July 14, 2022July 14, 2022 My True North

Dystopian nonfiction, v.2

I’ve been thinking a lot about my choice of words for the acronym SCOTUS since I posted a few hours ago. I own that “Supreme Court of the Useless Shitbags” is indeed disrespectful–but I feel disrespected by their recent decisions.

While I won’t edit the previous post, or apologize for my disrespect, I will say that upon further reflection, I recognize that I shouldn’t feel the need to lower myself to the level of name-calling (shit-slinging) that people on both sides choose. I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Let this reflection be the first step in my journey back to a higher vibration and focusing on my connection to Source.

Thank you, Esther, Jerry and Abraham.

July 14, 2022 My True North

Dystopian nonfiction

Today you get two posts for the price of one.

Well, it’s been a painful summer thus far. To start, by now we all know of the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the Useless Shitbags) decision to reverse Roe v. Wade. The only thing I wanted to do on June 24–literally THE. ONLY. THING.–was write a post to try and sort through the rage and helplessness and hopelessness and fury and disbelief and horror and disgust and . . . . I’ve run out of adjectives.

But when I went to log into my site, I discovered I had gone too long without accessing it–on top of which, I changed my phone number a few months ago and forgot to update it in my account. So even though I could log in with my username and password, because of our New Best Friend, two-step authentication, I couldn’t receive the security code to complete the login. Essentially, I learned that when WordPress says things like “Generating backup codes is essential and must be done,” they’re not fooling around. If you’re a WordPress user, and you have not done this, please, for the love of god, take care of it right. now.

O my. I have rarely been that frustrated. Like, setting my hair on fire and running down the block screaming frustrated. But here we are, a few weeks later, and all is well.

No. I take that back. All is most definitely not. O. fucking. K. In addition to the June 24 decision, SCOTUS has also severely limited the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon emissions from power plants. Yellowstone National Park and nearby towns were devastated by a 500-year flood. Glaciers are practically spontaneously combusting. Young men with too many guns feel entitled to mass murder people everywhere you look. Heat waves are cooking people around the world. Permafrost is melting, tundra is burning and islands are being swallowed by the ocean.

Unfortunately, I’ve become a bad news junkie. If I believed the Bible was an actual historical record, I’d be expecting a plague of locusts, a rain of frogs and the four horsemen. (Global flood? Check.)

What’s worse is that, as a huge fan of dystopian/apocalyptic fiction, I feel at least partially responsible for manifesting the dystopian nonfiction we find ourselves careening downhill into, like Calvin and Hobbes in their wagon.

[I particularly love Calvin’s quote in this image. It feels like where we are right now as a nation.]

I’ve been reading mainly dystopian/apocalyptic fiction for about the past six years–not so ironically since just before the 2016 election, in fact. At this point, I’m an armchair expert on zombies, nuclear winters, EMPs, coastal inundation, comets, asteroids, alien invasions, mind control, clones, mutations, robots and other AI, colonizing Mars and/or the moon, time travel and killer viruses. With that said, being an armchair expert does not mean I would be remotely prepared to survive if any of these scenarios actually played out. I literally can’t do anything except make jewelry and sun tea. I’d be one of those people curled up in a little ball, crying and rocking myself in a corner.

[Insert appropriate 30Rock scene:
JACK: In a post-apocalyptic world, how would society even use you?
LIZ: Traveling bard.
JACK: Radiation canary.]

It’s all so morbid; I don’t know what perverted little part of me gets off on this stuff, but I can’t help myself. It’s like I want to convince myself that things could be sooooo much worse than they are. I also keep thinking of the famous final stanza in t.s. eliot’s poem The Hollow Men:

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

So, being a devotee of Abraham-Hicks and the Law of Attraction, and because the End Times are on my mind a lot these days . . . well, you do the math. I know it sounds dumb to nonbelievers (like Bible stuff sounds dumb to me), but I know that thoughts do, in fact, become things, and the Law of Attraction is real. Clearly what needs to happen is for me to return to my like-attracts-like, thoughts-become-things, Law of Attraction, Abraham-Hicks mindset. It probably wouldn’t hurt either to focus more on thoughts of unicorns, flowers, rainbows and fluffy kittens.

