Eve Ensler on Sarah Palin: "Drill, drill, drill"

Eve Ensler, American playwright, writer, activist, performer and feminist, perhaps best known for her Vagina Monologues, wrote the following about republican vice president candidate Sarah Palin (from the Huffington Post, link to article here.)

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

I am afraid of the state of the US and the world and this presidential election worries me, and the choice of Sarah Palin more than anything. Not all women politicians are feminists, not all women politicians are progressive and modern and for an society based on equality and modern ideas.
This is a woman who could very likely end up as President of the United States. I am not too happy about senator McCain either, but less worried than about his vice president candidate. And there's absolutely nothing I can do...

You can't get too many blessings

A couple of weeks ago my youngest brother got married. He's an agnostic but with influences from Buddhism and Christianity (pretty hard not to have since we were raised in a Protestant environment), and his wife an active Christian of the good kind. You know, openminded, loving and not dogmatic.
As a blessing, I gave them their own flame of love, based on the Flame of Avalon, Rhiannon's power and the flames that burned on the main altar during their wedding ceremony. Blessings and similar things come naturally for me on my Goddess path, and as a priestess, but I've had some concerns about how to do it in a more Christian environment. Not everyone would understand, as there is a definite lack of blessings in Protestatism, save the ones from the Bible. It is a very different thing to do in my everyday environment. But for my brother, it felt like the right thing to do.

And it was. It made them both happy, and my brother's comment was that you can't get too many blessings, which I though was wonderfully true in its simplicity. Of course we can't. To have other people standing by you, and know that their love and support is there in times of need, and at all other times, is amazing. And no matter how much love there is, things do get rough every now and then, a marriage doesn't safeguard us from problems or challenges along the way.

It was a step for me, but as a (self-initiated) Priestess, this is what I do. This is who I am. And it is time to Be now.

Calling - a poem

I Love You
I'm calling
My words suspended in thin air
In the middle of a vast nothing
And I'm falling
Constantly calling
For you

December 29, 1996

© Lisa Isaksson

I found a notebook with some of my old poems from my days on the other side of the mirror. This one is almost 12 years old - I can't believe how time has flown by! I wrote it during one of my stays on a psych ward and remember how cold I was, and how lonely. My boyfriend, who I lived with, had gone to Germany for a family celebration over the new year, and I wouldn't see him for over a week. I missed him. But I was so depressed, all colours muted, faded, I felt numb and dissociated. I stayed for a few days more and discharged myself when they wanted me to share a room with someone, then came back after another few days. To a private room.

Sweet oblivion

I'm tired, feel like I have no energy to interact even with my friends. Maybe that's because several of my friends have needed my energy lately and I have been an attentive ear, a sympathetic friend who listens and questions and dares to go deeper into the real issues. Apprecieted most of the time, but not very rewarding for me. I get no kicks from gratitude, and I don't feel all warm and fuzzy when I can help someone sort their shit out. I just feel more like a mentor than a friend and am so longing for my peers, my equals, my older sisters with their wisdom and experience. Am sick and tired of being the voice of reason, the wise friend who people come to for some unloading. It's gotten to the point when I almost don't want to talk to them at all, I want everyone to back off instead of asking me for anything at all, even to listen to their positive stuff. Because I just really don't want to care; caring takes too much energy. I'm a natural carer, I have almost limitless energy, love and attention for friends, but there is a limit and I'm close to it.

Right now, I choose to close my close relationships as the friends who were close have been too needy and unable to understand my dynamics, and I just can't be bothered to let them in. I choose to close parts of myself off to anyone who comes asking for anything - even for positive things - as I don't want to give anymore. For some it may come as a relief when a friend asks how they are doing; for me it doesn't work if said friend has just unloaded a lot of stuff. I don't volunteer information. I hardly ever do, and when I do it's only to a very select few. It has something to do with trust, but more with energy. It also has a lot to do with the dynamics of any relationship and the fact that I prefer to unload for a therapist than a friend. I talk to my T rather than to friends even though I don't always let her in on the entire picture either.
I'm way, way more open to friends, have more people who get to be there more for me and whom I can ask for support - when I choose to - and I'm way more open and honest with my T too, but I need for her to push me. I wouldn't lie to her, but I don't volunteer anything and I'm a champion at hiding stuff. If I don't want you to know, you never ever will. Unless you're a bloody great intuitive.

