tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36706750882884546132024-02-22T10:17:09.776-08:00Fiammetta's BlogFiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-80141818427378152092019-07-12T11:26:00.000-07:002019-07-12T11:26:34.641-07:00<br />
Adam and Eve were first conceived in 1970 in Ames, Iowa. The artwork's meaning arose from the incompatibility in dialogues between the sexes and how the dialogue can become destructive, verbally, emotionally and biologically, unless humans are ready to TALK about their issues. Fiammetta is writing her autobiography and focusing greatly on such issues because they are fundamental to human society.<br />
ADAM AND EVE 2000<br />
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Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-40714400702810520772019-07-06T07:45:00.000-07:002019-07-06T08:00:17.890-07:00A Suburman Shaman: AutobiographyI need to find out to how to place photos of my visual printed experiences on this blog. IT shall be about how and when I studied my own experienced Unusual Phenomena, catalogued ,and created a hypothesis about the consulting available data about biology, physics, consciousness, religion, and Nature.--The title needs to be as weird as is to-day would be a SUBURBAN SHAMAN!--Thank you for suggestions. about this enterprise. The book has already been written, but I cannot place it on the internet , because publishers shall not touch Public Domain's information . I also need a proofreader, and am short of large funds! My website is : rubinartstudios.com. This project could morph into a cooperative one.- If you email me: postfix your email ( rubinartstudios@aol.com) after your post with the word "shaman", or we shall not have a conversation. Fiammetta. July 6 , 2019Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-60954971100693358892018-06-27T14:47:00.000-07:002018-06-27T14:47:09.904-07:00Incomprehensible Occurrences<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
About fifteen minutes ago I was still intent in moving a couch, discovering under it remnants of old vegetable life, books, nails etc plus a photograph: it was of Maria Telsa’s hand. And it had been taken by me about thirty years ago, but had not resided under my present that long. The photo had survived two marriages and two painful moves over thirty some years, but from the hand almost gripping a thigh covered with cloth I did recognize its rightful owner: Maria Tesla.</div>
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Thin, agile, with hooded eyes and a large but pouting mouth, the essence of a sensual being, like a sullen cat staring at a mouse, which also stares back. She had been born in the Italian Alps, survived WWII and married an American soldier on leave, one of those straight buttoned young men who were elated not just as having survived, but as having become victors in the civilized world. She had just become nineteen and lounged at the chance to go far away from the ordinary bourgeois life of the Italian middle class.</div>
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America, America did not only present her with freedoms she would never have had in Italy as a female, but with a wealthy husband who in due time became also a very heavy drinker and a contractor accumulating cash by contracting for bridge repairs in Philadelphia. Her estate was immense and contained also a lake, her children, 5 of them, ran wild in the estate, as I still recall, and her American mother in law, also of Italian lineage, yelled at her from the upstairs windows of the white painted mansion on the Philadelphia Main Line. while our feet played in the shallow water of the artificial lake. She appeared to have everything a woman may want. Yet she did not. She had too much, if this is possible, and had become bored. She and I exchanged saucy male tales on her side off the fence, as we cooled off in the lake. My tales came from literature read in my early youth, hers came from daily life. At the time I was experiencing ESP, “ Extra Sensory Perception?” and had told her of unusual experiences occurring mostly when my husband was with me, while we were mostly abroad. For a long while our minds had been on a similar frequency but as our relationship eroded, so did the ESP experiences.</div>
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I had read about the research done at Duke University in the sixties and there appeared to be a relationship about pointed hits when the two people involved at a distance had “communal interests “or were in love, etc… there appeared to be an inkling that some people at a “right” time were able to “read” one another’s mind”. </div>
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Up to that point I had not experienced this and had not yet read research about it. This would not occur for another ten years after the story Maria Tesla was about to tell me. Being bored and being rich is a curious combination. For women with no professional education, flirtations had become a sport, a social sport akin to playing golf on Saturdays for the upper class moneymakers. It was done since there were no consequences and everyone knew about it. Social acceptance makes things right, at least in Italy, and she was Italian.</div>
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The Main Line socialites had accepted her because she had vivacity, superior taste in clothing and was rich. As the married years went by and her husband emptied more bottles of Chianti wine, she met an older Italia cinema producer. Matteo was his name, age late sixties or something in that late blooming age group. Well dressed older Italian men still slim and agile, dying their hair and having tailor made clothes were still impressive, particularly in their seductive arts. An old friend of mine, a General, had at 72 fallen in love with a twenty four year old Italian woman from the southern provinces, named Katia, while I and my daughter were still his tenants in his villa in Rome, He still scored, somehow, even as he did complain of “ having lost his horns!” and would have given anything to be even just fifty years old! I was actually glad about Katia’s beautiful, young presence overnight. Fortunately my landlord had no extra eyes left for me! But I enjoyed hearing of his military and just human adventures and learned that people are people no matter what their age is.</div>
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Matteo had also lost his horns but made up, as the General also said, by wearing Vaseline on his hands and wearing gloves at night before having romantic encounters. I never asked Maria Tesla whether she also needed such adjuncts. All I remember is that she told me this was the first time in all of her life that she was totally lost in rapture for a man, even as he was a smoker and made her cough.</div>
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Of course I was not present as the two carried on their autumn repertoire. But one thing I do remember: her long, thin, and manicured to perfection slender hands, which were to my hands as the Himalaya to a small town’s hill. My photo of her hand in front of me reminds me of her worship: beauty. I drew her portrait twice, hat and no hat and always wondered how someone who had broken all the Greek rules of perfection could be so alluring when dressed up to the head. I always did like beautiful fabrics, whether I wore them or not. Had she not worn them, no one would have looked at her twice: the magic was created by how she wore what she wore.</div>
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But she must have had also some different kind of magic, because her adventure with Marco lasted for more then a year. He returned to Italy because more work had opened up for him In Cinecitta, (Italy’s Hollywood) and he never came back. --- Did he really? ---- Here comes the punch line.</div>
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Maria Tesla made it a point of calling me one afternoon, years ago, because I was interested in unusual experiences and she wanted to share one with me.</div>
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The day before she had been walking through her kitchen holding a vase of flowers, some of the kind Marco brought her at times when he visited her in her Philadelphia apartment. Suddenly she smelled smoke. Turned her head in that direction still holding the flowers and saw the still smoking cigarette butt on the ceramic edge of her kitchen table. There was no one else in the apartment and she did not smoke, but Marco always did. Instantly she knew that somehow, he was still there. </div>
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She called me: “ Could I certify the phenomenon!”,…………………………………………………..</div>
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I still have neither means nor theories to certify my own phenomenal content, nor why incomprehensible occurrences come to being, but they do, whether they are synchronous or not.</div>
Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-82133995643357504952018-06-27T14:14:00.001-07:002018-06-27T14:14:16.715-07:00Lesser of The Two Evils- Her Story<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
She wanted to get married so badly. Even engaged or pinned. Anything but to have someone to call her own. A need to belong that pushed her to be prettied up when the occasion demanded it and to act cheeky or humorous or artificial or superficial. She didn’t really know what marriage was all about, but it looked simple and pleasant enough. Marion, who had been engaged for years and had married Ed; was now working in the corner drugstore to support each other while Ed was still working on his Masters in agriculture. She seemed happy enough, and she had a place of her own? Not much, but a small room and kitchen and bath. A place of her own! After two years of dorm life where everything was shared, from the bathroom to the dreams, after a life long of oppression in a secluded home where peaches were counted on the counter and the dust miraculously swept off the mahogany chests before it lay on it, it seemed like a little room with a window overlooking anywhere it could be green would be paradise, a pure paradise of freedom and bliss. Cooking for someone you love, managing their socks, waiting for them in the evening, if nothing else with a pair of warm slippers in winter! She dreamed with open eyes while she was in DR; from classes of government and listened to his consular experiences. Why did she have to take that awful class? Curriculum. She never read the newspaper, what went on in the world was out of her control and therefore out of her interests. The world existed in so far as she walked through it and felt touched by its movements.</div>
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But lately she had felt like walking through a cloud of smoke. She had almost cried while she saw Meg and her boyfriend one evening coddled in the piano room, staring into each other’s eyes, holding hands, she with a glowing ring on her left finger. She had not been able to uproot herself though she had heard the steps of Mother Jane approaching. Then she had to run to the lavatory and shut herself in sobbing hysterically. Nobody had noticed it. She was conscious that she would have made a fool of herself.</div>
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And then there had been the evening when she had had the date with that friend of Margy. He was lame and small, not too appealing. But Margy had said that he was smart and certainly of good family. He came to pick her up in an old bleached Plymouth and they went to the movies together. But when she noticed him holding her hand she kind of jerked it away, slowly, it felt burning hot. She tried not to think about it anymore while the lights were out. But during the intermission she couldn’t keep her attention on what her escort kept saying, and was thinking only how to put her hands so that it wouldn’t look like they were out of his reach. Poor boy. She had found out soon enough that he was harmless. Holding hands must have been a natural gesture for him, like smoking. But it wasn’t for her. Her mother had taught her never to give confidence to a boy unless one intended to marry him: men are all wolves. They like to play with girls, but they don’t like to marry the one with whom they play! She didn’t want to play, she wanted only to get married, so she reminded herself of mama’s advice every time that the feared and desired hand approached and managed to dispel the haze that had formed in her mind. Yet, she wasn’t entirely sure of mother’s advice. The boys seemed to cool off after she had made it understood that necking was not for her, but for cheaper girls. And how would she ever get married if she couldn’t even get hold of one to invite her out more than a couple of times? One for courtesy towards a friend and another not to let her think she had become bored?</div>
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There was really no one in whom to confide. The other girls would have laughed at her or at least regarded her with sole sort of skepticism. It wasn’t enough that she was one of the tops in her class. Their ideal of a perfect young college girl entailed that one must not only be first in studies but also in the social graces, in sports, in popularity. One had to be sort of rounded up. She was sort of pointed, spearing away shy approaches. </div>
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How had she met Ted? It had been because of Jo. And she had met Jo in the art building, while she was working on a plaster figure. He had said that he had seen her work photographed in Lake Village. How she has been flattered. She liked Jo right away. He told her of his dance trials and of how he would go back to the army in a couple of weeks, after vacations would be over. He was a budding writer and wanted her to read his first play, about Cain and Abel: their sense of responsibility, she remembered this exactly. She was so excited, at being noticed and at being smiled at without anyone fixing her a date! They went to Georgie’s for a coke together. He dropped in often the following week; she made sure that she would always be in the building, except for running to the dorm for a quick bite. She awaited his steps with trepidation, watched his shoes appearing at the corner of the steel door, as he climbed gingerly on a tall painter’s stool and cupped his face in his hands, eyeing her work of art. He didn’t say he liked it: just found it interesting, quite interesting, but very inhibited. She didn’t mind that. She was garrulous with Jo. She felt free to talk and laugh and joke because their meeting had come up freely, accidentally; there was nothing she could lose. She felt excited, full of life, of plans, of ideas about her work, about Jo’s plays, about life as a whole, happy glittering way toward celebrity and happiness. </div>
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That week stood out in greyness of the winter drudgery to make good grades like a lantern in a cloudy evening. She would remind herself of it when she was worn out at night and falling limb on her bed, too tired to undo her shoe laces and too defeated from her artistic insuccesses to think about the next day. She would think about Jo and about the many letters he had written to her during his permanence in the army. Long letters, brotherly letters in which she sought to catch an inclination of his affection, of ideality, of passion. No, she hoped not to find passion in them? She feared passion, passion being like a hot wind that destroys the delicate flowers of love with its arid potency. Passion terrified her in her ignorance of it. Passion belonged to the lower animals that rolled behind the bushes and spent their instincts in one long growling, grasping fight about their entrails, leaving each other exhausted and vanquished. Passion was something for brutal people, for sensual people, something that debased and annihilated the spirit, something cheap. She didn’t want to be cheap. She was too sensitive and idealistic for it. One had to keep true to one’s ideals in a world ridden with sex and perversity and scandals, so as to bring still more beautiful gifts of purity to the one that would pluck the flower of one’s virginity.</div>
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Virginia was utterly convinced of these thoughts and of their true beauty. She never dreamt of thinking of herself as crepuscular and old fashioned. If she had glimmers of the possibility she chased them off: I am going to become like all the other girls, and the very idea of lowering herself to such humble and earthy levels made her shiver with self disgust. </div>
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She has a strong will, though she appeared great and will-less when it came to make daily decisions or even to think in practical terms about life. Her tenacity sprouted when she had to fight something. Life at an easy price and reach did not attract her. She has to put herself all out in order to enjoy the feeling of “becoming”, of being alive with hope and self-realization. Making a grade in an easy class like sculpture did not fascinate her, but making one in philosophy absorbed all her powers, since she had no training in it, in the nun school that she had attended. She would study for the sake of having the professor’s attention fixed on her and she would often ask questions for the sake of showing off her interest in the class. She realized that this was cheap in its own intellectual way, but it did not matter. Her goal was all she wanted to attain. She wanted to be noticed. Yes, Jo had noticed her, without anybody telling him about her, all on his own, and she was grateful to him for that. She dreamt of him suspended in trees, singing, appearing like a space man and snatching her into space? She wrote long letters inciting him to abstinence and studious self plotting, analyzing his urge to creative output and the ultimate meaning of life. She expected his letters with a naïve joy, and exultance pertaining usually only to the poor of spirit. </div>
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And then he said he would come and visit her, during one of his trips back home, at the beginning of the summer. How she prepped herself out for him. She started one week earlier to watch her nails grow, that she had religiously kept from biting. She washed her hair the day before and had Mary curl it for her, pointing to a dinner at the president’s house. She prayed fervently every evening that everything should be as perfect as possible and that nothing should happen to mar the beauty of the day. It was so tremendously important for her. She didn’t expect anything definite, just Jo to come back to her, his presence, waiting for her to greet him, that was all. His image shown like a saint’s picture in the hollow recesses of her mind making her ebb of joy and shudder in apprehension. She had lived over and over again the scene in which she would meet not Jo in flesh and blood, but the Jo who had written all those wonderful letters about friendship and loyalty and ideals. A current of warm desire sweet in her veins and she felt giddy as she walked to the art building. He would probably come over there. </div>
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He did. She noticed him standing in front of her suddenly, holding on one of the metal frames of the veranda on the sculpture porch. The image never left her mind, though in later years it had become faceless, like a silhouette in the figure. She stopped thinking and her awareness grew to a purely automatic and sensorial level, almost out of shock. They greeted as though they had seen each other the evening before. A million thoughts, desires, interrogations leaped to her mind but only the banalities of daily encounters escaped in a slow, precise rhythm from her reddened lips. They were casual like old friends between whom everything had been said. And indeed, it had almost been so. Almost any subject matter had been explored throughout their letters, short of love. She remembered the cricket that on that day chirped mercilessly punctuating the seconds as they slid by. Jo sitting on the rail, she standing there, fiddling with the chisel. Then another figure appeared over the concrete path, a thin scrawny figure of a man with observant blue eyes and nervous gait. He stopped in front of them looking inquiringly to Jo. It had been Ted. She had felt angered against him for interrupting with his presence their tete a tete. She had stopped talking and had waited. Jo had explained, a pal of his returning home with him from the army. Her giddiness had vanished, so had her sense of being elsewhere on a cloud and her expectation of something wonderful to happen. All had been erased back to this clumsy world by Ted’s sudden apparition. She hated Ted and she hated suddenly for having brought him along.</div>
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The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully. They had gone swimming, while Ted visited with some friends. She had felt let down. Her shyness had returned and she felt tied up, invested into herself. She didn’t know what to say to Jo, what to do or what to think, everything had been put upside down by the inopportune presence of Ted. They drove back to the dorm and he held her hand as they said goodbye and she felt that something terrible was happening and she felt that she must be calm, terribly calm not to show him what she felt and she hoped fervently that he would do something, kiss her maybe? Why not? Now it would have been all right it would have sort of engaged them. But Jo looked tired of the long drive behind him and anxious to start on the long drive ahead to Texarkana and he gave her a long hand shake, as to an army pal, she thought afterwards, and she smiled wishing him luck and a good vacation and he walked briskly back to his <span style="background-color: white;">bleached Plymouth </span>and the crickets absorbed the noise made of the grinding wheels on the gravel. Then for a minute she stood there, in front of the dimmed lights of the dorm. It was Saturday and all the other girls were out somewhere making love. That reality wounded her in the sharp of her open heart and she fled to the basement, hiding in the garbage room. Nobody would search for her there. </div>
