Screw The "Divine Feminine"

Be forewarned. I am about to address something that many will see as belittling women. In everything that I say, I do not mean to claim that men and women are the exact same, I simply want to point out some issues that I have with the “divine feminine” myth, in that women are more sacred or holy than men. What I will say requires you to believe in a soul, and who doesn’t hope they are made of more than a few expiring elements combined? I want to talk about a theory I have that souls do not have a sex, but the way our physical bodies influence our souls through chemical reactions that induce certain emotions and thoughts make us believe we are inherently gendered.

Open your mind and let my theories appall or enthrall you.

Yours recklessly,

Lillith Foxx

If women are the "divine feminine" then how come most major spiritual figures are men?

That’s not to say that men are more divine either, I’m simply pointing out that the evidence doesn’t allow for women to be held in a higher regard. You may think; but women can give the gift of life! They carry children inside them and give birth to humans that weren’t there before. Tiny little people walk right out of them. Women are like imperfect cloning machines.

My argument is this; when you give a man enough estrogen, he starts to act and react like a woman. No, his body may not be able to carry a child, but he feels as though he could. The maternal instinct is not in us as women, but in us as humans that have a certain hormonal influence. Just like if you gave a woman enough testosterone she would become irrationally territorial and competitive. Acting as if she were a man.

You go!..girl?

The only reason men and women are different is not because our “selves” or our “souls” have a gender, but the influence that our physical bodies (ie; hormones, genetics, periods) have on the way our mind operates. You’ve probably seen by now the scientific explanation of love, how it’s really just a chemical reaction influencing your emotions with the influx of dopamine and tempting pheromones when you look at someone with perfect symmetry and baby-makin’ features. Well that’s the same influence that hormones have on “spirituality”.

I argue that many have confused women’s open emotions with a knowledge of the ether. Females are so persuaded and often downright controlled by our emotions that we see pretty things and get happy, or see someone hurt and start crying because our bodies are telling us to. So that when we have children of our own we know to lay them on a bed of flowers rather than a ball of barbed wire. It’s that maternal instinct that basically rules our lives. Men on the other hand are looking for protection and strength to guard their families. This does not make them less spiritual, their instincts simply do not seem as gentle or peaceful as women's.

Her mom must have been wired wrong.

Women who themselves support the divine feminine ideal are supporting (probably unknowingly) a much larger issue that I won’t fully get into here, sexism.

Claiming that women are in any way more ‘special’ than men, (simply because we can carry babies-which we couldn’t do without men- and which we forget that we are not obligated  to do) totally negates every important stand that women have taken to demand equality.

We want the same pay! We want the same opportunities and treatment! We want to be seen as humans! Oh but we also want to be seen as more delicate, spiritual, intuitive beings than men. Do you see the insanity here?

I used to cringe at the word feminism, (which a friend recently pointed out simply means ‘the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.’) because I was so used to the overly-righteous and sometimes straight up misandry from feminist activists that it was terrifying.

We’ve all seen the bitchy feminist character in movies who is usually pushed to the extreme of a man-hating, short-haired, soulless women who get’s cracked on a couple times and when she fails to jump on a dick within the first 30 minutes of the film she’s thenceforth referred to as a dyke. That is NOT equality. She is not your average woman and if our choices for cinematic representation are a dumb, likeable girl or a smart, hard-assed cunt, who do you think most women would choose?

Of course you are not the average woman (if you are indeed of the feminine persuasion), you are strong and independent and know how to download torrents all on your own so you demand a better representation than that. And I agree! But if you want society to give you the respect you deserve, you’ll have to let go of the petty ideals of being a woman. Yes you have boobs, yes you have a uterus, yes you can get dirty as hard as the men, no you may not expect special treatment or a reward for it.

Yes it’s usually tough women who make it in the industry (whichever one that may be) but it’s usually tough men as well. If you’re a pussy you’ll fail as either sex, so stop demanding a gentler hand to shake. This is not meant to be anti-feminine, this is simply anti-divine-feminine. This is for you to realize how unfair it is to rant and rant and rant about adequation, and still support the “uber female”. We, as beings, are born into infinitely different combinations of the exact same material. We naturally have access to all of the same knowledge, tools, powers that be, (or whatever you believe in) energy, feelings, attitudes and dispositions. They are not separated or divided unevenly at birth between the sexes, so why do we claim it to be so?

Obviously 'Mother Earth' is preggers. All the time. But still pretty right?