I'm seeing my T today, after three weeks of holiday, and where I felt last week that I had so much to talk to her about, today I feel like I don't know what to say. I feel blah, bland, cut off, blank, numb. My mood is the mental equivalent of a shrug. I'm sort of positive, or at least not depressed (right now), could easily access that happy, smily part of me and still be genuine. But I don't see why I should. I'm not interested in spilling my guts out to friends, but am not sure how well I can put it into words and tell my T. I think it's time to see her less regularly, forthnightly instead of weekly, and I really don't know what I may need to go into with her at the moment. Perhaps that's because I'm too cut off emotionally, perhaps because it's a blind spot that she can see but I can't.
I mean, I don't really have any huge issues anymore, I don't starve or purge or cut, I'm not in a messy relationship (or any relationship), I've managed to say No to friends when I don't want to give anymore... I'm coping. She can't change my life, she can't get the work/money to roll in, she can't get me hooked up with D or anyone else, she can't change me or the people around me. But she can help me get a perspective, she can ask the right questions, she can question and mirror me - and she knows me better than anyone.

I do long for the sweet oblivion of anorexia, the mad focus, the tunnel vision, the situation that nothing else matters as long as I lose weight. I really do long for it, for the drama, for an escape from this drab reality. But I know I can't go back.

Tempting, but no thanks

Will the temptation ever die? Will there ever be a time when I no longer turn to my shadow self when things get rough? Will I ever not look in the mirror at the first signs of trouble? It's still a gut reaction, a reflex, to step into the shadow and let that part of me whisper just a little bit louder when this life gets too stressful, too frustrating, too full of duty and too lacking in sex, fun and creativity.

So I'm a passionate person, and I've found that the two sides of my passion are creation and destruction. If I don't get my kicks one way, I need them the other. If there's too little creativity, I become destructive. It's not the least surprising, although the realisation that this is really the case came as a bit of a surprise. But it explained everything perfectly. In my life, I have for long periods of time had very little room and/or energy for creativity, and lacking that creative outlet, I have found other outlets, mostly destructive ones. And I never understood that my penchant for self-destruction had anything to do with the passion that I sometimes misread as intensity or hypomania, but is just a very natural, fiery, earthy passion. That is, until I understood.

When life becomes too full of stressors, mainly in the form of lack of money, and there are more duties than fun, or I feel stress and pressure and don't know how to express it, how to release the energy, I turn to my shadow self. This is how I have done for many years, and even though I rarely act on it, I turn that way. It is my default reaction. That part of me seems like a twisted comforter, an escape into a reality that deals with problems on a completely different scale.

I can be so very, very tempted to let that side of me take over for a while, to let the stressful thoughts drown in the whispers of my shadow self and just obliterate everything else. Just for a while it would be wonderful to hand the wheel to my dark passenger and let her drive. Just for a while. But I know it doesn't work that way. I don't trust myself to let that other side of me out for just a bit, because I know that if I give her space and listen to her, she will always demand more space, more time, more of me. She is never satisfied with just a little. And if I'm feeling vulnerable and really, really want an escape from the pressuring, stressful reality, I might just as well be tempted to give just a bit more space to my dark, destructive side... and more... and more... Not intending to step back into the mirror fully, into the dark glass, but just as a small way out. And I know too well how hard it is to step out again, to tear myself away from that escape - I've done that too many times in the past before I stepped away from the mirror.

So I am tempted, but I don't go there. Not very far, anyway. I'd love to, just for a while, just to rest in numb oblivion, but no thanks.
Because I know I will want more and more and more. This is my drug of choice.

