Traditional Native American Teepee Ceremonies and Other Things I am no Longer Curious About

look I'm a sweet innocent little flower

This past weekend I had (in retrospect we'll call it) the enlightening experience of attending a Traditional Native American Teepee Ceremony.My dear friend Mary, though caucasian and hailing from European ancestry, found her way to the "red road" many years ago. Her beliefs align beautifully with those espoused in native american spirituality and now she and her Navajo husband are very involved in their community. They are, without a doubt, two of the most beautiful people I know and that beauty shines from the inside. They practice what they preach and have always greeted my curiosity about their (for lack of a better word) religion with answered questions and invitations to any experiences they thought would be a good fit for me. I've been to sweat lodges in the branch-framed blanket covered lodge in their yard and absolutely loved the experience. I'd been hearing about the "teepee" for a long time and these mystical ceremonies where they stay up all night, sing prayers, eat medicine, and commune with Creator. Obviously I wanted to go to one desperately! Below is my account of my time there. 


Let me say immediately to anyone who happens upon my blog and reads this harrowing neurotic tale that I would never tell anyone not to do this. For the lovely people who were there it was truly a special time. I use my blog to journal and though it is public there really aren't too many people who care enough about my inner thoughts to read it but just in case you have been randomly lead here and you have the opportunity to go to a teepee ceremony please don't pass up the experience based on my account. It was just....not for me. I will use an * to denote the things which are triggers for me that lead to the "panic" attack I began to have but recovered from. There are a lot so in retrospect I guess its amazing that I held my shit together for as long as I did.


The Lead Up

I woke up Saturday morning already exhausted. I cleaned my house until 10am at which point my newest class of birth ed students arrived. I taught until 2pm, napped for one hour, during which time my stomach was churning. I'd been having bad thoughts about it all week and continually told myself I was being ridiculous. I was going to support Mary. It would be an anthropological adventure.I was at Mary's by 4:30 for a 5pm departure. Mary couldn't find her box. If I had to hear Mary say "I can't find my box" or ask her son to "help me find my box" or call her husband on the phone to ask "have you seen my box?" one more time the 12 year old boy in me would have exploded in "hahaha she said BOX" laughter. Mary's box is actually chock full of the things she needs for ceremonies and was therefore crucial to the event and had to be found. It took an hour but was found hidden on a high shelf in a back closet of a back room between Parcheesi and Mousetrap. Seems like a perfectly reasonable to place to put one's box (tee hee).

The ceremony was being held in a small park in the south Bronx. On the way there I found out several things which rather than quiet the little voice in my head that did not want to go, made it louder. Originally it was a women's only event but now there would be men in the teepee too *. We were not taking Ayahuasca which I'd mentally prepared myself for we were taking peyote *. Found out Mary's husband just went there to set up the teepee and would not be there for the ceremony * as he had to go home and be with their new puppy. I know its not very "feminist " of me but he would have been the only man there that I knew and he always makes me feel comfortable at these things. Also I did not have the appropriate attire as I really didn't know what I was walking in to *.

I had no idea where I was *. The south Bronx is as scary and weird as it appears in movies. I don't like not knowing where I am and in a city theres no stars and barely a sunset to orient one's self by. I don't like not having escape routes.

The Teepee

The teepee was erected in a cool little permaculture park built and maintained by the community for the community. The teepee was really amazing. I spent a lot of time walking around it and seeing how it was put together. I helped lay down a semi-circle of flowers with another woman who was wearing an awesome skirt and had one of those voices where she is really soft-spoken, sweet, and childlike - which annoys the fuck out of me.

I got the run-down on the ridiculous number of rules right before going in * by a woman named Cat who Mary asked to look out for me because she couldn't sit with me * and had lots of things to do as the ceremony was for her and said "you're good with women named "cat". Cat is a total "love and light" modern hippie who seems to flit around from even to event working with masters, eating medicine, and communing with her spirits and ancestors and....inadvertently causing me to feel like everything I said was not from a cosmic enough perspective *.

The fire and the alter set up were also very cool though I doubt they'd call it an altar. They have a different way of looking at it and different names for it but the phallus pointing directly to the yoni through a heart of fire was very obvious to me and gave me the "we are all one" warm fuzzies for about 5 minutes and then they closed the "door". (duhn, duhn, DUHN)

The fire, which in and of itself was done in a really cool way, was of green cedar and smoked a lot. My eyes began to water instantly and continued to water, sometimes in a full pour like I was sobbing, for the next 6 hours. * Same with my nose *. I developed a headache across my entire forehead *. My ears clogged up and were in a constant crackling noisy state *. I ran out of tissues well before midnight. 

We were permitted to sit only "indian" style or on our knees. Having terrible circulation I often opt to sit on the floor when I'm going to be sitting for a long time but that is because on the floor I can change between lots of positions as frequently as I want and not disturb those around me. Here: everyone was on the floor. I needed to put my feet straight out every few minutes to get the pins and needles to go away. I was told not to do that * because I might trip people walking around the fire. There was at least 4 feet between my shoes (which I wasn't allowed to take off and made me go numb faster) and the safe zone before the fire. Mary's son was laying down to sleep right near to me and having had a recent growth spurt is now taller than me and no one said anything about his feet. Mary's partner Yao (who's full name is long and has lots of q's and z's in it) 's son was laying next to me and as soon as he fell asleep he curled around me and stole my coat as pillow and blanket which I would normally be fine with but every time I moved or shifted he shifted into a position which further limited my movement. * and took over more of the small amount of space I had to sit in. *.

