Woman and Child First

The Un-Scientificness of Life

Psychology has had a long history of being eager to quantify human experience. It's because clinicians would look like madpeople in this culture if we didn't bring out the big science: research, defining statistics and knock em dead conclusions. But let's not forget the relationship of psychology and its' need to be approved in a ...political sense.

It probably started with poor old deluded genius Freud. Here was a man who worked with "hysterical" women for a long time and noted that in nearly every case, they had been sexually abused. He wrote a beautiful and brilliantly constructed paper on his research and was nearly kicked out of Viennese society.

Why?

Because half of the aristocracy in Vienna were sexually abusing their daughters.

So he changed his tune and did a re-write concluding that these women were delusional.*

And thus, my friends, the advancement in the understanding of female psychology was halted for another 100 years. All because some bloke wanted to appear not only scientific but one of the club.

*From Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Judith Herman

Heath Ledger

He was too young wasn't he. I wonder how many American's think he was American. Phd?

He started here. 'Two Hands' is a wonderful, funny Australian film.

A piece of Two Hands. I'm very fond of this.

Holly From Sydney

Here's Holly Throsby, a lassie particularly influenced by Joni Mitchell. "Things between People". I do like Holly's way.

Crazy Busy Madwoman

Howdy Folks,

Frantic with huge transitition in my working life at the mo mo. All Good! Will be back soon when things settle a tad.

alison

Tribute To Theresa Lee Duncan

  It was a year ago that I slowly became aware of the suicide of my favourite blogger, Theresa Duncan. A stranger from America was kind enough to track me down and tell me. Lisa had noticed I was a regular commenter on T's blog. Thanks again Lisa.

 I was devastated. And massively confused. How was it that someone I had never met could impact upon me so?

But it's nothing new. Take the mass outpouring of grief when Elvis died, when John Lennon was shot, when Princess Diana was killed. You don't have to be in physical presence to be moved by someone expressing who they really are. The difference with Theresa was that she never became that famous.

Did that relate to the fact that she was a drop-dead gorgeous blond who was not ever afraid of speaking her sometimes intimidating razor sharp wit and intelligence? (Diana has a somewhat different role in history).

Yeah I'd reckon that's a definite possibility.

She should have been famous and by all accounts she wanted to be. At the very least, she sought to be  heard. I could rave on for hours about that one, but suffice it to say:  this woman had the kind of  impact on me that only a handful of people ever had.

I thought she was brilliant and that's because she was. Funny and entirely confident about her sexuality,all of it, she was a true inspiration and continues to be a muse for me. I have adopted her as a personal goddess in the year since her decision, asking for guidance as I go. And guess what.

She's always right and with a familiar sense of humour.

 Wit.

To all the people that knew her in real time, I hope this anniversary re-instates your own worthiness and reminds you to keep going.

Theresa pictured above with lover and artist Jeremy Blake who drowned himself a week after her death.

An Individual Life

There is not one big cosmic meaning for all,
there is only the meaning we each give to our life,
an individual meaning, an individual plot,
like an individual novel, a book for each person. - Anais Nin

It's interesting that in young adulthood we adopt our own - individual - role models. If we are lucky, those luminarie's keep guiding us and reassuring, long after their deaths and long after the initial infatuation. Nin keeps speaking sense to me, 30 years later.

What Are Ya

I'm never coming out of my bedroom again. Tell the children! No wait - I can send them a message from my

                                                        new laptop.

 

I can feel an obsession coming on...Perhaps a small fridge and a dumb waiter for the dirty dishes. I have an ensuite, so hygiene is covered.

I really have nothing to post, I just wanted to show off. But this video does follow up my last post quite well: TISM (This Is Serious Mum), late of Melbourne, being irreverent again. The jolly thing about TISM is that in the 20 odd years they've been playing, no public audience has ever seen their faces. Clever...

Language warning.

Art Monthly Australia

There has been a lot of media attention here recently around issues of child images, "corporate paedophilia" and art. Bill Henson's exhibition was shut down in May before it opened due to including images of a naked 13 year old girl.

Art Monthly Australia (July Issue) has just released it's July issue. The cover is shown. It's a current subject of controversy.

The girl's father has defended the whole thing by saying that we are inadvertently encouraging a "higher level of repression" by not embracing this as art. "We have art to liberate the mind.." 

 I agree repression is problematic and that art (can, though no guarantee's) liberate the mind.

The girl's father goes on to say that he has a fear: "That artists will desert the field of childhood...and I think that is going to be a really sad cultural development for this country".

The girl's father is a wanker. The only sad cultural development we have to fear is that this dickhead gets any more media attention. Please someone lock him in a cafe in Darlinghurst for the next 50 years.

