A well documented correspondence between the Moon and the reproductive organs is the close parallel between a woman’s monthly cycle and the lunar synodic month. The length of time (29 1/2 days) for the Moon to pass through its phases, e.g. from Full Moon to Full Moon, closely approximates the duration of the menstrual cycle. The relationship of the Moon with generation and reproduction is a mirroring activity, but which takes place in the sphere of life rather than in the realm of ideas.

The difference between our ideas and concepts we hatch in our heads and the biology and gestation cycles of every living thing on the planet that gives birth, is our intimate and precise relationship to the Moon. In the case of the human female, her biology anchors her into the movement of the stars. In other words men are not locked into an obvious star pattern that comes around and hits monthly or approximately every 29 1/2 days.

Not only does nature reveal different flashy colors for males of the species against the more subdued female colorations, but the reasons for such external vs internal differences are because the female of all the species except the Sea Horse, are locked into the gestation cycles and internalized forces that project inwards. While the male of the species the male cardinal, lion, rooster expend their forces externally while the female projects her excess forces inwardly.

Human females have a wonderfully startling and more sensual sensitive and obvious difference in their outer skin and hair than what men have as their equipment and naked design. The sensual differences are striking but the facts are still, without exception, that the female projects external forces inwardly as she is locked into the movements of the starry heavens down into her biology.

Islam had an ancient cult where women were gathered in a harem and
their cycles all timed together and linked to a menstrual moon cycle. Now the idea of having 12 women each with a different aspect of the zodiac signs through the starry Sophia window, the Moon, timed in unison with the changes in the Moon cycle and serving the intuitions of One Sun Cock, one male, Mormon or Sheik, takes us back to King Solomon and opens up a hidden path to the stars and the ancient planning of births via female cycles.

Even today we find that women working together find that their menstruation cycles sometimes tend to merge and fall into similar patterns. Now friends when this happens this is an etheric lymphatic event that binds on deeper levels the GROUP of females into an unconscious ring, an unconscious lunar portal and star ring operating just below consciousness in the work place.

A circle of Harem like etheric and lymphatic forces geared and in sync with the Moon, with Luna, means literally that the tides and group of females etheric and lymphatic rhythms create a little but potent lunar tidal wave or ring knot that comes together monthly and connects to the various open zodiacal signs that the moon phases through every three days. Yes that is correct. The Moon as well as the Sun phases through the zodiacal windows. The Moon phases are faster than the Sun phases and all heredity and gestation cycles of every living thing on the planet operates in sync with the Lunar rhythms. Every gestation cycle on the planet is locked into the laws and numerical sequencing of the moon’s phases.

Solomon and the preparation for the line of Jesus had to do with the
Queen of Sheba and the building of Solomon’s Temple as a domed work
of math, science, zodiac, planets was fitting preparation for all the wisdom gathering into a Zarathustra/Jesus destiny. Yes, that is right. If you thought the riddle of Jesus was finished with just a simple humble pie guy who happened to reconfigure the entire genetic code of the fall of humanity, than you haven’t understood the preparation involved for the incarnation of this Jesus individuality or how Solomon played into the generations that led to the incarnation of Jesus.

But Solomon was a real zodiac shopper for unique aspects in female qualities. Solomon was a real lover of women. Solomon was a Harem master and the inner side of the Romantic and Romanticism while Hiram, the builder was the outer side of the occultist. Solomon savored each unique flavor that each female brought with them from the stars. Solomon gained wisdom from every female that he encountered. Hiram the builder was a nerd for how the planets, stars, earth, geology, gems, and technology and form brought the stars into visible matter. In Hiram and Solomon we have the marriage of Occultist and Mystic.

There was indeed a mystery to the sentient soul qualities of female sensuality,different sexual tastes, different stellar forces, different flesh
tones, intellectual idealism out of Aries as foreplay, which is where “Sharazad” revealed one aspect of a highly complex Sophian star tale.

“THE Thousand and One Nights (Alf Laylah wa Laylah) is the only
Arabic work that has become truly popular in the West. For centuries
it was frowned upon by educated Arabs for its inelegant style and
mixing of the classical and vernacular languages.

