Changing Our Story

restoring/ re-storying the mother

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was Love and the Word was All Good. The beginning of separation was the story of good vs. evil. That story destroyed/ de-storyed the mother. It spelled the end of sovereignty, and put us under the spell of judgment. After four millennia of empire, it’s time for that story to change.

We are the first century in Western civilization to take for granted that slavery is wrong. We’re the first generation in Judeo-Christianity to believe that women are equal. We celebrate the beauty of bodies and skins and cultures. Never has it been more acceptable to think for ourselves about religion. Why let that go to waste?

The opposite of judgment is love. To love someone is to see them as they really are, beneath the surface, giving credit for their best intentions. It’s a mother’s-eye view.

In the last episode, I looked at the economic system and how money is a story of superiority. In this episode, I look at how to change that story. I start with Caitlin Johnstone on controlling the narrative. I convey Mary McLaughlin's journey from liberal to outcast, and how it changed her view of 'the other side.' From Tonika, The Alchemist talks about soul contracts as dimensions of our self that change with each person, and how a true friend is one where you like the dimension they bring out in you. I tell a story of my embodied life friends and connecting them with you, my spirit life friends. I end with a quote from Nefahotep on love as bigger than loss. And throughout, I’ve scattered Amy’s poetry-made-visual and memes from Heather B, some of which made me cry laughing, while others made me tear up for other reasons.

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writing our own narrative

Mere facts and logic don’t illuminate the imagination. Before ‘illuminate’, I tried out ‘capture,’ ‘compel,’ ‘captivate’ and even ‘engage,’ with the same root as mortgage or death pledge. Our narratives are already controlled even by the words we have available to write our story. They corral us into metaphors of force, coercion, captivity, and black and white contracts that fork over (and fuck over) our lives.

Okay, how crazy is this? I just wrote those words and Kathleen Devanney posted this:

Captured Imagination

Kathleen writes:

The thing with an invisible prison system is you don’t know you’re in it. It’s been operating so long now that generations have been born into it; we see the world through the lens of confinement from the get-go, while being told we are free. We had no way of knowing that the capture of our world required the capture of our imagination and its subsequent steering.

Those who run the global penitentiary narrate everything—from our history to our future, they provide rules of operation, define key terms like freedom and democracy, tell us who the enemies are, what and where the threats lie, and how ‘good’ inmates citizens behave.

Over time this morphs into deep acceptance; the everyone knows stuff that doesn’t get questioned.

Perfect accompaniment to my point.

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toxic narratives

Our story is being written for us with every media soundbyte. Caitlin Johnstone commented on a conversation between Mitt Romney and Antony Blinken where they admit that Israel is losing the PR war and blame it on TikTok:

Notice how he said the word “narrative” three times? That’s how empire managers talk to each other, because that’s how they think about everything.

This is because empire managers are always acutely aware of something that normal human beings are not: that real power comes from manipulating the stories — narratives — that people tell themselves about their reality. 

They understand that humans are storytelling animals whose inner lives are typically dominated by mental narratives about what’s happening, so if you can control those narratives, you can control the humans.

They understand that power is controlling what happens, but true power is controlling what people think about what happens. 

They understand that whoever controls the narrative controls the world.

The story of superiority is how I define toxic masculinity. It’s time to break up with it.

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rules of disengagement

In a beautiful and vulnerable post, Mary McLaughlin wrote “I’m tempted to title this “By God, I Hate Facebook”

I'm tempted to title this "By God, I Hate Facebook"

The irony of Mary’s title will be evident by the end. She begins by talking about her ambivalence on the BlueEff, as she calls it, and describes looking at the thinly veiled ‘humble brags’ of friends and thinking, “Why them and not me? Okay, I did raise three kids but that’s no excuse!” Since envy is my go-to deadly sin, I totally relate.

But she needed a swim schedule for the local Y and thought she could do a cobra strike—in and out in a flash. But there was that super-nice guy from acting class with his super-nice wife, and what could it hurt to see what he was up to? She clicked and his latest post was about Trump, saying, “I just don’t get the appeal. Any thoughts?” followed by a stream of responses ridiculing Trump supporters, to which he responded, “Sounds about right”.

Then Mary tells her journey of being someone who secretly thought the same way, if more politely, before becoming one of those ridiculed and cast out as an anti-vaxxer. The one woman who listened without judgment and became a true friend was someone she’d once shunned as a Trump supporter.

