Thursday, March 18, 2010

Stop the Wheel....

I read a phrase in Robert Anton Wilson's book "Cosmic Trigger."  The phrase was "stop the wheel"  meaning we can stop the wheel of karma.  What he meant by that was despite the things that are done to us, we can "stop the wheel"  and not spread the negativity.  Instead, we have the power to re-shape the way things will happen by what we do.  I took that very literally and from that time on (I was 18 when I read that book)  I stopped the wheel whenever I could. 

For example;  if I was working and my co-worker snapped at me, instead of snapping back at them or snapping at someone else (the "shit rolls downhill"  paradigm)  I would say "Sounds like things are being difficult for you today."  They would stop for a second and then they would tell me the trouble they were having.  I would then  validate them by saying how I was sorry that happened to them and that I hoped their day got better.  It was amazing;  the same person that seconds ago bit my head off and was ready to bite everyone's head off after me was calmed down and went on their way without biting anyone else's head off.  People have told me that means I was being a "doormat"  to the angry person but I saw it as having the power to change their perception and their attitude without pressuring them into that.  I saw it as spreading joy instead of angst, helping them out instead of spreading the anger.  What power we have! 

Every day, we all have moments like that; the sarcastic bank teller, the grumpy waiter, the person in line complaining.  We can choose to allow it to continue by either snapping back or passing it on OR we can have the tremendous power to completely alter things for the better.

I want to be remembered for spreading joy;  being a joy-giver instead of a joy-taker.  My friend, Rachell, coined that name, "joy-giver"  and I like it.  Imagine what would happen if we ALL did that...if we all stopped the wheel of negativity and became joy-givers.  Just do it.

Friday, March 12, 2010

My son

turned eight yesterday.  We festooned the house with green streamers, green balloons, green shamrocks and green paper chains because his favorite color is green and St. Pat's day is coming up.  He had his favorite dinner: cheese raviolis with alfredo sauce and corn.  Then he opened his presents, most of which came from thrift stores;  we love recycling like that.  He was thrilled with his stuff.  We had cake and sherbet and laughed and hugged and had a wonderful family evening. 

I love this little boy; the only boy I have.  I had to use fertilty medications and intrauterine insemination with my husband's sperm;   I had to do that with for the twin girls I had and then again to get their sister.  My third girl  was born four days before my 35th birthday and I felt I should be done because my doctor told me that after 35, risks to the baby rise significantly and after 40 they rise yet again. 

Imagine this:  I was 41 and on the pill to regulate me, not for birth control.  I began having irregular cycles so I went off the pill because I knew I couldn't get pregnant.  As usual, my cycles began to get longer and longer once off the pill.  By mid June 2001, I was uncharacteristically desirous and my husband and I had one week of crazy, amazing sex.  One night stood out as being a very intense night for both of us.  It was the night of the summer solstice that also had a solar eclipse in Cancer.  It turns out, I got pregnant with my son that night.  This was a miracle because I was certified infertile and had needed strong drugs to induce ovulation to get my daughters; it had taken five years to get pregnant the first time with my twin daughters and the same procedure for my third girl so getting pregnant on my own without even trying was an amazing miracle. 

Miracle or not, when I found out I was pregnant, I was terrified.  I was over 40, I had these fears that my baby would be born with all sorts of defects and I could not bear the thought of seeing my child suffer.  I didn't think I was emotionally strong enough to deal with that.  My specialist doctor calmed me and reminded me that I had not led a lifestyle that would have caused problems with my eggs (no heavy drinking or drug use nor exposure to radiation or chemical landfills, etc).  Everyone was saying it was a boy but my history with my little brother made me afraid to have a boy;  what if I had a boy and he turned against me when he was older like my little brother did?  It turned out that my son was the healthiest 9 lb baby.  He had no ear infections and needed  no antibiotics until he was seven years old.  He is perfectly healthy, sweet, funny, and has a fantastically smart wit.  I love him to pieces. 

I am so blessed in my children. 

A little more.