“The first written compilation of the stories was made in Iraq in the
10th century by al-Jahshiyari who added tales from local
storytellers to an old Persian work, Hazar Afsana (“thousand
tales”), which in turn contained some stories of Indian origin.
The “frame” story, in which Sharazad saves herself from execution at
the hands of King Shahrayar with her endless supply of tales was
borrowed from the Persian Afsana but probably originated in India. A
similar device, which may also come unltimately from India, is found
in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Boccaccio’s Decameron.”

A stable of different Sophian stellar and sensual moon forces
embodied in females with living qualities, a living sensual reality
that is truly wonderful to describe on the basis of all the different types of women, their smells, their minds, their seductions, their warmth, their coldness, their heart, their intellects, their music, their art, their cooking, their touch, and their ability to touch different places in the psyche of foreplay with the sexual harem owner were a form of Solomon wisdom schooling for male/female relations.

I have encountered as well how females have taken this up in having a stable, as in horse stable of different men types sizes and shapes, man breeds, which is a liberating thought that women can easily grasp this in similar manner as Solomon did with all his women. Women today are just as able and can clearly have an entire Harem of different types of men weaving in and out of their lives on a monthly basis as any Mormon male or Harem big daddy did.

It wasn’t all sexual in the Harem or the concubine world, even though the different way each female has orgasms, a screaming Jap (not Jewish American Princess; they usually faked their orgasms.) What would a blond with sulphur or a redhead be like? What would a dominating Iron force in the blood of a dark haired lusty one be like? Large breasted, small, tiny, tall, fleshy…and then the interior nuances of how each woman was tuned to their aspect of one fully living form of a specific zodiacal field. And of course the idealists out of Aries makes the challenge of riddles and the psyche become foreplay and intuition. All of this was what was left when we finally reemerged from the past with the Troubadours, The Romantics and finally collapsed into country western trailer park love songs.

The dance of the 7 veils were the earliest forms of strip club. But the art of opening and uncovering layer upon layer of the deeper levels of the 7 planets, used to be considered a revelation as to how a child descends from the stars through the 7 planets and sought incarnation. Yes, the dance of the 7 veils was once a profound initiation dance that has now become a mere gathering for rabid sexually frustrated wolves.

7 veils and 7 layers into the deeper realities of the planetary fields out beyond the Saturn veil of karma to the core of mighty Virgin, The pure white moon, Diana the many breasted Ephesus mother, obviously such 7 veils worked well for two women getting back at fat Luciferic Herod, harem derelict and debaucher of his own daughter, with a promise of sensual favor for the beheading of John. St. John was beheaded because of the base instincts of Herod willing to promise anything and everything if this young babe would do the occult strip tease for his slimy soul. The devil’s bargain was the head of St. John. Herod traded his momentary pleasure and sensual delight for the cut off point of the incarnation John the Baptist.

In the far west the liberation of women where the individual I Am of
women were and are on equal par and sometimes vastly superior to the
I AM carriage of men we must watch the movie “Dangerous Beauty” to get some idea…and of course, back in the day…such a creature as Helen of Troy embodied all the artistic work of Aphrodite, but there were Athena women and Hera women as well. Athena women of intellect and Hera women of power. Hilary Clinton is a Hera woman and so was Margaret Thatcher.

But “Dangerous Beauty” was a brilliantly done film where the true troubadour and Romantic origins of the sensuality and freeing up of both the role of females and males, liberating the suppressed instincts and passions so that each human being can see them clearly, is what in occult terms are clear cut Luciferic or serpent and apple, Luciferic forces as opposed to the other end of the spectrum, the icy cold forces of the Ahrimanic.

We are hardly human if we cannot determine the differences between hot passion and sensuality and the icy grip of power and cold avarice. These two forces make up the one entity that rules our shadows called Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles is alive and is an equal opportunity employer for sucking both female and male souls dry. They, WE, never see it coming, even if it is easily predictable.

Now the Ahrimanic forces of mechanized female habits appear fully contrasted in the Stepford Wives. Here artificial intelligence unlinked, severed from the organic and etheric forces of the moon and gestation are brought into the service of servicing males. The same dark moral problems that were in the film, AI or Artificial Intelligence, reveal the fully developed Ahrimanized model of decapitated or deconstructed female reality which severs ourselves from the core of nature and presses us toward the road to The Matrix.