Think of this; we call her “Mother Earth”, Why? I doubt if there was a spirit of the earth that it would be in the shape of a human, let alone male or female. Do you really think there would be some sort of gender to something that powerful and whole? No. It would be some asexual spirit that gives and takes and keeps things in balance. If it were a mother, don’t you think there would be too many imbalances in the world?  As in no tree could ever die, because what mother would let her children pass away? No, it would need aspects of both genders to be a true god. But because the earth has “given birth” to so many things; animals and rivers and agriculture and such, we relate it to a woman. But there is competition and justice in nature as well. We have simply labelled it female because it’s easier for us to relate to.

It’s simpler to put things into black and white, male and female, hard and soft. The truth of the matter is, life is a kaleidoscope of colours and truths, and we are constantly changing and combining to form certain patterns and words and beings at one time or another, then separating again to become distinct personalities and shapes.

You are a man and I am a woman, if you pull back, we are both humans, pull back again, we are both mammals; farther, creatures of earth, members of our solar system, the milky way. Equal beings who are small samples of the bigger picture. But I am not more human than you, more spiritual, divine; only our physical bodies separate us, together we are yin & yang, but separate, we are whole.

This Heat

365 Days of Creativity

one hundred and nine

It's those summer days you've been aching for since the first snow fall. Where it's too hot to move and there's nothing to do, so you sit, trying to prevent your body parts from touching each other. God forbid you make physical contact with another live human and your skin vacuum-seals together like warm glad wrap. I say live human because I actually imagine touching a corpse would be weirdly refreshing. Nice and cold. Stiff too, unlike everything else which gets insanely pliable in the heat. 

You've woken up late because you stayed up later. Relishing the few cool hours before the sun starts rising again. That determined bastard. Just give it a rest for a day, wouldya? Any rain is a blessing in this desert. But the ground seems to show off with how fast it can suck itself dry. Dirty bitch. 

Your skin is tight from mosquito bites and a sun-scorch from the one day you dared venture out.

It was supposed to be fun by the water, but the lake seems a pitiful puddle in this heat. It's a heavy temperature, flaccid and draining. If you could, you'd do a rain dance or a cloud dance or a someone-bring-me-a-cold-beer dance. On second thought dancing would take energy and what little you have is reserved for collecting enough food that day to carry you to the next.

Your days are filled with movie theaters, shopping malls and anything with chilly walls and bottled water. If you're a girl you wonder why you put up with such long hair and if you're a guy you wish shaven bodies weren't so heavily mocked. You watch tv when you're bored though you can't stand it most of the time. Visions of Marineland and Ice Caps and the new Baskin-Robbins flavours dance in your head. Those childhood sugar plums are now dead.

Remembering that childhood, this season never seemed so hot. Why could your tiny body put up with it back then, but your supposed "mature self" is crying out of every pour? Salty, sticky tears. Your entire body like a skittle held in a child's hand for too long. Sweating out your colour and leaving part of yourself behind every time you touch a surface. 

Without air-conditioning, your best friend is your oscillating fan. Every time the boiling air above you is stirred, you smile (inwardly of course, outward emotions are hard) before another layer of hot cotton settles down from an infinite source. 

Fresh out of your forth icy shower you don't even bother with a towel, trying to keep the water on you for as long as possible. Your neighbour makes eye contact with your naked self through the window, but you can't even bring yourself to be ashamed, so you shrug awkwardly and walk away. You live in the thinnest, smallest clothes you own, sometimes opting to simply wear your bed sheet as your wardrobe.

When you do wear clothes, you pour more water in your t-shirt than your mouth and when your friend calls to say "how's it going?" you just laugh weakly. A series of dares challenging each other to cross the outdoor furnace to come visit ensues, knowing perfectly well neither of you will live up to it.

It's like this for days, weeks, months. Until one day a leaf turns yellow then red and falls to the ground and before long it's covered with snow and the air is so cold it hurts to breathe and all you want is a hot summer day with long hours full of short sitcoms and sweat and so much sun you fear the world's going to melt.

This is the season of heat. This is summer.

World War Z; Hell Yes, A POSITIVE Review

If you didn't enjoy World War Z, you should probably leave now. Really. Just go and be alone with your very angry, unsatisfied opinions. Because I just came out of it, and I fucking loved that movie.

Now from what I've been reading the general upset is about disloyalty to the book and lack of blood and gore, and the latter is the exact reason why I don't watch previews. The usual result from an advert is one of two things; a total reveal of the key events of the film, or a completely misleading three minute thrill-fest. Since I didn't see the preview, I wasn't expecting a uselessly action packed blood bomb. I also knew that Plan B was behind this, and they're not your average gore-boosting production company (excuse Kick Ass for a moment). In case you don't know, Brad Pitt is the sole owner of Plan B, and they put out such dramatic epics as The Assassination of Jesse James and Tree of Life.

