society

Post 242: Still, I Walk On

| Aspergers Girls

Dear Angels,

I don’t think I was meant for this earth. My heart is too big and aches too much.

I try to pull myself out of sadness but my efforts are to no avail.

I let go.

I let God.

I try and try.

I sit in emptiness and silence.

I sit in prayer.

I hope and wish and dream.

I try once more.

While I am not tough, I recognize I am brave.

I stand acutely aware of the dangers of life and the inevitability of dying. Change terrifies me, yet my very existence is encompassed by constant change. Still I walk on.

I am bombarded by my mind’s connections, the branching out of complex thoughts in order to make some sense of concepts and happenings. My thoughts, a web, upon a web, upon a web, spinning out exponentially and infinitely with no end, exhaust me. Still I walk on.

The only way to stop the thoughts is to distract. And while the thoughts are endless, the distractions are finite, and have a built-in ability to expire. Expiration leaves me weary and more fearful. The expiration of distraction, too, becomes a fear. Still I walk on.

My empathy depletes my energy sources. With the onset of pain or tragedy, I am left spinning in emotions, uncertain of how to assist, and where to start in the process of uncovering all the information buried beneath layer upon layer of soul-tears. One event turns and quickly bleeds into another—a river of sorts surging and bursting at the bed’s seams and pounding upon terrain after terrain, forging new ground and new thought. Still I walk on.

I see the eyes of the victims of life, hollow, afraid, alone. I understand isolation is a disease of our time, as well as a lingering disconnection. Still I walk on.

Everywhere is poison: food, medicines, waters, earth, animals, man, filled with poison.  Poison as substance and poison as thought. Still I walk on.

I long to sprout wings and hover above, to glide and bless the suffering. I long to weave magic, to soothe and comfort. I long to place a salve of love and salvation across humanity. Still I walk on.

I don’t know where to place my angst, my fear, my pain. And I refuse to pretend life is easy and happy. I question and question: Can I be light and be sad? Can I be light and be confused? Can I be light crying from within the darkness? Still I walk on.

I beg in confusion, and in my absence of vigor and vitality, depleted and drained, I weep. “Give them hope and strength. Show this world, so long emptied of hope a vision, a sign, a destiny. Point us to the path of light.”

And though my feet our weary and my head heavy, still I walk on

With lantern in hand, with angels at my side, I stand motionless, a light to the path, as still, I walk on.

Day 227: Independent Thought

| Aspergers Girls
Happy Me….before I got super sick!!! Two weeks ago. Seems like months ago. Still recovering. Hope to be back to self super soon.

Independent Thought

There are too many rules inside this head, of what to love and what to dread,

Of whom to trust, and whom to fear, of when to speak and when to steer,

Away from one and towards another, and follow instead the words of a brother,

Where rests this inner truth that’s real, within spoon-fed morsels of how to feel,

In mountains high of indoctrinated texts and rivers wide of created sects,

Of where to stand, for what, and why, of when to grin and when to cry,

To find the answers, when none exist, to hear their echoes, when all just twists,

This tattered net, transitioning mesh, idealization of living flesh,

Curses at unwanted things, traps illusion in greed’s spindly strings,

Dark and nettled, bent to shape, the landscaped thoughts, thusly raped,

Of truth that breathes within the self, of passion, of love, of grace and stealth,

What kinship have thee, what ancestors whole, where is character bred, in life’s foothold,

Must I reap what others sow, and follow through where they too go,

Oh what of  this seared misplaced soul, unraveled at seams from tellings told,

Draped and ripened in merriment, branded with steamed discontent,

Belly full,  treasures vast,  spirit bled for youthful gifts,

A charade, half-finished, that never ends, and claims the light of one again,

A painted canvas of needy spades, digging up foundation that was never made.

~ Samantha Craft, September 2012

Day 224: The Screaming World

| Aspergers Girls

The Screaming World

The lady with the neckbrace, a result of some accident I’m guessing, stood at the corner of the sidewalk, screaming. Her partner, joined in, only more light-heartedly.

“Oh, good for you! Just drive through! Did you not see my brace? What the fu** is wrong with you?” the lady shouted. She looked like an Italian in the middle of a full-blown rage, the way her arms were tackling the sky and her body enveloped in emotion, only she was very white and freckle-covered, and likely not European at all.

