Friday, November 22, 2013

Revoking the Pass

Post-Polio
footwear
image credit


 
 
  
"It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it … and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied … and it is all one". ~ Charlotte Wood

 
 
 
Chestnut
 
 
 
“There is a theme that runs through responses that I receive from children of a narcissistic parent(s). The child is subjected to unbearable levels of ongoing abuse–scalding criticisms, withering humiliations in front of other family members and alone, routine secret physical beatings and other horrendous acts of brutality including psychological and literal abandonment. When the child lets family members know what is happening to him, this person is not believed. When the victim of a narcissist tells the truth about his dreadful pathological parent, he is not treated with kindness or understanding. The family is shocked; the victim is treated with disdain and often told he/she is the sick one or that this is all lies to get attention. The narcissistic mother or father gets a complete pass. A masterful coverup takes place and remains ongoing. The child victims become family pariahs. Often the suggestion is whispered that they belong in a psychiatric institution or are in need of intensive psychotherapy.” (Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D, author of Freeing Yourself From the Narcissist in Your Life) 
 
 
An abused child will often make the mistake of thinking the enabling parent is kinder and more loving than the NPD parent. The child thinks that because she has to think that for the sake of her own survival. (A child’s psyche would hardly be able to bear the idea of two NPD parents.) The truth, however, is that the enabler often causes his own brand of damage.


If you read blogs from ACoNs, they often refer to the other parent (the non-NPD one)
as the “flying monkey.”
 
 

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh

 
 
 
It is September 1968.  My mentally ill mother has been hospitalized - again - and she is having hallucinations and hearing voices.  I would learn about that forty years later.  I have come home from school, sometime in July or August, without any idea that a storm had been brewing.  I am ambushed by my father who is in my bedroom, wildly and insanely tossing all my belongings into a suitcase. 
 
All my belongings.
 
I say "Where's mum?" and he turns to face me and curtly, sharply spits at me:
 
"In hospital. She needs a rest". 
 
"Why? What's going on? Why?" 
 
"Just...just...just don't ask questions. I'm taking you to your aunt.  Hurry up and grab your things".
 
 
My father is dumping me on the youngest sister of my mother, a woman who is a farmer's wife with three stepsons between the ages of 16-22, and a husband to cook, clean and wash for.  She also works part-time as a cook in one of the country hotels.  She is an alcoholic. She has buried two sons of her own: one a still-birth, the other a cot-death.   She cannot have any more children.
 
My father has dumped his wife into the local asylum for the insane.  He is preparing to dump his only child who is seven-and-a-half years old with an over-whelmed psychotic aunt who has crawled into a bottle and lives 285km away.  That is four hours as the crow flies.
 
Spot the hidden agenda between the lines of this letter my alcoholic aunt writes.  *Names have been changed to reflect my sardonic perspective as this level of breath-taking abject stupidity on the part of so-called grown-ups can only be integrated with a solid dose of humour.
 
 
Tuesday, 17th September 68

 
Dear *Sister-Who-Tried-To-Kill-Yourself,

 
Writing to let you know that as soon as we get to barbeque on Sunday, *Trophy Child met a few of her class-mates from school.  She settled down OK, within seconds she asked could she have a barbequed sausage and a bottle of soft drink. Then she went to look at Uncle Don's pigs; one sow had a litter of young ones, were feeding. Then she went with other children and gathered tadpoles, then she had a chop.  All in all she had time of her life covered in mud same as we use to get when we use to go catching yabbies.  She brought tadpoles home to keep for *Her-Father-Who-Is-Standing-In-The-Way-Of-Me-Keeping-Your-Kid, for fishing bait.  

 
[the letter continues a week later]
 
 
Wednesday, 25th September 68

 
Dear *How-Dare-You-Think-Something-Is-Fishy, Sister,

 
I have been kept on my toes with visitors in one way and another since you was here; as result I haven't posted *Trusting Child's letter she wrote to you and her father.  Also I have had flu. *L. went to Melbourne Show yesterday to buy a couple of stud pigs, which he will be going to collect in Melbourne on Sunday in his trailer.  So if it suits you and *Her-Father-Who-Accused-L-Of-Being-Cold-and-Unfeeling-Towards-His-Daughter, to let us bring *Vulnerable & At-Risk Child home Sunday and save *Her-Deadbeat-Father an unnecessary trip up here Saturday when *L has to go to Melbourne on Sunday.

 
Both of us think you are doing wrong thing by taking her back until you are 100% well as she is so happy at school and everything in general up here.  It is a pity I hadn't posted her letters to you, as having been in bed for nearly a week myself, boys have been battling - anyhow I ended up having to go to doctors yesterday and I have pleurisy as well as flu.

