There is in old church in this city. A very old church, considered to be the oldest...
Every now and then I go and light a candle and say a few prayers to the Mother.
I am not a Christian, I am a Muslim. Sometimes, I don’t know what I am. But it doesn’t matter because Mother understands. She belongs to the Religion with no name, of which am a fervent adherent.
I speak to Mother often. At first, it felt strange. No one told me about the feminine side of God. Not in Christian school where I was brought up during my puberty years, nor in the Muslim circles I later frequented.
Both religions and I guess that applies to Judaism as well, have occulted the feminine from their books and their discourse...and I am referring to mainstream here.
Mainstream, what a despicable word. Who wants to swim with the current stream when you can swim against it ?
Today, past 40, I am claiming it back...I am claiming back the feminine side of God.
But as anyone on a quest, I must find it in myself first.
And the barriers...the psychological barriers, the injunctions, the taboos, the laws and the rules...a whole battle by itself, a jihad of an epic proportions.
And this is my epic...
Tonight, I am declaring a holy war against the madness of men. I am declaring a holy spiritual, sacred war against the futility of a senseless death.
Tonight, the Great Mother will speak to you, through me.
Quite absurd, you may think. She has gone mad, others will say. I care not.
I have stifled the voice long enough, even in so-called feminist circles.
Tonight She will roar...Tonight She will roar and She will tell you all about your own madness, your absurdity, your futility...
War is a male thing. Kind of obvious, no?
All these phallic symbols. From the bullet, to the gun, to the missile, even space shuttles look like some elongated thing. Do you also want to fuck outer space ? Like forcibly copulate with the Moon ?
I say-- Take away the toys from the boys. Enough !
I don’t really care who you belong to. What your religion is, what your color is all about, what nationality you carry...I don’t care about your ancestors, your bloodline, your family name, your parents, your tribe or your class...Just stop.
Stop, stop. Stop shedding blood of innocent ones...Stop. Just stop.
Yesterday a woman from Lebanon said “Just stop, we don’t want anymore wars.”She was not some siliconized Pam Anderson. She was no Paris Hilton and no Amy Winehouse...
She was an ordinary woman with a few wrinkles on her face and around her lips. Wrinkles around her lips from too much pursing Silence...
And you just love us when we are silent. Don’t you ?
Silence helps you continue in your lie, your impeccable lie.
So listen to us, us women who don’t want your bullets, guns and missiles...And no, we could not care less about your fucking outer space with your shuttles...Listen to us.
We’ve listened to you for too long, way too long... Listened to your hopes, wishes, disillusionments, your fears, your dreams, your ups and downs, your fantasies, your plans, your ideals, your politics...
We’ve listened alright.
Now you shut up and you listen.
I did say listen not hear. Do you know the difference between the two ? Listen and Hear ?
I don’t want you to hear me. I want you to listen to me.
Open your ears, open your brains, open your heart...
If you can’t, it will be forced opened...that’s the way of the Mother.
Open your mouth, I want to feed you. And you scream and squirm, rejecting Nourishment...Until you starved yourselves to Death. And dead you are. But you also proscribed your own death unto others...
Die with me you cry out...Die with me, so I won’t feel alone.
But you are alone and you will remain alone...No matter how many of your mates you drag away with you. You are alone, very much alone. What a lonely way to go...
Here, She is wanting to feed you, and you want to die like an anorexic...like a beggar hoping for morsels...begging for crumbs...
The Mother doesn’t give morsels and crumbs. She gives it whole. You can’t swallow ? That is your problem. You tightened up for too long.
Tight-- We know all about being tight.
Did they not tell us to keep it tight ? Crossed legged tight ? Virgin tight ? Bashful tight ? Innocent tight?
So you can have the illusion of “tight”...So you can be the sole one on the “battlefield”.
The legionary crusader in search of virgin lands...
How brave, how strong. They patted you on the back.
And the lush lands you could not reach, you forced open...
The king has come, the king has arrived...We dried the tears and smiled.
And we smiled some more...and silently cried some more to Mother, the absent Mother, or so we thought.
And those you couldn’t force open, you killed. It did not matter, whether they were males or females...they were a target.
Just like you targeted your virgin lands or your virgin spot on the moon where you planted your seeds, your flag.
