"This above all -
to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."''''''''''''''

-Shakespeare, Hamlet I.iii

Whores

"The measure of respect Whores receive is in direct proportion to the measure of respect all women receive. Until there is an established, respected place for Whores in this society, no woman will have an established, respected foundation of power. (92)

- Cunt: a declaration of independence by Inga muscio

Nano

Today would have been the 94th birthday of my grandma. Thinking of you Nano.

Irish Blessing

I sang this with a group at church on Sunday and it was a beautiful blessing.

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be ever at your back.
May the sun shine on your face
And rains fall, softly, on your fields.

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be ever at your back.
And 'til we meet again,
May God always hold you, hold you,
in the Palm of His hand.

Hold you, Hold you, In the Palm of Her hand.

‎"A single thread in the tapestry, though it's color brightly shines,
Can never see it's purpose in the pattern of the grand design.
And the stone that sits on the very top of the mountain's mighty face
Doesnt think it's more important than the stones that form the base"

Time

"They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."

-Andy Warhol

Light from Within

"People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within."

-Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

"If women stopped despising themselves, the world would turn upside down."

- Katherine Burdekin, Proud Man 1934

"However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Keep your thoughts."

-Henry David Thoreau

Desire

‎"The word desire suggests that there is something we do not have. If we have everything already, then there can be no desire, for there is nothing left to want. I think that what the Buddha may have been trying to tell us is that we have it all, each of us, all the time; therefore, desire is simply unnecessary."

~Tom R...

New Baby

I woke up this morning to my kids bringing me breakfast in bed. They have been so sweet and thoughtful lately.

I have been rather sad. Between my grandma holding on to her last bit of life, and feeling like my life is too tired to start something up again.

I saw some pictures on my Facebook page that gave me some hope. A friend of mine that I have known for over 20 years had a baby with his wife. This is not so significant in and of itself. But I know what they went through to get there. Both went through very, very difficult divorces. And he in particular had some other major trials as well. New babies always bring new life, whether they are yours or not. I am very happy for both of them. They really deserve the happiness they found.

I have been feeling like I really don't want to meet anyone and start over with someone again. I don't want to go through that phase of getting to know someone. I don't have time for that with my kids. I can't take the risk that they won't be the right person. I can't fail my kids.

Perhaps that day will come when I change my mind. For now, I have enough to take care of with my kids. And I need to find a job soon.

This morning will be spent with my grandma. It is bittersweet because I know it may be the last. My uncle shaved her head and my aunt will be here soon from Texas. She called my mom the other day and asked her to come help her. This is so unlike my grandmother that it almost makes me want to cry by itself.

My mom keeps saying she's not ready to go. Life is so cruel sometimes. You don't get to pick your time. It seems too young and too unfair to me too. But for now, I will just try to enjoy this day.

Integrity

"Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn`t blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won`t cheat, then you know he never will."

-John D. MacDonald

A Men's Movement I could trust

We dream of a world full of men
who could be passionate lovers,
grounded in their own bodies,
capable of profound loves and deep sorrows,
strong allies of women,
sensitive nurturers,
fearless defenders of all people's liberation,
unbound by stifling convention yet respectful of their own and others boundaries,
serious without being humourless,
stable without being dull,
disciplined without being rigid,
sweet without being spineless,
proud without being insufferably egotistical,
fierce without being violent,
wild without being, well, assholes.



- Starhawk From her essay 'A Men's Movement I could trust'

Oysters

My other grandma is quickly deteriorating. She has had major shoulder pain for months and no one could figure out why. It seems the cancer has eaten through her shoulder bone and so it is essentially broken.

I haven't had the same time with her that I did with my other grandma and that is going to be hard for me. But she's a different person and she doesn't want everyone around fussing over her.

I am hoping to be able to spend Monday morning with her while my kids are at camp. Strangely, the questions I have are mostly about food. She is the one person I could always call when I was stuck on a meal and she always knew just what the answer was.

I went to call her the other day but stopped myself. I realized it was 7pm and she would be asleep already. It hit me that soon I won't be able to call her for anything.

