"Pregnant and I Know It" Music Video

This video is hilarious. It helps me a little with my anxiety of ever getting pregnant.  I'm deathly afraid of people thinking I'm fat.  What a terrific culture to be in... having to be afraid of pregnant bodies.

It's also nice to know that women are doing stuff like this in their downtime.  Making youtube videos is actually a very powerful thing... it helps change the discourse of the dominant male culture through humor and fun.

RAPE

"I'm not fighting for a world where 'radical' rape exists. I'm fighting for a world where the world is free of any rape what so ever."

 

The Question of Violence

Montessori Education and The Partnership Way

A Message From Dr. Riane Eisler, Founder of the Center for Partnership Studies, and best selling author of many books including Tomorrow’s Children, The Chalice and the Blade, and The Real Wealth of Nations. Dr. Eisler and the Montessori Foundation have worked together for many years.

"It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.

It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more"

Anne Frank, Entry in her diary dated July 15, 1944

Over one million children under the age of sixteen died in the Holocaust. One of them was a young girl by the name of Anne Frank.

Anne was a Montessori child from February of 1934 until after the summer of 1941, when she and other Jewish children throughout Holland were told that they could no longer attend school with ‘normal’ children. Her Montessori experience was something in which Anne took particular pride. Non-Jewish schoolmates who survived the war tell us how much she enjoyed her school and the things she studied in those years. In her diary, she describes days after she could no longer go to school in which she carried on as many of her exercises as she could with home made materials. 

Like so many others, my life has been inspired by Anne Frank. She has become a symbol of everything precious and beautiful within the human spirit for people all over the world. Her story is perhaps especially poignant to me because I grew up in Austria during the same period, and barely escaped the Nazis myself. But to all of us who have a connection to the vision of Dr. Maria Montessori, little Anne is  the symbol of what  Montessori schools contribute to the lives of children.

Much of my life has been devoted to an effort to understand and come to grips with the great questions that I raise in my book, Tomorrow’s Children: A Blueprint for Partnership Education in the 21st Century:

•  What is the meaning of our journey on this Earth?

•  What about us connects us with, and distinguishes us from, the rest of nature?

•  Why are some people violent and cruel? Why do some of us feel the need to hurt and kill? Is it simply human nature? Is that why violence seems to be infecting so many children? If so, why are some people caring and peaceful? What pushes us in one direction or another?

•  What are our ethical and moral responsibilities as human beings? What impels us to wonder about such things?

Since time immemorial, people have sought answers to these kinds of questions through religion, philosophy, and the empirical method of investigation we call science. 

In my earlier book, The Chalice and the Blade, I attempted to show through specific evidence what Montessori educators know through their experience with children: that people are not inherently greedy, violent, or competitive, and that we are capable of living together in relative peace. I attempted to document that human beings actually did live in partnership and relative peace for tens of thousands of years.
As did Maria Montessori, I also came to the inevitable conclusion that in order to create a peaceful world, we must lay the foundation in our children, beginning when they are very young.

Unfortunately, in many schools, children often feel powerless to change the course of their lives, much less the course of the world around them. Many become immersed in the materialism and self-centeredness that permeates mass culture, futilely seeking meaning and belonging in the latest fad or commercial offering.
Montessori schools around the world offer an alternative way to raise and educate young people that I call Partnership Education. It is designed not only to help them to better navigate through our difficult times, but also to help them create a future that is oriented more toward partnership, rather than the familiar form of interpersonal relationships that I call the dominator model.

In the dominator model, relationships tend to be based on patterns of domination and submission. Most of us have observed, and perhaps experienced, the pain, fear, and tension of people who use coercion, jockey for control, or who try to manipulate and cajole when they are unable to express their real feelings. We can find this going on every day in the relationships within some families, classrooms, workplaces, and among nations or fanatical groups of ideologues.

