my period...the mental aspects

i cannot remember not knowing what a period was. i can remember not knowing what many things were. i can also remember the first time i learned about many things. what a period was, is not one of them. seems as though i just came in knowing what a period was and creating a lot of ideas around the idea that was presented to me as 'the period'.

a period, in my home, was not a shy subject.i know in many homes it is seen as gross or weird to discuss. in our society if we mention that we are on 'the period' or speak about 'the period' people freak out. its seen as being too open with things. 'the period' is seen as something NOT to talk about...

in my home growing up, it was a big deal. it was seen as a girls movement into womanhood. i guess that is solely based on the fact that a female can birth children when she has had a period. however i have come to learn that a female can birth a child before having a period. as the whole of the "period process" is already under way by the time the part comes for the female to start to bleed the blood out. so when, really, is this "move" into womanhood? is there really a move at all? arent women, women PERIOD? why plant the seed of separation from 'being a woman' (or less than a woman) to a small girl who couldnt NOT be a woman if she tried?...

but yes, a big deal. and once a female in my family got her period a couple of things happened. there was the special attention and catering to the need of the woman on 'the period'. it seemed like every woman wanted 'something' when she was on 'the period'. chocolate, peppermint tea, a favorite magazine, painkillers, certain dinner or drink...some kind of comfort something. this created the idea that 'the period' should have objects attached to it, fucking wow (so interesting when u walk urself out of an idea uve accepted without reason to find 'the reason' u urself created and allowed urself to accept)... so yes, my objects that i ended up with were a cup, a heating pad, and a specific brand of chocolate ice cream (< which i found, even before i learn about self awareness, that my attachment to it was not real but never considered why it was not real. it was not real because it was attached to an idea i had created around the experience of 'the period'. and i created this idea around the experience of 'the period' due to my mother who would feed special attention to objects during 'the period' and helped me choose mine as chocolate ice cream). ice cream is not something that we require to get us through anything. we dont require any object to allow us to move through life. we decided our movement through life. even if someone else will present us with an idea that we run with, it is still us that decides to accept, allow and run. all that is required is the movement of self to not accept ideas but to move as life. i dont desire to eat chocolate ice cream when i come on my period anymore.

another thing that happened, i found, was an acceptance of anger. the new idea that anger was a uncontrollable byproduct of 'the period' (or something. the idea that anger was because of something NOT myself). when someone was on 'the period' and had an attitude, the attitude was not dismissed, but it was understood. or given a reason. "shes on her period..." "she just came on...". so this was the first time i was presented with the idea of a "justified anger" or a "anger with a purpose/reason" or a "acceptable anger (week)". basically a collective reason why its OK for women to be angry at a certain time of the month or OK to expect a woman to be angry at a certain time of the month or OK to assume that a woman is probably on her period as to why she is angry. and this point was reinforced as i stepped out into the world to view how other people (men and women) considered 'the period'. damn, wow ->i am now seeing there is a connection to the way i had been experiencing myself within my period for years in relation to this point of the origins of my ideas on accepted anger. for years the way i would know my period was coming is i would get so pissed off or upset. i mean off the hip, "im so fucking pissed!..i hate everything anyone says or does!..i dont care! die!" type anger. while directly inside the 'pissed off and upset' i never did see it. it was after the heightened uncontrollable emotional state had dissipated that i was able to assist what i had just participated in. i created anger as an usher to my period.. very fucking interesting shit here. i stopped manifesting the experience of anger prior to my period just because of my movement to deal with my self awareness and my anger. but i did not see that this anger point had connections to my period as well.

the biggest deal that was made around 'the period' was the 'right of passage' now, my mother died over 11 years ago and i am not who i was when she was alive. i mean i am, of course, still me but who i direct myself to be is not who i was accepting and allowing myself to be when she was alive. so i had never asked her about the origins of this idea of the 'right of passage'. but what i assumed is that it was tied to my familys religion. which was a mix of rastafarian/hebrew/whatever we think is cool. the 'right of passage' was basically a big gathering where the whole family (sistren and brothern and their youths)comes together in celebration of the "right of passage" into womanhood. we drum drums, bang tambourines, dance african dance, talk, eat, and give gifts to the female whos 'right of passage' it is. i remember my older sisters. it was a big deal. i remember the weeks of getting things ready. it was a surprise to my older sister as they kept all the preparation away from her and my cousin. who had also started her period.. i remember my older sisters gift from my mother. we all use to have dreads growing up. all long locks down our necks and backs. my older sister, whos 'right of passage' this was, wanted to cut her dreads. she was receiving pressure from school kids and a disapproving CULTure of limited people. so my mother decided to cut all our dreads as we all did african dance shows around together. and she dressed us alike often. so all the dreads went. i was the only one upset (< i guess thats another point that can be addressed. it wasnt a huge deal to me but i did feel slighted as i did not want to "give up" my locks. but i digress..) but back to the reason for the digression, the gift. my mother saved my older sisters dread locks and made a doll of my older sister and had her dread locks sewn in as the dolls hair. she gave it to her at her 'right of passage' and she loved it. i thought it was such a cool and thoughtful gift. there was much jealousy within me i am seeing. i created feelings of inferiority within me...

