Category Archives: Global Issues

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Asking the Right Questions

Categories: Esoteric, Global Issues, Lifestyle, Marketing

We’ve all been barraged with political parties, news pundits and marketers arguing over the answers recently, right? The answers to the “fiscal cliff” – the answers to our collective bottom lines.

But we’re also all pretty aware, right now, that something is missing from this conversation – something feels “off” – or “wrong” -

- and I’m going to hesitate a guess as to why you are feeling that something is “off”-

I think it’s because, deep down in your gut, in your heart of hearts, some deep well of intuitive wisdom – which is smarter, more accurate, more brilliant and more efficiently discerning for you than ANYTHING your brain or extrinsic information can EVER provide you with – is telling you that all the stuff we are collectively fighting with is, somehow, NO LONGER IMPORTANT.to thine own self be true

After all, we all know that the things that make our lives meaningful are very very difficult to measure. YES – money is needed to provide you with comfort and security – but beyond that? You’re looking for meaning. You’re looking for purpose. You’re looking for that magic that gives you complete satisfaction in the knowing that you have shown up for this amazing dance called life for a damn good reason.

How do we begin to have a conversation about THAT? How do we rewire our brains to begin even LOOKING at what that intangible measure of meaningful existence can even be seen as? And without doing that long, hard look into the very core of our reason for existence, how can we ever hope to chart a course to get us ‘there’, to that point in our evolution as individuals and as societies?

These are not only questions that are good to ask yourself – they are questions that you need to grapple with as an entrepreneur in the most earnest way that you can. WHY?? Because, I wholeheartedly believe, doing business in the 21st century no longer revolves around providing customers with objects. We no longer live in the world of atoms exclusively, as Chris Anderson points out in Free – we live in the world of BITS – bits of information where our prospects are evolving. They aren’t looking for STUFF anymore, in other words. They – like us – are evolving. They – like us – seek MEANING. To truly embrace the full knowledge of ONENESS in life is also to recognize that you ARE your ideal customer – they are your mirror. They are seeking what you are seeking.

Here is a collection of videos for you that have been some of the most inspiring presentations to me as I ponder these questions – videos that have helped me begin to ask the RIGHT questions. Enjoy.

FIRST UP: this vid is Chip Conley talking about Maslow, the King of Bhutan and how they have helped him begin to measure something other than the economic profit of his company as the true measure of its success. If you’ve been waiting for a CEO to DISAGREE with Einstein, check this out.

 

- NOW here’s a 7 minute talk that was cool for me to watch because it so clearly reaffirms that humans are amazing, creative, hopeful, inspiring creatures. I love the bit in the middle where he talks about heroism -

 

- the more I thought about re-engineering my thinking life to become a quest for the right questions rather than the right answers – and the more it became obvious that I wanted to find a metric to measure that showed how engaged and happy my customers, friends, community, family and myself could be with life, it started to occur to me that MOST of us need to re-learn how to engage WITH EACH OTHER!

This fundamental skill was a huge loss in our communities – we have, somehow, become narcissistic. We have been told to focus on where we are eating more than how we live together – Our social media has given us megaphones – and here we are seeing who can shout louder. It’s no way to build community – or belonging.

Then I found this next talk – Marc Pachter talking about the Art of the Interview – and something clicked. You see, I believe that we need to shine a light on each other – to show one another that someone is listening – that someone cares – that someone can empathize. In listening to this great interviewer talk, more than a few lightbulbs about how we should be trating each other in this time of evolving purpose- in this time where we are each feeling a compulsion to live in a deeply meaningful way – went on. For here was a man who had spent a great deal of his life helping people articulate and talk about that which was, after all, most meaningful to them when they looked back on their lives. In this talk, at one point he says

” Everybody in their lives is really waiting for people to ask them questions, so that they can be truthful about who they are and how they became what they are.”

- and I hope, if you take the time to listen to this last, very special talk in my post, that it will inspire in you something about the nature of our truth – and our becoming our heroic, natural, purposeful, satisfying selves – that allows you to see how it includes EVERYONE ELSE, too – whether you take this message to heart for how to relate to those closest to you, your readers, your customers, your children or your parents – pay attention. There is something here for you which will uncover a true treasure in how you relate to the world around you.

 

– thanks for reading and watching, everyone. You’re awesome.