Thankfully, most of us have also experienced another way of being, one where we feel safe and seen for who we truly are, where our essential humanity and that of others shines through, perhaps only for a little while, lifting our hearts and spirits, enfolding us in a sense that the world can after all be right, that we are valued and valuable. Relationships like these are based on mutual respect, nonviolence, and a desire to work things out in a reasonable and equitable manner if at all possible.

Although we may not use these terms (partnership and dominator), they do accurately describe the two extremes of the ways that people tend to organize their relationships, from the level of our families to our businesses, and even relationships among nations. While in real life things are rarely black or white, but rather shades of gray, we are all familiar with these two models from our own lives.

The partnership and dominator models not only describe individual relationships. They also describe systems of belief and social structures that either nurture and support – or inhibit and undermine – equitable, democratic, nonviolent, and caring relations. Once we understand the partnership and dominator cultural, social, and personal configurations, we can more effectively develop human institutions that foster a less violent, more equitable, democratic, and sustainable future.

Montessori schools are founded on the partnership model and encourage children to develop the ability to work together, think independently, and be empathetic and kind. As studies have shown, students in Montessori programs both tend to excel academically, they have exceptionally high levels of self-esteem and social and emotional maturity.

Teaching Children To Recognize Human Possibilities
Most schools give young people a false picture of what it means to be human. We tell them to be good and kind, nonviolent and giving. But on all sides they see and hear stories that portray us as bad, cruel, violent, and selfish. In the mass media, the focus of both action entertainment and news is on hurting and killing. Situation comedies make insensitivity, rudeness, and cruelty seem funny. Cartoons present violence as exciting, funny, and without real consequences.

This holds up a distorted mirror of themselves to our youth. And rather than correcting this false image of what it means to be human, some aspects of our education reinforce it.
In many schools, the history curriculum still emphasizes battles and wars. Western classics such as Homer’s Iliad and Shakespeare’s kings trilogy romanticize ‘heroic violence.’ Scientific stories tell children that we are the puppets of ‘selfish genes’ ruthlessly competing on the evolutionary stage.

Montessori schools deliver a different message, even from early childhood. Here children are seen as complete human beings, and are encouraged to discover their own talents and voices. They learn at their own pace, and are challenged to focus their attention and energy on self-mastery, rather than besting their classmates. The goal is still to produce very well educated people, but the means by which this is achieved are much more empowering and respectful.

One of the things that I admire about Montessori is that it offers children a much more balanced and positive view of history. Rather than glorify violence and conflict, Montessori schools help children to look at societies from the perspective of daily life, with an equal emphasis on the roles of women, who were, after all, anything but invisible and irrelevant, as well as the roles men played. Montessori students study the culture, cuisine, art, music, and great stories of past civilizations. Rather than pretend that bad things did not happen, they teach children to examine the evidence of celebration and kindness that did exist, along with the stories of not only warriors and kings, but of the people who made great contributions to social justice, scientific understanding, the arts and great literature, and the search for peace.

Montessori schools also bring to light civilizations, past and present day, that have often been ignored, where social life flourished on a basis of partnership and celebration of life. One of my favorite examples of this is the study of Minoan Crete, a glorious civilization which was ultimately destroyed not by invasion and conquest, but by a series of earthquakes and natural disasters.

It is interesting to consider why schools have continued to emphasize the themes of wars and domination in the history curriculum for so long. Not that they should be ignored, but why these experiences are often glorified seems illogical, if we all want peace on Earth.

But think about it from this perspective. If human beings are inherently violent, bad, and selfish, we have to be strictly controlled. This is why stories that claim this is ‘human nature’ are central to an education for a dominator or control system of relationships.

They are, however, inappropriate if young people are to learn to live in a democratic, peaceful, equitable, and Earth-honoring way: the partnership way urgently needed if today’s and tomorrow’s children are to have a better future – perhaps even a future at all.