I was the second child and only girl in my family until I was twelve; my little brother was born then.  I was born in Chicago to my Army dad and my stay-at-home mom (it was 1960) and I had an older brother.  When I was three we moved to Germany for about  three years.  Those were wonderful years filled with castles, fairy tales, ballet lessons, pink and white tutus, satin toe shoes, flowers and flower boxes, feather bedding, trips to amazingly beautiful places and saturation in the European cultures of Germany, France and the Netherlands. 
I was six when we came back to America.  The return devastated me.  We were stationed in Aurora, Colorado.  America was dirty, littered, ugly;  no fairytale black forest or castles, no beautiful art and architecture, just hick cowboys.  I hated my own country.  No one ever knew how I felt and I had no way of articulating my feelings then.

Soon after, my parents divorced;  I was only seven years old.  Their divorce was a shattering experience for my brother and I and he dealt with it by abusing me verbally and physically.  We moved several times and my brother and I were left alone a lot while our Mom worked. 

When I was in second grade, my Dad came to visit for Christmas.  My brother and I were outside playing and I came in to use the bathroom only to see my mom flat on her back, my dad straddling her and beating her.  I remember screaming and my brother came in with his new bow and arrow set in his hands;  he nocked the arrow and told Dad to get off our Mother or he would kill him.  Dad got off but Mom was black  and blue in the face. 

A few days later, we moved away from Colorado;  my mom drove us three to her bachelor brother's house in Pennsylvania.  A few days after we got there and she got us enrolled in school, she left and went back to Denver; leaving us alone with an uncle we barely knew.  His first nanny was mean but the second one was nice.  I remember crying myself to sleep at night a lot.  My big uncle, (he was well over six feet tall) would rock me in the rocking chair, hold me close and call me his little old bag because I wore some old grown up dresses he had in his basement.  Even though my brother was meaner than ever to me, I clung to him like a lifeline because by then, I felt I had lost my father and my mother;  my brother was barely ten years old.  My mother was only gone two months but it felt like a year to me. While I was there, my maternal grandmother got my hair cut on my birthday; it was so short it was like a boy and I  cried because my curly dark brown hair was gone. 

My mother came and got us and took us back to Denver where we met her new boyfriend.  He was an African American and we lived in a hotel for the summer months.  We moved to a house for the start of the school year and when I was nine, my mother married her African American boyfriend.  He resented my brother and I because he really just wanted Mom to himself.  That same year, my mom told me she didn't trust my dad around me so that was why we only saw him in the summer for a month at his mother's house.  From then on, I was afraid to love my father. 

We moved in the middle of the night because my step dad couldn't make enough money to pay the rent and we were running from unpaid rent.  The new home we rented was in a neighborhood with mostly Black people.  My brother was beaten up by some of the Black kids there;  they used the tips of fishing rods to beat him which left welts on his back.  He had been a gentle (except to me) person all his life, more the studious type.  In that house, my brother and I were awakened in the middle of the night after my mom and stepdad had had a huge, screaming fight.  My stepdad said he was taking mom to the emergency room because she tried to kill herself.  I think I was ten years old. My brother and I clung to her the next day as she lay in bed, depressed.  We were both afraid to leave her alone lest she try again.

We moved from that house to another in a different neighborhood.  By this time, I was in fifth grade and looking big and chunky so kids were teasing me about being fat on a daily basis.  My Mom got pregnant while my brother and I were on our annual summer month-long  visit to our dad and fraternal grandmother's place.  Those visits were filled with carefree summer days with our dad and lots of religious holy roller stuff.

When I was told that my mom was pregnant, I didn't feel anything but resentment.  Her pregnancy was difficult so I was made, as the only girl, to do most of the hosuework, all of the laundry and run and fetch for my mother every day.  My baby brother was born at the end of May so I spent my summer vacation getting up at 7 AM every morning to make my mom breakfast because no one else would do it.  I was left with the baby every time the family went anywhere and I had to change his diapers, rinse them out in the toilet, wash, hang out, take down, fold them and put them away.   My older brother just got to play with our baby brother so he liked him. 

My mom kicked out our stepdad when the baby was about 4 or 5 months old.  Later, after Christmas, my older brother went to live with our Dad and my Mom, baby brother and I moved to inner city Denver.  I was alone in a public bathroom in Denver when I was molested by a young man who felt me up, forced a kiss on me, touched my breasts and threatened to hurt me. He was pressed up against me, full length and my back was against the wall.    I was lucky that I got away before anything worse happened but that shook me to the core.  I was five feet seven inches tall, a BIG girl and up until then, feeling perfectly capable of taking care of myself but that confidence was destroyed in those few minutes against that wall in that bathroom.  I  was attending yet another school.

