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The Age of Receptivity

I am able to feel a great sense of beauty as I look out into the blue and orange sunset and wonder what lies beyond the universe.  I have a special star that I always notice in night skies.  It twinkles at me incandescently and looks like a multi-coloured space ship, hurlting towards earth.  I like it because it appears to sparkle every colour of the rainbow.  Personally I am interested in chakra healing and colour plays a massive part in my sense of being in the world. 

I know a little about the world I live in, only not as much as some and not as much as I would like to. I have a young family who are the most important thing to me and I spend a lot of time organising their lives for them. 

I have been moved by the recent W ikileaks events and I would consider my self a supporter.  I believe it has given a certain amount of power to the people.  It has given me a thirst for knowledge about the world I live in and I have been driven to go out and seek the truth.  Honesty has played such a massive role in my own personal journey and I am very sincere, a little too sincere at times.  I have been fed up with the corruption in the world and have at times often felt powerless, helpless but desperate to change the world.  I have spent the last 16 years waiting for this moment and I am fascinated by every move.

The world is in crisis, everywhere and it is hard to watch peoples lives destroyed in front of my eyes. 

December 21st 2012 is imanent and some are looking to the skies for comfort. There are lots of different ideas of what may or maynot happen.  Ideas that include a planetary collision, a  shift in the polar extremes and a visitation from an alien life form.  Myth plays such an important role in all cultures and I have enjoyed reading the stories that exist on world wide web. 

But what role does myth actually play, amidst all the chaos of the world?  In my head I am able to think past, present and future.  I am rarely in the present, I spend some of my time in the past, reflecting on my life.  Most of my thinking is done in the future.  What colour lip gloss will I wear tomorrow? I must shave my legs when I have a shower.  Sometimes, when I watch the news, my mind is sent spiraling out of control.  I can find it so hard to process what is actually happening right in front of my eyes.  There are no answers or I can find no solutions.  So I look to the skies to save me.  I am able to remove my mind from the atrocities of humanity and ground my self in a transcendental way of being.  My mind does not need to exist on earth because I am connecting with something greater than this earth, the universe.  And I am connecting with ‘it’ via Babylonian mythology.

I lied earlier, I challenged myself on my sincerity and forced myself have one of those rare moments when I am dishonest.  I said I am rarely in the present.  Not true.  I have been trained to be present and it has, to my amazement, transformed my life.  It has allowed me to connect with the transpersonal aspect of my self without the myth of the Babylonians.  Perhaps those who seek the answers to the chaos of planet earth, in the skies, need to take a few deep breaths and have a few deep moments of being present.

Meanwhile the powerful of this world continue to argue over holy ground, over who gets the best jobs and the most prestigious education and whose house will remain standing the longest.  And oil and drugs will continue to be controlled by military industrial complexes, via fusion centres.  Ancient pathways will continue to be disputed.  I will accept I am a slave to capitalism.  But as usual I will wake tomorrow, put on my lip gloss, blow dry my hair, change my status to married on Facebook and pretend to my children the world is fine, fine, fine.

The Age of Enlightenment grounded humanity into a period of thinking.  We’ve spent too much time thinking, that time has come to an end.  Now it is time to ask, ‘how do you feel today and everyday ahead of your godforsaken life?  Welcome to the new age, the age of receptivity and illumination.

Rain in England

If all else fails sleep, if sleep fails, write.  So here I am.  As my fingertips hit the keyboard I notice that my children’s future is being shaped right before my eyes.  And i want to have a say in it.  It’s windy and raining in England and the temperature is 5.  Both my children are in bed sleeping and completely unaware of the changes that are occurring globally.  They have no idea what the future holds for them.  I was wondering, if David Cameron shook hands today with China in multi-million pound business deal, does that mean England is now communist?  And what will happen to my human rights?

Justice is looming and truth-seeking is impossible.  As we enter the third decade of the internet, I suddenly feel awakened by its enormity and power.  It has truly embedded itself deeply within the lives of millions.  Now entities such as Facebook and Wikipedia begin to shape how we understand the world.  Wikileaks is changing the face of journalism, giving the power of information to the normal, everyday blogger.  Will this be the death of the newspaper?  As the world grows, the waterfall of satellite dishes that cascade down the bricks of tower blocks will diminish as broadband television enters every home.  I have no dish, thankfully.  I am able to choose what I watch, when and where.  Murdoch’s corporation does not dictate to me what I see. 

