Legacy of Soldier's Heart: Shot at Dawn

Rumpled earth, east of Bernafay Woods,

British Cemetery

My paternal grandfather served with the Royal Garrison Artillery during WWI.  After the Armistice, the brigade was kept in France and informed they were now going to be sent to Russia to fight on the side of the White Russians against the Red Bolsheviks (a futile cause as we now know).  After being told of this new posting, most of the brigade, including my grandfather and his two brothers; deserted and made their way back to England; knowing well that if they were caught, they would be shot.

The authorities later caught up with some of the deserters and although they were not court-martialled, because public opinion was against British involvement in the Russian War, they were denied the right to return to their pre-war employment and they never received their war medals. 

Upon returning to England, my grandfather would sire a second son: my father, who at the conclusion of his service in WWII, would emigrate to Australia and live there for the rest of his life.

I am here - a daughter - because my grandfather was as clever as a fox with eluding capture. For the last twenty years, from time to time, I have found myself in a dream of my grandfathers: we are walking by a forest and there is a body.  I do not see it and then there are people who come to collect it.

I feel it is the body I wore in my past-life.....    the woods remember me, their roots were nourished by my flesh, and my essence mingled with the earth.  It was a good death.  .

14:18

World War One soldiers knew their king and country expected them to fight to the death. Such was the expectation of their military commanders, their political leaders and even their loved ones that there was no question that if mortal danger came, they should face it like men. It was the only way for good to triumph over evil.

But this conflict quickly became the most brutal war in history and not even the most seasoned serviceman was prepared for the scale of carnage that unfolded before him. For many the horror proved too much. Hundreds were unable to cope, many were driven insane and several simply ran away.

But the army could no more afford to carry cowards than it could traitors, and many of those who did flee faced instant retribution with a court martial and death by firing squad.

British and Commonwealth military command executed 306 of its own men during the Great War. Those shot brought such shame on their country that nearly a century on, their names still do not appear on official war memorials.

A Heavy Battery of the RGA tows its 60-pounder guns along the roads of Northern France.

 

Granny Smith:

"Son of Man"

Rene Magritte

 

 

Maria Ann Smith arrived in Australia with her husband Thomas in 1830 aged 30.
She had already three children when they established their family home and orchard in North Road.
Maria would to on to conceive another 13 children!  Maria bought a case of French Crab apples from Tasmania.  On finding the last of these in the case had gone bad, she tipped them out down by the creek course that ran through the family property. From seed that germinated a new fruit tree grew up along the creek course. Mrs Smith knew that this was not a French Crab apple and distinctively different to any other apple she had seen.  Mrs Smith recognised she had something that was very special...........

  

 

The patriarchal values which deny the body, women and feminine values based more on being than doing, which relates to the superiority of the head, logic, rules and rightness, sabotages a slower and deeper self of the body's natural wisdom, natural organization and alignment, and even heart space.  What's more, the inner voice condemning your life, your body and your most innate self will be projected into your relationships with your spouse, partner or significant other, your children, your employer/employees, your government, and the other important people and teachers in your life.  This voice goes undetected and is buried so deep in the core tissues of your body that you are unable to even detect it.  It has been operating so long in our culture and lives that we do not even know that as men and women, children and elders, that we are being ruled by values, thoughts and nervous system patterning which denigrate our lives and innate biological functioning.

 

Since the self is a reflection of a spiritual energetic soul AND THE BODY WHICH HAS MANIFESTED THIS SOUL, by working directly with the innate aspects of the body we are able to begin to restructure a self which is intrinsically in alignment with its own soul, its own sense of rightness and direction of real and spiritual life.

Sidra Stone, PhD has named this voice "the Inner Patriarch".  Her book, The Shadow King:  The Invisible Force that Holds Women Back is a very constructive psychology book to help both men and women understand the values of our culture and the voices which are at play in our many psychological selves.

Umbrellas

Pierre Auguste Renoir

The "Inner Patriarch" voice is a voice of stress to the body as well.  The relationships we experience in life are mostly based on child psychology and we keep recreating the mother-to-son and father-to-daughter configuration which keeps a person from ever truly growing up into adulthood.  So few of us have cleared this stage into a maturely sexual functioning that we do not really ever know this innate mature self.  We get involved in pair bonding relationships based on the unfulfilled and unfinished psychological and body-physical patterning that we recreate the very wound we keep trying to heal.  Since the pattern is part of the body and its neurological patterning, you cannot help but project that outward into life and hence attract a partner who fits the pattern.  Its like your body is the key hole and you find just the right key.  In my work, I am changing the "keyhole" so that you are reflecting more maturity and true alignment to self, hence you attract increasingly better life situations to yourself.

