ARE YOU GOING TO BE OKAY WATCHING STINKAPEEis not a opener to negotiation

Over the weekend, dd, stinkapee and I were over at my folks, which was very useful cause it once again allowed me to see what really informs the way I act - much to my horror. So, what did I witness? - try non-communication, and a total lack or complete inability to negotiate so many things.

My father also takes things very personally, even to a point that when Stinkapee questions him, he feels like she is not asking him curious questions - but is rather: "making fun of him". I am not kidding.
This isn't new information, but it is really crucial to see considering - I tend to assume that my behaviours are natural and normal. Do you know, mother actually said to me: "ss, you're gonna have to forget everything we taught you about how to engage, interact in the house, or negotiate - cause its all wrong."

I was stunned. I was relieved. I was shocked.

Days later, or perhaps the next day, I was planning my Tuesday morning in the house, and it involved me being out of the house most of the morning. I would be at a school supervising some facilitators doing a presentation. DD had a midwifery appointment that day (SHE is DUE to give birth anyday now.) As I was on my way to fold laundry in the house, I said to her, very off the cuff: "so, are you gonna be ok with Stinkapee tomorrow morning?"
Now, typing this - I no that makes no sense.

DD, who is totally pregnant, feet swollen, with a midwife appointment on the other side of town - is being asked tomorrow "are you gonna be ok with her daughter.."

I claimed to have thought it thru, and in fact, I thought in my heart of hearts that I had. I totally believed that it was a conversation opener - in which, I thought it would lead to me stating: Stinkapee can come with me cause my work is at a school and totally child friendly.

DD was rightful angry. Even as I look at this preceding paragraph, it makes no sense. SO how could I have been so confident? I spend at least 20 minutes trying to convince dd that I trying to dumb Stinkapee on to her. But the reality is - that was the first sentence out of my mouth.

As I sit and reflect on my weekend with my folks, and I embark on the intentional reading series with another man (which will focus on our childhoods) - i'm reminded how much patience dd has had to have with me- but more importantly, how little energy she has remaining. She can't / Shouldn't have to keep pointing this stuff out.

And so, I must move my work.

ARE YOU GOING TO BE OKAY WATCHING STINKAPEEis not a opener to negotiation

Over the weekend, dd, stinkapee and I were over at my folks, which was very useful cause it once again allowed me to see what really informs the way I act - much to my horror. So, what did I witness? - try non-communication, and a total lack or complete inability to negotiate so many things.

My father also takes things very personally, even to a point that when Stinkapee questions him, he feels like she is not asking him curious questions - but is rather: "making fun of him". I am not kidding.
This isn't new information, but it is really crucial to see considering - I tend to assume that my behaviours are natural and normal. Do you know, mother actually said to me: "ss, you're gonna have to forget everything we taught you about how to engage, interact in the house, or negotiate - cause its all wrong."

I was stunned. I was relieved. I was shocked.

Days later, or perhaps the next day, I was planning my Tuesday morning in the house, and it involved me being out of the house most of the morning. I would be at a school supervising some facilitators doing a presentation. DD had a midwifery appointment that day (SHE is DUE to give birth anyday now.) As I was on my way to fold laundry in the house, I said to her, very off the cuff: "so, are you gonna be ok with Stinkapee tomorrow morning?"
Now, typing this - I no that makes no sense.

DD, who is totally pregnant, feet swollen, with a midwife appointment on the other side of town - is being asked tomorrow "are you gonna be ok with her daughter.."

I claimed to have thought it thru, and in fact, I thought in my heart of hearts that I had. I totally believed that it was a conversation opener - in which, I thought it would lead to me stating: Stinkapee can come with me cause my work is at a school and totally child friendly.

DD was rightful angry. Even as I look at this preceding paragraph, it makes no sense. SO how could I have been so confident? I spend at least 20 minutes trying to convince dd that I trying to dumb Stinkapee on to her. But the reality is - that was the first sentence out of my mouth.

As I sit and reflect on my weekend with my folks, and I embark on the intentional reading series with another man (which will focus on our childhoods) - i'm reminded how much patience dd has had to have with me- but more importantly, how little energy she has remaining. She can't / Shouldn't have to keep pointing this stuff out.

And so, I must move my work.

Reading and Writing

I think dd is quite correct is that, in the mist of all of the repeated stuff going on inside Azania, stinkapee is getting her full writing and reading practice. I propose every morning a morning exercise that asks her to use her fine motor skills to write a letter to someone she really cares about. It could be: Lady Ophelia of Monrovia, it could be to her friends, it could be to a pretend friend like Barney. But I am going to make up a mini-schedule and would like collective members (especially, Bonga, who agreed to spear head this) - to comment and add.

I also like dd idea of having an intentional reading time - where stinks can see everyone in the house reading and doing quite time.

Azania Lies Burning: How I poured the gasoline, and lit the match

Why this post? Why now?

I'm sitting with the reality that I've systematically destroyed everything that was good, and could have been good in my life in Azania. That I, without fail, daily, and at this point minute-by-minute hack away at everything, anything good in my life. And I'm trying to not let anyone see that I'm doing it, while at the same time, trying not to think about how my ripping apart my own life, and fucking over a number of other people in the process, is exactly what my parents want, and planned for, when they kicked me out.

They attempted to teach me a lesson -- if I defy them -- my life will fail, and everything will be ruined. And I, like a dumbass, am pushing their agenda without them even here. What's my end game? Well, I'll continue to sabotage the community. Continue to take what I can, free-ish room and board, in a beautiful house,

.. but I thought that ss and dd were going to acquiesce somehow.. that they would continue to give me hugs, and talk to me, and care about me, and give me attention, and have fun with me, and support me without asking, and direct the content of my life. I thought they would just avail themselves to me until .. well, until forever. I thought that I could manipulate them, like I have every single other person who I've been in relationship with. But I can't. Although I tried really hard and managed to ex-out Taz and Biafra from Azania.

Now what's left are four adults, one child, another on the way, two elder supports, one new community member, a family friend to stinkapee, and here we are.

Its a week, maybe days before dd gives birth, SeminalSon and Stinkapee are out spending time - for the past weeks I have tag teamed with Phoenix to ensure that at no time whatsoever will the both of us do work in the house. The only system in the house right now, is the one that was created and sustained by dd and ss from their previous living arrangement. Everything else, the agreements to work together, to wake up and do work, to stagger our time with Stinkapee with housework, with community work, with social time and arrange it so that each person could get what they wanted and needed.. torn to shreds - first by me by pure lack of commitment. That's too analytical. I don't want to do any fucking work. I don't want to arrange with someone and negotiate for, and be accountable for the things I need. I've never had to do this, why the hell should I? If I want something I should take it. Done. I won't change this: the most I'll do is make some kind of attempt to hide what I've taken. Don't fucking ask me any questions. If you do, depending on where you are in the hierarchy, I'll either give you nonsensical, whispered drivel or diversion when you ask me.. or I'll dominate you and treat you like shit, and by the end of it, you'll either be so disgusted that you won't want to talk to me, or livid that you'll be seeing too much red to do anything about it, or you'll just be pissed and talk to another community member about it.

For the past nine months I've terrorized her, ss, and stinkapee daily in the house. When Biafra was living here, from May to November 2005, I sabotaged the building and running of the house along with her.

dd's pregnancy, and O's first year in utero has looked like this: During the spring and summer of 2005, dd tells us that she'd like to have another child in the fall; probably around September. Azania members agree to build all the necessary parts of our community so that things are solidified by the fall so that we can all focus on the pregnancy. Was this done? No. Everyone instead, and in formation with each other, put all their childish behaviour out on the forefront so that the attention couldn't be anywhere else but our own dramas. ss, who was not doing this, was the only one consistent about healing with his counsellor.

Taz refused to get a job. She just wouldn't do it. She wouldn't do her resume. We had to do it for her. She wouldn't look for applications and potential jobs. We did that for her. She wouldn't dress appropriately for the interview. We had to dress her, and take the bus with her for her interview. She wouldn't prepare for interviews, even though it was her first time ever looking for work. We had to dress her, prep her, and in some cases, accompany her and wait for her after her interview.

When she got the jobs, she'd sabotage them. She'd show up late more often than on time. She'd not do the work, or get support doing the work. So from May to September she was living within the community, and not contributing her fair share of physical, emotional, and financial work. She started a job in September, and when she did, she didn't want to contribute money equitably, and wanted to keep the money she made for herself, even though she used collective money to paint and furnish the home she shared with Phoenix, buy the clothes she used for her job interviews, buy the food she ate, dye her hair etc...

She didn't initiate anything. I was supposed to be her buddy; her primary emotional connection and relationship in Azania. Proposed by dd, forced on by the rest of us who were all attempting to drain dd's energy by bringing our traumas and dramas to her daily even as they were resulting in her getting sick, and taking away from the time she had to spend with ss and stinkapee. (more on this, because ss and dd had agreed that as a partnership, dd would work to build Azania, with all of us, so that she and we would all have time to spend with our various partners, lovers, friends, and community members, while the work of our community continued). Azania was intentionally built by dd and ss to enhance and support their family in their movement away from a monogamous, nuclear, isolated family unit. We were all isolated when we got together: Taz and her then partner, Phoenix and I when we were partners and afterward, Biafra on her own -- Azania, for each of us, was a reason to gather, to eat together, to play together, to laugh, to cry .. it was becoming something different and better than what we'd expected.

Skills: dd had life skills that she developed on her own, living independently, when she decided that she would live a powefully mature adult life. She learned, on her own, how to keep a home: how to cook, to clean, to organize, to arrange, to clothe oneself, to buy, to build, to decorate. She learned this by seeking out the information, and trying things out.

Phoenix, Taz, and I didn't come with those skills. Taz and I are nasty messy. We're happy to live with clothes littering the floor, cat litter everywhere, mouldy counters, smelly, sticky, dusty bathrooms. We're both only children who had mothers (in Taz's case a single mother) to clean up before, after, and during us - so did Phoenix, except she likes things to be fairly neat.

Biafra, who was expected and forced to cook and clean in the past, knew how to do all of these house chores, and could keep a house, but she resented it, because she'd been forced to do it before, so it didn't emerge out of the joy to keep a house a home.

ss didn't have an ego reaction to learning house keeping skills in his relationship with dd. As a middle class member of Azania (who's claimed his class status, and works that into his analysis consistently) didn't come into relationship with those skills but didn't manufacture feeling threatened or condescended to, or insecure; and instead, learned those skills, and moved on.

As for me, I never took cooking and cleaning serious enough to learn it. I instead do 'glamour' things. I like to cook recipes that take a long time, or that I make take a long time, and then present them with a 'ta daaaaa!' so people can see the pretty colours and smell the aromas, and eat the teensey portion, and then tell me how wonderful I am. I don't cook for regular everyday functions.

What's happening now in the house:

Phoenix moved in early this year, into Biafra's room. It made practical sense for her to move in, in terms of money. And could have, and can make practical sense, in terms of energy. But I hold a grudge against Phoenix for the hurts that she caused me while we were in life partnership between 2001 and 2004. I hoard those grudges so that I can use them when I need them. And right now, I have the opportunity to do something different with her, under different circumstances - this is the second time that we've lived together - the first were months of strung together nights and days that Phoenix spent at my house (more on this later).. and so I resent her greatly, and want to block any possibility of her having powerful relationships with anyone, myself included. And so that's where we're at.

I support her to do nothing. Yesterday and today and the day before that - I slept in past our 6am wakeup, and she awoke, and then resumed sleeping in the basement. I saw it, and said nothing. She's not been doing her housework consistently, I see it and say nothing. She's being surly now with dd and ss and Stinkapee. I see it and say nothing. Why? Because in my book, she's my competition (which I remember Biafra saying a long t

Most of the time, I am completely shut down. I block my emotions and hold my body in ways that will make anyone around me really uncomfortable. When I block my emotions, I feel really cold. So, I'll wear a sweater in the house in the summer when there is no air conditioning. As I write this now, my hands are cold and I'm shivering, but its not because of the cold.

My mouth is clenched shut, and my jaw is tight, my lips are pushed together. That's how I look at the time. I widen my eyes like a scared child whenever dd talks to me, especially with emotion in her voice, to pursuade her to think that I actually care about what she's saying, that I'm even listening to her. When I am angry about what she's saying because its true and I choose to be ego-bruised instead of incited to change, then I just shut down, and stand there forever - like Biafra used to do, and Taz too.

I like behaving like this. Behind my mask of 'pain' 'sadness' 'confusion' are other feelings, some that I'm in touch with, and others I suppress regularly. Mostly, I'm really really really angry - at my parents and the family that abandoned me, covertly, in plain view (as dd would say) over the first 22 years of my life. I am angry at them and still seek their approval so I'm ruining my life as they said that I would, in all the ways that they said I would. And I am sad, in pain, and confused about somethings, and I listen to the voice that tells me that everything is being blown out of proportion, this isn't really happening, I haven't done *that* much wrong.. after all, average every day people don't even consider personal sabotage problematic.

There's that voice, loud and clear. Its the same voice that I hear telling me to sleep all the time, to skip meals, to leave work until later, to cut corners, to sleep in, to keep my room messy, to continually keep it messy., to avoid and abandon my cat so that her hair gets everwhere, and makes the house dissheveled, and everyone annoyed with her,

and then there is the choice that I make constantly - daily... to hurt, and to harm dd and ss and everyone here. these voices aren't the voices that a crazy person hears, they're pretty normal: I have an undeveloped, angry child, and an underdeveloped adolescent, my parents, my 28 year old adult self in there too. These days, I function as the underdeveloped adolscent, and the angry child. That's who everyone sees, when I engage likethis.

And so my entire victim stance is based on that fucking teenage bitch. She's nasty. She's me.. I'm hateful, resentful, and nasty -- pretty textbook case bully with a soft voice and a smile..

In any case, I construct dd and ss as if they are leaving me out of things when actually I left myself out of things from the beginning.

I didn't take either of their offers for family and community seriously. I didn't take anything that either of them seriously...

[As I'm writing this, I'm thinking; cut the bullshit. I'm writing this because I want to go to the birth. ss and dd said in their conversation with me the other day that what am I going to say to people when they ask me about the baby, and I say that I wasn't at the birth, and that I haven't touched the baby, or that (I'm adding this) I'm not even living at the house anymore.. This beautful house in the beach. What am I going to say?

I'm writing this to save my ass, not my life. Its like they say when you can see a constellation better when you look at a nearby star instead of the one right ahead of you...]

And the sad this is, is that dd offered us resources from the very beginning: books, emails, websites.. at this point, we could have had 3 or 4 intentional community allies who would have come in to join us in this process and help us move...

But I say that even as right now, dd has a doula who comes with information about being in community, and about being polyamourous, and queer, and who is offering something different, and what have I done with her? the same thing that I would have done with any other community that came along... the same thing I did with all the people and potential people who came along..

So time is running out.

What happened in/to Azania? What did I do?

Well, two years ago, I was asked to co-build a community, bringing what I said were my organizational skills, community building skills, relationship building skills, but most of all my commitment to the passion of building with fellow community members.

I said yes, said that I'd love the six other members of Azania, support their growth: health, relationships, lives, spirits, processes everything. I said that I would build a community designed to centralize and support Stinkapee like none of us ever were growing up.

I promised, when asked, to not hold over community members the previous years of relationship with dd, and gloat about our relationship.

I promised to share finances, and build financial security for all of us.

I promised to support two Azania households to grow and thrive, toward the creation of others.

I promised to develop powerful relationships outside of Azania so that we could develop friends, alliances, and connections with other communities to grow together.

I promised to develop loving ties with my buddy Taz, who shares a lot of the same emotional hurts, and harmful blocking strategies as I do.

I promised to love and co-raise Stinkapee.

I promised to keep my house clean, my room clean, my body clean.

I promised to live and thrive.

Sound beautiful? It was. It is.

So what did I do? Plainly without the bullshit..


Well, two years ago, following 3 years of relationship building with dd, I was asked to co-build a community, bringing what I said were my organizational skills, community building skills, relationship building skills, but most of all my commitment to the passion of building with fellow community members.

I refused to co-build the community. I passive agressively forced every other member to take on my responsibilities as a member that would co-vision. I lied about the skills I have to share.
In the outside world, that's like joining a rescue mission, lying about being a medicine woman, and then once discovered, making no moves to learn anything about healing and medicines. But my ego is too big, so I let everyone else discover what I couldn't do by making them ask me again and again and again, and by procrastinating on my commitments, and then forcing a crisis situation where another Azania member would need to reveal a truth about me that I wasn't sharing. Then I'd get angry and resentful, and use that anger and resent to sabotage even the most simple tasks, so that no one would ask me to do work; or wish to confront me about something that I didn't do, or another lie that I told about what I could do, and what I wanted to do.

Until the past few months, after Biafra left in November, and Taz in May, it was only dd who would speak to what I had been doing:

Two years ago, when Biafra and dd met, I tried to get in between the two of them so that I could block their relationship, and control how much access Biafra could have to dd. I wasn't straight up about this. I was passive. I got passively enraged when they would spend time together laughing, fucking, going out, etc.. and so I responded first by keeping a cold emotional distance. dd picked up on this: she'd seen it before, it was a version of what I did with ss - and asked me if I was feeling jealous. I lied, and said no, and then said that I was actually happy about their relationship (lie - because I manufactured [meaning I constructed a feeling that wasn't there, in order to block the more complicated realities that were actually there] insecurity, jealousy, possessiveness.

I used tactics that I've used before in other relationships. I talked sweetly, softly, and gently to Biafra all the time. I flirted with her by holding her gaze when were alone and together. I presented myself in direct opposition to dd. And so I used my actions, words, to make it seem, and Biafra believe that I was a more valuable ally than dd, and that she'd have to choose between us. I made that choice clear to her when I invited her to have 5 consecutive lunch dates at the beginning of their relationship. I did this in reaction to dd remarking on how she'd noticed that I had chosen not to build a grounded relationship with Biafra. I took this, and created an invitation to feed off of Biafra's own issues and insecurities, and got her to pay more and more attention my way.

When dd saw this, I apologized profusely, and continued to do the same thing. I used many tactics to try to get dd attempts to make me accountable. I told her that I was just trying to do what she'd asked - build relationship with Biafra. I told her that I wasn't attracted to Biafra and didn't want to be lovers with her. I told her that I was attracted to Biafra and dd, and I was jealous that they were forming a polyamourous coupling instead of including me. I started using the 'But I'm attracted to you too, dd!' line as a way to deflect what I'd been doing with her.

I shared nothing with Biafra: no skills, no contacts, no learnings from relationship, nothing. Actually, the few occasions that I did share - clothes for example - were facilitated by dd as she observed that I who'd been living with a well-paying full time job for years, and coming from a middle class family was putting myself on par with Biafra who'd been living in poverty, and estranged from all relatives in the continent and back home. I competed with Biafra, and Taz ( who'd chosen not to work, and was living in poverty by choice) and phoenix who didn't have access to family support or money either. Literally, I would whine and complain about not getting clothes when we'd go out shopping, even though I had tonnes of clothes in my closet that were stylish, that I didn't wear, and would not share.

hoarded (meaning kept to myself, didn't talk about, didn't use) the skills I actually have - strategic skills, planning skills; and I lied, and said that I had skills that I don't.

I said yes, said that I'd love the six other members of Azania, support their growth: health, relationships, lives, spirits, processes everything. I said that I would build a community designed to centralize and support Stinkapee like none of us ever were growing up.

I did the opposite. I didn't support anyone's health, including my own. I let my access to free health care lapse, and became an additional financial burden to the collective, because I was jealous of other people having access to health care when they didn't have coverage. I competed with anyone who tried to take care of their health. So when a member said they needed to take care of their health, I would either say that I needed the same thing - even if I didn't. For example, when Biafra and dd said that they needed to go to the chiropractor -- dd because her back and shoulders and neck would sieze up every time Biafra and I forced her into a struggle inside the house, and Biafra because her body was in constant pain due to her disability, and her eating -- I chirped along and said that I needed to go to because of .. uh.. oh yes! because the twisted knee ankle thing that happened to me when I was a baby started to come back, and I should really keep an eye on it, because it could get worse!

I didn't care about anyone's health, didn't inquire, or support anyone's bodies being healthy.. Even as I've bought (and skimmed or never read) books on herbal remedies, emotional healing in the body, aromatherapy, yoga, etc... and had stockpiled essential oils and herbs for everything under the sun. When stinkapee had a series of colds during the winter - while Biafra and I (*more on this Biafra and I stuff in a second) were choosing to make living in the house a living hell - Biafra would walk around the house dissheveled, not talking to anyone, doing her chores with slowly with negative energy around her - and I followed suit .. -- I didn't offer any of the oils and steams I would use for myself when I was sick. But then when I got sick, I'd get silently resentful if I didn't get the royal treatment from other family members. I give nothing, and expect/take everything.

* "Biafra and I stuff" unpacked is an alliance that I created with Biafra. I hid behind Biafra's choices, learned her behaviours, and then performed them to my own gain. Sometimes, I would ally with her. So when she attempted to forge alliances with people who were attempting to attack our community from the outside, without telling anyone, and getting defensive when asked, I would yell, argue, and lecture her about how not okay that was. And then months later, I'd do the exact thing.

I attacked everyone's relationship. In a nutshell: Taz and her former partner. Around the time that Taz was pregnant, and shortly after I broke up with Phoenix (on dd and ss's 4th anniversary of meeting - when I'd agreed to do childcare with Stinkapee while they went out), on a night when I'd agreed to house Taz and her former partner since they had no place to live except for back with their abusive families, I flirted with her ex-partner, and attempted to facilitate a conversation about having a polyamourous relationship with them. If dd hadn't called on the phone that night, I would have roped them all into another living hell.

I gave both Phoenix and Biafra the cold shoulder when they got together. I flirted with both of them behind each other's backs, and in other cases threw them loads of attention while neither of them were looking - and positioned myself as 'better' than the other - more mature, more wise, more attractive etc.. and all the while I was doing this, I still attempted to position my relationship with them as a couple more beneficial to them than their relationship with dd who was attempting to build relationship with all of us across complicated interrelationship and personal baggage.

And on this flirting tip. I fucked for the first time in Azania. Before then I'd had 10 years of strung together relationship with partners, all men save two, with whom 'sex' consisted of teenaged petting, cudding and a bit of exploration.. but at the time, I was playing myself out to be some sex goddess who Phoenix, Biafra, SeminalSon, (not Taz) but Taz's ex wanted. I was to be wanted: the sexiest, prettiest, most sexual, attractive, smartest, most valuable member of the collective. At this point, I've made strategic attempts to get everyone in the collective to want me in some way. I've tried to get them to be in a power relationship with me so that I could lord over them, and control their movements toward my own desires.

I took dd's invitation to build collectively, and attempted to build one-on-one power alliances with everysingle member of Azania in whatever way possible. With dd, I prey on our friendship and history. With ss our history, and attraction to each other. With Biafra our dominant able adult/subordinate disabled youth sexualized power dynamic - I tried to date her, and have her be a housemate of mine when I was 22 and she was 16, a year after she'd arrived in Canada. With Taz, her as my buddy: I position Taz as dumb and worthless, and me as knowing - which worked well for her because she wanted to work even less than I do. And she knowing that she wouldn't compete with me to be central in Azania (I'd already quelled that possibility by guilting her for snubbing me at different times over the years of our relationship -- a tactic of victimization that I've done with every member of Azania -

the lie: dd told me truths about my life and my life fell apart and its all her fault, and I don't know what to do now but destroy my life

the truth: I told dd lies about myself so that I could get the relationship with her that I coveted because I wanted to have dd in order to balance the discomfort I had about the relationship that she had with ss; part of which is the main reason for Azania; stinkapee; who I then commited to co:raising - without unpacking that I consider her to be the physical manifest of their relationship that I chose not to be a powerful part of from the beginning in lieu of reserving the right to whine, complain, and be vengeful about the relationship in order to try and get what I want.

my life was falling apart because I chose it to. it has been falling apart since before my parents kicked me out, and I chose denial as a way to deal with that reality, and then attempted to emotionally swindle a woman who's committed to the exact opposite of denial. So I keep my head in the sand and blame dd for attempting to extract it, or support me to extract it (at first out of care for me, and visions of poweful relationship with me as a fellow community member. then out of sheer self-defense and desperation, and now rage and resent)

I promised, when asked, to not hold over community members the previous years of relationship with dd, and gloat about our relationship.

I promised to share finances, and build financial security for all of us.

I promised to support two Azania households to grow and thrive, toward the creation of others.

I promised to develop powerful relationships outside of Azania so that we could develop friends, alliances, and connections with other communities to grow together.

I promised to develop loving ties with my buddy Taz, who shares a lot of the same emotional hurts, and harmful blocking strategies as I do.

I promised to love and co-raise Stinkapee.

I promised to keep my house clean, my room clean, my body clean.

I promised to live and thrive.

Actually, here's what I promised to be a part of:

A conversation from the listserve regarding energy drain and consequences

Phoenix, you asked what happened in the conversation upstairs:

This cycle of the conversation happened after I stayed in my room while you
and Stinkapee were getting ready to go, and ss came back frustrated because
of my constant sabotaging of things going on in the house, after he'd done
work to get the car to buy baby supplies today.

He and dd. said the same thing they had said before, and I stood there
doing a Biafra, and not saying anything, except a few attempts to make it
seem that it isn't as bad as it was, and attempts to convince them that I
would do something different.

I gave them the stone face I learned from Biafra, and saying nothing verbally but glaring at ss
and dd during the conversation as I had often witnessed Biafra doing, I forced them to repeat what they've said before: I lie every day, saying that I am going to do something different,
and not continue the every day energy drain on dd and ss. And so
yesterday, when we had the same conversation, I said that I would wake up in
the morning with a different energy and make different choices. I didn't,
and we ended up in the same situation again.

I did what I said that I would do in the car when we were talking about you
moving into Azania House. I positioned myself as a novice, a learner, to forge
alliance with you, against dd, ss, and Stinkapee and the new baby, so that I
could get more attention - dd and ss to teach and plead with me to do
basic house tasks and care for Stinkapee. And to get direction, to have someone
tell me what to do every minute of every day.

I'd rather drain and sap a pregnant lady of her energy, instead of
generating it myself.

dd asked me what I wanted from her as more support, given that I've
decided to non-consentually access support from her for every aspect of my existene,
this after I had already taken/manipulated the support she'd offered me for the past six years wtihout ever willingly reciprocated with care and support offered by me to her.

So I am setting up a situation where I gain more support, physical, emotional from her while not
supporting her, or creating space for her to ground and centre or take care of her relationship with ss or with Stinkapee or to prepare for the new baby.

At first, I tried to say that I didn't need any support from dd, that I knew what I had to
do today... grant applications, networking, etc...but both dd and ss pointed out that that my list didn't make any sense, given that I nonverbally demand attention and direction for everything I do from getting up in the morning, to eating to putting on clothes, while offering nothing and forcing everyone in the house to repeatedly make requests for me to do different kinds of work. I tried to lie by making it seem that the support I was asking for (now - after demanding it for months) was not basic life skills. I didn't want to actually ask for this support, not when I could just access it by effecting the environment and the dynamics in the house. I wouldn't
start my sentences with 'I want support with..' or with any words that would make it clear what I wanted and needed. I tried to rationalize the fact that I demand support and energy for simple everyday things against the wills of everyone in the house so that the work I do is less, fit only for a child or a teenager.

As for food, dd relayed part of the conversation she had with you about
separating the food and resource supply given that you and I refuse to take
the responsibility to replenish the food and toiletries that we use, and
won't take leadership to make sure that there are food and other supplies in
the house, leaving it to dd and ss to make lists and plan shopping trips, instead. We use up what's there, don't replenish anything and force dd and ss to be responsible to maintain those basic needs.

dd says that she isn't willing to abdicate responsibility for the maintenance of the house and end up living with me and you in one of those dirty messy amelly collective activist houses. But to her it seems that I am completely okay doing that because that's what I'd choose to create: like leave the smelly cat litter to stink up the house on a hot summer day while feeling resentful for not having more leisure time because I'm forced to do the tasks that I either drag out or avoid doing altogether that are my responsibility. I used so much leisure time last year by only being interested in play. Now, I'm still refusing to spend the time doing useful work that will move things. I'm demanding even more time to sit and do nothing by refusing to do work well, so that others pick up the slack, until there is little to nothing left for me to do.

ss also said that I expected that I'd be able to exploit everyone without
them noticing or talking about it, but they have and they are, and there are
repercussions for that.

And so basically, since there is no commitment on my part to share and
generate resources, live collectively as a self-directed, autonomous adult,
and support this community and family, we have nothing - and there is no
basis for faith in anything I say because my actions don't back it up, I don't
follow through with what I say I'm going to do.

I refuse to do housework unless forced. When asked, told, forced, I reserve
the right to get angry then delay the work to make it seem more substantial
and time consuming than it really is or I entirely sabotage the work. Or I act as if I'm not capable, and so need to have tonnes of attention directed my way to instruct me or others become so frustrated with giving me "instruction" that they just give up and finish the work themselves. Everyone knows I have the skills to do the work, which makes dealing with me frustrating. I won't take leadership around the work I do, because I am not in my mind at the top of the azania food chain, the leader and commander, which is what my parents trained me to aspire to. So, if I can't understand myself as leader, then I can only become the incapable wretch. Its malevolent because I do it purposefully. I choose not to use the skills I have without being attended to or forced.

ss said that he felt stupid for putting any faith in me and thinking that I had community building skills to offer when really all I've demonstrated daily is that I won't... not when I can get others, namely dd and ss, to do the work for me.

listserv communications re: token-based work list...

darkdaughta wrote:
One of the things my new doula (birth assistant) J. suggested yesterday was that we in azania try a token-based work/chore list in order to provide incentive for work and
chores to get done.