The nation, the fatherland, the dead patriarch that you have been trying to resurrect ever since. The tribal chief that you resurrected when we thought he was long gone...
Wave those flags. You waved those flags with signs of victory. But did you know that Mother just spat on you ?
Don’t mess with Her is my advice to you. Even though I know what an “expert bunch” you supposedly are.
Aside from your little tribal chiefs and your little victories...Did you know that it takes us a fucking long time to conceive, labor, feed, nurse, educate, bring up...maybe a whole lifetime...
And it takes you a bullet, a bullet cheaper than a dollar, to finish it all off.
All our efforts gone in vain. All those years gone to waste. All the energy, patience and presence gone for less than one dollar.
You pulled the trigger and it all went...boom.
Don’t you think there is enough around ?
Tycoons, hurricanes, earthquakes, drought, poverty, disease, moral bankruptcy, addictions, broken homes, unemployment, exile, homelessness...
Don’t you think there are enough Marco Polo's and Columbus's who penetrated virgin lands ?
Don’t you think there are enough of them/it around ?
Let’s take the toys away from the boys. It has become a futile game, a senseless game...
If you really insist, I will leave you a couple of swords. Swords force you to become men and fight face to face and eye to eye...
Take swords if you really insist. But then I know you are not capable of taking up swords nor of becoming men...
You will remain pathetic, emotionally anorexic boys, waiting for Mother...
While Mother is there, becoming hysterical, mad, depressed, bipolar, overweight, addicted, shouting your way...
But am no partisan of concessions or compromises. I say -- take the toys, destroy them and fuck the boys.
Yeah that’s it.
I want to take off my black mourning clothes and wear pink and red instead...
I want to celebrate life and love with rose and lotus petals falling on me like a gracious rain...like some revived old love song, like some manna from the Sky...
I want to celebrate life like some birth, like a baptism, like a song in a choir...
I want to participate in life like in a mosque’s prayer, like a candle burning in the night, like a silent vow delivered at some altar in a small old church...
I want Life like a Mother wants her child to live...
Painting: Iraqi artist, Adeeb Makki.
Every now and then I go and light a candle and say a few prayers to the Mother.
I am not a Christian, I am a Muslim. Sometimes, I don’t know what I am. But it doesn’t matter because Mother understands. She belongs to the Religion with no name, of which am a fervent adherent.
I speak to Mother often. At first, it felt strange. No one told me about the feminine side of God. Not in Christian school where I was brought up during my puberty years, nor in the Muslim circles I later frequented.
Both religions and I guess that applies to Judaism as well, have occulted the feminine from their books and their discourse...and I am referring to mainstream here.
Mainstream, what a despicable word. Who wants to swim with the current stream when you can swim against it ?
Today, past 40, I am claiming it back...I am claiming back the feminine side of God.
But as anyone on a quest, I must find it in myself first.
And the barriers...the psychological barriers, the injunctions, the taboos, the laws and the rules...a whole battle by itself, a jihad of an epic proportions.
And this is my epic...
Tonight, I am declaring a holy war against the madness of men. I am declaring a holy spiritual, sacred war against the futility of a senseless death.
Tonight, the Great Mother will speak to you, through me.
Quite absurd, you may think. She has gone mad, others will say. I care not.
I have stifled the voice long enough, even in so-called feminist circles.
Tonight She will roar...Tonight She will roar and She will tell you all about your own madness, your absurdity, your futility...
War is a male thing. Kind of obvious, no?
All these phallic symbols. From the bullet, to the gun, to the missile, even space shuttles look like some elongated thing. Do you also want to fuck outer space ? Like forcibly copulate with the Moon ?
I say-- Take away the toys from the boys. Enough !
I don’t really care who you belong to. What your religion is, what your color is all about, what nationality you carry...I don’t care about your ancestors, your bloodline, your family name, your parents, your tribe or your class...Just stop.
Stop, stop. Stop shedding blood of innocent ones...Stop. Just stop.
Yesterday a woman from Lebanon said “Just stop, we don’t want anymore wars.”She was not some siliconized Pam Anderson. She was no Paris Hilton and no Amy Winehouse...
