Mad Queer Love

Like Moon, She Knows. Like Water, She Flows.: a peek into the dark side

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 09:07:01 -0500

Like Moon, She Knows. Like Water, She Flows.: a peek into the dark side:

what is the value of creativity in a world that is so fucked up? what kind of role can art possibly play in such a world?

what is the point of creating in a world so hell bent on destruction? a world that is eating itself inside out, a world on the edge of total and utter demise, on the brink of…

what "unnatural" color should i dye my hair? i was thinking somewhere in between red and pink...

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 09:30:00 -0500

somewherebeyondthesea: and they taste good <3

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 22:12:50 -0500

somewherebeyondthesea:

and they taste good <3

reblog for dearest sister…so close i can taste it!

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 17:58:44 -0400

reblog for dearest sister…so close i can taste it!

to my dearest sister. sending strength and love today.

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 11:25:46 -0400

to my dearest sister. sending strength and love today.

if i have to listen to joni mitchell every morning for the next year to survive. get out the door. get through life. i will...

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 11:19:57 -0400

doctor, can you heal me? no, i can only heal myself...

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 08:40:07 -0400

chopa: owl | by Samya

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 16:47:23 -0400

chopa:

owl | by Samya

"…So no, I am not Troy Davis. I am not a slut. I am not an occupier of Wall Street or any street. The..."

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 16:42:53 -0400

“…So no, I am not Troy Davis. I am not a slut. I am not an occupier of Wall Street or any street. The fights are my fights, but the current methods and analyses are not mine. I cannot sit by and listen to people debate the efficacy of the death penalty without understanding that it is the larger complex of incarceration and the “elementary-to-penitentiary” path that tracks and traps Black and Latino youth by design. I am done with the handwringing and “white lady tears” of so many white women who keep defending racist approaches and actions and, at times, respond with violence when confronted and challenged. Such behavior only reinforces the fact that these movement spaces as they are currently defined are not safe…”
~ Stephanie Gilmore, from “Am I Troy Davis? A Slut?; or, What’s Troubling Me about the Absence of Reflexivity in Movements that Proclaim Solidarity” ~”

- READ IN ITS ENTIRETY HERE

http://afrolez.tumblr.com/post/11232563013/am-i-troy-davis-a-slut-or-whats-troubling-me

oh my god. oh my god. she sums up my opinions ENTIRELY. this is such a perfect thing to read. A+++

(via feministpizza)

great spirit challenges, home and away

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 15:40:52 -0400

pensandpaper: delisubthefemmecub: tofuboots: sapphrikah: kota...

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 17:36:21 -0400

pensandpaper:

delisubthefemmecub:

tofuboots:

sapphrikah:

kotahcat:

Dear Glen T. Senk, CEO Urban Outfitters Inc.:

This past weekend, I had the unfortunate experience of visiting a local Urban Outfitters store in Minneapolis. It appeared as though the recording “artist” Ke$ha had violently exploded in the store, leaving behind a cheap, vulgar and culturally offensive retail collection. Plastic dreamcatchers wrapped in pleather hung next to an indistinguishable mass of artificial feather jewelry and hyper sexualized clothing featuring an abundance of suede, fringe and inauthentic tribal patterns.

In all seriousness, as a Native American woman, I am deeply distressed by your company’s mass marketed collection of distasteful and racially demeaning apparel and décor. I take personal offense to the blatant racism and perverted cultural appropriation your store features this season as “fashion.”

All too often industries, sports teams and ignorant individuals legitimize racism under the guise of cultural “appreciation”. There is nothing honorable or historically appreciative in selling items such as the Navajo Print Fabric Wrapped Flask, Peace Treaty Feather Necklace, Staring at Stars Skull Native Headdress T-shirt or the Navajo Hipster Panty. These and the dozens of other tacky products you are currently selling referencing Native America make a mockery of our identity and unique cultures.

Your corporate website claims to “offer a lifestyle-specific shopping experience for the educated, urban-minded individual”. If this is the case, then clearly you have missed the mark on your target demographic. There is simply nothing educated about your collection, which on the contrary professes extreme ignorance and bigotry.

