Monday, February 27, 2012

How am i feeling?

I feel sad.

Just plain and simple sad.

I hate when I start hating men.

It only hurts me.

But I do it anyway.

I lose my breath.

I start to hyper-ventilate.

A lot of us have been raped and molested.

Why is America in Denial? Why are men getting away with raping women? In our colleges? hello?

anyone?
i was terrified on a train in india, thought that i would be raped by a gang, shouted and shouted at the top of my lungs

i wasn't raped

then i went to teach english in dharamsala to buddhist monks. being with them and also with the women felt safe.

i could be a naturally sexual human being without being chased and without being followed and withouy being groped and grasped, and having men masturbate in the seat next to me and ...

Transformative Psychology

That is where I came to
smhadi or shamadi

samhadi. smadi. shaminism. pain.

and now transformative psychology.

if we can project our thoughts as fast as lightening

then there is a template

a template of life

that we chose to either honor or dishonor

we are a collective and we chose together

Why are so many men choosing to accept porn?

I have decided that I will not invest my love in a man that watches porn. If he can take his love out of his heart in order to satisfy his penis, then he is a beast

And i choke when i watch porn, i lose my breath, there is so much violence and instead of fighting to stop rape and fighting to help animals you guys are jerking off in front of your computers

Whatever.

No thanks.

I will stay a widow, a sorceress, an old old widow that never bore children cuz the world had become so evil

yes, me only me

I am going to save the world

with all this pain in my ass

I am so tired

I just want to meet someone and i want to love them. It is taking forever. It might never happen. This sucks shit. I might never have kids. You watch porn. I can't be with men. I will hang out with women. In the meantime i will invest my female energy in bringing on the 3rd wave of feminism. All men will stop watching porn and then there will be peace on earth. No, I just want to find one man. One man that is willing to give a chance at loving me. So, that I can receive the chance to love again. But I don't want to invest my emotional energies in loving a man that loves porn. I am against it and that is that . I take my stand. You take yours. We can't be together and I don't want to spend more time with you. I would like to meet a man that does not feel comfortable watching porn because he can see the aggression and the violence in it and that feels wrong to his higher conscience. Simple, huh?
My grandmother didn't particularly like men and that might be an under-statement. She let my boyfriends come in and go out of her house. She never seemed impressed by their existence in my life or by their disappearance from my life.
She saw me when my heart was broken.She watched me when i cried. She told me that i should stop thinking too much when i thought too much. She never encouraged me to marry. She had been married at the age of 12 or 14 to a man older then herself, of course. She is from Yemen. She buried many babies and toddlers there. Her husband died there just before many of the Yemenites were brought to Israel. She had two healthy children, a six year old and a three year old. And she was pregnant. She was a beauty. The type of beauty that every man dreams of holding in his arms. She never re-married. She had to work cleaning bathrooms for years. Then she moved to working in a hospital lab. She was meticulous. Compassionate. So sensitive. And caring. She spoke little. She loved deeply. She was my best friend. She was my angel, my love, my family. She was Israel and the whole life that I lived and chose to live there. Going to Israel at the age of seventeen meant being near my grandmother. I was ready to have that, forever.
Really, my grandmother is my hero.
And  I am her granddaughter.
She loved me through it all. Through the boyfriends that came and went. Through the tears, the heart-breaks, the excitement. She was always there to return to. From Africa, South America, India. From Egypt and Jordan and Greece. From nights in the desert and weeks in Sinai. From Tel-Aviv, the Galil, Haifa....Jerusalem was where my Savta lived and where she was was my home.
She was there when a huge Egyptian worm came out of my butt. I felt the long slither and wondered what kind of food could have slithered like that for so long and when i looked down to see what i saw was a long and brown and squirming worm...

I screamed and ran and jumped around her tiny house shouting "It's a worm. It's a worm. In the toilet. Out of my butt." And flailed my arms up and down, terrified that there were more inside of me just waiting to come out.

