Stories from My Life: My Saturn Return Experience

Aah. I remember it well. You never forget the 2 or more years of sheer hell and agony that Saturn Return brings you. Usually, the influence kicks of for the first time around the age of 27 or 28 and takes you right up to the age of 30. I often refer to that period of my life as my "years of reckoning."

What is Saturn Return? Well... I prepared an explanation over on The Esotericon, if you're interested.

I had the (not so) good fortune of having my Saturn Return, along with a great number of my peers, begin in 2000, when the energy of a changing millennium was peaking and presenting its own influence and change in the world. For many of us, that Saturn Return was probably going to be the hardest we would face.

In the space of just a few short years, I got divorced, got involved with the wrong person, left the wrong person, lost 3 jobs, moved out of London, lost my mother, came out, met Kate, moved in with her. A pretty tumultuous time.

If I am honest with myself, I felt this life change coming back in the August of 1999, when I had a short, but transformational affair with a woman named Rachel. By December, gazing up at my ex-husband on a beach on old year's eve, 1999, I knew my marriage was over. I knew it deep down in my gut. The realisation was conscious, not a fleeting whisp of an idea. It felt concrete and reverberated around my skull. I couldn't marry up the atmosphere - the beach, midnight, watching fireworks over Plettenberg Bay to ring in the New Year with joy - and my knowledge that I felt in my bones that soon my marriage would come to an end.

In numerology, 2007 is a 9 year, which means that everything that began about 9 or so years ago, will be coming to a close. There will be resolution. So, the echoes of 1999, which was a significant year in so many respects, are going to be dying away soon.

1999. The year I announced that I had had enough of being a housewife in Holland and that I was going to London to work. (I had not worked since we had left South Africa nearly a year previously and hated having to rely on the ex-husband for money. Ironically, the ex-husband's family later claimed I had only married him for money. I did think that was funny.) It was the year I had an affair with Rachel. It was the year I knew my marriage was over. It was the last year of "life as I knew it".

Actually experiencing the changes was no fun. It was painful, insightful, chaotic. I lost a great many things, but I realise I had to lose them in order to have the life I have now, a life that I truly enjoy living. I likened it to a forest fire. Once the destruction had past, and the earth begins to recover, the first new shoots appear. That's really how I would best describe Saturn Return.

Do you have a Saturn Return story? Would like to hear about it.

And If That Wasn't Bad Enough!

Dragon sausages...

From The Times:

'Dragon' sausages burnt by trade laws
By Simon de Bruxelles

A SPICY sausage known as the Welsh Dragon will have to be renamed after trading standards’ officers warned manufacturers that they could face prosecution because it does not contain dragon.

The sausages will now have to be labelled Welsh Dragon Pork Sausages to avoid any confusion among customers.

Jon Carthew, 45, who makes the sausages, said yesterday that he had not received any complaints about the absence of real dragon meat. He said: “I don’t think any of our customers believe that we use dragon meat in our sausages. We use the word because the dragon is synonymous with Wales.”

His company, the Black Mountains Smokery at Crickhowell, in Powys, turns out 200,000 sausages a year, including the Welsh Dragon, which is made with chilli, leek and pork. A Powys County Council spokesman said: “The product was not sufficiently precise to inform a purchaser of the true nature of the food.”

Throwing a Sickie

So, you've decided you'd like to take a week off work and chill out at home. But you need a sick note... so what do you do?

Hopefully, not what THIS guy did!

Too lazy to click the link?


'Pregnant' man fined in SA court

A South African man has been fined $140 for taking a week off work, telling his employers he was pregnant.

Charles Sibindana, 27, stole a certificate from a clinic during his pregnant girlfriend's checkup, a court near Johannesburg heard.

He then added his own details to the note and submitted it and took seven days off work, seemingly unaware that only women consult gynaecologists.

His employers became suspicious and investigated the matter.

On passing sentence Magistrate Bruno Van Eeden warned Mr Sibindana "not to walk around faking sick letters from gynaecologists" as if he was pregnant, the South African Press Association news agency reported.

