Friday, March 27, 2015
Thursday, March 26, 2015
response to post about weak submissive woman
I imagine you carry with you the same vehemence you express in your post as on the day we did actually meet, about this "type" of woman. I imagine that every woman who falls into your category of weak and or submissive is the container of a huge array of reasons, logic, emotion, maybe chaotic forces, contradictions and so on. With all this going on inside her, she may well reason to herself that she hates this man, this symbol of her pain. And she may very well see him as an extension of herself, the part of her that hates, that destroys, that seeks to harm. I argue that every one of us has that shadow in us.
What distinguishes us from each other, and from her the "weak" woman as you call her, is our ability to manage the Shadow. There is discipline needed to conquer the urge to do harm, even slight harm, knocking over a drink in a club just to be mean, to great harm, raping or stabbing or threatening actual violence and acting on it, a bigger example is sending innocent men and women to wars that maintain an elitist repressive power structure. We are not her and we are not "weak" or "submissive" because for the grace of whatever mercy surrounding or within us we have been able to stop ourselves from being that which we are taught from infancy, pre- school to hate and to mock, weakness in ourselves, weakness in each other and weakness represented by that which we are taught is woman herself, the essence of being feminine.
So, all that said, I assert it is not truly the weak submissive woman you see in the movie or among your friends that you HATE, it is the part of you that fears being controlled, fears losing control, fears Becoming Her, for some part of her is you. Some part of every being we ever encounter, most especially those who evoke strong reactions, such as this sort of archetype does for you, is a part of the vast and multi dimensional self that makes up humanity, including the painfully enormous Shadow cast by our lesser selves.
What distinguishes us from each other, and from her the "weak" woman as you call her, is our ability to manage the Shadow. There is discipline needed to conquer the urge to do harm, even slight harm, knocking over a drink in a club just to be mean, to great harm, raping or stabbing or threatening actual violence and acting on it, a bigger example is sending innocent men and women to wars that maintain an elitist repressive power structure. We are not her and we are not "weak" or "submissive" because for the grace of whatever mercy surrounding or within us we have been able to stop ourselves from being that which we are taught from infancy, pre- school to hate and to mock, weakness in ourselves, weakness in each other and weakness represented by that which we are taught is woman herself, the essence of being feminine.
So, all that said, I assert it is not truly the weak submissive woman you see in the movie or among your friends that you HATE, it is the part of you that fears being controlled, fears losing control, fears Becoming Her, for some part of her is you. Some part of every being we ever encounter, most especially those who evoke strong reactions, such as this sort of archetype does for you, is a part of the vast and multi dimensional self that makes up humanity, including the painfully enormous Shadow cast by our lesser selves.
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
speak openly.....
Speak openly of your wounds that you know. Speak openly of your path of recovery. Speak openly of your transformative courage. Speak openly and then marvel at the doors that open to you. Walk through, and keep moving
Mental Health Care: Time for Reform and an Overhaul
Open Letter : 2015
"We are here to shift the dream of the Planet" - Imaya's Modalities
Starting with a section from the book Women of the Beat Generation, by Brenda Knight, with a forward by Anne Waldman;
This is highly relevant to our current situation but I know it is changing:
"A woman from the audience asks, Why are there so few women on this panel? Why are there so few women in this whole weeks program? Why were there so few among the Beat writers?
and Gregory Corso, suddenly serious, leans forward and says, There were women, they were there, I knew them, their families put them in institutions, they were given electric shock. In the 50's, if you were male you could be a rebel but if you were female, your families had you locked up. There were cases, I knew them, someday someone will write about them."
-from Stephen Scobie's account of the Naropa Institute tribute to Ginsberg, July 1994
I was 14 years old when that statement was made, and yes, I certainly will write about those female rebels!! I speak of the reactions to my own life of rebelliousness, and the standing, standard reactions to women who speak out of turn, act in ways that shock, that distort reflections of what it means to be feminine, human. There could be consistent and confusing refusals to fit into the molds handed to us, or maybe an inability to fit into them, even if we wanted to, and that alone, is considered threatening. If we threaten that which is established and accepted and expected, there is little left for the authorities to do, according to them, than to restrain, to control, to sedate, to take freedom away.