 

Extracts from Struggle With Patriarchy

Rebecca Coursey

Bozeman, MT

 

 



To Whomever it Concerns in Purgatory; James is an actor. He was just pretending to be a bad motherfucker

James Joseph Gandolfini Jr.

1961-2013

 

 

It must be acknowledged that the Church has a very limited understanding of the specifics related to Purgatory, yet Church teaching on the existence of Purgatory is made clear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, articles 1030-32, which begins with “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven (1030). The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned (1031)”.

 

Ancient Christians believed in the practice of praying for the dead.   Many locations in the ancient catacombs reveal passages marked into the walls reminding the living to pray for the dead.  St. Monica begged her son, St. Augustine, to pray for her after her own death.   In 1439, the Second Council of Florence acknowledged that some souls must still expiate for past sins after their death and they do so in Purgatory.   The 16^th Century Council of Trent, legislated “that purgatory exists, and that the souls detained therein are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, but especially by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar.”

The Catholic faith is unambiguous in its belief that those who die without moral sin but with
many of life’s imperfections still unhealed will experience a time of perfect healing from sin and brokenness and a time for whatever expiation from sin the merciful God requires of a soul before that soul may enter Heaven.  Further, the Church has been clarifying for centuries that prayers, sacrifices and most particularly, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, are of assistance to those souls who are in Purgatory.

 

 

Source: Father Michael Monshau, O.P., S.T.L., Ph.D.

 

The Skipping Stone

Jung dipping his feet in Lake Zurich

Exactly how someone's mental illness impacts on those around them depends on the individual and their diagnosis, but many carers find themselves dealing with the effects of the mental illness while continuing to juggle work, family and finances.


A report by Wesley Mission suggests carers often feel the effects on their own mental health, other relationships in their lives and their finances.


Watching a loved one struggle with mental illness is stressful and the additional workload that comes with caring can add to this stress, says Jack Heath, chief executive officer of SANE Australia.


"For some people, caring can be providing emotional support on a daily basis, offering encouragement and ensuring people get the services and treatment they need," he explains. "For illnesses where the incident is more episodic and you don't know when the illness might take hold, it's a question of staying on guard and closely monitoring how your loved one is travelling."

The first steps

Being able to identify mental illness in someone you know and love can be difficult, but Heath says early intervention is critical.


"For the more common mental disorders, like depression and anxiety, treatments are out there and the recovery rates are very high," he says. "The general advice is if someone you know has been unusually low for more than two weeks, or is behaving abnormally, they may need professional help".


Clinical psychologist Dr Suzy Green, from The Positivity Institute, says it's important to approach the person when you're both calm.  "Ask if they have five minutes to talk. Let them know that your intention is not to be nosey or overstep the mark, but to see if they are okay, because you've noticed they're not themselves lately," she says. "Then ask if there is anything you can do to help. They may initially flatly refuse, but if you keep working on the relationship, then over time they may be more willing to open up."


When that happens, Green stresses the importance of recommending they see a GP. "While you can be a good listener, you need to gently encourage them to find a mental health professional – we need to lose the stigma of seeking help," she says.


A GP can then discuss treatment options depending on the diagnosis. If need be, you can offer to go along for support when they have their appointment.

Taking care of you

Given that caring for someone with mental illness increases your own risk of depression, experts say it's important to look after yourself and know your limits.


It's normal to feel a whole range of emotions, such as guilt, fear, anger and sadness under these circumstances; however, learning more about the condition can help you to understand what's going on for your loved one and knowing how you can help.


"You can't be responsible for their recovery as much as you aren't responsible for them," says Green.
"But what you can take responsibility for, is being a key support person in their life. Don't assume you know what they need – ask them. It's also vital to unplug from the situation and maintaining contact with other people in your life.


"It's important you connect with other people and share their experiences on how best to cope," Heath says. "As a carer, you need to enjoy life and not become over-burdened. Take time to reflect on the things you're grateful for; savour things; go and have a nice meal and other small things you really enjoy. If you can't look after yourself, it's hard to help others."


Lifeline recommends carers regularly ask themselves:

• Do I get enough breaks from caring?
• Have I got regular times for relaxation?
• Am I getting regular exercise?
• Am I eating nutritious meals?
• Do I get enough sleep?
• Do I have someone I trust to talk to?

Red flags for carers

Tragically, suicide rates among people with a mental illness remain high and experts say there are certain signals to look for.


"The critical sign is seeing a sudden change in behaviour, particularly when someone had been down, frustrated or consistently angry – and then things are suddenly okay," Heath says.  "That can often be a sign that the person has devised a suicide plan and feels they've got a way out of their dilemma."