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Elf Louise Night

Categories: Global Issues, Poems

when I lived in San Antonio, I would volunteer to be an elf. There’s a pretty amazing charity down there that has elf volunteers, along with a Santa per team, go to homes of struggling impoverished families to deliver presents to in-need children. The raw experience of what those children’s lives were like tattooed itself into my memory.  I wrote this in 1994 about that experience. 

 

Knifeland closed in.

Spirits swallowed and pushed our sleigh

With a noneffective engine.

Grimaced grey faces plotted our welfare

As we

Eyedly sniped to light.

Momma was barefoot and shivvering

An openness upon us, and

Boy Aged Five whispered

A sleepy

“Santa?”

Three little Unaccounteds

Delivered happyglow and

Played with my tinsel.

Santa gave the labelled gifts, and

Searched for Jessica, Aged Seven.

Her presents lay beyond the tree,

And would be taken to the

Churchyard.

Big Sister fetched

Grandchild, Aged 2 Weeks, and

the Tinseltown Grace became

An official

Kodak Moment.

 

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Rush Hour

Categories: Global Issues, Poems

One of the absolute most disturbing – even panicked – experiences of moving from Europe to the Southern United States was the loss of community that the move represented for me. I was heartbroken at being torn away from my family and culture – but it gave me, at a very young age, a pretty revelatory look at the very infrastructure that was exascerbating the lack of community that I felt after the move. We moved to one of the most affluent areas of San Antonio – but it felt so cold and inhuman to me. There were no sidewalks. The city was designed and operated as one big worshipping of the almighty automobile. I could sense the isolation – the huge SUVs all burning death fuel for one lonely driver apiece… and to me it felt like this whole system was functioning like a barely tamed animal that was going to snap and attack us all. Hence this poem. 1992- age 15.

Rush Hour

(Blanco Rd, San Antonio)

Dusk,

And a 6pm deluge of ebony rain

Brought one thousand

Baskerville headlights panting.

 

A conscience booms from back seats,

Brewing incantations, sordid,

Revolving into

The moor of the hound-hunted roads.

 

Mastering an insidious, seeping mood,

Outshrilled,

It malingers,

 

Salivating at the T-junctions,

Reiterating its skeleton.

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A Divine Mind’s take on Our Role in the coming Changes

Categories: Global Issues, The Stanzas

This came in today – again, I’m not wholly sure where from. The interesting thing for me right now is that all of these messages are coming in in a slightly different format – so I’m not sure if that means that they are from different intelligences or not. The nice thing is that they are all, eventually, messages of hope. Please help me to get this in front of anybody who needs a lift to make it through these times in their fullest light – in order for the messages to keep having a channel in me, I am not currently on social media much myself as it was sort of zapping the conduits a bit. I’m sure I’ll be back there eventually – and I’m very glad that YOU are there! Please help get this in front of anyone who needs it by sharing if you feel inspired to. I really appreciate your help. Thanks <3

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The Return of Poetry – the Channeled Stanzas Explained

Categories: Esoteric, Global Issues, random Laura stuff, The Stanzas

Information about the Stanzas:

About 18 years ago, I began seeing how I was able to channel wisdom and messages for people, including myself, through cards and dreams. In the last few years, I began getting these messages in clearer and clearer ways, until this month, finally, they could not be contained in readings for individuals alone.

I am currently finding myself channeling several messages every day that seem to be from our shared core of universal Knowing. They are coming through as messages that are vital for us all to remember at this time – but it seems to also be vital to pay attention to the language through which these messages are being given.

 These Stanzas are being sent to fill in the gaps in your core Knowing, so that your heart stays resilient enough to enter the Poetry of Everything.

Some of them are coming through writing and some are coming through speaking – so i expect you will find a mix of both here in the coming days.

Drink deeply, as much as you need to, from the vessel of these words. They are for you.

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Well done, America! ( oh – btw: the rest of the world called and wanted you to know about a few other things that have been happening. Whenever you’re ready. No rush.)

Categories: Global Issues

Hi there, America! Wowee, no WONDER we’re a gosh-darned proud nation, eh?? We sure showed the world how democracy’s done right! Everyone must be looking at us now, like, “dude. Did you see those guys VOTE? wow.”

If the US election went the way you wanted to it yesterday, I am happy for you. 

( I’m not kidding, see? I have options!! Are you jealous yet? hmm? hmm? )

I too would probably have seriously considered a move to another land where the grass were greener if a Mormon with such poor knowledge of aircraft cabin pressure had

come to power. ‘Tis true. So yay, us!! 