Homesick for a place that's not my home

Caroly Hillyer's "Ancestor Song" on the player, with Nigel Shaw's lovely flute, reminds me of a magical night in Chalice Well just over a year ago. It was the beginning of the Goddess Conference week, and Carolyn Hillyer and Nigel Shaw had a concert. The night was lovely, the warmth of summer returning after weeks and weeks of rain, and as darkness fell, the huge moon rose.

This week is the Goddess Conference, and I'm not there. And it is with a deep sense of regret, as I would have loved to. I've managed to keep the feelings of homesickness at bay for a long time, I'm not meant to go this year, but I'm feeling it. Up till now, I've felt OK about being away from Glastonbury-Avalon, away from the people who are probably closer to me than many I've known for much longer, away from the land I love, the energies that take me deeper and further than I can go elsewhere. I haven't been back since that Autumn equinox weekend last year when I dedicated as a Sister of Avalon, and only now am I beginning to feel deeply homesick. I get pangs of it every now and then, when I catch a glimpse or a scent of Avalon, see someone who looks so much like a sister from that part of my life that I almost catch my breath, or suddenly feel myself transported, for a split second, to the land I know so well.

It isn't my home, but it is somehow my land, my heartland, my hearthland, where I feel the source of my existence, the roots of my being. But what is home, anyway? Where I was born, where I grew up, where I have the place I call my own, where I live my life? Or is it any place that resides in my heart?

I had serious plans to move to Glastonbury, but am no longer as sure. I've had numerous messages that I belong there, but I belong here too. I have a task here, as well. I want to live in both places, I want it all. To be able to journey into the cauldron and the energy in Glastonbury, and to be able to leave it for this other world, where I live most days. I want both worlds, to bridge the gap between them, bring Avalon into the outside world, part the veils out here. It feels like a huge task, one that I feel too small, to much a novice, for, but I know Goddess will guide me when the time is right.

She is very close tonight, or is it me who is close to Her? It is a clear black night, a tropical night that we get very few of here. Mystress Glitonea is certainly present, with the summer heat that turns the fields golden. The scorching, merciless sun; the life-giver and life-taker.

I yearn for Avalon, to be among my sisters and brothers of Goddess. They aren't here, but Avalon is, and Goddess is. In Her presence, I am made whole.

Getting started

So, a new blog, a new start. Let's see how long I last this time, before the words run out. Which of course they never really do, but there are times when they flow freely and I feel the need to write them down (and do), and times when they just flutter by in a seemingly chaotic sense. The latter are the times when I don't write.

I already have a couple of blogs, in my two languages, but it's been a long time since I had a regular, daily-life-reflections-thoughts blog in English, so I guess this is it. But it is also a sort of thematic blog, as my everyday life is lived in the light and presence of the Lady, Goddess of ten thousand names, the power behind everything, the source and the return. My faith is an essential part of me, part of my life, and as natural as can be. Does that make my life different from most people's? I have absolutely no idea, but I'd guess yes and no. Isn't everyone's life different from "everyone else's"?

I'm spiritual, perhaps even deeply spiritual in the eyes and minds of some, but I'm also a just a woman - which is of course never "just". I love all things beautiful, I can be very girly-girly and have a huge interest in fashion and beauty, but there's also a lot of depth. There's the Priestess part of me, the intellectual, the business woman, the lover, the wounded healer, the motivational coach, the Good Girl (although less so that I used to be), the eternal student with a constant thirst for knowledge, the teacher, the sober former anorexic (sober meaning recovered but aware that it's a part of me that's still there, although mostly dormant) who went so far into the dark that she almost didn't come out - like everyone else, I am a lot of things. And most of that may reflect in my daily life. The eating disorder stuff, however, and most of the things connected to that, is in another blog, where I am sometimes brutally and painfully (for me) honest with how I feel.

Daily life means mundane things, and now I need to get my laundry and then get to work. Today's assignment: Assembly instructions for steel walls. Yay!

