Feminism rears its head as I observe a topsy turvy world around me

 When the world you live in shifts from what you understand to something very wrong, its like being Alice in the Looking Glass. This is the story of a very strange Sunday for this pagan shamanic feminist woman.

The other day, for the first time in a very long time, I let myself be talked into going to someone's church. It is described as somewhat nontraditional/ charismatic, held in a hall here in Victoria. The person who invited us will remain nameless, but she is a trusted, respected friend, so there was no question that this might indeed be a community of faithful who it might be enjoyable to associate with and we arrived with open hearts and minds.

We were a little late and the show was already in operation with a hula clad woman up front on the mike singing along with the words on the screen, church karaoke. Who knew? There was an ensemble of Hawaiian clad people up front, a choir of sorts who sang along with her and the congregation, sitting around large round tables with coffee cups and muffins in front of them, joined in. After this we were led on a gentle guided meditation, so far so good.


Then the preacher invited a woman up to the mike and sat next to her, proceeding to introduce and then interview her in a surreal spotlight, with his Hawaiian shirt and her sarong very dissonant when the topic was revealled. The woman explained how she had been thrown into a Satanic ritual cult when she was a baby and was sexually ritualized from her earliest memory. Remember now, this is being spoken in a quiet room of about 100 men, women and children. Then the priest asks 'And what exactly did you experience and when is your earliest memory?' to which the woman starts spending the next ten minutes describing events that parallel the sensational 1970's Satanic Ritual themed book, 'Michelle Remembers', that I remember reading as a young teen. I was very uncomfortable as this whole dynamic was wrong on so many levels. That she was describing physical sexual acts in front of children was the least. How was this considered to be 'church worthy'? If the information was indeed true, which I have my doubts about, given my long career with women in need/crisis, and this public announcement was part of her healing, then surely she would be better off announcing it to a closed group of trusted parishioners and not the public Sunday drop in? How was this leadership of responsibility to the congregation?


My mind boggles with the notion that if I had kids there and they were subjected to this kind of dialogue, I would not have sat there like the 100 others and continued to listen as the woman went on and on, the priest goading and coaxing her to reveal more.  It is not a Sunday church meeting's right to take away the innocence of the younger parishioners, what IS IT about Churches that thinks it has the right to blindside their meek followers like that?


We left before they got any further. We went to the pub, had brunch and I drowned the image that lingered in my psyche by that poor, coopted, meek woman on the church's stage, who had regailed us all with the description of her earliest sexual abuse memory, of being forced to give head to two men who she woke up in her crib with at the age of 9 months. I drowned it behind several drinks and when that didn't help, I added tequila to the mix, had my hubby drive me home, and I slept it off.


Can anyone blame me?

Why did those people all just sit there and listen like it was perfectly acceptable? The incongruity of the hawaiian theme that week was just so strange too. That this woman actually participated in dressing for the theme even though she knew that she was going to be publically humiliated eventually that morning boggles my mind. The guided meditation was a 'virtual cruise' to a place of the heart, using all manner of cruise ship vernacular, assuming that the congregation was experienced with it, although I could see a room full of for the most part, lower middle class white/ elderly poor / handicapped  people, most of who would not likely know what a cruise was like. The preacher spoke at length about ritual sexual abuse as if it were credible, accepted, and that all who were attending understood the jargon he used. He gave a source referring to the esteemed expert somebody or other, and continued to tell his audience what to believe about this farcical topic.

There were penises and rape and prostitution bandied about on the stage for the 15 minutes we tolerated it, not believing our ears and too 'deer in the headlights' to move. Maybe that was it, it was the shock of the psychological blind side that froze us to our seats.

We live in incongruous times. My friend texted hubby and apologized. I don't believe an apology is necessary as she had no way of knowing this was going to happen. When we met later, I was not able to open the topic with her. I suppose there are long standing loyalties with the congregation that confuse the issue for her. I don't know what I would feel in her place.

I can't believe that I didn't stand up and stop the proceedings by saying 'This is wrong.' and that I sat there like the rest of the room and let it continue. I guess walking out was enough for me to summon at the moment. I can't believe that there were no complaints, no hue and cry either. It just boggles my mind.