In a fundie future world the I AM of women of the west will be set back again to what some Mormons in Utah think is cool. Mormons merely have inserted the Arab practice of harems to serve as moon rings of power of circles of women adjusting their most intimate menstrual rhythms to the cock of the roost, the chief sheik and big daddy who vowed to support them. These Mormon family values have infected political processes deeply into the current Govt. Who can ever, ever forget “A Handmaids Tale”? “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a feminist dystopian novel, a work of science fiction or speculative fiction, written by Canadian author Margaret Atwood and brilliant, frightening and terribly true to the fundamentalist bible thumping stooges who have a different Orwellian angle to cut out the heart of freedom in humanity.

Well it is easy to forget if you were unable to think or were never drawn into deep comparative literature studies and saw the meaning of things with new eyes. Education is a bitch and then you discover the truth and learn that it is part of the Great Sophia Wisdom of the soul to see how truth and the heart function when they work as intuition together with the I AM.

“It turns out that Stepford’s husbands have conspired with
chauvinistic scientists to replace all the wives with computerized
android duplicates. While the film’s ending did leave me wondering
what domineering heterosexual husband in his right mind would
consider Katharine Ross in a long, high-necked dress and white
gloves an improvement over Katharine Ross in short cut-offs and a
halter top, I took it with a grain of silicon and went with it.”

In conclusion we have to look at what Ahrimanic forces have brought
as the bastardization of the west to the middle east. Therefore under the repression that is building in the west, women will not have it any better under Ahriman’s grip than at Lucifer’s at the Luciferic mystery center known in the west as Las Vegas.

The true sexual revolution brought men and women to a vast equal and appreciative open field of reality that has morphed into repressive sex for the Fundies, Porn for the masses and gay and lesbian open relations for overcoming the sexual roles of their own inner anima and animus…and taboos and tattoos for everyone.

Yet all of these insights come at us as conscious or unconscious constant distractions that avert our gaze from the reality of how the moon sets all gestation cycles of every living being on the entire planet. These distractions are there so that you will fail to understand how the female is the portal to the star mysteries and how children come into incarnation through the portal of the stars and gather for their internal spiritual use their own sun, moon and planets and how these link themselves to the hereditary forces that they chose for their parents.

The strip club has severed us from the reality of the true dance of the seven veils. We now neither understand our own inner navigating stars or how our brains contain a map of our stars so that we can think and uncover our destinies by using the soul forces of our intuitions.

That which is covered becomes uncovered – naked. That which was veiled becomes unveiled. That which is the mystery of mystery and holy of holies, that which is our own I AM and our own Star Maps, are part of the ancient mystery of the seven planetary spheres and the mighty wheel of the zodiac. We bring our stars with us and the miracle is that they become our biology and our anatomy. But the secret navigating impulses arise in our soul and spirit.

We look up to the external world of space and the stars, but we come from and we bring with us into living thought interrelationships our navigational maps of what the interior of the starry worlds are all about. We are each of us the gateways to the mighty world of the starry heavens.

It’s Bloomsday!  In honor of which, a non-opera-related story: When I was in high school and in love with a 20-something writer, I read every book he mentioned to me (even in passing), because that’s what teenage girls in love do (ironically, I spent part of today with that same writer floating out ideas as to how he can get his pregnant wife to eat more…no, he was not married 10 years ago).    Il Writer was a Joycean and highly–HIGHLY–recommended Ulysses out of all the guy’s works, so Christmas break my junior year was spent in search of Stephen Dedalus, in Dublin with Leopold, and in bed with Molly Bloom.  Some time later, probably around spring break, my misogynistic Western Civ teacher heard me discussing the big U with a classmate and scoffed “You’ve never read Ulysses.”  After giving me hell, he let slip “No woman can read Joyce.”  Every Bloomsday, I can’t help but think of crotchety old Mr. Needham.

Thus, it’s only appropriate that today would be the day I hit Caccini’s La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina.  Caccini’s name should sound familiar from Euridice Catfight!–a true catfight since Caccini was one of Peri’s greatest rivals and, allegedly, wrote HIS Euridice as a way from stealing Peri’s thunder (this operatic rivalry and duality of operas was to become a famous/infamous trend).  But this composer isn’t Giulio Caccini; rather it’s his daughter and, by rights, the first female opera composer, Francesca.  For all I wanted to support my sisters in the face of pricks, misogynists, chauvinists, and the general ethos of the “boy’s club,” however, I felt myself oddly conflicted while listening to Liberazione.  At times, she pushes past Monteverdi and foreshadows Handel (who would write his own opera based on Alcina), at others she goes back more than 20 years to the dramatically stagnant early works of Peri.  What really got me was the Aria del Pastore, which unfortunately has only made it onto YouTube with a musically inferior rendition, though if you can get your hands on the Warsaw Chamber Opera recording, it’s really something.