I pointed out to her, that since bongafish and phoenix specialize in sabotage
and passive aggression and since they prefer convenience, this might
not work.

But I think it's still worth a try.

I'd like to propose that we establish a list of household chores and a
list of one shot house cleaning stuff that might only happen once or
twice a year and a list of azania to do's like keeping finances in
check, checking phone messages, responding to emails, posting on the
azania listserv, posting on our personal listservs, spending stinkapee
time, waking up at night with stinkapee, orgnizing and doing special
activities with stinkapee, making meals, house laundry, proposing and
writing grant applications, bill payment organizing, job searches for
azania members, writing cover letters, researching purchases,
negotiating openly and truthfully, offering emotional support to
azania members, plus whatever else people can think of (this isn't a
comprehensive list, so don't be fucking lazy and use it as the basis
for the token/work list).

For me the plus to this would be not having to police phoenix, bongafish's
and seminalson's work. If the job isn't done (well), I'm sure other people
will object to the person who was supposed to get the token getting
the token.

The tokens would be good for stuff we might not normally make room for
like money for nights out, dinners, hair colouring, smokes,
clothing/shoe shopping money, movies, trips out of the province, trips
out of the country. Like Air Miles. The list of prizes would have to
be established by all of you. We'd have to set aside a percentage of
monies in a fund to pay for this stuff.

Obviously, tokens would have to accumulate much more for big ticket
items than for smaller things. Obviously, some jobs might be more
involved or more nasty or sweaty or time consuming and these would get
more tokens/points than other jobs. So, this means that although
person could stretch out a task like washing the dishes or cleaning
the bathtub or sweeping the floor, they won't get any more points for
doing that task than they would if they did many lower token tasks
quickly and effectively, thereby racking up some big points.

This wouldn't get a person out of doing the everyday tasks they've
already commited to doing, it will just attach a very literal value to
the work they are doing.

Anyways, I'm proposing that the three of you bang something out,
discuss it, tweek it and post it in clear sight so we can get moving
with this.

Thoughts?


phoenix wrote:
I think the putting the work list and establishing values to the different work that needs to get done is really important and in of itself valuable.

i'm thinking tracking the work that people do (in chart format) could get really cumbersome and fill up real quick (if done on a fridge for example)

but perhaps if people keep track of the work that they do and post it online-- say on a weekly basis that might work.

and ultimately it is good for us to ground in and speak to and make visible the work we do (and dont do-- speaking for me as the one who clings most to doing convenient and easy tasks) in relation to each other.

and i guess, if just the fact of taking care of our own home, or buiding my own home hasnt been enough motivation for me-- perhaps the 'rewards' will work as motivation.

It all seems kind of yucky and distasteful-- need to get rewarded to do work in my own house-- but I suppose this is where I would say-- well my choices not to do work in my own house and to leave and or force that work on others is yucky and distasteful for others around me.

so that said...

I say green to this proposal. I'm good for meeting with seminal and bongafish to hammer out and post the specifics of the Azania work list, rewards list, and point system.


darkdaughta wrote:
phoenix,
I don't trust you or bongafish to keep track honestly of the work you do.
This is what you've been trusted to do already and you have both taken
advantage of this to do the minimum amount of work possible, when forced.


darkdaughta wrote:
phoenix,
I took a list from the Paramount's bathroom when seminalson and I saw the movie on
Sunday. I think if they can use lists with "done" and with initials of
who saw that it was sufficiently well done and if they can do this for
probably one hundred employees, if not more, on any given day, it
shouldn't be such a stretch for us to chart the work of four adults in
a house...unless of course, you and bongafish make it really difficult and
cumbersome to do so. Yeah, I'll take this as your notice letting me
know that you're planning on doing just that.

bongafish wrote:
I will go ahead with the list.

I have been thinking about how I will attempt to sabotage the Token-Based
work list, even though I think it is a good idea. I was hiding this in
draft, here it is:

Hi,
I won't keep track of the work that I do in a Token-based work list, I'll
passively aggressively sabotage the list until it becomes too much of a
struggle to maintain:

I will mark things as completed while leaving the cleanup or reset
unfinished,

I'll also drag work along slowly so that the higher value tasks will get
done at the expense of my daily chores,

I'll plan time poorly so that someone else has to finish up, but I'll expect
to get the tokens for it,

I'll also leave the entire creation and maintenance of the list for seminalson or
darkdaughta, or phoenix if she's on, to supervise,

I'll also take a long break from working on high token tasks once I redeem
the tokens. For example, if I get a pack of cloves after accruing x number
of tokens, then I'll not do work until that pack has been smoked, then work
only when I want another one.

or I'll not do any work at all, and commit to more of a life of misery, with
nothing that I enjoy. I think this system works only for those who want to
enjoy their lives, and I'm okay with not.

or I'll manipulate other people to get what I want without having to use the
token system at all.

I'll procrastinate on making the list actually happen - taking a long time
to set it up, suggest minor changes along the way that will stretch out the
time it will take to get the list up and running.

because token, or no token, I don't want to do work.

and I'll also doubly sabotage it because it is a suggestion from someone
outside of Azania.

So this is what I will do if the Token-based Azania work list proposal
manages to get off the ground.

Why would I do this? I would do this because I want to maintain the level of
non-work that I've created. I think that I'm not getting enough of what I
want as it is, why make it harder for me to get more? This list will prevent
me from manipulating attention from everyone in the house, but in order of
importance, darkdaughta, seminalson, phoenix, stinkapee, - for doing work. I'll just have to be accountable to myself and this list, that won't give me attention - except
for the reward at the end of the day... which will take work to build up.
*my* work. And while I understand it, it goes against my position in life,
which is to have someone else to prepare the way for me.

--

That said, I propose to work in losing tokens as a consequence for
sabotaging the list. I will post this on the blog later today. I am later
than I said I'd be getting back, and I have to change the names to the
handles before putting it on the blog. .. then I'll respond to myself.

phoenix wrote:
usually when I express doubt about my capacity to do something, or say I anticipate this problem or this difficulty with doing a certain thing, I usually follow by letting whatever I've identifed/created as a block become a block ( in the mornings-- saying "I cant/ wont get nemo ready with brushing her teeth, bathing) ("I am not willing/ able to be emotionally present and supportive with anyone in Azania)

in other words- I say I cant do something and then go on to not do that something

instead of taking the next step and thinking about what I would need to do to make something work

so I understand that it is based on my track record of me more usually NOT DOING exactly that which I say I cant/ wont or see as complicated/difficult to do that you are saying: "Yeah, I'll take this as your notice letting me know that you're planning on doing just that."

that said, I think the token based work list can be made to work, and I'm willing to try

as the day goes on (when I'm alone) I'll keep adding to this list I've put in a table format (continuing off of darkdaughtas first email when she proposed the token-based list)

the list I'm working on is attached as a word document

then we can put together all the different lists we come up with and go from there...

in terms of ranking/adding a value to them

and then adding a value to the list of tokens we all come up with.

myRITUAL

so, i just spoke with DD about ritual. she makes a good point. How about my own altar (which was setup and i ignored). and moving from there.

re: twisting and manipulation...

bongafish, i really "appreciate" the way that you make sure to keep your comments so disembodied that only the people who actually live with you are certain about the references you make. this leaves everyone else to just see you as a depressed, self-victimizing, confused person who is probably being too hard on herself.

i'm hoping that one day you'll actually be able to piece together in some coherent form the stuff you've done that has led to you being avoided by the people who formally had welcomed you into their/our lives with open arms, that led to you not getting even a modicum of positive attention from the people you said you wanted to live/be in community with.

until that happens...
until you fess up to the daily dishonesty always shamefacedly confessed to but never discontinued, to the unabashed emotional leeching, to the persistent hierarchical power playing, to the predatory competitive streak you perpetuate even in relation to people in your community who you said you wanted to work with not against, to the princess-like avoiding the work of maintaining your own home, to the attention getting behaviours, to the passive-agressive acting out of willingly suppressed/created/guarded rage, to the victim stance as undercover powerful defense against any boundaries I or any other person in the house can set...
until you stop trying to avoid dealing with how your parents raised you and stop trying to save face in your own bizarre way...
the rest of us understand that your blog entries will continue to make no sense when juxtaposed with the reality of the shit that happens everyday...
and I will continue to understand that you and I won't have anything powerful/creative/ generative/loving/beautiful to discuss that won't be grounded in and perverted by all of this crap.
I have no space to hold your hand as you willingly strike out and do harm while manifesting your usual guilty face. As I maintain always, I have my own crap, my own childhood stuff, my own powerful work to figure out.

You have had many spaces and people identified as possible supports that could offer some movement in your life and in your relationships. You've refused and returned to me time and time again with every last tidbit of madness intact and unchecked. This is why I don't talk to you and want you to stay out of the house as much as possible in the last few weeks of my pregnancy. The image of you wandering the streets is preferrable in my mind to the image of me being so distraught I can't ground, eventually leading me to a caesarean and post partum depression. Since I've been forced to make the choice, I again choose myself over you.

Take care of yourself and your (inner) child. I won't build a life, home, existence, relationship for you while you stand and just look cute and cool and smart and in control around those who don't know you.

p.s., L. the counsellor you have avoided seeing since december called saying she can schedule a meeting time for you, so can you please check your voicemail promptly for the details and return her call instead of sabotaging this possible source of solid support in you life (and ours)?

About accountability

I feel okay about my lack of accountability (in Azania), and I feel sad and angry about that. I want to be different, and I'm not right now, and so I lie and make promises, and that's frustrating and painful.

I feel angry that I have to communicate in ways that are uncomfortable for me. I feel relieved that I am writing this email now, instead of ignoring it, and I feel overwhelmed by the amount of conversations over the years that I have not responded to, that I need to in order to shift the relationships with everyone.

I have said too many times that I would use the blog, and then chose not to. I thought that it would be more honest of me to say that I have refused, instead of lying about doing something different instead.

But reading it over, I hear the arrogance of me saying that 'there is nothing for me to green (agree to being accountable to) right now'. Because there is, which is making a commitment now to using the blogs, to responding and to being honest.

RITUAL

DD, I'm emotionally absorbing the choices I make, as well as thinking about the ritual with Ophelia, the doula and Stinkapee. And boy, I didn't grow up doing much of any kind of ritual.

My reading – for this ritual

Stinkapee’s naming ceremony speech

Incense

Water

A special drinking cup (communal)

All hands on DD’s belly and some deep breaths in unison ask the universe to provide a safe and health birth for both baby and DD.

I can get some soil – perhaps we can rub it on DD’s tummy

Food: not sure yet

Twisting and Manipulation

I didn't think about the way that I create relationships where the people I relate to
are forced to see me as more powerful, and more important
than them.

In order to not have to deal with the fact that I'm the one that manipulates them into
this position, as I've done in Azania, I twist the dynamic so that I am the victim, so
that I can then treat them as I wish, draining them for whatever I need and want.

I expect darkdaughta to be constantly and consistently available to me, and have blanked
the ways that she did, and has been; and the ways that I force her to be consistently.

I have constructed it as 'normal' for me to completely
drain and torment someone and feel just fine, and in fact feel like if I
don't GET what I want when I want it, I'll be completely livid,
resentful, and vengeful. ... which fits with who I am, and need to change.

I want to become a vital person. One who would normally say, 'I hurt you
badly, very badly, I feel compassion for you and for me, and I want to
mend things: I care, and this is difficult, but I love you more than I love
the discomfort, and so I'll act accordingly: I'll treat you with respect,
tenderness, accountability and care.' .. and mean it.

NEW BABY

Well, dd is not far off. I think it might be nice - given all that has happened, I purpose some kind of daily reading for dd's health and the coming baby's health. I lay in bed last night, really really sad about the choices I have made - the behaviours I have modelled to the rest of the collective members. These behaviours have certainly played a part in sabotaging Azania, not to mention my relationship with DD.

I dreamt last night that the baby was born in parts, and once out of DD - all of it parts joined together - similar to the mercury-like robot in T2: judgement day. What does that actually mean?

I know, I've chosen to be disconnected and somewhat removed from the new baby's arrival. This is not to say that I haven't been thinking about it, it's just that I haven't been completely connected.

This is a choice that I made, that from today, I want to change course on. Some of the basis for this: a few days back I planned an editing session with a collegue of mine at the house. I didn't negotiate time/space/ how I saw it going in the aftermath of me being up til 3am. DD has a party invite on the same night that on the table days, if not, weeks prior.

They went out, and I had the chance to sleep early, and wake up with Stinkapee - so others could get rest. I didn't . In fact, DD ended up having to be with Stinkapee in the morning. more...

Entitlement

No, not quite an oops. More like, I knew what I wanted and set out of series of actions that would get me what I want. Moreover, I then made no agreements regarding what would happen the next morning.

I'm talking here about they choices I have made over the years to conciously benefit from DD's energy of sharing, visioning, and having faith. I do I deliver in return? Being cheap, conservative, and really not trusting/ or having faith.

This makes no sense given that so much of what we have, so much in our relationship, - but specifically, so much that I have been able to do has come from her energy. And on some level, I must feel - I do feel like she owes me something. I already talked about being triggered around this, and around that... blah blah.. that's old now.

No, I know it is something called: entitlement. A large piece of me actually thinks it's OK to recieve my partner's energy and return it with a huge: I DON'T CARE. (I'm having very clear flashes of my folks' dynamics)

I am expecting two cheques this week
One from the restaurant. I reminded the owner that the minimum wage has gone up and he’s using needing to talk to his accountant as a stalling tactic for paying me immediately. I get paid from my day job tomorrow, I’ll put either that cheque or the restaurant money towards first rent. The place I found is $600 plus hydro. I payed $600 last week from the day job cheque.

I went to curry’s art store says they do set up accounts for organizations not families. I don‘t know if we need to have a business number or something – I’ll post when I get that info.

bongafish I picked up an joint bank account application last week. According to the form it seems the bank will be doing a credit check which I may or may not pass given my student loan debt and cell phone debt in collections. If opening an account with this bank doesn’t work I’m proposing to make my existing account a joint one if that can be done with no credit check.
I ‘ll get more details from my bank about this so that either way I’ll be ready to meet with you to do it anytime after 5:30 next week. Please e-mail what day works for you.
This is the account I will be depositing my cash repayments to Azania.

I took a look at the money I forcasted getting in tips –I made only a fraction of that. One weekend was the easter parade and the place was dead and the next weekend it was cold and raining and equally slow all weekend.. I put what I did make towards utilitarian things but I also find that I fritter the change away on things like snacks and coffees and that that small change adds up quickly. I also ate out often while I was looking for apartments.

Because of this I have been envisioning a system where I deposit it at the end of my shift as I head home. If any Azanian has an existing account with the bank I was considering for the joint account perhaps I could simply deposit the $ directly into their account.

The landlady won’t be renting the place for May- I think she’s going to do some work on the place. Biafra came with her movers and got all her stuff
.
I am putting the last coats of white paint up. Hopefully I won’t have to get another can.
I felt reluctant to paint over my room. I feel reluctant to go even as I think the new place will be good.

Condi‘s doing well. I’ve started telling him about his new home i think he’ll like it . I’m really happy he’ll be moving with me. Thank you for Condi. I really love that cat.
I remember the times I was careless with Condi – saying she’s not my cat. I’ve been given a lot of things in Azania that I didn’t ”own” and didn’t treat with care.. As I pack it seems every pair of shoes or storage container reminds me of my saying no I don’t want it don’t need it don’t like it as it was being given to me. And now I ‘ve experienced the value the sense the usefulness of these things I look around and I know that I was buoyed by dark daughtas life experience and forsight. I feel like I was really young for saying no. and proud. (in the waste of energy kind of way..)

There are things I don’t want to give back. I don’t want to give back the silver key holder dark daughta gave me, I didn’t want to give back the wine coloured glasses I thought you had given me. I don’t want to give back the photos I have from bongafish when I was stating to make the Nemo’s World children’s book.
But I can.
I just don’t want to.
Just saying.
Phoenix there are some items at the house which i can bring by next week sometime: your blender, iron and ironing board and alarm clock so far.

The 2 simulated wood pantry cupboard units as well. I like them and would use them, but I’d also be ok without them. Do other Azanians want them?
Crap the café is closing.
I’ll continue.

later that same night

Good Night Phoenix,
I was hearing your voice this evening saying "please blog" from the last time i saw you , and the time before that and the time before that.
i was going to tell myself what i have been telling myself every night which is i should paint , pack , clean, do laundy and i'll e-mail tomorrow. you've lived at close enough range to see how "i'll do it tomorrow" works out with me.
Iit doesnt.
so i figured enough was enough- the month is almost done and i'm still fiddling with the ball in my court in terms of communication. i came to the internet cafe and i just got your message. i skimmed it super quick cause the cafes not open much longer, but i'll respond actually , not procastination-wise, tomorrow.

phoenix, in response to "housekeeping"...

this note isn't the most literary thing i've ever written...gotta eat breakfast...energy is dropping.

phoenix, i read your email to the listserv about housekeeping and asked you to post it here on the community blog.

i didn't respond to what you wrote because i had some nagging unformed thoughts i couldn't put into words.

as i showered this morning my thoughts came clear...

do you remember me for months being the mama of the house, handing out chores, checking to see if they had been done and how well and by whom?

do you remember me deciding to stop being the impetus for housework in our community's main house and the chaos that has ensued as seminalsone tried to keep up some semblance of normalcy around the house, while juggling a job and trying to provide care for stinkapee and support bongafish as she refused to be her own agent of change in the house, as she refused to be someone who moved beyond trying to suck attention and validation, while refusing to do housework without being asked, while refusing to work with stinkapee and be a part of her education without being asked?

do you remember me reminding everyone that i'm going to be giving birth and may not be available to be super mama of house keeping and care once the baby is born?

do you remember me asking that you and bongafish develop new eyes and support seminalson in upkeeping our home?

do you remember me asking all of you to not walk by things that need to be put away in the house?

do you remember me asking all of you to not do half assed cleaning and maintenance jobs?

do you remember me saying that when you choose to sweep around not under, when you choose to paint over not around, when you choose to wash quickly but not well, i end up figuratively walking behind all of you redoing and tweaking the work you say you've finished?

do you remember me asking you to do an orientation with seminalson and bongafish to find out where everything goes in the house so you can know and be able to work effectively alongside them?

do you remember me saying that i wouldn't give you a list of what needed to be done in the house so that you could perform tasks like an automaton seeking direction from big mama?

do you remember me saying that i needed you to be able to interact organically and thoughtfully with the space so that you would develop a consciousness and perspective on what the house should be?

do you remember me saying that i already have a visual and sensory understanding of what is happening in the house, but i can't accomplish what needs to be done on my own and refuse to hand out chore list to all of you as if you're teenagers rather than grown wimmin?

do you remember me talking about the power of ongoing maintenance which involves putting things back in their places and cleaning up after yourselves?

well, you wrote your own to do list, a sort of fuck you flying in the face of what i asked of you when i asked you to identify with the house and become a principal mover and shaker creating structure, so that i could abdicate the role of leader and commander of the house. you are blocking my request that i simply be a part of the house rather than the person who remembers where things go, the person defining where things go, the person juggling knowledge of what needs to be done, etc...

you gave your own self a list that is finite. you will work through it and interact with seminalson and bongafish about the contents of that list. and what will happen when that list is done. will your work be done? will you write another list? will you again turn to me for direction? will you chase down bongafish and seminalson who are also struggling to develop relationships with the house that allow them to maintain it's beauty and functionality? what will you do, phoenix?

and so, i say to HEll with your list(s). :) I need to live in a house with someone who can think and envision home, who can identify with the space they occupy...without duress, who has house pride that drives their daily movements through the space, who will use brain matter to dream and manifest a home/sanctuary/base along with me, not trailing half-assedly behind me. what'cha got?

Updating the Azania intentional community description...

I made some rudimentary changes to the intentional communities azania description. Truth is, the whole description needs to be overhauled based on where we are now, what we have been through and what we know about ourselves and each other. Does anyone have any ideas about where to head?

darkdaughta

PURE excitement!!

I just spent some time reading, reflecting and feeling about my life. I was standing outside, looking at the backyard, feeling the crisp air as the spring air whipped my face.

I just had a burst of energy that I'm running with about Azania. I am feeling really good about where we are going and the work we are all doing in terms of our personal development, are radical truth telling and our feelings.

I'm feel liberated being in this family - being able to be myself - love everyone as they actually are - build true (yet very difficult) new relationships with my parents, and new intentional lovers and friends.

It's important for me to remind myself of how fortunate I am to be apart of this collective... it is so alive, so raw, so organic, so real - that I know, some people - in fact - most people are like: what the hell are you guys doing?

You're damn right: it's like nothing I've ever experience b4. There is no precedent. And there is no other place I'd rather be.

So that said: Long live Azania... cause we've only just begun. Thank you: dd, phx, bonga and even biafia and taz... but most especially STINKAPEE - you are my inspiration.

Here we go...

IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING?yes, it really is...

SO, I feel VERY SAD that the state has been invited into our home. I really feel sad. I feel like we really struggle to be the best caregivers possible, sitting with and dealing with our emotional selves. Yes we struggle with dd, we go to counsellors and really dealing with our stuff. We try. We attempt to be proactive. Bonga, encouraged by dd to see a counselor, gave her therapist some back story, history about her past childhood, and how this weaves into her present. For example, she told us she told her counsellor that in talking about her past with her bio-parents, and their emotional neglect of her, she was concerned and watching to make sure that this would not happen with Stinkapee. Bonga was being proactive and I support her in doing this. Her counsellor took this information and wrongly assumed that understood that Stinkapee was in danger from Bonga - which she is not - and filed an report with an arm of the state.

I am angry at Bonga's counsellor for not informing Bonga of her the client/practioner relationship; and her counsellor's decision to keep secret files on her and not voice her concerns - I am disheartened in another way. That is, I'm feeling sad around the structure that exists in our community right now to deal with this or any other crisis.

Azania is to be a strong group of adults caring for a child, caring for our lives as we attempt to build something better and stronger, and more solid than what we had when we were growing up.

And as I know we must move thru this - and we will - (as I say this, Phx just told me she going to clean the bathroom2) I'm forced to think about what I should have been up to by this point in Azania. The choices that I made that have led not being prepared.

It has been totally unexceptable. And I mean this, because dd literally shared ALL of her tools, her experiences, all wrapped in emotional support to build in this community and I was to (and still am) wrapped up in ego and self importance to move consistently thru it.

I can hear it now... because I hear it all the time... you're being too hard on yourself S2. You're doing the best that you can, and all you can do at this point is breath. No, I can do a hell of a lot more than that.

First, I can post this, so someone out there reading can see / learn from my experience. Also, too me, what exists right now in Azania, I need to understand does not mean - ok - we're in a crisis and so, all bets are off, and so - I need to try and go into nuclear hetero mode and start interacting with dd like everything I know about her is theory and pretend. Now would not be the time to give up on my agreements. Now would not be the time to try and forget about our poly relationship and for me to re-treat into monogamy.

Hell, you might say: I WOULD, sounds great - makes sense to me - after all, look at what Bonga has modelled to everyone in the community. What options do I have left? And when I say modelled to everyone in community, I'm talking about her having known dd the longest and chosen to block relationship building amongst the members unless she was central.

But it isn't great, it's messed up.

Last night, when I got back to the house from a parenting group with Bonga, I was feeling pretty low because of what had happened during the day with the state. I got home, and immediately wanted to be away from Bonga - who was doing her regular 'i'm falling asleep, i'm tired, i haven't eaten dinner' routine and being generally uncommunicative in the taxi. I called her out on this, but she does it so often, to her it's like putting butter on bread. She likes being called on it.

This stuff she does is very manipulative. But at this point it's outrageous. We are trying to get this home running well, Stinkapee safe and educated; food supply maintained; Phx's new space moved in from another house; house maintenance in order; ARRIVAL OF THE NEW BABY in the next few weeks; own our stuff around sucking dd emotionally and not being accountable - note to Bonga - stop modelling messed up behaviours to Phx and me. Stop it.

Anyway, at the house that night, I put Stinkapee down for the night, and saw Phx. Her and Bonga were having some dynamic which I really needed to be away from - but wasn't ready to speak to fully to. Not out of respect for their stuff. No. it was more like - I wasn't ready to ask them for what I needed for my support (given what happened today) in my moment and of course, I can always default to "where's dd??" she's in the house no? I'll find her ...

Found her: she was in comfy cozy - our living room space. It was wonderful to see dd. It's always wonderful to see dd. But in our interaction, she made a valid point, she wanted to know what I wanted from her - she had been home watching television for a couple of hours now, and (as I know, and she has stated many times) if she actually wants something - she'll SAY so.

And she was right. She's not one of those - "oh, you're being silent so I need to do something to make you better." The truth was, I needed to do something to move thru what I was feeling.
And so, I kissed dd and went back upstairs and relayed the brief interaction I had with dd to Bonga and Phx.

I told them I was should have asked for what I needed earlier in the evening. Phx was like - remember I asked you when you came in S2 - how are you feeling? She did. I blanked it - I was clear in my head when I arrived in the house: where's dd?

Anyway, Phx and Bonga asked what I'd like: I told them, I wanted to have a shower, smoke a little bit of a cigarette and then cry. I said I wanted one or both of them to be with me during my crying.

They agreed.

housekeeping / relationship building...

Seminalson here - so I'm excited to see our process on the Lies Buring blog. The whole purpose of the blog is for our process (not just difficult stuff, but our everyday lives) to be seen, documented. All that said, yesterday (Wednesday) dd and I were on our way out to get more crucial items for the house like bedding for the loft and Phx's space. Beautiful black striped sheets for me, yellow sheet set that matches that mustard/ sunshine effect going on in Phx's space. Still looking for more accessories for dd's SKYroom, and comfyCOZY.

Thursday came and stinkapee and I were off to Ballet and school and play. I called to checkin in the early afternoon, and told dd me that an arm of the state was at the house and wanted to see Stinkapee.

Stinkapee and I jumped in a taxi and headed for our house.

We've pretty much separated your stuff from ours...

Biafra,
I think that I mentioned in one of the two last communications I emailed to you via the listserv that we weren't going to be sorting through your things, differentiating between what you'd like to keep and what you'd like to dispose of for you.

Yet, in the proposal you sent, under the guise of leaving things for us to use, you've basically downloaded the job of taking care of the things you no longer want or can't deal with figuring out what to do with onto us.

"I propose to come with a van and movers to do the loading and moving of my belongings except for the following. I’m proposing that the move happen in one day, in a couple of hours, with everything packed, sorted negotiated before hand.
I would like to leave most things that is if it agreed, that are currently in use at the house, unless azanians would like for me to keep them or have no use for them then I will keep them and move them along with the rest of my things they include

Furnishings: the futon frame and mattress, the dining table that seminal son and darkdaughta bought for me, the lamps that were in dawn, the storage cabinet in the kitchen that I picked up with seminal son, the orange mat, the orange stool, the metal storage shelf in the shower bathroom, the garbage can, the plastic baskets, the ikea hanging unit, the wicker jewellery holders that darkdaughta gave to me.

Appliances: the can opener, I have one already
Utensils: I am indifferent especially as they became collective and I do not remember what came with. The same applies to wine/drinking glasses and mugs and plates.

Sheets: The chocolate sheet set that was bought collectively, the orange bed cover,
Books: I leave with the books that were on my shelf before I moved into woodbine house, everything else was bought collectively for azania.

Clothing: there are some special items that I am fine with leaving/returning to azania. the leather jacket that darkdaughta got phoenix to buy for me, all the purses, the blue corset, the pink lingerie, the big black rubber/leather jacket, the black studded belt darkdaughta picked for me.

I’d like to keep all my shoes including the ones that darkdaughta bought for me, I’d like to take the leather vest. I’d like to take all my pictures and photo album."

And so, we'd be left, against our wishes to decide how best to dispose of your things for you, leaving you to simply move the things you want into your new place. Which might have been fine (NOT) if you had actually requested and negotiated for this to happen. As it stands, we've been forced to gather all your things together, are still in the process of gathering all your things together and no one is interested in moving from sorting our stuff from yours to sorting out the things you've decided you'll keep from the things you'll leave with us to figure out. As you well know from our collective move last May, disposal of household objects is intense and expensive work, involving rubbish movers and potentially weeks of garbage/clutter around the outside of the house that we'd have to persuade the garbage people to take away bit by bit.

This will be your job, not ours. And although we'd be foolish to turn down the three practical offerings in your whole list - the futon which has found a home in the new family room, the microwave cabinet and the goat skin lamp (which was mine) - we're mostly not interested in assisting you in avoiding the emotional fallout of having to sort through the vestiges of the life you sort of shared with us. Truth be told there's no disguising or compensating for the fact that you've already left most of the dealing with the anger, hurt, disappointment that have come up so far while sifting through your things to us.

In terms of having to pick your things up from Taz...
Yes, through waiting until the absolute last minute to offer a counter proposal, rather than generating a proposal (like one of your exams or papers for school), you left the decision about how the move would take place entirely with us. So, now the move isn't primarily about dealing with your stuff. It's about moving in phoenix and her things which happens to necessitate clearing out the room. The best option for us is to get moving men to cart the things that are occupying the space (your things) over to Taz's whiere you can pick them up at your (and her) leisure without roping us indirectly into conversations and interactions that would be best initiated by you intentionally when you're actually willing and able.