..And yes, I am very happy that we might not all be bankrupted by heart attacks and cancer,

I mean, hell, don’t you think these women are proud of us? Still making a point of putting basic women’s rights slap bang in the front- and-center of our election issues 112 years later? Now that’s respect! And such a wonderfully valuable use of our time, for sure. totes.

and happier still that we didn’t upset Gloria Steinem too much. Yay, us!! – we decided not to go back to the 19th century. Man, that was tough, wasn’t it? Took quite some deliberating. It was a really hard choice, that. It’s a good thing we’ve got our first class media to help us think this stuff through. Hell, if we’d only had the statisticians, (who had been telling us that Obama had this election in the bag for months), we’d have been utterly misled, wouldn’t we? Thank God for our media.

So, apart from all that, even though I know ticker tape is very, VERY pretty and distracting, (I understand…)   It certainly feels like the rest of the world’s issues are finally tapping us on the back a little bit, doesn’t it? Just a tad? hmm?

So here’s what I want to write about today. You see, I think there are some other bits of news out there that might – just maybe – have been slightly overlooked in recent months. I know we’ve all been very excited about our election ( – of COURSE!), so I figured I’d hunt around (such a

Here’s a photo of one of the poor, hapless news items I found tonight. I warmed her up and fed her some food. Apparently she had been wandering around searching for Reuters for 5 whole weeks. Poor thing.

daunting task!) and see if I could find any other news items of interest that might be hiding under the corners of our rugs or outside, shivering miserably, waiting to be let in. (Poor little news items that they are.)

The rest of the world just called and also confirmed that, yes, they would quite like it if we poked around a bit and got caught up on our global voicemails, please… so here we go.

THIS JUST IN! Well, pretty much just in. It’s early September’s news, really… but hey! most of us probably missed it. So here you go:

- I thought I’d just make sure this guy got this one right – because, you know, crippling droughts can so often be deceiving that way…. so I did some fact – checking for you, too. Here’s what I found:

 

 - but, since severe droughts aren’t, in of itself, usually enough to catch people’s attention, let alone inspire them to change their actions, oil and water consumption, etc, and since obviously NOBODY PAYS ATTENTION to the World Bank’s reports on rising grain prices (see, this poor little article published on WorldBank.org doesn’t even have one Facebook like in over 2 months! Poor little World Bank! I think they should have popped a photo of Kim Kardashian in here to really rev up the excitement. Double- digit percentage jumps in grain prices are SO boooorrrringg….. ) , I figured maybe I should keep looking for headlines that may actually be worth us glancing up from our budweisers and fritos. I mean, c’mon, world… is that the best you’ve got for us?

- so I came up with this, with a bit more digging (you’re welcome.)

- again, I have to say, Guardian.co.uk , this isn’t all that interesting to Americans. Booooring!!! Could you have at least added some 3D special effects or something? Some explosions? Roaring, anguished polar bears? Something? The best you could do here was a satellite image? Yawn. Yeah, we missed this. It couldn’t possibly have been all that interesting, anyway, otherwise we would have heard about it in the presidential debates, I’m sure.

from the article- quote:
“Peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned that Syria, where some 32,000 people have died in the upheaval, could end up a collapsed state like Somalia, prey to warlords and militias.
More than 100 people were killed across the country on Tuesday, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition body based in Britain that compiles activist reports.
Air strikes killed 17 people, including women and children, in the Damascus suburb of Kfar Batna, it said. Video footage of the raid’s aftermath posted on the Internet, which could not be verified, showed a toddler with a severed head and the torso of a young man, his head and limbs gathered near him by rescuers.
Insurgents killed 12 soldiers and wounded 20 in an attack on a convoy of off-road vehicles in the northern province of Idlib.”

 - ok. that’s a BIT more interesting. Slightly. Fair play, world. I think the bit there about Syria being at risk for becoming a collapsed state like Somalia shows REAL promise. We might pay attention to that, you know… but probably only because it’s sort of close to Israel, this Syria place, isn’t it? Get back to us on that. You know how we like to be informed. And let us know how that Iran place is doing, too, please. No hurry – just whenever you get around to it. We like both of these stories because we might actually get to go use some of our military strength to, you know, better the world and stuff. We like doing that.