My primary concern with your company is the level on which you are engaging in cultural and religious appropriation. None of your products are actually made by Indigenous nations, nor were any Native peoples involved in the production or design process. On the contrary, you have created cheap knock-off trinkets made in factories overseas. Selling imported plastic and nylon dreamcatchers disrespects our history and undermines our sovereignty as Tribal Nations.

Did I mention that marketing inauthentic products using Native American tribal names is also illegal? The company’s actions violate the Federal Indian Arts and Crafts act of 1990 and the Federal Trade Commission Act. According to the Department of the Interior:

“The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-644) is a truth-in-advertising law that prohibits misrepresentation in marketing of Indian arts and crafts products within the United States. It is illegal to offer or display for sale, or sell any art or craft product in a manner that falsely suggests it is Indian produced, an Indian product, or the product of a particular Indian or Indian Tribe or Indian arts and crafts organization, resident within the United States. If a business violates the Act, it can face civil penalties or can be prosecuted and fined up to $1,000,000”.

I doubt that you consulted the Navajo Nation about using their tribal name on sophisticated items such as the “Navajo Hipster Panty”. In fact, I recently became aware that the Navajo Nation Attorney General sent your company a cease and desist letter regarding this very issue. I stand in solidarity with the Navajo Nation and ask that you not only cease and desist selling products falsely using the Navajo name, but that you also stop selling faux Indian apparel that cheapens our culture and heritage.

Urban Outfitters Inc. has taken Indigenous life ways and artistic expressions and trivialized and sexualized them for the sake of corporate profit. Your company also perpetuates the worst stereotype of Indians. This is theft of our very cultural identity, no less so than the theft of our traditional homelands that began with Columbus’ “discovery” of the Americas. On this day that America still celebrates as Columbus Day, I ask that do what is morally right and apologize to Indigenous peoples of North America and withdraw this offensive line from retail stores.

Sincerely.

Sasha Houston Brown, Dakota
Santee Sioux Nation

This is just fucking gross. Be decent humyns.

Like, fucking gag me with a spoon!

This letter is fucking spot on

^^^^^

delisubthefemmecub: fuckingscreaming: gpoy bahahahaha G-est...

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 23:47:03 -0400

delisubthefemmecub:

fuckingscreaming:

gpoy

bahahahaha G-est of POYS

queerfathungry: hands off my fucking donut! YYYEEESSS.

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 21:54:11 -0400

queerfathungry:

hands off my fucking donut!

YYYEEESSS.

Photo

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 20:09:57 -0400

Like Moon, She Knows. Like Water, She Flows.: guiding lightz

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:44:43 -0400

Like Moon, She Knows. Like Water, She Flows.: guiding lightz:

lovingwarrior:

I am interested in:

healing and holistic health (the integration of the physical, emotional, psychic/mental, spiritual realms of the being)

birth- ancestral birthing knowledges, birthing cultures, supporting mamaz and babies during birth

art and creative expression

poetry - it just has to have…

i am interested in: you. <3

calloutqueen: Bathroom Bullsh*t! (by itschriscrocker) It’s like...

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 22:51:06 -0400

calloutqueen:

Bathroom Bullsh*t! (by itschriscrocker)

It’s like that time that a person yelled at me for using the mirror in the women’s restroom to put on my lipstick at Erasure

midwestmountainmama: Moms and Dads Occupy Wall Street (by...

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 22:47:49 -0400

midwestmountainmama:

Moms and Dads Occupy Wall Street (by intifadasun)

the walls are alive with the sounds of mad people- a theatrical tour of the historic patient built wall

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:22:00 -0400

[context: unedited, free write of a story pretty much]

coming up to my birthday, i received an email from a friend of mine telling me that the friendly spike theatre was putting on a performance of the walls are alive with the sounds of mad people… again! because it was pretty much the only thing i wanted to go for Mad Pride this year (i’d never been to Mad Pride before…I just went to the bed push march thing which is a WHOLE OTHER STORY)…but anyway, i didn’t get to go to it because i was working. so when i found out they were performing this, and realized it was on my birthday, i sort of took it as a message from the spirits, letting me know this was something important i should do.

