No fucking way. I cheated. I just finished the other post an hour ago, then I sat here looking at naked girls on the internet for a while and figured I'd come back and say some more stuff. Yes, I was actually looking at naked girls on the internet. No, I am not impervious to my culture's weird fascination with pornography. Sorry.
Mostly what I wanted to say is that I am striving towards some discipline, and I find it delightfully ironic that I chose to divulge my temporary porn indulgence at the beginning of my post on discipline. What the hell kind of feminist am I? The voyeuristic, bisexual kind! But truthfully, I don't look at porn all that often...
Anyhow, the week before last I went outside and stretched and took a vigorous walk 5 DAYS IN A ROW. It was a feat. Last week, I walked twice. This week zero, but I have posted to my blog twice. Last week I exercised. This week I blogged. Hey, hey! In a perfect universe there would be ample time for exercise and blogging all in one day. Or if I were as hardcore as Bored Housewife, I might pull off both. She even goes to the fucking gym. (see her blog, just do a google search since I am apparently too stupid to post links in my blog.)
Alas, I am neither a housewife nor bored, though honestly I don't think she is either. And she even posts braless and half-nekkid pictures of herself on her blog. So we've come full circle...back to the naked girls on the internet!!!
I'll let you know on the day I blog and exercise and don't eat sugar or wheat or look at pornography. We'll have us a healthy, little party with no sex and no desserts, mmmhmmm.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Monday, March 20, 2006
snowy, rainy monday morning: the first day of spring...for alan
Today, for the first time ever, I was chastised for not updating my blog more often. Granted, it was my children's father who did the chastising and I am sure he did it more because he desired a reason to chastise me than that he so missed reading my ramblings, but it was all the prompting I needed. Trust me, I was already chastising myself plenty for not writing sooner.
You see, it’s not so much that I haven’t written anything, I just haven’t made it a point to write it here. Just this morning I was driven to ranting after receiving a well-intended e-mail forward. Meant simply to remind us to not blow our tops when faced with life’s little frustrations, the content of this message instead set me on the path of exploring the deeper meanings of what it means to be alive and believe in god.
This e-mail was simply titled “Divinity,” and here is how it read:
And this was my response:
While this is a lovely sentiment and I appreciate you sending it on, it feels to me like a good opportunity to explore the idea of divinity, however you choose to define *what* is *divine.*
If we believe that it is true that some divine force intervened the morning of 9/11 to save a handful of ordinary folk by fairly pedantic means then what does that suggest divinity had up its sleeve for the thousands of other folks that morning who were consumed by flames, crushed under tons of fallen high rise infrastructure, or had to choose between one of those possible fates or leaping 100 stories to their inevitable doom on the concrete below? Were the people that died the sinners? Were the people that were saved some sort of saints pre-ordained to continue to walk their days on planet earth doing good unto others? Was there a karmic drama unfolding that morning in which those who had somehow done "right" in this lifetime or the previous being rewarded for their good behavior, while those who had erred were forced to face the consequence on this spin around the globe?
Personally, I think not. The idea that some divine force will step in mysteriously just at the critical moment to take care of you when you least expect it can be comforting, but it is false, and it is unfair to the rest of the world that is left suffering staggering losses at the hands of war, crime, disease, natural disaster, accident, or intention because what does that tell THEM about the nature of the divine? It is also a strictly western notion based in the concept of duality: there is good and there is bad; there is right and there is wrong; there is light and there is dark, and so on.
If I choose to believe that there is some divine will gently guiding the hand of how each day unfolds for me and the rest of the planet, and I do make the choice to believe that, then I find myself in the position of wanting to believe that everything that happens, however "good" or "bad" is all meant to be in the universal scheme of things. In those moments when I am stuck in traffic or nursing a blister or wrestling with a struggling child hell-bent on wrecking my schedule for the day I find greater peace in knowing that whether that minor incident somehow kept me from a derailing train or massive car accident or act of terror or was precisely the thing that put me in harm’s way that that is simply the tune of my life at that moment. I might hear it as a good song, and you might think that the melody of my day is depressing or boring or poorly played. It is subjective. All of our experiences are subjective; it is we who apply judgment to each experience and interpret it as a "good" experience or a "bad" experience.
And while I also think that it is nearly impossible to escape the pattern of judging and interpreting our experiences so subjectively, I have found that I have greater compassion for myself and others by accepting that we are all, every minute precisely where we need to be whether that means we are suffering from cancer, enjoying successful relationships, dying in car crashes, purchasing our dream home, burning down rainforests, feeding the poor, voting for Bush, or wiping the brow of a child sick with AIDS. That does not mean that my goal in this lifetime is not to ease suffering whenever possible, to work for justice and human rights and animal rights, and it certainly does not mean that I do not get angry when I see others taking actions that I think are harmful and that I do not feel pain when I suffer a loss and that I do not get frustrated when my life feels like it is going nowhere. It simply means that when I have the clarity of mind to take an emotional step back and review my life and life in general that I work very hard at being fine with what I see. It is a tool that has served me well in being able to continue to live and to thrive despite the suffering others and I experience.
So this morning while I am awake too early feeling the discomfort of my body's struggle to breathe through asthmatic bronchioles and to fight off an ongoing viral infection not knowing how to pay my bills this week and dreading the bounced check fees, I am surrounded by delightful beauty as the hazy, early spring sunlight makes its way over the mountain ridge to the east and my gorgeous sons sleep contentedly dreaming of the basket of goodies the imaginary bunny has delivered for them to celebrate the vernal equinox on this day. I am grateful for my bounty of love and life and land as tenuous as it sometimes seems, and I am trying to be grateful for whatever purpose it serves to be physically ill so often and constantly working to make sure there are enough dollars in the bank to meet all the required expenditures. And I am grateful that some lives were spared the morning of 9/11 and trying to be grateful that sometimes lives are taken from us unexpectedly and unpleasantly for apparently no good reason at all. I am trying to believe that no matter where I am and what is happening that it is an acceptable experience in the realm of this lifetime. I am trying to be.
I am grateful to have you all with whom to share my thoughts, also, and I hope that your subjective experiences wax pleasant today. Another blessed spring arrives.
My addendum:
The theme song for this post is “Family Snapshot” by Peter Gabriel. What a gift to be able to create a musical moment that sounds and feels so much like a love song, but is actually the story of an assassin moving in for the kill. Love and murder, sometimes flip sides of the same coin, and this song such an eloquent example of my point.
P.P.S. Another friend responded to the original "Divinity" e-mail to say that his favorite how-I-avoided-death-on-9/11 story came from a man, now divorced, who fielded his wife's panicked phone call on his cell phone from his mistress's bed the morning of the event, and hushed her, "Don't worry, honey, I'm fine...I'm here at my office." Divinity (and debauchery) at work, indeed.
You see, it’s not so much that I haven’t written anything, I just haven’t made it a point to write it here. Just this morning I was driven to ranting after receiving a well-intended e-mail forward. Meant simply to remind us to not blow our tops when faced with life’s little frustrations, the content of this message instead set me on the path of exploring the deeper meanings of what it means to be alive and believe in god.
This e-mail was simply titled “Divinity,” and here is how it read:
As you might know, the head of a company survived 9/11 because his son started kindergarten.
Another fellow was alive because it was his turn to bring donuts.
One woman was late because her alarm clock didn't go off in time.
One was late because of being stuck on the NJ Turnpike because of an auto accident.
One of them missed his bus.
One spilled food on her clothes and had to take time to change.
One's car wouldn't start.
One went back to answer the telephone.
One had a child that dawdled and didn't get ready as soon as he should have.
One couldn't get a taxi.
The one that struck me was the man who put on a new pair of shoes that morning, took the various means to get to work, but before he got there, he developed a blister on his foot. He stopped at a drugstore to buy a Band-Aid. That is why he is alive today.
Now when I am stuck in traffic, miss an elevator, turn back to answer a ringing telephone…all the little things that annoy me...I think to myself: this is exactly where Divinity wants me to be at this very moment!
Next time your morning seems to be going wrong, the children are slow getting dressed, you can't seem to find the car keys, you hit every traffic light... don't get mad or frustrated;
Divinity is at work watching over you.
May Divinity continue to bless you with all those annoying little things and may you remember their possible purpose.
And this was my response:
While this is a lovely sentiment and I appreciate you sending it on, it feels to me like a good opportunity to explore the idea of divinity, however you choose to define *what* is *divine.*
If we believe that it is true that some divine force intervened the morning of 9/11 to save a handful of ordinary folk by fairly pedantic means then what does that suggest divinity had up its sleeve for the thousands of other folks that morning who were consumed by flames, crushed under tons of fallen high rise infrastructure, or had to choose between one of those possible fates or leaping 100 stories to their inevitable doom on the concrete below? Were the people that died the sinners? Were the people that were saved some sort of saints pre-ordained to continue to walk their days on planet earth doing good unto others? Was there a karmic drama unfolding that morning in which those who had somehow done "right" in this lifetime or the previous being rewarded for their good behavior, while those who had erred were forced to face the consequence on this spin around the globe?
Personally, I think not. The idea that some divine force will step in mysteriously just at the critical moment to take care of you when you least expect it can be comforting, but it is false, and it is unfair to the rest of the world that is left suffering staggering losses at the hands of war, crime, disease, natural disaster, accident, or intention because what does that tell THEM about the nature of the divine? It is also a strictly western notion based in the concept of duality: there is good and there is bad; there is right and there is wrong; there is light and there is dark, and so on.
If I choose to believe that there is some divine will gently guiding the hand of how each day unfolds for me and the rest of the planet, and I do make the choice to believe that, then I find myself in the position of wanting to believe that everything that happens, however "good" or "bad" is all meant to be in the universal scheme of things. In those moments when I am stuck in traffic or nursing a blister or wrestling with a struggling child hell-bent on wrecking my schedule for the day I find greater peace in knowing that whether that minor incident somehow kept me from a derailing train or massive car accident or act of terror or was precisely the thing that put me in harm’s way that that is simply the tune of my life at that moment. I might hear it as a good song, and you might think that the melody of my day is depressing or boring or poorly played. It is subjective. All of our experiences are subjective; it is we who apply judgment to each experience and interpret it as a "good" experience or a "bad" experience.
And while I also think that it is nearly impossible to escape the pattern of judging and interpreting our experiences so subjectively, I have found that I have greater compassion for myself and others by accepting that we are all, every minute precisely where we need to be whether that means we are suffering from cancer, enjoying successful relationships, dying in car crashes, purchasing our dream home, burning down rainforests, feeding the poor, voting for Bush, or wiping the brow of a child sick with AIDS. That does not mean that my goal in this lifetime is not to ease suffering whenever possible, to work for justice and human rights and animal rights, and it certainly does not mean that I do not get angry when I see others taking actions that I think are harmful and that I do not feel pain when I suffer a loss and that I do not get frustrated when my life feels like it is going nowhere. It simply means that when I have the clarity of mind to take an emotional step back and review my life and life in general that I work very hard at being fine with what I see. It is a tool that has served me well in being able to continue to live and to thrive despite the suffering others and I experience.
So this morning while I am awake too early feeling the discomfort of my body's struggle to breathe through asthmatic bronchioles and to fight off an ongoing viral infection not knowing how to pay my bills this week and dreading the bounced check fees, I am surrounded by delightful beauty as the hazy, early spring sunlight makes its way over the mountain ridge to the east and my gorgeous sons sleep contentedly dreaming of the basket of goodies the imaginary bunny has delivered for them to celebrate the vernal equinox on this day. I am grateful for my bounty of love and life and land as tenuous as it sometimes seems, and I am trying to be grateful for whatever purpose it serves to be physically ill so often and constantly working to make sure there are enough dollars in the bank to meet all the required expenditures. And I am grateful that some lives were spared the morning of 9/11 and trying to be grateful that sometimes lives are taken from us unexpectedly and unpleasantly for apparently no good reason at all. I am trying to believe that no matter where I am and what is happening that it is an acceptable experience in the realm of this lifetime. I am trying to be.
