The Normality Factor

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Black out leads to up date

19 Jan

While it might not matter much to most folks, I blacked out Normality Factor yesterday as well as a number of other sites that I host and manage. It seems that this work of the collective has done some good as the reports are trickling in that support for SOPA and PIPA are fading. Yay! The internet stays free! Although, it wouldn’t hurt to add your support again directly if you haven’t already.

In other news… the world has not fallen apart, and neither have I. I have gone from Emotionally Fuzzy to Markedly Determined. Things are happening behind the scenes, plans are forming, outlines are being drafted…

I’d meant to write more today, but it turns out, I can’t yet. I will soon. I promise.

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Posted in Personal Life

Expecting miracles

08 Jan

Some time ago, I picked up a little ebook Rebecca Messenger (previously Marina) called “30 Angel Steps”. It’s a thirty-day journaling exercise that helps you clear out old energy, focus on what you want in life, foster gratitude, etc. I’ve started it a couple of times, but I haven’t finished out a full round of it. The last time, I just got distracted somewhere around day eight or nine. This time, I’m giving myself permission to skip a few days at a time since my schedule has changed so drastically.

If you want to give it a shot yourself, you can download it here. Her actual website is here, and when you subscribe, you get a ton more free stuff.

I’m up to Day Seven right now, and I thought maybe I’d use this as my space to do it. (Mostly, it’s in my blue book, but I’m inspired to do it here today. I’m not sure why.)

Here’s the angel message for today:

Dear Angels,

May I ask you about your relationship to our Heavenly Mother? Why does mankind not speak of her?

Centuries have passed and the glory of our Divine Mother, the Divine Feminine, has been hidden. Her glory and honor were stolen away by those in authority who found only the masculine served their purposes. Man always has been a creature of free will and chose long ago to turn his back on God, the Mother.

This has upset the balance of male-female relationships on every level. There is a great resurgence of the female energy in the Universe today. Not just in your world, but in many other worlds as well. The orphaned child cries for Mother and can no longer be denied.

This is truth. Raphael, Gabriel, Michael and Uriel

In my rapid-fire mind, this almost becomes a point of past concern, but at the same time, it’s very, very immediate. As we sit and examine and consider just what the heck is causing this insanity in our world – economic depression, financial crisis, interpersonal warfare – the imbalance between the masculine (objective, power-striving, see-only) and the feminine (subjective, comfort-striving, feel-only) is definitely a prime culprit. Of course, as I often state, correlation is not causation, so I have to ask myself, is the world in the shitter right now because of the imbalance between Shakti and Shekinah, or is has this imbalance between Shakti and Shekinah been created by something else that has then thrown the world into the shitter?

I know I have a hard time balancing the male-female aspects of myself sometimes, too, but more and more evidence suggests that that’s just the Aspie speaking. I’m the queerest straight woman I know, which is saying something, but I’d rather be queer-yet-straight than be unnecessarily girlie and uncomfortable with both my appearance and the potential sexual response of others. (But that’s a whole other story.) A major part of me somewhat regrets the passage of attraction to women in general, but that could also just be because I haven’t met the right one.

Digression, much?

Back to the angel days process…

One thing I appreciate about myself is: my willingness to state and defend my boundaries. I was not always able to do this, and I’ve been bloody terrible about it in the past, but now, there’s a moment of freezing anxiety right before the words “No, thank you” come out, and then it’s gone.

One thing I appreciate about Joe is his willingness to be flexible and accommodating to his boys’ changing emotional needs.

I intend TO DO one thing at a time:

Morning: Check my comics, read PostSecret, drink some coffee

Afternoon: Take Diana shopping so that she can have fabulous work clothes.

Evening: Snuggle the boys, make dinner, get everyone bathed, do some work, work some more.

“To Do” list for the Angels:

Dear Angels, While I am busy working or playing today, could you please do these things for me? Thanks for all your help! I love you!

Clear up the traffic so that we can get where we’re going safely.
Work on greasing the wheels for that project.
Bring in that windfall in a timely and helpful manner.

Today, I intend to thank… Well, now, I can’t tell you this part, internet, because that would give some of it away.

I Am statements. I am filled with gratitude and love with the potential of the next few months. I am delighted with my healthy financial status. I am so appreciative of the bountiful resources in my home and life.

**********

There’s a whole other section that you do before bed as well. You make an “I forgive myself for” statement, an “I intend to forgive X for” statement, then a “What I loved about today” statement, and finally, this:

“Dear Creative Mind, I know you never sleep, so while I am resting, could you please work on …. ”

And these are the internal things you’d like to accomplish, such as receiving inspiration for your latest project or releasing old guilt, shame, or anger, or whatever.

