photo by Jason Clapp from flickr.com

That “death do us part” thing is a protective mechanism. It says, “I don’t trust me, and I don’t trust you to be in a place where we are evoking the best from each other. And so, just to make sure, let’s promise that even if we don’t, we’ll suffer it out together.” Every law, sacred or secular, that we have ever seen in your environment has always come from a place of disconnection, from a place of protectiveness.

— Abraham

Excerpted from the workshop in Los Angeles, CA on Saturday, July 24th, 1999 # 85

“Like a dream come true”

Choose your dreams carefully.

Everyone is entitled to a dream. It gives us hope, focuses our energy, makes us human.

Sometimes, though, we get sold a dream instead of creating our own.

Is it really every girl’s dream to become a princess, to be chosen by someone of royal birth and to have a $34 million wedding? Or is that the Disney-industrial complex betraying you, selling you short?

I just read that the folks who brought us the Mall of America are going to redo the troubled Xanadu shopping complex in New Jersey and rename it The American Dream. Is this the best we can do? Shop?

Dreams are too important to sell cheap, to give over to some organization trying to make a buck.

Catherine Casey chose a different dream–to move to Accra on her own to build an outpost of the Acumen Fund. It’s a dream that scales, that pays dividends, and most of all, that she can make come true.

It’s so easy to be sold on the combination of compliance, consumption and approval by the powers that be. Of course, you’re entitled to any dream you like, but I hope you will choose a bigger one.

STILL I RISE

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

If this description by Elizabeth Gilbert is anything to go by, I certainly got one

“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. A soul mate’s purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so out of control that you have to transform your life…” – Elizabeth Gilbert.

Does this sound familiar?

Needless to say, I am so over soul mates…too much hard work but way more effective than therapy.

I LOVE Maya Angelou’s poetry, but twice a year on the 8th of March – International Women’s Day, and the 9th of August – National Women’s Day in South Africa, I could do without Ms Maya.

Why?

Because I get assaulted with her beautiful poem Phenomenal Woman. It’s in my inbox, my facebook wall, it appears as cute Pink postcards on my desk…arrgggghhhhh! No more. Please no more Phenomenal Woman!

Surely there are other poems fitting for commemorating women’s day.

Here is one

Imagine A Woman by Patricia Lynn reilly

Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is a woman.
A woman who honors her experience and tells her stories.
Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.

Imagine a woman who trusts and respects herself.
A woman who listens to her needs and desires.
Who meets them with tenderness and grace.

Imagine a woman who acknowledges the past’s influence on the present.
A woman who has walked through her past.
Who has healed into the present.

Imagine a woman who authors her own life.
A woman who exerts, initiates, and moves on her own behalf.
Who refuses to surrender except to her truest self and wisest voice.

Imagine a woman who names her own gods.
A woman who imagines the divine in her image and likeness.
Who designs a personal spirituality to inform her daily life.

Imagine a woman in love with her own body.
A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is.
Who celebrates its rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource.

Imagine a woman who honors the body of the Goddess in her changing body.
A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom.
Who refuses to use her life-energy disguising the changes in her body and life.

Imagine a woman who values the women in her life.
A woman who sits in circles of women.
Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets.

Imagine yourself as this woman.

If you have more alternatives to Phenomenal Women, please post them below, the sistahood will thank you!

Really? Who approved this?
Are both the Milk board and the ad agency full of sexists from the stone age?

from www.graphjam.com

Perhaps you can tell, I am not a fan of fairy tales.

She’s a SLUT. He’s a STUD.

I wrote an article for True Love magazine, titled “Sleeping your way to the top”, in which I expressed why I thought this was a perfectly legitimate career advancement strategy.

Predictably, it elicited a strong reaction. It spilled over to Twitter, Facebook and two radio stations, resulting in a far wider audience than True Love readers. So for about 3 weeks, almost everywhere I went, people who knew I was the author brought it up. Some agreed with me, others disagreed. The most prevalent objection was that I am promoting something that is wrong, which, in fact, was the point of the article; to question who gets to decide wrong and right for us.

I had gone to the trouble of detailing the reasons why I was not opposed to people sleeping their way to the top and even pre-empted the more predictable objections. The same objections resurfaced in my debates, that it is wrong on religious and moral grounds, and some ludicrous ones, like I was fueling the AIDS epidemic. I dealt with all of them. Finally the rebuttals just boiled down to “it’s wrong because it is wrong, dammit!”

The interesting thing was how women[1] approached the debate. The article was an opinion piece, not a recruitment drive yet the objectors seemed highly invested in winning me over to their side. They weren’t satisfied with agreeing to disagree, they needed me to recant my stance, despite not having rational reasons for theirs. It boiled down to; “It’s wrong because it is wrong, dammit!”

I concluded, during these debates, that when it comes to sex women are not on women’s side. For instance, men were comfortable with women choosing prostitution as a profession, but women were not. Women are not okay with another woman exercising her freewill to choose sex as an occupation.

Why?

“Because it is wrong!”

Incredulously, the vehement disapproval is not equally distributed; little is directed at the pimps and clients, males integral in the prostitution equation. The harsh judgment is reserved for the women, even though it takes two, or three or a whole gang, to tango depending on your inclinations. The same applies to mistresses and their married lovers; women’s wrath is reserved for the other woman. Cheating spouses? Same thing. It is unfortunate when a woman is cheated on, but unforgivable when she does the cheating. Then there are the sluts and the studs. According to women a slut is bad, a stud is lucky.

Women want liberation, autonomy and equality in most areas, like work, remuneration, politics and sport, but seemingly not sex! Here we are all for a double standard, and not in our favour.

Taking men out of the equation, literally, through masturbation doesn’t seem to help.

Say to your women friends; “I am looking forward to a nice, long bubble bath with a glass of wine and my vibrator” and see the colour drain from their faces. Many will forgive you if you are single, sexually frustrated or both but if you are happily coupled and sexed-up; admitting to self-pleasuring in many female circles elicits the same reaction as drowning kittens.

Why do we have this sexual repression double standard?

In the book The Lost World, a scientist called Ian Malcom, challenges the belief that humans are sentient beings;  “Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told – and become upset if they are exposed to any different view…other animals fight for territory or food, but uniquely, in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their ‘beliefs’…we are stubborn, self-destructive, conformists”.

It matters not to me what you think is right or wrong, what does matter is why you consider it so.

In Redemption Song, Bob Marley pleads with black people to “emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds”, as he sees them continue to oppress themselves and each other long after slavery ended. Similarly, in the sexual arena, me thinks women suffer from internalized sexism.