feminism ain't about equality, it's about reprieve

amendment 
written by ani difranco

wouldn't it be nice if
we had an amendment
to give civil rights to
women
to once and for all just
really lay it down from
the point of view of
women
i know what you're thinkin'
that's just redundant
chicks got it good now
they can almost be president
but it's worker against worker
time and time again
'cause the rich use certain issues as a tool
and when i say we need the ERA it ain't 'cause i'm a fool
it's 'cause without it, nobody can get away with anything cool

you don't have to go far, like
just over to Canada
to feel a heightened sense of "live-and-let-live"
what is it about Americans, like so many pitbulls
trained to attack and never give
we gotta put down abortion
put it down in the books for good
as central to the civil rights
of women
make diversity legal
make it finally understood
to the civil rights of
women
and if you don't like abortion
don't have an abortion
and teach your children
how they can avoid them
but don't treat all women
like they are your children
compassion has many faces, many names
and if men can kill and be decorated instead of blamed
than a woman called upon to mother can choose to refrain

and contrary to eons
of old-time religion
your body's your only
true dominion
Nature is not here to serve you
or at any cost to preserve you
that's just some preacher man's
old-time opinion
life is sacred
life is also profane
a women's life it must be hers to name
let an amendment
put this brutal game to rest
trust that women will still take you to their breast
trust that women will always do their best
trust that differences make us stronger, not less

in this amendment shall be
"family structures shall be free"
we'll have the right to civil union
it takes unions of all kinds
unions of hearts and minds
to give society communion
let's do more than tolerate
let gay and straight resonate
and emanate all that is human
with equal rights and
equal protection
intolerance finally
ruined
and then there's the kids' rights
they'll naturally be on board
the funnel through which
women's lives are poured
our family is so big
we're all so very small
let a web of relationship
be laid over it all
over the strata of power piled up to the sky
over the illusion of autonomy on which it relies
over any absolute that nature does not supply

and the birthing woman shall regain her place
in a circle of women in a sacred space
turn off the machines
put away the knives
this amendment shall deliver from bondage
midwives

arcana

heavy blossoms fell last night with the rain. i tossed them into the compost pile this morning with hot, creamy cup of earl grey in hand, as i bid them make my soil rich.  there's another storm coming, and the air is pregnant with rain.

in tarot readings, there are a handful of cards that make you sit up straighter.  i drew Death, The Hanged Man, The High Priestess and Temperance.  these major arcana represent the forces of life over which i have no control. indeed, these specific cards represent, respectively:

transition. letting go of the past. returning to simplicity.  riding my Fate. moving from known to unknown.


sacrifice. emotional release.  relinquishing control.  taking time to be.  surrendering to experience.


waiting.  allowing.  withdrawing from involvement.  seeking inner guidance.  mystery.  intuition.


centering.  finding middle ground, equilibrium.  recovering.  healing.  flourishing.  synthesis.


i have put myself "out there."  now it's time to turn inward and wait.

i am horrible at waiting.  for all the patience i have as a yoga teacher and artist--waiting while my students drop into the space of relaxation, creating tiny beauty with my hands--when it comes to allowing my life to unfold as it is ready, i have all the patience of a sheepdog herding her flock.  which is silly, because i cannot rush myself into realizing my highest potential anymore than i can force flowers to rot.

ironically, the Priestess is my favorite card.  she is all that is unknown.  she is the lucid dreamer, the stargazer. she celebrates the moon in all its phases, preferring the dark and the shadow because they are the house of the soul.  she needs not wage war because destruction, death and rebirth are already occurring.  she recognizes that life is lived both forwards and backwards--that we are what we will ever become.

lying in savansana once i had a vision: the soul, in some cosmic waiting room looking out upon the entire Universe, gets to choose what human life it wants to live.  depending on its karmic level, it sees a summary of each possibility--with its black lows and jubilant highs--and makes its decision.  it forgets what it is, reminded by art, poetry, music, dancing, the heartbreaking resplendence of the sea--by the stars, by moments of hopeless despair, every time it falls in love.  all is decided because Fate is a thread: but the thread must be woven, seen through to the last warp. (this is a weaving term, yes?  come on, all you weavers!  challenge me if it is not!)

i am beginning to read James Hillman's The Soul's Code, because--as always--i am seeking.  he posits that there is a daimon in us all, a guardian that guides us to our highest selves at all costs.  the more we ignore, medicate, numb, oppose, repress the daimon, the more awake it becomes.  it is charged with our care because it loves us with a fierce love like blue fire.  it loves us more that we love ourselves.  when we are aligned with it, we feel whole and nourished.  but it takes courage to stay aligned.

so i will wait.  i will relinquish control and surrender to experience. i will be: with my close-set eyes and my petty insecurities...with my passionate voice and my depression...with my road rage and my tenderness.

i will be.

love, 2003, acrylic on canvas

pwacticing da counting

i often feel like i need to be doing more with my life.

i don't know if this is healthy ambition, unhealthy ambition, me being called to fulfill my true potential, or me doing too much thinking and not enough doing.  i suppose i'm having a third-life crisis.  no, not a mid-life crisis (because knowing my luck, i'll live until i'm 100); not a quarter-life crisis (because i don't forsee surviving to blow out 120 candles).  approximately one-third of my life is over, and it's freaking me the fuck out.

