Category: Visions

Listen to My Voice

On By dancingpalmtreesIn African American Queen, African Goddess, Carnal, Colour of Beauty, Erotic, Ethiopian Goddess, Female Divinity, Feminine Divine, Ferrari, Kinky/Nappy Hair, Love, Romance, Sexual Fantasy, Songs of Solomon & Sheba, Spirituality, Thracian King, Uncategorized, Visions

Listen to my voice

Listen to my voice. Listen to the sound of my voice.

Leda & Radu
Leda & Radu

Leda began her hair color ritual in the usual way. She carefully laid out the tools of her trade on the bathroom sink and the top of the commode. Being a small bathroom there was not much space but Leda made do within her sanctuary. Hair color, towels, mirror, comb, gloves, check. Now Leda was ready. Using a wide tooth comb she divided her thick unruly curls into sections applying even amounts of color first to her roots then all the way through to the ends. Pulling the comb through her mane Leda envisioned Radu’s well groomed hands entangling themselves within the kinks and knaps of mother Africa all the while gently massaging her scalp and kissing the nape of her neck. Leda massaged the remaining color through her tangled tresses then set the timer for 25 minutes walking the short distance to her bedroom to meditate while the process worked its magic.

During the 25 minutes of meditation Leda visualized her lover Radu sitting next to her on the bed speaking softly and gently in his Eastern European accent all the while kissing her brows, the bridge of her nose and finally her lips. She could feel the bristle of his closely manicured beard against her face all the while falling into a deep blend of olive skin intermingled from Slavic, Romanian, Turkish and Macedonian blood lines. From his lips issued the voices of ancient Kings worshipping the Queens of Africa, Sheba and Candace.

He sometimes stopped to look deeply into her eyes mentally willing the both of them to become one flesh.

Suddenly the buzz of the timer interrupted her reverie and off she went to turn on the shower preparing to rinse out the excess color treatment. As Leda stepped under the powerful flow of the water Radu’s spirit stepped in with her and they were transported to the thunder of Caribbean waterfalls, enveloped in thunder of the cascading streams. Radu’s hands were like the streams of water entering into every sensitive place of her temple. She could feel his lips and hands as they worked their way down from her neck, breasts to that soft mound of flesh above her pubic area where he loved to rest his head after a night of lovemaking. Water and color ran down over all the nooks and crannies of her curves.

Ring, ring, ring, the sound of the phone brought Leda out of her fantasy and quickly toweled off and managed to answer before the machine kicked in.

“Ello Layda. I just arrived at JFK. Taking a taxi to your place. See you in a few minutes.”

Leda rejoiced. Her fantasy was about to become real. Her Lover was almost home. Her thoughts wandered to a romantic tryst in the hot tub at their friends chalet.

Ferrari Sex Machine
Ferrari Sex Machine

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Female Ancestor from my Dad's side, Name lost to Time

The Cruelty of “Christianity”

On By dancingpalmtreesIn Africa, African Goddess, Ancestor, Ancestry, Dark Skin, Edward Palmer, Ethiopian Goddess, Family Tree, Female Divinity, Feminine Divine, Goddess, Koyaanisqatsi, Mable Elizabeth Palmer, Mable Palmer, Matriarchy, mitochrondrial DNA, Mother, Mozambique, Native American, Nature, Noah's Ark, Sacred, Scars, Songs of Solomon & Sheba, soul, Spirituality, Stigmata, Suffering, Tekahionwake, Trail of Tears, Visions, William Henry Halstead, Wisdom7 Comments

The Cruelty of “Christianity”

Tekahionwake

“Oh, why have your people forced on me the name of Pauline Johnson? Was not my Indian name good enough? Do you think you help us by bidding us forget our blood? By teaching us to cast off all memory of our high ideals and our glorious past? I am an Indian. My pen and my life I devote to the memory of my own people. Forget that I was Pauline Johnson, but remember always that I was Tekahionwake, the Mohawk that humbly aspired to be the saga singer of her people, the bard of the noblest folk the world has ever seen, the sad historian of her own heroic race.”