Here is a Description in an Open Letter format from a Contemporary Woman Rebel Poet (based quite closely on a true story) Feel free to comment after reading.
In her words:
When I was an inpatient at a "Health care" Facility, in Oakland, CA. , I felt on some level, I was some sort of political prisoner. In this letter, I will outline the reasons I had for feeling and thinking this way. I am certain that my rights have been violated on mental, physical, spiritual and emotional levels.
I am a multidimensional being. Others may relate to that idea, feeling that they are as well. I was sexually assaulted numerous times, by different people, in the last few years. Further back, I was violated as a teenager, more than once, and by different people. I attempted to go on with my life and to keep this short, I found a therapist in the past 2 years and worked through most of the results of that trauma.
The most recent facility I dealt with in Oakland, CA, intruded upon my freedom and human rights, in a number of ways. In one huge way, they were attempting to force me to think of myself as a mental patient, with an affiliation with the DSM, further associating me with the multi billion dollar industry of pharmaceutical "medicine". At different points in my life, I have agreed to take pharmaceuticals for reasons that are simple. They have helped me sleep at night. I struggled with insomnia, on and off, and of course, this was trauma related.
Noticing that certain drugs make my mind more clear and able to articulate my experiences and thoughts, that does not mean the effect of the drugs confirm what the professionals around me infer and imply and decide and name and attempt to control.
My symptoms until now, are consistent with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This was confirmed by the therapist I worked with for longer than any other professional. P.T.S.D is a name for a hugely varied set of experiences and subsequent behaviors. My case is no exception. People close to me have called certain periods of time "altered states" for me, and that has seem to fit for some of the time.
At other times, I have shown such drastically different sides to me, that people who know me say I was "not myself". Perhaps this has merit, or perhaps the "self" is way more complicated than the versions of me known to the people in my life. Of course this would mean others are consistently more layered and complicated than what they have shown to others. Some will agree, some will inevitably argue.
I happened to be in states that were considered "altered" but might be results of buried and unprocessed emotions from trauma, which would indicate I have no inherent mental illness in my condition but that in my case, my behaviors and outbursts were and are consistent with the repercussions a person faces internally after having been abused in the ways that I was. This is not just specific to me and how I have been dealt with. It has and it will apply to many, many other people, in cases that might not mirror but might well overlap with mine.
Our society has become so adept at victim blaming, that when a person exhibits deviant or what is considered abnormal behaviors, the knee jerk psychiatric or psychological response is to classify this person as unwell, the source of their sickness generally associated with the bio-chemical theories of DSM popularity.
I will not demonize all people in the fields of psychiatry, psychology and other counseling. I am too clear thinking and rational for such broad sweeps. I am aware that there are people in these fields who want to make a difference, who have some level of compassion for clients. Many though, have none at all. They love their paychecks, not much more. I do wish to point to the often swept under the carpet facts of individual cases, such as mine, that truly require more refined and observant inquiries than is anywhere near normal for any person in "the system".
This unfortunate system usually consists of revolving doors of unhelpful, and certainly re-traumatizing experiences at hospitals, to doctors that slap on labels that a person often feels too defeated to fight, and medications that might make things worse, or briefly better but in the long term, the pills wreak havoc on the liver, and on and on.
I write this with profound compassion for, and insight into the lives of those considered sick, and labeled so for their entire lives. I have written protest songs dedicated to all of these vulnerable people, detailing how strongly I feel, because I have had my freedom taken from me, due to my inability to contain the pain of what I endured.
Yet, I was treated as the one with the sickness. In fact this is clearly a matter of the sickness of the people who hurt me that put me in a place of not caring what happened to me at different points, not some inherent bad brain chemistry.
I must mention the history of treatments for those seen as ill have been horrific in the past. The past conjures images of padded walls, drooling zombie patients, straight jackets, and countless years wasted for people staring at walls when there were then and there are now, alternatives to this hasty, sloppy, deeply saddening and inhumane treatment of actual human beings.