There is a whole wealth of knowledge, via the internet.  I can see young people believing Earth has been taken over by lizard like creatures, creating their own conspiracies.  Why?  Because there is so much dishonesty in this world, it’s all they can do to try to understand it.  The funniest myth was the all-seeing eye, allegedly a symbol of the Illuminati.  Lady Gaga and Jayzee are prime suspects, apparently.  The beauty of semiotics is an individual we give a sign a meaning, drawing from the culture they live in.  Lady Gaga is a surrealist and her image is full of symbolism.  What these crazy ideas do, is draw the individual away from the truth.  I’m still left wondering whether The Telephone video empowers women or exploits them.  Perhaps that is the real issue, or are you a slave, trapped in your own body?

And who really does care about Lady Gaga.  When I see images of Haiti, my soul feels destroyed.  I want to see children smiling and happy, with a teacher and books.  I want to see choices, I want to see an economy that is vibrant and feeding the mouths of the once vulnerable.  Haiti was a troubled country before the earthquake.  It is a great example of American Imperialism and can be comparable with what is going on in America today.  The elite in America being the Church of Scientology who somehow manage to dodge tax.  The United States occupation of Haiti ensured a light-skinned, elite to the power of presidency.  Haiti will be a survivor of the colonial period and it’s a real shame that it’s taken this long for the American people to stand up to the corrupt establishment that controls, contort, twists and turns the American people.

These are just my opinions anyway.  Not for anyone in particular, more for my children so they are able to know a side of me, that they otherwise may never know.  I hope they’re not left wanting more, like I was when I read my mum’s diary, when she died.

The world is changing at a rapid pace and my brain is fuzzy trying to keep up with it all.  Change is hard but as humans, it’s what we’re good at, it’s what we’re supposed to do.  So I shall embrace some, reject other bits and at times sit in the brick wall that Pink Floyd so beautifully gave me as a child.  Any my children will sing it to the coalition government and be the new breed of humanity who will speak out for what is right.  The truth, that will never be found Julian Assange.  All I need is my own truth.  Now my lipgloss has lost it’s shine, I will do the school run tomorrow as though the worlds is fine, fine, fine.

The Persuit of Justice

 

Image courtesy of Reuters

I see the Xiajiang Region as the silent Tibet of China.  The ethnic majority in the region are predominantly Muslin.  Perhaps this is the reason that they have been associated with al-Qaeda.  The Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is the Islamic extremism that threatens this region which has been created by the lack of control over the regions wealth, by the majority Uighur ethnic group.  Some say that Chinese Imperialism has allowed the migration of the Han ethnic group into the region.  The Han population expanded from 5% in 1949 to 40% in 2008.  The tension between the two ethnic groups is becoming greater.  Wealth and poverty appear to have an impact on the social issues of the region.  The Han are well-educated and appear to dominate the high earning jobs, while the Uighur remain the working poor.  The Chinese authority argue that they have raised standards in education in the region.  Save the Children have worked extensively with children who have been affected by HIV.

The knowledge on the ideology of Al Qaeda is limited and exists as a collective, in the sense that it creates a whole.  It is as though the individual does not exist and he could be comparable to the politician of capitalism and communism in the sense that he has little empathy for humanity.  Osama Binladen has his own idea of how life could be for the people who choose to follow his fight.  But what is his ideal?  It is apparent there is no specific answer in the west. What was made clear from The Frontline Cub debate, Inside Al Qaeda on Wednesday 5th January 2011, was that Osama Binladen was anti-ideology.  He rejected a written philosophy as a way of rule and maybe this is where is weakness lies.  Now, if he is dead, the groups that are developing as part of the Jihad struggle, have no clear boundaries, no clear philosophy of why they are here and what their future holds.  Or maybe Osama Binladen is more powerful as dead man, only time will tell.  I am left feeling non-the-wiser about it’s internal mechanisms.  I feel I was given no clear definition of the ideology of Al Qaeda, other than the main point of view is islamic.    If terrorism is the weapon of the weak, then capitalism is the weapon of the strong and according to Adam Plett’s blog, capitalism is winning.