 
*Your-Daughter-Who-I-Have-Been-Exceedingly-Cruel-and-Nasty-to had her sports yesterday and her team came second. Make sure you get *Your-Loser-Husband to let me know for sure if he intends *The-Child-He-Said-You-Got-Pregnant-With-On-Purpose-To-Trap-Him-Into-Staying-With-You to go home on weekend so I can ring headmaster and get her transfer fixed up.

 
If I am OK by Sunday I will be going down for trip as *L's sister E. is suppose to be coming up for a holiday.

 
Your loving sister,

*Barfly
 
PS: I haven't told her she is to go home on weekend: in case you may change your minds.
 
PPS: Please excuse *Dutiful Daughter's letter as she is at school and I don't know which is correct letter.

   
This aunt would dictate what to write in my letters to my parents.  You know...the same way that terrorists tell their hostages what to write.  I survived the sheer insanity, utter stupidity and pig ignorance of my parents, their friends and my mother's siblings.
 
 
I am not so sure I am going to survive the therapy ~
at least, not without a lot of comedic help because
I just cannot believe what a
fucking cliché my life has turned out
to be.
I was an only child too.
Epic suck!
 
 

  


 
 

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Things of Water, Fire & Wood

Fire opal growth rings in fossilized wood
image credit

Article and Book References

 
  1. An Age for Lucifer - Predatory Spirituality and The Quest For Godhood, Robert C. Tucker,1999, Holmes Publishing Group.
  2. People of The Lie, Peck Scott, 1983, Simon & Schuster.
  3. Disarming the Narcissist - Surviving and Thriving With The Self Absorbed, Behary Wendy T., 2008, New Harbinger Publications.
  4. Healing with the Devil: Psychopathic leaders and Self Development Cults, Ransky O., 1998, Visage Publications.
  5. The Art and Practice of Family Constellations - Leading Family Constellations as Developed by Bert Hellinger, Verlag Carl-Auer-Systeme, 2003, Private Publication.
  6. The Spiritual Universe, Wolf, Fred Allen, 2003, Sounds True publications.
  7. "The Lessons Unlearned", Fox Catherine, Australian Financial Review, Dec 29, 2009, pg 20.
  8. Understanding the Borderline Mother – Helping Her Children Transcend the Intense, Unpredictable, and Volatile Relationship, Lawson, Christine Ann, 2000, A Jason Aronson Book,  Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, Lanham..
 

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Likenscapes: Remembering Mr Muggs

Mr Muggs
919th victim in the Jonestown Massacre
November 18 1978
image credit


 
Unable to cope, some chimpanzees resort to self-mutilation, including biting themselves, attacking a limb that they dissociate as being their own, pulling their hair out, rubbing their skin raw, or hurting themselves in other ways—behaviours that in humans would be described as having “gone crazy.”


Building an Inner Sanctuary… analyses case material of two chimpanzees rescued from research, Jeannie and Rachel. Diagnosed with complex PTSD, Jeannie and Rachel demonstrate that chimpanzees, like humans, suffer when confined, stripped of agency, repeatedly physically injured, and subjected to constant fear and stress. Their symptoms—hypervigilance, dissociating, violent self-attacks, insomnia, ritualistic behaviours, inability to tolerate touch and limited social sills—are representative of human trauma survivors as well as other chimpanzees from research.


“The paper challenges a system that likens chimpanzees to humans when attempting to justify their use to study human biological disease, but refuses to acknowledge the full extent of their emotional, behavioural and cognitive similarities since that acknowledgement argues vehemently against their use,” says Dr. Theodora Capaldo, NEAVS president, psychologist and co-author or the papers




Project R&R: Release and Restitution for Chimpanzees is NEAVS’ national campaign to end the use of chimpanzees in invasive biomedical research and provide them permanent release and restitution in sanctuary. The historic work of Project R&R will lead to the first non-human species being afforded legal protection from use in harmful research.

 

Monday, November 18, 2013

Likenscapes: Dreamer


"Jai Mata Ji..."
 
 
The following is a partial transcript of the death tape which appears in Mark Lane, The Strongest Poison (New York: Hawthorn, 1982), pp. 199-206
 
 
 
JIM JONES: I tell you I don't care how many screams you hear, I don't care how many anguished cries, death is a million times preferable to ten more days of this life. If you knew what was ahead of you. If you knew what was ahead of you, you'd be glad that you're stepping over tonight. Death, death, death is common to people – the Eskimos, they take death in their stride. Let's be dignified. If you'd quit telling them they're dying – if you adults would stop some of this nonsense.
 
Adults! Adults! Adults! I call on you to stop this nonsense.
 