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Afterwards she wrote a poem about it to sublimate for wounded feelings. She assumed a proud and scornful look around boys, making herself invulnerable to further approaches. The rest of the summer passed in hot blazes of wind and long stretches of dry grass and long hours at a lab’s bench drafting to earn some pocket money. Her parents sent her plenty but her pride prohibited her to use it for amusements or frivolities. She moved out of the dorm in the fall. The air of connubial “gio vitality” of those pink rooms had depressed her to an extenuating point. She could no longer see a smiling couple holding hands that her stomach revolted her. She had become allergic to the idea of courtship.</div>
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She now lived in a professor’s house with two other girls, one of who was very sexy indeed, with bedroom eyes, and a score of boyfriends piled up on the Friday evening line? But she had sense too and played with the hearts of her friends like they were passing butterflies posing themselves on the perfume of her camise, in passing by. Marleen had almost eloped once and almost married in church another one and she was only 21. Virginia felt awe and admiration for her having held at bay all those aspirants for so long and having such good healthy fun with them. Besides, Marleen worked 40 hours a week and which girl, but a very smart girl can work 40 hours a week, go to school full time and have a score of boyfriends waiting? This was the utmost accomplishment for Virginia. She liked Marleen and secretly wanted to me more like her. </div>
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Then one Thursday afternoon, she remembered that day correctly, because on Thursdays Marleen worked the afternoons until late at night, there was someone at the door and wasn’t she surprised when she got up and saw Ted! Her old feelings of resentfulness awakened:</div>
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“Hello? Fancy seeing you here!”</div>
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“I came to look for Marleen, I didn’t know you lived here.”</div>
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So that was it she had fallen back on her usual reserve. He stood invitingly at the door and smiled at her, almost sneered at her:</div>
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“So you live here?” he repeated. She didn’t know what to answer. With a strong desire to shut the door into his face she twitched her lips and asked him in. It was awfully hot outside. He accepted, not seeming annoyed at not finding Marlene home. He sat down on Mrs. Maggy’s velvet cushions as though he belonged there and looked himself around the room with an air of self-assurance that irked her. With fright she remembered that she had been along home. Some of the apprehension in the way she opened the door and the way she sat there like a lump of clothes must have thickened his sense of humor because he started laughing, like that, for no reason at all, a hearty, wholesome laugh that seemed to clear the air of its dim tightness and give it some resilience.</div>
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“Jo’s little girl…” He muttered to himself looking her up and down as though she were some sort of exhibition article. “I have heard lots from Jo about you. The guy was really crazy about you. Jo is a funny guy. Do you know that we went to school together, to high school? We are both from Texarkana.” He continued without waiting for her to cut in, taking it for granted she would have nothing to say like another kind of sitting nullity. It angered her, but she did not have anything to say. “I like Jo, we were good pals, then my old man died and I had to quit high school and he went a year ahead.” She must have given a startled look:</div>
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“Don’t look worried, I finished high school. I am in medical school now.” A look of surprise came over her. From not finishing high school to being in medical school the jump was enormous. Medical students were considered like the luminaries of elect and humanity knowing and the beneficiaries of future riches and well being.</div>
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“I am down at the school in Little Rock; every been there?” </div>
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She nodded.</div>
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“Isn’t much, but didn’t have the money to go to another school, besides, it’s here in Arkansas that I want to practice. Perhaps I shall go for my internship in one of the larger hospitals in the east. Yup; that’s it. Guess I should go now. I am afraid that I am detaining you from your work lady. Right?” He smiled at her showing two rows of perfectly shaped, sharp wolf’s teeth; gleaming with health? He didn’t really look too sickly now. Just thin, didn’t have the musculature of Jo. But one couldn’t tell what was under his loosely fitted garments worn with a casual elegance that startled in anyone who was in that little university town, she was curious about him now. Perhaps he could stay for another minute:</div>
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“Marleen might be back any minute, might wait for her.”</div>
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“Is that so, maybe I will? It’s hot outside. I wanted to take her out for the evening, down to the Mexican place. Jo said they have good food there. I am to leave after tomorrow, you know. I shall try to come here in afternoon again. Tell her if I miss her. Haven’t seen her for a while? Is she her usual puckered self? All prim and fine and ladylike and then, jump, there’s my kitten?”</div>
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“I don’t know… I suppose so. Perhaps you should call her, I have her office number.” He took it down, then he looked up at her, holding the pad from which she had torn a sheet and asked her between the amused and the hierarchical: </div>
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“How would you like to come out to dinner with me instead?”</div>
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The idea of going out with him had occurred to her just a few seconds before in form of a sharp, curious possibility that she had dismissed as crazy. Now, in front of the real thing, she startled. She felt she wanted to go, but she couldn’t. One doesn’t just go out like that with a stranger. But he did know Marleen and Jo; he wasn’t really a stranger after all, and he was a medical student. That appealed to her, the fact that he was going to be a doctor, that he sort of “knew everything”. She felt that he knew “everything”. It was like a fascinating bait that was waved in front of her hungry but reticent mouth.</div>
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She found an answer among many perfunctory ones offered to too impulsive boys who have overstepped themselves. But he was not to be taken in by such freshmen stuff. He laughed at her.</div>
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“Think you’ll compromise your reputation? Don’t worry, there are plenty of people there, and I promise I won’t run out of gas!”</div>
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She hesitated.</div>
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“Well? It’s once in a lifetime. Make up your mind. If you want to come I shall come back in about two hours time and we’ll go.”</div>
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She knew she would go. Something irresistible pulled her and the words came out naturally of her lips, half kidding, half serious, with self security and mirth. Half real, half play.</div>
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She would always remember that night in which her dreams were shattered like cardboard structures corroded by flames, when her self respect was destroyed and she had no strength to protest against it. It stood before her like a gravestone, her image, disheveled, pale and trembling, reversed in the back seat of his car while he leaned over the seat, his head buried in his arm, breathing hard, stentoriously; the lights of the town flickering madly from below the viewpoint on which they had parked on their return from the restaurant.</div>
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Nothing would have made her think of it while she was devouring with anxious discovery a frozen lobster, the first one in her life, because her parents did not believe in wasting money in lobster and in the convent they never even dreamed of serving it. It was fun to crunch the paws and extricate the delicate meat with the long steel instruments, like surgeon work. He had been amused at her obvious apprehension and had told her amusing jokes about hospital happenings and cadaver dissections and resurrections and alike, to which she had dutifully laughed, not because she had never heard them before, but because she was in a laughing mood. The beer they had had at Georgie’s before leaving had relaxed her. She was used to beer, though she knew one mustn’t advertise the fact among the many Baptists of the dorm. At home they drank beer and wine, quite often. Her father was of Italian descent and he kept his tradition with pride. He was proud of his daughters’ honor, of his table and of his trade as bread maker. His house had been like a well regulated clockwork in which everyone had his part and was called on to absolve it, each one’s responsibilities were solely his affair and the communion of the household was sanctified by such things as the common evening prayer and rosary on Thursday nights. It was a serene household, but frightful and dull and limited. College had been her true escape into the world. It had found her naïve, curious, anxious and unspoiled. </div>
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Ted had been a perfect gentleman, helping her with the chair, what many young men didn’t do anymore these days, to her father’s horror. He had ushered her out helping her with the black woven stole and had admired her enameled earrings that she had done in her jewelry class. Attired in a dark suit with a silvery tie he looked anything but the stupid and insipid freshmen with whom the other girls used to go out. Virginia had felt very poor of being out with him and hoped that someone at the tables knew her. But she had not seen one familiar face. Feeling proud of having stood up to the charms of Marleen, she floated out of the Mexican eating-place feeling on the seventh cloud, brimming with self satisfaction, not a shadow of anxiety clouding her exalted little mind. The long drive home appeared to her as the perfect place where to relax at the side of this, wonderful companion who was so smart and so elegant and so solicitous. For the first time in her life she felt quite sure of her power over men and her own self knowledge must have showed because Ted seemed to be quite rapt at her swift giggling talk and crystalline laughter, willing to listen to it without indulging in smiles of irony or in looks of boredom. He looked at her curiously, like at something he had not really expected to his surprise, to find there; and now he was pleasantly surprised. As they stepped into his blue lined Buick, an old one at that; but well cared for, she had the comfortable feeling of finding herself encircled by his arm as he drove silently down the highway, exploring the way with the headlights. She felt at home, and it couldn’t have been the worst moment for it. She felt secure and peaceful and her very relaxation was the sign of her vulnerability. Inexperienced as she was she did not even notice his hand slowly mounting up to the collar of her coat and resting on the nape of her neck, until she felt his long soft fingers gingerly feeling the roundness of her shoulder. She felt so surprised at this awareness that for a moment she couldn’t even move. This was not the holding hands in the movie house, this was something else that she did not recognize in the composed and restful attitudes of the many engaged and pinned couples resting in the follows of the dormitory on the long Saturn day evening, while someone played the piano or the record kept playing away in the night. This was something else, she could feel it beating through her like a river of floating pins getting caught in the folds of her flesh, awakened by his slowly searching hand, nestled by his searching fingers, caressed, prickled, stroked, as he played with the loose strands of hair caught in the collar of the coat and under the opening of the dress.</div>
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She was so startled that she didn’t know for a minute how to act. Should she tell him? She wished she had the experience to know exactly what to do and do it right, with no regrets and no stupidity. But in the confusion in which she found herself, this was not the case. She was almost frozen solid, while a numb feeling pervaded her and she found it hard to formulate a thought through the heavy lips that had parted to the heavy breathing. Then, just about as she was going to do something, something she did not know what, Ted startled her, breaking swiftly the car, pulling on the side of the road and as though he had guessed her uncertainty, pushed his hand way down into the back of her dress and around her and deftly pushing her around, pinning her under him while passing his left leg over her uplifted legs. What she remembered was vivid in the emotions that she felt, in the confused mixture of hatred, repulsion, deep curiosity and anxiety and mainly as a receptiveness that amazed her to the point to which she felt all sort of will having left her, she felt her being, being opened up like one of the cadavers to which Ted had been alluding during his dinner jokes, violated by virile hands, caressed with infinite delicacy to the point of drawing sighs and contortions from her, forced into positions of which she had dreamt the like in her wildest dreams about love, opened up of all her womanly privacy, despoiled of her modesty in one unerring gesture of virile power left panting and tormented for only a few seconds while a new tide of torments and sinful doings were being performed on her. She felt it was sinful to the innards of her being, if she had some left untouched and yet she did not have the strength to protest against it, as though the very force of the event was taking away from her the right to judge it and evaluate it and do something about it. It was dark and she could barely see his form curved over her, if she had tried, but she kept her eyes tight shut as though to remain in the dream world into which she had suddenly found herself thrust. It could not be real. This was happening to someone else in a wild dream of which she happened to be the witness. What probably only took a few minutes marked the difference between day and night, of one work flowing into another, of the meeting of the urge of desire against pressure of self control. She was in a new world of which she could not measure the movements because unfamiliar with its laws. She was passively feeling the tide of emotions and mainly sensations aroused in her and exasperated to the pain limit, then left ebbing off, then exasperated again and again until she thought she could not bear any more of it. And yet she could, and she didn’t know how she got into the rear seat and how her dress got opened and her slip pulled off and her brassiere unhooked and her being naked and trembling under his deft searching hands, insatiable as in the search of gold. The awareness, the self awareness of her nakedness was what brought her to her sense, when she felt the softness of her own private flesh in contact with the otherness of the pubic hand, then the two sides of her, come so suddenly in contact, awakened in her the duality of the situation and her mind cleared in a flash. Her education, her beliefs, her instincts had been so long and carefully conditioned that almost instantaneously, as if she had touched live current, she erected herself on the seat and wildly attempted to cover herself, again finding no words to describe her horror, astonishment and defeat.</div>
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She had been defeated, she had been slapped in her breasts, hard enough to shatter her ideal of womanhood and throw her back among the endless tows of girls of whom she deplored the easy manner. That was how it happened that was how… she kept repeating to herself as she groped in the darkness to dress herself as best she could, trying to disappear from the side of him, leaning against the front seat, disheveled and groaning. She finished and he still sat there, motionless. She got out of the car, gave a deep breath with the instinctive desire to run away: but where to? She got into the front seat, staring at the highway, barely lightened by the moonless night. She felt for her bag, her shawl, arranged her hair and waited. There was nothing to say. She fell straight in a trap of which she did not know the way in or out. She waited and what seemed to be dark and endless seconds slid by. She felt him moving to her side, adjusting his tie and pulling the seat closer. She couldn’t bear to look at him. He was a stranger yet he was so close to her as no man, no person had ever come, he had become part of her, whether she liked it or not. What had happened had carried with it the inevitability of a falling rock and the silence of the echoes death. It was over. Now she could start thinking, and that was what she dreaded most. </div>
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They didn’t exchange a word all the way home; he didn’t even try to touch her, as though enforcing the separateness of his being. She only saw his hands moving on the steering wheel, slowly, in turns, in curves steadily. He left her off in front of the house after having opened the door for her and having adjusted a strand of loose hair on her forehead. She didn’t even look back at him. She felt his car disappearing around the curve and automatically she mounted the front steps of the porch. Fortunately the others were already in bed.</div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">After that night, memorable in her life like a dark inkblot on a white page, Ted became part of her, in his very absence. She didn’t see him for two weeks and on the third while she was already going almost out of her mind he walked in one afternoon like nothing had happened, with his mature and elegant manners and seated himself in the living room, looked at her and through her for a split of a second before resuming his usual air of curiosity and talking as though it was all set that they were going to have dinner together. Virginia just played along, brought by some mysterious tide that spoke through her blood and had obliterated the remnants of her good, alarmed, common sense. They went out as before, were gay and spirited as before, never mentioning what had passed between them and drove back as before, with the only difference that Virginia was no longer stunned at herself, but only ashamed. Their common silence was a league of conspiracy against their will that bound them together stronger than by words formulated for the occasion. How they could go on like this, against any law of common intercourse among civilized people, was above her understanding. She was normal in every respect except in the one of becoming completely succumbed to his will and her own when the car stopped after dinner. Their outings became more frequent as did his trips from Little Rock. They were taken for granted on both parts, with a sense of common responsibility. Never would Virginia have accused him of having violated her. She felt keenly her own part in the act and felt responsible for it. She felt only surprised at herself, at the discovery of a new face of herself, which had hereto, notwithstanding her 20 years, gone unexamined. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">But as the weeks and months passed and their relation continued, a new theme of projection into the future took place, both were visualizing their life together as some matter of fact, though never clearly defined. He spoke of his internship in a big city and she of her artwork. Their common native intelligence sought to draw them together, if not in common interest, in sharing what the other had to offer and in getting a view of the other’s mind and emotiveness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">She remembered those evenings in the Student Union over a cold coffee or in the record room, embraced, but not lusty, anxious but not intense. She remembered and remembered also her happiness in them, the first and only happiness she had ever known, the happiness of belonging, truly belonging to someone of having fused her will to another’s, not being alone anymore. Was it love? She did not truly know having never been in love before, but it was certainly something wonderful and unique, with a peculiar and brittle quality of its own that rendered it still more enhancing and enjoyable. She lived only during the evening while they were together, his arm around hers, listening or resting on just being. For the rest of the day she lived automatically, doing the best she could to make the grades of her scholarship and meet with the approval of the professors she had slowly or suddenly dropped and occasions in which to face herself and realize that the situation was unholdable and non-realistic, breathing an air too thin to last without collapse imminent. It was natural that they went to meet his parents, natural that his father found him a nice boy, with his feet rooted in good ground, God fearing and serious. It was natural that they became engaged and were married. It all followed in an unchallenged chain of consequences and cause over a period of one year. No event had the finality of the impact, or the emotiveness of which similar occurrences among the dorm girls had been charged, neither her formal engagement, nor her wedding, all had been consumed by the broiling fire of that first night. Now there could only be reprisals and continuation and repetitions, but what was to be ultimately said, had already been said once, with the power of an ineludible shock.