Neither of us really like talking on the phone, but food was our one constant.

I really am wanting to learn how to prepare raw oysters. It seems like such a strange thing, but that's the last thing I want to ask her about.

Never Gamble

"You always gambled when you could bet on yourself. Never bet on anything that can talk, your father said and you said, Except yourself."

- Ernest Hemingway, The Garden of Eden

The Girl Who Silenced the World for 5 Minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQmz6Rbpnu0

All I Ever Have To Be

When the weight of all my dreams
Is resting heavy on my head
And the thoughtful words of help and hope
Have all been nicely said
But I'm still hurting, wondering if I'll ever be the one
I think I am - I think I am

Then you gently re-remind me
That You've made me from the first
And the more I try to be the best
The more I get the worst
And I realize the good in me is only there because of who You are
Who You are...

And all I ever have to be is what You've made me
Any more or less would be a step out of Your plan
As you daily recreate me help me always keep in mind
That I only have to do what I can find
And all I ever have to be
All I have to be
All I ever have to be is what You've made me

-Amy Grant

Love

"To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel the affection that comes from those whom we do not know, from those unknown to us, who are watching over our sleep and solitude, over our dangers and our weaknesses - that is something still greater and more beautiful because it widens out the boundaries of our being, and unites all living things."

- Pablo Neruda, Childhood and Poetry

After A While

After a while you learn
the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul

and you learn
that love doesn't mean leaning
and company doesn't always mean security.

And you begin to learn
that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises

and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead
with the grace of woman, not the grief of a child

and you learn
to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is
too uncertain for plans
and futures have a way of falling down
in mid-flight.

After a while you learn
that even sunshine burns
if you get too much

so you plant your own garden
and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure
you really are strong
you really do have worth
and you learn
and you learn
with every goodbye, you learn...

"Most of us have such a strong tendency to judge and criticize that we can't easily break the habit. However, it's the most important issue to work on immediately. We'll never be able to really love ourselves until we go beyond the need to make life wrong."

- Louise L. Hay

We were told we were fighting Terrorists

US war veteran: We were told we were fighting terrorists, but the real terrorist was me and the real terrorism is this occupation

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/199474-US-war-veteran-We-were-told-we-were-fighting-terrorists-but-the-real-terrorist-was-me-and-the-real-terrorism-is-this-occupation

Wild Women Don't Get the Blues

I hear these women raving 'bout their monkey men
About their trifling husbands and their no good friends
These poor women sit around all day and moan
Wondering why their wandering papa's don't come home
But wild women don't worry, wild women don't have no blues

Now when you've got a man, don't never be on the square
'Cause if you do he'll have a woman everywhere
I never was known to treat no one man right
I keep 'em working hard both day and night
'Cause wild women don't worry, wild women don't have their blues

I've got a disposition and a way of my own
When my man starts kicking I let him find another home
I get full of good liquor, walk the streets all night
Go home and put my man out if he don't act right
Wild women don't worry, wild women don't have their blues

You never get nothing by being an angel child
You better change your ways and get real wild
I wanna tell you something, I wouldn't tell you a lie
Wild women are the only kind that really get by
'Cause wild women don't worry, wild women don't have their blues

by Ida Cox
recording of July 1924

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2-qXzEl8ig

Food is Never Just Food

"When I walk
into my kitchen today,
I am not alone,
Whether we know it
or not, none of us is.
We bring fathers
and mothers and kitchen
tables, and every meal
we have ever eaten.
Food is never just food.
It's also a way of
getting at something else:
who we are, who
we have been, and
who we want to be."

-Molly Wizenberg, A Homemade Life

Space

"When we say we need safe spaces we are not asking for extra rights, we are simply asking to live for a moment free of hostility in the company of people who support and encourage our humanity."

El Jones

‎"You're an original, an individual, a masterpiece. Celebrate that; don't let your uniqueness make you shy. Don't be someone other than the wonder you are. Every star is important to the sky."

- Douglas Pagels

A Sensible Life

In the beginning
there was a meanness and it spread.

