Love, any kind of love, is a luxury in a society that does not value one’s worth. I cannot tell them in person, for as Shakespeare said…they have shuffled off this mortal coil…but I thank my parents for taking care of me. I understand that was all the bandwidth they had. They grew up with parents who took care of them–food, clothing, shelter, schooling. They never said “I love you”. They didn’t hear that from their parents. Those words were not a part of their life experience.
I understand now the generational trauma of being deprived of one’s children with no notice. The parent had to protect herself by doing only what was necessary and distancing herself emotionally from the child. I can’t imagine the trauma of waking up to find your child gone or of having a child snatched from your arms–sold to the highest bidder–where, you don’t know. And the cruel owner expects you to produce more work humans for his economic benefit. The mothers had to mentally distance themselves in order to function, to stave off insanity. Love was a luxury they could not afford. And that trauma, unacknowledged, haunts our communities in this year–2025.
So parental love could cause psychological trauma. The same could be said of romantic love. At any time, a romantic partner could be sold or brutalized or raped. Is it any wonder that the emotion of love, a construct of societal mores, norms, and taboos, and sex, a physical act, became conflated in the minds of the people who lived through such barbarity and their descendants? Think, consensual sex was probably the only time the Slaves had agency over their bodies and emotions. Now, some of us can’t seem to find each other to engage in a fulfilling female/male relationship for the benefit of ourselves or our children.
But we shouldn’t be surprised. The society we live in is shallow, soulless, and immature and it has created a fantastical, simple-minded, movie-ready perversion of love, in all its wonderfully complex aspects, that is easy to monetize.
Spiderweb–a very long time ago, I read a book. I do not remember the title or whether it was fiction, fact, or faction. Its setting was the years before, during, and after the Revolutionary War, when the Slaves still had some memory of the languages that they were forbidden to speak, the cultures from which they were ripped…the Slaves had an information network that I think was called the Spiderweb.
I don’t know if you know of the Anansi folktales that were retold as the Brer Rabbit tales. But, Anansi was a spider–a trickster, a story teller, intelligent, wise–in the folklore of West Africa. I think it was genius to call the network the Spiderweb. No one but the Slaves would know of the positive connotation that the spider had in their birth cultures. If they were overheard talking about a spider–well, there’re plenty of spiders and spiderwebs in the South. And, one thing to notice about a spiderweb–all those seemingly fragile strands are interconnected. Even if a strand is broken–there is a connecting strand to the whole. So information was not lost, but information might have to traverse many strands of the spiderweb to get to the intended recipient. If one has ever played the game of “Telephone”, one can wonder about the quality of the information, but, if I remember correctly, the book made the point that the information transmitted through the “Spiderweb” was pretty accurate.
Have you heard of the 42 negative confessions contained in the Book of Coming Forth By Night (Book of the Dead)? These negative confessions are the source of the ten commandments. However, the negative confessions emphasized, in more than one confession, the different aspects of lying. There is not telling lies, not closing one’s ears to the truth, not swindling, not being deceitful, not falsely accusing, not exaggerating. So, way back when, there was the realization that truth mattered and being truthful would be rewarded. We’ve totally lost that realization today.
You can look up the Negative Confessions on the Internet, but there is one that is heartbreaking that today is not honored–not taking food from a child. How can there be a civilized society if that society does not feed its children? Suffice it to say that those in power across the world would not have to worry about ascending. From what I understand, strict compliance was not necessary, only substantial compliance. Those in power today are so far out of compliance that Set would be salivating at the tortures he would devise for their souls.
The worst of the mediocre are in power!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mind doodle–This Earth has always produced narcissists. Take Akenaten, for example. He was an Egyptian Pharaoh who is credited with advocating monotheism. But was he really advocating for a “one” god? Pharaohs were considered a god in human form. However, in Egypt, there were many gods and goddesses. The Egyptians could choose which god or goddess to prioritize, i.e., to support with offerings. This is my western view of Akenaten, but it seems to me that Akenaten did not want those offerings going to anyone but himself, so he declared himself Aten, the one god, the only god to whom offerings should be made. Further, Akenaten had a harem of women who were the human form of the goddesses he approved of. Think about it–Akenaten had all the offerings and more than enough women to sate his sexual appetites. He created a heaven on earth for himself. Narcissist–Grandiose sense of self-importance, Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love, Need for excessive admiration, Demonstration of arrogant and haughty behaviors or attitudes. (Excerpt of DSM-V’s definition of a narcissist) The above are a few of the traits of a narcissist. Akenaten’s monotheism was definitely an expression of these narcissistic traits. Further, these are the traits evident in the monotheism created by the Jews in their thunder god, Yahweh, who, by the way, were living in Egypt at the time of Akenaten’s short lived experiment. End of mind doodle.
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. Buddha
Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. Buddha
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