**********

I find I can pull myself out of a funk more easily when I’m doing exercises like this. I can pick up on when I’m feeling down “naturally” or when there’s something bothering me, and that’s not always easy for me. More importantly, though (and I noticed this when I was doing these angel pages before), awesome little bits of opportunity and serendipity just pop up out of nowhere. Avenues that I didn’t even realize existed appear and often make the going a little easier for any number of projects or intentions. It’s kinda neat that way.

I’m not sure I want to get into the “what is an angel” discussion just yet, though. Suffice it to say, I don’t think your idea of an angel matches my idea of an angel, because I am definitely not thinking of a bunch of fluffy-bunny flying hippies wandering around with harps and halos.

But, that’s another story.

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Posted in Healing, Personal Life

On the nature of Santa Claus

05 Jan

A friend asked me if my kids still believed in Santa Claus. I said, “Well, of course! Don’t you?”

There’s been a wisdom for years, especially in my family, that Santa Claus is the modern “spirit” of a sense of giving and joy, especially for children, during the winter solstice celebration time. We kinda go along with the cultural norms since it’s difficult to explain that we don’t mind working on Christmas but could we please have the 21st and 22nd off instead (experience has shown this), although this year (and possibly in years to come), we deferred “the Santa Spell” for a week and had our “Christmas morning” on January 1st.

The Santa Spell is the formal name for the process of acquiring and wrapping and tagging all of the presents for the family, putting up the final festive decorations, and preparing the family feast. It’s a little bit of childhood magic, but it’s just as important as any other mythological figure. For us, it invokes a kind of energy that just manifests things, sometimes seemingly out of thin air, that enable us to always have a kindly time of the holidays. Some friends have gotten visited by the Turkey Fairy on an occasion or two, some have had their entire Christmas process provided spontaneously by charitable folks (myself included), and possibly more often, some kind of circumstance will pop up out of nowhere that will just make everything come together.

Perhaps my view of this is skewed somewhat by my deep love for Terry Pratchett’s “Hogfather”. That is our annual Xmas Eve watching tradition, and the end of it makes a vital and important point: Regardless of what kind of scrifical blood ritual may have started the mythology of Santa Claus (or the Hogfather, as the case may be), it is our innocent faith in the ideas of them that is the important point. Traditions are grown one yaer at a time, and it only takes two generations to make something seem like it’s been there forever. When we’re talking about mythological beings, there’s often a deeper foundation to it that adds an additional type of magic, and that’s why we aught to give ourselves permission to believe.

At the end of “Hogfather”, Susan asks Death what the purpose was for all of their efforts of the evening (you’ll have to watch to find out, I won’t spoil it here), and he says something to the effect that believing in things like the Hogather, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, et al, prepare the innocent child-mind to believe in things without physical material proof. In the adult years, it’s the ideas of things like justice and mercy and compassion. There is no particle or atom or element that can be isolated to identify these ideas, nothing that can be synthesized or produced to increase them (despite what the pharmaceutical companies would want you to think), and yet, we know they exist because we see the evidence of them every day.

The foundation of truth that Pratchett is trying to illustrate is that our power of faith, of daring to believe in the ideas, gives them power. This ties in with another profound truth that “the way you think creates the reality in which you live.” When you bring yourself to a place to encourage positive thoughts, positive things happen to you, and the same attraction of same-ness happens if you put yourself in a negative mindset.

Consider, then, that the magic of youth is a kind of exercise to build up our muscles of faith, of realizing that we have the power to choose what we believe and how strongly. If we can let ourselves believe that a fat man in the red suit might possess our parents and imbue them with a kind of conjuring magic, then we can believe that people are mostly inherently good, that we are worthy by our existence far before our actions, and that love is an inalienable right of all humans. Without that magic, we are easily torn down by the evidence that suggests the dark and cruel nature of the universe, and by that, we end up giving more power to that darkness.

So, you see, belief in something like Santa Claus or the Great Pumpkin or the Soul Cake Duck is really about arming yourself in the battle of light versus darkness. You are giving yourself the power to be armored and defended against the onslaught of unpleasantness – outside of yourself and within – and that is the most powerful force one can conjure at all.

Especially when you’ve been taught that positivity leads to gratitude.

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Posted in Healing, Law of Attraction, Non-Fiction, Personal Life

The parable of the shit-filled twinkie

04 Jan

Once upon a time, there was a fellow who fancied himself quite the pastry chef. He spent many long hours in the kitchen, coming up with countless inventions, but he was so focused on his recipes and his presentation that he rarely if ever tasted his own work. And, as though his devotion to perfect proportions were not enough, he also seemed to be without olfactory senses.