I need to disembark this apocalyptic train, and head back over to Platform 9 ¾ where life is magical, and magic is real. And now I’m mixing pop culture references, so it’s definitely time to wrap this up.

Calvin & Hobbes image courtesy the brilliant Bill Watterson

Here’s your bonus post: the entry I actually started on June 24, but was unable to post due to the reasons stated above.

We Won’t Go Back.

Please note: I am a middle-aged, middle-class, college-educated, privileged, White, cisgender woman and write from that perspective.

This was meant to be posted on Friday, June 24, “a date which will live in infamy,” in a way that has nothing to do with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor, and everything to do with Merriam-Webster’s definition of the word “infamy”:

1. evil reputation brought about by something grossly criminal, shocking, or brutal
2. an extreme and publicly known criminal or evil act

Instead, I’ve spent the entire day trying to get someone–anyone–from WordPress to help me log into my site, which, as of 3:45 PM, has been completely futile. In fact, having sent my first cry for help more than six hours ago, and after receiving one completely useless reply about 15 minutes later, at this point I feel patently ignored. Apparently it’s critical (what’s a word that’s even more emphatic than critical? crucial? grave? exigent?) to not only immediately update your account when you change your phone number, it is even more critical (imperative? life-or-death?) that you print out a set of ten backup codes that you supposedly received years and years ago when you first set up two-step authentication. Oopsie.

Be that as it may, it would be a beautiful thing if one could speak to an actual human being when one needs assistance. Apparently that’s no longer a thing.

Anyway, back to this day that will live in infamy. As you’re no doubt aware, this morning SCOTUS (the Supreme Court of the Useless Shitbags) reversed Roe v. Wade, a landmark 1973 decision that has, for just under fifty years, protected a woman’s right to abortion at the national level. Interestingly, at the time of the 7-2 majority vote in 1973, five of the seven in favor were Republican-appointed justices, and two were Democrat-appointed. In fact, lifelong Republican justice Harry Blackmun wrote the majority opinion in the case. This was obviously before the Republican party married itself to right-wing American Christianity.

I, like many pro-choice Americans, have taken this right for granted my entire life. I never, ever thought I would live in a nation where abortion was not legal. The very idea was unthinkable. I’m pretty sure RBG is spinning in her grave. But thanks to former Fuckwit-in-Chief Donald Trump, SCOTUS is now stacked heavily with ultraconservative justices for whom this landmark decision is most likely–dare I say–only the first of many decisions designed to turn back the clock on human rights and environmental regulation. What’s next, contraception? Same-sex marriage? Clean air and water? These jagweeds won’t stop until we’re all once again barefoot and pregnant (and wearing gas masks), literally the property of our husbands.

I am fortunate enough, however, to live in a state with robust, codified abortion rights. That is no longer the case for most of my family and friends. It’s also not the case for our economically disadvantaged sisters and other folx who can’t afford to travel to another state for basic reproductive health care. If this decision were truly about not aborting babies, Republicans would have as their priorities universal health care, free birth control and education, affordable childcare, and the criminalization of child marriage–which is still a thing, even in the good ol’ USofA, the greatest country on the planet, y’all. But it’s not about babies, it’s about male power–specifically White, male power–over the rest of us.

March 21, 2014August 14, 2014 My True North

Catharsis

Years ago, when blogging first came into vogue, I remember thinking, “Oh my god–why would anyone want to expose their private lives to the world like that? It’s like letting anyone and everyone read your diary!” And, well, yeah. It is. The differences are 1) I’ve given everyone permission to do it, and 2) I can massage my words for five hours or five days until I’m ready to send them out into the Universe via the Internet.

I had no idea, though, how cathartic it can be. I mean, different people blog for different reasons. I’ve read a blog about Pacific Northwest native flora, a blog in which the author wrote of being date-raped, blogs about wine, blogs about beer, blogs about dogs. My favorite blogger–who recently published her first book, by the way–is a brilliant artist named Allie Brosh, who writes Hyperbole and a Half. She’s one of two authors whose writing consistently makes me laugh till I cry–or moby wine out my nose. (Bill Bryson is the other.) Another favorite blog is Danger Garden. Really, what’s not to love?

