In between his enraged outbursts, he would apologize, citing his drinking as the reason, and pleading for us not to hate him. He told us of his deep sorrow, for his wife and children had all been killed in a car wreck, and he was just “waiting to die,” but not until his dog died first.
Needless to say, I stopped being secretary for the apartment complex, and we tried to avoid having any contact with him. Not so easy, given that his Rottweiler routinely shit on our walkway, and his kitchen window looked across the small courtyard into ours. We could hear him crumpling beer cans with his bare hands and slinging them into the jumbo garbage can he kept in his living room for that purpose.
My peace-loving family found itself beleaguered on our home turf. How could this be? James only wanted to paint, Alex wanted to succeed in school, and I wanted to write. How could we have come in conflict with anybody? James and I had to ask ourselves these questions.
“This is some Welcome Back to America!” I complained.
James responded, “Well, look what’s happening in America now! There’s all this division. It’s rich against poor, right against left, and Christian against Muslim. Bush says that’s not it, but he always puts Saddam Hussein and 9/11 in the same sentence, and repeats ‘Muslim extremists’ and ‘Arab terrorists’ over and over again.”
“And people are so afraid here. Well, not so much in Taos, but when I talk with my relatives back East, they act like they’re expecting a suicide bomber to attack them while they’re shopping at the mall,” I said. “It’s like everyone has been hypnotized to be afraid. Are we subject to that just because we’re here now?”
“Well, look at us! We have Mohammed the Mad Muslim Manager on the warpath against us! When he gets all worked up, he spews out his ‘you white people are all liars and thieves’ trip,” James noted.
“Could it be that the collective unconscious steers events like this? Millions of people invoke Mohammed’s name five times a day, and while most of them are peaceful, many are confused and some of them are full-on fanatics who wish for nothing more than the destruction of the American way...” I said.
“Can you really blame them? Look what the ‘American way’ has done to them! Bush was ‘anointed’ by the Christian god to lead a military invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan obviously on a pack of lies in the name of fighting terrorism. Thousands of civilians have been killed. In most everybody’s eyes, it’s Yahweh against Allah. So even though it’s for oil and control, it’s really a religious war. And who’s going to take threatening their god lying down?” James interjected.
I continued my line of thought. “So five times a day there are lots of people generating hatred to white America, and that energy gets channeled into Mohammed, and he lashes out at us. It’s Muslim vs. Christian in his mind.”
James was dubious of my hypothesis. “So he’s just a puppet at the whims of other people’s thoughts?”
“Well, isn’t that what limited consciousness does to a person? Dark forces come through our Shadows.”
“I don’t know about that, Becca, but if you’re looking at it from an energy perspective, look at what we represent: conscious sex, gender equality, pleasure in the body, and no more dominator paradigm! Venus and Her Lover will bring out resistance from anyone invested in the control system, even if they’re unconscious about it,” James proposed.
The control system, the anti-sovereignty agenda, the Dominator Culture. I gave that malicious scheme a lot of thought.
When and where had it all started? The War Between the Sexes, I felt, was but one battleground of an even more monstrous campaign to arrest human development. I simply did not believe that human nature was so anti-humanity. Religious strife in the Middle East, the rise of materialism and fascism in the West, and the rape of the environment were somehow tangled up with our sexual energy and spiritual identities. I did not see how it all fit together yet, but I was on the trail. My devotion to Tantra and curiosity about myth were my chosen guides to lead me to understanding.
In his book, Sexual Peace – Beyond the Dominator Virus, Michael Sky presents the dominator mentality as a virus that enters into people camouflaged as “proper medical care” (techno-birthing that teaches that “the world is a violent place”), “good parenting” (“Spare the rod and spoil the child,” “Sex is sinful,” “Love hurts”), and society’s norms (“Suck up your pain,” “When the going gets tough, go shopping”). Once inside a child, it establishes its illness of domination and destruction, which the child must deny since it is coming from his or her trusted parents. Eventually the domination and destruction is projected outward.
