I was that Mayan Princess

Cultural Identity: Does it have to be connected to your family? What happens when your a past abuser dies? and Lomatium Root
September 10, 2014 at 2:24pm

Hello Folks,


Some things on my mind today.


First, I'd like to discuss the connection between some sort of middle man and various forms of identity. There is the person (the subject of the identity), their identity, and usually some factor that connects them to that identity.

But what happens when that factor disappears or fades away? Dies even? Do you lose that identity? Which begs to ask the question: How can your identity persist without some person/community/culture/or other factor connecting you to that identity?


One example from my own life is being genetically Palestinian and Guatemalan, but having relatively few cultural experiences in my lifetime to link me to those cultures. Outside of a community of Arabs or Latino people, how do I connect to my identity? Can I choose my own identity and connect to it without typical connections?

Typically I would have arab friends, and family, who I share this identity with, but outside of my immediate family, I have no one. And how connecting to my identity can one Arab, and 2 Arab Americans be who they themselves do not have a community to share in their identity?


I believe one can choose their identity. I can choose to be Hispanic, and Arab. I struggle with this concept a lot because I have Arab relatives, at least, who are around the US generally (although 2 of my cousins live in Lebanon and Dubai), BUT I barely know them and we have no report between each other, no connection, no familiarity. (My parents were both Pariahs in their respective families, although I'd say no longer, as of recent, for my Dad).


I then thought, well, there is at least my mother, in all of her Arab-ness which seems fairly intact since the past 29 years or so she has lived in America. But even then, DO I need her to maintain my identity? Is it she who links me to my heritage?


If we allow ourselves to choose our identities, we can avoid feeling isolated in our particular unique cultural (or whatever) circumstance.


So I find this connecting to the identity of being a victim of abuse.


What happens when your abuser dies? As mine has in the past years.


I will say there really is a similar feeling of loss of identity, as in the above description of not having a clear connection to my cultural identity.


As my Palestinian family falls more apart, I still feel like a Palestinian, just a Palestinian who has really only one other Palestinian to share in their identity as a Palestinian. And I find, that that connection is really inside of me. But that the transition from finding identity in community to inside of my own singular being to be awkward.


Just as I found it awkward when A. died, and the person who i hated, who i tried to understand from a distance, who in his last phone call to me sounded like the devil, was gone, literally gone from Earth.


What is interesting in both these situations: When i realized I no longer had an abuser to have been abused by, and when I saw my family fading farther and farther away from me sharing less and less about our culture, instead of losing my identity, I actually found it even stronger within myself.


So many years, seeing myself as Half-Arab and never Full anything, left me feeling culturally isolated. And even though I cannot take away the feeling of being different, alien, alone in my own personality, separate from many in the society I live in, it truly feels better to let yourself feel the person and grab the identity of who you feel you are, even if you cannot prove it on paper.


Telling myself I was only half-Arab kept me from allowing myself to participate in activities in the various cities I've lived in that were for Arabs. I was afraid that I wouldn't be accepted because I couldn't speak Arabic or because I dressed very American. Now I don't care if I'm accepted. I feel who I am alone, or not alone. My identity remains regardless of approval or comraderie.


And when A. died, at first I thought, how could I feel so abused if my abuser was gone? But I found that the experience of what all happened was inside of me. I could grow from allowing that experience to be real and present in my life, to let it transform me in a positive way, without being attached to the past circumstance.


Actually, in both situations the lack of an external connecting factor to my identity, strengthened the connection to my identity from and within myself.


I feel that maybe I am even lucky to have any familial connection to my identity at all, but I also feel like if anyone wants to have a connection to their heritage, whatever they feel it is, that they can do so within themselves, and they don't need approval by some external community. They don't need to fit in, to be like the others who share their identity.

And if an identity of yours is one of circumstance, it is interesting, that that circumstance stands alone even without its players around in the present moment. The story lives.


These both are different sorts of identities but both can be seen as based in one's personal story and the stories one chooses to feel connected to.


