Gaslighting

On July 29, 2014 By dancingpalmtreesIn Acceptance, Angel, Battle, Broken Angels, Broken Hearts, Buddha, cacophony, DeBorah, deception, Deliverance, Delusions, Depression, despair, Domestic Violence, Evil, Expectations, Fears, Instability, Jesus, Koyaanisqatsi, Limbo, Loss, Lost Souls, Love, Malevolent, profane, Purgatory, Sacred, Scars, sorrow, soul, Stigmata, Suffering, Understanding, Vanity, Viper, War, Wasteland, Wicked, Wisdom

Ingrid Berman in Gaslight (with Charles Boyer)

If you’ve ever had this happen to you then you know what it is to live in abject fear & terror. Gaslight – verb (used with object): to cause (a person) to doubt his or her sanity through the use of psychological manipulation.

Gaslight (1944)

http://youtu.be/0ToLfQU2xmg

The source is a George Cukor-directed thriller starring Ingrid Bergman as a woman whose husband tells her she’s imagining things that she claims to see in a musty old murder house, including the gaslights dimming by themselves.

Unless you’ve gone through this experience there is no understanding what it’s like to not know whether you’re crazy or the other person is playing you for a fool. I know how that feels. Cruelty in any form is a weapon that has the potential to destroy peoples lives. I’m just fortunate to have a Guardian Angel. This past weekend I survived an episode with a so-called professional member of the particular online business group I’d like to get into.

A certain amount of trust is involved within our interactions with other human beings. School, the job, our House of Worships, entrepreneurial relationships all involved being able to trust the persons we hope to glean information from to build our business and who we trust to provide marketing and promotion information. However some people in these online business groups are merely stalkers seeking to capitalize on the trusting natures and vulnerabilities of others. Not just sad but depraved indifference to a fellow human beings feelings and emotions. They are Social Media Vultures and/or Predators seeking unsuspecting prey. Masters of Psychological Deception. Tricks without the Treats. Vipers ready to strike without a moments notice.

Like anyone, I’m always looking to better myself. To this end I join groups on social media. Having carefully researched the product you then join with like-minded individuals in order to gain strategies on how to succeed in your chosen field. Skill building is important to ensure the success of any business venture.

So its scary stuff when even one person in the business group turns out to be a stalker who then libels and slanders you without cause all the while making you the victim think you’re at fault. No compassion whatsoever. A total disregard for the victims emotional state.

It’s an especially cruel type of manipulation as the tormentor gains the innocent person’s trust only to betray them through psychological and emotional means. Once they gain your trust they either gradually or perhaps more aggressively twist their words so you feel like you’re losing your mind. Ever so slightly they threaten you with police action, incarceration, jail, prison, legal actions, and many other types of evil tricks to make you believe that you’re at fault and deserve punishment. Despite their malevolent actions suddenly you become the criminal and then these sadists try you in their kangaroo court while acting as judge, jury and executioner.

A series of lies, rumors, innuendos, slander, falsehoods, cause you to doubt your ability to reason or make sense of a troubling situation. The constant question of “What Just Happened Here?” goes through your mind until that Guardian Angel, Rescuer, Redeemer helps you gain perspective.

Then the demonic wickedness of these Master Manipulators is exposed and once again Salvation has been regained. I was Blessed to have someone step in to help me and give me reassurance. Also I was connected with a girlfriend who also went through domestic violence and sexual abuse scenarios like me who understand. A calm, kind, gentle, loving voice who embraced me acceptance. I was not alone. Somebody threw out the lifeline. I grabbed hold and climbed out of this monstrous pit.

I am not deterred in my efforts to improve my finances. One monkey don’t stop no show! I see God’s Angels all around me. I feel God’s Love. I now know that I am not at fault and I don’t have to be afraid. Legions of Angels have been detached by God to protect me. As for that spiteful, mean nasty person there will be both earthly and God’s Judgement now that he has been exposed. Purgatory for this individual has only just begun. Sanctuary for him will only be found in accepting the truth, repentance and restitution.

1 Chronicles 16:22 & Psalm 105:15

New International Version (NIV)

²²“Do not touch my anointed ones;
do my prophets no harm.”