She was an ordinary woman with a few wrinkles on her face and around her lips. Wrinkles around her lips from too much pursing Silence...
And you just love us when we are silent. Don’t you ?
Silence helps you continue in your lie, your impeccable lie.
So listen to us, us women who don’t want your bullets, guns and missiles...And no, we could not care less about your fucking outer space with your shuttles...Listen to us.
We’ve listened to you for too long, way too long... Listened to your hopes, wishes, disillusionments, your fears, your dreams, your ups and downs, your fantasies, your plans, your ideals, your politics...
We’ve listened alright.
Now you shut up and you listen.
I did say listen not hear. Do you know the difference between the two ? Listen and Hear ?
I don’t want you to hear me. I want you to listen to me.
Open your ears, open your brains, open your heart...
If you can’t, it will be forced opened...that’s the way of the Mother.
Open your mouth, I want to feed you. And you scream and squirm, rejecting Nourishment...Until you starved yourselves to Death. And dead you are. But you also proscribed your own death unto others...
Die with me you cry out...Die with me, so I won’t feel alone.
But you are alone and you will remain alone...No matter how many of your mates you drag away with you. You are alone, very much alone. What a lonely way to go...
Here, She is wanting to feed you, and you want to die like an anorexic...like a beggar hoping for morsels...begging for crumbs...
The Mother doesn’t give morsels and crumbs. She gives it whole. You can’t swallow ? That is your problem. You tightened up for too long.
Tight-- We know all about being tight.
Did they not tell us to keep it tight ? Crossed legged tight ? Virgin tight ? Bashful tight ? Innocent tight?
So you can have the illusion of “tight”...So you can be the sole one on the “battlefield”.
The legionary crusader in search of virgin lands...
How brave, how strong. They patted you on the back.
And the lush lands you could not reach, you forced open...
The king has come, the king has arrived...We dried the tears and smiled.
And we smiled some more...and silently cried some more to Mother, the absent Mother, or so we thought.
And those you couldn’t force open, you killed. It did not matter, whether they were males or females...they were a target.
Just like you targeted your virgin lands or your virgin spot on the moon where you planted your seeds, your flag.
The nation, the fatherland, the dead patriarch that you have been trying to resurrect ever since. The tribal chief that you resurrected when we thought he was long gone...
Wave those flags. You waved those flags with signs of victory. But did you know that Mother just spat on you ?
Don’t mess with Her is my advice to you. Even though I know what an “expert bunch” you supposedly are.
Aside from your little tribal chiefs and your little victories...Did you know that it takes us a fucking long time to conceive, labor, feed, nurse, educate, bring up...maybe a whole lifetime...
And it takes you a bullet, a bullet cheaper than a dollar, to finish it all off.
All our efforts gone in vain. All those years gone to waste. All the energy, patience and presence gone for less than one dollar.
You pulled the trigger and it all went...boom.
Don’t you think there is enough around ?
Tycoons, hurricanes, earthquakes, drought, poverty, disease, moral bankruptcy, addictions, broken homes, unemployment, exile, homelessness...
Don’t you think there are enough Marco Polo's and Columbus's who penetrated virgin lands ?
Don’t you think there are enough of them/it around ?
Let’s take the toys away from the boys. It has become a futile game, a senseless game...
If you really insist, I will leave you a couple of swords. Swords force you to become men and fight face to face and eye to eye...
Take swords if you really insist. But then I know you are not capable of taking up swords nor of becoming men...
You will remain pathetic, emotionally anorexic boys, waiting for Mother...
While Mother is there, becoming hysterical, mad, depressed, bipolar, overweight, addicted, shouting your way...
But am no partisan of concessions or compromises. I say -- take the toys, destroy them and fuck the boys.
Yeah that’s it.
I want to take off my black mourning clothes and wear pink and red instead...
I want to celebrate life and love with rose and lotus petals falling on me like a gracious rain...like some revived old love song, like some manna from the Sky...
I want to celebrate life like some birth, like a baptism, like a song in a choir...
I want to participate in life like in a mosque’s prayer, like a candle burning in the night, like a silent vow delivered at some altar in a small old church...
I want Life like a Mother wants her child to live...
Painting: Iraqi artist, Adeeb Makki.