The summer I was 13, my mother decided to divorce my stepdad and let me move in with my dad, too.  I loved living on base with my Dad because it meant stability.  I was still wary of my Dad, though he never did try to do anything sexual to me.  Military bases are such microcosms where everyone knows what you are going through so they are just more cohesive and accepting to some degree.  It is like living in a small town.   On my 14th brithday, my parents remarried.  I was fairly content then.  I loved my little brother by then and felt like I was his second mother. 

when I was 15, my dad got orders to go to Okinawa so we packed up and moved there for a year.  That was so much fun!  I loved living there and seeing the Japanese culture, people, architecture, music, food and so on.  Though I was still fat and  introverted, I was enjoying the church youth group and the camping trips we made. 

We moved to Lawton, OK after that year in Okinawa.  After I turned sixteen , my brother went to live with our fraternal grandmother and I loved being out from under his overbearing influence.  When we got on-base housing and it would mean switching schools (which would have been my 15th school in 11 years)  my parents took me out instead and allowed me to work as a child care worker for the post chapels.  I earned money but most of all, I was allowed to study anything I wanted.  I came home with stacks of books on ancient civilizations, religions, anthropology, psychology and history.  My brother came back to live with us and then, after being there for a year, my Dad prepared to retire in Tucson. 

My whole life, throughout all this, I was aware that I seemed to have intuition though I didn't know what it was called back then.  I would lie on the ground, spread eagled, on a rainy day and feel the rain fall on me.  I felt like  I was one with the earth, as though the rain soaked into me and then into the ground.  The wind caressed my face and lifted my hair during storms and I loved the electric feeling of storms.  I always felt like an old soul and like someone that knew things that I could never describe to anyone else.  I seemed to know what people were feeling or when they were lying.  In Fort Sill, when I was 16, I would light a small flame in my room, chant some words, face the west window (I had three windows in my room then), feel the energy rise up in me until my fingertips tingled and I fairly burst with it.  I wanted to let it out with a primal scream but on-base curfew being what it was I could not so it was a wordless and silent scream.  I felt things so much and I could not tell anyone because my family were predominantly air signs who lived in their heads and were not familiar with intuition; they often belittled me for it.  I felt like I was different from my family and most people. 

We moved to Tucson and I was 18; I took my GED and passed and read everything I could get my hands on about astrology, Paganism, tarot cards, and Robert Wilson's book "Cosmic Trigger."  This book was about thinking about what you think about and being aware.   

I was a sheltered but aware virgin, taught to think for myself and to think out of the box.  I was very innocent and unprepared for life;  I knew all the facts and correct info about sex and procreation and a lot about politics and how people really think and act but I was ignorant of relationships for the most part.  I was intensely curious about sex and relationships after reading so many romance novels (including the smutty ones) but was afraid; I felt that men couldn't be trusted.  Even my brother was messed up.   I overheard him tell my mother (through the AC vent between our rooms) that he thought I "wanted him"  sexually.  I was sick to my stomach.  I didn't like my mother, I was estranged from my father though I lived in the same house with him, and now my older brother, who I looked up to, was getting sexual thoughts about  me.  I didn't belong to any of them and my little brother was too young for me to relate to much.    I wanted to get out and away from this sick family.  I was looking for love and acceptance.   Within a year, I would travel and my life would change drastically. 




But that is for another post.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

It is amazing....

how out of nowhere someone I have never even met can write some words on a screen and I feel like a hand has touched mine in comfort.  I mean I don't really know this person yet he reached out and gave me some wonderful and simple advice.  He wrote that my focus is my reality.  Yep, it is that simple.  I am focusing on the negatives again and it is not good for me.  This guy, like a psychic, quietly and almost apologetically e-mailed me personally to lift me up with words of comfort.  He said I am not alone...which made me cry because that is exactly what I have  been feeling lately since Rachell left.  I am not alone.  My family are not alone.  No matter what happens, I can focus on the good things and I am not alone.  I wish I could hug this guy in real life and tell him just how much those few moments out of his life that he took to write those words made such a difference to me.  I am not used to being the recipient of care;  it is usually me that gives to others yet when I need it the most, it comes to me, softly and unexpectedly. 

Thanks, Len, wherever you are.  You have the most perfect timing and gentle touch.

