I can see dead people…

Lol.  I can!  Well, at least I can feel them.  I think…

So you don’t believe in ghosts and the afterlife and so on??  Well aren’t you the the lucky one.  Maybe I’m making all this up in my head.  Maybe I’ve been hallucinating my whole life.  But it seems no matter how hard I try to run from this thing, I never can escape it.  Especially when I’m here in Seattle.

I hardly ever experience these things where I live, in California.  My current residence seems ghost-free; only every so often do I have these episodes where I feel like someone I can’t see is trying to get my attention.  When I’m awake, I know something is wrong with a place if there is a room that I don’t want to go in or I feel very uncomfortable and can’t relax.  But that can happen when there is just a general negative energy that is brought about by a living being.  It’s complicated. 

Most of the time I don’t really feel anything until it’s time to go to sleep.  I will feel fearful sometimes and want to keep a light on or something.  Then, as I drift into sleep, I’ll feel chilly and ancy, and worried that something is going to happen if I doze off.  So no matter how tired I am, I keep my eyes peeled and pray to some divine entity to come and protect me.  Which hardly ever works, btw.  As a child I prayed to Jesus, and it rarely worked, and as an adult I tried all kinds of different Buddhist mantras, which work occasionally…  Hell, I’ve even called on my grandpa and other people who passed, hoping they would come and scare the bad spirit away, but that was not effective, either.  In the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche says something about certain spirits not understanding mantras, because they are not in their frame of reference.  Basically, it’s jibberish to them and it may make them more angry and confused.  So maybe you can only use Christian prayers for Christian ghosts, mantras for Buddhist ghosts, and Islamic scriptures for Muslim ghosts.  That would make sense.

But what if the spirit has no religion?  An anarchist makes a hell of a poltergeist.  I think there are a lot of those here in Seattle.  I don’t know why, but I’m dying to find out.  Because it never fails.  When I’m up here, I always get that feeling, like some uninvited guest is hanging around when I’m chillin’ with my family.

Like on Saturday.  I was giving my nieces pedicures for their birthdays, in broad daylight.  The little one’s nose was running, so I told her, “Go in the bathroom and get some tissue, Granny.  Your nose is running.”  (She’s 3 years old.)

Anyway, we were sitting right next to the bathroom door, and I could see inside, but when she came back out she said, “I’m scared to go back in there [to throw the tissue away].  There’s a man in there.”  I was like, “Awww, sh*t.”  I don’t know about you, but when little kids tell me that kind of thing, I believe them.  I know kids make up a lot of tall tales, but when they are scared to go in a room, in the daytime, when you’re right there, there’s a problem.  Plus, I used to see things when I was little.  I may have some mental problem, but I wasn’t lying about having seen those things.  Luckily, my Mom always believed me…

One time, when I was living in Oregon, I made the mistake of telling some classmates, including my crush, about seeing “the devil.”   They laughed at me, and I told myself I would never share my experience with another soul.

But when I moved to Oakland, things were totally different.  I remember a few times in class where we would have discussions about family members who had passed on, and how some of us had been visited by those relatives from beyond the grave.  So it’s a cultural thing, I guess…

But why would there be more spirits in one place than in another??  The suicide rate here is high, and that probably leads to a lot of confusion after death.  One may have a lot of regrets after taking their own life, and get stuck in between realms, in purgatory or something like that.  Everytime I have one of these experiences I pray for the spirit to find it’s way home, so that it’s not lingering around, tormenting the living.  I don’t think people should stay past a few weeks after they die… They need to make the transition to the next life, and maybe come back to visit old loved ones every now and then…

Enough of my ranting.  Hopefully I’ll figure it all out one day.  And hopefully tonight I’ll get some sleep.  I get to sleep by the new baby…

If Maxwell had a church, I would go…

…Maybe even every Sunday.  Because it left me feeling happy, like good music is supposed to do.

Man, imagine that.  A church pastored by Maxwell.  Praise service led by Sister Webb, and some of the baddest musicians in the land to accompany them…  I get the impression that Maximillian is short-winded, so we wouldn’t have to sit through any long and boring lessons.  In fact, we could cut the sermons out all together.  The message is in the music, so no talking is really necessary.