A Building at Rest ~ Goth Holiday at the Museum

On December 8, 2013August 16, 2017 By dancingpalmtreesIn Abuse, Ambien, Battle, Black Unicorn, cacophony, Death, DeBorah, deception, Delusions, despair, Dissonance, Dreams, Evil, Expectations, Fallen Angels, Fantasy, Fears, Grim Reaper, Hades, Hallucinations, hell, horror, Hotel California, Hypnos, Icelus, Insomnia, Instability, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Koyaanisqatsi, Limbo, Loss, Lost Souls, Malevolent, Manufacturered Reality, Memory, Midnight Marauder, Mind Altering Substances, Morpheus, Museum, Mystical Creatures, Night Bird, Nightmares, Oneiroi, Orpheus, Phantaso, profane, Protean, Purgatory, Rejection, Ritual, River Styx, Scars, Skeptic, sorrow, Stigmata, Suffering, Suicide, Surrealism, Swords, Thánatos, The Twilight Zone, The Walking Dead, Trifecta of Terror, Vampires, Visions, Walking Wounded, War, Werewolves, Wicked, Zombies6 Comments

A Building at Rest

The museum Thanksgiving Day 2012 –
the museum is populated by a wonderful yet mysterious quiet & peace undisturbed by the frenetic masses. Silences punctuated only by flowing water, the endless hum and shifting of building machinery.

Even normal noises can be unsettling. Especially those associated with people. The building has become a living breathing organism Uttering creaks moans sighs groans from nearly 150 years of footfalls, voices, radios, songs, cantatas, the chiming of clocks, exclamations of awe & wonder. Whispers from an Archaic Victorian century long past to digital diversity.

Oh what secrets lie transfixed within these silent walls yearning for release. The Hunger has been unleashed upon the populace.

The immortality of brick, mortar & steel record the march of ethnicities & nations who roam free these hallowed halls.

Sometimes the sudden interruption of footfalls becomes ominous, invading the sanctity of the Holy Sanctuary. Even the sound of my own steps is somewhat menacing. What spirits accompany me on perambulations among the saints and sinners?

The feeble burbling of the fountain stream’s half-hearted attempts to empty its essence, struggling to pollinate magnificent coins.

The day is at end, the light has faded. Now the night crew enters to continue the evening melody.

Reflections Goth Holiday 2013

Cadaver Mind A.D.D.

Heaving sighs and moans. Creaks, chrupping of brick, mortar, steel and glass pane windows. Blood oozes and drips from open wounds in Laymen’s red brick walls. Elevator doors open and a thousand wailing, howling, grieving souls swoop through the air and into the Medieval Court crying for revenge. Flight of the Valkyries. The Martyrs avenge their unjust and untimely deaths. Swirling and whirling like profane dervishes from netherworld’s portal of the undead.

Hail Mary Echoes from thousands of Knights, monks, Nuns, bishops, and church saints racing through Byzantium corridors. Spirits of Reliquaries issue forth warnings and admonishments to modern day savages. Reliquary Fingers of Blessing Inflict Pain Yanking Opening Death’s Door breaking off bits and pieces of flesh, bone, teeth and hair for deposit into ossuary banks.

Slats opening and closing mindfully as though giving some secret Morse Code. Dioramas of Death act out murderous suicidal dramas. Eagle slays Dragon plucking out blinded eyes from empty orbs.

Medieval castle built long ago by invaders long forgotten. A grand foyer flanked by two long hallways of Byzantine art leading into Medieval Sculpture Hall filled with statues of Madonnas, Saints, Mystics, Relics, and tombs from Egypt, Europe, Greece, Cyprus and South America. Kali goddess of the sarcophagus raises her many arms in Victory. Subterranean pipes hissing steam clanking unrest.

Secret panels opening up to Mausoleum subterranean chambers containing overturned ossuaries, bones bleached white scattered throughout the tombs.

Abruptly Angels on the Christmas tree come to life and like ravenous vampire bats attack unsuspecting visitors. Reanimated Reliquary Arms reach out to throttle throats of fleeing patrons. Fang toothed Egyptian mummies arise and break through display cases to satiate their ancient eon hunger upon frenzied victims. Their desert saliva spreading infection causing festering vile pus filled carbuncles to captive prey.

Emptiness and Futility of Life — Life’s ignoble Ending

Desire run rampant as sacrilegious effigies coupled and reached radiant necrophilia orgasm stone bodies now made supple. Mystics and Monks glowered lecherously all the while reciting Gregorian chants, dirges and cries for absolution filling the room with the intensity of their mating.