Ironically, the next day, I read an article in here (internet) about 'Deploying Feminism' and once again, I am jangled awake as a feminist, with another affront to my sensibilities of gender imbalance, human rights offenses and discordance. Using the war machine's patriarchal language to describe a manner of utilizing feminist concepts set my red flags off  as much as the statement ' fellow feminists' does.  I am once again reminded that  like Alice in the Looking Glass, we live in a very strange world.

The King's Speech... my buh buh buh blog on it.

My sweetheart took me to lunch and a movie today and we went to see 'The King's Speech' with Collin Firth. When we arrived at the theatre, I saw a fairly official younger dude in a fleece vest with the theatre's logo on it and I thought immediately that he must be a manager or something. When we took our seats in the viewing room, halfway through the obnoxious trailers and ads, they turned off the volume and as we looked around to identify why, a voice from the front of the room began speaking to the audience and I saw that it was the official guy I'd noticed earlier.

And then he said something that got me thinking. He said 'Considering the demographics of this movie are so different from who regularily attends movie theatres, this chain of theatres has decided to use the modern technologies of live streaming digital media to bring the Bolshoi Ballet to the screen 'LIVE', as well as orchestras and operas. Not only that, but the chain is going to be having a monthly series of old classics, remastered for today, two showings a month.' To think that folks in upper office are actually paying attention to realities as they shift. Very interesting...

The movie was amazing and thoughtful and all the actors did a remarkable job. It was fast paced and photographically breathtaking, a real class act. The entertaining storyline showed a time of history we have only read about. The blustery role of Churchill interspersed with real clips of Hitler, the Queen, the corgis, the humour and the love were all juxtaposed by the terse manner of the Cardinal and the Duke's father with the shadow of impending war looming overall. It made me think about how close I had come to being born during wartime, arriving only 8 years after the end of WW2. How little 8 years is to me now, how people who were kids during Y2K are thinking of that milestone as being so long ago when I feel like I just blinked and only 11 years had whizzed by...The topic of child abuse is thinly veiled with 'Bertie', the future heir, incapable of speaking publically. His wife sought help in the form of an irreverant and lovable speech therapist, 'Lionel', to help him with his problem and the hilarity ensues forthwith.

I want everyone to know that if you go to Kelsey's for a meal before the movie and you tell your waiter/tress, you will get a coupon so your tickets to the movie will be only $6!!!  Such a deal, and Kelsey's is a pretty good eatery as those places go.

At the end of the movie, we stood up after the credits and put on our coats as it had been pouring torrentially when we got there and Ron says to me 'Take a second and look at the audience' and I looked up from our front and centre location to see that the entire theatre was full of grey/silver heads. Not only were we the aging baby boomers I am always warning about the snowball coming at us represented by the demographic shift of age/population etc, but these were the educated. The aware, the conscious elders as reflected by the initial announcement by the theatre's manager, who let us know that the theatre chain was not only recognizing that they had attracted a different group of viewers with this intelligent movie, but that they want those people to be recognized as having more than the average intelligence and that the chain is going to do this by showing products that address the need of the intellectual as well as the mindnumbed sheeple.

All in all, a most excellent afternoon.

We stopped for produce and catfood on the way home and then of course, a stop at the Tude for a 6 pack of cold ones... We're ready to bring the deluge inside.

As I write, Ron naps and I ponder my next step... oh yeah... pork ribs and huge salad...

Go see 'The King's Speech', you'll be glad you di di di did.

HFCS-Innocent Sweetener or Evil Contributor to International Obesity Epidemic?

HFCS comes under my curious yet shrewd gaze

   As a 50 something woman with bad knees, tender kidneys and swollen feet often, I am avidly researching anything that has to do with food, cravings, incomplete digestion etc. I have been continuously perplexed by my edema because as a rule, I eat healthy. In my deductive process, I have been to western doctors who tell me that my weight gain is to be expected. It is the relative outcome to the amount of calories that I take in, doh! At the same time, I have a great rapport with an eastern medicine doctor who gives me roots to simmer and make tea out of, which improves my liver function as he’s identified that my liver is working much harder than it should.