My grandmother and I were so different. She was meticulous. She cleaned  till her everything shined. I was messy. Dirty. I brought sand from every desert in Israel into her home. I went to sleep with dirty feet. She woke me up and sent me to the shower. I was physical, she kept her hands to herself. I grabbed her hands and I hugged her and squeezed her until she gave me a little slap. That never stopped me from having my hands all over her. It did not matter how many times she slapped me, my hands were always groping for her. She was quiet. She did not talk about the past. I talked about everything. She did not use the phone much. I spent hours on her tiny kitchen call talking to boyfriends and girlfriends.
We were so similar too. I used to go with her to the shuk, the open market. I would help her carry the bags of fruits and vegetables home. I never saw her walk by a beggar without opening her wallet and giving him a piece of her savings. She was generous and welcoming to guests and to visitors. There were always cookies and fruits. I am the same. She adored babies and small children. A baby could bring the hidden laughter and joy from the crevices of her saddened heart. I love children with a passion and a security that magnetizes them to me and me to them. She was an artist, precise, exact, focused and beautiful. The Challah covers that she sewed were a blessing to the Shabbat table. She was a best friend, a loyal and devoted grandmother, a soul-mate....a stable and constant presence in my life, her granddaughter. I like to think that of all of her grandchildren I lived most with her. I lived with her through many summers. I spent Shabbatot with her, delighting in the food that she cooked and the Yemenite breads that she baked. The cookies and the cakes were there for me to enjoy. I departed from and returned to her home through all my journeys and discoveries. Her home was my home. That was as clear as her windows. I never doubted it. I knew exactly where I belonged. With her, by her side, always.

She taught me love in the simplest of ways. We played love together. Only that she always won. She taught me to accept love. She taught me unconditional love. She taught me patience. She taught me gratitude. She taught me compassion. She tried to teach me to save money. That was a lesson that I was not so good at learning. When I came home with a new skirt or a new blouse, she told me to enjoy it. When I bought her flowers she told me not to waist my money.

Sometimes I felt like we were the same person existing in two separate bodies.

She stayed very calm when i told her about the worm. She went to look. She called my aunt. My aunt explained to me about the different worms. My grandmother flushed the toilet.
It was the same with men. She had a practical eye when it came to them. They come and they go. Like with the worm there is no real reason to get too excited over them. She helped me flush a lot of toilets.

My grandmother and myself, the same soul-spirit projected into bodies that can fly like space-ships into other people's heads. Or hearts. The same soul-spirit inhabiting two separate bodies


Savtah

My Savtah
That was another post. Stoned. Smiling. Sexy. Savvy. Sensual. Serenity. Serendipity. Sex.

Vagina, we should start exercising to the word vagina. Vagina 1, Vagina 2, Vagina 3

Hop one two

Hop two three

We are starting to understand it. There is some research. But very little.
We need help.

We need love.


OP, it slipped out. Another post that just slipped out. By mistake. And it went slipping and sliding and oh how gliding ripping through her vagina and the tissues of her vagina. She resisted him. But he didn't listen. He just went right on doing what he planned on doing. He raped her.

Dandy do. Lets go raping our girls. We are all a bunch of chums and we work together to rape our girls, and it happens a lot in the colleges,

So date rape can lead to nerve damage. The tissues can actually be damaged. She was clenched on the inside like a fist trying to resist him entering. And he was pushing in, harder, slamming into her. So the aggressive undesired entrance of an object into our vaginas can lead to permanent nerve damage. Thank god our bodies know how to heal ourselves but we cannot do it on our own, because we are one body, we are not separated ....

okay, bye

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

So when will you meet the man of your dreams?

You are 37. You have to be on neuropahic pain medicine. You don't know if you want to have children or whether you can have children.

