Beneath your parasol, the world is all a smile

I was reading a lot of things about Ares today, and I wished talk a little about things I think/feel/lived. Nothing "wous, so great" mostly rambling.


I was young and already had set what I wish do as an adult: military. I asked my father to teach all about it. He gifted me with books, told me how to march, introduced me to Leonidas and the 300, Salamina, Marathon, the two Great Wars and bushi-do. Better: my father was politically  connected with the guerrilla groups that fought against the military dictatorship in Brazil. He don't entered in true action (he was a teenager, after all), but learned some tricks, so I grew with a good notion about guerrilla. Molotovs, knives, how to make a bomb, where hit someone stronger than you,don't loose your way in the forest. We did it as something fun, was not a training, no way, just a lot of information and a few notions. But I was the girl with a pocket knife that knew how to use it (later, in my teenager years this helped to made bullies give peace).

  Then the gulf war started. I don't remember clearly the year and I'm not too worried to google it. Fuck, this is not the point. That thing was choking and I started to collect every media coverage of the fight. I don't had a side: I assume my natural suspicion of USA in the international warfare (our policy was trained by CIA to torture people, and I am a left wing, I don't think I need more explanation) and to me in that moment was not the reasons behind the war that matters. Was a war, a big one, with a lot of media coverage, even been pre-internet. I could saw the fighting, knew about the armament, I remember the night videos with the tracing bullets crossing the skies. Photos, videos, reports, all the time. I made a scrapbook with newspaper and magazines about it.

And I was amazed. Because was horrible. But was absolutely beautiful too. I was in love for the war, for the concept of war. I used to look Mars in the sky, and salute the war planet.

Then I was 18. With a lot of myopia, 1,56 cm of height and with the first women in Aeronautical Technology Institute studying hard to pave way for women in aeronautics. I was sad because I cant' apply to Sailors School -only boys can, and my dream job, aeronautical mechanics, was forbidden for women too. But college, college change things - colegge open doors on the military.  I ended college, yet with some hope about been a marine. They don't give a fuck for the myopia. You need be totally crazy and cross the physical training - I was decided to stop with everything in my life to prepare for it. But I needed been 1,65 cm.

I was devastated. I was not enough t serve and protect my country - and sorry for the american friends, this means something more here, because we don't fight except with a good reason, because we still remember how brazilians fight dirt and efficiently. Poor Paraguay, still fucked theses days... warfare is rare here.


When I arrived in the helenism, everybody that knew me at that time expected that Ares was a important god to my worship. People that knew me as adult uses to see first the dionysian because, well, I am mad, and I become knew for drink a lot and for my taste for psychedelia and because is my public thing. I try hard to don't live of past and even if I already wrote some times about how is difficult to my self-image be incapable to army service, I don't talk about this side a lot - and I deal with my passion about war as an academic and a nerd very well.


Curiously, my thing with war took me to the Curetes, first than Ares, what in a certain world view is justified by the fact that my "father" Ogum, have a bunch of similarities with them and by consequence my personality will fit well with a notion of war/fire/iron divinities. .

But Ares is my general. Ares is the god I kneel year after year, reassuring my oath of service for the beauty, good and true, the god I ask to help me with my anger explosions, to control myself.

I physically hurt people in the past, and I live with the conscience that this is very easy to do. I know how my bipolar twists made me angry and aggressive, and without Ares help, I can't refrain. For the gods, even with His hand over my shoulder retaining me I'm much more aggressive with my words and actions than the average person.

I don't like some things I read about Ares. I think people tend to see things in a way that makes me uncomfortable. Speciously, I don't like how people ethnocentrism rises when they talk about Ares. You know, no country is the center of the world. Been proud of your country is cool, but ethnocentrism don't fits in Ares very well. And I don't like how some people think the only right way to be a man is his own way (and no, Ares is a bad-ass maybe, but not a macho man, he is not a stereotypical viking, oh fuck). I don't like how people talk about "he is a god of *loud death-metal voice here* WAAAAR" -sounds like people that worships Hecate because she is a "dark goddess. Yes, I'm been judgemental here,I know, but ...

How I said - I have a problem to control anger. And talk shit about feminist movement is not safe near me. I try control it, but this week I'm having some trouble to control anything and this turn things worst.

But for other side, I read a lot of things I liked. So I wished talk something too.

How is the god that presides over camaraderie. How you trust people when fire forge the connection, how you fight protecting the men at your side. How He is the battle cry and at the same time, the delicious sense of celebration after the fight. How he don't win every time because loosing is part inexorable of the war. 

