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What Inspires You?continued from page 1 What offends me is payng 61 cents for a loaf of bread and $3.15 for them to market it, advertise it, convince me how good it's going to taste, tell me what celebrities also enjoy it and which medical associations endorse eating it. I don't like talking to store emplyees much either. I mean, they are nice enough people but they usually hate their job and by extension are not to terribly fond of me. The feeling is heartily mutual; anyone that displeased to see me is most certainly not going on my Christmas card list.The noise is hideous. They never have met me at the entrance (stores don't have doors, only entrances and exits) and asked me if I would like to suggest a musical selection. If it ever happens the answer is NO. I would like to finish a thought in my head while shopping that doesn't have to be snuck past their noise-makers by my mental rodeo clowns. If I were compelled to pick music I would much rather hear CCR singing "Run Through The Jungle" than about how Sinatra did it his way. Particularly when I'm selecting feminine products. The Spanish markets are worse. The voices in my head don't understand Spanish and are simultaneously trying to tune out and understand it. Anyway, I was thinking about shopping and something that really bugged me came to mind. A magazine in the impulse buy rack had a picture of Brittany Spears and her flat stomache. The caption was a speculation that she might be pregnant again. I suppose because her stomache isn't concave? Who gives a shit? It made me think of another magazine cover I saw some time ago. It showed a close-up of Madonna's hands. A national publication was scolding Madonna because her hands were old looking and showed her age. It's unthinkable that Madonna should be allowed to run around showing off hands that are old looking! How disgusting! Doesn't she know that's why her husband left her? Surely there is some treatment/injection/lift/prosthetic for this? Of course, there is a cosmetic proceedure for any unseemly evidence of aging these days. Just a couple months ago I sat in my psychiatrist's office, while waiting for an up in my dosage...irony never ends... and read about the peri-lift. This is for women that have old, tired looking vaginas. I was reading about this proceedure and thinking to myself, "Oh yeah, this is the perfect way to save a relationship". I mean, if the light of my life ever goes out and he decides to leave me I KNOW it won't be attributed to my being a neurotic pain in the ass. Oh, good heavens, no! It will be because of drooping labia. I wish we could blame this on men but I swear by all that is holy, they are victims, too. You've seen the commercials? "Hi, I'm Ben. I'm 108 years old and I have a Bowflex body. When I'm not sporting a round-the-clock erection I'm a rockstar. In my downtime I'm just your average millionaire-test pilot-guy next door..." If they can't flaunt a Bowflex body they can surely flaunt a botox one. And don't forget those little blue pills. The last old man we forgave for turning into an old man was Jack Nicholson, but only marginally at best. Oops, I am digressing here. The whole point was going to be that shopping brings out the worst in me because I am forced to deal with what I find most coarse and ugly and wrong about the graceless age in which we live. I'll have to pick this thought up later and try again. Peace -- Dana Jan's InspirationsYou will see immediately the connection between Dana's rant and my friend's Jan's concerns. The heart of the matter is how our patriarchical society rejects the sexuality of the post-menopausal woman. Since I am the devotee of the tantric crone goddess and appreciate the peaking confluence of the spiritual and sexual potentials of the mature woman's mastery of life, these shaming experiences disturb me. Here are two messages from Jan: "From maiden to mother to crone: the archetypal phases of a woman's life. The spirit of the crone arises in the postmenopausal woman, according to Leslie Kenton, and becomes 'deeply and spontaneously sexual, assertive, straight, incorruptible, prophetic, intuitive, and free ... the qualities that most terrify the patriarchal culture in which we live.'" Mentioned in the same Energy Medicine for Women but quoted from Leslie Kenton's Passage to Power: Natural Menopause Revolution (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 1995). Hi, Stuart, I'm reading a book called Energy Medicine for Women by Donna Eden which was sent to me by my friend Kathy. The entire book is inspiring in many ways and is giving me further hope that I'll be able to improve even more on my health problems in natural ways, but, one particular quote by Susun Weed in the chapter "Dancing with Your Hormones" has particularly inspired me today. I'll run a copy of the whole chapter and mail it to you, but here is part of it: "Each week, tens of thousands of women voluntarily have their bodies mutilated in deference to an image of beauty that defies nature. Women pay dearly to look thinnner, younger, or bustier, only to find out that while cosmetic surgery cannot usually implant genuinely higher self-esteem, it often creates unanticipated problems. And it reflects a sad but widespread failure in self-affirmation. A vital and lonely challenge for women as they mature according to Susun Weed, is that 'they must recast their own opinion of beauty so that it includes old women.' The impact of our self-concept of the cultural messages around beauty and age are so pervasive that it is hard to get our minds beyond the assumptions of the 'beauty myth.' This affects not only how you feel about yourself and what you do to influence your appearance, it also also affects the way you care for your health. This was tragically brought home to me by my experiences in Fiji. When I lived there in the mid-1970s, I had never met a happier people. The Fijian women were robust, voluptuous, and joyful. Television was not introduced to the islands until 1995. Within three years, 11 percent of Fijian girls, comparing themselves with the slender actresses and models that they saw showcased, were bulimic, regularly purging themselves."
Diane's Untitled poemThank you, Diane for your poem: Your sweet lips fall full upon my face, Your mighty arms hold strong the desires of my heart, You hear the rush of my soul like a softWind blowing through the locks of your mighty mane Could it be the hands of love running their fingers, Softly, tenderly, caressing your heart, My lips wet with desire fall on yours. Submitted by Dianne Cheryl's InspirationCheryl is inspired by music. Here is a video of one of her favorites:
Ask Stuartcontinued from page 1 They are more comfortable with an objectified, sexualized doll than they are with a real woman. Once boys leave the home and enter the schoolyard they enter the dangerous jungle where love is absent and survival of the meanest and cruelest take place. This begins the fragmentation of boys which continues and intensifies when they enter the world of work and economic competition. The boy who loves his mother who has access to his emotions, and is capable of loving and adoring becomes the target of all those older boys who were already traumatized and who have learned to survive by shedding all right brain function they learned from their mother. This ends up with the men you know so well Cecilia, men who are stuck in their left brain, only a fragment of who they could be, should be and what they were intended to be. Knowing this will help you to teach these wounded fragmented men to heal and become worthy of the Goddess as she manifests in mature women. Take them to museums so they can look at art. Introduce them to books (hint, hint) where they can read about the Divine Feminine and learn to heal. While it may be true that only the ongoing voice of the Schechinah as she re-enters the world in a change of consciousness will reach these men, allow yourself to be a conduit for her love, for her wisdom, and for change.Love and light, Stuart |