You might never be able to have your own child. All the dreams of your youth have been devastated. You father just came back from the psychiatric hospital today. You had group therapy for artists. It is good. It is part of what has helped me fight the depression. Seeing that I can get up early, I thought that i would never be able to get up early, I thought that I would never be able to wear my skirts again, i try so hard to forgive, i have to close myself alone in my room today because i feel that i hate them all. And we are all suffering and hurting each other and hurting ourselves. And I thought that I would have to stay in the corner of my room for the rest of my life...... How do we know when to stay quiet after trauma. We want to get the pain out. We don't want it to block us. We want to believe that even with the pain of all the losses and the pain of the physical pain.....

and there are so many of us who are suffering from pain, and doctors don't know about it, why is the female vagina property to men, but men don't take the time to understand this property? Do you women and men not see that we are suffering? You doctors why are you denying our suffering? Brother, why did you agree with Dr. Schmidt the psychiatrist when he told you that he diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder. How is it? Did you all think that I was crazy? That I was being dramatic about something as serious as this. I felt that you did not understand me. I felt judged by you. I often felt hurt by you. But I never doubted your love.
And it was the same with my friends. friends dissappeared like lightening when I most needed the. And there were friends that were by my side through it all. Liat is the angel. She is finally beginning to understand that she has a lot of power. And she is so sweet, she reminds us that our importance is not dependent on the things that we do, but on the essence of our soul. And she waves the soul above my head as though she is hypnotizing me and i see hope, and i see faith. Liat was the last person that I spoke to before I went to swallow all the pills that I did. She had no idea that I was going to try to end it. And she told me that if I would have died it would have been a mistake.
Can somethink like that be a mistake? That a normal healthy beautiful young woman not be able to have sex.....and she is called hysterical or frigid. Thousands of women cannot enjoy sex because they are in pain and they are afraid of telling the men that they love that they are in pain. 
This is something that I don't understand.

There are too many of us dying. There are too many of us crying.

Why is our genital pain not heard?

There are so many of us suffering from this.

Why are we keeping it in silence. Are we guilty of not being real woman. Are we lying when we pretend that we are just like any other women. I am no longer like any other woman. Neither are children that I have suffered abuse at an early age.

How much do I share. How do I uncover.

What can I do to get this read, heard, acknowledged, recognized, understood, researched....

if we won't talk about it

this is the loop

that ends us in the noose

(sorry for spelling mistakes...sorry Mr. Roberts, i really do still know how to spell, that B- that you gave me on my paper ripped my ego apart, to shreds....my father helped me correct all the spelling mistakes)

people are snoring here and i am smoking pot

and if i got away from the russian police than i get away with smoking tonight even if it is just for jun

i would love to make love again

but, love means something different to me today

something that i am not sure that i will eve have, and i don't want anything else

i knew what love was since forever, how come there is so much suffering?

And what can i do to alleviate it?

Wearing my wigs help me. I love being mischevous and I am a major flurt. I flurt with everything, babies woman, trees, starts, prayer-books. flowers and more flowers and this is so romantic and.....i feel all around tired of men.

Many of the men that i have spent my days with have been mostly loving and compassion, no maybe not many maybe only those that i got close to...

but i still haven't found what i am looking for

and my stomach fills itself up with butterflies and spring is on its way and maybe my father will survive....or maybe, what????

wow. stop here. stop now. you don't want to share too much. that was how my last date went. The guy told me what i should say and how i should say things on my next date with another guy.

I was like, oh...your blue eyes.....

what can i say, i guess that all in all i haven't been impressed

But then i know the truth that it all depends on me

that i have to accept it all

that i have to live whole with it

and that that is the best that i can do

So, i am trying hard to believe that i will bring on the 3rd wave of feminism...

And what if i don't go to the gym......I cried when i asked a j-dater if we could walk when we go out for coffee and i told him that i chronic pain  so sitting is hard

I cried when he did not answer my e-mail. Testing the borders is part of coming back to "normalcy". Trauma splits things into parts. It creates a new brain that experiences the trauma everywhere...the anxiety takes over everything

my dad

i am doing better, i had a better start, a lot more faith than he did,,,,,am i kidding myself to think that resurrections can happen in one lifetime.

No, I am not kidding myself. It is true. The resurrection, the rise of the erection can take place in the same lifetime. Only that it is only for men. Women will not be resurrected because they are inferior and therefore it is completely right to beat them and to rape them because they already came here as lesser beings. And when they are raped they become public property. A raped woman will not dare to tell the police that she was raped because then the police will rape her.

I want to cry.

I want to scream.

Oh my god, what has happened to our voice?