 
I call on you to quit exciting your children when all you're doing is going into a quiet rest. I call on you to stop this now if you have any respect at all. Are we black, proud, and socialists or what are we? Now stop this nonsense; don't carry this on anymore. You're exciting your children. No, no sorrow – that it's all over. I'm glad it's all over. Hurry, hurry, my children, hurry. All right, let's not fall into the hands of the enemy. Hurry, my children, hurry. They're seniors out here I'm concerned about. Hurry. I'm not leaving my seniors to this mess.
 
 
Quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly. 
 
No more pain now. No more pain. I said no more pain. Jim Cobb is laying on the airfield dead at this moment. [cheers] That Oliver woman said she would come over and kill me if her son wouldn't stop her. These are people, the peddlers of hate. All we're doing is laying down our life. We're not letting them take our life, we're laying down our lives....
 
 
JONES: Stop all this nonsense. Stop this screaming. All we're doing is taking a drink and going to sleep. That's what death is – sleep. You can have it, I'm tired of it all....


JONES: Where is the vat, the vat, the vat, with the green sea in it? The vat with the green sea in, please?




We didn't commit suicide, we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an angry, mean world.

 
In the future, when the Leader of a Reality Distortion Field demands a show of loyalty from followers with an act of suicide, the best defense is to respond with the Words:
 

RIGHT-O MATE, YOU GO FIRST!! 

 
 



Sunday, November 17, 2013

Likenscapes: Reader

Roman cat, Torre Argentina
image found


Jean Fain, a Boston-area psychotherapist affiliated with Harvard Medical School and author of the book “The Self-Compassion Diet,” makes the excellent point that “this is America and the perfectionistic standards are unreachable.” She says that no one is ever fully happy with everything — feelings naturally wax and wane and “to think body satisfaction is an achievable and sustainable state is unrealistic.” Body realities are different at age 20 and 30, 50 and 80. The key, she says, is to not let all of these little body imperfections rule our lives, but rather to notice them, allow yourself to feel them even if they’re painful and then get back out there and live a “meaningful, deliberate life.”


In the 1970s, my mom and I did the grapefruit diet together; she took me to a fat-farm in upstate New York where we fasted for a week; mornings, in the dark, I jogged with her at a track in Red Hook, Brooklyn, when practically no one else jogged (I’m pretty sure we wore Keds). My early desire to be a dancer didn’t help matters; nor did my summer choreography course at Harvard where I learned how effective vomiting and laxatives can be for weight control. Even now, when my mother comes to visit, she tiptoes into my bathroom each morning and asks: “Is your scale right?”


She’s in her 70s; it never ends.
 
 
 
Emily Sandoz, a Ph.D. clinical psychologist and assistant professor of psychology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, studies what she calls “body image inflexibility” and has endured her own struggles with weight and bad body image. Her forthcoming book: “Living with Your Body and Other Things You Hate,” details a fairly new approach that’s gaining traction called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). The theory behind ACT is that only by actually working through our anxiety and deep anguish and body hatred will we be able to focus on the much more important business of living meaningful, vital and psychologically flexible lives.
 
 
Extracts from Bodily Gratitude, Judy Tsafrir, MD
 
 
 
Holy Rats of Shri Karni Ji
Deshnok, North Rajastan, India
 
 

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Likenscapes: Author


Pithoi displayed at the Ophel Site. Photo: Israel Antiquities Authority.



Mental illness IS a medical illness.

Mental illness has a course, prognosis, and mortality rate, like any other medical illness--in most cases, around 20-30%. Which means, 2-3 of every 10 people diagnosed with many mental illnesses will die from those illnesses, either directly or indirectly.

Mental illness cannot be cured by an "a-ha moment," will power, life experience, or a good boyfriend/girlfriend. Ever. Ever, ever, ever.

Really.

Mental illness is cured (or, more often, managed) by combinations of medication, therapy, social skills training, social supports, and environmental structure.

As a rule, people experiencing an acute episode of mental illness are not candidates for romantic relationships. They do not feel sexy. They feel pretty sick and miserable. They are not likely to be interested in real romance (sex is a different story, depending on the diagnosis).

People with chronic mental illness certainly do have relationships, but this is a difficult issue for both the patient and the partner, and can't be glossed over or minimized. It will dominate the tableau.

Most people with mental illness are not criminals, and many are not capable of organizing behaviour and thought enough to form criminal intent. Newsflash: The "Multiple" didn't do it.

Axis II disorders, or personality disorders, distort personality and thinking, but do not excuse people from criminal responsibility.

Reference: fangs-fur-fey
Susan R. Vaught, Ph.D.
Excerpt from: "Mental Illness and Brain Injury: a basic resource for writers."