It hasn't escaped any of us that the one thing that finally lit a fire under your ass and forced you to come up with some shoddy last minute proposal was us saying we would move your things over to Taz's where you would then have to deal with her (someone as unethical and flighty and uncommunicative and undercover enraged as yourself) rather than with us who you've constructed as your tormentors, the people you had to run away from, all the while knowing that you had been dealt with more fairly and ethically by us than you had chosen to treat us.

So, it makes sense that you would hop to it and attempt to do a zero hour quickie negotiation with us rather than go and deal with light-skinned, oftimes undercover dominating, cruel and condescending Taz who you know is as enfuriating and difficult to deal with as you are.

So what you wrote about the expense of moving is true, but you will not be able to manipulate us into helping you avoid any of uncomfortableness of this move by pushing buttons about money and scarcity. As I said, this move is no longer about you and your convenience. You made certain of that. It's now about us and ours. We're not here to be manouvered into taking care of you and your concerns while you stoke your own rage over us having avoided the life that was alloted to you. We've all got our own horrible, painful baggage to carry without having to shoulder yours as well.

Also, we all understand as do you, one simple fact. You are a breaker. This is something you haven't incorporated into your lovely proposal to come and move your own things. Your suppressed rage and pain usually bubbles to the surface in the form of things around you being destroyed while you stare and smile sheepishly and deny any knowledge of how this thing or that thing could have been destroyed...while you were in its general vicinity.

Biafra, given the fact that you haven't been sharing your thoughts and feelings on your blog or one this one, there's no way for us to be sure of what you'd be bringing in terms of harm to our home when/if you came to move your things.

This sort of conversation would have had to have taken place a while ago, probably under the watchful eye of the mediators I proposed you find, as part of a larger conversation about how exactly we were going to effectively and intentionally disentangle our lives from each others.

This is also something you yourself could have broached at the council or in the time afterwards or in your proposal post. As it stands, it's clear that you're probably sitll in denial about how much havoc you can wreak in a space simply by not fessing up to your own feelings.

Yet another reason why picking your things up from Taz who is also packing and moving will be better than coming here where we're in the process of rebuilding our home.

Biafra, a word about you and friends...

For most of our friendship/relationship/ex lovership/community alliance, you and I have been bantering back and forth about the friends you were enraged at but unable to cut off...until you befriended me. At which point you cut them all off without a word and made it seem as if I had encouraged you to do so. That sucks.

I don't know any of them, because you mostly refused to interact with them even when you were encouraged to do so...at least to verbally end your friendships with them if you so chose. By the time you decided to listen to me and try to find ways to actually build friendships with these wimmin, whatever friendships were there were severely compromised without you ever having said a word about why you'd left. Most of them conveniently chose to direct their (also unspoken) resentment at me as the understood source of your decision to leave them all out in the cold.

From where I'm standing I know that my conversations with you about your existence as a silenced/silent murderously enraged trauma survivor, storing rage, engaging in interactions where you were erased, developing unspoken attractions to the wimmin you knew while they disregarded you as potential lover material, your existence as a large, fat woman living with a disability, a continental african surrounded by Black, westernized diasporics (myself included) who had little or no understanding of what it means to be connected to the soil of the motherland, led you to connect with your own consciousness linked with rage (to get stuck there) and to subsequently reflect on your friendships in ways you chose (and still choose) not to discuss with your friends, choosing instead to distance from them.

Now that you've exited azania, it seems as if you have reentered these friendships-on-hold.

I've asked numerous times since you left for you to be straight up with these people about what you actually do in friendships, the ways you perform a particular persona so as to allow them to get comfortable with your silence, you inability to act on your own behalf. All the while stoking your rage at the ways they erase you (with your full support), ignore your disability and the life you're forced to lead (with your full support). All this so you can manouver them into becoming targets for your rage and manipulation.

I've repeatedly requested verbally and via email that you fess up to what you're about to do with them so that they can make conscious decisions about whether/how to do friendship with you.

Why is this coming up for me now? Why am I the one to bring to light all our numerous conversations besides the fact that you refuse to?

Self preservation, I guess.
I realized that in many of your blog posts you positioned as if your choices of friends or your ability to make friends was defined/constrained by azania. Without context, this is really dishonest stuff.

You weren't encouraged to make friends. You were encouraged to be honest about the way you chose/choose to displace the rage you carry at the torment and abuse you've experienced into your friendships. You were encouraged to do this as a way to hopefully not bring too much created, avoidable drama, too many people you had veiled hostility towards (yet called your friends) home to me and the other people you lived with. You were encouraged to overtly speak about the daily lived reality of your oppression as a woman living with a disability as a way to challenge those around you to deal with their/our ableist shit. Your were encouraged to openly share friendship networks and resources in community as people in azania had done with you.

In the time I spent in community with you, you refused.
What you're doing now, I'm not sure.

This is a strand of emailed transmissions between you and me that touches on what I've said above...

Thu Mar 16, 2006 3:53 pm
darkdaughta wrote:
So, then, you'll be telling the people trying to befriend you and the
ones who used to be friends with yo why you left and giving them the
warning they need? Not cool to be feeding off the blood of people who
haven't harmed you, now is it?

Biafra wrote:
I didn't want to reply to this because i was adding it to my list
of emails from you, from azanians that i have not responded to.
so i read it, had emotions as always and decided not to respond.

I do realize that especially if i'm going to posting things about
my brothers and sisters and family. its been changed.

comments: i'm trying to find the code , i simply erased it from
mine cos i really did not want them initially and why would I but
yes i will reactivate them.

No i didn't tell friends who asked why I left azania about the being really pissed off cos everyone recognized and were familiar with my favourite lies and
manipulations; that would be a serious check mate.

yes i would be giving them warning.

(snip)

darkdaughta wrote:
You do realize that most folks don't usually put their real names on
their blog sites, especially when they're dealing with personal
subject matter.

And yes, can you enable your comments so that you can receive comments
from the rest of azania?

And of course none of the people you've told about leaving us
understands why you would leave somewhere you were being taken care
of. You didn't mention that you left because you were trying to avoid
being accountable and were enraged because everybody had an
understanding of all your favourite manipulations and lies. And that
this really pissed you off.

Of course, if you were to tell everyone this, you'd be in effect
giving them information and warning about what you are going to do to
them in order to get your own way without ever having to deal in a
mature and adult fashion.

Hmmm....

Biafra,
Since you've decided to start doing a performative historical revision, I wanted to just place some of the listserv emails that were sent to you requesting you to deal with your own packing and move over the past few weeks/months. They don't all show me in my best light...namely I'm seriously pissed (it would probably look nicer to say I was hurt and feeling betrayed, but whatevah) I was cussing and bitching majorly. Differently? Since I keep trying to get you to come clean, I might as well make sure I'm conveying an adequate picture of everything I've said and wrote cuz I'm more interested in making sure that you don't paint a different picture of what you've done, than in covering my own ass and trying to look sweet.

this was an email that got sidetracked, but it is still a good time marker for when you were first requested to take charge of your own affairs rather than do what you had become known for doing inside azania...leaving others to figure it out as best as they could.

Mon, 23 Jan 2006 11:31:07 -0500 (EST)
"Biafra or whatever you name actually is,
I understand that the script you're playing out has not come to an end. In fact you seem to have entrenched yourself even further in the idea that we have some sort of control over you. Which is convenient because you can continue to justify the ways you have chosen to harm, manipulate and take.

You have left giving no notice after having refused to communicate or negotiate for even your most basic human needs.

You have left us to pay for your rent, your bills and to heal from all the havoc you have caused with your unguided, undealtwith rage.

I realized a few days ago that I had once more presented myself as manipulable caretaker to you. I had offered to pack your things instead of requesting that you make you intent known and negotiate for whatever it was that you wanted to do with full accountability.

I realized that i had once more offered my labour to you with no possibility of reciprocation on your end. I had allowed you the opportunity to once more receive without giving.

I'm not going to pack your things. In fact, I'm changing the locks. You will need to negotiate for an exchange of rent and bills as part of the negotiation for the things you left here when you set up your abused woman/runaway scenario.

If you come to take without having responded to this email I will call the police and explain that you have menaced us in the past and explain that you have skipped out on your rent.

What I'm proposing in lieu of you continuing with your subtle passive domination over my/our lives is for us to enter mediation at St. Stephens if you are not interested, as you have shown, in being a truthful present part of an unfacilitated negotiation between adults.

Also, your aunt T. called and is looking for you as I'm sure are your parents. Please take the responsibility for dealing with them away from us by contacting them yourself.

This is me once more offering your own power and purpose when you've tried so hard to give it away.

Don't call. Please email so we have a record of what you've said you would do.

Also, I'm once more requesting that you take any reference to me off your website. It's not fair that you be able to capitalize off your association with me when I've received so little safe reciprocal alliance in return.

bongafish feels the same way about you using the pictures she took of you, so you can remove those as well.

You can email your response to the listserv addrss."


no response about making moving arrangements

Sun Jan 29, 2006 11:12 pm
"Biafra,

You kicked me in the head until you made sure that there was nothing
left for you in my life. You. You did that. Talk to your own self
about the life you've made for yourself. Don't bring your childish
guilting and manipulation to me. I'm so sick of it. It's horrifying
and pathetic at the same time.

Now, take any mention of me, darkdaughta.com or One Tenacious Baby
Mama off your blog. It's promotion and alliance you don't deserve
given what you've tried to do and given how you've tried to cover your
ass without being accountable for what you've done.

You've made yourself an ex friend and ex community member. What would
you have me call the fucked up bitch tactics you've engaged in? Would
it be better if I was kind, stupid and gentle and continued to let you
screw me?

But yes, that would give you some sense of superiority and a sense of
having gotten some blood somewhere. Are you so immature that you
actually believed there would be no consequences at all for the sort
of shit you've pulled?

So, unless you've got something that looks like you taking
responsibility for your nasty ways and for digging into the roots of
them on your blog and sending that information as a clear, not
linguistically clouded warning to all the people you know, including
your support group, any friends you might be lining up to punish, as
an apology to papi's mama who has helped you in some really tangible ways
and to your family as a way to hold them
accountable for what they've done, don't email me, don't call here and
then give someone else the phone. Don't bring any of your fucked up
shit around me.

In terms of the bills and the rent and your stuff moving out, I'd like
to propose mediation through one of the services in the city. It's the
only way I can see you allowing yourself to be accountable, but even
then, I know that you'll try to guilt and manouever around the
mediator. So, it would probably be good for you to have a witness come
to see what you do and how you move as it's named. So that we might
have a snowball's chance in hell of keeping you honest."


no response about making moving arrangements

Fri Feb 10, 2006 3:36 pm
"where you could continue to look, feel and act the victim. Now we, who

demanded that you stop lying and manipulating are your tormentors.
Biafra, do you remember Taz's ex and his running from recognition of the
life he had created? So, now you've got liberal counsellors and social
workers to seduce and manipulate into giving you your way. That must
be working out well. A really healthy situation, I'm sure.

In any case, after months of feeling worried about what all/any of you
would or wouldn't do, could or couldn't do, I've started to come out
about azania and the dynamics in the house that led to me asking you
and njeri to leave, and deciding to not engage with Taz and phoenix
anymore. I forced bongafish to go back to her parent's home last weekend
when she was bent on continuing to act out her upset with them on me instead.
I'm still not speaking to phoenix. and Taz and have no plans to.
They're just too manipulative and deceitful. I'm interacting with
njeri, but only because she's working her tail off around the house.

I think about you sometimes but I'm so full of dislike for what you've
managed to accomplish in the short time you've known me, that I know
we're not going to be sharing space anytime soon. The wounds and
damage just go too deep. I'm sure you're agreeing, siting invented
scenes of Biafra torment to back up the malevolence you insist on
directing at me. I can't stop you from wanting to consume the blood of
anyone who comes into contact with you. I know your trauma/drama stuff
isn't mine specifically, I just tripped over you by accident and
didn't have the sense to get away quickly enough.

I'm feeling more full of words, whereas before, when confronted with
the various silences and lies you all maintained and enforced, I felt
wordless and powerless. This does not of course mean that I'm not
missing a good few years/months of time I could have spent organizing
on my own, and that I'm not approaching forty knowing that I've
squandered my opportunities and insights by sharing them with people
who didn't deserve to have the access to me and to my family. No, I'm
good and screwed. But the reality is, I was screwed before I met all
of you. I just hoped against all hope that a fair exchange would offer
me something to redeem a life spent defying and championing stupid
political causes. Not so.

So, thanks for giving me that shot to the head along with phoenix, bongafish
and Taz, I needed it to stop lying to myself about being in
"community".

Good luck to you. Whenever you've got a big plan for moving your stuff
out that doesn't involve taking energy from me, let me know what it
looks like. I figure because you can't help but try to hustle, we'll
have to go through mediation anyways.

In terms of your blog. Thanks for continuing to be such a source of
absolute replicated oppression in your own life and in ours.

thanks for insisting on not understanding your own complexity and for
speaking petulantly from that place.

Thanks for being a soft-voiced predator undercover. I still think that
you could have learned a lot from spending more time with phoenix and
Taz.

Thanks for the side ways references to ableism in community while not
referencing how you tangled your own deceitful, manipulative web pressing
the buttons of your community members who hadn't already dealt with
their ableist shit, expected to do the same with me and raged and lashed out
when you realized you couldn't elicit the same results from me as you did from
others...and got tangled in your own web.

Thanks for not speaking clearly about what you perpetrated and
perpetuated in the time you spent in community.

Thanks for sarcastically making it seem in your blog's sidebar as if
we're trying to oppress you by pointing out how you used my name and
bongafish's pictures to build hype for yourself while choosing to not take
and use anything of substance to move your life or your relationships
with us.

Thanks for insisting on not coming clean.

If anything, you're always consistent.

I guess I can keep checking that blog. But since you've been outed,
you seem to be avoiding posting there. :) Set up twisted shop
somewhere else?


no response"

no response about making moving arrangements

during the Vernal Equinox Council Biafra agreed to offer a proposal for moving her things and for intentionally disengaging from azania. she sent nothing.

Fri Mar 31, 2006 3:32 pm
darkdaughta wrote:
"Biafra,
Can you please select a day that you will be able to come with a
moving van/truck to take away your bed, dresser, side table, clothing,
kitchen appliances, futon, books, cds, sheets, knick knacks, videos,
shoes, files and other personal effects?

We need to clear out your room so that we can repaint it and so that
phoenix can move her things in.

Also, the landlord sent the water bill for last year. It's a few hundred dollars. Can you please let us know how much you can contribute to the bill?

If I've left anything out or if what I've posted here is inaccurate,
can someone please email with comments?

Thanks, darkdaughta"

no response about making moving arrangements



Tue Apr 4, 2006 5:54 pm
"Biafra,
Haven't heard from you and we're fully engaged in making physical and
foundational changes in the house that necessitated you making
decisions about picking up your stuff. At this point, we need to clear
out your personal effects to make room for phoenix in the room down the
hall. It's been primed and is ready to paint. But there is still the
matter of you not taking the driver's seat in relation to your own
things. phoenix has packed them in garbage bags and some boxes she
managed to get from Taz. There was talk about putting the stuff
outside with a tarp over it all. I didn't like the sound of us leaving
a heap of potential garbage outside the house...too depressing and
ugly when we're trying to move the house back into being a thing of
beauty once again. Then phoenix suggested we do a switch of her stuff for
yours and let you know that everything will be there for the month of
April and that at the end of April, whatever hasn't been picked up
will be put out onto the curb for the garbage men and dumpster divers
to deal with. I understand that this leaves a particular hole for you
where you could simply come and pick over whatever you want and leave
the rest for us to manage. This is not that kind of party. Your stuff,
your responsibility to move or throw out or give away. So, if you
come, please come prepared to make some sort of arrangements for
everything that belongs to you. This is also not an invitation to just
show up at Taz's. You're still expected to email with a schedule
and plan about how the move is going to proceed so that we can make
any necessary arrangements to accomodate you and your proposal on our
end. So...today is Tuesday...by Friday afternoon can you please send a
transmission with a plan about where to from here including stuff like
what you plan to do with the bigger pieces like your futon and frame,
the kitchen table seminalson and I bought for you, your mattress and box frame?

Thanks.
darkdaughta"


response...

Biafra wrote:
"i'm just writting to say i just got this email. i will have a proposal by friday and it will be on the blog, the rest of the post i will also post on the blog.

I understand that things need to move physically and fgoundationally and i'm sitting on the process. I will make arrangements for a mover and a van hopefully for this week and if not this weekend then before the end of next week.

In the mean time since council, i've moved.
My new address is
(snip)
My new number: (snip)

And as for the water bill, is there a deadline? cos then i could try and move faster but in the next two weeks when my next cheque comes i should be able to contribute (snip)"


darkdaughta wrote back:
"Biafra:
I sent the second email when it seemed as if you weren't going to
respond to the first email about setting a timetable to move your things.

We'll be moving your things over the Taz's so that you can move as
you will and struggle with her (not us) over timetable stuff.

We're not actually seeking at this point to work with you around the
intricacies of your move. We're simply letting you know where all your
stuff will be so that you can make the necessary decisions without
impacting us any further.

All this to say, I'm not really sure what you meant when you mentioned
perhaps getting a moving van for this weekend. That sounds as if you
would be dropping in on our lives with no notice, no consideration, no
care, no respect and just doing what you need to do for yourself.

That doesn't sound like negotiation, that doesn't sound like a
proposal, but more like a threat: I'll be dropping by when I want to
turn alll your schedules upside down.

Nonchalantly proposing that you might or might not come to pick up
your things on the weekend is not a viable option at this point as you
took it off the table by not giving us sufficient notice.

In terms of the water bill for last year, by the time you emailed back
with the note below, the bill was already past due. We paid it and are
just following up with you to let you know that a percentage of the
bill accrued by you is needed.

Congratulations on your move. Hope it works for you. Bye. darkdaughta"


a response...

Biafra wrote:
Thu Apr 6, 2006 8:54 pm
"I responded in a hurry, because i thought that there
was a timeline..there is a timeline and my
understanding was that this move would need to happen
as soon as possible or that you and other azanians
would like it to happen that soon as well.Precisely
because i have delayed in responding and been
irresponsible for my things but also left you and
every one else to deal with my belongings as has been
pointed out. I pretty much thought that it was a
request for me to come and pick the stuff up now or it
might end up on the street but also to address the
fact that i would be taking/disposing of everything
that i left at the house.

And now you are trying to move stuff in the house so
that it is more livable/suitable for you and me and my
things were/are blocking this process.Thats where the
proposal for a moving van came from, i had not made
arrangements even at that time but could have and
still can as is neccessary.

If my things will be moved over to Taz's, whatever
day it is that it is happening, I can come with the
mover instead or deal with the moving of the things
straight to my place instead of Taz's. Or i can
arrange with Taz over timetable stuff and pick
them up.

I'm proposing that on the day my things are being
moved, they be moved to my place instead by the
movers and van because i'm imagining that it will
cost money energy time that is unneccessary and were/
are my responsibility in the first place.

I also know that the move is one of the many
things/issues that i said that i would address and
plan to do so.

I would still like to negotiate not threaten or
disrupt any ones schedule but respectfully negotiate
my move. I have a proposal ready that will be posted
on the blog today.

Biafra"


darkdaughta wrote:
Fri Apr 7, 2006 3:42 pm

"Biafra, responding in a hurry would have meant you responding to
requests to develop a planned proposal for your own packing and move
months ago. The timeline, the energy and the effort was supposed to be
yours not ours. What you've worked out, even with us attempting to
extend in various ways, has been for your stuff to be packed up by us,
not by you, which, was, it seems, your original intent.

It would be irresponsible on your part, if it did not serve the
purpose of getting your affairs managed without you having to do the work.

It was a request for you to do what we have been asking and
develop a plan that would allow us to move on and for you to move your
own things. Any veiled threat about putting your stuff on the street
is obviously ludicrous as we've already had your things all this time
and haven't put them out on the street.

The request comes out of the knowledge that even after our last
meeting, you were fine with letting things lax and with not taking
control of your own affairs on this end by continuing to lay low, not
communicate and not offer any plan of action.

All belated and infused with the knowledge that you wouldn't
make a move without us begging. All infused with the fact that you 've
only made the smallest, convenient move - offering a moving truck -
after we've packed your things for you and developed a timeline on our
own.

We'll email you once the stuff has been moved to Taz's and
you can make the necessary arrangements with her at your leisure. The
purpose is so that we coordinate as little of your move, provide as
little of the impetus for your actions as possible, thereby removing
ourselves from the picture and allowing(forcing) you to act of your
own volition without there being reactions, ramifications for us. This
is as neutral a space as we've been able to identify where whatever
you choose to do or not do will remain at the necessary distance from
us as we attempt to move onward.

To bad your proposal came after we waited for months and after
the council when we waited some more. Yes, it will cost money and energy to
move your things to Taz's, but the payback for us will be in peace
and in taking charge of something that we mistakenly left for you to
define and organize...the packing and movement of your own things.

It's taken a while for us to get started, but extricating your things
from the rest of the house is coming along bit by bit. What with
summer coming, the process is a hopeful one that promises so much new
growth. There's no need to disturb the energy we're attempting to
generate by offering an entry point for you that allows you to
continue to avoid putting in the necessary energy for your own move.

Yes, Biafra, I'm sure you do plan to address them. But I fear
that you may just need to address them with yourself or with your
counsellor as the very idea that you could have made the choices
you've made and have nothing by way of negotiation, insight, solid
commitment to...anything to offer, save "i said that i would address
(them) and plan (at some convenient point in the future) to do so" is
completely ludicrous, if not downright arrogant. Who do you think is
waiting while you pull all the strings and make decisions that only
benefit you, when you feel like it?

Your proposal comes way too long after the fact for it to be
anything but a stop gap measure offered by someone who really didn't
give enough of a care to function of her own volition with the peace
of mind and well being of others in mind.

You sound as if you're doing management, trying to seem as if you're
acting in good faith, although, it's clear that you haven't been
willing to act in good faith and that you haven't actually even in
these few lines you offered, come with anything solid. Just more "wait
for me until I get around to doing something".

Biafra, this is why we're moving your things out and don't want to have
the move utilized as a venue for you to engage with us. You're not
bringing anything but more energy drain. You haven't offered anything
but more energy drain. So, instead of waiting for you to take charge
of your own move, we made some decisions that will still allow you to
access your things without making any big drama in our lives.

From then on in, however you choose to engage will not be hinged on
your personal effects, but merely on your willingness to...to...You
know what, I'm not sure what engaging with you, given all the various
invitations that have been offered, will actually look like.

Maybe that'll be another proposal you can draw up at some point in the
future.

bye, darkdaughta"

the rest of the communications related to moving are already here...

proposal for belongings at woodbine

I have left this for others to deal with and then point out that they were dealing with it, for me to feel entitled to feel enraged/resentful or claim any of these feelings without addressing what I did that necessitated boundaries to be set around me, in relation to me or my plain and obvious choice to exit, without consideration for anyone else but myself.

Darkdaughta, phoenix fish, seminal son,bongafish this still does not address you request that I truthfully, respectfully painstakingly break down everything that I did in azania and then use that to contextualize what i say and do after that.

This is part of a response to what I did in azania. One of them was leave my home with my belongings still in their place, leave my home with bills unpaid, rent unpaid and unacknowledged and to refuse to communicate around taking care of these responsibilities. I also left without written notice and refused to participate in a negotiation process. And since then I have left it up to other azanians to worry and take care of my responsibilities including my belongings that I left at the house where I used to live.

Since then azanians have requested, not once but twice now that I take responsibility for my belongings for my things,

Here is my proposal.
I also know that because of the impact that dealing with my unclaimed belongings taking up space without the consent of members of the woodbine house, that my belongings may simply be moved to taz’s house. In that case, I’d like to propose that I arrange for the movers to show up and pay them for their services and then move the things to my place instead of Kingston house. It is already enough that my belongings may have been sorted and packed by the people that I forced to deal with my responsibility. I can make all of the arrangements to ensure that the transportation, loading part is taken care of but I do not know if this proposal applies or is relevant.but i would like to avoid two moves, one to kingston house and then one to my place eventually.

I moved out in January and my most of my belongings have remained unclaimed and unaddressed by me since I left the house. I left my mail and I did not alert people that I no longer lived there forcing azanians to inform my friends, family that I had left. I left my mattress and its frame, dresser, futon and frame, some kitchen appliances in use in the kitchen, books on the bookshelf, pictures framed on the walls, makeup and the like in the bathroom, my sheets in malm, a filing cabinet full of my papers and documents, cd’s and videos in the living room, random things like candle labras, plates, cups etc. I did not pack or offer to address the packing of these things, I did not initiate the packing, pick up and arrangements of these things.

I basically forced a situation where other azanians wanting to move on and continue with their lives and a process that feels good and encourages growth in an organized house have been forced to pack, initiate a process when I can pick up and arrange for my belongings.

I propose to come with a van and movers to do the loading and moving of my belongings except for the following. I’m proposing that the move happen in one day, in a couple of hours, with everything packed, sorted negotiated before hand.
I would like to leave most things that is if it agreed, that are currently in use at the house, unless azanians would like for me to keep them or have no use for them then I will keep them and move them along with the rest of my things they include

Furnishings: the futon frame and mattress, the dining table that seminal son and darkdaughta bought for me, the lamps that were in dawn, the storage cabinet in the kitchen that I picked up with seminal son, the orange mat, the orange stool, the metal storage shelf in the shower bathroom, the garbage can, the plastic baskets, the ikea hanging unit, the wicker jewellery holders that darkdaughta gave to me.

Appliances: the can opener, I have one already
Utensils: I am indifferent especially as they became collective and I do not remember what came with. The same applies to wine/drinking glasses and mugs and plates.

Sheets: The chocolate sheet set that was bought collectively, the orange bed cover,
Books: I leave with the books that were on my shelf before I moved into woodbine house, everything else was bought collectively for azania.

Clothing: there are some special items that I am fine with leaving/returning to azania. the leather jacket that darkdaughta got phoenix to buy for me, all the purses, the blue corset, the pink lingerie, the big black rubber/leather jacket, the black studded belt darkdaughta picked for me.

I’d like to keep all my shoes including the ones that darkdaughta bought for me, I’d like to take the leather vest. I’d like to take all my pictures and photo album.

I’m writing this knowing that because I chose to cease all everyday non hostile communication with the rest of azania, I’ve chosen to detach myself from the everyday context and lived schedule reality of the community that you’ve all continued to build with each other. So I have chosen not to know/concern myself with what you do in the morning, afternoon or night, when anything is happening and how it will be happening when I used and could have chosen to stay in this sharing process.

There is also the fact that I have not published blog entries requested of me to address my physical absence in azania, the harm that this continues to cause, whom it is impacting the most and the fact that this makes me a very unsafe person to be around. So I imagine that my proposal to come to sort, pack anything would have a negative impact without me addressing this reality and the state of my personal relationships with azanians. That is I have destroyed most of what there was of my relationships with azanians so much so that I expect that the though of spending time with me or in proximity to me will be/ could be emotionally draining and damaging. And it is completely up to me to do anything to address the situation that I’ve created.

To begin to address this, this is what my schedule is looking like for the next two weeks so that it is clear where, a move, a packing, a sorting might take place.

I have currently completed a temp. position that I had and so now the only commitment that I have is school and exams in the next week.


My tentative schedule for the next couple of weeks:

Friday7 – Sunday 9: no prior commitments, flexible
Monday 10: Exam
Tuesday 11- Thursday 13: no commitments, flexible
Friday 14- Monday 17: Brampton
Tuesday 18: all assignments due.
Wednesday 19 – 30: (still open, no prior commitments/obligations)

ITS A WHITE DAYno words left, just action now

IN MOVING THRU the house now this morning, I actually wonder how long b4 I blow things to kingdom come. Sure there is the everyday, basic foundational stuff that needs to happen, and then there is all of the stuff that I have sad on - to move my relationship with Darkdaughta out of functional and into unwavering ally.
My readings/ writings/ relationship building that would support the supposed moves I'm trying to make for myself. After 5 years of her struggling with me, to challenge myself, I'm not sure how much more there is for me to say to her - and only know, that all that counts now are my actions now.

Spring Equinox Council: what I propose for tonight

Here's what I envision:

We're in a talking circle, where we can say what we need to say to each other before clearly stating what we want to do, what it will mean, and exactly how we see it coming out. I also see it as an agreement for all of us to speak and listen clearly and ethically, and then to leave with a binding agreement among all of us to move with what we've committed to.

I envision Stinkapee, the centre of Azania, and the main recipient of the damage that we've done, to speak first about her feelings, thoughts, and visions.

We sit in a circle, and using a crystal, mirror, created talking stick of some sort, to hold us accountable to speaking to and to listening.

More coming...

We'll go around the circle, and each person speaks their intention fully and clearly, and then we each respond while holding the symbol, until we agree to what is proposed.

We focus on intention and forward movement. The blogs are still there for processing ideas, and having conversation.

We speak truthfully, honestly, powerfully, emotionally, toward closure and initiation.

We eat, drink, embrace in various ways, before closing and grounding the past.

We say goodbye.

Biafra...

