Fucking Brilliant

 

 

My uncle gave these to me for Christmas this year from Urban Outfitters. Can you say that you have an uncle that shops at Urban Outfitters? I DIDN'T THINK SO.

 

Clearly, I will be using the yellow one most often. Finally, some[thing] understands me.

 

This Daily Mosifer brought to you by sleep deprivation and leftover New Year's champagne. Also, Jesus.

 

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WTF: A Response

 

 

As a follow-up to the previous post of possibly nonsensical ramblings and to present you with a more practical mode of what the hell I'm trying to say, here you go!

 

I'm not so great with the practicals. As if you hadn't noticed.

 

So maybe this will give you a little hint of the direction I'm nodding in. Im going to go soak my aching head in some chili. The Loony Farm is closed for today. Try again later.

 

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The Other Side Of Darkness

I've mentioned before briefly before that The Mother is a practicing intuitive. It's taken her a while to share this with the world, and I suppose it's taken me some time as well to do the same. It gets easy to be pigeonholed under some sort of label when you let your secrets out -- especially those that are easily pigeonholed.

 

But she wrote something today on her website that I feel is so poignant and necessarily vulnerable yesterday's tragedy that I think it needs to be shared. This is what I've come from and what I find strength in, and the kind of mother that I hope to be to my children someday. My mother has taught me everything I know about what it means to love and be true to yourself. I hope you find some connection in it, too.

 

A reblog from Laura Brown at intuitivepainter.net:

 

 

The Other Side Of Darkness

I am not going to argue here about the merits or disadvantages of guns, controlling them or any body's "rights". I simply want to tell my story from my perspective in part because of the overwhelming desire to channel some of the energy we're experiencing on the planet now. Hopefully, as people work with the energies consciously, big dark shit like what happened out east will begin to be transformed.

The shootings in Connecticut. Yes, now we as a culture are faced with this gun thing again. It's the 3rd time in what, 10 days? The football player and his girlfriend, now leaving a little baby without parents. The mall shooting in Oregon. Now little babies, grade schoolers not to mention mothers and one obviously tortured soul, all of whom are someone's sibling, child, friend and loved one. We're also faced with what to do with these human beings who act out this way. I heard on the news that these guns were his mother's, purchased legally and that this young man had a history of mental illness. I know lovely people who have guns, clients whom I respect immensely, who carry dignity and grace with them and who use them in ways that are aligned with the earth. But what I don't like nor enjoy, nor think should be tolerated any longer is the idea that it's alright to have your guns while you live with someone who is mentally unstable. Why do we as a culture insist that this should work, when it clearly doesn't? To me it is an incredible amount of denial about both the sensitivity of some human beings and the insensitivity of others. It's like being pissed at the ocean when it swallows the house you built on the edge of it's mouth.

What strikes me as such the issue is not the guns. That's the surface bullshit we tell ourselves to ignore the fact that the gun has to be used by a person in order for it to fulfill it's purpose. Personally, I wouldn't have a gun, I don't want them any where near me. If someone wants to kill me with a gun, then so be it. I believe in many lifetimes and while I don't want to get wrapped up in someone else's karmic amends if they shoot me, I'm not going to play the "I've got to cover my own ass at all costs" thing either. I don't want to carry that fear of others around with me, it's hard enough without a gun, it would just up the terror ante to have one. I don't want to protect myself that way. I will say this, had I lived in my youth in a house with a gun, I would not be here now. It's highly possible that I would have taken someone with me, too. This is not a new thought, I've always thought this. I have always steered clear of guns out of that fear. When briefly dating someone who showed me he had a gun in a paper bag in his closet at home and the instant I saw it, I shut the door in my heart to that relationship. There was no way, with the way that I felt, that I was going to put myself close to helping the darkness I'd had in my head wipe me or any one else off of this earth. The pain I endured as a young person and the way it processed in my body and my mind would have had me killing myself, easily, if I had access to guns.

When I was 11 years old a darkness settled in on my soul. Depression literally hit me square in the head with such force and such power that I scarcely thought I would live to see 18, let alone my all the way to now. My brain would hurt daily, pounding and sending my ability to think clearly or function out the window. My throat hurt, my body hurt, my soul and spirit felt utterly and completely hopeless and without purpose. A heaviness came over me that I can only describe as black. It felt and looked that way and if any of you mothers have ever experienced true post partum depression, you know what that is like. It's utter darkness. Situational depression combined with young hormones(what my mentor Carol says is like going on hard drugs)that turned into chemical depression came over my soul like an engulfment. Having a sensitive system made it a piece of cake for the chemicals in my brain to freak out under the duress I was experiencing at home.