in the morning i got super hungry and wanted eggs, but the restaurant we went to that was nearby camh was packed full of yuppies and hipsters wanted their eggs too. so we had to go next door to fresh, which was also full of yuppies and hipsters, who wanted scrambled tofu instead. we were starving and going to be late so we got our food to go, but it took half an hour and i got so anxious i picked off all the skin on my thumbs again without noticing.

we finally got our food but i just wanted to see the performance that was starting on the corner of queen and shaw. it looked like by the time we walked over they had already started. we didn’t know what to do because we had our food but i wanted to listen. and everyone was gathered round with these scripts. so we ate a bit out of our take out boxes while standing but then wasps were following us everywhere, and wasps and i have a complex relationship. we went to try and sit at a picnic table but a man approached us and stood directly over us staring down at our food. my madness and his madness combined + hunger on both ends+ the performance starting= me fleeing the picnic table and deciding to not eat for the next few hours. as i walked away from the picnic table i stepped in a giant pile of shit…i’m not sure if it was dog or horse because i couldn’t really see that well as my vision goes blurry when i’m that anxious. i started to get real upset after that point. that i was figuratively and literally in the shit…i felt like i was covered in shit and because my sense of smell is so god damn sensitive…that’s all i good feel…was shit. my partner was able to help me by telling me that i just had shit on my shoe…and that i was not covered in shit…and passed me a water bottle (we sat in the bus stop bench nearby the performance at queen and shaw)…and i poured it all over my shoe… i squealed a bit more…and we walked back over to the performance.

being around people who are open about their madness is difficult for me too. i’m learning and listening. but having a hard time to trust approaching because no one speaks to me or recognizes my presence. it’s hard for me to be around these people speaking out about madness…they are old, and most of them white. the young people there are interested too but talking to a young white woman who was performing (later we find out she is doing a documentary about the friendly spike and wants to film me, ask questions, i say no) she gave her friends scripts but not us. my partner had to go back to the picnic table because there was a script on the ground. she went back and picked it up off the ground so we could follow along.

i could feel all the ghosts, i could feel the energy as we walked along the wall. and listened to the stories of the people who worked. whose creativity (madness) was taken and used to work, to make stuff for the institution. they were so skilled in everything they did. they were not paid. they were killed. tortured. they died. they ran away. they were captured. they were dragged back. they lived inside and died inside. they wrote. the scratched into the same walls they built. the knitted. they sang. they cooked. they harvested. they thought. they spoke. they loved. but many spirits are still there. infuriated that they have not been recognized. there is a curious energy as they watch us walk through. remembering them, learning about them, touching their products, touching the same earth they had touched. they want this, but they want more. faces blurred out in pictures. the same shed they worked in now storage. a mad activist protecting their names chiseled into brick. “this is used for storage but we want it to be a museum. they were going to take those away but we are protecting them”. we are protecting them. we are protecting each other. creative energies so powerful they last hundreds of years. but they were killed. they were murdered. they were exploited. with no pay. not a cent.

we get to so many plaques. so many plaques to read. to remember. to learn what they did. what did they make? i hear the historian, the tour guide, the protecter…he’s speaking of woman knitting, expert seamstresses- Audrey B. expert carpenters- Winston O. free labor. never free. making so much. creating so much. creative energies used, creative energies stolen. as i’m standing i’m sucked in by the blurs in Audrey B’s face in the photo. i think of a sister that i know of today, who struggles with her creative spirit, a life force, incomplete projects under the bed. i resonate. i feel the history, the reasoning in a history of madness. creative energies destroyed! beautiful spirits destructed. we judge ourselves and we are sad, because it’s not easy to create. it was all intensely connected in that moment.

we finished. we clapped. they bowed. i felt so numb. i hadn’t eaten. i didn’t want to leave because i was so angry. it was hard to walk away. and i was angry at the young white woman at the beginning who ignored us, didn’t give us a script, and then later telling us she is making a documentary and wants to ask questions- video camera in her hand, ready to use it. we declined. it felt good to say no. but i was still pissed.