How terrifying to think. My grandmother disliked men. She had a deep distaste for them. Though she loved her son deeply and she loved my younger brother very deeply. And she did not mind going to the shuk with me and noticing the men notice me. Really, they were noticing her. She had aged with them and some of them respected her.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Hi Blog

Right now, I am tired but I want to take the time to write about the few wonderful days that I had last week. I feel that it is important, that I owe it to myself and also to those who care about me and feel for me through reading my blog. I am tired now mostly because I took a Benadryl in between morning and night. That was a mistake because I was completely physically out of it all day today. Either Benadryl just before sleep or not at all. I do have to say that I am grateful to Lisa who was the first one to tell me that Benadryl works for sleep. I think that the better sleep is part of what has been keeping my pain levels down and my spirits up. I also know that the activities that I am keeping myself busy with are also a large part of my uplifted spirits. It is not about pushing myself beyond my limits. It is about keeping myself focused on doing advocacy and awareness work. When I am busy with the things that I believe in then I have faith. I have faith that this pain is not for nothing. I keep faith that everything that I went through will serve its higher purpose. And I feel blessed and grateful that I am able enough and healthy enough (in body, mind and soul) to be serving God's/Goddesses' will on this earth. And I can even write to you about Happiness, even about Joy. I spent Thursday last week going to Blick's Art Store and then walking my long way to Mass Ave., to Dorothy's Boutique on 190 Mass Ave in Boston. Ohhhhhh, did I have fun. I tried on wig after wig after wig after wig after wig after wig after wig and one more wig and another wig and oh, yes, that wig too and maybe that color also and oh, I just noticed that one......I imagine that at this point you have learned another thing about me; I love trying on wigs. What greater excuse could I have to do so then that Purim is just around the corner and that I plan on having fun on Purim. Somehow, now that I have shaved all my own hair off, the wigs are all the more enticing. I bought two long-haired wigs and I have been wearing them just for fun. It is good to bring in Adar (the month of Purim) early so I wore it to Friday night services already. I am ready to grow my hair back long. Till then, I can play with my wigs. I could write a lot about Purim and its spiritual and transformational messages of faith and of courage. But, I am tired and what I want to write about is this: It was a beautiful day, an alluring preview of spring, I woke up early and got dressed to go to New TV to work on Final Cut Pro. My session was canceled and it was Blick's Madness Day. I had a 40% off coupon on any item in the store. And there were coupons and prizes being given out. I knew that I wanted to buy water-color crayons and that I wanted to buy blank greeting cards for the art workshop next week. I also knew that it was time to buy a wig for Purim. All I had to do was discover where. So, off I went not realizing that I was walking into one of the happiest days that I was to have in the last three years of my life.
What made it so happy?
The tremendous gratitude in my heart. The tremendous gratitude in my soul for having Life handed back to me in a way that I was sure would never be mine again.
And how simple is that?

Not simple at all.

And simply, simply beautiful.

Thank you was my heart.

And I spoke to a young homeless man that was sitting on the bridge. And I felt to grateful that I could bring him a pair of socks and a sweater.

I can walk.

I can laugh and try on wigs.

I can tell pretty boys that they are pretty.

I can talk to old ladies.

I can do so many things.

I can feel her. Her!! Me!!! The one that I thought that I had lost forever! The one that I loved so much because she cared so much about others and felt so much for others and her mischievousness, her playfulness and her passion.....her exuberance, her flirtatiousness....SHE was with me BY MY SIDE that entire day!!!!!

And I felt so blessed by her presence, so high....oh boy, do i know that high well...

Truly, I have been lucky to have her by my side for so much of my life. She is mostly made of love and a whole lot of playfulness inspired by that love.

That was on Thursday. Today it is Sunday. Abba will be coming from the hospital in a few days. I imagine that I will be crushed again soon. But at least I got a taste of her again. For a full and glorious day.

Good night
May you all sleep well
Thank you for joining me on my journeys.