I am grateful to have you all with whom to share my thoughts, also, and I hope that your subjective experiences wax pleasant today. Another blessed spring arrives.
My addendum:
The theme song for this post is “Family Snapshot” by Peter Gabriel. What a gift to be able to create a musical moment that sounds and feels so much like a love song, but is actually the story of an assassin moving in for the kill. Love and murder, sometimes flip sides of the same coin, and this song such an eloquent example of my point.
P.P.S. Another friend responded to the original "Divinity" e-mail to say that his favorite how-I-avoided-death-on-9/11 story came from a man, now divorced, who fielded his wife's panicked phone call on his cell phone from his mistress's bed the morning of the event, and hushed her, "Don't worry, honey, I'm fine...I'm here at my office." Divinity (and debauchery) at work, indeed.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
not dying
I am not dying, though I feel as if I could be, find myself fantasizing about the benefits of my life ending. Don't be scared, I am in no danger. Having spent as many years of my life courting the idea of suicide as I did, I assure you I know the difference between justifiable sadness and a dangerous, depressive state.
Those of you who have not known me for many years might find it hard to believe that your ever-loving, uber-mama friend suffered under the weight of an agonizing depression for many years prior to my current ebullient nature, but it's true. I did. But perhaps you've rightfully caught glimpses of that edgy undercurrent to my personality, of that darkgoddess-worshipping side of me that wants to lurk in cemeteries late at night so as to be closer to those have passed from this incarnation. It's still there. My work is to keep that side at bay now that I've healed, now that I've actively chosen to live my life and not wish it away for the suffering it involves.
I am fucking sad right now. I have been all but wallowing in the pain of lost love, of abandoned friendships, of unkept promises, of deserted dreams for days now. I ache. I yearn. Today I can hardly say three sentences without crying. I did find myself having an ugly suicide fantasy for a moment there, but I caught myself, righted myself. That is not what I want. My untimely death at my own hand is NOT one of the outcomes for my life (or my children's lives) that I consider acceptable. The act of imagining my own death now is like going out and trying to rekindle a flame with a highschool sweetheart; at one time that relationship held significance, provided a sense of comfort, but now it is grossly inappropriate, gangly, awkward, and immature.
Therein lies the challenge, dear readers. I have suffered plenty and worked hard to come to terms with the role of suffering in life so as not to be waylaid when it inevitably cycles 'round to visit again. I strive for wellness, for love, for life, for acceptance, compassion, understanding, enthusiasm. I spend countless hours in counsel with many dear friends and family members trying to help them attain a level of comfort with their own pain, and now I am called once again to face the spectre of my own suffering and be OK with it, and I am finding it a difficult task. I do not lament it, nor do I fear it, I am simply wearied by it. I feel too tired to do anything but feel.
I imagine that is my lesson. To accept suffering, to cease to judge any of life's experiences as more valid, more worthy than any other is hard work, is ongoing work that it is foolish to expect will end anytime before my life does draw to a close. I must accept this process, work with it, grow from it just as I have done before, just as I will do again. It's a cycle, it's a spiral, it's a circle our lives are unfolding upon. I have been here before, I will be here again, and I will have the opportunity to greet all points along the way over and over again in this lifetime and the next...it's existential poppycock, it's buddhist rigamarole, it is all and nothing and back again. Sigh. And I am still exhausted.
Right now I would like a little ease. I'm feeling attached to the idea of some comfort, some predictability and stability, some reciprocity for all the good love I put out there. Ahh... there it is. I felt it. As I write, the music got just right, so sweet just now- the fire is blazing, the lights are low, the babies are safe upstairs enjoying themselves and everything is, briefly, just is.
And it's gone. And it will be back and it will go and it will be back and it will go and it will be back and it will go. And I find myself grateful for the opportunity to live every minute of it rather than dreading it and wishing myself away. It is all so massive and insignificant and lovely and horrible at once. I have come this far.
Those of you who have not known me for many years might find it hard to believe that your ever-loving, uber-mama friend suffered under the weight of an agonizing depression for many years prior to my current ebullient nature, but it's true. I did. But perhaps you've rightfully caught glimpses of that edgy undercurrent to my personality, of that darkgoddess-worshipping side of me that wants to lurk in cemeteries late at night so as to be closer to those have passed from this incarnation. It's still there. My work is to keep that side at bay now that I've healed, now that I've actively chosen to live my life and not wish it away for the suffering it involves.
I am fucking sad right now. I have been all but wallowing in the pain of lost love, of abandoned friendships, of unkept promises, of deserted dreams for days now. I ache. I yearn. Today I can hardly say three sentences without crying. I did find myself having an ugly suicide fantasy for a moment there, but I caught myself, righted myself. That is not what I want. My untimely death at my own hand is NOT one of the outcomes for my life (or my children's lives) that I consider acceptable. The act of imagining my own death now is like going out and trying to rekindle a flame with a highschool sweetheart; at one time that relationship held significance, provided a sense of comfort, but now it is grossly inappropriate, gangly, awkward, and immature.
Therein lies the challenge, dear readers. I have suffered plenty and worked hard to come to terms with the role of suffering in life so as not to be waylaid when it inevitably cycles 'round to visit again. I strive for wellness, for love, for life, for acceptance, compassion, understanding, enthusiasm. I spend countless hours in counsel with many dear friends and family members trying to help them attain a level of comfort with their own pain, and now I am called once again to face the spectre of my own suffering and be OK with it, and I am finding it a difficult task. I do not lament it, nor do I fear it, I am simply wearied by it. I feel too tired to do anything but feel.
I imagine that is my lesson. To accept suffering, to cease to judge any of life's experiences as more valid, more worthy than any other is hard work, is ongoing work that it is foolish to expect will end anytime before my life does draw to a close. I must accept this process, work with it, grow from it just as I have done before, just as I will do again. It's a cycle, it's a spiral, it's a circle our lives are unfolding upon. I have been here before, I will be here again, and I will have the opportunity to greet all points along the way over and over again in this lifetime and the next...it's existential poppycock, it's buddhist rigamarole, it is all and nothing and back again. Sigh. And I am still exhausted.
Right now I would like a little ease. I'm feeling attached to the idea of some comfort, some predictability and stability, some reciprocity for all the good love I put out there. Ahh... there it is. I felt it. As I write, the music got just right, so sweet just now- the fire is blazing, the lights are low, the babies are safe upstairs enjoying themselves and everything is, briefly, just is.
And it's gone. And it will be back and it will go and it will be back and it will go and it will be back and it will go. And I find myself grateful for the opportunity to live every minute of it rather than dreading it and wishing myself away. It is all so massive and insignificant and lovely and horrible at once. I have come this far.
dre-e-e-e-eams, dreams, dreams, dreams
I kissed G to wake him up this morning. He mumbled, " I don't like Eris."
"You don't like Eris?" I questioned thinking of the little girl who used to be in our homeschool group.
Getting my meaning he responded, still groggy, "Yeah, the goddess. I don't like Eris. I had a dream she was trying to destruct everything. I kept destroying her machines that were trying to make the monster things go back to life. She kept trying to turn people into stuff. Ferrets and stuff. She was trying to turn L into a ferret. He had a ferret spine and a whole bunch of hair growing up his back to his head."
L interjects, "You didn't try to save me?!"
"I tried!" G says, "I tried like three times but I couldn't stop her."
"What did Eris look like?" I query.
"A blue lady. Her hair was long and black. I think she was wearing her hair."
"Was she pretty?" I wondered.
G says, "Not to my extent. And she certainly was not summoning things that were pretty."
To my extent, that was a pretty cool dream.
"You don't like Eris?" I questioned thinking of the little girl who used to be in our homeschool group.
Getting my meaning he responded, still groggy, "Yeah, the goddess. I don't like Eris. I had a dream she was trying to destruct everything. I kept destroying her machines that were trying to make the monster things go back to life. She kept trying to turn people into stuff. Ferrets and stuff. She was trying to turn L into a ferret. He had a ferret spine and a whole bunch of hair growing up his back to his head."
L interjects, "You didn't try to save me?!"
"I tried!" G says, "I tried like three times but I couldn't stop her."
"What did Eris look like?" I query.
"A blue lady. Her hair was long and black. I think she was wearing her hair."
"Was she pretty?" I wondered.
G says, "Not to my extent. And she certainly was not summoning things that were pretty."
To my extent, that was a pretty cool dream.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
homeschoolin'!
A few weeks ago L was working on writing something, perhaps an e-mail, and I said to him, "You know, you're old enough now that you really need to be focusing on correct punctuation when you write."
He replied, "Punctuation? What's that, like dots and stuff?"
Yeah, dots and stuff. What a stellar homeschooling moment.
Homeschool music class sounds something like this:
(in the car, "Iron Man" blares from the speakers)
"Hey you guys! Who's this?"
"Black Sabbath?"
"Yay!"
The first time L answered the Black Sabbath homeschool quiz correctly he was about 4 years old.
Lately G has been getting into more music. He has pretty eclectic tastes, like his mom. He loves soul music, and he has an entire 60's soul box set from his dad to which we listen whenever it's his turn to choose the music. Then, yesterday he made me play "The Christians and the Pagans" by Dar Williams twice in a row because he liked it so much. And I made a mix CD for Solstice with this Anti-con/Bjork remix on it that's all moody and breaky and hip hop and such, and he told me that was his favorite song on the mix. He said, "I like that song that starts out really simple, and they keep adding more and more to it." And, he likes trance.
Dear heavens, they are by far the most wonderful people on the planet. I love them so much, they make EVERYTHING worthwhile. As much as I respect those of you who choose not to breed, I must say, I cannot begin to imagine how my life would seem worth living without my children. They are quintessential. They are love incarnate, embodied, realized. They are pure, they are truth, they are the point. It is no wonder I want more of them. How could I turn away the possibility of exponentially increasing the amount of love in my home, in my family, in the world? I cannot resist the lure of more blessings with whom to share my meager life. I live in constant gratitude that my days are graced by these offspring of mine.
For their breakfast this morning I made a lovely quiche from a large, fresh, green emu egg. Does life get any better than this?
He replied, "Punctuation? What's that, like dots and stuff?"
Yeah, dots and stuff. What a stellar homeschooling moment.
Homeschool music class sounds something like this:
(in the car, "Iron Man" blares from the speakers)
"Hey you guys! Who's this?"
"Black Sabbath?"
"Yay!"
The first time L answered the Black Sabbath homeschool quiz correctly he was about 4 years old.
Lately G has been getting into more music. He has pretty eclectic tastes, like his mom. He loves soul music, and he has an entire 60's soul box set from his dad to which we listen whenever it's his turn to choose the music. Then, yesterday he made me play "The Christians and the Pagans" by Dar Williams twice in a row because he liked it so much. And I made a mix CD for Solstice with this Anti-con/Bjork remix on it that's all moody and breaky and hip hop and such, and he told me that was his favorite song on the mix. He said, "I like that song that starts out really simple, and they keep adding more and more to it." And, he likes trance.
Dear heavens, they are by far the most wonderful people on the planet. I love them so much, they make EVERYTHING worthwhile. As much as I respect those of you who choose not to breed, I must say, I cannot begin to imagine how my life would seem worth living without my children. They are quintessential. They are love incarnate, embodied, realized. They are pure, they are truth, they are the point. It is no wonder I want more of them. How could I turn away the possibility of exponentially increasing the amount of love in my home, in my family, in the world? I cannot resist the lure of more blessings with whom to share my meager life. I live in constant gratitude that my days are graced by these offspring of mine.
For their breakfast this morning I made a lovely quiche from a large, fresh, green emu egg. Does life get any better than this?
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
incontinence diaries
Right now, I don't feel good enough. Good enough for what I do not know, just not "good enough."