They used a water drum which was also a "poverty as ingenuity" really cool thing. An old kettle (re:cauldron) filled with water with the bottom of a hollowed out gourd upside-down floating on the water and being beaten with a wooden spoon shaped thing covered in something soft. It was very loud. Set at a fast tempo and relentless * for the entire night except for a short time here and there and the hour the medicine woman spent talking.

The chanting started off moving and beautiful. A few of the songs I recognized bits of from hearing Mary sing them in the sweat lodge before but 95% I didn't know and were sung in spanish or a variety of native american and ancient mexican languages. Nice at first... frustrating after hours and hours. Cat kept pressing me to sing something *.

The Peyote

They sent round the peyote. First a tea which I would never choose to drink on purpose but wasn't, compared to what would come next, that terrible. Then peyote buttons which were unfortunately the one type of food consistency that I have a visceral reaction to. Spongy *. Like scallops. We were told we had to eat whatever we took. I took two. Then came the powder. Imagine putting a teaspoon of hot pepper in the pocket of your cheek and being told to slowly use your saliva to moisten and swallow it. Except instead of hot it was the most disgustingly bitter thing ever. I talked to the peyote as instructed, and really did it with all my heart. I asked for it to show me something good, but something that I needed to see. After I choked down the powder by sheer force of will I slowly nibbled at the buttons again willing myself to swallow each piece. The live peyote cactus plants were about the diameter of a dollar coin but as thick as a finger. I made deals with myself about never doing it again if I could just get through it. I got through half of one before my gorge would rise every time I tried to swallow another piece. I hid the rest of the button and the one I hadn't even started in my herb bag. - Oh, I'd explained to Mary via text earlier that day that I absolutely loath being nauseated. Possibly because I have spent so much of my adult life on medications that made me nauseated all the time. I just turn into a giant baby. I asked if I could smoke herb to help with the nausea or would that be frowned on and she said it would be a good idea. So I brought it. In the car on the way there I found out she misunderstood me somehow and that no I would not be able to do that. *.

this is NOT what I experienced

I waited and waited. I stared into the fire. I tried to feel what they were singing about. It took a long time to feel anything. I could tell people around me were beginning to feel the effects. Eventually I started to feel the nausea * and thought the good part would start soon. But it never did. Cat told me "welcome it and open up and allow it to spread out through my body" *. (because thats exactly what you want to do with nausea...spread it!) I couldn't do any of the things I normally do to cope with the nausea * mostly lay down and use hypnosis. By 11 pm I realized I probably didn't eat enough of it and that I was in for a long night of waiting.

Getting Well

When people throw up from the peyote they just lean over and vomit right in front of them. Some guy comes over with a shovel full of dirt, puts it on the vomit, and then shovels it up and takes it outside. They call it "getting well". I was like - you're kidding right? You eat poison....and then when you throw it up and you call it "getting well"!? But I"m just being sarcastic, I know what they mean on an esoteric level. The "medicine" is helping you purge bad things from your body. So there were people puking getting well every once in a while or going outside to puke get well into a hole that was dug for that purpose. Somehow I could hear the heaving and the splash sounds * as it hit the dirt even through the drumming and chanting.

Everyone was getting high on the chanting but I had no idea what was being said. They passed around the peyote again. I accidentally poured too much of the tea because I couldn't see into the cup. It was the dregs. After a sip my body said no way no more. I turned to Cat and said I couldn't finish it. She said I had to in a way that brooked no argument. * Somehow I did. I didn't take anymore powder or buttons.

At 1am I went out to pee just to get a break. I felt SO much better outside. My eyes stop streaming, my headache eased. We were supposed to be praying in there. I hadn't managed two thoughts together the whole night let alone a prayer. Outside I could finally formulate the evenings intention in my head and enjoy the chanting and send that prayer off mindfully. After a few minutes people came looking for me one after another * telling me I was only supposed to go out for 4 songs (each person who chanted sings 4 songs 4 times). I resigned myself to going back in *. Imagine the walk of someone returning to their jail cell - that was me.

More time passed. I had begun checking my phone for the time very clandestinely starting at around 11pm. I was doing well coping at first but I swear to the gods it took an hour to go from 2am to 2:06am *. It was then that I began to lose it. I was getting angry. I wanted out. I have a tendency to put myself in or allow myself to be brought in to situations that make me miserable. I just do it. I do it for the other person, or because it would be rude or wrong to leave or bail. I just do it and I'm miserable but I am there for someone else so I stay. There was no reason for me to continue putting myself through this. I wasn't experiencing anything remotely positive. I was certainly not helping with the prayers etc. I sort of heard my mother in my head. If I called her now and told her what was going on what would she say? She would say "who gives a shit about these people GET OUT" and I realized that that was what I needed to do. (THAT was my big revelation)

I crawled over to Mary and told her what I was feeling and she (was so high) said that it was the medicine making me feel that way * and that I should give what I was feeling to the fire *. Those get asterisks because it was like being a sane person in an asylum and trying to make someone understand that you're really not supposed to be there and then they inform you that there are no exits and cackle as they run down the fluorescent lit hallway smearing their poop on the walls. She asked what I was panicking from and I didn't at that point have the self understanding that it was because I felt trapped. She said it was "just like a birth". The long hard slog up to the end that makes it all worth it and we were still in the slog. I said - I can do a birth. I have a purpose. I am caring for someone else and I"m not so completely physically miserable. I crawled back to my spot and I started to cry in earnest. I had been using my shawl to block some of the heat and smoke from my eyes and I just hid behind it and rocked back and forth like a crazy person to comfort myself. Now a resident of the asylum.

