GAIA (Written by Lloyd Richards)
There seems to be no escape from our difficulties until the industrial system breaks down for some reason or another, and Nature reasserts herself with grass and trees among the ruins. But the longer her hour is postponed, and therefore the more exhausted by man's irreligious improvidence the natural resources of the soil and sea become, the less merciful will she be. - Robert Graves, 1948

If we turn from Life, we have only Death.
From the minute we humans started building fires to cook our food, we have been aware
that we must revere the source of our lives and all life on this planet.
And we have named that source "Mother of Life".
She is kind, sometimes cruel, always indifferent to sacrifice except for those who came in their time -
fertility rites, the celebration of birth, of the new year, thanks for the harvest.
But she is capricious and aloof.
Her manifestations: Serene, Ferocious, Willful, Cruel, Wise, Lustful, Mysterious,
Wanton, Loyal, Scheming, Jealous, Cool, Greedy, Dreaming.
She responds to arrogance by withholding her favors and sometimes by destruction.
Her weapons are overwhelming, myriad, awesome: Winds, Water, Lightning, Fire, Ice, Heat, Earthquake and Tidalwave.
If we worship and revere male gods, we ignore Gaia's ultimate power over us.
Turn from the Goddess of Life, and there is only Death.
Turn form the Mother of Life, and there is only Death.

----------

I Am Warrior

Anatu
Ariadne
Rhiannon
Diana
Kali Ma
Inanna
Ishtar
Branwen

I am Warrior!

---

Fell To Regret
And when the Hunter saw what he had done to Her, He feel to his knees in Regret.

Is this a new Dark Age?
Are these the blackest days?
All fell to regret.
Do you have nothing to say?
While they ignore the Modern Slave?
All fell to regret.

Horror at the hands of elders breeds a new crop of monsters
The soulless profit-makers.
In the name of their Savior.
The Patriarch Conspiracy sold me off for pennies
All world religions united to keep the women obliging
Wandering the brothelways we scream through nights and sleep the daze
They cage us like tigers to use for their desires.
Sell and trade us like a drug that can be used again and again.

Predator trained as prey.
Socialized to be meek and obedient.
The anger in woman is dangerous.

Traditional Values, the modern passive Witch Hunt.
A fifties fabrication that never existed
Repressed Fundamentalist seeks a sicker decadence
Am I the mother of Harlots - the younger the better
Now self-esteemless Glamour tarts flaunt their sexuality
In the name of Girl Power,
They'll lose the fight forever.
Selling and trading themselves to the game again and again.

Is this a new Dark Age?
Are these the blackest days?
All fell to regret.
Is this a new Dark Age?
While they strip your freedoms away?

-------

In Answer...
I have heard recent knockings and wondered aloud in song
The Worth of those years as bound Inspiration.

I'll speak the truth though it may be hard to hear it
That part of me, that lithe and fierce spirit
Made prisoner yet molded in my image
Choose, Fate, choose: Mother or Lover, Muse or Martyr

Tenderest to those who won't own me
Singing on for another generation
Traded for a life turned upside-down.

I can no longer be the captured Symbol
The personal Siren shining like freedom
Stalked by silent unforgiving reflections
Choose, Fate, choose: Lover or Martyr, Muse or Mother

My head full of heat from one hour's sleep
Lost in the shine of the moment.
In this moment - there is love,
And nothing but this moment matters.
And I touch all the eyes that know who I am and where we began.

Desiring to save, resigned to their delusions,
Attracting their secrets and deepest wishes,
Imagine the taste of a heart bled to dust.
Choose, Sister, choose: Mother or Lover, Muse or Martyr

Numb to talons in my creations
Singing on for unknown imaginations
Who mistake the Song for the Human.

I can no longer be the captured Symbol
Conjuring their embrace and feverish whispers
Repeating Youth's passions and locked-lust nightmares
Choose, Sister, choose: Mother or Martyr, Muse or Lover

My head full of heat from one hour's sleep.
Found in the shine of the moment.
In this moment - there is love,
And nothing but this moment matters.
As I take them all to a place where everything makes sense again.

And all those that agree.
And all those if they please.
Can bring themselves to love.
And lay their hands upon me.
And lay their hands upon me.