He also urges friends and family to be aware of talk about being "a burden".


"Listen out for phrases like 'the world would be better off without me' and if they are withdrawing and not engaging in the normal social connections they usually have," he says.


Mentally unwell men in particular are at risk of hurting other people, especially if they've been self-medicating with drugs or alcohol, says Jonathan Nicholas, chief executive officer of The Inspire Foundation.


"If someone has explosive or persistent anger – a short fuse – that's a real concern and needs to be addressed, because they could cause harm to someone," he explains. "They need to know that it's okay to be angry, but they have to manage their emotions better."


Text sourced from
Mental Illnesses' Ripple Effect on Family & Friends
by Cassie White
ABC Health & Wellbeing

 

Psyche's Second Task: Wool-gathering

Xalda mother and lamb

Image source: Hotel Posada del Valle

 

 



Venus

 



I always knew I was smart, but I could never figure out what I wanted to do. I was interested in learning all sorts of disconnected things and never got deep enough into any one thing to master it and could never figure out how to satisfy enough of those interests in any one job, so I have spent my adult life jumping in and out of jobs and courses of study and haven’t really done anything worthwhile with my professional life. - Kate Arms-Robert

 

 

Jupiter

 

It might be claimed that everyone should not go to college because some people are simply not intelligent enough to go to college. While honesty compels me to admit that there is some truth to this, honesty also compels me to admit that people generally overestimate the amount of intelligence required to get through college. While a certain level of intelligence is required, getting through college is often more a matter of persistence and showing up than of intellectual might. - Mike LaBossiere

 

 

Mars

 

Hubris without apprenticeship or without a pursuit of excellence or mastery within a field often leads at best, to junk art that doesn’t land the way a creator wants it to and, at worst, to someone deeply frustrated and isolated in her creative endeavours because she doesn’t understand what she doesn’t know about the inherent yet delightful challenges within an artistic field. The Greeks like Aristotle called this pursuit of excellence “arete,” the virtue of bringing out every last drop of your human potential in whatever endeavours you pursue. - Jeffrey Davis

 

 

Saturn

 

Through many years searching for the truth about potential, I've become convinced that it's time for a broadened conceptualization of human intelligence that takes into account each person's unique package of personal characteristics, passions, goals, values, and developmental trajectory. That emphasizes the value of an individual's personal journey. That extends the time course of intelligence from a two-hour testing session of decontextualized problem solving to a lifetime of deeply meaningful engagement. That arms students with the mindsets and strategies they need to realize their personal goals, without limiting or pre-judging their chances of success at any stage in the process. That shifts the focus from doing everything right to a lifelong learning process where bumps and detours are par for the course. From a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. From product to process. - Scott Barry Kaufman

 

 

Mercury

 

Professor Aronson calls the doltishness induced by an uncomfortable social situation “conditional stupidity.” We should use that insight to create the conditions for brilliance. - Annie Murphy Paul

 

 

 

Click on author name to read full essays at The Creativity Post

 

The Home Economics of Soul

"Sweet Pea"
A 550-square-foot houseboat in
Olympia, Washington

 

 

Jean Lall, an astrologer and therapist from Baltimore, lectures on the soul of housework. She calls housework 'a path of contemplation' and says that if we denigrate the work that is to be done around the house every day, from cooking to doing laundry, we lose our attachment to our immediate world. There is also a close relationship, she says, between daily work and the house and responsibility to our natural environment.


"I might put it this way: there are gods of the house, and our daily work is a way of acknowledging these home spirits that are so important to sustaining our lives. To them, a scrub brush is a sacramental object, and when we use this implement with care we are giving something to the soul. In this sense, cleaning the bathroom is a form of therapy because there is a correspondence between the actual room and a certain chamber of the heart. The bathroom that appears in our dreams is both the room in our house and poetic object that describes a space in the soul.


"I don’t mean to inflate the simple things of life with exaggerated meaning and formality, but we might be reminded of the value to the soul of doing our daily chores attentively and with an eye to detail. We all know that at some level daily work affects character and the overall quality of life, but we usually overlook the way soulfulness can adhere to ordinary housework and the gifts it can bring to the soul.


If we let other people do our ordinary work for us, or if we do it ourselves without care, we might be losing something irreplaceable and eventually experience that missing element as a painful sense of loneliness or homelessness". ~ Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul

Belittling Bimbos

 

Portrait of Jeanne Samary (also known as Reverie)

by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1878

 

 

During the 1960s and 1970s, one of my much-looked-forward-to-pleasures as a child was watching the plethora of  televised beauty pageants : Miss Australia, Miss America, Miss World, Miss Universe and all the other Mademoiselles.  It was a curious way in which my father and I bonded and as a 52-year-old female, that insight has received a great deal of pondering over.  As I grew up on a steady diet of meat, three veg & spuds, so consider myself fortunate - or too dense - to have developed serious eating disorders from my exposure to years of ritual beauty pageantry watching at an impressionable age.  The 8-day Israeli Army Diet was as disordered as my eating got. 