When I read the Popul Vuh (the most famous Mayan sacred text and creation story), i felt so connected to its imagery, its movement, the archetypes, the feeling of the spiritual nature of the story, and I went to the National Museum of History in NYC and I stood in the gallery about the Maya. I stood in front of a Torquise necklace that had belonged to a Mayan princess, and as I stood there in front of the glass it reflected onto My Neck, and I became that princess, and that culture became a part of me.


There may be a myriad of unknown identities within each one of us. I would highly encourage anyone who feels like it to allow themselves to feel any identity they want to feel. We don't even accurately know our cultural histories, we are each so mixed. Why not allow ourselves to feel connected to any identity any culture? and Peoples? Any language? Any Pro-Sport community? Any music scene? EVEN IF WE DON'T FIT IN WITH THE REST.


Please read this article if you want another perspective of what happens when your abuser dies: http://www.buzzfeed.com/leighstein/piecing-together-my-troubled-exs-last-days


and this, "I come from both sides,” I screamed at him. “How can I choose one?”

“You have to choose,” he shouted back. “Or else you’ll be alone. A child who doesn’t share her family’s values has no family.”

(i cry when i read that last sentence, because there are parts of me who feel like that)

from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/11061569/What-is-it-like-to-grow-up-half-Jewish-and-half-Palestinian.html

JUST THE AUDIO:


Onto...

LOMATIUM ROOT: The herb that saved native peoples in the Pacific Northwest during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic



(to be continued...)

much of the daay on the west philly side of a stream

amazing depth width and breadth of breath!

how the moon proffers its boned finger

up my nose boogers

as i jounce around town

in near to be spindly fashion

of about to become pinned

blood transfusion

amalgous breadth width depth pain0tience zip OH wings of death!

to be tenderly mis-fashioned american steel protractor non sense
delivered to a doorstep

when a certain angle of wind hits the angle of sun
and the angle of moon

one more abandoned grown grass child

on hot concrete

less and less hot concrete

covered in tendrils of change

that fall

away

fade

a submission of discovery

letters of tips of words been tryin to shove out
vocabulary lost
linguistic tongue caught in throat

fishing
shades of moon
tide's a'comin

dip into the blue
cultural lag

swim into sleep
swim into a pool of sleep where sleep is both
sleep and non-sleep

devil's watchin'

only a road to death
the one i came in on
rode a white horse

respect respect

the hands of imaginary savior

she had the hands of an imaginary savior

she hung the hands of an imaginary savior

with her hands

she could spin thread thick

cover all the wounds a healer could lose but wouldn't loose

spell a few more letters

if my brain ain't right and i gotta shove the phemes morph spit
gargle fuck

saviour saviour saviour

sunshine silver slivers of it out like a river
in chest heart lang-wage
exchange
one with the wind
each breath
we spin
one with the wind

all i ever wanted was to be wrapped in continuous thread
so i wouldn't be so bare headed
lengthy
breath

im starting to cry.

dustdustdust

dust dust dust dusst daily dust cant enough
dust dust drive
piles of hair
leftover skin
leftover cracks
they get in the crack and they never come back
once the dust falls it can only lift up again
it can rise
but it will never come together there are dists of a fetaher that fly together
fading into dust
looking into dust
touching dust jackets
finger covered in dust. moon rivers covered in dust.
hugs .

___________________________________________________________

how will i leave my room?
how will i leave my room?
how will i leave my room?

i hear cutting boards down the stairs
i hear
i hear
i hear a tiny voice

wishing for comfort
its not me its not me its not me

i hear every ache in her body downstairs
like it's calling me
like it's illustrated in full color.

falling out of her sleeve is my imagery of 'sleeves'
out of her breath my imagery of sighs
out of my thighs
tension and looseness
and what a whore is
and who the whore was behind the whore make up and the whore masque
which relies so heavily on being feminine.

