A private, connected, chakra-coloured light show

“Magic is not so much something which you do occasionally behind closed doors or in the space behind your closed eyes, but a way of living your life — a way of approaching the world you move through and everything in it.” ~ Phil Hines

When we are little someone teaches us that if we press our fingertips to our eyelids (while closed) we will ‘see’ amazing colours; I have always thought this is rather like watching fireworks light a jet black sky on one of those ‘held forever’ memories of a warm summer’s night.

‘This’ is not about ‘That’. ‘This’ is (initially) about what I see in the state of orgasm, then it will be about something more.

An orgasm. Oh sheesh don’t make that face, we’re not children and we should be able to talk about the subject without withering like an erection lost. (From a purely physiological perspective) an orgasm is defined as:

“a climax of sexual excitement, characterized by feelings of pleasure centered in the genitals”

A deep, delicious, shake-the-cobwebs-out, the quintessential make you shudder, laugh or cry from pure joy orgasm. Sigh. Giggle. Moan. Yes, they can be all that, but I have always believed that orgasms can (and should be) something more than the end result of falling into an uncontrolled, writhing state of passion with another human being, something much more than release and pleasure, more than the result of artful masturbation.  I believe with every hyper-stimulated nerve ending of my body (and yours) that an orgasm is another means of achieving connection to universal love, to the Divine, to God – however your belief system defines such – and a means to the attainment of a Higher Self.  Regardless of whether these are entered into as a solo effort or with a committed partner, my sexuality combined my sensuality – the gifts of awareness, expression, sensitivity and eroticism – all these are variables to this ascension within this heightened state and climatic end and this can only happen when our limbic systems are successful at communicating with the rest of our body.

In yogic theory, Kundalini is a primal energy located at the base of the spine – the root chakra – that, when ignited, travels up through the spine to the crown chakra touching and igniting each of the 7 chakras in turn – for the purpose of reaching spiritual enlightenment.  For those who see auras, or practice meditation or Reiki, those who have a baseline understanding of the various chakras and ‘tuning’ them with a knowledge of awakening Kundalini it is the colours associated with each chakra (green and violet tend to dominate my ‘field of vision’) that I see ‘behind my closed eyes’ during my heightened level of sexual stimulation ultimately resulting in (when I climax) being bathed in, and emanating, white light. While no prude (obviously as I am having this conversation with you) the truth is I have embraced celibacy for most of the last nine years because my expectations of coupling means that I will bring all of this spiritual practice to lovemaking – this does not make me an ‘easy lover’ (as the song goes).

One view of this video set to Enigma’s Temple of Love will confirm that something powerful exists beyond artful expression, of overt sensuality, or of the interplay of dance as a metaphor for the Tantric; like Ravel’s Bolero there is a poignant building to orgasm – unrealised – and so, as with any great art, we are left breathless and moved, and hungry for more.

Spirituality is derived from the word ‘breath’.  A Norwegian legend says that before a soul is put into a body it is kissed by God so that throughout our earthly existence the soul retains a dim, but powerful, memory of this blessing.  David Whyte  writes that beyond the busyness of our superficial working lives, there is a deeper world of vocation that “leads us to an older, intimate, and more human sense of belonging.”

There is lots to be said of endorsing the principle of  “use it, or lose it”. In practice, the human orgasm can lead us to that “older, intimate” connection where the kiss of God is actively remembered, carries us through our days slightly levitated and lighter (metaphorically and literally).  We are nicer with the regular practice of connectedness to the universal love – however such is achieved (and no, you won’t go blind).  Just as Cathars and Lutherans alike bypassed priests to have a direct conversation with God I am of the opinion that this ascension is what fundamentalists in all monotheistic faiths fear, to make a sin of orgasmic connection to Divine (pagan faiths) by debasing our sexuality is a means of controlling ‘the conversation’. With or without a partner I prefer to have my bedroom serve as a temple to universal love rather than a religion of any kind. Good luck with ascending to your own chakra light show!

