Soteria Canada

This is what we are going to do. We’re going to access some of the healing fund money from the Residential school settlement and build the first aboriginal run soteria house here in Saskatchewan. It will be an octagonal structure in a rural area with various places for people to hang out. It will have one room made JUST for destroying things for when people get into the first destructive aspect of psychosis. And there will be other areas too, a snoezelen room for people to just experience their senses, an art room with 24 hour access, a library/internet learning room, a place for people to learn languages, religion, art practices, whatever they want. No one specific truth will be imposed on the people who go there, it’s all about them and letting them become who they are even if/when they make mistakes on the way. And I’m not letting any “traditional” methods of healing take precendence, irregardless of what culture they come from, this uses everything that the person wants to explore. There isn’t any “wrong” way for people to go through there experience, the staff are there mainly in a serving capability, cooking and cleaning and guiding people away from self harm. And no fucking psychiatrists, they can bugger off. And I don’t know that I want the staff to only ever want to work in that job, I think it’s better as a job where people do it for a few years and move on to other things. And if someone working there is being abusive to the clients, they are fired immediately, no second chances.

And I also think that after the first one gets off the ground, we can start building other places across Canada, and maybe the world. I don’t intend for this idea to be owned by only one tribe or region. But there are specifications that I’m still working out. And people can come by and hang out and teach their own skills to people there if they want, but no frickin’ programming and no telling anyone that they’re bad or hopelessly fucked up.

There Is My People Sleeping

Poem by Marion Sarain Stump

And there is my people sleeping since a long time but aren’t just dreams the old cars without engine parking in front of the house or angry words ordering peace of mind or who steals from you for your good and doesn’t wanna remember what he owes you sometimes I’d like to fall asleep too, close my eyes on everything but I can’t I can’t it’s with terror, sometimes that i hear them calling me but it’s the light skip of a cougar detaching me from the ground to leave me alone with my crazy power till I reach the sun makers and find myself again in a new place he goes away very far away without anybody on his tail teeth of snake, birds’s wings the shaman goes far away gotta be the best at the ball game and hunt something every time i go for a walk put together a few wise words in front of the elder ones all because she smiled at me and her father said he ain’t gonna give her to who’s not a man I heard them talking about her with love in their minds I have seen them start their dances to call her out great names I heard in the dark of the night but a name can’t steal the bear’s child to the homeless man nobody sews his mocassins all he had was a cedar flute who could guess that with that one he’d call her and she’d run to him? now he’s a bear and the little bears of spring call him ‘father’ I had to see her heart to have her had to see his heart to have him with a south horse I came at the scalp dance with two little bones I lost all I had and still I was rich then a cow right on top of the hill and it was all over seven men on the rock upon the house the deadman’s head is laughing at my mistakes lazy flyin’ of crows in the sky brings me away in a returnless run like red leaves carried by the autumn wind with an iron blade I was trying to write on rock hearts hoping to see them laugh hoping to see them cry I was mixing stars and sand in front of him but he couldn’t understand I was keeping the lightning of the thunder in my purse just in front of him but he couldn’t understand and I had been killed a thousand times right at his feet but he hadn’t understood little traces in my mind brought me back where I was born and there wasn’t any explanation just my back shook at the crying of my dying mother.

Without a doubt my favorite fan vid

This is Absolutely Fabulous set to Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny by Lemon Demon, a very funny song to a very silly show. Yeh, brit comedies, yeh.

Oh yeah, I had the funniest thing in the mail, it was an invitation to a BDSM workshop called “Everything I Need to Know I Learnt in the Dungeon,” and some other workshops on corporal punishment and flogging. Too cute. I’d like to think I learned in other places though. As Margaret Cho’s mother says, you must have moderation otherwise it’s not special anymore.

Weird Dog

Oh crap, I said I wasn’t going to look at the news and then I did. Bugger. Well, that’s okay, I’m still trying to deal with all of this on an internal level, but I was always talking politics anyway.

And if I don’t talk politics you’ll think something’s wrong with me!

Whatever. I actually am just trying to sort out my head, and it’s going well. I’m sleepy again, recharging which is nice. I like sleep. And hot baths. My dog tried to steal money from me again, and I have the photo evidence!! What a weird dog.

Yvette Fielding a la Jennifer Saunders

This is for my favorite cousin who has a titch of a Yvette Fielding thing going on but it’s cute.

Scientific Harrassment by Pharmaceutical Companies

Big Pharma is terrorizing scientists.