Mary crawled to me a little bit later and said that soon we would be doing the water ceremony and to please stay and take water with them and that then she would ask the medicine woman to "cedar" me and I could go out.

The Liberation

I clung to that promise like a lifeline. The water went around which did actually help a great deal and instantly. Unfortunately the effects were very short lived (liken it to drinking Podling essence instead of Gelfling essence) .

I thought my liberation was coming soon. Then the medicine woman began to talk. She talked FOR AN HOUR. *. I got increasingly angry and pathetic in turns. I was trying so hard to stay and be respectful and not be a burden on Mary or offend the really amazing and sincere medicine woman who they flew in from Mexico just for this teepee. I just wanted to remove myself from the situation. She talked about all these great universal things that I'm sure I needed to hear but I had no ability to really take it in.

Finally she was done talking and they were about to pass the peyote again and Mary looked at me and I guess she could see it in my face but she told the medicine woman I needed out. I quickly shoved my backpack out under the tent wall which Cat didn't notice. I tried to shove my coat out to but she stopped me and told me to take it with me (some hooey about the energy oye!) I had to walk around the whole tent in my walk of shame to get out.

There are rules about when and where and in which direction you can walk depending on what is going on but they seem to countermand each other so often I couldn't make sense of which thing took precedence. In witchcraft we have something similar but WAY easier and certainly more consistent. I went outside. waited for them to close the teepee door and then ran around the teepee to where my bag was, grabbed it, and walked as far away from the teepee as I could get. I yanked off the voluminous skirt I was wearing (had sweatpants underneath), zipped up my coat, and pulled the hood up as it was comparatively to the hot tent - FREEZING outside. I called my husband again and again * until he picked up. I told him what was going on. I cried to him how much I wanted to come home. We looked up nearby subways but walking around the south bronx at 3:30am by my little, white, female, self was ill advised. I walked around the perimeter of the gated park trying to find a way out but everything was locked up. They locked us inside for our own protection and wouldn't open them until morning. (I later found out that the fire keeper had a key! but they wouldn't have given someone medicine and then let them out anyway no matter how completely sober I felt) I was freaking out. Caged animal. Trying to get through the gates, pulling on the bottoms of the chain link fence sections hoping one was loose enough to crawl under. I couldn't climb over because I was wearing Ugg type shoes and couldn't get any purchase in the chain link without taking them off. I was so desperate to get out of there but didn't want to hurt my feet climbing over or rip my coat shimmying under. Thats how I knew I was calming down too. Was that I was ruling these things out. Had I been really nuts (or been being chased by zombies or something) I wouldn't have cared what I ripped or injured. I stayed on the phone or texted with my husband for a half an hour or so. He was going to be there at 8:30am (when I was told the gates would be unlocked) to pick me up. A promise that was keeping me calm.

I read by the light of the streetlamps but couldn't concentrate and then used my hypnosis techniques to calm me into resting. Just when I started to nod off Mary came out to check on me. this was about 5:30 she still insisted it was the medicine. I insisted I was stone cold sober. It was then she told me they had a key but that she wouldn't want me to go because of the peyote. She said it would be over in an hour at 6:30. Just as I began to relax (and shiver) again the lady with the nice skirt and the voice of a doll came out to encourage me back in side * . I immediately felt the panic rise again and said no thank you.

I called my husband to tell him he didn't need to come. I knew I was being ridiculous. I was still nauseated. It came in waves. I spent 15 minutes literally hugging a willow tree and talking to it which actually helped me greatly. And no, that was not from the peyote either. It didn't talk back. I often talk to trees. I hid behind the willow from the other people when they would come out because I didn't want anyone to talk to me.

As the sun came up I was able to read for a bit but my shivering was getting out of control so I got up and found some plastic bags people had littered and wandered around the park picking up trash. Around 7:30 (an hour later than they said!) they opened the teepee door when I was nearby and began asking me to come in for the closing. I really didn't want to go. I was perfectly happy picking up trash. Finally the message came that it was the medicine woman asking me to come in to finish what I'd started etc. She's the sort of person you don't say no to. Not because she is frightening but because she is so good and grandmotherly (though she's not old enough to be one) and connected to spirit and joy. So I went back in and she made me feel welcome and thanked me for coming back.

They passed around some icey cold corn, fruit, and meat which we took in our hands and scarfed down. Everyone thanked everyone in a "little league "good game good game good game" sort of way which I felt completely underserving to be a part of and we went out. I grabbed my and Mary's stuff and hauled it all to the car.

The medicine woman stopped me on my last trip and looked at me and said "you just wanted to support Mary, you are a good friend. I remember my first teepee, it is hard I know" and hugged me which made me cry a little. I went to Mary's car, locked myself inside and fell asleep.

The Aftermath

It has taken me a couple of days to figure it out but I've got two things now.

• The peyote did talk to me. It had been talking to me all week. It was telling me not to go. I was ignoring it. Listen to my gut.
• That I need to stop torturing myself for other people's comfort. Speak up for myself.

Mary said people often see patterns and turn them into amazing beadwork. I see stuff like this during my meditations and path workings. No peyote necessary. I think I"ll stick with that. 

The Little Ways It Gets You...

Sometimes I have this little fluttering in my womb area. I say "area" because really its probably my intestines and its most likely gas! But man does it feel like a baby kicking and tickling and every time, every fucking time! against all reason, I have that one moment, one millisecond, as fast as thought, where I think theres a baby in there. And then as fast as thought I remember that thats nearly impossible. And I feel the loss all over again.