Before I hit my early teens, as a child, it had felt that things and people around me had things coming out of them, thoughts feelings, intentions that didn't match what it looked like their bodies were communicating. Big things with scary teeth would project in my mind's eye when certain family members would gather together for a benign Sunday dinner. Large shapeshifting beings visiting me all night some nights, things moving around my room, stuff I had no reference for. Peoples intentions came out of them in three dimensional form when I was around or near them. Feelings and attitudes went unsaid among the adults in my world that I would find manifesting in my own body, in the form of violent rashes or raging sore throats or just deep, bound energies pounding out of my legs and arms. I had no clue what was going on. As I grew into my teens and the situation at home became untenable, there was no longer an ability to cap off these crazy, wild feelings, they began to pour out of me and I began to act out. I became increasingly violent towards myself and towards my younger siblings, regularly screaming for those in charge to pay attention, to do something, to notice. Never mind that in reality my family was falling apart, that my mother had decided to check herself out as a parent with relationships and alcohol in order to get out of paying attention to what was going on(God bless my mother who would not do this as the person she is today, nor my father-they have made their amends). Also, that an active sexual predator and abuser was willingly invited into our house to stay. No concern that my father, who had spent all of my years up to that point targeting me with relentless and crippling criticism that had shredded any rightful sense of self, had suddenly left for another woman, leaving my mother emotionally hamstrung as a parent in the throes of her own deep abandonment issues. Issues so deep that she would ignore signs that her new husband to be was going to overtake and consume our household with his abusive behavior.

In school, I saw my peers and the adults around me as just as neglectful in their awareness of what was going on. There were many, many times, when the way I saw children and teenagers act towards each other as deeply violent and uncaring. Bullying was basically a sanctioned activity, ridicule as well. No one stopped it, no one noticed. Adults regularly looked the other way. I remember it being incredibly difficult to pay attention in school. It was all that I could do on a daily basis to get there and sit in my chair, there was no more energy left to do school work or focus on a future. The pressure in my head consumed everything. In all four years of art class in high school, I finished not one piece-regardless of really wanting to. It seemed so incredible that the world I had incarnated in was so unwilling to wake up, to see what was in front of them, to behave as if everyone mattered. It all seemed so wrong.

That feeling of wrongness gripped me in a way that nearly killed me. Sometimes my head would hurt so badly that my vision swam around in my head. My hands shook, my legs stiffened. All I wanted was to somehow stop feeling what I was feeling and be normal, like the rest of my peers. I made multiple suicide attempts, I really didn't want to die, but I so very much wanted someone to pay attention and for something to change. I consistently thought of death, thinking my life was a mistake, there was no purpose. Anxiety woke me at 4 am every morning in high school, terrified. Later in my teens, having been thoroughly convinced that I was crazy and without purpose, I struggled with relationships with boys, only choosing those who would be the least available. My terror of feeling unworthy made it nearly impossible to be in a healthy relationship. When a man I had a crush on assaulted me after drugging me during a company picnic, I knew so strongly that it was all me, I was the fucked up one, the one who was nuts. Because of my deep rage and acting out, I became the family scapegoat, the problem, the nightmare child and girlfriend, the one who caused all the trouble saying shit that shouldn't be said.

It wasn't until I was 28 years old and finally in a kind and compassionate therapist's office that I understood what it was like to be heard. I began to walk through the experiences of my early life with a compassionate and clearer eye, purging shit that clung to me like the black gunk in my head. The experience of someone listening to my pain and perceptions and someone invested in my healing saved my life. In hindsight now, I realize that I was a frustrated and angry Lightworker, dying, literally to channel what I was feeling in a way that would be heard and utilized. My perceptions and my feelings weren't crazy, they were real, had origins, had something that was important to say about what was out of alignment in my/the world. This acknowledgement saved my life. It took a long time, by the way. Still to this day, I can slip into that brain pain, that place that says, there is no point. I know now how to redirect the darkness and transmute it to the Light. It can be done. I've been lucky though. Without my therapist, my mentor, my family, my mother and my sister-who continue to show such great courage doing their own healing work, my children, this channel would not be here. This voice. Now, the work I do brings all of that energy through a positive channel, into something that helps people be clearer themselves.

