Do you like your witches char-grilled or soft-boiled?

I think one of the hardest parts about this process has been the unexpected personal attacks. If I had just left the church quietly ….. well, things would have been ‘easier’ for everyone… but what good is easy!. I could not do that. I had discovered something awful and I needed to speak up about it. So I have traversed this very vocal path and I have created a bit of a monster.

I have some friends who are still attending church but who remain steadfast in their friendship with me. They have told me that there is a fair amount of chatter going on at church about my blog and even about my character. One friend went as far as to say that they have been slandering me and that she is glad that we don’t live in the time of witch-trials.

This is all such a joke to me since, in my opinion, the widespread panic that has erupted came from within. I only passed on links to this blog to people who I thought would appreciate it, mostly non-Mormon friends. The Mormon friends who I sent it to were people who I thought would be interested in reading about how I was feeling and who would be able to read it objectively. Unfortunately I was wrong about a couple of my friends and they spread it like wildfire throughout our local church.

People have accused me of trying to make members hate the church. They have said that I am bitter and that I should leave the church alone. I never spread it throughout the congregation, the members managed to do that all on their own.

May I repeat an earlier statement of mine “Oh no, Maureen is being so mean to the Mormon church. Wah, wah!”

If the church were true what on earth (or the heavens) is there to fear from me! I am exercising my right to express my opinions. I feel cheated and deceived by the church. I feel that it perpetuates many harmful practices and I will continue to write about them.

I have not attacked any members. I wish that they would stop attacking me but I will continue to nurse my thick skin in anticipation of failure to treat me in a Christ-like manner. Disagree with my statements, argue with me about my opinions but please do not slander and demonize me.

I think I'm numb

Or maybe I just grew an exoskeleton. The loss of friends, the mean words, the ostracism, the sneakiness, the hypocrisy... all of it, it just doesn't hurt that much any more. It's like as 'they' get madder and meaner I care less about trying to salvage friendships and realise that they were false all along. We were friends because we had to be. It was part of the 'code'.

It still hurts but I think I'm getting the hang of being that duck, you know the one with water skimming off its back.

Time to get off the grid

So Rockstar and I watched a couple of Zeitgeist movies throughout the week and we want in! Or out I suppose. We want to get out of the rat race, stop using dirty energy, stop slaving ourselves to the taxman...

We want to live like the Na'vi in Pandora. We want to support the Venus Project and do all that we can to heal out earth and pass on a greater heritage for our children. A safe and healthy earth full of promise and vitality.

I am going to use greenbikini to post about my journey towards oneness with this earth and its inhabitants.

Perth Zeitgeist Movement

The Venus Project

Zeitgeist movies (thanks Amanda)

I believe it is a lie

Just a quick one from me today. A few people have said to me that they thought I had left the church for reasons such as being lazy or wanting to sin e.g. drink alcohol, dress sexy and swear like a trooper. Some people have also said things that lead me to believe that I have been unclear about why I left the church.

I left because...

I believe that Joseph Smith lied about the golden plates and angels visiting him. I believe that he wrote the Book of Mormon himself (how? who knows, I am not trying to explain my reasons here I am just stating them, I will explain in the future). I believe that Joseph made up all of his 'revelations'.

A few facts admitted by the church itself:

He married other women without his wife's knowledge. He married women who already had husbands, he sent the husbands off on missions and then had them approve of his own marriage to their spouse (already a done deal) when they returned home. He married young girls, yes even young for the 1830s. He promised Emma (his first wife) that he would stop practicing plural marriage and then he carried on with it behind her back.

Is that enough? well there is more but I would like to get to that in due time.

I did not leave the church to be 'naughty', I left because I believe "with every fibre of my being" (a common phrase in Mormon testimony bearing) that it is all a damned lie!

Grief

I think I am just coming out of my second cycle of grief. At least, if I look at things that way then my life seems to make a bit more sense. Right now I would say I’m rather squarely in the depression phase just hanging out for acceptance to kick in.

The first cycle was grieving over the loss of my religion. Having grown up in the church and having been raised and educated by a very specific set of values I think it was only natural to grieve the loss of reassurance that there was ‘a divine plan’. Although I have been very happy to say goodbye to some parts of the religion, other parts were quite nice (e.g. forever families) and were painful to let go of.

I definitely went through a denial phase, quite a long one too. This phase went on for about a year. I read and read and read. I was trying to find information that would explain the inconsistencies and make everything all right again. I gripped on to hope. In the end I strangled it. There was no hope.

Shock. In the shock phase I needed to talk all of the time. Rockstar put in a monster effort but it was a massive strain. Then I found you, dear cyber-space, you seem to be able to listen forever and you never interrupt me. Sigh.

As you may have noticed, a teensy bit of anger, oh who am I kidding, a hell of a lot of anger raged forth. This occurred soon after I began blogging. Things got ugly rather fast. There was a massive fall-out from my public expressions of anger. Tension. Fury. Pain.

Sadness.

My sad and depressed phase was relatively short. Maybe I had experienced enough depression in my life already and this time I was able to move on. I exercised, meditated, spoke/cried with friends and felt sorry for myself.