Yes, I noticed a lot in a few seconds. I tend to—to take in a whole movie in a matter of no time at all. That’s me. And I guess that’s what made the occurrence that much more troubling.

I’ve been processing this scene of the outraged, neck-braced caucasian in my mind for three days now, and have come to the conclusion of why the situation bothered me so. It comes down to fear, and how, as a result of fear, humans often assume the worst about other people.

In terms of fearing others, most people with Aspergers are over-trusting, at least for the start of their life; until they are more than likely hurt by not one but a multitude of people; primarily because others exhibit actions and behaviors the person on the ASD spectrum did not count on, and perhaps wasn’t able to understand. However, for the most part, individuals with Aspergers start out very trusting; and even after continual “let downs” and hurts, they tend to remain trusting, despite their best efforts to emulate the anti-trust phenomenon all around them.

I used to think I lacked an ability to adjust and adapt to the surrounding societal roles and values of fearing others. Now I believe the attribute to over-trust is a spirit-born gift and an ability to transform our world.

Throughout my life, I’ve been warned by various people not to over trust, not to be naive, not to expect that another will be there for me. And especially not to expose myself. I was taught through experience, and from others, that if I was myself I would be rejected, shunned, compartmentalized and ostracized. I am still warned, that if I over-share, people will have more ammunition to use against me. In essence, I have been taught, through experience, example, and through others’ cautionary words, to not trust and to not be myself.

What a terrible way to live: to carry within my being a perpetual fear of being me because I might be hurt.

But that is my world at this instant.

Despite the warnings and potentially looming dangers, I have made the conscious decision to be me.

I know enough to understand that no matter the preparation and shielding, the pretending and hiding, that ultimately people cannot escape fear; and that the fear does not reside outside in the scary world, but inside in the choice to not be real, and the fallout of non-genuineness that causes people to lose touch with who they are.

In looking at fear-based living, what is troubling, beyond the potential loss of self-understanding and authenticity, is the way society perpetuates fear.

Today, I readily view the fear indoctrination through our media, big business, and government. Although, with the sharing of beds, big business, media, and government, are potentially all one ancestral family.

Presently fear is perpetuated through the bombardment of looming cancer. Even at the amusement park, I went to yesterday, there was a huge  pink ribbon symbolising breast cancer awareness painted on the concrete. And the whole ride was painted pink. When I shop, I am asked to support cancer research. When I drive down the freeway, I see billboards about sickness and cancer. When I turn on the radio, television, or read a magazine, I view cancer, cancer, cancer.

My world is painted with the fear of cancer. It’s not that I am against awareness or finding a cure; it’s that I am against fear. Or not even against it, but tired of fear being put on a throne set upon a pedestal. Tired of fear being the foundation of my society.

Fear has been indoctrinated into my mind since I was born. American born and bred, I arrived fresh and innocent into a world that had for over a decade already been pushing fear into society to encourage others to buy, buy, buy, to stimulate the economic market. Then it was only television that reminded my generation and the ones before and after me to buy to subside fear. Now everything is media. I can’t go anywhere, beyond the beauty and grace of the forest, without the fear-factor.

And cancer research and awareness are not the answers, nor the solutions to our problems. The problem is literally the problems—the view and bombardment set upon us that everything is a problem.

And in considering these presented problems, we already have solutions, solutions echoed by the Native Americans long before us. Cancer is not the disease and enemy. Cancer is merely a result of our overly polluted environment: the toxins in our food, water, air, and prescription drugs. The disconnection and disrespect for our environment and nature. The disconnection from ourselves.

Food has become our poison. Much of what is added to our processed foods, in the form of corn syrup, in mutated form, is actually classified by the companies themselves as pesticide. It seems rather simple to me, a first step in fighting cancer and illness, would be to stop selling pesticides disguised as food.