Hmmmmm, what a lovely vision in my mind!  The only problem I could think of is that our beloved pastor might be something like that dude in The Grapes of Wrath who would get the Holy Ghost and have to go screw one of the church ladies…
But, it’s the Church of LOVE, so anything goes, right?  As long as it’s done with a loving spirit.

Yeah, great.  Enough of that.  I’m bringing this up because I just went to his show on Tuesday, the 23rd of June at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle.  I had been looking forward to this for weeks, and was super excited when I finally arrived at the venue and took my seat in the second row (which coincidentally is NOT the second row, because there are 3-4 rows ahead of it if you count the seats in the orchestra.)  My sisters and I were a little late, as usual, so we missed some of the opening act.  Laura Izibor.  She’s a talented gal, I tell ya.  Beautiful voice.

There was a brief waiting period between the end of her performance and the start of his, so they brought a dj out to kill the monotony, all the while building the suspense and making a little silent scream in my chest rise until it had reached the back of my throat.  So when he hit the stage with “Get to Know Ya” I screamed like I was at an Elvis concert.  Waaay too juiced.  (LOVED the tic tacs, btw.  Tic tacs are shoes for those who don’t know.  And M. was rockin’ those joints.)

I’m not gonna get all into the set list and stuff.  However, I do want to point out that the band was on point on ALL songs, but especially on the new ones.  “Cold” is actually hot on wax but it’s burning up live.  And “Bad Habits” is a song that was made to hear en vivo.

I had previously mentioned how much I love his horn section, but the star player for me this evening was his guitarist.  Not to single anyone out, but this guy was strummin’ my heart with his fingers.  Is that Hod David?  IDK. Correct me if I’m wrong.  In any event, he was the bomb.  When he played that breakdown in “Stop the World” I stopped breathing.  And now that is my favorite song.  When I was feeling really sad on Thursday, and I couldn’t bear to hear any of the news reports or music they were playing in Remembrance of Him, I put that song on (from theboombox.com) and it made me feel better, swear to God.

Yeah, so the new joints were among my favorites of the evening, and I wish I could see these guys perform them at least once a week.  The YouTube versions do not compare to the real thing.  Hey, maybe you guys can put out a live album.  That would be maaahvelous.

In conclusion,  I can only say that I had a wonderful time and I would love to do it again sometime in the near future.  If I had the ends I would go stay with my sis in Miami and hit the show on the 31st  of July, but that’s highly unlikely.  If I’m not mistaken, it’s at Bayfront Park??  That’s one of my favoritest venues of all time.  Straight vibes.

All I can say for sure that me and Essencia WILL be purchasing the CD on the 7th of July in Italia.  I’ll have that in my headphones while im sailing on a Gondola thru Venice.  Tell the gondolier to shut up, y’all – I’m listening to my Maxwell.

[[[[.:R.I.P. MJ - Love multiplied times a thousand:.]]]]

I wrote a poem for him in the previous blog. Check it out if you’re interested…

Ahimsa/Sakya Monastery Experience

I was able to learn a little about Tibetan Buddhist thangkas (paintings) and sculpture from a master artist at the Sakya Monastery in Seattle.  I got to watch him paint a statue of Mahakala and learned some new techniques. Now I’m just ready to start on one of my own…

Sakya is one of my favorite places on earth.

The Stupa and prayer wheels.

My likkle snow lion ^__^

Mahakala.

…Haven’t really felt like drawing lately but I DID sketch this little piece, which is still a work in progress.

AHIMSA  is a Sanskrit term meaning non-violence (literally: the avoidance of violence – himsa) It is an important tenet of the religions that originated in ancient India (Hinduism, Buddhism and especially Jainism). Ahimsa is a rule of conduct that bars the killing or injuring of living beings. It is closely connected with the notion that all kinds of violence entail negative karmic consequences. The extent to which the principle of non-violence can or should be applied to different life forms is controversial between various authorities movements and currents within the three religions and has been a matter of debate for thousands of years.

FREE TIBET.  And every other oppressed country in the world.  This is ridiculous.