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IS THIS THE TOP OF THIS THING?

April 5, 1978

Dear LRL.

About a year ago I told you I would go on the Heresies Goddess Collective. Why that one? sez you. Why not traditional Arts? You answered yourself I see with your blazing rock ecstasy. It seems this goddess thing has opened up springs & wells in many of us. I did a performance piece, again at the Downtown Whitney in their "Out of the House" exhibition which I'm assuming you know about. It was located in the revolving door. Called "My Life in Pants & Wholeee." [[strikethrough]] 4 house [[/strikethrough]] called also "Revolving Doors Have Wings" which is what the section walls are really called. Each section was a different house I live in. Holy House - veils - me hidden within - cramped - many many props - [[strikethrough]] with [[/strikethrough]] wings of the Cherubs in that covered the Ark in the Holy of Holies male & female angels locked in sexual embrace. I read texts from 2-16th centuries. About female aspect of God: Schechina - among which is following: (Schechina means indwelling - the contraction of God - fabulous concept) "The Schinah joins the sick to comfort them and help those who are in need... He or she whose heart is broken and whose spirit is low, & whose mouth rarely utters a word, the Schinah walks with him or her every day." Also Matronit (a later version of Schina) has 4 aspects: She is a Virgin and a passionate lover of men & demons (!) and she is the nurturing mother and she is the defender and devourer! Now, that is the connection between Maintenance Art Works & goddess. Also original creation - I'll tell you that another time. These texts inflame me. I am guiding up my ? to do a piece with the Dept. of Sanitation to go touch 7,600 sanitation men and say "thank you for maintaining NYC." to each one. It is important to touch them physically. A simple ritual repeated as boringly & hypnotically as the work they do. A model of their work. I have been visiting garbage pits 5 storeys deep - landfills - stomach-turning - the other side of life - & the people who put their hands in it daily. Why do I go out to a world of men? Actually to dump the guilt that women have suffered from doing boring maintenance work on them - cause they're looked down on just as women - only they're men. Life's needs have smothered the sex difference there. I'm scared to death to do it - I don't know why. I'm also afraid I'll bust my ass doing it & no one will notice. How do you know a huge system - I have an obsession with knowing - understanding in the gut - the SCALE of NYC - one at a time - bit by bit 1:7600. That's how women have traditionally dealt with awesome life-maintenance systems - fragments as you say - networks. Anyhow the rest of the piece was Home Hour childbirth - my 3 kids born as little red soft birdies me hidden behind rubber wall - covering another section of revolving door - pushing them thru a little hole - stretching - yelling out Help them Help them - people in audience carrying them to their nests across the space to apple branches. The Schina lives in a Holy Apple Orchard - a Jewish Sacred Grove - never knew that before (16th C. Kabbalists). 3rd section "Sanityshine City" [[?]] "a dumblooking seagull - a [[phr?]]