Sooo Stumperella...
Where's your counsellor? You haven't mentioned her recently. From the large distance between your first post here, the one you wrote on your own blogsite and the response post you gave to seminalson, you are still much in need of some counsel from someone you can build more trust with than you ever were able to with us.

And why are positioning your skulking away to make new friends as something liberational, something radically different than what you did when you were inside azania. Remember, this is where many shared friendship and bio family alliances with you freely, shared access to resources they gleaned from outside contacts with you without question. What you've done is just the logical conclusion of the feed you did while you were here. What was ours was yours and what was yours was yours. That was the way of your world.

And why are you seemingly attempting to manage us after these long months of distance?

Why would you not take advantage of this time not as an opening, but as a more consensual way to say goodbye?

I mean, given your skill at replaying your trauma life scripts even with those of us hwo have been unwilling to follow the directions you gave nonverbally, why does it feel as if this is the final act in your rejection play where you wreak absolute havoc, run away and then return, we do the intelligent thing and say: No...Then you get to point and say how we turned you out in the cold left you when you actually came back in earnest.

Biafra, no one wants to re-engage with the drama/torment creation machine you walk everywhere with. You've given absolutely nothing that says this isn't what you're bringing. As I pointed out up above, no counsellor to light your way, no friends who recognized what you were doing of their own accord, no one commited to your health and well being.

You're coming fully loaded with unexpressed shit having spent a few months fucking off as far as I can see. Waiting till the absolute last minute to respond seems like a tactic. You haven't re-built any lines of communication, you haven't addressed any of the really messed up things you wrote about the hatred you have for bongafish or seminalson or the cruel indifference you cultivated for phoenix along with whom you built a monogamous couple bubble which you abandoned when you left, running away like a teenager.

There is a wide gap between the complete lack of accountability, lack of interest you've shown toward dealing with azania, the issues you created with your presence and with you exit, toward the mess you contributed to and even about taking apart and better understanding your own pain and suffering at the hands of your abusers and your family and these decontextualized notes you wrote and posted yesterday.

I might be missing it but there seems to be very little sign of an interest in cultivating the willingness to not substitute you abusers and family for unsuspecting friends and lovers when the rage you carry comes over you. There doesn't seem to be any safety built into what you're saying when you reference your dangerously furious and completely unethical three year old.

In actuality, it seems as if you're bringing her for us to manage or not manage as best as we can, which was what you did purposefully when we were all sharing space.

All this to say...
I have moments of ego where I fantasize about doing the unexpected and managing to ride this out and have azania emerge with all of us still onboard. What a coup that would be. How people's mouths would fall open and their eyes pop out. :)

And I have moments of tenderness...fleeing...where I dream up a happy place for all of us complete with healthy interactions and truth.

But this isn't reality.

In real time, I know that you, bongafish, seminalson, phoenix and taz are still at really different places and that given the embraced unwillingness to do your (biafra's) work and the drive to allow the effects of that personal work to trickle into the rest of your life, given the resentment and rage you're given to harbouring and redistributing through your relationships, you're not safe to be around.

I mean, none of us 100% safe, but you're REALLY not safe, flying without instruments, didn't want to install, don't care whose flying onboard with you, diving at cliffs and bodies of water while laughing hysterically at the sound of your passengers' screams, telling them that you know all about the wall you're about to fly them into cuz someone flew you into it repeatedly and now it's your passengers turn so you really don't give a fuck about them because you're finally in charge and you've got a parachute and you fucking hate them anyways...

So, yes, do come this evening.

But I am not walking with anything you can use to find direction.

I told bongafish and seminalson and phoenix that my sidewalk in terms of knowing where I wanted to head with all of you ended a really long time ago. I have no vision of how this is supposed to work, how it could work ended a few months ago.

All I know for sure is I've got a four year old gift I need to build a life for, a primary partner I'm trying to build releationshiup with, a green bedroom, a blog and a child on the way.

How the rest of you want to build adjacent to that with me and with each other will unfold as you exert more leadership in your own lives, personal work and take responsibility for the community you've committed to building...or not.

In process...Our overdraft protection is done, now its time to pay the piper

This is what I think happened in Azania during the fall and winter, until present. In the beginning, Taz, Biafra, Phoenix, and I high off of the energy, darkdaughta and seminalson's energy, said we would build. Except that instead of doing this, we treated Azania as a line of credit on a credit card.

We used and abused the resources that we had access to, both in good faith, and without ethics -- we spent a lot of days in the spring and summer sun, we went out, and we partied, we cuddled, we fucked, we talked, we ate, we drank, we smoked. It was honeymoon time, and the credit was high. Most of us were smiling.

darkdaughta and seminalson had a common refrain which was that we could use this time to build with each other, that precious time, when there was some money, time, warmth, festivals, the energy of new homes and houses. We could have used the time to build a foundation, a structure, a way of being.

That would have been a deposit, an investment of vision, for any rainy day that could come ahead. We didn't do this: we never continued conversation about our commitments, principles, rules, relationships, expectations. Nope. We didn't deposit anything into a bank that we could use when and if ever things erupted.

We expected that should that ever happen, that darkdaughta and seminalson would save the day. It would make sense that if we were depending on them, albeit without their consent, that we would make sure that they had enough resources to survive and thrive, no? NO. We didn't.

We made sure that at the end of the day, when we had received the most, cashed in every little thing that we'd offered, all bonuses, and incentives, and coupons, and freebies and rebates possible... we continued to take from them.

And this went on for some time. For most of the summer, into the fall. But that was when we got the infamous bill, where all our credit card purchases are itemized and dated, and the denial that masked everything we'd spent, dissipated, and there was only us, our takings, and a due date.

That was the time when we four could have paid the piper. We all tried to make T.J. the piper:

I insisted on nudging in closer and closer and closer into darkdaughta's life, seeking approval for everything, seeking creative energy for everything, returning inspiration for nothing, and offering up recyclables when I'd been given custom-made items. Projected hatred, submission, warped retribution/revenge, anger, refused a relationship that would have offered much much support.

Biafra, you turned your chosen family into your family of origin in your own warped mind. You constructed incestuous relationships, a violent family you had to hide from, a desire to run away from home, and take whatever you could, and feel righteous in doing so. Biafra said that the only way she wouldn't leave Kingston was if she'd gotten a personal invitation from darkdaughta.

Taz, you are still quietly slashing with your butter knife, and has kept quiet the longest. She sat like an Azanian shadow for over a year.. quiet, hidden, calculating, saving, hoarding thoughts, feelings, notes.. and still moving further and further away. What you have accomplished almost boggles my mind, but for its familiarity.

Phoenix, you allied yourself with whoever at the time would allow you the most of what you wanted - time away from accountability, space to hoard, coast, and chill, to sleep, to play, to get and give exclusive attention. You hoarded money, refused to work, live with and build with Taz, as housemate.

Then, I moved back from being at Kingston.

Taz, you've managed to calculate your life so that you can get attention, support, help. There are many examples of us attempting to prop you up, and offer you support when you have manufactured a crisis: your pregnancy and then miscarriage, housing, your breakup with J, all sorts of things. And now this?

You wrote about your resentment and rage at sharing your money, energy, and then you removed the source of the very thing that you committed to share. That is the kind of behaviour that you, Biafra, Phoenix, and I turned into a norm over the past five years.

The dance that you two (Biafra and Taz) are doing is also a useful distraction from your own work, and the work for the rest of us; again, a classic Azanian tactic.

You cannot coast in these last few weeks, Taz.

Biafra,
Your posts have a lot of words, but you're not talking about what you've done, and what you are planning to do. I resent that you circled back in your last post to the list by giving yourself full reign to do what you will, with everyone else having to deal with it. I feel like you're attempting to set us up to wait to see what you're going to come with, and I understand this as your way of attempting to block and stall a powerful moment of change, growth and transition.

I have been thinking about how you left, silently, in hiding; and then how you re:emerged online, removed, boastful, mocking, and how you're attempting to come to Council: angry, hostile, with a take-it-or-leave-it, stance.. and with all these tailspins, you still refuse to speak about what you've done, and what you are attempting to do about it.

And about Stinkapee, she is the centre of Azania, always has been, no matter how any of us have attempted to decentralize her, and compete with her as adults with unprocessed stuff. I resent you trying to do that even still, when she still smiles for you, and has room in her 4-year old heart to hold you close energetically when you've so clearly taken significant chunks out of her childhood, and then left.

'bout face he says..

A prompt response is part of what exiting and maintaining noncommunication is about isn’t it. That when I send a pager, there is a response full of emotion, more engagement even when I have not fully responded to what I’ve already received. I wrote tantrum initially but I really resent it.

I have regrets about the way I acted, but I doubt I would have chosen to act any diffrent given the circumstances and I resent my actions no matter how immature/childish they might seemed to be called tantrums as they are based on emotions that were/are real for me and they meant something to me obviously harming others around me but given the fact that I left and hurt and refused to speak and to hide..it makes sense to call it a tantrum.Nonetheless..this word is used frequently in azania and perhaps this is a continued attack on azania but i know i never said it and just resented it. Not enought to inspire adult action though...true

I feel angry. Insecure, uncomfortable already but this is only the beginning. And just for the record. Thank you. It might sound arrogant/condescending but you have given emotion where I have given non responses.
I have my own place, my own room, (that were acquired in hiding mind you) that I will slowly but sure make into a home. So phoenix can move into my former room not that she needs my permission. For my own different reasons: I have no intention of living in the collective house, not at this time and as you mentioned not with where I am in my process.

I believe though that it was a strategic move in terms of alliance which I maintain is about time, call it arrogant self centred but still had something to do with sending me a message or waiting for me to make a move. I am aware of this, clear of this and still fully thought it through before I said anything/responded. I am also aware of my options…it will also be really stupid of me to act in knee jerk response to phoenix.or anything anyone else in azania. I believe this was a big problem for me for instance in this email whether you are in alliance with darkdaughta or not is between you and darkdaughta and then azania and if I was healthy would make my choices independently so that I may stay committed, grounded in those choices. NOT choices/commitments that i made, felt that i should make/ felt that i should say or not say leaving me very manipulatable and vulnerable. And everyone in azania is familiar with this particular game.

I did think about it and will respond accordingly: it does make me feel insecure, shaky, mostly betrayed and then angry but that is coming from a place where a move to the solid building of azania causes pain instead of joy and phoenix nor that room are my property. I do believe that my present distance is good in some way, as in worse of bad situation, at least I’m far way so that you don’t really feel the effects of whatever is brewing in me, nor is much of a concern to you or anyone else and you can move on with your lives. Which brings me to the disadvantage I understand of me saying that I want to re-engage or build or do anything with azanians. So the concern that at such close quarters all the hardwork in spite of my absence might be blown to smitherins is to be expected on my part.

I do remember very clearly stinkapee’s birthday and it is even with all of that I say I would like to stay in azania.What i remember most is my coldness and silence.

How exactly I am to be trusted. I’m not sure. I an not to be trusted.
I remember exactly how I left. I remember exactly how I felt when I left and I know that it did hurt. I am more than prepared albeit because you said I abandoned my process, communication to be by myself/do my own thing as you say. So I am not saying this out of that. In fact azania can choose to put me on hold till it feels it is at a more solid place given that the new alliance between yourself, phoenix and bonga is fragile.

If the warning if for me to come with compassionate and clear energy, that is not contemptous then so be it. This is not my intention. I do remember STINKAPEE and I assure you things will be different, one more than one level, in more ways than one as I have little qualms now not only to say how I feel, but to act based on this.
On STINKAPEE’s birthday I withheld words, refused to speak to how I felt, refused to address the history or the context for what happened and I sit with that still. I believe I am well aware of that. I already have exited, I do not even currently communicate with anyone in azania this is true. So that I could as you very well know leave the way I did.
Azania will live, with or without me, that is a good thing. I was hoping for just that. I was not hoping for a call back, for an invitation to do ANYTHING if I left the way that I did. That’s it I’m outside of azania right now. I am not expecting a full embrace..like I said.I’m prepared to live my life outside of azania. I don’t want to. I can also accept/ will stay outside of azania if it is requested that I do for as long as is necessary.

My relationship with you seminalson is more than about hate. I have loved you, cared for you, find space in my heart for you, been allied with you, resented you for doing better than, for being more committed to me, been in deadly competition with you and attempted to sabotage your relationship with your partner and attempted for what feels like only a moment to support that relationship and you supported mine. A ka ra aka di ichi iche. Every hand is made different. I set myself up to be in competition with you, to best your best efforts, to block your best efforts, to hoard attention, energy, time, that I could have shared with you from you. But in this last little bit, I have refused your hand when you reached out again. From where you were sitting still…as father and partner to people whom I had abandoned.
I myself am making moves as well..I cannot claim to clearer more than ever but I am clear/clearer on certain things. If I see everyone on the equinox and “that is where” it ends I will live and so will everyone else in azania.

As for stinkapee: I cannot imagine the harm that she has suffered in my absence without any explanation and for this I am also grateful for the equinox then maybe she can see for herself/hear it from me that I was selfish and hurt her, that I wasn’t really sorry and that I didn’t care all because the same had happened to me and that I was planning on teaching her the same lesson.
To address the hoping taz’s stuff will overshadow my behavior. I feel indignant NO my tantrum was supposed to overshadow all else. But yes..i would have been quite, said nothing, uncommunicative and lay low.Perhaps I will start competing with taz to see who can be the most toxic…that will not be good.
Right now I’m wishing I could withdraw the about face but I won’t. I am no longer living in azanian context. If fit will be too much of a hassle right now to deal with me re-engaging with azania. I shall wait, and the re-engagement may never. I did chose to leave. I can keep walking. The spring equinox will mark my exit from exit and I will know that I made a choice.

The work: I have been working on creating a life, that I enjoy, other relationships outside of azania. That does not revolve around azania. That does not revolve around what everyone else is doing in azania: yes away from everyone else and in hiding.And making this visible, and not in opposition has been in my head, and neccessary anyways so i will be doing this either way.

No you really shouldn’t have to ask/expect more I would apologize if it didn’t sound even to me that I was being cruel but. The expectations have been stated and I was grateful when I looked again because I have a starting point.
To re-enage with STINKAPEE is something that I would love to do. This time she will have full access to me and my dangerous three year old. I plan to do this by putting my thoughts about our relationship I just have been hiding from my feelings/ with how I think she feels.

Something i've never bothered to say/address was that azania was buildt for stinkapee. I have always disagreed but i was not there when the idea was first born but since you've been saying that i've never agreed. To be clear it makes sense and i do agree that given the context of "emotional, phycological resources" invested by darkdaughta and yourself into azania and into individuals including me, in azania with the expectation that a fair exchange would result in healthy centralized care for stinkapee and the other children that it meakes sense that they be centralized, to counter power structures and hierachy where adults including myself will centralize themselves to monopolize attention and care..that it makes sense and i agree. But i did not initially join azania for that reason, i did not even know her then nor will my future involvement if any be for that reason. if that shows where my commitments lie then so be it.

Azania shall receive me as she wishes/ as I am as I came; with what I come with.Azania will and has always considered what is best and makes the most sense for her at any given moment. Requests have been made, suggestions have been put out. I will have choices, decisions to make/speak to.

BIAFRA, angry at phoenix's move into 'your' room?

I feel like my title is what this sudden about-face is all about.

Biafra, darkdaughta made a clear request (it is amazing that you've been thought of considering what you've done) in the interest of Azania (stinkapee most importantly) for people to actually state what their intentions are b4 the equinox.

You left us Biafra. You left months ago. You refused to address us. You refused to be accountable to anyone. You hurt people. You caused unnecessary drama, by leaving and refusing to connect.

Do you remember how you left. Do you remember how you decided to abondon your process, community, and obviously: STINKAPEE.

I am doing emotional work on a daily basis, meeting and making new ties with men across different generations, and cultural backgrounds.
I am moving well in my counselling and am even planning a re-parenting field trip to Belgravia.
I am exploring a closer, more tender relationship with Phoenix, and am struggling but still building with Bonga.
Heck, the three of us are trying to build, and we will goddam it... and read this carefully... YOU WILL NOT COME and sit in the middle of this.
YOU WILL NOT have been away for months and dominate the space with missed up energy. NO YOU WILL NOT. Remember Stinkapee's birthday Biafra?

You we're so bad behavied, Stinkapee (on HER birthday) was actually trying to console you and your misplaced resent.

Darkdaughta is making moves. She is clearer now - more than ever.
Azania is not some huge white whole to jump in and out of. Azania is alive.

You treated and continue to treat everyone with contempt.

The person who suffered the most during your extended tantrum was Stinkapee. The fact that you have not even addressed that, and you wanting to move back into Azania (an emotional collective built for her) shows me where your commitments lie.

I understand that you thought Azania would start to fall to bits, starting in a chain reaction with you leaving.
I understand that you thought you could take some time on your own - do your own thing; act as though you didn't make any commitments to this collective.
I understand that in all of time that has past, you have choosen to stay quite, to stay low... hoping Taz's messed up stuff would overshadow your behaviour.

Biafra, i stand in full alliance with darkdaughta. I am not entertaining the idea of you moving back into Azania house having done little to NO work and having cause such great harm (with no apologies) to this collective.

I am looking forward to seeing you at thr equinox. But that is where it ends.

I expect/ request more: (and in fact I should not even have to)
How do plan on addressing your exit from Azania, your months in hiding, and now this 'about face.'
How do you plan on re-crafting a relationship with Stinkapee, if that is even the case.
How are you to be trusted.

You've refused to write to me or consistently with anyone
Indeed, you've stated your hatred for Bongafish and myself.

How do you think Azania should welcome you at the equinox Briafra?

spring Equinox counsel

The spring equinox counsel is coming and I am grateful and relieved. One time/chance in real time...till the very last minute and beyond then I will be unsure.
But I’ve been thinking/talking about it and this is what I know.
I do not want to leave azania. NO, even though I have already left
I do not want to end forever my relationships with azania NO.
I want to remain a part of darkdaughta, seminalson, bongafish, phoenix fish, stinkapee, and the many more children.
I do remember being held in faith, in love, in dreams, in pain.
I am scared, I am doubtful, I am resentful, I am so unsure.
I will come to the ritual, respectful of the equinox, calling in new life, my bloodthirsty three year old child with me and my adult self with me, my family, my ancestors with me.
I will bring my heart, my feelings and my head.
I will bring the green crystal perigot to bear witness.
I will come making sure that whatever I do, say, speak will be with all of my heart, head.
I will come with a ritual prepared, food perhaps…
I will come willing to negotiate, mediate, and yes build.
Exactly how is what I am unsure of..but I am thinking about it and will continue to till I arrive.
I’m not even sure what to expect as I come but I am aware of my rage, anger, resent and need to draw blood; this I feel clearly and strongly enough to know where it is coming from. I come with pain in my heart, hope in my heart, fear in my heart. I will come and be grateful to see everyone again.
I come expecting to continue to be asked to be accountable/responsible to everyone in azania.
I come understanding that I will be asked to care for myself, emotionally, spiritually, physically and in whole.
I come with the understanding that I will care for others in azania.
I come knowing that I will be expected to speak, prepared to engage, on my own behalf, for my action in the past and from here on in.
I will come clear, pacing myself, and ready.

I am thankful.

Having said this i realize that i will have to engage on this blog, my blog on issue that i have chosen not to do and the conversation might be long or not. However i am planning to return home on monday night so i can report ontime to work ontime tuesday. But also have time to digest,recommit, chew, whatever comes out/happens at counsel

Not waxing poetic...exactly...

So, after all the insightful wordings and anger, I understand that closure is approaching. I am dealing, having feelings, grieving and letting go. This is not me resisting or requesting a course change. Given where everyone is at with their individual personal work or lack thereof, I am commited to following through with the split.

I'm upset and disappointed and frustrated and, and, and...prepared to move into the future.

There's more not just for you to deal with and figure out but also for me. There will be more even after you're gone and I'm left to reckon with myself, my relationship with seminalson, my relationships to stinkapee and Olie and with whoever stays.

Should I be trying to banish romanticism and visions of utopia from my head or trying to more fully embrace them? I dunno. Will I ever be able to share intimate space with Black wimmin without inflicting or incurring harm or is that just a flight of fancy? I'm too scared to say. Will I be able to continue down my path? Yes. Will I continue to build and dream? Yes. Will I be holding out any tea candles for any of you? That's bongafish's crazy/mad chosen work. Will the pain I'm feeling ever ease? If I allow it space to fully exist, most definitely...

This song is absolute cheese, but somehow little miss teenie bopper pop star pretty much says whatever needs to be said in terms of that messy, stunted, guilting, child-like, inexplicable, unevolved, clingy stuff that exists inside me when I think of all of you no matter how hard I try to pretend that I've got it all worked out....

"My Happy Ending

So much for my happy ending
oh oh, oh oh
Oh Oh, Ohhh
Let's talk this over
It's not like we're dead
Was it something I did?
Was it something you said?

Don't leave me hangin'
In a city so dead
Held up so high
On such a breakable thread

You were all the things I thought I knew
And I thought we could be

chorus
You were everything, everything that I wanted
We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it
All the memories, so close to me, just fade away
All this time you were pretending
So much for my happy ending

Oh Oh, Oh Oh
Oh Oh,

You've got your dumb friends
I know what they say
They tell you Im difficult
but so are they
But they don't know me
Do they even know you?
All the things you hide from me
All the shit that you do, (All the shit that you do)

You were all the things I thought I knew
And I thought we could be

chorus
You were everything, everything that I wanted
We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it
All of the memories, so close to me, just fade away
All this time you were pretending
So much for my happy ending

It's nice to know that you were there
Thanks for acting like you cared
And making me feel like I was the only one
It's nice to know we had it all
Thanks for watching as I fall
And letting me know we were done

(You were) everything, everything that I wanted
We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it
All of the memories, so close to me, just fade away
All this time you were pretending
So much for my happy ending

You were everything, everything that I wanted
We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it
All of the memories, so close to me, just fade away
All this time you were pretending
So much for my happy ending."

Everything that I've wanted to say to all of you I've already said repeatedly, in spades, in anger, in pleading, in fear, in consciousness, in hope. I tried to infuse you with consciousness and knowledge that wasn't your own and this is where it's gotten us. I was arrogant and proud and this is our fall. Now, there's just dealing and moving. I'll see you all tomorrow and we'll finish it and go our separate ways. We all tried in the ways we could using whatever tools we had at our disposal. There's no more I can do save to concede.

Post for biafra...

This is an emailed transmission I sent to the azania listserv...

"http://gbitch.blogspot.com/2006/03/pregnancy-revealed-or-if-its-so.html#comments

I wrote this woman saying that it had implications not just for stinkapee, but also for all of you so desperately still trying to access matriarchal resources through me, so long after the umbilical cords attaching you to your mothers were cut. Someone please send this to taz.

Oh, and still no word from biafra and taz on the azania blog about the Spring Equinox council and ritual goodbye. I guess they're both more interested in maintaining connection nonconsensually in order to not completely cut off their possibilities for taking more energy and resources. Hmmm...

darkdaughta"

Update: Taz eventually responded on this blogsite.

This is the response biafra chose to send to the listserv rather than log her words here...

"I saw the call for spring equinox, and i will be there at the very least. I should have said so as soon as i read it. I'm working on my response as you asked. and as i just so phoenix did as well so no i will be there and my post, wil eventually be on the blog

biafra"

This is what I've posted here on this blog...a lightly added to version of what I emailed to biafra in response...

"No, the least you could have done was interact on the azania blog and be truthful. This you have chosen not to do.

The least you could have done was to fully come clean with the people you know about the circumstances that led to you leaving azania. You're hunting them and preparing to pounce at your leisure, knowing that they haven't the foggiest idea what you're actually capable of and willing to do.

You haven't let them know that your enraged child rules and that she has a taste for blood and that since she can't have the blood of her abusers and tormenters, she's more than willing to destroy her own world and the people who occupy it which includes any people who understand themselves as friends. You haven't let them know they're in danger. You haven't let them know that you pleasure in using your disability and your identification as trauma survivor to manipulate those who come near and that this is the primary reason why you left azania...we realized and were in the habit of calling you on how you moved and engaged.

No, biafra...
The least you could have done was agree not to just show up, empty carcass, zombie woman, surface unemotional and unengaging, while internally tantruming child style, but to actually come prepared to be present albeit for the last time.

The least you could have done was prepare to arrive having offered a plan of action about how you propose to disengage from azania.

The least you could have done was come prepared to do more than simply suck energy and compete with stinkapee for ultimate child position, diverting attention away from her care to yourself.

The least you could have done was to have agreed to come not to sabotage or do harm. You could have agreed to come prepared to engage with phoenix in ways that would not harm or invite her into self-destructive raging, thereby inviting her to fuck our shit up in a tantruming moment. You could have come prepared to be loving.

The least you could have done was to have agreed to come fully, not half-assedly like you're doing us a favour. There is no need for your scraps of scraps of scraps.

There is a need for you to bring something and someone trying to be whole.

This is the absolute least you can do. Hoping to see much of you on Monday.

Taz and Biafra, come around 7pm."

Taz has lived rent free inside azania for HOW long?

Taz,
Does it sound that bad to say that you lived with us rent free from November 2005, alternating with being out of town for a few weeks here and there, right up until September 2005 when you were finally forced (by us) to start working a job rather than simply living off social assistance which didn't cover most of your living expenses let alone your rent while you slept, worked in the collective only under extreme duress and lied about looking actively for work?

Taz, it was eleven months that you lived with most of your expenses covered while refusing to help build the collective that was nurturing and supporting you. And even after that period had ended, you insisted on sabotaging your jobs so as to maintain an absolute minimum of income meaning that you would only be able to just meet your own expenses and not have to pay back into the funds that had sustained you for so long.

This is more context added to your context about why/how you managed to loose yet another job while being asked to maturely return the financial resources you've accessed. This of course, doesn't touch on the extreme emotional and psychological resources you nonconsensually accessed through the course of your relationships with each of us. You've situated yourself, as has also biafra, in such a way so as to make energetic reciprocation impossible. Continuing to hoard, you're exiting having gained more than you walked in with, while being unwilling and rendering yourself purposefully unable to contribute in any way that would raise the standard of life and increase the amount of support those remaining in azania have access to. You've left an energetic hole while filling yours.

In any case, thank you for what you've written below. I'm still hoping for more clarity in the form of more words.

For instance, I'd like you to speak more clearly about the circumstances surrounding the end of your lovership.

You've been mentioning your ex quite a fair bit and inviting the rest of us to think of him and to refer to him using the pet name you had for him. This has been upsetting and infuriating in its lack of context...
A word about "Zanamito"...
When you requested support with your lovership, we took in your lover fed him, paid rent to cover his share and worked with him to help him become clearer about who he was.

We supported him to learn how to speak more clearly and to voice his ideas, confusions, needs and plans.

This work you sabotaged, too, although you had expressed how difficult the going was with him not being particularly clear or conscious enough to change dynamics between the two of you.

When you marked the change you had moments of insecurity over the fact that we, not you, had managed to shift the dynamic in your relationship, refusing to acknowledge that we had done this as a result of seeing how worked to the bone you had become while trying to effect change between the two of you to little or no avail. That we had done this as a response to you nonconsensually attempting to get each/all of us to "fix" him, "fix" your relationship with him on your behalf without any negotiation of what was required, boundaries, desired end results. We brought the work you had nonverbally attempted to manipulate us into doing to the surface, into the light and engaged with him forthrightly, consistently, truthfully, lovingly and fully.

We worked to take the pressure of dealing with the child man you had chosen as your lover off your back and your spirit assuming that this would free up you, your spirit and your creativity leaving you feeling more free and willing to build as a part of our collective as you had repeatedly said you wanted to.

However, it seems from what you've said and written that your need to be center, central in his world as goddess/creator possessing the power to somehow remake him in a more suitable image superceded any actual investment in the work he was doing with us.

This forced you into a crisis where you left yourself no choice but to create a situation that allowed space for an artificial dichotomy to take shape: "Zanamito" could continue his personal work and exploration of himself with us, thereby upsetting you or stop the work, pick back up where you were stumbling along while trying centralize yourself in his life thereby cleaving only to you. You positioned his being with you or his being alone as being evidence of independent thought and action, while continuing to work with us, blossoming and developing skills, you subtly defined as being weak, ineffectual and in the long run damaging to his possibilities for growth.

Sadly...
Still unsure and shaky about who he was and how he was developing, your lover was not able to take the strain of the either/or dynamic you offered him and returned to the home of his abusive parents rather than choose relationship with you over staying with us or vice versa.

Then, once he had ceased to share space with us, you re-engaged with him on the sly, offering a return to the old ways of engagement that had brought your relationship with him to the brink in the first place.

Taz...
Was it better to "have" him even if it meant sabotaging your own peace of mind and supporting him to not develop rather than allow for the possbility that he could develop healthy ties with us, more specifically with seminalson, that might have allowed him to grow in ways that would have freed up loving, insightful space in the relationship the two of you shared?

Was positioning yourself as less dark and less scary, ultimately as more permissive of his destructive and immature behaviours that had originally almost broken you, worth it?

Do you have a relationship with him presently, at all? Did your goddess, center of the universe self really "win"?

sigh...

Taz, as you write about this lover and use romantic names for him on this blog and your own, please remember that you sabotaged the very personal work that would have allowed him to stay with you, build and make a life with you in ways that were more sane and less child-like.