From Sexual Peace:
Its[The dominator virus’s] information about reality and human relationship, once transmitted, is encoded in the vital heart of each cell — it becomes virtual human nature. The micropatriarchies of traditional families and the larger patriarchies of organizations and governments, through their continual transmission of the dangerous logic of power-over, naturally serve to reinforce the virus’s internal grip.103
I had seen statistics from the United States...
* 1 in 3 Americans were victims of sexual abuse
* By 18, the average youth has watched 250,000 acts of violence and 40,000 attempted murders (via television/movies)
* 1 in 8 Hollywood murders depict a rape theme104
When trying to imagine Mohammed’s childhood, based on a few of his comments and my general understanding of his home country, I saw a child born into a poor family, with a domineering, distant father and a battered, depressed mother. His religion, of which he was certainly a poor example, nonetheless could have served to justify his anger and righteousness at wanting to lash out at the infidel. Was he beaten as a child? I could not think of any reason why he would not have been.
Again, from Sexual Peace:
A person suffering any form of human-inflicted abuse is as a matter of course conditioned to dominant/submissive relationship: a specific bundle or field of information about the world enters into and intertwines with the person’s beliefs, opinions, attitudes, philosophies, dreams, expectations, and patterns of behavior. Such poisonous information ultimately seeps into the person’s essential nature, thus affecting and infecting all her or his future relationships. Domination is always abusive, always infectious, and almost always virally self-perpetuating.105
There were hundreds of psychological case studies documenting the effects of child abuse; the case of Hitler, who was beaten by his father and often witnessed his mother’s beatings, came easily to mind. Mohammed had the symptoms of a violent upbringing: his substance abuse and addictions, his racism, sexism, and bigotry, his aggressive reactions, and his overweight body as a kind of buffer against the cruel world.
Michael Sky makes the following point: “Once a child damns and suppresses the vibratory thrill and pulse of ever-innocent, sexual aliveness, the child is deeply wounded, perhaps never to fully recover. That we take such damage in children for granted merely indicates how deeply wounded we are.”106
Mohammed knew of our work and according to his dominator mentality would have had every reason to oppose it. During our earlier, saner conversations, James, Mohammed, and I had discussed the plight of a sexually repressed and violent society.
Michael Sky sees peace as possible through sexual liberation. He states,
Sexual conflict – ‘I hate this body and I project the hate I feel onto others’ – is the energetic core of patriarchy and the root cause of all of the current abuses of dominator reality. Sexual conflict is the dominator virus: when we are rendered incapable of feeling a true energetic connection with another, then any chance for partnership relationship is crippled, if not entirely lost, and we tend instead toward the patriarchal patterns of domination and submission.107
Michael Sky goes on to extrapolate on how sexual communion – Tantric lovemaking – could hold a key to reprogrammin
g a person down to the cellular level and eradicating the dominator virus completely. Sky’s ideas validated the art of Venus and Her Lover. James and I believed that sensual delight was the state we were all born into, and if we as human beings were never forced to suppress our joy of being in bodies, then we could easily share this joy with another through sexual union. Lovemaking that attains bliss transforms not only the lovers, but sends ripples out into the world, engendering a sense of well-being and peace in those whom it touches. This transformative power gives permission for us to reclaim our original, natural feelings of sexual joy and freedom.
Considering an “Arabs vs. Americans” dynamic of our conflict saddened us, whereas perceiving it through the dominator/partnership lens gave us an opportunity to engage the dominator dynamic up close and personal. Mohammed was obviously using dominator tactics, and while we were not submitting to them, we were not battling them, either. In fact, mulling over the tragic aspects of our aggressive neighbor led us to one primary response: compassion.