Whether La Liberazione is a statement on feminism or gender seems obvious–perhaps even a little too obvious.  Though the cast of 16 is evenly divided between men and women, female voices tend to dominate the piece.  It helps that, among the men, there is only one bass (and, curiously, no castrato).  That the women sing in flat keys, the men in sharp, and one woman–playing an androgynous character–in C Natural has also led many modern historians to take this piece as a commentary on the role of the female–either sacrifice femininity or overtly use it to succeed; there is no middle ground.  Which would speak aptly to the role of women in 17th Century Venice–you were either a mother or a whore, with very little room for negotiation in between (ok, the convent, fine).  As a side note, there is a great study in this dichotomy as seen in the life of Venetian poetess/courtesean Veronica Franco, and in her subsequent biopic, Dangerous Beauty.

‘If it is going to be organic, it shouldn’t have any artificial stuff or preservatives in it. It should be natural, just the way nature intended.’ T.M. Iowa

Here’s one example that’s popping up lately. OASIS is a standard created by manufacturers of conventional personal care products. Standards, such as OASIS’s, seem to allow organic ingredients that have been grown via conventional methods using nasty chemicals. Standards like these also seem to allow these organic ingredients to be preserved by synthetic petrochemical preservatives – more nasties.

So if some of these new standards are saying they are at least 85% organic or even 95% organic but allow nasty chemicals to be included, would you use it on your baby, on yourself? In comparison, would you buy a can of ‘organic’ fruit drink that is 85% organic fruit (water counted as organic) and 15% mercury?

Some new standards now even allow water to be counted in the percentage of organic content.

So it begs one to ask these questions. Are manufacturers creating a new standard because they are unable to meet international Organic Food standards? Are they creating lower standards they can meet in order to cash in on the consumers trend to choose organic, which happens to be where consumer demand for personal care products is at?

Are they not willing to do what it takes, spend the time to create a truly organic product or spend the money that it takes to use quality organic ingredients?

Organic Consumers Association are pointing out that new standards for personal care products like OASIS and EcoCert allow questionable ingredients to be used in products.

EcoCert, is like a watered-down version of an organic standard. It bends its own rules. EcoCert allows ingredients used in personal care products to have been conventionally grown (as opposed to organically grown) and allows chemicals such as petrochemicals to be used.

So now that new so-called independent standards’s ‘organic’ labels are due to show up on many personal care products. What can you do to check if an ingredient listed is safe?

- http://myorganicfamily.mionegroup.com/toxic is a toxic ingredient directory sourced from MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet), which is recognised as the international standard for providing safety information about chemical ingredients used by humans (workers handling the ingredients).

- The Chemical Maze – shopping companion by Bill Statham
This book has been produced for those people committed to living a healthy lifestyle. The Chemical Maze: Helps you choose safer products Fits conveniently into your pocket or purse Simple layout makes it simple and easy to use Gives useful information on hundreds of substances Origins of additives/ingredients including ANIMAL and GM ” Environmental effects of chemicals found in consumer products. http://myorganicfamily.mionegroup.com/product/18130

- Dangerous Beauty – Cosmetics & Personal Care by Peter Dingle, Toni Brown is an eye-opening expose of some of the most common ingredients used in today’s personal care products. This little booklet will arm you with the knowledge to make more informed choices. No longer will you be able to participate in mindless consumerism…ignorance may once have been bliss; but now it spells danger in our mass-manufactured, profit-driven, long shelf-life, chemical-romanced society.
http://myorganicfamily.mionegroup.com/product/18131

- EWG’s Skin Deep cosmetic safety database
Check their database to see if they consider an ingredient to be safe. It is an excellent source of reference – although sometimes not accurate on the safety ratings of an ingredient. An ingredient report may be based on an ingredient that is normally sourced from conventional agriculture – and hence found to contain high levels of chemical contaminants (therefore not considered safe to use). There are sometimes ‘certified organic’ sources for an ingredient that is clean and safe from the reported contaminants – unfortunally their reporting is sometimes too general and may not mention safe alternative sourcing.
www.cosmeticsdatabase.com

Sources:
OCA & Dr. Bronner’s Challenge Weak Ecocert & OASIS Standards
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20080317/pl_usnw/oca___dr__bronner___s_challenge_weak_ecocert___oasis_standards
“Cease & Desist Letters Sent to Certifying Standards of Fraudulent ‘Organic’ Claims on Personal Care…
Dr. Bronners and the Organic Consumers Association plan to pursue legal remedies on Earth Day April 20th, if they do not receive responses indicating these certifiers will cease certifying outright organic claims in California by September 1, 2008.”