If you enjoy my blog please consider ‘buying me a cup of tea’ in your currency via PayPal to livelikeadog@gmail.com and then, please do share the blog with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

Dalmatian Echoes

rain drops, sun-bleached stone

darkened seas tossed in violence

terrifying gods ignite the sky, scream angry words in unknown languages

windows shuttered, stories bidden

flickering light, something held at distance, now in proximity 

decay, renewal, one – or both

kneel, clutch, embrace, drowning that rescues

her shuddering response beneath his surrounding, burrowing warmth

discovery of self in the other

parched. hungry. greedy – like the earth

primal continuation, cognitive exploration, Tantric at-one-ment

in waves, nourishment came – yet again and again

fingering Spanish chords, his thoughts echoed through her body

a thousand years of her words stilled, caught, unexpressed

fingers entwined

racing hearts in syncopation, quieting to soft harmonies

with hair like Samson, he anointed himself with their sex

If you enjoy my blog please consider ‘buying me a cup of tea’ in your currency via PayPal to livelikeadog@gmail.com and then, please do share the blog with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

The shifting trajectory of kisses

“You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart.”
— Louise Erdrich

For the first time since 2005 I am dating again. No, I wasn’t in a long term relationship. No, I didn’t have a traumatic (or tragic) experience. And no, I don’t hate men. I have been on OKCupid for a bit shy of two years now. But in the last two weeks, finally being in Croatia after a year of deliberation, I have migrated from online and video Skype conversations to actually sitting with a man face-to-face over hot chocolate, over dinner, and going for walks.  I have kissed all four of these men. Nine years is an awfully long time to have not done so, some I wanted much more with, with some, perhaps the kisses were actually too much to have shared.

This morning the (very loving) husband of a dear girlfriend, in the most subtle way imaginable, expressed his energetic protection for me. In my new life’s chapter, taking place far from practical intervention and rescue should such be necessary, David’s love is not the kind of love I am unaccustomed to having in my life; at first I was puzzled by why he would choose to Tweet the content and Cc me on such.  This dating thing is fraught with perils that every woman experiences, even when you are in a committed relationship rape happens. David’s genuine concern expressed for both myself and my best friend (as we were both mentioned in the Tweet and are both now actively dating again for the first time in many years) is soft focused and filled with light in a world with harsh realities. So David, I am sending you a huge hug, and a slightly insufficient thank you – message received.

Back to the dating thing.

In the last year a very wise man, and an equally wise woman, have both expressed the same thought about applying caution to sharing our physical space, and (any kind of) our energy with others. Every encounter with another (physically and energetically) leaves residue on the participants and in the domain of space inhabited, as such it’s incredibly important to understand this before sharing either with another. I suppose, if I am truly honest, protecting myself from giving too much of myself away, harming another against their future or having the negative energies of others zap me has kept me from dating, and eventually becoming intimate, for so long. Because I noticed, boy-oh-boy have I noticed, how I have felt after each encounter with these four very different Croatian men. Not that it is all important but it is of merit to note that each of these men is at least 14 years younger than I am.

With the first man it was like ‘coming home’. Safe, protected, a sense of continuity that felt ancient, comfortable in both silence and in conversation, with him (and this is hard to explain) I felt an extension of my greatest self, perhaps, because in many regards we are both rather unconventional. And when it came to expressions of passion, the kiss I will remember and draw energy from for the rest of my life seemed ripped from a romance novel. The second man to win my kisses had, by his own admission over the Thanksgiving dinner table, not kissed (or done anything else with) a woman in six years. There was considerable alcohol involved and some energetic ‘egging on’ because another man nearby was being dismissive of the former man’s rationale and (what I sensed) deep pain and his own admitted fear on behalf of his son. And so, initially I shared three, not passionate, kisses with him to remind him of the pleasure that can be had from such. He seem both confused, delighted and ‘warmed’ by this – eventually taking the initiative and seemed to enjoy himself to the point that he asked to have me spend the night with him. (um, no.) Man number three, one of my two dates yesterday, is exactly half my age – still a man in chronological years, and sufficiently so to have actively pursued a date with me. We had fun. Enjoyed amazing hot chocolate together on the Riva in Grad Trogir. He (easily) agreed to my request to rescue the remaining pomegranates on the tree in front of the abandoned house in Trogir in which I have fallen in love.  I now have a lovely bag full of these jewels which otherwise would have found themselves rotting on the ground as a result of yesterday’s Bura and todays’ rain storm.  He is very sweet, and earnest, but in many ways he really is too young in terms of life experience for this to be ‘anything’.  My second date yesterday is 18 years my junior, but sufficient experience to not feel any lacking. His candor and overt sexual interest in me was palpable from moment one.  He kissed me within 15 minutes of our meeting (and he was really very good at it). The best kiss of the evening took place against a 400 year old stone wall in a narrow alley of Seget Donji – his hands both cupping my face and then in my hair (where, as a great many terrific lovers know the nerve endings in our scalp make us particularly sensitive to erotic stimulation). His sexual energy is very much like that of Mickey Rourke in this scene from 9 1/2 weeks too dangerous to maintain one’s sanity and certainly not sustainable.