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">The power of that shock continued over the first years of their marriage, during the continuity of his internship while she had a secretary position to keep going; without asking money from her father proved a slight diversion from the chore of going to school, keeping house, sleeping together and getting up in the morning to start a new day. Everything happened naturally, as expected as it should have, his degree, his beginning of a practice in partnership with a friend, the phone calls at night and the sleeplessness until he returned tired but contented, the anxieties over the arrival of a child, the fright of labor duly introduced and explained by Ted, the defeat felt at the birth of the child was the only note of what was expected. She felt sorry for it. The first impulse she had at seeing it was of crying: poor child, you have just come into the world to suffer.</span><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Yet she did not suffer, her existence was complacent. Busy from morning till noon she fixed breakfast, fixed his lunch bag, hers to go out for her occasional mornings of work in the library, the art library, came home to pay the babysitter, fixed dinner, cleaned the house, did the diapers and fell tired on the evening room couch to watch TV while the baby slept and Ted worked upstairs on his papers and patient charts. Soon she was so accustomed to this routine of life that she did not expect anything different nor desired it. Her day was full and she did not have much time for anything else. When she was tired she turned on the TV and fused her grey and even life with the melodramas and tears of the heroes of “As the World Turns” or of “Dr. Maloney”. They became her life too. Their sons and infidelities became hers. She waited anxiously the minute when the programs would come on, forgetting the cries of the babies or the cake in oven. Something was missing from her day if she had not followed the development of their love or despair or adventure. She had friends, yes wives of other doctors who sometimes invited them for a dinner which was promptly returned at the first good occasion. They belonged to the Surgeons Club, the annual meetings at the country club. And she enjoyed showing special dress for the occasion. She had become quite good at all the household specialties, from being a good cook to sewing most of hers and the children’s dresses. For the girl it was easy, for the little boy she bought most of it, too: much trouble making trousers and pants, at Sears she got them cheaper and stronger sewn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Her artwork had slowly become forgotten. Some of her best pieces of sculpture were adorning the white living room with the Danish sofa and desk drawer where the water plants were. Some of her enamel work was used on special occasions as dessert dishes or other plates. She had decorated her house and herself with the good taste she had developed at the nun’s home ec courses and the sense of art she had developed in college. Her BA degree, bound in leather, was kept in the drawer with the other family cornerstones and events. Their wedding picture stood in a splendid silver frame donated by a wealthy aunt over the chest of drawers reminding her of past days and of happy to come. She had spiritually fallen asleep.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Ted was not a Catholic and she felt she could not oblige him to go to church with her. Her novice faith had left the place for a reasonable, common sense attitude towards life that held place for Mass on good days but hardly on rainy or icy ones when it meant getting a babysitter for the child or walking half an hour to the chapel. The children had been duly baptized with Ted’s approval. Religion did not seem to bother him until it touched his utmost private zones of being. This Virginia tried not to have happen with some good will, compromise and deftness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Their relations had become regulated and sedate. Ted was tired most of the evening he returned from work and he needed his sleep badly after having been woken up once or twice in the night. He asked of her what she was willing to give, on demand. She was chaste by nature, as her education had cultivated in her, and did not push extravagant demands that she would deem unfit for a normal well balanced wife. Her naïve intelligence told her to leave at her husband’s choice when and how to regulate his emotional life and it was all right with her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">With the regularity of clockwork she would prepare herself for their meeting as she called it. First she would shave her legs and then take a bath, put on her favorite mum deodorant and splash some eau de cologne in her hair, attire herself in her best flimsy nightgown (why did it always turn out to be the red one of translucent nylon) and place the pajamas on the side of the bed. She couldn’t possibly sleep in that flimsy thing; she needed something solid around her. Then she would place herself in a comfortable position, waiting for him to get ready. She would hear the crackling of the upstairs floor, their ceiling, while he got up from his rocking chair, put his books aside and slowly came down the stairs in the knowledge that perhaps she had fallen asleep. She felt him poke around for the light switch, enter the bathroom door, after a while flushing the toilet. He liked to sit on it for a while, then turn on the water of the shower, washing his head (he always did when he took a shower) and drying himself putting on his nightgown. Then she counted the times after she had heard the water turned off and felt him coming in the dark toward the bedroom, sometimes kicking some misplaced object the children had left around, slowly opening the door and leaving his nightgown on the chest at the bottom of the bed. She did not move so he would think she was asleep, breathing steadily as in sleep. She would feel the sinking in of his bed (they had twin beds attached one to the other, with separate sheets) and feel his pulling of the blankets on her side. Then she would sense his pressure along her back. She always lay down with her back turned away from him, so that on touching her he would touch her back first and sort of open her up while turning her towards him. It always happened regularly, as in a dream scene repeated over and over again. She would wait a minute, then he would touch her shoulder. She would be supple, opposing no strength to any of his movements, yet not stirring, as in a limp sleep and offering. She had never been active in their lovemaking since the memorable time of the first night. He had always been active, inquisitive and she had passively let him play with her giving responses indicated to awaken his interest or keep him going on the same tack until ready for further inquiries along the unfolding regimen of her being. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Her technique never failed and his always responded, slowly, no longer with fervor of those first months, but with a calm, rested movement indicated exactly for a certain effect and no more. His hand descended in circles over her opened up body until the signal on her side when the act should be performed. Then, after the mechanics of the thing, it was all over and he fell back rested and soon fell asleep. She continued lying there until she realized that it was time to go to the bathroom, change her pajamas and go to sleep also.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">This had been going on for years, until she realized that Ted had become more remote. Sometimes he would forget to come downstairs after she had given the signal of turning off the TV and gone to bed. She said to herself that it was his work; he was tired. But it happened more often and it upset her. She did not dare talk with him about it because it had never been their habit to talk about their private affairs among them. There were certainly reasons for it. She did not know them, being out of his work. She tried to repress her need of more love and affection. But he was always civil and affectionate with the children; making math problems with them, mowing the lawn on Saturdays and taking them to the circus and fairs. He was a good husband as he had always been and she could not complain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Sometimes he stayed longer at the office than usual. But wasn’t more money necessary now that the kids were going to school, and the more cases he got on the extra the better. She didn’t take lunch money for herself; she was not a luxury-loving woman. She liked a comfortable life, a secure life. She liked to belong and she did. What else was there to demand of life?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Then there was that terrible night when Ted arrived home early, about 7. He was dark in face, circles were under his eyes, his breath was short and he threw his over shoes down the basement steps instead of leaving them and putting them side by side by the kitchen door so that she would clean them in the morning before he drove off for work. He went to the bathroom and stayed there for a while. He had said good evening to her but had not even kissed her as he had come in. He had said hi to the children as they sat in front of the TV. Dinner was ready; the children had already been put to bed by the time he had come out of the bath. He never said a word; he sat down, opened the TV and stood staring at the crude scenes of the “Untouchables”, then slammed it shut, knob and shutters of the cabinet and stood at the table with this hands over his face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Virginia was watching him, asking him a few babbleties, waiting for him to unburden himself. He couldn’t for some reason. After a while he went upstairs and she for busy finishing the dishes, putting them out and setting the table for the morning. He didn’t come down. She couldn’t just go to sleep like that. She resolved doing something she had never done in all these years of married life; to go upstairs and see what it was bout. Talk to him, perhaps he would loosen up. She felt sad for his pain. She did the many steep steps that led to the attic that had been fixed as his home office. He was sitting in front of some papers, twisting a pencil in his hands, muttering things to himself, kicking his feet against the legs of the desk. He gave a jerk as he saw her at the head of the stairs:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“What do you want?” The very tone of his voice struck her. She stopped. But she had to go on, or what had she come up for? She went to him and put a hand over his shoulder. He twisted away as bitten by a snake:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“Oh, let me go, go downstairs to the kids. I have work to do. She couldn’t move. He had never spoken to her like that. There must be something terribly wrong with him:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“But Ted; what is it, can I do something?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“Do something?... The hell with you….” She was stupefied, never in the many years she had known him had she heard such language from him except for the dogs and cats and some occasional vendor who tried to sell encyclopedias and other stuff at the house. With them Ted had neither pity nor patience. He threw them out mercilessly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“Please Ted, don’t be like that, please…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“Oh, for Christ’s sake, leave me alone, go downstairs, go to the kids, go to sleep, go out of the house, wherever you want, but leave me alone! Leave me alone, do you hear me?!” He had gotten up, shouted red in face with the small veins on the sides of his cold blue eyes enlarged by his passion, screaming at her. She had gone a few steps back, then she had fled down the stairs in all speed, hurried out of the house and gone into the dark backyard to cry convulsively in dismay. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">The next morning all seemed to have become calm between them. Neither spoke of the fact, waiting for the other, perhaps to start the argument. He gulped down his coffee and ate absentmindedly his cereal with banana, she helped the kids into the car and waited for him to bring them to school. Then she waited, waited for the day for him to come back home to her and say something, explain something. She waited all day, went to pick up the kids, hoped that he would come home earlier, waited in the evening, and Ted did not come. She called his office to find no answer, called his partner who said that Ted had gone out of town on business and was not coming back until the next morning. Then she knew something dreadful had happened; something of which she could not weigh exactly the consequences. She felt something breaking in her, the stability that she and Ted had achieved during the many years of clear marriage, years clear like starch soup, with the consistency of homeliness and the transparence of habit. She was numbed. She didn’t call on any of her friends, just waited. Not even the TV was turned on that night. The state of shock into which Ted had once thrown her, froze her again and held her in a grip of pain and anguish out of which there was no leak.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">It was a night of despair, of tossing and welting in bed, of smothered cries lest the children would wake. She knew by instinct that there was another woman, yet she dared only speak it out to herself. She knew from his coldness towards her during the last months that something had happened to him. It was not his work, his financial worries, it was another woman. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">She had sometimes thought about the possibility jokingly, knowing full well that theirs was a stable marriage, not given to such earthshaking quandaries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Such things could not be happening to her. Had she not been a good wife for him? Of course her breasts were sagging and her hips had grown fatter, to be expected after two children and a miscarriage and the care of the household, yet at 32 she could still say that she was a young woman. She felt young. Why had he fallen for another one? Did she know her? The wife of another doctor? Who? The question burned a hole into her mind through which she saw gleaming sneering faces of loose women and her friends circling in a wild orgy. Her nerves failed her and she swooned while lying in her bed. She woke up in a sweat, finding herself half dressed with her shoes on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">He came back the next morning, he was dismayed, he had a beaten look and she felt relieved. Whoever it was, it had finished; thank god she didn’t want to know a thing about it, ever. She would forgive him, but she did not want to know and suffer some more. He was humble with her, gentle but nervous; finally, after a long pause of uncertainty he told her that he must talk to her, she waited breathlessly:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“I have a mistress”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">So it had happened. She knew. She did not answer, but kept looking him into the face. He realized that she knew.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“She wants to leave me.” That sounded lineal, but she did not sound relieved. “I can’t stand it, I can’t. You must help me; you must.” The incongruity of what she heard struck her like an explosion at her feet. “I just can’t give her up. I am in love with her. Really in love. Something that there never was between us. You can’t understand, I know. But I can’t leave her or I shall go crazy! Crazy, my God, help me. You must help me…” He sounded almost hysterical, pacing in circles in front of the TV and she feared that the children would wake up. That would have been the end of everything, not just of her marriage. She had become a silent statue with two holes for ears, waiting, burning of an icy death.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“Virginia, I plead with you, you must call her. You must call that woman and ask her not to leave me or I shall go crazy, I shall do something insane.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“But Ted… Ted…” It was useless to say that he didn’t know what he was saying. She didn’t know herself what she was really telling him; “I can’t I am your wife!!! Ted, have some sense of decency.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“Decency?! What do I care for decency at this point! Do you see this?” He extracted a syringe from his pocket and thrust it under her nose. “Do you see this? It is a poison, a deadly poison. It is since yesterday that I had been trying to use it on myself, but I am a coward, I can’t and then there are the boys to think of. You can’t let me do this.” She was so appalled by the insanity of the situation that she recoiled in horror in front of the syringe that he put back with care in his pocket. She stammered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“Who is she? Do I know her?...”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“No, she does not live in this town.” She was somewhat relieved, why she did not know. There was some hope yet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“Ted, for the sake of the children, please, think, Ted, think, please,” she came closer to him imploring him with a face where all tears had become frozen with pain and panic. He turned away from her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“It’s you or me. You understand?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“My god…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“I can’t bear this life any longer, I am sick of you. I can’t stand this mediocre, grey way of life anymore. Haven’t you noticed that I have become a specter of myself during these months? I kept telling myself that I was too old for such delusions, that was crazy. Perhaps I am crazy. Do you want me to be locked up? For the children to have a crazy father? Nobody knows of this woman she lives in another town; there will be no scandals, I promise you for our family’s sake. But she is afraid of you. She has left me. I told her you would call her up yourself to tell her there is nothing to worry from you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“You did?!” There was horror in her eyes, horror at imagining the other woman as he told her, pity for pity, pity for his enormous stupidity and foolishness and fear for herself, fear of loosing her dignity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“You did.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“All right.” She walked in a daze to the phone, “give me the number.” He gave it to her, mnemonically. She shivered, it was a long out of state number. Before ringing she hung up and asked him, “do you want a divorce?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“No,” his answer was final. She didn’t even think of saying that she would divorce him. She loved him. She dialed the number, waited. A woman was on the line: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“Is this Miss Jennings? This is Mrs. Wilmer.” There was a heavy silence on the line, she was afraid that the receiver would be put down. She counted the seconds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“Yes?” the voice sounded without tone. Virginia continues without looking at Ted, just continuing until the sound of her voice would carry her on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">“I would like to ask you not to leave my husband, he needs you. You can give him something apparently I can’t. Please.” She put the receiver on the table she couldn’t stand it anymore. She heard a voice in the phone, something she couldn’t understand. She stared at Ted. He picked up the phone mechanically and said something into it. She didn’t listen, she just waited, mechanically, for him to make the next move.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">What days of agony she had passed! Unthinkable agony of body and mind. Fainting fits cured by her doctor with sedative of calcium shots, fits of weeping while her friends tried to console her. But she couldn’t say the reason. She couldn’t say that much to lower herself to the role of servant to her husband. Her pride kept her going. All along she hoped that her husband would wake up from this frenzy of this passion that was corroding him and look at her again as his obedient, loving wife. She tried her best as not to let the children notice her worries. She told them what she told others that she did not feel well. The zest of life was deserting her. She felt to be in an immaterial prison out of which there was only a leap into some sort of immaterial heaven, she did not know which. Her faith in God had left her. Could God send her so much misery? But then it was perhaps in punishment for having abandoned his images years later in the hollow of a dark car of their love making. God was taking vengeance on her now. She shuddered with fear. God was lost, there was no hope, nothing to keep her going. She took the medicines prescribed to her with the passivity of a sick person who knows that there is no remedy. Ted gave her the shots in the evenings, in the arm. It was painful business, because she had very small veins and he had to stab several times before he found the larger one for the micoren to be injected. Calcium reconstitutes! If only it could give her back her home, her life! She felt defeated by life and old to no end, tired and worn, afraid that Ted would do something crazy one minute or the next; she had become alarmed by finding a flacon of sincurarine in the bathroom. She knew what it was for, for anesthetics, but a powerful poison too. She had to watch Ted, or he’d do something desperate. She tried to be as nice to him as she could. She invited him to her bed again. At first he wouldn’t, then after a while he did, and slowly they became, apparently, partners again. Yet he was always elusive, never at home, never speaking to her. Only to the children he was the usual self, joking and cool.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Then one evening she was in bed, waiting for him to come, as he did now, usually, give her the shot and then relax together, without a word. Hell of silence, of waiting. He had a syringe in his hand, it was larger than usual. She looked into his eyes; but he diverted her looks and fixed hard the point so that it would not slip. Then she knew. He searched carefully for the vein in her arm, asking her to harden her fist over and over again, then as she bit her lip in order not to cry out to him, he found the vein and emptied the syringe into it. She grabbed his hand, held his arm. Perhaps… he turned around and left the room; silent like a shadow. The horror and the terror paralyzed her for a few seconds, then, as she was overcoming them to cry, she noticed that no sound would come out of her lips. She tried, but only a suffocated gulp for air came out. She felt an enormous pressure rising in her chest, the pressure of gas that was not being exhaled. Her throat was immovable, paralyzed by the slow action of the curare, slowly her whole body became numb and in the eternity of waiting for Ted to return and do something she prayed to God that he would come back and give her something, an anecdote or something, something so that the weight of her breath would not remain on him for ever. No Ted; not a murderer! Not a murderer… her children, her poor children. But she had known all this when she had given him the arm and ear she had given it to him without questioning him. It had to be his decision, as it had always been between her and Ted, to the very last. Why, she did not know. Someone probably did.</span></div>
