Rotating The Sacred Back Scratcher

I'm just sitting here. I can't even fathom anything about what I'm supposed to be doing with the Grange Sisterhood affair. At this point it's a mush in my mind. But of course I do know something about sacred swords. I'm very clear on that.

And thank God for laziness, because I was too lazy to get my swords out of their cases. Because it prompted me to reach over and get this back scratcher. Which has been very helpful to me in terms of focusing my thoughts.

Yesterday I had it pictured the other way around, with the white thing at the bottom. Today, just for the heck of it, I rotated the picture, and ... Whoa! There's some powerful universal influences happening here! But I'm not afraid ... "Good back scratcher, relaaax...," stroking it, then cutting it into a million pieces with one of my swords. The pieces scurry around my floor and are immediately beamed up.

Just a little joke there.

But seriously, the energies of the re-dubbed sacred back scratcher are way different when it's flipped on the other end.

It's like a person standing there with no arms. I've got it setting here and I'm gazing at it. Gazing, ever so deeply ... gazing... My eyes are crossing, relaaaxing, ever more...

Then in one compelling snap, my mind is suddenly at rapt attention and I bring my eyes to the hole at the bottom. No longer is it a tiger's eye. I don't want to spell it out what it is, but if you turn it around it reminds me of Dick Cheney. But, hey, everyone's got one. I'd hate to go through life without it. You know, keep it clean and everyone's happy. My dog was scooting hers around on the floor one day, meaning it was time for a bath.

But I'm looking at it from the front. Which is a very procreative view. Mother Nature perhaps, then gazing into infinity. And there are male energies as well. Nothing with the traditional form, but that's to be expected. For as should be obvious, the traditional form suggests limits, bringing in comparisons. But what we see here is limited only by your imagination. And I'm imagining some very bold strutting. Like a Cutlass XL850, the stallion of swords!

O, the energies are too much there, to be sure!

I will just work with the thing for a while... My fingers are grasping it, not my palm, right around the indentation toward the top... Holding infinity at arm's length... Very lightweight... Dangling... I bring it up to lightly scratch my chin... Tickles... The front hole is a little close... But there's such energy I gaze in... It's happy to see me... I'm gazing on universal procreation... I see all species being born from a common source of light... They are enveloping each other with joy and yielding... A seagull snaps up a tiny fish... I am the last one to see it flash brightly in the sun... Fish sounds kind of good tonight...

I cover the whole bottom part with my grasp... I can picture it blowing a hole in my hand from the back... But I hope it squelches it... Then from the front, such procreative power, I might end up with three more fingers... Hope not, people already look at me funny... I'm about to do something that no one should do... Here goes...

[Flip, whap.] That's right... I flipped it completely over and it's horizontal on my desk in front of me, the head to my left... Now it's time for a full body massage... Pressing it up and down... I have a tiny cloth to cover the butt... Working out its tensions... We don't get many back scratchers in here... Tell your friends... Now a few light karate chops... I've seen massages on TV... I think we know each other pretty well by now... I take off the cloth... Give him and her a light slap on the butt... And flip it over... Bring it back to the upright, prone position... Then lay it aside gently, because I'm nearly finished... I close my eyes, then open them -- I'm finished.

Like that, it's over. It's no longer sacred. I toss it back over and it makes a loud noise when it hits my oatmeal bowl still setting there from this morning.

Pulling Out The Stops

No more sitting here waiting for something to happen. You know how it is, once in a while you get all down, morose, biorhythmically stagnant and drained? I think that's been my problem. I should be charting my cycles on a calendar.

I'm a big believer in the cycles of being interested in, engaged with things. And there's the cycles of ideas. I was just looking at some notes of high flown ideas I had a few days ago. But in the meantime I've gone from that to this. Maybe my new resolve today is just a matter of a new cycle beginning. Or maybe I'm jump starting it simply by willpower. I like to think I have an active role in my destiny.

Like when I chased the hiatus from the house a few weeks ago, that was a high point. If you remember how it went, it was a wild time:

The promise therein awoke me to a new determination and I was back in the living room. The serpent had dodged me twice and thought we were going for the best two out of three. But My Lady [Dulcinea, the Lady of the Lake] beckoned me to swing what I've got, then I heard her whisper, "Now." I spun that sacred sword through the air with such raw fury and dead aim that not only was the serpent's head immediately severed but it lay at my feet like a dozen separate pieces of meat, like a ginsu knife demonstration.

That's powerful stuff. But somehow I let it slip. The whole thing about sacred swords -- the power that you call forth when you're working with one -- I sometimes forget that.

But it's time to get it back. I'm going to do it right now. Let me amend that. The sacred swords are in their cases in one of the other rooms and I'm kind of lazy. But I can do it with anything. A wand. A walking stick. Whatever. So right here, today, I have a back scratcher. And because I'm using it for sacred purposes I will temporarily dub it a sacred back scratcher.

