Louise Landes Levi
I am reading Drukpa Kunley/ he’s a very
Ancient yogi, I am reading Drukpa K. in Keith’s
translation, formerly I have not liked this
translation, formerly I read
the French One,
more austere & painting a different portrait of
the saint, but today, indeed these days at
Zaragoza, I am enjoying Keith’s ribald view (of
the saint), his frequent congress often, at least
in this translation, resulting in the total
transformation of the partners of the
Saint, i.e. Lady Sumchokma, Lacho Drolma, Adzomma,
Tsewong Padzom, Gyakma, Long Rong (Water
Serpent Demoness),Rigen Norbu Drolma,
Mistress Gyaldzom, et. al.
moreover
This is fr. Ira’s library—Ira is not yet dead but he
is dying, I have written to X, the only other
person I know can, or at least, has, entered in la
royaume des morts/ he saw me there
too, that was when Simon was operated on/he
was very interested in what we had seen & he did
die, 2 weeks later or was it 3
& I never saw him again
after he sat up in
bed & said LOVE (Hans was
on Ayahuasca & I was..on …on .. LOVE said
Simon). Hans said I was an initiatrice of the dead,
in his vision, there must be a grain of truth in
that, for I ended up at Ira’s just a few months
before he died, & stayed w. him the
last two months, now how did that happen,
except by chance but chance is non existent,
all the holy books say so, Knuit
said God knows when every leaf, falls,
every leaf. Well GPS knows every
fucking street even pathway on the planet, so
maybe GOD knows every leaf.
Now, getting back to our subject, Drukpa Kunley
&
Sexual violence Or,
On the beach at Zaragoza.
I
Am leading my usual
solitary, very solitary life, it’s so solitary,
I don’t talk to anyone on the beach, is this
eroticism in reverse, something so intense, it
slips over into its opposite, you tell me, Fernanda
wants to see me but I do not feel like bull
shitting Fernanda & I can’t tell her the truth &
have no idea how to approach her & have felt
very very uncomfortable
in her presence, like she is an omen of
disaster, so I keep distance, I say
No I really don’t want to see
you this morning, I
Mean
No HARM, I just don’t
feel like seeing her & then I’m on the beach
& feeling so good abt. my having been honest w.
F., being able to tell her NO, & my leg is getting
better, I can move it much better, I can walk
again, since falling on my knee
on the ice in December, I think it was the
solstice & I was up too late but felt
like meeting w. the poets over at the slam
on the Leidise Gracht & this is beginning to
sound so mundane.
I
was once raped & I think nearly killed when I
was but a young girl. I was trying to be an
actress in NYC, my father put a safety lock on
the door which later proved my undoing, I
never cld. take the patriarchy
very seriously after that—at any rate, it
took a really long time to heal myself—v. die
ervaring, but I did it,
w. NN’s help.
Be more aware
he said, when I relived the incident,
decades later. Franco also helped & Udo, guiding
me to RIVA. NN cld. Heal anyone of anything/
& so I followed him to the island,
tho this time I was ‘on my own’
so to speak.
I
was just congratulating myself
over Fernanada, I had escaped her, I didn’t
trust her, not deeply, the relation was fucked up,
I didn’t know why but knew I cld. not continue
it—& there I am, walking on the beach I am
walking & I am tripping, I am tripping
because I can walk, I have healed
myself to this point
& the sea is so glorious,
so beautiful, that I forget I shld. not be
walking on that part of the beach, when no one is
around i.e.on holidays its ok, but
not on regular days because its dangerous,
supposedly bandits are hiding in the woods,
just above the shoreline,
I’ve
always been intrigued by those trees, when I
used to swim long distance, before
I hurt my leg, I wld. swim down there, it was so
beautiful to swim & look at the trees
& in the early mornings, I wld.walk
down there, but never to the end,
no just to get away fr. the houses & people, to
practice, I did a lot of practice on those rocks &
also I danced, I danced some very
HOLY dances down there which
is probably how I lived—
My reader is probably wondering
why I don’t get to
the point,
so I will now try to get there.
I have been wanting
to write abt. this but didn’t know if I cld. Or how?