 

 

For me, the pageants were all about the frocks!!  Oodles and oodles of beautiful frocks, national costumes and evening gowns.  The glamour!  The colours! The sparkle!  I was glamoured.  Enthralled.  Hypnotized. Awestruck and Bedazzled.  I am a material girl; a sometime textile artist, hoarder of brocades, fondler of velvets and secret keeper of vintage fur collars. [How I never took a U-turn into fashion design I just do not know.  Well, I did with designing slut fashions for my Barbies.  Hmm.....]

 

 

A recent buzz-past of Bad Astronomy at Slate.com surprised me with unveiling another aspect of those late 20th century pageants : the ritualized rooting out of the biggest bimbo at the beauty pageant.

 

 

I never knew that.  I feel like I have been living under a rock my whole life.  Maybe growing up in Australia is like living under a rock when it comes to American culture.  I do not know.  You can bet I will be pondering over this now.

 

 

Mostly, I am somewhat glad to have been too lamb-like and dense in the 1960s and 70s to have picked up on how Ugly Men belittle Beautiful Women in the collective.  It seems like a  fractured cultural acting-out of the fairy-tale of Beauty & the Beast.   Naturally, I thought that the judges sincerely wanted to know Miss Columbia or Miss Japan or Miss Alaska's opinion on these Very Important Questions. Like the rest of the hidden audience, I waited with anticipation to hear a profound answer that would tip the scales between Miss Cosmic Intelligence and Miss First-Loser.

 

 

I sure did not know I was watching dumb animals being teased all those years; a belittling of the Venus-in-Taurus archetype.  I am not sure if the dumb animals were the young women on display or the unseen men of all ages with their eyes glued to the box as their fantasies stiffened into wet dreams.

 

 

Anima.  Animus.

 

 

As I scamper and cartwheel through the goldmine-field of perimenopause, I feel all the false layers of the myriad of ways in which I absorbed my culture's presentation of How to Be Woman and What it Means to be Female being plucked and shed like fluffy penguin chick down.  The recapitulation and dismantling of  pre-puberty and post-puberty perspectives to be replaced by Crone-wisdom is - to be honest - really fucking painful.  I would not have missed this for the world or it's nice shiny satin sash with the gold fringing that annoying never sits right and always slips off the shoulder.

 

You would think they would have sorted that by now with a strategically placed safety-pin, eh?

 

 

A bimbo who does deserve belittling is RFK Jr and his stance on anti-vaccination.  I would wish a pox on this lesser son of a greater father yet going by some of his comments, it does seem he is displaying the general paresis of the insane.

 

 



In the Belly of the Uranus-Pluto square: Chiron Retrograde

 

 

 

“I see astrology as a very great lady, most beautiful and coming from such a great

distance that she cannot fail to hold me under her spell. In the purely physical world,

I see nothing which has assets to emulate hers. She seems to me, besides, to hold one

of the noblest secrets of the world. What a shame, then, that nowadays - at least for

the common masses - a prostitute reigns in her place.”

~ Andre Breton

 

 

 

“Among free men,” said Abraham Lincoln, “there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs.” Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.

 

        Too often we honour swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them. Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul. For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colours. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter. This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.

 

 

        I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his colour or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

 

 

        We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers. Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact.  The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

 

 

       We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge. Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

 

 

        But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfilment they can. Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again."

 

 

Extract from a speech given by

Senator Robert F. Kennedy,

on April 5 1968

at City Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio,

The Venus Project
 

Multiple Blunt-Force Trauma

” As a drop in the ocean you take part in the current, ebb and flow. You swell slowly on the land and slowly sink back again…you wander vast distances in blurred currents and wash up on strange shores, not knowing how you got there. You mount the billows of huge storms and are swept back again into the depths….You had thought that your movement came from you and that it needed your decisions and efforts….but with every conceivable effort you would never have achieved that movement and reached those areas to which the sea and the great wind of the world brought you..

From endless blue plains you sink into black depths; luminous fish draw you, marvelous branches twine around from above. You slip through columns and twisting, wavering, dark-leaved plants, and the sea takes you up again in bright green water to white, sandy coasts,  and a wave foams you ashore and swallows you back again, and a wide smooth swell lifts you softly and leads you again to new regions, to twisting plants, to slowly creeping slimy polyps, and to green water and white sand and breaking surf.” ~ Carl Jung

Image Source: South Shields Daily Photo

Lion's Gate Bridge, Vancouver, B.C.