A therapist who read over this story pointed out poignantly that in fact, these images of "treatment" centers and the like, have actually not gone away. She is right, I have seen them in the past few years, draining the lives of these people in meaningless, insipid routines and "medicinal" dosages that render most or all of these folks essentially unable to advocate for their vitality, for their freedom, for a possibility for themselves that would liberate them from this horrible, maddeningly depressing environment, which after a certain time, seems so familiar, they are sucked in so thoroughly, they cannot imagine, life "on the outside".
In America, this is not at all unlike jail inmates, overwhelmingly people of color and poor whites, who learn all there really is for them from the "system" is a jail cell and a life of revolving doors going in and out of jail or prison, becoming hardened, and this revolving door in and out of jails might as well be hospitals. Perhaps the main differences are the type of drugs illegally obtained in jail versus the prescribed types of drugs that hospital inmates or "patients" are legally given for their recognized labels which afford them the hook up.
What was done to people in the name of "treatment" in past eras, contrasted with what is done now, does not get us all off the hook because the situations in hospitals and "treatment centers" are supposedly so much better by comparison. We are a long way off of truly humane, collaborative, caring, thorough and thoughtful health care for some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
This brings me to the lack of funding for the field of mental health services, which in itself is shameful and must change. However, the overhaul of this system must include a great many fundamental changes that will take much more time and thought than I have right now to include in this open letter. I will be writing more and the next phase of writing will be solution oriented, so I urge you to stay tuned, if any of this landed in your mind as real, urgent, necessary as dialogue.
and then there is:
the ache of remembering
like a thorn in your side
pray you have nothing to hide
release it all to the moon
it will be in the past soon
so let go the memory
burn it clean in the moonlight
try not to fight
how simple that it does not serve
the greater good
so release
and move on
"We are here to shift the dream of the Planet" - Imaya's Modalities
Starting with a section from the book Women of the Beat Generation, by Brenda Knight, with a forward by Anne Waldman;
This is highly relevant to our current situation but I know it is changing:
"A woman from the audience asks, Why are there so few women on this panel? Why are there so few women in this whole weeks program? Why were there so few among the Beat writers?
and Gregory Corso, suddenly serious, leans forward and says, There were women, they were there, I knew them, their families put them in institutions, they were given electric shock. In the 50's, if you were male you could be a rebel but if you were female, your families had you locked up. There were cases, I knew them, someday someone will write about them."
-from Stephen Scobie's account of the Naropa Institute tribute to Ginsberg, July 1994
I was 14 years old when that statement was made, and yes, I certainly will write about those female rebels!! I speak of the reactions to my own life of rebelliousness, and the standing, standard reactions to women who speak out of turn, act in ways that shock, that distort reflections of what it means to be feminine, human. There could be consistent and confusing refusals to fit into the molds handed to us, or maybe an inability to fit into them, even if we wanted to, and that alone, is considered threatening. If we threaten that which is established and accepted and expected, there is little left for the authorities to do, according to them, than to restrain, to control, to sedate, to take freedom away.
Here is a Description in an Open Letter format from a Contemporary Woman Rebel Poet (based quite closely on a true story) Feel free to comment after reading.
In her words:
When I was an inpatient at a "Health care" Facility, in Oakland, CA. , I felt on some level, I was some sort of political prisoner. In this letter, I will outline the reasons I had for feeling and thinking this way. I am certain that my rights have been violated on mental, physical, spiritual and emotional levels.
I am a multidimensional being. Others may relate to that idea, feeling that they are as well. I was sexually assaulted numerous times, by different people, in the last few years. Further back, I was violated as a teenager, more than once, and by different people. I attempted to go on with my life and to keep this short, I found a therapist in the past 2 years and worked through most of the results of that trauma.
The most recent facility I dealt with in Oakland, CA, intruded upon my freedom and human rights, in a number of ways. In one huge way, they were attempting to force me to think of myself as a mental patient, with an affiliation with the DSM, further associating me with the multi billion dollar industry of pharmaceutical "medicine". At different points in my life, I have agreed to take pharmaceuticals for reasons that are simple. They have helped me sleep at night. I struggled with insomnia, on and off, and of course, this was trauma related.
Noticing that certain drugs make my mind more clear and able to articulate my experiences and thoughts, that does not mean the effect of the drugs confirm what the professionals around me infer and imply and decide and name and attempt to control.