POETRY AT GUNPOINT
was a phrase SW used to advertise her press –
well it came true for me, I’d never seen a gun up
close before, luckily, because I thought it
might be a toy & when
I had this guys balls in my mouth,
when I’d found a way to transform his grotesque
plan of dragging me off into the woods & … into
some palatable hole, literally, I
kept thinking, well, OK, please put yr. gun down
“lascia il pistole” pensava, but that’s not all. I had
that thought but several others too, the others
had to do w. the texture of the stranger, how
exactly did his balls feel in my mouth, like
rubber? I didn’t want him to steal
my (worthless but not to me rings)
& I was reciting a mantra, secret mantra
of protection. There had been, luckily I must say,
no foreplay, it was a decade since
I’d had any sexual experience
EXCEPT for the time
David wanted to
try out fucking
in a cast, the cast was mine, he
found bondage exciting but was afraid to work
w. it, when I’d returned fr Amsterdam
in a large blue cast (& wheelchair), a serious bike
crash, he showed me pornographic sites on the
internet, girls who ‘posed
w. their casts.
At any any rate,
I was not unprepared.
Jerri,
who I loved & had wanted to
sleep with for years, had just told me how
Fernanda had come up to him at a party, drunk &
announced her love, just what she meant when
she said ‘I love you’ was not
clear to him or me I think he didn’t respond at
first. When she made her point again, sometime
later he said, understandably
‘kiss me’
at which point she freaked out & stopped talking
to him. It Of course becomes clear why it was
inutile to meet w. Fernanda that morning,
it was only going to be
more subterfuge
& never get down to the fact that we
both loved Jerri, right? When I heard this
story I naturally thought, well if I told someone
(thinking of J., of course) that I loved them &
they said kiss me, I wld., I hope,
have the nerve to say,
please take your pants off.
I thought abt. this image & finally
getting into J., & laughed in my head, for a few
days, cultural difference? Age difference? who
knows what keeps people apart
(8/or unites them). At
any rate, I am looking at the water,
I am at the far end of the beach. I have no
thought in my head,
except the thought that embraces
the sea, I am tripping on the water, completely
unaware that I am in the dangerous part & that
no one else is around). Luckily I am wearing a
little blouse. At this point someone or something
grabs me fr. behind, at first, strangely I
think a giant bird has landed
on my back. When I turn around
however, I am aware that
it is a person, a
male w. a shining golden gun in his
right hand. But I am simultaneously aware
of someone leaping in the air, now my head is full
of images of Drukpa Kunley, just what did I see?
Did I really see a leaping figure,
red pants, no one in Venezuela wears red pants,
those kind, w. a flap like Indian pants, but then
again, I’ve never looked closely at
the pants the men are wearing.
My assailant’s plan is to
drag me off into the woods.
This is not going to go over well
the villagers & probably not w. the Buddhists,
tho their relation to LLL is somewhat dubious,
probably due to my pronounced need, for
solitude. Leave me Alone.
*
I am relieved to
have his balls out of my mouth – having
sat down & resisted his desire to drag me, one
hand holding my hair, the other holding
the golden gun, ‘You can kill me but
you can not drag me into the
forest’ I fearlessly & sin-
cerely announce, the stranger, indeed
weakened by his gun, is unable to move me…
but the gun is still pointed at my head.
I feel the ‘blow job’ is the only way
to resolve the tension, between
the standing stranger & my-
self, stubbornly seated.
I resolve, almost immediately to say nothing abt.
him & me & the foam & the cliff, the scene
looked almost romantic, what a
downer I thought, for
something so beautiful
as 2 people on a
beach, to be in the context in which
the meeting is taking place.
But
I have read Yeshe Tsogyal
& I am a practitioner & I wonder, what has
really (really) gone on, what just went down. I
walk back to the beach, no one has seen
anything, its too far away for details
of the meeting to have been
seen by anyone but god, the one who sees all
the leaves, etc. or the GPS in charge
of sexual misconduct.