     With my recent discovery of sugar additives becoming more prevalent in our food, this is all starting to make more sense.

     Remember that I am a shrewd shopper who rarely if ever brings home snacks, baked goods, candy, pop or other such groceries that I deem pretty useless. Although my life is sedentary at present, I’m not taking in that much. I HAVE been caving to cravings around caramel, jelly candies, gummy bears and worms and a decade ago, the International Delight creamer additives led my weight to skyrocket 30 lbs in a single summer. I cut that out based simply on my realizing it was the contributor to my gain, but still I crave Tim Horton’s Ice Caps. I cave to the craving less and less and almost instantly rue the decision as my shoes begin to tighten on my feet.

HFCS interrupts the brain's natural hunger reflex  

     Recently, I discovered an article online that warns about the dangers of ingesting High Fructose Corn Syrup or HFCS. There is a current flood of information in the dieting scene regarding this substance that has been added to our food by agribusiness as a sweetener since the 1970’s that digests in a particular way that leads the body to send the wrong messages to the brain regarding hunger responses.

     Corn and its byproducts is an enormous billion dollar agribusiness that claims to have a solution to world fuel shortages and has contributed to the demise of the sugar cane and beet industry. As corn is produced en masse at the expense of other crops, that which isn’t converted into ethanol for fuel, becomes disposable. A Japanese scientist in 1970 discovered that if you take that remaining corn, attach a fungus to it, then stir in a bacteria and let ferment, the resultant goo becomes a high fructose corn syrup concentrate that is easy to add to regular corn syrup, it is an inexpensive additive, making the corn syrup stretch a lot further and also doing several things as a result.

     One result is that by adding High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) to corn syrup and then that corn syrup to anything, the final product has an extended shelf life, like margarine, which is only one molecule removed from plastic. The HFCS food product becomes suspended in a state that no longer has the same decomposition tendencies. This makes digesting this product a challenge for the human body however.

     Not only does HFCS make things hard to digest, but the liver becomes overworked in the doing of it, where sugars in our body create insulin, HFCS does no such thing. At the same time, tests done recently have shown that continued digestion of HFCS sends false messages to the brain that indicate hunger is present and to add to the evil, those cravings become specific for products that contain… you guessed it, more HFCS.

To be the canary in the proverbial coal mine

     I am beginning to suspect that my errant consumption of HFCS foods is contributing to my weight gain, combined with other factors, such as menopausal body, sedentary lifestyle, access to more food. When I started to become aware of the prevalence of HFCS in our food, it was natural to start looking at ingredients of foods and it was harder, to my amazement, to find food that DIDN’T have it than it was to find foods that did. It is labeled in many different ways and there is no consistent vernacular for it. I suspect the food industry disguises it by not addressing it in its easily recognizable initials. HFCS is present on the label if its posted as ‘liquid sugar’, corn syrup, fructose, glucose as well as corn sugars. That’s not to say all corn syrup has HFCS, but how does one know and wouldn’t it be prudent to conclude that by eliminating all corn syrups, one lowers the risk of exposure to HFCS

     The use of this sugar additive is not new, imagine that you have been ingesting HFCS in greater and greater quantities since 1970. For some of us, that’s our whole lives!

     Canada produces less HFCS and uses less as a result. Europe is vigilant against it and baby food companies avoid it in their baby food, but use it in their juices for adults. What message does that send you?

     I’m beginning to narrow down all the foods that contain HFCS and as strong as my cravings make me yearn for them, my common sense is able to override those pangs because that stuff is contributing to my overall health demise and it’s going to STOP! This is a land of drugged, innocent people who are being fed something, but it's not food

Imagine, experiencing true Hunger for the first time

     So not only do we have to be vigilant about how often our body hits us with messages of hunger, and if it is a physical or emotional hunger, we also must be aware of the things that we ingest which offer up more confusion in that end. Imagine not knowing the most pertinent information that any product with HFCS in it will send us messages to eat when we’re not hungry, and not only that, but to crave a product that will provide our addicted bodies more of the dreaded HFCS it craves. Articles I’ve read online, and I will add the urls to several after this blog, have also stated that to eliminate this scourge to our wellbeing from our diets, we are to expect the body to retaliate as withdrawal symptoms ranging from severe headaches and dizziness, nausea and intense cravings can result.