Taz, can you find a way to write on your blog without romanticizing or blurring any of what has happened for you/with you. Can you do this without diverting attention to astrology, sex or anything else that you've used in the past to divert attention (yours and others) away from the choices you've made?

more of my work history in azania

I lost the new job. I was fired on Thursday for having been late three times- their allowed amount.
I had gotten a warning the second time(last week)- this time I was a minute past their four minute, fifty- nine second grace period. I asked if there was anything I could do- they said no, and that they were taking into consideration that they allow six lates in a twelve month period and that we were still in training and I had been late three times in as many weeks.
It was dissappointing for me and I m sure the news is for other Azanians as well. It was a really good joband one that Phoenix had told me about and had preped my fro by telling me what to expect( she had gone to the interview but hadn't gotten it because of her body language they said.).

To give context ,previous to thisI lost a job as a receptionist, where I arrived late and did not do the work at a suitable pace and as a waitress, where I didn’t move fast enough and didn’t have enough knowledge for what they needed. This while income was needed by me and in Azania as a whole. These were jobs I lost after 8 months of living in the homes of Azanians or through their contacts, rent free, using their resources, benefiting from what they shared with me , but not ensuring that I had an income so I too could share resources or even at least pull my weight and pay own my way. I had no corporate wear – work clothes were bought for me and the outfits styled by darkdaughta who invested money and her working world experience with me. I was resistant and stingy with expressing appreciation of what I was receiving , but took it and have benifitted from it nevertheless
Bonga fish wrote countless cover letters and updated my resume a number of times. Phoenix would demonstrate how simple that process of getting work could be, by first doing it herself and showing me where to look and how to apply. I also demanded energy from her when I would let days elapsed between sending off resumes or wouldn’t call as many agencies as I could. and ashe would have to ask me over and over where my job search wa s at. in return i would get angry and obnoxious with her.
Other Azanian would then intervene, taking away precious time from other work and other people, completing the energy drain cycle that I had been forcing for a year. There have been instances where Azanians have emailed resume, references and cover letter for me to ensure that I did not continue to sabotage my own process of getting myself work

All this with me being an adult woman, refusing to occupy that space in the world. Insisting instead to force others to join in or spends energy refusing to join my parentifying them and infantalizing myself.
This also with me being light skinned and benefiting from prospective employers not questioning their shadism to assume my competence.
I have been best positioned , light, skinny, smiling, to get these jobs. I’m bilingual so they should be high paying.

Instead I chose to play out my trigger- panic- stall-drain cycle. – and not seek councelling for it. Demanding instead that Azanians- darker skinned Azanian- endlessly process the same stuff with me even as it hurt them and stalled everyone’s collective progress.

The context for the context I’m giving here has all this has been pointed out to me over time. Knowing how backwards it was, how damaging, did not change my behavior.

This is the context in which I have lost this job.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that getting another doesn’t have to be draining and dramatic.
I’m emailing the employment agencies and sending off resumes sunday night.
I left a message with my old work that I would be coming back so I’ll be going there Monday in the interim between another job. The woman who "terminated my employment" said my pay would be deposited as arranged.
My financial commitments are still the same.
i'm sorry about this one more thing thats potentially distracting for Azania.
i'm taking it upon myself to resolve it without drainig anyone else.

i am coming to the vernal equinox

I am coming to the Vernal Equinox.
My anger and resent has bred anger and resent. And it is mine. I will be bringing bitter greens when I come . It purifies the blood and the liver, associated with bitterness and anger.
I am always angry and its mine, but i can participate in cleansing some of it for the journey ahead.

I am coming to state that I am leaving building future community in the next incarnation of Azania.
I am leaving day to day, person to person interactions.
I am leaving the intimacy and familiarity,
I am leaving the assurance of future support.
I am not leaving because the expectations in Azania are unattainable.
I am leaving because I came with lies, I came with denial about who I was. My decision to be part of Azania was dishonest. And now that I am sitting with who I am , I will not recommit to building Azania as I have before.

I am choosing to live as I actually am based on what we have all seen.

I am coming to state that I am proceeding with repayment as a way to acknowledge all that I have received from Azania.

I will not be joining those who are staying to build Azania up close. One of the things I have received from Azania is an understanding

of my own cruelly and ability and willingness to hurt people I say I love including small children. My own, Captain Nemo, and already, Olamina.

of my willingness to recreate and inflict on others the neglect, hurts and slights I experienced in my life.

my willingness to not differenciate who is helping me from who is harming me.

my adherence to feeling like there are expectations that I wont ever live up to . And
externalizing this stuff I am manufacturing internally.

I will get counseling.
I will claim what is mine.


what are my plans ? What will I do?
how will I steal?
how will I lie?

I am going to contain myself and the damage that I do.
this is work i am commiting to for myself.
not because i am innately ethical, but because i have seen and expereinced myself capable of holding myself accountable when i am willing and this has given me a sense that there is a future for me as an adult.
because i don't want to be controlled by my destructive behaviours.- and feel out of control.
i do alot of harm and i'm passive agressive.
I want to draw up a confidentiality/security policy with other Azanians. I have begun this- inspired by the security test I did at my now ex- job.

In terms of resuming my work in community, or academia or wanting to be a councilor, well.
Pre Azania I came to all these, being "an artist", community"social justice" work, workshops on art and activism, from a place of superiority. From a" I am evolved "place.

My work was wrapped up in my self- created identity as a politically minded, critically thinking person, a warrior spirit who felt outrage that the world was in the state it is in.

Through my relationships in Azania and how I 've treated everyone and the work we were supposed to do, my concept of myself has drastically changed.

What was apparent to others was pointed out to me consistently and I denied it, got angry, lashed out, lied, gave reasonings and excuses for every single thing that was off about my behaviours. All to end up saying they were right.

I am experiencing humility, resent, and rage in relation to being seen from the outside better than I saw myself and also towards how that informs how I see those I would have" worked with " or "taught". (now I think that should be "those I would have tried to dominate".)

In the work I was setting up to do pre Azania- (work that I had come to Azania saying this is my work,this is my passion, this is my direction.) I was coming with "I know", "I understand" and because I have decided that you don't, I will teach you.
Now I have seen and felt and now understand that I don't get to substitute theoretical guesses and ideas for actual doing and feeling what it is to do.

Now I know what happens when I believe my own lies, my aggrandizing my self, my presenting my self as willing and able- when that is not based on anything more than "it would be a good idea to be willing and I like to think that I am able." now I know that someone might just take me up on it and hold me to it.
i dont want to do this again.

Now that, should i down the road persue theivery , claiming what is darkdaughtas for my own,thanks to this blog, I have already exposed myself.

in terms of my building in my own life
these are the things i know i m working on for sure.
job, discipline, sex.
those are my life plans.
things that i'm absolutely positively sure i want.

I am taking a lot with me. a whole new understanding of myself that is alot more aligned with the truth. I ask myself if not building Azania means my mother wins? For now, yes, in that i have choosen to behave in the ways she taught me to and the ways she would reward me for.

but also no, because my mother doesn't think herself all the things i am claiming right now. she woulnt call herself dishonest and manipulative, emotionally withdrawn and neglecting or abusive. she would not call herself patriarchal and self hating. i am not claiming my mother as ally. nor as family- to- return- to.

i am embracing me not as celebration but as neccesary to be able to move from here in any authentic future direction.

i also ask -the corporate world who I had found to be a worthy target for my rage pre azania,
have they won? That there is a structure to insert myself in when I find myself with no dream and no direction, and will reward me for sinking my life energy into their bottomless pit
yes. They' ve won.

And no, because I no longer see much distinction between who they are and who I've always been, though in denial: impersonal, unseeing, uncaring, hierarchal, exploitative, violent, opportunistic, parasitic, scrupleless, profiteering, lying, manipulative, seducing, corrupting, conservative, hoarding, racist, misogynist, colonialist, anti- expression, anti- honesty, anti- life, anti-realness, anti-creativity, anti- texture, anti- change, anti - life.

and this pile up is not me saying "woe is me". for once its not victim stance, theoretical or overly dramatic. i don't think i am a beast or an anomaly. i think its the tone for most of this society i am in. and its about time i placed myself firmly in that reality.


I'm not a divine exception to the human rule. like i had thought.
nor do get to skip over steps and stages of growth by stalling or repressing them.

As a teenager I created a completely denial- based "harmonious friendship" relationship with my mother to distance myself from the fact that I was livid towards her and that would mean expressing ,my hurt, and rage, and risking living without her financial and what emotion support she was giving.

Being overt, saying no to her, would surely have catalysized my road to adulthood and would have spared me this infantilization/ dependency/draining other people's resources thing I have been doing for years and spared her having a grown daughter who can be counted on to always need bailing out.

Choosing to be adult would have spared Azania my recreating my childhood dependency and then the teenagehood rebellion I never had. Choosing to be overt with my emotions then, would have meant not creating and endlessly taking from a mother/father substitute - darkdaughta/Azania while not speaking to my rage, but acting it out in passive aggressive ways under a veneer of nice pleasant friendly that I sought to uphold at all cost even when Azanians were pointing out it was not needed, not wanted, not real and eventually downright nasty and harmful.


i know that the consequences to my making movement, giving concious space to and acting on my conservatism, my self- centeredness, my patriarchy, my hoarding, my shadism, my skinny privelege and more,for however long i choose to engage/actualize this stuff, further distances me from the work other Azanians are trying to do in their lives.
i understand that i will be interacted as such.
I have long been a non- allie in Azania, now i am one who can't claim surprise or hurt or exclusion. i'm not sending the good girl in. i am making choices that are for once not trying to manipulate into being liked. nor so i can claim" i'm the worst" in the backwards competition.

I am positioning myself not in pretend allyship, but as part of the problem- part of the oppressions that every Azanian has suffered including myself. i am my own problem. i am not escaping to myself as i had thought in earlier times when i had said "i am leaving."

theres a lot more to say and always the points to respond to. its almost 3am and i needto be at the restaurant for 8:45 or so.
i will continue this evening.

The Ritual: What I envision - from Seminalson

It is very powerful, this blogsphere community. I have am excited about the future and also feeling very sad about where things are. Nearly a year has past and I felt lots has happened. I feel sad about the choices I made earlier in the year and pre-Azania house living.. (in our homes). I made short sighted and immature choices in relation to all of my relationships inside Azania.

Darkdaughta, I regret refusing to consistently stay present, even while benefiting from your constant emotional presence. I hold my head, and take responsibility for doing my part in sabotaging your lovership with Biafra. How silly, no - destructive that was in not seeing the big picture - and deciding to look at life through a pin hole lens. DD, I am gald you this ritual is happening as I will be spelling out what I would like to happen in our relationship in the future, as well as how I can be more present for you, by doing active committed work to support Azania. This includes building relationships (real emotional, live, and physical connections) with all who remain after the Equinox festival. I commit to standing as a true ally in our poly relationship, which means not sucking energy away from you and claiming to be abondoned when you don't give me what I want. Bongafish, Phoenix and (all others that remain after Monday)I would like to build with you powerfully and I would like support to make this happen. Of course, in the case of Biafra and Taz, becuase of your hurtful, and painful choices this will be a challenge. However, I am willing.

I want to be held accountable to any blocks I do inside Azania, as well as I want, no I need my challenges for you and of whoever stays in this unprecedented community to welcome me challenging them. The time for holding the collective hostage (months or years on end) is done. Stinkapee should not and will not be held hostage. We all cannot be held hostage. She will be priority. Olamina will be priority. In making them priority, everything else will come together. I know this. I believe this. I have lived this. I want this.

And so, I welcome the future in all that it brings.
And so, I move through the fear...
publishing note: posted by Seminalson, via darkdaughta portal

Spring Equinox is on Monday...

Time to stop humming and hawing, fiddling and faddling with all of you.

I've gotta make a move. I'm nearing the third trimeser of my pregnancy and spring, time of change and renewal is approaching.

I'm planning a counsel to coincide with the vernal equinox.

"The spring equinox is one of the four great solar festivals of the year. Day and night are equal, poised and balanced, but about to tip over on the side of light. The spring equinox is sacred to dawn, youth, the morning star and the east. Just as the dawn is the time of new light, so the vernal equinox is the time of new life."

"The 24 hours of March 20, known as the Vernal Equinox, are divided into equal numbers of light and darkness, and herald the beginning of the Spring season. In the Medicine Wheel of the Native American Lakota tradition, Spring is in the Eastern Quadrant of our life's earthwalk and of every project we undertake. Its animal totem is the Golden Eagle that rises fearlessly into the heavens, high enough to consort with Spirits and Wakan Tonka, the great Sun. Like the Sun itself, its colors include all the shades of gold, and therefore, its symbolic Stones include Citrine, Carnelian, and Topaz. In terms of human life, Spring is the season of birth. It is the season when life and inspiration arise once again from the darkness of hibernation into the light of the sun and earth-reality.

It is easy to love Spring. Throughout the ages, humans have taken a natural delight in participating in Spring's approach and joyously welcoming her arrival. Spring is the season of birth. It is the season when life and inspiration arise once again from the darkness of hibernation into the light of the sun and earth-reality. It is the time to exclaim over the wonder of children...children of every species of life. It is the time to exclaim over childhood itself and new beginnings. It is the time to honor the inspiration that engenders creativity. For inspiration, like breathing, needs faith, before the beginnings of creativity can happen, and creativity is the essence of life becoming itself, in every form, again and again and again.

Spring is the season of Life re-born. Through the ages, some societies celebrated the blatant sexuality and fertility of the season with young girls dancing around phallic maypoles. Some celebrated the season by ceremoniously burning the greens they brought into the house for safekeeping through the winter. A quick examination of the variety of ceremonies include:"

This will be ritual and intentional ending of our joined paths for some. For others it will be a renewal of commitment to building intentionally, ethically, sanely, truthfully, wholely, happily...willingly.

Can everyone come prepared to speak clearly, to clearly state your intent to leave or to go without hiding your true intent or agendas.

This is me saying: Taz, this is not a reopening for you to step through in your present extended destructive, competitive, adult-bodied teenaged state. This is not space for the predator in you to assess how much more you can take while waxing on and on about who is in venus and who is in mars. This is not a space to insert your need to be goddess/center of all creation or, if not, to transform into enraged destroyer of all you survey. This is not a space to insert, mention your ex lover in any romantically blurred sort of way. This is a crucial time for you to claim what you've been offered and to disconnect truthfully, openly, to finally show yourself as someone commited to some sort of path, even if it isn't a shared one.

This is me saying:
Biafra, this is not a reopening for you to stop through in your present state of undifferentiated, outwardly projected murderous rage and perpetual childhood combined. It could be a space, could have been a space if you were able to actually begin to synthesize all that you've learned and experienced while an intentional community attempted to take shape around you. I'm hoping that your predator child will open a rift and allow your adult self to poke its head through for a moment, allowing you to speak clear and to move onto your own separate path or fully take up conscious space as an intentional fellow builder from here on in. This is not an invitation, it's a hope.

This is me saying;
Bongafish, you've been a courteous emotionally blunted clinging thorn in my side for this long because I let you stay close enough, inert enough to do harm without trying very hard. That program is ended. This is not an opportunity for you to show yourself to the others as the favoured "child" most able to fake doing the right thing. This is not an opportunity for you to irresponsibly store or vent unexpressed rage, jealousy, need for the spotlight and attention. This is a moment of reckoning and knowing where you will be expected to do more than perform as you've been trained. This is a moment for you to embrace and create adulthood rites for yourself.

This is me saying:
Phoenix, there isn't space for your tantruming, furious boy to wreck havoc through resisting your personal work, any longer. It's time for you to manifest as an adult who can be trusted to follow through and to use foresight and ethics to make her choices. This is still a moment where you can choose to go your own way separate. You have choice and responsibility to embrace. This is not a moment to tend secret doubts and fears about building intentially while outwardly manifesting as accepting of what is to come. Phoenix this will be moment where you can stand.

This is me saying:
Seminalson, whatever you decide is predicated on our previous relationship agreement where you commited to helping me find and build community for myself and my child(ren). This is a vision that you have shared and benefited from. This will not be a time for you to coast on our connection or to step out of conversations that should/could involve you. This is not a moment for you to give your boy child leeway to interpret conversations according to his pain and respond according to his insecurities. This is me requesting your presence as partner and ally.

this is me saying:
I'm coming insecure, uncertain of what lies ahead. I'm coming imperfect, my re-engagment with a counsellor/therapist is still not a vision realized. This will not be a moment for me to accept center stage, to mold and define what transpires through presence of will. I cannot force you all to stay, though I can set boundaries and allow some/any/all of you to go. This will not be a time for me to let my fears of abandonment reign supreme. This will also not be a time where I will allow my angry little girl to push away those closest to her...without reason. I'm coming with my best possible self clear and willing to engage.

What I need:
Presence and full creative participation. Please come with the foods you want to eat. Please develop a ritual before hand that will support the gathering of equinox energy for new paths, metamorphosis and growth. Please come with critical analysis, full voice and the will to use both of these. Please try to leave your malice and intent to manipulate at the door. Please bring something green and alive. Please bring a piece of paper with your name on it. Please bring a picture of yourself or find one here.

Stinkapee will be here. I had considered sending her away but realized that she needs this closure and saying of goodbyes as much as I do. I want all of you to be able to look her in the eye and reckon with the ways you've exited from relationship with her. I want all of you to look her in the eye and reflect on the ways you, as a child benefited from or craved interactions with loving, present adults who thought about y0u and prioritized time with you. I want you to see what she's feeling and be able to tell her goodbye openly, honestly when the time comes knowing that I've done everything I could to support your relationships with her, including dealing with your unevolved children and challenging you to grow.

This is all I have for now. I do actually expect postings here on this site outlining how each of you plan to participate.

Draft postings and emails...

I've been sending emails hidden away on the azania listserv as a way to request biafra and taz join the discussion about the community disaster they helped create. I'm hoping that taz and biafra will not take the publishing of the emails they sent, the only interactions they were willing to have, as they refused for quite a while to post on this blog, after having accepted the invitation to join it, that they will not take the easy way out of communicating or airing and exploring their stuff by posting duplicate copies of emails they've sent to the listserv to this community blog and on their personal (were supposed to be sites of self-exploration) blogs. It's sort of a cop out, doing a minimum of work in three different connected venues, like attending a pay what you can event and putting in a dollar when you've got thousands in your bank account.

And...
I've noticed that there are a few drafted postings that haven't been fully fleshed out and haven't been sent that might contribute something to the stalling communications here on this blog site. Is anyone interested in completing their drafted blog postings and sending them?

writing tuesday

tomorrow evening i will dedicate to responding to the proposal points that i did not include here
and update on any movement towards fulfilling some of these agreements.

i will post the email i sent last night to this blog so that it can be visible.

my check from my old job has arrived in the mail today.
i will deposit it in the saving account in the morning on my way to work.

i've committed to blogging in the mornings- i've yet to do it.

i'm going to sleep now 11 pm so that i can wake up at 5:00am to make that happen.
a number of posts ago( and a number of months ago) dark daughta sked me to write about my pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage. i have - but it is buried among the published journaling, emails and unpublished blog drafts.so. in the morning that is one thing i will write about.

in the morning i also want to write about how i feel about having begun repayment in earnest- with no chance of me backsliding. i feel a lot of ways about it...more in the a-m.

i've also commited to respond to other azanians blogs. at work today i read some of bongafish's recent posts and i'll post to her blog some of my comments.
as a start.

Biafra: response to phoenix's email

Ok,

I sent the hi5 to you and to bongafish because you are on
my email list and i thought that it would be good even
now for you and bongafish and whomever else cared to join
to see who my "network"/ hi5 friends were given that
my nigerian friend, people from my high school back
home that are now here are and i've maintained them as
a very seperate world. And it is easy for me to go
into the i'm cool, i'm diffrent, smarter, than them or
to take up space as radical in those communities so i
sent the invitation.

phoenix; doing alliance with me, in isolation from everyone else in azania, in opposition to everyone else in
azania is to your death and demise :) Remember how
much i was told that, how much you were told that, how
much i still did it and that's why i'm here.

And wanting taz to go and me to come back? Isn't
that the same shit. your relationship with taz is
also about honesty, ethics, and commitment that you
agreed to. Honestly call it patronizing, me and my 3
year old arrogant bitch. yes, i offered you a place of
denial in azania, i put my relationship with you in
direct oposition to azania and if you did not choose
to maintain your ties to azania if noone tried to
maintain a connection with you then i would have tried
to do a get you to be just as irresponsible, unethical
as i was/as i am. do you remember how many times we
talked about running away. but even then i did not
treat you/anyone else with the respect of
mediating/communicating/ coming to some kind of
resolution of at least livable solution to my relation
with you and everyone else
i wasn't joking. so in a fucked up resentful way i'm
glad you're commited to azania. i don't know maybe
thats just another stupid victim script but i'm not
going to try and pull you into some alliance with me
to stunt block your growth hence death and demise.


Do you think that i do not know that i cannot skip
over what i have done? I know very well that i cannot
skip over what i have done and what i am doing. I know
that i acted/have acted/ am acting hatefully in
relation to everyone including you. It's one thing to
say, acknowledge that you love someone and another to
live that out and ground in that. Remember phoenix of i
wish i could love you.

I know that the first email you got from me was from
hi5 since i left on the day, week, month that your brother
left.

No the book doesn't jusify my actions just like using
complusive liar or whatever term/ truama descriptory i
can find to hide behind.

Yes, I am the one who left, who left everything, care
support, affection, azanians. And yes, those blog
entries need to be fuller so that they can address
what is happening what happened in azania and how i
feel.

No i don't expect you be my friend, non girlfriend,
anything and ok i understand that the only
relationship that can exist between us is through
azania, through me actually doing my work in
azania..through me responding of my own will in my own
way to all the requests to give as many words to
contextuaize my relationships with everyone.

In azania that is a good thing, that is what our
relationship in azania was supposed to be based on in
the first place. But in my bk's world that was not a
good thing. I didn't do that, i did not have have an
ethical relationship with you, i did not have a honest
with you.

You and everyone else have a right to be angry, upset,
resentful in relation to what i have done, my actions
before and now.

I know that we are not friends, allies, supportive of
each other. I've said to you before even in our so
called buddy relationship, we spent time talking about
sex, eroticizing the relationship with me knowing what
i know about myself. That was dishonest and unethical
. I think about all those conversations with me
tormenting primarily darkdaughta/seminal and thier child and thier relationship
with my unspoken desires, wishes, and malicious
intentions, playing attention games with bongafish and i
think i didn't even use that to look at what i was
doing in my relationship with you even as all of those
discussions were happening.

so accept/ reject the invitation as you wish.

bk

even this post is not fully contextualized and that's clear.

Taz: a first response to your financial post

Taz,

Will you post your response to the most recent proposals made to you about the organizing of finances and your plans with what you'd like to see happen with the money, on the Azania Lies Burning blog?

That way, people can reference what you're choosing to propose, in actual terms.

I realize I called the email a counter-proposal, but it actually is not. It is the same proposal, the one that you committed to when we joined in community. I see you hiding behind Biafra, and attempting to propose frivolous things that other Azanians have not had the opportunity to have - rest, CDs, concerts, etc... - because of the choices you made to not work, and to refuse to create resources that we could all share.

Knowing this though, you've also proposed them, online, so that one of us could write back and block you from having 'leisure' time, and blocking you from getting what you need.

That's not okay, Taz. Can you address this in a blog today to the list? More responses to what you've written are upcoming.

i should make it clear that
my writing here on the topics that i am referring to - both timing and content is coming from Phoenix, darkdaughta and bongafish. it comes out of the questions that they are asking for to communicate my thoughts and plans and post them- to avaoid the result of what i do unprompted- which is not share my thoughts and communicate them in a timely fashion.

i will be writing this evening after work
these are some of the things i want to flesh out,
-moving from the house, ethically.
- more thoughts on what i envision as potential living arrangements- who to look for as a housemate
- the move and what i want to see happen?
- what i want to see in my relationships to other Azanians
- zanamito's (my ex) leaving, biafra's leaving
- navigating my abandonment/abandoner issues
want to be alone but that has been destructive inn the past- how will i make that different this time?

-leaving , communicating with non Azanians, accounatability my passive agressivity
-where i do want to be living- for how long- what vision do i have for my life and myself with in Azania.

-what i did with and my plans for"classic- to- go" the fellow at the restaurant
-questions darkdaughta and seminal son had asked about my relationship to me.
-my uncle and my relationship to dark skinned black men

-the email i sen tin october 2004, the unthanksgiving as my re committing
i want to do a commitment ceremony commit to myself and solidify what my accountability looks like
there is more
i'll start with this -
i'm late for work so i gotta run

Email from Taz dated Oct 10, 2004

what will it look like when i am no longer who you have known(not known)?

hello bongafish,
hello darkdaughta

darkdaughta, i have received the invitations for Kwanzaa and counterthanksgiving and the invitation to give a hand to your moving locations. these are all three invitations i will like to respond to with my presence. ideally, i wanted to send my transmission and there be time for you to send what thoughts you had about being in your space. the rate at which i am sending my messages is having me reconsider attending your counterthankgiving. i was wanting to go and be present and uncomfortable but i wanted at least to have touched base with you and njeri to some extent. yes i don't want to arrive and be rejected. that is my fear.

darkdaughta, i would like being in your space differently. i would like to see you again, yes, but i am also wanting to be seen by you. i have been experiencing so many deaths in my psychic world. i am mourning the realization that the gap between my idealism and my reality has been damaging to me, i am coming to terms with the loss of my (leaky roachy chaotically messy) home with my male (now ex) lover which we will be leaving in november (because my idealism was making the financial decisions), the death of my beloved fantastical projection onto my male (now ex) lover as he confronts and speaks his truths and the pain of my doing the same-of acknowledging and giving room to the aspects of myself i kept guarded like a secret in a dusty attic. i am somewhat uncertain about who i will be when all my aspects are united.

bongafish, this psychic shift does not include turning the page on The Taz you have seen for so long, and saying, "oh look! She's gone!" problem solved. it does mean that i am willing to claim my destructive patterns and actual acts of destruction, look at them with someone who has been affected by them and figure out what being trustworthy looks like to you.

at this point, the prospect of seeing you both brings up the very fears that have kept me silent for years -fear of punishment for who i am, fear of failure and rejection in your eyes, and fear of heightened expectation if you want to continue to build the Three. but i've also been trying for years to be overt and open in my both my power and my frailty but very few knew of that process and thus couldn't hold me to it.

darkdaughta, your holding me to the honesty and openness that you live by and i agreed was important has been unwavering. I didn't know to what extent i was resisting- with every fiber of my being it seems. because now that I am confronting my own resistance i am not sure who i am when i am not hiding, defending, protecting and being covert.

bongafish, i have despaired about the outcome of these recent thoughts and subsequent writings when i have been comparing myself to you. recognize that comparison is intimately tied to competition- something i didn't want to look at in regards to you and i because you weren't someone i didn't know or didn't like (prime target for my ambition and competitiveness) you were someone close who i wanted to work with and thus be closer to not in competition with. I see now that has in been in comparison to you more than to darkdaughta (because i saw you as a peer, "an equal") that i have doubted my capabilities, my readiness, wondered if openness is sustainable for me, whether i can learn to communicate clearly fast enough (read, like you), whether a Scorpio and Taurus working together would be an astrological blessing or a catastrophe, and ultimately whether the invitation to build a solid relationship with you has expired. When I have been most likely to preempt the potential of feeling abandoned because I have been too slow and resistant by throwing my own hands up saying "oh it's too hard. There's too much to backtrack over I'll never catch up. I just wasn't ready..." and on and on, I hold in my mind the memory of being at darkdaughta's house what seems like ages ago. She was sharing the email interactions between you and her at the time on the topic of from whence does your knowledge come and was speaking to how challenging the dialogues were. At the time I remember being glad that it was not my words being held up to her critical light. Now I'm wishing that I had not laid so low and avoided being seen by either of you for so long.

i don't know how to break out of my competitive mold. I still draw on the knowledge that you have traveled a long way for a long time to establish the relationship to darkdaughta as it exists today- because it's a journey i want to make. i realize now that i need to redefine how i see you. How i think of you. i was not clear until this week that i have been learning from your actions and process for as long as i have. for years. when i would visit you in toronto, when i would take notice the subtleties of how you communicated and conveyed your analysis. when i attended your gatherings. i did not realize that i had been learning from you because i thought, "these are ideas that i am familiar with. they are not new to me. therefore i am not learning." but you had been doing those ideas, living those ideas and by virtue of externalizing those ideas you were modeling for all you invited into your life. i saw you as a peer but i acknowledge now that we are not coming from anywhere near the same place nor going to the same place, and that you have taught me.

I have learned from having been in both your lives (and the lives of so many others who i have not acknowledged and given back to) in my flighty and skittish ways.