---------

Into My Own

I'm not young
I'm not old
I've come into my own
I'm not old
I'm not young
I've come into my own

I have eyes beneath seduction,
A face that beckons shadows,
The moment sparks.
I cast my eyes inward and flow.
I've found my home.

The moment stops.
I cast my eyes inward and flow.
Take away the pen and the page.
Strip it down to just timber and stone
Something's coming our way.
I'm here in this world with you.

The moment sparks.
I cast my eyes inward and flow.
Take away the song and the stage
Strip it down to the hair and the bone
Something's coming our way.
I'm here in this world with you.

Something's coming our way.
Take away the song and the stage.
Rip away the pen from the page.
Tear down the stigma of age.
Something is coming our way
Take away the song and the stage.
Rip away the pen from the page.
Separate the art from the rage.
Something is coming our way

----

The Antler King

My Doom is that of the Antler King...
Cunning and art he did not lack but aye her whistle will fetch him back.
I will be born.
I will be nurtured.
I will be desired.
I will be defeated.

----

Sedna

From the corner of your eye, I may say I am with you.
Above the heads that look upward in disbelief.
I connect, disconnect, emote, reappear.
I don’t need to be known by the Universe.
I travel moment by moment - a star to every sky,
And We may answer any question put -
Like a vessel to the field of Knowledge
I was there and there
And now over here.
I was here and here
And now over there.
The fluttering of a thousand wings... The trampling of a thousand hoofbeats...
The turning of a thousand heads... The silky silence of flowing water...
Seamen may have heard until they turned their heads to look...
To see into the vast open endless answer.
I am with you.
I am with you.
What is it and why is it that this is what we all desperately need:
Home. A place to rest, lay down our head.
Not knowing why but promised some reward - in the end.
A strange Maternal process.
The spell is neither Word nor Deed alone, it merely is.
A strange Maternal process.
Tears hot on my cheeks know no limits of feeling or time,
The sirens gone and the rivers dried up.
The invention of gunpowder compressed -
Spark!
The silent feline not acknowledging the mirror.
A Fever -
Love.
Brightest when misunderstood.
The answer to a question felt but unheard.
Mother is the most important word.
Mother is the most important word.
Mother is the most important word.
Mother is the most important word.

----

The Hunt
Key to his hunt, we chased through forests and across plains.
While useful, I was beloved.

The story is ancient...
I could speak of Love as if it had never before been discovered...
For to fall in love is to walk through a Golden Doorway
To see sights that were once listless and dull
Glow with Life.
To feel a Fire only known by those
New creatures at the next level of evolution...
Yet the story is ancient...
In every culture, there is the tale of a fabulous Creature
That disappears in forests,
And a Young Man hunts with an Aimless arrow, or spear, ...
A bird is then wounded -
Or a deer, wounded -
Or A tiger, shot with arrow and wounded -
And as he runs to wear he shot the creature,
Instead, there lies a woman...
And I lay there, my heart ripped open.
The Desperation!
The ability to suddenly forsake all earlier convictions -
To see now the meaninglessness of life's little demands -
To let go of physical need and cast off material comforts -
To be sick with Love, to shed a third, seventh, or ninth skin -
To awaken the Sleeper -
The creature within that rages each night
Separated from its glowing, raging source of life -
To love as such, to be sick with Love,
Its black clouds gripping the hills of the high deserts
Like a dragon breathing smoke and fire -
Some seek only this
And fall to a living death when it collapses.
Or is this is the intention?

---

This is Not A Dream

This is not a Dream, This is really Happening

---

Death Is the Ultimate Woman

10 steps behind and eyes to the ground
10 steps behind and eyes to the ground
10 steps behind and eyes to the ground
10 steps behind and eyes to the ground
You wish to speak with me
Tell me your dreams
Then strangle me with your bare hands
That consuming confession to the ultimate woman
Hidden in the hills and caverns
Her spirit kept within herself.
Mysteries within her that blind the killer.
Ha! Here I am!

Death is the Ultimate Woman
Show your most hidden face
Sleep wretched in her embrace

10 steps behind and eyes to the ground
Walks the ultimate woman
Lead her to your tiresome awkward secret desires
The idea of Her no woman can live up to.
Ask Her to forgive you.
Then let her bury you.

10 steps behind and eyes to the ground
True Mistress of the Elite Loser executioner.
The murderer ultimately belongs to Her.