     HFCS has been introduced to almost everything we eat as a way for the product manufacturers to cut costs on sweetening agents and still claim the sweetener to be ‘natural’ or 100% original. Law suits have drawn attention to the mislabeling involved, causing large food corporations to change the semantics on their labels from stating they are 100% organic, to state similar things that are just as easily confused with wholesome foods. I don’t know how ‘natural’ it is, when I looked at the aerial photos of industrial plants provided in one article, that are 5 square miles of pipes and buildings which is apparently what it takes to turn corn into HFCS with the bacteria and fungal additions.

     By becoming vigilant in our desire to heal from issues contributing to tendencies to use food inappropriately, we must also be consciously critical thinkers when it comes to WHAT kind of foods we are permitting into the sacred temples that are our bodies as well as how much and how often.

     Hard to quell a food obsession by coping with it, with the resultant vigilance bordering on food paranoia thanks to the development of Big Brother food supplier agendas, isn’t it? Don’t even get me started on the genetically modified corns that those Big Brother consortiums are imposing on the world farming industry.

What can we do as the ‘little people’?

How to avoid HFCS in your diet

     The best suggestion of all the articles I read on the perils of ingesting HFCS, stick to the outside aisles of the supermarket. Organic vegetables and fruits grown relatively locally (to avoid the pesticides and slack regulations of Mexican and Chinese providers), breads that are baked locally from actual sugar and not corn sugars, nuts, seeds and grains that will swell or germinate if given half a chance and meats that are not modified with additives, preferably organic. Fruit drinks that claim to be healthy are big culprits of adding HFCS, including Gatorade. As are ice creams that I used to think were the better brands, and every other canned or processed food item. Mayo, salad dressings, Ketchup, 7 up… its across the board.

     Do research online on products and become more pro-active by emailing companies and informing them that you think their decision to sweeten their product with HFCS is in poor regard for their customer base.

One step at a time… one label at a time. Just don’t be a sheeple around what you eat. Know that what we are eating is not nourishing us if its killing us. And THEN watch your urges towards Hunger.

URLS of interest: 

Pro and Con articles on High Fructose Corn Syrup

From Green Magazine: High Fructose Corn Syrup – A Not So Sweet Surprise – Get the rest of the facts! Click here.

From the Washington Post: High Fructose Corn Syrup: Not so sweet for the planet. Click here.

For an intriguing article accompanied by photos of big industry related to the corn industry from the website SPROL: Click here. 

From ‘In the kitchen with Mother Linda’ found online at:  Click here.

Tina Budeweit-Weeks'  philosophy has always been one of self-nurturance and dignity. Tina’s writing is designed to sympathize, support, encourage and inform.

 
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Nancy K's Pass it forward Kindness 2011 Slippers ~ Pom Pom Tute

Before you start reading and enjoying the blog today, I invite you to open a tab separate from this one, put on your speakers and click on this you tube link so that you're enjoying the same music I was as I was putting this together. Happy, ambient music with a bit of a tempo for movement.  Click HERE for tuneage to accompany your blog perusal.

We have one pompom completed and are in the process of the second one. Nancy's slippers need what I call 'Dust Bunny Catchers' and these are made with beautiful odds and ends of yarn I've collected on my rounds. The cardboard rings are cut to provide a bit of an alley for the thread in the middle that ties the pompom together(and for the scissors when you are done spooling the thread on and have to cut the edge all the way around). The crochet hook is for pulling the completed pompom's anchoring threads through the slippers to be tied off.

Can't torment you with just a peek at my up-next and present reading list so here are the books I'm tackling this month.

Ron's other other woman. This was a gift to him from Grace and Dave. He collects angels. His other women are the two motorcycles but that's another blog entry in the future. Suggest names for it, I'm curious what he will pick to name her. The person who comes up with the name he chooses gets a motorcycle ride.

Round and round and round we go, loading up the bobbin.

This is where it can all go so so so wrong. The point of no return. One wrong move and all your good intentions are a pile of 2 inch snips of yarn in a bunch of pretty colours.  But I persevered!

