is it the apocolypse?

Is it the end of the world?

Today I'm thinking that it might be.

There is a Miley Cyrus video where she is working a pole coming out of an icecream truck. Here she pole dances at the teen choice awards.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/10/miley-cyrus-teen-choice-p_n_255338.html

In the DRC, girls my daughter's age are being raped with machetes and machine guns as a systematic weapon of war.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/08/11/congo.rape/index.html

Also in the Congo, boys younger than my daughter are being used in the battlefields, as shields.
http://www.fallingwhistles.com/splash/index.php

All of this is over the minerals used to build my lap top that I'm writing this post with. Yours too.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/87/the-democratic-republic-of-congo


In Uganda, people whose sexual preference is not hetero, and those who "aid and abet" homosexuals, can be put to death or imprisoned.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1946645,00.html

There will be a new law in Utah that will prosecute women who have miscarriages with homicide.
http://community.feministing.com/2010/02/in-utah-miscarriage-criminal-h.html

LUNAR IMBOLC VISION BOARD

Here is mine on my altar


This is my daughter's

emerging (short fiction)

“Okay, fine. Pick me up in an hour.” My voice sounded defeated. I hated people. I really hated Christmas. I hated my best friend for making me go to this retail Christmas party, when I could be in bed watching the final episode of , “Battle Star Galactaga,” for only the sixth time. I always cry when Starbuck becomes an angel and flies into the sun.

Shit, she was going to be here in ten minutes. I had thrown practically the entire contents of my closet on the bed. Not one pair of jeans would fit. The doctor shook his head at me the last time I was sitting on his table. In his thick, Persian accent blasting old man breath, he said I had to lose weight. He said I had an eating disorder and told me I needed to go to Overeater’s anonymous. I actually went. They put all of us fat, compulsive eaters in the same room with the bulimics and anorexics. We all had eating disorders they said. I was just lucky enough to have the kind that makes you a huge, ugly, eyesore to society.

At least the skinny ones were doing the world a favor by making themselves the picture of feminine, barely there attractiveness that society holds so very dear, even though they are told they are sick for trying so hard to get that acceptance from other people. As if everyone else isn’t trying to do the same thing. Overdeveloped outsides wrapping around their underdeveloped insides. The fatties, however, we are very different beasts entirely. We are worse than lazy. We are selfish and nonconforming to society’s standard of beauty, uncaring of the blithe we are imposing on eyes narrowed in scrutiny as we walk down cracking sidewalks. We are sick for not trying hard enough for outward validation.

Instead of transforming food into energy we transform it into walls of flesh. Borders that most would not dare to cross. Layers upon layers that protect us from any form of outward intimacy. Our body becoming something that we can hide behind, showing to the world only bulging, dimpled flesh, becoming invisible underneath it. The frail, tiny anorexics looked at us compulsive eaters fearfully, as if we would slurp them up at any given moment.

I sighed and settled on wearing what I always wear. A faded, black, long sleeve, knit shirt with a dark, olive green skirt that pretty much scraped the floor when I walked. I covered this with an oversized hoodie, also a faded black, completing my modern day burka.

“I see you dressed in your usual camouflage,” said my best friend, who is always trying too much to get me to go out.

“It is a war zone out there.” I replied promptly.

“Well c’mon then. We’ll smoke a joint on the way and you’ll feel better by the time we get there.” She said patronizingly. I tell my friends that pot makes my social phobia better. I even have my card. The truth is that all I want to do is lay in bed, in my bedroom that I painted a deep, endless indigo, whether I was stoned or not.

As we passed the joint in the car, my best friend babbled to me her gripes with her boyfriend. When she first introduced him to me, she introduced him as my dream guy. Certainly he was kind, handsome, and played guitar. His long hair framed big, dark eyes and his skin was rich like a mocha latte drink. I liked him immediately. She wanted us all to go out to the Malibu Inn together to see this amazing singer/songwriter from Hawaii. As we were driving to his house to pick him up, she looked up at me and said that she would want him for herself if she weren’t married. At the show they ended up making out all night long while I tossed back shots of cheap tequila. That was a year and a half ago, my best friend is now separated from her husband, and her and my dream guy are still together.

In the front of the store was a cheap, tinsel tree. The dirty cement floor had been painted with green and gold glitter and a fold up table with wine, crackers and cheese was displayed next to the cash register. I made my way towards the wine and busied myself with the task of pouring into a plastic glass.

I adjusted my gaze upwards and saw something that immediately turned my stomach into a brick. It was William. William was my best friend’s uncle. Seven years ago, when I was a stripper working out of a seedy club off of San Fernando road in Glendale, Uncle Will came in and I ended up going home with him. I had always wanted to fuck him and I knew he had his eye on me, the strip club was a perfect place to explore desires that both of us knew were only topical. I had played the role of the shy sex object and he played the role of the L.A. prince who could whisk a girl away from all of the filth. He pretended he could love me and I pretended that his dick wasn’t smaller than a super absorbent tampon. I also pretended to cum multiple times. I’m not really sure why, I guess I was trying to make him feel good about himself. I went home before the LA sky was dyed pink by the waking sun and he called me two weeks later. I never returned his call.