How he, as Artemis, push you over the self imposed boundaries and show how we are bigger and better, even if it bruise us. How He enjoy the competition. How you need control becuase even in a fury you need focus. Ares is a god that teachs us about focusing with truth, not the corporative bla-bla-bla about focus. And how you need stop paying attention with how the others will act/ think and start to do the right thing whitout reason except by been the right thing.

He is dirty as a summer sunday in the woods, after four hours of trail, when you put the feet on the cold water and watch the sun in the middle of the sky. You is tired, there is mud in your cloths, you already hurted your leg or hand. Them a friend gives you a cigar and a beer. And you feel fulfilled. You look the beauty around, the rocks beated by the water, the water incessantly carving the hardship of the rocks, and you look the trail behind you. You bite your teeth, proud and read to make your way back when needed, enjoying the beer, wishing the effort to be more you. 

I'm a mystic. I'm not the best in it, but I do my "job". And I enjoy it. My life never was in my complete possession. I can see things and I have an easiness to trance. To be sincere, I spent a lot of time in the last 3 years learning how to control trance, because this easiness. Some people need training to trance - I needed training to don't trance. And I have this thing with fasting, that turn it very pleasant, not something hard.

I have a friend that serious practices Reiki (and is devoted to Asklepius and Apollon, I consider so cute the way how his healer life view guided hom to these gods). He said some things about my crown chakra, and how my connection with the upper is open, clean, balanced, even when I'm totally fucked with my mind or body. He said is something of my nature - I'm fitted to been in conection with the gods and spirits.

Why I'm saing all this? I don't like to talk about it, because I hate sound arrogant. And I don't think this is something "ooooow,admire me" because is something very simple and I'm nothing special or anything.

But looks like some people don't consider believable that I can be a mystic and raise a kid. And even if I like a lot of things this person had wrote, and even knowing she act in a very similar way that certain crazy bastard from here, the way how she and other people talk about raising kids will destroy your spiritual life made me angry.

What the trouble with having kids? One of my biggest initiations was my son birth. Because been a mother is part of me (and the world will be a better place if only people that truly feel called to it had babies - I don't think everybody need been a mother, quite contrary).

No one need be a conventional parent. Sincerely, most of the time, unconventional parents are better parents. I don't think I'm a great mother, but I don't think I'm a bad one. And my mysticism just don't change it.


My son never sucked a baby bottle and was breast feeded for three and half years. He like trains and Super Mario Bros. He read and write and with five years already knew google can search what you need. He is silent and lovable, and cries of emotion when listen music. He sneaks into my bed in the middle of night to sleep with us, but is proud of his lira shaped bed. He is suffering in school because is too sensible and don't understand he is stronger than the others and need be careful to don't hurt his colleagues (and his teacher is a bitch,but this is subject to another post). Just a normal kid. He ask me to lit candles and incense, he knows why people nicknamed him spartan and he knows Artemis protect the children and the little cats and the laconians. He loves Dionysus because "Grapes are the best fruit, and my fave juice. If he made the grapes, I like him". 

He consider normal the fact that sometimes he will wake at night and found mommy seated in front of the altar, quiet and distant. Sometimes, he seat near to me, and when I return, he is cuddled in me, watching the candles burning.

He knows the drum is only mine. And he know the rattles serve to clean, so he takes the two rattles he was gifted, and clean his toy room. He wants a tarot deck of his own, and prefer keep apart from the bones.  And sometimes, he say "I missed you, mommy" when I spent more time than expected doing something.

I agree - will be very hard, specially the first years, if my husband, the Coyote boy, was not with me in this. I will be fucked to deal with the single mother package more my spiritual obligations and delights. But he is with me. And he is the guy that say "ok, I can handle it, now shit a tent to go" after I said I want made a ten days shamanism retreat. What is two days out to a ritual? He rearrange the furniture and accept an altar occupying 1/4 of our bedroom.


My house is messy, there is symbols and "patuás"(is close to a gris-gris bag)  and shrines everywhere. I don't have time to have a Martha house, and we have strange meal times and bed times. But we are happy and my spiritual path asked me to raise a family to support me and to share, to be engaged in a certain way in my ancestors chain. 

And if you think I'm a worst mystic, devote, spiritual workers because I already did a four hour walking in the woods with a baby in a sling, made me a favour. Take your opinion and tuck it in your ass.

I believe every person have a unique path to follow. I try my best to don't judge. And I think the reciprocity is something nice.

why this fucking thing save your title but ever save the draft of the post?

