Spirit-shards.

Collecting spirit-shards is no fun.

It is what I do.

I collect spirit-shards.

Some people collect shells.

I used to collect shells on pretty island beaches.

Now I collect spirit shards.

I am thinking that it is time to open my own little store on etsy. Maybe I will name it spirit-shards.

I will sell the shards of my spirit out to whoever may find beauty or peace or friendship in them.

What else can I do with my art, if not share it and offer it as gifts of my perseverance.

Art keeps my spirit from being crushed underneath the pain, the anxiety, the terror.

I keep my sanity, my spirit in tact.

I would like to have my own little store on etsy.

And I would like to publish this little blog.

I have to clean it up first.

I pray for you, that your pain levels get controlled again. I pray for you that you regain strength and health and stability and balance. I pray for you so much, with all my heart cuz I know what good spirit you are. And I love life through you cuz I know you so intimately and I love you and cherish you in the way that I want all living things to be respected and honored.

The sheep. The wool industry. Factory Farming.

Factory Farming is a monster like Pudendal Neuralgia. It tortures and subjugates.

My little spirit is a part of a much larger spirit. I long to touch this larger spirit. Sometimes I do. Dear God, thank you. sometimes I do.

Love,
Atara

Blog, hello. I wish that I had happy words to write to you.

Happy things: I found cruelty-free wool. Now, I can continue making my angels. And my angels, in turn can teach about the horrors of the wool industry and about the small farms that sell roving wool from sheep that grow with love, compassion and appreciation.

I wish that I could do more to fight against the meat industry and the wool industry. I wish that I could live my life in a healthy body. Every day is a new mountain to climb. I have to push my way through the anxiety, through hours of sleepless nights, my body, I try to  work hard within myself, to give myself compassion and patience. I try to love myself, to respect myself, to honor my efforts, my perseverance...

I dream of my art, of creating art with other women. I dream of hope and faith and the alleviation of suffering. Angels, sheep, my own little spirit bound to this little body.

I try to remember that I am not useless. I try to keep my spirit alive and awake and engaged, believing that I can be a leader somehow, a guide somehow for others that are new to this suffering. Every day is its own little mountain, my little flag of life raised above my head, marching onwards, to where?

Small sweet things. Small sweet things.

Fall.

Apart.

I gather.

Gather.

Gathering.

Small. Sweet. Things that mean something to me.

Spirit. Art. Hope. Faith.

My little worn out body.

In a world that moves so quickly.

I have fallen way behind my flock.

Me. Spirit. And another mountain to climb with the little flag of life raised above my head.

For me. For me to see. To keep on moving.

I would like to continue to grow
That is my prayer and my hope
If I cannot grow here then I will grow somewhere else

I will go
I will grow

I will seek understanding and wisdom,
always

And I will find humility
and forgiveness

within myself

I am sorry

for your suffering

deeply sorry

fem-in-an-ity

damn this disease that makes me write fragmented forms of feminine

thinking of a title for this blog

if I ever print it into book form, it needs a title

what kind of title am I going to find

all I can think of is female fragments

damn this disease, stomp it out

any ideas from anyone out there?

I am starting to feel like an idiot, an inane idiot with all these fragmented

Fragmented females

Woman fragments

Fragments of an as-if woman

the as-if woman

Or maybe,

Fragments of a Woman

How is that for a title?

Fragments of a Woman

fem-in-ine in f-rag-me-ents

fem-in-in-in in-ane f-rag-me-mend-less

fem-in-in-in f-rag-mend-less

or just

feminine fragments

fem-in-ine in fragments

fem-in-in in in-ane fragments

Fem in in in frag ment s

suffering spiritual

spiritual suffering

can these two words go together?

can I suffer in a spiritual way?

can I accept suffering as a part of a spiritual path?

can suffering be a guide and a teacher?

or is suffering only crushing and disabling and horrible?

I am trying to understand this

trying to accept this

somehow

in a spiritual way

what else is there to hold onto if not this?

I am raising money for the angel workshop

250 is my goal for now

with 250 I will be able to buy the material for three or four workshops for ten women

I am forging a path while in bed

seeking the lit spaces in this dizzying darkness

I am not alone, that is for sure

I am not lonely,

sometimes I feel hurt by and angry at friends that do not suffer from pain and disability for they judge me wrongly

but I reach out to other women who suffer like me, who live on the edge like me and who create meaning by caring for and connecting to others

I live on the edge with other women who live on the edge too and my own fight is completely entwined with theirs

I see the spiritual everywhere

it was at the lake yesterday, on the waters, with the swans,

and we took pictures

I have an artist by my side now

Now, in these hard and troubled times he creates art with me and helps me heal my story

even in these times, I can see blessings all around me

So, God, why, what is it for?