Children are impoverished when their vision of the future comes out of a dominator world-view. This world-view is our heritage from earlier societies which were structured around rankings of people who considered themselves ‘superiors’ over their common and everyday ‘inferiors.’ In these societies, violence and abuse were required to maintain rigid rankings of domination – whether man over woman, man over man, nation over nation, race over race, or religion over religion.

Over the last several centuries we have seen many organized challenges to traditions of domination. These challenges are part of the movement toward a more equitable and caring partnership social structure worldwide. But at the same time, much in our education still reinforces what I call dominator socialization: a way of viewing the world and living in it that constricts young people’s perceptions of what is possible and even moral, keeping many of them locked into a perennial rebellion against what is without a real sense of what can be.

Montessori education is one of the few educational approaches that has been so highly successful in giving children both a sound grasp of core knowledge, and the big picture of human history and human possibilities.
The connections between my own ideas and Maria Montessori run deep. In my book, Tomorrow’s Children, I quote from Montessori’s works, and use the great themes in Montessori education, to illustrate many of the reforms that I have urged to transform the schools of today into the schools that we need for tomorrow’s children.

Montessori education has celebrated its first one hundred years, and has proven to be not only highly effective, but more relevant and important today than ever before. With the challenges that we face as human beings – social, environmental, and international – I am not aware of any other educational system that provides such a clearly defined overarching plan for preparing teachers to implement partnership education, along with the curriculum needed to support it.

I earnestly hope that as parents, you can appreciate the value of the education that you have chosen for them by sending them to a Montessori school. There they will absorb critical life skills and values that will serve them well down through the years.

Riane Eisler

Ptahhotep, The Ancient Egyptian's Wisdom of Grace

I thought ya'll would enjoy the following quotes.  I fell in love and now they are hanging on my fridge so I will start to memorize them by heart.

• "Great is the Law (Maat)." (p. 24)
• "All conduct should be so straight that you can measure it with a plumb-line." (p. 27)
• "Injustice exists in abundance, but evil can never succeed in the long run." (p. 32)
• "Punish with principle, teach meaningfully. The act of stopping evil leads to the lasting establishment of virtue." (p. 32)
• "The human race never accomplishes anything. It's what God commands that gets done." (p. 41)
• "Those whom God guides do not go wrong. Those whose boat He takes away cannot cross." (p. 43)
• "Follow your heart all your life, do not commit excess with respect to what has been ordained." (p. 66)
• "If you work hard, and if growth takes place as it should in the fields, it is because God has placed abundance in your hands." (p. 74)
• "Do not gossip in your neighbourhood, because people respect the silent." (p. 74)
• "Listening benefits the listener." (p. 74)
• "If he who listens, listens fully, then he who listens becomes he who understands." (p. 76)
• "He who listens becomes the master of what is profitable." (p. 76)
• "To listen is better than anything, thus is born perfect love." (p. 76)
• "God loves he who listens. He hates those who do not listen." (p. 76)
• "As for the ignorant man who does not listen, he accomplishes nothing. He equates knowledge with ignorance, the useless with the harmful. He does everything which is detestable, so people get angry with him each day." (p. 77)
• "A perfect word is hidden more deeply than precious stones. It is to be found near the servants working at the mill-stone." (p. 78)
• "Only speak when you have something worth saying." (p. 79)
• "As for you, teach your disciple the words of tradition. May he act as a model for the children of the great, that they may find in him the understanding and justice of every heart that speaks to him, since man is not born wise." (p. 85)
• "A woman with happy heart brings equilibrium." (p. 107)
• "Love your wife with passion." (p. 107)
• "As for those who end up continually lusting after women, none of their plans will succeed." (p. 108)
• "How wonderful is a son who obeys his father!" (p. 112)
• "How happy he is of whom it is said: 'A son is kind-natured when he knows how to listen.'" (p. 112)
• "Do not blame those who are childless, do not criticise them for not having any, and do not boast about having them yourself." (p. 113)
• "May your heart never be vain because of what you know. Take counsel from the ignorant as well as the wise..." (p. 119)
• "So do not place any confidence in your heart in the accumulation of riches, since everything that you have is a gift from God." (p. 126)
• "Think of living in peace with what you possess, and whatever the Gods choose to give will come of its own accord." (p. 127)
• "Do not repeat a slanderous rumour, do not listen to it." (p. 139)
• "He who has a great heart has a gift from God. He who obeys his stomach obeys the enemy." (p. 140)
• "Those who[m] the Gods guide cannot get lost. Those they forbid passage will not be able to cross the river of life." (p. 143)