One day, he came upon an idea to fill a light spongy cake with a rich brown filling. The contrast would be lovely, he thought, and his friends (who all humored him, often to their own detriment) agreed that it would be quite exciting. He scoured his kitchen to find something that was the exact right color to match his imagined dish, and could find nothing in the cupboards. He searched the pantry and the refrigerator, the drawers and the shelves, but it wasn’t until he found pile of richly colored pellets behind the cabinets that he settled on his ingredient of choice.

He went to work collecting them and cooking them in a double-boiler, bringing them to exactly the right consistency. Gently, he squeezed the concoction into the spongy cakes and presented them to his friends, none of whom seemed to have an appetite at that point and took their leave. He presented them instead to the object of his affection, who not only turned her nose up to them but admonished him for attempting to give her such horrible confections.

Hurt and offended, he was left with his invention all alone, peering at them in anger and sorrow that no one wanted to share his vision. At last, he tried one for himself, but lacking the ability to smell, he merely found the texture disappointing and the flavor a little off. Even in that moment, he could not understand why no one wanted them, and he finished the plate with tears in his nose.

****************************************************

I do not like to say that I am an “abusive relationship survivor” any more than I’d use the word “victim”. Both words (survivor and victim) denote a kind of permanent damage that I don’t entertain. Still, it’s a problem that I ponder frequently and every now and again, I come upon an inspiration about it.

One of the markers of an abuse survivor is often a lingering and persistent anger towards the abuser. This is totally justified in many cases, but it doesn’t do the survivor a lot of good. Holding on to anger, as the saying goes, is like holding onto a hot coal with the intention of hurling it at someone – in the end, you suffer more damage than they ever could. But it’s not acceptable to just say “let it go” or “forgive”. There’s a part of us that needs to understand the mechanisms behind the abuse, especially when it seems that the abuser is confused by our refusal to be a part of it.

Keep in mind that this is not an “across-the-board” description. People are different, and natural variation is enormous, but for many cases (and you may recognize them for yourself), this could be the case.

The theory that I am playing with in this scenario is that the abuser’s main issue is a combination of poor emotional training and severe lack of self-awareness. The poor emotional training is obvious in the means of abuse (physical violence, emotional manipulation, etc), but the lack of self-awareness is what prevents the abuser from changing the behavior and fixing problem because they don’t see it as a problem.

This could be as pervasive as not recognizing that the behavior hurts other people or believing that their rationalization for accepting that behavior from others (parents, guardians, teachers, etc) should be universal to everyone else. If they were raised to “accept the unacceptable”, then your refusal to accept the abuse would be confusing to them – and that creates an additional anger response.

The protocol when you realize that you might be dealing with this situation is to ensure your safety first. Make sure that you have a safe place to go if things get hairy, whether that’s a relative, a friend, or a shelter. Address the abuser in a way that is as non-confrontation as possible, non-accusatory as possible, using words like, “When you do this, I feel scared/unvalued/unloved/threatened/etc, and I don’t think you mean to make me feel this way, so could you please…” The “could you please” applies to the specific scenario. Is it a drinking problem, is it a stress problem? What are the triggers?

If they are unwilling to acknowledge that their behavior may have to change, then it’s time to leave. You may not have to leave for good, but your absence sends a message that you are serious.

So, try to understand it like this. Someone who is trying to get you to eat a shit-filled twinkie might not know that it’s a shit-filled twinkie, but if they refuse to accept that your experience is that it’s a shit-filled twinkie, then no amount of cajoling and reasoning is going to get that message across. Your options are either to eat it anyway (and make yourself even sicker) or remove yourself from the possibility of having it foisted upon you.

Sometimes – and more often than you might expect – pointing out the nature of the twinkie can work. It’s up to you to assess in your own situation if you think that bringing the problem to light will help. Sometimes it could make it worse – but you’d already know that. Do your best and accept that what you’re going through is not necessarily “your fault” – some people just can’t smell shit.

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Posted in Dating, Personal Life, Writing

Thoughts on terrorism

03 Jan

A few weeks ago, like many of my colleagues, I signed petitions and wrote letters to congressfolk to try to prevent changes to certain pieces of legislation. The specifics of the laws in question aren’t really important at this exact moment, but one of the responses that I received really caught my attention and got me to thinking.

A congressperson who shall remain nameless sent this as the opening line to the email justifying the passage of the NDAA:

“I do not believe terrorists should be brought to the United States and granted the same rights and privileges as American criminal defendants.”