Perhaps I absorbed it, so that whatever I saw
was filtered through the meanness.

I don't mean "stingy," stinginess,
as do British novelists, by the way.

Although a lacking generosity-
the ability to will that there be

someone Other than Oneself was certainly
a kind of cause.

In the beginning, then,
it was willed that I not be.

This shamed me, however good
an act I learned to put on.

And now it is fifty years later.
I have a profound interest in freedom, I notice,

and an urgent sense of little time.
Little time. Near Little Gidding.

I ween ken reckon have on
the British women novelists that I have loved.

I have to mean their novels, of course.
"Queen of the Tambourine." "The Vacillations of Poppy Carew."

"Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit."
Behold, how the outcast makes good.

"Time" is a word. "Love" is a word.
Between them are words and between them

and entrace. I pray to be
entranced, starting right now again I do.

I am old enough to understand
being willing

to go on is a great gift.

- Liz Waldner

Patience

"One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life."

-Chinese Proverb

89 Years of Body-Memories

"My body is my authentic femaleness. It is me. I stand in the body of myself. Through life’s ordinary passages—marriage, birthing, holding on and letting go, welcoming and releasing, breathing in and breathing out—I learn to trust my body’s voice and listen, and how to forgive myself when I don’t. I grow in love with my body through dance and yoga."

-Barbara Lyon

Life is Right

Knowing love, I will allow all things to come and go.

To be as supple as the wind and take everything that comes with great courage.

As Reza would say to me, "Life is right in any case."

My heart is as open as the sky.

- Maya, Kama Sutra, a tale of love

The Verbally Abusive Relationship

"A child's name calling ("You poo poo!") and an adult's name calling ("You bitch!") both originate witin the same level of emotional development. The child hasn't had time to mature, so we are not disturbed by his name calling. The adult who is still name calling not only is disturbing but also be dangerous." (137)

"Now, let us look at the origins of the abuser's behavior. The typical abuser also grew up in Reality 1, where Power Over and dominance prevailed, and hence so did verbal abuse. Also, as with the case of the partner, many of his feelings were neither validated nor accepted. However, unlike the partner, he had no compassionate witness to his experience. Without a compassionate witness, he could conclude only that nothing was wrong. If nothing was wrong at all, then all his painful feelings must not exist. Automatically he stopped feeling his painful feelings. He closed them off from awareness as one would close a door. And he did not know what he suffered. In this way he closed the door on a part of himself." (171)

"Without the knowledge of his feelings - of what he had suffered - he could not experience empathy and compassion and so could not cross the threshold into Reality II. This Reality was now behind closed doors.

Since the abuser feels justified in his behavior and seems to have no comprehension of its effects, we can only assume that he is acting out his repressed feelings and is, therefore, acting compulsively. Abusers seek Power Over because they feel helpless. The helpless, painful feelings of childhood that "must not exist" and "must not be felt" do exist and, if not felt, are acted out.

A long time ago in the abuser's childhood, he closed the door on these feelings. To survive in childhood he could do no less. His feeling self, nonetheless, lived on behind closed doors.

The longer the child within is unrecognized, the more enraged it becomes, and consequently, the more rage the abuser acts out. Alice Miller tells us

'As long as this child within us is not allowed to become aware of what happened to him or her, part of his or her emotional life will remain frozen, and sensitivity to the humiliations of childhood will therefore be dulled. All appeals to love, solidarity, and compassion will be useless if this crucial prerequisite of sympathy and understanding is missing.' (Alice Miller, For your Own Good, 1983, p xv.)