OH DEAR.

DR.ALBAN FEAT YAMBOO - Sing hallelujah 2005

Brings back memories. I found this sooooped up version on Youtube. It always makes me think of the art room, Dori, smoking cigarettes in the art room with the art teacher and, of course, Tony Delport who used to insist we listen to his Dr Alban tapes while we worked. The only good school memory I can say I have.

Weekend Madness

Kate and I got up late on both Saturday and Sunday. I didn't have the time to do my Dangerdykes updates, although I did get some cards done.

I had my very first shopping experience at Toys 'R' Us.

I realised very quickly, upon entering this magic cavern of delights, that it's a place that is probably best visited without child in tow. We got to hear much whingeing, tantrums and crying, not to mention one parent yelling at the top of her lungs that she was "not going to stand for that kind of behaviour in a shop filled with people!!"

Yes.

After locating gifts for our youngest niece, Ayla, we sauntered along the aisles, just looking.

Then it happens. Kate spots the new range of (*shudder*) furbies.

Kate asked, "Do you want to get a furbie?"

I replied, "Do you want to get a divorce?"

Furbie avoided, we congratulated ourselves on our good purchases and left the store. I think we were the only ones to come out unscathed as we didn't have any children begging and screaming and making scenes.

I love being an auntie.

Dire Straits - Money For Nothing

Blast from the past. Woke up with this song in my head.

The graphics were so cool when it first came out. Apparently Sting plays the bass and does backing vocals on this track.

The Killing of Sister George

Dreadfully over-acted. Undertones of psycho-sado-masochism.

The story revolves around the relationship between "George" and her lover, "Alice". When George finds out she is being axed from a soap opera that's become her lifeblood, she goes a little potty, but you get the feeling she was a little potty to begin with.

See the women smiling in the poster to the left? They don't do much smiling in the film.

The film was originally based on a play and was meant to be taken lightly. However, the film version didn't cast a favourable light on lesbians. And I have a feeling that the blame for all the crap lesbian movies ever made should be laid squarely at this film's front door. Director Robert Aldrich portrays lesbians as completely psychotic or immature, alcoholic, bad tempered, badly behaved and only after sex.

While I am sure there are some out there, it is rather unfortunate that this stereotype has stuck.

It's rubbish, but I will admit that I have seen worse rubbish than this.

On the lesbian movie rating scale, where 1 is the oh-so-dire Claire of the Moon and 10 being the intriguing and dark Fingersmith, this film scores a generous 3.

Unless you want to satisfy your curiosity about early lesbian movies, don't waste your time.

The Evil Spider Woman Has Me By The Short Rabbits

Yah-hah!

All plans for getting creative were recently derailed by the car battery malarchy that began on Tuesday.

The story begins at the start of winter, when I notice that my little white car has some trouble getting itself started. I figured, like me, the cold mornings lend themselves to reluctant starts. I continued to think this until Tuesday evening when the car failed to start at all and the man from the AA had to be called. I walked to work yesterday morning and got a lift back home in the evening. Luckily I got the car started first thing and trundled up to the garage. And £44.00 I didn't plan on spending and one big karmic lesson later: Hey! Presto! New battery, starting car.

The Universe keeps trying to teach me that my stubborn pride is not helping me. I can recall at least five times this year this lesson has been thrown at me. So now I am going to put myself forward to learn that it's ok to ask for help, that I don't HAVE TO do this all by myself. That, in fact, I am making things HARDER by insisting I do it all by myself. ALL THE TIME. Especially when I get stubborn. Or proud. There's a joke in our family that you get stubborn and then you get The O Family Stubborn. Which is far, FAR, worse.

Some of this also comes from my mother, who taught us not to ask for help, to be independent. Some of this comes from when I was a kid and my parents didn't have much money and I stopped asking them for money for stuff I needed for school projects, because my mother was always saying things like, "Ok, we'll do that, but that means we have to go a bit short this month." Of course, I would get into trouble at school, and had to learn that asking for stuff for school was ok. Asking for anything else wasn't. And then there was the time my mom insisted I sing for her at her whim, as she was paying for singing lessons. I didn't want to and told her so. She said that if I wanted her to pay for the lessons, then I will sing when she wanted me to sing. I got a part time job on a Friday and Saturday and paid for my own damn lessons and gave my dad some money for petrol to give me a lift to the class each week.