 

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Likenscapes: Wings of Deliverance





"You don't have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body......
........ temporarily."
"I want to join the movement & agree to love my body more and more each day, to use kind words towards myself and towards other women, to be a role-model for future generations of mothers, and to choose to be empowered knowing that I am not alone, and that by coming together, we can reshape body image in mass-media, build self-esteem, and explore vulnerability as a collective" 



Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Likenscapes: If Wishes Were Horses



....pale chwal mwen....
 
 
 
 
 
Listen poor sinner, you're driftin' away
From the Dear Saviour who's pleading to day
What will you do when the Saviour ain't nigh
When the pale horse and his rider goes by?
 
 
The time now ain't long when the Saviour will come
Then you'll be judged by the deeds you have done
On that judgment day you'll weep and you'll cry
When the pale horse and his rider goes by
 
 
When that trumpet sounds on the sinners below
Not even the angels in heaven will know
Then's when you'll wish you had Jesus nigh
When the pale horse and his rider goes by
 
 
Won't you redeem your poor wicked soul
You can't pay your way with silver and gold
If you're not saved you'll be lost in the night
When the pale horse and his rider goes by.
 
 
 
 
Now, there would be time for everything.....
 

Likenscapes: Somebody Skipped Biology Class



The big idea that we were children until we detonated these two bombs out in the desert. We always say, “Oh, isn’t it a horrible thing? Oh, it’s the nuclear age. Now we wrestle with destroying ourselves as a species,” and it’s looked upon as a completely negative thing. But in a way, I look at it as when we were able to put away childish things. That’s when we got our first apartment. That’s, people started to go, “Hey, wait a second.” I think right up until that moment, the idea that we could destroy ourselves was absurd. Now we take it for granted. We start to look at it, “Well shit, we got the holes in the ozone layer.” We become aware that we’re capable of existential destruction, and I think that’s part of growing up as a species. 



I mean, homo sapiens rock. When you see a bunch of people trying to push a whale off a beach, I go, “Okay, what other fucking species does that?”


That just makes me feel like we are different. We aren’t a part of the animal kingdom.


Quote: Daniel Knauf, creator of Great Depression-era genre show Carnivàle
 

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Likenscapes: Ambassadors of the Axe


Peter McLaren (1882-1953) has been called Australia's chief "ambassador of the axe". Born near
Melbourne, he began competing at 16 years and at 24 (in 1906) had won championships in
both Victoria and Western Australia.  Peter died age 71 on November 27 at his home in Australia.
 

  

Cultures differ in what is considered normal and what is considered abnormal. Therefore, the conception of mental illness is tied into whether or not members of a culture will seek help, what kind of help these individuals will seek and from whom. It should be remembered that traditional psychotherapy evolved from both the existential and psychoanalytic framework imported from Europe. Sigmund Freud has become a household word, and it was his approach to psychoanalysis that influenced much of the psychodynamic approach that is used today. The humanistic approach associated with Carl Rogers is an offshoot of the European existential theories which were evaluated by American psychologists as being too morbid.


Don't let them tell you you're nuts!
Fox Squirrel
image credit Wildcare
 
When Nunnally (1960) researched public conceptions of mental illness in the United States, he asserted that he could see only two possible results: (1) that the public was "misinformed" in the sense that the "average"  person held numerous misconceptions about mental illness or (2) that the public was uninformed in the sense that the average  person had little information, correct or incorrect, about many of the problems related to mental illness. 

 
African Americans tend to seek treatment late in the progress of the disease. They first turn to the extended family, and other relationships, as well as their religious minister whenever they are experiencing stress. They find it less humiliating to do so. When all these resources are depleted, then and only then will they seek treatment from the mental health clinic and other services.. They tend to mistrust the therapist who is perceived as an outsider and see the role of the therapist as intrusive.

On the other hand, Zborowski (1969) pointed out that Italians were more interested in quick relief from pain and tended to overdramatize and exaggerate it. They bear some similarity to African Americans in their inclination to turn to and exhaust family resources before seeking treatment. It takes them a long time to trust outsiders. The Irish, in contrast tend to minimize and hide their pain.  They may also minimize their symptoms, leading to inaccurate diagnosis.

Axeman's Carnival 1915
Taumata Park, Eltham New Zealand
image nicked from Te Ara Encyclopedia of NZ

 

Jewish clients tend to be more interested in finding the source of the psychological problem, while Anglo-Americans attempt to deal with pain by individual efforts and have a great deal of confidence in medical orders and technological type of interventions.
 
Puerto Rican and other Hispanics underutilize mental health services. According to Padilla and Ruiz (1973), Puerto Ricans express pain through somatic symptoms. They turn to their families in their old neighbourhood for relief. Women are more likely than men to be seen as clients. Many of the stressors are related to their traditional role to preserve the family, role conflicts, marital conflicts, problems associated with raising adolescents rejecting parental values and stressors associated with the acculturation process. The physical symptoms they present are often combined with anxiety and depression. Puerto Ricans may equally seek help from a physician or spiritist.

