magic

Creatonement Alchemy

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Confucius said, “A seed grows with no sound, but a tree falls with a huge noise. Destruction has noise but creation is quiet. This is the power of silence. Grow silently.”

Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder. Rumi

I am not on board with creation being quiet in the traditional ways of quiet. Unless the big bang was the destruction of the nothings into the somethings which then proceeded with the quiet movement of evolution. Even sex I suppose is the destruction of the concentration of blood vessels which then proceeds to release all of things occasionally quietly bonding and replicating into a new human. The birthing is the destruction of the internal growth/housing and the new human quietly (ahem WHAT) evolves into a growing human. The human then goes through many destructions and creations of cells, emotions, bones, and all of the things, until we wear ourselves out through some destructive thing which does not allow for us to recreate ourselves anymore as humans. We become food for the earth or exploration for a scientist.

Is this what quiet creation means? The creation is happening without the impacts that destruction brings? No loud tree felling, but a wispy green nugget of something sprouts up as if by magic? The atonement for having destroyed the tree is the patience required to experience mystical quiet as witness of seeds and soils gently (to our eyes) pushing forth a new generation of life? Some of us pay oddles of noodles to have those new generation plants placed just so into our earth spaces. We cultivate and bask in its growth. We cool. Or we not cool since that movement sometimes requires destruction in movement and burning up dead dinosaur sludge from one place to another. Even if we are seed gatherers…

Babbling as I do since my brainiac is mushing about in attempts at life-ing it up. Destruction leads to creation, and creation eventually meets destruction, by their very natures. But we cannot always predict accurate manifestations of these transformation processes.

Who in the sam hell knew that using populism to elect a melanated president to counter balance the destructive, gaslit, trickle down, fake news, racist programming, misogynisitic ingrained patterns of bullshittery would haunt us with the backfire of magafascism? 

It's the, "man, oh golly, I'd really like to see us use our resources humanely for the betterment of our Earth, country, communities and ourselves," 

versus, 

"LISTEN TO ME AS I SCREAM OBSCENITIES AT YOU 
TO SHAME YOU INTO HEARING HOW I AM SAVING YOU, 

S A V I N G  Y O U,  

BY THE DIVINE POWERS IMPARTED TO ME AND MOSTLY ONLY ME 
AND THOSE I BULLY 
INTO BELIEVING MY GLORIOUS INHUMANE FUCKERY DIVINED THUSLY UNTO ME,
 
AS I RAPE YOU, I AM SAVING YOU
AS I FORCE YOU TO CARRY AN UNVIABLE LUMP OF CELLS, I AM SAVING YOU
AS I FORCE YOU TO CARRY A POTENTIALLY VIABLE LUMP OF CELLS, I AM SAVING YOU
AS YOU BLEED OUT INTERNALLY, I AM SAVING YOU
AS YOUR BODY AND BRAIN ARE IRREVOCABLY CHANGED FOR LIFE, I AM SAVING YOU
AS I DENY YOU VITAL CANCER TREATMENT, I AM SAVING YOU
AS I DENY YOU ACCESS TO ALL HEALTHCARE, I AM SAVING YOU
AS I DETERMINE YOUR ACCESS TO INFORMATION BASED ON MY BELIEFS, I AM SAVING YOU
AS I WEIGH AND DEFINE YOUR UTTER UNWORTHINESS AS A HUMAN, I AM SAVING YOU
AS I SHOOT YOU OR YOUR FAMILY/NEIGHBORS FOR INVOKING MY RAGE, I AM SAVING YOU
AS I BEAT YOU FOR EXISTING AND WANTING A VOICE IN COMMUNITY, I AM SAVING YOU
AS I BEHEAD YOU, I AM SAVING YOU

YOU SHOULD BE TAKING A KNEE AND THANKING ME
NO, NO, NO, NOT A KNEE BECAUSE YOU ARE DISRESPECTING ME
YOU SHOULD BE BOWING YOUR HEAD AND THANKING ME
NO, NO, NO, NOT BOWING YOUR HEAD BECAUSE YOU ARE DISRESPECTING ME
YOU SHOULD LOOK ME IN THE EYES AND THANK ME
YOUR EYES LOOK DISRESPECTFUL
YOU'RE DEATH THANKS ME. 
MY MAGNIFICENT SELF MAGNANIMOUSLY OFFERS A " FUCK YOU, YOU'RE WELCOME, I HAVE SAVED YOU. NEXT"

Sometimes I feel the angers.

