Republicans

I haven’t written here in a long time because as usual I’ve been swallowed up by various obsessions.

Obsessing over how to become the most practical person that ever lived. But after weeks of agonizing all I could think of was to reorganize my mineral collection. By chemical properties rather than colors. I’m not sure how much this increases my chances of survival but at least it felt manly.

I’ve been learning more about geology in general though sedimentary rocks are the bane of my existence. They seem supernaturally boring. I like minerals much more than rocks. Things such as fossils bore me to tears. Although the aversion then causes a weird attraction since boredom itself is one of the things which fascinates me. I find boring subjects, items & people magnetically attractive. I can’t endure their presence long though before I start to lose consciousness.
Obsessing over building more base notes & deep colors into my personality. Probably because I imagine this will make me more practical & able to survive. Plus, I worry that if my aura is too light & high I will drain others of their vital substance. So each morning I spent a few minutes trying to sing the deepest notes I could.
Obsessing over controlling the universe through magic. I won’t even bother discussing this one except to say that it didn’t work. And also, that magic has nothing to do with wicca or spells or kettles or frogs. It is just about harnessing the energy that already flows through the universe to make it work for you. Just like electricity, water turbines & nuclear power. The universe is complicated though so I never get very far.
Obsessing over male psychology in the hopes of more smoothly co-existing with Black Licorice (husband) also known as The Godfather. Haven’t made much progress with this either. I’m just hoping the more practical I get, the more things will fall into place.

So as usual, all my obsessions fail & I eventually come crawling back on my knees to music as a source of comfort. And this time politics too, as a source of discomfort. I am running for state delegate. James wanted me to do it. I didn’t realize it entailed anything beyond slapping your name on a ballot, so oops.

Door knocking has turned out to be fun though. The stressful part is that Black Licorice wants to go door knocking with me. He does not want me to go by myself. But he is rarely up and dressed before nightfall. So what to do? Play the good female, go with the flow & accept that I lose? Be the bossy lady & attempt to drag him out of bed early accepting the consequences? Or go by myself while he is sleeping & just don’t tell him? I don’t know what is right.

Until recently I didn’t understand why anyone cared about females entering politics. Now I kind of get it. There are issues that specifically impact women. And men- being more geared to action than introspection- aren’t necessarily going to think these issues through from a female point of view.

Recently I’ve been dealing with the issue of abortion, for example, since this is the biggest reason many women won’t vote Republican & I am hoping to bring more women into the Republican party. I think it isn’t just the stance that bothers women but the callous framing of it. (“She knew what she was doing when she spread her legs.” is a statement I have heard a lot recently.) To my surprise, in the conservative framework, the responsibility of not having sex & also birth control lies solely on the woman. If she gets pregnant & suffers greatly as a result she deserves it. Cause she spread her legs.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of pro-life men EXPECT women to have sex before marriage and would not date them if they didn’t. (By their own admission.) They believe in free love. I cannot square these two positions. She shouldn’t have spread her legs. But she is expected to spread her legs. When I suggest that not fornicating should be part of a pro-life stance, they say what goes on in the bedroom is nobody’s business. I tried to float making fornication illegal but no one would go for it. This would restrict their freedom, their choice, which suddenly became more important than “The Slaughter of the Innocents.”

In addition, they do not believe it is their job to marry the mother of their child, which is the only arrangement under which pro-life makes sense to me. You can’t just funnel women into single motherhood regardless of their ability to cope. But the men felt this idea was totally coo coo. Getting married should be their choice. And she knew damn well what she was doing when she spread her legs. None would support a pro-life bill that declared the mother & father to be married by natural law.

Even worse, men were not willing to be compelled to be implanted with a uterus to carry the baby themselves if this became necessary to save it’s life. You can’t force someone to do that! It should be their choice!!!

Color me disillusioned.

Although I will say the conservative women seemed willing to take the blame and suffer to live out their values. I don’t know why they don’t expect more of the men. Except I do. Men like you better when you don’t challenge them. Challenging them rarely works out in your favor anyway. The worse of a mood James is in the more I find myself complimenting him, serving him & agreeing with everything he says. It’s just a self-protective instinct.