Also, in America, it is fact that economically deprived neighborhoods don’t even have grocery stores. There are no opportunities to buy fruits and vegetables. Why? Because grocery store establishments have deemed the low-income areas non-profitable and have as a result pulled out of those neighborhoods. Cancer, diabetes, and obesity are on the rise everywhere, but particularly in the areas where the people are under-educated and living at poverty-level. In these neighborhoods, the giant fast food industries move in to make up for the lacking. So our young generation is being fast-food fed on mutated, poor grade meat and poultry, loaded with chemicals and over treated in fat and oils, and are without the money to travel to find a store with real food, and without the education or mind-energy fueled by nutrients to know better. Suddenly a corn-fed, antibiotic, disease-ridden, slaughtered mixture of multiple cows added with toxins, additives, overly processed oils, and fat, has become the staple meal of the poor. Suddenly an apple is deemed not as nutritious as poison. Or not so suddenly, in actuality, I suppose.

So what does this have to do with trusting my fellow human or the lady on the street screaming?

First off, the lady was yelling because there was a misinterpretation. I thought she wanted me to drive through the crosswalk, that she wasn’t ready to cross the street. She thought I was going to wait. And then she went further to think that my intention was to be inconsiderate and down right rude. She chose to see the worst in me, to believe I didn’t care about her, that I wasn’t willing to bother to stop. She chose not to trust me.

And that bothers me, because the more I think about it, the more I realize, as a collective we don’t trust. We have been raised a fear-based, paranoid society, made to fret over each moment of our day, to wonder what traumatic event will befall us, and to spend our last dime in creating a reality around us of distractions and comforts in hopes of diminishing our fear. We carry an emptiness around that we believe at moments can be filled with food or material goods. We believe solutions are found in a pill, not in nature. We believe the only way out of turmoil is through polluting our environment more through consumerism and over spending. We carry an urgency for a way out and not a way in.

We have been taught to live a life escaping death, escaping loneliness, and avoiding ugliness.

We have been taught that we are dying, we are unworthy, and that we are ugly.

We have been taught we are wrong and in need of fixing.

We have been taught to give of ourselves completely in the wealth of our minds, our bodies, our spirit, and currency, in order to be fixed.

We are trapped in a cycle of fear feeding fear, trying to fix that which was never broken with placebos that only injure at every level.

We are ready to return to the spirit, who knows awareness without fear.

We are ready to stop fighting and fearing and to become aware that we no longer need to build our world on a foundation of fear.

Because despite all of this indoctrinated fear, this misshapen world that has been painted onto our souls, some of us still carry hope. Some of us still trust. Some of us are not afraid to be our true selves, to shine and be authentic no matter the imaginary threat.

Despite the lies we  have been told, the trickery, the sadness, and devastation, we can choose to not fear, to see the light in people. We can continue to carry hope wherever we travel. We have the spirit-given eyes to see through the illusions, to know that this reality is temporary, that we are in transition, and that together we can transform our reality into a place of soul awareness.

This fear can be leached out and drained away, the more we pour in love and truth.

We must see the lady on the street screaming as pure beauty in disguise.  An instigator of change. A symbol of our screaming world. An obvious sign that the world is not happy and not trusting.

We can choose to look at the person screaming out as the innocent submerged in the sea of sadness perpetuated by the ongoing waves of fear and mistrust.

We can bring her out with a gentle hand to the shore and let her shine.

But first we must crawl out of submersion ourselves and stand in the light of authentic being.

Day 175: Squirrel on a Wall

| Aspergers Girls
Lover’s Point Pacific Grove
Squirrel on a Wall

“Do you think the title ‘shag-o-rama’ would pull in a lot of blog readers?” I asked my husband

I know just the thing to say in the morning to make him laugh. I’m gifted that way, in my off-the-wall-goofiness. And I’m starting to really like that about myself. I see the world through the eyes of a child: somewhat innocent, a bit naïve, and at times downright clueless. Before, when I was younger, people sometimes perceived me as the ‘dumb blonde’ or as fake–assuming it was impossible for someone to be that goofy and hope-filled, naturally.

I don’t buy into people’s judgment of me anymore. I understand now, that like everyone, I have an amazing spirit. I know I am a spirit who never gives up and often tries to see the best in people and situations. And that my spirit just happens to be giddy, joy-filled, surprisingly forthright, and sometimes bold. I embrace my worthiness and I am pleased to do so. And the more I do, the more beauty I recognize in other people.

However, in embracing me, I cannot help but notice that many people are not embracing their own worthiness.