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Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-14343001984828029012016-03-29T14:38:00.002-07:002016-03-29T14:38:40.180-07:00The Pricing of Art Versus Pricing Potatoes - March 25, 2016<div class="Section1">
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I am an artist, have been since about three or four years old. Why?—Because I was bored and someone gave me pencils, some pictures of berries and showed me how to copy them. For some obscure reason the process became interesting for me. I also did not have any other children to play with, besides a cat, and lived on a secluded farm with two adults, two parents and two grandparents. No TV, no heat, no mail, no hot water, no heating in winter, yes, a radio…about 8 miles out of Rome Italy , 1941.</div>
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No, we were not poor, we had near-to- slaves working on my Grandfather’s land. I also started writing poetry when I was six years old. My Mother schooled me. I also saw real works of Rafael and Titian when I was 7 years old, at 8 years old, during WW11 I decided to become an artist.—Why?--- Because I was lonely and curious and liked flowers and leaves and the sunsets. Genetics also favored me, it was coming from both sides of the family.</div>
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A bright child will do anything just not to be bored. I drew. ---I drew after I was married with my first husband while he was working on vacations, I drew when I was sad after the War, I drew happy images when I was happy and very sad ones when I was sad.</div>
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The images I produced showed to me what I was feeling: cathartic. Reliving your own or a TV drama reminding you of your own, is like wiping off your tears after you stop crying. Somehow you feel better.</div>
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I am also trained in art psychotherapy which does not focus on the ability of the child to either produce a recognizable object or simply draw anything going through its minds, but just colors lines, etc.</div>
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I have never bought art because I can produce it. I have sold my art-craft at high prices because I was the only person ever to combine two different techniques at the same time in enameling.—Writing poetry is an art, dancing is an art…. Anything which symbolically represents, in any modality, the human condition, and makes us communicate with one another , as cave people did in Lasqueux thousands of years ago, is ART.</div>
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Is there good and bad art?—Good and bad are all in the eyes and mind and all the senses of who is looking or otherwise perceiving EMOTIONS, MEMORIES, DESIRES, etc. The experience of art consists in communicating indirectly about who we are to others.—When we are sad we may empathize with depictions about sadness. But we also might want to see pictures of joy to change our attitude and feel happy!</div>
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To-Day we live in “dark” times, when the beauty of the planet is endangered by lust of commodities, by overpopulation and overkilling of innocent people!</div>
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What is the price of a picture through which design, coloring, subject matter may come in contact with emotions you need to relieve?—Ever felt falling in love at a green and violet sunrise? I did once. And falling in love with the fragility, ephemeral beauty of spring’s growth, or curled old leaves, but beautiful in their very curl…As painter and photographer I want to freeze that image so that I can re-experience it at will later. Its memory shall enrich my life, if it matches what I shall feel also to-morrow and after tomorrow.</div>
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What we call “good art" does that for us by re-evoking what we have already experienced. Memory is all we have of life . The richer the banks of memory are, the more we can think and imagine what we want to become and how we want to change.</div>
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Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-59773748540400974232016-03-23T14:16:00.001-07:002016-03-23T14:18:16.015-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
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Memories about Animal Friend—March 22, 2:15 PM, 2016</div>
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I evoke my own home bread memories
about interactions with what we call “animals,” because we assume that we are
the only thinking live creatures living on this planed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My affinity for animals of various kinds did not grow just
from visiting the Roman Zoo during the long WWII winter and spring in
Rome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of those inhabitants
had been eaten or had starved, but not all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was also alive and enjoyed making faces at them, using
body language while feeding them peanuts. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those still live primates smiling and grinning as they made
the Fascist salute or the Nazi one, were caged as I also felt caged in and by a
world that had become alien to me.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Drawing
came to me naturally, particularly when there were no children to play with
anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My first drawings were of
panthers and monkeys at the zoo. I also picked the stray feathers from the ostrich
enclosure and also from where birds still circled the high dome - my
grandmother used them on her hats. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Waking up the turtles in the sunken reptile pool did
not pay off; they appeared no different then before the War, when we lived on
the villa-farm.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My
grandfather had bought a three hundred old convent after he married my grandmother
which was located a quarter mile from the Old Appian Road where the Romans drove
chariots to go to the sea and to the Southern provinces - La Via Appia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The convent became transformed into a
mansion also containing a first floor where wine making equipment and fermenting
wine caskets lined the walls and rose probably 40 or more feet high.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We lived on the second floor, while
destitute peasants lived without any utility, including water, right under us.
They served us in exchange for a “free home.”</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Other
peasants living further away in the vineyards and orchards had children who
used foul language continuously (which I delight in using as my Grandfather and
Father did). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All cultures have
their favorite, most florid expressions of anger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My favorite swear phrase was “a al diavole!” (“go to the
devil”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if a person was really
obnoxious I would murmur “Va a mori ammazzato” which means “go and get yourself
killed.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought it, but
actually never said it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
simply imitating the power people in my family.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There
were no children within miles to play with, except for during a monthly
carriage ride to a village up the Alban Hills to purchase food at the weekly
market, while I was left to wonder about a large villa where a six year boy
named Marcello and I would go into the greenhouses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We would pick and trade flowers and nobody ever learned what
we were doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That was lovely and
I have loved flowers ever since!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Otherwise,
day in and day out, it was just me and Nerina the cat; the dog was always
chained and did not count.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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There were also about twenty
rabbits, whose meat we ate once a week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I raised them by placing the rabbit with the biggest
round head with a smaller rabbit with a longer head, which supposedly was a
female, together in a closed cage. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It worked. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The male
got on top of the female, held her neck with his teeth and she screamed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew what they were doing and
wondered if humans did the same thing and I felt sorry for the female.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do I still feel sorry for the women’s
lot?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps things have not
changed that much in the last fifty years in the world at large.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vasectomies are not popular!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In any case, gender was not implied in
my weakly search for the rabbit we would eat that night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The enclosure where rabbits freely
roamed was about a hundred feet long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There were old branches, stones in it, and the remnants of a wall. The rabbits
used the branches to hide under, and raise their young.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Usually the animals were very friendly when
I entered the rabbit yard; they heard me coming and knew I had some fresh poppy
leaves or delicacies as simple as dinner leftovers, which the chickens would
also peck at.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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On the particular day, the rabbit
was due for dinner, I would spot it, imagine its trajectory of escape and
prepare to intervene at the right moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The peasants were not very good at this. I was smaller and usually friendly,
and the rabbits would not all immediately take off and hide - and this was the
interesting part - the rabbit would not escape and run away if it was not yet
inside my capture range, but would stomp its foot quickly and forcefully on the
ground. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I watched, other
rabbits stood on their hind legs, looked around, saw me and ran away from
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something had alerted them to
the danger. </div>
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At that time I did not know about sound waves travelling
under ground, but the Rabbits certainly did, because all rodents have the
finest hearing, except for ocean creatures and cats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I may be wrong, as the New York Times Science article
explained today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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There is another category of winged
animals, birds, which my mother and I raised when they were injured, like the
bird my Mother brought from Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On the evening of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>August 30
1939,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>when Hitler invaded Poland
and the border between Austria and Italy was closed,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a bird was travelling with us from Germany back to Rome, Italy:
it was a magpie!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bird was in a
box held by my mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
happened to be an admirer of Konrad Lorenz who raised geese hatched in his
house without ever having seen their biological mother—I had never seen a
magpie before: it was pretty, black and white.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For
a while my mother fed it by creating some rich saliva packed with bread and
placing the bird’s beak into her mouth to feed it.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It worked very well
and after some time the bird ate what was offered on a plate. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And some after that it was released from
the heights of our great terrace which overlooked the Anzio beachhead, the
summer residence of the Pope and St. Peter’s itself on the northern horizon’s
edge where Rome was. The magpie took up residence on a very high fir tree
facing the grand terrace.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Shortly
afterwards, small objects, like a teaspoon, a fake broach and coins, started to
go missing. My mother thought the maid was stealing, but this made no sense
since the items taken were valueless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My mother asked one of the peasants to get a tall ladder and climb the
fir tree, where the magpie was hiding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When he got back down, he had a large grin on his face. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had never seen so many shiny non
edible objects in a bird’s nest! But my mother had in Germany. Magpies are
attracted to anything shiny!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
time went on, the magpie was later substituted by a sparrow, who also had lunch
with us at the table until it was gone because the black cat, Nerina, came one
day into the dining room, caught it, and ate it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nerina was
the closest to a baby I could have experienced. I would place the cat in the
doll’s carriage, cover it with a blanket and off we’d go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who would want to play with a doll when
you can have a live cat! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I
would run up and down our long driveway leading to the Appian Road. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We both loved that run.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cat loved it as much as she loved
being placed on the swing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
would fly high and never fell off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nerina‘s intelligence was a challenge for us. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had understood how pulleys worked in the cellar in order
to keep the meat fresh (we had no refrigerator) and out of reach of the
cats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was seen grabbing the
chord with her teeth and pulling the basket over to herself just enough in
order to grab the meat with a paw and throw off the basket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As bombing in October 1943 came closer
to our villa farm, we were escorted by a German convoy to Rome with the cat and
2 baby rabbits to keep me company.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The baby rabbits had been born in the yard by a mother who soon died
afterword. I found them, small, eyes still closed and ran into the shed where
the cow was, milked them a little.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The rabbits were housed in our kitchen where it was warm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two of them survived and learned to
poop in an appropriate corner of the kitchen, in a box. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As General’s Clark troops advanced towards Monte Cassino, a
medieval monastery in the center Italy, we were already in Rome. Nerina the cat
was flourishing, opening the oven and stealing meat again. The two rabbits were
housed in a box on the terrace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I do not know what my mother fed them, because she was never in the
apartment in Rome. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She mostly
lived and slept in the tunnel under the villa farm out of Rome trying to
persuade the Germans who had taken over the command of the area, to move the cannons
from the front of the house into the olive grove. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The house was in the line of fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The guns were moved. The house
was saved. Four giant craters were later seen in the olive grove.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rabbits were forgotten and died of
nephritis, and I went every day to the zoo to meet other reliable animal friends!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Decades have past, more then half a
century has gone by. I do remember these instances as photographic images:
seeing the inside of the kitchen in Rome, the inside of the one on the farm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I grew up and older, I still saved animals
from death, often housing them at first in a dry bathtub. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a pigeon with a bad wing,
housed in my bathtub until it could fly and be on its own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was in my forties at the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then there was the peacock that had
predeceased it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A friend of mine
spotted it wandering in the street outside the San Francisco zoo after hours, while
I was studying at Berkley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a
majestic bird!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What was it looking
for outside the zoo? Whom do you call? Cells phones were not available more
then 55 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My friend
parked the car near the curb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
had a plan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We would catch the
bird, place it in the car and take it back to the zoo the next day!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>…She was adventurous and I walked toward
the bird easily, in a friendly manner, and caught it..<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was big with a huge tail, and we
placed it in the back seat of the Volkswagen. Driving back to my apartment near
the campus. Where does one put a giant peacock that probably poops also big
time?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the bathtub of course!
