Dialogue

The Father's Day visit.

While my kids played in the huge child friendly backyard my dad and I were able to have an extended and relatively uninterrupted talk. Things often wandered into religious territory and I think we covered a lot of ground. Ever since I broke the news to him that I had left the church (nearly 2 years ago now) I have been free to say whatever is on my mind. He does not get offended. He doesn't get mad or cry or tell me to stop talking. He listens. He argues his points. I listen. I argue my points.

Then?

Then life goes on. The kids and I pack up and head home. He farewells us and goes back to his life. No harm, no foul. It is more than that though. It is actually enjoyable and cathartic to be able to talk freely and openly about things that other people are not brave enough to tackle.

The conversation is necessary in order to understand one another. It is necessary if you want to be able to live authentically. It allows each person speak their truth and to discover that no one self implodes from the attempt nor does the world come to an end. The two of you are still left standing there with lives to go and live, decisions to be made and thoughts to be had.

I am lucky that he is this way. Many ex-Mo's don't have it so lucky. I have read many accounts of ex-Mo friends being shunned, silenced, even disowned by their family and friends. I have experienced those types of responses to some extent but on the whole I think I have had it pretty easy.

We ought to all be able to speak our minds, especially with our family and friends. We all have thoughts and feelings, hopes and dreams and they need to be heard.

Debate, converse, share, disagree, agree, have dialogue!

All that anyone ever really wants from another person is to be heard, really heard. Then the differences in opinion don't seem to be separated by giant chasms but instead you see the many overlaps and intersecting ideas and how often you really are arguing from the same side of a problem but just misunderstanding where the other really stands on the point.

Whatever my childhood was, whatever differences in opinion my father and I have I am very grateful that he will always talk about things and does not shut down the lines of communication.

NIMROD!!!

I wrote this post back in June of 2010. It's a short and poorly written post about the darker side of Mormon temples. After covenanting with a bearded man in the sky regarding your sexual practices and monetary contributions, you then make hand motions representing your own disembowelment and throat being slit... the punishments for revealing your new and secret name! (This practice was discontinued from 1990, I personally never had to do it but I know people who have).

Back in 2010 I revealed that the new name given to me was Deborah. I also thoughtlessly revealed Toby's name - NIMROD!!! haha. And then later removed it because he did not want to upset family. I can understand that. I hadn't thought about it at the time of first publishing as I was probably so caught up in my own self that I didn't think of asking permission. But now he is cool with it.

It's just a fucking word. A nonsense name given as part of the 'spectacle'.

Oh, and I have had a few people ask me recently: "HOW is the Mormon church sexist?" The 'new name' nonsense seems like a good example of sexism to me. Women must reveal their 'new name' to their husbands. The men must NOT reveal their 'new name' to their wives. The husband stands behind a veil as a proxy for Jesus, he holds your hand through the veil and asks you rote questions about the previous ceremony and then you reveal your 'new name' to him. Your husband (Jesus) then pulls you through the veil. Fuck me! Now that I write it out it sounds like a birth scene. The white curtains (the veil) being like a vagina that you emerge from into the presence of god. Is this another case of birth envy. Anyway, there you are in the white room. Your husband is now your husband again, not Jesus. Phew! Although I can't help but think of some men getting around feeling all powerful after that one ;)

I am a member of a few facebook groups for ex-Mo's. Lovely secret affairs they are too. Every now and then there will be a thread about our temple names. A recent one revealed comments like these:

"I threatened to have t shirts made up that say hi my temple name is...People could customize their own name. Maybe I will wear it to a family dinner."

"______, GASP, but only your anointed penis is allowed to know and share that."
"Oh, silly little me. I'm justa girl, I don't always remember these things."

"A friend of mine was so upset that her husband wasn't allowed to share his temple name with her that 
she cried and prayed, and prayed, and the name was magically "revealed" to her. ( oh brother)"

"Me, I just pretended I didn't give a damn. My man couldn't stand keeping "the secret" from me and eventually told me. :) Way to isolate life partners, Latter Day "Saints.""




And here's what happened when I revealed Toby's 'new name' there:

...and that's what you get when a bunch of ex-Mo women chat openly in a secret facebook group :P

Stranger than Fiction

 'Well, now, it is a curious thing, but my grandfather told me a strange tale of a most immoral case that happened at the painting of the Commandments in a church out by Gaymead - which is quite within a walk of this one. In them days Commandments were mostly done in gilt letters on a black background, and that's how they were out where I say, before the owld church was rebuilded. It must have been somewhere about a hundred years ago that them Commandments wanted doing up, just as ours do here, and they had to get men from Aldbrickham to do 'em. Now they wished to get the job finished by a particular Sunday, so the men had to work late Saturday night, against their will, for overtime was not paid then as 'tis now. There was no true religion in the country at that date, neither among pa'sons, clerks, nor people, and to keep the men up to their work the vicar had to let 'em have plenty of drink during the afternoon. As the evening drawed on they sent for some more themselves; rum, by all account. It got later and later, and they got more and more fuddled, till at last they went a-putting their rum-bottle and rummers upon the Communion table, and drawed up a trestle or two, an sate around comfortable, and poured out again right hearty bumpers. No sooner had they tossed off their glasses than, so the story goes, they fell down senseless, one and all. How long they bode so they didn't know, but when they came to themselves there was a terrible thunderstorm a-raging, and they seemed to see in the gloom a dark figure with very thin legs and a curious voot, a-standing on the ladder, and finishing their work. When it got daylight they could see that the work was really finished, and couldn't at all mind finishing it themselves. They went home, and the next thing they heard was that a great scandal had been caused in the church that Sunday morning, for when the people came and service began, all saw that the Ten Commandments wez painted with the "Nots" left out. Decent people wouldn't attend service there for a long time, and the Bishop had to be sent for to re-consecrate the church. That's the tradition as I used to hear it as a child. You must take it for what it is wo'th, but this case today has reminded me o't, as I say. '

Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy pp376-7.