 Mexican Americans (Miranda & Kitano, 1976) tend to hide mental illness and believe that it may be inherited or that prayers will help or cure it. Many depressed and suicidal Mexican American patients reported that they controlled suicidal thoughts and impulses because the Roman Catholic Church teaches that suicide is an unpardonable sin. The stage of acculturation may also determine whether the patient will seek treatment or depend on the resources of the extended family, or the Church. 

 
 
Rev John Harper and his daughter Annie (Nan)
image source Harper Memorial Baptist Church, Scotland
 
 
Polish Americans are least likely to seek psychological treatment unless their problem interferes with their ability to perform.  The value of stoicism is very deep. Mental illness is perceived as preventing them from performing, affecting issues of self control, and allowing dependency needs to surface. They mistrust outsiders and mental health agencies and look to the family, friends, priest and the community for help. Seeking help signifies weakness.  
Greek-Americans tend to perceive mental illness as a stigma. They see mental illness as having a negative effect on a permanent basis, not only for the patient but for all family members. They often try home remedies until the situation is out of their control before they present themselves for treatment. When they do, they are reported as somatic problems such as headaches, stomach pains and nerve troubles. The whole family may show interest in hearing what the diagnoses is and what it means. Each family member may blame the other for the problem.

Almond trees in bloom, early March near the north border of the
Palestinian West Bank near Jenin.
image Ferrell Jenkins

Caribbean individuals bring with them to the United States conceptions of mental illness and attitudes toward seeking psychological help. Carl Hinkle and Moss (1981) have pointed to the interconnectedness of religion and medicine. This relationship, according to these researchers, has extended into areas of both psychological and somatic complaints. They reported that 43 percent of individuals suffering from emotional problems first turn to the clergy  for help. The religion involved may not necessarily be Christian. It may be a combination of Christianity and aspects of African folk rituals found in Voodoo (Haiti),  Obeah (Jamaica) and Santeria (Cuba). Caribbean islanders here in the Unites States align themselves to religious practices similar to those in their homeland.

 
Many Caribbean islanders seen in clinical practice in the United States are referred from their jobs, the clergy, youth and family services or the legal system. This is particularly true of the lower socio-economic group. When the mental health system expanded on the islands from the narrow focus of hospitalization of the insane, to outpatient and private practice care, the middle and upper classes were the ones who were more willing to use these services. They also tend to have a wider view of mental illness and attach slightly less stigma to psychological problems. They are more like to seek treatment without having been referred.


"Gonna create a disturbance in your mind..."
image sourced milesago

On the whole, Caribbean islanders tend to have a very narrow view of mental illness. They believe that people should sort out their problems within the context of the family and not expose personal and private information to strangers. When the therapist is from their own country, they generally have  a more relaxed attitude, perceive the therapist as a friend, and engage in therapy for a longer time.


Reference: Conceptions of Mental Illness: Cultural Perspectives and
Treatment Implications ~ Lena Hall, associate professor in the Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Nova Southeastern University, Florida. 
  

Gene Simmons AXE guitar
image


Likenscapes: Don't Drink the Flavor Aid

Ray Sawyer
"Dr Hook"


Jim Jones was a fifth generation Hoosier. His father was James Thurman Jones; his grandfather was John Henry Jones; his great-grandfather was Warren M. Jones; and Edmund Jones was his great-great-grandfather who had moved to Indiana from West Virginia in 1818. Edmund and his wife Ruth Jarrett had a large family of 10 children, including Warren and a daughter named Sarah. Sarah Jones married the Reverend Phineas Lamb in 1846 and lived a long life, passing away in 1914 at the age of 90.

Jones married nurse Marceline Baldwin in 1949, and moved to Bloomington, Indiana.  Jim and Marceline Jones adopted several children of at least partial non-Caucasian ancestry; he referred to the clan as his "rainbow family," and stated: "Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future." Jones portrayed the Temple overall as a "rainbow family."


Let the place be a peaceful field covered with flowers....



Jim and Marcie shared a common Jones ancestor: their great-great-grandfather Edmund Jones. It is unlikely that either Jim or Marcie knew of this connection. When Jim and Marcie married in 1949, there was likely no one left living that knew of or remembered the relation between the families.

I believe there is little that this new-found connection can do to shed light on the events that surround Jonestown, though I find it ironic that there was already a history of preaching and psychological issues in Rev. Phineas Lamb and his son Edmond. Regardless, I see it as proof there can be incredible connections and stories to be found after so many years, not just as a person interested Jonestown, but as a family member interested in my own history.
 