i dont know what age i was when i realized the cool girls acted like boys
it was an affect you could add to your persona to get popular

sometimes i wore little boys' clothes
but to get the cool creds you had to uhhhhh looka like a man

but a boy and a girl before puberty are so much the same, and the costumes they wear on top
straight jacket
compares
loosely to the lonliness of being alien
all the new categories
but i stick my arms out and scream when they try to fit me

there are no pair of shoes i could buy
to jump out of my identity
it is ALIEN/FOR-REIGN/OTHER
it is essential

i am a dog
when dogs are cute or sickly
i am a cat
when cats are worshipped and thus separate

who whore? what hair?
what proves you are a whore is your whore card
a vague interest in goddesses
and that feeling at the end of the day
that your body opens up an abyss to the etherworld
built ready to swallow.

modern day whores who shoot arrows meant to trap
the innocent men, who could have remained boys, and been spared

who hair?

who whore?

mish hona


it is the memory of a silvery blue and red plaid jacket.
it is a memory of a little boy, my brother, who i could can never be and now don wanna

i want that
i dont want that
i want that
i dont want that

two whores with who'res breath walk in a room
one looks at the other and says,
I BLEED TO BE FORGIVEN
they lay down and break their bones into the concrete
really
just for kicks

just for the kids
they can't handle it

there are no more words
for that feeling of sitting on the toilet thinking with yer pants down

and laughter receding
a breeze you hear downstairs
a hope you can rely on

jail break sally

jail break sally
rise to her performance
off the moonrise sunlight
ache to become bread
eat one piece in the hand of a king
jail break sally
no one got a thing on her
she is beautiful like a rainbow lacking metaphor
she pours from the spoon of honey
is the alfalfa queen of the field
is my hole in the heart in one
jail break sally on her death bed
well she's been dead since was born
so on her life bed in which she was forever dying
she managed to swarm a few words from her lips
they rattled off the vent at the bottom of her
hard. wood floors
and into my mouth scream
gulp gulp gulp
baby vegan ice cream
lickin that grit off the city streets
well it said//
harbor my hopes in the roots of yer fingertips
never let go of the essence of yer childhood
sing to the wind
when no one is lookin
if you break some bones
just bring them home
if you break some hearts
just put back yer own heart's part//

I'm really sick sally said I to her on that day
the one she died on.

the birth canal was a slow and narrow dream
jail break sally came from the ethereal never forwards

im sick my chest aches with pain
and in spite of the air not being able to fit in my lungs
jail break sally gave me a kiss
and I blew her a kiss
and we both died together
our lungs flattened on a rope swing together
washed by the sunlight
and now we are one lung with two wings
and that's how I keep singing

lost as voice
not as loud a brick
as a clump of dust
as a scene depicted in a book
you can hold in your hand one or two fingers up
they brush through your hair as you turn the pages
as you press the buttons or curve your ear towards the sound
of the television which is made louder by repetition

take a lesson from repetition if you want to scream

there is more power in the undercurrent of a dope beat
than a hundred drums

there can be one voice even that sounds louder in the wind
because the wind is an amplifier for destiny

coarsing my fingers on the fences, and railings of industrial setting
texture of drops- flops stabs pounds knuckles ribbed nature

why inside is so calm when outside rumbles with passages

how to make sound travel through our feet
oh but it does when you stop to listen
but not stop walking
walking is like heaven if you can close your eyes and hold someone's hand even better

i wish i was blind enough to see it

he builds me a synthesizer shaped out of my dreams
opalescent vulture-saur
wild white canine with deep blue eyes the shade of the unborn river that runs through me
chain
metal
dark red rivers
blue-red-blue-red
breath


oh how a single cat hair can get into my eyes

what is fear

fear is like holding a sword fashioned by uber-magical dragons to specifically cut through the masque or veil of all the fears you've ever had, but the idea of ending those fears is all too much to bear.