Instead of embracing self, there exists this talking down of self and others. There remains this inability to take in a compliment or kind word, this constant criticism of self or others, an all-encompassing blame, and a narrow scope of focusing on the “negative” aspect of someone else’s life. There often exists a lack of effort and follow through to forgive others. There is often a lack of responsibility for personal choice and action, and an overwhelming sense of ease and comfort to focus on materialism, collection, and possession. To move ahead, to succeed, to surpass and win. Life appears to be a race filled with fear and blame.

sign downtown where I live

For many, day-to-day life has become a routine. The creative spirit has been sucked out of the masses through consumerism, fear-based messages, and dogma that indoctrinates lack of hope and an infections drive for success and materialism. There is an ongoing separation from neighbors, friends, and family. As a collective, some people have forgotten how to appreciate nature and people, and instead are consumed by avoiding failure or disapproval.

This lack of self-worth is evident in the way people focus life around food. How as a society many have chosen food as a way to stuff the empty holes inside. Inner holes and empty space, this sense of lacking and emptiness, is best filled through creativity, self-expression, and an unyielding urge to share and connect, and of course through love. Instead we are stuffing ourselves with food, to the point of fatigue, disease, and depression.

Food has become our center light. More thought is spent on food than anything else. And in second place is death, dying and disease. Everywhere in word and picture and form, we are reminded of pending cancer. We are bombarded from a fear-based society by the ever pending potential threat of illness, danger and doom. And then we are offered the remedy of poisonous foods as appeasement.

Someone has it all backwards. The collective buys into this fear and food stuffing, and more and more fear is spun.

window in Pacific Grove

Recently, I was saddened and stirred by the site of a squirrel. Just one squirrel. He was so very fat and sickly, swollen in spirit, sitting there at Lover’s Point in Pacific Grove California on a stone wall. So engorged that he could not budge. I literally stuck my camera right into his face, and he didn’t flinch. I sighed and whispered to him: “You really need to stop eating so much, Mr. Squirrel.”

Problem is the tourists feed him the leftovers from the beachside hamburger joint: french-fries, hamburger bun, ice-cream cones. Poor little critter doesn’t have a chance—constantly bombarded, he is.

And here we are, feeding our people the same. Junk and poison. Fear-based propaganda and polluted thoughts, as well as food lacking nutrients and value.

And so many are sitting on the wall now, unable to move, to walk toward their soul’s purpose, to give and inspire, to create and connect, to live and love, because they are so overstuffed with poison and misery.

I feel for the overfed and tired squirrel. I was once one myself. Watching from the sidelines and wondering how to move. But I found my legs, and now I wonder over and over, how to pull all the squirrels of the wall. One by one, to free people from society’s bondage.

Pacific Grove Squirrel
ever before

Day Forty-One: To Blog or Blob? That is the Question.

| Aspergers Girls
The Blob Lives!

People with Aspergers incorporate different coping strategies in order to feel more comfortable. This post, I am pleased to report, is a fine example of such coping strategies, including:

  1. Humor
  2. Data Organization
  3. Tangents
  4. Analysis of Self
  5. Correction/Editing of Self
  6. Analysis of Others
  7. Research
  8. Interconnection of Data
  9. Data transformed into New Information

My original intention today was to report on how my blog has become a mind- and time-devouring entity, closely resembling the indistinct, formless entity from the movie The BLOB.


But, instead I deleted an entire, page-long list that had words such as: obsession, fixation, ice pack for shoulder pain, eyestrain, fear, and extreme anxiety. And replaced this here posting with the land of the blob. Which I know, and you know, has a much higher fascination-factor than a post about obsessive blogging.

Unfortunately, I planned on writing for only 30 minutes today, and instead I am further made blurry-eyed and pain-ridden. Once again, I was sucked in and consumed by my BLOG! The HORROR!

At this moment as I am typing, I have my computer in split-screen mode, and I’m watching the 1958 horror flick The Blob. If you are in the X Generation, there is a high probability that The Blob, (which was originally titled the Glob), rates in the top ten of all time horror flicks.  In the movie, an alien life form consumes everything in its path. As the blob devours, it continues to grow in size, until it resembles one massive lump of blood-red Jell-O. When the movie ends, the blob is dropped into the Arctic. Then a big question mark (?) appears on the screen, leaving little kids from the 1960’s and 1970’s to wonder forever, if the blog is in fact living in bedroom closets, streets, under beds, and in toilets.

