Jealousy and Literature by Parul Sehgal
Money, You Aren’t Money at All
I am doing a 60 day challenge in which I write love letters to money. This is a fascinating and alchemical process as it is in an online forum with about 200 other people. We are exploring our money lineage, the stories we tell ourselves about money, and the connection between identity and personal abundance. Of course this is right up my alley. Here is a recent post:
Hi Money,
You aren’t really money at all. You are a reflection of my internal world, and you manifest in a variety of ways that connect the everyday to the sacred: romance, money, opportunities, friendships, and a feeling of connection with Source. Or is Source also a reflection of me, or am I a reflection of my perception of Source? At any rate, a relationship with you is a relationship with myself. The magnitude of honor I exercise in/to/with my intuition, pullings, and desires creates the capacity of intimacy that I can maintain with you.
The level of challenge that ‘you’ present by not showing up when I am cuddling with my poverty mindset kind of turns me on. It tells me that if you are different from me that you hold the firm requirement that I show up in my BIGNESS. And if you are me, then that indicates that deep down I believe in myself enough to have faith that I can get to my BIGNESS consistently. Why else would I set up such impossible circumstances for my life? And frankly, with all of my loved people safe, what else would get my attention so profoundly? THIS is the kind of relationship I have been looking for. An energy that will support my push forward into BIGNESS. Insist on it.
You are a magic bastard. Strong. Worthy of me. Sense of humor. Interactive with me at a deeply psychic level. You don’t strip my identity – my desire for you facilitates its development. If I want more of you, I have to become more of me.
What a beautiful little puzzle.
Man’s Real Calling: Mining Sherpa
The Annunaki of Sumerian Mythology (a bunch of little guys doing something for one really big guy)*
So I was doing a little research on the history of metallurgy– figuring that I could distill some industrial verbage into a topic of remarkable interest for our soon-to-be hoards of loyal groupies. And naturally, that led me to Sumerian mythology. The story goes something like this:
The Annunaki who actually came from Sirius but are attributed to having come from Nibiru were out on an intra-gallactic ‘walkabout’ when some had the misfortune of crashing onto Earth. Finding it a resplendent locale, rich in divers minerals, they decided to colonize. They, being all smartypants, mined said minerals for thousands of years because they found that gold, in particular, was a magnificent conductor of energy, allowing them to maintain phenomenal longevity (upwards of 1000 years), increase their survival rates with its healing properties, and look cool as they bedecked themselves.
Some of the more entrepreneurial hatched a scheme. If they could mix some of their stellar DNA with the hominids scattered about, they could create a humanoid chimera who would be smart enough to do this mining work for them and would surely not mind doing so. So the Annunaki created what became humans so that they could then devote their time to more important matters like sinking Atlantis in a sound experiment that went horribly awry.
Inevitably, the humans eventually held an ancient, though successful, version of Occupy Annunaki-Ville, largely in retaliation for the unsavory practice the Annunaki had for dining on them. (Soyent Green / Fee Fi Fo Fum / Vampires). The Annunaki fled, promising (threatening) to return at some future date when the humans had completely scuffed things up. Like a mucked up version of kicking your kids out of the house to find their own way when they are being complete putzes but knowing you will be there for them if they fail miserably. But they’re mostly putzes because they don’t like it when you eat their siblings…
Don’t know about you, but that sent the story-teller in me into a warren of bunny trails from which I may never emerge. Biblical narrative, global themes of giants and vampires–not really so much about gold except that is a backdrop for funding the entire plot. I’ll keep you posted as I find more.
In conclusion, the net net of today’s research finds that according to Sumerian legend, ancient metallurgy began for humans shortly after they were chimera-ated into gold-mining sherpas for the ancient race of marooned space mauraders. Insert Joseph Campbell’s anthropological treatise on human archetypes and one could create a veritable tome, comparing the Biblical narrative with Sumerian legends and drawing conclusions that apply to prophetic writings that span the globe as well as well as to debates about the metaphysical.
For Pete’s sake, have a glass of wine and manifest anticipation as we make our way to the more authorized version of the human-to-precious-metals connection, etc.
Bonus: according to my online source (Internet: the fount of ALL that is true), the 2012 Mayan Calendar / Zombie Apocalypse is a ruse, so at least you can let your hair down on that one!
