Once upon a
time there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had
a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work. One day he was
walking
along the
shore.
As he looked
down the beach, he saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself
to think of someone who would dance to the day. So he began to walk faster to
catch up. As he got closer, he saw that it was a young man and the young man
wasn't dancing, but instead he was reaching down to the shore, picking up
something and very gently throwing it into the ocean.
As he got
closer he called out, "Good morning! What are you doing?"
The young
man paused, looked up and replied, "Throwing starfish in the
ocean."
"I guess I
should have asked, why are you throwing starfish in the
ocean?"
"The sun is
up, and the tide is going out, and if I don't throw them in they'll
die."
"But, young
man, don't you realize that there are miles and miles of beach, and starfish all
along it. You can't possibly make a difference!"
The young
man listened politely. Then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it
into the sea, past the breaking waves and said,
Crown of the head- Advance in position. Right cheek- Someone is speaking well of you. Left cheek- Slander is being spread about you. Right eye or eyebrow- Meeting with an old friend. Left eye or eyebrow- Great disappointment. Nose (inside)- Trouble and sorrow. Nose (outside)- You will be kissed, cursed, annoyed, or meet with a fool within the hour. Lips- Someone is talking about you with disrespect. Back of the neck- Illness of a relative. Right shoulder- A legacy Left shoulder- Sorrow. Right elbow- Pleasant and exciting news. Left elbow- Bad news and losses. Right palm- Much money. Left palm- You will pay a debt. Spine- Disappointments. Loins- Reconciliation after quarrels. Stomach- An invitation to dine. Thighs- Change of dwelling-place. Right knee- Happy journey. Left knee- Voyage beset with misfortune. Shins- Unpleasant surprise. Ankles- Marriage or increase of income.
by Vidya Ishaya "Is there a grand design operating in your
life? Or is it all random chaos?"
Is there a part of you that wonders
what will happen to you tomorrow, next week, next year, ten years from now?
Regrets some past behavior that you judge as unacceptable? Is so much absorbed
in some other moment that you can't really appreciate what's happening now, in
this moment?
Suppose - just for a minute, imagine - that everything that
has ever happened in your life had a purpose (a big purpose!) and that it was
all meant to bring you something really, really special. And that a "hidden"
part of you has arranged all this.
Continuing on for a moment, imagine
that there will come a time when you "discover" all the hidden parts of yourself
- when you'll know the purpose behind it all. What if you find that the purpose
was a glorious purpose, a grand design?
If you've allowed yourself (just
for a short moment) to imagine that this COULD be a possibility, what does this
perspective do to your ideas and conceptions about what you've done wrong in
your life, about what you need to fix, about how you need to heal?
What
if - I mean, really - what if everything is happening just the way it is
supposed to - and that you (a part of you, currently unacknowledged) planned it
all?
Why not try on this new perspective?
Why
not?
Recently, I was walking through the woods and came upon a heavy
boulder leaning against a bent tree. My first thought was, "What a shame this
had to happen to this tree. Looks like the boulder rolled down the hill and
slammed into the tree."
Then I saw something in myself. I tend to believe
my first thoughts about a situation. And my judgments are usually based upon
what happened to me, in the past. In this case, haven't we all seen rocks that
fell down and crashed against a tree?
But what if I shifted my
perspective? By a simple choice. And took a closer look. Wow!
The boulder
had always been there. It never rolled. The tree started as a little seed,
growing beneath the boulder. As it grew, it forced the boulder into a leaning
position. The tree actually moved the rock as the rock bent the tree.
So
now, what happened to the first perspective? Was it wrong? No - it was just a
thought. And thoughts flow through the mind all the time. Are our thoughts
wrong? Are they right? What difference does it make? It's just what's happening
in the present moment. Why must we make our thoughts right or
wrong?
Let's take this a little further.