I feel like I'm not doing enough. How not Zen is that? I think that's why I'm writing right now. I mean, my sister wrote at least three blog entries in the last couple weeks and at least one of them was so fucking brilliant it actually made me feel insecure that she is smarter than I am. Who cares if she is smarter than I am? That's great, she's my sister, I WANT her to be brilliant. Nevertheless, the motivating force that is currently illuminating my future corpse felt threatened by the perceived loss of my imagined throne of brightest childom.
I don't exercise enough. I feel a great deal of guilt over that. Again, a self-imposed judgement that is unnecessary and certainly doesn't help motivate me to exercise more. But whenever I'm curled warmly in bed or making breakfast or sitting in front of the computer for the 10th or 11th hour of the day (I know!), I'm feeling guilty that I don't wake up early and do yoga or take a walk in the mountain paradise outside my front door. Meanwhile, I'm only hurting myself by not doing those things, but then I'm hurting myself worse by indulging in the absurd phenomenon of guilt that arises due to my lack of a disciplined exercise regime.
And now I feel guilty because I know what I'm writing is total shit. Nobody wants to read my fat girl confessional. What makes me think anyone is reading this? What do I care if they are? Furthermore, what do I care if they like what they're reading? I'm not holding a gun to anybody's head and insisting they stay current with my blog. Am I writing it for me or them? I read a lot of other people's blogs and I do get a lot out of it, but most of them, my brilliant sister included, insist they are writing for themselves. Oh yeah, well if you are what happened to your journal, OK? Remember the little books that we all used to keep in which to write our innermost thoughts? Now we air our dirty laundry for all the world to see and smell and rate and upon which to comment. Maybe it is better for us, poorer for everybody else, 'cause now your nose is full of the stink of my bad day, and hey, I feel a little more pure now that I purged my unsavory emotions onto your computer screen.
I'm sure the end of the day drag I'm experiencing is also exacerbated by the money trauma. Again, there's more guilt for me to feel 'cause today I didn't work enough hours, I didn't make enough money, and how could I even dare to consider cutting out of work early with the insane amount of debt I'm carrying? And then I didn't even do anything really productive like exercise or write brilliant blog entries with my unsalaried time. Moments like this I harbor no doubt that the puritans certainly did a number on America when even a godless heathen like myself is forced to self flagellate every time I have a somehow less than pious day not nearly full enough of productive work and righteous activity. And again when I write rambling, run-on sentences like the previous. Or sentence fragments, such as these two.
Give it up, Jus. Pack it in. Call it day. It obviously ain't getting any better from here. I guess it's time to go bathe away the day's sins and the uncomfortable dampness sullying my panties 'cause my PC muscles just aren't what they were before I had kids, all the more confirming my profound personal undeservedness.
Goddamn, I did just say that, publicly, to whomever may be paying attention.
I feel like I'm not doing enough. How not Zen is that? I think that's why I'm writing right now. I mean, my sister wrote at least three blog entries in the last couple weeks and at least one of them was so fucking brilliant it actually made me feel insecure that she is smarter than I am. Who cares if she is smarter than I am? That's great, she's my sister, I WANT her to be brilliant. Nevertheless, the motivating force that is currently illuminating my future corpse felt threatened by the perceived loss of my imagined throne of brightest childom.
I don't exercise enough. I feel a great deal of guilt over that. Again, a self-imposed judgement that is unnecessary and certainly doesn't help motivate me to exercise more. But whenever I'm curled warmly in bed or making breakfast or sitting in front of the computer for the 10th or 11th hour of the day (I know!), I'm feeling guilty that I don't wake up early and do yoga or take a walk in the mountain paradise outside my front door. Meanwhile, I'm only hurting myself by not doing those things, but then I'm hurting myself worse by indulging in the absurd phenomenon of guilt that arises due to my lack of a disciplined exercise regime.
And now I feel guilty because I know what I'm writing is total shit. Nobody wants to read my fat girl confessional. What makes me think anyone is reading this? What do I care if they are? Furthermore, what do I care if they like what they're reading? I'm not holding a gun to anybody's head and insisting they stay current with my blog. Am I writing it for me or them? I read a lot of other people's blogs and I do get a lot out of it, but most of them, my brilliant sister included, insist they are writing for themselves. Oh yeah, well if you are what happened to your journal, OK? Remember the little books that we all used to keep in which to write our innermost thoughts? Now we air our dirty laundry for all the world to see and smell and rate and upon which to comment. Maybe it is better for us, poorer for everybody else, 'cause now your nose is full of the stink of my bad day, and hey, I feel a little more pure now that I purged my unsavory emotions onto your computer screen.
I'm sure the end of the day drag I'm experiencing is also exacerbated by the money trauma. Again, there's more guilt for me to feel 'cause today I didn't work enough hours, I didn't make enough money, and how could I even dare to consider cutting out of work early with the insane amount of debt I'm carrying? And then I didn't even do anything really productive like exercise or write brilliant blog entries with my unsalaried time. Moments like this I harbor no doubt that the puritans certainly did a number on America when even a godless heathen like myself is forced to self flagellate every time I have a somehow less than pious day not nearly full enough of productive work and righteous activity. And again when I write rambling, run-on sentences like the previous. Or sentence fragments, such as these two.
Give it up, Jus. Pack it in. Call it day. It obviously ain't getting any better from here. I guess it's time to go bathe away the day's sins and the uncomfortable dampness sullying my panties 'cause my PC muscles just aren't what they were before I had kids, all the more confirming my profound personal undeservedness.
Goddamn, I did just say that, publicly, to whomever may be paying attention.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
imbolc
Blessings on this day, the turning of the wheel, the cleansing, the shifting, the quickening.
All week I have been in this zone, the time of the returning light, the promise of spring, the clearing away of the dust accumulated through the winter dark, too much darkness to see our way to clean. At my house I heat with wood, so it actually happens that my house gets EXTREMELY dusty in the winter time, and by spring I've GOT to dust every surface, shake out the cobwebs, shower every dull, dry houseplant.
Today, February 2nd, is solar Imbolc, Sunday was lunar Imbolc, the new moon in Aquarius, so my kids and I cleaned, dusted and updated every altar in the house, sprayed every room with an essential oil mist "energized" by salt water soaked crystal pieces. How very hippie! How fun! Everything fucking sparkled by the time we were done. It felt really good. Scoff if you like, but our home defintiely felt as if an energetic shift had taken place.
Two years ago today I sat in the tattoo shop adding fresh, green leaf growth to my bear tattoo, the one I wear in memorial of the baby I lost, the one I had inscribed to my body five years earlier, seven years ago today. I chose Imbolc for the application of that original work because it is the holiday the marks the slow transition of the return of the light, and though I still suffered immensely at that point, light had begun to grow on the horizon of my life. I chose to add growing, green leaves two years ago because my sweet friend who had fathered that lost baby and I were beginning to make a life together. And much in the same way that the new segment of my tattoo was halted in its progress by an unexpected turn of circumstances, leaving me still bearing an unfinished, partial work of art on my arm, so my relationship with that friend came to a screeching halt later that same year when we both succumbed to very unexpected changes in our circumstances, and now that relationship dwells in my heart and my soul waiting for some completion, some evolution or some closure.
Hmmm. I actually never thought about that till I just wrote that right this minute. I think it's high time I get this tattoo taken care of. If spritzing some crystal water around my house can make way for energetic change in my home environment, then I feel damn sure that completing the work of art etched into my very skin could propel some shift in the nature of the relationship it symbolizes.
Cool. I like getting tattooed.
And I love that man. My intention is still with him. He would never read this to know that, but it is, bless us both.
All week I have been in this zone, the time of the returning light, the promise of spring, the clearing away of the dust accumulated through the winter dark, too much darkness to see our way to clean. At my house I heat with wood, so it actually happens that my house gets EXTREMELY dusty in the winter time, and by spring I've GOT to dust every surface, shake out the cobwebs, shower every dull, dry houseplant.
Today, February 2nd, is solar Imbolc, Sunday was lunar Imbolc, the new moon in Aquarius, so my kids and I cleaned, dusted and updated every altar in the house, sprayed every room with an essential oil mist "energized" by salt water soaked crystal pieces. How very hippie! How fun! Everything fucking sparkled by the time we were done. It felt really good. Scoff if you like, but our home defintiely felt as if an energetic shift had taken place.
Two years ago today I sat in the tattoo shop adding fresh, green leaf growth to my bear tattoo, the one I wear in memorial of the baby I lost, the one I had inscribed to my body five years earlier, seven years ago today. I chose Imbolc for the application of that original work because it is the holiday the marks the slow transition of the return of the light, and though I still suffered immensely at that point, light had begun to grow on the horizon of my life. I chose to add growing, green leaves two years ago because my sweet friend who had fathered that lost baby and I were beginning to make a life together. And much in the same way that the new segment of my tattoo was halted in its progress by an unexpected turn of circumstances, leaving me still bearing an unfinished, partial work of art on my arm, so my relationship with that friend came to a screeching halt later that same year when we both succumbed to very unexpected changes in our circumstances, and now that relationship dwells in my heart and my soul waiting for some completion, some evolution or some closure.
Hmmm. I actually never thought about that till I just wrote that right this minute. I think it's high time I get this tattoo taken care of. If spritzing some crystal water around my house can make way for energetic change in my home environment, then I feel damn sure that completing the work of art etched into my very skin could propel some shift in the nature of the relationship it symbolizes.
Cool. I like getting tattooed.
And I love that man. My intention is still with him. He would never read this to know that, but it is, bless us both.
Monday, January 09, 2006
it sounds good and solid up here
I live in an interesting extended family situation in which another family very dear to mine lives in a house right next door to us on the same property. We share meals and childcare and joys and worries.
A week ago, my friend and neighbor’s 96 year-old grandmother came to live in her family’s house so close to my family’s house. She had been confined to a nursing home after a long stay in a hospital following an accident where she fell, then lay in spilled bleach on the floor till she was found many hours later, resulting in severe chemical burns on a large portion of her body. She was not expected to live.
Yet this resilient, wizened, little, Cherokee woman made it. She is still alive, her wounds now mostly healed. Since that time there has been much family debate about the safest, healthiest place for her recovery and her opportunity to live the remainder of her days, however few or many may be left. My friend gallantly volunteered to keep grandmother at home with her and her family.
And so she arrived, one day before her 96th birthday on New Year’s Eve. On the day of her arrival I entered the house next door, warmed and cleaned and full of the workings of caring for life: fresh food, nourishing tea, clean washcloths, soft bedclothes, new blankets, gentle soaps for the washing of delicate skin. I was struck, for not only was I familiar with the trappings of this type of caretaking, but I was at home immediately with the intensity of the energy in the room. Having attended many homebirths over the last several years I have come to know the feeling of the gate between the worlds being parted, of a particular energetic channel being open in a space in which life is about to pass through that channel. Here it was again, only the life that will be passing when her time comes will be leaving our earthly realm rather than entering it.
Today I sit with another friend, greatly pregnant with her first child. Her labor has begun, a slow tide flowing in, just beginning to rock her body with those great waves of power that will open her body and allow her child through her and will simultaneously teach her strength, patience, endurance, and humility. She was up for most of the night though this process is still in its beginning stages, and this morning when I woke I cleaned her house, fed her breakfast, held her hand in the bath, and now I’ve tucked her back into bed.
My work today is the same work that my neighbor has been doing with her grandmother this last week. It is the work of life and of death. It is the work of labor and of a transition in our life process. I do not know how many hours or days my friend will labor to bring forth her new child, and I do not know how many days or weeks, or months, or even years the 96 year-old grandmother will labor to come to the end of her life, but I do know that the work each of them is doing is not so removed from the other. I do know that when the gate between the worlds is open and the veil between this realm and other realms is thin that it is the same opening for each process, for the entering and the exiting of life. Both crossings are sacred, holy, beautiful, and whole.