Goddess bless
L

The Dark Passenger

I was watching Dexter on Monday evening (we're probably a season or two behind the US), and was absolutely struck by some of the things said about addiction. I feel just the same! Being a recovered anorexic, I still know the addiction to starvation, food abuse and purging, although I no longer live it out. The anorexic in me is quieter, but nevertheless always there. In that sense, I define myself more as a "sober anorexic" than recovered, as I'm not sure whether I will ever be completely free from that part of me, that part of my life. I don't live it anymore, but it's not gone.

Lila: Like a thousand hiding voices whispering: "This is who you are". And you fight the pressure, the growing need rising like a wave, prickling and teasing and prodding to be fed. But the whispering gets louder, until it's screaming: "now !". And it's the only voice you hear... the only voice you want to hear. And you belong to it... to this... shadow self. To this...
Dexter: Dark Passenger.
Lila: Yes. The Dark Passenger.

My dark passenger works just the same way, although I no longer have to fight her as hard as I once had to. But the whispering gets louder every now and then, and there are times when I want nothing more than to follow her lead, give myself away to the shadow self that is still, always, intrinsically a part of me. My mirror self, the girl on the other side of the mirror, my dark sister, my dark twin.
I can't deny that there are times when I choose to be her, to follow her instead of doing what I know would be "right". How can something so wrong feel so right, so natural? The main difference from Then is that I have a choice, I choose when to listen to her, when to follow her; I don't have to, I don't get anxious and panicky when I don't.

I've been under a lot of (financial) stress lately, and very frustrated, and that always makes me low, depressed, I lose my appetite, eat less real food and more fast food, sweets and junk, and unlike many others I seem to lose weight when I eat "bad foods". I've lost a bit, enough for my therapist to be happy with it, but not enough for anyone to be really concerned. At least not me. I still feel that I have some distance to when the Dark Passenger starts screaming, although I am aware that I'm pushing it a bit. I did put on some of the weight again, but have absolutely no desire to put on more. I've never wanted to put on weight, ever, but I did anyway because I had to for health reasons, and to get out of the ED. I'm far from back there, but like I've said before, I'm aware that I'm playing a possibly dangerous game.
Some days, when I'm particularly low or stress-induced anxious, I want to block out all other voices, the voices of reason, and just hear her for a bit. It wouldn't solve anything, so I don't, apart from for a while, and I wonder if I would ever let her get into the driver's seat again. What would it take for me to step back into the mirror?

Dexter: I just know there's something dark in me. I hide it. I certainly don't talk about it. But it's there. Always. This dark passenger. And when he's driving, I feel.... alive. Half sick with the thrill, complete wrongness. I don't fight him. I don't want to. He's all I've got. Nothing else could love me, not even, especially, not me. Or is that just the lie the dark passenger tells me? Because lately there are these moments when I feel....connected to something else, someone. And it's like the mask is slipping....and things....people....who never mattered before are suddenly starting to matter. It scares the hell out of me.

My mask has slipped and I am most definitely connected to something so much bigger than anorexia, and that is my safeguard; I have too much to lose to ever let my shadow self take over again. This fact, that I can't go back without giving a lot of things up that I don't want to lose, no longer scares me as it used to do. It has become a fact of life; if I choose that dark path in the mirror, I will lose something. A lot of things matter a lot more than being skinny, and the illusion of control is just that: an illusion.

But the dark passenger is still there, still teasing, taunting, wanting to be fed and heard. She is part of me, just like my shadow is always a part of me, but she is the dark passenger, not the driver. And she is me.

The Lure of the Mirror

At times I wonder if it is ever possible to be totally free from the ties to the mirror, to break completely free and never look back. How many years down the line is that, in that case? Do I even want to forever completely sever the ties, if I can? They say it takes as long to be free as it took to hit rock bottom, and in that case I have many more years to slowly break the chains, one link at a time.