Here's the link to the source.

Phah hotep's Advice to Son about How to treat Women

Well this is interesting. I just got done talking to an Egyptian (He's literally FROM Egypt) Mythologist, and man is he SMART!  He told me about Ra (the sun god) who was all alone and lonely.  So, what did he do? He masturbated.  He masturbated, and then from his cum, he created 4 children: Geb (Earth), Nut (Sky), Shy? (air), and Tefnut (humidity). lol! What a crazy world, and the things we come up with. = )

Here are some original notes from him (the blue is his original handwriting, mine is the black/gray).
Click image or here to enlarge.

Also interesting, ptah hotep, who wrote wisdom literature, advised his son on how to treat his wife and mother.

Here is a little info from wiki about his work, The Instruction of Ptah Hotep.

In the introduction, the author explains the reason for writing the instruction, namely his having reached old age and wanting to pass on the wisdom of his ancestors who had, in his words, listened to the gods. The Maxims are conformist precepts extolling such civil virtues as truthfulness, self-control and kindness towards one's fellow beings. Learning by listening to everybody and knowing that human knowledge is never perfect are a leitmotif. Avoiding open conflict wherever possible should not be considered weakness. Justice should be pursued and in the end it will be a god's command that prevails. Some of the maxims refer to one's behaviour when in the presence of the great, how to choose the right master and how to serve him. Others teach the correct way to lead through openness and kindness. Greed is the base of all evil and should be guarded against, while generosity towards family and friends is praiseworthy. Rise in the social order should be accepted as a gift from an Egyptian god and could be preserved by accepting the precedence of one's superior.

They: A Poem

We are missing parts of ourselves because they became a part of us over time,

and we allowed it, all for the sake of love.

We let the night forever stand still, never letting us see the blinding light of the true nature of the sun.

They became a part of us,

and now moon sized holes fill our hearts that they inhabited because they have left us…

We risked our lives all for the sake of love that they can't seem to offer us.

We feel ripped apart, needing just to find a new piece of life to sew back together the damage.

The time comes to fill those holes with others: others that seemingly aren't they.

We disappear when we attempt to fill the holes, but it's all we can do to bandage an unhealing wound.

It's not hard though to let go of they,

because they didn't inhabit a big piece of us that really mattered…

We didn't truly loved them…

We love, yes… but only on the surface of our hearts and brains

because we couldn't let them penetrate further.

We were never really able to be ourselves around those that terrify and rape,

Never able to express ourselves without condemning and glorifying our thoughts,

Never able to just be around them like we can with those others…

We always knew this, but continue to ignore it even now…

We don't want to admit failure.

A failure of love,

A failure we've been told is our fault,

because it's our job to fix those they into something of our own liking.

Our lesson becomes Let Be and Let Live,

but we live in a system that doesn't Let Be.

We thrive in a system of retribution and disease,

disallowing a true love of they.

This is what happens when little girls and boys are psychologically conditioned from birth to think that romance and love with those they are the ultimate goals in life.

We tear ourselves apart trying to achieve just an once of love and then we tell ourselves we aren't worth it.  That we are ugly, damaged, stupid, enraged, fat, crazy, bastards, in need of change, a genius, gullible, all powerful, worthless, the king... because we are.... because of society's conditioning of how we act and behave.