Nobody knows my name or the real me except Jesus and him alone. Some ancestors unwillingly pulled from the breast of Mother Africa the others walked the “Trail of Tears”. Both had forced upon them the indoctrination of Euro-centric Christianity to the detriment of each noble culture.

A few months ago I traced my maternal ancestry back to Mozambique. When I made that discovery something in my spirit clicked and I knew that one day I had to return to the birthplace of my Great, great, great, great, great Grandmother, her birth name lost to time and eternity. Other ancestors born in this great land have yet to be revealed. Many times I wonder, “What was my African and/or Native American name.”  The names of Finney, Halstead, Gordon, Palmer were all given by some distant slave-owner. Who were they and who were they 500 years ago?

Like Tekahionwake I live my dichotomy every day even in my spiritual life wondering about the respective faiths of my African and Native American ancestors. Thinking about how their own unique worship was torn asunder only to be replaced by a Euro-centric “Christian” god who relegated them to a lesser status, below that of their European captors.

Children of an accursed Ham? (Genesis 9:20–27) I think not for the descendents of the great Realm of Ethiopia have risen again to the rightful place in the Diaspora.

Matthew 12:42

New King James Version (NKJV)

42 The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here.

The cries of my people would not be extinguished. The voices of my Native American ancestors called to me for redemption. Through an experiment called Carlisle Indian Industrial School History, really internment in re-culturalization concentration camps Richard Henry Pratt sought to erase the cultural identity of Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho and other tribes through forcing children into complete immersion in Eurocentric culture and identity, effectively erasing their own. Take away a person’s language and belief systems, telling them that how God created them was wrong and had to be fixed only serves to create indwelling images of self-hatred within those lost children. If eradicating my indigenous and African American culture, traditions, ethnicity and exchanging them for dominant white culture will I be closer to God?  Will Jesus accept me in this new form?

As I gaze in the mirror as many Native Americans did 150 years ago neither my face nor my features as God made them can be erased. The efforts on the part of European conquerors failed. Nor were the colonizers able to erase the connection to the Great Spirit as he was known long before the white man touched our shores.

White man you tell me that only your version of Jesus can save my soul and deliver me from sin. And just what is my sin? Being born with a brown face, high cheek bones, full lips, long flowing Jet Black hair or locs that rise to kiss the sun. Does my sin lie in the dances my people perform to honor my ancestors and Mother Earth who gives us all sustenance? Am I or my ways at fault because we revere Nature as opposed to destroying the land, fouling the waters, polluting the environment in a never ending obsession to conquer, convert and control? Now who is the savage? Who is the so-called heathen?

Oh European who comes bearing the sign of the cross who is this God of yours that lifts up your customs and traditions but disparages mine? He is not the Jesus depicted in your Old Master paintings from Italy, Spain, France or the Flemish Masters. No, more than likely he was a swarthy man with kinky dark woolly hair, skin darkened by constant exposure to the sun. Jesus was someone whose looks paralleled the populations most of the indigenous tribes of Africa, North and South America.

Revelation 1:14-15

New King James Version (NKJV)

14 His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; 15 His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters;

We Sisters and Brothers from what you named the “Third World” now know that Jesus came for us just as we are. God accepts us in all the richness with which he created us. We Black and Brown followers have redefined and returned Christianity to its original intent and meaning.

No longer do we walk the “Trail of Tears” or the Via Dolorosa. Now we stand together arm in arm marching onward to Zion that beautiful city of God taking our place among those who have been redeemed.

 Female Ancestor from my Dad's side, Name lost to Time

Nina Simone – If He Changed My Name

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Ode to Insomnia

On By dancingpalmtreesIn Ambien, Delusions, Dreams, Fantasy, Fears, Hallucinations, Hypnos, Icelus, Insomnia, Instability, Koyaanisqatsi, Midnight Marauder, Morpheus, Night Sweats, Nightmares, Oneiroi, Orpheus, Phantaso, rabbit hole, River Styx, Sacred, soul, Stigmata, Suffering, Surrealism, Visions, White Rabbit2 Comments

How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.
Bram Stoker

Insomnia

Insomnia: the passage to uncharted realms between wakefulness and sleeplessness.