Where one can wash up easily after it leaves its droppings!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bird was used to people and very
friendly after we drove it home across the Bay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It just sat in the bathtub, probably unable to get out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What do you feed a giant male peacock
in your bathtub? What you are eating for dinner of course! It was pasta with
tomato sauce. That it was. I still wish we had a video camera, because the
animal was hungry, picked up the slithering pasta with its beak, then had to
throw up its head to let it slither down its throat and swallow it! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No Neapolitan I knew ever ate pasta that
way!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
next morning I called another friend who was ready to drive to Los Angeles. She
knew of friends who had a ranch. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
was willing to drive our peacock on her way down and take it to them. The
Peacock did not seem very intelligent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their brain is also very small compared to their size,
or so I thought at the time. – Now I know that brain size is not that relevent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Only about ten years ago, while in
Philadelphia, did I have my last bathtub guest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was picking herbs in a parking lot. Trees lined the
Southern edge. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I was moving
through the weeds, I heard chirps. Yes, there were two red colored birds, not yet
very red, perhaps females, battling among the tall weeds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went back to the car, got a paper
sack and placed them into it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
night before a terrible wind had broken tree branches and probably shaken the
nest in the maple trees where these two adolescents were nesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mother would not have been strong
enough to bring them back up after their fall. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew that at the times cats were also roaming the premises.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The birds would have had a short
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The chirping paper sack was
placed on the floor of the car and I drove home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I drove I felt movements in the bag. One of the birds had
escaped and was now sitting on my lap. The other was hiding. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I arrived at the “big house” where I
lived, I wondered how I would get both of these birds out without having one of
them escape into the tall ivy. I placed my bird-lapdog into the now empty paper
sack and closed shut. The other bird was not visible, but As soon as I opened
the car’s door, it leaped out of the car and vanished into the ivy — Good by
bird!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The guest bathroom on the second floor
would be most appropriate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before
letting the bird out of the bag, I hunted for old newspaper, then very gently
lifted the adolescent bird and placed it into the tub’s floor. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It just stood there, gazing at me! No,
it could not fly out, it was not in flying form and I would have to teach it
how to fly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am trying very hard
to remember the name I gave it, probably “Baby-By.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can’t remember. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gathered branches and placed them on the windowsill and the
bathtub. The next problem was: what to feed it? Italian pasta would not do this
time. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Worms, of course, canned
worms from the pet store, what else???<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The bird was hungry and liked my menu although it was still motionless,
except going up and down with its head.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Baby-By” as I later referred
to the bird, needed to learn to fly because I had no intention for it to spend
the remainder of his life in a bathroom! It had company: itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would need more. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At times I left it sitting on the sink and it looked at itself
in the mirror. It starred at itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I knew it had never seen itself before, but now it did!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It inspected itself first, but not for
long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quite swiftly it had
recognized that it had something to do with itself but that it was not, like it,
a live bird! There was no fear as he later looked at himself and less and less over
the following days. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I had left the window open, with
the screen down. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surveying the
yard below was most interesting as he moved around the windowsill. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Work had to be done. The bird needed to
exercise his wing muscles and move its wings. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I placed the bird on my index finger which it did grip
tightly, then I raised my hand up and his wings would start moving slightly,
then suddenly I would lower my arm while going down and its wings spread out
fast!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doing these exercises very
often helped it fly out of the bathtub.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It
certainly had a good time and often sang.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was a lovely robin’s song of which I understood nothing except that
it came from pleasure, and I sang back my human song and whistled. I would get
up in the morning, go down two floors into the garden at the foot of his open
window and whistle and sing my song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Within a few seconds the bird would sing back its song to me and kept
singing until I had reached the second floor and entered its door. Then it
clapped its wings, and would do some low flying!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a pleasure in such communication! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somewhere in the hundreds of disk I
still have, there is one with its picture, and also a short video. Some day I
shall find them and place them with this piece of writing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
There is a great debate these days
whether animals even recognize themselves! I wonder who asks these questions,
it must be only someone who has never raised one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Birdy-by not only recognized itself, but also myself and
also one who might be alien and dangerous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My son, Andre, had come in from New York one day and came to
see the red bird. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As he stood by
the open door birdie looked at Andre from the sink’s edge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Within seconds the little bird who
could barely fly, flew straight hitting Andre on his chest!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It obviously perceived Andre as an
“enemy,” although Andre was similar to me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Andre was a person like me, but different and unknown to
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bird had sensed the
unknown as danger. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I recall now when I first noticed
how a small sparrow recognized my mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She was at the time still feeding birds from her balcony. One day as I
visited with her in the Italian Alps, walking down a road in the woods, I
noticed that there was a sparrow walking backwards in front of us, keeping pace
and looking at mother…” Oh! “She explained, “its Pfitzi, whom I feed on my
balcony every day! “ She dug into her pocked and threw it some pine seeds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bird ran between her feet and ate
them, then flew away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were far
away from her balcony, it was wintertime and only her face was visible for
recognition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>---Ever seen a
sparrow’s skull? Tiny… but there is life saving knowledge and a lot of memory
in there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Read about parrots if
you doubt me!--- New York Times,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Science Section :Tuesday, March 22, 2016 : Pretty Smart Bird.</div>
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Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-79764055428105567742015-10-28T08:32:00.004-07:002015-10-28T08:32:58.515-07:00Pope Francis as a Sideways Jesuit Reformer<div class="MsoNormal">
September 28, 2015 8:10 AM</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
About Pope Francis and his communication methodology.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This morning I spoke with only two people at my morning
Starbucks interlude. One was a black Baptist man, the other was an avant-garde
middle aged woman. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both were
interested in pondering the same issue: the ambivalent answers given by the
Pope to his constituents, friends, enemies about relevant issues, and how they
could be implemented. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wondered how
they responded to the Pope exhortations. The Pope’s answers were obviously very
carefully pre prepared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How the
question process grows—here are some possibilities:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1) The question
about procedure is “raised” by someone </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2) The question
about an issue is spoken or written about</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>3) The issue is
brought out in a personal or interpersonal manner</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>4) The question
is shelved when there is no possible way to respond.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
5) The question that has been heard or read about is
addressed by the recipient or officially dismissed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
6) The question is addressed indirectly, its message diluted
and rendered meaningless. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
7) No answer may be forthcoming.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
8) The question is accepted, considered and answered
impersonally such as politicians and executives do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No responsibility is taken by such diffused answer to it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
9) The question is heard and accepted as a reasonable
question. The response to it may vary from the personal, to the cathedratic, official,
political, dogmatic, offensive, satirical, destructive, etc.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So how did the Pope respond to the questions?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Pope Francis accepted the questions about priests’ abuse of children,
divorce, abortion, contraceptives, gay rights, priest’s marriage, women’s
ordination and more. He mostly answered them not only indirectly, but vaguely
and at times ex cathedra plus exceptions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For example, the Pope said that the function of women’s work within the
Church needs to be increased. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What
apparently was meant by him was<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>only about blue collar work, not white one, that is, not religious
functions within the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Church. He
said that women who use birth control which is against the value of “possible
life” creation, can return to the Church, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>have confession and communion<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>if<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they repent,
and remain within the Church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
said that homosexuals should not be judged (the Pope said: “Who<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>am I<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to judge?” (Trans individuals did not come up but the
response might be similar.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Abortion is still forbidden, nothing was said about specific
circumstances about its timing. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Supposedly
a three day old embryo is already a person with a soul, as is a worm , a
nightingale or a chicken. This is according to the latest encyclica of Pope
Francis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do not take seriously
souls of any kind because I have no evidence for them, but can argue
ferociously about overpopulation destroying Nature, which also has a soul of
sorts, since it is God’s creation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Pope knew that this was a vitriolic issue and preferred not to get
into it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The marriage of priests was also considered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Very pragmatic since there aren’t
enough young men ready to take vows of chastity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am asking, does chastity also address a sexual union that
cannot create procreation? (sodomy?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Church has used this state of affairs and given annulments to
heterosexual couples who could not reproduce, did it know whether coitus was
ever tried?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If so, the marriage
was no different from a homosexual union, except for the bodily orifices being
used! Homosexuals cannot procreate.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Church’s Power</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Catholic Church has been run as a Political entity
having all the civil, political rights of a country for almost two millennia,
plus the “imaginary” anointment of a “god” who approved of killing any kind of people
in wars, but only in just wars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
we were lucky that the practice of selling old bones of presumed martyrs was
stopped by M. Luther and Co. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
simply were no longer certified bones available. We were also lucky to have had
Napoleon and Mussolini clip the Church’s wings of temporal power. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were also lucky to have had a Pope
John the 23<sup>rd</sup> who actually did his best to make the Roman Catholic
Church more Protestant and consequently more honest in dealing with world
inhabitants about what was supposed to be a catholic relationship.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My main point is that there needs to
be a separation between Church and Papacy. There are personal diversities in
their interests, ethics, belief systems and ultimately where money is
spent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The money comes from within
the Chief of Staff’s office of the Roman Catholic Church. It is too crass for
the Pope Himself to deal with actual money, the realm of Caesar.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pope Francis appears to be in
good faith, but he has no control over the money, all he has is a mouth and
people know this, and his enemies know this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ultimately, since he is in love with the “earth’s bounty of
oxygen, water, air and earth,” as the Confucians did in China, he is not
serving anyone if we have no control on procreation by humans still living in
agrarian times where children were insurance in case of old age; or where men
simply had to relax after having worked hard at war or on the soil, killing
people because it is God’s plan to kill the bad ones, and a quick fix-fuck for
women and beheading for men is definitely the fastest means to end all issues. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the Pope cannot address this, it
interferes with religious freedom!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Why not fuck goats and roast them
afterwards and eat them? It would be good for the environment, give us some
more good protein for fewer children. I am an unknown King’s clown: “Ridi per
non morire!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>F. Rubin </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-7873022880430409172013-10-14T07:50:00.001-07:002013-10-14T07:50:10.318-07:00I apologize to my readers for the most confusing blog from yesterday. It is strange, and perhaps not, that help arrives sometimes from unusual circumstances, due perhaps to a trivial exchange from which a spark rises, unforseen in time and place, and by utter chance a fire, which had smoldered in my mind for twenty years , is ignited.<br />
The mind awakens, Ha! Ha!... this may be the time, the right time. And then I laugh, yes, because I had not even thought about it before, but the dowsing had shown it.... My cognitive self does not think of the "dowsing: I Ching, etc... because so far it is incomprehensible how the future can become known to consciousness by a simple falling of sticks or other divinatory methods. And what 'clear cognition' cannot comprehend is often regarded as illusory.<br />
There are two parts in whatever you may want to call" My Self"... and perhaps many more...and often they do not communicate well, as I am quite aware of this. And it is O.K. They have an analytical and inspirational function, together they reinforce one another and dispel doubt, the stalking killer nestled deep in our mind.<br />
When the Prophecy is fulfilled in space-time doubt is dispelled, the event is obviously accepted and one forgets that its existence was known by the "unconscious" before "its time. The strange has become acceptable because IT DID OCCURR and life is back to "normal" again, consciousness is no longer split. That is it for to-day, namasteFiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-37814761817986095642013-10-13T19:31:00.001-07:002013-10-13T19:31:10.678-07:00Of What> I don't have the faintest notion about this process, don't even know how to go on my own blogand need help to navigate the internet!!!! Anyone out there living in Philadelphia, PA? I also have a documentary which is cock-eyed and needs working on so I can place it on Amazon...don't have a notion on how to proceed.... If someone out there goes on my website, please email me if you can help me navigate better. My computer helper vanished in Machu P...or so it appears.<br />
Yes, this sounds nuts, but some grounded help may surface this way.... like shooting with your eyes closed.... into the ethernet..guess it is called "faith". Sometimes I have missiles of faith, sometimes I simply sink in a swamp. To-night is swamp time. Have to say hallo to the gators. Need a good night's sleep. F.Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-56804006616843344352013-04-30T15:31:00.002-07:002013-04-30T15:31:50.986-07:00WHEN GOOD PEOPLE DO BAD THINGS
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: 16.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 14.25pt;">It is a very
general statement. Good and bad are polarized aspects of living behavior.
They are relative in nature. But sometimes emotions color the psyche and feelings
modify our reactions towards what we feel is bad or good for our existence at
the time of the action or our thoughts about it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: 16.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 10.5pt;">Motive is
paramount. The relationship to the
offending person is also important. What else falls into the
diagnostic package? The personal relations we may have or have had with the
offending individual and the level at which the insult was perceived.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: 16.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 10.5pt;">Most of
the time the closer one’s relationship is to the offending individual, the
greater the perception of injury. Other items cloud our perception like our knowledge
of past aspects of the offender’s history which might explain at an emotional
or cognitive level a hidden aspect of his or her psyche. All of
us are partially if not hidden from ourselves, definitely hidden from others. The
masks we use in our behavior and the filters with which we modulate them
are part of our signature as individuals.
