1st September 2020: I am in pain. I feel invisible and like a feather that's fallen from a bird, just floating around getting dusty and lost, without a wing to be part of, or a nest to go home to.
The good thing, I guess, is that feathers, like hair and reptilian scales, antlers, etc have no feeliing. They are made from alpha keratins. They are appendages on living beings, but they are not the being, they are outside.
Perhaps they create a temporary boundary between the world and the being. In animals they grow back every year, unless some ego maniac psychophant has decided to dump their trash and oil onto the earth, as if they personally own it. But thats another story.. it's just sometimes when you feel deeply sad, and deeply let down, you suddenly feel sad about many other things where there has been blatant disregard etc etc.
Multiple choice: which of the following: ?
1.Snakes shed their skins
2.Penguins shed their feathers
3.Dogs moult
4.Mooses shed their antlers
5.Women are expected to remove most of their hair, their weight, their clothes, their sensitivity, their voice, their brains, if they are to be liked or even seen by the standard male. [obviously, there are exceptions , where certain fortunate and more admirable males have managed to evolve from relying entirely on their reptilian brains]
something to try to try to feel better and counter balance the toxicity, at least in theory.
I am starting to work on this:
Earth is my element, its where I heal and feel grounded..Obviously, I also have the star sign of Taurus. Here is my earth doll / earth goddess.
She is, understandably, very angry.
She is outspoken, and brash in her silence. She hackles and is trying desperately to be brave
and to put a message out there. [that hits a nerve, or many nerves. ]
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So I had been very interested in Diana Wymar’s project ‘Tiny Pricks’ on instagram [lots of podcasts and articles scattered around the interweb]. I
relate to how she mentally and emotionally processes the vulgarity of the language of Trump, his misogyny, sexism, racism etc, through the process of hand
stitching his words. While I’m not American I feel viscerally, the massive impact he has on women and minorities in particular. I
think he represents a massive shadow in so much of the world, not just America. His words and attitude has sadly become normalised and the impact of this extends way beyond America.
You just have to think back to not very long ago, when women throughout the world took to the streets to march in anti-Trump rallies. It was not and is not a small matter.
When I think back to this time, not long after he came into power, and how literraly the entire world of women galvanised and marched, I feel as if the anger of my earth goddess doll is, if not justified, at least very understandable.
I had started making a contribution towards the Tiny Prick's project, using perhaps one of his most famous [earlier] quotes, just as a kind of experiment in the process and just because it affects me. a lot.
“You know, I’m automatically attracted
to beautiful – I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I
don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do
anything… Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything” [D. Trump]
So it has been waiting.. to be finished, to be updated, to be sent, to be sat with.. an experiment in the physical processing of language and concepts and all the weight they carry. .
subversive stitching
So as it happened, in stitching the above D.T. words, and then subsequently making my earth goddess [not yet finished] , they inevitably came together. Not exactly 'nicely' but certainly 'poetically'
Below the doll, I have stitched 'a very sacred space' and I have a collection of words to put below that, somehow.. [above you can see the start of the idea typed onto the image]
I am working on all these bits and pieces and how to stitch them, and myself, together.
To go back a bit.. as I was saying, I started making the Donald Trump piece.. at the same time, I spent many hours making this gift .
Again, very opposing sentiments and creative processes. Ironic in hindsight.
So. I got hit
right in the gut by a certain experience relating to this world and its
ripples and associations.. specifically the gutters where a certain type of porn swims...
How massive this 'world' is and how devestating and dangerous its impact is on so many facets of life for millions of people, especially women, across every possible sector of society.
How much better and superior and healthy this is and THIS. ??
Anyway , so as a result [art heals!] I started making my earth doll into this ‘posed’ reclining figure
of a woman. I felt that while making this goddess, a celebration of feminity, I was forced to contemplate this, [in my view] utterly repulsive whole world of hard porn
and how it denegrates the very fibre of our social consciousness and degrades and
disempowers women, on so many levels, this all now far more close to home that I would ever have dreamed.
I am now seriously terrified about the very real threat of our kids entering this world without even knowing what they are finding and seeing.. scary.
It makes me soo angry, that this selfish [adult] mass addiction is so liberally available as to literally offer it on a plate to our children.
My goddess figure is anatomically exaggerated: breasts, ovaries, etc, I have made her cut open to reveal
‘something’. She feels complicated, layered, beautiful through her scars and
imperfections. The opposite of airbrushed fakes, or some smutty car magazine with 'brainless' girls draped all over chunks of metal.
She definitely needs a tattoo on her arm, some jewels, a face and hair. She will be ALL SEEN the way she is, angry or not. She has every right.
I like this version of a goddess. I doubt she'd be hired for the porn industry. Thats at least something to be grateful for! Thanks Tom and Kathleen! Nice humans... dont you think? He seems to like his wife.
---------------------------------------- and we couldn't end, without a bit of an intro / insight down the rabbit hole of this world that harms and destroys so many lives, for the superficial temporary selfish pleasure of a those who are unable to honestly enter into a real human respectful authentic relationship.
There are so many devestating strands that run from this mostly male made construct.
human trafficking
multi million dollar industries
How Porn impacts women in our society
PORNHUB is itself a 97billion dollar industry, relies heavily on human traficking to support its online porn business. It is the biggest free porn website, 10 times the size of Hollywood
Here - "Dr. Mahri Irvine, Adjunct Professional Lecturer at American University said, “I really wish that people who watch porn knew more about that.
Because I think they believe that they’re engaging in this activity in a
very passive way. And they’re like, ‘Oh, I’m doing it in the privacy of
my own home and this is just a video that I’m watching’. And they’re
not associating it with the fact that pornography is very often the
filmed rape of sex trafficking victims.” "
Increase in trafficing and use of minors in porn during lockdown
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Maybe when I am finished making my brazen earth goddess, I will feel a little bit better... for now I will listen to Tom Waits. He's sober, a musician and a poet and an artist and a husband and a dad. Those are obviously his [more healthy] priorities.