The work of aiding those who are in the throes of life’s transition is not always easy work, but it is to be cherished. I am sure that my friend has spent her morning feeding, tending to, and cleaning the body of her grandmother. I am sure that as today wears on we will each have the opportunity to wipe the most private and delicate folds of the bodies of the women we serve, to do away with the fluids and the wastes that bodies give up but cannot be tended to by these woman as they move through the work of their labors. We will each be surrounded by washcloths and disposable underpads and cups full of tea and juice with straws sticking out of them so they can be put to the lips of the woman who needs a drink but cannot reach for it herself.
And amidst the trivial details of these incredibly significant processes we are all surrounded by the immensity of the energy, of the mystical vortex of opening, of change, of the moving of life forces that may sound cliché, but I assure you is real. It is palpable. It is as tangible as the subtle thump of the fetus hiccupping against his mother’s abdominal wall, as delicately visceral as the waxy, blue-veined thinness of the skin on grandmother’s hand in your own.
When the grandmother who is blind arrived on our mountain and was settled into her new bed in her warm house surrounded by loving family, she said, “Sounds good and solid up here, doesn’t it?” She who can no longer see with her eyes could hear that she had moved into surroundings that are safe and stable.
On a different mountain where I now sit, I can hear the fire gently consuming the wood in the stove. I hear the quiet, sweet music the coming child’s father has playing for the pleasure of the laboring mother. I occasionally hear the mother’s deepened breaths, her groans of discomfort as the birth tide makes its way through her body. It sounds good and solid up here, too.
A week ago, my friend and neighbor’s 96 year-old grandmother came to live in her family’s house so close to my family’s house. She had been confined to a nursing home after a long stay in a hospital following an accident where she fell, then lay in spilled bleach on the floor till she was found many hours later, resulting in severe chemical burns on a large portion of her body. She was not expected to live.
Yet this resilient, wizened, little, Cherokee woman made it. She is still alive, her wounds now mostly healed. Since that time there has been much family debate about the safest, healthiest place for her recovery and her opportunity to live the remainder of her days, however few or many may be left. My friend gallantly volunteered to keep grandmother at home with her and her family.
And so she arrived, one day before her 96th birthday on New Year’s Eve. On the day of her arrival I entered the house next door, warmed and cleaned and full of the workings of caring for life: fresh food, nourishing tea, clean washcloths, soft bedclothes, new blankets, gentle soaps for the washing of delicate skin. I was struck, for not only was I familiar with the trappings of this type of caretaking, but I was at home immediately with the intensity of the energy in the room. Having attended many homebirths over the last several years I have come to know the feeling of the gate between the worlds being parted, of a particular energetic channel being open in a space in which life is about to pass through that channel. Here it was again, only the life that will be passing when her time comes will be leaving our earthly realm rather than entering it.
Today I sit with another friend, greatly pregnant with her first child. Her labor has begun, a slow tide flowing in, just beginning to rock her body with those great waves of power that will open her body and allow her child through her and will simultaneously teach her strength, patience, endurance, and humility. She was up for most of the night though this process is still in its beginning stages, and this morning when I woke I cleaned her house, fed her breakfast, held her hand in the bath, and now I’ve tucked her back into bed.
My work today is the same work that my neighbor has been doing with her grandmother this last week. It is the work of life and of death. It is the work of labor and of a transition in our life process. I do not know how many hours or days my friend will labor to bring forth her new child, and I do not know how many days or weeks, or months, or even years the 96 year-old grandmother will labor to come to the end of her life, but I do know that the work each of them is doing is not so removed from the other. I do know that when the gate between the worlds is open and the veil between this realm and other realms is thin that it is the same opening for each process, for the entering and the exiting of life. Both crossings are sacred, holy, beautiful, and whole.
The work of aiding those who are in the throes of life’s transition is not always easy work, but it is to be cherished. I am sure that my friend has spent her morning feeding, tending to, and cleaning the body of her grandmother. I am sure that as today wears on we will each have the opportunity to wipe the most private and delicate folds of the bodies of the women we serve, to do away with the fluids and the wastes that bodies give up but cannot be tended to by these woman as they move through the work of their labors. We will each be surrounded by washcloths and disposable underpads and cups full of tea and juice with straws sticking out of them so they can be put to the lips of the woman who needs a drink but cannot reach for it herself.
And amidst the trivial details of these incredibly significant processes we are all surrounded by the immensity of the energy, of the mystical vortex of opening, of change, of the moving of life forces that may sound cliché, but I assure you is real. It is palpable. It is as tangible as the subtle thump of the fetus hiccupping against his mother’s abdominal wall, as delicately visceral as the waxy, blue-veined thinness of the skin on grandmother’s hand in your own.
When the grandmother who is blind arrived on our mountain and was settled into her new bed in her warm house surrounded by loving family, she said, “Sounds good and solid up here, doesn’t it?” She who can no longer see with her eyes could hear that she had moved into surroundings that are safe and stable.
On a different mountain where I now sit, I can hear the fire gently consuming the wood in the stove. I hear the quiet, sweet music the coming child’s father has playing for the pleasure of the laboring mother. I occasionally hear the mother’s deepened breaths, her groans of discomfort as the birth tide makes its way through her body. It sounds good and solid up here, too.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
uh-oh
I had no idea that there were 978 million blogs to read. And that so many people read so many of them. It makes me feel oddly insignificant and included all at the same time.
I want to write more. Not for your sake, dear reader, because honestly I think my mom is the only person reading this, but for mine. I want to write more and more and more and more. It feels so good.
I don't do New Year's resolutions, but I was reading this blog tonight, Gone Feral, (which I cannot create a link to because apparently I am more stupid than the 978 million other bloggers out there and haven't figured out how...) by a wild mom and she wrote "motherfucker" in her blog a lot, and I thought, "I love that word." I have mixed feelings about that word because I suspect its etymology is quite dubious, however, I have ALWAYS liked the sound of it, always. It so hardcore. So I thought maybe I would resolve to just go ahead and use "motherfucker" a little more proactively in my life, and, hell, in my blog, too.
Why not, motherfucker?
If we can reclaim "cunt" and "bitch" and "dyke" and "queer" and so on, why can't I reclaim "motherfucker"? I mean, I happen to know a lot of motherfuckers and I really like some them. And I REALLY, REALLY like some of them....
It's not such a big leap for me. I am notorious in close social circles for my use of the word "fuck." I am one of those people who utilizes that word quite universally. In my book it is certainly a noun, an adjective, an adverb, and for sure a verb. Now my 10 year old says it with a regularity with which I'm not very comfortable, but I know it's my fault, so I have a hard time chastising him for it. My 12 year old, being the slightly more socially adept of the two, has at least adapted it and says "frickin'"instead, but he does say it all the time amongst any and all company.
Oh well. They are very nice boys, smart and cooperative. I'm pretty nice, too, and I fuckin' sound like a well-educated trucker most of the time. I guess it's acceptable. Whatever.
They're out of town. I'll write more.
I want to write more. Not for your sake, dear reader, because honestly I think my mom is the only person reading this, but for mine. I want to write more and more and more and more. It feels so good.
I don't do New Year's resolutions, but I was reading this blog tonight, Gone Feral, (which I cannot create a link to because apparently I am more stupid than the 978 million other bloggers out there and haven't figured out how...) by a wild mom and she wrote "motherfucker" in her blog a lot, and I thought, "I love that word." I have mixed feelings about that word because I suspect its etymology is quite dubious, however, I have ALWAYS liked the sound of it, always. It so hardcore. So I thought maybe I would resolve to just go ahead and use "motherfucker" a little more proactively in my life, and, hell, in my blog, too.
Why not, motherfucker?
If we can reclaim "cunt" and "bitch" and "dyke" and "queer" and so on, why can't I reclaim "motherfucker"? I mean, I happen to know a lot of motherfuckers and I really like some them. And I REALLY, REALLY like some of them....
It's not such a big leap for me. I am notorious in close social circles for my use of the word "fuck." I am one of those people who utilizes that word quite universally. In my book it is certainly a noun, an adjective, an adverb, and for sure a verb. Now my 10 year old says it with a regularity with which I'm not very comfortable, but I know it's my fault, so I have a hard time chastising him for it. My 12 year old, being the slightly more socially adept of the two, has at least adapted it and says "frickin'"instead, but he does say it all the time amongst any and all company.
Oh well. They are very nice boys, smart and cooperative. I'm pretty nice, too, and I fuckin' sound like a well-educated trucker most of the time. I guess it's acceptable. Whatever.
They're out of town. I'll write more.
Monday, December 26, 2005
ridiculously mighty
Apparently if you hold all three Egyptian God cards in your Yu-Gi-Oh deck then that is truly an unfair advantage against your opponents because then you will be "ridiculously mighty."
Or so I am told by sources pretty close to home.
Ridiculously mighty.
Just had to put it in print one more time....
Or so I am told by sources pretty close to home.
Ridiculously mighty.
Just had to put it in print one more time....
Monday, December 19, 2005
kid words
G is 10, and he says "shring" instead of "string."
L is almost 12 and very precocious and alarmingly adept verbally, and he says "figger" instead of "figure."
And I love it.
My heart broke the day G started calling L "Brother" instead of "Bruvver."
I will cling greedily to every last vestige of their boyhoods, forever.
L is almost 12 and very precocious and alarmingly adept verbally, and he says "figger" instead of "figure."
And I love it.
My heart broke the day G started calling L "Brother" instead of "Bruvver."
I will cling greedily to every last vestige of their boyhoods, forever.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
breath
Even as I write this I sit here with a nebulizer in my mouth. A nebulizer, a little machine with a pump and some tubing and a mouthpiece that aerates liquid medicine to go into my lungs and make them shut the hell up.
I can’t even tell if this is working.
I’m not the big medication sort. I hate it, actually, but when faced with the choice of death or breath, I’m taking the drugs. I really want to be here in this world, in this body, in this life. Yes, I want even this life with all of its woes and worries. I want even this body with all of its stretch marks, shortcomings, and imperfections. I love everything, remember?
This breathlessness began during the fall of my first pregnancy over twelve years ago. I’d experienced some hay fever prior to that, but nothing like the wheezing that had begun to bother me.
In the ensuing twelve years I have cried, prayed, used herbs of all sorts, taken homeopathic remedies, seen therapists, received acupuncture treatments, and hoped, and hoped, and hoped that this would let up. Instead, it’s only gotten worse. And now, I take more and more drugs: steroids, beta-antagonist blockers, leuketriene inhibitors, things that suppress my immune system, make my hands shake like an early morning alcoholic, can have dangerous side-effects.
I have studied the correlation between lung problems and suppressed grief. It’s a connection recognized in several major healing modalities. I have certainly experienced grief in my life, more than some, less than others, I’m sure. But I certainly don’t feel as though I’m suppressing ANYTHING at this point. I let it all hang out. I speak my truth, loudly, much to everyone’s dismay sometimes. I weep unabashedly; I write enthusiastically, I dance earth-poundingly. I do not hold anything back. Repression isn’t my thing. There sure is plenty to feel grief about, but I am feeling it, not squirreling it away to lurk deviantly and destructively in the recesses of my alveoli.
In all fairness, I have to say that I live in one of the most beautiful and the most polluted places in America. The air in western North Carolina is rated amongst the worst in quality in the country. A murky haze that has steadily grown thicker and more ugly each year mucks up our beautiful mountain views and causes rates of childhood asthma and adult asthma related deaths to increase every year. I may be a victim of our ongoing environmental onslaught of all things pure and healthy.
But I hope not. I actually have hope, still, quite a lot of it. I have somehow managed to maintain hope for me, for the air, for the earth, for the water. I wrote myself an affirmation:
My lungs are light and air-filled, loose and comfortable, well oxygenated and pink. They remain constantly open for the breath of life and constantly relaxed even during duress. Though my body recognizes it is living in a toxic time on precious earth, it is strong enough to deal with even the most potent poisons and continues to function fully well so that I may work hard to eradicate the risk of toxicity for all.
So mote it be.
I can’t even tell if this is working.