UPDATE: I have now taken a minute to watch the preview and honestly there weren't any blood splatters in there, so that was just your own personal wish for violence. I do admit that it's been a sort of guarantee for zombie movies, but I don't think that WWZ needed it as we have had plenty of that for years.

To address the upset fans who wanted to see a loyal rendition of the novel, I sincerely apologize. If I had read the book, I'm sure I would be on your side. Getting mad about the faults of book-to-film adaptations is one of my guilty pleasures, but this time around I'm on the naïve side. For you people, maybe taking this review as an examination of the film as a stand alone product is the only way to see my side. If you don't want to do that I completely understand and fully support your anger. BRAD PITT YOU SUCK. That's for you guys.

For the rest of you who haven't read the book, read on.

Why I enjoyed WWZ so damn much;

There were a lot of scenes that were left out, and unexplained. And that was awesome.

How did the zombies suddenly overwhelm New York? Why was the guy holding up Brad in the pharmacy? Why did we need to see them in the grocery store at all? Why did the RV not start on the highway? What happened to the little boy's parents? Why did they let the people sing so god damn loud in Jerusalem? Why why why?!

Because it was fucking realistic, that's why.

The guy to the right has his priorities straight.

As viewers we were very closely tied to the pov's of Brad Pitt and his family. For the first half of the movie we saw everything this family would see. Maybe the city of New York would have been on alert before everyone went to work that morning, but maybe not. Maybe it had escalated in just a few hours and the family had been in their own nice little family world not paying attention to the radio because they were busy being so cute and lovely.

The guy in the pharmacy and the RV not starting are simply examples that little shit still goes wrong in an apocalypse. To see how fast the frail structure of society unravels when true disaster hits. This is very clearly demonstrated by the two guys trying to rape Brad's wife like ten minutes after shit goes down. Everyone wants to watch the world burn.

What happened to the little boy's parents?

They got eaten by zombies, stupid. Probably sacrificed themselves to get the kid out because they were good people. Or they pushed him out the door to get eaten first and he survived because they were dicks, you pick.

Ok, I agree that people singing at the top of their lungs in Jerusalem was dumb, but apparently they hadn't learned that zombies are attracted to sound. A bit of a reach, and I hate to say that something had to happen to get them out of the city, but that's probably what it came down to.

"Staaaaaahhhhp.... siiiingiiiiiing"

I also loved how from thousands of miles away the love interest still managed to fuck up the day. As in when Brad's wife called him on the satellite phone to tell him to grab some eggs on his way home AND ATTRACTED ALL THE FUCKING ZOMBIES IN THE KOREAN CAMP RIGHT TO HIM AND KILLED LIKE SIX MEN. Women, am I right?

"Little busy, Honey."

But overall the small gaps in timeline were easily filled in by a bit of imagination, and I don't think as intelligent viewers that we need every plot point to be spoon fed to us.

The original twists on the classic zombies. Great. Superb. Probably should be credited to Max Brooks though I'm not positive. You may be pissed off about the "weakness" of the zombies, but I thought it was brilliant. Not too farfetched or gimmicky, but just weird enough to be believable. In fact the whole reason why it was believable was that the zombie's ambition was not for brains, but to spread the infection. Sort of like that parasite Toxoplasma Gondii that infects rats and makes them run around like crazy so that cats will see them and the parasite can move to reproduce inside the cat when the rat gets eaten. It's like the zombie virus is a monster on its own that wants to conquer the world by controlling and infecting humans. Way cooler than dead guys who just want to eat brains in my opinion.

"EAT ME"

BONUS; They actually acknowledge that they are zombies. Stop the presses, the word is really said, multiple times. At last.

I liked seeing the more dramatic side of an apocalypse, (which is why I prefer 28 Days Later to Dawn of the Dead) and Brad Pitt is just a bonus. I say that because he didn't do anything very Pittish, actually none of the roles seemed extremely demanding, but more seemed to take a backseat to the large-scale events that happened. And I was very much okay with that. Basically World War Z took everything that you want to happen in a zombie movie (screaming bitches get their guts eaten, headshots and cheesy one-liners) and did the exact opposite.

OH DEAR GOD, THANK YOU. Finally someone changes the genre enough that it pisses some people off. The big-budget zombie brand has been way too one sided and consistently predictable, and I welcome the change. No, it's not perfect, yes it is still a Hollywood film, but if you can stop over-analyzing for a couple of hours and remember to give yourself to the benefit of belief, you might actually enjoy something for once. And really, you should just be happy that Warm Bodies wasn't the only zombie movie that came out this year.