My Name is Nissa

This is a dance performance about my friend Nissa's process of healing from sexual abuse.

She composed this video for the "My Name Is" project organized by Women Speak Out.

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Don Tolman: A wholefood healing miracle

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Christmas Wishes

I have private and public wishes. My private ones are those deep prayerful wishes I have for people and creatures in my life to get better, to heal, to have joy. I rarely voice them. I don't talk about them. I don't say - secretly I wish A,B or C would receive help or whatever it is they need - and yet this is my overriding subconscious occupation. And sometimes it doesn't stop with people I personally know. Maybe it's an acquaintance or even someone whose story I've just heard. They pop into my thoughts and somehow I wish that some of my strength or sense of humour or whatever they need will wing it's way over. Yet I do all this in the quiet of my inside self.

When someone says 'What do you want for Christmas?' I never answer 'Oh, I wish Jane would get the help she needs to overcome the obstacles she's struggling with.' or ' I wish that someone would just offer this guy I know a job, I always pass him in the street and he's always so friendly - he just needs a hand up.' I always say 'Oh socks, or a book' or something.

Often my thoughts are for people who need help I can't give...

Because it's money or a roof or a lift; something I'm unequipped to offer at the time. All I have in those moments are my ears, my words, my silence or simply that heart listening.

There's an incredible power though, in the simple wish for the wellbeing of others. Perhaps they may be someone we've lost; who has died or become estranged. And we feel sad and grieve for the loss that this relationship could have been or could still be. Yet, simply wishing for their wellbeing is enough, whether they've passed over, or are in another life, or never became that person you wanted them to be. Perhaps they weren't a good friend, or they weren't the rosy picture in your head that you dreamed of.

A lot of our grief comes from feeling that we have to shut off that potential switch...

That we're un-able to express the love within us because that person didn't or won't or can't let us. Well you know what, it's not up to them. It's up to us. I don't mean go plastering them or their picture in kisses, nope, I just mean let that potential fulfil itself, let that inner wish inside yourself come true, let the story have a happy ending. You can do all that right now, inside, in that quiet space. Every one can be wish fulfilling. Really feel it... think on them, let that love complete.

I remember as a child, longing for certain things to come to pass. They could be something I read in a book or saw on TV. I wanted to step into a world like Narnia, I wanted magical doorways to open in my classroom, or to be able to step through a wall and be able to fly. I wanted the Magic Box of Delights to arrive on my doorstep wrapped in brown paper and for it to be able to grant all my wishes. Life doesn't always happen like that. But sometimes it does. Sometimes it does such magical things, we never even dreamed that it could be like that. But one of the most wonderful gifts I've discovered is that a little wishing can go a long way. Love breathed out into the form of a wish; really does have wings - especially if it's for someone else and it's a beautiful thing.

You think on it enough and it really gets some solidity. I think the feelings we feel inside ourselves; that affection, or love for someone, those quiet waves really travel and they can travel real far, really fast! Maybe even faster than the speed of light. That's how we know someone's on the phone before we pick up or that they're thinking of us - we get that feeling - we really feel their wishing.

So, I know a lot of people are strapped for cash at this time and I know there's a lot of bad stuff going on around the world, but I just wanted to say you gotta practise your Christmas wishing, and start early! Because those wishes, they really can go through walls, they can transform solid objects, they can fly round this planet. Your wishes ARE magic. Magic magical creatures of design - so PLAY with them.

So, you might not be able to buy someone the superb sports car they always wanted, or that incredible piece of art - but you know what - you CAN give them the feeling that they would get if they got those things - feelings are free! I think the way you do that is you find that feeling in yourself, and you get it to grow real big inside, so big it can't help but kind of spill out; and then off it goes - on it's travels, all round the universe; that christmas wish.

Really, you're the genie, the christmas fairy.

What's my Christmas wish this year?

It's that you get your wish; that quiet one inside - the one you never tell anybody...

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What you can do to prevent suicide...