By the way, does anyone have a listing of who owns stock in the major Pharmaceutical companies? This might help shed light on this tricky situation. Note that this story is from 2000, this isn’t just coming to light now.

Nonduality

I just want to say one thing, which I won’t go into detail about right now, is that I think it’s time we move towards nonduality, which doesn’t mean “sameness” but does mean incorporating both “light” and “dark” aspects in a healthy way. I think any kind of Absolute can miss out on truth. For instance, something which is all light and doesn’t know anything about darkness can get hurt or mislead easily, it’s too trusting. And it’s the same with darkness, if it doesn’t know anything about light it can be really dumb. And I’m not talking about any particular race or gender or anything, I’m just talking about this in an abstract conceptual sense.

Once a friend of mine said to me “What is wrong with us? We want to prise up the rock and look underneath.”

It’s true though, I think sometimes you HAVE to look under the rock to see what’s going on over there, and if it has any relevance on what you’re doing over here, and if you’re doing the same thing even. And sometimes things under the rock aren’t so bad either, just different.

Being diagnosed manic depressive was fucked up, because no matter which way I went people pathologized it. If I was sad it was always “Oh no, she’ll kill herself” and if I was happy it was always “Oh crap, and now she’s going manic.” And the irony was that it sometimes seemed to be when I had an equilibrium that people got worried. Same with my race, and my gender, etc. Anytime someone says that something is pure or purity is good I get grossed out, whether it’s white supremacists or native activists or feminists or whoever. It denotes this idea of singularity which no one can ever achieve, or if they can I don’t want to know them. And I mean single AND separate/superior, not ideas of Oneness, which is really nonduality and something entirely different.

I don’t think our planet is evolving towards the triumph of good over evil, or vice versa. I think our planet is moving towards a unity between two poles, and a lot of other people think so as well. What that will look like I don’t know, and I’m not willing to hazard a guess either. I think it will eventually resolve issues of violence, since suddenly there won’t be any such thing as “sides.” There is no side. I don’t think it will be boring though. People will still be complex little creatures, we won’t be friggin’ pod people or anything. And I think we’ll still debate and disagree, but I don’t think it will be with the same vehemence, I think it will be more like learning. And ideas around power will change. Already a lot of intellectual/artistic type people are abandoning this corporate exchange in ideas, I think people should be paid for their work, but I also think there’s something insideous about trying to control information. I remember when everyone was happy, the internet was the Information Superhighway and we were going to have revolutionized lives. And now certain people are like “Fuck! The internet is a goddamn Information Superhighway and my kid’s been hitchhiking!” Lots of people are panicking because information is accessible in a way never before seen in human history. Look at porn laws, blogging laws being drafted, attempts to create geographical boundaries in Cyberspace, shutting down Napster and other P2P file sharing systems. Not all of it is about intellectual property laws.

I was reading in The Politics of Jesus that the main crucial difference between him and his followers was that he was literate, which was still a rare thing back then. I don’t think only literate people are worthwhile, but being fluent in ideas does give an advantage. Even cultures without writing systems had very advanced ideas being exchanged through oral storytelling, which is why eliminating Native languages was the number one priority of the colonizers. In other places this has been book burning, outlawing certain thoughts even as “treason.” The Patriot Act itself is a giant muzzle law, and here in Canada the residential school claimants are forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement and state that additional charges will not be brought against the government. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Bush has begun to institute “mental health screening” for every citizen.

In an interview for Medulla, Bjork said “You know, its ironic that just at the point the lawyers and the businessmen had calculated how to control music, the internet comes along and fucks everything up.” Bjork gives the finger again, this time waving it into the air. “God bless the internet,” she adds.

“I’ll still be there, waving a pirate flag.”

Mad In America

If you don’t want to read the amazing book Mad In America by Robert Whitaker, at least read Psychiatric Drugs: Chemical Warfare on Humans where he covers some of the salient points including the INCREASE in mental illness related disability involved in using psych meds.

Addendum:
A new study shows experts involved in defining mental illness according to the DSM are paid for by the Pharmaceutical companies. (I hope you’re following this money trail with me).

True Forms

I think one of the scariest things when I went to the hospital was that I could briefly see people’s true form, and so during my time in emergency I recognized two workers as Nazi’s from a past life, I don’t remember what they were doing in the last life, but I could see them really clearly, and I could recognize that they were only attracted to the job because it utilized the same power structure as the camps. They got to order us around and stay in the relative safety of the nurses station. It was so horrifying, and then people kept wondering why I was so upset with where they put me.