Jones had first started building Jonestown, formally known as the "Peoples Temple Agricultural Project", several years before the New West article was published. Jonestown was promoted as a means to create both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from the media scrutiny in San Francisco.
 
 
Jonestown Massacre 1978
Bodies lay strewn around a vat containing a beverage laced with cyanide at the Jonestown commune of the People's Temple in Guyana. 
 
 
On November 18, 1978, nine hundred and thirteen (913) inhabitants of Jonestown, 303 of them children, died of apparent cyanide poisoning, mostly in and around a pavilion.
 
Jim Jones' wife, Marceline, was found poisoned at the pavilion.
 
Jones was found dead in a deck chair with a gunshot wound to his head.
 
 
Jonestown, Guyana
15 November 1979
 Flowers continue to grow outside the main assembly pavilion at Rev. Jim Jones' promised Marxist "heaven on earth," where in 1978,  Peoples Temple cultists perished in mass murder-suicides. The only survivors from Jonestown still around the scene of the tragedy are the goats on a livestock farm a mile and a half from the main compound, plus two cats and a dog named "Fluffy."
 
 
 

 

Prayer to the Most Holy Mother of God
“The Softener of Evil Hearts”
O much sorrowing Mother of God, more highly exalted than all other maidens, according to thy purity and the multitude of thy suffering endured by thee on earth: Hearken to our sighs and soften the hearts of evil men, and protect us under the shelter of thy mercy. For we know no other refuge and ardent intercessor apart from thee, but as thou hast great boldness before the One who was born of thee, help and save us by thy prayers, that without offence we may attain the Heavenly Kingdom where, with all the saints, we will sing the thrice-holy hymn to One God Almighty in the Trinity, always now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.


 
 
 
Marceline Baldwin Jones
1927-1978
 

Now and then over the years one conversation or another would prompt me to reveal that relatives of mine had died at Jonestown. In the dozen or so times this occurred, the dialogue always went something like this:

Them: “No way. That’s so messed up. Why do you even admit to it?”
Me:   “Admit to what?”
Them: “To being related to such freaks, such animals.”
Me:   “I don’t see it that way.”
Them: “But how can you not see it that way? What kind of a person joins a cult?”
 
 
Who indeed?  
 
Jim Jones wasn’t the first leader to be outed as a liar, a hypocrite, and a maniac. We are, in fact, surrounded by them today. But rarely do we demand their removal from power. Only occasionally do some of us question their authority. A mere cursory look at our country since its inception shows a history of authoritarian leadership propped up not only by the blind, but by the reverent faith of the people.

 
In America, Father knows best. Despite our amazing contributions to the enrichment of our world, Americans continue their commitment to such cults as the Cult of War, the Cult of Consumerism, the Cult of Political Parties, the Cult of Individualism, The Cult of Exceptionalism. And it’s exactly that devotion to authoritarianism – and not the idealism – that led to the deaths at Jonestown.


I have no idea how I’d behave thousands of miles away from home, isolated in a jungle, my life constantly threatened by the voice of a psychopath over the loudspeakers, guarded by men with guns, with no way to contact anyone who might help me to safety. Nor, dear reader, do you. To claim otherwise is naïve at best. Because as history has proven, with a few extraordinary exceptions, we would behave exactly like everyone else did.
 
We would drink the Kool-Aid*.
Quote: Laura Davis
 
 
 
*It was Flavor Aid!!
 
 
 
 
 
7 Reasons NOT to marry your atheist Marxist messiah boyfriend
 
 
 

Monday, November 11, 2013

LIkenscapes: Vehicles of Transformation




George Ripley's Travelling Medicine Show
artist Cleone Cull
 
 
How much is your health worth, Ladies and Gentlemen? It's priceless, isn't it? Well, my friends, one half-dollar is all it takes to put you in the pink.
That's right, Ladies and Gents, for fifty pennies, Nature's True Remedy will succeed where doctors have failed.
Only Nature can heal and I have Nature right here in this little bottle.
My secret formula, from God's own laboratory, the Earth itself, will cure rheumatism, cancer, diabetes, baldness, bad breath, and curvature of the spine. 

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Happy Birthday, Mr Sagan


bazooka joe, 2003
design by ezri tarazi
 
 

Friday, November 8, 2013

Likenscapes: The Elf Child

 
 
 
ITTLE Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,
An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,
An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,
An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;
An' all us other childern, when the supper-things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun
A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about,
An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!
                     
 
 
 
Wunst they wuz a little boy wouldn't say his prayers,--
An' when he went to bed at night, away up-stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wuzn't there at all!
An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press,
An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'-wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found wuz thist his pants an' roundabout:--
An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!
                     
