astral visions © 1997 by Hannah Weiner

astral visions

i want to discuss astrals, the visions and i want to begin with paw because he seems to have started his existence three years ago this coming january and still exists

the reason to discuss paw is that he is one of the teachers and gives me instruction continually and in the three years i've known him, or that he has appeared, he's grown in intelligence and acuteness and accuracy and he also happens to be the funniest person that i know he didn't start out as paw and i will tell you the story

it all begins the day i went to cancun three years ago when an invisible man walked into my bedroom and i could just see the outline of his parka, and he dressed me very slowly, i was still sweating, (or I was sweating then as well), in a black lace bra and white cotton panties and then he put a finger up the leg of my panties and tickled my hip-bone very chastely and said "coochi-coo" and made me lie very still in between dressing so i wouldn't sweat the rest of it was up to me i got on the plane and nothing happened until the meal was served when there was a voice saying, "ma, eat the chocolate mousse, ask for more?"

we got to cancun and i put my suitcase down on a little table for suitcases, and overhead i heard the clash of arms after the clash of arms i heard a woman's voice from the yoga institute saying "well now we unpack our suitcases and put our undies neatly on the shelf" i automatically began to unzip the suitcase to unpack it and the invisible man grabbed me by the back of my parka and made me get undressed i was soaking wet, my hair, my body, my clothes, everything and he made me get undressed i hung up my clothes in deference to the yoga lady i put my underwear and socks in the sink with some soapy water and the invisible man pushed me into the shower where I took a shampoo and washed off the sweat the invisble man disappeared the next thing that happened was purely mechanical, I tried to get about a half dozen blankets to wrap myself up in because it was pouring rain and it was cold i made a blanket roll of five blankets after i discovered that you lie in the middle and you throw one blanket over the other, (you begin on one side and rolling over them), and i put a blanket on top of all that right up to my chin, and under- neath the blanket appeared the bear

i don't know that i called him paw at this time or that he called himself paw at this time, but he was a brown bear and i could see his head and his eyes and his nose peaking out from underneath the top blanket and he had one paw chastely placed on my chest between my breasts saying, "i have a real maw," and he stayed under the covers for four weeks (i was there for four weeks trying to get a place out but couldn't) and every once in awhile he'd say something like, "order more chocolate cake ma" and "I have a real ma" and "my jaw hurts"

the interesting thing that i have to say about the bear is that he's an astral for an indian someone has invented for him- self an astral that speaks for him in the form of a bear in some indian legends a bear is a healer, not that paw has ever done any healing for me,"* but his instructions were bood, except at the beginning he really wasn't doing too much after four weeks when the sun came out and it got really hot he walked out in full brown fur saying, "see you onthe plane ma"

* but I have felt his real self sending me bliss

[now one thing happened in mexico that i'd like to talk about and that's the man from sonora who appeared astral this is a little interlude about paw the man from sonora appeared in my bedroom three times before i left ny, just his white hat and his long white hair and once a blanket over his shoulder before the ruins i got the message the first week i was there that he wanted to meet the woman with the long pipe (that's me) and he appeared in image form and he showed me a blanket trick that explained a little bit of castanida to me he was obviously an ancient mexican teacher who wanted to say certain things before he died and to pass on some of his knowledge he kept flipping the blanket (all of these things were very, very vividly seen) the blanket was sort of like in squares of different colors with a black outline now the black outline always remained the same but the patterns and colors of the squares kept changing so the lesson learned from that you could create an image but you couldn't keep it constant, you had to keep chaning the image he also had people circling the room, flying over- head in a circle that's something i'm not able to do myself and neither or any of the other teachers some of them can fly straight but nobody is able to circle it isn't really necessary, it's a matter of who is watching whom it's a way of guarding to have

the man from sonora told me two things, he said "always give a health diagnosis out loud" and "to speak slow while speaking silent" because of the rain and because he wanted to meet me he made a long trip up the road from the ruins to the hotel and evidently he broke a leg or something happened and he fell in a ditch by the wayside and one night I woke up crying and sang a crossing song from "the big huge," it's something about a great light crossing the river, so i knew the man had died then appeared a woman, an elderly woman who evidently put a cross by hisbones and who the following day showed me his white hat, his white shirt, and white pants all neatly laundered and pressed out, so i know the man had died]