Industry Creates New Bogus “OASIS” Organic Standard for Personal Care Products
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_10886.cfm
“The OASIS standard was spearheaded and created exclusively by conventional industry members like Estee Lauder (owner of Aveda), Loreal and Hain (Jason, Avalon), without any input or comment period from organic consumers, organic farmers or personal care companies who have achieved USDA National Organic Program certification for the majority of their products. …

about organic cosmetics, organic personal care, organic standards

A couple of days ago I watched a film called Dangerous Beauty about a courtesan in Venice in the Late Middle Ages. About three quarters of the way through it, I thought it was surprisingly good, maybe worth five stars on my NetFlix rating. Then the denouement arrived, and the courtesan was put on trial by the Inquisition. (Unfortunately I can’t make my point without giving the ending away, so read no further if you want to see the film.)

All our courtesan has to do is confess her guilt and repent. She cannot. While initially this way of life was thrust on her by her mother, a former courtesan, she’d embraced it because she loved to learn, and she was a talented poet. Only this life allowed her to pursue both. She would not diminish who she was by a false repentance. If she did, she would become someone else, someone less. She would be assenting to the hypocrisy of one of her judges who was one of her clients. She could not turn her back on everything she believed, valued and made her who she was. The man she loved begged her to play along saying it would only be words. She could recant once she was safe. But words had never simply been words for her. They had essential meaning and power. They were the tools of her trade, and she would not violate them. 

[SPOILER] In the end she was saved because her courage and her lover’s words inspired/shamed all the most influential men of the city who had been her clients to stand before the tribunal and share her guilt so that the pope had to back down.

The movie had had me in its grip and then loosened its fingers at the most critical point. My disappointment surprised me because, for the most part, I’m a fan of happy endings. Not here. This movie had made passionately clear that our choices matter, and that the easy choices, the ones that turn their back on our integrity of being, result in death of the soul. Refusing them is worth dying for. The courtesan needed to die.

Though her stand resulted in the “redemption” of the men of Venice, bringing them to make the difficult choice that would enlarge their souls, it made it too easy for the audience to dismiss the importance of the heroine’s choice. It allowed us to take the easy choice.

As a writer one of my great struggles is that I am the courtesan’s lover with my characters, begging them to save themselves regardless of the cost. Some stories require Tolkein’s eucatastrophe–the unexpected, impossible, turn of events that restores hope and joy–to achieve the fullness of their power. I think that is the fine knife J.K. Rowling stood upon as she wrote The Deathly Hallows, and it will be interesting to see the choice she made. Is Harry’s death or his living truer to the story? Will his dying bring the greater but costlier truth and hope?

True tragedy as Aristotle defined it does not offer hope, but sometimes a character’s tragic death (or misadventure) is necessary for the truest hope, though never for its own sake. Often it is the difference between a good story and a mythic one. Maybe that’s why C.S. Lewis regarded the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ as a myth that happens to be true. He knew that a story, especially the greatest of them, must be “true” to its own internal truth. It is easier to say than do, and it requires more courage and ferocity than I may have. I will find out.

http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2095310

Hi,

Just in case some of you want to know about this . . .

Please Pass It On to Others!

The Call is Thursday 9/13

Do you know Gay Hendricks? He’s written over 30 best-selling transformational books — books about relationships, breathing, manifestation, even golf!

Gay is are offering an upcoming teleclass that I’d like to invite you to attend at no charge.

http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2095310

Here’s Gay’s message about the class:

   When I was in Boulder recently, I had dinner with an old friend,    Steven Sashen. He’s one of the best “system thinkers” I know. If you want to know what REALLY makes something work, or how to make something more powerful or efficient, he’s your guy. He and I are teaming up on a new meditation course that will be offered via teleseminar.