Are you trying to help us grow?

Why do you challenge us this way?


And how I continue to seek You always in me

I am being massacred
My female is being massacred
My female is being tormented and tortured

Why am I not being allowed to live as a female, to have children like a female, to love like a female, to be a woman

Female fragments
left of me, fragments
after the battle
what remains
fragmented female
lacerated

frag mented
frag mented
frag mended female
fem ale

fem in in ity
fem in in fragments

fem in in frag ments

frag me nts

I am fragmented

Fragments

being killed

alive, endlessly

each time I get up

I decided to get off of Cymbalta. I want to find a pain med. that I will be able to sleep on. I hate the way my brain feels on Cymbalta. This means going back into the land of the devil, back into nerve pain that makes me sob and makes me want to be dead. I am tired of this pathetic disabled life that I am left with. Tired of fighting my way through each day. I don't understand why I am being massacred, why I am being torn apart through my vagina. I want to be a woman.

Frag mented Female

Part of what kept me alive

was wanting to make sure that my parents knew that i loved them and that this was not their fault
i did not want them to feel guilty

i wanted to show them that there still was a reason to live even if i was sick

that life was not going to end here

i wanted to bring them life back

the only way i could do that was by staying alive

no matter how much i had to endure i had to stay alive for them

until one day i had had enough and i felt that it was time for mercy

mercy from them, from God, from life, from my body, from myself

i was no longer going too suffer for anybody

my suffering was not going to be a sacrifice

i was ready to die

i did not care anymore if god would punish me or not

i felt ready to leave my parents, i felt that i had done the best that i could and that i had reached my level of endurance

my father was lying depressed and forsaken in his bed

my mother was downstairs completing her work, making assignments

she had distanced herself from me, for a few months she was cold and distant and showed me little love

my little brother was in england, writing e-mails from afar about the doctors i should see

my older brother, i no longer felt a responsibility towards him

i had my own will to live burnt out of me

what was left was hope and i had lost it

the love i had for my parents and brothers

my friends, i knew that they would lead meaningful lives without me

some people have to die by their own hands

it does not make sense, it is cruel, it had been going on for two years already

pain that eradicated whatever semblance of identity and meaning i had created and lived in my life


It started changing after my suicide attempt.

First of all:

You are brave.
Because to be willing to invest your love in me takes bravery.

It means seeing much further then what you can receive from me into what you can bestow me

It means feeling gratitude that you have so much to offer me, that you are able to bring me happiness and fulfillment by being in my life.

It means recognizing me for who I am and not for what has happened to me.

It means admiring me for what I have overcome and for how I continue to create, love, care, believe, fight...

It means embracing love over fear every day anew and ...

It means being willing to feel small and vulnerable next to my suffering without judging me or resenting me for what you cannot do to help me

Forever, I will believe that you are there.

Forever, I will see you in your human form

Forever, I will be brave enough to face the disappointment of accepting that my search for you must continue

I love you

What a friggin hard place to be in again.

The fear of the pain, knowing that Cymbalta isn't a drug that I can take for pain anymore and not knowing what's next is frightening.

And I feel angry too.
Angry that this is my situation.
Angry that ignorance is based on indifference and sexism and lack of compassion. Angry that all this suffering is useless and just a waste of precious life. And that we bring this suffering upon each other.

But, what is the point in being angry? It is just staying in a deadlock with the devil.

I had so many dreams for my life.

A family. Children.

Intimacy. Love.

Whatever.

Just let me paint. But nope, that is too much to ask for too.

Life?

Well,

why pretend to be surprised

after all, I was murdered and violated and tortured six million of me

so, why would I be surprised that cruelty and indifference and ignorance
are sucking my life away from me today

Hello World:

Hello World:

Hello World:

Hello World:

Are you there World:

Are you there World:

Can you hear us World:

World, we have been crying and dying daily for centuries:

World, can you hear?