Again I'm wishing that I had not laid so low and avoided being seen by either of you for so long. i'm sorry is what i'm saying. engaging as deeply as i was being invited to do would have meant that i might have accompanied you through growth and turbulence and our growth and learning might have benefited each other. now i realize the distance i have to travel is not only toward the places where darkdaughta would need me to be in order for our relating to be mutually beneficial, but that it is a journey towards you too. so i sit here and ask myself Taz are you committing to bongafish, instead of walking away with a mindful of her goodies. are you going to give back energetically and practically what you have the ability to give, for what you have already gained, and invest the time and attention to address the hurt you have already caused. are you going sit with the reality that bongafish is not a fictional character in your ideal of who should be leading fantastical political spiritual revolutionary struggle but that she is real and that she is doing the work. that you, Taz need to find you place in this that is not your preferred, familiar place, the one with the (up to recently) invisible light-skinned privilege VIP sign over it. are you going to hold yourself to your own unpacking the personal/ political shit you have been carrying and let yourself feel the very challenging that you've been doing in some not so- subtle "political challenging as domination" ways with others with more privilege and more passivity than you for years now.

so the answer is yes. and its a hard yes a scary yes. a fuck when i send this email i expect the sky to fall on me kind of yes. because committing to my male (now ex) lover was thrilling and frightening but i got to call all the shots and i got sex. but committing to actualize what i think is right and just and in accordance of what i think the world should look like in the microcosm of three wimmin and their close and extended communities. shit.that's terryfying for someone who's idea of love is mostly ideas yet to be actualized. or reciprocated, or adjusted , altered, rethunk and restarted.

yes so yes. yes yes yes.

it not an offer i expect you to want anymore. it's been years in coming i'm committed to whatever shape is needed for our relating to be real and sustainable . At this point "thank you" from me is not enough according to me.

But I await what works according to you.

i think what i'm saying is that- i have the capability to be deeply attentive to more than one person at a time. i dont have practice. but i'm going to have to learn on the job. this also means moving from thinking that you and darkdaughta have identical expectations of me and that by responding to darkdaughta i am responding to you. i have never asked myself (and you even less so) "how can i be safe to you, given who i am and our history together. where can you see me in relation to you given where you see yourself going now?

darkdaughta I have spoken commitment to you before when i said that my understandings of relationships is that they are to bring you closer to yourself. .i said that you, darkdaughta had constantly and consistently engaged me in such a way that i always ended up face to face with a new and deeper understanding. and thus i wanted to remain in relationship with you.

i resisted and resisted and resisted. but had already come to see that your analysis of situations, however i felt about it at first, never failed to make sense to me (after tears and frustration) and would open me to new realizations. you have been thorough and you have been accurate and through my resistance i know that what you have offered me is trustworthy. i tried to speak that i would be dedicated to you who offered so much energy and mind and heart. you told me your reasons for doing it too. that you were wanting to establish space where you could breath, that you wanted around you and captain nemo people towards whom your energy would not be wasted fending off attack, but with whom you could explore the very things that oppression in all it's guises was (trying) to rob you of.

i don't remember you words exactly but i remember having heard in what you have said in the past calls with the Three that my action and non-action actions have altered your understanding of what might be possible with me. that where you wanted to go with me might not be possible in the ways that we had spoken of. it's difficult to not try a standard Taz- as- I- know- her tactic here. to convince to seduce to convey the beauty and brilliance of what we could do and build. my own dreamings sound flat to even me. i am looking at my limitations and this time not looking away. instead of attacking myself for my shortcomingsand /or denying them to myself i am speaking them. even in this letter i am aware that i am actively including the realizations about my shit for all to see.

i know what you have asked of me and i know what your criteria is for engagement. when i am afraid that you won't want me ,like me ,work with me, teach me, let me validate myself through what i might have to offer that you actually want to share in, i try to keep in mind that your commitment is not to me. period. that it is to you and to your well being. and that you expect my commitment to be to me and to my well being through a process that doesn't included harming you or your family. i am incredibly intimidated by the fact that you are asking me to be in my power. i would mean finding ways of moving in the world that isn't about seeking power-over or adopting submissive silence and observing, or abandoning completely. i have yet to do that.

your analysis of the situation is once again correct. i am a long way from being able to build with you in the capacity i presented myself as wanting to build. right now i will be stopping the workshop that is my lifeplans to say loudly to myself who was facilitating irresponsibly and recklessly, "STOP! Stop everything! i cannot should not proceed until i know who i am. i have been silencing myself and making me unsafe for myself.

I have more and more been coming to grips with the sheer amount I have learnt from my interactions over the years with you darkdaughta, the Anarchist U evening being a pivotal moment in that realization. i have been revisiting and writing in order to make it explicit how interacting with you and your work and words have been changing and shaping my understandings of the world around me. In the past month or so I have allowed myself to look squarely into my own eyes and I know that the impetus and ability to do that as deeply as i am comes from what you have shared.

I have been slow to understand and slow to act before and i have done it again. I have overlooked love and i have misunderstood statements of commitment in the past because it didn't look the way I thought it would in my vision of it, it wasn't stated often enough to penetrate my disbelief, or loud enough to hear over the roar of my insecurities. i have done it again

I have not seen teachers for what they were until it was too late.

I have called them friends or peers to equalize the dynamic. I've tried to seduce them into being lovers in an effort to tip the balance of power back into my favor where it is most comfortable for me. When they have walked away I've sat with my regret alone. this is what most of all i would like to change. i would like to say, for all the times i didn't hear you and didn't see you and didn't think for myself and do the work needed to be able to reciprocate the energy i am sorry. for all the times i have been in your spaces and eat and slept and walked away feeling that life is lovely and that you respectively are lovely and not asked and vocalized the question what do you think of the time i just spent with you ? what could I offer you beyond the specter of my presence i am sorry. for not opening dialogue because i was too insecure i am sorry for not bringing myself full to the table because i was ashamed of who i am ,i am sorry . for building hope and making grand plans when i had no bricks with which to build and not being as explicit as i could about my lack i am sorry.

i am still here. i carry what i have learnt from you darkdaughta and you bongafish. it is in my mind and i won't change my mind. it's in my heart and i won't cut my heart out. i've molded and shaped it but the materials i can't claim as my own. so the threads of your work, your words, lead back to you. i am bound through learning and i want to give back.

i am not moving forward planning according to what I want.

i have stopped.

my hands are not empty my mind is not empty i know i am not all chaos and destruction

I am going to continue answering the questions I have to answer

so i re- present myself to you.

i will like to show you what i have been hiding.

i would like to not sit in my regret alone. i would like to make amends.

Taz, Oct. 2004

Email sent to Taz in Jan 2004

This email is just a reminder of the sorts of questions I asked all of you so as to decrease the possibility of being harmed by the stuff you were obviously carrying. This is the sort of email and series of questions that "forced" biafra literally to run and phoenix and taz to tantrum and withdraw...

Thoughts and Lots of Questions...
sent: wed 1/21/04 11:00 pm

hi,

this letter is about stuff i've been attempting to negotiate with friends/allies...you being one.

i mentioned recently to out mutual acquaintance that this is a pivotal year for me in terms of my synthesizing the information i've gleaned from my numerous, now non-existent, messed up, unintentional friendships with a whole host of queer/feminist/ wimmin/artists/writers.

i'm attempting to broach the subject of your agendas as they relate to alliance/work/community building and me. in short...what do you want from me?

this sort of questioning is new for me.
even up until as recently as last year, i hadn't consistently interrogated those who came to me as friends about their agendas or about what good stuff/fucked stuff/mixed up stuff they were bringing to add to the pot.

you've proposed a few different projects to me...which is cool. i think it only fair to let you know that i'm still observing the you that unfolds before me so as to decide when/if/how i will be able to sustain any meaningful interaction with you.

presently, i am excruciatingly aware that i'm still seeing 'performance you'. your tones are modulated in certain ways. you have entered and exited my environment with predictable regularity. this kept me off balance with you for quite a while. though, i'm happy to report that most recently this ebb and flow has been shifting...why? [loneliness? lack of stimulation?] i can't say for certain.

i have been avoiding you, too for quite some time. this is what i usually do with folks who are not coming clear in my presence. my radar starts bugging me, saying something important is being obscured from view. this is an uncomfortable feeling. i get annoyed. i feel duped. i want to speak to that hidden/ness, but i don't want to freak the other person...so i stay away from them. i don't feel safe in their presence. when i encounter a person who walks with a curtain around themselves, i understand that they will inherently see more of me than i will of them. this is because i stopped making curtains and decided to just surround myself with potential intimates, who could allow me to be truly intimate, a long time ago. you keep coming back, which means i can't run as effectively as i would like.

so... what's your story?
you come across like a well schooled, suburban girl who has grown up fairly comfortably in terms of class. quickly followed by: when i say this, i should offer that what it means to be black and middle class very rarely stands up to the comparison of what it means to be white and middle class...but that doesn't mean that one can't exist as black and middle class in the shadow of white folks who are way more comfortable and way more affluent, with access to way for credit and class privilege.

my mother [who i wasn't raised with] worked as a nanny for wealthy folks in new york for years.

she will never have any of the economic wealth/class privilege/access of the folks she worked for. their whiteness alone, combined with the power of their extended families puts them out of her league. yet i understand her and she understands herself to be part of the middle class...a black middle class.

how do you see yourself and your upbringing? who am i dealing with?

so, i've been talking around a lot of the wimmin i've been encountering, trying to get them to situate themselves. they've mostly been squirming out of it. and this is my year for doing inventory. who is around me? how does the way they situate or refuse to situate themselves extensively, affect the ways we interact? how does their ability to get clear about the differences between me and them impact on how far any alliance i have with them can go?

to be frank, i'm tired of getting screwed over by people who come in close, find out what they want and then run off to lives that involve a whole lot more privilege than i may ever have access to.

when we last met i spoke to you about risk at timothy's because i noticed that even as you were showing some bits of what your project entailed, you were physically holding stuff back/covering some parts of your pages.

you mentioned trusting your intuition and believing that negative fears about being screwed over were about paranoia.

i disagree.
you're at risk in any collaboration you undertake. your dream can be commoditized, redefined as intellectual property and stolen. that's happened to me.

given this fact, why do you come to me even to show me a part of what you want to do? the sharing of your dream seems restrained and i'm wondering if you can account for why this contradiction between your stated desire to work together and your act of obscuring your ideas, exists?

to my eye, there's some part of you/a sizeable part of you that feels like not exposing who you are, where you've been, what you're thinking.

from where i'm standing, before we even think about working together on a project as large as the one you're envisioning, i'm going to need you to at least commit to seeing where we can get to in terms of the development of some sort of alliance based in trust.

i don't trust you right now. and i can't trust you because i can't see you.

yeah, i can see that there's stuff going on with you. but working in close proximity to you actually calls for a bit more than my shadowy intuition.

years of dealing in competitive, unconscious community circles means that i privilege connection with the people i work with. it's pretty much the only way i can trust that people aren't just sitting around waiting to get what they need so they can bolt.

this is a make or break year for me as i've decided to throw myself with reckless yet conscious abandon into gaining clarity with the folks around me so as to make space for spontaneity and fearlessness in my life grounded in insight, communication and respect.

this year i think some of the stuff i've challenged myself to speak with you about has to do with openness and what healthy alliances look like.

this is especially crucial because i'm acquainted with two other black wimmin who you have living alliances with. i'm not sure how you've grounded the connections you have with them, but i'm pretty certain that we're going to have to build differently than you may have done before if anything solid and truthful and courageous is going to come out of it.

the sort of alliance building i want to do [with you and others i know] was a big part of the reason i showed all the pictures of myself at the gathering...most of which you missed.

anytime you wanna get clear about why it is you can't respect the sort of boundaries i set as i envision and plan events...just let me know. i'm letting you know i see you repeatedly missing opportunities to get to know me better and to allow me to see you better, even as you attest to be interested in just this sort of mutual knowing...i think.

anyways...showing the photos at my b-day gathering was my passive aggressive way of saying: who tha fuck are yuh anyway?

i think that one of the 'trouble areas' for me in terms of having a friendship/relationship with you has been about skin shade as it relates to cute girl stuff, good girl stuff, madonna/whore and patriarchal competition in black community, but also in the larger world.

being that we [you and i] walk in such different looking skins, and given the fact that we were both born out of communities of diasporic african folks who privilege light skin over dark in really fucked up painful ways for all parties involved, i've noted with much chagrin the fact that you've never bothered to enter into a conversation with me about shade and light skinned privilege.

why?

situating myself...
i'm dark/er skinned, possessing an oppositional gaze that no longer privileges light over dark, conscious of the fact that my self esteem as a dark gyal is intimately linked to my ability to see beauty in those who mirror my complexion. it's a life or death game. that simple. if i can't be the face of beauty and perfection to myself, i'm one lost mutha.

i remember you asking why i had been with the black male ex lover of mine you met. you're cheeky. :) do you want to give me a list of the men you've been with and their attributes and why you chose them over any others? :)

in anycase, i digress... people often look from me to papi and back again incredulously. i get the ones who think they know which lesbian/dyke i should be with or which man would better suit me. and i wonder what that stuff is based on. don't worry, i'm bringing this back to me and you and shade... i've had conversation with papi about most facets of male/female relations as i see them. but when i met him he was already walking with the ability to see beauty in darkness before he sees beauty in lightness. that's huge and it's something that many black folks don't critique or thoroughly question.

i tend to watch for folks who relate to lightskinnedness as intrinsincally more valid. i also tend to watch for light-skinned folks who count on that validation, especially within poc communities of resistance.

where do you sit?

how do you sit and exist with understanding that it is possible to walk with relative ease, sport beautified hair oddities, perform acts of radicality/queerness while counting on the skin shadeisms of the folks in the crowd to get you through? do you reckon with what it means to be dreadlocked and mohawked, queer, lightskinned and you as opposed to dreadlocked and mohawked, queer, darkskinned and me?

what are your thoughts on cute girl privilege? you know, the ability to sort of get by in sticky situations just by smiling and chirping and wiggling?

i've always wanted to have a conversation, a really conscious conversation with another [black] woman who seems perpetually sunny tempered, flat bellied and performing perky about what lurks underneath and about what it means for me to be positioned in relation to someone who walks the world in this way.

instead, i do stuff like make sure my shit is tight when i encounter them in the outside world...give tiggy to papi so i can adjust and prepare, lips glossed right, breasts jutting out, hair done to perfection...i make sure i'm put together in fine form for competition.

that sucks tha big one.
that's so dry.
so fuckin' predatory.

why fight the icky fight with potential allies when maybe the universe would send me someone ballzy and smart and truly community driven, to examine how wimmin who do the work can be pitted against each other, alongside me? are you her? can you become her? now, someone like that i could do art and business and organizing with.

i think that good girl competition is definitely something you and i could get ourselves wrapped up in very easily if we were to work together. you've mentioned in the past that maybe i should try opening myself to having my work appreciated. actually i think you've said something to that effect twice. the inference being, if i wasn't so surly then people would like me and my work better. basically, if i would just smile and be more perky, things would go better for me...really?! :)

that's liberal goo. it leaves no place for a critique of oppression and how power and control function to dominate and eliminate deviance in our communities.

so, i'm like...
we both artists, both community workers, both queer, both black, both wimmin...
how do we at least not kill each other off in the quest for a better career/contract/gig with more pay?

in the face of this, living in a city where ambition, competition and withholding of information rule all... what exactly is your critique of...anything?

i can't/won't assume that we see eye to eye. that's downright stupid and dangerous.

where do you stand on anything?

you mentioned social justice in relation to the project you showed me. those words are too fuzzy for me. what do you mean when you say social justice?
what do you believe in?
what do you stand for?
what would you die for?
what would you commit career suicide for?
are you willing to potentially commit career suicide by being seen working with me?
what is your understanding of why it would even be risky to work with me?
do you have a plan to avoid that happening?
what does it look like?
are you even comfortable sharing it with me?
or is it something you need to do without me realizing you're doing it?

the conversation over the phone that we had when you were sick... i mentioned us getting clear about who we were to each other and about what resources we could bring to the table working with each other.

i'm still really about doing this sort of reasoning. this letter comes out of work i've been doing with papi and most recently with our mutual black sista/friend.

i think that there is a difference in experience between us that manifests itself in many ways.
can you work with me to chart out what that looks like?
this sort of charting will be really crucial to how we negotiate the kind of work we can do with each other. in effect, i'd like to barter our resources, strengths, skills, etc.

you've been asking about the possibility of us working together for quite some time. after all the words i've written hear, in short form my response is: are you up for what it will actually take to engage with me in ways that are conducive to us building something solid?

i see alliances as intertwined with allegiances.
who are you people?
why are they your people?
are you proud of them?

how do you plan to work with me, preserve an alliance between the two of us and deal with the fact that some of your peeps are not high on my list of people held in esteem? given that you're going to be doing some weaving of worlds between riendships, how do you deal with stress? given that you're going to be sometimes dealing with folks who might end up in subtle or not so subtle conflict with each other [myself included in possible future messes], how do you deal with conflict when you're involved?

outside the people in your life, what are the stresses in your life and how are you getting help dealing with them?
the reason i ask is that you seem to manifest in a way that obscures the existence of any pain you may be in.
why?
if i work with you on any project, when will this submerged stuff begin to seep out. will it seep to such an extent that it toxifies our projects? our work environment?

you mentioned at another point not wanting to have your time with me constructed as 'you are learning from darkdaughta' or was it 'darkdaughta is teaching you?' i would agree. i don't want to be put in the situation of having to teach my allies so they can get to a place where they can be allies. i mean they at least have to come with the ability to expose themselves and work consciously at some building process. their consciousness has to be fluid in that it is evolving and not stable/stuck in 'i already know' drive.

but it has become increasingly important for me as a writer/artist/community worker to not have my energies/thoughts/wordings taken for granted. i want to be surrounded by people who are honest enough to admit when they're learning shit or when they need to learn shit. it's a bitch that i have to do so much learning solo. if folks can't admit to needing to learn, even if it is from me, then they're gonna be dealing in ways that aren't straight up. i want potential allies, yeah. but folks need to come with an understanding of where they're at that is clear and honest.

knowing political words is fine. having a sense of theory is fine, too. but how are you learning? what are you learning? where are you learning? what can you teach me in terms of stuff i haven't encountered but need to? what can you share with me? these last few questions are about me deciding who i want to befriend as opposed to me being chosen against my will.

this is important because i'm getting the sense from some of the wimmin i'm encountering that being friends/allies with me is a right they plan to exercise...like i can't say: thanks. but no thanks.

like i'm expected to because we all exist. i see wimmin observing papi and making comments about him being a hetero patriarchal man who has access to me and what i know... like what's in my head and heart and soul are commodities folks can get at the store or order in... like i'm a terminal folks can plug into and then detach from once a download is done.

that's calculated, capitalist stuff that doesn't allow much space for me to make decisions grounded in my own needs. it also hints at the fact that people are walking with unspoken agendas related to getting 'stuff' from me that has little to do with actually sharing life with me in ways that will sustain me and them as we all continue down our paths.

i bring this up for a variety of different reasons. not least of which has to do with your male friend who came up from new york who you wanted papi to meet.

you wanted papi to speak with him and share reasoning about things patriarchal and heterosexual. i need you to be conscious of the fact that since papi has been conversing with me and since i've taking the time and energy to do this work with him, [work you often disdain subtly in conversation with me as teaching men when they should come complete and in the know]... you're basically benefiting from the chances i've taken, the stuff i've worked out in my head, and the work i have done in my relationship with him... again i point out this is work you have mentioned not wanting to break your back doing... mmm...maybe i should open a school for wimmin who want to learn to critique patriarchal stuff in their own relationships and interactions...oh, i'm sure no one would come...they wouldn't want to be seen to be learning from darkdaughta :)

so...
how do we work together?
how do you make enough space in your head and in your life and in your consciousness for us to get a better feel for each other?

these are my thoughts.

i'm not looking for friends who are performing perfect, politically conscious good girl. i've been surrounded by nice wimmin/feminists/activists/poc with claws performing perfect, politically conscious good boy/girl/person/revolutionary for most of my adult life.

i'm bored with that.

i want to find out about bumps and bruises and scars and corners and jagged edges i can run my fingers along, mediated by lots of conversation and insight.

this is self-serving in the sense that i want to exist in spaces where i can do the work of understanding my bumps and bruises and scars and corners and jagged edges while others run their fingers along the edge of me in ways that are filled with lots of conversation and insight.

i'm seeking wimmin/allies who can run their fingers along my contradictions as they expose their own. can you meet me there? see you on saturday.

darkdaughta

Proposal: Education for captain nemo (Feb 27, 2005)

From: darkdaughta
Date: Sun Feb 27, 2005 9:31 pm
Subject: PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY AND FREELY...Job Posting: Seeking Early Childhood Educators in Training or Public School Teachers in training...

Sorry for any cross postings...

Please forward widely and freely…Please forward widely and freely…Please forward widely and freely…

Are you a Maverick Educator in training?

Are you studying Early Childhood Education or enrolled in a post secondary institution as a future public school educator?

Are you interested in critically exploring techniques for teaching children under five in ways that do not over stress rote learning?

Are you interested in developing teaching style and content informed and driven by an analysis of systemic oppression, power, and internalized domination?

Are you struggling to find co-op experiences that will allow you to implement all this and more into your early childhood educator's training or public school teacher's university experience?

I have a daughter who is three. We live in an anti-oppression oriented intentional community grounded in anti-authoritarianism, radical critiques of oppression and domination and emotional intelligence.

I'm seeking one or more tutors of any age, gender, sexuality, ethnic origin who can augment what the adults in her community are already committed to teaching her.

The ideal person[s] would be able to deal with a rambunctious, curious, defiant, mouthy, independent toddler respectfully and creatively. They would be able to educate her over a period of years spanning from 3yrs and onward always in age appropriate ways while not inundating her or indoctrinating her with the values and perceptions of the dominant society.

Areas of study would include:
Math -- numeral recognition, basic addition and classism/consumerism
English -- european colonizer's dialect and basic ASL, simple word recognition, pronunciation, basic sentence structure
Spanish -- european colonizer's dialect, basic numerals, alphabet, word pronunciation, conversation
French -- european colonizer's dialect, basic numerals, alphabet, word pronunciation, conversation
History -- Basic of knowledge of colonized/dominated peoples around the world
Geography -- toddler oriented radical critique of the mercator atlas, land masses/continents, seas/oceans/rivers, identifying uncededterritories/nations, countries economically/politically dominated by Europe, Canada, U.S., revolutionary republics, etc.
Sciences -- space and our solar system, animals and food chains, plant life, sea life, resource preservation and recycling, the human body [including breaking down myths of racial, gender, physical normality/purity/supremacy], etc.

In addition, an interest in developing the ability to synthesize adult-oriented resistance knowledge, basic boundary negotiation, emotion articulation development into a body of thought geared specifically to toddlers would also be much appreciated.

I'd be looking for someone with a layered and complex race analysis, gender analysis, class analysis, who is available at least once a week, but preferably more often. Schedule can be flexible. This is a paying gig.

If this is you, please email me and tell me a lot about yourself, your political views, your values, your training to date and your ideas for educating my toddler.

darkdaughta

Please forward widely and freely…Please forward widely and freely…Please forward widely and freely…

Proposal: Rotating Counsellor (Jan 25, 2005)

From: darkdaughta
Sent: January 25, 2005 12:08 PM
To: bongafish, Phoenix, Taz's lover, Taz, seminalson, Biafra
Subject: Rotating Counsellor

And I think it may be time for us to consider taking turns at being the family support resource person. Rotating on a weekly basis is what I'm thinking. We could draw up a schedule where we all take turns for seven days. Whoever is doing it would understand themselves to be on call as equal parts crisis support worker, internet/email resource relay/conduit, problem solver, checker in-er, sick person visitor, motivational speaker for Azania.

We all would be doing this work with/for each other with the understanding that it would be about skills, energy, time, emotion support/share/exchange with a mind to our various locations/oppressions/power places consciously. As this would be work consciously taken on and executed, there would be room to set boundaries and expectations, for accountability to be built in and for rest to always be in sight…seven short days and counting, away. :)

We will, by virtue of being present and doing our part, give as good as we get. Thirst and hunger will be seen to with care, but thirst and hunger will also be quenched. No caretaker syndrome in this process. I'd like us all to do research into peer counselling and to offer up what we already have or have found for everyone to benefit from in preparation for us intentionally deciding to support each other in a healthy, consistent, reliable and organized fashion.

This is what I'm proposing so as to not end up continuing to being crisis support worker, internet/email resource relay/conduit, problem solver, checker in-er, sick person visitor, motivational speaker indefinitely. It feels more equitable and will allow the rest of you to experience the risk, the mess, the drain, the work, the act of being a reliable, central, active, fully participating and strategizing, invested, grounded member of the family/community.

For those of you who crave centrality, attention and applause, who may in different ways find yourselves competing with me or with each other, you may find yourselves cured of your ego stuff by working in tandem with others doing the exact same work. You may be called upon to share resources in ways that do not allow sufficient time for obeisance or genuflection to occur. You may find yourselves not as interested in being centered in the spotlight, the leader, the top of the pyramid, the pinnacle. You may find yourself able to simply breathe, do the work and trust in the fact that the work will also benefit you.

darkdaughta

The Buddy System: a proposal (Jan 25, 2005)

From: darkdaughta
Sent: January 25, 2005 10:24 AM
To: bongafish, phoenix, hewhoshallremainnameless, taz, seminalson, biafra
RE: The Buddy System: a proposal

Dear Family members,
I've been reading my wild woman book and thinking about where to next for me as a spirited yet drained and exhausted woman presently walking a skewed, deferred, derailed path under duress who is recommitting herself to rebuilding bridges, reconnecting links and tracking down the path to
home again.

To this end, I'm trying to make some practical moves that will effect the ways you all access me, my energy, my time, my spirit, my milk, my thoughts, my analysis.

Although this is something that is already happening, I am planning on stepping up the pace quite a bit. Despite this fact, I don't want to throw any of you into anxiety, leave anyone with the feeling that they are being abandoned, don't have enough attention, don't have someone to talk to, aren't connected in some crucial way.

With this in mind, I'm proposing a buddy system. Partners for everyone. Solid mutual support systems for each of you. seminalson and Taz's present lover are already building this with each other. This is in part because Taz supported him to do this and I supported seminalson to do this.

Sadly, us wimmin are the ones who aren't necessarily having one committed connected person we can count on. I'm looking for mine presently. Seeking a wild woman of years and experience and balls who I don't need to fix or tamper with so she can support me as much as I support her. This is me setting my intention and putting out a focused call I'm trying to keep from sounding like a shriek.

I've been thinking about my links to the wimmin in our family and realize that you need each other more than I need you.

Biafra, bongafish, Taz, Phoenix,
What I need from all/any of you, you're not actually in a place to offer right now, your understandings of yourselves, your paths, your work is still too fresh. I'm working too hard when I spend time with you and often come away feeling as if I've been teach class.

This isn't working for me.

I still want to spend time and create and build. But I'm suspecting that time spent will need to be a lot more structured than I had previously imagined. My soul is restless and hungry. It is feeding, but it is not being fed.

This is about to change.

I've been realizing that although things are moving and growing and transforming in ways that are good, there are ways that I'm frustrated because I see all of you holding back from amping things up, from turning up the volume, from going to the next level. There is a vital step missing from the work we're doing and that won't change until we change it. I'm asking you to take a leap of faith with me parachute style.

Right now, I'm asking that the Biafra, Taz, Phoenix, bongafish buddy up with each other. I'm thinking Biafra and Phoenix as partners and Taz and Bongafish as partners. How uncomfortable does that sound/feel? :) The discomfort you may be feeling at the thought of this particular pairing is probably equal to the exact reason why the pairing will bear fruit -- You'll be looking aspects of your own selves in the eye and learnging and exchanging.

I'm asking for it not to be bongafish and Biafra, precisely because of the dynamic between Biafra, myself and bongafish. That pairing would be easy in that there are messed up things that the two of you would back up in each other, ways that bongafish would not be questioned by Biafra that would make this a partnership from counter-productive hell.

I'm asking for it not to be bongafish and Phoenix. because Phoenix being with bongafish (ex-girlfriends) would be a default setting.

I'm asking for it not to be Taz and Phoenix because Taz may benefit more from coming face-to-face with bongafish, another popular competitive sexually ambiguous cute girl.

I'm asking for it not to be Biafra and TAz because Biafra could benefit more from someone who inspires to her to feel as deeply as Phoenix does. And I do think the two African wimmin could have some really explosive conversations. :)

These aren't partnerships of convenience I'm proposing they're partnerships of work and sweat and blood and tears. I'm tired of being the only one beside seminalson and Taz's lover to purposefully and consistently pursue difficult, triggering, alliances with all of you.

This is too much work. My battery is running down and I'm resentful.

But I'm not planning on staying here.

I need you to check in with each other before I say check in with each other. This is one of the purposes of the partnership. Email or call your partner at least once a day. Write at least five multiple sentence paragraphs to them if you're emailing. Talk for at least twenty minutes if you're telephoning. Meet them for coffee or dinner. Make dinner together. Sleep over. Go visit. Find out how they're doing. Share what's on your mind. Risk detail. Offer emotion. Jump into their arms when your training says you should hold back. Embrace them, look out for them, challenge them, push them, find joy in them. Make direct links. Connect!

These are the partnerships I'm proposing. I'm hoping you'll say yes because this will allow me some room to go off and explore and grow and feel and dance on my own while knowing that all will be well and the work is getting done.

Cheerio!
Love,
darkdaughta

darkdaughta's invitation to collectively build the home of our dreams

From : darkdaughta
Sent : August 17, 2004 9:57:04 AM
To : everyone
Subject : I'm Dark, womancentric, queer, positive, activist, co-operative, food a-plenty, house dreaming...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I’m welcoming a co-operative, politically Black conscious+anti-oppression-oriented+queer cultured+woman-god/dess centric+class questioning+sex positive+activism nurturing+boundary respecting home into my very near future with seminalson, captain nemo and whoever else cares to dream big and smart and conscious and proactively with us.

The house I’m seeing will have about 4 or five bedrooms.