Charon ferries me across the River Styx into disturbed realms.  Dimensions where time, space and eternity no longer exist as we know them.

My insomnia is paralyzing.  So paralyzing that I find myself drifting. Dissolving into the walls and the furniture. Becoming one with inanimate objects. A force of nature living outside herself. Voyeur to my uncharted dreams. My inner world merged with the world at hand. Imagination gone wild.

Insomnia is God’s younger brother satan sent to torment me.

God’s way to torture sinners and test saints.

Koyaanisqatsi (Hopi) – crazy life, life in turmoil, out of balance, out of sync

I feel disconnected. My life is one where toys do things that toys should not do.

The bane of a troubled mind.

A form of earthly eternal damnation.

Insomnia opens the door to insanity

I’m one of the chosen.

Tonight when Morpheus and Hypnus spread the poppies of

Stardust upon you, the Fallen Angels will render unto me phobias and

Phantasmagoria. I see doors where there were previously no doors. Doors that open to the netherworld of demons with outstretched claws ready to drag you into the abyss.

An uneasy mind dangling off a precipice ready to let go.

Disturbed, deranged, distortions, disorientation becomes a part of everyday reality. Am I living the hallucination or is the hallucination really me?

I lose myself in the madness and surrender to the psychosis.

Life begins to implode.

An implosion shaped hand circles it claws around a jar of Ambien

I fought writhing on the bed all night long with the gods of sleep, dreams and death.

Morpheus, Oneiroi, Icelus, and Phantaso surged forward over me along with the attendants of Hypnos.

They all had their way with me and once stated I smell the dusky layer lilies over my nose. The smell of jasmine sharp in my left hand. The prickly pain of red roses in my right hand. Sheaves of vanilla spread out over both my legs.

Life begins to implode. HYPNOS, Give me the sleep inducing opium straight from the poppy that birthed it.

 

A hand shaped implosion grabs for a bottle of Ambien.

I fought writhing on the bed all night long with the gods of sleep, dreams and death.

Morpheus, Oneiroi, Icelus, and Phantaso surged forward over me along with the attendants of Hypnos.

 

They all had their way with me and once stated I smell the dusky layer lilies over my nose. The smell of jasmine sharp in my left hand. The prickly pain of red roses in my right hand. Sheaves of vanilla spread out over both my legs.

 

Pamperation for the Queen of Slumberland

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.
Henry David Thoreau

The Midnight Marauder once again prowls the airwaves. Oh Blessed Sleep where are you? And why do you continue to deny me the rest I so deeply need?
Wish I could wind down. I always seem to be wound up!! Where’s my off switch?

No Sleep. Only the sound of my own thoughts ticking in the night, like the hands of a clock going around the dial and never resting.

Crickets?

I’ve been banished from Tranquility Base. Tried listening to some soft quiet music but I’m still awake. Looks like the gods of sleep have cursed me. Almost time to get up for work anyway. Too bad I didn’t have some Valium, Demerol, Percocet or Xanax. Then I could get some much needed sleep! Should be a fun day at work today. Guess I’ll just be in Zombie mode all day.

Sleep thou elusive bird of paradise why dost thou no longer grace my bedroom door? Alas the night has past and day begun and the time for work is now at hand.

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Insomnia Kitty
Me, Sylvester & Weezer. My cats my night time companions.