NOH8 Photo-shoot

There's not much you can convey to someone once they've stuck a bit of gaffa tape over your mouth. I wonder if this will catch on as a technique for photographers working with unruly models. The up side of this for me was that I didn't have to smile! or even worry that much about my expression, although looking at it now I think that I could have expressed a little of something! 

If you've been living under a rock and don't know what the NOH8 campaign is about then you can visit them here. I've lifted this bit of info from their website bcos I'm sitting here with a hot water bottle trying to ease some stomach cramping before heading off to teach Body Balance in a minute (wah wah), so yeah, too lazy to summarise. 

"On November 4, 2008 Proposition 8 passed in California, amending the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The defeat provoked a groundswell of initiative within the GLBT community at a grassroots level, with many new political and protest organizations being formed in response. 

The NOH8 Campaign is a photographic silent protest created by celebrity photographer Adam Bouska (http://www.bouska.net) and partner Jeff Parshley in direct response to the passage of Proposition 8. Photos feature subjects with duct tape over their mouths, symbolizing their voices being silenced by Prop 8 and similar legislation around the world, with "NOH8" painted on one cheek in protest."


Funds raised by the NOH8 Campaign are used to promote and raise awareness for Marriage Equality and anti-discrimination on a global level through an educational and interactive media campaign.

Make LOVE people!

I double dare you!

GNO

Crickets everywhere, yes I know.

However I have decided to take my linguist friend up on the challenge to blog every day in September. This will be sure to elicit info from me that you never needed/wanted to know so be sure to stay tuned :P

Oooh yeah, and if there's anything you want to ask me or whatever then shoot!

Hey AngryBaker ...
Marijuana Boy has been cropped back in. 
I took my sweet time getting aroundtoit
but I think you'll find them worth the wait.
Had you seen these pics b4?

I am??? ... I am you. and you are me.

Time to check in. 

I want to say something. This 'coming to terms with my own mortality thing'? ... um...........

...it's not that fucking easy! 

There, I said it. 

I never never never want back 'in' to the Mormon church, or any church, but (yes, but!)  god damn I wish there were something after this life! I do, I really do. I don't want that prick of a Mormon god's idea of heaven, nor anything like unto it. I want my girls and my guys with me forever. I want endless forever. I want peace and joy and passion and ecstasy for everyone. I want someone to fucking wipe the memories of anyone who was ever abused! the bad memories only and only the ones we want wiped. I know, I know! not possible, how would something like that work? I don't bloody know but isn't that the point of a next life? there would be some kind of eye-opening epiphany where we'd be able to do all kinds of things we never thought were possible. 

Grrrrrrrr!

So. Back to reality. 

Possibly the number one benefit of waking from my 31 year slumber is my new-found ability to live in the present moment. I've experienced a lot of pain in the last 2 years. I don't care to share right now; well you've been along for the ride anyway. Pain and joy, just about equally matched I'd say. I have a lot of questions. My mind is pretty much constantly mulling things over. It gets to be a bit much. Anyway, the point that I wanted to get to was that I have noticed that I quite regularly catch myself in a situation that is... well, crap really - and I start to feel like shit and I feed that negative feeling BUT then (to my great relief) I am very quickly reminded of my mortality and the uselessness of dwelling on shit and I snap into  a sharp and bright sense of my surroundings, my present. It smells amazing! have you smelled it? it is so beautiful! have you seen it?!!! and the sound! the taste! seriously, I know this all sounds like drivel right now but try and see it! Fark! We are alive! AaaaaaaaH, actually breathing and moving and feeling and thinking and loving and singing and feeling feeling feeling, did I say feeling?!!!!

My dad was probably right (godammit!) when he said that I am a very emotionally driven person. I think that in the past I channelled that emotion to god and now I am working with that erm handicap(?) to find a way to be passionate and brave but also reasonable and coherent. I love the rush that I feel when I throw myself headlong into something that I feel strongly about. I don't care about getting hurt (before I get hurt that is), if I think something is worth fighting for then you're going to fucking see a fight! So I get hurt. Yup. Mmm. Yes I do. And I like the pain too, bcOs then I feel alive. I imagine people who self-harm feel this kind of rush. I suppose I emotionally self-harm. BUT if I think it is worth it then i will do it again and again and again. Like I said, that way I know I'm alive. 

ALIVE! 

I've tried a few substances in the last year or so. I've enjoyed, it I won't lie. BUT the biggest fucking rush of all is life itself. The power within each of us. The energy/love/? inside each of us is freaking amazing. And when we share it, when we use it... it increases exponentially!

Ok. Yeah I sound a bit erm.... yeah that. 

BUT I feel (yes FEEL) overcome by my yearning to connect with as many people as I can in my one 'for-sure' life. You are me and I am you. What connects us? 

No more walls. No more divide. We are ONE.