We’ll pay rent+shares. Shares will go into a reserve for hard times where/when one/some/all of us can’t make rent/can’t find food or needs to travel fast.

This is the house of my near future.

I smell food on the stove and know that there will always be something spicy, hot and plentiful on the stove. We won’t go hungry. We won’t have to privilege our busy lives/work lives over our treating our bodies and our stomachs well. This is the house of my near future.

There is respect for boundaries and a commonly shared idea about what clean means. This is the house of my near future.

There are children of different dark shades, different ages, different genders...a childnation, running/exploring/learning together in and around the house.

There is a garden with flowers and vegetables for us all to enjoy and share.

There is an atmosphere of creativity in the air given that we all dream and make manifest those dreams in the form of writings, performances, collective creations, sewing, knitting, film and video making, finger paintings and playdough squeezings.

There is a solid agreement among us to speak often and openly. To share feelings, fears and insecurities. To open up when we were trained to shut down. Although we meet in council, we don’t wait until then for things to be addressed or possibly resolved. This is the house of my near future.

There is private space and the knowledge that what we all need to feel safe, sane and secure matters. This is the house of my near future.

There is colour and shape and vibes aplenty. This will be the house of my dreams. This is the house of my dreams. This is the house of my very near future.

seminalson, captain nemo and I are moving for the 1st of November. Will you move with us? Do you know someone who might? Do you have any leads on affordable houses where the very near future can unfold?

More succinctly,

I can and will speak clearly.

I will deposit my last check from my last job in the saving account when it comes.

My pay from the new job will be directly deposited into my checking account march 17.
i willset up an RESP fo rTigana , Olamina and the children of Azania i agree to having the repayment take the form of my keeping what i need for rent and living costs.
in terms of moving, i will committ to ensuring that the room is is either occupied or that someone suitable has been found. this can look like me writing or co-writing the ad with phoenix, or sending the notice of vacancy over email

I agree to the dates set out in Bongafish’s counter proposal as well as the terms.
As Bonga pointed out on the phone with me last night , these are her first thoughts and she is just one person.
But as far as having 2009 as the scope for repayment that is the time frame I committed to participate in Azania,I green that.

I will like someone from the house i lived with in Montreal to be aware of or to actually sign a document stating what i will repaying what i have taken from Azania through my own work.
i think that should be M who knows first hand what I do, who experienced me living couch surfing at her place, lived with me and shared her resources and paid a large portion of my rent over the course of a year with the expectation that I would be ensuring that I like everyone else would be working to their full capacity to make the house , a collective of five, work and last. Here too I invited others to carry me- and I communicated even less. Eventually after the rent money that was paid for me by the two white women in the household began to accumulate, for various reasons, but i know that i contibuted to this, eventually all members parted ways to some extent.
My mother took her money and paid what most of what I owed.
I would like my mother and the woman who I deceived and used, to sign or at leaset be aware that a) I have recreated a situation where ihave profited from a community I said I wanted to build and in not feeding it and supporting it, I destroyed it.
There is more to come.
this evenign i will remove the meanderings from the Azania is burning blog. and continue to write coherently, what i am committing to.
i have posted to my blog the parts of this writing that were more reflexive.

so here goes

this is what i think so far...

as far as a proposal goes (i alsop read, the financial proposal to taz which i think is solid and which some of this is based on, well that and previous conversation.)

I have already decided that there will be a monthly amount from me; that yes I have left up to me to decide but that’s open for negotiation and one bill that I will pay. I did not set a time limit on that but artificially as for the monthly amount and bill until I have 1) either negotiated to have my things out of woodbine house or 2) for as long as I could: yes I know this is a loop hole for me so it would be good to decide a date.

And then after that, in place of that, alongside that I’m more than happy to commit to the azania child fund, for five years and or from five years starting to an agreed upon date. The only part of this that worries me is what if I can’t get a job, make enough money but that’s never really been an issue I am committed to holding down a no frills job if necessary and also when there are financial resources: choices can be made with those in mind.

And to this purpose I suggest that the payments either from now or from one year ago be backdated so that whatever is missed, its like a bill it just backdates.

I’m saying this with a knowing that when I left azania I had a “lump sum” in my pocket and that was when I chose to leave. This is true. I still think thought that I made conscious decisions that weren’t solely biafrakrunk centred as to what it would do. I know also that I dominated in that situation by deciding, solely not collectively where, when and how that money and whatever other resources I had would be spent, prioritized and utilized. Given that we did not agree to an azania where biafrakrunk leaves unnegotiated and attempts to manipulate the whole situation and all resources associated with her.I’m a green on that still.

As for my things in the house. I’m still at the things that I came into the woodbine house with but then I shifted to anything that I came into woodbine house with that is NOT collectively in use or has been decided is not collectively in use particularly furnishings including appliances, housewares, fabric even clothing etc.

I propose that this exclude things like photographs, letters, documents, journals etc.

No I have not come up with any brilliant idea for picking the stuff up, packing it, meaning I would have to be in the house or get someone else to do that work. I don’t know maybe some kind of barter can happen for/ with whomever packed my stuff…or I could come at a time when there was none home, with another azania member or two or three or whoever witnessed by people and pick up things. And yes I am aware that this would require other azania members whom I abandoned without so much as a word to do this work on my behalf or inconvenience, energy requirement and expenditure from them.

my relationships with people otherwise, outside of this is a bit more complicated right now and so yes..makes the above complicated but thats another struggle.

Biographical explorations and community interactions...

Taz,
Can you please take the writings you've posted that are meanderings on your life/biographical information and put them on your blog? You're still insisting on forcing us to process your life for you with you in moments when you're asked to be present and think about the ways you've chosen to live off azania.

What you've written in this last post and some of the others sounds very bohemian, but doesn't actually get into the reality of what you've created in the community you've lived off for a year.

Can you filter out the stuff you're trying to work out that you won't do on your own. Can you place it in a venue where you can do that ad nauseum by yourself, spinning around and around as many times as you want...your personal blog.

In this venue, this blog, can you actually write about azania and engage with the questions bongafish, phoenix and seminalson are asking? No one is at this point asking to have your whole life story. They're asking you to be accountable for what you've done in relation to this community and for some mature and truthful negotiation well after the fact, instigated by you.

wake up at four thirty
pray.ground. ( i think this might be a way to energize myself from my own spirit instead of sucking other people)
blog on consider* disaster 15mins
read azanian blogs from night before
blog 45mins on Azania Lies Burning.
(this so i consistently am in dialogue instead of writing for hours, not often, and the results, as have been pointed out, being disonnected from present converstaion and interactions.
eat
6:00 leave for work.
8:00 get towork
work/lunch/work
after work eat( i get hungry right as work finishes)
blog 3o mins on work computer( i like this it means i will have the day to think further on what i had begun writing in the morning- hopefully the job will be such that i'll be able towrite a bit between calls)
go home
8:30
clean
cook dinner/next days lunch
speak with Phoenix about our respective days and our plans and what we 've written about.
10:45 sleep

what needs to happen:
-discussing more in detail who we see living here. just anyone half decent? a potenial Azanian?

-agreeing on a means to advertize for a housemate .(some suggestions : e-mail lists and putting it up on view-it. perhaps Azanian councellors who have info about Azania know of clients of theirs who might be a good fit.)

some evenings next week i will be meeting with potential councelors- i left messages with my availability to five that bongafish's councelor's recommended.

i'll be following through with whatever means of advertizing for a new housemate that we agree on.

in terms of my moving - i have had the experience of needing to move, ( because i couldn't afford my rent - because i hadn't committed to a job that was was sustainable and constant and neither had my partner, zanamito. once again i prefered to have someone else work for me. in this case, once again, my mother had payed part of my rent those months.)

neither zanamito nor i had organized moving well and we had left everything to the last minute. dark daughta, seeing this, asked whether i was going to ask for the support i clearly needed instead of escalating the move into a crisis situation. she mobilized bongafish and seminalson to come help us pack and phonix had agreed to let us store some of our boxes where she lived.

this time i know i actually abused of the support i was given. i stuck to not asking for anything- only taking when it was freely given - or forcing it when boundaries were sets in terms of how i was sucking resources, time and energy.
there's more to add here.
my goal is to whittle my things down to a one car move, so maybe a $80 taxi van to move.

longer term:
i'm aiming to stay at the new job for at least one year. i have one late from today and there are only three allowed before they fire you. as i told phoenix one of things i will be focusing on in my life from here on in is cultivating discipline. three lates is not a lot of leeway so i guess disciplining myself starts now.

more to come in the morning

Azania this is a second piece from tonights writing..

i too in many many ways see the paralles between me and zanamito and azania and myself.

So the man goes off.

I’m angry

I’m bitter – resentful.

I tell him my first boyfriend is sending me love letters. How much he appreciated me..

I tell Zanamito I don’t want to hear how wonderful I am how you loved me ten years from now.

No he says – “I’m thinking maybe five”.

Me I’m thinking two.

i would ask - iam asking (to mayself anyway)...What can you send my way of what I asked for?

Send me the drawings of me you started doing after we weren’t togetheranymore.

Write to me -send me your hot breath your wails like you were supposed to

Let me hear roll off your tongue what didn’t yet roll off your tongue.
you were suposed to be a solid lover.

I had said to zanamito at the start of our relationship that i expected that we would create a lovership like we create paintings on canvas. i imagine this can be true for azania:

We go in with an idea of what we want to create

We get into it

We do it, use what we have,

It takes shape- its not what we had thought,

There are techniques we don’t yet know, there are tools we don’t have

We get discouraged shit this sucks.

We want to put the brush down frustrated – fuck this is not what I wanted. What I saw.

The distance between the vision and the actuality we’ve created is huge

We keep going,

It keeps becoming

Its something else

We use what we have

And we step back to consider what this new direction is

We see possibility

We have vision

Its closer to what we

We didn’t expect it

But it has its own charm…

We keep going

Going in , recommitting, pulling back,

Getting reinspired. and as we work at this new direction

the original vision is still lingering.

The ideal.

And we are working towards it

differently than we first envisioned it, but the vision is made real , recognizably so,
in the process.

One of my roommate in Montreal emailed me. a love letter about how she appreciated me - and all that i had brought that she saw in retrospect.

I’ve been wanting to write my collective house members in montreal to ask a few question – want to know how they experienced me.

What they’ve done with the experience of living together

Why they did it in retrospect.

Been thinking about mudgu and anacoana in montreal, my presence in their lives,

Been there
when she gave birth,

When her mother was in the hospital

Helped clean the house, laundry

Mudgu shared a lot of her life with me

Food, bed,friends her art

And me? What did I give?

I thought i was bringing my self, comraderie, company, an ear…gave my good energy

Until I got stank- didn’t want to share so much

Wanted to “deepen the relationship”

Wanted to be "friends"not just sistren as she called me.

Mostly I stated acting like a jealous monogamous girlfriend…

more to come..

..

POAST ONE

Azania, these are some first thougts, i 've heard the request for more concised writing, that reponds directly to what people are saying in reponse to my propsal, writings.. i will edit adn flus out thes e two posts - just wanted to publish them to communcate that i am here and i'm still thinking and writing. its dis jointed in parts, i'll link it upthis evening.

POAST ONE
It’s all relative.

“Giving your all” means letting myself – giving myself permission- to stay-

It’ s wanting to leave

It’s struggling

It’s not taking the easy way out.

That is leaving.

Its joining conversation when the last thing I wanted to do was join conversation. Its creating a mental list of all the reasons why I should speak as every one else watches. Finally speaking.

It’s staying. Always staying.

I know that being accountable in repayment doesn’t mean I have to physical be here. There is something I have to do

I will not be abandoning Olamina’s birth- there are many ways to be involved.

my father didn’t pay. And I wanted that. There was a time that his letter came with cheques, then when I stopped communicating when I was clearly old enough to shape a relationship with him – then he stopped.

I co- created the lack of relationship I have with my father.

My ex is not gone, nor is my ex before him nor is my ex before him.

Resent comes when we give within a set of agreed upon expectations and don’t get what we wanted in return.

He did offer me something

He offered me seeing movement

– he showed me that what was a generalized approach formula needed tweaking . I often referred to our relationship as a workshop. I gave him too much leeway to make his commitment – to speak what it was he was willing to be accountable to.

– I won’t do that again. I’ve seen what I do with space. When I haven’t dared to speak my choices clearly. I’ve stalled my life- and everyone around me.

–

I am not afraid of commitment- but I am going to hold on to particular ways of being.

Or rather I am going to birth new ways of being that may look to you as old ways

i.e. I’m leaving

Or i'm not talking

Or I’m not responding (taking a long time).

Movement –

Yes I have given my all.

Zanamito gave his all. I asked him throughout our relationship if he was willing – and he said yes – up to the point where he said no.

Not giving his all would have looked like him saying this is off bound- I will not discuss this with you- verbally , emotionally,he went everywhere with me – to places he had not been to in years or had never been to with another person- things that were emotionally brave of him.

And that’s were things got most real. Towards the end of the year,

That’s when he showed indiffernce towards my pain, my miscarriage, shutdown towards me in ways that were gruesome to see- but I remember stomping around in front of him the night he left. Saying you know too much. You know too much to leave.

With me and Zanamito it was a year of an intensive immersion in a completely different way of relating.

I think of my first boyfriend, Jamah

all investments return,

all those years of doing emotional work, health research, sharing my resources, networking , physically caring yes with a q-tip in one hand and tea tree oil in the other.

It was five years or more before the relationship was raw/real. I maintained a cottoncandy veneer on that relationship for three years out o f seven– so yah – This is movement-

. I f both he and I had been at a place then where we could have recognized that place as the start of something more whole – more true then we might still be lovers maybe even partners in a real way.

So for me when I say I don’t want to talk its a lot more real than me always thinking I don’t want to talk and still sitting down – joining a conversation.

I don’t actually want to be around people for extended period of time.

I want to share my space and my life only when I want to not when someone comes home- and its not just in good times-

I looked at condi today- and thought about living without him I was winding up to feel sad about it and then I remembered that I would still se him – I then thought that moving to missisauga is a hellova far ways for any east living Azanians to travel. .

Not being attached to the outcome- well I was. I chose him to be my lover. What did he choose me for? Maybe I ‘ll never know…

I learnt something – that I wanted to share everything with him but that that was not possible- that he could not know my pain- and would never ever feel it in his body as a man.

I actually know how to care. I know how not to abandon when I finally scratch the surface

I have begun all my relationships as flights of fancy, those that have had the most hold on me have been those where there was a strong aspect of mythology around the person , zanamito represented something archetypical to me. Darkdaughta represents another archetype to me.

Bonga fish is a Taurus , my complementary opposite, but what that represents it is not something that resonates as key to my sense of self / my life.

Phoenix /Gemini the twin trickster.

I don’t aspire be a community person.. I want to live in little house somewhere that’s by itself- a little creepy I know. I wan t people to come and have it be the things I had wanted Kingston house to be that things that Azania know me to be someone who likes jing jing – ceremony- special meals, special time, time delineated from the everyday. and if no one wants to see a light skinned person “presiding” over her “special place” that is for “special events”- then I make the place available.

Orperhaps I should just begin with me. It’s for me to make my daily into ritual.

And that is the pieces I’ve been putting together. When have I been happiest- when have I felt competent and inspired? When have I felt less like performing for others. I was within a community but i was choosing different from others

I provided my service, and it was hard fucking work. it was hard – and I had to do the work like everyone else- wasn’t in that special role always- did discipline, did running after, and I had people who liked what I did and those who were highly suspicious, and those who never set foot in my magical place- just needed to know it was working out.

But yes, the chart and the readings. So I put it up there because I wanted to explain what it was that I was referring to in my head as I’ve moved through Azania

Key points

Empathetic-

Needing to get out of others energy in order to make decisions based on what I actually want.

I lived with anacoana, who asked if I took her place for a hotel cause I wasn’t rooting, grounding, contributing to the house old I stayed but I kept distances – never interacted like it was home, just as if I were a perpetual guest

There’s a certain power in callounessness. In saying I don’t care. Its important for the likes of me to say fuck you I’dont care-

Its one less thing I have to stop me from being powerful in the presece of powerful women. Saying no is not in of itself powerful, but azanians, you have experienced what it is for me to be saying yes and doing no.

Even aying “fuck you I don’t care” even when i know on another level I am lying – when phoenix or bonga fish repeat to me taz you just don’t care,

I feel a sense of relief.

No more fighting myself up to say” no I do”. And then setting myself up to agree to do something to prove it, which I then sabotage. Starting with I don’t care and I wont do is much more in keeping with who I actually am.

So yesinteracting with the world not as taz the fair, taz the good taz the enlightened. No. Taz who joys in in other people pain. Who in fact is a lot more interested in what’s wrong than what’s working.

I’m not afraid any more! Not afraid of depression!

Not pathologizing it anymore! Not afraid of madness anymore. And really if it weren’t for that opening voice that says you should do something I would just be in it. With no goal. But I have the drive what’s behind the altruism of healing? I get to be up close to the energy the awful sticky tar or someone else’s stuck ness. And encouraging them to go there.

I used to be afraid of what if they put their shit on me. Ha nw I laugh! I am there. Its been my home my whole life! So much so that I didn’t even know. – And hadn’t it been for Azania – I wouldn’t know. No one I knew was working through their stuff seeing a councilor enough to be able to recognize depression.

Mostly people were confused by my behaviors…

…

I’m going to pause

I’ve been at this internet café for hours, I need to head to work now. And continue after work. I’m going to reedit my posts so that they are actually tailored to the comments being shared by other Azanians.

And sadly what biafra has done allows her to hide behind Taz...

Biafra,
darkdaughta, here...
Just because you refuse to post/speak to your actions or to put an end to what you started here with us, doesn't mean that you're not still accountable as an adult...

What is transpiring in these emails as we once more attempt to get Taz to be accountable to what she agreed to do is a conversation you sidestepped and stunted through your actions...almost. But you are still expected to set up mediation and to responsibly make agreements about how you plan to do the work of disengaging from the community you drew from and then left.

what you wrote on your blogsite instead of on this blogsite where your words and ideas would be engaged with....

"Getting ready...
I told myself I just needed particular thing to settle down/concretize before I go and see her again..because I know that if I’d gone to see her when I was fixing to abandon azania there is no way she would have let me do it or at least she would have been clear that I was once again not being adult and hiding behind trauma."



you also wrote...



"Azania lies burning...

Some immediate thoughts are azania in its current form lies burning and that requires reckoning with…I think that has been a reality for a while. NOT for me initially but given where I am sitting now which is on the periphery: I have not chosen to have the integrity or willingness to negotiate/ conversate/mediate ANYTHING in good faith. This is true. I’m not even saying that I am now. My obvious attitude to this has been a big FUCK YOU, in every way imaginable. (The invitation to at least address/attempt the burning issue is still on the table andhas been sitting untouched my me for about 2 weeks now...not gonna post this there yet, it would be a DISS, why; cos this here is the incorrect, i'm not trying to put all the context, make it understand, richer, fuller, remembering the conversations, critiques that i know, heard and hear as i write but feel like thats just too much to write on paper, which is big prob for me, thinking, talking, writting wise. i NEVER finish and fully develop an idea something known as self stunting in azania why because it limits, willfully, your/MY ability to finish a sehntense, thought so that you can build on it and be truly complex, multilayerd, complicated..l.yeah it would have beautiful... but just you wait!..not quite )
As in no I will not negotiate, as in no I don’t care. Not forget I can do it, I can try I just don’t want to. Onyii is not at the I’m too tired line that I fed initially when challenged, asked to invest, asked to share, asked to comperge…I just don’t want to. Yes, it is true, of course I wasn’t saying FUCK YOU quite so clearly and loudly when I was getting fucked, when I was getting care, affection, affection, being shared with, being comperged with.

Talking to HATERS, enemies, just like myself about azania and receiving congratulations for having left azania has hurt, hurt, hurt in places where I didn’t expect/ see it coming. And just as a note, I mostly made it clear but I do really resent getting congratulations for fucking up even by my standards and how can I say this: my respect for you has been severely compromised. I understand you as a HATER. Where I’m realizing how much it was a set up for myself..if I actually wanted to build community/ to care not to share, not to speak, not to honest not jyust with myself and azanians but also with everyone else in my life. I don’t know what it would have done but it would have made a diffrence.

This invitation to DO something, not sure what just something. I’m not sure where to start but as I’ve had to talk to people who were once friends, family whom I now consider strangers and be forced to recall what I did believe in, what I did RECEIVE…it does require a lot more than I did.

The more I talk to people and I find myself defending azania..the more I get the question then why did you leave? That was a really horrible thing to do? If they really loved you and you felt the love so much so that you cannot deny it then why did you leave? Have you heard of/considered counseling/ What is wrong with you? That’s just tooo much drama creation? Why would you do that? MY favorite from miss waterloo: Oh common GROW UP SANDRA!

I still haven’t found a concise way of answering this one without plain old telling people that I am a dishonest backstabbing bitch who resents and hates people who love her: then they think I’m being overly self critical. I ran away from love sounds to cheesy and too light and almost a lie for that reason nothing about azania was “light” right now I’m settling at because I allow myself to be immature and use it as an excuse to be immature, and irresponsible. I chose to define as things that mean that I do not have to do anywork that would ensure I remain responsible to the people I am in relationship with. This is a whopper to swallow for some who have constructed as the quite or cute lille girl who will sometimes beam intense sexual energy…and can talk a good academic game if she isn’t sullen kind of chick. Then the question of well if you know that about yourself then why don’t you just do all in your power not to act so fucked up…as in try not to do it or check..ah we get to the point of what other azaniana would call an internal barometer:just check yourself. No I also defined as not having an internal boarometer or doing nothing to build one up, consistently forcing myself or holding myself to live up to my own goals and expectations: NOPE…that’s when the laugh which, my counselor and some people hgave officially told me is scary: they don’t hear a laugh but pain but there I am/ or all they hear is lauighter. I think what the FUCK am I supposed to do cry every fucking time something hurts? They’d check me in for hysteria or some shit like that.

That’s when I say to myself yeah..that’s right bitches: “get fucked up..STAY fucked up”

I’m sure I have more to stay but I think I just joked away all the trinkles/ droplets of emotion. But I’ll be back…
This IS my blog aint it: trust me (ha! Yeah, I know big jokes).. I’m in a good mood today I got sent home from work..fuck that its shitty pay and I did not want to hang around for another 12 hours of it but my little disabled girl is screaming at me not to fuck this up and to make them like me because who knows when else I’ll come across a poor liberal who decides to hire a “mad” looking disabled chick a job harassing people..who the fuck knows?
In celebration of tonite non 12hours day: i will be watching "My fair lady" ultimate classic in my household and i've been hearing the lyrics in my head. I wanna see what up with HENRY HIGGINS...any similarities to my father? who knows?"


before that you wrote...


"some azanians on biafrakrunk

So I was going to take the suggestion of one line descriptions; if you’ll just look at the sidebar to explain the presence of certain “community members” bloglinks on my blog. I was like holy fucking shit; aznia comes to biafrakrunk, stop, then oh shit people WILL have more context, I should edit my posts, I dunno blah blah blah thoughts in my head mostly DON’T DO IT. I mean, why? You don’t live there anymore, If you have to explain why they’re there..it’ll just be clear that you are um..irresponsible..umm anybody who follows the postings will see your patterns when you chose to post on this blog and what it’s about and then THIS IS YOUR BLOG god fucking damn it. But I guess if you really want people to understand what the hell you’re talking about givens that you don’t have a comments link and you have refused to edit your posts..it might be good.

OK FINE.

So here I am I’ve added the bloglinks, but also I avoided reading everyone’s blog to create as much fucking distance as possible I didn’t want to read, process anywhere any call outs requests to communicate, be responsible none of that shit. But then putting on MY BLOG means I’ve sorta gotta read them. Aight.

But for the descriptions

AZANIA: is the link to the community description and will give better understanding of what the community is/was grounded in.

The blog: is a proposed attempt to mediate/conversate concretely….

Bongafish: why doesn’t someone ask her what it means? This bonga fish but no joke I HATE this chick. I’ve come a long way it used to be I obsesse/power enthrattled by this chick…now its I FUCKING HATE this chick…read it.

Seminal: can’t touch this: I have remorse, sort of I just feel like the way I feel don’t make no sense, but I don’t want to feel anything in relation to this person but he is there so read it. But without a doubt there is no other seminal son out there…actually can't stand him either….

Consider disaster: she’s got something to say we hoping and praying..my angry/pretend bitch ally, she aint nice :)

Phoenixfish: non-girlfriend…

My relationships with these people are obviously way more complicated than the two liners but honestly I’m not ready for an indepth exploration of any kind of the way that I feel about these people. I am choosing at this present moment and have chosen consistently chosen not to feel anything really in relation to them. I exited community, whatever commitments, relationships I had with them for no OTHER reason other than I felt like it. They didn’t do shit to me…they didn’t shit to deserve the shit I brought with me, well sometimes I think they do otherwise why would i do it? that me just being NASTY cos no really they didn't do SHIT to me. We’ll leave it at that."

Biafra,
I understand that the ways you construct your (understanding of) relationships with all of us has actually allowed you to play out familiar scenarios for you that in turn justified you needing to run and hide. You're still expected to engage in a process that holds you accountable and expects you to recognize, embrace and speak truth...all of it, not just the bits that serve to further entrench your experience of trauma and oppression.

This is me saying: stop doing that manouver of hiding behind someone else. You're too big to hide, your shit is to conspicuous to go unnoticed.

Response to Taz 4: Ongoing

There is much more here to what you've talked about. So, do continue writing. In the meantime.

Can you powerfully blog (karmic note to self about the thinness of my blogs) about your counselling sessions? You went to one yesterday, can you talk about what happened here? And can you talk about how you plan to keep yourself accountable.

Can you blog about why you feel excitement about giving people things that they don’t ask for? And about what you felt excited about giving and why?

Will you instead foot the bill for a custom-made gown(s) for her Blessingway ritual. Or a matrilineal pair of outfits for her and captain nemo.

Will you instead use your Future Shop discount to buy a set of speakers for the computer, and start up an account at a well-reputed art-store, so that we can purchase all the art supplies needed?

Response to Taz 3: you moving

I resent that you've reduced your moving out of the transitional home (the one that you committed to building and then co-sabotaged with Phoenix to destruct ~ as you and I did in our buddy relationship, and as you Biafra and Phoenix and I did to our community) to one line.

The only thing between any Azanian, and our desires, is negotiation, accountability, and ethics. So you want to move, great. But you still have to negotiate, be accountable, and ethical.

I’m green with darkdaughta’s question about you moving to Mississauga, far away from accountability when you default. Why did you decide to move there? What happens when you run into K at Square One, I imagine.. laughter of the damned...

Anyway, your notice is incomplete.

I'm red about you taking Condi. Condi stays at Kingston. You wanted to live alone, right? Then do.

Since the things in the house belong collectively to Azania, but for the things that came from your home, that conversation has to include another Azanian.

Who are you planning to enlist in your move? What is your plan?

You and Phoenix are part of a household, and still need to communicate as one, and propose to the rest of the community what your proposal is for Kingston House, and how that will work. That means going into all possible outcomes of your move and sharing them on the list. Such as what if you don't find a place in Mississauga by May? or what if you do, and there is no one suitable at Kingston? All this has to be arranged, and negotiated and shared as part of your notice.

Please do this by the end of this weekend, since time is short before you move.

Also, ground in the fact that you'll be leaving in the last month of darkdaughta's pregnancy, and that a lot will be happening.

Response to Taz 2: A financial counter-proposal

And this isn't me saying don't move. I'm saying that you need for yourself to be accountable to you, and to us.

And that yes, Azania is burning, but so does the Phoenix.. which is incidentally the final aspect of Scorpio -- or did you not get to that part of the book yet? :) And this is all the more reason for you to be present.. regardless of what your choices are.

This proposal is based on the email you sent. I originally sent this over email because I didn't want to send a post with financial information on it, because I didn't want it to seem as if we were taking your money. But that's how you left it to look to anyone who reads this blog. You haven't told the story. So there you go, we look like the bad asses.

Here's what I counter-propose:

That you return to Azania the money and energy that you took, and committed to exchange money, time, energy, creativity for. That you do this by:

1. Signing over all but your rent, transportation, food, debt, and modest spending/incidental money. That you calculate this with two other Azanians by sharing your financial information as we have with you - the debt, bills, grocery and other spending, and coming up with a standard monthly amount that we can expect from you for the duration of 18 months after May 2006 (until November 2007), to account for the time that you spent living rent-free at all our houses, while you refused to work, and support the growth of the community, and drained our resources.

2. That for the remaining time in the 5-year grounding term that you committed to (November 2007 - 2009), that you continue to contribute financially to Azania into an open investment ear-marked for Tigana, Olamina, and the rest of the Azania's children's development. This would look like a direct deposit to an RESP plan or a non-registered investment that is withdrawn directly from your pay. So, that all but your rent, transportation, food, debt, and modest spending/incidental money up to November 2009 be automatically credited to an open investment.

3. That you make all your current bank accounts joint accounts with another Azanian until November 2009 to keep you accountable. We can agree to appropriate boundaries for you and yor co-account holder.

4. Immediately paying for captain nemo's glasses - $250, and the digital camera out of your pay and not from some masks you may or may not sell in the next 12 months..

Finally, that we draw up these terms and have them signed by Azanians and one non-Azanian who you know, and can help to keep you accountable.

Response to Taz 1: A metaphor for meaning..

