my sentiments exactly

"Have you ever felt like a mountain was a goddess? Really felt it? Stood at the lip of a wide valley and looked up at the thousands of feet of rock pressing into the stars and felt deep down in your bones that this was a divine being? And have you ever had to wonder, because of a label a nasty old man in a labcoat once gave you, if you only felt this because you were exhibiting symptoms? If you would even be finding yourself in the middle of the desert at all if you didn't have some disorder that made a desperate need to leave the city walls and quit your job and take off for an unpeopled expanse of dirt seem reasonable? Have you ever wondered if you would probably be in that city working behind walls if you agreed to swallow a bunch of pills? Have you ever wondered why other people aren't making pilgrimages to those mountains and feeling their holiness and understanding that buying stuff has nothing to do with happiness? Have you ever wondered if things would change in this big dying world if more people did that? Have you ever felt a desperate, burning need to share the message, to call it out in song or write it out in words or act it out with your own naked body? Have you ever wondered why this is ok for some people and pathological for others?"
Jacks Ashley

an idea

Break the spell of culture
Analyze the dream, synthesize your self
Rip it to pieces; sew yourself together in the wake of the madness
In the debris of the alley way
Call forth the unconditional love and see what happens

Psychiatry/ Healing Arts/ Spiritual work

"If madness isn’t what biopsychiatry says it is, what is it? If we don’t agree with what biopsychiatry says, then we probably don’t agree with the treatment practices. For us to have some kind of intelligible answer to a first-year psychiatry intern who can tell you: it’s a brain disorder and every minute that it’s not being medicated, there’s irreparable damage being done. The people who fund the research are the big phama companies that psychiatry represents. A psychiatrist now can see 30-40 clients a day. Psychiatry says: this group of Icarus folks can sing Kumbaya all you want, but we own it. I don’t believe that."
(not sure of author)

Comment:

The fast paced nature of the modern American lifestyle leaves little time or space for introspection and self reflection. If a young person is given a diagnosis, he or she has little recourse but to believe in the diagnosis and trust the authority figures that tell him or her that their brains are poorly wired for life. This cannot continue at the rate it has been going without serious inquiry into origins of behavioral disturbances. There are too many factors other than brain chemistry to make simple conclusions. Since the 1990s there is a grave tendency to pathologize the actions of children and young adults who do not seem to conform to the rhythms and expectations of their schools, jobs and homes. They may be wired differently from other students but is this acting out a result of bad brain wiring, a learning disability or emotions that have not been processed, and energy that needs a focused outlet? These are just a few suggestions of what the behavior could stem from. The hyper active child might be "hyper intelligent" both in regard to emotions and other areas of life they are perceiving. The withdrawn, sullen child might be repressing feelings from a time he or she wishes to forget, or repressing a disturbing reality inside resulting from a highly active imagination stimulated by the toxic environment we all currently live in. With children all over the world being exposed to higher levels of toxins in their food year after year, and poisonous cultural messages that create the climate for suicidal feelings, how can we expect complacent, "good" behavior from them?




to be continued...

Food Justice

The way people choose to feed themselves and the way they choose to medicate themselves are issues of grave concern within families, and in our society at large. It is a matter of street drugs versus pharmaceuticals, or organic chicken and beef versus meat that turns up in local supermarkets. We live in a melting pot culture, where we reflect values we have picked up from mainstream media, social media and families. Some of these values are in conflict with each other, they do not work in harmony with each other at all.

to be continued...