We are all channels, we are all trying to communicate something. The energy that comes through human beings is powerful. And we've been taught, repeatedly to ignore it. Often times it is the sensitive channels that appear to be the craziest. When they act out on this feeling of crazy, we need to stop and ask why? Are they really so very different then everyone else or are they not able, for whatever reason, to metabolize the crazy? Because capping off shit that's raging to come through doesn't work. It can't. It's basically the theory of displacement. If you push something down it doesn't go away-it's going to come out somehow. It's physics. A law on this planet, of this Universe. You want to break that law? Do you want to ignore that someone close to you can't seem to stabilize themselves, but heck you just want to keep those guns around anyway-to hell with that reality! What's the message there? Go ahead, I dare you? You don't think those nasty little demonic spirits I talk about clearing in Circle every week don't LOVE it when human beings ignore the obvious connections? Guess what? Don't be surprised when the gun and the pain make contact. Then someone is going to get hurt and the darkness wins, big time.

So why the hell don't we pay attention now? Before something happens. Why don't we look at what the heck happens to these football players who keep getting their heads whacked around and do something to acknowledge that it's causing thinking problems, tendencies towards violence. Why do we still want to go along our business as if nothing should have to change???? How long was it that this young man in Connecticut was screaming inside? When are we going to STOP, to see why our culture is so painful, so damaging, and so dismissive to live in sometimes for all of life. Why is it STILL that way in 2012?

And the arguing is not solving the problems. "I want what I want" and "other people are very, very bad" are somehow two sides of a very fearful coin. It's neither. We must see each other. We must respect each other. We must pay attention long before someone is beginning to go off of the deep end. Why are they doing that, what is going on? What's out of alignment right now? And, How can I go and do my hunting, how can I feel safe, how can I look at this cool metal toy I have and do it in BALANCE and HARMONY with my fellow beings on this planet?

So, there's a bit of my story. In truth it comes up for me every time there is something like this on the news-one crazy person falling into darkness and a whole lot of pain as the result. I've been that crazy person and it's possible to come to the other side. So many lives have now been affected. The Universe is screaming at us to pay attention. It's getting ridiculous how loud it has to yell now. We're not deaf, we just like to not be bothered or we like to endlessly argue. It takes energy to pay attention. This will change, we will get it. But we can do it a whole lot faster and without such pain and suffering. Can't we just listen and as human beings move ourselves out of this darkness, willingly, now?

God Bless,

Laura

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Accidental Parenting

In continuing my streak of being generally lame and a failure of a blogger (I'M SORRY, ok?? Moving has taken all my creativity and shoveled it into decoratively positioning my crappy furniture, lighting candles, and trying to figure out how to mask the fact that most of what I own has come from the garbage. Also to resist the urge to paint everything in varying shades of purple. GIVE ME A FEW DAYS, WILL YOU?) all I have the energy for today is a Daily Mosifer.

 

This is a post from another one of my favorite Funny Moms. If ever I have children and don't farm them out to child labor or lock them in the cellar of the giant home I'll somehow own, I hope this happens to me. Here's just a little sneak peek, to get your juices flowing:

 

We told the girl she and her friend would be going to camp together. They were excited. We got applications and sent in the check. The husband, as he was filling out the check, said to me, "You know this is run by the Detroit Presbytery, don't you?" I was busy playing SuperMario or something and said, "Yeah, sure, that's fine," because although I had no idea what the Detroit Presbytery was and though it sounded kind of religious, I figured it was like the Girl Scouts or the YMCA. Sure, that Christian thing is in the YMCA, but I've not really seen how it affects their day to day operations of a swimming pool and tennis courts.

Then we got the information packet from the camp, including the packing list. Here are the first few items, which may have caused a more aware person to pause:

Bible

Pillow

Sleeping Bag

I'll leave you to your reading. Also for you parents out there, I await your stories of unexpected debauchery against the tiny heathens you are currently rearing. Or maybe what you thought your parents did to you on accident in your youth but you now understand was pure, unadulturated revenge. Your mom is still pissed about what you did to her boobs.

 

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Fuck-It-Yourself

 

 

When your weekend consists of driving an hour to spend too much money on a "transparent red oxide" couch made of cardboard, an ancient form of velour and sturdy styrofoam (circa 1970); watching movies on your failing laptop propped on a stool because your $30 DVD player suddenly decides to only play the trailers of Redbox movies; driving around for 3 hours only to ditch the fabric line at JoAnn fabrics because the holiday crafters make you want to chuck a garden gnome at their overly-spirited heads; and soberly leave the Home Depot without lumber because you've realized you assumed the coffee table you'd planned to create would just magically build itself; I think this is the only thing that could cheer a halfhearted adult such as myself up.

 

(Is that enough semi-colons for you?)

 

If you are spitting your Velveeta cheese and Rotel dip at the screen right now, then I assume you understand my frustration with all that resembles "DIY" and "Home Decor." I think I'm nearing the end of the one week limit I seem to have in which I care about how my wall hangings "open up the room." God bless The Mother, who has a great way of pointing out all my ineptitudes in home-space management while simultaneously doing it for me. Don't mind me, I'll be drinking in the corner. If I fall into the couch, just pretend it was termites.