Ok – next, please… had to REALLY dig for this one:

- yeah, well, that bee I just saw crawl across my cell phone before it keeled over? He looked mean.

- so, while I was asking around, some much much older news started to tug on my skirts again – arguing that it was still relevent, and heck, since we never noticed it when it first became news, and it would still very much like some attention from Americans, could we please showcase it here, too? I said, “sure… what the hey.”

So here you go- here are some other news items that we might have missed in the last 12 years or so. After all, we have been very busy with more pressing concerns, like our TEVOs, iPhones and stuff:

some guy in Israel isn’t being very nice.

… ……

.

.

.

.

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( civilian Iraqi boy, maimed by American bombs in 2003 )

… … oh, alright then…we’ll go back a bit further. Some are suggesting that maybe we haven’t been paying very close attention for 20-30 years. I’m sorry, world, there was some REALLY good TV on: .

.

.

..

… …ahem. ok- so now that we’re all caught up, can I ask a few questions? In earnest? Thanks. Because I’ve been dying to know…..

.

.

.

.

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I want to know who was on the ballot today for the World Bank..

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What about for the International Monetary Fund?.

.

.

 

hmmmm – no? Ok- how about this? Who did you elect to the World Trade Organization today, out of curiosity?.

.

.

 

It’s not that I don’t agree with the world about their happiness in our presidential choice this year – I do – .

 

but I know, as well as you do, deep down, that there is something more insidious going on here that we have very little control over as a population, democracy or not..

.

.

 

 

Because the real power – the majority of decisions – through which the very future of our water tables, our energy, or climate, our economy and our civilization rests, are not dependent upon democracy any more. Some doubt they ever  were. Instead, the real power resides in what looks to me very much like an oligarchy..

 

Let’s look at that for a moment. Anyone need a refresher course here? Much obliged:

- ok. so we’re all caught up, then? Splendid. Let’s continue.

 

I am now going to pass you off to Ms. Arundhati Roy. Again, this is older… but she does a better job describing the power play of the American and Globalization forces- which look like a result of Oligarchy and Aqiuescence that I HOPE is largely due to lack of information on our public’s part – than anything else. From Films For Action’s description of this wake-up-call of a film, I give you this summation:

We is a fast-paced 64 minute documentary that covers the world politics of power, war, corporations, deception and exploitation. It visualizes the words of Arundhati Roy, specifically her famous Come September speech, where she spoke on such things as the war on terror, corporate globalization, justice and the growing civil unrest. It’s witty, moving, alarming and quite a lesson in modern history. We is almost in the style of a continuous music video. The music used sets the pace and serves as wonderful background for the words of Ms. Roy and images of humanity in the world we live all in today. We is a completely free documentary, created and released anonymously on the internet.

- please watch it. Opening credits are also art, and take about 4 minutes. Thank you – for putting up with my sarcasm, and being moved enough to hopefully help us all get off our collective arses before it is too late. The party’s over- let the work begin.

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Celebrating Courage – a Michaelmas Meditation on Finding Your Inner Resources, Your True Purpose, and your Heart

Categories: Esoteric, Global Issues, random Laura stuff, Tags: , ,

In all honesty, it is time: 

It is time for the pine needles to brown. It is time for the frost to relieve the earth from the work of fertility and production. And it is time for us humans to slow down – to quiet – to begin gathering ourselves in, wrapping ourselves in the satisfaction of a season well-played, family well- loved, and a spirit well- manifested.

But then, if we do that, as the season now begs us to, something new will come forth and show itself: because every time we adjust in this way, tapping on the brakes of our year’s trajectory ever so slightly to feel in congruence with Nature’s plans of Autumn, a nagging beast can rear up, from our livers – from our insides – and taunt us: do we have the courage to quiet? Because we know all – too- well that within silence, aloneness, cold – can sometimes dwell our dragons.

This is why, tomorrow, at my children’s Waldorf school, they are celebrating Michaelmas: the Festival of Light and Courage.

As you can probably surmise from the image, Saint Michael slayed a dragon that was tormenting a community – in much the same way that St George was supposed to do, if you ask me… and we celebrate him in the season of Michaelmas every year. Michaelmas is a season that extends from late September through to All Hallows’ Eve, technically – and our observance of Michaelmas is to serve us as we find our resilience, our inner strength, and our resources – as we begin to get a taste of the dragons that we may have waiting for us in the colder, darker months ahead, and we prepare to meet and tame these dragons by doing so.