How do we know if the
boulder really landed on the tree, or if the tree grew under the boulder? I
suppose we could put a lot of effort into examining the scenario - which would
mean prying apart the rock and the tree - and sifting through the whole site,
bit by bit. But what would you be left with?
You see, that's how the mind
has been trained, from birth, to operate. Dissect and analyze everything
thoroughly. But when you're through with that where is the original beauty, the
joy in appreciating each moment, each scene, each tree and each boulder you find
in front of you? In the final analysis, it's your choice.
Would you
rather have a life of appreciation and joy, simply accepting the beauty of the
tree and the boulder - no matter how they got there? Or do you need to tear
apart, analyze, and insist on knowing (correctly!) what makes your world
tick?
Is there a grand design operating in your life? Or is it all random
chaos?
Which perspective do you choose to live by?
Vidya Ishaya is
a teacher of the Ishayas' Ascension (the Art of
Inner Exploration.)
While I was constantly bombarded with the same old Feminazi pop psychology complaints about how Barbie initiates negative body images and low self-esteem in
the minds of impressionable young girls who couldn’t possibly live up
to the unrealistic bodily proportions of the un-
humanely curved hottie mc-hot-hot doll, I ignored the rants and
continued to play. I didn’t care that I was a chubby little kid (and
then a plump tweener) and that she was more outlandishly shaped than
Pamela Anderson. That’s just who Barbie is - a thin, pretty, blonde
white-white Wisconsinite.
Still, it might have been nice to have a fat doll.
Six years too late, however, I have finally found them.
Before there were the Dove Beauties, Marks and Spencers’ “Normals”,
and the Ugly Betties, there was Ruby. Granted, she’s not a real doll,
but she certainly would make a striking role model for young girls. No
need to reiterate her clear purpose (you know, “Love Your Fat Self!”)
or make cynical comments about the campaign itself wheedling its
message into our body image-conscious brains we should buy the Body
Shop’s “make your body feel good” beauty products. I don’t know how
much of a “hit” the campaign was, exactly. Apparently, people were just offended by the ads.
I am actually more interested in the doll herself. Is
she a computer image, or a prototype? There’s no question that graphics
technology has certainly made it easy to screw around images. Case in
point:
Not a real doll, of course. Just a Photoshop someone with no life
did. Think they would make ever Fat Barbie with a double chin anyway?
No, the last time they tried to make her more “average”, they gave her
slim hips, a flat tummy (complete with bellybutton) and a slightly rounder face. Big changes.
The closest Mattel came, I think, to Chubby Barbie was its version of Rosie O’Donnell a few years ago.
Complete with bulging tummy!
Other companies have made real “curvaceous” (read: plus-size) dolls.
Tonner Dolls, a company that makes very expensive, high-quality, and
realistic dolls released the EMME collection last year, based on the likeness of the world’s first plus-size supermodel, Emme Aronson. She’s actually very attractive, if still a little on the thinnish side. But I’m definitely impressed.
Tonner also makes the Dreamgirls Collection,
which is most definitely disappointing considering they barely designed
Effie (Jennifer Hudson’s character) to be any heavier than her group
mates. (She’s the one in the middle, in case you can’t tell.)
This is about the most realistic it gets when it comes to replicating Hudson’s actually body shape:
Not very, huh?
I’m even less thrilled with Big Beautiful Dolls,
or BBDs, but only marginally so. First of all, it sounds almost
identical to that empowering phrase you all know I just love, BBW.
Secondly… the dolls themselves just are’t very attractive, at least not
compared to the Emme doll. Granted, they are plumper than the Emme
Doll, which distorts the dolls features to begin with, but they aren’t
nearly as detailed or stunning in the face as Emme.
On the other hand, without the comparison on hand, they are still
well-made and reasonably cute. The clothes they are wearing could be a
little less over the top and “90s fat-esque” (a.k.a. clothes only fat
women from the 90s would have worn because they they were under the
mistaken impression that the clothes actually looked good on them or
made them look more “empowered” and less fat), but overall, I wouldn’t
mind trying the dolls out for size, pun very much intended. (Yes, even
as a college student I still love to play with Barbies when I get the
chance….)