I’m not the big medication sort. I hate it, actually, but when faced with the choice of death or breath, I’m taking the drugs. I really want to be here in this world, in this body, in this life. Yes, I want even this life with all of its woes and worries. I want even this body with all of its stretch marks, shortcomings, and imperfections. I love everything, remember?
This breathlessness began during the fall of my first pregnancy over twelve years ago. I’d experienced some hay fever prior to that, but nothing like the wheezing that had begun to bother me.
In the ensuing twelve years I have cried, prayed, used herbs of all sorts, taken homeopathic remedies, seen therapists, received acupuncture treatments, and hoped, and hoped, and hoped that this would let up. Instead, it’s only gotten worse. And now, I take more and more drugs: steroids, beta-antagonist blockers, leuketriene inhibitors, things that suppress my immune system, make my hands shake like an early morning alcoholic, can have dangerous side-effects.
I have studied the correlation between lung problems and suppressed grief. It’s a connection recognized in several major healing modalities. I have certainly experienced grief in my life, more than some, less than others, I’m sure. But I certainly don’t feel as though I’m suppressing ANYTHING at this point. I let it all hang out. I speak my truth, loudly, much to everyone’s dismay sometimes. I weep unabashedly; I write enthusiastically, I dance earth-poundingly. I do not hold anything back. Repression isn’t my thing. There sure is plenty to feel grief about, but I am feeling it, not squirreling it away to lurk deviantly and destructively in the recesses of my alveoli.
In all fairness, I have to say that I live in one of the most beautiful and the most polluted places in America. The air in western North Carolina is rated amongst the worst in quality in the country. A murky haze that has steadily grown thicker and more ugly each year mucks up our beautiful mountain views and causes rates of childhood asthma and adult asthma related deaths to increase every year. I may be a victim of our ongoing environmental onslaught of all things pure and healthy.
But I hope not. I actually have hope, still, quite a lot of it. I have somehow managed to maintain hope for me, for the air, for the earth, for the water. I wrote myself an affirmation:
My lungs are light and air-filled, loose and comfortable, well oxygenated and pink. They remain constantly open for the breath of life and constantly relaxed even during duress. Though my body recognizes it is living in a toxic time on precious earth, it is strong enough to deal with even the most potent poisons and continues to function fully well so that I may work hard to eradicate the risk of toxicity for all.
So mote it be.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Ursula
Seven years ago today after 24 hours of labor in the darkest hours of morning I miscarried a baby. My sons were 3 and 4 years old, I had just returned to college that semester, and their father and I had been separated for a year. It was not an ideal time to have another baby. Furthermore, the man by whom I was pregnant was a raging drug addict whom I loved very much, but who had no capacity to love me and didn’t want me, or anyone ever, to be pregnant with his child.
And yet, I was happy. Hell, I was downright courageous. I was going to have that baby, and I was going to make a good life for all three of my kids, and even if we were poor, we would have had a lot more love than some people ever know. Of this I was sure. So I loved that little bundle of cells growing in my belly fiercely. I invoked all the bear mama energy I could. No one or nothing, no negative thoughts or nay saying would keep me from my mothering of another child, for that is the thing I do best.
I sang to my tiny baby, sang songs of love and devotion, sang Sinead O’Connor’s “Three Babies” over and over again. I wrote to her, I prayed to her. But this pregnancy felt different. I had a hard time connecting with this baby. With each of my other pregnancies I could feel my baby, not just as a physical presence in my body, but as a spiritual identity, as another personality interacting in my psychic space. This baby seemed lost.
I understood why a spirit approaching this reality could have felt daunted. With all of the challenges I faced with this pregnancy the idea of it had not been well embraced by all of my community, and this approaching child was not being made to feel particularly welcome by her father and his community either. So I pleaded with her. My journal from that time period is full of entries in which I ask, “Where are you? Why can’t I feel you? Are you really coming?” and in which I say, “ I love you. I want you. I’ll do anything for you. I will make your life good, I promise you.”
She heard me. But she had to go.
But oh! She went dragging my heartstrings behind. I thought I would die. I wanted to die. I wanted to lie in my bed and slowly let every last bit of my life force bleed from between my legs. The only things that kept me tethered to this reality were the sweet little boys of mine who made it. I knew I could never leave them behind for a phantom child who had only ever lived in the ethers. I also knew that my pain over the loss of this baby was more acute, more devastating because the little boys staring at their sad mommy in confusion and sympathy were what made the lost baby so real to me. In their warm, soft bodies I could feel tangibly what was lost to me. I was in agony.
In the months following my miscarriage I processed my experience in the way that makes the most sense to me. I studied it. I analyzed it. I researched it. I found that I was not alone. Millions of women miscarry babies. It is not an uncommon occurrence. But even more importantly, millions of women also grieve for their lost babies. In a culture in which death and dying are things we do on TV or that happen in far away lands, but not things we acknowledge or embrace, nobody wants to hear a woman mourn a child that was never even born. No one wants to feel your pain, so instead they greet you with nonsense, cliché sayings. “It was meant to be. At least you have healthy children. You can try again. It wasn’t good timing anyhow. There must have been something wrong with it. All things happen for a reason.”
I didn’t need any of that. I needed only for people to recognize that I hurt. Whether they could understand it or not, I had experienced a loss. I needed the space to grieve and the time to heal, which I have done.
In the ensuing years I have been able to look at my loss more objectively. I know other women who have lost babies. My dear friend just lost her 6th baby two months ago. I have known women whose babies died much later in their pregnancies or were stillborn. Another friend lost her only son just before his 7th birthday (and she didn’t make it, she took her own life within 6 months of the accident). During my midwifery internship in Jamaica I lived in a world in which women lose pregnancies, lose babies, lose children as a matter of fact in the course of their lives. Witnessing these losses made me question whether it was valid for me to have mourned so hard for a baby lost in the first trimester, whether it made sense that I would have experienced so much pain upon losing just one baby who was with me so briefly. I cannot say how I would handle a similar loss today. I think the gift of that lost baby was the catharsis of my grief process. I had been hurting and sad for many reasons for many years prior to that loss, and once I made it through the worst of my sorrow and depression following that miscarriage, I have never experienced that level of despair again. Gratefully.
Today in honoring the anniversary of the loss of this child I am more wistful, more wishing than sad. I have never been pregnant again and I still deeply long to carry a child in my belly and to bring that baby forth into my loving community and into the fold with my now more grown sons. I wonder who this person would have been. I have no way of knowing whether that baby was a girl, but we all felt she was. I guess I hoped she was, blessed as I am with only boys. When the fierce mama bear rose up inside of me to protect this little spirit I knew then that she was my little bear cub. My Ursula, my little bear. I had played with her name while she still lived in my belly and thought perhaps she would be Ursula Twilight, but instead she came just as night was breaking into morning, and so she is instead Ursula Dawn. I have a tattoo of a red bear in the sunrise on my left shoulder commemorating her. Now I permanently wear my heart on my sleeve.
Today in honoring the loss of this child I am thinking of her father whom many years later did come to love me. We are so close now, love each other so deeply, and I believe that closeness truly began to develop while I lay in my bed bleeding, fearing the inevitable loss before me when he came to sit by my side and rest his hand for the first and only time on my belly, and later when we walked together to the cemetery and laid to rest in the sacred ground the tiny unformed body and placenta and birth blood of our child, and earlier when our genetic coding and our DNA combined in one entity however short lived. And today he is no longer a drug addict. With 13 months clean behind him he still faces every day the challenges of learning to live his life fully present, fully willing. But he is still so scared to bring forth another life on the planet, is still so unsure that he will ever have the skills to commit himself to partnership with me or anyone, let alone to fatherhood.
Today I hope that he will give birth to himself and find the love he needs for us to bring our love to fruition and perhaps together to give birth to our love in another body.
Three Babies
(Sinead O'Connor)
Each of these
My three babies
I will carry with me
For myself
I ask no one else will be
Mother to these three
And of course
I'm like a wild horse
But there's no other way I could be
Water and feed
Are not tools that I need
For the thing that I've chosen to be
In my soul
My blood and my bones
I have wrapped your cold bodies around me
The face on you
The smell of you
Will always be with me
Each of these
My three babies
I am not willing to leave
Though I tried
I blasphemed and denied
I know they will be returned to me
Each of these
My babies
Have brought you closer to me
No longer mad like a horse
I'm still wild but not lost
From the thing that I've chosen to be
And it's `cause you've thrilled me
Silenced me
Stilled me
Proved things I never believed
The face on you
The smell of you
Will always be with me
Each of these
My three babies
I will carry with me
For myself
I ask no one else will be
Mother to these three
And yet, I was happy. Hell, I was downright courageous. I was going to have that baby, and I was going to make a good life for all three of my kids, and even if we were poor, we would have had a lot more love than some people ever know. Of this I was sure. So I loved that little bundle of cells growing in my belly fiercely. I invoked all the bear mama energy I could. No one or nothing, no negative thoughts or nay saying would keep me from my mothering of another child, for that is the thing I do best.
I sang to my tiny baby, sang songs of love and devotion, sang Sinead O’Connor’s “Three Babies” over and over again. I wrote to her, I prayed to her. But this pregnancy felt different. I had a hard time connecting with this baby. With each of my other pregnancies I could feel my baby, not just as a physical presence in my body, but as a spiritual identity, as another personality interacting in my psychic space. This baby seemed lost.
I understood why a spirit approaching this reality could have felt daunted. With all of the challenges I faced with this pregnancy the idea of it had not been well embraced by all of my community, and this approaching child was not being made to feel particularly welcome by her father and his community either. So I pleaded with her. My journal from that time period is full of entries in which I ask, “Where are you? Why can’t I feel you? Are you really coming?” and in which I say, “ I love you. I want you. I’ll do anything for you. I will make your life good, I promise you.”
She heard me. But she had to go.
But oh! She went dragging my heartstrings behind. I thought I would die. I wanted to die. I wanted to lie in my bed and slowly let every last bit of my life force bleed from between my legs. The only things that kept me tethered to this reality were the sweet little boys of mine who made it. I knew I could never leave them behind for a phantom child who had only ever lived in the ethers. I also knew that my pain over the loss of this baby was more acute, more devastating because the little boys staring at their sad mommy in confusion and sympathy were what made the lost baby so real to me. In their warm, soft bodies I could feel tangibly what was lost to me. I was in agony.
In the months following my miscarriage I processed my experience in the way that makes the most sense to me. I studied it. I analyzed it. I researched it. I found that I was not alone. Millions of women miscarry babies. It is not an uncommon occurrence. But even more importantly, millions of women also grieve for their lost babies. In a culture in which death and dying are things we do on TV or that happen in far away lands, but not things we acknowledge or embrace, nobody wants to hear a woman mourn a child that was never even born. No one wants to feel your pain, so instead they greet you with nonsense, cliché sayings. “It was meant to be. At least you have healthy children. You can try again. It wasn’t good timing anyhow. There must have been something wrong with it. All things happen for a reason.”
I didn’t need any of that. I needed only for people to recognize that I hurt. Whether they could understand it or not, I had experienced a loss. I needed the space to grieve and the time to heal, which I have done.
In the ensuing years I have been able to look at my loss more objectively. I know other women who have lost babies. My dear friend just lost her 6th baby two months ago. I have known women whose babies died much later in their pregnancies or were stillborn. Another friend lost her only son just before his 7th birthday (and she didn’t make it, she took her own life within 6 months of the accident). During my midwifery internship in Jamaica I lived in a world in which women lose pregnancies, lose babies, lose children as a matter of fact in the course of their lives. Witnessing these losses made me question whether it was valid for me to have mourned so hard for a baby lost in the first trimester, whether it made sense that I would have experienced so much pain upon losing just one baby who was with me so briefly. I cannot say how I would handle a similar loss today. I think the gift of that lost baby was the catharsis of my grief process. I had been hurting and sad for many reasons for many years prior to that loss, and once I made it through the worst of my sorrow and depression following that miscarriage, I have never experienced that level of despair again. Gratefully.