One thing is for certain, I need to recalibrate as I can tell that my trajectory has been influenced by the sharing of this tender intimacy in ways that are very uncomfortable to who I am. Like a hangover for my energy I have allowed myself to get swept up ‘in the moments’. Making up for lost time? Squandered resources? No, not either. I feel very much like the meme above about kisses being like drinking salt water. I can’t undo this, and some I most certainly would not change because in these experiences have offered me a greater cognition, and with such I come closer to completion. Still, a little discernment going forward would be a very good idea and a practical consideration worth embracing.

If you enjoy my blog please consider ‘buying me a cup of tea’ in your currency via PayPal to livelikeadog@gmail.com and then, please do share the blog with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

Can a grocery list be erotic?

My friend @KenHerron paid me a backhanded compliment about my writing yesterday. In an exchange about the timing of my publishing he wrote:

“I hope it’s not wrong to eat lunch while reading smut, as your posts always seem to pop up right about lunchtime!”.

And I thought about that because the latest blog posts aren’t erotic at all – at least I don’t view them as such. And responded,

“no smut. Ha. Think of them as dessert. Love you”

To which he replied:

“Oh please. You could write a shopping list, and it would be “smut”!   :)”

So as I made an emergency batch of double chocolate and walnut brownies (sans measuring cups, measuring spoons and no absolute knowledge of just how hot the oven actually is here in the apartment I am renting in Croatia) this morning I thought about attempting to make a grocery list erotic as a writing exercise. This is also for my girlfriend Deborah who affectionately refers to me as a “sexy cupcake”. So here goes (an over-the-top-list to support the most sublime evening of love-making imaginable, select site, add lover, some preparation required).

100 tea-lights, white soy and unscented, in glass votives

2 bottles of Veuve Clicquot Grand Dame Champagne, Moroccan tea glasses for Champagne  

4 dozen, fresh Loch Fyne oysters and antique Majolica oyster plates

For Zabaglione:

1 dozen certified organic, free range, eggs (preferably brown, blue and green shelled)

1 kilo small mill, Fair Trade, organic cane sugar

1 liter of Marsala wine, from Sicily, bearing Denominazione di Origine Controllata designation

1 kilo each of fresh, organic, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and currants

Lady fingers

Night blooming jasmine, mimosa and peonies

Maybe it isn’t the grocery list itself as the possibilities such a list presents…

How did I do Ken? 😉

If you enjoy my blog please consider sending me the value of a cup of tea in your currency via PayPal to livelikeadog@gmail.com and then, please do share the blog with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

Intimacy found in fingers entwined

I write this for friends whose lover reaches for them daily and who might take for granted this tiny intimacy – Amy and Chris, Farrah and Abdullah, David and Alison, Deborah and David, Nancy and John, Kanikaa and Anubhav a gift for you.

There are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people whose definition of intimacy is sexual. It’s not. Truly. Real intimacy is won through fingertips touching for the first time. It can be fleeting but in those precious seconds we are offered a union where anything and everything is possible and can be overcome. The spaces between our fingers offer us structure and function, when devoid of anothers fitting into our hand we don’t think about it. Ah, but when laced, entwined, in the simplicity of companionship or the intensity of passion, the gift of renewal, of safety, of promise, of all these and more are, quite literally, in the palm of our hand.

I recently had the opportunity to find my fingers so connected to those of a man. An exquisite, and both ordinary and extraordinary, man. If there is a single regret to have it is that in time the memory I carry in my head will fade to shades of sepia – like a daguerreotype – and then, eventually and sadly, this will only remain something of exquisite beauty existing at a cellular level held by neuron synapses and chemical impulses. It will be one of those things that as my physical being ceases to have purpose will flash before my eyes (if you believe such things happen before we enter into the pure white light) and I will remember how perfect those seconds felt. I write of this experience now, at the distance of a few days, because I fear that if I don’t something important to my life’s journey (and perhaps your own as you read this) will be lost.