Image:  McCord Museum

Opened in 1938, the elegant Lions Gate Bridge is a Vancouver icon. Celebrated from the beginning for its grace and beauty, it spans the First Narrows of Burrard Inlet, marking the entrance to Vancouver's harbour and connecting the North Shore to Stanley Park and the city centre.


In the last six years, 26 people have leapt to their death from the iconic Lions Gate. More than three years ago, the B.C. Coroners Service recommended installing barriers on that bridge and four others in the Vancouver area that are also suicide magnets. [read more]

Brown Pelican dives

Image: Kelpscape

"Some people seem to think that jumping off the bridge is a light, airy way to end your life, like going to join the angels," said Marin County Coroner Ken Holmes, talking in the reception area of the coroner's office in San Rafael. "I'd like to dispel that myth. When you jump off the bridge, you hit the water hard. It's not a pretty death."


The impact is tremendous. The body goes from roughly 75 to 80 mph to nearly zero in a nanosecond. The physics of inertia being what they are, internal organs tend to keep going. The force of impact causes them to tear loose. Autopsy reports typically indicate that the jumpers have lacerated aortas, livers, spleens and hearts. Ribs are often broken, and the impact shoves them into the heart or lungs. Jumpers have broken sternums, clavicles, pelvises and necks. Skull fractures are common.
Which means you die one of two ways, or a combination of both. One, you hit the water and the impact kills you. Sometimes the jumper is knocked unconscious. Other times, the jumper survives for a time. The person can be seen flailing about in the water, trying to stay afloat, only to succumb to the extensive internal bleeding. Death can take seconds or minutes. Two, you drown. You hit the water going fast, and your body plunges in deep. Conscious or otherwise, you breathe in saltwater and asphyxiate.


You can usually tell which bridge jumpers drowned: Frothy mucus bubbles from the nose. [...]


For finding and retrieving bodies, time is of the essence. The sea reclaims bodies quickly. Fish eat them. Not just sharks, but little fish. They eat the eyes and other tender parts. As the body decays and opens up, all manner of sea creatures move in to feed. Eventually, the body comes apart.


A body floats because decay causes gases to form within its cavity. If that cavity is breached for any reason, the gas escapes and the body sinks.

And no one will ever know what happened.

[read more]

Shorebirds kelp feast

Image Kelpscape birds

Goddesses, Wives, Sluts & Slaves

Mass media is too powerful/invasive and has led to the destruction of the feminine aspect of Western culture - which once represented wisdom and nurturing, and replaced it with "empowering" whore archetypes such as the airbrushed, nymphomaniac dregs on shows like Sex and the City. This has derailed Western society away from notions of feminine wisdom towards a completely superficial narcissistic bling-culture-on-herpes-medication in heavy Max Factor packaging. Because this is how the present psychopathic mainstream considers women to be.

Society should be female - currently, society is a psychopathic male in terms of what it delivers to all of us.

This damages both men and women - as most men today expect a woman to be a tart, and many women seek and marry plastic surgeons in the hope of not being discarded. So Western society has become increasingly misogynistic even with the success of women's lib and so on. A man can not marry a woman who is intelligent, loving and secure unless she is also "hot" - likewise, women are coached to look for men who will finance their media driven delusions of what being beautiful is. The rest of us are discarded for not being superficial enough. Psychopaths control the mass media and this insanity has distorted a lot of the population to emulate this pathology as the new norm.

The male psychopaths in charge are Gaslighting women through the media - while turning men into adult children. The spiritual vacuum (and I am not talking religion here at all) left in many people is filled with a distorted sense of self. If your soul has been made empty, you will seek to fill it with nothing of any value regardless of the price tag, or what pointless social status it furnishes you with.

We need to shut the Psychopathic Control Grid down through awareness and creative non-compliance. Then we will get the society we deserve.

Bridget Jones is not cute, charming or symbolic of modern womanhood. She is a vapid, stupid mess and this is what the ones in charge want - makes women easier to control and buy stuff to try and repair the dysfunctionality  mass media has created in the first place.

Text by Thomas Sheridan
22 October 2011
 

Was Penelope Stupid or What?

Anthony Quinn as Antinous

Ulysses (1954)

 

 

If you were Penelope and had been sleeping alone and cold for a decade (waiting for your wandering husband, Ulysses, to return home) and Anthony Quinn made a pass;

 

 

.....what would you really do?

 

 

Thought so.

 



Joy with its Golden Oil

Athene
Protectress of Olive Trees


"O olive tree, blessed be the earth that nourishes you
and blessed be the water you drink from the clouds
and thrice blessed He who sent you
for the poor man's lamp and the saint's candle-light".


