cracking the back of the darkness
to spill out the anger, spill out the secrets, leech out the poison of a life lived across boundaries borders blood lines, languages, of a life lived in war zones, in waste lands

giving my self space to speak and the silence to think, finding ways to restructure and rebuild

I really dont want to talk about the weekend yet so i wont

i had a really nice time wednesday night tho, I went to a birthday thing for one of my feminist friends and it really reinvigorated and rebalanced me,

So anyway I've been thinking about this for a while and wanted to hash it out here before I wrote about it on my political blog.

So i started reading theology and decided that for this year I would only read theology by women because I've had theology by men forced on me my whole life and its much easier to access and is really the default position, because men are still seen as the default position

So i was thinking about that and I think I will expand that to all areas of my life, all my books that I read this year will be written by women, there is still to much of a divide in the number of women that get published compared to the number of men, especially in the things that I love to read (geeky lit crit theory, political analysis and poetry) and people do still assume that male writers are both more knowledgeable and more objective than women writers.

Also all the music I listen to and the gigs I go to will be by women performers, all the films I watch will be directed by women.

I wish i could take that further and have all the sources of news I access to be owned and controlled by women. But there are so few sources for this that if i want to know what is going on in the world then I need to keep an eye on mainstream news media

doing this is a a way of supporting women, the more people that listen to and read womens words the more space women will have to say their words. and also for myself it is a way of affirming my own worth as a women, that if other womens voices are worth listening to then so is mine,

I don't even know how easy I will find this,some of my favorite poetry is written by men, some of my favorite singer/songwriters are male, but if i just say that and leave it there there seems to be an assumption that women can't be as good as my favorite male poets or my favorite male singer/songwriters.

I'm taking a week of lj (except for the comms I mod) to reset and sort my brain some, Ill be checking my emails though so if anyone needs to talk to me leave me a comment and your email address

I dont know if this is relevant for anyone on my flist but i made a new comm grew_up_strong for women who are healing from prostitution (membership is moderated)

What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this. Emergent/Postmodern 75% Neo orthodox 61% Classical Liberal 57% Modern Liberal 57% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 54% Roman Catholic 36% Reformed Evangelical 7% Charismatic/Pentecostal 4% Fundamentalist 0%

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

Yo guys. I stole this idea from interfaceleader Basically, I don't track IP's, you post anonymous comments. Say anything you want, tell me things you think I should know but don't want to tell me publicly. Or just ramble in an anon. context, worries, petty grievances, all the stuff you don't normally let out.

Somehow I volunteered to chair a mind the gap meeting on feminist theology. Which means I have to actually go read some more. But its in November so I have time I guess

So I have a new writing journal cariad_me_home. This  will be for thoughts on writing, thoughts on other people writing, and my own writing (which will be almost exclusively poetry) This is an invitation for those of you who know about writing and feel able to critique work to add me because I think I work better if I get constructive criticism.

1)We hate men
2)we think all men are rapists
3)we think women are worth more than men
4)we sit around whining and not trying to make things better for ourselves or other women
5)focusing on women and wanting women only spaces makes us sexist
6)if we talk about oppression we have been on the receiving end of as women we are "tarring all men with the same brush" or "bashing men" or "reveling in our victim status"
7)were anti sex

for me feminism is about ending opresion, all opression, it is about giving women a voice, education, saftey,political power, equal pay,reproductive choice, bodily autonomy,it is about learning and teaching that women matter, it is working for the right of women everywhere to have independance and self determination.

It is about giving us a space to talk about rape, abuse and violence and put it in a political and social context not just a personal one.

It is about supporting other women and bulding strong powerfull relationships that matter.

I liked this film, it was good and solid and I like Hillary swank, but it wasn't really a great film, I would watch it again but it didn't really excite me. It did contain rather too many cliches, such as the "white trash"/working class person who beats the odds and succeeds through sheer grit and holding to a dream, the woman who wants to succeed in a mans world and the only person who can possibly help her do that is a cynical embittered taciturn old man, and the wise black man character.

the relationship between the two characters was kind of a cliche as well, being a substitute/surrogate father daughter relationship, but maybe it was more an archetype than a cliche and I personaly got quite a lot out of it.