There have been in the past men whose hands perspired to a point of being icky who held my hand. There have been crushing hands and wimpy hands clutching my own. There have been hands so exquisitely formed as to be a creation of chiseled of the purest marble come to life that felt inhuman and lifeless. There have been hands that sent shock-waves through my body threatening to destroy every sense of stability I possessed. There were, for nearly seven years, a pair of strong, beautifully masculine hands belonging to my former husband. This man’s hands were none of those. There was no anticipation of it even happening but when it did the nature of my hands being held, and my holding this man’s, could not have been any more perfect (to me). An extension of who I am, who he is, and who we might aspire to be together. Fleeting though it might have been suddenly the world felt ‘more’ of everything precious. There was a physical strength that the slender shape of his fingers did not give a clue to his possessing – his are capable hands, that know both hard work and the ability to express tenderness. If you already know that you love someone for the energy which they share liberally with the world, can you actually fall in love with them because of how your hand feels in theirs? The question of why now echoes in the void between my fingers. The answer hangs both on soft currents of salt air breezes and mountain air crisp with winter offering time to process and decide on a course of action (or inaction). I have no expectations. The memory of these hands is enough. More than enough.

I found a wonderful meme about holding hands, two lines stand out in perfection – I wish I had written them.

“To take a hold of anothers hand is to break from individuality. It is to link yourself to another being, to momentarily entwine your life with anothers, to promise, for a moment, that you need not face the world alone.”

Tonight, if you have neglected this tenderness, or passion, reach for the one you love. Take their hand in yours, entwine your fingers, clutch their hand to your heart as you look into their eyes and know that sense of renewal in possibilities – the perfect intimate gesture.

If you enjoy my blog please consider ‘buying me a cup of tea’ in your currency via PayPal to livelikeadog@gmail.com and then, please do share the blog with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

Dalmatian Echoes

rain drops, sun-bleached stone

darkened seas tossed in violence

terrifying gods ignite the sky, scream angry words in unknown languages

windows shuttered, stories bidden

flickering light, something held at distance, now in proximity 

decay, renewal, one – or both

kneel, clutch, embrace, drowning that rescues

her shuddering response beneath his surrounding, burrowing warmth

discovery of self in the other

parched. hungry. greedy – like the earth

primal continuation, cognitive exploration, Tantric at-one-ment

in waves, nourishment came – yet again and again

fingering Spanish chords, his thoughts echoed through her body

a thousand years of her words stilled, caught, unexpressed

fingers entwined

racing hearts in syncopation, quieting to soft harmonies

with hair like Samson, he anointed himself with their sex

 

If you enjoy my blog please consider sending me the value of a cup of tea in your currency via PayPal to livelikeadog@gmail.com and then, please do share the blog with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

 

 

Remains

dexterity

Mirror mirror on the wall, 2013, Grégoire Cachemaille

chilling dispatch

what remains of sex

roué

flaccid vessel

mirrors your empty soul

 a thousand regrets

forsaken heart

my cup drains onto linen

If you enjoy my blog please share it with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

 

 

 

What Marilyn Monroe knew, Sleeping Naked

Daum Freres and Amalric Walter, Pate de Verre Paperweight “Sleeping Nude” from 1stDibs.com

Last night – probably for the first time in 52 years – I slept in the nude. This was not post-coital remnants, nor the result of a sunburn or the aftermath of a new lover exhausted from the exploration of one another, this was about my health. “What?” say you.  Yesterday afternoon I stumbled upon this offering from The Mind Unleashed.  I most appreciate that within the article were all kinds of scientific citations (all of which are worthy of clicking through and reading) backing up the five points outlined. And the truth is that my real motivation in trying this was the potential very positive impact on both my Cortisol levels and those anti-aging hormones.

I confess I have never felt completely at ease sleeping in the buff and this has always been less about “what if there is an emergency” than the habit of needing something on my shoulders – even spaghetti-strapped nightgowns while making me feel gorgeous are insufficient against earning real sleep. Something shifted in my brain and body as a result of the science presented. What if I had it nearly all wrong? I had always preferred a cold room – so that wasn’t an issue – but I am a snuggler (burying myself under a down comforter as the AC is on and it’s 85 degrees outside). So with the idea that one night of experimentation in the privacy of my own home certainly wasn’t going to kill me and I could always get up in the middle of the night and put a t-shirt and panties on – I stripped down, had a bath, slathered Camellia oil on and off to bed I went (with my book, alone).