During this time, I was researching and contemplating Kuan Yin, the Chinese Goddess of Compassion, in preparation for writing the poem. I chose the theme specifically because of my frustrations in dealing with all the tumult generated in my home space by Mohammed the Mad Muslim Manager. Under Kuan Yin’s guidance, we were able to experience the Age of Terrorism in a personal way and cultivate kindness in how we responded to the man whose aim was to terrorize us.
The kinder we were, however, the more incensed Mohammed became. He would stand in the courtyard yelling into our windows. “Your lease is no good!” “You poisoned my dog!” “You snuck into my apartment and stole my cigarettes! All you white people are liars and thieves!” “We Arabs own America!” My concentration for writing was shot. James took to leaving his work and coming home at odd hours, fearing for my safety. We changed our locks, and when we informed the owners in Albuquerque of why we were doing so, they acknowledged that sometimes Mohammed drank too much, but that he was the manager and to please try to work it out with him.
Thus in addition to Kuan Yin, another archetype rose up: the Crone. Central to her character was the strength to stand up to injustice. Wise Woman was Lawgiver. In our family meetings, James, Alex, and I agreed that Mohammed’s threatening behavior had gone too far, and we needed to take action. It was as if the bygone Native American Council of Grandmothers were present, insisting on justice. We went to a law firm to see about court action, where they assigned us a lawyer named Adam. What was going on here? Another Adam in the story? Here we were: First Man (Adam, of the Judeo-Christian team) vs. Final Prophet (Mohammed, of the Muslim team) in our own little archetypal passion play. Did I hear Coyote laughing in the background? At the end of our first meeting, after browsing James’ art portfolio, Lawyer Adam said, “So do you think you could pay for my services with art?” Perfect.
Adam advised us that our case would be much stronger if Mohammed actually evicted us; therefore we needed to hang on until he officially broke our lease. That would come soon enough.
One afternoon I heard workers above our townhouse and discovered Mohammed was having our satellite TV dish ripped off the roof, accusing us of causing ceiling leaks. Arguing with him proved fruitless, so I called the police. Two officers showed up.
“Look who’s here – Barney Fife!” Mohammed leered at them. “You’re trespassing! Get the hell off my property!”
“Sir, we’re police officers and we have the right to be anywhere in Taos. We were summoned here by this woman,” the officer said sternly.
Proceeding to explain the situation, I pleaded with the officers to get Mohammed to desist, which they did, none to his liking. Mohammed continued to order them off the property, yelling, “You’re just siding with your own kind. You white people are all alike – a damn bunch of liars and thieves!”
“Sir, are you interfering with the duties of a police officer?” one of them asked. The fact that he was on the verge of being arrested seemed to snap Mohammed out of his vituperative tirade and he listened to the officer, agreeing to desist until an agreement was reached. As one officer lectured him, the other said to me quietly, “He seems calm now, but I smell alcohol on his breath. If you need me to testify as to what I’ve witnessed, I will. You should be collecting evidence until you get this thing into court.”
As soon as the eviction notice came, a barely discernible note written in bear paw hieroglyphics, we gave the signal to Adam, who served a complaint to the owners, the first step toward filing a suit. We hired a moving company, and much to our relief and dismay, found ourselves packing up once again. Mohammed avoided us thereafter; apparently the owners, who were now facing legal costs, had yanked his leash. When the moving truck arrived, he stood there like a big black bear alongside his big black Rottweiler, with sadness in his eyes. He was sober.
“You know, Mohammed, we never had anything against you. But you become crazy when you do drugs and drink. I’m sure it’s brought you a lot of trouble in your life,” I said.
“Yeah, I should stop,” he said, and I thought he was actually expressing some kind of remorse.
I changed the subject. “The other day I saw a young man visiting you. Who was he?”
“That’s my son,” he answered. “He’s in college.”
“Your son?! I thought you lost your whole family in a car accident...”
“Nah,” Mohammed replied with a laugh. “I was just fuckin’ with ya!”
Blinking with incredulity, I said, “Goodbye, Mohammed. Good luck.”