Gargoyles descended from illicit trysts with human females and warlock man beasts gave into the licentious behaviors’ anointing themselves and fleeing clienteles with seminal fluid oily slick.

Orgasm became an exceptional obsession.

Viscous gleaming blood, shimmering with glided preternatural flakes of light. Black Iris her breasts like soft fragrant pillows.

My Secret Hiding Place

On November 2, 2013February 15, 2015 By dancingpalmtreesIn Ambien, Battle, cacophony, Catharsis, Chia, Delusions, Dissonance, Dreams, Evil, Expectations, Fallen Angels, Fantasy, Fears, Female Divinity, Feminine Divine, Grim Reaper, Hades, Hallucinations, Hotel California, Hypnos, Insomnia, Instability, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Koyaanisqatsi, Kudzu, Lighthouse, Limbo, Lost Souls, Malevolent, Manufacturered Reality, Mark of Cain, Memory, Midnight Marauder, Monday Meme, Morpheus, Nightmares, Nirvana, Orpheus, Paradise, Phantaso, profane, Protean, Purgatory, rabbit hole, Redemption, Refuge, Rejection, Rescue, Ritual, River Styx, Sacred, Sanctuary, Scars, Shawn Bird, sorrow, soul, Spirit, Spirituality, Squatters, Stigmata, Suffering, Surrealism, Thánatos, Vision, Visions, Walking Wounded, Wicked3 Comments

My Secret Hiding Place

I couldn’t build a tree house. Too high up and anyway I’m afraid of heights, so instead I built this little fort of sorts as a place to gather my thoughts after a hectic day. Made my best efforts with whatever materials the forest floor offered up as building materials. There were enough twigs and branches to construct more ground level tree houses or make my current enclosure larger but I chose to save some for kindling for warmth against the chill night air and the rest I kept stacked as a type of cord-wood not too far away.

It has become my sanctuary and safe haven I return to again and again to re-connect with Mother Earth and nature. Too small to stand upright clicking my heels together three times was not an option so I was forced to remain seated. With some degree of discomfort I could lay down in a fetal position while I imagined myself re-entering an alternate womb to be reborn into better circumstances. Mine was a tepee without the buffalo skin covering all bones and framework.

Sometimes I’d hug my knees and rhythmically rock back and forth while repeating what I thought were calming mantras, occasionally wishing that the earth would open up and swallow me whole transporting me some place free from pain, misery and cruelty. Like a shaman I chanted using my homemade rituals attempting to silence the drumbeat of squatter voices incessantly chattering inside my head versus the declarations of the Family. They created a dissonance within the time frame continuum of my thoughts.

You see our house, if you could call that ramshackle structure; a hodgepodge mixture of stone, wood and stucco addendum and afterthoughts as different parts of the building were constructed at different times upon the whims the directors and caretakers.

I was forced to share this mishmash cottage with twelve other inmates, bordered on this expanse of woods providing me a refuge from leaky roofs, busted walls, peeling wallpaper, lukewarm baths, moldy musty scented showers, not to mention all the yelling, screaming, arguments, fights and constant disagreements of a house too small to accommodate the number of people residing within its creaky ramparts. The Family nicknamed it the Hotel California. You know the place where you check in but never check out. The nails across chalkboard voices of The Family were constant knife thrusts to my brain making daily life a constant battle that did not end even has the diurnal gave up residence to the nocturnal for they all snored, wheezed and gasped through the night abyss. The Family’s house sits on an oddly place piece of land, our house gives way to forest which in turn after several miles gives way to craggy, rocky shores of a steep cliff, where if one sits perfectly still you can hear the violent waves crashing against rough jagged rock formations that looked as though they were designed by the devil himself. It is said that in olden times there used to be many shipwrecks where sailors were either impaled on the razor sharp Stalagmites. Sometimes you can even hear the shrieks, moans, cries and groans of the unfortunate wretches mixed in with the howling winds.

So I periodically retreated to my exoskeleton asylum as a sentry medium between earth and sky. I can never turn my mind off completely but within my secret hiding place the voices were kept to a low roar and bid to change direction and pace.

The Kindling delivered me from The Family’s vocalizations. I tried to warn them before. I tried to silence the voices through escape, but it was not working so I had to try another plan. The crackles and pops of my campfire seem to be in sync with the screams and cries for rescue from the patients locked inside their rooms but eventually those voices will die out also, and then sleep. Blessed sleep. As I drifted off I thought I heard sounds creeping up on me. Maybe it could be…. Naw. How would those deviant mutations get all the way out here.