Maggie Siner, Single Unmade Bed, 2011 http://www.maggiesiner.com

You know what? I ‘got over it’. I slept gloriously. And I had to ask myself this morning what was the purpose of having spent all kinds of crazy money over the years on fine Italian woven Egyptian cotton sheets only to put pj’s between my body and them? I believe I am fully reformed as of last night. The other, obvious, long-term benefit of this new comfort will be found in the last point of the article – soaring Oxytocin levels. Whether a lover shares my bed or not the heightened level of sensual awareness involved in this exercise was not lost on me.  (For the memories drawn upon in this I am grateful even as the lovers are no longer relevant to my daily life.)  So the question arises – is it that nakedness is a catalyst that prompts sensuality which, in turn, offers a release from desire or is it just sleeping naked that makes us sleep better?

Marilyn Monroe is famously quoted that she wore “just a few drops of Chanel No.5” to bed.  Maybe Marilyn knew more about the science of sleeping than we ever gave her credit for – because it’s said that the perfumer, Ernest Beaux, drew his inspiration for the creation of this fragrance from one of his visits to the Arctic Circle and the smell of water at midnight. Evidently, the unique smell of frozen lakes and rivers so fascinated him he decided to replicate it in his creation using laboratory-created aldehydes. So perhaps the smell of cold is equal to a cold room in our sensory processing? Here’s something more interesting, amongst the blend of flowers and plants in Chanel No. 5 can be found bergamot, lemon, neroli and ylang-ylang, jasmine, rose, lily of the valley, as well as iris, vetiver, sandalwood, vanilla, amber, and patchouli – neroli and vetiver oils (in aromatherapy), have been shown to lower blood pressure and anxiety (in other words stress which is what causes Cortisol to spike in our bloodstream) and relieve insomnia while amber oil has been shown to relax brain waves (alpha, beta, and theta waves) through its psychoactive effect. In truth I have never liked the smell of Chanel No. 5, despite this my fragrances all share common ‘notes’ of amber, neroli, bergamot, patchouli, jasmine, ylang-ylang, and sandalwood maybe that’s really why I slept so well last night.

Whatever you wear to bed (or not), I wish you sweet dreams.

If you enjoy my blog please share it with your friends on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

Give and Take – Lessons in Plenitude

Ein Mann sieht in der Welt, was er in seinem Herzen trägt

A man sees the world what he carries in his heart

~ Goethe

When I started writing this post (9 June) we had just seen two more school shootings in the United States as well as the murder of two police officers on lunch break, a man at a WalMart and then subsequent double suicide in Las Vegas, Iraq is back in the headlines and in turmoil, and 200,000 Darth Vader attired riot police had hit the streets around Brazil in anticipation of the World Cup.

With Goethe’s words, my thoughts were about witnessing how pain, anger, insecurity, denial, violence, personal control (or lack thereof) impacts others and consequently the world at large. With Goethe’s words I was ‘stuck’ dwelling on what my stalker was trying to take from me, my words, my emotions, the totality of my being.  The expression of those words, as necessary as breathing, which I was failing to liberate from me because I was angrier than I have ever been in my life that he just wouldn’t stop!, had responded by shutting down against the violence of his “taking”.  His selfish want was undermining both my soul and my human existence, and I had responded in the only way he would understand by calling his house four times back-to-back over a space of less than six minutes to “give him a taste of the medicine” he had been heaping on me for more than twenty years; and I hated every second of who he forced me to become for every fraction of a second.  As a result I put aside my writing and dug my hands into the earth, in the meantime I thought a great deal about how violence begets more violence and how I cannot allow myself to succumb to the cycle of destruction. Actually, none of us should.  Our world is made up of billions of us and every negative action has palpable energy which we all feel and respond to – in sheltering behaviors tied to anxiety such as agoraphobia, panic attacks, increasing levels of disease, and in lashing out (verbally and physically).  And truly, I thought that was the direction this would go – but, as all of that is negative, all of that is ‘taking’ and writing of it carries negative implications for me as I would research, write, dwell in and then publish it, and then also so would it negatively impact each of you as you read so, no, that is not the direction this is going to go. No, rather let’s explore what it is to really give instead and in the process be found.