 

Holmesian Psychology Behind the Rabbit Hole

On By dancingpalmtreesIn Alice in Wonderland, Alice's Restaurant, Ambien, Bridge, cacophony, Character, Craving, Creativity, Delusions, despair, Dissonance, Dreams, Etch A Sketch, Expectations, Explore, Fantasy, Fears, Gifted & Black, Hallucinations, Innovation, Inquisitive, Insomnia, Instability, Koyaanisqatsi, Love, Manufacturered Reality, Mind Altering Substances, Nightmares, Nirvana, Paradise, Pharmacia Cornucopia, profane, rabbit hole, Sacred, Scars, Sherlock Hollmes, sorrow, soul, Spirit, Spirituality, Stigmata, Suffering, Surrealism, Trail of Tears, Treasure Hunt, Understanding, Visions, White Rabbit, Wisdom1 Comment

Holmesian Psychology behind the Rabbit Hole

Mental Orgasms

Matrix – The Red pill/Blue pill

http://youtu.be/te6qG4yn-Ps

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arcJksDgCOU&feature=colike

Addiction – some habit usually unhealthy that takes over your life, an activity over which you have no control.  For those lost in the throes of prescription addiction there is no escape from the horrors of the mind except via medications freely doled out by more than willing physicians and pharmacists. Drug induced hallucinations for those possessed by insecurities, depression, psychosis and various types of mental illness open previously closed doors in the mind.  The addict seeking to escape earthly pain often unwisely even unknowingly opens portals to new cerebral dimensions, portals that eventually lead to the gateway to Hades.

I find myself walking through Bedlam calmly and quietly observing the poor wretches imprisoned within the only separation of safety between me and they glass with reinforced steel bars.  Until I come to a long hallway on either side a series of rooms each secured with double bolt thick steel doors the only openings a slot in which to slide a plastic meal tray and a small window used by roaming psychotherapists who occasionally looked in upon the inmates deciding which mental miracle drug to dispense to these unsuspecting unfortunates.  Compelled to stop in front of one particular door I peer through the small grimy window only to be shocked yet not too surprised to find my gaze met by my doppelganger.  There I stand frozen to the spot my extremities taking root and branching out seeking crevices with which to penetrate the unyielding door that separates me from myself.

Jesus explained the dilemma of mind altering drugs the best in Luke 11:24-26

New International Version (NIV)

   24 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ 25 When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. 26 Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”

Sherlock Holmes is one of the most celebrated fictional drug addicts known to most Americans. As played by the late Jeremy Brett, Brett’s Holmes captures the true brilliance of a man possessed by a troubled mind. He is the quintessential eccentric elitist, misanthrope and misogynist. In between cases Holmes uses cocaine to escape from the commonplaces of existence. Subject to long bouts of depression his drugs of choice morphine and cocaine, hence the 7% solution in his reasoning clarified and stimulated the mind. Often this is the case with talented, gifted genius level individuals. They abhor boredom and stagnation; craving constant mental exultation whether through industry, work, artistic, musical or literary projects. When the normal stimulants’ of challenging work are unavailable the well respected and recognized addict resorts to any number of remedies to recreate and/or achieve the same high gotten from recreational pursuits.

Holmes is the atypical functional drug addict. This is not to glorify or elevate prescription drug use above the use of common street drugs; the results from both are about the same. Both types of addicts experience dependence, cravings, reliance, and slavery to substances that destroy mind, body and spirit, eventually leading to death.

Like many possessed of a tortured brilliance only known by members of the “Talented Tenth” Holmes is an insecure elitist. The luster and sparkle of genius seeks to be delivered from the mundane, the trivial and from the insecurities that threaten to destroy a superior intellect.  The trick is to elevate and expand the thought processes and at the same time hoping to eliminate present daily realities of pain and suffering.

Drug addiction is a false cure, a fake hope, phony sanctuary, ever failing to grant rest or repose to its seekers. If the Sherlock Holmes character was updated to these modern times his drug of choice might be Ambien the sleep aid that bridges the gap between conscious and subconscious mind.

Ambien transports ones soul to that place between wakefulness and sleep. It appears to enhance ones innate natural creative abilities.  Users of cocaine and speed often make the same claims. These drugs both legal and illegal offer a false escape from the mundane.  Substance abusers even leave the natural human sexual relationships in order to experience the multiple mental orgasms they cannot achieve through physical sex with a partner. Reality becomes the bad dream. The user finds her/himself caught up in an almost inescapable quagmire.

