Vanities of Aging ~ Confronting Mid-Life Challenges

On August 25, 2012November 17, 2012 By dancingpalmtreesIn 50+, Africa, African American Queen, Catharsis, Creativity, Dark Skin, Dreams, Ecclesiastes, Edward Palmer, Ethiopian Goddess, Fantasy, Female Divinity, Feminine Divine, Goddess, Images, Innovation, Inquisitive, Inscriptions, Mable Elizabeth Palmer, Mable Palmer, Menopause, Mid-Life, Sacred, soul, Spirituality, Stigmata, Surrealism, Tattoos, Vanity, Visions, Wisdom2 Comments

The Vanities of Aging

Confronting Our Mid-Life Challenges

Ecclesiastes 1:2

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

Three years ago I experienced the thrill of turning 50. For me any birthday with a zero behind it was a special occasion. Each new decade signaled a new chapter in my life, a new beginning of sorts. I remembered when I turned 40 my Aunt Helen lovingly expressing to me the old adage, “Life begins at 40!” For me it really did. My 40s were a decade of singular accomplishments. I earned my B.A. at age 43; I reached a high level on the earning ladder at my then workplace; I was at my physical and sexual peak as a woman; and I had a new sassiness and vibe that enabled me to reach new heights on that climb to success.

My 50^th birthday was exciting with friends taking me out to dinner, a beautiful birthday cake, balloons, flowers; but after the celebration was over a certain uneasiness set in. “Wow. I’ve lived over half my life.” The career I had carefully developed had hit a brick wall. In fact I seemed to hit a plateau in terms of career success. Then came “The Change”. I was not prepared. For puberty my mother and I had “The Talk”. However as I entered menopause my mother was long since gone on to her Heavenly reward and during this frightening period of my life my last link to the past, my beloved Aunt Helen passed away. I missed my Mom and my aunts terribly. Then horrible things were happening to my body that I did not understand. I sought explanations and some assistance from various GYNs. Their answers usually involved some sort of hormonal treatments which I instantly rejected since both my parents died from cancer. I decided I would just endure the deluge of sweat that engulfed my body day and night, drenching my clothes and making sleep impossible.

Of course I tried all types of holistic treatments. I do believe I’ve been through every herb and natural juices offered in the health food store. Nothing. No effect at all. I’ve decided it’s best to stay near the A.C., turn the fan on at night and keep bottled water with me at all times.

Menopause is an evil creature. She brought along her friends high blood pressure and arthritis to add to my daily pain and discomfort. Yes, this certainly was a ‘Change of Life’. Everything changed in my life, my diet, my ability to go up and down stairs without stopping for breath, the increased popping and cracking in my joints. I kind of felt like a human Rice Krispies, “Snap, Crackle, & Pop.” My mind was just as sharp and creative as it was at age 25 but I could not get my body in agreement with my mental desires.

But I told myself that I still had my good looks. Thanks to a fantastic gene pool and being a dark skinned African American Woman the saying, “Black don’t crack” is really true. Mind you this proverb only works if you took care of yourself when you were in your 20s, 30s and early 40s. I never smoked, did not do drugs, and only drank socially. I also exercised albeit moderately which kept me in fairly good physical condition. I’m also lucky that most of my family tend to be small people so I’ll never gain an extreme amount of weight.

However specific physical changes cannot be avoided. By the time I was 52 all my hair had turned white, seemingly overnight. Finally one day when I overheard a co-worker described me as the African-American lady with the white hair I knew I had to do something. The bubble burst. Reality set in. Oh My God! I look old! This would never do.

After conferencing with several women co-workers I decided upon L’Oreal Feria. First I started out brown because I had read that going back to my original color of black would just make me look hard and emphasize any lines my face might have. Finally I went red, no not Kool-Aid red like some of the pop stars but a spicy Fire Engine Red that matched my fiery personality. This was the time of my life to really experiment. After 40 more of the free spirit in me came out. I got tattoos on a yearly basis. Sometime after I turned fifty I had my belly button pierced but then my belly played a trick on me and I developed that menopausal belly bulge that comes to nearly all 50+ women.

Was this a chase after lost youth? No because I’ve always been a non-conformist. My parents were Free-Thinkers and they brought me up to be my own person. I remember when I decided to spike my hair back when I was in my 20s. My Dad thought I looked so wonderful that he took pictures of me and had them blown up to poster size. My parents support and encouragement fostered in me a self confidence that has enabled me to survive a multitude of challenges. It has given me a sustaining power. My mother and father always encouraged my creativity and insisted that I think for myself not just follow the script handed to us by society in general.

For me the next 50 years will be a celebration of maturity and individuality with lots of creativity and a little bit of insanity thrown in for good measure.

Donations and Freewill offerings can be made directly to my PayPal account deborah.palmer280@gmail.com

Please sow into this psychological socially effective ministry

Sexy Smiley

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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.

Listen to My Voice

On June 30, 2012July 1, 2012 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 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.

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

The Cruelty of “Christianity”

On May 5, 2012February 9, 2015 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”

“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)

⁴²The 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)

¹⁴His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; ¹⁵His 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.

Nina Simone – If He Changed My Name

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Ode to Insomnia

On April 7, 2012 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.

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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