Just think: if those Generation Xers had been told the blob was only a modified weather balloon and colored silicone gel, we’d have saved a lot of money on mental health therapy.

The movie makes me think of the words heebie-jeebies and jeepers-creepers, both words that Louis Armstrong has perfected, by the way.

I’m still watching the movie, and finding the scenes rather dull. Waiting for the blob to show up.

 

Here are some conclusions I reached from the data I collected from BLOB research.  

1. People who saw the Blob were scared shi*less!

I’ll need to buy tons of ice and fire extinguishers before I’ll ever feel safe again.

I saw this movie about 30 years ago, but was so scared that I ran out of the cinema before I could see the end!

I used to wonder about the question mark. I saw tons of horror movies when I was a kid, but seriously, not one of them scared me half as much as this one.

I wouldn’t call myself lucky. This movie scared the crap out of me so bad that I had to sleep with my mommy!

I was 5 years old and it knocked me out. I had nightmares for two weeks.

I saw this movie when I was a child and alone with my brother. I was so scared. I’m still having nightmares.

Saw it on TV way back in 1975 ,scared the crap outta me too! What can kill it?

I remember this movie scaring the crap out of me when I was a kid. And it was almost 30 years old by the time I saw it.

Omg, I remember this movie used to scare the hell out of me.

This movie scared me to death when I was a kid. After seeing it I couldn’t eat cherry Jell-O for weeks.

Well, for people back then, it was creepy as hell.

I think if it were real those people would run away and crap their pants.

When I saw this movie on the tv as a kid, it literally scared the piss out! of me. I woke up screaming and peed my nightgown.

2. People don’t like older men playing teenagers, even if the guy is sexy.

Looks like he’s pushing 30 and he has to sneak out of his parent’s house?

Yeah, Steve McQueen is the oldest looking ‘teenager’ I’ve ever seen.

Steve McQueen is supposed to be 17 in this movie and he was 27!

He hangs around with these teenage boys and he looks like their uncle!

McQueen is the sexiest man in history of men.

He’s supposed to play a teenager in this movie? They could have chosen someone who didn’t look 50 years old.

I like way they keep calling Steve a crazy Kid!!!.Shit he is as old as the old.

Steve McQueen was and still is ‘The Man’!

The old guy is so damn cute.

Are there nude photos of Steve?

3. People reminisce when they see old movies from the 1950’s.

In those days boys had good manners and girls behaved like well children.

Back then, when you missed something on TV that was it, until you caught it again.

Wow, 1950’s, I wish to see that day and die in the 50’s.

Remember when there was a vibrant healthy middle class and anyone notice the COLORFUL clothing and cars? Look at how many people wear black today and drive gray cars. And go down any Main Street USA today and see the poverty and boarded up windows…

4. People side with or personify Blob.

If I were an alien from another planet and I had an ignorant old piece of white trash poking me with a stick, I’d devour him, too!!

What kind of an idiot goes outside and pokes at a lugee?

This music leaves me with the impression that the Blob’s a suave, fun-loving guy who’d stop eating towns if you just got him a cigarette and a nice cocktail.

That Blob sure is a cool cat!

My sister had a girl friend she called the blob.

5. People theorize about the future of the Blob.

“As long as the arctic stays cold,,,” Ha ha, it’s like they we’re already setting up a sequel to be released whenever global warming thawed the arctic.

I still wonder why there was a question mark at the end.

Well, even if the ice caps were to melt, the arctic would still remain too cold.Then again, the blob could just float like a big ice-cube and drift out towards warmer waters in the sea.

Imagine that thing in the water eating whales and big, big things in the sea. It will be unstoppable.

Shit! Global warming is gonna set the blob free and it’ll either start with the Scandinavians, the Russians or the Canadians…

(These are all quotes I found under comments beneath the video clips on YouTube.)

Last thought. My Giant Question Mark:

1. I’m wondering if the search term crap will bring people to my blog now. And I’m thinking: Oh, Crap!