Why You're Wrong

This post is going to piss off a lot of people. A lot of people I like and care about. But you know what, thats ok, because they're pissing me off. My Facebook feed for the last week has been full of this: (------------------------------------------>)

And I've just about had enough.  Please stop using the arguments 

"when there is a drunk driver we don't blame the car", or  

"when there is a terrorist we don't blame the bomb" etc. because... we do. 

We have lots and lots and lots of laws and safety precautions in place to prevent these things from happening because at some point in the past shit happened and people said - 

"Hey, we can prevent that from happening again if we all agree to do X". 

• Seatbelt laws, 
• airbags, 
• cars that can sense when you've had too much too drink and won't turn on! 

We regulated them (re: we blame them) 

• Police checkpoints on highly celebratory nights. 
• And if you don't follow the rules, 
• if you don't have a license, 
• if your vehicle doesn't pass the permit test, 
• if you don't have insurance, 

You don't get to drive!

We've regulated it. We've enacted laws. We've done our best to make it safer.

Can you drive a tank on the street - NO! Its a fucking weapon! You have to have a 6 foot fence around your pool because a little kid might fall in and drown - thats us regulating the pool. We get nearly strip searched to go on a plane and have our bags checked at amusement parks. I had my breast pump taken apart in Portland for goodness sakes! What the fuck ever happens in Portland besides food poisoning from bad lobster! Suspiciously traveling without a baby - If I had the baby with me I wouldn't have needed the breast pump!!! But I digress... 

The average citizen is not allowed to have a bomb and for obvious reasons. We can get in trouble for even downloading the instructions or buying the ingredients to make a bomb because those things are also not allowed. We regulate that shit. We keep an eye on who does it. (re: we "blame" them) 

To injure or kill yourself or others while drunk driving is horrible but it is an accident. Regardless of what charges they may get brought up on (which have grown more serious over the years in our attempt to curb drunk driving - see, laws and regulations!) The driver didn't intend to cause harm. They did not intend to use their vehicle as a weapon. They're just a fucking idiot. That cannot be said for guns. Guns are weapons. Sure you could say its for sport, or for protection. 

How about I keep a hyena in my living room. I like to race them. Its for sport. Besides  I sleep better at night knowing its there protecting my family. What? Its a dangerous killing machine? I need a permit? I can only play with it at the zoo? You're infringing on my rights!

You may say I'm being hyperbolic but you see I must. Because going to that extreme is the only way to give you an idea of how insane your arguments sound to the rest of us. A gun's sole purpose (re: intention) is to put holes in things! (and make you feel all powerful and like your shlong is a lot bigger than it actually is) When an attack happens we take measures to find the holes in our defenses and fix them so it won't happen (that way) again. 


It takes a permit, a background check, and a waiting period to get :

• marriage licenses, 
• to own certain dogs, 
• or farm animals, 
• to go fishing in a PUBLIC waterway, 
• to put a damned deck on your OWN house, 

and hundreds of other innocuous things and we all just accept and deal with the process. But oh no, not for a gun. When you want something that could be used to slaughter as many people as possible in as short a time as possible you need to have it immediately with no questions asked. 

Whats crazy is I used to be completely on your side. I really was. I didn't get it, the whole gun thing. I didn't like them and wished people didn't have them but I also don't like seafood and wish people didn't have mirrors on the ceilings in their bedrooms. I fight for personal freedoms all the time. I will fight for your freedom to have and do even things I loathe in my very core and I certainly don't want anyone infringing on my own. But you see, like any rational, compassionate person would be, I have been deeply affected by the insane number of mass shootings that occur in our country and your bizarre arguments against ANY laws, or bans, or even just a discussion as to what might work. All you do is reframe weak arguments about how no matte what "its not the gun's fault" trying to make it seem like we're crazy for "blaming" an inanimate object. But its also 

• not the car's fault
• or the pool's fault
• or the deadly chemical's fault
• or the plane's fault
• or the drug's fault
• or the carseat/stroller/playpen/crib's fault

or any number of other potentially deadly inanimate object's fault and yet we have rules, regulations, and precautions, in place to handle them and when those fail we examine what works in other places and we try new ones!

So congrats! your religious fanaticism about guns has disgusted me to such an incredible degree that it has pushed me to the other side. I've never seen so many otherwise intelligent and reasonable people go so black and white on an issue, become so belligerent in their opinion that they ignore everything else.  Reasonable gun laws have and do work in other countries similar to ours. They can work here. There is and has been a blackout on any actual research in this country , the NRA is interested in only one thing and it is NOT your rights And their governments did not immediately turn around and enslave the unarmed populace. And you can still go shoot at the range, or shoot skeet - whatever the hell that is, or shoot some deer, with a permit, in a safe place, and you can still keep your little gun under your bed that makes you feel all safe from the bad guys who are coming to steel your stuff! 


But hear me now; if any of these proposed reasonable measures that have been shot down (pun intended) by gun lovers (heretofore known as sport-slaughter enthusiasts) have the potential to stop EVEN ONE mass shooting, save JUST ONE life it will have been worth it. If you want to argue with that there is no padding it - you ARE saying that your fucked up desire, NOT YOUR RIGHT - NO ONE IS ARGUING ABOUT YOUR RIGHTS, YOUR DESIRE to have free and easy access to weapons that can massacre a room full of people in seconds is more important than that one life. And for you I pull out my favorite meme, you selfish narcissist.