This is such an important film from my friend Sheena at www.Sheenalashay.com

Sheena's survived so much herself and is such a brave, calm presence in this world. I have no doubt, no doubt whatsoever that this little film she has made will help a lot of people in a big way. Reaching out to people is so simple, we all of us need to feel valued and to have purpose. We give each other purpose. Please watch the film and visit Sheena's site. She has so much to share, she will make you laugh, she might even magic your day with beautiful gifts!

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Les Brown - Live Full, Die Empty

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Women are Sacred

WOMEN are sacred. Rape is such a spite at the preciousness of life, such an eroding of all that is good and pure and amazing about the gift of life. I mean wow, women have made every single person on this planet. We grew them in our bodies. Every man came out of a women; it's that way round.

I look at this world and I see life and it's mothers.

And yet the arrogance of men, the rule of men, the disenfranchising of women by men; their regulation to second class citizens in so much of the world, or even 'less than rats' as a victim said in the congo - is just awful.

I am not an object. I'm AMAZING. I'm powerful.

SO much of society tries to erode that power; the control of the state, of the banks, of religion, of law of family, of the media. Everything saying I am inadequate in some way; I have not got enough money or enough points, enough insurance, enough education...

Men have involved themselves with killing and death for thousands of years - they're not experts in life; in creation - that's us... We're the experts in creativity We're the ones that keep life going, that sustain it, that nurture it around us - the same way we nurture hope in the hopeless.

Women ARE sacred; we should expect respect for our sacredness in all our interactions; when we meet others, when we see ourselves in the mirror, when we're in a shop or on the street or doing business. We should be walking tall, swaying our life giving hips.

Rape made me close up like a bud that instead of opening tried to go in reverse. It made me turn all that sacredness around; sacredness that was supposed to spread outwards, to ripple and undulate, to bathe and blossom, to delight and deepen. It made me stop enjoying my inner beauty, that develops as you grow into a woman, as you grow older, as your hair greys and your eyes get so far seeing they see through time and beyond.

Women are SACRED; holy, blessed, sanctified, divine, whole, a temple, complete, kedushah or holiness (something/one that is set apart in a respectful manner), graceful, protected, defended, guarded, inviolate, inviolable. And yet the definition of 'sex' is 'intercourse between animate beings. coitus, copulation, fornication, intercourse, reproduction.' The definition for 'making love is to 'have sex - be intimate,breed, copulate, fool around, fornicate, f***, go all the way, go to bed with, have sexual intercourse, have sexual relations, lay, make out, mate, procreate, screw, sleep together.'

There is nothing of the sacred here in these words for something that is special, beautiful, magical, unifying, creative, passionate, joyful, blissful, spiritual, respectful, sensitive, surprising, funny, insightful, wonderful, sensual, reciprocal, gentle, ecstatic, exciting, loving..

It's been rendered mechanic; it's no wonder women are treated as objects if this is how our society consistently refers to the act of union, of creating life.

We need to re-divine ourselves.

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Buying Britain Back

The bun above is called a 'Devonshire Split' for those that don't know

Recently for some inescapable daft reason the Uk's government revealed plans (i.e.we were the last to know) to sell off half the country's forest. Unfortunately the MP pushing this is in cohoots (apparently don't ask me who the source is) with the Biotech industry. I thought Ents were just a fictitious entity - thought up by Tolkien but now it seems there's a possibility after all of hybridised tree people...

So, I thought well, there's some very well intentioned land trusts, and Britain really ought to be in British hands. Locals should have access to and responsibility for their local forests. Potentially an ecologically sustainably managed forest has many dividends:-

• People can live in low impact dwellings there
• Forest gardens can be grown providing a higher yield per acre than anything Monsanto can cobble together with chemicals and a DNA shoestring.
• Composting coppice waste can provide natural gas to power cars, generators, heating, lighting etc. Check out the film Bate's car
• They can still produce wood to the degree they do now under the industrialised model, but in a safer, more balanced and long term manner for all creatures.
• Profits can be reinvested locally rather than siphoned off to Mr MultiBillionaire in AbuDhabi or Bombay or on his little island.