Most of the time it really isn't on my mind. I can look in the mirror and appreciate what I see without feeling the slightest desire to step back, not even the smallest inkling to step on the scales. Other times I am curious and hear the siren's song again. Quietly and from far, far away, like fairy music in my dreams. But I hear it, and if I listen to it, give room to the oh so quiet voice from the other part of me, that part that has shrunk, almost into oblivion, but is nevertheless always with me, a part of me; if I listen to that voice, to the alluring lilt in its seduction, I know it will grow stronger. It has no hold over me, not yet anyway, but can I safely say that I will never give it hold over me? No. I'm being honest here: I will always be able to choose to go back. I don't know what it would take to push me into making that choice, and it won't be one easily, casually made, but the choice remains. I have too much to lose to want to take the risk, now, although I sometimes wish I didn't have to feel this much.

But there is a middle ground, between being completely outside of the mirror and being inside it, and I am playing in that area, sometimes comfortably far away, sometimes challenging myself to step just a bit closer to that smooth, shiny surface. You know you want to... And yes, I do. I want to be able to have one foot in the mirror and still be free. I want to eat the cake and not eat it; I want to be healthy and yet slightly less than healthily slim. Not unhealthy, but just not normal, average. I want it all, the drama, the high, the rush, the feeling of pushing boundaries, and still be sane, focussed and able to lead a normal, happy life. Impossible? Hrmph! Impossible is nothing. I.e. it shouldn't be impossible; it doesn't have to be, does it?

I do miss the drama a bit. Not that I'm a drama queen, because it was always my hidden, secretive inner drama. A bit of Sturm und Drang in the Good Girl's dull life. OK, so I'm not as good a girl any more, and there's definitely room for passion, drama, a spicier life, and it's not usually that dull, either. But occasionally, I miss the internal drama and the secret life. And I still fear normalcy, whatever that is. I don't want to be normal if it means being average, mediocre, mainstream, like everyone else, invisible. That's not me. They tell me I'm anything but invisible, but then how can I feel so invisible?

So I play with the mirror, test the strength of my ties to it, see how far I can push the boundaries before I feel its pull, before I start seeping into it. This is nothing new and not entirely conscious, but I've become aware that this is what I do. About a year ago I felt that I was too big, and decided to lose a bit. Nothing much, just a bit. And slowly, oh so slowly, I have. No dramatic changes, in spite of the tough times with an unwanted pregnancy and a manipulative man in autumn, in spite of the constant stress of money and work (or no work). I haven't given up eating, given in to dieting, or to compensation/purging behaviours. Still go to the gym too seldom for the membership to really pay off. But it's in my mind, and it's been there on and off, like an undertone or a subaudible, hidden track in my thoughts. And it's summer, and I'm under a lot of stress, feel emotionally exhausted and low, and that always affects me somewhat.
For a while, a week or so in May, I thought I might choose that path again, when the weight thoughts were stronger than in many years after I'd had to weigh myself at my GP's before an asthma exam, but I held back and worked with the thoughts and why they had appeared so strongly. I was proud of myself for that. I am in control, I choose what to do and will not give in to any fearful thoughts. But the fact remains: I have lost, willingly, even though I have been more or less happy with how I look for months. I can look in the mirror and be happy, satisfied. This is new, I never felt that before I broke out of the mirror. I can actually say that I look good and feel beautiful. Not every day, not all the time, but often enough. And yet... Do I think I look better when I am slightly smaller? (Not obviously underweight, unhealty small, but just a little bit less than average.) I don't know, I really can't say. But here is enough (another new thought). I don't want my breasts to shrink, because I've lost half a cup size and I like my breasts! So no more. That's what I say. Now, the test is whether I will stop and just stay here. That is where I know the game is, the challenge of whether or not I have stepped ever so slightly back into the mirror's shadow.
Let's see. For now, anyway, I am still my own and in control of my behaviours, and I have no intention of giving that control over to the darker part of me, to the mirror girl...

~L~

He makes my knees buckle

How can it be? A man who really makes my knees buckle and my hands shake. Never happened before. And this is long before falling in love, because I don't know him enough to do that. Not yet. All I know is that we have this amazing connection, on all levels, and that he wants more of me just like I want more of him, and I know very well how my body reacts to him. I just wish he would make that phone call, take the step from telling me that he wants to, and is so close to calling, and wants the energy exchange we share in sex, and just do it. Less words, more action. But I think that doing so is a much bigger step than it may sound like. It's not just sex.