Monday, March 8, 2010

I don't get it.....

I was doing pretty well Friday through yesterday.  Today, I took my son to the art class he now has with the homeschool group. The room was this depressing little room in the back of a scrapbooking store.  The ladies there were ones I have known before but I felt out of synch and out of sorts.  I can't put my finger on it but I just felt like I was alone again.  Even my remaining friend seemed odd Friday.  She told me all her troubles but when I mentioned mine, she seemed to withdraw a bit. I think it is because she is overwhelmed right now.   It was weird because it was just her and I and Preston at the park...I miss the company of the others.  I am feeling isolated and I didn't used to mind it so much.  It is hard to describe this feeling.  It is as though I was part of this community, part of this group, and now that my friend has left, I am not?  I just don't get it.  Why is it bothering me so much to be moving back to existing with  "just the family"  like I was before last year's foray into the group activity stuff? 

I feel like I can't make connections anymore because I think we will be moving away and things have changed here so much.  I was thinking about that yesterday;  we can't sled on the  practice field anymore.  The aquaplex pool is saying no more shirts in the pool suddenly.  The train horns stopped.  People seem to be withdrawing and not as friendly anymore to me.  I was this happy, expansive person with a lot of energy and now I feel like a deflated balloon.  My son is crying more often, the kids are sniping at each other more, I feel lethargic and not wanting to do school or lessons with Preston.  I have good days but then I have a day like today  where all I wanted to  do is go outside somewhere and cry.  I think this limbo about not knowing where we will end up living is getting to all of us, as though we are all just marking time until we know what we are doing.  It is like the contentment I had about being here  has gone and I don't know how to get it back. 

I feel bad, too because I have not been the best homeschool Mom.  I feel like I am not teaching my kids enough and it mostly stems from the lack of time I have because of these time-eating college classes.  I am thankful it is not a job that I have to go to on someone else's time but it still eats up way too much of my time.  I never seem to be able to have the time I wanted to have with my kids.  Two of them will be 18 this year and I feel like that time went past too fast. 

Burn out

I have been doing online college courses for almost four years now.  What I have learned is not exactly what the college instructors have been teaching.  I have learned that higher education is about "outputs."  Yes, you too may get that coveted piece of paper if you do enough "outputs"  in the way the instructors want you to.  For a lot of money,  I have not learned near enough to feel I am getting my money's worth.  It is an awful testament to our American higher education system that I feel such burn out from the course loads I have. 

My mother was amazed when I told her I already have 64 credits but no bachelor's degree.  In her day, an AA was 32 credits and a  bachelor's was 64 credits.  In this country, it is about having a dumbed down workforce.  If higher education requires twice the number of credits as before, it costs way more as well.  These higher costs mean less people will finish college.  This country wants a dumbed down workforce.

Think about it, the best jobs have gone overseas or have been given to the cheaper foreign workers.  Americans are out of work and there are no jobs.  If corporations dumb down American kids and their parents, eventually people will be so desperate for work that they will do ANYTHING for a job to bring some money in, even if it is a pittance of what they once had.  These companies are seeing that China and other countries are poised to become the biggest consumers (imagine: a billion-person market) so to get these folks what they want, make Americans dumbed down, take on illegal immigrants and work them both to death for low wages.  Treat everyone in this country like indentured servants that will work for little and crank out the most.  After all, we Americans have been trained to be more productive than just about any other country.  We do the work of  three and four people and get paid for one person or less.

This is the way things are going.  Keep us dumbed down, divided over stupid issues like abortion or gay marriage and keep us poorer and poorer so we don't rise up and demand that something gets done.  If we are dumb enough and worked hard enough, we will be burned out and unable to fight back anymore. 

It used to be that working hard and having an education was the path to a better life.  Not anymore.   

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Monogamy?

I have heard some say that monogamy must always be an imbalanced relationship where people deny themselves their real selves for games and power plays. Or that if one is monogamous; they are somehow denying some part of themselves. Here’s why for some these things are just not so.

Though I slept around a lot in my twenties, whenever I had a relationship with someone, I stopped wanting anyone else. This was not because of my partner’s jealousy or possessiveness or out of some sort of feeling that I owed him that; it stemmed from the fact that sleeping around and feeling deep attachment and love for a person are very different things for me. This is not to imply that poly people are that way because they just want to sleep around; it has to do with the nature of relating. When sleeping around, my feelings were not that involved; that’s not to say I didn’t have a deep empathic and compassionate intimacy with the men I slept with because I did. It means I didn’t have that very intricate connection that happens whenever I am in a love relationship with someone.