 

As I read Adam Pletts blog from the Frontline Club, I was struck by the photographs he has taken of the western consumer goods available to the Afghan people.  He talks of Brittney Spears DVD’s and rows of pink dolls with buggies.  As a westerner living in western culture, I dream of shielding my children from such ills.  Where as now in Afghanistan, the people are beginning to embrace a culture which I understand is so loathed by Osama Binladen.  So, who is winning the war on terror?  From the photo’s I have seen, the western ideal of consumer goods is sweeping through Afghanistan.  It is this possibility that is contributing to winning the war.  From a western perspective, Afghanistan needs structure.  The Taliban destroyed the 3000 year history of the region.  Thus creating a blank space for them to build upon, a space where the Koran was inforced and education in the broadest sense was limited. 

 

The transformation of the Caribbean undertook in 1492 is so relevent as it can be comparable to the transformation of Afghanistan.   In context it was over 500 years ago and I am a great believer in not living in the past because it cannot be changed.  Russia occupied Afghanistan for which led to the development of Al Qaeda in August 1988.  When Al Qaeda began to maintain rule they wanted to implement a way of life, a way of life that was not either communist or capitalist.  Their idea that capitalism exploits and communism humiliates would form part of an ideology.  So if neither of these systems work, what does?  I need an alternative and I’m left wondering if Al Qaeda have the answer.  Both capitalism and communism are imperial powers, enforcing an ideal throughout society. 

 

On an individual level I think we need to be mindful that the men joining the struggle of Al Qaeda were once babies.  The first five years of a child’s life shape who they become.  I often wonder what war and violence does to the psyches of those children who grow in war ravaged countries.  I think the violence is normalised and their childhoods are stolen from them as soon as they take their first breath.  For some reason I feel responsible to break the violent cycle of war for those children.  They deserve running water and an education that will allow them to make choices in their life because when we have a choice we have power.  It’s not the poppy fields of Afghanistan that empower the people but sadly Imperialism takes a different view.  individually, a person is given a sense of belonging because the beliefs the group hold is the same as theirs.  They look into a mirror and finally they see themselves as part of something greater than themselves in isolation.  Joining Al Qaeda means joining something that is on a global scale, it is powerful.

 

I know little about what it means to be a Muslim, although I do know what it feels like to be persecuted.  Not because of my ethnic origin, or my religious beliefs but because of my working class roots.  When people meet me I am foremost my south-east london accent which people will have their own preconceived ideas about.  Next I am a women, so my breasts would come with another set of preconceived ideas.  I am educated but my reputation adopted at school will always haunt me.  A pupil who lacked concentration and motivation and who wasn’t ready to learn.  That’s why I’ll never make it as a writer.

 

The preservation of my own way of life was taken from me a long time ago, Margaret Thatcher made sure of that.  I am a post baby-boomer whose future will either be spent working into my 80′s or sitting in my own shit.   I was lucky enough to have grown in family whose philosophy was to speak out for those who are in a worse position than I.  Now I am here to battle for my own existence as the next two decades become the age of austerity.  

 

I don’t want power today, I just want the females in my life to feel the freedom of humanity as they run through the fields of life.  To remove the shackles that the men in their life planted, deep within their minds, to haunt them, until they die.



 Girligorgeous 2011

Powder Puff Girl

The world appeared as a scary place today and as I drove to work I felt desperate to retreat to the comfort of Cbeebies.  You see, when I’m out in the real world I feel nothing but a great sense of frustration.  Floating round In The Night Garden gives me such a sense of fluffiness, I become a powder puff and nothing else. 

Perhaps I need to create a platform for the normal everyday person to express the reality of their lives and how harsh it really is.  Then perhaps this coalition government can put their policies into perspective.   I’d call it Wikipeeps.
And maybe there is hope for me as a journalist.   I am foremost a mother of two beautiful children, then I would be poor and really needing to earn some money.  One day I hope to earn money from something I have written and Wikileaks, I believe has given me that authority.  I can finally be a guerilla writer that I have so longed to become.

As legal aid is removed from over a thousand solicitors, there is no alternative for those who need help.  There is no loan system for those women who want to divorce their mentally torturous husband and have no access to funds.  All I can see right now is a loan shark on the horizon or maybe the commodification of one’s body.

Now I shall leave for my first lesson in journalism.

Emotionally Beautiful

Today she wasn’t clever enough to be a real writer.  She was only good enough to write about someone else’s clitoris, she wasn’t even good enough to write about her own.  She could feel the anger welling up in her throat as she hid her way through school, never realising the beauty of her potential.  She was dumb and nothing else and that was all she was good a writing about.