then came my period. i had two older sisters and many older cousins who i watched get their period and go through the whole "period deal". but the 'right of passage' idea kinda stopped with me. and its something i didnt really understand. my parents were kind of tapering off on some of the things we were use to doing. we starting eating chicken and turkey.. but i remember thinking that i was going to get a 'right of passage' or some kind of celebration when i got my period as my older sisters had. but i did not. no cake. no family. no dancing. no music. no gifts. no oopla at all. all i took away from my first period was a mental addiction to hageen-dazs chocolate ice cream and a misinterpretation of the feeling of anger. i didnt make a big deal out of not getting a 'right of passage' but im seeing ive accepted and allowed some things to sit and fester in me as unaddressed in relation to the mental aspects of my period experience. as what i expect a period experience to be. one of feeling special, feeling great feelings, taken care of, fawned over, excused from things...

self forgiveness to come on this. cool..

moving myself

so, since april 30th ive been doing this timeline thing where i keep track of what i do each day. just list form. i dont write down every minute detail of my day but the major things i do. the purpose of this is to get an idea of where exactly i allocate my time. i have stated to myself that the reason why i do not write everyday is because i do not have the time. well, in less than 21 days straight of doing this timeline i can clearly see that it is not time that i do not have. what i do not have is consistency and self movement. i have time. i have time to do whatever the fuck i want. the question is, what the fuck is that i am currently wanting to do. and i see that it hasnt been to move myself to write and express myself to assist myself and any others in this process we are all going through. it has been to make more money. and this is not to say that i work all day long. i do have three jobs and i work often however one of those jobs is as a nanny for my niece. this hardly feels like work ever. just something that needs to be done that i am doing. and also more family members are currently around to help out with my niece more often. so its not that i work all day long but my focus is on work and contracting events. i know that where i am currently living i cannot stay. i currently live with my sister in a two bedroom home. my niece is growing quickly and will need a place for herself here soon. and that place is the place that i am currently living in as it is my sister who owns this home. and i need to prepare to be able to assist and support myself when the time comes for my to be "out on my own" again. there is no rush and i am not being pushed out and the practicality for my to stay is currently here and seen by myself and my sister but i know what i will have to do here soon. and so i have been focused on making more money. that and keeping up with other people. many around me are having children or have children and i really enjoy children :) so i am spreading myself a bit trying to be "there for" and accessible to everyone around me. basically, i am pushing myself and my process to the side and its simply by my lack of self movement and self allocation. not a lack of time.

so, now that i see this and realize what it is that my participation, or lack there of, presents me with (the idea that i "dont have time". of which i accepted and allowed as truth. this idea is not.), i move myself to keep my timeline going where i write what i do each day to see the adjustmentsin the allocation of my time. i also make a commitment to myself to write each day. nothing specific. just self movement to not put process on a back burner. i will start with 21 days of this. and move to implement it as 'how i move myself' from that point of consistency.