   Steven is a longtime meditator. And when he turned his systems-thinking scope on meditation he discovered something that truly impressed me, a set of insights and practices that I wish I’d had 30 years ago. (Some of you know that I’m a longtime  meditator–in fact, I haven’t missed a day of meditation since 1973. So, anything that fine-tunes meditation is right up my alley.)

   If I’d had Steven’s insights and techniques, I think it would have accelerated my practice and my spiritual growth by years. He’s taken people who are new to meditation or who couldn’t make it work  for them – he’s even worked with teenagers and homeless people–and after just a few minutes of instruction, they’ve had experiences of peace, and deep spiritual insights that take most meditators decades to find.

   Steven’s techniques work well for advanced meditators, too. If you already have a meditation or spiritual practice, you can make an almost instant leap to a new depth and expansion.

   With Steven’s techniques you don’t need to stop (or even slow down) your thoughts and you don’t need to take time out from your busy schedule. You can do them practically anywhere.

   I could tell you more, it would be better for you to experience it yourself. So, I’ve arranged a way for you to do that.

       Go to http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2095310
  
   When you get to the site, fill out the registration form and I’ll let you know about an upcoming free teleclass where you can discover for yourself how easily you can find deep body relaxation, greatly expanded awareness, and real inner-peace…even while the kids are demanding your attention or work is getting nuts.

   I hope you’ll join me for this new and exciting opportunity,

   Gay Hendricks

http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2095310

The teleclass is going to be really fun and interesting and there’s a chance to get a $400 gift. I hope you can make it, too.

presented by Garuda, Inc.

Have fun!

Love,
Stacy

“It is no sign of mental health to be well-adjusted to an insane world.”

                 The Dalai Lama

Something inside me relaxed in gratitude and comfort yesterday at brunch when Steven turned to me and asked, “In what century do you think you should have been born?”

Isn’t it wonderful when your friends know things about you that are so integral that you miss the forest for the trees until someone says something? I got all warm and fuzzy inside.

I said, “I don’t know. Medieval times. What year was that?”

I checked Wikipedia. Pope Gregory started our calendar on February 24 in 1582. No wonder I didn’t know what year it was!  We didn’t use those years. Somebody was just about to change our whole concept of time!

Wikipedia also says that medieval times date from the 5th to the 16th century. I’m kinda part of the latter period there, I think. I didn’t read it all. That’s about the period of kings, queens, courts and . . . courtesans!!!

How’s that for a Valentine’s Day thought?

I love castles and the idea of dungeons and lots of things.

I love men with hair down to the middle of their backs and leather lace up boots and knives at their hips, wearing billowing poet’s shirts and speaking with British or Celtic accents. Pirate types, too. Think Johnny Depp in “Pirates of the Carribean.” And gypsies!

They melt me into a puddle.

I know a little more than just the romantic version. I know a little about living without plumbing and heating with a woodstove. Not much, but I lived a year at 9000 feet. After 3 nights at 18 degrees, I could keep the fire going all night. Necessity being a mother, and all of that.

I sometimes describe myself as a cross between a courtesan and a tavern wench. Courtesans were generally educated. If you have never seen the movie, “Dangerous Beauty,” I highly recommend it. If you’re female and love sex and giving men their fantasies, take your tissues, you will need them. “Princess Bride” is another one.

Turns out that the woman sitting next to me at brunch, someone who had not been there before, loves “Dangerous Beauty,” too. We made a date to have dinner and chat about our common interests.

Here is the Wikipedia entry on courtesans, with a note that “the neutrality of this article is disputed.”  Ha, I’ll bet.

“A courtesan of mid-16th century usage referred to a high-class prostitute or mistress, especially one associated with rich, powerful, or upper-class men who provided luxuries and status in exchange for her services. In Renaissance Europe, courtesans played an important role in upper-class society, sometimes taking the place of wives at social functions.^{[citation needed]} As it was customary during this time for royal couples to lead separate lives—commonly marrying simply to preserve bloodlines and to secure political alliances—men would often seek sexual gratification and companionship from a courtesan. There have been a few isolated cases of courtesans providing services to wealthy females, however.^{[citation needed]} Courtesans usually enjoyed more freedoms than was typical of women at the time. For example, they were financially stable and independent. Being in control of their own resources meant that they did not need to rely on their spouses or male relatives to survive, as was the case for the majority of women.”

So, the Medieval period is first, then there was the Renaissance, followed by the Protestant Reformation.