I'm not so dumb about these things. It could be a weed. It doesn't matter what it is. Although of course it'd matter for some things. Like if you were trying to cut off the head of a fierce hiatus, you'd have a lot more success with a sword than a weed. But for getting yourself psyched up, stimulating your cycles, jump starting them, this plain old back scratcher will do the trick just as well. And it has the obvious practical value as well, like if my back starts to itch.

So let me do some work--

Holding it before me... Notice in the picture the padded section looks like the thing in a Ouija set... Very occult... Velcroed on... OK, I'm holding it before me... That tiny hole at the top is great... And I have the tines facing away from me... That's taking the energy going up my spine and rotating it outwardly... Oh, I felt a little tapped out all of a sudden, so I'm turning the tines back toward me... It looks like a tiger claw coming at me... Very good for the power... I'm absorbing the tiger's energy... And the little hole, of course that's the eye of the tiger... What an eye!... It has no back, I'm looking into the eye of infinity... Three thinner tines in the middle, two broad at the end... The maker of this back scratcher was working with archetypes... The curvature below the eye is evocative... Like the breasts on a Peruvian princess or queen, bringing power into me to face them... Then the narrowness going down... I can see forms, shadows, aspects of energy... New birth as I get down to the cushy bottom of the thing...

Where I grasp it, it's varying, but mostly toward the bottom... I'm going to rotate it and direct it toward the clouds outside... I'm taking it in a circular direction, like a sword cutting through an enemy in slow motion... The movement of my right arm is alive... Now I'm grasping it also with my left hand, and bringing the tiger's claw in toward my forehead.... I'm focused on the eye of the tiger... My eyes are meeting it... As the "Tao Te Ching" says, I want my enemy to be at his full strength... We might go out for drinks later, like professional wrestlers... At this moment I choose to wrestle, as does my opponent... If it turns into a rasslin' match, all bets are off... A quick jerk of the scratcher toward my left breaks the tiger's glare, meaning I won that round... That is strong.

I'm now holding it horizontally, breathing out the energy, and I'm more relaxed... But my jaws are still clenched, I'm going to work with that... I could snap this SOB in two, seriously... But I have too much respect for it, and if my back itches later on, that will have been a rash thing... But I'm letting the energy go from my hands and holding it loosely... I gently clasp the tines and cover the tiger's eye... Beautiful tiger, let me share your strength... Then a sacred scratch of the tines against the palm of my left hand... Symbolic of giving it a taste of blood, though not literally... He drinks my blood... He's not tamed but we're in a partnership, me the senior partner, he our the vice president in charge of back scratching... The power I seek is nothing I will claim forever, for I know the ways of the shadow... Also very beautiful ways...

I'm holding it upright one more time... Proudly erect yet one with me... Now I relax it all together and dismiss the energy back into the universe, keeping back only about as much as you could carry in a lunch box, just a small portion... (Very important, as in not having leftover manna)... And with my right hand, I toss the once-sacred back scratcher back on my pile of stuff... There it is, back to being nothing more than a normal back scratcher.

Now I'm up... Eyes closed... Must not lash out... Completion...

OK. You can see how serious I am in wanting to get to the bottom of this whole situation. I feel my cycle is starting again. That I will be back in the flow of things! From here on out I'm pulling out all the stops.

The Inevitable Comedown

I had the kind of night I knew I would have. Alternating visions of Heaven and Hell.

A victory like that last night -- involving actual sparks and flames -- has its inevitable downside.

Those in the know -- and I'm the only one on my block -- know what personal inflation is all about. It's great for a moment, to get you through the trouble, but you need something to counter it, quickly!

For me, it's the color white. A countering white agent/force that is easy to acquire, and tastes good, is white bread. We had a few slices in the breadbox. That calmed me down temporarily, took away the convulsions and gave me a few minutes' respite so I could manage a quick trip to the grocery store.

I sped through the store -- picking up a few loaves of white bread, a gallon of milk (not chocolate), cottage cheese, and shredded coconut. Starting to convulse in the car, I hastily made a cottage cheese and coconut sandwich and downed it in a couple gulps.

Getting home in record time, I got out our white serving platter, cut the crusts off and arranged the bread in a circular fashion around the edge, placed the cottage cheese in the center, and sprinkled coconut in the zone between. I poured out a big glass of milk. I systematically ate my way around the platter, starting at the top and going clockwise, then the coconut clockwise, then the cottage cheese, ending with the centermost remaining cottage cheese.

It worked. Now I'm sitting here very calmly in clean white underpants looking at a white candle. There's nothing like ritual to restore your sanity.