He was looking at me quizzically. I tried to avert my gaze, to disappear, I was in a panic. Uncle Will began to make his way towards me. Before I knew it, he was a foot away from my face.

“Rachel?” he asked.

“That’s me.” I had nowhere to run.

“I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“I know,” I replied too quickly. “I’ve put on a few pounds. Wow! It’s been forever, hasn’t it? How have you been?”

“Great,” he smiled. “I’m married now.”

‘Um, awesome!” I tried to nod my head in approval but ended up spilling some red wine on my shirt.

“How about you? I hear you have a kid now?” He was still looking at me in this half puzzled, even concerned way. It made me despise him intensely.

“Yah, it’s um, really great. Really great!”

“I heard something bad happened to you.”

“Yah, well, I was raped. But, I’m fine now, that was a pretty long time ago.” I smiled even more to reassure him that everything was indeed great.

“Well, I’m sorry that happened to you. If you need anything…”

“Yes, yes, thanks. I’m fine, really. Um, excuse me for a minute?” I began to back away and accidently bumped into someone. I turned and made my way to the bathroom. My best friend intercepted me with big eyes and a sheepish grin.

“Oh my god, honey. Uncle Will!” she giggled. “ I swear I didn’t know he was going to be here!”

I nodded and kept walking. I passed the bathroom and kept going until I was out of the store, blanketed in the crisp, LA air that signaled winter in Southern California. I fixed my eye on the darkest spot in the furthest distance and began to walk towards it.

My first e-book

My children's story, "The Very Last Caterpillar," is available for download as of today! This story is my take on death, and explaining it to children. I believe that "hiding" death from children can actually be detrimental. This book also challenges the more dominant, linear perspective on death as well.

You can get the book here, with its adorable illustrations done by my little cousins.

don't feed me that bullshit called love

This society binds all women's choices up in flimsy wrappings called, "love."

Why does love denote such a degree of servitude for us women? We are brought up to believe that romantic (hetero) love is the most important thing that can happen to us,while at the same time telling us that if we love someone, we will want to cook and clean and sexually gratify, pick up dirty laundry, produce babies and put 90% of our time and energy caring for them, for other people. Then refer to us in such ways as, "The old ball and chain." If we don't want this, we are looked down upon.

wtf?!

A SPELL FOR THE NEW YEAR

Steps to a wonderful new year:
1. Write down everything you want to “leave behind” on a piece of paper. These are things you don’t want or need any more, they may have been necessary at one time but are no longer needed for growth. Some examples would be addictions, insecurities, destructive relationships and/or patterns.
2. Burn this piece of paper under the moon and either bury the ashes or release them into some form of running water (yes, a toilet would suffice). Ask Divine Goddess to take these things from you and transform them into something new in Her Cauldron of Change.
3. Take a hot shower or bath and do a self blessing(I think I have one on my blog somewhere).
4. On a new piece of paper, write down a list of things that you want to bring into the new year. Some examples would be health, love, balance, creativity, peace, prosperity…
5. After writing these down, create something on a new medium that represents these things that you want to bring into the new year. It could be a poem, a painting, a collage, a decorated candle; anything that involves the creative process.
6. Keep this thing with you so that you can look at it before going to bed and upon waking up. Meditate upon it if you can. Look at it every day for the next 30 days.
7. On February 1st, which is Imbolc, take the list and a small piece of the creative project and burn it in a safe place like a big pot. Mix the ashes with fertile soil and plant new seeds of a favorite plant or flower in this soil.
8. Nurture your plant and your dreams throughout the year. Notice that our dreams are a garden that requires careful tending and nurturing and patience.

Sex Work as a Means of Resistance for Women

Marriage in our society is a patriarchal construction that gives unequal economic power to men and puts women in a position where they are often economically dependent on their husbands, especially after having children. Our society promotes the nuclear family as the cornerstone of our nation, using heterosexual marriage as a means to ascribe gender roles to both men and women. When a woman deviates from these gender roles society punishes her both informally by casting her as a social pariah, and formally by punishing women single head of households by withholding affordable childcare, universal healthcare, and welfare policies that criminalize women of little economic means for being mothers. In some cases, adult, sex work in the United States can be seen as a form of resistance to traditional marriage values and patriarchy. Through this type of work a woman may be able to economically survive without dependence on a husband or the state that serve to control her body and subordinate her spirit. By making prostitution illegal and blocking sex workers from having civil rights, protection and respect, prostitution is made a male dominated, predatory industry that is oppressive to many women, while serving the dominant class at the same time.