Love relationships have so much more depth and complexity than the sleeping around relationships do; this is why I am monogamous. I feel that I am not wired for more than one complex, sexual, love relationship at a time. I am sure that some people are wired for that but I am just not one of them. The idea of having to deal with a deep and elaborate relationship with more than one person sounds like more work than I want to deal with. Now that I have children, I have different relationships with them but these are also complex and require a lot of emotional and mental work on my part; I don’t have any more room in me for adding another person with their needs, wants, quirks, and all the compromise and emotional work that would take. Deep loving relationships are complicated at times and I have to say it; I just don’t want to be more involved than I already am  in the one intimate relationship. It is taking a lifetime to understand myself and my husband and that’s enough for me. It is as simple as some people prefer chocolate and some prefer vanilla.

So next time a poly oriented person comes across someone like me that prefers being monogamous, I hope they understand that it isn’t about game playing, subjugation, suppression of our desires or anything like that. A lot of monogamous people just don’t want to do the work it takes to relate to more than one person at a time. We have enough complexity in our lives and prefer dealing with only one person.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Term limits

You know, congress is broken.  Because of the elections, congress spends more time trying to get elected than they do actually doing the job we elect them for.  We all know it and yet we don't know what to DO about it.  I have a suggestion.  If every American would stop being too wrapped up in the divisive stuff thrown at us to distract us and started thinking, we could make some HUGE changes.

 Imagine an America where EVERY eligible voter voted in every election and kept track of who was in congress and for how long. You know, keep a manila file in your important papers file and every time there is an election, we all would go through the candidates and see who has served for six years.   Imagine the American people deliberately voting out congress persons when they have served six years.  That's right, six years unless the congressperson does something so egregious they have to be voted out sooner.  Imagine the American people TELLING congress that they were doing that.  Something tells me campaign finance would be a bit different and congresspersons would be busier working for us than trying to get elected because eventually, they would realize that WE THE PEOPLE have imposed term limits;  six years  for each one of them.  Two years to get their feet wet, two years to hit their stride, and two years to finish up.  After that, they are OUT; time for new blood. No more career politicians and good ol'e boy networks; they know they only have six years to get it right AND they would finally suddenly grow some muscles and make the hard decisions because they would NOT be worrying about getting re-elected or pandering to PACs or lobbyists.  If we did that long enough, congress would eventually just vote for term limits and be done with it. 

What an America THAT would be. 

A snapshot moment of discovery

I said I would write a bit about my life.  This is because everyone I know seems to tell me "you should write your life story."  So here is an exerpt of the day after my "first time"  with a 17 year old Palestinian in Jerusalem, Israel/Palestine:

Awakened by a knock at my door, I called “Just a minute.“ I dashed to the bathroom. His smell was on me;  the scent of his leavings mingled with my own was new to me. I looked into the mirror as I washed my hands, searching my face to see if somehow the night’s revelry would show. I looked the same. That was a surprise; I expected to look different. I had done something so deeply primal in my complete submission to him that I felt the profound change within should be mirrored without. 



Every nerve ending on my body was sensitive now. I combed my hair and put on my robe. When I opened the door, he was standing there;  his dark curly hair still wet and his beautiful eyes still merry. “Good morning, love,” he said, and kissed me on the lips, his tongue probing with familiarity and  his hand on my breast. My heart fell so hard; I could feel it, like a stone in my breast that flopped to my stomach. We broke apart. “Come in,” I said, shakily.  He had the longest, darkest eyelashes I had ever seen.  His dimpled smile was radiant and devastating.


“Do you want some tea?” he asked, as we sat on the bed, facing each other.


“No, I am not hungry just now.” I sounded stupid. I was shy, and didn’t know what to say. Facing him in the light of day was different, and difficult. I was embarrassed about my boldness of the night before. Would he think badly of me?


“What’s wrong in you?” he asked, sensing my reticence. He was touching my cheek gently. I looked into his beautiful huge brown eyes. I was gone, then. I could feel my soul falling, falling to a place it had wanted all my life but had never been. I could feel so much.