For the most part my local community voted against being perversely saved by nefarious right-wing nutso zealots. But we’re still waiting for final results from our truly horrifying unstable zealot-led wackos infiltrating our Board of Education. I am so grateful to not have a young child in our schools. It takes all kinds of people to organize and run a community – even wacky people. We are overrun with decades of systematically brainwashed people who truly believe they are in a holy fight to save all of us from ourselves at whatever the cost – lives, truth, integrity, knowledge, and general basic humanity. Their only goal is to win power and control OVER others as they FORCIBLY oppress, silence and eliminate those who are not in alignment with them. Sanctimonious malicious bullshittery.

Toxic people will not be changed by the alchemy of your kindness. Yes, be kind, but move on swiftly and let life be their educator. Brendan Burchard

We cannot, rather, I cannot fix this by welcoming the magafascists and politely tolerating the disgusting inhumanity they promote. I will not even try. What will I do? I will keep talking and showing up in spaces as I can and where I can. I’ll be letting go the toxicity of extending kindness where it is harmful. No more waving and smiling at the racists down the street, for example. I will wholeheartedly wish them wellness with a sprinkle of enlightenment to at the very least, cease glorifying a regime dedicated to the enslavement of other humans (remove your confederacy flag, people – it is a symbol of blazing racism and disgusting shame).

ParentsHerisme continue with their 1980’s world view of believing those in power will behave moderately due to power balance structure and the rest of it is all rhetoric. I strongly disagree (Roe v Wade much?). They cannot see what I see – they truly cannot. Their time in history, privilege, and ingrained learned fear, do not allow their lenses to open any wider. FatherHerisme is so rattled by it all, he was in tears over facetime trying to relay how he did his best to vote in a way that I could be proud of – but he couldn’t quite figure out what that might be all of the time. Sweet daddy *sigh* this is the heartbreaking part of aging parents being far away.

My international friends are somewhat hopeful, but mostly horrified at what they are witnessing us doing to ourselves(when they have time to wax poetic about our issues since there is bullshittery everywhere- authoritarianism rise plus COVID denier MUCH?). The older ones worry about a far correction into what their parents lived through with stark socialism (which wasn’t socialism of course – it was authoritarianism, which is the ironic slippery slope magafascists would LOVE to implement).

Anywho

Divest from and disempower systems of oppression. paraphrased from Nikki Blak

I want to do more of this and am thinking about how, where, why as I do the things of everyday life. I no longer feel doom and gloom most of the time. I feel the need for acknowledging destruction as well as acknowledging quiet and creation – or at least the humane support of them. Women’s rights and basic human needs, globally, in my country, community, and home.

There was a turning point for me last year where I realized I no longer needed to be invested in people, things, places which do not resonate with my own wellbeing and health. And this divestment is not a referendum on me or the people, things, places as being unworthy. This is my divestment from feeling obligated to connect with or understand those things not in alignment with my own health. Simple example of meat – it hurts me when I consume it, yet I went back to consuming it for years after having been a vegetarian for a decade. I attempted different kinds of meat and medications etc. Forget it – I have let it go. I am not invested in trying to explore that relationship anymore. I am more aware of no longer feeling obligated to be invested. This may come natural to you all, but having been raised to maximize co-dependency, this has been a huge learning curve for me. Saying, “no thank you,” to myself for myself with no negative feelings attached has been a huge shift for me, and a much easier way for my soul to move through each day.

As a result of this shift, and time, and my sweet tiny giant turning into a man person, I feel the cleaning out and preparing SonHerisme for his adulting launch. I am working on cultivating a practice of being more mindful in my immediate environment.

My first step is to do the hard ask of where I am putting my resources. Beginning with my list of everyday tasks I do and everyday items I use. I will be asking myself how (not if bc they ALL are in some ways) they are parts of systems of oppression and how may I either facilitate limiting (destruction of habit/service) the oppression further or divesting (creating something new) from them.

A teensy start:
-internet service
-laptop
-phone
-grocery store(s)
-Amazon
-laundry
-career
-creativity
-food prep

I hope this creatonement alchemy works for something good and is helpful. My purpose at this point in my life it to cause the least amount of harm in my areas of this existence. I want to be present for and aware of how I am doing that just in case the knowing is helpful to SonHerisme or anyone else. Or, I suppose, the knowing will be helpful and satisfying to me as I transition at some point.

