This post is for anybody who has anything to say about any zines–I’m oddly mostly interested in what you have to say about MY zines (lolololol) but I will still pay attention and love any discussion about other zines as well.

If you have something to say, start us off in comments!!!!

I dislike the idea of “healing yourself”–the phrase assumes that there is a ’self’ to be healed. That the “self” understands something wrong was done to it, and now it has to find ways to ‘heal’ that wrong.

But what if the violence committed against a body exists as a destruction of “self”? Not as in the simple feminist analysis that “women are trained to take care of everybody but themselves,”–because a person who knows and is aware of her inner self–her likes and dislikes, who she is, will either not submit to that “training” or will do it until she finds something better she likes.

I am talking about the step that comes before the “training.” The destruction of identity. The destruction of inner self. The removal of stability such that a person does not trust herself–and thus trusts others to care for her.

Only those other people don’t take care of her–they “train” her.

Do you see what I mean? The building of “self” is something that exists separately from “healing the self.” You can not “heal” a self if there is no self to be had.

“Healing yourself” almost seems like a cruel joke to those of us who have no idea what a ’self’ is. Is it taking a warm bath and listening to quiet music? Is it singing to lighted candles? Is it laughing? Is it taking a walk? I’ve done all those things plus more–and still sit immobilized every night for months from depression. Does that make me a bad “healer” of myself?

A failure?

Someday–if I just concentrate long enough–stay focused, aroused, interested–pull my boot straps hard enough–will I finally heal that “self” that refuses to be found?

HOw do you heal a baby that can’t sit still? THat is controlled by the ants in the pants?

now that the zine is done, i feel as if i have accomplished something good in my life–and the fog of gray cold is starting to lift just a bit.

it’s weird how doing something with your hands–thinking in a new way–really is meditative and refreshing. i realized over the past month or so that i’ve really never been encouraged, on any level or in any sense, to do things with my hands. as a kid, building things was for boys/men and girls were supposed to do sewing and knitting. added to that was pressure by my family to take up the family trade–i come from a long line of knitters and sewers–and there was not just pressure, but insistence–on “sharing” the womanly trade. isn’t it great to have three generations of us forced under one roof?

so big old rebellious me hated every moment of it and have managed to somehow forget everything ‘taught’ to me.

coming back to my hands so many years later–learning how to work them after they’ve been neglected so long–it’s been very rewarding. i don’t know why, but i can feel different parts of my brain working as my hands work–it’s something i’ve never experienced before, but it makes me really excited for my brain.

it’s getting exercise–and doing just fine!

** i’ve learned a lot of other things while working on this zine–mainly that something as simple as reconnecting in a physical way to the seasons of the year (even if it’s just by noticing on the calender that there is only three weeks left of winter, now two weeks, etc) has really helped me to manage depression. which is not to say i haven’t been depressed–as i’ve mentioned else where, i am currently only just now sort of starting to emerge from a pretty solid depression that has lasted weeks. but…it’s different. i know that it’s going to end. that my goal is to find a way to ride the waves and the dips. comfortably and with compassion for myself. in a non-abusive way.

this is something i have never known before. or maybe i have–but–just never knew how to do. i’m learning how now, and it’s making the dips and the lulls not so intense. not so scary.

**speaking of depression. i’ve discovered that often times–although depression is grounded in biology and you will never hear me say otherwise–depression is *also* grounded in unprocessed shit. for weeks and weeks–i was shifting in and out of hysterical depression and icy cold depression. and then one day i found myself typing frantically about how i wish more than life that i had the money to give every single girl everywhere her first bra. and how i wish that i had enough of myself to go to every school and take every girl who needed a “mother figure” out to get a bra. typing frantically and crying.

and it sorta took me off guard, because i don’t usually do that. i cry before or after i write–but writing is a time of focus. i was so angery, i was pounding on those keys…

and then i realized–baby bfp has reached that stage. she got the “how things work” lecture at school at that all ended with a female teacher taking all of the girls into the bathroom and telling them that now is a good time to talk to your parents about getting bras.

and somewhere out of the blue, i realized that i never had that parent that i could go to. that if a teacher had said that to me, not only would i have been unable to talk to my parent, but i would’ve then felt like a double failure because a grown up had told me to do something and i couldn’t.

and i thought about how my daughter has three women outside of me that she can go to to talk about this stuff–and about how she has a father that she’s invited along to go with her to get her first set of t-shirts (cuz girlfriend SO ain’t ready for teh bra!! lol). and about how thrilled baby bfp is to be getting her boobs–how she’s been announcing it to the world for months.

and then later on, I heard from another parent at the school about how the teacher who gave Teh Talk is known for approaching parents and informing them its time to get a bra and what kind of bra it’s time to get (sports bras/more supportive bras for bigger girls, for example). So that those who are lazy or unwilling to help their daughters are sorta shamed into doing it (this teacher’s not nice about it). and the girl knows that somebody is in her corner.

so even if i was a fucked up parent, my daughter would be taken care of.

she’d know that somebody had her back.