I saw him last week, just for a short appointment, and I was so nervous before that it was insane. I was OK most of the day, just a bit jittery, butterflies in my stomach and all that, but on my way there I felt my hands shaking and my knees feeling disturbingly wobbly. It's funny, because I've been head over heels before and never like this, and now I'm just so attracted but not in l0ve.
It's funny how much you can say in a short time, and the level of confidence and openness between us is more than I've ever experienced before.

I had made my mind up to try to tell him that I am interested in more than just sex, and that if he had been single I would have asked him out, because he's just too interesting to let go. I wanted to tell him that because I want him to know that I think he's really interesting and I like him as a person. And I did tell him that, too. But he beat me to it, by suddenly telling me that he "really adores me as a person", and that's a reason why he feels unsure about just meeting to have sex. It was so sweet of him to say that, and he seemed genuinely concerned that I might feel used. As if. I want it just as bad, and I am fully capable of saying No. Even though I seriously doubt I will ever want to say No to him.

The thing is, it's up to him. He's got a family, he's got commitments, he's got issues to sort out and doesn't want to cheat. I respect that, but I can't sit around and wait. I mean, in a way I do, but just because I don't find anyone interesting, not because I'm waiting specifically for him.

I am amazed at the physical reactions to him and I am confused about what he said to me. Player or no player? Honest or not? Does he have the courage to take the next step?

Projection

Projection... something we all experience every now and then, whether from the giving or the receiving side. Someone says or does something that pushes a button, and we project our thoughts, fears, or other issues onto that person, completely disregarding whether our reaction is justified or not. Usually not, as what we react to is our own stuff, rather than what the other person said or did or didn't.

I've learned to always be aware of my reactions and to stop and see whether they are about my issues or about the situation at hand, and that has helped me stop projecting, and to understand when others project things on me. Which has happened quite a lot. It still hurts me, as it makes me feel misunderstood, mistreated and, sometimes, betrayed, when i.e. someone puts words in my mouth or decides to give her/himself the right to decide my intentions. But I guess that comes with the territory: when you do support/self-help work, coaching, self-esteem work, you are bound to meet people whose issues are quite raw and who are totally unaware of this, and who, because of their issues and fears and guilt, get defensive before you can even open your mouth. The trick is to not take it on yourself, to let the other person's issues be her/his; to let people own their issues. Owning your stuff, and taking responsibility for it and for your own actions, reactions, behaviours etc. is fundamental for growing, becoming empowered and for gaining self-esteem. And not least for gaining self-knowledge; knowing and owning your issues makes you much less susceptible for projecting them onto others, and helps you to understand yourself.

A very close friend of mine, someone I consider one of my best friends, gave me a very unexpected and quite hurtful example of projection last weekend. We were out on the town and I made a casual remark about those scales that measure not only your weight, but also your body fat. What I said was that if I got one of those, I wonder how obsessed I would be with the fat percentage. (Of course I would want to see it lower, just like I still would with my weight, but as I no longer bother to do anything about it, the chance it would push me over to the other side is pretty slim. But I still can't help but be careful as I just don't know how I would react. However, I didn't say any of that.) She really flipped; told me that how do I think she feels about that when she weighs more than me and is 4 inches shorter (true). Huh? I didn't say I thought I was too big, and it's not as if she has ever had any problems talking about these things. I could have understood her reaction if I had said something about wanting to lose weight or fat, but I didn't.

With hindsight, I could see that it was about her issues. Although she is easily one of the most beautiful women I know, she obviously had a bad day. But I can't help what I look like, can I? I will not feel guilty for looking the way I do! I honestly think it's deeply unfair if I have to censor my thoughts just because I may look a certain way.

Being projected against sucks, especially when someone puts words in your mouth or thoughts in your head that weren't there. And it hurts when that someone is a person you trust to think more of you. But what to do except for letting it go and putting it behind you?