Ow, ooops, I think the reception is no good

oh, no, I think someone just hung up the phone

Oh, yeah, remember

I do remember in fact

Denial, Blaming of the Victim

Yes, yes,,,,

And so my VAGINA IS SHOUTING OUT VERY LOUD AND CLEAR::::::: WAKE UP WORLD!!! GET OUT OF YOUR CLOSETS LADIES!!!!! TURN THE VOLUME UP DEAR MEN::::::::::::::::

the sad part of it is that all my dreams are blowing in the wind

all I have left is my paintbrush

and my colors

and my white

white

white

tears

A poem

Underneath my skin
my story is all written
from beginning to end

Some nights I take scissors
and I cut through my skin
Before the blood starts running
I get a glimpse of
The Holy Letters of my ancestors

Then, with my grandmothers thread and my mother's needle I re-attach my skin to flesh

Underneath my clothes
there are tracks of stitches
and skin that is still purple

And there are holy letters
the holy letters of my ancestors

the aleph beit
from beginning till end
it is all there
one layer under

Crying.

The hallucinations, the anxiety that they provoke...
Just got the phone call that I have been waiting for from Brigham's. The pain psychologist was very caring. He asked me about the hallucinations and told me that I will be able to meet Dr. Wasan, the pain psychiatrist on Monday. He spoke about changing from Cymbalta to Savella and I told him that I had wanted to do that months ago but that my insurance had rejected my request. My insurance only covers Savella for people that suffer from Fibromyalgia which I also suffer from but this had not been documented. Since then Dr. Valovska documented it and I went to a Fibro. Specialist who documented it as well so I should be approved for Savella.
Yesterday I went to the Brigham and Women's Pain Clinic here in Boston and saw my doctor, Dr. Valovska. She took the hallucinations very seriously and immediately got things rolling, thank god.

The reason that I am crying is because the psychologist that called me now asked me to tell him about the hallucinations. And I recounted to him my most vivid memory from this morning. I was lying underneath a huge wave, terrified but "prepared" to be swallowed by it. And Noam is there. In my head I can hear him and he is grief-stricken and I can't bear the pain of his suffering. I hear him saying something like "oh no, oh god" and his voice is in my head, over and over. I am underneath the wave, the wave is coming closer and closer to me and it is going to envelope me, and then it suddenly stops, it folds back into itself without reaching me...and I see Noam standing there and ....

And now the tears just keep on coming and pouring down while I write this because I know that this is how it was. I stayed alive cuz I promised him that I would always answer the cell-phone. That is why I didn't throw it into the pond, because I couldn't break my promise to him, I could attempt to end my suffering through suicide but I couldn't break my promise to him that I would answer my cell-phone if he called. Oh, God.

I am so afraid of going back to the pain,
But I know that Brigham's is a good pain clinic.
and that Dr. Valovska is a good doctor
and that they won't let me suffer the way that Dr. Audette from Harvard Vanguard let me suffer

I will be okay
and I am here for Noam
And I kept my promise to him
And we had so much work to do
And we did it
We worked though so much pain and anger and accusations of each other
And we are strong today
He cares for me and I care for him
And it will be okay

Sister,
It has been a long time since we have spoken or seen each other. About three and a half years now. And I got to tell you that I miss you like hell in my pants. And that ain't no pussy-willowing joke. I miss you that my heart goes aching like a poisoned cat, just like that, around in circles. I miss you, boy did I love you. I loved you lusciously....

Sister, there ain't nothing left of me now, you know that, there ain't much left of me at all. still got that smiling pretty face but i can see the marks of suffering, like railway tracks the slaves ran through, baby, you know what i mean, there ain't nothing left of you in me. maybe sometimes, something creeps

There are so many of us that need prayers.

Today I met with the head of Newton Open Studios. She is kind and helpful and patient.
My exhibit.

This morning was horrible and so was yesterday morning. The hallucinations from the Cymbalta are becoming more intense. I am having auditory hallucinations too. And a lot of anxiety.

My brain is rejecting this drug. It is giving me very clear signals that it wants to have nothing to do with it anymore.

And my pain. Oh, my pain. I am left with you.

What do I do?

I went down to 20mg. It was only a few months ago that 20mg couldn't cover the horrible electrocutions that were leaving me unable to focus on a 2 minute phone conversation. I have no hopes that it will be any different now.

What do I do now?

What do I do next?

I wanted to go to Webster's to paint yesterday and today but the anxiety, the exhaustion, the disorientation from the hallucinations kept me captive.
At least I met with Ellen.

My art.

Thank God.

My faith that all of this is not for nothing and that I will yet make a difference, I will live out my destiny, I will .....