This all said, I really do like that the collection
includes African American dolls, the only collection I’ve seen so far
that does so. In fact, I believe that the dolls are actually more
geared to African American women than any other demographic, seeing as
three of the dolls (including the tribute doll to Madame C.J. Walker)
are, in fact, black, and only one is white and blonde.
Lastly, I found the fat doll to top all fat dolls.
Honestly, I’m not sure if I should be offended or flattered. I mean,
yeah, blah blah it’s sexist blah blah, but the doll herself isn’t that
terrible. She’s got a pretty face and her body is somewhat in
proportion. I’m not going to go out and buy her or anything, but she’s
not a terrible representation of a heavy woman. Granted, it’s obviously
a joke (maybe even slightly mean-spirited, especially with her name
being Fat-Ass and the side captions just this side of snarky) and her expression is a bit goofy/drugged-out, but the designers didn’t make her into a complete hag.
So what to make of all this? Well, the ideas of fat dolls are
intriguing and different. The problem is that the ones they’ve got out
now are not well-advertised, widely spread, or even within a reasonable
price-range. And they’re certainly not geared towards young girls at
all!
What I hope for is that a toymaker will someday come out with a
chubby (or at least “average”-sized, whatever that means) fashion doll
that is actually marketed towards large audience of young girls. How
about a commercial or a non-contraversial ad campaign, instead of
forcing us to spend hours online combing through random searches to
find a plus-size doll, that, in some case, isn’t even remotely
full-figured?And can we not price these dolls at over $50, please?
Really, some of these dolls are great. I just wish they were more
accessible to those who could really benefit from playing with them,
i.e. young girls, not older women trying to fulfill a childhood fantasy
or an adult one at that.
The
Goddess comes in all sizes. We accept Her in all sorts of beautiful
shapes and forms, so why can't we just as easily accept ourselves as
beautiful women in all our sizes and shapes? Even if we truly believe
we accept other women no matter how thin or full and voluptuous their
bodies, how many of us accept our own bodies as beautiful no matter
what size they are? Can you say that you love your body and don't wish you could change a thing? If you can, you are certainly one of the lucky few.
There
was a poster put out a few years ago by The Body Shop -- a skin and
hair care products company with a conscience. Reclining on a divan is a
beautiful, voluptuous (think Venus of Willendorf body type here) Nude
Barbie doll. The caption reads: "There are 3 billion women who don't
look like supermodels and only 8 who do."
This is the first
Barbie doll I've ever been able to relate to. For the first time, I can
see a Barbie as Goddess. Too bad they don't manufacture them for sale.
If I saw them in all sizes - just like real life(!) -- I would consider
purchasing my first ever Barbie doll and get one for my daughter too. I
can hear some of you thinking, "Right, like they're ever going to make
a Barbie in any size but impossibly thin." Well, why not? What makes us
accept that only thin is beautiful?
One obvious culprit is the
media. Print media bombards us with the idea that only thin is in. Any
woman of size on television or the movies is usually portrayed in a
humorous role, and very seldom as a serious, leading character. One
exception is the talented and outspoken actress Camryn Mannheim. Ms.
Mannheim, who accepted an Emmy Award by proclaiming, "This is for all
the fat girls!" spent years coming to terms with her body size and now
is a strong advocate for size acceptance. She is one of the few who has
managed to get there.
It seems to me that even within the
Goddess movement, most of us are still not able to accept our own
beauty. Though almost all women find something they don't like about
their bodies, women of size tend to be particularly hard on ourselves.
We feel that we must be weak and have only ourselves to blame for being
"overweight." We buy into what is fed to us by the media, our culture
and the medical community without ever questioning (or realizing that
we should question) that only thin bodies can be beautiful and healthy.