She couldn’t help but wonder that Vince Cable was another scapegoat. as Murdoch felt the need to expand his already expanded empire.  And that’s why she would never make it as a journalist because her grammar and punctuation are so shit.  Vince Cable is what Prince Charles was to the student riots, a diversion from the real issue.  As masses we are diverged because the issue will shape our future and it needs to be hidden so we don’t have to worry about it.  She would be able to shine her lips and paint her toes without worrying about the massive changes happening to society at the moment.  Her children’s future was being taken from her and it made her really angry.

She would always be judged by the way she spoke, whether she liked it or not.   Now she needed to say something intelligent, from the top of her head, so that she could feel good about herself.

We are all slaves, bound to the earth by our embodied self, whether we are capitalist or not.  We will not be set free until we have found inner peace through daily self enquiry.  Today she was arguing with herself and not winning.  The battle will never be won.

From Hero to Villan

Amidst all the shenanigans of Wikileaks, student riots and snow, Lady Gaga’s flashed gash at Glastonbury is still the most googled item on my blog.  And as she says no to patriarchy by biting a doll of father christmas’ head off, Julian Assange is released on bail for rape allegations. 

Assange is the most wanted man in the world, as he attempts to bring down imperialism.  It is not a great leader who fights to silence him, oh no, it’s the age old Eve bit the apple.  And as the female is portrayed as the baddie, women across the globe are battling with their own self esteem because they have spent a life time with ridicule from a man, in some form or another.

Watching Assange’s interview, I felt little compassion from him for the quandry that some women find themselves in.  Being raped by the man who is supposed to love you can be unmanageable and can send women spiralling into chaos.  He went from being my knight in shining armour to a potential misogynist, who has little compassion for women who suffer domestic abuse.

Swedish law is more about sexual integrity than consent, as in the UK.  I understand sexual integrity as two people consenting to sex.  But it is less about the physical act and includes the emotional and mental needs of both people.  Equality exists consistently and if at any point either feel less equal, then sexual integrity has not been maintained.  So both parties could consent but if there is an incident that makes either feel uncomfortable the sexual integrity has been challenged because the equality has been lost.  So when Assange spoke publicly about his rape charges, Swedish rape charges are not the same as in the UK.

As a so called human rights activist I felt he showed little empathy for women who really have been raped and felt he could acknowledged women’s suffering.

And while Lady gaga uses her gash to comodify herself the victim’s of Assange use theirs to get justice, whether it be theirs or the imperial power hiding behind them.

The myth of the european union is once again exposed and while it’s okay for the british tax payer to pay thousands to Brussles.  As a European Union we have very different laws when it comes to the abuse of women.

The Most Eligible Bachelor in Wandsworth Prison

I haven’t paid a great deal of attention to the information Wikileaks revealed because I feel I don’t need to.  The main thing I hate about the world I live in, is the corruptness of political and economic institutions.  And I can’t help but have a radical view, thinking Guy Fawkes had the right idea trying to blow parliament up.  For me parliament embeds the systems of capitalism which I see as a corrupt, unjust system of making the rich richer and keeping the poor poor.

What fascinates me about Julian Assange is the fact that he needed money from our rich and powerful to pay the £240,000 bail, set by the British Judicial system.  I began questioning his background and wondered why he didn’t have his own money to pay for the bail.  Perhaps he’s not in it for the money, maybe he has a very strong moral and social conscience.  I know that I am fed up with corruption and if I have the knowledge and tools to bring down the system I would most definitely do it.  I have dreamt of someone like Julian for well over a decade and live in hope that he will bring the shift this world so desperately needs.

I’m not able to condone terrorism but I am left wondering why Osama Binladen was so hell bent on destroying the ‘western’ way of life.  Perhaps he was perceptive enough to understand the greed which manifests itself within capitalism. 

It was John Hitchens visit to a communist country that changed his perception of communism.  There was little in terms of fresh food and consumer goods.  And I would imagine, little of the freedom of the spoken word such as this blog.  Perhaps somewhere exists a system between the two dichotomies of capitalism and communism, something that we can call New Marxism. 