It did make me think anyway. I don't really understand boxing, I don't understand why people want to do it, to deliberately hurt other people and lay themselves open to being hurt, and I'm not all "well women should be able to box too!" because I don't really think anyone should be boxing. My feminism is wrapped up with pacifism and for the same reason I don't think the feminist movement should be fighting for a woman's right to fight on the front line but should be fighting for a world where nobody has to be on the front line

anyway the end of the film really made me think a lot
( Cut for spoilers )

from http://www.abuseofpower.info/WomansCreed.htm


We are female human beings poised on the edge of the new millennium. We are the majority of our species, yet we have dwelt in the shadows. We are the invisible, the illiterate, the laborers, the refugees, the poor.

And we vow: No more.

We are the women who hunger—for rice, home, freedom, each other, ourselves.

We are the women who thirst—for clean water and laughter, literacy, love.

We have existed at all times, in every society. We have survived femicide. We have rebelled—and left clues.

We are continuity, weaving future from past, logic with lyric.

We are the women who stand in our sense, and shout Yes.

We are the women who wear broken bones, voices, minds, hearts—but we are the women who dare whisper No.

We are the women whose souls no fundamentalist cage can contain.

We are the women who refuse to permit the sowing of death in our gardens, air, rivers, seas.

We are each precious, unique, necessary. We are strengthened and blessed and relieved at not having to be all the same. We are the daughters of longing. We are the mothers in labor to birth the politics of the 21st century.

We are the women men warned us about.

We are the women who know that all issues are ours, who will reclaim our wisdom, reinvent our tomorrow, question and redefine everything, including power.

We have worked now for decades to name the details of our need, rage, hope, vision. We have broken our silence, exhausted our patience. We are weary of listing refrains on our suffering—to entertain or be simply ignored. We are done with vague words and real waiting; famishing for action, dignity, joy. We intend to do more than merely endure and survive.

They have tried to deny us, define us, defuse us, denounce us; to jail, enslave, exile, gas, rape, beat, burn, bury—and bore us. Yet nothing, not even the offer to save their failed system, can grasp us.

For thousands of years, women have had responsibility without power—while men have had power without responsibility. We offer those men who risk being brothers a balance, a future, a hand. But with or without them, we will go on.

For we are the Old Ones, the New Breed, the Natives who came first but lasted, indigenous to an utterly different dimension. We are the girlchild in Zambia, the grandmother in Burma, the woman in El Salvador and Afghanistan, Finland and Fiji. We are whale-song and rainforest; the depth-wave rising huge to shatter glass power on the shore; the lost and despised who, weeping, stagger into the light.

All this we are. We are intensity, energy, the people speaking—who no longer will wait and who cannot be stopped.

We are poised on the edge of the millennium—ruin behind us, no map before us, the taste of fear sharp on our tongues.

Yet we will leap.

The exercise of imagining is an act of creation.

The act of creation is an exercise of will.

All this is political. And possible.

Bread. A clean sky. Active peace. A woman's voice singing somewhere, melody drifting like smoke from the cookfires. The army disbanded, the harvest abundant. The wound healed, the child wanted, the prisoner freed, the body's integrity honored, the lover returned. The magical skill that reads marks into meaning. The labor equal, fair, and valued. Delight in the challenge for consensus to solve problems. No hand raised in any gesture but greeting. Secure interiors—of heart, home, land—so firm as to make secure borders irrelevant at last. And everywhere laughter, care, celebration, dancing, contentment. A humble, early paradise, in the now.

We will make it real, make it our own, make policy, history, peace, make it available, make mischief, a difference, love, the connection, the miracle, ready.

Believe it.

We are the women who will transform the world.

so I tend to be over ernest, and everything i do/read/watch/listen to has to be important, has to matter has to teach me something or help someone else and I was thinking about this and I was thinking what book i wanted to read and i just thought

fuck it. What I really want to read in these dark days is watership down,

I come back to that book over and over again, such a complex mixture of invented myth and with the air of early twentieth century anthropological study along with the great hero archetype. And i know that landscape, i know it to my bones, geographically the setting is both very similar and very close in in distance, in the general scheme of things, to the place I grew up, so I know that, chalk and flint, steep low slung hills and farmland, winding lanes, copses and spinneys, the river Test. The landscape we grow up in shapes our psyche, is part of who we are and that landscape is a part of me.