God damn it.

Try not to run into the traps that other aching wounded hearts create for you

Try to remember that "I love you" sometimes means nothing more than "I need you to love me."

Try to remember that "love" will often disappear during the harder times. Take it slow, slow, slow, slow, baby, slow.

Now that you know, you can take it slow, slow, baby, oh so slow. You have nowhere to run to and nowhere to rush towards. Take it slow baby, take it low. You can lower the flame and stay warm all the same. You can teach yourself to be tame, slow, baby, slow. You can shed it all slow baby slow. You can share passion, slow, baby, slow. There is nowhere to run to and no one is chasing, just take it slow, baby, slow, baby, low baby, slow. Lower the flame and just be where you are, baby, be where you are. If it's pain that you are meeting, then meet it head on, be brave, be courageous, be slow, baby, slow, baby....

Take it low, baby,slow,

You can be passionate, slowly, go slow baby, slow....

The Seventh Chamber

The Faces

The Chair

Gratitude and Connection; Evelyn Berde

Prayers Bodies

It is all here

God's hands are open in Acceptance

Atara

How sweet it is to be loved by you.

The love I give is the love of God.

I share that with you.

Daily, hourly, all you need is to embrace me.

I am always by your side, always have and always will reside within you.

And when you feel my presence waning, all you need to do is pray and I will be there right beside you again.

Pray for me.

Pray for us.

Pray for our collective healing.

And it will come

Like a wave.

Like a victory.

Like All

God you are so beautiful

I fall

I bow down to you

I am humbled by you and blessed by you and in gratitude and in compassion and in love

I seek and find you everywhere

In peace in devotion in commitment

In courage and integrity and in persistence and determination and in passion

I find you in anger and in forgiveness

In pain and in joy

I embrace you in suffering and in grief
In loss and in confusion, in terror and in despondency

I will be your servant forever
until the day i die
my only prayer
is to serve you
to know your ways
to be blessed by your grace
enlightened by your timidity, your humility, your insanity, your agony

i will hold your hand wherever you may be
and i will pray to find you
always
in me

Reside with me, i pray, i clean my temple daily so that there may be room for your light
and how i shine underneath the loving gaze of your beauty

Oh, heal us, heal us from our suffering and from our pain so that we may be your vessels, strong and healthy, seeking your Holy Name Only

In gratitude,

Atara

I lay
underneath your fingertips
It seems that by laying there
underneath your fingertips
I put myself at risk
will i be burnt?
or will i be healed?
will i be further wounded?
or will i find peace?

You hold me
still
there
I relax into trust

And fall

again

from these high and holy places

where the spirit resides

oh, how deep and cutting is the fall

how tender and vulnerable i am underneath your fingertips

what for?
for what higher cause am i putting my self there?

for promises that crack and cackle when they drop?
for dreams that unravel themselves into thin cold air?
for whom do i sacrifice my self there, underneath your body?

Woman, please do not give of yourself that way.
Woman, please do not give of yourself that way.

Woman, collecting your tears is not a past-time that I mind.
For i love you, and I care to understand.

But woman,
be wise
be wise
be wise

Your own wisdom will protect you.

Hold that wisdom close to your heart.

Your own wisdom will protect you.

Hold that wisdom close, close to your warm heart.

Keep the wisdom warm and you will be wise.

I am humbled before you Goddess
For you anoint my eyes with your wisdom
And my soul rises
In song and in prayer
To your beauty and to your Grace
I love you

I have a dream

And this dream will come true

I have a dream

And this dream will come true

I have a dream

And this dream will come true

In this country

On this land

In this language

With this heart, here,

It will come true

I can see the day
I have the vision
I can see the dream
It is my dream
It is our dream

I can see pain clinics sprouting all around the country

I can see my friends saying to me " I am sorry for your pain."

I can see my doctors looking into my eyes with compassion, saying "I can see. I can feel your suffering. We will work together to get you out of suffering."

I can see myself  reaching out to my doctor saying "Thank you. Thank you for seeing me."

I can envision this.

I can dream this.

I have seen this.

I can see pain clinics sprouting all around America.

I can see new and inspired research.

I can see funding and hope and inspiration and talent and growth.

I can see myself walking out of pain and suffering and into hope and gratitude.

I can share this dream with you.

Today I can share this dream with you.

Today I can share this dream with all of you.