And I remember that little girl i was–I see her wearing coats when it’s wasn’t cold and walking with her chest folded in and burning when the male teacher tells her in front of the class that “some of us need to take better care of how we dress…”

and i know that nobody had that girl’s back. not even her.

and i look now at the “depression” that everybody tells me is biologically based–chemicals in my brain all fucked up. because there’s no other reason to explain why i’m so weepy and cold and nasty all the time.

and i think–the chemicals are all fucked up because i’ve been working my hardest to forget shit–until i was ready to deal with it all on my own terms and in my own way.

**

Have I mentioned that I’m so happy my brain is learning to work and exercise itself?

And did I tell you that my brain re-working itself all started with me getting on anti-depressants?

**

The other thing I’ve learned–we are attacked by a web of violence–it’s never just one thing that hurts us (i.e. ONLY capitalism, ONLY racism, etc). So why on earth would we think that we will be “cured” or “healed’ by singular solutions?

**

and finally–spring is coming. Sun. Warmth. Life. The world–and us–reborn.

I salute all of us who are reaching for the finishstart line. we may have to carry each other, drag each other, crawl, roll, and push each other to the line–but we will do it. we will get there. again.

cuz we’re warriors like that.

Just in time for the Spring Equinox, my latest greatest zine, Remembering the Sun, is fresh off the presses!

Written during the time between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, aka The Most Depressing Time of The Year, this zine was motivated by the reality of instability–the need to hold onto something solid, real, loving–even as there seems to be nothing left in the world but desperate and lonely thoughts. Others have made through this darkest of time, and you and I will too. We are not alone.

The sun does return.

The “regular” zine is paper, the “special edition” features a cloth cover (made of old babybfp jeans–to better allow us to remember those days when our own jean knees were muddied and stained with joy) and a solid inner cover to protect the zine.

The regular zine is 1$ plus cost of 1 stamp (.44 cents–or if you just want to round it–but at least .44 cents) for US and 1.60$ for International.

SOLD OUT! (NOTICE: ONLY ONE COPY LEFT!!!!) The “special edition” is going to be sold to the first 11 people who make a donation of more than 5$. Postage 1$ for US and 2$ for International. Once the 11 are gone–they’re gone! So order quickly!! (NOTICE ONLY ONE COPY LEFT!!!!) SOLD OUT!

As always–if you feel like donating more, please do so! All money goes towards woc media making (i.e. the costs of this site, of making zines, etc).

As with the last zine:

Delivery Info: I will be sending out zines every Monday and Thursday. Latest order times for each date will be 8 PM EST the previous day. So, if you order your zine on Sunday at 7:35 PM EST, your zine will go in the mail Monday.

If you order your zine any time on Monday, however, it will be put in the mail on the very next Thursday.

I am doing it this way so that my helper can help me make sure I have all the organizational paper work-y type stuff (for example: correct addresses, etc) taken care of properly.

it’s going to be spring in about a week. the days are getting longer, and that is helping my world a bit. i have been quiet and contemplative–and lets face it, more than a little despondent and lacking in energy. but i’ve noticed that the world around me has also been gray, drab, quiet, and a bit weepy. its made me think about what a baby must feel like the days and hours before it is born. as it feels hormones surge or withdraw, as it notices body shifts–tightening and relaxing in new places.

i wonder if a baby is aware enough to feel her first feelings–apprehension, curiosity, interest, fear. or if she just rests. nature’s hormones helping her to just sit back and relax until it’s all over.

knowing that my son listened to the patter of shower hitting my belly as he was born (that was the only way to calm him down as a sick newborn), i think that babies are more aware than we think.

we come into the world riding a cycle, a part of it, creating it, noticing it.

spring is rebirth. all of us have been born before. and will be born again. spring just reminds us.

before the joy of new life,
there is quiet
contemplation.