Appeals to the abuser's compassion are fruitless, because the abuser is not empathetic." (172)

"The confirmed abuser can define himself and the interpersonal reality so convincingly that the partner may accept his definitions. Such acceptance and trust increase her confusion...to most people, he's Mr. Nice Guy."...The abuser's loss of his feeling self and consequent feelings of powerlessness usually compel him to increasing self-aggrandizement and correspondingly greater disparagement of his partner. However, he cannot, by abuse, bring his stifled feeling self to life. Since he mistakes excitement for aliveness and triumph for strength, he remains in constant need of bolstering his ideal image. Usually, verbal abusers who become physically abusive do not see themselves as abusive, even when they are arrested. The abuser's denial arises out of the conflict between who he thinks he is and his compulsion to act abusively. The denial is a defense against the shattering of his ideal image and an impending identity crisis. His very identity would be at stake if he were to admit to what he was doing. This is why verbal abusers do not sincerely apologize." (174)

"As time passes, the typical abuser is more and more unwilling to face himself and the pain of his feelings. When they do surface, their source, to him, is his partner. This is projection. Through this projection, he will accuse his partner of all that he does, and blame her for all the abuse that she suffers. She then becomes as he once was, wounded and without a witness to her wounding." (175)


- Patricia Evans, The Verbally Abusive Relationship

No Need

No need to hurry.
No need to sparkle.
No need to be
anybody
but oneself.

- Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

I Will NOT

"I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance."

- bell hooks

Whores

I had a thought today. I started the blog under a pen name so it would be anonymous, protect my privacy - mostly from my ex-husband - and his and his father's anonymity. But since my ex is reading the blog, and it no longer seems to be anonymous by any means, I am thinking that I should just use my real name.

I have nothing to be ashamed of. Why not?

I received another 100 text messages from my ex-husband today. Most of them consisting of calling me a "tramp" and a "whore", or something along those lines.

I decided to look back at one of my favorite, empowering books: Cunt.

I spent most of my life living as a "good girl." I did all the things I was supposed to do. This did not protect me from being called a cunt, bitch, whore, tramp or whatever else when I was not doing whatever a certain man in my life thought I should be doing.

I am really intrigued by the idea of language and how we use our words to control people. This book was one of the more enlightening books I have ever read.

Cunt: a declaration of independence by Inga muscio


"Whoredom is a massive part of our history and power as women. When fully instructed in the art of sacred sexual power, Whores are the people who can teach us all the stuff we grow up not learning about sexuality, our bodies and our innate sexual power. Our cultural ignorance and intolerance of Whores keeps Whores from realizing the full potential of Whoredom. It likewise robs women and men of Teachers who can help us understand women's sexual power." (78)

"Whores were a central part of religion, spirituality and everyday life in times when the Goddess- a truly sexual being- was overtly worshiped. It took a lot of work, study, devotion and commitment to become one of the Goddess's sexual priestesses. People were free to visit the temple of Whores, and did so to learn, to love, to open up physically, to heal." (78)

"Mary Magdalene was a Whore and Jesus dug her because she taught him the most sacred thing a man can ever hope to learn in his lifetime: how to fuck. Stud that he was, Jesus knew how to humble himself to this woman. In Jesus' time, Whores were still prophets of sexual power. They taught people how the physical body is a conduit of energy. If Jesus was able to manifest the love in his heart in all the physical actions the bible alleges, Mary Magdalene was certainly one of the people in his life responsible for helping him figure out how to do it." (81-82)

"The measure of respect Whores receive is in direct proportion to the measure of respect all women receive. Until there is an established, respected place for Whores in this society, no woman will have an established, respected foundation of power.

Until there is a shift in consciousness about the potential of Whores, we will continue to live in a society which offers no formally acknowledge Teachers to awaken us to our power as sexual beings." (92)

Again,

"The measure of respect Whores receive is in direct proportion to the measure of respect all women receive. Until there is an established, respected place for Whores in this society, no woman will have an established, respected foundation of power.

Marriage

"I didn't marry her family.'

'Of course not. But you always do. Dead or alive."

- Ernest Hemingway, The Garden of Eden

We are Inevitable

This poem is dedicated
to all women who have ever been silenced.
to Phyllis who has discovered her voice
to Alan surviving the canons of scholarship
and to Susan Griffin for her inspiration

It begins with a quote from a review:
...young ellen bass read a very long,
uncropped, unimaginative, rough draft which
she tried to pass off as a poem, shame on you,
ellen!...
-hugo sloane

I will not be ashamed.
You can call up all your attitudes, but
I will not be ashamed.