I will Shout until I will be heard
I will share it all
Even if you have chosen to close it, to roll it up and push it to the corner of the closet

You must hate me for this
For making you look at everything that you have tucked away so neatly underneath the boards of this floor

This very floor that we all stand on together
this very body that we all inhabit together

Oh, how you ignore me
How your silence speaks
of everything that you have crushed and shoved into glass bottles
They sink those bottles, don't they

They sink

Until I come along and sing them into being
Until I come along and speak them into existence
Until I come along and watch how you ignore me

I cannot pretend that I do not feel hurt
I do

I will cry
Until I will be heard
Oh. You. Yes. You. My so called Friends.
Oh. You. Yes. You.
Oh. How you Shy Away me from me Now.
Does my Voice make you shiver
So that you prefer to not hear it
Does my voice embarrass you
Do you feel shame
Oh how you hide
Who are you hiding from

Are you hiding from
me
No, it is not from me that you hide
But from your self

In me you see the self that you are terrified of showing
the self that you keep stifled
muffled
cornered up inside of you

So, I can walk away from your silence
Free

It is time for sleep and time to do my physical therapy exercises to strengthen my lower back. All this lying on my stomach and typing away on the computer is not any good for my lower back or for my neck.

Been working on my documentary. Getting the hang of final cut pro. I hope that I can get some good footage through skype. It is worth a try. Can't write here about my family, just too personal...

Well, after all this is a public diary. It might be full of pubic hair but it is still public. Decided to buy a black lace shirt on-line. Not feeling particularly sexy or sexual though I do miss those feelings. PN kind-of kills all of that though I still have a pretty vibrant (albeit repressed) libido. American men don't compare to Israeli men in their sex appeal. So much for Israeli men, most of them are on the other side of my universe, a long and penetrating nightmare away, my worst enemy, the airplane keeps me oceans away from where my sex-appeal is buried. Black men are pretty damn hot too. It is the way that they look at me, they remind me that I am still a mighty fine sexual creature. American men just don't have it in their eyes. They might be masturbating to porn all day, they might be just as horny as the rest of them but they just don't hit that mark of sexiness that turns me into a wild-cat. I guess that all the sexy black lace tops that I was looking at have gotten the best of my libido.

Oh yeah, I have a confession to make. There are Israeli men here too and I just might have the hots...but my life ...

Never mind, repression of libido begin now, thank you....so, I also bought sparkly eye-liner, yes i did, three different colors, i went all out on the sparkles. They have not arrived yet but they have shipped and I look forward to those days when I feel good and when I just want to sparkle and think for an evening or for an afternoon that nothing ever changed, that it is just me, the way I was, the way it all was before any of this happened.

The art-club that I got into due to having suffered from severe depression is a good place for me. Most of the people are suffering from pretty severe mental illness. I was worried that I would feel more depressed there but I don't. I appreciate having a place to do my art. I get to work for free, supplies for free...and this is a luxury that I can be grateful for and I am.

If this was my own personal diary I would be writing all about my family now but I just can't. I have been uploading my poetry onto youtube and have been getting some meaningful feedback from friends and from others that suffer from PN. It means a lot to me when a fellow PNer tells me that their hearts were touched and that they feel understood through my poetry. And it means a lot to me when my friends encourage me to continue expressing myself through poetry and theatre arts. After all, I did chose to be a Drama Therapist because all of this was in my blood from birth. The fact that now I have to rely on my strengths this way in order to survive and to create meaning in my life is a good thing. It means that I have these strengths to rely on and for that I am grateful.

The night before last I was up all night due to the electrocutions. Last night aside from nightmares I slept well. And we will see what tonight will bring. It is possible that the 40mg of Cymbalta are running out of steam and that I will have to go up to 60mg. As long as I will continue to be able to sleep I will be thankful. But once the Cymbalta starts tampering with my sleep...

These three tears are for you
Brother,
we have cloaked ourselves and each other in forgiveness
Soon, you will be in my arms again
and I will be there when your tears finally slip out of their harness
and slide into freedom
Brother, we have worked hard for each other
we have admitted our failures, our faults, our weaknesses
We have done all of this so that we could once again embrace each other
the way that we did when we were children
Forgiveness has welcomed us home
How I await your arrival
rest your weary head on my lap
let the tears race out now
i am here
i am here again
i am here with you brother
i am here again brother

with you

thank god

I went dancing and moved my pelvis all around. And I worked on my documentary. A good day. A good day. Thank God for a good day!