I was sure that it was not the same for him. I felt so vulnerable, foolish, small, and embarrassed all at once. Worst of all, having had him; the need was not gone............it was deeper, stronger, more intense as though every nerve and cell in my body cried out for his. I felt chained to him, invisible chains from my heart and body, even my soul. Yet I was sure he didn’t feel the same.



“Come, Cassandra,” he said. “Get dressed; you can come with me today.” His tone was gentle, sweet, laughing.  My name was a caress from his lips.


“Ok, but you have to wait outside, I have to shower and dress.”


“Why? I have seen you, touched you.” Amusement showed on his face. What was for me a shattering experience seemed to sit lightly with him. He didn’t seem as moved at all.


“Because I am not ready to shower and dress in front of you. It was dark last night. I can’t, .....I can’t...” I stopped and dropped my eyes.



He got up and with a smile went out. His eyes as he left told me he somehow understood. I felt weird. Here I was, so much more sophisticated than he, well traveled, a year older, and yet I felt like an untried girl around him. I got up, showered and dressed. I cried, hot tears burning my face, washed away with cool water. Somehow, I would not let my fears overwhelm me. I couldn’t think with his touch still so fresh on me.


We spent the day together, talking, laughing kissing. We shared an orange, he taking a slice in his mouth and then passing it to mine with a kiss. We were so young. I felt like lovers, newly in love and shut out my rational mind completely. I felt like we had a secret, shared only between us. Succumbing to the feelings of the moment, I rode a wave of happiness I had never felt before. He loves me! Even after! I was astounded, humbled, warm, validated. I felt young, innocent still, and so in love. I wanted to go anywhere with him, be his forever, live in his pocket, and know his thoughts. I wanted to be his posession, his slave even.  All those rationalizations of before melted away;  I was finally allowed to just feel and feel and feel and be. I could allow my passion and deep feelings full rein at last, without them being trivialized or feared. This was serious and sharp, an unbearable sweetness. I deliberately blocked out the fact that I would have to leave in a few days.


That night, he took me to Jaffa gate, in the dark. He sat me on a bench some way from the gate and bent to kiss me. It was a long, passionate kiss, stirring us both. He placed my hand on the bulge of his pants.


“You make me want you,” he whispered against my lips.

My hand felt the heat of him, the hardness of him and I wanted to lie back right there and open my legs right then under the moonlight by the old stone walls of Jerusalem.

On Women, sex and domination

It would seem that women can never get it right, no matter what they do. In so many societies they have to become men to be marginally accepted; being female and doing typically female things is devalued and denigrated. Starhawk, the witch, had a lot to say about that and how women themselves must stop valuing the male/competitive model as though it is the default model.

The female model of power is not as competitive; it is more community-building, immanent, generative, and facilitative. Yet societies fear our abilities. Starhawk posited that this came from the fact that we always know who our children are but men can never be totally sure without a paternity test. As simplistic as this sounds, it is a thing that underscores a lot of the male domination of female power in the world. Or as my husband once put it, every hetero man fears the hold pussy has over him; every man fears squandering his resources for another man’s genes. Women are pickier than men about their sexual partners (due to the huge physical consequences of pregnancy that women may have when they DO have sex) and as such, men must compete.

Though it seems silly to pin all this on reproduction, sex is so tied to that in subconscious ways and sex is the biggest drive we have. In my women’s studies class we learned how in every society, women’s reproductive abilities are regulated, bound, and restricted to be in favor of male desires to further their genes. Girls are fine until puberty, and then all the societal restrictions set in. After menopause, women become free again. This was true even in antiquity and is still true in modern societies as well as primitive ones.

Sacrifice rituals in antiquity are tied to males seeing that women could bleed and not die and women gave life in blood so shedding blood = life became a reason for blood sacrifice. The whole Christian religion is based on that blood sacrifice = life ideology as are many other religious practices in the past. That power women have is so dangerous that societies now and in the past have made women’s blood either sacred or taboo, something to be feared and women to be reviled. In short, we are hated for our ability to give life and for the certainty that that life carries OUR genetic material. Every aspect of female subjugation can be traced back to these things.

How can humanity change things when the very physical differences between the sexes are what drive the male dominance issue? The uncertainty of paternity will always be there; what can people do to stop regulating women and also allow men some certainty in their support of their own genetic offspring?