fear is the fractalization of fear

fear is the opponent to love, but it is also the bridge to love
love is like super highway that one can instaneously transport themselves on to overcome the bridge of fear

ultimately you will have to overcome your fears, avoiding them will only put them off into the eternal and never here-right-now tomorrow

avoidance is the illusion that you have some problem with yourself to overcome fear
fear is an illusion, avoidance is a tactic to distance yourself from feeling how illusionary fear is

with this sword you can cut through fear, or cut yourself and wrap yourself in additional layers of fear

with this sword of love, it sings a song of bravery, or confidence, you can hear it and believe in it, but until you use it, you are only a casual believer that is afraid for it to be true: that love overcome all fear

on the road to love is fear, and that is where I currently live,
Princess Fear-Love

- if i refuse to do and act instead of being afraid, what can i do to take a smaller, granted more aggravating step, towards overcoming the fear of overcoming fear?

That's why I am the sun.

Lots of things make me sad
That's why I am the sun
I hold my sorrows in a bag
That's why I am so strong
I have a memory of being grass bone rock and wood
I am as sad as the history of choosing pain instead of peace
As sad as my fists can be for ancient acts
of losing true love for jealousy

A watching eye
A destructive breeze



Lots of things make me sad
that's why I am the sun

Don't have a cow man!

One of the main deterrents to becoming vegan or vegetarian for me has been that I feel embarrassed to join others in what they are doing. So, even though i have experience making vegan foods, and already seek out vegan restaurants and food places, I feel embarrassed to hop on the bandwagon. Vegans can be pretty pretentious sometimes, and it almost feels like I'm not supposed to join their elitist club, but can be an ally on the outside.

Another example of this fear of conformity is when I am whistling and someone joins in with me. Although I greatly enjoy whistling or making sounds with anyone, the fear of doing something WITH someone, the embarrassment of now consciously and openly participating in something together... makes me feel scared to keep going.

It's like if you were dancing in the streets and someone came up and danced with you, it'd be awesome but then you'd be all, "Oh I guess someone saw me dancing."

So, I fear that vegans will be all protective of their own veganism.

BUT. That is changing. This past weekend I spent time around people who are not just vegan, but they tell you WHY they're vegan. They're vegan for reason of having compassion for animals, for feeling oneness with animal consciousness, and would like to END ALL SUFFERING.

Really, there is no better reason to stop killing or enslaving animals than for the reason of:

MAY ALL BEINGS BE HAPPY AND FREE OF SUFFERING.

(in my opinion)

I suppose the act of trying to eat vegan (this is day TWO), for me right now in my life, is like taking a hold of my right to do whatever I want. It now seems okay to have opinions that I believe in even if others agree with me, I am not as afraid of being like others. I learned this weekend, that being part of a group, doing things with others *which is fun* means letting go a bit of your own personal identity. It ALSO means being stronger in your identity, which is something I am working on.

It feels really good to not smoke a cigarette just because I see someone else doing so. Not to accept milk in my coffee (I haven't been drinking milk anyhow), just because I am afraid to ask for what I want.

It is liberating to not be afraid of going against the grain, and not being worried if I am pleasant enough for others. It's tHEIR CHOICE! I want people to be in harmony with one another, but if I am always acting like everything is okay all the time... when it isn't when I am a different body with different needs, then I will continue to get frustrated and upset at others when they FAIL me.

I cannot expect others to please me all the time, and in a way, conforming to others' preference is like holding on to the hope that we will both always please each other but what always ends up happening, is I feel like my sense of self is lost...


sometimes... I don't like the music you're playing and I don't want to be around it.
sometimes... I'm not going to eat anything because nothing you have is what I want.
sometimes... I'm going to say, "You bore me," instead of having a hissy fit about how much I should be entertaining myself.

Ultimately, I will have to entertain myself, walk away on my own, feed myself, play the music I like, but simply the act of expressly my preferences more truly will have /is having the effect of feeling okay about being the kind of person I AM and not the kind of person YOU ARE. and Ultimately that will help me let go and let you be the person you are, more freely.