I don't know what the answer is either. But I know for certain that pretending our problem has nothing to do with our nation's obscene love affair with guns - is not just playing dumb, its actively helping to make the problem worse. So until you sport-slaughter enthusiasts  have something to offer besides non-fact based memes about the pure innocence of guns STFU!

Getting back on Epona

First off Epona is a Celtic horse goddess. Just so that mystery is solved.

Whoa Nelly!

Well thats a bit disappointing....

Better....

But I digress....

I've been going to spiritual classes again. I need them like AA meetings. They keep me focused on what is important and provide a weekly dose of perspective and time for me to tune in to my higher self.  I've really fallen off the horse with any magical practice or aspirations. I spent so much of 2013/2014 distracting myself from loss, and focusing my magical intentions on growing my business that now I have too much work to focus on any magical practice. :-/ 


So I've come to a sad realization lately (one of many, caused by major emotional upheaval. but this one is one I can actively DO something about so I'm doing it) that I am a collector of stuff. Not a packrat. I just get "all the stuff". For example:

• I have nearly every art and craft supply even if I won't have time to do the art or craft until I retire.
• I have all the witchy stuff I could ever need (really NONE of it is necessary) but never do anything with it
• I keep taking these AMAZING MIND ALTERING TRUTH BOMB classes with Rev. Mark Lyons at the Silver Broom.(completely shameless plug for my teacher). I have notebooks full of notes and spells and all kinds of awesome stuff.....that I use a little bit.

So, I get all of this stuff: books, crystals, knowledge, etc....and then do nothing with it as though it will magically (pun intended) transform my life via osmosis. Like - If I could become my highest self just by proximity I'd have become a transcendent master years ago. If I lay a book about diet and exercise under my pillow perhaps....?

The first step is the knowing.


Great. Check!


Feeling accomplished.


Today FB (who must have noticed that TimeHop is a "thing") placed an image from 2 years ago today on my feed and gave me the option of making it public for other people to see. Here is the picture.

So I turned and looked behind me to the other end of the room toward that altar. 

<face palm>

The cork board is overcrowded with papers, pictures, and quotes stuck to it. Things are dangling, things are drooping. There are unused spell packets from holidays with my coven, and unused and unfinished spells I was working on, there is candle wax on EVERYTHING and dust on top of that. 

But it was good. Because I immediately got up and started cleaning it. 

I started with the physical cleaning. Dusting, wiping down, putting away. I moved on to decluttering the cork board keeping only what was working for me and grouping like things together. Then I got to the white ceramic canister on the right. This was an impulse buy after a late night pinterest binge. The idea is that you write down the positive things that happened in the past year and put the papers inside and on New Years Eve the family goes through it to reflect on the best parts of the year. 

The entries started in the winter of 2013. Shortly after the miscarriage that nearly unraveled me.

Inside there were, sadly, only a few things. Not because so few positive things happened but because remembering IN THE MOMENT that a wonderful thing has happened and I should add it to the jar didn't happen that often. Also, I think I need to lower my standards to things like "Got out of bed today!" or "Kept food out of my cleavage at dinner". But there were some good things in there.... 

little did I know that that would be the last time it worked and
this WOULD get really bad before it was over but
I once again felt the relief I felt when I wrote that down

I posted a picture of this oven mitt on FB which for some reason made me laugh out loud. An old friend was doing one of those "click like and I will send you something special within the year" "pay-it-forward" sort of things. She saw my post and gifted me with the oven mitt. I was completely surprised and overjoyed to receive it and it still hangs on my kitchen cabinet and to this day makes me smile every time. So I wrote that down and put it in the jar.

I had this ridiculously overpriced quilt set from the Land of Nod catalog picked out for my son's bedding. I"d searched everywhere; eBay, outlets, craigslist and couldn't find its like for any cheaper. I put off moving my son to a "big boy" bed because I was trying to figure out how to get this for him (me). My mother and sister chipped in and got it for his 6th birthday and I actually cried I was so happy and grateful. So I tossed the picture I'd had on my cork board for YEARS into the jar. It felt wonderful.

I also found the folded up piece of paper that my husband wrote the total of his bonus one year which we have historically been dependent on to keep us afloat but I don't understand corporatocracy or office politic stuff so I'm going to err on the side of caution and keep that amount private. 


I would have sworn that I put a paper in when my sister conceived my nephew easily and naturally but it wasn't there. But these two were.

• A love note from my hubby. Yes, this was that much of a momentous occasion that it needed to go in the jar. Melancholic introverts aren't much for passionate flowery extolations of emotion.  This moment needed to be remembered!
• This was a BIG DEAL. We were beginning to think he was colorblind or something

I also found the zip lock bag I've kept the last keepsakes, for lack of a better word, of my last miscarriage in. I just never knew what to do with it. Or rather, I knew I needed to let go of it in a ritualistic way. I couldn't just drop it in the trash. I needed to mindfully release it. I checked my wonderful iLuna app and saw it was a dark moon. The time just before the new moon. There are as many interpretations of this time as there are witches but to me it means a lull, a silence, a blank slate, the calm before the storm of the new moons power of creation and new beginnings. A time in the circle of transformation from something which is ending right before it becomes a new beginning. Perfect.

Finally I had the time, the inclination, and the very heavens working for me. I built a fire in the yard and tossed a bunch of white sage in. I took all the old spells, things I'd prepared and then never made use of and reciting each one as though I were releasing it I tossed them into the flames. Then I tossed in contents of that bag.