The Iroquois had a great way of living that dealt with this issue. Men and women had sex but the men lived in their mother’s longhouses. They could visit their female sexual partners, but it was the uncles that acted as fathers to any offspring. These arrangements meant that the resources from men were not directly tied to supporting their own genetic offspring. Instead, they supported their sister’s offspring or their mother’s younger offspring. That way Iroquois males supported those that had genetic ties to them but not their direct genetic offspring. This gave all parties a lot better life and women had freedoms during their reproductive years without having to deal with male domination. Women always knew any pregnancy would result in a child that was well fed, housed, and cared for by her brothers and the mother-clan of the long house so they were less choosy about who they had sex with (partners didn’t have to be the strongest or wealthiest). This gave the men more available women to have sex with and sexual frustration and competition were not as much of an issue. Iroquois women also owned all the land and the food sources so males could not go to war without female approval or they would starve during the war. This gave women the power to prevent the unnecessary loss of their children’s lives in wars they disagreed with. This shared power model of the Iroquois worked and had a part in the shared powers ideology we see in our current Constitution.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

The year of the ranting cow...or being in a Taurus year

::::comedy font on::::::

It just hit me.  My astrology teacher told me that for every year of our lives, we live a sign.  So from birth to one year, we are living like an Aries.  From one year old to two, we are living like a Taurus and so on.  The years recycle through the signs every 12 years.  It all makes sense now!  I was 49 last year....I was in an Aries year.  No wonder I was so full of energy and fire and go-get-em-ness!  I had TONS of energy and inspiration!  I felt on top of the world!  Here I am world!   Then, like a hole in a balloon, I turned 50 last month and moved to a Taurus year.  Pffffffffffft.  What a difference!

Now I am this lazy fat-assed cow ::::looking down at my fat butt::::   laying back in a green pasture and thinking :::in a plaintive voice:::: "I don't want to leave.  I don't want to move. I am tired.  I want to just lay here and munch grass.  This is MY grass...I want REAL grass not that nasty BOXED grass.  Why do I have to DO anything?"  ::::munch....munch....munch...fart::::::

That is why I don't have my usual energy.  Damn!  I have to deal with this for a whole YEAR???  :::looking around for a nice comfy place to rest:::::    

Oh I know...astrology is not destiny and all that blah-blah-blah stuff but the truth is, this stuff really does seem to fit me year to year.  The thing is, I am an odd number of years younger than my husband so when I am in a "tired" year he is in an energetic one and vice versa.  Well, this cow has to get her fat ass to bed.  Tomorrow I have to shop for groceries, aka "cow food."   ::::comedy font off:::::

About community-making....

My friend the Atheist and I were talking the other day about community-making.  We both have been very puzzled about something.  Why is it that religious people seem to be able to form such close community groups but people that are secular and/or  spiritual can't?  The local homeschool group we belong to is secular so the people in it are getting together just for the homeschooling yet they resisted forming a lending library amongst themselves, hardly show up to events that members schedule and just seem to avoid any sense of community altogether. We live in difficult times and my friend and I have realized just how much community means to us but we cannot seem to find others that feel the same.  Our society has become so extremely individualized and polarized that people just don't seem to want to get together....unless they follow some religion.  Do we have to accept "the package"  of some religion in order to get community, even if it means not being true to ourselves and our belief or non-belief?

 Last December, I was appointed to the job  of arranging the  group charity in which we "adopt" a needy family and donate food, paper and soap goods, clothing, money and gifts for the family.  My friend and I hoped we could make this a real fun community event.  Out of 62 families on our group e-mail list, nine responded and we raised a lot of food, paper stuff, money, and gave a lot of gifts for the family.  I scheduled a meeting place for free with three hours for wrapping the gifts and socializing.  One of the leaders of our group even said "Oh good, I love a party, lets bring food and drinks and celebrate after we wrap the gifts."   Yet when we all got there, they couldn't wrap the gifts fast enough and then left right after it was done.  There was still over and hour left that we had for the meeting space and everyone was gone but my friend and I.  Even the leader that had seemed so happy about the "party"  element of the wrapping left early.