 

I swear I'll start writing writing like I care again soon. Just give me some time to go to the grocery store, first. Is anybody else aware of how valuable a parent's fridge is, right now? GO HUG YOUR PARENT'S FRIDGE.

 

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Hyphens are for Women

I'm feeling a great fondness for Jada Pinkett-Smith today, for this wonderful excerpt from Sinuous magazine. Keep workin' that hyphen, WOMAN.

 

 

How is man to recognize his full self, his full power through the eye’s of an incomplete woman? The woman who has been stripped of Goddess recognition and diminished to a big ass and full breast for physical comfort only.

The woman who has been silenced so she may forget her spiritual essence because her words stir too much thought outside of the pleasure space. The woman who has been diminished to covering all that rots inside of her with weaves and red bottom shoes.

I am sure the men, who restructured our societies from cultures that honored woman, had no idea of the outcome. They had no idea that eventually, even men would render themselves empty and longing for meaning, depth and connection.

There is a deep sadness when I witness a man that can’t recognize the emptiness he feels when he objectifies himself as a bank and truly believes he can buy love with things and status. It is painful to witness the betrayal when a woman takes him up on that offer.

 

He doesn’t recognize that the [creation] of a half woman has contributed to his repressed anger and frustration of feeling he is not enough. He then may love no woman or keep many half women as his prize.

He doesn’t recognize that it’s his submersion in the imbalanced warrior culture, where violence is the means of getting respect and power, as the reason he can break the face of the woman who bore him four children.

When woman is lost, so is man. The truth is, woman is the window to a man’s heart and a man’s heart is the gateway to his soul.

Power and control will NEVER out weigh love.

May we all find our way.

J

 

 

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Gnar-ly, Dood

 

Maybe I'm the last to know, as usual. Maybe I'm just really impressed by men in drag when they don't pull it off very well. Maybe I just have an affinity for places like Denmark and Iceland where it's cold enough to justify drinking yourself warm every night. Maybe I just think this is a sign that we're headed into a greater time -- if only our own political system would get its head out of its ass.

 

Sigh.

 

Just click this and you'll see what I mean.

 

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Hey Girl

 

Simply, this and these. Partly because I want to lick chocolate sauce off his beard. But mostly because of that month I didn't wash my hair.

 

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Beets. Bears. Battlestar Gallactica.

The beet salad I made for Linner (it was 4 PM, ok?) was delicious. Not only is it one of my current favorite foods but beets are like, one of the healthiest things on planet Earth. Ok maybe not really the healthiest but they're damn close. Nom nom nom, NUTRIENTS. I feel more energized and healthy already.

 

I was going to regale you all with my beet salad recipe and some factoids on beets for today's Daily Mosifer, but then I realized that's kind of boring, and the recipe takes like 30 seconds to convey (MIRANDA: buy beets. Peel and chop into small cubes. Steam until soft. Simmer up some pecans in butter and brown sugar. Throw all that shit on a plate with some blue cheese. Devour -- but not before taking a picture, becaue I forgot. See, I haven't ignored your request for NaBloPoMo! -- and run around the block to expunge newfound energy).

 

As I was thinking about the wonders of beets, I remembered their significant role in one of my favorite books. My uncle introduced me to Tom Robbins via Villa Incognito two years ago and I've been hooked on him ever since. Jitterbug Perfume, in which beets are the mojo to this book's Austin Powers remains one of my favorites. Robbins has this uncanny way of expressing all that I believe in spirituality and the power of the universe with a wonderfully rare "who cares?" attitude.

 

 

It's the undercurrent of spirituality conveyed with nonchalance that I love about his books. Robbins knows what's up, but he also knows that there's no good worrying about it too much. He understands what I struggle daily to grasp: that there is truth in what you believe no matter its origin, but to relax and just let it happen is the real key to happiness.

 

My friend says his over-the-top use of allegory makes her sick. I say give me a good story with something behind it, and I'm hooked. Though I'm still not talking to David Foster Wallace.

 

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Honestly, Man

 

http://www.danoah.com/2012/10/16-ways-i-blew-my-marriage.html/2

I'm pretty sure this has been circulating the interwebs for a fair amount of time already, but in typical Mosifer fashion I bring it to you now: as totally outdated and probably "so 5 minutes ago." If you came here expecting the latest in breaking pop culture, please join The Mother over on TMZ and leave me alone, K?