Our past history is the elastic mold continually created and
adjusted by any new action from whose inspection we can acquire clues about
our individual needs and desires. Professionals
inspect and track the mold’s changes over years. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: 16.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 10.5pt;">So, what
does the person think, feel and do when he or she discovers<a href="" name="_GoBack"></a> she
has been betrayed ? The initial response is a mixture of great sadness - how
can a good person do something so bad. This is followed by intense anger. Thoughts of revenge flash through the
mind. Tears well up in the eyes. Depression
and a feeling of deep impotence can be quite paralyzing if the perpetrator
is a close relative. It may
constrict the person into a psychological feeling of “no exit”. An individual
who does not allow hitting bottom while in self-deprecation or fear but uses
his or her cognitive apparatus for analysis of one’s emotional whirlwind can
bypass this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: 16.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 10.5pt;">Looking
at oneself diverts the focus from the “other” to oneself. Am I capable of doing
such a thing? Have I ever done such a thing? These are thoughts about
one’s own integrity and a comparison is made between one’s self-conscious
manipulation of one’s consciousness versus the memory of the emotionally perceive
angst.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: 16.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 10.5pt;">We
actually dwell in such conflicting realities every night, while the
conscious self does not feel responsible about the ghosts rising to scream
and play with us. Some are familiar with those visions and how
they may have been acquired in past living or lives, if there is such a thing, Personally,
I do know that there is a resonance with past happenings through which
knowledge of the past somehow surfaces into our daily lives. Can we use the
newly acquired knowledge of a possible past existence in order to expand our
self -awareness?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: 16.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 10.5pt;">Knowledge
becomes valuable but it also invokes responsibility for its use and needs to be
cognitively evaluated whenever we have enough mental data to do so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: 16.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 10.5pt;">Speculation can
also divert the self into identifying with the aggressor, compartmentalizing
our behavior and constructing fancy intellectualizations due to
denial of what seems unacceptable, because it implies great emotional
losses and compromises our ability to function in a well-integrated manner.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: 16.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 10.5pt;">In view
of these and other less acceptable responses to psychic or physical injury,
what recourse does the injured party have? Detachment from the
injury is possible if the mind’s power of analysis can allow it. The
mind can only do so if we place ourselves imaginatively speaking in
the aggressor’s shoes and thus walk through a limited, but perhaps
probable excursion into our own past and present behavior, and come face
to face with our own psychic fragility recognizing and perhaps choosing to accept
the half hidden and frightening part of ourselves which C.G. Jung referred
to as “the Shadow.” I also refer
to such memories as ghosts lurking in our psychic basement. Only the light of
inquiry shall free them. This sounds charitably healing and perhaps Platonic,
but does it indeed release our anger into harmless vapors?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: 16.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 10.5pt;">For many
years, I have been puzzled about the commandment to love one’s enemy, viewing
it as obviously absurd. Can’t we get killed in the process? How is
this form of life called “agape” to be expressed when we actually feel
like destroying and thus preventing the enemy from further harming
us? Tough thinking is required when the perpetrator is one’s mother,
one sibling, one’s child, one’s spouse, etc. We need to differentiate between three states of mind: forgetting, dreaming of vengeance
and remembering cognitively, but at the same time letting go emotionally. By
doing this psychic mental dance advocated by psychologists in vogue, we
acknowledge the power of the “shadow” and somehow do not allow it to reign over
our psyche. Sounds good. On the other had, Prevention of further injury or
betrayal is part of human wisdom, because at times our blind emotions may lead
into hell’s fires. When that
happens we need to offer generosity not because we are weak, but because
freely offered generosity is simply a need required by every person
in order to heal one’s self-esteem by feeling good! There is also a
difference between forgiving and forgetting. The wise person shall remember and
use preventive measures while looking in a mirror. The “other”, the “Thou” of Martin
Buber is still in front us; yes, we are part of the other, and respect it. The mirror is there in order to also
separate us from the “other” at the same time that we recognize it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: 16.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 10.5pt;">Duality
is part of reality for the functional part of our lives. Overcoming it can lead
to madness or to the loss of self into the greater Ocean of Life where we all
came from and shall return. These excursions into such extreme realms better be
brief and memorable. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<!--EndFragment-->Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-74678489419585612322013-02-20T16:09:00.001-08:002013-02-20T16:09:35.665-08:00Unintended Table Turnings
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Blog,
Feb. 19, 2013<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Are we actually free or we are driven at times to
fall unintentionally into muddy potholes then change clothing before proceeding
on the journey in new attire, as a new person?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I yearn to get far away from concerns of food
preparation, bills, focusing on how other members of the household meet their
needs or carry on with their own work under at times dire circumstances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also need new attire, not just because
I am in the process of reaching hard ground after having lingered in a swamp,
but because I also need shoes!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My problem started when I first rented the second
floor bedroom where I still live, a sense of uncertainty pervaded me at the
time....<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was going to have a real
daytime job and be self-supporting. This had not been the case previously,
since I had been a housewife for the previous twenty-two years making little
money while creating art in two basements. A divorce altered the course of my
life. Also, an apparently inconsequential event occurred in the summer of 1983.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was enrolled in graduate school at
the University Hospital in Philadelphia. A paper was due for the summer school
course I was attending at the Medical school downtown. One evening, after my
return from school I asked my landlord, who was an excellent writer, to correct
the typos in the final paper for the course. It was about 5 PM. Before I went
to bed I asked him to return the corrected paper, which was about 6 pages long.
He had not finished correcting it. I stayed up longer and asked him again about
it because it was due the next day. He was not yet finished. I left for school
without it. When I handed it in the following day to my thesis advisor who also
happened to be the Department Head, everything appeared to be all right. I was somewhat
concerned because my research had expended beyond the requirements of the
course, but the more the better!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first half of the
summer semester ended and I received a letter from the head of the department
asking we to withdraw from the Master’s program because I had several
incompletes and was failing. As a child and adolescent I had been raised on
footage of low self esteem: not pretty, absent minded, sloppy, messy, dirty,
etc. and having failed to finish the paper in time was an added reminder of my
incompetence. Therefore I simply accepted the verdict and did not question it
when I went to the last meeting with my advisor, who had that summer become the
new department head. I deserved it. I recall vividly what he asked me at the
time: “How do you perceive yourself? “<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Somehow a picture appeared of a fully opened sunflower living in a dark
basement. I described it to him. I was an underdog who managed to survive
anywhere. Thereafter our conversation was brief and I agreed to leave the
program. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Something haunted me about leaving a half started
session with a transgendered patient whose trust I had finally acquired, and
who was starting to have some self-esteem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, my procedures were somewhat unorthodox, but the psychiatrist
in charge of the 12<sup>th</sup> floor of Hahnemann University Hospital
approved of them. Besides, I didn’t really think that I was failing!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, I would no longer be
able to get a job as an art psychotherapist because it appeared that I would
not get my M.A.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a quandary I called a very
good and old friend of mine, Eve, and related her my mishaps. Her reaction marked
a change in how I would react to unfair insults for the rest of my life. Her
voice was clear but firm, her support of me was unconditional. Her words were
those of a commander giving battle instructions to a reluctant soldier. “You
can’t take this lying down! You are telling me that you don’t believe you are
failing. This man wants to get rid of you because of the subject matter of your
paper, which appears to go against the belief system of the department
guidelines. You need to absolutely go to the registrar, and check your grades
and find why you are failing!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She obviously threw
more nuggets of wisdom and common sense at me that day over the telephone. But
the next day I did go to the registrar. No, I was not failing. All my previous
incompletes had gone, except for the last paper, which supposedly was sent in
late and for which there was not yet a grade. As a matter of fact, spelled out
in black ink on my report, I had several A’s. The registrar suggested I speak
with the Dean of the Medical School and ask him for re-enlisting. I was
upstairs in five minutes. The dean looked at my records and said that he did
not see any problem, why should there be one? Would I want to continue with my
studies? All was clear. There was no problem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My head reeled with surprise and anger
and also for gratitude. “No”, I said, I shall not continue because I would feel
most uncomfortable. “The man asked me to think it over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I left the tall building and walked
outside, a strange sense of relief overcame me. Did I really want to spend the
rest of my life counseling schizophrenics and paranoids on the twelfth floor of
Hahnemann Hospital where male aids related stories to one another about<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>how they raped and fondled drugged or
unconscious<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>female patients in
restraints?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand,
what was I going to do now?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(See
next installment.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<!--EndFragment-->Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-90351180641672943532012-06-27T10:07:00.004-07:002012-06-27T10:07:43.367-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpAqScZg-xVNfmOt3c90ECBmCZ5F7U_k6UXKbXPQKXe48gF8ON59Zm9pjBZx3bkp8gdIcbxAJn3haR_eY1RW4NVn0u8TNul_xlHO8hh79t9OILb5uaoHPSRbyqBHeKzVZ0i_9n3St5kwQl/s1600/winner++l+ap+2012lilly.tif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpAqScZg-xVNfmOt3c90ECBmCZ5F7U_k6UXKbXPQKXe48gF8ON59Zm9pjBZx3bkp8gdIcbxAJn3haR_eY1RW4NVn0u8TNul_xlHO8hh79t9OILb5uaoHPSRbyqBHeKzVZ0i_9n3St5kwQl/s400/winner++l+ap+2012lilly.tif" width="298" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpAqScZg-xVNfmOt3c90ECBmCZ5F7U_k6UXKbXPQKXe48gF8ON59Zm9pjBZx3bkp8gdIcbxAJn3haR_eY1RW4NVn0u8TNul_xlHO8hh79t9OILb5uaoHPSRbyqBHeKzVZ0i_9n3St5kwQl/s1600/winner++l+ap+2012lilly.tif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
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<b>The Living Dead</b></div>
<br />
Stretched up, immobile,<br />
in the corn cobbed dawn<br />
as I stand waiting<br />
for the crows to flutter<br />
with echoing screams<br />
and land on my stretched limbs<br />
I cannot clap.<br />
<br />
The frosting dawn<br />
has paralyzed my limbs<br />
I feel impaled and strangely<br />
I can not shriek<br />
nor can I scare the crows.<br />
They own me now<br />
as ghosts arisen<br />
from a war torn land.Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-71951543172693710672012-04-04T09:05:00.002-07:002012-04-04T09:24:16.654-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/yxBPRmpeCfw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6BO9K9QtQIDy1xcQCP3C5FLwDyCq2Rgq1m9lnIkysByusSj5w82tEOe6P4hgQjZ-Purn-AAeYWSr-6q7su5avaPm5jCykQKKk_SxssMxMfAgWvbVq7zO4GMnFr_oxHD3fAiWm4sNR9cX7/s1600/IMG_0517.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6BO9K9QtQIDy1xcQCP3C5FLwDyCq2Rgq1m9lnIkysByusSj5w82tEOe6P4hgQjZ-Purn-AAeYWSr-6q7su5avaPm5jCykQKKk_SxssMxMfAgWvbVq7zO4GMnFr_oxHD3fAiWm4sNR9cX7/s200/IMG_0517.jpg" width="135" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The letter Y, symbol of the Pythagorean School</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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Healing occurs at many levels: physical, psychological, emotional, by placebo effect, spiritual, etc... and information about the healing process can be obtained through dowsing. I do not use rods but a system using tarot cards.<br />
.......In this story available on youtube.com, healing is obtained through self hypnosis, using vocalizations to effect the tuning of the chakras and the use of archetypal imagery.<br />
<br />
As a matter of fact my healing specialty belongs within the framework of Siberian Shamans, since I sent out energy from my solar plexus. Believe it or not I am in the process of finishing my autobiography about my unusual experiences since childhood. The title is "The Autobiography of a Suburban Shaman". You shall it eventually on amazon.com.<br />
Vaios cum Deum, Fiammetta RubinFiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-20793475543062063722012-04-04T08:03:00.001-07:002012-04-04T08:58:49.299-07:00Dream: The Templar<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/WJ3kkwi2Lj8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrytWBM4SHxbFcEo6E5PzFKGOdoSeBi51hISKyqAEFHAqUibfUVH5_DXBCIE2tSwUT4k6fTWsPzcl3PcHAjwksyoQsYpMVfai223BXce93iz3Tp-yCZhZfdr3WVj03OpxEiVjQaFRIryVZ/s1600/_de-Molay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrytWBM4SHxbFcEo6E5PzFKGOdoSeBi51hISKyqAEFHAqUibfUVH5_DXBCIE2tSwUT4k6fTWsPzcl3PcHAjwksyoQsYpMVfai223BXce93iz3Tp-yCZhZfdr3WVj03OpxEiVjQaFRIryVZ/s200/_de-Molay.jpg" width="141" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Power of the Last Grand Master of the Templar Order: Jaques de Molay</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7m9umDgBKU3MBjCTUlLZDE2eIjXMQT_vghJW2VT8s4q7FIwueHvR_0KDWxcUHZ8Pt06jeFX8HTWT3ij_jmfKLyPrXtdLhmAXJ0LHx4t9gIuMzzH7Njb8J69urxD6soDLm_hU8uBCs16_I/s1600/molay-death-by-fire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7m9umDgBKU3MBjCTUlLZDE2eIjXMQT_vghJW2VT8s4q7FIwueHvR_0KDWxcUHZ8Pt06jeFX8HTWT3ij_jmfKLyPrXtdLhmAXJ0LHx4t9gIuMzzH7Njb8J69urxD6soDLm_hU8uBCs16_I/s200/molay-death-by-fire.jpg" width="141" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">His Burning at the stake in Paris in 1312 because he recanted </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0JtoW8VDQODyJAxGeJ5C6cCIGwPoOyu03D_HJ3uSkVfhibMqnbhYj9RZiauGBORfx9MnI4APrHT8bXNSy9YsiBh60vcBoWNk93dHJV9ozahSsW0TsOnSCeTydXjzpESDzYhEK-BFs-CjN/s1600/ashent-of-de-Molay-11486.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0JtoW8VDQODyJAxGeJ5C6cCIGwPoOyu03D_HJ3uSkVfhibMqnbhYj9RZiauGBORfx9MnI4APrHT8bXNSy9YsiBh60vcBoWNk93dHJV9ozahSsW0TsOnSCeTydXjzpESDzYhEK-BFs-CjN/s200/ashent-of-de-Molay-11486.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Spirit is more mighty than the flesh<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">Go to youtube.com for the 8 minute story. </div></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-61978939505332900182012-04-04T08:02:00.003-07:002012-04-04T08:52:18.081-07:00Moving Belt, Seance<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/kxXPvL521Hw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Yes, we had a seance. Yes, the medium was good. Yes, she could read our minds. Yes, on New Years Eve 1979 we had a great party. The next morning the belt pertaining to a dress worn by a kid at the party, but which had never entered the house with the dress suddenly appeared on ironing board. Go to youtube.com for the excerpt of this event. It is part of the documentary called Fiammetta's Story. Link is above it.</div>Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-63781738431181469412012-04-04T08:01:00.001-07:002012-04-04T08:47:38.942-07:00Ice Cream Falls<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/uDuOC6c8OsI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In 1999 as I and a friend were eating lentil soup in a deli after about 8 minutes at the table I and a couple of elderly citizens saw suddenly two ice cream cones, chocolate and vanilla, fall from the ceiling and splash on the floor behind my friend's back. Go to youtube.com for the 5 minute video about the event.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Fiammetta Rubin</div>Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-87245654771423452852012-04-04T07:56:00.001-07:002012-04-04T08:44:01.941-07:00Lincoln's Bullet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/f2U3y1Cy56I?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It just so happened in 1970-71 that an enameled plate on which I had etched a drawing I created of Lincoln's face had an accident while being fired in the kiln. A round black spot appeared on his forehead and I was not capable of burning it out. My neighbor who received the enameled plate a gift asked me if I knew how Lincoln had been killed. I only knew of the event. She informed me that the black spot on the plate, on Lincoln's forehead, showed the location where the bullet had lodged in the head! This was one of my first such experiences.</div>Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-56970726891626699302012-04-04T07:55:00.003-07:002012-04-04T08:38:59.214-07:00Anna's Leap<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/fgIpdEjohqE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDDRSeBTYycpNbF1Do_Qr5Tyt0PG5KvzGKtK4ZLMf1hkVb1c4Qcj6mpeDxyj-41DDtaFJqwK2e3kFHd6YCdVst0MJqVR_cN49JQGlQnfG2gFnWJCiZ2KApTjh9yak0R61tX-r1ZmVKvXgP/s1600/suicide-Anna-High-res.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDDRSeBTYycpNbF1Do_Qr5Tyt0PG5KvzGKtK4ZLMf1hkVb1c4Qcj6mpeDxyj-41DDtaFJqwK2e3kFHd6YCdVst0MJqVR_cN49JQGlQnfG2gFnWJCiZ2KApTjh9yak0R61tX-r1ZmVKvXgP/s200/suicide-Anna-High-res.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Despair</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVgHl4yBE80FMuutNZYGdWnHntaSjHRjyGyozzYtzdh2prR_6dJavtJ-wFt8K7Hnz-Usm2AvwO8YRfdXVFj3i63_DK0RJBll1fEz3wRlIgyLVjn3qtgpAAlYyTw1K8dnoWHBgPXYLiSN-C/s1600/prayer-for-Anna-mmm-besr-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVgHl4yBE80FMuutNZYGdWnHntaSjHRjyGyozzYtzdh2prR_6dJavtJ-wFt8K7Hnz-Usm2AvwO8YRfdXVFj3i63_DK0RJBll1fEz3wRlIgyLVjn3qtgpAAlYyTw1K8dnoWHBgPXYLiSN-C/s200/prayer-for-Anna-mmm-besr-10.jpg" width="136" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Prayer</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8W3RSUeOUQzrriQgj9MevQHcVVAPwlBw-bzr3Xv__cQoW1zCxnbc1IU0TpPFpBwNeETQKrr9VJL5rPcf-7nBKtnEPa8mu8CdcK_kFqGpqbi9rlj9-vl69OuyrUbLaYSWIpxyQ25IrEfBl/s1600/alien-flight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8W3RSUeOUQzrriQgj9MevQHcVVAPwlBw-bzr3Xv__cQoW1zCxnbc1IU0TpPFpBwNeETQKrr9VJL5rPcf-7nBKtnEPa8mu8CdcK_kFqGpqbi9rlj9-vl69OuyrUbLaYSWIpxyQ25IrEfBl/s200/alien-flight.jpg" width="147" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In Flight</td></tr>
