful and disastrous marriage.  I was at my mother’s house, with two small children, and I hated men and was inches away from applying for my lesbian card.  One of my friends from college called me and knew that I hadn’t been out for some fun for months, and she invited me out to a karaoke party a couple blocks away.

Now, I normally don’t mind kitschy fun, but I was bitter, damn it.  I wanted to stew in my own shit for a while until I was ready to come out of my shell.  This was too soon, so I declined.  The next thing I know, she shows up at the door and demands that I get ready.  Clearly, she was concerned about my social life, or she was only wanting me to come along so that she didn’t have to endure a night of bad karaoke all by herself.  Either way, she dragged me out kicking and screaming.  I wasn’t very happy with her decision to come and get me, but I did put some lipstick on and a nice shirt.

We drive up to the house, knock on the door, and this very nice-looking guy jumps out to greet us. 

GREAT………he’s cute, and friendly, and he’s a man.  There is no doubt in my mind that he’s an asshole pig.  My guard went up immediately and I think I glared at him the first time our eyes met.

We all went downstairs where the equipment was set up, and my girlfriend and I sat down at a table to talk.  The only thing I wanted more was to get through the night so I could go back to my mother’s house and go to bed.  I still wanted to pull the sheets over my head at that point and not deal with life.  At that point, Dear Future Husband walks up to us with two glasses of wine, and very politely asks:

“Excuse me, would you ladies like a glass of wine?”

I glare at him and yell at my Dear Future Husband:

“WHAT?!?  I don’t know YOU!  You could have put ANYTHING in that drink!  You could have put that DATE RAPE DRUG in that drink!!!!!”

He stared at me, not knowing what to say.  His jaw must have dropped at least 3 feet.  My girlfriend nudges me and whipers in my ear:

“It’s OK.  He’s cool.  You can trust him.”

At that point, the social butterfly came out.  I smiled warmly at him, took the glasses of wine, and said:

“Oh, then that would be lovely!  Thank you!”

His housemate hit on me for the remainder of the night, and therefore Dear Future Husband stayed back, and especially since he saw me pour a drink down his housemate’s shirt in order for him to get the message that I wasn’t at all interested in seeing anyone at that point. 

Some months after that, when we all had hung out a few times with our kids together for pizza parties, bike rides, watching football games, and I had begun to feel more at ease with them as friends.  Dear Future Husband and I had been able to talk a few times.  He was shy, quiet, and unassuming.  He was always respectful of me regardless of how strange and explosive and passionate I was acting.  Then we started going places together, just the two of us.  And then it became obvious that we were extremely attracted to each other.

One day, I demanded (not suggested, DEMANDED) that we go for a walk in the park.  I wanted us to decide whether or not we were actually “dating”, because then we needed to set some boundaries and discuss what we expected to come out of that.  Apparently, he was willing to go along with whatever I wanted (in spite of a few grumblings here and there).  I told him I really liked him, and I wanted to see him exclusively.  He wanted the same thing.  And two years later, we were married in that same park.

These last several years has seen some changes in our financial situation, as well as an incredibly difficult separation while he was serving overseas in the war in Iraq for a year, and learning to weave through the complexities of a blended family.  But I haven’t changed too much…..I’m still quite the passionate one and he’s the rather subdued one. 

But at least I don’t accuse him of putting a date rape drug in my wine glass whenever he offers me one anymore.  That only happened once.

…..is?

Most of us know the rest of it – there is a great woman.   Most men who find success many times attribute that success to the most influential woman in their lives. 

What I’ve found interesting is that I never exactly liked that phrase.  My mother would many times utter it in her moments of feminist passion, and I can sense the concept of being the muse, the inspiration, the cheerleader and source of strength and wisdom for her man.  But, honestly folks, behind my man?   Somehow that doesn’t seem much like a real interaction between the two of us.  I’d feel as if I’m more or less either talking to him with his back turned to me bravely facing the world and hoping to high heavens that he’ll hear what I’m saying in my support to him – or that I’m sitting back and waiting for him to turn around and ask for my support.

Either way, what truly active role would I as a woman take with my man if I were truly behind him?   Well, Miss Whore, how about beside your man?

Nah….while that may feel more in line with equanimity, partnership, and a tight bond that couples share, I still don’t buy that either.  Adam’s Rib doesn’t jive with the light and the passion that most men share when thanking their women for their support.  It’s a kind of vulnerability I see that is so endearing – so side by side seems more like a “buddy” than a “woman.” 

Not that I’m dissing friendship here, folks.  My husband and I are far and away best friends before anything else.  We may feel lust for each other some days, romantic love for each other some days, business partners some days, parents to our children most days – but for all these varying roles that bleed in and out of our daily lives we still maintain our friendship first and foremost.  I believe it’s what makes us a strong couple.

But we’re not talking about what makes a strong couple.  I am still focusing on what makes men inspired to move and to take action.  Friendship, for all it’s merits, still doesn’t hold the mystery carrot dangling in front of the man.

What if – instead of being behind or beside great men – we are actually facing them?  Beckoning them further and further into our labrynth of mystery and callings?  Seducing them with our body, our voice, our ideas? Or all of them together and then some?  I can’t think of it being all that surprising, given that men often joke that they took 9 months getting out of the birth canal and spending the rest of their lives trying to get back in.    I ask you to come hither to show you my path.  You choose to follow.  I direct you how to get here and give you my guidelines for you to consider.  And if you continue on in your hero’s quest, I reward you with love, passion, kisses, and enliven all of your senses…..and the cycle starts over again.

Am I implying that men are mindless and unimaginative?  Of course not?  Am I implying that women are objectified as a “prize” to be won?  No, no!  This is all a journey and why men bestow so much to the strong, patient, and wise women in their lives who encourage heroes to greatness. 

Ladies, why not try to beckon your man to greatness instead of pushing him?  Personally, I think it’s a hell of a lot more fun.

Welcome to my adventure.

Let’s take a moment, first, to understand why I chose to consider “Sacred Whore” an adventure. This practicing and stumbling Buddhist desires to share with you her journey into an undefined yoga uniting the mind and the G-spot. We talk about the ideal of the bodhisattva – but who the hell is this consort that always seems to straddle him anyway? It isn’t difficult to find thankgas of varying deities in Tibetan esoteric art in sexual union with a consort riding him like an equestrian gold medalist….

Is she a Sacred Whore?

Seriously, we have this consort, this partner, who is screwing a bodhisattva. She’s a part of the picture, too, so why all the fuss about merely and solely sitting in a full-lotus, counting the breaths, practicing vipassana meditation and contemplation of the concept of emptiness? Can’t we utilize this other half of the image, and make love as well on our way to enlightenment?

This is part of my goal for Sacred Whore…..to explore the imagery and symbolism in that Tantric consort. It’s one thing – and a very good thing at that – to contemplate our Buddha nature as an absolute. I’m wondering and pondering if there is value in contemplating our nature as the consort as well. In other words – I’m embarking on an adventure to discover not only my true nature as a Buddha, but my true nature as a Sacred Whore.

So, again, welcome to my adventure. May this be a blessing and a gift of great fortune upon all who share this journey with me.