I remember I kept trying to get transfered to Jewish General, because a native friend of mine had seen a psychiatrist there who knew that aboriginal people commonly see spirits. I knew it would be a safer place for me to be, but they refused to transfer me out. It was so frustrating. And I had to renounce everything I knew to be true in order to get out, so frustrating.

People still sometimes recommend taking people in spiritual emergency to psychiatric wards and I would have to say DON’T FUCKING DO IT! You have no idea what power installed those structures. I think we need to make safe houses OUTSIDE of psychiatry, I don’t think the dominant medical model knows how to take care of people, in fact I know they don’t. People are really naive about the darkness. And that’s the problem with living in a polarity structure, light and dark can be used interchangably, and people can get confused really easily. Look at any fundamentalist religion. Psychiatry itself is also a fundamentalism, it’s horribly resistant to new ideas, even new ideas which work.

I think right now I’m attracted to Buddhism over other spiritual practices, but mostly because it’s based in a scientific method. I mean, Buddha didn’t try to explain other worlds too too much, he just lay out a map for enlightenment. He even said he didn’t want to because he would be disappointed. It’s more of a spiritual experiment, like an empty vessel, and people tend to find the same place if they follow the parameters. But even so, once you get deeper into it Buddhist teachers do talk about all the other things.

I suppose you might wonder why I’m not following aboriginal spirituality completely, and I can explain why. A lot of colonialism instilled very fundamentalist christian ideology into native spirituality and wrapped it up in a “Traditional” package. I’ve heard all kinds of bizarre “truths” which I tend to dismiss just based on my own critical thinking. Either way, it’s very hard to find a spiritual advisor who’s coming from aboriginal spirituality who isn’t tainted with colonialist interferance. Not to say they don’t exist, there are people who kept it going, but you have to be aware enough to tell the difference. Plus some spiritual leaders teaching tainted knowledge get pissy if you tell them it’s bunk.

My cousin is being used as a psych med guinea pig. He was stabilized on a medication sort of so they thought they would put him in a drug study for a new injectable. He’s been in nearly every drug study that comes along. He’s really messed up from it, his eyes are wide in horror all the time, it’s hideous. And the family is still naive enough to believe Canada’s medical system actually cares about the sanity of an aboriginal man. I’m worried he’s slipping into akathisia and is going to hurt someone or himself. But I feel so helpless, no one will listen to me anyway.

Oh yes, and currently I am listening to Bjork’s Medulla album, which doesn’t make any sense if you’re not in the right frame of mind yet, but it has all kinds of really useful chants and throat singing. She’s got a new one coming out in May. Ancestors is my favorite song right now. I’m also attracted to octagonal structures these days, which is interesting because not only is it the same shape as the Mayan calendar, but it’s also the same shape as magnetite crystals in the brain and there has even been a recent discovery that DNA can transform into an octahedron form.

Gentler

This is a lot nicer and gentler than I expected, still kind of strange. I resolved the sleep issue by doing a sort of clearing/protection thing in my bedroom, which doesn’t take long and keeps things from bothering me and waking me up. I had the best sleep last night, I didn’t feel scared. And I’m starting to hear the ocean, like once in a while, it just shows up, which is pretty common for people in this experience. I’m also feeling this cool breeze sometimes, out of nowhere, it’s like the breeze you’d find in a cherry tree. I think the worst physical symptom recently was when my eyes were burning and watery, but it’s gone away. Still, that granthi knot thing took about a week to totally resolve, and I thought it was gone a few times and it came back.

I guess, I’m only telling the physical side of it really, because that’s all people will see when they look at me, so that’s all you’re getting. I did get a rash again, but it’s going away and I think I know what it’s related to.

I was listening to this scientist who studied neurology and mystical states and he says there are magnetite crystals in the brain, like just particles here and there like all other cellular systems. And he said that people ascending sometimes have problems because they go for electrical energy and it’s supposed to be using magnetic energy. So I don’t know much about magnets, except from playing with them and watching the northern lights. But maybe I’ll look into how they work more. I do know when too much electrical energy is in my body it messes me up, I get confused and things start to happen that shouldn’t. But I’ve never paid attention to magnetic energy, I don’t even really know what it feels like.

I’m thinking of going for a tour of the Synchrotron. It’s a sub atomic particle accelerator here in Saskatoon, for all I know one of my old classmates might work there. If I go I will bring back pictures.