Power spots often have an initiation that the newcomer must pass through. Pele had certainly put us through it on the Big Island. Here taoseños claimed that the Mountain decided if you could stay or if you had to go. In our case, we had been put to the test by Mohammed the Mad Muslim Manager.
It would take six months and tedious legal wrangling, but finally we reached an out-of-court settlement with the Albuquerque landlords. With that chunk of money, we covered our costs of moving and paid off overdue bills. I snatched $1000 out of the settlement and hid it away, believing that it would be the impulse to transport us from the brown mesas watched over by the eagle, to the emerald green mountains of the condor. I was dreaming of South America.
For despite the Age of Terrorism’s static and interference, the pulse of the Americas thumped a rhythm that was drawing me ever closer, ever deeper into the heartbeat of Mother Earth. Here in the Americas I wanted to dance to her drum and lay my head upon her breast.
THE TAO OF TAOS
In the summer of 2006, we landed a perfect home, so immediately upon our eviction by Mohammed the Mad Manager, we moved into an 8-room brown adobe house just outside town.
It was truly a Taos house, with a floor plan the result of creative adding-on, and complete with Saltillo tile floors and a kiva fireplace that looked like a round mud oven. One room had floor-to-ceiling windows that allowed the sun to warm the floor tiles in the winter, and that afforded expansive views. This became my office – by far the best writer’s studio to come my way. Filled with my books, houseplants, a piano, and my desks and computer, my studio shepherded me into green pastures of inspiration.
The house came with a dog named Blue, and the landlady’s desire that we care for the dog. We agreed, and immediately were endeared by the black and white Husky with captivating pastel blue eyes. Blue had one leg that pained her. As a younger dog, she had chased cows, until one day a rancher shot her with a rifle, leaving her disabled. What a sight to see James and Blue walking together – both with a limp. There goes the warrior with his power animal – and both of them battle-scarred! I thought, watching them one day. Like James, Blue did not make a show of her suffering. In fact, the dog always greeted us with sweet enthusiasm.
Soon after we moved in, we rescued a feisty kitten, whom we named Kiva. She proved herself to be a good mouser as well as very loving. Every morning she would jump up on t
he bed and begin waking me by giving me a kneading massage with her paws, followed by “purr therapy” as she lay contentedly on my stomach.
To all appearances we had passed through Taos Mountain’s first-year initiation and been rewarded with a comfortable house, complete with dog and cat. Alex was hitting his stride, enjoying his senior year in an American high school, and even had a girlfriend, a fellow swimmer on the swim team.
James said that being in our house perched above the mesa was like standing on the top deck of a cruise ship (waves of mesa rolling to the horizon), but I felt even more that living on this high altitude mesa was like being on a top deck of the world, and as we swung around and around, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains streaked their fingernails into the heavens. Sometimes it seemed that the stars parted to make way for us.
Four Seasons
Northern New Mexico stages four distinct seasons, and although our clock had long ago been set to a tropical tempo, we now adjusted to living in the temperate zone, and tracing the wheel of the year.
Winters were hard, and spring brought relief from freezing cold. Melting snow meant mud. This was not just wet dirt that splattered my skirt hem. During the spring thaw, mud became so deep that it tried to swallow cars, keeping the tow trucks busy hauling people out. But eventually the mud dried out, leaving dust. Dust propelled by 30-mile-per-hour winds made walking down the street like sprinting through a firing range. It was with dirt in my eyes and grit in my mouth that I would welcome spring, when the sun warmed the day to t-shirt weather, followed by nights that froze the water in the dog’s dish. Such extremes caused the wind.
After the snows were all melted and summer came to the high Rockies and high desert, monsoon season thunderstorms turned the land green. It felt like the gods were smiling upon this atypical Eden. Summer meant we could plant the garden, and though I ceded some of the harvest to grasshoppers, roadrunners darted up the bluff to feast on them.
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