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</div><div>Anna was our maid when I was 17 years old in Rome. One night as I sat in my darkened room with an open window, Anna ran unaware that I could see her along the balcony climbed on top of the rail and plunged. The other maids in the courtyard actually urged her to commit suicide. They had had enough of her complaints about life. </div><div><br />
</div><div> Instead of falling straight down, smashed on the cement courtyard, she "flew" diagonally to the left and landed as story below into our neighbors balcony. There wasn't even a scratch on her body. The story relates how the events unfolded and I wrote a play about it in 1958.</div>Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-28799708683830294352012-04-04T07:53:00.003-07:002012-04-04T08:27:35.485-07:00Vision 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/PsIpHAG1fF4?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizLyBWbmt5VRk131su1kc1OVMEJKevGi2iaGkAawGFCLlayazEsqRlNhmRXfdqmZyg3CJQbWbMnO18YQoUyQ3MBSNtR5j3I7iXtHl69z5rQwIAeRukIWwf8dAFG0r0E2is-H4-ire4WMDv/s1600/Grunewald_-_christ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizLyBWbmt5VRk131su1kc1OVMEJKevGi2iaGkAawGFCLlayazEsqRlNhmRXfdqmZyg3CJQbWbMnO18YQoUyQ3MBSNtR5j3I7iXtHl69z5rQwIAeRukIWwf8dAFG0r0E2is-H4-ire4WMDv/s1600/Grunewald_-_christ.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Resurrection by Matthias Gruenewald, Isenheim Altarpiece, 16th Century</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As I was walking towards the olive grove on a warm July evening I suddenly stopped as a whole sweep of life engulfed me, and at 11 years or age I had what is now called a mystical experience. I did not talk about it for the following 65 years.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> How could an 11 year old child say to adults that it had had a transcendant experience and be taken seriously. The child knew that no one would believe it and kept silent about most of it for 25 years, only to divulge the complete received message 40 years later.</div>Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-16150229156716339402012-04-03T07:28:00.002-07:002012-04-04T08:14:49.662-07:00Childhood Roots<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/pf9JJPFnME8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNNbrqCXvY_NXR96E91I91G05GYSGe11OK-pGjBhC4LdqBlY6XUgkhz4mBn9-P81_XuHH0XM7oQKwzWJDyVQVUe7Qt73XkQN9uoF8ON6O2I5mA8e7-RWgm_z8q45Za7PEDd6loPB4WEIMz/s1600/white-glory--400-11-best519.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNNbrqCXvY_NXR96E91I91G05GYSGe11OK-pGjBhC4LdqBlY6XUgkhz4mBn9-P81_XuHH0XM7oQKwzWJDyVQVUe7Qt73XkQN9uoF8ON6O2I5mA8e7-RWgm_z8q45Za7PEDd6loPB4WEIMz/s320/white-glory--400-11-best519.jpg" width="253" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is a brief exert of my childhood on a farm along the Appian Road about 10 miles outside of Rome. That was my heaven as I played with cats, snails, rabbits, and gathered wild herbs for dinner. It suddenly ended on a cold November night when I was woken up, dressed, bundled into a German commander's car and driven to Rome, because it had become Open City. We had moved to my grandmother's apartment.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This story is part of my autobiography which is in the process of being edited.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Fiammetta Rubin - www.rubinartstudios.com</div>Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-65604901423628315242012-03-21T09:07:00.002-07:002012-03-21T09:09:51.055-07:00A Psychic Journey<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/kYeZrKXV2AA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-83392743086014625512012-03-21T08:43:00.000-07:002012-03-21T08:43:21.447-07:00Fiammetta's Interview at the Alua Magna at U of Stockholm 2011<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVXCMUZLc1yRNwmhJWkGHS9a-DPenYzSgGcGnXKy4wn2Ssthu7aK2-ntGJAHGS2uQLLSNnVkbHesRW7Qa0vkPNki7VYwpjC8vNqBq4M2tMcMqd-3qUxxmddwCb2SDtlA5g8aCGkFTkVI14/s1600/fiammetta+and+bertil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVXCMUZLc1yRNwmhJWkGHS9a-DPenYzSgGcGnXKy4wn2Ssthu7aK2-ntGJAHGS2uQLLSNnVkbHesRW7Qa0vkPNki7VYwpjC8vNqBq4M2tMcMqd-3qUxxmddwCb2SDtlA5g8aCGkFTkVI14/s1600/fiammetta+and+bertil.jpg" /></a></div><br />
As a presenter about anomalous and spiritual phenomena in 2011 at TSC (Towards a Science of Consciousness), both as a researcher and as an artist exhibiting her art at the same time, Fiammetta is being interviewed by journalist Bertil Hakansson while her art is in the background.<br />
In this particular instance Hilda Holman filmed the whole interview which lasted for about an hour. It described her earliest spiritual experiences, clairvoyance, telepathy, P.K. since the age of 10. Her own interest in these phenomena has been paramount in order for her to understand to some degree why, when, and what these experiences were about.<br />
They can be interpreted from various points of view such as religion, spirituality, culture, psychology, biology, etc... and possibly within a framework correlating brain, mind and consciousness function. Furthermore, she is driven by her own existential experiences, most of which were witnessed by outsiders, to attempt outlining various hypotheses about motivations and circumstances creating them.<br />
Besides being an artist Fiammetta has also trained in the medical field and in philosophy (see website: <a href="http://www.rubinartstudios.com/">www.rubinartstudios.com</a>) and she finds herself in the unusual position of researching the phenomena of her own experiences. Subject and object are the same in this inquiry.<br />
Since 1978 a theologian Paul Lehman with whom she had a seminar at Ghost Ranch suggested that she write a book about her life experiences. She started the project three times over all those years and has finally arrived to the last leg of the enterprise and possibly of her life! Needless to say the advent of computers has facilitated the job and 34 more years of living have yielded more fruits!<br />
Her concern regarding her autobiography comes from her desire to communicate to others how, when, and why she may have had experiences which a good number of the population has always had, but may have repressed, ignored, or have been fearful of. Two films about these unusual events are available from Marcus Perfjell and Fiammetta Rubin. It is Fiammetta's hope that her experiences might be used as a mirror through which viewers might recognize what they already know, and use the messages or meanings gathered from these experiences for further self knowledge and personal empowerment.Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-73963289761508063912011-11-01T09:38:00.000-07:002011-11-01T09:38:40.815-07:00adam and eve 2000<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> This work was done in 1974 as enameled copper plates. They represent a power confrontation between the sexes. The woman's fetus has no hands and feet due to pharmacological interventions (<i>thalidomide</i>). Her breasts are armored and her hand wants to protect the child against male aggression and technology.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> The man has a mechanical heart, holds in his hand the Orb, symbol of Christianity, which can imply the historical devaluation of women fostered by male-empowered religious values and customs.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> The three penises were not due to a Freudian slip. As I was working with tracing paper on the floor, three tracings of a single penis shifted and suddenly I saw three penises instead of one. The image was much more powerful due to its more prominent size and its relation to the female counterpart. That was it!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> At the first exhibition of the artwork in Chicago in 1974, I heard a man ask the question to his wife, "What is he going to do with the other two?" I almost cracked up because I was standing right behind him.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> Some thirty-five years later, since I still owned the artwork, I told my friend about the spectator's comment. She looked at the artwork and nonchalantly replied, "He is going to use them as spares!" </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> We laughed, we both were thinking about the enormity of the male ego identification with his sexual tool!...........If you, a male, are reading this what would your response be?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFoR3BIusYQBu8A_kQTHPmZg1_LOTUMDKh4QLJqzc15A-Gsghe7G5EZFvSJY5wm2MsZknB1mipg98T9bINnlf-aF2K9eLshgme8GOp2PAUDaN5xm6IUKe7Ibm9YFtevjNtz_zRcFUCUlgz/s1600/adam+and+eve+low+14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFoR3BIusYQBu8A_kQTHPmZg1_LOTUMDKh4QLJqzc15A-Gsghe7G5EZFvSJY5wm2MsZknB1mipg98T9bINnlf-aF2K9eLshgme8GOp2PAUDaN5xm6IUKe7Ibm9YFtevjNtz_zRcFUCUlgz/s320/adam+and+eve+low+14.jpg" width="189" /></a></div>Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-541274766850378592011-10-21T10:22:00.000-07:002011-10-21T10:22:06.150-07:00The Adolph Syndrome, Oct. 20, 2011<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:DocumentProperties> <o:Template>Normal.dotm</o:Template> <o:Revision>0</o:Revision> <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:Pages>1</o:Pages> <o:Words>821</o:Words> <o:Characters>4682</o:Characters> <o:Company>Rubin Art Studios</o:Company> <o:Lines>39</o:Lines> <o:Paragraphs>9</o:Paragraphs> <o:CharactersWithSpaces>5749</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:Version>12.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span>My father, as I knew him while growing up, was angry and depressed but basically he was a good man who also happened to hate Jews, as I learned by his responses to radio transmissions during dinner while WWII was ravaging Europe. He even grew a moustache to imitate the “Fuehrer.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>It took some thirty-five plus years for me to understand that I was my father's daughter, but not just that I was his daughter, but that I shared his feelings of “revenge” towards a “perceived” injustice as all people and all animals endowed with a memory do!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I first noticed this behavior many years ago at the Jenkintown Train Station while passing the time waiting for the next train. A pack of sparrows pecking at doughnut remnants left by the customers started attacking a particular sparrow that appeared to have a bad leg. It hopped slowly and obviously missed most of his due meal!<span> </span>They kept at it with a sort of adamant intent, well knowing that the animal did not present a threat. Therefore I wondered why did they bother at all since there was enough food for everyone on the station floor.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>The answer to my quest came as I remembered my own actions in regards to a cat that I had well known a long time before.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>It was during my exile in Rome. I was younger, inexperienced, needy and grateful for anything my Mother did for me, and at the same time I resented her for her need to deprive me of personal power.<span> </span>To some degree I was aware of her need to exert power since she also had been deprived of it in her own youth and in her own marriage.<span> </span>She had felt powerless for years, sucking up resentment, which eventually some twenty years later erupted in hideous revenge against her in-laws. I happened to be on the scene, impotent, to witness it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Would I ever behave like that? Of course not. I considered myself a good person, as did my Mother, as did my Father, as did Adolph Hitler.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Our basic need for self esteem required by our need to survive, do not necessarily drive us into self-analysis. Self-analysis is almost certainly not part of a bird's survival behavior, but attacking and exterminating the weak ones in the tribe certainly is. Or so Darwin would have maintained.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>This appears now not to be the case with very intelligent primates whose vengeful instincts have been documented by hidden cameras, neither is it the case with us.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>My father related how Jews in the school he went to, near the Roman Ghetto treated him badly. There are cases today in The Philadelphia Inquirer Newspaper in which very nasty torture is being inflicted by bullies upon weaker children and how it goes often unreported.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>It is happening all over the world, pain inflicted by those who have power as arms, bombs, sex, against those who are consider weaker and therefore in most, but not all cases, decide not to fight back; for fear of retaliation.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Why do I call this the Adolph Syndrome?<span> </span>Because Hitler is a classic example of a man who was poor, brutalized by his father, knew his intelligence and superiority, had humiliating experiences while being very poor, and he may have projected his anger upon Vienna Jews; Jews of his time because they were a powerful economic and intellectual elite in<span> </span>Austria . They had what he did not, but what was due to him, and while in jail he had plenty of time to figure out his retribution.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Jails can come in various guises. Some have invisible walls.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Mine, at one time in Rome, Italy was invisible to myself.<span> </span>But yes, I felt resentment. I felt the injustice to which I was kindly and knowingly submitting, but I also felt my powerlessness and felt my own inability to escape from the jail and be on my own. It was a combination of more elements I care to list, except that on one day similar to many other days I happened to chase after a very loving and sweet cat with the intent of picking him up putting him in the yard.<span> </span>The animal must have sensed my tenacity, and being by nature like the one legged sparrow, quickly took refuge under the kitchen sink, which had a deep space where the cat could cover.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I knelt down and tried to reach it with my hand but could not. I poked at it with a broom stick, but it didn't even grovel as it<span> </span>refused to move, probably transfixed by fear. At that point I grew angry at its “cowardice” and at its stupid capacity to endure insult.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Somehow I suddenly realized that a part of me was insulting the animal JUST because I perceived it as weak and cowardly . We know that in some of his writings Hitler felt exactly this way about the Jews: weak people who were incapable of fighting back. Because of their inborn weakness they needed to be exterminated before they could further contaminate the German blood.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>My unconscious must have sent me a long forgotten message of when my Mother abused me for no fault of my own, also telling me that<span> </span>I was a coward because I did not do the terrible things she did as a child.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I stopped and walked away from the kitchen.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Years later, as I recounted to my close friend Yolanda how I had only once really enjoyed being malicious. I shared with her my own experience with that sweet defenseless cat. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Under different circumstances it might not have been a cat, but I happen to love cats and therefore became very quickly aware of my own impulses.<span> </span>I am and have impulses as all of us living beings do.