 
 
 
An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin,
An' make fun of ever' one, an' all her blood-an'-kin;
An' wunst, when they was "company," an' ole folks wuz there,
She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care!
An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to run an' hide,
They wuz two great big Black Things a-standin' by her side,
An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what she's about!
An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!
                     
 
Gertrude Baniszewski confers with her attorney William Erbecker during her trial
for the torture slaying of Sylvia Likens. May 11, 1966.
(Randy Singer/The News)
 
                     
An' little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue,
An' the lamp-wick sputters, an' the wind goes woo-oo!
An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray,
An' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away,--
You better mind yer parunts, an' yer teachurs fond an' dear,
An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear,
An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!
 
 
image credit
alohamisterhand.wordpress.com
 
                   
"Little Orphant Annie" is reprinted from Complete Works. James Whitcomb Riley. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1916.

Likenscapes






Your sibling is your most severe judge, and your fiercest defender. You must always rescue them. They always abandon you. They abandoned you only once, and you will never forget it. They are a pain the arse. They save you. They will not be conquered. They never leave you alone.


You can never forgive them, and you will die wanting their forgiveness.



Source 

Thursday, November 7, 2013

All the Leaves are Brown...............

 
 
 
Scapegoating is an archaic ritual - in the tribes of Israel, there was a ceremonial day each year where the whole group would bring their troubles in the form of articles of clothing, dolls, rocks and various symbolic representatives to the edge of the village. They would have a purging ceremony to cleanse their families, themselves and their village of any evil influences that had caused their troubles to manifest. These troubles might be infertility, madness, loss of crops or animals, financial distress, lack of marriage partner for an elder daughter - anything that might beset any family or person in any time, culture or circumstance.
 
 
 
 
 
.....I will let fall a shower of roses. I will spend my Heaven doing good upon earth.
 
   
 
They would then pile all their 'troubles' into a basket and place it on the back of a goat and drive it out into the desert. The goat then became the carrier of the evil, the figure of burden and the one who bore the troubles of the collective. Even as late as the sixth century, it was an Ionian practice to use scapegoat-magic to read their villages of such burdens.
 
 
 
OK guys....quit messing about.  Put me down now!
 
 
 
The ancient Athenians had a formal ceremony each year in which the citizens would inscribe upon an ostracon - a broken piece of pottery - the name of someone particularly odious to them or the community.  It was largely a political ritual, but occasionally an ordinary citizen's name was found upon an ostracon.  When the ostraca were all placed in a great vessel, they would be separated and counted. The person whose name was most frequently found upon an ostracon would be sent out of the city into exile for the year. Thus ostracized from his community, the citizen would have purged the city of its 'evil' person.
 
 
 
 
image credit as above
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Monday, November 4, 2013

Lemon, Time & Bitter


Pilgrims of Zion Lutheran Church
Bookpurnong, SA
 
 
The Lutheran Church was established in South Australia in 1838 by German emigrants from Prussia. The first ones came because of the religious persecution they had suffered in Prussia. Although this persecution ceased in the mid-1840s, many more Germans followed, seeking the better life that the first migrants reported to them. Settlements were established at Klemzig, Hahndorf, Lobethal and in the Barossa Valley. Some 20,000 German Lutherans migrated to South Australia between 1838 and 1860. [Source]
 
 
 
 
 
 
Flowering buds emerging on the citrus trees at Ingerson's Orchard near Bookpurnong
on the Murray River in South Australia. Image taken during drought in October 2007.
 
 
Bookpurnong itself is a named locality that has its roots in the Aboriginal meaning derived from two indigenous words (believed to be related to the endemic tribe of the region, the Erawirung) being “Bookani”, meaning swimming place and “Purnong” wide open space. [read more]
 
 
 
 
 
 
Mid-20th century architect Robin Boyd designed both for the broader public and for exclusive clients.
Through The Age Small Homes Service which he set up in 1947, Boyd sought to raise the standard of
low-end housing by designing ‘good’ ‘modern’ and ‘simple’ house plans that were then published in
the newspaper, with the full construction drawings made available at an affordable price.
 
              
Boyd wrote about the way a pioneer mindset bred "arborophobia", a hatred of trees, which was part of this country's suspicion of "introspective questioning, and our impatience with conservation".
He wrote about the overwhelming love of "featurism" within Australian design, a copy-cat mentality that replaces hard-won quality with easy-on-the-eye decoration.


Working through all the ways Australia has been defaced with bad design, Boyd drew himself up, in the final pages of his book, to a final exhortation, both sad and defiant, for Australians to wake up from their indolence.

"The Australian ugliness begins with fear of reality, denial of the need for the everyday environment to reflect the heart of the human problem, satisfaction with veneer and cosmetic effects," Boyd wrote. "It ends in betrayal of the element of love and a chill near the root of national self-respect."