My last post was to the universe and to a special man not yet met but certainly energetically ‘known’.  I could feel him coming closer to me but couldn’t identify him – and that was okay. Most of you reading this will grasp the important distinction made over being able to recognise, with clarity of intuition, what is meant for you and knowing it awaits, and that it cannot (under any circumstance) be forced into reality.  It’s not so much patience that allows this waiting to take place but the surety of ‘the knowing’. This is a gift. ‘The knowing’ of what is in my heart has always provided a kind of indescribable peace, the knowing is a banked fire waiting for fuel to flame up as well as the rains which merge and flood into depths of waters where we immerse our physical bodies to clear away the karmic debris of daily living.  With Goethe’s words I have always seen and felt the universal love that is my constant companion waiting for its vibrational equal to respond to, and be tuned by. If you have ever seen City of Angels you know what I mean – and if you haven’t you must watch it!

And, how do you know in real, human experience terms when ‘the knowing’ is manifest?

When your heart chakra floods with pure light before personal contact for starters, to be recognised (not just seen) for who you are at your soul level rather than from any photograph, to find in the other an echo of your expressed belief that life is full and beautiful regardless of how short it might be, that the other has touched your energy and seen your aura for the power of it and not only not shied away but embraced it and gave something more of themselves in response to the recognised equal energy you offer, to embrace the sweet saltiness of tears and, as totally illogical as it might seem to read, the willingness to turn your every day lives upside down to right the impossible separation that is no longer tolerable. All of this is the gift, the defining energy that every sentient being – yes, I believe, even non-human ones – longs to connect to.  Think about the distances that whales migrate twice a year to possibly mate once every two or three years and then nothing in our human experience seems impossible.

Simply put: giving expands, taking contracts. When you define your relationships by what is taken rather than what is given then you will no longer tolerate the meanness of less. Because as we give the giving comes back to us exponentially larger than what we feel we offered, this humbles us – to receive such gifts – and we repeat the cycle again and again because to give feels wonderful.

The gypsy painting that hangs in my living room ~ M. Bretz 1922

Yes, what a man or woman carries in his or her heart is how they see the world, and perhaps how the worthy among the world see us.  I have lived my life to date bound by the mantra of leaving the world in a better place than it was when I came into it, and I can only live if I continue to give freely, unconditionally, untethered by the constraints of society or conventional wisdom or promise of recompense.  Suddenly, inexplicably, the universe will say ‘you are ready’ and he will find me.  Bound by a Gypsy woman, a little battered by those that have taken too much of my energy, deceived by those who were empty themselves and who could only deny me tenderness but because of my ability to live in beauty and universal love now, finally, I will see that love reflected in the eyes of my ‘other’, feel that love clench around my heart and fill me to overflowing – and I will settle into him and stop drifting.

Young lovers start with nothing, possessions pale in the wealth found in friendship and trust and companionship and of making love in grass covered in dew, in crashing waves of the ocean, on the roof beneath a canopy of stars more precious than any jewels.  We, this amazing man who will find me and I, have a story to write on slates that have been wiped clean save for one thing – our mutual understanding that in giving everything of ourselves we will have found all that we need.

If you enjoy my blog please share it with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

 

Eh gads, I am a Feminist?

I very clearly recall a conversation between my parents at the dinner table in the late 60s or very early 70s. My brother and I were in school all day at this point, and while my mother had an expansive vegetable garden to tend, and read novels like, oh gawd, Mandingo (I remember sneaking a page and being mortified of the vivid description of a rather endowed man’s anatomy), she also sewed, baked and cooked, but she wanted to get a little part time job at the local pharmacy as a cashier, to have her own money and get out of the house. My father told her in no uncertain terms that if she went to work “it will put us into a different tax bracket” and that was the end of the discussion.  (Lord knows she’s never expressed her opinions to his face in 54 years of marriage. )

It’s notable that my father’s favorite TV show of this time was All in the Family, the parody of a ultra-bigoted, racist and sexist man, a man all too literally sitting at my kitchen table each evening. It pains my heart that, as so many of you reading this will attest, the telling line of the theme song “guys like us we had it made” reflecting a nostalgia for a different time when women stayed home (like my mother) is still with us and our collective humanity. And “angry old white guys” are making things difficult and ugly for so many because the world as they would like it to be doesn’t exist – exerting excessive control, spouting abhorrent rhetoric, always seems to escalate when this segment of society feels threatened. (My father peeled rubber down the driveway throwing gravel, stormed out of rooms with the toss of his chair, or gave you ‘the look’ whenever he was challenged or somehow something anyone else knew and expressed was contrary to his closely held view.)