Today in honoring the anniversary of the loss of this child I am more wistful, more wishing than sad. I have never been pregnant again and I still deeply long to carry a child in my belly and to bring that baby forth into my loving community and into the fold with my now more grown sons. I wonder who this person would have been. I have no way of knowing whether that baby was a girl, but we all felt she was. I guess I hoped she was, blessed as I am with only boys. When the fierce mama bear rose up inside of me to protect this little spirit I knew then that she was my little bear cub. My Ursula, my little bear. I had played with her name while she still lived in my belly and thought perhaps she would be Ursula Twilight, but instead she came just as night was breaking into morning, and so she is instead Ursula Dawn. I have a tattoo of a red bear in the sunrise on my left shoulder commemorating her. Now I permanently wear my heart on my sleeve.
Today in honoring the loss of this child I am thinking of her father whom many years later did come to love me. We are so close now, love each other so deeply, and I believe that closeness truly began to develop while I lay in my bed bleeding, fearing the inevitable loss before me when he came to sit by my side and rest his hand for the first and only time on my belly, and later when we walked together to the cemetery and laid to rest in the sacred ground the tiny unformed body and placenta and birth blood of our child, and earlier when our genetic coding and our DNA combined in one entity however short lived. And today he is no longer a drug addict. With 13 months clean behind him he still faces every day the challenges of learning to live his life fully present, fully willing. But he is still so scared to bring forth another life on the planet, is still so unsure that he will ever have the skills to commit himself to partnership with me or anyone, let alone to fatherhood.
Today I hope that he will give birth to himself and find the love he needs for us to bring our love to fruition and perhaps together to give birth to our love in another body.
Three Babies
(Sinead O'Connor)
Each of these
My three babies
I will carry with me
For myself
I ask no one else will be
Mother to these three
And of course
I'm like a wild horse
But there's no other way I could be
Water and feed
Are not tools that I need
For the thing that I've chosen to be
In my soul
My blood and my bones
I have wrapped your cold bodies around me
The face on you
The smell of you
Will always be with me
Each of these
My three babies
I am not willing to leave
Though I tried
I blasphemed and denied
I know they will be returned to me
Each of these
My babies
Have brought you closer to me
No longer mad like a horse
I'm still wild but not lost
From the thing that I've chosen to be
And it's `cause you've thrilled me
Silenced me
Stilled me
Proved things I never believed
The face on you
The smell of you
Will always be with me
Each of these
My three babies
I will carry with me
For myself
I ask no one else will be
Mother to these three
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
what is love?
I realized shortly after I began this endeavor that some of what I might want to write about I couldn’t since I told all of my friends and family my blog address and sign it with my name. I am sure I am not the first person to have this dilemma. I might start another blog and not tell them all about it. Again, I am sure many folks out there have anonymous blogs in which they exhaust their exhibitionist tendencies to share their deeper secrets and more risqué experiences without fear of those who need not know finding out information never meant for them.
I feel like that’s the kind of stuff I want to write about now. I wonder, who’s REALLY paying attention? If my kids’ dad is I might not feel could speak freely. As much as he’d hate for me to put him in the same category with Alan, I have to say if Mike, with whom I share an extremely complicated and non-traditional life partnership situation, were reading I’d be hesitant to speak my experiences openly, but for very different reasons. I trust I could say anything to my mom at this point and she would respect my choices and decisions. Since my adulthood she has developed a profoundly blind faith in me, which works for me. Thanks, Mom.
Today my friend told me she looked up polyamory after reading that that was something I might write more about. I felt slightly defensive, but only slightly really, because I feel so at peace with the reality that I love more than one person at a time. And just to qualify this, that doesn’t mean I am sleeping with more than one person at a time although I have in the past and may in the future. Right now it’s about the breathtaking expansion of my ability to love many while exploring the possibility of sharing my life with just one. Whether it makes sense to everyone or not I feel capable of loving in a very big way more than one person at a time. Or more than 2 people at a time. Right now I feel like I’m on the verge of loving more than 4 people simultaneously. Big, big love I’m talking about. Yes, romantic love, possibly the love of partnership.
I spend a lot time evaluating within myself whether or not this is actually true, whether it really is love that I feel for these different people. I fear it could be instead a desperate search for validation, some kind of dying to quench the incompleteness I feel out of a relationship, and that these needs are a result of some shortcoming of mine, the acting out of some neurosis born of childhood neglect or abuse. I feel really bold saying it so publicly like this. But I think I can be so bold with that theory because I am not afraid that that is what is going on. Just in case anyone was wondering, yeah, I’ve thought of it. Maybe the love I think is real isn’t.
However, I suspect that it is. For one thing, I don’t feel terribly incomplete being out of a relationship. I feel a little lonely and a little horny sometimes, but I have an outstanding community that reaches far and wide in which I feel well loved and appreciated and supported, and this meets the majority of my social needs. I do not feel that I am the desperate feminine yin side of the circle longing and craving for her masculine yang.
Also, it helps to have a definition of love with which to work. What is love? Oh, I’ve heard it sung in a thousand songs, seen it played in a thousand movies, and yet how do we as a culture actually define love? How do we personally? According to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, love, the noun, is “1. A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
or
2. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.”
Love is a feeling. That makes sense. Whereas, love, the verb, means
“1. To have a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward (a person).
or
2. To have a feeling of intense desire and attraction toward (a person).”
OK. That makes sense, too. Love as a verb is the state of having the feeling of love. And yet, I suspect we are selling ourselves short. There are an awful lot of people out there with these feelings they define as love who are abysmally poor at expressing, living, or acting these feelings in a way that truly embodies the emotion. But, since we as a culture do not apply a definition of love that expects or states what actions are involved with having the feeling of love we are all doing the best we can making up that aspect of things as we go along.
I really like a different definition of love. In her book “All About Love: New Visions” bell hooks makes a compelling case for our need to define love more actively thereby taking some of the mystery and fantasy out of the most necessary emotion and act on the planet. She writes:
“I spent years searching for a meaningful definition of the word “love” and I was deeply relieved when I found one in psychiatrist M. Scott Peck’s classic self-help book ‘The Road Less Traveled,’ first published in 1978. Echoing the work of Erich Fromm, he defines love as ‘the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.’ Explaining further, he continues: ‘Love is as love does. Love is an act of will—namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.’ Since the choice must be made to nurture growth, this definition counters the more widely accepted assumption that we love instinctually.”
I like this definition because it is a definition that takes all the “I have no control over my feelings” punch out of the concept of love. People do not just fall in love with no will or intention or choice in the matter. There is no special chemical reaction that takes place between two people that equals love. That’s not to say that people do not have intense energetic, emotional, and perhaps chemical responses to each other, but that in and of itself is not love. Hell, in one of the worst, most emotionally devastating and unhealthy relationships I’ve ever been in we had consistent and profound experiences of that nature. But in retrospect I know for sure it was not love we were experiencing.
People certainly fall into feelings of affection for others and may find themselves inextricably and powerfully drawn to other human beings, but that is not the equivalent of loving them. To love someone you must act.
As such, bell hooks goes on to say:
“To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients—care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.”
If we enacted love as a composition of feelings of affection for someone plus the acts of caring for them, respecting them, trusting them, recognizing their wants and needs and their innate humanity, committing oneself to them and their spiritual growth, effectively communicating with them while all along not compromising our own spiritual growth, well then a grander experience we would all have living and loving. We would get more done. We would spend less time in pain. There would be far less abuse of any sort on the planet.
I subscribe to this more encompassing definition of love. That said, this is how I have come to the conclusion that I can love more than one person at a time, even if it includes a romantic or sexual connotation to that love. It is possible for me to have affection for and simultaneously care for, recognize, respect, commit to, trust, and communicate with more than one person. I’m not saying it isn’t challenging, because it is. I am not saying that I might not make mistakes in my process, because I do. I also willingly admit that the deeper and more time consuming any one of these commitments become the more challenging it is to meet the terms of the commitment to an other relationship or relationships. But it is possible. But it is only possible with an extremely effective and ever present dose of that honest and open communication.
bell hooks did not write “All About Love” as an endorsement of polyamory or non-monogamy or anything like that. She wrote it to help us culturally and personally figure out how to love one another more effectively so that we may all quit struggling and suffering under the false suppositions we have learned about love. I highly recommend this entire book to everyone, everywhere.
So, from Fromm to Peck to hooks to Justina to you much love in your living and much conscious choice and will and positive action in your loving. I am working so hard to assure it is all in mine.
p.s. Happy Birthday Mom. I dedicate this post to you.
I feel like that’s the kind of stuff I want to write about now. I wonder, who’s REALLY paying attention? If my kids’ dad is I might not feel could speak freely. As much as he’d hate for me to put him in the same category with Alan, I have to say if Mike, with whom I share an extremely complicated and non-traditional life partnership situation, were reading I’d be hesitant to speak my experiences openly, but for very different reasons. I trust I could say anything to my mom at this point and she would respect my choices and decisions. Since my adulthood she has developed a profoundly blind faith in me, which works for me. Thanks, Mom.
Today my friend told me she looked up polyamory after reading that that was something I might write more about. I felt slightly defensive, but only slightly really, because I feel so at peace with the reality that I love more than one person at a time. And just to qualify this, that doesn’t mean I am sleeping with more than one person at a time although I have in the past and may in the future. Right now it’s about the breathtaking expansion of my ability to love many while exploring the possibility of sharing my life with just one. Whether it makes sense to everyone or not I feel capable of loving in a very big way more than one person at a time. Or more than 2 people at a time. Right now I feel like I’m on the verge of loving more than 4 people simultaneously. Big, big love I’m talking about. Yes, romantic love, possibly the love of partnership.
I spend a lot time evaluating within myself whether or not this is actually true, whether it really is love that I feel for these different people. I fear it could be instead a desperate search for validation, some kind of dying to quench the incompleteness I feel out of a relationship, and that these needs are a result of some shortcoming of mine, the acting out of some neurosis born of childhood neglect or abuse. I feel really bold saying it so publicly like this. But I think I can be so bold with that theory because I am not afraid that that is what is going on. Just in case anyone was wondering, yeah, I’ve thought of it. Maybe the love I think is real isn’t.
However, I suspect that it is. For one thing, I don’t feel terribly incomplete being out of a relationship. I feel a little lonely and a little horny sometimes, but I have an outstanding community that reaches far and wide in which I feel well loved and appreciated and supported, and this meets the majority of my social needs. I do not feel that I am the desperate feminine yin side of the circle longing and craving for her masculine yang.
Also, it helps to have a definition of love with which to work. What is love? Oh, I’ve heard it sung in a thousand songs, seen it played in a thousand movies, and yet how do we as a culture actually define love? How do we personally? According to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, love, the noun, is “1. A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
or
2. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.”
Love is a feeling. That makes sense. Whereas, love, the verb, means
“1. To have a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward (a person).
or
2. To have a feeling of intense desire and attraction toward (a person).”
OK. That makes sense, too. Love as a verb is the state of having the feeling of love. And yet, I suspect we are selling ourselves short. There are an awful lot of people out there with these feelings they define as love who are abysmally poor at expressing, living, or acting these feelings in a way that truly embodies the emotion. But, since we as a culture do not apply a definition of love that expects or states what actions are involved with having the feeling of love we are all doing the best we can making up that aspect of things as we go along.
I really like a different definition of love. In her book “All About Love: New Visions” bell hooks makes a compelling case for our need to define love more actively thereby taking some of the mystery and fantasy out of the most necessary emotion and act on the planet. She writes:
“I spent years searching for a meaningful definition of the word “love” and I was deeply relieved when I found one in psychiatrist M. Scott Peck’s classic self-help book ‘The Road Less Traveled,’ first published in 1978. Echoing the work of Erich Fromm, he defines love as ‘the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.’ Explaining further, he continues: ‘Love is as love does. Love is an act of will—namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.’ Since the choice must be made to nurture growth, this definition counters the more widely accepted assumption that we love instinctually.”