I wished wrote about it before, but only today I was able to took a shoot.

This is a lovely project against hate crimes and homophobia. It started because a 16 years old girl was murdered by her girlfriend father and two brothers. In the strong feeling that a hate crime against one person is a crime against the mankind, people decided to make a video using photographs of people with the hashtag #eusougay (#I am gay). Thousands of people already answered.  Today is the last day in the campaign.

This is the pledge:

"

The project #IAMGAY was born so that we can say “enough”! Enough with the hate, enough with the violence, enough with the animosity. This is not a project only against homophobia, it’s an afirmation against intolerance, against the lack of respect for any minority out there. Being gay at this moment goes beyond sexual orientation. Being gay can ben our collective identity in the name of the freedom to be who ou are. We can’t, we shouldn’t and we won’t live in an environment full of anger.

It’s pretty easy to join us and spread this message to the world:

First you take a picture of yourself (alone or with friends, family, pets…) with the message #EUSOUGAY (which means #IAMGAY) printed or written in a piece of paper

Send that picture to projetoeusougay@gmail.com (our deadline is May 1st)

And that’s it!"

See more (mostly in portuguese, but a lot of pictures) http://projetoeusougay.wordpress.com/


And here is my shooting, with my spiritual son, that is gay, by a true coincidence. He was in home and we decided take the picture together, since the other guys was not in home. 





 

And the parasol is the one from this blog title... 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1729475697/monty-and-the-runaway-furnace

Well, I really love the steampunk aesthetics and this project looks good. But they need raise money to finish the movie and I willreally like to see it done.

So, if someone could help, donating or passing the pledge to others that can donate, I will be very happy.

Just to share a amazing night =). From the five days of the holiday, we only remembered about the camera in the fourth day. So, I want share with you our Diablo II  nigth.

Or a moment like "she is not only an avatar" and "she spend time with non religious things".

The fuel:

The boxes are from an arabic fast food called Habib's. 100% brazilian company and one of the biggest fast food restaurant chains here. And good food, much less expensive than Mc Donalds. 3 blocks from my home they have a 24h shop.




(  More photos behind the cut: )

I hate the fact that a lot of people around the world think in soccer, beach and carnival to define my country. 

Each country have different holidays. We don't have Thanksgiving, for example, or Memorial day. And we have Carnival. Most of the carnival things you see around in the media are to tourists (international or from our own country)- for a lot of people, carnival means tourists coming and economics growing. You have in a hand, big parades and naked people and "samba" and a lot of bizarre things, and in the other hand a lot of really cool folk customs. But the folkloric thing, that is the greatest thing in the holiday, is what will never been show in television. The true carnival, with venetian and portuguese influences, where the true mystic happens (we need remember carnival is the moment that prepares to Easter, and the woo is strong, the doors are open and "the veil" is strange) is not good to the sales. Who wants know about the simulated wars, the street theatre plays, the folk songs and the crossing of boundaries? Why explain the fertility rite characteristics of this damn festival? Why talk about fun with no reason and joie de vivre, when you can sell the plastic version of it?

One of the best carnivals in my life, I've spent in a rock a a billy bar named American Grafitti. In the middle of the night, we was all using plastic hawaian garlands, and the owner of the bar started to play old carnival song from the 30's, 40's and 50's, with a lot of double meaning  and a drunken innocence, and started to distribute a lot of paper confetti, and we "fighted" with confetti singing and drinking and throwing paper serpentine. A carnival that for us, in the big cities, almost don't exist any more, of balls, masquerades, and so us, rocker types, was digging deep to find.
 

Mostly, carnival is a way to forgot about the worries. For me, for my clan, this year, means everybody in my veranda, playing Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory (last night we installed the game in every computer and notebook of the band and setting a server to play together) , watching japanese animations,  playing Game of Life and Monopoly, drinking some beer, playing Once Upon a Time, sleeping and listening classic rock 24 hour a day. Always, means some isolation from the outside.


The holiday will start monday and tuesday, but in the friday night the boys arrived here and most of the people consider "carnival starts here". And wednesday is the "ashes day", the hangover day, the banks and commerce opens only in the noon. My boss this year decided to be a nice guy and I will not work the entire day in the wednesday.

Today, we made a barbecue. Since there's two catholics in the band, this is really meaningful, because in ancient days catholics stopped to eat meat in the Ashes Wednesday, and will only taste it again in Easter. Even if this is very rare in the last decades (I knew people that follow it even today), and even if we are majority pagans, is like if the spirits are asking to us to do pleasure things.