In
Memory of
Martin Gardiner Bernal
1937 - 2013
author
of
"Black Athena"

 

 

From the 1980s on, Bernal has claimed that the roots of Western civilisation were to be sought not in Ancient Greece but outside Europe, in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and ultimately in sub-Saharan Africa. Bernal has wrought havoc in Western identity, addressing hot issues such as racism, exclusion, cultural domination, White and North Atlantic hegemony. He has combined a

preference for non-mainstream theories (including Afrocentrism) with a passion for ad-hominem arguments derived from his personal sociology of knowledge. In this way he has blazed a trail of polemics and conflicts throughout a considerable number of international scholarly fields, learned journals, and conferences.


........being an agent of heated debate which raised the bar of academic inquiry was Bernal's most endearing quality and enduring contribution to the arena of human herstory.

 
 

Rocks for Ages

Brad Pitt's Trojan Horse
Canakkale, Turkey
 

 

List of Asteroids Corresponding to the Greek-Trojan War and the

Transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age

 

#659 Nestor

#588 Achilles

#1172 Aneas

#624 Hektor

#617 Patroclus

#3317 Paris

#101 Helen

#1647 Menelaus

#911 Agamemnon

#1862 Apollo

#1142 Odysseus

 

 

Button-Holing

"Wishing is the beginning of imagination. Children practice wishing when they are young things, and then--when they have grown--they have a developed imagination. Which can do some harm--greed, that kind of thing--but more often does them some good. They can imagine that things might be different. Might be other than they seem. Could be better."  ~ Gregory Maguire

The Sabbath of Women

Image Source Old Magazine Articles

 

 

 

In the nineteenth century menstruation was viewed by physicians as one more sign of the inferiority and weakness of the female. However, there is usually at least a glimmer of truth in any ideology, and the physicians of the Victorian era were not completely wrong when they emphasized the importance of menstruation in women’s overall health; of the relationship between the womb and the psyche; of the wisdom of rest during the period. We have tended to reject all of this because it reminds us of the time when the lives of women were more controlled by men, and because it smacks of old arguments that kept women tied to the home and powerless in the outside world. We have also, quite rightly, rejected the idea that the natural processes of being female are a sickness. But to say that something is not a sickness, and to ignore it altogether–these are not necessarily one and the same thing. By ignoring menstruation, in reaction to the ideas of the Victorian era, perhaps we have lost touch entirely with a lingering thread of awareness of its value in women’s lives.

 

 



Spanish Dancer

In traditional Chinese medicine, there is a concept of the female life cycle called the Four Gateways. The first gateway occurs at menarche (the onset of menstruation); the second, at marriage (which to the Chinese really meant the onset of an active sex life); the third, in pregnancy; and the fourth, at menopause. During any of these gateway phases, a woman’s health is both more vulnerable and also more accessible to positive change. Her health can alter for good or ill at these times, depending on how well she cares for herself and on the quality of any medical care she receives.



 

Le violon rouge
 

No longer in emotional flux caused by cyclical hormones, after menopause you may well find yourself to be someone you like better, someone who is more stable emotionally, more understanding, more patient, and more kind. The biological and psychological freedom found post-menopause can also unleash creativity and allow for fuller self-actualization. Old fears and issues drop away and a sense of adventure about life can surge to the fore of your psyche. It can be a very good time to be a woman.

 

 

Her Blood is Gold

Al Meister
?? - 2006



I had been interested in the menstrual cycle since my early 20′s when I had begun to chart my cycle and use natural contraception. A decade of study and practice of Chinese medicine had opened me up to different cultural viewpoints, and I had specialised in the treatment of women in my work. Since learning how Native American women traditionally behaved during menses I had been taking time out when I had my period, and had been exploring what actually happened if, like them, I slowed down and became still while I was bleeding. But this was my private reality–I had never considered writing about it.

Those four pages were the seed for Her Blood Is Gold. I began to expand on my notes and fill out the bare bones from that initial burst of clarity. The inspiration was so strong that it propelled me through months, and then years, of research and writing. Progress was rather slow: it was my first book and it took me a while to figure out how to go about it. But I persisted and just kept writing: nothing knocked me off track, despite my uncertainty and ignorance about all aspects of the process of both creating and publishing a book. Sometimes it felt like many more women than just me were writing the book, and that the spirits that surrounded me at the lake were having their say.