*
(addenda)
I
got into another sexually
Insane scene on Isla Margarita, years later, it was
so heavy I cldn’t tell anyone abt it, well if that
guys sacred fluid entered my mouth
&
thereby my digestive
system & thereby my
SPIRIT, he was gonna, at a
certain point be ENLIGHTENED ? Do you
really think things happen in that way? Anyway I
ended up (again), there at Francos & he wasn’t
there to hold me tenderly while everything
dissolved into nothing
(& the 5 attackers merged into the dhyani
Buddha fields) nor to fuck me in such an original
& beautiful way, no he wasn’t there in the body,
but his spirit got into mine somehow, & I read
a book of Laurie’s called
Les Secrets des Etoiles Ombres
& all my energies aligned themselves,
Just as if David hadn’t been so negligent & that
guy on the beach so aggressive & so scared,
of his own pistol, it seemed,
I said, kill me but you can’t
drag me off into any forest, & he just stands
there dumbly w. his golden gun in one hand & his
other hand holding me by the hair
& the beach looking so romantic & perfect & not
even Surrealism covers the contradictions,
Well,
I got rid of the guy by
giving him a near perfect blow job, despite
the circumstance, but something really bizarre
must have happened in his head, for when the
ordeal was finally over / he ran off saying,
don’t follow me don’t follow me,
What was I, a demoness?
Perhaps to him, don’t follow him? I
was so glad to be rid of him & to be unscathed,
he was too busy holding onto his gun to
manhandle me, Don’t follow me
don’t follow you ? Follow you, fucker,
you deserve to die but I hope its only
on the Buddhist level & that one day
you will, along w. everyone
else, achieve Illumination.
Perhaps quickened by
our “chance”
encounter.
(& why do I include this in my collection of short
essays entitled the THE CRUEL BUDDHISTS, well I
didn’t dare tell any of them abt. this cruel
incident for I knew, beyond the shadow of a
doubt they wld. blame me & say fuck off you
karma head Jew & I just did not want to deal w.
them & their—cruelty).
ILLUMINATION
Well,
WHAT IS IT REALLY/ is it just
another fiction/ after all, something, earthlings
invented to make themselves feel better? Is it
really the end all of human birth & did great
talent like Amy W. goes unnoticed
by the guardians, & all the petty bourgeois
dues payers get blessed & protected?
Do you really think the spiritual presidents are
gonna come down on the political ones, it’s not
just in Tibet that the two powers slept together
Indeed in the same body / while in front of the
monastery, no water, no rights,
Yet
when I am alone,
something talks to me, that is not
of this world, & sometimes when making
love the same voice enters, & I may not have
met my mate, but I met—the Voice, & for
that I thank whoever & whatever
sent it to
me.
*
I
have just (self) published,
w. my own press, however, a book which depicts
sexual deviance/ describing a situation of assault
& intimacy—I attempted to make the inaccessible
accessible, but did not go near the far graver
situation suffered before I was mature enough to
get out of the situation,
or to access the consequences.
This was in the heyday of the
Theatre of Eternal Music—The Black Velvet
Underground, a student at UC BERKELEY I hitch
hiked through Canada to get THERE & to meet
Joel, my boyfriend, fr. high school destined for &
deserving of rock stardom, at least as a drummer
for Carole King, Paul McCartney & J Taylor, until
heroin took over,
but that’s for
another tale. I meet
Joel & James but things
take a strange course & we do not really meet
tho they take over my apartment on 7th Ave. &
Charles. I sleep w. an asshole instead,
a painter I knew fr. Berkeley,
Joel lays the ticket taker-
I think I arranged for that, by deflection
on Sheraton Square, where I
later return, rehearsing on the 8th
floor, Joel, again in my life, jealous I am
playing but at least we are fucking
each other, 3 decades later.
I take a flat on Spring & Elizabeth, Elizabeth
is my mother’s name, some kind of fate crossed
me at this point & my Spring—my own Spring,
wld. falter. I knew something was up—I was
working at an Art Gallery
on 54th & 2nd,
Dali’s gallery.
I met him once or twice,
of course… it was
The Old Print Shop, still there I think.
I know something is up.
Something terrible is going
to happen. But I don’t know
how to keep it from
happening.
Was this a karmic debt or an ac-
cident? Was my intruder a former inhabit-
tant (of the flat on Spring & Elizabeth)?
My father checks out the scene. He puts
a lock (on the door) that can only be
opened fr. inside, one of those sliding locks,
in his ‘good’ world, I am inside & safe &
will never slide that lock open
unless I trust my visitor, but
if the visitor is already inside?
I see a figure moving across
the floor, I know instantly that this
is the dreaded encounter.