ok, now the bear lots of other things happened in mexico but i don't have time for them i want to talk about paw

when i got home the bear was very small, he had changed shape to a very small brown bear who lived in a cupboard in my forehead it had blue sheets and if i looked through catalogs and he saw some clothes that he liked he would immediately appear with the clothes on particularly a pair of black bicycling shorts and some wading shoes i tried to keep him occupied and i sent him on trips one was skiing in south america, and one was sending him to the south pole, and finally he decided to take his real ma on a honeymoon or whatever, a vacation and they went aboard a great big ocean liner and she, i think she was called ma belle, sat on a deck chair lounging on the deck of the ship and paw, or the bear, was flying overhead in circles because he was bored sitting on the deck when they got to france they rented a limousine and paw donned a chauffeurs cap and drove the limousine and all through france all is saw were pile and iles of spaghetti, that's all they seemed to eat for some reason also paw invented travelers checks so that he could pay for this whole thing

this is the imagination of someone whose name is unknown but who has invented a form through which he can work so this was just sort of fun at the time you must remember that paw has written a great deal for me he wrote "the comma" in SILENT TEACHERS with noah kleinman my friend from england and he wrote "turpitudimous" which i read in october and he also gets in everywhere when i type up anything for the next book called WE SPEAK SILENT, or whatever it's going to be called

finally paw and ma belle landed on a caribbean island, just the two of them under the shade of a palm tree the next thing i know paw turned into a great big white bear, not his final form he was called poohee at the time

i went for a walk in the park and poohee got locked in the apartment and had to squeeze himself through the keyhole and i was accompanied in imae form by two people from the yoga institute one dressed in white who was walking alongside me and one who was dressed in pink who was sort of flying along beside me and poohee caught up and started smooching, you know he started sort of leaning over and kissing me or pretending to kiss me, or to tickle me or to laugh to make it a lovers lane walk and i started to laugh hysterically and i thought what will ever happen if i'm picked up by somebody, here i am talking to someone who is invisible an; oh well he was very funny the next time i went to the park paw* left the path and went over to some antique fair and came back with a velvet vest on it was a lilac velvet vest with red braid and green stones and an earring i laughed

i talked to a girlfriend on the phone a few nights later and she was a very beautiful girl and paw clued me into the fact that i was talking to a very beautiful woman and he went out to see her and the next morning he appeared combing hair out of his teeth and the green stones were gone from his vest somewhere along the way his real ma got pregnant and we were walking along 14th street with the open stalls and he saw a bunch of little girls dresses he wanted a "pinkie" as he called it little girls dresses with little angel sleeves and some towels so he quickly donned a striped apron and cap imaged a big cart in front of him and trundled off piles of baby dresses with angel wing sleeves and towels, and brought them back to the apartment and we had to box them and ship them and send them all to his home he used to sit on the bed next to me reading the new york times with steel rimmed glasses the last time i really saw paw in any remarkable circumstance was at woodstock he had disappeared for awhile, he said "maw I have to go hime, something important is happening" and i was having breakfast at a coffee shop and there appeared paw sitting across the table from me with a big grin and next to him was a white lady bear, a daintier, felt to be a gentle with a wreath and a long bridal veil and they were toasting each other in white coffee cups that was the summer i hurt my back and the lady bear would appear with a pink apron and a cup on a tray and would bring me coffee or tea or whatever well i guess that's paw no maw im still really working hard besides paw and mrs paw there is a baby bear.

*he was now in his final form, a large white bear with a big fat tummy.

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Colophon: "astral visions" © 1997 by Hannah Weiner. File design by Loss Pequeño Glazier. Special thanks to Douglas Messerli for permission for this preview tribute edtion from Mr. Knife, Miss Fork: Performances (Sun & Moon). This online version, here presented as a companion piece to Hannah Weiner (1928-1997): An Online Tribute, features white type on a celestial blue background (bgcolor="3B3BCC"). Text is pure white with featured type in canary yellow. All link phrases are in yellow and are underlined. Words by Hannah Weiner appear in white. This file is maintained by the Electronic Poetry Center (Buffalo).

Last corrected: 1/10/98