My symptoms until now, are consistent with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This was confirmed by the therapist I worked with for longer than any other professional. P.T.S.D is a name for a hugely varied set of experiences and subsequent behaviors. My case is no exception. People close to me have called certain periods of time "altered states" for me, and that has seem to fit for some of the time.
At other times, I have shown such drastically different sides to me, that people who know me say I was "not myself". Perhaps this has merit, or perhaps the "self" is way more complicated than the versions of me known to the people in my life. Of course this would mean others are consistently more layered and complicated than what they have shown to others. Some will agree, some will inevitably argue.
I happened to be in states that were considered "altered" but might be results of buried and unprocessed emotions from trauma, which would indicate I have no inherent mental illness in my condition but that in my case, my behaviors and outbursts were and are consistent with the repercussions a person faces internally after having been abused in the ways that I was. This is not just specific to me and how I have been dealt with. It has and it will apply to many, many other people, in cases that might not mirror but might well overlap with mine.
Our society has become so adept at victim blaming, that when a person exhibits deviant or what is considered abnormal behaviors, the knee jerk psychiatric or psychological response is to classify this person as unwell, the source of their sickness generally associated with the bio-chemical theories of DSM popularity.
I will not demonize all people in the fields of psychiatry, psychology and other counseling. I am too clear thinking and rational for such broad sweeps. I am aware that there are people in these fields who want to make a difference, who have some level of compassion for clients. Many though, have none at all. They love their paychecks, not much more. I do wish to point to the often swept under the carpet facts of individual cases, such as mine, that truly require more refined and observant inquiries than is anywhere near normal for any person in "the system".
This unfortunate system usually consists of revolving doors of unhelpful, and certainly re-traumatizing experiences at hospitals, to doctors that slap on labels that a person often feels too defeated to fight, and medications that might make things worse, or briefly better but in the long term, the pills wreak havoc on the liver, and on and on.
I write this with profound compassion for, and insight into the lives of those considered sick, and labeled so for their entire lives. I have written protest songs dedicated to all of these vulnerable people, detailing how strongly I feel, because I have had my freedom taken from me, due to my inability to contain the pain of what I endured.
Yet, I was treated as the one with the sickness. In fact this is clearly a matter of the sickness of the people who hurt me that put me in a place of not caring what happened to me at different points, not some inherent bad brain chemistry.
I must mention the history of treatments for those seen as ill have been horrific in the past. The past conjures images of padded walls, drooling zombie patients, straight jackets, and countless years wasted for people staring at walls when there were then and there are now, alternatives to this hasty, sloppy, deeply saddening and inhumane treatment of actual human beings.
A therapist who read over this story pointed out poignantly that in fact, these images of "treatment" centers and the like, have actually not gone away. She is right, I have seen them in the past few years, draining the lives of these people in meaningless, insipid routines and "medicinal" dosages that render most or all of these folks essentially unable to advocate for their vitality, for their freedom, for a possibility for themselves that would liberate them from this horrible, maddeningly depressing environment, which after a certain time, seems so familiar, they are sucked in so thoroughly, they cannot imagine, life "on the outside".
In America, this is not at all unlike jail inmates, overwhelmingly people of color and poor whites, who learn all there really is for them from the "system" is a jail cell and a life of revolving doors going in and out of jail or prison, becoming hardened, and this revolving door in and out of jails might as well be hospitals. Perhaps the main differences are the type of drugs illegally obtained in jail versus the prescribed types of drugs that hospital inmates or "patients" are legally given for their recognized labels which afford them the hook up.
What was done to people in the name of "treatment" in past eras, contrasted with what is done now, does not get us all off the hook because the situations in hospitals and "treatment centers" are supposedly so much better by comparison. We are a long way off of truly humane, collaborative, caring, thorough and thoughtful health care for some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
This brings me to the lack of funding for the field of mental health services, which in itself is shameful and must change. However, the overhaul of this system must include a great many fundamental changes that will take much more time and thought than I have right now to include in this open letter. I will be writing more and the next phase of writing will be solution oriented, so I urge you to stay tuned, if any of this landed in your mind as real, urgent, necessary as dialogue.