In one episode Holmes states that, “There’s no escape from the terrors of the mind.”  Many times I secretly wished that life was like Etch A Sketch, that famously popular toy we children of the 60s played with for hours on end. If only life were like that little plastic Neanderthal laptop where with a few vigorous shakes you once again had a clean slate and the ability to start over.

It was a secret desire born out of stress, depression, and hard times to return to a time of innocence and being care free.  However I realized that there was no turning back the clock.  I had to face my inner demons.  I had to ask myself did I want to live the rest of my life in the Twilight Zone when everyone around me constantly telling me I have a gift, a gift that needs to be shared with the world. Also what about my family? What about my beloved autistic brother?  Where would he be if I suddenly was not on the planet anymore?  In addition how could I ignore the calling I knew God had on my life?  The answer is I couldn’t.  Never at any time did God give up on me.  That in and of itself amazed me.  God kept sending people my way to set me back on the path of life.  Even when I wanted to let go of this earthly life and move onto another plane, God said not yet.  I’m not ready for you yet.  You have more work to do on this earth.

No God did not immediately take away all the problems and challenges I’ve been experiencing but He did reveal to me better ways to cope.  Through my gift of writing He has opened doors for me that never would have opened had I allowed myself to sink into the substance abuse quicksand.  Of course there will continue to be bumps and potholes along the roadway but isn’t life somewhat like an obstacle course where the prize for those of us who esteem intellect the ability to successfully negotiate those obstructions by being quick thinkers and thrill in the victory of being an Overcomer?  Enjoy the Treasure Hunt!  Enjoy the excitement of the chase while in your right mind because you’ve been given everything that pertains to life and godliness and you are Empowered to Succeed!


Pharmacia Cornucopia

On By dancingpalmtreesIn Alice's Restaurant, Ambien, cacophony, Delusions, despair, Dissonance, Dreams, Fears, Grace Slick, grief, Hallucinations, Insomnia, Instability, Loss, Love, Mind Altering Substances, Nightmares, Pharmacia Cornucopia, rabbit hole, Sacred, Scars, soul, Spirit, Spirituality, Suffering, Visions, White Rabbit2 Comments

Pharmacia Cornucopia

Alice’s Restaurant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjKF7aQthcQ&feature=colike

Like the words of the famous song Alice’s Restaurant today’s prescription drug addict “You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant”. Why risk getting arrested and possibly spending any time in jail when you can go to a variety of doctors and easily get prescriptions for Xanax, Celexa, Zyprexa, Ambien, Wellbutrin, Zoloft, Paxil, Oxycotin, etc…..  After all it’s legal.

Go Ask Alice

White Rabbit ☮ Jefferson Airplane ♥ 1967

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsvILKyxfsU&feature=colike

Thanks to our pill cure obsessed society along with the greed of Big Pharma who consistently bribes most physicians to distribute their pills like they were M&Ms in the Candy Shop to unsuspecting patients who need relief from pain, anxiety and depression.  Very few people are suffering from psychosis which most of the aforementioned drugs are designed to treat.

How do I know this? I am a recovering prescription drug addict. Shocked? Surprised?  Never would have suspected someone like me right? A church goer, Bible student, Cum Laude College graduate, hard worker, one who has always been able to hold down a job and be success in the workplace. Well now you know. I’ve come out from behind my mask. The mask I’ve been hiding behind since 1999 the year after my Mom Mable Palmer passed away.  Nineteen Ninety Nine was the pivotal year when I made my descent down the rabbit hole of grief, depression, anxiety and pressure to get past the pain of my parents deaths which occurred within three years of each other.  I had to keep the charade going. I could never reveal to anyone how really devastated I was by their untimely loss.

Nineteen Ninety Nine was the year I started seeing a psychiatrist. It started off well enough. At least I thought so in my troubled mind. She had me watch a video on mental illness, specifically bi-polar disorder, asked me a few questions then sent me into a journey and eventually a slide into the land of Happy Pills.  What I probably most needed was a mild sedative and extensive talk therapy but no I received Celexa and eventually was promoted to stronger more debilitating prescription drugs.