My friend's neighbor is religious and has such a community feeling about her.  It is really sad that in order to get some community you have to convert to a religion and join their church or synagogue or whatever in order to belong to a community.  Why can't atheists and just plain spiritual people not get together for purposes of community without a religious belief cementing them together?  Why isn't just being a community of friends enough?  My friend and I tried to build a community around secular homeschooling ....we really did but for some reason, it just didn't happen.  What a shame because now, we are all going to need each other more than ever; especially those that are not religiously affiliated. 

Friends and making community.

I am losing a friend this week.  We will still be friends but she is moving away.  I know, there's Facebook and e-mail but it isn't the same.  This wonderful friend was one of the very few I could be my intelligent self with.  She is intelligent too so we could talk fast and furious about so many deep things.  We cared about each other, too.  She and I tried so hard to get the non-religious homeschool families to form a caring, cooperative community but no one seemed to want to.  We tried for a year.  We only met, she and I, a  bit over a year ago via e-mail when she inquired about the local homeschool groups and I sent her a huge bunch of e-mails telling all about my city, my state, the things to do here, the groups here, the ins and outs of this area and the feel of it.  I even helped her find a house to rent in a good neighborhood; all before we even met. When we did meet, we were just nice and polite and friendly but as she said things and I said things, we both realized that we were both intelligent women that have been mistreated for that intelligence.  She came here with her family because they were going to see if they wanted to move here but as things turned out, they couldn't afford to stay because their house back east wouldn't sell and her husband's company was bought out by another so his job is a bit precarious now.  He is also intelligent and soft spoken, a kind man that loves his smart wife and their kids and animals.  He and my husband got along too. 

I feel bereft because even though she sometimes seemed to want more time from me than I had to give because of my full time college classes,  I still love her kindness, her optimism, her positive outlook, her openmindedness and her compassion.  It is hard to believe we have only been friends for a year.  She is like the sister I never had;  fun, loving, serious,  I can talk to her, she drives me crazy sometimes because we are different but we love each other.  I have never had a friend like that in my life...until now.  I have two friends like that now but she is the one that shares my political, spiritual and social views.  Her name is Rachell and I do miss her so much. 

Her leaving is just one of a chain of events that has happened since last fall that has me feeling sad.  Some homeschool friends put their kids into public school which means we won't see them anymore at the weekly P E days I organized.  The city has stopped the trains that come through from blowing their horns anymore;  I will miss that sound so much.  My friend is moving  away.  The school district won't be hiring so even though my husband is finishing his MEd with certification student teaching this semester, we will probably have to move away for a job.  We have lived here for 12 years...the longest I have  ever lived anywhere in my life and it feels like home.

I miss my friend and it hurts to know she is far away.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Stop Corporate America's Greed

How many of us have written or called our congresspersons and tried to get them to see that we must have a public option or universal health care?  How many of us have picketed, marched, written articles to newspapers, written media outlets, passed out pamphlets, carried signs, pasted on bumperstickers, written President Obama and congress to stop the war, give us universal health care,  regulate corporations and the banking industry...all to no avail?    Do you feel like nothing we do makes any headway with those in power in Washington?  Even voting doesn't seem to work anymore; our own party members have turned against us.

I am here to tell you there is something you CAN do and it won't cost you a dime.  STOP spending.  That's right, stop buying stuff, stop spending money.  Barter, buy used at thrift stores and yard sales, make do, live without, grow food in a community garden, help your neighbors, use freecycle, live with family or let them live with you and pool your resources, dry your clothes on a line, use less electricity, drive less. Take all your money out of the bank and put it in a credit union or even in a safe in your home.   If we stop consuming and take our money back, we can bring corporate America and the banks to their knees.  It will be painful at first because more jobs will be lost but the more we help each other, the more simply we live, the less those lost jobs will impact us.  We CAN affect change through attrition.  Cut corporate America and the banks off where it counts...in their bottom line, their PROFITS.  Make NO loans, buy nothing for Christmas, have Buy-Nothing birthday parties at home with friends,  make it a contest to see how much you can get for free or at used places.   Have neighborhood  freecycle parties where you don't buy anything to have the party, you all can walk to it, and you get to know your neighbors. 

After all, as we get used to living with less and make human connections and support networks, the less we have the less they can harm us because we will have the most important thing of all, each other and our dignity. 

Do it now.  Stop buying, stop consuming.  If it isn't a necessity, don't buy it.  There's power in attrition.  We can be the "mouse that roars."