Aubrey Beardsley’s “The Examination of the Herald” (1896) pic.twitter.com/Z4ZqgFfqF6

— Whores of Yore (@WhoresofYore) July 19, 2016

The wife beater is now to be called to the pussy boy brutalizer.

 God has no religion. ~Mahatma Ghandi

Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, “Hey, there is an elephant in the village today.”

They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, “Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway.” All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.

“Hey, the elephant is a pillar,” said the first man who touched his leg.

“Oh, no! it is like a rope,” said the second man who touched the tail.

“Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree,” said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.

“It is like a big hand fan” said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.

“It is like a huge wall,” said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.

“It is like a solid pipe,” Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.

They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, “What is the matter?” They said, “We cannot agree to what the elephant is like.” Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, “All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said.”

So it is with religion. Each culture has seen God, through their own perspectives describing God with their own vocabularies, interpreting God through their own experiences. The universal is love and tolerance for other viewpoints.

that’s a good boy

Awareness

by John Austin

her gaze is so constant,
our every move
watched
with such affection,
a ceaseless vigil
without condition
or agenda,
silent,
patient,
unrelenting in her
embrace.

There is endless room in
the heart of this lover,
infinite space for whatever
foolishness we may
toss her way.

But she is also
crafty, this one-
a thieft who will steal away
everything we ever cherished,
all our beliefs,
all our ideas,
all our philosophies,
until nothing is left
but her shimmering
wakefulness,
this simple love
for what is.

————————

This poem was sent to me and I cannot seem to track down the poet. I think the poem speaks to what happens to a man when a woman truly mesmerizes and enchants him: he is transformed, cleansed, reborn. I’m not sure this is what the Mr. Austin was trying to say, but such is the nature of art, that whatever the artist’s intent, we experience it through our own prism.

And yes, “thieft” is a word. Who knew?

xo, Angela