halloween - hollow we

so im not into halloween anymore lol. and i really have to laugh out loud at this process ive gone through with halloween. growing up we did not celebrate halloween. it was looked at as a pagan holiday and my family, as rastafarians, seperated ourselves from those we considered pagan or wicked. so, no halloween growing up. i was interested in it. i would not have minded some candy like the other kids but it wasnt something that was pressing to me or something i felt very left out with. i did look at the..well i guess the word is ridiculousness. i did look at what i saw as ridiculousness of the holiday at a young age. the dressing up as things and going to random houses to ask for candy, the picking of pumpkins and carving them into faces. i always thought people HAD to do something else with them besides the carving. ( we, as a society, waste so much food then we cry about how we all "care" about starvation ). i thought it was all pretty wierd, but i did want to be apart of it. the first time i dressed up i was with my grandmother. my fathers mother. she is a baptist and did not agree with many of the decisions my parents made regarding us and saw them as complete silliness.. our dreadlocked hair, our not getting of immunizations or vaccines, our rastafarian ways, etc.. so to me she felt like she was introducing me to some side i was missing out on by letting me dress up as a witch and trick or treat at the mall. it wasnt very much fun in actuality. so i didnt really deal with halloween for a while. then i grew up and halloween became about something else entirely...
it was no longer about dressing up in a costume and going out to get candy. no, in college halloween became about dressing up as cute/sexy/slutty a girl could be in her costume and going out to get drunk as fuck. ive been my share of slutty [insert noun here]. slutty referee, slutty brick house, slutty queen of hearts, slutty cow girl, slutty hippie. this is the portrayal of halloween for young girls now. every costume a celebrity wears or is shown in the media is a slutty this or that. people already have no clue what it is we are REALLY ACTUALLY celebrating within ANY given holiday. now halloween has been so sexed up and energy infused, the bottom line that we celebrate bullshit is not seen. and we continue to be bullshit generators..... within starting this process of facing and realising myself both as i accept and allow myself to be and as i really honestly am -as life-, i decided to make a point to face my fears. fears are a form of accepted limitation. and thats really all fears do. limit self from self directing within action. some people say that fears are protection from bad situations. to keep self alert or always in protection of self. well, that is a fucked up way to be. thats not living at all. thats resting in the experince and self created comfort of fear. i would suggest to be HERE and aware in every moment instead of being directed by fear. an example i had with a friend of mine: i was driving the car and she was in the passengers seat. her bottle of water fell from her hand and rolled under the pedal of the breaks. she accesses memories and ideas from the past, stories she had seen or heard of people dying in horrible car wrecks for this reason or that reason and fear kicks in. shes all "omg tree the bottle the bottle! its under the pedal!". i say to her," breathe. relax. and reach down there and pick it up." she did and i told her in any given situation either we let something else direct us, like fear towards panic and self limitation, or we direct ourselves to do what needs to be done. i told her if i too would have let fear direct me when the bottle rolled under there we would have easily been in a car accident. and the fucked up part is we would have blamed the bottle! lol. to this day she says she keeps that realisation we had in the car that day with her and uses it within situations of being directed by fear or by self. so within the process of self REAL-EYESation, i make a point to face and delete my fears. halloween, after the slut factor, became about the haunted houses and generating the energy from fear. it was about finding the best scarriest ones possible. and i had enjoyed that fear. id go to a haunted house with an arm to squeeze throughout the whole thing. i would have my eyes closed a lot but the energy excites and intices. upon seeing the bullshit that is fears, i wanted to test myself. i went with my boyfriend at the time to a haunted house that was really far away. this place was known to be the scarriest because the people are allowed to touch u and grab u. which at a typical haunted house is not allowed. so i thought this place would be great. there were clowns everywhere. that was a big fear of mine. --and really its interesting now that i do not accpet and allow myself to harbor fears because when i was afraid of these things ( clowns, feet, birds, the dark, haunted houses..) its like i was proud of my roster of fears. like, hello! my name is tree and theeeeeese are my FEARS! it was like a tada! these are them!. and many people have this relationship with their fears. they fucking love them. they list them. they share them. they stand by them. they are okay with them. no one ever thinks to face the shit.-- so clowns was a big fear. walking through this place was so different than any experience i had ever had at a haunted house. i was use to making it this big thing in my head. getting ready for fear, anticipating it, wanting it, wanting it to take me. that was no more. so i walked around this place and looked at people dressed up in clown costumes and they didnt look at animated as i was use to making them in my head or as " oh my goodness this MAY actually be a murdering clown in front of me". they were just people in make up and costumes. it was a eye opening experience for myself to step back, collect self and walk into this sittuation i had been in many and many of times before, for the first time. :).
so nowadays i have friends that want me to do this and that for halloween. would rather push the norm than see the truth about our holidays and celebratory ignorance. but im so not into halloween anymore lol. the getting candy, the dressing up, the fear factor, the disregard. i dont know if we will celebrate any holidays in an equal money system. at least im sure not the ones we do now. im all for letting all this bullshit go. halloween is a hollow time for me. i see hollowness everywhere.

halloween - hollow we.