~L~

Journeying through the mirror

I stepped out of the mirror years ago, and yet... I can't help but wondering whether I will ever truly leave it. Whether it will leave me. Perhaps I will forever live in the shadow of the mirror that for so long held me captivated; a prisoner of my own fears and twisted ideals. Don't get me wrong, the mirror no longer controls me, and it has nowhere near as great a hold on me as it used to have, but there is still a strange fascination and at times a temptation, an enticement. It can lure me, but I know far too well what I have to lose to want to give in.

I am recovered, as far as recovery ever seems to go. There is no way to sandblast away what was or the reminders of what I spend so many years doing to myself, and I have no desire to. I am the sum of my experiences, my knowledge, my healing as well as my wounds, and to deny my past would be to deny my self. When I say that I am recovered, I mean that I no longer live with an eating disorder 24/7, or even an hour a week. Anorexia no longer controls my every move and thought. I don't starve or purge or binge because life seems unsurmountable or I feel like crap, I no longer give in to impulses of self-destruction or endulge in self-injurious behaviours on a regular basis. I live a fairly normal life with fairly normal behaviours - as far as I've been able to understand "normal" anyway. I think I will always be recover-ED. A sober, non-starving, non-purging anorexic. Can there be anything else after 25 years on the other side of the mirror?

This state of being recoverED is not a bad thing. In fact, it's wonderful. Even the dark days are better than how the light days were there, on the other side. They sure can feel darker, but how could it be otherwise; this life has nuances, an endless display of colour, light and darkness; countless emotions, although I am still struggling with them. As I let more light in, the darkness seemed darker, more scary even, for a time. In all honesty, I still feel more comfortable in the dark, with the darkness, the deeper emotions, the introspection, the raw feelings in the depths of being. I like the light, but it somehow seems... insubstantial in comparison. Superficial. Love and light and sweetness and all that. But life is more than love and light - it's also death and pain and darkness. I grow by passing through the dark patches, by breaking through the veils of fear that still surround me. By walking through the darkness, going through the deepest depths of despair to reemerge in the light. I feel at home in the dark, but I need to balance it with light to be able to live. Too much dark breeds depression. Just like a plant needs light to survive, so do I.

But I am still not so sure about being normal. Whatever that is. When I think "normal", I still get a feeling of mediocrity, being average, not being special, being invisible. That form of normality is not for me, and I have finally realised that without feeling that I should make excuses for wanting to be like everyone else. I am beginning to realise that my balance, my state of normality is not necessarily trapped in the in-between space between the highs and the lows, the grey-scales of the comfort zone where you are safe and don't stand out too much; my in-between is a balance between the highs and lows where I get them in a more or less equal amount. But it's still a bit scary to fully accept that some people will always see me as "too much" as I don't want to live life in greytones or in a comfort zone of being average. I am not average. I am me.

Circle of Light

Circle of Light

Brief history: The Circle of Light originated on Avalon Yearning a few years ago, and has since been spread by our members, and it is such a joy to know that there are now people all over the world who participate in it. Every month I post this ceremony on Avalon Yearning and on the Facebook group Tuatha de Avalon, hosted by my Circle Sister Elle.

What is the Circle of Light? It is a ceremony centred around the Light; the light in us, the light of the Universe, the light of Goddess, the flame of Goddess - whatever "light" means to you. The purpose of the circle is to connect us all in a web across the world, and to connect to the Healing and Lifegiving flame of Goddess; to send a circle of healing light into the world. 

Every month also has its own theme, something that you can choose to focus on, or not. It is all up to you.

When is it? The Circle of Light is held the first Wednesday of every month. The connection to the Circle of Light starts at 6 pm local time and goes until 6 am the following morning. No matter when you connect, or for how long, the presence of our collective spirits and Goddess will be there.

How do I participate? Light a candle and tap into the web of energy that we create with our participation. Say a prayer, meditate, call in a circle, do a ceremony in whichever way feels right to you. 

Blessed be
Lisa