Atara

Thursday, February 2, 2012

I just returned from visiting my Abba. I covered his face with kisses and more kisses. It is hard to get myself going to visit him. But once I see him before me, my heart is so full of love for him that the sadness recedes and what remains is my desire to kiss him, to hold him, to hug him and to caress the lines of his face that have deepened these past two years. My father became an old man. Abba, I love you so much. You are the man that I love so much in this world. Sometimes I think that I was born for him, that our souls come from the same root-soul, that I came to this physical world in order to be near him and in order to love him, in order to be his very special pride and glory, his daughter. He always loved me that way, with so much pride and so much glory. My sweet father, how much beauty he saw in me and how much he loved to share his pride in me with others. 
And how these past three years wreaked havoc in our lives and how we misunderstood each other. And how much pain we carried as we lay crushed by the weight of our own and of each other's suffering and loss. Abba, I cover your face in kisses and I tell you how much I love you. And later you wonder out loud "You still love me. You have not forgotten me even though I have caused so much pain and suffering." And I tell him "Abba, that surprises you?" All I want is to be your little girl, to be your pride and your glory and to love you, to love you forever because you are my father and you raised me up as your crown. Abba, stay with me here so that I can grow with your eyes still upon me. Stay with me here so that I can watch your smile as I speak to you. Abba, stay with me here so that I can still, please, continue to be a daughter to a father like you, here. Let me cover your face with kisses and let me hold your hand in my own. Let me touch your face and tell you "Abba, you are so beautiful." Abba, stay. Stay for me, just because I still need you here. I still need you here with me.
Abba sleep well. I will visit you again in a few days. Now they know that I cannot sit for long so they brought me a reclining chair. So I will be able to stay with you for longer, holding your hand, knowing that I still am a girl with a father. A girl with a beautiful father.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

The Feminist Club at Lesley Univesity

We went to the Feminist Club and talked to the women there about our conditions. I was very passionate (as I always am when I do the things that I believe in). Thank God I have been keeping myself busy. Otherwise the depression is like a suction cup or sinking sand, a whirl-wind or maybe a black hole. When i am busy doing the things that are meaningful to me, creating my life anew, I feel good, even with the pain. So, I have been feeling better and excitement and passion have returned to my being. We will have a table at Lesley University on the evenings of the Vagina Monologues. It is time to make signs to attract the crowds that are just waiting for our crusade to begin. If I am not on a mission I will die. If I am not a shaman than I will die. And yesterday, despite my high and exhausting pain level I participated in the scrap-booking workshop and it was great! And so, I feel that I am succeeding in putting the pieces of my puzzled life and self back together again. And yes, once again connecting to the feeling that I am a part of something larger  than myself and that I have a duty and an obligation to this larger self to spread awareness, to create community and to bring about change. At times like these I feel I know that we can do it. I feel that it could spread like a wave or like a fire if we just continue lighting the small sparks. Eventually the lighted sparks will begin to connect to each other and that gathered light will spread. I believe in this. I have to believe in this.
One of the girls told us about a good friend of hers who recently just started becoming sexually active. She said that she called her asking her "You know how during sex it really hurts and how afterwards it burns..." So, it sounds like we just had another hit. My first hit was at the Women's Conference when one of the women that I "educated" listened to what I went through and then said "that is exactly what my good friend is going through now. She is married with children and has been having genital pain on and off. She stopped being able to have sex and now her pais is becoming excruciating and constant. She has been going from doctor to doctor and she is not getting an answer. She just had a CT that shows nothing..." I felt like I had become my own hero, like for a moment I was flying on God's wings, that God was blessing me and allowing me to fulfill my prayer. When I was in the chambers I pleaded to be taken. But, I also begged that if this is what I must go through then please have it be for a reason. Please let me heal enough, let me reach that point where I am able to give support to others and to spread awareness. Please because this is the only way that I can accept what is happening to me. Please let this horrible suffering be for a higher purpose. So, I am trying hard. And God has been on my side this past week. My father is in the hospital wanting to die. That has not changed. But at least when I visit him I can share with him the things that I am doing. I do know that that will give him happiness even if happiness feels to him like something that no longer exists in his reality. So, thank you for helping me. Thank you for supporting me. Thank  you for giving me the courage and the strength and the physical ability to go out and do what I believe in. I pray for more.