KP
On Narrowing
The thing that rocks about getting older as a woman is that I quit giving a crap what other people think about my choices. I guess you could call it bitterness or adrenal collapse, but whatever it is, the idea of other people defining what works for me just begins to seem – I don’t know – untenable.
Take Facebook. Recently an acquaintance messaged me and asked me if I was always so kind. I responded that I had always been a people pleaser, but lately being kind was coming from a place of sincerity. I thought it was a great question but came to find the next day that she had intended the comment as an insult. Since I’m about 34 years away from 8th grade, I didn’t spend the time to over-analyze the drama. I just blocked her.
A preference for the quieter path of neglect leading to apathy will probably always be my default: it somehow seems more civilized than the social media equivalent of murder. But you know what? I don’t need to fight people who misunderstand me or want to pick fights.
Block.
Done.
There is a certain appeal to being all things to all people. Eventually though it is exhausting. It’s like not being able to go to sleep at night because I am afraid I might miss out on something. There’s generally hell to pay the next day.
Danielle LaPorte recently wrote a line in a poem: “We change our names so that a reality that we don’t want will let us in the door.”
When we spend our time becoming adept at changing masks to fit into other peoples’ ideas of who we should be, we neglect becoming all of who we are.
Tell me about how you commit to becoming more of yourself.
![Older Model Addresses Body Image – Jacky O’Shaughnessy [VIDEO]](https://saggywithnipples.com/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2014-10-10-at-9.51.59-AM-392x180.png)
Older Model Addresses Body Image – Jacky O’Shaughnessy [VIDEO]
Do you know any women in your life who do not struggle with body image? In this nine minute video segment, Jacky O’Shaughnessy, a model for American Outfitters discusses how she came to be comfortable in her own skin. This is from “The What’s Underneath Project” by StyleLikeU.
Danielle LaPorte’s ‘Contemplation’ Mix on Cosmic Radio
As seen here on her webpage.
Untangling Some of the Most Confusing Bullshit
This isn’t going to be my typical “Oh why can’t I just be a lesbian?” rant – mostly because I like independent motion during sex and the male genitalia is where it’s at for me. Also, women are also people. Possibly the preponderance of those rants are only written in my head – or written and posted for about 37 minutes until I realize that the person I am at-that-point bashing might be reading my blog. It’s not like I want my blog to be known as the post boyfriend trash site, although there is an undeniable allure to the power of “ink.” That given, I’m not a staunch fan of men right now.
Lately I’ve been finding that a lot of women in my demographic (intelligent, post 40, independent, strong, and funny) have been emotionally bludgeoned by men. Bludgeoned as in used, manipulated, lied to, led on, and discarded. What is most heart-breaking about this is that as a group, we don’t want to become bitter. We are in the phase of life where we want to explore vulnerability, partnership, and open-heartedness. We just can’t find partners who will be present, adult, and compelling, and this leads most of us to assume that we are too something or not quite something else enough.
In the interest of being progressively self-aware, I hereby insert a paragraph about some vague sense of taking responsibility for personal power and manifesting our true desires in relationship. Until the rest of me catches up with that, I offer a few thoughts to other women who are struggling with making sense out of the conflicting emotions that come when we care for people who are destructive to us. I got this from my paid for friend when I was trying to figure out if I had quit my marriage.
How do we let go of men we still feel for? We realize that there are different parts of our feelings, and here they are: 1) We love the man. 2) We understand why he is the way he is. 3) But we neither trust the man nor feel emotionally safe around him. 4) And we don’t want to keep being in relationship where we don’t feel safe no matter how well we understand the man. Sometimes we don’t know that we don’t feel safe around the man until the man leaves. Being left feels really unsafe. Sometimes we recognize a much higher wisdom in this – almost like a get out of jail free card, but that doesn’t subtract that we have feelings or that we understand why he is the way he is. And that he chose (an)other place(s) to get his itches scratched. The bottom line is to ask if we feel more safe, secure, tended OR more insecure, unsure, and tentative when we are with him.
Selah.
I write this from my official role of opinionated woman and general experiencer of much emotional disappointment. When these feelings of tenderness and understanding get cojangled with hurt and rejection, it makes extricating and uncoupling difficult. I don’t like taking pleasure knowing that the next person in line will also be heartbroken when the guy gets bored / tired of her jealousy / wants more intellectual stimulation / thinks he deserves a broader audience of ego strokers – because it makes me feel small. It reminds me that I replaced someone else and scarcely batted an eye at that. I don’t like remembering the feeling of privileged recipient of attention for the brief moment I spent on the front burner. My willingness to settle for just-almost-but-not-quite-and-mostly-second-except-for-those-few-really-special-moments scares me a little bit. I want to think I believe in myself more than that.