MotherHerisme turned 78 this week. SonHerisme’s band won their division at state competitions. I took a catnap outside on this final warmish sunny-side up day. It was so quiet that I could hear gleeful leaf scamperings of tiny creatures in full on wintering prep. Also, the persistent bee popped around for a pre-slumber check-in. More celebrations with pom poms. More nature. More mindful acknowledgement and divesting from the harmfuls.

Silence, you are the best thing I have ever heard. Boris Pasternak

Love, Ms. Herisme xoxo

*fingers crossed that some of this magic works to alleviate some suffering and anxiety somewhere*

Thank you for sticking with me through all of my silences

Magic Hope

/ herismeorg / 1 Comment
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Newer humans are extraordinary for many reasons. They are empirically undeniably beautiful. They grow and experience everything at light speed. Their very essence and existence personifies hope.

I am one of the luckiest people in the world because I still get to spend some time around newer humans. While I don’t currently have teeny tiny newest humans in my circle, there are still some smaller ones around spreading their hope here and there. I miss the toothless to toothy sweet smelling kissy cheeked babies and squishy squashy runny drooly toddlers, for realsies. If you know, you know.

One of the newer humans I get to occasionally hang out with while her brother plays with SonHerisme (in very determined and competitive ways now as they jump into the teenager times), has taken her time to acclimate to the imaginations I bring to the table of life. She has always had very specific ways of entering into play and pretend, and I am more random with a bit of fantasy. Of course, neither way is the right way or the wrong way, they are just how we are. Over the past few years, though, she has increasingly graciously afforded me some space for my whimsies, which also means that she too is growing up. *sigh* Bittersweet as this also means that she is somehow even lovelier every day. You’d think with all of the children I have known in my years that I would be used to the growing upness of things. I am not. It is heavily hard and amazingly beautiful in every single instance.

This newer human little sister friend spends some time with me at each of the almost teenager boys’ soccer games. This soccer season has been difficult for those beloved boy-man giants, so we have a new game ritual involving harnessing magic hope.

A while ago a dear kind friend gifted me a small roll-on of an essential oil blend called, “Hope,” which I carry in my purse for stress emergencies. Occasionally I take it out and roll it onto the insides of my wrists for a calming reset of my senses as I go through the: what can you see? what do you hear? what can you touch? what do you taste? what can you smell? deep breaths in between, exercise. As one does (ptsd raise the roof – what what! put my hands up, they’re playin’ my song, the butterflies fly away, noddin’ my head like yeah… well, they don’t always fly away of course, but the sensory pause helps and now I have to listen).

At one of the soccer games when the boys’ team was struggling, newer human little sister turned her sweet squishy face to me while sitting in my lap making cookies in a cookie app on my phone (I KNOW COVID, but I did have my mask on and what am I supposed to do when miss adorable needs extra attention – I challenge ANY ONE of you to look into her big brown eyes and deny her this. Impossible – you cannot. I am eternally grateful that she continues to enjoy my company and never asks me for a pony. Do not let any of your sweet babies ask me for a pony! gah!). She said that she hoped the boys would win this game. I told her I had some magic hope in my purse, and maybe we should get it out and see if that helps. I took out the oil roller and showed her how to roll it on the inside wrist. I did one of my wrists and she did the other. None for her, though, because she carries the worries of a newer human thrust into the weirdo world of COVID isolation and has feelings of texture/smell anxiety as a result. As soon as we put the oil roller back into my purse, one of the boys made an awesome play which led to a goal! “Magic Hope Works!” she yelled and jumped about in excitement.

For the past two weeks, we’ve continued our ritual of harnessing the magic hope for the boys’ soccer game – and they’ve won both games. The newer human sister friend is now convinced that I carry magic hope in my purse. I do – I absolutely do, little puffin shakin’ bacon, I carry that magic hope for you, for your gentle brother, for the two brilliant girls of the friend who gifted the oil to me, for amazing sweet SonHerisme and all of the newer humans.

Love, Ms. Herisme xoxo (I’ll carry the Magic Hope for you as well!)

ps. those pre-teen boys turn into teens soon. One this weekend and SonHerisme over the summer (watermelon weather – only the Bing Crosby recording). They still play on co-ed teams bc that’s how they roll and their girl peers are also fierce as hell on the pitch!