As always, Mary tells a nuanced story that should be read directly—you won’t regret clicking that link. She includes a quote from Matt Taibbi’s book, Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another (2019):

“…what most people think of as ‘the news’ is, in fact, a twisted wing of the entertainment business… In the Internet age, the press have mastered the art of monetizing anger, paranoia, and distrust.”

And then she lists the ten aspects of manufactured hate that Taibbi identifies:

1. There are only two ideas

2. The two ideas are in permanent conflict

3. Hate people, not institutions

4. Everything is someone else’s fault

5. Nothing is everyone’s fault

6. Root, don’t think

7. No switching teams

8. The other side is literally Hitler

9. In the fight against Hitler, everything is permitted

10. Feel superior

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soul contracts & inner dimensions

But the BlueEff, in Instagram form, also gives us gems like this, recommended by Tonika of Visceral Adventures:

the.alchemist

A post shared by @the.alchemist

This is so short I’ve watched it a half-dozen times. Her point is that we are different people with everyone, not because we’re fake, but because they bring out a different dimension of ourselves. Soul contracts aren’t about who you’ll marry, but about what dimensions come into being with someone else’s. A true friend is when you like the dimension of yourself that person reflects back to you. For all my true friends, from my true friend Heather:

And for those of us deciphering words:

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exercise your demons

A couple of those true friends showed up at my garaj mahal the night of the aurora and stayed until 1 am. A night of debauchery and drinking? Only if you count kombucha and calisthenics. When my dance teacher, Gina, lived there during the lockdown she spent her stimulus check on a one-ton stairmaster. It didn’t move out. So this lures her back when she needs to exercise her demons after the gyms have closed, along with Lisa, with whom she now lives. They can be described like this:

At the time, I was preparing this post and had up the AI image from Amy. They gawked and couldn’t get over how beautiful it was. I showed them my first Amy post, I Mage a Nation. They gasped and exclaimed at every one. Then I went to Amy’s stack, I Am Here for It, Whatever It Is. We went through AI extravaganzas and they were chockful of wonder. “Go back, go back, let me look at that one.” Shock and awe of the beautystruck variety.

“She’s really your friend?” they said incredulously. “Isn’t she famous? She gives these away for free, along with the prompts on how to do it? She should be rich selling these!” And “She’s so funny!” Looking up the Bing program, they confirmed that Amy’s art is more totally awesome than the examples Bing provides.

Before dance claimed her, Gina was an art student. Already they’re digging in, using Amy’s prompts as a starting point and dropping in new elements. So for those who’ve heard my Worldanz stories, the admiration goes both ways. And here are three from Amy’s recent post, with her poetic descriptors:

One Day There Was A Mystic There, Evaporating Into The Air

All That Finery

And describing Amy, Strength and Vulnerability: A Cosmic Journey

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a little spark of madness

I mentioned to Nefahotep, who wished me a happy mother’s day, that my daughters were down his way for the memorial for their uncle, about whom I’d written The Detritus of a Life. Nef answered about love:

It's what Creates, it's what Sustains, it's what Fulfills and Liberates. Life emanates from it ----- Love is the goal of Being.

Deaths really aren't total; they who pass are always with us. I hope your daughters know deeply that those who are part of our lives are part of a soul family. Those whose presence are here in our lives are here by no accident, nor random happenstance. Life is deliberate, they choose to come here with the Immortal will. When knowing becomes deep, pain of loss can turn to Light. 🙏

For my brother-in-law, Luis, I’m grateful to have had his spark of madness in my life. Thank you all for being part of my soul family. Or as Heather’s meme says, my tribe of weirdos.

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My brother-in-law, Luis Moreno, died last Wednesday. I look at the essence of his particular brand of life and ask my daughter's question, "What do you want me to do on the day you die?”

Conjuring your i-land in a mind without borders, this episode is how to mage our heartlands into existence. Uses Sane Francisco's 50 Shades of Beige, What's in a Name, Really? for the AI Extravaganza, Victory Palace on ImageNation: the Only Nation, Charles Upton on Can AI Write Poetry? and Gavin Mounsey on nature as the oldest scripture.

Six Levels of Reality

Responds to Russell Brand's interview of Jeremy by applying Lee Camp's Four Levels of Reality and adding two more. Expands on Jeremy's ideological critique of education by citing John Taylor Gatto on mass compulsory schooling as mental colonization. Answers the title, "Is There Any Point to Left-Wing Politics?" by defining left vs. right as need vs. greed, with neither representing a system of reciprocity. Questions whether politics even exists, rather than the 'personalitics' of a popularity contest.