Taz,

When I first read your email and blog, I felt relieved that at least you wrote something that included dollars and cents in it, that attempted to be ResponseWilling for what you committed to do in Azania. Except that your months of silence and non-communication, non-care, non-anything were obscured by you, and temporarily put aside by me out of desperation when I read this.

It took me a minute to come to, and ground in the fact that you are throwing pennies to people who gave you a gold mine, and to whom you promised it to.

Since collectivity and sharing examples don't do it for us. Think of it this way: How would you feel if you met a scroungy boy/man, took him into your life and home...

You thought he had some skills, but he presented as a whiny snot-nosed kid while in relationship with you. So, you, in good faith, taught him all you knew, gave him all you had, believing that he would take this stuff and put it in his relationship with you.

So as the months went on, he collected books, language, witty jokes, ways of being, cooking skills, basic life skills, all while you worked hard to ensure that he had all that he needed to develop a powerful self to offer the two of you in your relationship. A year passed, and finally, he'd started to take showers and put together okay outfits.

He finally got a job, and appeared to be more willing to give back something to you. But by the time all that happened, you were worn down ragged, and he found you uninteresting and a bother to be around, because you were constantly 'blaming him for things' and 'angry and grumpy' and 'judgemental' and he'd rather hang out with his new work buddies, some of which were bouncy cute anorexic girls who really
dug his style. He on the other hand felt free and energized, full of energy and verve and zest and drive for life.. there was something in the air.. a good mood, a bounce in his step.. it just felt sooo refreshing to be out! alive! confident!

His new peeps found him so cool and sexy and intelligent, and wanted to hang out with him. He told you that he tried really really hard to be 'honest' with them by telling them that they were actually encountering the work of his partner who was at home. And the more 'earnest' he was about that, the more they found him so interesting and honest, and wanted to hang with him. But you, his partner weren't speaking so much to him, because you were hurt and tired and drained.

So he decided that since things weren't working out, he'd leave you, and live on his own, to get his life together, and ground, and be with other people because obviously the relationship with you wasn't working well for you... and for him. He just needed a break, a retreat. So he decided that he'd move far away from you, but would give you a lifetime supply of St. John's Wort and some Q-tips to help you deal with your depression, and that just because he's been having secret relationships that you know about, and he hasn't told you about, and just because he's moving halfway across the city, and told you about this decision the same week that he got a way better paying job, that doesn't mean that he's leaving you high and dry... Besides, he'd use 6% of his income from the job that you bathed, fed, clothed, him to get to look into supporting you to have a break because you were looking a little run down these days... He'd give you the proceeds from selling some old DVDs so that you could get some supplies that you needed but couldn't afford because you spent it all on him.

Then I thought about that one line birthday card your deadbeat white dad who ran from your mom to Mississauga.. ugh.. I mean England sent you, and thought about my counsellor telling me that she thinks she's feeling a little bit of what it felt like to be me growing up.

Taz, can you just not be your father? or your ex? we all know this story. We don't deserve it, just like you didn't.

Pheonix request Abc, Taz gives 12..5

IN READING some of the coversation here, it is really clear Taz that you don't even care about the interactions you're having with Pheonix. Your response to her eMAIL does NOT actually engage her in accountable conversation, but is rather a meshmatch of ideas... But that's Azania RIGHT THERE in ACTION: someone asks for abc, they get 123, or in your case taz, 12...5?
Please respond responsibly to the questions in the eMAIL - if you're in fact wanting to be accountable. I resent having to wade through multipe thoughts/ unclear sentences/ undeveloped paragraphs/ all of which lead to you not really writing much of anything that looks like actual engagement. And I know that you're doing this ... i recognize it in my own behaviours with darkdaughta, which you've witnessed and can read about on the Ss blog.
Your meshmash of ideas is you giving work to other memebers of Azania -it's like you're saying: here's some writing ...figure this out ...
Taz, what you're doing here is not OK, so please respond ethically and with your whole self. (It ain't gonna be neat and tidy and sound nice - be at least it can be honest.) Having to ask this is one of the reasons Azania lies burning.
Ss

Phoenix responds to Taz's email/post...

From: "phoenix"
Date: Fri Mar 3, 2006 3:23 pm
Subject: RE: some overdue words

Taz:
I already asked you not to pin the "I'm leaving" on me or make it about me "being glad" that you are leaving. Take responsibility for your own choices, and harm and damage that you do.

If you dont remember yesterday very well, I was/am actually quite angry that you are leaving and stealing, and that what's more- you were not going to say it/put your plans out there until you were literally dragged out of bed to say whatever it is you had to say/ and would be are quite content on sticking around to keep taking whatever comforts you can (except that as the theme of being accountable and speaking to what you are doing and either contributing back or leaving becomes a daily theme from all ends (now including me)- you're ready to go).

and Taz, actually I said that I wanted to build with you and contribute back and offer vision to the rest of Azania around what was happening right now. I invited you to have that relationship, and to have a relationship to build up Kingston-- not to fucking leave (and only to leave if you were not willing to do the building work)... so fuck off- you are the one who is choosing to leave and steal-- and who has refused to build.

" i think she s attached to the idea that i am leaving and theifing rather than that i'm just trying to shape my life as i actually want it to look like on the daily"

I'm not attached to the idea that you are leaving and thiefing-- YOU ARE LEAVING AND THIEFING-- IT IS NOT AN IDEA--- IT IS WHAT YOU ARE ACTUALLY DOING...but because you still havent fully claimed all that you've done (and continue) in Azania- on the azania lies burning blog or your blog (or even in conversation) you allow yourself to continue to lie

you've already been invited to shape your life and what you want it to look like on the daily, in Azania- you've said no-- as long as I'm here I'm gonna sit on everyone else's life- and pretend/plead incompetence (but now that you are ready to go-- ofcourse you are ready to do some shaping of your fucking life- having taken all that you have)

anyway i'm still going with i think there needs to be a place in community - in building - in our lives for total retreat. i mean i took it- from azania as a whole. i never would have asked for it. and i think that its something that i can do in a positive way for others within azania. what that can look like i'm peicing together still.

Taz: its too early to start telling lies about what happened in Azania-- we all actually know what you did over the past year and what Azania offered you/all of us

You were/are very much on retreat: complete with other peoples money, food, time, ideas, career counselling, therapy, bed, interior decorating, and so on...

And what Azania was supposed to be was a retreat from all the fuckery in the world, from lying and hoarding and cheating and denial and domination and oppression and phony relationships, meaningless engagements and depoliticized, uncritical non-living it was a retreat to a place where we could care about/for ourselves and each other.

But what you want is a retreat from honesty, creativity, care, love, affection, meaningful relationship, accountability, responsibility, realness

You want a reatreat back into: all the fuckery in the world, lying and hoarding and cheating and denial and domination and oppression and phony relationships, meaningless engagements and depoliticized, uncritical non-living

and i think that its something that i can do in a positive way for others within azania. what that can look like i'm peicing together still.

what are you piecing together exactly? you've been talking about piecing together whatever for however long-- and this is what's come of it...

last night I asked you to write about how exactly you planned on being accountable and responsible to all of what you are taking from Azania before you go to bed-- because if it didnt get done then- it will never get done -- AND YOU DIDNT... you wrote all of this instead...

remember your ex when he was leaving azania (and me)and asking him about his immersion in thte activity of briar hill- in this reality of constant communication and whether he had ever gone out- just done somethign for him- just because-. he said no. so all then nothing.

so you basically told your ex that he was being oppressed and dominated and should run- just like you are telling yourself now-- what is new?? and without a doubt you will go and seek him out and live happily in denial ever after.

had he ever gone out and ever done something for him- just because??? are you fucking kidding-- I guess that's the storyline you are going to be giving everyone-- "they enslaved me" "I wasnt able to do anything for myself at all" "they made me work 7 days a week" "I never got to do anything for myself at all..."-- but obviously thats what you're/ve already fed yourself

thats so much shit- i feel tired trying to respond--

Azania as you well know was supposed to be about everybody getting support to take care of themselves essentially- but you know this

All then nothing??? You've given youre all??? you're EX gave his all???

NO: you are taking Azania's all, your ex took what he needed and you dont have the Air Miles job because "phoenix went before me"-- you have it because I told someone to call you for the virgin job, and then told another person to call you for the Air Miles job (after I sought out both job postings and got both interviews-- and you rode off the fact that they liked me) and the fact that i wrote out your applications, bongafish did your resume, everyone else asked me to make sure you get a job, people dressed you up to go to interviews, I told you what to say/how to engage in interviews and get these jobs and not to worry about your french...and people forced you to go your jobs.

this would be like me saying "yeah I got my jobs in the community orgz because bongafish or darkdaughta went before me" ... no more like "I got my jobs after having sucked up all kinds of information from them, studied what they do and say, took it and presented in community orgz" and after having acquired contacts, resources and a resume directly from Azanian work- and also the belief that I could do this kind of work- from the work of other Azanians.

no you are thiefing- the corporate work, the art work, the political work/community building work, the therapeutic work. so you better figure out real fast how you are going to account for that as you choose to leave for "everybody else's sake"

and now you're like "I've got a permanent job, I know what direction to take art/projects in and how to present myself as community builder (Agent of Change)-- I'm moving to Mississauga" "and I need to pay for my shows, and quit Mersini-- cause 7 days of work a week is a bit much"...

and do you also think that not working for your entire adult life is a 'bit much', expecting and allowing us all to pay your rent and food, outings and clothes is a 'bit much'

You didnt negotiate quitting Mersini- and if you do without negotiation- you are breaking a commitment you made to pay back your debt... and by the way- I'm working a 70 hr work week-- and you know how much work everyone else in Azania is doing and has been doing-- for you to now be able to walk away (to now start using all the shit you took)

and I would comment on the rest of your email-- and the interaction that I actually had with you last night-- that was far more than the shit you wrote of it

but at a third read- the rest of your email is a big justification for "my "process" means I can screw you over and be ok with it, and I think that I can convince you somehow that that makes sense and is fair".

and of the 'energy' I expended (and everyone else in Azania has expended for over a year) thats all you have to say.

not: I came home, ignored my roommate who said she felt angry that I wasnt folllowing through on my commitment to let the community that I had damaged know what my plans were (after months of not doing so) so that they could move on the things they needed to move on, that she felt angry that I was not sending an email about what my plans were in terms of finances (in relation to people whom I owed b/c they paid my rent/food/outings for a year and who had gotten me all the resources I was presently using) and who I was now trying to lord money over

No: I ignored her telling me she was angry and went to my room... Until she had to ask me to come out, to check a message another community member left for me and to not go to sleep until I had written a response regarding the finances, regarding my plans- whether I was going to move or to build (to give notice if I wasnt planning on building) and to write how I was planning on taking responsibility for everything that I had taken/stolen/benefitted from

In fact, I would have slept another day and week and months everyday forcing other people to make me talk about what I was planning on doing while still benefittting from their resources and energy

You would have said-- that in a fit to get more than you ignoring me, or giving me a smug or surprised face- I was yelling at the top of my lungs- about how what you had/were choosing to do was cruel and harmful and irresponsible and that really you should have been overjoyed and running to write on the blog and emails and to be accountable to what you had done and that you dont fucking care at all and that when you ignored me again, I threw my pencil case on the wall and your books off the table in a bid to get your attention, which you also ignored and then I told you to not use the computer and not write if you were going to construct your being responsible and accountable as more domination on the parts of others

and so you did, you got up and went to bed, but when you heard me come to your room, snuck through the partion to hide in your art room (as if I was the truly the dominator you had constructed)

and that I followed you to your room and said "do I have to rip your room apart for you to understand what you are doing to other people" (but you've already ripped your room apart) and then threw my alarm clock against the wall in frustration-- to which you looked at me with big eyed surprise

thats the 'energy expenditure' one line...and that I said "you know what- we only require one months notice at Kingston- please leave in April... I dont want to live with someone who can do this shit"

and also told you that "no you cant have Condi- he's an Azania cat" and "theres nothign to discuss about the stuff in the house as none of it belongs to you except whatever you brought from scarboro and your old place"

in any case, Belinda, from what I'm reading- you are lying to yourself, attempting to lie to the rest of us, which obviously means that that is what you will attempt to do with the rest of the world as soon as you leave.

And, by the way, I'm not planning on having a friendly friendly two months with you while you choose to do this shit like this-- so figure something out about how you are going to account for what you are doing/ and account for it now/immediately/online or leave sooner/leave now-- cause I'm not going to live with someone who is unapolegetically and continually and arrogantly declaring that they will screw Azania over (while she still uses everything provided to her by Azania)as far as I'm concerned- there are a limited number of ways you/I/biafra could walk away from this with anythign resembling ethics and responsibility-- and those ways would involve promptly putting on the Azania Lies Burning- in detail everything that we did in Azania

Promptly and in detail being very clear about what we've taken and where we are going to take it and what we are going to do with it, and being very clear about how we are going to be accountable/responsible to that- and then following through on our commitment.

And none of this "thought to self" kind of email/post. No: talk about things in clear definitive REAL terms- speaking to another person about exactly what you've done and are planning on doing.

Taz's most recent email has been posted here...

This came through the listserv, but since we've "graduated" from the listserv as a mostly untapped venue of communication to this blog site, I thought taz shoul have her process injected in to the mix...finally. I have changed the names to reflect ones that will allow at least a bit of anonymity. All her spellings and grammatical choices remain the same.
darkdaughta

From: "taz" <...@hotmail.com>
Subject: some overdue words
Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 05:24:41 -0500

i'm going to be sending ,cutting and pasting the writing i've been doing since January or so- after i sent off the list of financial stuff , phoenix read it and commented that it didnt sound at all done and that she and everyone else was sick and tired of waiting for me to write that i forced her to sit beside me to make sure i sent it off because i say day after day , week after week that i will actually communicate what i'm thinking and planning to do but in the end i don't.

i'll try to edit it quickly.phoenix asked that i wake her up when i've said everything i have to say and have sent it and not sabotaged it and to not wreck her goddamn computer.

shes glad that i'm moving. i think she would have prefered to say "go - leave" to me without it being me wanting to leave as well. i think she s attached to the idea that i am leaving and theifing rather than that i'm just trying to shape my life as i actually want it to look like on the daily - i do want to live alone at this point. however breifly-

anyway i'm still going with i think there needs to be a place in community - in building - in our lives for total retreat. i mean i took it- from azania as a whole. i never would have asked for it. and i think that its something that i can do in a positive way for others within azania. what that can look like i'm peicing together still.

i remember (exited male member of azania) right when he was leaving azania (and me)and asking him about his immersion in thte activity of briar hill- in this reality of constant communication and whether he had ever gone out- just done somethign for him- just because-. he said no. so all then nothing.

as for me , i'm going to try again.more realistically this time and without the take take taking. its do able - i know- that energy drain that i do is actually fillable with me. that's what can ground my being in proximity to others again.

the interaction between phoenix and i was like me as my mothers envoy into the world experiencing the reaffirmation that she was right. that at the end of the day the only way people can't take anything from you is if it was yours in the first place. i think i could claim that the things that were bought for me shared with me were mine if i had offered back the things that the sharing was supposed to be in service of- - but i didnt.

i juist looked back at emails from last year. i had said that i would write a list of energetic investments i had received to better facilitate giving back. i don think i did one then but from notes taken on my Birthday,sitting in the pub with bongafish, phoenix and biafra. aft refusing to go anywhere. saying adamantly that i was leaving
that i wasnt going to be able to hack conversation that was voltile and demanded work of me.

victim to the max.


skills received from Azania

"skills:
multitasking
experiencing reward for sustained work
communication
self - questioning
hair
use of resources
being with Stinkapee
8 months rent
clothing
food
councelling
mental and physical wellbeing- my wellbeing at a cost to others
energy
time
sleep
vision
projects
community building
safety
stability
crisis and trauma support
Anique
attention
affection
sex
my needs being anticipated and met
use of computer at woodbine and kingston

i know this - and there is more.

iI (underline bold) want to move.

and part of me moving is engaging with others, not continuing to let bongafish and darkdaughta do the work of moving everyone in kingston house and themselves.

and darkdaughta moving every damn body.

maybe seminalsonis self motivated enough at this point- but every one else.

so acknowlegin the harm.

speaking my rage

stating what i'm wanting and what i've already agreed to.

what is my commitment to myself?

what is humility fo me.

what does grounding look like?

what is realistic even given my identify in terms of being in azania.

what is the place/ space fo the skinny femm straight acting lightskinned woman.

who has been harms full and blocked the full movement of the very thing she is now saying that she's prepared to ...no see that's the problem right there.

keep getting stuck in shite because that's where i start to externalize.

so pull it in....i need to be humble . let down arms, let go defending a core that is rotten and hurtful to me, so that new things can come.

hmm i'm like my art room i look chaotic but it's a shallow film of garbage strewn about to keep myself stagnant yet hopeful - cause i still know that if only i would put an hour or two into it it would be done, okay so back to loyalty-the one single solitary reason i would not commit to building my life in tandem in tri and quatdem within a dark skinned queer matriarchy is because it is and will be work. hard work the work of my life.and dont think i'm goign to let you get away with hemming and hawing anylonger about this commit or not comit. youre ther. you've been there.so give the credit where its due give the givers what you agreed to give. generous and grateful ereshkigal

insert- my incompetence cover. creating excuses for not going- i cont i cant find it , it's too much i'm not able- what a mess. i'm over whelmed. i need to sound a wailing alarm every single time i hear myself say or feel like it's too hard it's too much i'm too scared. cause it's not real and i could choose to just change my mind. right there and then. aint no one asked me to do anything that i havent known how to do, or have have modelded for me. in terms of "help" or support. well, ena, god helps those who helps themselves. so start and create something to be supported. holee. i do know what to do.

so taz who hated completion - how do you feel about your hiding coming to a swift end?

and ending it myself. (that's a lie) (ending it in the context of there being a whole lot of people and presence at kingston on which i could/ had to engage with and ricochet off of.

experience. that's the thing i can't experience all these things i say i will/ want to/ need to do/ in my head. i fundamentally need others. and i need others who understand that we need each other - those are the people who will stay in interaction long enough to make it possible to experience myself, and they them self, on their end. repeatedly. so that were able to note and notice, to experience, think and return to conversation- people with whom we have had enough time that we can recall what they said last week last month last year and know and can hold their history in every interaction.

i keep thinking about that little tag line i always read with scorpios - loyal. ive always thought- well that's a good thing- but i had never been it. i think i know why now. what the tagline doesn't say though thatin the process of scorpios making themselves so radically disagreeable, offering loyaly is tantamount to offering a curse or an albatross. something that lingers is heavy and stinky and you wish would go away.

and so really. who needs my "loyalty" like it's some big string- free gift.

i have totally been thinking of my growth as linear again- that once i am fully present in azania- present long term or "loyal"l as they call it - that i will be good clean changed baptized reborn.hallelujah. noonsense. but i do know that i actually want to get serious about this life of mine.

and i also know that me sitting dead weight on azania was both me needing to feel out whether i would trust , determine whether everyone was for real with what they were saying they wanted(oh the irony when its me i who i coulnt trust) as well as it was me being the attacker being an oppressor,destroying. the malicious aspect has been huge.- that my internal anti- life, anti-beauty, anti- dreams or art 0r growth life cop/punisher/colonizing dominator does not want to see azania exsist.just as he didnt want me to actualize anything that might be a llitel unusual or innovative or remotely public or revealing of me and thus riskyand punishable.

and the ambitious me mine owing bitch doesnt want to see any ideas that arent mine flourish.

this is what i need to be grounded in ( as biafra warned when she was at kinsgton) before i say i want to be present within azania.

and really i think the place for an associate member is ploughing the feilds around the farmhouse. first image that came to mind. inter acting with other lightskinned and white bitchasses at the market and getting the best grains with/for the core member ship.

i asked myself this question over and over my first day at Air Miles, (a job i'm at because phoenix went there first) so your gonna do this taz? you ve been the best positioned to get these corporate jobs and more- is this what youre doing? cause maybe this is the work. not the circus , not art in a gallery.- maybe this thing - these places, these people, these clothes- maybe this is excatly what you need to be actualizing. i don' t gag and get angry about evil corporate canada now that i've uncovered my own evil. nor anyone else's apathy or not caring or their intentional blindness to the oppression they are perpetuating. no. i am this i am them - i am more cubicle and hard edged tower than i ever was creative in the actualized sense of the word.

i've been sitting on brewing and stewing- all the converstations with darkdaughta i tucked away to chew on later out of sight and appreciated when i didnt know where to go with myself.

fuck. i couldnt have addressed - my hurtful, self destructive, acting out, demon girl without having had the experince of hearing, experiencing, observing darkdaughta's words towards all of us. All her mannerism, the ease and push, the emphaticness, the compassion- being dead serious and allowing for laughter to come through. all in the same convos.

so this movement of mine- being able to amplify my voice of reason towards myself to the point that i can question and challenge my self(when i choose health) totally comes from me seeing what it looks like - what it sounds like when someone who recognizs the value of their self - outlines what healthy self-supporting behaviour looks like.

never have i spent so much time taz focused, instead of pojecting out and mediating it my own wiser, saner self back to me through attempting healing or teaching work with male lovers( every single one since my first) thats what i have backed away from. from what it means to have an individual who is not biologically related, not a parent, offer me a model that changed my life. that saved my life.i can hear seminalson saying"well if you just SAY it it won 't be as big." in faact i should say it often. i who focused so much on changing others, on saving, on transforming anyone and everyone have been impacted and changed by someone else.by a powerful transformer and her work through Azania, by an initiate of Change. so i'm not threating that i'll be an albatross and call it commitment, but i am going redress the imbalance .For Those who have given much, much willl be received.

this is not a tidy end- i wanted to say that before i sleep.

more to come.
taz.

also- this email from me has come tonight riding on emotional energy thaT phoenix expended by expressing ander and frustration at my noncommnication and my lies- not posting my thoughts when i say i will

Money, and other resources, and more.. in the works

Yesterday, we got a disconnection notice from Toronto Hydro notifying that our account is seriously in arrears, and that if we didn't pay that our electricity would get shut off.

I felt anxious about it, and when seminalson came home and asked me about the notice, I said that I would be going over to Kingston to talk to Taz and Phoenix about their your resource sharing.

Here's what happened, and some thoughts about that visit:

When Phoenix opened the door I told them that I was there to talk.

Taz, you were in the bathroom, twisting your hair, and listening to meditative music. When Phoenix told you that I was there, your response was to ask her to close the bathroom door. You were snarky with me when I went into the bathroom to ask you to come out.

Taz, when Azania was being planted, you were had the option of being homeless, or returning back to the house of your parent, you were supported. You were given rooves over your head, food, time, and energy. You were able to live rent 'free' (free for you) for about a year, while other people made sure that your basic needs were met.

Taz, you haven't talked about your miscarriage, or your breakup, or your refusal to get a job to support yourself, and our community. You haven't talked about your clothing, jobs, hygeine, home, home stuff..

These are things that you should/could/need to be saying but won't.

Phoenix, Taz the triage order in our community is completely flipped. The people who have given the most resources/had the most resources taken from them - captain nemo, darkdaughta, seminalson - have been left with the least resources in time and energy and money. Both of you have surpluses in all aspects of your life, and insist on making us pay. Why?

Biafra, you left us with your mess, your belongings are in the house, you're not paying for storage, you haven't paid for rent at your house, but have used your money to pay for your own place.

Phoenix, when you were suicidal and alone, you were held in community by all of us through the pleading and direct encouragement of darkdaughta. You were held, but you won't hold now.

Phoenix, when Taz wasn't working, and you were afraid that your rent and utilities wouldn't be paid, you called in the guards, us, to keep her accountable.

Taz, when Phoenix threatened to not work and leave you with less money than you actually needed to pay for rent, you depended on our words to ensure that your home was secure.

Why is it then that now, you both are secure in your house, you're both committed to making your own rent, and have left us vulnerable to you?

You both were there when this was all happening on my end, when I wouldn't share resources, but expected to get hugs, food, money, time and energy whenever I wanted it.

Gotta run, but more to come, including the rest of the conversation, the proposal of what to do from here, and thoughts about Biafra.

Saddness as I enter Woodbine House

I just came back from Belgravia House. It was tough. I went there to get my parents' car so that we could be really mobile, at least for an evening drive. It has really been hard for everyone, but in this entry I'll write about ME, seminalson - with the burning of Azania. Yes, there is everyone around me (like my counsellor, or the Nana @ Belgravia, or people I've met around the planet via Seminalson blog who say Azania is unbelievable, it is incredible, it is really, really important) Then there is the reality of coming back to this "mansion" and not being able to connect with anyone. I feel saddness.

I often go to Belgravia, interacting with my parents... today was special though.. Terrence came into the house. Thank GODDESS! i've had my primary relationship with darkdaughta/the beautiful (and absolute hellish) experience with Azania/my counsellor/and most recently my men's group (more on them in seminalson blog) to hold on to - when I saw him.

I was able to at first blank him, and then when I was ready, I engaged with him. I made eye contact, and he said to me:

"hey, your daughter and my friend Phillip's daughter go to the same daycare" - and I said (knowing Philip and him are allied and have been hostile) "Tigana doesn't go to daycare."
He responded with "kindergarten... daycare... whatever." He was trying to start something, open some door of conversation and I wasn't about to open it. Not a chance.

On my way home, I screamed in the car - yelled about what I want in the next few days - ie "I want going to ; did deep breathing; recounted the time I've spent with Tigana or the past couple of days; thought about the good building

I started to think about how my sad parents just didn't have the emotional tools to raise children back then, and my brothers are definitely a product of that reality.
I actively working on (in my head) and eventually on paper the context for them (my folks) being so emotionally absent and hence contributing so HIGHLY to my abuse. Darkdaughta has provided me with much food for thought around my relationship with them. She was able to do this because she made it her business to know about my emotional life, my background, to be connected to me. I see now, the safety, the security in doing this. It provides a real window into me as a real being with history and life.

This was what Azania was suppose to be. This is what Azania is to be. But I stood in the way. Long b4 Azania, I wasn't keen on darkdaughta knowing all of "my business." I didn't want to trust, it was too dangerous. She might run off and fu*k with my shit.

In dealing with my brother (and many other emotional triggers that I now manage) , I was withdrawing from my emotional bank account, an account built up of emotional struggle with T.J., Azania processing, and my personal counselling. I didn't really respect this bank account. It is not really something I value, and its not real money. And so, I make choices not to recognize it. But by not recognizing it, I can blank the emotional toll on darkdaughta.

Fast forward to present 2006. Where is Azania now...

What happened to people sharing their feelings, eating good food, supporting each others' projects, going out, celebrating new life, enjoying each other... oh. wait... this was a dream...

What's the reality now? Well, I basically fall sleep at my ultra low paying job cause I'm so tired trying to live post Azania. Don't be confused. It is still better then constantly trying to process with you guys who don't give a crap about Azania.

I know I made the choice to not really build with some of you. But I also know that I was and am about doing my work. I remember trying to link up with Phoenix - going to the movies, etc. or trying to meet you for breakfast Taz (and you being late or not showing up) or actually setting up a proposal for relationship with Bongafish, with no result. Actually, that's not true - the result was inaction.

And then, there is me - Seminalson - who believed on some levels in Azania, but on other levels is paying the price for not having tired hard enough to build. I mean, when I really think about it - look how much darkdaughta endeavoured to get Azania where it is. Basically put her career/ life/ health on hold to make sure everyone in Azania would have a solid foundation. CHILD CARE EDUCATION, TWO HOUSES, JOBS, COUNSELLING SUPPORT.

And to be perfectly honest, I didn't really value what she did. But, now, as I sit in Azania, where stinkapee wonders why Pheonix wouldn't ... why Taz couldn't ... why Biafra isn't ... why Bongafish doesn't... MORE TO COME.. off to Operators...

recent convos with Phoenix

In the month I've been not communicating with my housematePhoenix. I've been not checking in, not having conversation about what my plans are. I've not been coordinating meals, groceries with her, and I have not doing most of my household work regularily.
Phoenix has been speaking to what she sees me choosing, pointing out the ramifications of my choices on Azania and clarifying that even as she does it, based on her own willingness to have truthful relationships in her life, she refuses to live in a context and where she has to chase me in order to have conversation about what I'm doing in my life and in relation to her and to Azania as a whole.
Last weekend after work I called to say I wanted to go out dancing. She pointed out that she felt I was asking her permission or for her to say "no" so I could then to position her as my dominator. She said she was aware that I hide things in plain view where it is apparent what I am doing , but that I refuse to claim what I am actually doing- the subtext. she went on to say it was not a question of going out dancing or doing whatever with whoever, but that I lie and hide about what i am doing. she asked it i could just say what it is i want in relation to her, to Azania and people outside Azania, what it is I am actually doing and offer that information instead of inviting her to pull it out. I told her I was prioritizing giving energy to Azania over the dancing, and that I would blog about dancing in the context of the conversation she had initiated with me. That evening when I went out I did not dance, nor did I ensure that my 30mins of writing to my bog at an internet cafe got posted, and not lost/erased/ timed out as per usual. I wrote (uncritically) as i felt about being nostalgic for my twenties and my last lover, Zanamito.

This weekend i did something identical to last weekend.
Work ended in the early morning after a party at the restaurant, i chose to not go home and didnt call or leave any message informing Phoenix of my choice. The next morning Phoenix called me at the restaurant and pointed out what she understood me to have done.
part 2 coming this evening, after work.

resistance and healing...

http://colours.mahost.org/articles/rain.html