In the name of all the women who stopped writing
when their teachers told them they weren't
doing it right
In the name of all women who stopped writing
when their psychiatrists told them they weren't
doing it right
In the name of all the women who stopped writing
when their husbands told them they weren't
doing it right
In the name of all the women who hide their
journals in drawers of ironed blouses rather
than be told they aren't doing it right
In the name of all the women who are washing
dishes or typing reports, pouring coffee or
ringing up sales in K-Mart
because they were told too many times
they weren't doing it right, they should be
ashamed
they should be ashamed to speak
they should be ashamed to think that anything
they had to say was worth anything, might be
worth something to somebody
they should be ashamed, in fact, to think that
they were worth anything

In the name of women who were told, "you write
like a woman"
In the woman who were told, "you write
like a man"
In the name of women who were told, "this is not a
fit subject, not great art"-
Oh women, begins with men raping 12
year old girls and stealing them from each other
The Iliad begins with men stealing each other's
girls
Remember this
Remember this when they tell you your days aren't
lofty enough, are too personal, not universal
Remember this when they tell you you're
sensitive, but not a poet
You're honest, but it's not literature
your themes are too narrow, your style is too
loose
you're too young, you're too old
too pretentious, too meek

My sisters, in the name of all the women who've
come before
the ones who fought and the ones who gave up
the ones who hid and the ones who flaunted
the ones who were ridiculed and the ones who
were ignored
the ones who snuck and lied to learn to read and
write
the ones who pretended they were making
grocery lists or writing thank you notes
the ones who gave up school for their brothers'
education
the ones who left to nurse their babies
the ones who left to work in cigar factories
the ones who killed themselves
the ones who were murdered
and the exceptions

In the name of all women
with the chant of all the silenced women
I say No.

I will not be ashamed.
I call myself poet.
If I don't fit your definition of what that word
should mean
then change the definition
cause it's too late to change me.

Call my work anecdotal, minor, unpolished, uncut,
childish, immature, thin, boring, interminable,
meaningless, written of the top, trivial,
domestic, or anything else
but there are millions of women, just like me,
writing from the everyday truth of their lives,
telling the stories of half the human race
and you can't stop us with your bullying, your
mockery, your money, your newspapers, your
publishing houses, your cheap condescension
you can't stop us with your insults or absolutions,
your laws or expectations, your foundation
grants, governments, or guns.
And though you slowed us down for so many
years that gut aches when I hear a woman
sing out for her sisters-Meg Christian singing
to her lover, and me standing in my living room
just bawling that a woman is singing to her
lover on my stereo, finally, finally, finally-

Man, we've got this far
and I laugh if you still think your dumb review are
gonna stop us now.

We are inevitable.

- Ellen Bass

Counseling

I have decided to go and get some counseling - both individually and with my ex.

I had gone on a small dose of antidepressants several months back, but decided they weren't for me. I've always sort of had a bias against them and it went against my own principles to even take them in the first place.

Life can be hard, but you have to work through those issues on your own. Anti-depressants just stop all the feeling, and that is not natural. I fear our society puts people on pills too quickly and many people end up staying on them forever. I don't feel confident about the long-term effects of these drugs, nor do I trust the pharmaceutical companies. I want to live as naturally as possible.

I have many friends who are on anti-depressants, and I respect their choice. Sometimes they are very necessary. For me, though, I don't think they are right.

In any case, I have been thing about seeing someone for a while now. I haven't wanted to start over with someone, as my counselor passed away many months back. But there are a few things I know I need to work through.

For one, I know I have been hardened by the last 8 years. I have learned to stick up for myself, but I tend to go too far in the other direction now. It seems like the only thing that worked with my ex was for me to get very worked up and scream and yell. This is not for me. This is not how I want to deal with people. It doesn't serve me.

My ex has been asking me to go with him on the premise that we are going to have to learn how to deal with each other because of the kids. I have mixed feelings about this. I don't feel like there is so much unresolved issues between us as that he continually does the same things he promises not to do. To me, when someone is sorry, they stop what they are doing. I have given up on him changing as a person. Perhaps the counseling will just help me to deal with him better as he is.