Lara Owen ~ Women's Wellbeing & Practical Spirituality

 

Console Thyself

Souer Emmanuelle
1908-2008

Never shying from controversy, Sister Emmanuelle's writings--just like her spoken words--pushed the envelope of social acceptability. In her memoirs, she wrote of the insatiable urges and sexual appetite. She wrote frankly of her lifelong feelings of lust, of masturbating as a girl, of falling in love and having to renounce physical love for the love of God. In a very unusually honest account for a nun, she writes: “when desire assaulted me, only some outside presence had the power to stop me; otherwise I was powerless against the avidity of pleasure. A penchant for voluptuousness and an obsession for sensuality developed in my flesh, the intensity of which is difficult to describe. The fact that the needle has not left my old woman’s body is a source of constant surprise and humiliation. I thought that, with the years, its tip of fire would completely disappear. Not at all.”

She also discussed how she grappled with and overcame her early fear of Jews. Since her grandmother was Jewish, she eventually reconciled that with her religious order which promoted the conversion of Jews to Christianity. She elaborates that “little by little,” she wrote, “I went from rejection of, to pride in, my origins.”

Fagus sylvaticus
European Beech

Medicine and sickness heal each other. The whole world is medicine.

Where do you find your self?

~ Zen Master Yunmen, ninth-century China

Rattle of a Simple Man

T

Vintage

I’m the dragon-fly wing in the radiator grill

I’m the cricket smeared by the thong

I’m the soaking-wet newspaper in your garden

I’m the waxed strip torn from the bikini line

I’m the Band-Aid that covered the sore too long

I’m the blood clotted in the chamber of a pick

I’m the beer-can home to lip-smeared butts

I’m the puke in the bag from an airsick child

I’m the denture scrubbed wholesome for the old relative in his Sunday best, motionless in the open coffin in the darkened front room of a housing trust flat

I’m the bloodied toothbrush from the overzealous scrubbing of a traveller with a gum disease.

I’m the filthy residue clogging the in-pipe of an ugly home-made bong.

I’m the eyelash on the pillow of an optimistic young actor.

I’m the smoking piece of shrapnel lodged in the organ of a poor black conscripted to fight a filthy war for a bunch of tough-skinned rich white bastards.

I’m the repeat prescription for Aurox tablets which aid the disorganised modernist to “look on the bright side”.

I’m the emotionally charged customer disappointed with all that medical science has offered looking for to make a small long-term investment in a health fund which develops the alternative treatment sector.

I’m the worker whose bright ideas come back only to rupture the delicate tissue of his anal canal.

I’m a tumour controversially removed from the lung of an unborn child.

Anonymous

24 year old, male heroin addict

sourced from CJ Society, Canberra



Behind the Shed

Bush Lemons
Billinudgel
 

Following are the opening paragraphs in Craig’s essay: The Lemon Tree: A Conversation on Civilisation, based on a series of meetings Craig San Roque had with the late Paul Quinlivan:

 

There are places that haunt the mind, strange sites of human settlement, sites of dire conjunction. This place where I live, this house of concrete blocks and concrete floor, this house in Alice Springs, in winter; a refrigerator. In summer, the surrounding sand, the yard, the concrete, all bake in obliterating sun. Out the back, across the fence of corrugated metal you could see claypans and resilient trees, Eucalyptus Coolibah Arida, set amid camouflage grey-blue old man saltbush. It’s long been known as a place where visitors meet. Hidden in the saltbush, Aboriginal men camp at nights, or come for a quiet drink in the hot days. Women come.  The coolibah trees, in the local cultural story, are said to be people dancing, waving in ceremony, welcoming an incoming group of ancestral Yeperenye caterpillar beings. The area is a sacred site, perhaps a Yeperenye fertility site.

Today, women arrayed in loose black skirts and multicoloured tops, swaying, waving, are calling out to family members; “Jungarai, Jungarai, over here.”  Men come to meet them; some shouting hoarsely, some remorseless in their intent, some with beer cans, in party mood, all escaping from the vigilant eyes of police and liquor restrictions. Hidden in the saltbush.

Geese under the bush lemon tree
Source: witcheskitchen
 

In my yard, on this side of the fence, seven citrus trees like seven sisters bearing fruit. One tree, a lemon, suffers from an ailment that has eluded diagnosis and treatment. Between the lemon and the mandarin, a round table; on the table, expecting a guest, I have placed two small coffee cups. I will give the visitor Greek coffee–or Turkish–if this morning, like those who live in disassociated places, he prefers one side over the other. We seem to live, these days, in divided selves. My visitor is one of those who work both sides of divided local ethnic associations. The town of Alice Springs is a “contact zone” where many people, in genetic code or in temperament, occupy a kind of “in-between” position. In this part of Australia the Aboriginal presence is alive and resilient, incorporating and exploiting the resources that come with the white people. The relationship is sometimes symbiotic, interdependent, maybe predatory, and at the same time illuminating, delightful, surprising. There are individuals placed in this region of overlap who can speak the truth of contradictory things; to do so requires a mind capable of holding contradiction. It is the experience of the “in-between” people, the people of the “contact zone”, who I am seeking for this book because I believe it is in difficult places, where racial, cultural groupings grind into each other, that the insidious influence of unconscious pressures felt.