• Sympathy cards from my sister, mother-in-law, and a dear friend. I reread their compassionate words and was reminded of the love I was (and am) surrounded by even though I was too deeply in my grief to feel it. 
• A wooden bracelet with a saint and a cross on it. Not my usual thing but it was given to me by someone who also struggled with infertility as a good luck talisman. I could have sworn the saint was a woman but I think it may have been St. Gerard. I'd kept it on a altar and it had gotten singed and the string broke. It could have been a sign, if you believe in signs.
• A now broken wishbone we had wished on that had something to do with the baby
• The CD from the deceptive sonogram complete with little powerful heartbeat that stopped beating just 2 weeks later. I'd been so scared until I heard that sweet sound. And then I did, and I relaxed, and I really believed it was true. :-(

It felt so good to be rid of that bag. Its been a long process and I still have my weepy moments but I'm glad I'm not carrying that small but ridiculously heavy bag around with me anymore.

Then I tossed on a bunch more sage and followed it up with some sweetgrass. For a sweeter life ahead. 

I went back to my altar, finished cleaning, did a nice little altar devotion and for a while  all felt right with the world. And I'm back on the horse.

I hope this doesn't offend anyone....for once..

Amended to say:

Hubby has given me some good reasons why this is different. 99% of which have to do with the Police and how they (not unilaterally but) usually treat black people. Lefties may have  had their hands cut off and Witches may have been burned and Jews may have been persecuted but none of that is happening here and now and that is why this is different. I agree...ish but still believe this is being blown way out of proportion and that this woman is entitled to whatever skin color and hairstyle she wants. She is entitled to pass herself off as whoever she wants. If not, then all is hypocrisy. 

Pondering Martin Niemoller

I've tried and failed and now I"m trying again to live this mantra.

I'm going through an emotionally tumultuous time.

I've been housebound for a month with only short trips outside of the house for necessities or work and a couple of social obligations I probably should have skipped due to the illness surrounding my family. 

My only window to the outside world has been FB, fractured and moldy though that window may be.

My family's illnesses (see previous post) which included both the Flu and Chicken Pox arrived during a time of mass hysteria over an ineffective Flu vaccine and a measles outbreak in California. FB was lit up with humanity showing its worst traits. Ignorance, Paranoia, & Cruelty.

I am not writing this blog post in the hopes that someone will read it and change their mind. I am not writing this blog post in the hopes that one of my family members or friends will read it and begin to understand why I was so upset. I honestly have no hope of either of those things happening and that saddens me even more.

I am still formulating my thoughts on this whole episode but there are so many I want to begin chronicling them or else I will forget - as I often do - when the hurt goes away because I don't like to hold on to wounds. 

So let me start with as brief a synopsis as I can of the past 9 years.

We had children . We didn't vaccinate them. <cue angry mob>

My son just asked if this was a picture of zombies.
Out of the mouths of babes...

At first our thinking was: This bears further research. Given where we lived and what our lifestyle was like (i.e.: no daycare, no travel outside the country) there was a far greater risk of a vaccine reaction than of actually coming in to contact with any vaccine preventable diseases. We agreed to become more educated and re-evaluate when it was time for school when that balance would, we thought, shift.

As the years went by I became increasingly educated in birth, birth culture from around the world and just how seriously awful our medical "care" is for pregnant and birthing women. Also, faced with my own health problems caused largely in part by a lifetime of bad medical advice, I'd seen many many doctors spanning several specializations and each one was a bigger asshole/moron than the one before. I'd learned that doctors are just people. Some are good, some are not. A medical degree means only that they were able to get through medical school by memorizing a bunch of things someone else discovered and regurgitating them back. I'd learned that because my health issues did not neatly fit into one of their previously memorized courses of treatment - they couldn't help me. I'd learned to become my own doctor. These experiences called ALL of modern western medicine into question. How could I be expected to trust our health to a morally bankrupt system which perpetuates the myth that they are infallible when I knew it was wrought with misinformation and willful ignorance?

At this point...

• I know vaccines do prevent some deadly diseases but they also cause chronic illnesses related to a lack of autoimmune response at a far greater rate than the chance that my children would be exposed to said deadly diseases. Look it up yourself. 
• I've been told that vaccines in the US do not cause autism. Amazing really that only american children are safe from such a thing (google Valentino Bocca). How lucky we are. (that was sarcasm) But all vaccines can cause encephalitis and encephalitis causes autism. so... yeah. 
• I know that the barrier protecting the brain is not fully formed at birth or in childhood therefore the same substances which would not cause harm to an adult brain can cause harm to a child's so we would avoid a lot of this if we would just wait until kids were older. 
• As the list of vaccines grows longer and the rules become stricter states like NY which force parents to choose between all or nothing will have a higher rate of unvaccinated kids. 
• we view this not as a choice. Our hand has been forced. If given the "choice" between all or nothing and with the mountains of evidence that we have at our fingertips informing us without room for argument or doubt that OUR children have an astronomically higher chance of suffering some form of vaccine reaction than they do of contracting (not dying from, just even catching it) the disease for which the vaccine is being given - we will not be vaccinating. 

Doctors

Its not difficult to be your own doctor now that we have the internet. I am sure doctors cringe at my saying that but I have access to the same medical studies and journals they do. I have access to medical dictionaries to teach me the terms I don't understand - just like they do. What makes me a better "doctor" for my family is that I actually care about them. I take more than a rushed 10 minute (billable for $400) visit to diagnose them. I know what works for them and what doesn't because I look at the whole person. I have an open mind and will do whatever I can to help us be healthy. I am not limited by my own knowledge and experience as I have found nearly all doctors to be. 