 

I actually read Dan of Single Dad Laughing's 16 Ways I Blew My Marriage a few weeks ago and have referred back to it several times in the interim, just because I think it's so spiffy. The reason being? I LOVE THE HONESTY. I'm a sucker for bare-bones, closeted-skeleton, painful-makes-you-wanna-look-away-and-make-a-guy-walks-into-a-bar-joke honesty because face it: we've all got this shit, but we're not all ballsy enough to say it (and if you make it through the two sequels, read up on how he changed after marriage. GAAAAAH).

 

Plus, I'd never miss an opportunity to see what's going on in the other half's heads (men: what are you, and where did you come from?). Always worth a visit, even if just to check that nothing's on fire.

 

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Jiro Dreams of Sushi

I call the one on left.

I'm not a big documentary-watcher. Less so for those in subtitles. Mostly because when I watch movies it's because I want to get out of reality. And forget subtitles, movies are all about being lazy and crying over unrealistic love stories. I'm still waiting for Ryan Gosling to carry me up a flight of stairs.

BUT THIS MOVIE. If ever I've complained about working too hard with too little in return, either refer back to this movie or send me to Japan. I'd probably be deported within hours for my love of bubble baths and ice cream out of the tub, though.

There's something about this culture that dedicates its life to their passions that blows me away. The dedication behind this movie makes me ashamed of how little it shows me I work for what I want. Though I'm not an extremist in any shape or form (or so I tell myself), somehow Jiro makes me want to buy a gas mask and spend the rest of my life in the studio.

Just watch it, and wait for the inspiration to hit.      

The Daily MOSIFER

As has been noted by a handful of loyal followers, I recognize that I spend a lot of time bitching and moaning about my, my friends', and the world's problems. Seeing as though there are a plethora in each aforementioned category, I would offer you my standard SUCK IT and further note that Poe never got anywhere talking about flowers and daisies. HOWEVER. Something about yesterday being Thanksgiving and the disgustingly sappy, heart-swelling love I have for each and every one of you that take precious time out of your day to tune into the nuthouse that is this blog, I'm pleased to introduce to you:

 

THE DAILY MOSIFER.

 

Or, a daily post of that which makes me tingle, sing off-key in the shower, and otherwise excited about a life that occasionally gets lost in the mess it makes of itself. Not that I'm bitching, of course. And so it goes:

Disgustingly cute.

 

My friend Sam recently posted this photo of her embarking on her first flying lesson. Someday I'll get over the fact that she didn't tell me she was doing it ahead of time and I had to find out via Faceplant after the fact -- YES SAM I'M TALKING TO YOU -- but for right now I'd just like to share with you how incredibly amazing it reminds me that she is.

 

I don't know how to describe to you the love I have for this woman. If I were a mother, she would be my pride and joy. If I were a blanket, she would be the sheets. If we were lesbians, we would make the shit out of that bed together. She has seen me through so much, and I hazard to guess I have done the same on occasion. Whenever we are together, it's like somebody threw a mirror in the room and I'm hanging out with myself (not that I'd really choose to hang out with myself, but you get the idea), we interact so seamlessly. When we have the great fortune of spending time in each other's homes, the magical doubling of both our wardrobes is enough to make me swoon. Not to mention that neither of us have a problem wearing things off the floor. In a nutshell, she is my heterosexual soul mate.

 

When I saw this, I thought "fuck you, Sam!" simply because she never fails to amaze me with her balls and infinite desire to claim the world. In fact, when I endeavored to make a ten-foot painting of her, from day one its tentative title was "The World." This is both because when I met her I had no idea what her ethnicity was -- girl could be part ANYTHING -- and her uncanny ability to be anything and everything all the time. She constantly amazes me with her passion for life and ability to make me jealous squeezing the shit out of it. Only she shares my knack for traveling alone to unseen cities for a weekend and spending far too much money at Target in California. Plus she's the only one apart from The Mother that would call me out on that jealousy (Sam I reiterate: fuck you!). Also I can say "fuck you" to her and she won't get mad. Or throw a reduced fat caramel iced coffee in my face (a drink I find appalling, but I'm still working on her pallet).

 

Sam, I am SO SO SO SO proud of you. You inspire me to grab life by the balls, time and time again. Only you could put up with me for 30+ hours in a car together as I make her tortuously listen to 50 Shades of Grey. Only you would let me use your entire sketchbook for kindling as we attempt to make an illegal fire on the outskirts of Yosemite National Park. Only you would necessitate "going in to town" to find a bathroom so that you may wash your face in the wilderness. And only you would let me make fun of you for it, over and over and over again. You are so special to me, and I can't wait for you to get your pilot's license so that you can fly me all over the place when someday we elope to a far-off land. Let's never stop spending too much money together, ok?

 

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