The completed second pompom

The completed slippers bound for Midway in a few days~ Hope Nancy K likes 'em!

Ann Jefferies Legacy Hanky Collection - from the Shirl Archives

Such tiny stitches, destined for a trousseau...

 These handkerchiefs were tucked away, taking up a good portion of a musty dresser drawer during a careful and honouring emptying of my friend, Shirley's mom's dresser. Ann's tragic passing is still raw to the family in some ways, and tackling this was easier with someone there who could keep things in perspective as we cleared the closet and drawers of her mom's things. I was thinking environmentally when I saw the bonanza of little fabric squares, recognizing that there were some sweet little examples of womanhood's necessities, circa early and mid last century, knowing that I could at least use them in place of kleenex, in my ever expanding realm of more sustainable ways of doing things.

When I finally got them out with some time to look at my treasure trove more closely, I was in awe of the intricate stitches, the handmade maiden's touch... the control, the knowledge of warp and weft, embroidery techniques and hemming. As I looked through this pile of beautiful little cloths, one after the other started to tell me stories of where it was from, who gave it, who got it, why it had been created with who in mind and what intentions attached to it. Thinking my usual sociological way, what with my women's studies degree firmly entrenched in my perspective, these hankies were a stroll down memory lane for me. Little captures of time representative of the kind of painstaking expectations women were under over the past 50 years came from each one.

This is a humble representation of the entire collection and just the first peek at them. Shirley and I are going to address documenting this collection as a joint project over the coming months, but this is my first go at photographing each handkerchief to give you an idea of the culture that they came from. Some of us older women remember hankies, but younger women would not equate being a 'nice girl' with having a clean and beautiful, hand embroidered and decorated little tissue in her purse to the same value that those of us who became of age around the 60's or before.

 My Auntie Peggy kept her hankies tucked into the wrist cuff of her never-ending collection of blouses.

But I digress. Here are Shirley's mom, Ann's beautiful hankies. Pre-ironing, pre-semi-professional photographs, simply digitally recorded to get some idea of the light, the grain of fabric, etc. Enjoy. There are about 80 photos so grab a cup of tea, put on some smooth tunes and come wander through the past that existed in the parlours of homes where a good girl was expected to have at least a dozen of these done a year, by lantern if she had to.

This one is made of flower sacks but is sewn by machine, a layered applique technique

Flowers are the predominant symbol

This was made with sewing thread outline and a tiny strand of embroidery floss in blue for the dog's shirt. A child's handkerchief emulating the act of reading a book.

A beautiful trefoil design with four petaled (crosses) borders and paisleys, handhemmed.

 A closeup of the design, a vivid very precise layered print of four colours.

The finest weave with the flowers literally worked into the grain. Handhemmed, this is a soft pink and sheer as can be.

Another portion of the design on the sheer tissue so thin it can pass through a wedding ring easily.

The overview of the sheer pink handsewn, machine woven, imprinted tissue.

A look at the border design. There is something so strong yet delicate about this that I think it warrants photographing it's sheerness when we come at it for the final printing.

This was another printed little sweetheart of a hanky. This took a four or five step printing process and the design emulates the embroidered nylon mesh that came out after WW2.

Apricot and yellow roses are tinged with vivid blue.  Little flowers divided into 6 wedges and blue carnations.

This design is a mashup of the eastern /Indian influence with the paisley corners and the edge of the black mesh image combined with the semi-modern depictions of roses.

The layers of colour are not quite as careful as the previous printed cloth, but the randomness of the colours on these roses are interesting in their own right.

The overall design is a colourful array of bouquets with the stunning black background mesh.

Another sewing thread dog with embroidery floss jammy pants. This time he holds a stick, perhaps what he's holding didn't get finished or has come undone over time. Handsewn, of course.

A sweet child's sneezes were contained amid the barnyard.

Something about the wear, the weave, the tiny hand stitches so uneven around the label, so neat on the label as to possibly be machine embroidered, is so moving to me. The time that this was done, the energy of the world then, the amazing evolutions that have elapsed since then... it's all contained in this little tidbit of cloth.

 This trio of blossoms is so precise.