So anyway my copy of Watership down, is so old the pages are falling out, so i bought a new copy with the gift token interfaceleader sent me for christmas and I'm really looking forward to it being delivered

is to love and be loved

so I was listening to Displaced and November by azure ray by azure ray because they are beautiful and the lyrics really calm me when I'm stressed about my depression

( relevant lyrics )

and they remind me of the second year of uni, when I was so sick with depression that stringing a sentence together was a mammoth effort and walking across a room was like climbing a mountain, and it was a horrible awfull time, but what those songs bring back to me was how much I was loved how much love and support and care was given to me by six beautiful people who, not incidentally are the only six people from uni that i still have regular contact with and consider an important part of my life. so I was thinking how lucky I am to have awesome people in my life even though I am difficult and sometimes really hard work, and then I was reading my friends list and I saw one of those people who supported me when I was that sick had writen this and I thought it was just awesome it totally reminds me of how I feel when things are good, an that I can build my life around myself, It reminds me of the feeling I get when the depression clears and I feel strong and focused and in love with the world

Remember you can stand-up and walk out

i forget this, I forget this too often, it isn't that I want to walk out, but the flip side of knowing you can walk out but you don't is that you choose to be there, and I choose to be here, and I need to be more proactive in choosing how my life works and what I want to happen in it.

This is your life, remember, remember what you warned yourself against.

this is something I have forgotten to do of late. I will not bow to the gods of mediocrity or worship at the alter of the status quo or as Runrig say trade all that fire of living,
For the fickle and the bland

I need to remember or relearn how to live honestly, vibrantly and passionately


yo Suzie, love you

I know very little about some of the people on my friends list. Some people I know relatively well. I read your journals, or we have something else in common, and we chat occasionally. Some of you I hardly know at all. Perhaps you lurk, for whatever reason. But you friended me, and I thank you for your interest in my words.

But here's a thought: why not take this opportunity to tell me a little something about yourself. Any old thing at all. Just so the next time I see your name I can say: "Ah, there's so and so...they enjoy the savory aroma of monkey brains a la mode."

I'd love it if every single person who friended me would do this. Yes, even you people who I know really well. Then post this in your own journal and see what gems of knowledge appear.

I dont live my life half as well as i should, i procrastinate, i flit, i try and do four things at once, I spend far too much time on line, i dont read as much as I should or as much as I used to, i dont make myself concentrate properly. I dont engage with my friends as much as I should

and I'm thinking this is a dumb way to live my life, with just a little more efort, concentration and streamlining I could get so much more from my life.

I'm going to start really engaing with everything that I do, really be in the experience and try not to have my head somewhere else, just do one thing at a time, not say, flick between the tv and the internet, or even not flick between browser windows, obviously doing more than one thing at once is a good thing such as listening to the radio while tidying or reading in the bath but generaly I want to retrain my brain to concentrate in the moment for significant periods of time. Partly this means if i'm going to do something I should try to do it well, thouroughly and for at least an hour,

I'm going to try and spend less time on line because I actualy think this will mean I get more out of my internet experience. I seem to have collected an awesome eljay friends list and I really want to interact with them rather than flicking through pointess internet stuff. Obvioulsy spending more time doing stuff means I will blog more often as well because I will have more to talk about.

Every day I am going to turn my net conection of at five, this means I wont be distracted when I am writing, bloging or writing emails, all which I will then send/post up the next day. It also means I will read more.I guess sometimes i might have it on so I can listen to radio playback but i wont use it to accses the net otherwise.

Poll #1101505
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Do you want to be on my spirituality filter?

I think sleep is not going to happen as I feel really lousy, all stuffed up and snotty. Did nothing today except drift in and out of sleep, play WOW and watch lots of the Simpsons.

In other news though I'm blogging twice a month as a representative of Mind The Gap over at The Fem Soc blog I wrote that post last night when I was woozy and really tired so not sure how coherent it is,