It goes on - the dividends that is. So, my idea is to get locals, like kids, scouts, schools, businesses to invest co-operatively and buy shares in their local area. They will then be able to safeguard their countryside from golf courses, holdiay camps, open cast mining and the generally degenerate intentions of multinationals.
They will be able to participate, and benefit from primary and secondary products. A forest garden produces, wood, fodder, fuel, vegetables, mushrooms, herbs, fruit, nuts, honey, candles, soaps - you name it you can get it from a forest garden, I mean that is after all where pretty much everything comes from that we need.

Kids will learn directly about how they meet their basic needs. Communities will become more self sufficient. Then they can channel their spare time and energies into well creativity, art, sculpture, music, invention, and yes maybe even Space!

They will be healthier, people will be at less risk from golf ball injuries and flying golf clubs flung by stressed out politicians who didn't get their way after all because the People, yes, them the great Downtrodden peasants - did uprise, and rose up and done away with the bill that wasn't in everyone's best interests. And they did take back their countryside that had been nicked from them in the first place by the Army and which their great grandfathers had lost their heads for.
That's the difference between Britain and France. In France it was the People who lopped off the heads of the ones who'd nicked everything up to then, whereas in Britain the royals were crafty folk and their trusting servants lost their heads FIRST and it's been that way ever since. We STILL trust them to know what their doing and then we find ourselves headless, or homeless, or mortgaged up to the hilt with high blood pressure and a shorter life span and wondering how it got that bad.

So you can join the FB group here 'Buy Britain Back' and choose how and why and what way you will buy it back. If you're not British and you want to help us - Great! You're always welcome for a cup of tea and to reminisce about old times when we had back bone, and new times when we took up our laptops and did battle for our freedom and fair green valleys once again, albeit with a multicultural appreciation that comes from having left the place or arrived their afresh from some place else.

You can learn how to set up a co-operative and or land trust. Which is what the big companies and the government also did, to hide the fact they bought our neighbourhoods and treasured places as collateral for giant loans to fund space missions, wars and hadron colliders. And now they have to pay it back... except they're saying it's because of a 'financial crisis'. Oh really, a financial crisis caused by what, oh yes, a TEN YEAR war where hundreds of thousands of pounds explodes everytime you blow up a missile, where suicide bombing is encouraged by foreign occupation, to what; TO SECURE THE OIL and it's PIPELINE. And where three to five times the amount of military killed are civilians and most of them children.

My point being we have to concentratre on where we are at; get strong, get sustainable. Because if you're not sustainable you ARE on a sinking ship that WILL sink. Get together pull a sofa outside, watch the sunset, listen to songs from the laptop and guitar round a fire, full up after you're deliciously organic scrumptious local meal, of easy to grow potatoes, carrots, and wotnot. And then there's the home brews, of damson and nettle wines, of mead and hoppy beers, of strawberry champagnes. The kids are QUIET because they've been outdoors ALL day and are ASLEEP. OMG, and there's not an unruly dubious chemical insight to disturb their precious equilibrium. And all this is like this because Grandma took out a share in the local forest which made the town totally economically sustainable and self sufficient for EVER. And they are now planning space missions because their aren't any starving people left on the planet as we finally got our priorities right. Check it out grandma, grandpa, uncle You...

Here's to co-ops, and land trusts,and communities who give a damn. And to ginger beer, and Devonshire Splits (see above apparently random photograph). Personally I would like Devonshire to remain unsplit, and all it's forests to remain Devonian, and not sold off like football players. NOT FOR SALE is my goal and cherished wish - actually for the whole entire planet but one patch of a mossy ground at a time eh! Now where's my pitchfork?

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This guy is a winner!

I take my loser's hat off to Sean Stephenson
This guy is a winner! :)

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