and then there is:
the ache of remembering
like a thorn in your side
pray you have nothing to hide
release it all to the moon
it will be in the past soon
so let go the memory
burn it clean in the moonlight
try not to fight
how simple that it does not serve
the greater good
so release
and move on
Saturday, March 7, 2015
forgive, for your own sake, what happens after will only help matters
Been thinking about forgiveness. there are so many ways to say this and many have said it many ways, but I practice forgiveness deeply, profoundly and consistently because I have learned, the alternatives to this practice are often more uncomfortable, painful, toxic, maddening, than the original circumstance that asks for me to forgive. the internal, often private act of me doing this is not done to release the person or group that caused the offense, I do it at my own pace, for that is the only way to be thorough and sincere. If it is not sincere, it will continue to haunt you. The person or who ever it is you are forgiving may never consciously know you have forgiven them, they may not even know they caused a reaction in you that prompted you to want to forgive. But if you do practice this type of release from within you, you will find, as I am finding, on the energetic level it is a beautiful way to be finished with that pain, that part of your life. You put it behind you, in a very real way and find that your burden has lifted and from that place, you begin to grow exponentially, spiritually and with more happiness than you could have known was coming to you.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
And just a bit about a certain often misunderstood Deity....
Kali Ma
Kali is free from illusions and her fierceness and connection to rage is one piece of how she is perceived in many places on earth. She exists beyond the maya, the temporary illusory dreams that humans are dreaming. She has transcended the place where humans dwell. Her moksa (ultimate spiritual liberation) can become the goal for a human worshiper who wants moksa for her or himself. Liberation from worldly constraints and expectations is believed to be possible as part of the worship of Kali.
The danger with interest from Westerners involves the issue of "armchair goddess worship" This is something that happens when people are misinformed about the kind of worship and accurate description of a deity, specifically intended by people who brought ceremonies and awareness of this deity at the original place and origin, then later and by extension, to the rest of us.
We as people who are getting a secondhand version of her rituals and rights, must realize there are distortions of her image. It should be known that taking her out of her original context and into a culture and perception which inevitably changes her, will ultimately distort the relationship a devotee would have in a firsthand scenario, versus in a second or third hand scenario, such as the kind often found in the United States.
more on her later.........
Kali is free from illusions and her fierceness and connection to rage is one piece of how she is perceived in many places on earth. She exists beyond the maya, the temporary illusory dreams that humans are dreaming. She has transcended the place where humans dwell. Her moksa (ultimate spiritual liberation) can become the goal for a human worshiper who wants moksa for her or himself. Liberation from worldly constraints and expectations is believed to be possible as part of the worship of Kali.
The danger with interest from Westerners involves the issue of "armchair goddess worship" This is something that happens when people are misinformed about the kind of worship and accurate description of a deity, specifically intended by people who brought ceremonies and awareness of this deity at the original place and origin, then later and by extension, to the rest of us.
We as people who are getting a secondhand version of her rituals and rights, must realize there are distortions of her image. It should be known that taking her out of her original context and into a culture and perception which inevitably changes her, will ultimately distort the relationship a devotee would have in a firsthand scenario, versus in a second or third hand scenario, such as the kind often found in the United States.
more on her later.........
Monday, March 2, 2015
Split the labor of the children
I wrote this starting in 2004 and finishing in 2015
Can I trace my fingers along the route of your pain
promise I won't tell
against the window pane
you are so insane
Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France
Into the Americas and laundry machines?
reactive revolutions
poverty versus material wealth
split the labor of the children
into factories and laboratories
you take the eyelash butterfly kisses on the cheek
I will take the tantrums and the attitude
you take the good behavior
and confused wandering looks
I will take the shame of her blood on
You take the clutter
I will take the mess
I could listen for hours
and frown at your shoelaces
because I learned on Velcro
the younger are all about TIVO
I hated waiting in line
I hated when adults watched over
to see if I would tie the laces
in correct bows
Fuck Bow Ties
my election year is all about
the emancipation of the elements
the stories begin in trattorias
they begin with the Sioux
fry bread on the reservation
and poisoned water
they begin with tragedy
leathered skin and buffalo breath
they begin at the end.
you know what, my Muslim brothers?
My Christian brothers? My Buddhist Brothers?