Boyd died in 1971 and one of his guiding principles, as we are told in the re-edition of The Australian Ugliness, is that good design fosters quality of life.

Text extract source: Rusty Ray of Hope in the Ugliness, Rosemary Sorensen




Pomona
Roman Goddess of Abundance,
fruits and orchards
The Pulitzer Fountain, NYC
Artist-Architect: Karl Bitter


The Architecture of Robin Boyd on Flickr

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Aries 30

Ducks in Sculpture Garden Pond, 1975

 
Visitors to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in June not only saw Aristide Maillol's Nymph but also this wild mallard duck, proudly swimming with her young. A pair of mallards surprisingly had made the garden their home
.
image & text source

 


Perhaps a slightly different perspective from that which most are used
to looking at regarding Kundalini.

If one puts aside the Literal doctrine surrounding many of the stories
that surround Kundalini on both the web and in text books and looks
beyond the words at the essence of what is written ...

If one has a close look at the Taoist Healing Philosophies;

If one looks closely at the Ancient Chinese Acupuncture meridian
system ...

If one looks into the Japanese Healing arts

If one looks very closely at a Western Medical Encylopaedia

If one looks at some of the latest advancements in Medical Research
... including microbiology and Neorology

AND

If one finds a common Essence and lays this over all of these
modalities one would find that there is a very simple explanation for
the whole mythology surrounding Kundalini, its cause, its rising, the
timing of its awakening and ALL of the physical, mental, psychological
and psychic symptoms that people experience .. and which are commonly
attributed to Kundalini.

Having perused some of the comments on this list and gone back through
the archives, there is not one single experience that cannot be
directly explained in relatively plain English.

AND .. its all so simple ... when one understands the real essence of
what is stored in Muladhara and the significance of this Chakra.

Even the "Chakra System" finds a rational plain English explanation in
terms of both the Central Nervous System and certain significant
Acupuncture points ...

Kundalini (so called) will awaken .. it must, the moment the mind
loses control of the body and it must also awaken from the base chakra
...

It will flow through the body - up a central channel .. it must - if
you understand what the Central Channel really means ..

You will experience all sorts of physical, mental and emotional
symptoms you must, and you will understand how and why if you
understand the relationships between the organs of the body, their
personality, and the meridians that connect them.

You will also experience "psychic" symptoms as the energy from the
Muladhara links with the Ajna ... you must, and you will understand if
you can understand the nature of the Pineal Gland and its role in the
Physiology of the body in Harmony.

You may go mad - or get very sick if you start to look on this as some
"Spiritual" Awakening for the simple reason ...

Kunda - the energy of the pot in the earth .. is the feminine
principle of life in its physical existence .. and the life-force of
every cell in your body and, it has a life of its own ...

Kunda, Cunti, Kunti .. in all her variations of nomenclature is Home
.. your centeredness ... in your physicality. Without that
physicality, mind can not exist (except through resonance with a
sympathetic DNA in a living relative)

and when the whole body is in balance .. only when all of the
Meridians have balanced themselves

will there be a link between Muladhara, Ajna and the Sino Atrial Node
... which is the mysterious 8th Chakra.



"the duck's nuts"
Landscape between Gilgandra and Warren NSW
May 2011
image credit


Now - the funny thing is ...

the energy of the mind is (masculine) centripetal or densifying and
compacting the energy of your life-force (feminine) is centrifugal or
expanding and dedensifying ..

and the centre of the base chakra contains the memory of the moment
that the sperm entered the egg and this resulted in your conception
....

So, Kundalini is about the expansion of possibilities, about life's
conception of itself - and your conception of your own self ...

in spite of what your mother and father were thinking at the time ...

and this memory is stored in the very tips of the bones that make up
your pelvic floor - joined by your Perineum.

BTW ...

it takes 10 milliseconds for a signal from the body to reach the brain
and, for the average person, it takes 500 milliseconds for the
conscious mind to get an intellectual grasp of what is happening and
750 millisecond of thought re-imprints the opposite of what you are
consciously thinking back into your body

So .. the only "therapy" for a so-called "Kundalini" awakening is
understanding and accepting ... that what you are experiencing is your
own inner self trying to live in harmony with its self
... and your
mind is the last to know.

Oh ... and a cell will mutate as far as necessary in order to survive
in its environment ... and your mind provides part of that
environment.

the Kundalini Sutras were a medical document, not a Spiritual Teaching
and Buddhist Teachings provide a plain, old fashioned Psychology Text
which, when understood in their wholeness, are very accurate according
to the most recent studies and findings.


Simplicity cannot be overwhelmed. Mind can be




Christopher Wynter
    Copyright and all rights acknowledged & ignored
because this is too good to remain deep-sixed in a restricted forum
     Transpersonal Lifestreams