In the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal, the definition of sex work is, “…the practice of selling, explicitly and contractually, the private performance of specified acts of a sexual nature ... the sale must involve a contract specifying the items of exchange.... The prostitution contract includes both implicit and explicit agreement regarding access to the body ... of the seller in a private setting.” (Duarte,2003). This narrow definition is used to illustrate the mutual adult consent that is necessary to constitute the sex worker/client relationship. In addition to that definition I find that it would be reckless to omit the fact that socio-economic statuses, country of origin, as well as race/ethnicity affect the delineation between choice and victimization. A woman who is engaging in prostitution because it is her only means of economic survival is not given the option of choice. Women in developing countries, especially those recovering from colonialism and are further plunged into chaos by neo-colonialism, may have little choice when it comes to career choices or means of survival. Global Capitalization has made this much worse, as well as the feminization of poverty that is occurring around the world, regardless of ethnicity. This narrow definition shows sex work to be another form of service work; however, housekeepers, cooks, food servers, nannies, massage therapists, manicurists, etc do not make nearly the same money, nor take nearly the same risks as sex workers. I also cannot speak for male sex workers, as men do not inhabit the same matrix of domination that puts women in a position to be economically dependent on a man within marriage.


Prostitution wasn’t always considered profane to the civilized world. In fact, there is evidence that it was seen as sacred. “Sacred Whore temples flourished in ancient India, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, the Americas and Asia. The word ‘whore’ was a title, used in much the way our work ‘reverend’ is employed today…Whore-priestesses were revered because they taught ‘a combination of mother –love, tenderness, comfort, mystical enlightenment and sex.’”(Muscio, 90-91). Sacred prostitution was respected and whores were considered very valuable members of society. Later, when patriarchal religions began to govern the people, these sacred temples were plundered, the priestesses murdered and the teachings destroyed. The woman’s body was no more a doorway to enlightenment and self knowledge but instead a dangerous commodity that needed to be controlled. Even today, in 2009, women are stigmatized for exhibiting a sexuality that illustrates agency over their own bodies, as well as stigmatized for not allowing themselves to be sexually objectified in a subordinate position that services the desires of heterosexual men, and reaffirms a construction of masculinity that puts men in the position of controlling women’s bodies.


In the article, Class in America, by Gregory Mantsios, he writes, “People do not choose to be poor or working class; instead, they are limited and confined by the opportunities afforded or denied them by a social and economic system. The class structure in the United States is a function of its economic system: capitalism, a system that is based on private rather than public ownership and control of commercial enterprises.” (Mantsios,193). If this is true that private ownership and control of commercial enterprises is what makes up our system of capitalism, then by preventing women ownership of their own bodies and the ability to use their own bodies as an economic resource and commercial enterprise is indeed denying women participation in capitalism and restricting the entrance of autonomous women into the “American Dream.” It seems when any woman in this country seeks to take agency over her own body, the peanut gallery always deafens us with accusations of immorality that could be likened to, “Burn the witch!”


In the article, Sex and Race, by William Chafe, he writes, “In 1898 Charlotte Perkins Gilman argued in Women and Economics that the root of women’s subjection was their economic dependency on men….In fact, the issue of women not controlling their own money has long been one of the most painful and humiliating indexes of inequality between the sexes…”(Chafe, 664). I would like to reiterate that not allowing women control of their own bodies is equally, if not more, humiliating and painful. Since this society only promotes sex within marriage as normal, women who do not conform to this role are ostracized from society in many ways. As sex workers, women are criminalized and therefore are denied the fundamental right to control their own body or economic autonomy. Furthermore, stigmatizing sex work is also an example of using values and attitudes to reinforce the power of the dominant class by creating moral arguments that serve to distract the rest of us from the real immorality of imperialism and neo-colonialism(Alexander, 3); and thereby causing opposition within the dominated groups. (rcg671). The dominant group also maintains control by defining good and bad sex and women’s roles regarding sex, reproduction, and sexuality. Some women engaging in sex work are opposing and reclaiming those definitions for themselves and therefore defining their own existences and identities while maintaining economic independence from men or the state





Works Cited
Alexander, M. Jacqui. Pedagogies of Crossing. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2005. Print.
Chafe, William. "Sex and Race: The anthology of social control." Race, class, and gender in the United States an integrated study. New York: Worth, 2007. 659-72. Print.
Duarte, Susana (2003). PROSTITUTION POLICY: REVOLUTIONIZING PRACTICE THROUGH A GENDERED PERSPECTIVE by Lenore Kuo. Review of Berkeley Women's Law Journal, 18, 308. retrieved from GenderWatch (GW) database. (Document ID: 507748691).
Frye, Marilyn. "Opression." Race, class, and gender in the United States an integrated study. New York: Worth, 2007. 154-58. Print.
Johnson, Allan G. "Patriarchy." Race, class, and gender in the United States an integrated study. New York: Worth, 2007. 158-67. Print.
Mantsios, Gregory. "Class In America-2006." Race, class, and gender in the United States an integrated study. New York: Worth, 2007. 182-95. Print.
Muscio, Inga. Cunt a declaration of independence. Seattle: Seal, 1998. Print.