See? Stubborn AND proud. The Universe really knows to hit where it hurts. But that's the point. That's quite a big karmic package that has several facets to it. And looking at it from here I can see a whole lot of tangled shit in several different layers. The Universe obviously thinks I am ready to unwrap and unpack this piece of my family and personal karma... so here goes. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

Instead of getting down to doing some comic strips and some writing last night, I spent last night watching a DVD. The Killing of Sister George (review to follow). SO... hopefully some new Dangerdykes and other oddments by the weekend. Hoorah!

MARCELLA THEODORA O

13 October 1942 - 22 November 2001

My mother died suddenly, five years ago. Massive heart attack. I inherited much of her facial features, which means I look younger than I really am. I also inherited her wit, her sense of mischief and her creativity. Her legacy, however, also left me with the same mental illness that finds the odd occasion to steal up on me in the dark to plunge me into the blackest depths of despair.

She complained of chest pains and a visit to the doctor, where she was hooked up to an ECG machine revealed nothing out of the ordinary and she was sent home. Forty-five minutes later she was dead.

I spent almost all of what was left of my savings to fly out to South Africa for her funeral. I sang Schubert's Ave Maria, delivered the eulogy and was one of the pall bearers.

What I remember about her isn't all good. In fact, it's fair to say that a lot of what I remember is not good at all. Still, she had the ability to listen and mete out sensible advice. She was a gracious hostess who embraced causes that were close to her heart and worked tirelessly to help a lot of people. I remember saying in the eulogy that Mom liked to fight the good fight and stood up for what she believed in. She had strong opinions and like me, didn't feel she couldn't speak her mind. We built the rockery in the garden together when I was five. I was too small to pick the stones up, but I helped her mark out its borders and pointed out where I thought the stones should go.

She indulged my eccentricities, mostly because she was a little eccentric herself. And she was beautiful.

The last time I spoke to her was just after her 59th birthday, a month prior to her death. She was in good spirits, and indeed, my auntie Carol told me that Mom had been in high spirits the day before she died too. She had gone to get her hair trimmed by Carol and was laughing and joking, discussing her plans for the future.

Perhaps one story I can tell you about her would sum up her character better than any description I can contrive:

Mom grew up poor. At the age of six, she saw a pair of bright shiny red shoes in a shop window and wanted so badly to have them. She knew she couldn't ask for the money, so she ran errands for other people, saving every penny she could until she was able to walk into that shop and buy those shoes herself.

I hope I have inherited some of that spirit too.

Tears for Fears - Mad World

My Soul Needs a Holiday

If only I could afford it, but... need to save for a trip to see my Dad in SA next year. If I was able to wing it, though, what a fab choice of soul holidays to have:

Findhorn

Healing down in Cornwall

A Yoga retreat in the UK

or

A Yoga retreat in Bali.

*sigh*

My Own Take On Things...


My word, my post on gay marriages in South Africa has generated a lot of interest, following some of the less-than-supportive comments left on the BBC website by many people from a variety of African countries.

Here are my thoughts on the subject I threw out into the blogosphere:

First of all, it really frustrates me that there are people out there who would gladly employ violence or torture to gay and transgendered individuals than to allow them to live peaceful, happy lives. Many of these people belong to religious groups that preach love and acceptance of one's fellow human. I am not just referring to the Judeo-Christian set up. I know a girl in Singapore, who belongs to my own Buddhist teaching - Nichiren Buddhism - whose parents would disown her if she revealed she's a lesbian, as would a number of other members. Nichiren Buddhism teaches us about love, acceptance and has no problem with people being gay, yet this girl and others like her, are being ostracised because of their sexuality.