<span> </span>Self-awareness and self-knowledge, about which Socrates taught a long time ago, is the only saving grace capable to remind us<span> </span>that we do have a choices<span> </span>and that by destroying others we destroy ourselves, as Hitler finally did.</div><!--EndFragment-->Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670675088288454613.post-12317145442787106902011-09-07T09:31:00.001-07:002011-09-07T09:31:55.381-07:00The Roman Trap<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:DocumentProperties> <o:Template>Normal.dotm</o:Template> <o:Revision>0</o:Revision> <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:Pages>1</o:Pages> <o:Words>2186</o:Words> <o:Characters>12461</o:Characters> <o:Company>Rubin Art Studios</o:Company> <o:Lines>103</o:Lines> <o:Paragraphs>24</o:Paragraphs> <o:CharactersWithSpaces>15302</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:Version>12.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">In 1943, as I just had reentered Rome with my parents, the City revealed itself when I went outside the apartment the next morning. The people congregated in amorphous lines with containers to gather water from isolated water fountains darkened the damp dreariness of rainy November in Rome.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Dark, slow-moving shapes without shadows were softly speaking or sobbing. They were carrying water and leaving. They were coming and going. The food stores were closed. There were no trees; just German cars under the command of Mr. Pellet were right in front of my house.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>My mother told me to go back to the farm to check on things. I took the "tram" at Piazza Della Stazione. It went all the way to Due Santi and Albano and Velletri. My father went with me. Grandpa Pietro had remained at the farm. He could not speak German, yet he managed with his droll sense of humor to somehow communicate with the German troops that installed themselves in the major rooms of the villa.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Mother saw him once making these funny gestures with a German soldier as they were in the wine cellar tasting the new wine. What preceded this mute conversation she did not know. She noticed my grandfather raising his arm and pointing up with his index finger, and then sort of slashing through it with his left hand.<span> </span>The soldier nodded in assent.<span> </span>My grandfather again raised his finger and proceeded to imitate a fake decapitation. The soldier again laughed and assented. Then grandpa lifted both hands to the heavens, which was the vaulted high ceiling of the cellar, made two fists and shook them in rage… the solder gravely nodded.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>“What was that all about,” she asked him.<span> </span>Grandpa laughed, “I asked him if it was okay to kill Mussolini, and he said, “yes.” Then I asked him if it was okay to kill Hitler and he also said, “yes.”<span> </span>Then I cursed, and he nodded.” Those two men, if they have had the power, might have ended WWII! </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I was mostly left in Rome in the depressed care of my grandmother Ometti, who only felt safe by walking all the way through Rome and going to St Peter’s in the Vatican. It was agreed that someone had to be found to stay with me, who was suddenly transplanted unto the asphalt jungle of a dying city. The seventeen year old daughter of the caretaker of a Hotel in Via XX Settembre, who had just came out of a convent school was eligible for the task.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Valerina was lively. She was also very much a nun-indoctrinate and mainly had the task of daily walking with me to the zoo, where my animal friends were. It was a twenty-minute walk through Villa Borghese. The Allied Forces had not yet entered Rome. It was as usual. No bombs had fallen there. The marble statues decorating the plantings in the Prince's Borghese villa were still there. Some of their leaf-covered private parts had been knocked off. A few had lost an arm to vandals.<span> </span>The privet shrubs were still there.<span> </span>A few children in strollers were there as well. The sycamore walk to the zoo was the same as it had been. They entered the usual iron gates in the stuccoed imaginary walls of the confines. And they walked to the seller of peanut bags and headed for the monkey cages.<span> </span>There were fewer monkeys.<span> </span>Behind the alley, only one leopard was left. It kept walking back and forth, again and again.<span> </span>The lion’s closure was empty, and so was the tiger's, but the rhino and the elephants were still there.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>The monkeys had a fine grasp of their food situation, and so had their keeper. They extended their little hands outside the bars of the cage, blabbering in their incomprehensible language, and what a language it was!<span> </span>They had seen the peanut containing paper pouch and quickly sprung to their feet making the fascist salute and also the Nazi salute. Their faces were grinning in anticipation of treats. Treats were dropped into those furry little hands that quickly shelled the peanuts and asked for more.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>The lemmings were still there and the parrots and the reptiles in the large aquarium compound hanging around with giant turtles. All of them hardly moved. They continued walking further away towards the aviary that was a three-story structure made of steel rods and wire.<span> </span>No glass. There were tall structures on which the eagles would sit, hardly moving. She huddled, waited, and she stared at them and they stared back.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span><span> </span>As the days went by, I felt alive only while I was with my friends in the zoo. As soon as I and Valerina left the enclosure, I entered into a strange world where people were huddled under bushes and some of them were doing what the rabbits did after I picked one male rabbit (males had bigger heads) and one female one (longer thinner heads) and put them together in a cage for a while.<span> </span>The male bit the back of the female's head, holding her tight, She screamed. He climbed on top of her and she screamed some more. Then he got off.<span> </span>I felt sorry for the female, but that was the way baby rabbits came about, somehow.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I remembered for years the naked branches of the sycamore trees, the gravel road on which she traveled home, the greens in the park, and the bushes with humans under them.<span> </span>I had hard tales from the peasants living on the first floor of the convent-villa. Tales about how men were all wolves, and all they wanted of women was to fuck them and leave them pregnant, alone, abandoned, and worse, DISHONORED.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I had heard about Maria Goretti, and how she had chosen death rather then fuck with a man who had attacked her, and how this had pleased God and the Church had made her into a Saint. I would have done the same if a man attacked me. I would have chosen death and thus also have eternal life, rather than to have sex, be in mortal sin, and go to hell.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Valerina was also fully in agreement about this. Nevertheless, there were hardly any men around who might even pose any danger. Most of them were in the war. Some of them had been sent to Russia, so had said some of the women who baked bread in the open heart of the villa-convent. During the summer before, their sons had been “lost.” Their mothers knew most of them would not come back.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Rome was not a dangerous place because the Germans kept a tight lid on the City and General Clark had not yet busted the Volturno line after the abbey Montecassino was bombed to dust by the Allied forces making their way up the boot of Italy after they had won the battle of Gela in Sicily.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span><span> </span>It had been a brutal battle between the German forces headed by Kesserling and Chirieleison and the Allied Forces headed by Clark. The Germans retreated up the boot and the Allies went after them.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>At Anzio, which was only ten miles from the convent farm where I had lived out my childhood, the Allied front met with the powerful German defensive.<span> </span>This watershed battle in the Southern Front became the counterpart of the Bulge Battle on the Northern front.<span> </span>I remembered the flames rising from the airport, which was being bombed by allied planes. I remembered my mother asking the German commander in the big house not to place an anti-aircraft gun near the house. That it would be better in the olive grove. She could not afford to lose the three-century-old house to a bomb destined to destroy a gun.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>The German Commander had grinned; after all, he had thrown grenades to all the peach trees of the property! And what did she know of war? He had slept in trenches dug out of mud. He had killed people… who cared about peach trees! What did she know about WAR?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>He had asked her if there were any weapons in the house. Italians were forbidden to keep weapons and would be shot if found with them.<span> </span>She had smiled while he sat on the hand painted bench in the green room near the entrance to the home part of the house. "Of course not," she responded. Then she asked him about his family. Yes, he had a family in Dresden. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>After he left, she shook and almost fell over.<span> </span>He had set on the chest in which two rifles and two revolvers were hidden.<span> </span>She would have had to shoot him, somehow, if he had opened the chest.<span> </span>Another revolver was kept hidden, but it was closer.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Mother had steel nerves during the war, but would scream in horror at the sight of a cockroach. I thought cockroaches, which were so sleek and fast, were beautiful and so were the small snails living over a mossy wall near the thatched tent in the villa's garden. At times they were attached, end-to-end like the rabbits. I tried once to take them apart, but they were well attached and I did not want to hurt them.<span> </span>Sexuality in animals was "normal.” In humans, as far as I heard from the peasants, it was aggressive and had negative consequences for women. Talking with any member of the family about this was taboo. For my mother sex was “dirty.” For me, it acquired connotations of lust, sin and possible damnation. After all, God's Mother was a Virgin all along.<span> </span>She could not have sinned having sex like the rabbits or the half-covered humans coddling under the bushes.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>As winter continued, so did my mother's trips to the farm. She would sleep in the cave built by the monks three hundred years before under the house; some 10 feet underground. It emerged about 25 meters feet away from the house and a bunker covered the exit.<span> </span>The bunker was there so if a bomb fell on the house, the people in the cave would be able to survive.</div><div class="MsoNormal">The cave was lined with cells. Grandfather Pietro had aged his prized velltri wines there for years. The cave was damp, even though the temperature usually stayed around 45 degrees.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Mother came down with sciatica carrying suitcases with food back from the farm to Rome.<span> </span>Other foods like milk were provided by the cow that Father had “walked” to Rome on foot. It was safely kept in a Cisterciences Monastery along with grandfather Pietro's Jewish friends. I would always get the milk from the cow and the Jews survived. Vegetables also came from long streetcar trips to and from a vegetable garden belonging to grandma Zaira’s niece.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>On the flat roof of the health office in Rome was a vegetable garden tended by the Nuns of Charity, whose Mother Superior was my grandfather's sister, Zia Francesca.<span> </span>There were heaps of sand in some corners and turtles inhabited them. They laid small eggs, very small eggs. I always wondered why they did not keep chickens because someone might probably want to eat them.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Life in Rome had some rewards, but very few.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>There were no children to play with in wintertime. They were nowhere to be found. Something strange started happening during the middle of winter. The days grew shorter and there was hardly any light in the house.<span> </span>It was something very strange. I would come home from the zoo, and sleep with my mother in my parents' bed. My mother would leave for the farm before I awakened and would always leave her red slippers neatly aligned on my side of the bed.<span> </span>I would awaken, see the empty slippers, and know my mother had gone away under bombs falling once outside the walls of Rome.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I knew that I might not see my mother again that night, but I also knew something far worse. I knew that if my mother had died that she would go to Hell and be forever damned.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Why did I believe this?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Valerina, my watchdog, had rightly told me that since my mother did not go to Church on Sundays.<span> </span>She was in Mortal Sin. Therefore, if she died unconfessed, she would go to Hell. I did know from all my Catholic teachings, relatives, peasants, and priests that this was true.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I was therefore terrified about my mother going to help, but incapable of doing anything about it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Worse, I came upon the thought that if God allowed something so terrible to happen to a person who worked so hard to save the farm from the bombs and carried food, partly for people in Rome to eat, this was NOT RIGHT from GOD and I did not want to have anything to do with God any longer if he was such an UNJUST GOD. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I was seven and a half years old. I could read, but had not read Pascal nor any other philosopher or theologian.<span> </span>My thoughts were my own and I dared not share them with anyone. I knew that my very thought of abjuring God would damn me. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The Roman Catholic Dogmatic Trap had closed on me. This could not even be confessed.<span> </span>It was a Sin against God Himself.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>I did have an option. I could just choose to believe that I was wrong and ask God's forgiveness. I could believe, as many people did, what served them, even if it was not true.<span> </span>Some people, like the peasants, believed many stupid things because they were told they were true.<span> </span>Credulity of children was used by ADULTS to tell children things that were not true, to frighten them so that they would obey the Adults. I knew all about that, and refused, on principle to be gullible. This strange refusal derived from pent up anger against the Adult world and God Himself thrust me into the abyss between Shylla and Caribdis, or in other words, on the razor's edge.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>A person divided within herself is not longer whole and eventually splits as the pressure mounts.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>Day by day, after this existential realization, life became less and less meaningful. There was no more unity with God.<span> </span>Now I was truly ALONE.<span> </span>Daily reality, except for the zoo experiences with the animals, started drying up into a sequence of dreary daily living steps. Dreams of wanting to go up a flight of steps and being unable to lift my legs became the norm.<span> </span>Even walking into the front door of the apartment building seized me with dread.<span> </span>I lived a double life, one in which I behaved as a normal person keeping up appearance, and the other one which surged as I lie awake in bed at night stuffing the top sheet in my mouth and sobbing in despair facing NOTHINGNESS.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>How long did this last? I do not remember, but it seemed a long time.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Eventually, one night, my mother heard me and came into the room. After that, mother did not go to the farm one day, but walked part way to Castel Gandolfo. She did so mostly on foot after having gotten of the tram, and talked to the town doctor about what to do about me. He told her to take me back to the villa-farm-convent.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>And so it was on a sunny early spring day that we took the train until Cinecitta, where it stopped.<span> </span>The bombs were still falling on the airport, not too many of them. Then we walked to "somewhere," and a German vehicle met us and drove us to the villa-farm.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>It was no longer a villa.<span> </span>As the vehicle proceeded on the long way towards the house, I noticed that the pear trees flanking the drive had gone, and so were the rose bushes.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>As the vehicle parked in front of the grand old house, I noticed people going in and out of the cellar doors. As we went up the stairs and entered our home, I also noticed strangers going about. As we opened the door for what once had been my bedroom. I noticed a giant mountain of grain filling it. There was no furniture in the house. The local people were mostly on the first floor, and some Germans were on the second floor. No one paid any attention to me. I was just another person in another person's house.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>On that day my childhood ended. </div><!--EndFragment-->Fiammetta Rubin N.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16344847000293973872noreply@blogger.com0