“hope can take on a life of its own” ~Michelle Obama

While I know this post is about hope, the magic hope, and carrying hope, today is hard in my brain and I am grateful to have this experience in my memory cache for however long it can be there. Thank you for extending your kindness by reading, liking and listening

Joe Jackson and such

/ herismeorg / Leave a comment

There’s something going wrong around here…

 

Ahhh, 1979.  Many of you weren’t alive then.  I was.  I was living in Germany wild and free on my bicycle, sneaking onto the ferry, eating spaghetti ice and liquor filled chocolates (as one does in childhood).

 

I knew everything.  EVERYTHING.  Being all pre-pre-teeny. And I marveled at it all.  I was the kind of kid who unwaveringly knew that magic was spiritual and real.  I could feel it in my very essence and could see it everywhere. I could tune anything out in an instant in order to experience some magical sense.

 

Fast forward, fuh reahls, to today.

 

All of the wrongs swirling around me, in my brain, on my skin, in my house, with my family, in my town, in my country, in the world etc  are completely overwhelming.  I have had a few tantrums.  Most of mine are internal because they cannot be tolerated in my current personal circumstances, or in writing (not posted bc feeeeeeelings), or on almost daily brief #$%^@&#*$&^%^% phone convos with my endlessly patient life-long soul sister.

 

My life-long practice of flipping the switch and tuning out has a name: disassociation.  It’s so very difficult for me to embrace tuning in for any period of time to purposeful sheer sharp painful unpleasantness.  This is why I cannot tolerate the Zoo.  Also, it recently occurred to me that this is why I excel at creative diplomatic problem solving.  I am compelled to make the difficult things disappear, be worked through, resolved.  I am quick, concise and no nonsense about resolution.  Even if the resolution only happens internally for myself, it happens very quickly.  I do not linger in distress.  Not by will, but by instinctual life-long self-preservation practice which is now ingrained habit.

 

It’s like my “meet-er/great-er” disease that is joked about in various circles I have inhabited throughout my life.  When someone is approaching, or I drive past someone walking on the road etc, I can’t stop myself, I greet them.  I make eye contact.  I say, “hello!.”  I wave.  People receive this as me being super friendly.  I am not.  I am, by practice, anticipating and resolving any potential friction we may experience as two humans, by offering a greeting as a peaceful cleansing wash over our potential interactions.  Again, this is not pre-meditated or meant as a manipulation, it is an ingrained habit I have cultivated over my life as a means for survival.  It’s a tangible example of my switch flipping mechanism at work.

 

The other day in therapy (SURPRISE! I’m in therapy), my therapist was attempting to get me to connect with my own skin as I am currently waiting on results from my latest melanoma biopsy.  She attempts to bring me back to and connect with my physical self.  My brain is supremely resistant. (insert life story here)  It sounds so simple, doesn’t it?  She says things like, “when you place your hand onto your arm, does that feel pleasant or unpleasant?”  I feel like an idiot because I do not know.  I can clearly feel that I am touching my arm (I do not have a neurological disorder), and that my hand is warm, my arm is cool.  I do feel things when I am pointedly asked to think about them.  It would not occur to me to wonder how my hand feels on my arm, to even be aware that I have placed my hand onto my arm, or that my hand was warm and my arm was cool, if I wasn’t asked about it.

However, what has me disturbed is that niggling notion that I am supposed to know if my hand on my arm feels pleasant or unpleasant.

I do not know.

Not in an obtuse or try-to-guess-what-I-am-feeling way. I truly do not know.  Then my hand and arm feel like nothing because I am trying to figure out what is pleasant or unpleasant, and worried that I cannot tell the difference that seems like it should be easy to describe.  Then – WHOOSH – I am gone off into thinking about trees and how do they feel?  My son, how does he feel?  How is his arm?  Does he still have the tick scar? How strong my son looks when he does chin-ups with his gangly boy arms. etc. I bet the universe has arms it is desperately trying to hug us with to quiet all of our earthly crazy fear-based interactions.  Why can’t I feel anything yet?  Is my hand even warm? Gah!  I can’t feel it!

 

So, anywho.

PTSD

Melanoma.  It’s on the skin that I am in.

I hope that therapy is not a pass/fail thing.