If this were the city, I might seek such impact edges in places frequented by recent immigrants. The restless northern world has poured into Australia countless memories of loss – and countless hopes for a prosperous future. The cities have conquered, and are now developing a mind of their own, but here, in the remote places of indigenous Australia, ambition and a sense of immigrant entitlement continue edging into Aboriginal lands, inducing original peoples to conform to the ambitions of a westernised civilisation – or so it is said. I place my story in the region where the raw edges of Aboriginal mentality and Western mind dominate the scene. If a cultural complex were to surface, it would surface here, in a place of ambivalent contact.

My visitor is part of that hybrid workforce that plays the chess game of white and black interests. I think “chess” because of intricacy, but you could as readily think “poker game” – big money is on the table in government programs, projects, services. All get their cut in this mosaic of Aboriginal territories – in this mosaic of greed.

I am turning your attention to certain people, those whose lives are spent driving thousands of miles (or kilometres, depending upon which measure you  prefer) on remote red-sanded roads, passing through the musical landscapes, entering and leaving the business of remote Aboriginal communities. These are the “border linking” people, some indigenous, some not, whose task it is to work between cultures, in schools, clinics, stores, in Aboriginal art centres, police stations, churches, roadhouses. They translate, mediate, and negotiate; they work to support, teach, tend, facilitate; and they handle drunks, suicides and fights. Some play for personal gain, some labour under the discipline of altruism, some are dedicated to preserving cultural integrity. For some few (both black and white) the reciprocal engagement becomes a vocation, an enterprise of illumination and hardening, a tempering pressed always between the heat and cold of paradoxical states. Here in this region of contact there are signs and symptoms of borderline cultural complexities.

Girl With the Silver Hands
Artist: Claire Partington



 

No Canon of Normalcy

Eagles Nest intertidal rock platform, Bunurong Marine National Park.

Image: Mark Norman

Source: Museum Victoria

 

 

 

 

Scott Haas Ph.D  clinical psychologist, foodie and author of the book "Hearing Voices: Reflections of a Psychology Intern", has this to say about psychiatric hospitals after his intern year at Boston's Commonwealth Mental Health Institute.

 "The malingerers and the mentally ill I meet at Eastmark share the intensity that comes from being alone in the world. Embracing their feelings makes me aware of my own loneliness. When I am able to imagine their suffering, and their dignity in the face of it, I feel hounded, too, and disliked, and cut off from society's enterprise.

 

 

I think that's why the Them and Us mentality prevails in the mental health profession. By cutting Them off, we create the illusion that They are not at all like Us, and that We do not harbour the thoughts and feelings that They embody. If we view madness on a continuum, however, we have to become aware of those features of our souls that we would rather pretend do not exist.

 

 

The constant shuttle of patients through Eastmark confronts the commotion inside the clinician who observes as if from a distance. But in the end, there is no faraway pain, and there is nothing remote about their suffering. In many ways, They are just like Us. Their misery and their madness are fundamentally human experiences. I believe that's an important part of why the mentally ill are quarantined; to know that They are simply more vulnerable to the horrors of existence is intolerable because it means that the horrors, whether real or imagined, are familiar, and that it is the reactions to them that vary most. The mentally ill realize this better than any of Us. So We separate Them in order not to be reminded of what We all know to be true: that the world is unsafe, unpredictable in how its cruelties are meted out, indiscriminate about its choice of victims.

 

 

 

There is no right and wrong. There is no foundation, no canon of normalcy. Through no fault of their own, children and adolescents emerge as adults having experienced horrors within their families and within their societies and, as a result, they become the mentally ill I meet at Eastmark."

The Engrailed

New Zealand Regiment embroidery detail embroidery detail on Matron Kathleen Lloyd's linen cloth.
Source: BIRRC-H0013, Research & Cultural Collections, University of Birmingham

 

 

 

Australian and New Zealand soldiers came to Birmingham in 1914 to be treated at the University of Birmingham’s Great Hall, then called the 1st Southern General Hospital.  In the university’s collections, is an embroidered quilt that was produced by convalescing soldiers. Made up of nine panels, it includes an Australian panel depicting a crown with ‘Australian Commonwealth Military Forces’ written on a scroll underneath and a New Zealand panel featuring an intricate fern with ‘NZ’ over the top.

 

 

Source: University of Birmingham