I like this definition because it is a definition that takes all the “I have no control over my feelings” punch out of the concept of love. People do not just fall in love with no will or intention or choice in the matter. There is no special chemical reaction that takes place between two people that equals love. That’s not to say that people do not have intense energetic, emotional, and perhaps chemical responses to each other, but that in and of itself is not love. Hell, in one of the worst, most emotionally devastating and unhealthy relationships I’ve ever been in we had consistent and profound experiences of that nature. But in retrospect I know for sure it was not love we were experiencing.
People certainly fall into feelings of affection for others and may find themselves inextricably and powerfully drawn to other human beings, but that is not the equivalent of loving them. To love someone you must act.
As such, bell hooks goes on to say:
“To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients—care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.”
If we enacted love as a composition of feelings of affection for someone plus the acts of caring for them, respecting them, trusting them, recognizing their wants and needs and their innate humanity, committing oneself to them and their spiritual growth, effectively communicating with them while all along not compromising our own spiritual growth, well then a grander experience we would all have living and loving. We would get more done. We would spend less time in pain. There would be far less abuse of any sort on the planet.
I subscribe to this more encompassing definition of love. That said, this is how I have come to the conclusion that I can love more than one person at a time, even if it includes a romantic or sexual connotation to that love. It is possible for me to have affection for and simultaneously care for, recognize, respect, commit to, trust, and communicate with more than one person. I’m not saying it isn’t challenging, because it is. I am not saying that I might not make mistakes in my process, because I do. I also willingly admit that the deeper and more time consuming any one of these commitments become the more challenging it is to meet the terms of the commitment to an other relationship or relationships. But it is possible. But it is only possible with an extremely effective and ever present dose of that honest and open communication.
bell hooks did not write “All About Love” as an endorsement of polyamory or non-monogamy or anything like that. She wrote it to help us culturally and personally figure out how to love one another more effectively so that we may all quit struggling and suffering under the false suppositions we have learned about love. I highly recommend this entire book to everyone, everywhere.
So, from Fromm to Peck to hooks to Justina to you much love in your living and much conscious choice and will and positive action in your loving. I am working so hard to assure it is all in mine.
p.s. Happy Birthday Mom. I dedicate this post to you.
Saturday, November 19, 2005
what I really meant to say was...
My aim in writing publicly is not to brag about all the shows I've been to as my friend accused me of yesterday, but to use it as a tool for revolution. That's my goal in most of my endeavors, some of them more subtley connected to the movement than others. But I also like to have fun and write lists.
I've been reading and enjoying a book that in part prompted me to blog. The author has used the internet as an extremely effective communication and activism tool while participating in major global justice direct actions opposing meetings of the major financial puppeteers who are yanking the strings of every government, every policy that effects the well being of EVERY being on the planet. This book "Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising" (http://www.starhawk.org/writings/webspower.html) shares many such writings.
Starhawk, the author, is a witch and activist who had an incredibly formative impact on me in my teens when I read "Dreaming the Dark," amongst the first of her books. The book gave a name to my spiritual path and furthermore opened my eyes to the level of oppression women are still experiencing, even though at that point in my life I was quite convinced we all had much more pressing issues with which to contend than women's rights. The term "post-feminist" made sense to me then. Today I hold a B.A. in Women's Studies. It is the most compelling topic I've ever studied, and if you think there is no need for this sort of dissection of patriarchal culture, you are missing out on a valuable analysis on why the world is as troubled as it is today.
Oh, so much to say, so many choice topics!
So, "Webs of Power" is a very useful book if you already believe something is very wrong with our system and are aware that there is a burgeoning movement opposing "globalization," but you are not entirely sure what globalization means and who its instruments of implementation are and why people are losing their lives in the struggle against these entities and what the struggle really looks like from the inside. It will help to make it all more clear. It is a very engaging read that brings you into the essence of what the people on the streets in Seattle you may have seen on the news a few years back were doing and why. Plus it reinforces that those same people plus many thousands more are still involved in that same struggle and helps you to realize that probably you ought to get involved somehow, too.
Here is an excerpt that I immediately knew I wanted to share, a list of simple questions we could all ask ourselves (especially this time of year when the materialistic debacle that is our winter holiday season is upon us) that could be the first steps into recognizing just how we strum the strand of the web closest to us that results in someone else losing their already tenuous grasp on that strand that links them to all life.
"Are the people who produce the tools of my trade, my food, my clothing and luxuries paid a living wage? Are their health and safety protected? Are their children well educated? Can they afford to buy the products they produce? What is the true cost of this work, this product, this toy to the soil? The waters? The air? The complex and irreplaceable habitats of this earth? The health of our communities? Who pays that cost and in what coin? Money? Cancer? Extinction? Who profits?"
You could print this out if you want and take it shopping with you. You're invited.
(p.s. if there is anyone reading this who is more blogger savvy than I it would be great to get suggestions on things like inserting links and doing block quotes, 'cause frankly I'm using those features as I create and they just don't seem to be working...)
I've been reading and enjoying a book that in part prompted me to blog. The author has used the internet as an extremely effective communication and activism tool while participating in major global justice direct actions opposing meetings of the major financial puppeteers who are yanking the strings of every government, every policy that effects the well being of EVERY being on the planet. This book "Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising" (http://www.starhawk.org/writings/webspower.html) shares many such writings.
Starhawk, the author, is a witch and activist who had an incredibly formative impact on me in my teens when I read "Dreaming the Dark," amongst the first of her books. The book gave a name to my spiritual path and furthermore opened my eyes to the level of oppression women are still experiencing, even though at that point in my life I was quite convinced we all had much more pressing issues with which to contend than women's rights. The term "post-feminist" made sense to me then. Today I hold a B.A. in Women's Studies. It is the most compelling topic I've ever studied, and if you think there is no need for this sort of dissection of patriarchal culture, you are missing out on a valuable analysis on why the world is as troubled as it is today.
Oh, so much to say, so many choice topics!
So, "Webs of Power" is a very useful book if you already believe something is very wrong with our system and are aware that there is a burgeoning movement opposing "globalization," but you are not entirely sure what globalization means and who its instruments of implementation are and why people are losing their lives in the struggle against these entities and what the struggle really looks like from the inside. It will help to make it all more clear. It is a very engaging read that brings you into the essence of what the people on the streets in Seattle you may have seen on the news a few years back were doing and why. Plus it reinforces that those same people plus many thousands more are still involved in that same struggle and helps you to realize that probably you ought to get involved somehow, too.
Here is an excerpt that I immediately knew I wanted to share, a list of simple questions we could all ask ourselves (especially this time of year when the materialistic debacle that is our winter holiday season is upon us) that could be the first steps into recognizing just how we strum the strand of the web closest to us that results in someone else losing their already tenuous grasp on that strand that links them to all life.
"Are the people who produce the tools of my trade, my food, my clothing and luxuries paid a living wage? Are their health and safety protected? Are their children well educated? Can they afford to buy the products they produce? What is the true cost of this work, this product, this toy to the soil? The waters? The air? The complex and irreplaceable habitats of this earth? The health of our communities? Who pays that cost and in what coin? Money? Cancer? Extinction? Who profits?"
You could print this out if you want and take it shopping with you. You're invited.
(p.s. if there is anyone reading this who is more blogger savvy than I it would be great to get suggestions on things like inserting links and doing block quotes, 'cause frankly I'm using those features as I create and they just don't seem to be working...)
Thursday, November 17, 2005
list #1
I really like lists. I had a fabulous time last night at the Blackalicious show while this list rampaged through my brain. It made me feel pre-eminetly blessed for having had this wealth and diversity of musical experiences. The following is a list of all (that I can remember) the musical acts I've ever seen live, starting at the age of 8. I have an ambitious but incomplete collection of ticket stubs from many of these events that have helped me to remember. They are, however, in no particular order because I certainly can't account for them chronologically, but you may notice genre clusters (or you may not when the juxtaposition otherwise was far too surreal and enticing) as one act in a genre often spurred the memory of yet another as I went through this process of recollection.
Blackalicous (last night)
Digable Planets (Saturday night)
King Crimson
Adrian Belew
Drums 'N Tuba (my favorite band of my adult life)
Les Claypool
Les and Frog Brigade
Primus
Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains
Tortoise
Buckethead
Van Halen (Sammy Hagar led)
Ministry
INXS
Robert Plant
Pink Floyd
Olivia Newton-John (my 4th grade hero)
ZZ Top (first time I ever saw my mom smoke pot)
Neil Young
CSN
CSNY
The Grateful Dead (most number of shows...it was a thing, OK?)
Phish (only once)
Bob Weir and Rob Wasserman are Scaring the Children
Willie Nelson
Waylon Jennings
Kris Kristofferson
Ani Difranco (2nd only to the Grateful Dead)
Hole
Beastie Boys
Smashing Pumpkins
Rusted Root
Drive-By Truckers
Alejandro Escovedo
Steve Earle
Steve Earle and the Dukes
Anti-Flag
Public Enemy
Tribe 8
Fugazi
Metallica (a close 3rd to Ani Difranco)
Patti Smith (best show ever)
Bare Jr.
Unholy Trio
Dar Williams
Richard Thompson
Linda Thompson (but not together)
Fishbone
Jesus Lizard
Be Goood Tanyas
Hank Williams III
Assjack
Superjoint Ritual
Bruce Springsteen (Look, I don't care what anyone says, he actually IS the Boss)
(the next brief section of my list brought to you by a junior high school experience in the 80's)
Bon Jovi
Motley Crue
Aerosmith
Def Leppard
Genesis (worst show ever)
G. Love and Special Sauce
The Nields
Ben Harper
Lucinda Williams
Indigenous
Robert Mirabal
John Cougar Mellencamp
Rolling Stones
Paul Simon
Arlo Guthrie
Whitesnake
Living Colour
Ladysmith Black mambazo
Warren Haynes
Jonathan Richman
String Cheese Incident
North Mississippi All Stars
R.L. Burnside
T Model Ford
Nashville Pussy
Doc Watson
Saffire the Uppity Blues Women
Blue Rapture
Jason and the Scorchers
Sons of Ralph
The Cult
Asylum Street Spankers
Dan Bern
Jump Little Children
Scorpions
Tori Amos
me'shell ndegeocello
Chickasaw Mudpuppies
Guns 'N Roses
Danielle Howle
Greg Brown
Pearl Jam
Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Evens
REM
P. Funk All Stars
Sound Tribe Sector 9
GFE
Orchestra Morphine (never got to see Morphine before Mark died, though, sadly enough)
Goose Creek Symphony
Bob Dylan
Little Feat
Joan Osbourne
Naughty By Nature
Ghetto Boys
Arrested Development
Megadeth
Anthrax
Blues Traveler
Melissa Etheridge
Bonnie Raitt
Marsha Ball
Big Head Todd and the Monsters
Allman Brothers
Neville Brothers
Lyle Lovett
Laura Love
Blue Rags
Bitch and Animal
Bottle Rockets
Southern Culture on the Skids
Korn
Stain'd (tee-hee)
God Speed You Black Emperor
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Reverend Horton Heat
Sonic Youth
Corey Harris
The Wailers (never Bob Marley, though, dammit)
Taj Mahal
Billy Bragg
Night Watchman (Tom Morello)
Zap Mama
Beck
Social Distortion (at the Electric Banana in Pittsburgh!)
Can you believe I have never seen Jane's Addiction? Me neither.
Blackalicous (last night)
Digable Planets (Saturday night)
King Crimson
Adrian Belew
Drums 'N Tuba (my favorite band of my adult life)
Les Claypool
Les and Frog Brigade
Primus
Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains
Tortoise
Buckethead
Van Halen (Sammy Hagar led)
Ministry
INXS
Robert Plant
Pink Floyd
Olivia Newton-John (my 4th grade hero)
ZZ Top (first time I ever saw my mom smoke pot)
Neil Young
CSN
CSNY
The Grateful Dead (most number of shows...it was a thing, OK?)