Part of the problem is cultural and the way the LGBT community is regarded in society at large. The other part of the problem, I feel, is that people tend to look past the gay PERSON and see, instead (at least what they conjure up themselves), a SEXUAL act. They see the relationship between same-sex couples as something fuelled exclusively by lust, not love. And therein lies the problem.

When I was about 14 or 15 my parents made me read a book entitled The Gay Nineties. It was one of this Christian gay hating books that went on and on and on about how gay people are promiscuous, dirty and spread disease. How gay people have an "agenda" to undermine the sanctity of Christian family life. How gay people purposefully set out to "corrupt and convert" young straight people and mess with their minds. How all gay people are really paedophiles waiting to happen, which is why gay people should never be allowed to have children. Lesbians want to spoil the delicate virginal flower of a straight girl. Gay men are only after satisfying their appetites.

Read that paragraph again, take out the word "gay", replace it with the word "Jew", the word "Christian" with the word, "Volksland", and you have Hitler's philosophy almost verbatim. And the book was written by a devout Christian. A Christian who would no doubt balk at the word "Nazi" being thrown at him. An American Christian to boot, who would no doubt be proud of America's involvement in whipping some Nazi arse back in WW II.

Sadly, these myths about gay people have prevailed. Yes, there are promiscuous gay people just as there are promiscuous heterosexual people. From where I am standing, Christian Family Life - or any family life for that matter - doesn't seem to need the help of gay people to undermine it. Straight people are doing a great job all on their own.

What I find most laughable is the whole "gay agenda". What gay agenda? Did I miss out on something? Was there a memo that was sent out to every other gay, trans, lesbian and bi person except for me? Apparently, according to my mother, rest her soul, the "Gays want to liberalise the world so that it will pave the way for widespread pervsity and paedophilia. Then the Devils can walk right in and take over because people will have no morals. Look at Sodom and Gomorrah." Yeah. Right. That makes sense.

The funniest explanation I have come across for "the gay agenda" was that gay, lesbian, bi and trans people were all possessed by demons working for the Devil. The Devil's aim is to get as many souls into Hell and away from God as he can, so he uses sex to do that - perverse sex. Hell is pretty damn crowded then, I think, and Heaven must be really lonely with just a handful of Saints and the odd Pope roaming around. Nah... scratch that. You never know with the Catholic clergy.

What is wrong with two consenting adults loving each other? We don't harm anyone, and love is by far a better option than violence, misunderstanding and condemning people to eternal damnation.

Love and let others love. There is no greater gift than love that one human being can give to another. Pack in the prejudice, open hearts and minds and just let everything be...

Gogol Bordello - start wearing purple

This is the origin of my blog name. LOVE this song. And LOVE the colour purple. Enjoy.

A poem, over on Tastes Like Llama.

Same-Sex Unions Legalised in South Africa

Despite how prejudiced South Africa has been in the past, it seems to have embraced the idea of equality with much vigour, going so far as to write not discriminating against people based on sexual orientation into their constitution. Very progressive for a country once caught in the dark ages.

The news is that South Africa has legalised same-sex unions, affording countless gay and lesbian couples the opportunity to make their commitment official. I can see this upsetting quite a few people, and I am not talking just about the stalwart Afrikaners and others who still want to bring Apartheid back.

Looking through the reactions of the people commenting in the BBC forum, there are not a lot of happy campers, and many of them are from African countries other than South Africa. They feel that same-sex unions go against God or that it's "un-African".

Indeed, same-sex unions, whether that be through marriage or any other union, is still controversial in this day and age. People feel that gay rights isn't an important issue to pursue.

The way of the world, though, isn't it?

And there are even groups amongst the gay community who feel that they do not need to define their relationships on heterosexual terms, that marriage is not something that should apply to them. Indeed, I know a few heterosexual couples who feel the same.

So: Is marriage outmoded? What gets people so riled about gay unions? Whatever happened to tolerance?

Un-African? Is that even a word?

What are the Chances...?

