Lesbians, Lightworkers, and other Makeup Fearing Women

A little mascara won't kill you. It may keep you tethered to your ego in an oppresive way, but for crying out loud, you're an albino.

I lost myself in a crowd of New Agesters last night, listening to renowned energy healer Dr. Eric Pearl at New Renaissance book store.

Packed into a shoebox of a room with our knees to our chins and the smarter ones coordinating our breathing so as not to offend or be offended, we listened as Dr. Pearl explained his background as a chiropracter in Los Angeles before strange and wondrous healing abilities were visited upon him, and eventually through his patients.

His demonstrations were impressive. His delivery was worth the price of admission alone. This man tells the best jokes. He has a kind of David Sedaris air--a nasaly lisp and slightly ethnic features. I wouldn't have cared if none of the demonstrations worked; I honestly kept forgetting that he wasn't Sedaris.

In between my feelings of adoration for Dr. Pearl, were my normal, everyday, bitchy, catty judgements of everybody else in the room. The guy behind me who kept burping. The woman in front of me who kept scratching her head, making me itchy in turn. It seemed like the entire tofu-eating, incense-burning, kaftan-draped, disciple-of-somebody community had crammed their patchouli reeking selves into the lecture.

I was one of two women wearing makeup. And I was probably the only meat-eater, hopelessly devoted to my ego and all things material.

Before the first demonstration, Dr. Pearl asked everyone who wanted to be a candidate for the demo to raise their hands. "I'm going to scan the room, because I'm looking for something in particular, so keep your hands up for a minute," he instructed.

I thought, and others may have assumed, that he was tuning in to a certain auric vibration, or that he was looking for a particular ailment or blockage to use for the example. He picked a darked haired, pumpkin-hatted woman from one of the front rows.

He waved his hands over her as she lay on the massage table. We were instructed to file up to the table to observe, looking for a physical register which indicated that she was responding to the particular energy Pearl exudes or channels or whatever. He didn't tell us what the register was, we were to notice it ourselves, but some of his teaching aids clued us in, whispering "eye-flutter" in our ears on the way up or the way back.

Her eyes were indeed fluttering. The right one faster than the left, as a matter of fact. From the foot of the table, one could see that her eyes were partially opened.

She sat up after the demo, recounted her experience, then Pearl revealed what he was looking for when prospective participants raised their hands.

Mascara.

He was scanning the room looking--not for someone with a golden aura, or a sparkling etherial double, or incurable cancer or leprosy. He was looking for someone with big, dark, spider lashes that would render the tiny flutters visible to observers.

I smiled a naughty smile. I laughed a mocking laugh at the natural 'beauties' as their spineless, drum-circle life partners must surely call them. I'll bet they show up at tomorrow's lecture with freakin' huge drag queen lashes--all glittered up and hussied out.

Hey Cover Girl, Maybelline--if you're paying attention, there's a new market for a lash enhancing product called Masc-aura.

Namaste,
Cindy
(humble devotee of the revered and ancient discipline of Ka-ching.)