 

Which brings us back to Joe:

 

Tonight’s the night when I go to all the parties down my street

I wash my hair and kid myself I look all smooth

Look over there! (Where?!?)…

 

 

Love, Ms Herisme xoxo

 

Hopefully not on the verge of a nervous breakdown

Hopefully still on my NewPath

*POOF*

/ herismeorg / Leave a comment

img_4323

 

Hardly anyone phones me up.

This is NOT a plea for anyone to call me on the telephone.  I am horrible on the telephone.  Without physical conversation cues, I’m all flustered with silences, weird pauses, speaking over each other, dropping the phone and then explaining how the phone dropped, wandering mind, etc

 

Actually, even with physical conversation cues, I am quite awkward.

 

Anywho…

 

When my telephone buzzes (I rarely have the sound on because the noise is too jarring for me – and, yes ALL the ringtones are jarring to my sensitive ears, including harp, but thank you for the suggestion), and I do not recognize the incoming number, I do not answer the telephone.

 

There is always this lingering worry that it will be MrexH, or someone in his family, and they will be angry and horrid with me, MrexH might express his interest in murdering me again.  Or something awful has happened and a Police Officer, State Trooper, or even worse, my attorney, is contacting me with the bad news.  I am not ready for any of those things – again.

 

Or, it could be a telemarketer, and I do not want to speak with them either.

 

Last week, my telephone rang in the morning, with an incoming number that I do not know – however, this was a number for my city/state.  ALARM BELLS went off in my brain and I let the phone ring 4 times before I decided to bite the bullet of fear and answer the telephone.

 

It was the assistant from my attorney’s office.

Uh-Oh

As soon as I heard her voice, my stomach split in two and dropped into my legs.

 

The call was benign, as calls go.  But, it took me a while to calm down just from the stress of contact with my attorney’s office.  The office assistant is a lovely person, and has gone out of her way to be kind and welcoming to me.  It’s the whole idea of knowing why we have a relationship at all, that is upsetting.

 

She wanted me to stop by the office and pick up some hard copies from my divorce case, and decide if there was anything that I wanted to keep.

We set up a time for me to do that.

I drove into my little downtown, parked in the courthouse parking deck, and walked to my attorney’s office across the street.

 

By this time, my mind was completely blank and numb.  I have to go into this space of, “What would Oprah do right now?” and just keep moving forward.  Oprah would just jay-walk across that one-way street in front of the courthouse and all of those parked police vehicles, and be confident in her stride into her attorney’s office.  Or was it Dr. Phil’s office that she strode confidently into?  It was somewhere, and Dr. Phil was there, the cattle farmers lost their case against Oprah, and Dr. Phil got his own show as a side bonus!

 

I did the jay-walk thing, minus the confident stride, and plus twisting my hair into a giant knot on top of my head as I walked because it was ridiculously hot and humid – so also minus any of Oprah’s presence or finesse.

 

The paperwork consisted of a 5 inch thick stack.

 

It was too nervewracking for me to stay in the office and look through the daunting stack, so I said my, “thank-you”s, and skeedaddled out of there.

 

I felt more confident walking back to my car, because I had an impressive stack of papers to hold – like a comfort blankie.

More Linus than Oprah.

Out of that stack of papers, the only piece that seemed worth saving was the less than 1/4inch bound deposition of MrexH official transcript.

That transcript = $640

Just for the copy of the transcript.

 

This amount does not include the cost of my attorney’s time, SonHerisme attorney’s time, or my time, or my severe emotional strain, or the stupid (yet delicious) take-out tomato soup I stepped out to eat at our lunch break, OR my parking costs…

 

Ugh

So. Much. F’in. Money.

Just gone.

*POOF*

 

The rest of the paperwork?

I shoved it into the chiminea at 10am and had myself a lil’ ol’ bonfahr

*POOF*

 

Sadly, no marshmallows were consumed.

This fiery episode sounds like it should have been cathartic.  It was not.  I did not feel anything other than now I did not have to file the remainder of the papers.

*POOF*

Do not panic if you are unable to reach me by telephone.  I have not disappeared, although some days I would like to do so.  I am only nervous and awkward and frightened and concerned.

 *POOF*

 

I wish I could magic all of that away too!

Love, Ms. Herisme xo

ps.  Thank you, oh great tribe of friends, for sticking with me!