I bought into it for 40 years and now I'm mad as hell that I wasted
that time. In the last several years I've been trying to do something
about it.
I was put on my first diet
at the age of eight. My concerned mother and the doctor thought the
best thing to do with a chubby little girl was to give her diet pills
and drastically curb her food intake. The cycle that was set in motion
of losing and gaining weight lasted for the next 30 years. It never
occurred to me that there was something wrong with the dieting cycle,
not something wrong with me. The awakening that let me see myself in a
different light and start to become vocal about size acceptance was
gradual. However, two occurrences in my life stand out. The first was a
performance of the Pickle Family Circus which included an acrobat. She
was a young, large woman who performed some amazing, athletic feats and
made them look so smooth and easy. What an eye opener!
The
second occurrence stopped my life long dieting cycle for ever. About
eight years ago I was faced with a life and death situation - I had to
have emergency gall bladder surgery. It was a shock for me! I have
always been very healthy. Other than my own birth, I had never been
admitted to a hospital - not even for the births of my two children.
There is no doubt that the doctor who performed the surgery saved my
life. His assumptions about what had caused the emergency, however,
stopped me in my tracks. When I asked what might have caused the
illness, he casually explained to me that I belonged to the 3F Category
- Female, Forty and Fat! (He apparently was safe because he was only 2
of those F's.) He then went on, knowing nothing of my eating habits, to
sternly tell me that I must now quit eating all those fried foods!
If
he had asked he would have known that I seldom have eaten fried foods
and have been a vegetarian since my early 20's. I decided to do a
little research of my own and found some interesting studies the doctor
didn't mention. Several articles and books talked about a link between
gall bladder problems and constant dieting. Further reading led me to
discover that, while dieting, I had suffered some of the classic
symptoms of starvation. It's a sign of how deeply I had accepted the
idea that dieting is healthy that I hadn't realized anything was wrong
when my periods stopped, or that I often couldn't sleep and was always
cold.
Since then I have discovered many other books and studies
which refute the medical claims of health benefits attributed to
dieting and losing weight. I found that claims of heart disease
attributed to obesity in women don't stand up in other cultures. Samoa,
for example, is a place where large women are thought of as highly
attractive and so they do not strive to lose weight. Up through at
least the 1980's there was very little incident of heart disease in
women in that culture. Could it be that the stress of feeling shamed
and constant dieting are the more likely causes of heart disease in our
fat phobic culture? If a large woman is eating well and exercising, she
can be just as healthy as a thinner one doing the same things. She can
also be just as beautiful.
Three years ago I began
writing a play with another big, beautiful Goddessy woman named Theresa
Chedoen. The title of the play is "Women of Substance." We had both
come to the conclusion that we had to do something to bring attention
to this subject. We describe our work as a humorous, poignant and even
poetic play in nine short acts. Since we are both musicians, actors and
playwrights we were already used to having our work presented to the
public and being out there ourselves. But this was different. This was
a play, no matter how funny, that said "We're beautiful and so are you
and don't forget it!" By the time we finished the writing early in 1999
we knew we had to perform it ourselves. We easily got a sponsor and a
director but we weren't so sure we could get any audiences. And if we
did get audiences… could they relate? We performed a seven night run in
November 1999 and were amazed to have to turn people away from several
performances as the theater filled. We held discussions after two of
the performances and heard people's reactions and their own feelings
about body image. What a lot of needless pain has been caused by this
issue!
One of my favorite acts in the play is called "Venus."
It's a very funny tale of two Stone Age Goddess worshipers who find it
just as hard to aspire to their culture's beauty ideal as we do today.
There is a slight difference between the two ideals though. An artist
friend made a human size sculpture from styrofoam of the Venus of
Willendorf Goddess for this act. She is so well made that she looks as
if she is carved from a huge rock that weighs tons. However, one person
can carry her easily and she now keeps me company by reigning in a
corner of my witchy cabin where I write. I'm inspired by her beauty
(which the twinkly lights draped around her only add to) everyday.