You Should Not Grieve

Our bodies are known to end,
but the embodied self is enduring,
indestructible, and immeasurable;

He who thinks this self a killer
and he who thinks it killed,
both fail to understand;
it does not kill, nor is it killed.

It is not born,
it does not die;
having been,
it will never not be;
unborn,
enduring,
constant, and primordial,
it is not killed when the body is killed.

Arjuna, when a man knows the self
to be indestructible, enduring, unborn,
unchanging, how does he kill
or cause anyone to kill?

As a man discards
worn-out clothes
to put on new
and different ones,
so the embodied self
discards
its worn-out bodies
to take on the new ones.

Weapons do not cut it,
fire does not burn it,
waters do not wet it,
wind does not wither it.

It cannot be cut or burned;
it cannot be wet or withered;
it is enduring, all pervasive,
fixed, immovable, and timeless.

It is called unmanifest,
inconceivable, and immutable;
since you know that to be so,
you should not grieve!

The Bhagavad-Gita, The Second Teaching, 18-25

Family Reunion

We had our family reunion yesterday for my mom's side of the family.

It was so hard for me to go knowing this would likely be the last year for both my grandma and my great grandma.

My great grandmother latched on to me each time I hugged her with forceful squeezes. She has never been much of a hugger, so I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. It is difficult for her to hear much of anything anymore, so it's hard to carry on a conversation that doesn't consist of me yelling and her saying, "What? What?" to everything directed at her. The most content she seemed all afternoon was when my cousins' 2 year old sat on her lap and played with her necklaces. No conversation was needed. She sat there and smiled at her and the girl smiled back.

For the most part, it was just nice to sit by her side and know she was still there.

My grandmother's cancer has spread everywhere now. It's in her brain and she has an enormous tumor sticking out of her collar bone that is difficult to even look at. She gave in and started some radiation a few weeks ago, as it was the only way to prolong the inevitable. She started to lose her hair yesterday, which was very difficult for her to accept. She has always been a beautiful and well-kept woman. She told me she was going to go out and get a "damned sexy" wig with real hair.

She is keeping a good humor about it all. She does not complain and she hates for anyone to feel sorry for her. She told me she was lucky. The bulging tumor could have been on her face or somewhere that was even more obvious.

It is so difficult for me to watch a woman who has always been in motion, who raised 5 children and many grandchildren, slow down. She was exhausted yesterday, but she wanted to do this picnic for our family, as we have done every year. I am so grateful that she has her boyfriend there and my uncle to take care of her every need. They both adore her.

I didn't see my grandmother's boyfriend until about half way through the party. He was busy taking care of everything so my grandmother wouldn't have to. I asked him how he was doing, and he buckled up and said he was holding in there. I looked him in the eye and told him, "Thank you for taking such good care of my grandma." He started to choke up and nearly lost it. We embraced for a very long time.

They have been together for at least 10-15 years. It took a long time for me to accept him because no one is ever going to be my grandpa. However, over the years, I have come to love him and appreciate how much he loves my grandmother. My kids consider him their grandpa. He's what they have known and he's good to them. He's been good to all of us.

I seem to be breaking up over this grandmother more than the death of the other. I suppose I thought her death was natural and her time had come. But I don't feel that way here. It seems her life has been cut so short, and so unfairly. It is a hard thing for me to accept, but I know I will have to soon.

For now, I am just grateful to have the family that I have. I am trying to appreciate the time that I have had with my gradmother and her mother - and spend as much time with them as possible before it is too late.

Not Going to Stop

I have been thinking a lot about stopping the blog - at least writing anything personal. I am very tired of having my words used against me.

I have gone back and forth and have been writing less and less. However, ultimately, this was meant to be an outlet for me, and it was a good one.

I decided I am not going to stop and I am not going to censor myself.

If someone has a problem with what I write, it is their problem. I am free to have my own feelings about things.

This blog started anonymously and was not meant to be read by my ex-husband or other people who might use it to manipulate me. It was a blog meant to help other people who were in a similar experience to mine, who felt like they were living in hell, and wanted to get out.