i mean, i just ate a chocolate chip cookie and hardly really tasted it.  i'm going to need to get my act together if i plan on making the other two-thirds of my years count.

i know part of it is the pressure of our culture: pressure to have a retirement fund set up by age 25 and a college fund for your kid 10 years before you have her.  i don't even want kids, but i feel guilty for having all of $400 in the bank and a crappy credit score.  i guess i can thank my family for my financial retardation...and since i'm not having any kids, my bad money karma can die with me and that will be the end of it.

i really should just be amazed that i made it this far.  everyone here knows that i attempted suicide, landed in the hospital for anorexia, blahblah blah blah blahblah...but instead of feeling like a superhero for being able to eat peanut butter and avocados without having a mental breakdown, i feel like a 17-year-old trapped in a 30-year-old's body, a girl who just figured out what everyone else was practically born knowing.  i can't even figure out relationships for buddha's sake (although i know some 50-year-olds who still can't quite get it).  there are people 5 years my junior who are running startups they'll be ready to sell by 2017...i have been putting off fixing my brakes for so long that i'd rather run the risk of a ticket for rolling through a stop sign than endure the embarrassing looks from pedestrians as my shrieking bansheemobile pulls up to the crosswalk, shattering a few storefront windows in the process.  i don't know why i feel that car maintenance is a microcosmic metaphor for life, but i just do.  so there.

thank god for graduate school and doctoral programs, because at least i can go to school for the rest of my life, rack up debt and avoid having to figure out what to do with myself.

yeah, i sound a little bitter and depressed.  sorry.  transitions were never easy for me, and the move is having a delayed effect on my stress levels.  i broke up with my ex because i wanted more space.  now i'm in the center of a gaping abyss with a dinosaur of a laptop checking into my Facebook profile page every 10 minutes.  it's just sad.  i should at least go to cafes and check Facebook...because when you're on a laptop at a cafe, you always look very busy and important, even if you're watching the latest episode of Baman Piderman.

what?  you haven't seen ANY episodes of Baman Piderman?  christ, man, click here.

anyway, i wish i had some uplifting conclusion to this post...but i don't.  i'm going to pick the cookie crumbs out of my teeth and try to recapture the taste so i can make the 100 calories i just ingested count for something.

Yakko, Wakko and Dot

so, it occurs to me, after reading some humor blogs, that maybe i take myself way too seriously.  actually, i've known that for awhile.  i've always been supersensitive about people laughing at me, or about looking stupid or foolish.

as i get older (is my birthday REALLY in less than 2 months?!?!?!?!) i'm learning to laugh at myself more.  in fact, i feel as though i'm becoming less adult-like and more child-like.  which, i think, is the definition of enlightenment...right?  to become like a child, swapping innocence for wisdom?  at least, that's kind of the interpretation i've taken away from studying Eastern philosophy.  it seems like kind of a swell goal, in my opinion.

for example, i'm still in my pajamas--pajamas with monkeys in Santa hats on them--sitting at the kitchen bar counter where i have been for the last 5 hours reading Hyperbole and a Half, listening to jose gonzalez on YouTube and drinking tea.  but i'm wise enough to know that i'd better get off my butt at some point and go get some physical activity or i won't be able to fall asleep because i'll have all this pent-up energy pinging around in my body like a superball in an abandoned warehouse.  okay, i guess if i was really child-like, i'd be drinking Kool-Aid, not tea, and i'd be watching episodes of Animaniacs on YouTube...but Kool-Aid is really bad for you...so that's where the wisdom steps in.  The Animaniacs episodes sound like a really superb idea, though.

actually, i'm fighting guilt for having done nothing productive (yet) today.  a couple of years ago, i would not have been able to spend a day like this.  my inner critic would have slaughtered my self-esteem with harsh words.  these days, my inner critic--let's call her Mal, just to make it more interesting--these days, Mal's voice isn't so loud and is much easier to kind of blow off.

Mal: "really?  it's 3:30pm and you're screwing around on Facebook in your pajamas?  way to be, loser.  you'll do GREAT in grad school."

Me: "hey!  you know i go into Overachiever Mode as soon as academics enters the picture.  i won't have this luxury when October comes around.  i'll be working full time and taking classes and having to deal with living in a new place where i have to figure out where my bank is and how to change my address on record at the DMV and where to buy organic apples."

Mal: "seriously, you're a fat, lazy slob.  you have a million things you should be doing right now..."

Me: "get bent.  Katie just posted a photo on my Wall of an XL wine glass and it's hilarious and i have to comment on it."

Mal:  "ugh.  FINE."

see? normally, that conversation would have gone on and on until Mal convinced me to go run for 3 miles, practice yoga for an hour, organize my closet by color and write goodbye letters to all of my local friends.

i'm starting to find that the less i push, the less i resist and the less of a struggle it is do do the things that are good for me.  i usually end up getting my bills paid on time, i've never been starving (though at one point i was eating nothing but brown rice and soymilk) and i've managed to keep myself on my antidepressant meds--or, if i went off for some reason, i was able to get back on before i started plummeting into a dark hole of apathy and self-loathing.  go me!

i never imagined my life could be this good.
and it's only getting better.

EDIT:  haha!  i said "do do" somewhere in this post.  if you found it, you win!  if you giggled, you're welcome.