Now, maybe my Constitutional law is a little fuzzy in all these years since I was in grade school, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how it’s supposed to work. Here was my reply:

“Let me point something out to you:

‘I do not believe terrorists should be brought to the United States and granted the same rights and privileges as American criminal defendants.’

”You said that in your form letter to me.

“Now, let me point out something else:

’We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…’

”That’s from the Declaration of Independence that started the process of American’s country-hood. I realize it’s probably a little unfamiliar to you, but the point is that your first statement implies that what you term as ‘terrorists’ are somehow NOT human and therefore do not deserve the same rights as ‘all men’. I strongly encourage you to re-examine your understanding of the ‘terrorist problem’. Perhaps it’s this attitude that ‘terrorists’ are somehow not human and therefore ineligible for basic human rights that creates the problem in the first place.”

I know damn well and good that the chances of Senator Nameless actually reading my response are slim, but it’s been on my mind ever since. I’m frankly still disgusted, even ten years later, that our response to the 9/11 event was the subsequent fear-mongering by the government to whittle away basic rights and liberties of not only “foreigners” but of our own people.

It is the daydream of many where we must sit and really wonder, though, what we would have done were we in the position of those in power. Really think about this. What would you do? What would you have done?

I can tell you that I wouldn’t have done what they did – and I sure as hell wouldn’t be propagating the mistake now. I have never regretted a single vote I’ve ever cast, but I’m hard-pressed right now not to.

Okay… besides this point about the current administration’s weaknesses, let’s really answer this. What would I have done?

First, the question is, what created the problem? What was done to whomever committed these acts that they felt this was their only recourse? This is grade-school stuff. Billy hit Johnny because Billy was mad. Why was Billy mad? Johnny took Billy’s toy truck without asking. Was Billy right to hit Johnny? No, but Johnny shouldn’t have taken the truck. Johnny and Billy both get a time out, Billy gets his truck back, Johnny gets an ice pack, and they both apologize to each other.

Yes, I know that international politics is more complicated than that, but the premise is the same. Really, especially on the international political level, it should start with “don’t take things that don’t belong to you” and “don’t hit”, but that’s already been done, so it’s really just a matter of cleaning up the mess from whomever sat at the desk before you.

Right after 9/11, there was a little internet game that came out. It had you in the “sniper chair”, and the goal was to spot and shoot “terrorists”. The catch was, for every terrorist you shot, two to ten more ordinary people became terrorists. This is the crux of the problem: we (they) use the word “terrorist” to dehumanize a person who has been hurt to the extent that they feel that terror (violence, bloodshed) is the only way to be heard, the only way to get things done. (This is also known as “blaming the victim”.) Except that most of the time, the person that created the hurt in the first place is a great big bully, and bullies don’t respond to “an eye for an eye” by realizing that they were being doodyheads and need to stop because we don’t live in a Hollywood-produced feel-good family movie. They poke out the victim’s other eye.

It’s very similar to an abusive relationship. Here we have an estranged ex, and the abuser keeps doing things to mess with him – being late on palimony payments, taking things from the garage when no one’s home, calling in anonymous complaints to the neighborhood association. Finally, the estranged ex has enough and screams at the abuser in public – but no one realizes all that other stuff was going on, so the ex is the one that looks like a jerk. The abuser continues the passive-aggressive behavior, and then the ex snaps to the point where he leaves a burning sack of poop died to a pack of dynamite in the abuser’s car. Oh noes, the ex is such a bad person for blowing up that car! Really?

Now, I will add a caveat at this point that suggests that the terror problem is exactly what it seems to be, that the truth has been told, and that we know everything about it. No one starts acting like a jerk for no reason – especially not against an opponent several thousand times his size and even stronger than that. Even more so, it’s especially weird when you consider that Islam is itself a wholly embracing and non-judging religion in its foundational points. (And for this, yes, I’m back to speaking directly of the particular problem.) Yes, there are sects of Islam that are extremist and violent and repressive, but there are also sects of Christianity that make those Muslims look like pacifist hippies by comparison – and in neither case do the actual numbers of those sects count more than a few thousand total.

And there are seven billion people on the planet.

You do the math.

I think my point is that to continue to use “terrorism” as an excuse to violate the rights that are allegedly being protected has always smacked of being disingenuous, but now it’s just getting ridiculous. If, by the time this post goes live, there has not been some kind of mind-blowing and cataclysmic change in the system, I may very well have to do the unthinkable and run for an elected office – racy videos, checkered past and all. I mean, it’s pretty obvious that the “clean-nosed” folks aren’t doing the job, so how about some people who didn’t go to Ivy League schools?

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Posted in News, Non-Fiction