Besides
writing and music making, until recently I worked as a children's
librarian and was responsible for reading and recommending children's
books and presenting story times and book talks. I am constantly amazed
at how easily size prejudice is presented to children (and the adults
who read the books too) with very little notice. For example, I am a
huge fan of the magical Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling. However,
fat prejudice is so accepted and subconscious that very few people have
noticed or commented on the fact that the few fat characters are bad
guys like Harry's Uncle Vernon and cousin Dudley or slightly ridiculous
and humorous such as the fat lady in the portrait that guards the
entrance to Gryffindor Tower. There are other books out there that are
much worse. There are also a few that treat people of size as the
humans we all are, but I have to work at finding them. It's almost too
obvious a statement to make, but, when children are presented with
certain views over and over without any challenge, they usually grow up
holding those same views without question.
It may be hard to
believe, but the acceptance of thinness as the criteria for beauty and
health has not been the norm in American culture for very long. In fact
it is a twentieth century invention that was reinforced by the
development of rigid health insurance weight tables in the early part
of the century. Previously, "plump" babies and young women were
considered the picture of health and beauty.
The next time you
catch yourself thinking that you are too fat, or that someone you know
has such a pretty face if only…, take another look. Recall all the
gorgeous pictures you've seen of the Goddess in all Her guises. Whether
She's small or large, fat or thin or somewhere in between She is truly
beautiful. And guess what? As Her daughters, so are we!
I love this article, especially after seeing the communication on
a forum I was on called VIPForums. They were making fun of overweight
people and were so nasty, the VIP should stand for Vicious, Immature,
and Pathetic. I'm so sick of fat jokes being acceptable. Blonde jokes
are now considered offensive, but fat jokes are fair game? Even Jay
Leno thinks it's okay.
For the record... I don't eat fast food of any kind and I find the
commercials on TV for McDonalds, Wendy's, Burger King, and Taco Bell as
damaging as the drug commercials. Now doctor's want to give children
cholestrol medications because the so-called obesity crisis. Perhaps
other, less drastic measures should be done first... like take off all
of the commercials for fast food and drugs. Commercials for smoking are
illegal, and how much more dangerous are they compared to Oxycontin?
I'm surprised that they don't encourage smoking since it can help people lose weight. Trade one vice for another.
Secondly, if we keep having food recalls for fresh fruits and
vegetables, how can anyone eat a vegetarian diet? Some of these foods,
according the recalls, could kill you. But that's true of meat and fish
as well.
Thirdly, is cost. Produce is more expensive, meat is more
expensive, rice and grains are more expensive... remember when bread
and water was considered punishment because it was cheap? When I was
growing up, we ate lots of macaroni, noodles and rice because it was
inexpensive. No more.
Until we take care of poverty, which is the real crisis, people
will eat what they can afford to buy, which unfortunately, is
fast food. When you don't have a lot of money, you eat what you can
find, not what you should.
Society is trying to put a band aid on a broken leg in trying to
find drugs to solve so called obesity illnesses. Cholesterol
medications in their own can have severe
side effects and giving them to children is just insane. The world
is not going to be happy until the entire population is totally drug
dependent, and the drug companies
are making big bucks from ailments that don't even exist.
I am a large woman, I make no apology for it. I don't have heart
disease, diabetes or high blood pressure. What illnesses I have, have
nothing to do with my weight.. I would have them even if I only weighed
104 and was a size "TWO". I can relate to everything that Dahti says
here in her article.
I'm tired of my size, my gender, my religion, and my interests
being criticized by people are need to get an education about the rest
of the world. As long as we continue to make fun of people who are
different, in size, in lifestyle, in race, in dress, and in belief
system, or worse, condemn these, there will never be peace in the world.
I just wanted to say hi. I am sorry I haven't been on much. So much going on here there is never enough time in a day.
Many Blessings
Mystikal Summer Starr
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