While pyrotechnics roared and exploded beyond the glen my dream state thoughts went to Calista and Cassandra those Kudzu Chia matronly tumbleweeds who wreck havoc and chaos wherever they spore and spawn and their equally troublesome and problematic one-legged Siamese twin cousins Morton and Milton.

Love,

Cassandra

Freedom from the Drone/Hive Mentality

On March 9, 2013 By dancingpalmtreesIn 50+, Abuse, African American Queen, African Goddess, cacophony, Catharsis, DeBorah, deception, Deliverance, Delusions, despair, Dissonance, Domestic Violence, Dreams, Drone, Ethiopian Goddess, Fantasy, Fears, Female Divinity, Feminine Divine, Goddess, Hive, Instability, Koyaanisqatsi, Photographs, Pictures, profane, Protean, Ritual, Sacred, Scars, soul, Spirituality, Stigmata, Suffering, Surrealism, Tattoos, Vision Quest, Visions

Freedom from Drone/Hive Mentality

Spiritual Spring Cleaning: “Purge items and photos that remind you of destructive people or forces, which perpetuate negative life-story patterns. Spring is a great season to begin a new chapter, but you’ll need a blank page to get started.” — Bajay Pitter

Strategies for Deliverance

I love seeing formerly battered and abused women go from victims to Victory. Being a survivor of domestic & sexual violence I can relate to the pain and sufferings of women trying to escape abusive relationships. Even after being delivered from my abuser physically it still took a long time to be delivered mentally and emotionally. I’m still on the road to complete deliverance but at least I’m further down the road than 6 years ago.

The pain is there. It’s real. I’ve learned I must speak my pain but not to dwell within the pain. I must not make a home inside the pain. One of the ways to move past that pain is to destroy any reminders from that time period. I kind of had a waiting to exhale moment. No, I didn’t burn up his clothing but whatever he left inside my house went into the garbage that included clothing, computer junk, his old business cards, anything related to his pigeon hobby, and any photographs of him.

I especially found destroying the pictures to be a type of Cleansing Ritual. It was therapeutic because I was symbolically as well as physically removing my abuser from my life. It was the first step towards healing. I can remember during the time I was with my abuser I went to a Women’s Retreat with my church. One of the things our Pastor’s Wife had us do was to write our fears or challenges down on little strips of paper and throw them into a fireplace. Fire represents a form of purging and casting photos of the abuser along with the bitter memories into the flames is cathartic. Think of it as conducting our own personal “Burning Man” ritual. Of course depending on where you live and if you live in a house or an apartment it may not be practical to build a bonfire in the backyard or sacrifice our kitchen stoves at the risk of violating our city’s ordinances or creating pyrotechnics worthy of Mrs. O’Leary’s bovine arsonist.

A safer and less risky ceremony would be to take every picture of your abuser and run them through the shredder. This would accomplish the same fulfillment which is to banish this person as much as possible from your life. Now for me it was easier because we only had a common-in-law marriage and did not have children together. For those ladies who have property and children in common with the abuser this might become more difficult but still doable. If there are children involved I’d save two or three photos for the children to have once they become adults but I’d place those pictures in a safe deposit box or a strong box located in the basement, attic or a close family member or friend’s home to give the kids an opportunity to decide what they feel and make their own personal decisions upon reaching adulthood.

The objective is to begin the process of purification. Wash away the slime, filth and dirt off our bodies and out of our lives. To arise from the ashes like the Phoenix reborn, renewed, and ready to rebuild our lives. Today take up the shattered pieces of your life and build something brand new. A new beginning. A new identity created and defined by you not your abuser or outside detractors and naysayers.

Phoenix arising from the Ashes — Phoenix Arising from the Ashes

Graduate from the School of Hard Knocks don’t take up residence there. Resistance is not futile. Do not be assimilated into the Hive. Our identities and self-worth do not reside within another person but within us. The power to become free resides within us.

There is a Reset button to life. Not to move us back to before our relationship with the abuser but now knowing the signs, how not to be so needy to return to those destructive relationships. How can I Love myself and build up myself so I can attract healthy romantic relationships. Of course none of this freedom is won overnight.