The kindergarten teachers will equip each of their bright little charges with golden silk capes, dyed golden with the brilliant yellow heads of this year’s marigolds – and in a similar way, we can each internally find what golden cape to figuratively drape around our own shoulders – what halo of strength to nurture and nourish our spirits with in order that we may face our dragons feeling strong and capable of magic.

The older grades – traditionally second grade but not always – will help to tell the tale of Brave Knight Michael. Oration – and the art of storytelling – helps them speak the lessons of mythic archetypal dragon slaying into their own human experience. We all understand the power of speaking something into reality, and the power that Story and Myth and give us in this regard is big. We talk a lot about speaking our truths into the world in New Age and Healing Arts circles these days, but I don’t often see grasped by adults the true power of how telling ourselves the right stories, and surrounding ourselves with the right examples of experiences we would like to have personally manifest. Waldorf students’ narrative and oration skills are in part developed to assist the child in this way – empowering their being with a strong mythic foundation that they literally hear, and then speak, into their well-fed psyches, to be drawn upon as a source of StoryStrength as they advance through life.

All the grades orate and listen to the story of Michael told anew, but it is also enacted in front of them at the same time! When the dragon appears (usually the part of the dragon is gleefully played by one of the upper grades), so does Brave Knight Michael himself, and the mighty battle is re-enacted (mildly) in front of the eager children as they shriek and cheer Michael on in his quest.

Brave Knight Michael “Stays” the dragon, with 2nd grade orators looking on

The dragon is usually “stayed” rather than slain at our school – and to me, this symbolizes how we can befriend the dragon – after all, the dragon is only a part of our own selves, on an inner level - if we can befriend him, tame him, and use him to fuel our strength and help us, so much the better! This is always preferable to demonizing anything or anyone, in my book.

After we have stayed the dragon, we all cheer, whoop, and jump up ready for an afternoon of carnival games, watermelon, and giggles – everything a celebration should be, really. Especially a celebration of meeting and conquering fears.

Michaelmas is one of those seasonal Waldorf celebrations that touches me in a deep way – not only because of an augur of nostalia yet to come, that will surely rain down on me more and more as my children grow taller …. but because I need this observance of light and courage so much myself – in fact, I feel we ALL do.

At this time of year – when winter is slowly beginning to tap on our shoulders and remind us that we will have to meet with him soon – we can all reflect on how we are going to turn more inward in the coming months. It isn’t just a natural thing to do- it is, in a sense, necessary for our inner balance and health, both physical and energetic and mental- to do some form of inward practice to harmonize ourselves with Nature at this time.

It occurred to me this year that I could create a tarot spread to help me reflect on exactly what dragon I would be facing, and how. And for inspiration on the positions in the spread, I used the pattern of the Waldorf school’s observance of Michaelmas, since it is such a wonderful template for how humans best relate to this archetypal experience of preparing for hardship and facing of dragons.

You could do a similar reading for yourself, or, if you’d prefer, you can simply take the following prompts – ( which are also the positions of cards in the tarot spread ), and use them to free- write or meditate on the theme of How To Slay Your Dragon this season. Here are the prompts/ positions:

1. The Golden Cape – what energy and physical support do you need to “clothe” and “armor” yourself with right now? – This “armor” will make you feel safe and protected as you prepare to stay your dragon.

2. The Speaking – what words, stories, and examples from your circles and environment do you need to surround yourself with in order to begin vibrating with the frequency of successful outcome for your “quest?”

3. The Dragon – what is the “dragon” to master and stay, for you, this season?

4. The Sword – how will you stay your dragon?

5. The Strength – what new strength/ quality / benefit will result from staying this dragon for you?

6. The Celebration: NEVER forget to celebrate your accomplishments. This card will tell you a bit about how you should best celebrate your victory – perhaps at midwinter if you really do your work this Fall!

>> for more about reading tarot, using tarot as a meditation, and learning the meanings of the tarot cards, you can visit my main Tarot site, as well! <<

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Enough: A Plea to Men

Categories: Esoteric, Global Issues, random Laura stuff

ENOUGH: A plea to all men.
(inspired by yet another round of watching mild, spiritually- couched and excused, muffled complaints, from one gender to the other, flit across the socialsphere this week) :

Enough: Your passive-aggressive complaint- jabs at women are boring me. And that the only medium that you feel brave enough to put those complaints into is little bumpersticker-esque facebook images reeks of cowardice and half-ass emoting. Hell, these are worse than bumperstickers, these little “jabs” at women – they’re worse because they don’t even have the balls of permanence that a bumpersticker does. Talk about fear of committment- WOW.

You want a real response to your little, 2-second ‘share’ attempt at a social statement on gender issues? You asked for it.

Enough. I’m sick of fake plastic bodies being portrayed as sorryass excuses for “feminine beauty”. I’m sick of shallowness disguised as sexuality. I’m sick of fakeness being confused with “fitness.” And I’m even sicker of that fake fitness being portrayed as “spiritual” – give me a f*cking break.

Enough. I’m sick of men diluting their powerful, divine polarity into being “attracted” to shit that doesn’t exist. What a freakin’ waste!!

Enough. Men, if you really want to be disappointed in every woman that you will EVER meet in real life, just keep on pig-drooling over make- believe, hollow, celluloid-esque mannequin animals that some crappy marketer is pawning off as “women” on you.

Enough. You’re not just being programmed into being attracted to how fake plastic femonoids look, either. It doesn’t stop there. I think you’re being programmed into being attracted to how they are “supposed” to behave, as well. The behaviors that you are being shown are also WAY off. Sucks for you. (and I know, it sucks for us too – we’ve been fed an equal amount of crap that we have also bought into. I get it.)

ENOUGH. If you’d like a small, teeny tiny shot at actually being wowed, met, or even (gasp) loved by ANY woman who actually exists, do yourself a f*cking favor and switch off the fake images. Switch off the programmer of minds and libidos. Switch off the fabricator of poison dreamdust that obliterates every last shred of authentic human experience and replaces it with commodifiable plasticized cheapness. You know what is causing this – switch. it. off. It’s an abhorrent insult- not only to us, but to you, too. We are ALL capable of more.

Enough. Block it, hide it, switch it off, unsubscribe- whatever you need to do. When you see an image and your heart of hearts tells you “this is not real”, get rid of it- somehow.

Enough. Look around you. Get real, get present, wake up, and connect with what actually exists. Your very masculinity depends upon you doing this.

Maybe this prospect of actually waking up to the reality of real women…. even if this means helping us pick up the pieces of our collectively shattered and broken patterns of relating to each other and trying to forge something authentic, real, and worth living for…. is scary.
Guess what? We’re scared too. Petrified.

ENOUGH. If there was ever a tower to rescue us from – ever a battle to wield your sword in front of and protect us from – it is this fakeness. It is attacking not only our body images/ self worth, but our capacity to relate to YOU. We feel that you do not want us, or even CARE to want us. We are scared that you don’t give a sh*t. We feel powerless to ask for your valor, as we run the risk of being labeled “nagging bitches” if we do this. We crave your valor. I am sorry we haven’t found a good way of expressing that to you. We’re scared.

It’s more than us women wanting to feel desirable- it is us craving masculine energy- distracted, diluted masculine energy is all we usually get these days, just like you usually only get distracted, confused half-feminine energy from us. We are starving each other, because we are being programmed to try to sustain ourselves with fake fantasies rather than with EACH OTHER. We are starving each other, and we are starving FOR each other. Please help us change this.

ENOUGH: Rage against this wasteland that is suffocating our hearts. Fight it. Fight for us. We need you to fight for us. We need help fighting this – fighting it alone is exhausting, lonely, and, quite frankly, turning us into….well, man-substitutes. It is so defeminizing – having to protect ourselves and defend ourselves against all this bullsh*t. It leaves our feminine essence depleted and starved. Trust me- that is bad.

Perhaps you feel like blubbering “well, YOU started it! I have been emasculated in the western world!” – maybe so. Probably. Probably, we overcompensated in our thirst for “equality” – the pendulum swung too far in the other direction. We did the best we were able to do by ourselves. Men got offended. Men left. A generation or two was raised by women. Yep, it was certainly out of balance. So are we going to hide behind that wall of defense for another generation or are we ready to change this sh*t?

You tell me- you’re the “men”!

Or maybe you’d prefer to stay half-asleep through your life, programmed like a zombified robot into mild dissatisfaction and numbness with every woman you’ll ever meet. Sulking about how crazy we women are, and how you can’t live with us. Posting little quips on facebook about how women are nutjobs and bring too much baggage to the world, while your soft, starved, diminished business hangs limp in your comfortable boxer shorts, trying desperately not to exist. Bemoaning your lot like – well, like a woman. It’s entirely your choice, gentlemen.

We are here, us “real women” – we are awake. We are listening and watching. And we are not your mommies.

And even though the prospect of dealing with all this crap is petrifying, the prospect of not even trying- of staying asleep with the nauseating Soma of celluloid fakesex – is a thousand times’ more terrifying for western humanity than the prospect of waking up to each other’s authenticity.

this officially concludes my rant of the day.

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Why it felt too good to quit losing weight…

Categories: Global Issues, Lifestyle, random Laura stuff

It isn’t just the media that does this – and it isn’t just fashion.

 It’s every time someone inadvertently associates your self worth with your size – it can be caused by as little as a parent trying to make you laugh by smooching your “adorable” cheeks when you have just been dumped by your first boyfriend.

It’s caused by seeing the underweight gymnast at school surrounded by friends at lunch when you’re sitting by yourself.

It’s “caused” by needing to control something – ANYTHING – when your life is in chaos.

Perhaps a family has been through a huge move, divorce, etc – and the only thing that you can control is what you put into your mouth.
You don’t think of this consciously… but somehow, over time, it starts to feel good to not eat.

You feel empowered… in control… liked… and you wake up one day with an addiction. An addiction to seeking perfection through size. An addiction to the good feeling that being in control generates. An addiction to that which you can control. Perhaps it’s a good feeling to see the scale drop from 104 to 102. It means you are in control of your life. Perhaps it feels good to be able to see your bones defined- not because it is attractive, but because there’s nothing in the way- no chaos or complication.

Anorexia is really closer to O.C.D. than it is to a symptom of our media a lot of the time.

Sometimes this happens to get attention/ love from a parent that has been too busy with a chaotic transition, and hasn’t noticed their little girl/ shown them affection in a good way for a while. If this transition happens when the girl is developing, the girl can unconsciously feel that if she somehow reversed her development / became “little” again, she would be loved. That it is somehow because she isn’t little anymore that is the reason that she is not loved.

An addiction to chemicals that the starving body has started to produce when it is hungry kicks in in an interesting way-  it literally starts to FEEL good to starve… not unlike the feel-good state that an alcoholic experiences from a drink, or a cokehead experiences when he uses.

Telling an anorexic that they need to eat and that they’re too skinny, although well-intentioned, can have the wrong effect. You can be reinforcing a dangerous set of associations when you say those thing – you are reinforcing that they get attention, concern and love for being a skeletal mess. I remember the rush of feel-good emotions and chemicals that i would experience when my mother told me she was worried about me. It was wonderful- because she was paying attention to me. Because she had shown me that she cared. I only knew that people gave a shit about me if I starved myself.

I wanted to write this because I have seen so much recently about the distorted photoshop weirdness that the media is perpetuating about what we expect the female form to look like- but although this is true, sick, and not good, in my experience, putting all of the blame for our girls’ risk of developing anorexia does not lie just with the media. Just like a parent blaming a school for a kid’s failing grades, a society blaming media images alone for anorexia is skirting the real issue and avoiding responsibility: if our child is anorexic, we need to take responsibility. We need to know that we need to find ways to show our daughter love, affection, develop self esteem and self worth in massively healthy ways that are completely disconnected to their size and shape.

I’m writing this because this was my experience – and my family didn’t get it.

I pulled, bit, and clawed my way out of the hell of addiction through sheer strength and stubbornness, and by an unequivocal faith that my self worth had to lie somewhere else, even if I wasn’t being shown where.

Unfortunately, I am in a minority. Most girls aren’t that lucky.

My step-sister isn’t. This is her a few months ago- she just landed herself in the hospital again today….her kidneys are done. I am 6000 miles’ away, and she has been battling this for at least 7 years. She is 25. She is estranged from her parents, who don’t get it, and can’t help. I don’t know what to do for her, other than share the insight I have into her story.

If you know anyone whose daughter is looking a little too pallid, who is losing a bit too much weight, and the only feedback they seem to be getting is “you’re too skinny”, or “stop reading those awful magazines’, please share this.
I need people to know that the problem won’t go away if that is the only response that we give them…. in fact, it could get worse.
 Maybe a deeper understanding of what is going on inside your daughters can help. Maybe they’ll find their way out without the massive kidney damage and possible death that my sister is facing today.

thanks for reading <3

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