Are there good doctors out there? Yes! Are doctors helpful to a lot of people - yes! Absolutely. And if doctors have saved your life or vastly improved it then I applaud them and you and the fact that you have a situation they have the answer to. If I needed a lung transplant I would like a doctor to perform it. That is what they specialize in. Slicing into the human body. They pretty much suck at everything else. I don't understand why so many misanthropes become doctors and nurses. Did you hate people before you went to medical school or have the years of actually having to help people before the checks clear from the insurance company turn you into the cold callous clueless "care" provider you are today?

If doctors AND EVERYONE ELSE FOR THAT MATTER really wanted to make changes they would lobby the vaccine manufacturers to discontinue bundling the vaccines. That way parents could gradually do one vaccine at a time which is safer. They would also reverse the direction the lawmakers are going making vaccines selectable instead of all or nothing. Removing exemptions forces parents to have to get a medical exemption (nearly impossible) or making a religious exemption. Your religion cannot be for some vaccines and not others. Therefore it is an all or nothing deal.

Why I listen to other parents and you should listen to me

I read, I read, and I read some more. The more educated I became the more insane vaccines sounded. The more I learned about other people's sad tales, the drug company funded studies, the lawsuits in other countries where the manufacturers can be held liable for destroying lives the more I erred on the side of caution. Caution = no vaccines. 

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

I've read books by doctors on both sides of the "debate".  I've read countless articles, studies, lawsuits, and yes I have even read some very well researched blog posts. "Blog posts don't count!" they say, pitchforks raised high. "Any idiot can write a blog post!" Yes, many idiots do. Do you know why these blog posts count? Because they are written by other parents like me who have been forced to become their family's doctor because doctors have failed them. They are written by the parents of vaccine damaged children. They are written by the soldiers on the ground whose perspective on the war is more informed than the policy makers. If this were a militarized war, a "real" war, many of the same critics of the Pro-Information crowd would be arguing in defense of blog posts and articles written by the very people embroiled in the fight. They would be championing whistleblowers. They would be criminalizing the media, and government agencies who deceive and coerce us. But where vaccines are concerned those same citizens march in lock step with the very organizations they would normally hold suspect, and vilify the people shining a light on reason. Moreover, Pro Information parents are in the position of having to defend their positions. So their "blog posts" are cited and they link to the most surprising (NOT) places. The CDC, the WHO, NIH. They are merely reading the readily available science and data and informing people about it. How dare they!

Science

Vaccine Enthusiasts scream "SCIENCE" as though that one word will silence any opposition.   Science has become the new religion and anyone who questions its unimpeachable rightness is condemned. Torquemada is laughing in his grave.

The thing about science, the thing that differs from religion, is that science changes with new information. Science...excuse me... good science! admits it when it is wrong. Science seeks above all else to know the truth. It does not adhere to antiquated information just for the sake of looking like it always has the answers. 

SCIENCE is exactly what I'm looking at. It is what I am reading. MATHEMATICS is what I use to determine the risk to my children and the public. It is what I use to make my extremely well researched and reasoned decisions. If you are such a proponent of SCIENCE you would be open to the possibility that you are wrong or at least being lied to. Absolutism is for religion. 

Being Pro Information is not being Anti Vaccine

You've perhaps noticed that I refer to people who do not want to inject their children with neurotoxins   "Pro Information". I do that for two reasons.

1. Anti-Vaxxer or any similar derivation was coined by the Pro Vaccine crowd. Most of us are not anti vaccines. We would love for vaccines to work, the way they are supposed to, with no negative side effects. I am not an anti-vaxxer. 
2. I want information. Truthful factual unbiased information and the right to make an informed decision for my family based on that information.

You've perhaps also noticed that I frequently refer to pro vaccine people as Vaccine Enthusiasts. Like a sports enthusiast, or an Elvis enthusiast. This I do because the majority of outspoken vaccine proponents can best be described in that way. They have an fanatical fervor for all things vaccine, an unquestioning devotion to the drug pushers, and a violent reaction to any dissenters. 

If I am supposedly a part of the "Anti-Vaccination" movement. (This is so totally not a movement. If you want proof that this is not at all a movement just click here. Friend speaks my mind). Then I feel it is my duty to call my "opposition" what they are: Vaccine Enthusiasts. Logo, Mascot, and franchising opportunities will be forthcoming.

You may be wondering how I"m going to point this lengthy blog post back in the direction of its title. Here goes...

Being Jewish-ish and the perspective it lends.

I was raised Jewish-ish. Jewish-ish is defined (by me alone) as being descended from Jewish people but growing up in a time, place, and family, where 99% of the religion and %100 of the spirituality is missing. We eat some traditional (going back a whole 3 hundreds years and only considered traditional to Jewish people who lived for a while in eastern Europe) foods and my grandmother waves her hands over some candles every Friday evening during which she prays to her ancestors to protect all of us. (But I"m the witch). Jewish-ish is being able to get all the Jew jokes on TV,  eating Chinese food on Christmas day, and "never forgetting" the holocaust but driving a German made status car. Jewish-ish is extremely hypocritical.

The thing is, no matter how not Jewish I and my children are we would still be carted away to Aushwitz. I come from a persecuted people. No matter the continent, no matter the age, Jews have persecution down to an art form.

So when I see day after day on FB a newsfeed glutted with angry, ignorant, flaw filled, posts condemning "Anti Vaxxers" for every human ill - I get a wee bit sensitive. When these things are being posted by friends and family (and i"m not talking about some girl I went to elementary school with I"m talking about people who I love. People I see regularly. People I entrust with the safety of my children!) shit got serious for me and fast.