10 steps behind and sinking within
Melts the ultimate woman
Her language murky, simmered - like a mirror image in black water
A secret tongue A slur of laughter and knowing
Did you think you could simply hide her in forests?
In shallow graves?
Her body filled gloom-lit to feed the flimsy egos of men?
Treat her as flesh that could belong to a man?
Ha! Here I am!
You will die by her own Weakness
To keep you at her breast...

---

We Are the One
This is by the Avengers, one of my favorite bands back in the day...

We are the leaders of tomorrow
We are the ones that have the fun
We want control and we want the power
We're not gonna stop until it comes

We are not Jesus Christ
We are not Fascist pigs
We are not Capitalists/Industrialists
We are not Communists
We are the One

We will build a better tomorrow
The youth of today will be the tool
Society's children will fight for survival
Fate is our destiny and we shall rule

I will build a bridge to the future
I am the one who buries the past
A new species rise up from the ruins
I am the one that was made to last

---

Like Animals (Lyrics by Leslie Bricusse)
From the original Dr. Doolittle movie.

Why do we treat animals like animals?
Animals treat us so very well
The devoted way they serve us and protect us
When we're nervous they really don't deserve us
All we give them is Hell

Why do we treat animals like animals?
How can people be so inhumane?
What do we do we neglect them we do nothing
To protect them we reject them
Don't expect them to complain

When will we stop treating them like animals?
How can human beings cause so much pain?
We ignore them or we beat them
When we're hungry then we eat them,
It's appalling how we treat them - it's insane

I do not understand the human race
That has so little love for creatures with a different face

We humiliate and murder and confine them
We create their wretched status
Then we use it to malign them
When you dress in suede or leather
Or some fancy fur or feather
Do you stop and wonder whether for a Fad
You have killed some beast or other
That you're wearing someone's Brother
Or perhaps it's someone's Mother in which you're clad

We've made the whole world a zoo,
For Man is an animal too.

---

The Turnaway
From a dream I had of my mother or possibly my sister.

I couldn't look to see her face
I dared not look - I just couldn't
But only rested my eyes on the shadow behind her as we made our way.
Sailors may have heard and turned their heads to look
At the vast open endless answer.
She says "I am with you."
Maybe that's true...
Two silhouettes on the sand, the sun shining brightly behind us.
It was morning
And with her heart she looked at me
It seemed she was about to speak of better times...
I dreamed she did speak to me, you see
Here I am and that's enough for now
Then the memory of her shadow turning
In tunnel vision like a silent home movie
Playing and repeating
Her shade spinning growing past her feminine shape -
A wave of hand on this rotation a quiet laugh on that
The profile for a moment, her shadow rising like a bird
Its wings stretching - the shape shifting - the tossing of her hair
Like a mare free and prancing
The moment played and replayed
While I stared transfixed dizzy
She flickered and I couldn't remember exactly who she was or who she had been
I will see her again

This is what it's like when someone you love has gone
And you hope to see them in dreams
Though you never remember all you want to say...
It's always that way.
She said "I am with you."
That's enough for now.
I will see you again...

---

A Good Thing
Conversation with a 5-year-old version of myself.
This is dedicated to all the strange children we once were and still are.

There's something strange about you
But that's a good thing
What they don't know about you
I can see
And when no one is around
I know you're magic
You speak to animals
And they understand
I I was you
I was there
It feels like lifetimes ago
When there was music in my head that no one else could hear

There's something strange about you
But that's a good thing
What they don't know about you
Is their loss
And when they laugh at you
Make you feel worthless in your own skin
They don't know you're going to do some amazing things
You are me
You are here
It feels like ages from now
When your strangeness turns to strength
And it all becomes so clear

Everyone is lost until their heart is found
Everyone feels weak
Everyone breaks down
Everyone needs love and a place to call their own
Everyone is tired
Everyone feels totally alone

There's something strange about you
But that's a good thing
What they don't know about you
I can see

They say we're the Strange Ones but we are the lucky ones
We grew up stronger
We grew up knowing what the others take their lifetimes to understand
There's nothing strange about us at all

Everyone is lost until their heart is found
Everyone feels weak
Everyone breaks down
Everyone needs love and a place to call their own
Everyone must know
That no one is alone