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Archive | Ruby Intuition

The Straight Dirt of Dreams

September 21, 2019 in Age Matters, City Matters, Feminist Matters, Ruby Intuition, Spirit Matters

The ultimate 20th century trickster (Mata Hari).

The unconscious is a powerful thing, everyone knows that. Or at least everyone who doesn’t get tripped up by their own shoelace. But sometimes I forget how much smarter my unconscious is than my regular self.

Also how much more of a trickster.

Certainly when it comes to my romantic life, my unconscious bests my conscious (and conscience) every time. I can ignore what the tarot is trying to tell me–or, worse, respin it to match my most piteous impulses. I can ignore my friends’ two cents. But for me wish fulfillment is only a fancy of the waking mind. I’ve yet to bullshit myself while dreaming.

My dreams always tell me when beaus are stepping out.
My dreams never fool me about who is attractive or attracted to me.
My dreams are harsh but o lord I can trust them.

There are men and women I broke up with decades ago whom I still bed in dreams. Sometimes sexual chemistry has an extraordinary shelf life. Other times it does not. Continue Reading →

Dreams of a Metaphysical Detective

September 16, 2019 in Age Matters, Book Matters, Cat Lady Matters, City Matters, Essays, Feminist Matters, Ruby Intuition, Spirit Matters

As I write this my head hurts, my stomach hurts, my heart hurts. This is because my period is due to arrive this morning like the fusillade of bricks that is menstruation when you are 48 years old.

Rest assured that as rough as PMS can be when you’re 18–and I remember it as a wicked pissah–it’s a billion times worse 30 years later, as if your menstruating self refuses to go out without a bang. This is something women don’t really talk about because there’s so much shame around menopause and getting older in general.

Anyway, the pain is so bad that I can’t work on my book today. But rarely does PMS fabricate anything wholecloth and so the truth is I’ve been feeling stuck for such a long time that part of me thinks I should scrap the entire book endeavor and find a line of work that, you know, actually pays. The problem: What exactly would that be for a woman rounding the corner to 50 who’s only word-played for a living? Not to mention that, even in dark stretches like this one, I remain convinced there’s a reason besides solipsism to share my story.

Also the universe keeps trying to redirect my hazy, lazy self.

Continue Reading →

Notes on Pride, Luck, Lasses with Glasses

June 30, 2019 in City Matters, Essays, Queer Matters, Ruby Intuition, Spirit Matters

It will surprise no one who reads me that after finishing a film lecture upstate today I couldn’t bring myself to rush back to the city for Pride. Not because I don’t love my LGBTQ+ community but because I am incapable of abandoning a quiet green place for a crowded concrete one–at least before saying hi to every tree and bird in a two-mile radius.

So I sat by a lake and thought about luck once again. How unlucky we are to be living in the last few years of an environment that can functionally feed and hydrate and shelter us–or maybe how lucky we are to still have it today, given our abuse. How unlucky we are to be living under an administration that so brutally upholds capitalismcolonialismcockocracy–or maybe how lucky we’re finally forced to confront our country’s core of capitalismcolonialismcockocracy. How unlucky we are that so many queer community members–especially the gender-nonconforming–face mortal danger but how lucky that so many young people feel free to claim their sexuality given that when my generation was coming up, teachers were fired just for being gay.

And then there’s the personal stuff. How just yesterday I’d run into that stranger called my life for the first time in years only a few days after we’d messaged for the first time in years. And how a friend of K’s–a guy who helped me this dreadful spring for no reason except his general kindness–took suddenly, gravely ill.

The list goes on and on and woven into each item is our connecting karma, the Indra’s Net cradling each of us in its spidery, silvery arms.

I meditated on this for a while, sending everybody, and I do mean everybody, bright white light. Then, no joke, a gull came along and took a white bright dump on my blanket. It was the classic luck, schmuck conclusion, and I had to laugh.

But upon standing I saw a pair of glasses in the grass alongside me. Technically the abandoned lenses must have been there all along but of course I only noticed as I was feeling like I’d figured itall out. I only noticed the second pair–a half pair, really–on the curb as I returned to my car.

It’s like James Brown had hurdled back onto the planet in big preacherly robes hollering DO YOU SEE THE LIGHT? DO YOU SEE THE LIGHT? while Jake and Ellwood did sloppy somersaults and a very young Chaka Khan squirmed in ecstasy. Because, YES I SEE THE LIGHT AND THANKS FOR THE CORRECTIVE LENSES but also maybe I’M STILL NOT SEEING EVERYTHING I SHOULD!?

Gods and goddesses, send as many visions as you can.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy