Affair On 8th Avenue
Gordon Lightfoot
The perfume that she wore was from some little store
On the down side of town
But it lingered on long after she'd gone
I remember it well
And our fingers entwined like ribbons of light
And we came through a doorway somewhere in the night
Her long flowing hair came softly undone
And it lay all around
And she brushed it down as I stood by her side
In the warmth of her love
And she showed me her treasures of paper and tin
And then we played a game only she could win
And she told me a riddle I'll never forget
Then left with the answer I've never found yet
How long, said she, can a moment like this
Belong to someone
What's wrong, what is right, when to live or to die
We must almost be born
So if you should ask me what secrets I hide
I'm only your lover, don't make me decide
The perfume that she wore was from some little store
On the down side of town
But it lingered on long after she'd gone
I remember it well
And she showed me her treasures of paper and tin
And then we played a game only she could win
And our fingers entwined like ribbons of light
And we came through a doorway somewhere in the night
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Not Again
It's that time of year . . . again. That time of year when many single adult people everywhere cringe and run for cover repeatedly from mid-November till the first week in January. There's nothing like being single and being bombarded week after week after week for almost two months with images of family and hearth and cute children on Santa's lap. You hear constantly about family and love while no one mentions the ugly fights or the screaming children.
I celebrate Yule. Simple concept. I give it no more weight than I give every other celestially driven holiday. I don't pretend it's about some mythic demi-god who was born on this day, but as everyone knows couldn't possibly have been born on this day. It's a movement in the heavens that has held significance for centuries. That is what I celebrate: the idea that the earth still revolves around the sun. These days that simple thing is enough to astound me. I don't need some made up fairy tale to amaze me; I just have to look up in the sky at night and see the billions of stars still there.
But there's what I celebrate versus what I'm bombarded with daily. I think most people simply live through these holidays without conscious thought. That is all that I can think of to explain this fascination with the false birthday of a "savior". They put no more thought into it than they put into anything else these days. They meander down the track laid out for them by the retail Gods and mew contently while emptying their bank accounts in meaningless gestures of gift giving. It goes back to the idea that most people live partly or wholly unconscious lives.
On the one hand I wonder what it would take to change that, but then unfortunately I think I already know the only answer. It takes having your own mortality dangled in front of you like a carrot in front of a mule. "Here you go, live in a conscious manner and get to live." How does that line go? "What is wrong, what is right, when to live or to die, we must almost be born." Rebirth is what saves people. A very painful rebirth into awareness. Most people don't want to go there. Most people aren't capable of going there. If the change is real and authentic it's constant and painful and soul dredging on a daily basis.
I've chosen a life here, and it's mostly choice, that doesn't fit into that mainstream hearth and home view of the world. I live alone with animals. I have no SO and no children and virtually no family. Some of that is choice, some of that is simply what life handed me. But I choose to live as if my way of life is no more radical or different than any other. I no longer want and wish for a man or children or family. I'm not desperately searching for some mythical magical other person who will "complete me". I've accepted that this is how my life this time is to be lived. I accept that there's a point and purpose to my life, and that my path is equally as valid as that of a mother with a husband and four kids. I am not conforming to the norm, I am recreating my life daily into something far from the norm.
It took a fundamental shift in viewpoint to get here let me tell you. And there are times, like around about now, when it's hard to hang onto. It is why I can always tell the real people from the posers whenever people talk about changing their lives or their diets or whatever. On boards and in forums and in real life the real people are the ones who talk in fundamental terms rather than superficial ones. The details are useless to them, but the foundation is everything. It's the foundations they change not the details.
Anyway, people wander through this season for the most part without contemplating it's meaning. I think if they stopped to think their whole world would collapse. I mean how better to celebrate the birth of a savior than with wanton consumerism that further deteriorates the planet he was supposedly born onto? What would Jesus do? Buy a flat screen he can't afford that arrives wrapped in a small fortune of non biodegradable plastic and Styrofoam?
I celebrate Yule. Simple concept. I give it no more weight than I give every other celestially driven holiday. I don't pretend it's about some mythic demi-god who was born on this day, but as everyone knows couldn't possibly have been born on this day. It's a movement in the heavens that has held significance for centuries. That is what I celebrate: the idea that the earth still revolves around the sun. These days that simple thing is enough to astound me. I don't need some made up fairy tale to amaze me; I just have to look up in the sky at night and see the billions of stars still there.
But there's what I celebrate versus what I'm bombarded with daily. I think most people simply live through these holidays without conscious thought. That is all that I can think of to explain this fascination with the false birthday of a "savior". They put no more thought into it than they put into anything else these days. They meander down the track laid out for them by the retail Gods and mew contently while emptying their bank accounts in meaningless gestures of gift giving. It goes back to the idea that most people live partly or wholly unconscious lives.
On the one hand I wonder what it would take to change that, but then unfortunately I think I already know the only answer. It takes having your own mortality dangled in front of you like a carrot in front of a mule. "Here you go, live in a conscious manner and get to live." How does that line go? "What is wrong, what is right, when to live or to die, we must almost be born." Rebirth is what saves people. A very painful rebirth into awareness. Most people don't want to go there. Most people aren't capable of going there. If the change is real and authentic it's constant and painful and soul dredging on a daily basis.
I've chosen a life here, and it's mostly choice, that doesn't fit into that mainstream hearth and home view of the world. I live alone with animals. I have no SO and no children and virtually no family. Some of that is choice, some of that is simply what life handed me. But I choose to live as if my way of life is no more radical or different than any other. I no longer want and wish for a man or children or family. I'm not desperately searching for some mythical magical other person who will "complete me". I've accepted that this is how my life this time is to be lived. I accept that there's a point and purpose to my life, and that my path is equally as valid as that of a mother with a husband and four kids. I am not conforming to the norm, I am recreating my life daily into something far from the norm.
It took a fundamental shift in viewpoint to get here let me tell you. And there are times, like around about now, when it's hard to hang onto. It is why I can always tell the real people from the posers whenever people talk about changing their lives or their diets or whatever. On boards and in forums and in real life the real people are the ones who talk in fundamental terms rather than superficial ones. The details are useless to them, but the foundation is everything. It's the foundations they change not the details.
Anyway, people wander through this season for the most part without contemplating it's meaning. I think if they stopped to think their whole world would collapse. I mean how better to celebrate the birth of a savior than with wanton consumerism that further deteriorates the planet he was supposedly born onto? What would Jesus do? Buy a flat screen he can't afford that arrives wrapped in a small fortune of non biodegradable plastic and Styrofoam?
Friday, September 21, 2007
Bringing Determination to the Table
Odd title maybe, but I happened to catch a segment on 20/20 this evening about Jenny McCarthy and her son Evan. He was diagnosed with autism and she has put him on a casein and gluten free diet as part of his treatment. The link between Autism and gluten intolerance has been whispered about by so many, as has the link between mercury based preservatives in vaccines and autism. But main stream media doesn't really want to talk about it and the medical community surely doesn't want to talk about it. I admire her determination and her outspokenness. The passion she brought to that interview left me in tears, huge sobbing tears. So few people take charge of the health of themselves and their family and follow their instincts, choosing instead to abdicate control and healing to some supposedly all powerful doctor. It was heartening to see someone stand in the public light and talk about autism and gluten and damn the so called experts. I'm not sure she realizes how strong the opposition to her simple determination to make her sons life better may turn out to be. But you go Jenny! You'll find a whole lot of us Celiacs standing right behind you.
More and more I find it disheartening and disgusting this hold western medicine is determined to have on our lives. They want to sell you a pill or a surgery as the answer to your problems. They don't want you to seek your own answers that lie outside their reign of influence. I find it revolutionary and yet so common sense this idea that diet and how you live your life has more influence on your health and well being than all the pills in the universe. They would insist that any cure lies outside your body and mind, and couldn't possibly reside within it's very fiber; that they must control your health and well being because you don't have their expertise and knowledge. We've been so brainwashed by them that we've abdicated our bodies and souls to them, keeping very little decisions making capabilities for ourselves.
And I am guilt of falling prey to that mindset. I've been itching for ohhh, about ten months now. Some days are better than others. Some days are misery. The best guess I can come up with, because the doctor was absolutely no help, is that it's a result of nerve damage caused probably by B vitamin deficiencies or pernicious anemia and or gluten antibodies. It seems to be a somewhat common symptom among both Celiacs and people diagnosed with MS and other auto immune diseases. I was desperate for something anything that would stop the itching. I was hoping for some miracle drug and I'd searched the Internet for it repeatedly to no avail. I wanted some drug with a complicated name that had side effects I could live with as long as the damn itching stopped. I'd beg my way into a prescription or sell my soul which ever had to come first.
I found nothing, no drug, no pharmaceutical wonder, nothing. What I did find were references to everything from tea tree oil to milk baths. I was sure they'd have some miracle cure. Surely something must be out there since so many suffer from this itching? But western medicine has nothing, nada, zilch, zero to offer. Then I came across references to Capsicum as being useful in treating pain from things like arthritis and *ta da* itching. I will try anything. You don't know till you have to live with it how powerfully the itch can motivate. So I found a local pharmacy that has topical cream with Capsicum in it.
Okay, there's an upside to this story and a downside. Capsicum is basically the pepper family. The hot side of the pepper family. On the upside it's virtually orderless when applied to the skin. It does indeed do a really nifty job of numbing the nerves in the skin. And I do mean NUMB. It's a miracle. Applied to the most common areas where I itch the itching stopped. But the skin is numb, LOL. It's an odd sensation. Oh, and while the numbness set in rather quickly it was followed by a mild BURNING where I applied it too heavily. Still, as I sat there with my left forearm on fire I came to the conclusion that it was preferable to the itching. And soap and water don't really wash it off your hands. I still get a mild sting every time I get my hands anywhere near my eyes nose or mouth in spite of having washed a dozen or more times since applying the cream. I'm gonna need to buy some gloves for this stuff I can see that.
But I came to realize something curious about the itching. It's one of those self perpetuating miseries that is as much about my mindset as it is about my physical body. Now on some level I knew that before I began burning myself with capsicum. I knew that I was allowing the itching to aggravate me and take over my life, but there is something about having the power to stop it dead in it's tracks that gave my brain the ability to suddenly cope much better. I am no longer powerless to stop it, and can stop it any time I choose, and that power is liberating. The endless chasing of my tail so to speak has been stopped cold. Just in a matter of ten hours I've gone from obsessed to relaxed. So then the question is, and this is an old question, could I have gotten here without the capsicum cream? Ha. Who knows. And right at the moment I don't much care.
So there's the whole point. I allow myself to be victim to this western medicine mind set. I think I've kicked it, the dependency on pills and doctors, but I still search for the miracle cure outside myself first. I scream in desperation "Heal ME" when I should be quietly saying "I must heal myself". How many times must that happen before the first thought is not "Someone heal me", but "How do I heal myself this time?"
More and more I find it disheartening and disgusting this hold western medicine is determined to have on our lives. They want to sell you a pill or a surgery as the answer to your problems. They don't want you to seek your own answers that lie outside their reign of influence. I find it revolutionary and yet so common sense this idea that diet and how you live your life has more influence on your health and well being than all the pills in the universe. They would insist that any cure lies outside your body and mind, and couldn't possibly reside within it's very fiber; that they must control your health and well being because you don't have their expertise and knowledge. We've been so brainwashed by them that we've abdicated our bodies and souls to them, keeping very little decisions making capabilities for ourselves.
And I am guilt of falling prey to that mindset. I've been itching for ohhh, about ten months now. Some days are better than others. Some days are misery. The best guess I can come up with, because the doctor was absolutely no help, is that it's a result of nerve damage caused probably by B vitamin deficiencies or pernicious anemia and or gluten antibodies. It seems to be a somewhat common symptom among both Celiacs and people diagnosed with MS and other auto immune diseases. I was desperate for something anything that would stop the itching. I was hoping for some miracle drug and I'd searched the Internet for it repeatedly to no avail. I wanted some drug with a complicated name that had side effects I could live with as long as the damn itching stopped. I'd beg my way into a prescription or sell my soul which ever had to come first.
I found nothing, no drug, no pharmaceutical wonder, nothing. What I did find were references to everything from tea tree oil to milk baths. I was sure they'd have some miracle cure. Surely something must be out there since so many suffer from this itching? But western medicine has nothing, nada, zilch, zero to offer. Then I came across references to Capsicum as being useful in treating pain from things like arthritis and *ta da* itching. I will try anything. You don't know till you have to live with it how powerfully the itch can motivate. So I found a local pharmacy that has topical cream with Capsicum in it.
Okay, there's an upside to this story and a downside. Capsicum is basically the pepper family. The hot side of the pepper family. On the upside it's virtually orderless when applied to the skin. It does indeed do a really nifty job of numbing the nerves in the skin. And I do mean NUMB. It's a miracle. Applied to the most common areas where I itch the itching stopped. But the skin is numb, LOL. It's an odd sensation. Oh, and while the numbness set in rather quickly it was followed by a mild BURNING where I applied it too heavily. Still, as I sat there with my left forearm on fire I came to the conclusion that it was preferable to the itching. And soap and water don't really wash it off your hands. I still get a mild sting every time I get my hands anywhere near my eyes nose or mouth in spite of having washed a dozen or more times since applying the cream. I'm gonna need to buy some gloves for this stuff I can see that.
But I came to realize something curious about the itching. It's one of those self perpetuating miseries that is as much about my mindset as it is about my physical body. Now on some level I knew that before I began burning myself with capsicum. I knew that I was allowing the itching to aggravate me and take over my life, but there is something about having the power to stop it dead in it's tracks that gave my brain the ability to suddenly cope much better. I am no longer powerless to stop it, and can stop it any time I choose, and that power is liberating. The endless chasing of my tail so to speak has been stopped cold. Just in a matter of ten hours I've gone from obsessed to relaxed. So then the question is, and this is an old question, could I have gotten here without the capsicum cream? Ha. Who knows. And right at the moment I don't much care.
So there's the whole point. I allow myself to be victim to this western medicine mind set. I think I've kicked it, the dependency on pills and doctors, but I still search for the miracle cure outside myself first. I scream in desperation "Heal ME" when I should be quietly saying "I must heal myself". How many times must that happen before the first thought is not "Someone heal me", but "How do I heal myself this time?"
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