Then I accepted that the losses that I had experienced were necessary for my growth and happiness. I accepted that I had lost friends. I made new friends. I got a wicked massage! And found my happiness again. Oh joy!!

Enter cycle number two.

This one knocked the breath out of me. I lost my perfect, loving Heavenly Father and Mother. My ‘real parents’, who I had longed to return to since I knew of their existence, were figments of my imagination. Ugh!

No returning safely onto the arms of sweet white-haired supreme beings. No happily ever after. Crap!

Denial had been there the whole time. There was no anger this time, only sadness: deep, deep sadness. Add a splash of shock. No posts on the blog. Too depressed to write.

So I smile at this little ray of sunshine. I am able to write again. I am amazed actually. When I started writing this post I was waiting for acceptance to kick in… and I really think it just did.

I accept that I don’t know anything anymore.

I welcome the hope and the love that entered my heart today.

Women as Property

About 8 months ago Rockstar and I attended a Sealing ceremony (marriage ceremony) at our local Mormon temple. It was done ‘by proxy’ meaning that we were participating on behalf of people who have died. Their living relatives having submitted their names to the temple to have them baptised, married and endowed.

At the time I was already beginning to question my faith in the religion but I was happy enough to be there that day. I felt quite peaceful all dressed in white, spending some time with my partner in a quiet and sacred place. As there is quite a bit of repetition in the ceremony I began to try and memorise the words (a little habit of mine). It didn’t take long for me to realise that the vows were different for the husband and wife. I listened more closely and confirmed that there was a significant and shocking difference. The man agrees to “receive her unto yourself”. The woman agrees to “give yourself to him”. (Full text can be found online in a basic search). There was no mention of the husband ‘giving himself’ or of the wife ‘receiving her husband’.

Disturbed by this I later asked the temple worker why there was a difference in the vows. He was surprised by my question and said that no-one had ever asked him that before. Then, thinking on the spot, he said (from memory) “well isn’t that what a woman does, give herself to her husband?”…… What! like a nicely wrapped present with a big fuckin’ puffy, satin bow!? #@%# ….. Well, I began to say how I really didn’t see how that explained anything when a higher-ranking member intervened and began to expound to me about how men and women are equal in the church. The other family members who were with us for this ceremony were visibly uncomfortable by this point. Feeling very unsatisfied I let it be.

When I later had the ear of my Bishop, and on another occasion a representative from the Stake Presidency, neither could give me any decent explanation. They asked me why such a thing should matter and insinuated that my feminist leanings were not exactly welcome.

Now, what turned this irk of mine into a full-blown grievance was a little diddy I discovered at feministmormonhousewives.org. Apparently (now, I have not been back to the temple to verify this for myself - although I did think about doing so, as up until last Thursday, I still had a current temple recommend) … apparently the leadership has in the last few months changed the wording of these vows. Now the woman agrees to “receive him unto herself” but still no mention of the man “giving himself”.

Well I’m sorry but instead of fixing the inequality, as far as I can see ‘they’ just created a big fucking obvious mole that says there is a really significant reason why the man cannot say that he ‘gives himself to his wife’. Hmmm, does this reason have something to do with the other 6 young doe-eyed, big-breasted virgins that the man gets to unwrap, I mean marry, in the next life???

Dream a Little Dream

About a year ago someone at church stopped me in the halls and told me that they'd had a weird dream about me... (I figured if they're happy to tell me about it then it couldn't be too bad). They had dreamed that they were at the supermarket and then saw me in the fruit and veg section dressed in only a bikini! nice. So did I look good? Oh yes, you looked fabulous! great. Nice story, thanks for the laugh :) - NB: walking around in a bikini, even at the beach, is prohibited by contemporary Mormon dress standards.

Fast forward about 6 months, I needed to contact this same person about some matter and it was also necessary for me to explain to them that I had all but left the church. They then informed me that there had been a little more to the dream than they had previously let on. Apparently in the dream we had also spoken briefly and I had explained that I no longer believed in the church. Now this dream occurred at a time when the dreamer would have had no idea that I was beginning to question things. Outward appearances would have been that all was fine and dandy (nice word eh! - I think my Scottish Body Balance trainer is influencing me!).

So, there is more to this story than I can tell here but suffice to say that we (dreamer and I) take great pleasure in the idea that we have experienced our own vision aherm! I mean dream! erm, vision, nonono dream!! definitely a dream, oh but it's so confusing, how do you tell the difference?!

And there you have it... My Black Bikini is very symbolic to me. The colour choice too was purposeful. I have many dark thoughts and feelings about my metamorphosis. It also represents permission that I give myself to be angry, crass and selfish in the process. As a friend of mine flatteringly reassured me:

“An examined life makes interesting memories, though some be wrinkled, stained and painful. I look forward to the multitude of mistakes and triumphs, clarity and confusion that come with the Black Bikini. I'm sure you'll wear it with the dignity and self respect that you wore the white.”

Thank you dear friend. As my heart is beginning to feel lighter and brighter I think I may need to find myself a rainbow coloured bikini.