This whole defense is really about how "interesting" and "artistic" the girl's father is when he gets in front of a camera, certainly not about the beauty of childhood. The girl herself gets little to no airspace. I hope this link shows you what I mean. Press Conference.

The Lucy Family Alphabet

"A is for Alcoholic

Shortly after my father died, I'm told that while entertaining a couple of friends I crawled into the kitchen on my hands and knees. When I asked if I'd been trying to be funny, my friend replied, 'No. You just wanted another bottle of wine, and that was they only way you were going to make it.

My attitude to drinking has been entirely formed by my parents. If your mother was essentially a humourless teetotaller and your father was a hilarious, some might say, alcoholic, who would you want to take after?" - Judith Lucy.

 

I'm reading The Lucy Family Alphabet by Judith Lucy: She is an Australian comedian.I've always loved her and she has the same hair as I do.

a small but profound luxury

My favourite female author, Isabelle Allende, interviewed by my favourite Australian TV person, Andrew Denton.

I think that when I was around 5 I realised that my mother was a victim and I didn't want to be like her. My mother was a beautiful woman who was victimised by the society. My mother had no rights, no money, no power of any kind and the only way she could get attention was by being very sick. So she was sick all the time. And I wanted to be like my grandfather, I wanted to be in control. I think I was a feminist before the word was invented. By the time I came across feminist books by eh by American or European writers, I realised that there was [noise in background] an articulate way or a language to express all these feelings that I had had for years and years and so I became a raging feminist as a young woman". - Isabelle Allende.

Interesting how those we admire turn out to be, after all this time, quite like ourselves.

Enough Rope June 30 2008

 

Bear With Me

Sheesh it all happens at once, don't it? Eh?

The latest "You Will Not Blog" event occured when my service provider whined at me, " Ewww you have exceeded your allowance" (Again). So those bastards have slowed my internet-everything speed down to an astonishing degree.

IT'S OPTUS BY THE WAY. OPTUS NET DOT COM DOT FREAKING AU.

So to post what I want to post (gee this in itself is taking a long time) would take around 2 hours minimum.

GOD I HATE PHONE COMPANIES.

 I have paid my penance (literally) and have credit carded myself to an upgraded plan that will take effect in about 3 freaking days.

Grrrr.

Spirituality And It's Place In Healing

"When I went out, I often had patients talk about – most of the indigenous patients – talk about calling on the spirits of their forefathers to help. Once in the past, a patient I was treating, a young man, hung himself, and what I saw was the family and the extended family talking to the spirit of their forefathers to help them bear this". - Russell d'Souza, psychiatrist.

D'Souza is based in Melbourne and is one of two pioneers in the field of psychology and its relationship to spirituality. He's done lashings of research to show that a person's spiritual life may in fact be an extremely useful resource to draw on when supporting them to heal. And here's his colleague, another psychiatrist, George Halasz:

"That is in the setting that I really understood that there is a soul – much like there is a ventricle in the heart, there’s a liver in the abdominal cavity or there’s a brain in the cranium, somewhere there’s a reality to the soul. And I thought “ah ha, that’s what has been neglected”.

Personally, I'm relieved to be given the go-ahead to explore this with clients. I have done so only in the past where the client has made explicit reference to it. I shall be more confident in bringing up the subject now, having previously been scared of perhaps imposing my own beliefs (and therefore being unprofessional).

The same ethical principle still applies of course, the green light of which I speak allows the therapist to encourage the client's own opening of pathways to spirit, not necessarily their own.

Link to the interview

Eskimo Medicine Man

Anger is an energy, May the road rise with you.

Cripes! This virus hangs on like a leech.

Here's a song.

By my favourite feral beauty, John Lydon.

Woman And Children All In Bed

Hi peoples,

Kids have got tonsillitus ( diagnosed after some days of it) and mother has the flu. Will be back when things settle down.

alison

3 Wishes And Theresa Lee

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Do you realize that you now have a great
potential to instigate ringing surprises? Your knack for healing the
seemingly unhealable is at a peak, as is your ability to accomplish the
impossible, get insight into the incomprehensible, and feel equanimity
amidst the uncontrollable. What do you plan to do with all that mojo,
Gemini? I suggest that you act like a character in a fairy tale who has
been given three wishes. Not two or four, but three.

- Horoscopes from Rob Brezsny : Free Will Astrology

I have Rob's astrology sent to me every month via email. Some months my response is "Huh?"  with an amount interest all the same. But other times, it's just what I need to read. I've just had a relationship break-up and the above is perfect for me. Rob's slant is always positive.

Photo of the goddess Theresa Lee  who put me onto the site in the first place.