The only difference between me and conservative ladies is they feel good about their submission to men because they see it as a virtue. I see mine more as a failing, or a survival decision at best. Cause I believe the world gets better when women are willing to speak and men are willing to listen. But this is hard for both of them. Maybe the only way women can pull this off is to band together. Many great changes in the world have happened as a result of female movements and associations.

Anyway, since all the planets have been travelling through my house of possessions, please allow me to share with you a few possessions I have acquired.

Keys. Although I’ve lived in this house for 4 years, I only now got my own key & key chain. Two actually. (The one on the right was sent to me by mistake & not a fabric I would choose though I have grown to love it.)

A bag. Owning this bag has been my dream for l10 years and now I have it.

Finally a phone which I will need it for the politics thing. I haven’t had a phone in years.

A windowsill full of cars & motorcycles. Hoping this causes a new car to appear in real life. Our current car has a smashed out window & no brakes. The stickers are so old that every car ride includes a cop chase. Black Licorice drives the car wearing glasses that have only ONE lens- a scratched lens- & he attaches them to his head with dental floss. This makes me nervous especially since he frequently goes through a wide range of emotions while driving.

Sunglasses- they are sitting on my head. I associate sunglasses with practical people who run around doing things and need to keep the sun out of their eyes. And after getting them I actually have started running around doing things trying to keep the sun out of my eyes. That is the Kanawha river.

Have to include this photo of Patton since it is the first one that captures his true nature. He is an aggressive dog & highly protective.

Slippers, the half-blood hound. She is my soft thing but has hurt her leg.

My political magnets that I am handing out while door knocking. I love anything with small flowers on it.

And the flowers are symbolic too. While I’m running as a Republican, I don’t represent conservatism, but the desire to preserve freedom so humans can continue to be organic creatures with feelings & thoughts running free, not drones of the phallocracy.

Political conflict in America tends to happen between two groups- the Reds & the Yellows. Presently, the Reds are more or less aligned with the Republicans and the Yellows with the Democrats.

I am going to discuss Yellows first, because they are currently on the offensive, attempting to brand Reds as racist, hateful, and ignorant, and in some cases going so far as to ostracize them from social groups.

Astrologically, the Yellows may be agitated by to Pluto’s voyage through the sign of Capricorn. Pluto represents lust for power and Capricorn our desire to be someone of importance in society. This transit intensifies the desire for prestige and social position, urges which are key to a Yellow’s psychology.

Yellows feel confident in their physical survival and tend to take it for granted. Unlike Reds, they do not worry that they will die of starvation or freeze to death in the cold. They don’t care about gun rights, for example, because they can’t easily imagine a time when they would be fighting for their lives.

Yellows’ drama revolves around their need to feel successful and respected. However- viewing life through a mental/social lens and frequently lacking connection to the physical and spiritual worlds- Yellows tend to harbor so many judgments about what it means to be a person of value, that it can be difficult for them to live up to their own standards. And that is where the problems begin.

Ideally, when a person feels like a loser they could take the opportunity to re-evaluate their own ideas. What does it mean to be a loser? What yardsticks am I using to measure success? Are these truly valid? But Yellows are unlikely to do this, since they are typically surrounded by people who share their ideas, making it difficult to step back and reevaluate .

The reason they tend to be surrounded by like-minded people is, of course, because they judge those with different values so harshly that they cannot easily associate with them, much less forge a deep bond. Although Yellows tend to be bright on a mental level, this mental light frequently blocks other levels of consciousness that run on darkness, giving them less access to imagination, spirituality, and the ability to change perspectives at will. They are mentally locked in to one view of life.

So, being unable to easily rearrange the contents of their own mind, when a Yellow feels blocked in their ability to achieve social status and validation, they begin to sublimate.

A first step of sublimation is when they cease to judge themselves by the success they have achieved, and instead pride themselves on their knowledge. Being mental, knowledge is an easy thing to devote themselves to.

Yellows are the ones to seek Phd’s with no obvious application. Maybe they would fail at running a business, but who can stop them from becoming an expert on George Washington? Who can stop them from obsessively following the news and then considering ignorant those who can’t place Syria on a map? Who can stop them from learning a second language and talking in a haughty tone about the importance of being multi-lingual?

This, of course, backfires when they become so terrified of looking stupid that it retards their ability to learn. The desire to seem smart, ironically, causes a person to become increasing stupid. The desire to seem knowledgeable causes a person to pick up less information from the world around them.