There will still be days of doubt, fear, and frustration but those are the days when we reach out to our support group, our inner circles for help and reassurance that in time everything will work out.

Today I release myself from the Island of Lost Souls back into the solace of self and community.

Jephthah’s Daughters

On July 14, 2012July 14, 2012 By dancingpalmtreesIn Ambien, Battle, Black Unicorn, Bridge, Cat fights, Catharsis, Cathay Williams, Delusions, Dreams, Ebonics, Education, Edward Palmer, Elements of Style, Ethiopian Goddess, Eurydice, Eyesight, Facial Hair, Family History, Family Tree, Fantasy, Fears, Female Divinity, Feminine Divine, Genetic lineage, Gifted & Black, Goddess, Grace Slick, Green tea, grief, Hallucinations, Hamlet, Health Food Stores, Henry V, homeless veterans, Hood Stories, horror, Hypnos, Icelus, Images, Inscriptiona, Inscriptions, Insomnia, Instability, Intellectualism, Jacob's Ladder, Jesus, Kinky/Nappy Hair, Knowledge, Koyaanisqatsi, Law of Attraction, Loss, Love, Lyrical Family Memories, Mable Elizabeth Palmer, Mable Palmer, Madonna, Manufacturered Reality, Maternal lineage, Menopause, Midnight Marauder, Mind Altering Substances, mitochrondrial DNA, Morpheus, Mother, Mozambique, Mystical Creatures, Native American, Nature, New Age, Night Bird, Night Sweats, Nightmares, Nirvana, Noah's Ark, Ohio, Oneiroi, Orpheus, Paradise, Phantaso, profane, Protean, protest, Redemption, Rejection, River Styx, Romance, Royalty, Sacred, Sages, Scars, sci-fi, Sexual Fantasy, Shakespeare, Sherlock Hollmes, Short Stories, Skeptic, Songs of Solomon & Sheba, sorrow, soul, soup kitchen, Soy milk, Spirit, Spirituality, Squatters, Stigmata, Suffering, Suicide, Surrealism, Tattoos, The Secret, Thracian King, Trail of Tears, Understanding, Vision, Vision Quest, Visions, wage slave, War, Wisdom

Jephthah’s Daughters.(Click here to read more)

Shall we regard our girl children as Jephthah’s Daughters? How long will we continue to perpetuate the adage, “Women love their sons, but raise the daughters.” Every child deserves the opportunity to succeed in life but success comes through accepting responsibility and learning to be accountable. Any child male or female who constantly lashes out at authority figures in a bid to always be “right” is a child bound for prison or the graveyard. Stop making girls the sacrificial lambs!!

Ladies, let’s love our girl children and stop putting them on the altar in order to save a son who does not wanted to be saved and does not think he needs help or worse some no account man who should not even be a part of our households to begin with. Let us not return to ancient times when girls and women were thought of as little more than chattel or commodities to be bought and sold. (See below for more details on ancient economies)

“One of the unusual things about the Bible is that it preserves some bits of this larger context. … It would seem that the economy of the Hebrew kingdoms, by the time of the prophets, was already beginning to develop the same kind of debt crises that had long been common in Mesopotamia: especially in years of bad harvests, the poor became indebted to rich neighbors or to wealthy moneylenders in the towns, they would begin to lose title to their fields and to become tenants on what had been their own land, and their sons and daughters would be removed to serve as servants in their creditors’ households, or even sold abroad as slaves.

“[This is what the biblical book of Nehemiah is referring to in the passage,] ‘Some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them.’ One can only imagine what those words meant, emotionally, to a father in a patriarchal society in which a man’s ability to protect the honor of his family was everything. Yet this is what money meant to the majority of people for most of human history: the terrifying prospect of one’s sons and daughters being carried off to the homes of repulsive strangers to clean their pots and provide the occasional sexual services, to be subject to every conceivable form of violence and abuse, possibly for years, conceivably forever, as their parents waited, helpless, avoiding eye contact with their neighbors, who knew exactly what was happening to those they were supposed to have been able to protect. … http://www.delanceyplace.com/view_archives.php?2009

Donations to this Ministry for the Housing Fund can be made in U.S. Funds via money order or bank checks made payable to Rochdale Village Inc. 169-65 137th Avenue, Jamaica, NY 11434, Account No. 083-11G-16924 or directly to deborah.palmer280@gmail.com via Paypal. Thank you and God Bless.