The notion of success has no appeal to me, only a happiness that I am able to find within my soul.  I may spend my lifetime looking for it, then again I may have already found it, as fighter of freedom and justice in a world where we are suppressed and downtrodden without even realising.  My 11-year-old will not be conditioned to consume.

My title was valid this morning but between caring for my children, running my own business and studying, the pitter patter of my varnished fingers on the keyboard has been limited.  Now, I must wrap presents.  And hope the lipgloss I apply tomorrow remains shiney.

From here to destruction

Today the world carries on as though normality is such a beautiful thing.  But what is normal in this world?  At the moment it feels as though the change is relentless and chaos is sweeping through the world at such a fast pace, I’m unable to take a breath.  And when I finally do, I realise there is no air there to breath.  I find myself in total panic, questioning everything I do, what is the point?

My 11 year old son mirrors my feeling.  Returning from school last night as though he were a worthless peice of shit.  He can’t help but articulate, “what is the point to my education, I’m going nowhere and I am destined to fail”.  As his mum, it was very hard for me to hear that.  As his mum all his anger with the world was directed at me and I became the worthless peice of shit that he feels he is.

Because I grew up in the 1980′s my state education suffered hugely and I left secondary school not really knowing very much.  I resat my English GCSE a few years ago and was surprised at what I didn’t learn back then.  I can remember protesting at the front of the school in opposition to all the cuts that were being made.  My school week was only 4 days for at least a year.  It was fucking shit really.  My mum did give me a choice of changing to a private school but the thought of a new building and new friends really scared me, so I stayed put.  Plus I liked the reality of being in a state school, with real people who lived in a real world.

Life wasn’t that kind to me when I left 6th form and I had little focus for a few years.  When I was 21 I decided I wanted to go to university although I didn’t believe I was clever enough.  I worked and went to evening classes.  I was fortunate that my employer paid for my course.  When I finally applied to university I was so nervous that I wouldn’t get funding.  I was relying completely on the state to fund my fees and pay me a small amount each term, to live on.  When I was awarded my grant, my life changed and I began my journey of further education which still hasn’t ended.  I am a few years away from 40 now and I’m about to complete the final year of my second degree.  Without that first opportunity, who knows where I would be?  Thats another story.     

I do think about the future and what it holds for my children and that is why the government and big business need to be held accountable for the state of the economy, not the masses.  Something has to change and it has to change soon.

As for my 11 year old, he went to school in a better mind set.  My reaction to the student cuts, in England, was to not him to school, what is the point, although I didn’t tell him that.  And I wouldn’t be surprised if you see him at the next set of demonstrations.

life is tough

I’ve travelled along life’s rocky path and I did live to tell the tale. Infact, I’m still travelling it.

I did realise on the way that being human is the most sacred gift I have been given. And as a female, being able to give life, an even bigger gift.

Becoming a parent has been tough but the joy that lives along side the toughness has been beautiful. Watching someone grow, for me, is one of the best things in life and I have been lucky enough to experience it, not only with my own children but with my neice and nephews too. I have also seen myself grow and I continue to do so.

Loving myself and who I have become has been the most difficult challenge on my journey. Western life can be so competative at times and there have been moments when I have loathed the image conscious, consumer culture my parents chose to live in. I may have chosen my parents but I did not choose the life I have been given. Circumstances did that for me.

Those moments in life, the ones I didn’t choose, are still important to me because they have made me the person I became. Without them I wouldn’t know who I was, without them I wouldn’t be me. Now, as I look back over my life I can feel for the first time my sadness, the sadness I didn’t feel at the time because it was oh so painful. Then, I didn’t have the resources I needed to understand, feel, or acknowledge the enormity of my experience. Perhaps because I was in it and when I was in my life, it just felt like a big huge mess, with lots of darkness and fear consuming me.

I have in the past, been caught up in others darkness and have allowed it to control me. At the time it was tough but for me there was no other way. There was nothing else for me, so for a while I stayed there wallowing in my own self pity. Then one day I realised that I was more than a victim of my own experiences and I had so much to offer this world as the beautiful human being I could be. And then I began my journey of self discovery, wanting to know who I truly am.

And here I am now, rediscovering those lost aspects of my self, that experience stole from me. As I watch my 11 year old discover the poetic rap master he is, I begin to wonder if what I have found, has helped him find who he is. One day he will see himself for the talented individual he truly is and not the failure who he thinks he is. Reality will always win, whether we like it or not.