I'm going back to the boys now, to talk and play and laugh. And to completely forgot about the television tourist oriented carnival, that is, mostly, a lot of shit, with rare exceptions.   

Since sunday is raining all the time. The rain stop for few hour and them return in a storm. People need four hours to go back home after work, when normally need less than one.

Right now, the rain is strong. I hope this don't fuck with my return to home after work, in the day I go away earlier.

A student (7 years old) freaked because I was sending a note to his mother about his refusal in do the activities. And he scratched all my arm, tried to beat me. A 7 years old boy of a middle class family, and he really thinks beat in someone will free him of a sanction.
I'm sure he beats his mother, because he knows how hurt an adult - I mean, he don't acted as if he don't know how to move. I'm yet nervous (the reason why I'm writing in my lunch time), but trying to calm down. After everything, everybody dealing with people have to deal with this kind of stuff. Let's hope the parents are rational and tomorrow we can talk and handle this aggression. 

At least I had time to sketch some designs about my novel between a class and another. I hope next year I have enough money to go back to a drawing course, I'm so untrained, years without truly drawing hard things. 


Let's eat something and try to forget why my arm hurts.

We have two cats. Deia was born exactly one year after our son Andre- exactly, the same day and the same hour, one year later. Her mother, Nina, was my companion cat. She lived with him for more than a decade and when we started to live together, she came with the final moving.  She suffered for a serious heart condition - if for some reason she passed trough anesthetic, she will die,so she never was spayed. Nina lived for 14 years and fled to the small wood near our house to die- or became a neko-war machine (you know, like a agressive version of Nekobasu, Catbus, from Totoro). Deia have four years- will make 5 in may.

She was not spayed. To be sincere, I don't like the idea of spaying my cats. Because mostly, we do this because a)is more comfortable to humans having spayed animals b)humans are irresponsible with the animals. I mean, we spay the animals because of us, not them. I understand the need of birth control and all, but I hate the fact that people look to me like if I'm a criminal because she was not spayed when a kitty;

I had a cat that I spayed very early in her life, because Margherita was so small, that a pregnancy will put her life in danger. As adult she had the size of a 4 months kitten. I don't had doubts: was a matter of survival. But I searched for a vet that made the surgery keeping one of her ovaries, so she continued to produce hormones, don't changed behaviour and all. 

I'm searching for a vet that can made the same with Deia. I don't want she change behaviour, I don't want a increase in sickness possibilities. I understand that birth control is important, and we used hormones to avoid she getting pregnant during last year, to find a good vet and made the spaying the same way we did with Margherita.

But Deia already had a few litters. All the babies are companions to friends of us. Usually she have only one or two kitties. Last year, she give birth to a single little boy. For some reason, she hid the kitty until he had 3 months. When we finally meet him, he was completely feral.

Fatty is a wonderful cat. Tabby, grey to brown, huge green eyes, a soft and long fur. And a complete anti-social. He run every single time a human approaches. He panic when perceive is too close to a human. He scream in panic, if we cross in the stairs. And I love Fatty, even if he is a psycho. Sometimes, I'm able to go and touch him. We are going trough socialization but I'm not pushing him too much. Specially after he suffer from a blockage of the urinary system in the end of december. A week using diapers to protect a catheter, special food, constant visits to a vet. Things was hard to him, and to us, for some weeks. The money I planed to spent spaying Deia in january and a lot more was used to save poor Fatty, that is only now starting to gaining some weight again.

And so, we forgot the hormones.

Yesterday, seven in the morning, she decided will have the babies over me. I convinced her that a box,at my side,will be more adequate, and five white kittens was born. And oh gods, they are so soft and cute and so so little. And very active to newborns. And lovely.

I love cats. Even when they decide giving birth over you in a sunday morning.

I'm now looking to them and thinking how is hard give them away in two months. How you start to see personalities in the little ones.

Today,one of the kitties died. It's sad, because everything looked ok, but we know this kind of thing happen. I buried the little one in the garden, in fetal position, like if he was returning to the uterus.

I'm watching the others, but everybody is active, drinking a lot of milk (Deia have milk enough for a dozen kitties), good temperature, good breathing. And so cute and soft.


And now, I will go to see them, and spent the next hour looking and saying "oooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnn" every time they do anything.

I'm thinking, make a painting is kind of a Anthesteria tradition here.


Is very simple, but I hope He like it...






Most of my religious painting is made over pottery designs.