There are blogs for literally every topic under the sun. I call this “my online mat space” for a reason. It’s Bloga.© OMG, I totally just coined a new word. (And yes, I totally inserted that copyright mark for a reason.)

Since I posted last night about Dude, I’ve been feeling lighter. Clearer. More creative. Better, certainly, than I have the past few months. What could cause this?

Merriam-Wesbter defines catharsis as “the act or process of releasing a strong emotion (such as pity or fear) especially by expressing it in an art form.” Ooooh. Oh, quite. Please and thank you. Could I possibly be nudging myself into my Vortex of Attraction by sharing my personal life with anyone and everyone? Is that wrong? It sounds wrong to me. But how can it be wrong when it feels so good?

Sometimes I so desperately need to express myself, but I just don’t feel like talking to anyone–not Loving Husband, not parents, not Dude, not sister-in-law, not best friends. Bloga provides me that outlet. Expressing myself through this blog feels like talking to Happy Dog: I don’t necessarily need Bloga to say anything, only to listen.

Bloga doesn’t judge or interrupt or offer suggestions or try to make me feel better. I don’t mean to imply that Loving Husband, parents, Dude, sister-in-law or best friends judge or interrupt. They do offer suggestions and try to make me feel better, which is loving and compassionate, and I appreciate it. Sometimes.

But Bloga just is. And sometimes that’s all I need.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . .

September 11, 2013September 16, 2013 My True North

Finding magic and meaning in the mundane

I have no job interviews scheduled today, and thus nothing better to do than drink coffee all morning and write this post. OK, that’s not entirely true. I really should give the front door a second coat of paint, and that ivy patch in the middle of the backyard isn’t going to rip itself out, fly into the yard waste bin and roll out to the curb. I’ll get to it.

Today I want to delve deeper into a concept about which I posted on My True North’s Facebook page last year. Here’s the original post:

Yesterday I had the most amazing revelation. On my way home from work–an hour and a half commute that I thankfully only make about twice a week–I was listening to an audio-only version of “A Night at the Roxbury” (a highly underrated movie, in my opinion) and suddenly realized that it’s a goldmine of brilliant metaphysical insights. Brothers Doug Butabi (Chris Kattan) and Steve Butabi (Will Ferrell) put the Law of Attraction to work without even realizing it. They just do what comes naturally. They’re in the right place at the right time, and the Universe brings them the exact circumstances they need to bring their dream to life. I was totally blown away with this realization! I’ve seen and listened to the movie many times, but the light bulb didn’t come on till just yesterday.

I think it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing when you can find messages like this in the craziest places.

Watch “A Night at the Roxbury” with this perspective in mind, and just see if I’m right!

As you can see, I really do find magic and meaning in the mundane.

The Universe (a.k.a., Source, Spirit, God, whatever term you’re most comfortable with) really, truly does speak to us. I don’t believe in coincidences at all: everything happens (or doesn’t) for a reason, just as every person with whom I come into contact does so for a reason. The Universe is constantly trying to get me to realize that my thoughts have energy that affects my reality. There is so much more than what I can see and hear and taste and smell, if I’d just allow myself to be open to it.

Other dimensions. Other planes of existence. Multiple realities. The Law of Attraction. Whatever you call it, it’s real–whether I believe it or not. So I might as well believe it and try to get the most out of the time I have in the here and now.

Here’s another amazing example of the Universe speaking to me: my maternal grandmother re-entered the non-physical exactly 40 years to the day after her mother. My mother was present at both transitions, and she said they were even close to the same time of day. I can’t explain that away by mere coincidence. My Non-Physical Posse sent me this message loud and clear at a time when I desperately needed reassurance that there was meaning and reason to everything.

I was also present when my grandma crossed over in 2006. I was 40 then, and it was the first time I’d ever seen anyone die. Grandma was 98 and had been in a nursing home for several years, confined to a wheelchair, unable to speak or do anything for herself. But whenever I visited, she understood what I said to her, she could laugh, and her grip when she held my hand was strong. Even though she lived a full, long, life, I still wish she were with me today to continue to share in all my experiences and enjoy my stories. I will forever be grateful for the special message she and Ur-Oma sent me.