My Jewish brothers?
and all others who think being in a female body
signifies a lesser being
Pussy has a name. Pussy is never generic.
A color, An identity
that does not fit in a photograph or a song
or any form of media you water
her down into
for convenience, some way
to take her with you
without taking her with you
without knowing her
without touching the essence
of her, though you thought of her
you thought of pussy
arousal was imminent.
you want to leave now, my Muslim brothers
my Christian brothers and all the other ones
who claim female bodies signify lesser beings
further away from spirit
without really touching her essence
but oh, how you explored her body.
Oh, how you explored her flesh.
And you may have thought she was
satiated. You may have thought
satisfaction occurred all around
and around you and her.
without touching her essence
with direct connection
to the ways in which she is divine
you have not even skimmed a surface
of what is possible inside
the spirit vessel
that formed
a female identity
While your Abrahamic interpretation
taints her like a dirty background to your
male perfection and absolution
paints her like a distraction
on your road to completion
sexual completion
religious completion
this is false sight my brothers
this is false teaching
my brothers
for within her is
the lamp lit for
the unspeakable types of pain in human existence
and you might not even know to look
she might not know where to point
inside, where to point inside?
anatomy is the empty shell of our skeletal mirror
it shows nothing beyond the first one or two dimensions
we are multidimensional beings
society banks on the fact that
women and certain others
do not find their worth, their light, their inherent power
their remembrance of the breath in
breath out
is what it all comes down to
we can teach more, give more, love more, laugh more
break the molds handed to us, if we are taught
how we
are not defined by the form we take
my brothers
this is the law
laid down at a beginning
we cannot grasp
Can I trace my fingers along the route of your pain
promise I won't tell
against the window pane
you are so insane
Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France
Into the Americas and laundry machines?
reactive revolutions
poverty versus material wealth
split the labor of the children
into factories and laboratories
you take the eyelash butterfly kisses on the cheek
I will take the tantrums and the attitude
you take the good behavior
and confused wandering looks
I will take the shame of her blood on
You take the clutter
I will take the mess
I could listen for hours
and frown at your shoelaces
because I learned on Velcro
the younger are all about TIVO
I hated waiting in line
I hated when adults watched over
to see if I would tie the laces
in correct bows
Fuck Bow Ties
my election year is all about
the emancipation of the elements
the stories begin in trattorias
they begin with the Sioux
fry bread on the reservation
and poisoned water
they begin with tragedy
leathered skin and buffalo breath
they begin at the end.
you know what, my Muslim brothers?
My Christian brothers? My Buddhist Brothers?
My Jewish brothers?
and all others who think being in a female body
signifies a lesser being
Pussy has a name. Pussy is never generic.
A color, An identity
that does not fit in a photograph or a song
or any form of media you water
her down into
for convenience, some way
to take her with you
without taking her with you
without knowing her
without touching the essence
of her, though you thought of her
you thought of pussy
arousal was imminent.
you want to leave now, my Muslim brothers
my Christian brothers and all the other ones
who claim female bodies signify lesser beings
further away from spirit
without really touching her essence
but oh, how you explored her body.
Oh, how you explored her flesh.
And you may have thought she was
satiated. You may have thought
satisfaction occurred all around
and around you and her.
without touching her essence
with direct connection
to the ways in which she is divine
you have not even skimmed a surface
of what is possible inside
the spirit vessel
that formed
a female identity
While your Abrahamic interpretation
taints her like a dirty background to your
male perfection and absolution
paints her like a distraction
on your road to completion
sexual completion
religious completion
this is false sight my brothers
this is false teaching
my brothers
for within her is
the lamp lit for
the unspeakable types of pain in human existence
and you might not even know to look
she might not know where to point
inside, where to point inside?
anatomy is the empty shell of our skeletal mirror
it shows nothing beyond the first one or two dimensions
we are multidimensional beings
society banks on the fact that
women and certain others
do not find their worth, their light, their inherent power
their remembrance of the breath in
breath out
is what it all comes down to
we can teach more, give more, love more, laugh more
break the molds handed to us, if we are taught
how we
are not defined by the form we take
my brothers
this is the law
laid down at a beginning
we cannot grasp
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