In another, more extreme form of sublimation, the Yellow may detach from the color Yellow altogether and try to become a Gold- a saintly, altruistic person who desires to save the world. This allows them to decide that personal success is, in fact, a superficial goal in the face of all the world’s suffering, and gives them a graceful way to exit the rat race without admitting defeat. For it is the rat race itself which is the problem- they tell themselves- and now they are part of the solution.

As a bonus, once Gold, they can occupy their minds with “those less fortunate” and those whom they see as beneath them. While those who- by their own standards- are superior to them are turned into villains, rather than painful reminders of their own suppressed desires.

For even when a Yellow goes Gold, that old yellow pain is still inside them. If they were competing in the rat race, at least the pain could spur them on towards better performance, but now that they have dropped out, the pain must be released in other ways.

So, even while ostensibly trying to change the world, the lion’s share of their energy will go towards disparaging those who are not doing their part. They cannot help but feel rage towards those who are murdering whales and enslaving orphans as they take another bite of their whale meat sandwich and check news reports from a phone made in a child slave shop.

Because, in essence, Yellows have a competitive, hierarchical view of life. They want to be better and more important than others, but- especially once they go gold- they can no longer admit this since it would be a moral flaw, and what’s worse, force them to deal with their own pain rather than turning it into hatred.

Communism and socialism are appealing to desperate Yellows (though less appealing to Yellows who feel they are “winning”- a group I have not touched on in this post). Communism demonizes the rich and successful. It turns them from objects of envy into hated villains. In addition, it promises the ultimate escape from the painful rat race- by abolishing the game altogether. Yellows would feel less conflicted leaving the rat race behind if everyone else was forced to leave it as well.

Of course, even in communism, Yellows would seek a way to feel superior to those around them. But perhaps they could accomplish this more easily once the most powerful all have a hand tied behind their back.

So, what is the solution for Yellows? How can they escape their own internal hell without dragging the rest of us into it?

If Yellows could form relationships with those who don’t share their values- i.e. people from other cultures- this could go a long way towards loosening the grip that their own prejudices have on them.

Perhaps this is why Yellows frequently idealize travel. Sourcing information primarily from the human world, they may need to be surrounded by different sorts of minds in order to step outside of their own.

Of course, travelling to faraway lands is not always practical. Ideally, Yellows could simply associate with those nearby who are unlike themselves, those who think differently. But this they will find more challenging. Faraway people are not competition, not much of a threat, and thus it is easier to see the good in them.

A related skill that would benefit Yellows is learning to suspend judgment. Can you set aside your judgments, your values, for brief periods of time, just long enough to enter the imagination of another person and see the world through their eyes?

Yellows are frequently so caught up in evaluating the world that their imagination becomes stunted. They don’t realize that life takes on completely different patterns- like a kaleidoscope- when seen through different eyes. Truths that are towering from one frame are no longer visible from another.

But if Yellows could practice this purple skill of changing their point of view at will, it could begin to loosen the knots in their stomach. Perhaps this is why Yellows are frequently a fan of drugs, because drugs give them relief from an overly fixed view of reality and help them to move into their third eye.

Above all, though, Yellows need to change how they define success. They need to realize that success is what you give to the world, not what the world gives to you. If others admire and respect you- that is their doing and possibly a credit to them- but no credit to you. You get credit for the light you emit, but not for the light that is shined on you.

Yellows tend to get caught up in striving to catch a glorious reflection of themselves in someone else’s eyes. Their fundamental need is self-esteem. But you can never gain self-esteem that way. I have come to believe that self-esteem is actually a simple thing which hinges on one factor- work.

When a person focuses on doing whatever work they feel called to do- and the work itself becomes their goal- a source of light begins to build up from within. You see your own value made manifest around you- the cars you have fixed, the children you have raised- whatever it is you are doing. You see in concrete form your own value and therefore naturally begin to lose the need for your value to be affirmed by others. It is already self-evident.

And luckily, this places self-esteem under our own control. To achieve a place of honor in society is difficult, may require sacrificing parts of our identity, and hinges on many factors outside of our control. But doing good work, and taking pride in it, is a universal cure available to everyone. Like sunshine.