I think to myself now that if thestrals were real, I’d be able to see them, along with Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood. And that would be a privilege, not a curse.

A Night At the Roxbury photo courtesy Paramount Pictures & Wikipedia

August 16, 2013August 14, 2014 My True North

The Law of Attraction at work.

If, like me, you’re a student of Abraham and the Law of Attraction, the following will make a lot of sense.

Yesterday was not a good day. Sometimes the smallest thing sets me off. More often it’s the combination of the smallest thing coupled with perimenopausal hormone levels. Then, because the Law of Attraction is a real thing (like gravity) and is in effect every day all the time, most times things just deteriorate from there–unless I’m able to reroute my attitude, which doesn’t often happen.

The thing that set me off yesterday was a trip to our local Safeway for my favorite yogurt and discovering they apparently no longer carry it.

Let me be clear that this kind of thing inexplicably happens to me with disturbing and irritating frequency. This leads me to believe I either have really bad taste or I belong to a very small, elite minority with such highly evolved taste that the rest of the world simply can’t keep up.

Anyway, the AWOL yogurt was another one of those Final Straws I mentioned in an earlier post. It prompted an f*bomb-laden text to my darling husband, who is painfully aware that I don’t always respond to these types of personal challenges with my Highest and Best Self. The text said:

You know what? Fuck Abraham. Sometimes I really just want to be able to hate my fucking life without the fear of attracting more shit.

Ew, right? Right. Enter the Law of Attraction. Or, if you prefer, the very similar Threefold Law, as stated in the Wiccan Rede:

“Mind the threefold law ye should, three times bad and three times good.”

In other words, like attracts like. That which is like is drawn unto itself. As within, so without. You get the picture.

Back to the yogurt. I decided to try the Corvallis Safeway about 15 minutes away. Guess what? No Nancy’s yogurt there either. So I went to Market of Choice, and SUCCESS! All the Nancy’s yogurt flavors I could ever want and then some. Hurray for me!

[Insert thoughts of rainbows, butterflies, unicorns, playful kittens.]

At this point, I should let you know that I had brought puppy along for the ride. Remember happy dog from the other day?

I thought you might. She is cute, isn’t she? Unfortunately, she also gets carsick. But I naively thought she was over it–with good reason, as she hadn’t gotten carsick for almost a month.

Here’s where things started to get weird.

We were in the Trader Joe’s parking lot, and I was just about to go in when she barfed up copious bright pink vomit containing all manner of yard debris, including grass, plum pits (hence the bright pink hue), scilla bulbs, mulch, and a rather unhealthy amount of colorful string from the rope toy she’d been busily ripping apart for days.

“Hello, friend,” said the Universe. “This is especially for you. Thank you for your order. I am happy to comply. Please come again.”

Can you see where this is going?

Poor sad puppy. Poor grossed-out me. I cleaned up her travel crate as best I could, and we headed straight home. I then found myself following a garbage truck for the next 15 minutes.

“Hello again, friend,” said the Universe. “Aren’t I doing a good job giving you exactly what you asked for? Enjoy your drive home.”

When I got home, I realized I’d forgotten about leaving one of our two cats out on the patio in the kitty cabaña.

She, of course, had barfed up a large hairball and was meowing at the top of her lungs to be freed from the vomitorium.

“Hello, friend,” said the Universe once again. “Have you had enough? I can keep this up all day, if you like.”

I’ll wrap this up. I apologized to the pets for being the worst mom ever, fed them dinner, cleaned up the car and the patio, threw a load of vomit-splattered towels, blanket and crate pad in the laundry, and thanked the Universe for being so responsive.

Husband came home from work shortly thereafter to find me tear-streaked and sprawled on the couch in front of the stereo listening to Rush loud enough to shake the entire house in a manner akin to the classic Maxell audio tapes commercial, drinking wine straight from the bottle.

“Mind the threefold law ye should, three times bad and three times good.”

Indeed.