We think it's our fault because the movies make it seem so easy to love and hate those they.  So black and white.  We think it's our fault because we live in a society where abuse and pain is kept secret from little girls and boys.

Oh, we know it, we know the abuse and pain happens.  We always have.  But it's oh so quiet on the home front.... The nuclear family is the ultimate secret keeper, even to themselves.

Fearful Love: A Poem

Stop calling me boring
    Because now you’re boring me.
Stop telling me I’m unproductive
    Because now I can’t move.
Stop telling me to be all you want me to be,
    Because I can barely get up in the morning because of the confusion.
Stop saying makeup is ugly,
    Because now I feel ugly… and CRAZY confused.

Stop all of it.
Start loving me.
Stop killing.
Start living.
Stop the hatred.
Start touching me
    with your words.

I can’t go on like this.
I can’t even breathe
    Because you are no longer my breath of fresh air.

Touch me with your words
    And I will lovingly give you all you want.
Touch me, and I will touch you back, letting my hand glide over you because you touch me so deeply with your words.

I love you,
But if you can’t understand me, sympathize with me, hold me, then I can’t go on truly loving you.

Women live in a world of makeup and make believe because they can barely obtain it in real life.
Women put a smile on their faces, when really they are drowning in sorrow.
Women fake it until they make it.
Women give man new life, even when women mask their pain with fantasy.
And then when the fantasy fades away, men ask, “Where did you go? You aren’t the women I married.”
And the woman responds, “You killed me with your talk of death.”
And then the man verbally abuses, punches, rapes, dismembers, until she is in a state of submissiveness.
    And the woman responds, “Yes, honey, I love you, always.”

-To all men and women who have hurt me

The Body

 

This outright hatred of so called ‘fatness’ enables an all-out war on the body.

This relentless war demands the complete disconnection of the body and the soul.

At birth these two were one, but, acclimating within a body perfectionist culture forces the soul to vilify the body.

The body, once at peace with the soul, is turned into the enemy being fought.

 

Once the body is twisted into an object of disgust, the soul begins the attempt to control itself by fragmenting into shards.  

This splitting of the soul is unavoidable as control mandates the mind to divide into a ‘me’ that’s being controlled and an ‘I’ that’s doing the controlling.

This leaves the body disconnected from the soul and the soul fragmented in pieces.

We, as human beings, have been fragmented by our culture, left to feel nothing but abhorrence for the body, which merely becomes a vessel holding a ruptured soul of nothingness.

 

This body warfare will always end in devastating losses as it is an endless struggle in a culture that inherently contradicts itself.

Capitalism demands souls to accept a narrow definition of body perfection in order to make souls feel inept and buy more to perfect the body, but Capitalism also necessitates the ceaseless consumption of goods, including the great amount of goods we ingest into the body.

In this Capitalist World-System, the soldiers at war with their bodies 

Will. Never. Stop. Fighting. 

because peace commands a complete revolution of the system.

Doll Face

Here is a 4 minute video which is extremely creepy (I must emphasize the creepy), yet it is a very accurate metaphor for the incredibly impossible task of achieving feminine beauty in our culture.

It begins with a mechanized 'doll' and a TV screen very close to the machine.  The fact that the 'female doll' is a machine can have so many layers of meaning.  Drawing from my previous post about childbirth, women's bodies = money, profit to corporations.  It's not important that women (and men) have feelings, have lives of their own, have pain of their own; profit is the bottom line, and, therefore, women become machines with no purpose of their own other than to serve someone who controls them.

As the mechanized 'doll' takes in what's on the TV, the 'doll' begins to doll herself up with makeup.  After the 'doll' achieves this goal, the TV moves further and further away the more she tries to achieve perfection, representing the unachievable goal of American beauty.  The doll then tries to move closer, but it eventually ends in her own destruction (real life examples: anorexia, bulimia, depression, poor self-image, bad diets habits etc.)