My intruder has a
Gun (I thnk- I am not sure)
I have a cat. I’m 20 years old… I’m not
a virgin but I am not so experienced…
At first I escape my intruder, he is pulling me
from behind& I can not open the lock. I have to
submit I realize, to save my life. Some kind of
sexual encounter is
happening, he & I are standing up, I
realize that he “needs” mother love,
that he isa psychopath who “needs” mother love,
this is the way I must save myself, I am told, I
don’t know by whom, perhaps it is I who need a
mother’s love, & by psyching this out in him, I
feel—less threatened. I go through the
mechanism of a sexual encounter.
My little black cat is on the
pillow too, I feel very sorry for my cat. I’m
lying there when the intruder, now standing, asks
if I have any money, I say, yes $1.00. I
understand at this
moment that the intruder has expected
a different response, he has a moment of pity/
empathy? or something which allows him NOT to
kill me. He leaves. I go to the mirror
of the not yet
inhabited flat,
my face is covered w. blood/ I
open the door to the flat, Spring & Elizabeth, my
intruder has left through the window, same
route by which he entered—the window
was not open & I believe it was locked… I
am not sure. The entire staircase is lined w,
individuals perhaps others in the building who
have heard my cries, but if they heard them,
they did NOTHING to help.
It was far more humiliating
to walk down the stairs, in front of those people
than to meet the stranger, tho the impact of the
event had major consequences for me, as I left
NYC & had to wait indeed 3 decades to really
meet the person or persons I had gone to meet.
Joel for all his ‘vices’ was my protector. La Monte
Young was destined to liberate my own musical
‘sadhana’ & that cld. not be limited by time, tho
in my own view I arrived a few decades later than
I wld. have wished.
“too late my brother, too late, but never mind,
all my trails Lord soon be over”
*
I was soon fired fr. my job at the
Old Print Store,—they figured out the scenario
when I arrived “destroyed” for work but at
least I arrived. I looked for a new
job—I am in the hospital on lst Avenue,
for an interview. Terrible pains in my
abdomen, I have to cut the
interview short, to walk through the
conveniently located door to the Emergency
Room—a very violent menstrual episode.
Interpreted as a miscarriage by the nurses.
I get the job.
I always thought this must have
been the old guy, but in fact, shortly
after the heavy episode I allow myself
to be picked up by a Rudolph Nureyev
type, in the subway—I go “home”
w him, e. 17th street, a very elegant
den of every kind of drug—I don’t even
know which kinds, how much etc.
the night is passed imbibing
these substances & making
love. I don’t know what
the substances are but
the vibrations of the
intruder are gone
I go to the police,
for the protection of the
neighborhood,, not w. desire
to vindicate…they are worse, far
worse than the guy, they are
vicariously enjoying the scene of
my defeat—they want des-
criptions, but only to
‘enjoy, is my
take,
*
Many years later I am studying with a great Ati yoga master who is also, or who, for me, is a shaman, an absolute healer, I’m in a discotheque in the woods, escaping, for the night but strangely in my mind, the above scenario is turning around. I leave the dance hall & start to walk to the Buddhist center, but somehow get “lost”/I’m not sure of the way. A car, w. a license plate from Rome stops, I should have known… my dance partners, offer me a ride but intend to take me to the woods. I’m not scared but I am not willing, unlike the former scene, I’m free to voice objection. I manage to convince my intruders, who are actually like my ‘brothers’ on the dance floor, i.e. they are NOT psycho to desist from their bad plan. They are kids & they are drunk. One separates fr. his friends, tries to dissuade them—a scene arises—outside the car but they are kids from Rome, 5 of them, untrained in violent activity.
I overpower them w. my understanding—Malattia Veneriale, I cry, repeatedly & am freed to walk home / over the mt. alone. I am unharmed. Some practitioners pick me up—they say where have you been? Or what have you been doing? I am incoherent but safe. I went to a dance I manage to say. What’s wrong with that? they wonder. The next day—I speak w. the master, He is provoking me, word for word, it seems, he asks the same questions as the police, years before. He becomes them, I allow myself great anger, then he turns, looks at me becomes or IS, a Buddha, everything is Illusion.
Note:
Well, so many people did experience sexual
assault, it’s the principle involved, the mis
understanding in our culture of the (real/power
of sexuality, it’s inversion in fact, like so
many other powers…I think men have no
idea, really, re. the experience of women & the
damage being done, also to themselves…
GOOD LUCK w. your project.
LLLll