Talking to these strong, gorgeous, intelligent, engaging, independent women who have been thrashed uncovers various levels of angst. We wonder if we will be alone. We wonder if the fractions of emotional connections we’ve experienced are the best LIFE has to offer. We (I – maybe there’s some projection in this paragraph) wonder that we are built to be social creatures, we work really hard to own our own piles of shit and be whole, and then there are no partners to play with. We wonder if there is room to be wholly us because it seems like the men we meet kind of need us to be wrapped around them. But if we are wrapped around them, then who is tending us? Do we have to choose between us and our creativity and us and love? Mix in kids and jobs, school and health… and just what the hell?
Some of us settle. Some of us self-medicate. Some of us distract ourselves with work and other creative pursuits, but one thing most of us seem to be getting really good at is figuring out that in the overall scheme of men who come and go, the one thing that remains constant is the support of our girlfriends and our families of choice.
It is 23 minutes until the final super moon of the year. I am going to go burn some sage, make a list of the dross I am ready to burn, and listen to some Annie Lennox to bring in the new.
Cheers to all!
Happy Anniversay Kind Of
“Happy Anniversay, LOL.”
“Oh that’s right! Happy Anniversary.”
“Not quite what I envisioned, but we r still swimming. Have a fun day.”
“Lock and load, baby.”
This was the exchange between my ex-husband and me today. Today would have been our sixteenth wedding anniversary if we hadn’t divorced.
In honor of this, I would like to point out the things that went well in our marriage.
Loyalty. I never felt like he was looking over his shoulder to find a newer shiny thing. I never felt like he had a more committed relationship with his phone than he did with me. I never doubted his faithfulness. I often came behind business and life, but I never came behind another woman. Those things aren’t so meaningful when they are givens, but having experienced the opposite of that, I can tell you I like the former better. Long live Capricorn.
Making the effort to be with me. I’ve experienced a lot of flirting, false starts, and empty words. I’ve even experienced words that seemed like real words but that were not backed up by action. I’ve made decisions to put myself on hold to wait for some of those empty words to become real. I’ve chosen partners who didn’t have the bandwidth to be full partners. My ex had none of those. He clearly sought me and he put action behind it.
He sought my counsel. He talked to me about our business, our spirituality, meaningful philosophical concerns. He would let my ideas influence him. At the level of decision-making, I felt like we were full partners.
Honor. While he would struggle with difficult decisions – hirings / firings / strategic turns, once he figured out what was right for him and us, he would do the hard work and have the difficult talks. He let me hide behind him and carried the weight of those things so that I didn’t always have to.
While there were many things that didn’t work well, these were the important things that worked very well. As I get to a place where I can process the last four years with appreciations and a sense of wholeness and learnings, these are the characteristics that stick. It feels very powerful to be able to see the good so clearly because I realize that there was a lot of it.
The World Cup or Something
Yesterday, according to Google’s animated gif, something important went on in the sports world. There was a ball involved and some sort of net. Somewhere between five and twenty virile, agile, and attractive men in matching white attire sportsed against another similarly festooned team, wearing red. The thing they were sportsing over went back and forth on the field and they chased after it with something that one observer referred to as ‘gusto.’
The stands were filled with avid consumers of sportsing who paid inordinate amounts of cash to be there. Many of them took pictures.
Bars and couches were filled with hop-loving sports enthusiasts who alternately watched the game, drank beer, and sexually objectified some combination of the waitresses, girlfriends, and wives who brought them the beer.
Reportedly, the white and red teams sportsed equally, and there was a tie. These teams will each play another game against teams wearing different colored outfits, maybe blue or green. Depending upon who chases the thing around better in the next round, the red and white teams might keep playing games this year. Though only one team gets a trophy this year for being best at chasing things around, the other teams will get another chance at the trophy in next year’s season when new groups of virile, agile, and attractive young men do some sportsing.
UPDATE: Feedback from male readers indicates that some offense has been taken regarding the characterization of men accepting beer from women as the objectification of women. One of them noted that his wife voluntarily brings him beer, and the other noted that he is a good tipper.