So here are some of my own experiences:

Well... I've mostly not been drinking milk since I had a vision one morning driving back from my overnight shift working as a caretaker... I had dozed off in my car and woke up to the image of a Cow in a purple dress and golden crown. She was lifting her breast out of her dress and looked me right in the eye, very sarcastically she made a baby voice and whiningly said, "Awww... did you want some milk??" As if to say: Oh are you a baby too? Are you debase this queen and suck on her titties just cause you want some milk??

Also Ashley/Pearson had a dream once that there seven golden opalescent chickens and that they were godly beings asking them why they were eating their brothers and sisters.

I also personally recognize the suffering of any being to be a reflection of suffering of many beings... one thing does get me... what about plants?

I used to believe that since plants had equal consciousness and we needed to eat SOMETHING to survive, that eating plants was no different than eating animals, as long as you thanked the animal and appreciated its role as giving its life for food. But I suppose my worldview has become more practical. When you can see the pain in an animal and not in a plant when it is cut, when cutting and destroying a plant often causes it to speed up its reproduction process, when plants represent the highest evolved form, that is, they are very efficient making food from sunlight, water, and air, perhaps they are emotionally okay with being eaten, and have evolved to not feel pain or sufferring from it. How can you agree animals feel no pain after watching an animal IN pain? any animal? I feel it when people are in pain, why not animals...? Why not plants..? I am still not certain. But it "feels" like it is more accurate to care for the sufferring of animals than the potential suffering of plants. As well, it is obvious that most animal products are coming from the systematic enslavement of animals for food/products. Recall that once Black people were thought of as 'animals' in the same way.

Objects to be used and commodified.

Humans/Animals are not commodities for our society. I feel that acts against such a system are more aligned with my heart. I have a heart for others' pain, especially the pain that is routinely allowed with out much thought. Just as I am against abandoning children, ignoring friends and lovers, and helping the outside world before helping your family and neighbors.




If I can have the compassion to not participate in the killing and using of animal bodies, even though everyone does it and has been doing it for thousands of years, even though I feel embarassed that I am doing something other people do... it might help me have the compassion towards myself to stand up for my beliefs... or to others to respect their differences... and it might help people respect me more as some sort of chain reaction.

simply pythagorean.

much fear & love,
Nur

what blunders befallen ye

heyo

goddess Inanna up in the house

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inanna


i believe i am innana
and inanna folows me in a dream


"She stirs confusion and chaos against those who are disobedient to her, speeding carnage and inciting the devastating flood, clothed in terrifying radiance. It is her game to speed conflict and battle, untiring, strapping on her sandals."

it is inanna that evokes war and ruin in me, but to enact ruin in such a manner of Justice, and not creating more pain and negativity.
To be a sword that points to who needs to fall, to scrape their knees to learn a lesson. Who, usually men/boys but not always, mostly people, who do not realize who they hurt as they walk.
People who scrape the shin of others with sharp objects around their waists like it ain't no thing. Who say sorry and who do nothing.
to say but not do.

i am also at fault.
there is much fear.
i can forgive like a kitten.
like the kitten i am.
i will forgive
but i also will wreck justice

.................................

what is justice?

isn't it okay to stop loving someone

yes

but justice still needs
to be shown

i think all i want to express
is that love in a union,
and that union can be respected without chaining it to certain expectations


*****************************************

i don't know but venus visited me in a dream
she had the eyes of my daughter

there were fabrics of social situation i do not understand

i am child

i am the child tree

that gives birth to new ideas

and she in turn gives birth to me

and we create each other

i know it's true

i saw her smile in a dream

miles points and berries

Miles points and berries crystal fairies Point at me Im home in a bed spent my winnings on losings... Almost scary didja eat those berries? Cause I notice someone's got purple on their face She screams to the moon! Im a THEY!! All over Seven horse heads and none too fast Fer a shouler impasse I got trash on my lass Oh Pleasure is a leisure for the soul I got cash on hand in between my toes But the man is the archaic toll Poison boysenberries im a crystal faery So im told Im one of those Out in the cold