You lose me at the Renaissance. I am a little out of my depth and preferences by then. You get a little too intellectual and stiff there. That’s fine for those with 1500 different interests and talents, but that’s not me. And I prefer not to put Decartes before the horse.

The Protestant Reformation was sort of kind of a step forward, in my opinion, from straight Catholicism. At least people were starting to think for themselves a little more, but it is nothing compared to the ideas that Christ actually taught, as far as I can tell.

Christ taught us to “seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven.” And then he told us where to look, “the Kingdom of Heaven is WITHIN.” Not in a book, not with a guru, not in a church, not in an organization… INSIDE.

Yeah, I have some affinity for that time, too. Mary Magdalene is my patron saint. She is indeed a saint in the Episcopal church.

I really love the castles. Can I have mine with heat and running water?

This prompts many people to ask if I am a member of SCA, the Society for Creative Anachronism. The answer is “no.” Oh, I might fit in with one group or another. I’ve gone to an event or two. I’d love to learn the dances. But for some reason it isn’t quite the fit I’m after. I don’t want to play at it, dress up in period garb and go to SCA events, really. Oh, I might with the right person.

And yes, I’ve been to a few Renaissance Festivals in a couple of states. (No pun intended.) They’re alright. I’m not a fan of large groups of people I do not know doing a multitude of different colorful things. (This aversion keeps me from Burning Man, too, since that’s often another question I am asked. That and the desert and the heat. No thanks!)

One of my favorite albums as a child was Oscar Brand’s “Bawdy Songs and Backroom Ballads, Volume III.” I had it memorized by the time I was 13 or 14.

Try this one:

She’ll Do It Again  

And for a sheep-skin, she’ll do it, she’ll do it,
And for a sheep-skin, she’ll do it again,
And for a cow’s horn, she’ll do it all morn,
And merrily turn, and do it again.

Among our young lasses is Muirland Meg,
She’ll beg you to do it she’ll beg and she’ll beg,
At thirteen her maidenhead flew to the gate,
And thedoor of thecage it is wide open yet

Her kettle-black eyes want to tickle you through,
Her lips seem to say it, “Kiss me, please do,”
The curls and the links of her bonny black hair
Would put you in mind that the lassie has mair.

An armful of love is her bosom sae plump,
A span of delight is her middle and rump,
A taper white leg, and a stomach in style,
And a fiddle nearby you can play for a while.

For love’s her delight, and kissing’s her treasure,
She’ll stick at no price and she’ll give you good measure,
So take her warm hand, mon, or better, her leg,
And sing of the praises of Muirland Meg.

 Here are the lyrics to one of my favorites, “Kafoozalem.” The tune is “London Bridge,” basically. I found 2 spellings and several versions worse, or better, depending upon your taste, than this one, but this is the one I learned as a child.

You can find the rest of them on this link:

http://www.google.com/musicl?lid=HdS1NX2xxcB&aid=Hpg2T_mzPSI

Chorus:

Hi ho Kafoozalem, the harlot of Jerusalem
Prostitute of ill repute
Daughter of the Baba.

Come listen to my tale of woe
It happened many years ago
When women rarely answered no
Way down in old Jerusalem.

(Chorus)

Kafoozalem was a wily witch
A horny whore, a brazen bitch
She caused all the lips to twitch
That liveth in Jerusalem.

(Chorus)

There was a prince both lean and tall
Whose manly arts made all to fall
His victims lined the Wailing Wall
That standeth in Jerusalem.

(Chorus)

One night returnin’ from a spree
His customary leer had he
Looked down the road and chanced to see
That horny wench Kafoozalem.

(Chorus)

With artful eye and cunning look
She led him to a shady nook
And to her bounteous bosom took
The pride of all Jerusalem.

(Chorus)

But he was too abrupt, alas
And so he made a hasty pass
That knocked Kafoozalem to the grass
That grows in old Jerusalem.

(Chorus)

But Kafoozalem was overgassed
She arched her back and loosed a blast
That sent him flying far and fast
Sailin’ o’er Jerusalem.

(Chorus)

And when the moon is bright and red
A flying form sails overhead
Still raining curses on the bed
Of that brazen bitch Kafoozalem.

(Chorus)

I also loved “Dynamo Hum,” by Frank Zappa, and dozens of others similar to these. 

That may be another blog, for another day.

Goodnight, boys and girls. 

Love,

Stacy (aka Anastacia)