Phish (only once)
Bob Weir and Rob Wasserman are Scaring the Children
Willie Nelson
Waylon Jennings
Kris Kristofferson
Ani Difranco (2nd only to the Grateful Dead)
Hole
Beastie Boys
Smashing Pumpkins
Rusted Root
Drive-By Truckers
Alejandro Escovedo
Steve Earle
Steve Earle and the Dukes
Anti-Flag
Public Enemy
Tribe 8
Fugazi
Metallica (a close 3rd to Ani Difranco)
Patti Smith (best show ever)
Bare Jr.
Unholy Trio
Dar Williams
Richard Thompson
Linda Thompson (but not together)
Fishbone
Jesus Lizard
Be Goood Tanyas
Hank Williams III
Assjack
Superjoint Ritual
Bruce Springsteen (Look, I don't care what anyone says, he actually IS the Boss)
(the next brief section of my list brought to you by a junior high school experience in the 80's)
Bon Jovi
Motley Crue
Aerosmith
Def Leppard
Genesis (worst show ever)
G. Love and Special Sauce
The Nields
Ben Harper
Lucinda Williams
Indigenous
Robert Mirabal
John Cougar Mellencamp
Rolling Stones
Paul Simon
Arlo Guthrie
Whitesnake
Living Colour
Ladysmith Black mambazo
Warren Haynes
Jonathan Richman
String Cheese Incident
North Mississippi All Stars
R.L. Burnside
T Model Ford
Nashville Pussy
Doc Watson
Saffire the Uppity Blues Women
Blue Rapture
Jason and the Scorchers
Sons of Ralph
The Cult
Asylum Street Spankers
Dan Bern
Jump Little Children
Scorpions
Tori Amos
me'shell ndegeocello
Chickasaw Mudpuppies
Guns 'N Roses
Danielle Howle
Greg Brown
Pearl Jam
Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Evens
REM
P. Funk All Stars
Sound Tribe Sector 9
GFE
Orchestra Morphine (never got to see Morphine before Mark died, though, sadly enough)
Goose Creek Symphony
Bob Dylan
Little Feat
Joan Osbourne
Naughty By Nature
Ghetto Boys
Arrested Development
Megadeth
Anthrax
Blues Traveler
Melissa Etheridge
Bonnie Raitt
Marsha Ball
Big Head Todd and the Monsters
Allman Brothers
Neville Brothers
Lyle Lovett
Laura Love
Blue Rags
Bitch and Animal
Bottle Rockets
Southern Culture on the Skids
Korn
Stain'd (tee-hee)
God Speed You Black Emperor
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Reverend Horton Heat
Sonic Youth
Corey Harris
The Wailers (never Bob Marley, though, dammit)
Taj Mahal
Billy Bragg
Night Watchman (Tom Morello)
Zap Mama
Beck
Social Distortion (at the Electric Banana in Pittsburgh!)
Can you believe I have never seen Jane's Addiction? Me neither.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
what's in a name?
I mentioned that I had thought about creating a blog for some time. I have to admit that one of the big things that kept me from doing it sooner was my inability to come up with a name for my blog. Yes, what I called my journal, the catchy moniker that would live at the top of my page and of which my own URL address would be composed eluded me, and so there would be no spur of the moment public postings of my own unique perspective until I came up with a name.
Buddhamama, obviously, was taken. Though I dispute my mother's claim to alpha bitch (I think once I began breeding I quickly assumed the alpha status in our family), I certainly didn't want to use my pack position in my blog title. I wanted it to be witty but unassuming. I had to fight very hard against intolerable, innate tendencies to make the title, like other things I write, overly long and descriptive, mired in the sacred feminine, and worst of all, HIPPIE-LIKE. No hippie title for my blog, I simply wasn't going to have it.
I wanted a play on words. I wanted to play with words. I love words. They're like ingredients. I can mix them up in all these different combinations to make endless permutations of tasty treats for our eyes and our ears and our psyches and our souls. I love to feed you, I love to feed me. I want my blog to taste good.
I really like alliteration, too. I tend to overuse it in my poetry. I was exploring alliterative phrases with my name. Justi's juxtaposition. Dorky. Justi's juxtaposition of what? Well, of words, of course. But, I really like that word juxtaposition. How about Justi's position? Same thing, Justi's position on what? Oh. Justi's position on anything. It's my blog. I'm sharing my position. I am positing my truth. This writing exercise is my effort to posit on anything I want. (D'you like that one, Russ? Get it, posit on? That was for you.)
So what? Who cares what I have to say? It's just a position. It could be anyone's or no one's. It's subjective. But it's not offensive that way because I acknowledge up front, it's just a position. Take it or leave it. I am not that attached to it. I certainly don't expect you to be.
With this juxtaposition of words I thee wed. With this juxtaposition of words I devastate thee for lifetimes. Nah. With this juxtaposition of words the little piggy says wee-wee-wee all the way home. Tasty treats. Sumptuous verbal snacks. Take a bite...
Just in case you were wondering, I promise that my blog is not always going to be about my blog. The novelty is already starting to wear off. Other topics will gain sovereignty soon. I feel their insurgencies rising in my breast.
Buddhamama, obviously, was taken. Though I dispute my mother's claim to alpha bitch (I think once I began breeding I quickly assumed the alpha status in our family), I certainly didn't want to use my pack position in my blog title. I wanted it to be witty but unassuming. I had to fight very hard against intolerable, innate tendencies to make the title, like other things I write, overly long and descriptive, mired in the sacred feminine, and worst of all, HIPPIE-LIKE. No hippie title for my blog, I simply wasn't going to have it.
I wanted a play on words. I wanted to play with words. I love words. They're like ingredients. I can mix them up in all these different combinations to make endless permutations of tasty treats for our eyes and our ears and our psyches and our souls. I love to feed you, I love to feed me. I want my blog to taste good.
I really like alliteration, too. I tend to overuse it in my poetry. I was exploring alliterative phrases with my name. Justi's juxtaposition. Dorky. Justi's juxtaposition of what? Well, of words, of course. But, I really like that word juxtaposition. How about Justi's position? Same thing, Justi's position on what? Oh. Justi's position on anything. It's my blog. I'm sharing my position. I am positing my truth. This writing exercise is my effort to posit on anything I want. (D'you like that one, Russ? Get it, posit on? That was for you.)
So what? Who cares what I have to say? It's just a position. It could be anyone's or no one's. It's subjective. But it's not offensive that way because I acknowledge up front, it's just a position. Take it or leave it. I am not that attached to it. I certainly don't expect you to be.
With this juxtaposition of words I thee wed. With this juxtaposition of words I devastate thee for lifetimes. Nah. With this juxtaposition of words the little piggy says wee-wee-wee all the way home. Tasty treats. Sumptuous verbal snacks. Take a bite...
Just in case you were wondering, I promise that my blog is not always going to be about my blog. The novelty is already starting to wear off. Other topics will gain sovereignty soon. I feel their insurgencies rising in my breast.
open up and say "ahh"
I have been considering the possibility of composing my own blog for sometime, but not forever. When I first learned of blogging it was through my sons’ father, my ex, who had just started his first, short-lived attempt at keeping a live journal. “Hmm, how arrogant,” I thought, “How completely self-indulgent to think anyone else in the world cares enough to read what you would write in your journal.” And in fact, I probably did more than just think it. Most likely I said it aloud, to him, ‘cause, well, that’s what I do: say things aloud. Loudly, oftentimes. So, Alan, I offer my very public apologies here for all the world to see. I was clearly mistaken.
But I do not retract my original theory on blogging being a self-aggrandizing act born of hubris because I finally decided I wanted to blog, too. My reframing of my opinion of blogs is the result of my exploration of other people’s blogs over the last few years and discovering that this can be an amazing tool. For one thing, committing to writing for public consumption on a regular basis is an excellent practice for any writer to keep, especially one like myself who is usually too busy, too overwhelmed, and too exhausted from the rest of my responsibilities to find free time to write, and yet I need to do so. Furthermore, there are a lot of great people saying things that ought to be said out there. There are also a lot of regular folks who are saying something compelling simply because they have a unique or insightful perspective due to their location, their experience, their particular slant.
I’d like to give you some links to blogs I have enjoyed, or from which I have learned.
First, my sister’s blog – with all due credit, I have to say her blog is ultimately the one that has propelled me the most into writing my own. Thanks, Mimi.
http://runforyourlife.blogs.friendster.com/blog
And my mom has a blog, too. I’m proud of her for putting it out there even if I heartily disagree with her flagrant disrespect for spelling properly. Keep on writing, Ma.
http://snavebed.blogs.friendster.com/the_alpha_bitch_collage
The following links are for blogs less personal to me, but such necessary voices, so well spoken, educating or saying things that have got to be said by someone, somewhere.
Baghdad Burning:
Girl Blog from Iraq... let's talk war, politics and occupation.
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com
Herpes Nation:
Thoughts and Meditations on Holistic Treatment for Herpes
http://herpesnation.blogspot.com
And I assure you there are more, but I don’t want to send you to too many other places on my maiden blog writing venture. There will be more links in time.
So, what might you expect from my blog? Right now I feel really inspired by that lovely, old, feminist adage “The personal is political,” ‘cause I’m feeling mighty political these days, but I really like to keep it personal, keep it real. What is the point of putting my perspective out there if it isn’t MY perspective?
Expect to read about love and mothering, activism and earth caring, dancing like a dervish and poetry reading, food and sex, asthma and addiction, herbs and the moon, mind expansion and fear and frustration, polyamory, homeschooling, community and communication, and be prepared for anything.
Tonight’s composition was accompanied by an elderberry and olive leaf infusion.
But I do not retract my original theory on blogging being a self-aggrandizing act born of hubris because I finally decided I wanted to blog, too. My reframing of my opinion of blogs is the result of my exploration of other people’s blogs over the last few years and discovering that this can be an amazing tool. For one thing, committing to writing for public consumption on a regular basis is an excellent practice for any writer to keep, especially one like myself who is usually too busy, too overwhelmed, and too exhausted from the rest of my responsibilities to find free time to write, and yet I need to do so. Furthermore, there are a lot of great people saying things that ought to be said out there. There are also a lot of regular folks who are saying something compelling simply because they have a unique or insightful perspective due to their location, their experience, their particular slant.
I’d like to give you some links to blogs I have enjoyed, or from which I have learned.
First, my sister’s blog – with all due credit, I have to say her blog is ultimately the one that has propelled me the most into writing my own. Thanks, Mimi.
http://runforyourlife.blogs.friendster.com/blog
And my mom has a blog, too. I’m proud of her for putting it out there even if I heartily disagree with her flagrant disrespect for spelling properly. Keep on writing, Ma.
http://snavebed.blogs.friendster.com/the_alpha_bitch_collage
The following links are for blogs less personal to me, but such necessary voices, so well spoken, educating or saying things that have got to be said by someone, somewhere.
Baghdad Burning:
Girl Blog from Iraq... let's talk war, politics and occupation.
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com
Herpes Nation:
Thoughts and Meditations on Holistic Treatment for Herpes
http://herpesnation.blogspot.com
And I assure you there are more, but I don’t want to send you to too many other places on my maiden blog writing venture. There will be more links in time.
So, what might you expect from my blog? Right now I feel really inspired by that lovely, old, feminist adage “The personal is political,” ‘cause I’m feeling mighty political these days, but I really like to keep it personal, keep it real. What is the point of putting my perspective out there if it isn’t MY perspective?
Expect to read about love and mothering, activism and earth caring, dancing like a dervish and poetry reading, food and sex, asthma and addiction, herbs and the moon, mind expansion and fear and frustration, polyamory, homeschooling, community and communication, and be prepared for anything.
Tonight’s composition was accompanied by an elderberry and olive leaf infusion.
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