While I’ve been dealing with this depression cycle, I’ve been working on my latest zine! It should be out and ready to go by the end of the week. It’s called, “Remembering the Sun,” and is poetry, stories, and letters of surviving and rebirth.

There will be two styles–one will be just the paper zine–the other will be the zine wrapped in a durable cover–so that you can carry it in your purse or in your car or whatever and it will stay safe. I made a lot of changes over my last zine–this one will be stapled (or otherwise made secure) so that all the pages stay in order.

The one with the cover will cost a little more–I’m thinking that I may sell it to the first X number of people who donate, say, $5 or $10 bucks or something. Not sure. The paper copy will be sold for a buck, like the first one was! Oh, and the one with the cloth cover may need to have more postage tacked on–I’ll find out once they are ready to go!

Anyway. That’s what I’ve been up to during the past few weeks.

Touching and holding my depressed thoughts.

Hope you are well.

Love:

In the middle of the night, I got out of bed to go to the bathroom. I shook the whole time I was out of bed, our house is old and cold.

As I returned to bed, I took the time, even in my tired-eyes-barely-open state, to carefully pull the covers up over me and tuck them around my shoulders.

As I did so, I said to myself, “I am helping you get back into bed, because you are cold. You deserve a warm tender safe place to rest because I love you so much.”

It was the first time anybody had ever done such a thing for me.

by mai’a aka guerrilla mama

the lilith plan

basically guiding folks through self-induced abortions, alternative contraception, and other ways of not being pregnant…

i first got interested in self-induced abortions and contraception at the same time that i started to study midwifery.  to me its all about being willing to mother ourselves, our bodies, and our intuition.  throughout human history, around the globe, people have known how to not be pregnant.  we have used herbs, movement, light, scents, touch and whatever means were necessary to not be pregnant.  this knowledge isnt lost.  sometimes it is buried under the bones of folks who died in childbirth or bled to death from the complications of a miscarriage.  it has always revitalized itself nurtured by our desire to define for themselves what is freedom, mothering, pleasure, sacred, death and life.

so that is what i am offering us.  stories and practices in an effort to redefine our basic understanding of reproduction and life.

that is what the lilith plan is.  a celebration of our survival by any means necessary.

here you will find tips, strategies, research, history, pictures, journal entries, articles, interviews and whatever else i run across that supports our relationship with our reproductive health.

if you are interested in a private consultation please contact me.

xxooxo

mai’a

Portraits and narratives of ten transgendered Africans from seven countries in East and Southern Africa by Gabrielle Le Roux in partnership with IGLHRC exhibited for the first time by Amnesty International – Amsterdam.  The exhibition celebrating  transgendered Africans opened last Thursday in Amsterdam.

The exhibition  honours brave transgender activists in Africa who put their lives on the line for the human rights of all people to be true to themselves and express their identity as they feel it.

From a transgender person, it is constanly demanded of me to explain and justify why i do not fit into other peoples ideas of what a woman or man should be .  we are now claiming language and claiming spaces.  Transgender people have the potential to radically challenge discriminatroy praces in a way that hellps to free all people from sexism  We the trans community have the right to tell our stories and have them heard and to have our lives protected.  Victor Mukasa Ugandan amnesty frontline human rights defender and program associate IGLHRC

To view the portraits visit Blacklooks

by mai’a aka guerrilla mama

i dont listen to the words. i listen to beat. to the music.

yeah, im that chick.
when i hear a good song i hear the beat.  and in hip hop i listen for the swing of the vocal rhythms.  that is the hypnotic (and i mean that word) captivating (yeah, like a slave) power of hip hop for me.  that fills my desire for aural pleasure.  my ear wants sensual complexity, a polyrhythmic, polytonal, polyvocal sound.
often the lyrics are secondary to my pleasure.
this is not an excuse.  it is the fact that i trust my desire.  this desire and i have been together for a long time.  more than three decades.  it has grown with me since my mother’s womb.  it has been beaten, raped, locked away, and has always punched back.  has always demanded to be listened to.
it has been interrogated.  how could it not have been?  self-dissection comes much easier to me than self-trust.  and it has been a long journey for me to trust my desire, my pleasure.  for me to claim it as a part of me, and not something ‘out there’.  something i could manipulate and mold into an acceptable form.  that is what i was taught.  you like girls, well…don’t.  you like sex, stop.  you like hip hop…smarten up.  you like boys…get a clue.

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