It also may have become apparent that I refer to "we" throughout this post. That is because my husband made these decisions with me. I may be known for flying off the handle, or being a bitch, (or many other things women get saddled with when the same response in a man is considered forthright, or assertive) but my husband is not. I was angry with him for not backing me up publicly ANYWHERE, and for making his one or two small insertions into the debate in favor of the opposition. This amounted to "liking" a "anti-vaxxers are fucking retards" meme our friend posted and "liking" a comment made by a family member who is in favor of compulsory vaccinations.  

Liking things on FB?! you're upset with your husband for liking things on FB? Don't be THAT wife!

The point isn't that he "liked" those things. I was upset because he left me out on my own in the storm. I was upset because he didn't "like" a single thing I posted or commented on. He didn't stand up for us. He ignored the topic and shit storm entirely. Except for those two things. How does that look?

What I tried (and failed) to explain to him was that those memes, those people, the ones who say parents who don't vaccinate their children are stupid / assholes / should have their children taken away / should be put in jail / should be fined / should have their children taken and forcibly injected, THEY"RE TALKING ABOUT ME. About us.  My family is overbearing. His is silent. Our ways of dealing with things could not be more opposed.

I am used to forging my own path.  I am no stranger to taking the road less traveled be it the high road or low.  I do these things because after careful consideration I conclude that it is the best way. Not the easiest, cheapest, socially accepted way. I"m used to being "that guy" and I'm used to taking a certain amount of heat for it. I am used to speaking up. I am used to saying what other people are thinking. As a daughter of a continually persecuted people I can tell you with absolute certainty that YOUR SILENCE DOES NOT PROTECT YOU. 

My issue, my anger and upset is not really about vaccines. Though I definitely want full disclosure for all families I believe that what you choose to do with your children is your right. I simply want the same respect.  My real upset, the emotions that made me take a leave of absence from FB, the reason I am writing this post, began and grew with the increasing number of calls for mandated compulsory vaccination.

COMPULSORY: Mandated, required by law. Kind of like one of these...

This is in direct violation of civil and human rights.

My upset is nothing less than the overwhelming realization that people who I love and trust are "not" that guy. You would not shelter me and my children if the geshtapo came to the door. You are the angry mob. You would throw us under the bus for your own comfort let alone your own safety. 

I am reeling from the realization that people who claim to love my children would see them held down and pumped full of known toxins. Reeling to point of not speaking to you anymore. Because I can't walk around with that level of hypocrisy on my mind. To recite pleasantries and attend birthday parties and pretend that I don't know you are no better than the German citizens who closed their eyes to the atrocities or worse, supported them because their government and media told them who was to blame for all their woes. And by the way people. If you have not kept current with the government's suggested adult vaccine schedule then you completely lose your right to a voice in this conversation. If vaccines are so fucking important to you you should be out there getting stuck with every needle Big Pharma has to offer before you come knocking on my door trying to pass legislation requiring the forced vaccination of my children. If you truly believe in the efficacy of vaccines and truly believed that it is for the public good YOU should be out there first in line waiting for every damn shot. 

My upset is with the friends and family who were out of their minds with the righteousness of the oppressed when Mayor Bloomberg wanted to outlaw Big Gulps. Not that you couldn't buy 10 smaller drinks and drink them all at once but heaven forbid anyone be told that they cannot have that giant vat of diabetes all at once. I am angry with my friends and family who think that any law which prohibits them from walking into a mall or library armed for armageddon is an infringement on their constitutional rights. But I should have my kids injected with poison for the public good? How can they not see that the two things are equal?! How can you not see the rampant hypocrisy?! You can't, because it isn't convenient for you. You can't because you're blinded by ignorant fear. You can't because if you opened your eyes to see what you are so willfully ignoring you would have to admit that you fucked up.  That you believed the lies. That you poisoned your own children.

The only way you can feel better about your fuck up is to insist that everyone must agree with you. If everyone does it it must be right. Right?

Martin Niemoller's lasting words

So for days I heard the words of Martin Niemoller in my head. Words I'd heard repeatedly in Hebrew School where I was taught to do it this way because that is the way we do it (and read and write a language but not comprehend it. Can anyone say "latin mass"?) It was a lesson to learn. It is the lesson behind the popular phrase "Never Forget".  

The holocaust was not the first genocide nor was it the last. In fact there are a generation of children now who will grow up thinking "Never Forget" is from 9/11. Perhaps "Never Forget" was used even before WWII. You may think I"m crazy drawing a comparison between the holocaust and compulsory vaccine laws but sadly I am not. Because if they can pass a law requiring everyone to be injected with poison they can do pretty much anything. And they've got you so scared you'll sign over every right... every freedom.

I am upset because though I think 16oz of soda at once is a perfectly reasonable portion size, I would never tell someone else how much they can drink. Even though you getting diabetes WILL cost me money for your healthcare. And though I want to rip every last cigarette from your fingers and never have to smell that garbage again or see one more butt get thrown out a car window I will defend your right to poison yourself because it is your right to do with your body what you want. And though I want to choke the 2nd amendment crazies with copies of the constitution I wouldn't because as patriotic as they THINK they are I am MORE of a patriot. Words I never thought I'd associate myself with. Because I will defend your right to have your own private little arsenal. Because this is America. Land of the free right? So you better fucking defend my family's right to bodily integrity. To health. Because next it could be you.

First they came for the Anti-Vaxxers, and you didn't say anything.