i think i have more to write about madness, community, and love…in fact, i know i do. here is this huge history. where the spirits collect around us with the refusal to back down. which i’m so moved by, which i’m so charged by. but from my experiences with going out to see what mad people are saying in their work, in theatre- i mean it’s amazing- it’s really truly amazing. but i just haven’t had a chance to connect with it. i’m feel like i’m always on the outside looking into something that i can’t be apart of for so many reasons. because i’m not just mad but i’m queer…and i’m poor. and committing myself to understanding how whiteness becomes so prominent in these spaces as a white woman who wants to organize around the ongoing violence of the psychiatric system within a racist, capitalist state.

so this is just a beginning. i would like to write more and talk to my sisters. share more. and i want to create with them and learn from them. learn from histories. listen to more stories. i really want to do more of that. it just feels very difficult to get outside and do that right now.

if anyone would like to do more of this thinking with me, or doing, or creating, building understanding with me i would be truly grateful for your time and energy.

i’m also including some photos from this day as well.

belated birthday post- letter to self

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:21:00 -0400

September 25th, 2011

It’s my 24th birthday. After a significant amount of crying I decided to write about how I was feeling so as to contain it. The pain was feeling a bit much.

Even though it is hard to do this I know it is important that I love myself on my birthday and try to understand all the pain I am in. SO that I do not carry it with me and continue to hurt myself or possibly hurt others.

My birthday is a painful day because of all the abuse and lovelessness I have experienced in my life (especially when it was disguised as love) I am also sad and feel lonely because I have made the choice to heal and love myself rather than continue to suffer and be with my biological family who I don’t feel cares to know who I am or my truths. There lack of honesty and cover ups hurt me more than being alone on this day.

Besides my wonderful partner, I also don’t have any friends with me physically on this day. which is hard but I trust that is i important that I heal and be with myself on this day. And that each day of struggle looks different, that the spirits will guide me to where I need to be. It’s hard because I have had to say goodbye to so many people and friendships over the years that were also very loveless and hurtful. But I’m blessed and grateful to be building on relationships that are so important, meaningful and full of love and respect.

Beyond cake and candles, surprises and presents, is my connection and bond to the earth and spirits who protect me and guide me. Today on my birthday I celebrate the spirits, their love, and capacities. I am grateful to be alive and awake. Awake to their precense.

They do not need anything from me but truth and my commitment. They do not ask me for something that I don’t I have to heal for. They do not judge me, as I do not judge myself.

Making a choice to be on this journey has been excrutiating, confusing, sometimes feeling too much, directionless. Like sand in the eyes. But I allow the spirits inside to do the healing work, I commit myself to healing and love and they clear the sand from my eyes and help me understand my next steps in the long journey ahead.

On my birthday I have plenty to celebrate for myself. I celebrate the choice I have made to be a loving warrior and creature. To be aware and awake to people’s stories and histories. To build resilience, tell my story, tell the people who have hurt me and abused me how and why.

I celebrate my courage to write this mesage. I celebrate my choice to work as a mad, disabled woman with youth and other mad people who are hurting too. To commit to a future of healing. I celebrate that I am a learning, unlearning shaking type of body that does not choose comfort and easy times, or sleeping through struggle.

I celebrate what I have built for myself after times I thought I was destructive and therefore my only journey was destruction.

It will be ok, even though this day is really hard. I don’t need balloons, or cake, or singing, tons of phone calls. I don’t need my partner to do everything for me. I am no princess. The gift is the love I choose to give myself everyday. The gift is inside of me and outside wrapped around with a ribbon of spirits, bright, sparkling, and often times surprising. I choose survival on the day I celebrate my birth. I am here now.

Heart on Fire: strengths

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 12:16:45 -0400

Heart on Fire: strengths:

strengths: this sharing has brought me so much strength! sigh. thank you lovingwarrior.

lovingwarrior:

1. amidst all the stresses of realizing that i will never live up to the expectations set for me by parents & co./feeling confused and lost as hell in my life, it dawned on me one night as i sat in bed, that i also will never look back on my life 10, 20, 30 (god-willing) years from now and regret…