Growing up in a childhood environment such as this, and with all the ills that remain for women to fight against even to this day, how is it that I have not actively and passionately embrace this moniker until recently?

I mean at 12 I was having a conversation about Roe v Wade with my priest and I have struggled against the barriers to equal pay throughout adulthood, the mere idea of human trafficking makes me quiver with anger, and yet it took a social media chat with a man of Latin heritage who can claim serious credibility in “enlightenment” to push me over the edge and realise, I AM A FEMINIST! (if you aren’t also you need to watch this video from the brilliant Lacy Green.)

This ‘title’ doesn’t feel authentic to me yet (there are women and men I know that truly fight the good fight every day, utterly committed, and they are damn loud about it) but (for clarity, just now) I called up Merriam-Webster online and according to their site feminism is “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes”, who wouldn’t want that? (Okay, other than the Republican Party in the United States and the ultra-Orthodox of any and all religions.) Feminism, in case you reading this were unaware, actually traces its roots back to the age of Enlightenment and the hero of said movement Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 

My claim to being a feminist came about because the aforementioned man posted an image on his Facebook wall entitled ‘Tennis Sweets’ (not a reference point to Sugarpova) which  featured a nubile young woman in (ridiculously) high heels, the shortest white pleated tennis skirt imaginable, lace panties, no shirt, no bra and a white sweater draped in such a way as to just cover her nipples. This was in such a stark contrast the Universalist mindset of love he had presented that I was compelled to call him out on it, and he responded that he took it down but not for me (okay, fine, whatever).

What’s odd is that in his posting the image he did me a huge favour, so I thanked him and expressed: “my reaction told me something I didn’t truly realise about myself – eh gads, I am a Feminist!”

And then he wrote: “That’s not healthy… Be human first… Your sex is not you…”

If you think about it, this is kind of funny because the image that prompted this personal discovery for me was about sex, a woman’s sex, and objectifying her rather than seeing her ‘in fullness of being’; and that has ALWAYS been an issue for me, the objectification. (How one woman balanced the ‘creepy man syndrome’ – do click thru, it’s brilliant!)

Equally so, I suppose, is the assumption that he made earlier (and men often make) that unless a woman has a partner, a lover, a man, there is something wrong (with her). Because despite the fact that he freely acknowledged my “great soul” and later in our text conversation wrote “enlightenment will disable all thoughts of need of equality between man and woman.. That’s my point… I believe your higher then you believe so…” he had pointedly asked: “How you survive the nights? in terms of sex? or companionship? You have a active lover?”

Sigh. So even when we have reached a higher level of consciousness, our souls having a human experience, it ever comes down to ‘who are you spending your nights with’? And if you aren’t spending your nights with someone that somehow either makes you a freak, diminishes you in the eyes of humanity or evokes pity. Does anyone express such about monks, nuns and sadhus?

So let me be clear, Madison Kimrey is the kind of chutzpah packing feminist I wish I was and she’s not yet 13 years old (I sincerely hope no one is asking her who she is spending her nights with)! I absolutely love that she has taken on uber-conservative Phyllis Schlafly  in the common ground of a bra to eloquently express that equality really means having choices. My choice, as a woman and as a feminist, and more accurately as an evolved soul having a human experience, is not to share my bed simply for the sake of doing so.  The energy in the sacred sanctuary of our sleep needs to be nurturing, protective, harmonious, inclusive and yes equal – and I am unapologetic about abstinence and exclusion until I find that singular person unquestionably worthy of aligning all of my chakras as I take responsibility for the care of his.  

There will be consequences for your stupidity! 😉

In the meantime there’s something to be said for being a feminist, a humanist, a mindful sensualist and for not suffering fools. (Yes, I unfriended the Latin man. )

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