Many of these tiny works of art combined several techniques such as these ladders and layered applique as well as french knots and satin stitches.

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A good girl knew that her work was better identified with a little name tag for dual reasons, to show off her handiwork and to make sure she didn't lose track of the results of all her backbreaking, sight straining efforts.

This looks like hand embroidery over premade mesh made of some sort of nylon in a cutaway  design that was machine hemmed in a fine manner.

Satin stitches making stunning irises and bluebells.

Another future desktop. Dazzling.

The type of this label is more masculine, it means business. The stitching around it is neater too.

If I'm not wrong, this is a danish method of cutting away and tying the existing fabric to make these spaced patterns.

Another desktop

The label says it all.

Another desktop, as you can see, I'm really impressed with the amazing pattern. A DNA design

Linen so sheer you can read the reverse side of the label through it. Can you see that it says 'Made in N. Ireland'?

A sweet silver label on the other corner that says 'SUNDEW', Irish Linen, of course.

Mostly roses, but this was an exception, lilacs.

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The finely finished corners, every warp and weft thread counted and bunched just six threads up from the folded edge.

This was one of my favorites. The layers of technique included the petals of the flower attached only at the base, the grid, the satin stitches, the cutaway and holes with delicate white thread are just profoundly skilled examples of women's handiwork.

A desktop for me right now.

One of the most involved tatting segments that was added to a cutaway corner.

Even that it's torn slightly is a part of it's story.  The edging is completely laced and laddered to perfection, not a mistaken stitch anywhere.

Another example of the hand-embroidered machine mesh

Another example of speedy stitching that doesn't look like the rest of the work on the cloth.

One needs to imagine sitting in a chair by a table with a little embroidery hoop and a small basket of items that will be used to make the hanky. Threading the needle, looking at a pattern in a magazine perhaps, the light might be dim and the tiny stitches would be hard to see but a steady hand soon corraled the teeny sewing and tatting efforts into these lovely works of the world when our mothers were young.

Out in the world, word of World Wars, word of nuclear bombs and communist threats were bandied about as mighty countries sought supremacy, and here in the parlour, Ann was expected to complete the tatted portion by bedtime, leaving only the painstaking edging to iron, count threads and stitch.

A playful work hanky or  something more akin to the working class woman, this design in three colour steps over pink with a handsewn hem.

The overall design is very dainty and pretty.

Back in an era when they used the word 'nosegay', they embroidered 'nosegays' onto tissues even if they only had three feet of coloured sewing thread, or during wartime, threads they pulled out of other clothes where they could afford to do so without compromising the integrity of the items.

More painstaking edges cornered perfectly

These are wedding hankies, meant for a bride, or some other special and important life event. Used by a more elite class of woman aas well, definitely used for good. This is machine nylon mesh handembroidered and attached to a tiny square of sheer cotton weave.

The precision and control of hands barely granted the vote amazes me.

The overall lace lady's fine handkerchief.

This and the next are right and wrong sides of the same corner. Hand woven fine linen lace with a combined shell integrated into the design. Imagine being able to do this. Now which is the right side and which is the wrong?

My vote is that this is the right side.

Another favourite printed kerchief. This one has rosebuds and full blown blooms on it as well as a corner full of leaves.

This looks like it is handpainted.  .

Apricot rosebuds

Golden rosebuds

Perfectly depicted rose leaves in such minimalist strokes.

Signed by the artiste

An example of a tatted edging

Clover and daisies

Isn't this so sweet?

The overall rose print

A child's kerchief with images of little girls in roles of power. Flying the plane, in a balloon basket, parachuting...

Little girls with images like this as childhood memories grew up to believe they could do anything.

Weeeeeee...

A for Ann is hidden above the three pink dots.

The most intricate of them all. A coin almost of embroidered stitched and edged cutaway techniques. Stunning and in incredible shape.

Perfect whitework.

Wether these were made by Shirley's mom or just little tokens of friendship and mementoes she collected over a lifetime, they symbolize women's strength and tenacity, their patience and temerity. I am honoured to have been granted custodial access.

Thanks Shirley.

Wait till you see the beautiful sweaters that Ann made, that's the next project.