Mind you because at the time I had a good job and good health insurance there was no problem in me obtaining in number or manner of pills to satisfy my growing reliance on these medications.  In fact my doctor enabled me by reaching into one of her office drawers and dispensing free pills she had obtained from the many pharmaceutical agents who visited her offices, and most likely plied her with dinners, trips, etc…. if she would promote their “medications”.

What Dr. Pill Happy failed to ask me was if anyone in my family specifically my parents had any addictions.  If she had asked me that I would have told her my mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was an alcoholic most of her adult life.  But then again who knows, given the fact that the Big Pharma Drug Pushers were greasing her palms she would have ignored the obvious connection between my behavior and my mother’s and continued adult candy.  Then again I can’t just blame this doctor, most doctors just indiscriminately dispense mind altering pills with little regard as to whether this will cause adverse reactions’ in their patients.  I also blame myself.  I wanted the pain to go away.  I wanted to be ten feet tall all the time.

The only thing that stopped my downward slide was I lost my job in 2006 and my health benefits in 2007. Suddenly I had to confront the ugliness in my life and everything I hated about me.  I couldn’t hide anymore.  Not that I didn’t try. By 2008 I had a new job with its own particular stresses and pressures.

To bring this saga up to date within the last few years I’ve developed severe back, knee and foot pain. My current profession requires me to be on my feet over eight hours a day and the natural ravages of age and time have taken their toll on the lower half of my body.  Many times the pain was so bad I couldn’t get out of bed to accomplish simple housework much less stand on my feet for eight hours.  Not only was I taking medicine to combat pain I also had to take sleeping pills so I could at least get enough rest to deal with the daily challenges of the workplace.  I was going to different doctors getting various prescriptions for physical pain.  I took all my prescriptions’ to the same pharmacy. It would seem a large chain pharmacy would see that the combination of drugs I was taking would cause certain negative interactions within my body.  They didn’t.  At least once or twice within the last four years I nearly lost my life.

Finally I told myself I must climb out of the rabbit hole.  I might be ten feet tall outside but inside I felt only two inches tall.   I hurt not only physically but emotionally and mentally. The poison that I tried to suppress inside began to seep out.  I knew I couldn’t hide behind the mask anymore.  My problems lay not just with my parents’ deaths but with sexual abuse I suffered from the time I was 19 up to and including all the sexually abusive relationships I had been in until I was 48.  Now I’m in the process of confronting my fears.  This is not an easy journey.  I’m in my 50s now.  Life has definitely changed and not always for the better but change is the only constant in life.  I’ve had to make many adjustments and accept my physical limitations.  I may fall off the wagon during my journey but nobody’s perfect.  But whether or not I have the mercy and compassion of people is neither here nor there.  Most of all I have God’s mercy.  I have God’s compassion because He knows what I’m going through.  God has not judged me for mood swings or depression.  This is an illness and I know when I get too tired to go on anymore God in His infinite mercy and wisdom will take me Home to Paradise.

I also knew I had to write this piece clean and sober. My Valentine’s Day piece was written while I was spaced out on Ambien. Strangely this piece was very well received. I mean I got a lot of great feedback from LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter fans. At the same time all the adulation was scary because I knew I could continue as a functioning drug addict or I could make a clean break. As a chronic insomniac Ambien is a very difficult drug to break free from. Taken in its proper dosage you sleep. However take two pills instead of one your body sleeps but your subconscious is still awake, still able to function. In a psychedelic way Ambien has an effect of enhancing talents already residing within you but at the same time with the capacity to kill you.  Obviously I don’t want to die but I do want to obliterate the emotional and psychological pain that threatens to rip apart my very soul. But the realization comes that pain can never be totally erased only dealt with on day by day basis. Small doses of healing dispensed over time.

No matter what I have fulfilled my purpose in life because I share this story with others, not for you to understand me but to at least have understanding and empathy others struggling along the rocky path of prescription addiction.

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