This from 1 November...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch woman, who had meticulously planned her own funeral after the death of her husband last year, died next to the grave in Amsterdam where she wanted to be buried, a newspaper reported.

The 65-year-old widow probably died of a heart attack while she was visiting the family grave where her name, but no date, was already inscribed, De Telegraaf daily reported Wednesday.
The woman was carrying a bag with her containing her will when she died and had already organized details of her funeral including the music she wanted played, the paper said.

Eivor

This woman has a beautiful and haunting voice. Very otherworldly. Listen to the whole thing. I have never heard anything more amazing.

Review: Sin City

I recently had the good sense to put Sin City onto my DVD viewing list.

All I knew about the film before I saw it was that it was based on a graphic novel, which I had never read, and used some interesting filming techniques. And, of course, it had Jessica Alba in it.

I was pretty much blown away by the film and I am a freshly converted fan.

The film views like a comic book in motion, with several separate stories woven together. As you know, I am no fan of Bruce Willis, but he was OK in this. Elijah Wood was a surprise. He managed to convey a lot in a non speaking role. Kudos.

Recommended viewing purely for the fact that it is a visual masterpiece.

Answers and Foxiness

To answer Karen's question on my new profile pic - I believe it is the painting titled The Girls by Tamara de Lempicka. I like her stuff. I like a lot of turn-of-the-19th-Century stuff. The period from about the 1890s through to 1930s. Perhaps I lived a past life in that time? Who knows.

Cliff emailled me a while back to ask why my Livejournal profile pic is foxy and not the one over here. Sorry - don't have a real answer to that question, Cliff. But if you want some foxiness, there it is. Me, a few sizes smaller and cleverly photographed. Nice.

And Here We Are....

Another short story up on Tastes Like Llama for those interested. It's an old one, posted just for xMichra. I can't put the vampire one up until after the magazine comes out, so this is there to tide you over. Enjoy. (That particular story contriubted to me being kicked out of a writers' group in London about 6 years ago.)

Also, Kate's giving a mini fashion show over on her blog. Her new outfit. If you'd like to check her out in all her cuteness, please visit her blog.

More updates to come as the day progresses. As it's Sunday and I am feeling a little lazy... it may not be too soon.

Another Tragic Tale

Is it just me or are children being targetted more fiercely by murderers?

This article in Sky news reveals how a six year old girl was killed in an honour killing. She was six. The whole thing had nothing to do with her anyway. Senseless. And so very, very sad.

Vampires and Sore Throats

My sister and I love vampire movies. The cheesier, the better.

There was an advertisement on South African TV years and years ago for Strepsils, the sore throat lozenges. The setting was Dracula's cave and a suitably cheesy Dracula stood over a half conscious beauty layed out on a stone slab. So Drac tells us about Strepsils and how it's good for "dee coff, dee hoarse voice... and my own perrrsonal favourite..." here he brushes the woman's neck and she moans softly, "dee sore traawt."

Now, every time I have a sore throat, like today, I think of the Strepsils Vampire and have a little giggle. Cheers me right up. I don't know what should disturb me more: the fact that I remember this advert VERBATIM or that I think of vampires when I have a sore throat.

So, in completely random fashion, my thoughts led me from sore throat to vampires to vampire movies, to my sister and I enjoying vampire movies.

We particularly liked Frank Langella as Dracula, even though Christopher Lee is the undisputed king of Dracula portrayal. I loved Buffy until it got stupid and have watched as many vampire movies as I could. I wonder what that says about me, really? I even enjoy the spoof vampires and cartoon vampires.

I've written a vampire story, which a friend of mine is publishing in his horror magazine. I've written several vampire stories, in fact.

Right. I am rambling so I will stop here. I'm off to find some "sootheeeng Strepsils" for my "sore traawt."

Maybe I Am Turning Into An Old Prude, But...

I came across this news article on Sky. This guy murdered 4 people because he was jilted by the 16 year old. The man is 33. Maybe I am out of line here and maybe I am turning into a prude, but the thought that went through my head after reading this was, What the fuck is a 33 year old man doing with a 16 year old girl?