Posted on Thursday, 15th January 2009 by Maritzia

As many of you know (or maybe you don’t, I don’t talk about it that much), I have fibromyalgia.  I’ve been on a variety of treatments over the years (see my Fibromyalgia page for a synopsis).  For the last two years, I’ve been on a clinical trial using Milnacipran to treat my fibromyalgia.  Well, today the FDA has finally approved Milnacipran for sell in the US for treatment of Fibromyalgia.

For me, this has been a real miracle drug.  I feel so much better, my energy levels are so much higher, my pain levels so much lower than they have pretty much since I was about 10 years old.  I’ll be honest with you, the initial side effects can be a little daunting.  It can cause some serious nausea when you first start taking it, but that passes after the first month or so, and it’s not quite as bad if you slowly ramp up the dose.  After the initial adjustment, I haven’t really had any side effects.  I know some have had migraines and hypertension, but I haven’t seen those effects.

Forest Laboratories say they hope to have the medication generally available by March, so talk to your doctor about trying milnacipran for your fibromyalgia (brand name will be Savella).  I’m sure Forest Labs will be more than happy to provide your doctor with information on the drug.

Posted in Fibromyalgia | Comments (0)

Posted on Thursday, 15th January 2009 by Maritzia

Today’s Card: The Star

Wow…this card just keeps coming up again and again.  I think it’s the 3rd time I’ve seen it in the last month or two during my daily card pulls.  The Star is a generally positive card.  Things aren’t going to miraculously change overnight, but over time, what you need will be there.

Goddess Card: Yemanya

Again, a card that I’ve seen more than once in the last month or two.  Yemanya is an African and Brazilian goddess who is credited with creating the sea.  This card usually indicates an opportunity which must be embraced.  However, just as the sea comes and goes in the tides, so do opportunities come and go.  If one is missed, another will surely come.

I must admit to starting to feel impatient.  All of these great cards keep coming up again and again.  Everything’s going to be great, prosperity will come, opportunities are available.

Maybe I need to do a reading specifically about these opportunities and prosperity, hmmmmm?

Oh, by the way, I’ve had a couple of people ask for free tarot readings.  I’ve been a bit busy, but I’ll be getting to those this weekend.  So, don’t despair, I haven’t forgotten you.

Remember, if you’d like a free 3 card tarot reading, reply here or send me an e-mail.  Don’t forget to tell me what you generally want the reading to be about (details aren’t necessary, just a general idea to help me focus).

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Posted on Friday, 9th January 2009 by Maritzia

Renee over at Womanist Musings shared some (not very nice) comments about her blog today.  I was rather flabbergasted at what some folks had to say.  I journeyed over to the forum where the comments were posted (I won’t link such people here), and of course, the people who posted these comments were very white.

No Whining Allowed

Now, I’m not one to put up with whining (unless it’s my own – I love to whine), and definitely I do not put up with people who are professional victims.  I believe that knowledge, and especially self-knowledge, should be used as tools for change, not as excuses for inaction, and I’m likely to call someone out when they do it.

But I can’t call Renee out here, because she is most definitely not a whiner or a victim.  Renee takes her knowledge of the world and racism, and she tells it like it is.  The problem, of course, is that most people don’t want to claim their own privilege. 

While I have my own areas of oppression (I’m a fat, frumpy, middle-aged woman with multiple health problems/physical challenges and a background of abuse), I am also a product of the privilege of my white, mostly middle-class upbringing.

Naming Our Privilege

I was privileged to be raised in a neighborhood with a relatively low crime rate.  Privileged to walk to school every day without fear.  Privileged to attend a school with good teachers and decent libraries.

I was privileged to grow up in a family where everyone worked because work was always available and was privileged to learn how to find a job, budget my time to get ready and commute to work just by watching my parents, because they were privileged to have jobs.

I was privileged to see someone of my race as the hero of every television show, every movie and every book.  I was privileged to see every relationship in public as that of my sexual preference. 

We didn’t have a lot of money, but we were privileged not to ever go to bed hungry (at least not because of lack of food).  I was privileged to always have wholesome food on the table, a place to live, clothes to wear and books to read.  I was privileged to have health insurance and available health care (even if the doctors were arrogant assholes).

I was privileged to see police as someone to help me in times of danger.  I was privileged to never see my father pulled over for no reason, assaulted for no reason, murdered for no reason.  I was privileged to never see my mother abused or raped because of the color of her skin, or feel her helplessness because she had no one to turn to when it happened, because police were something to be feared, not someone to turn to in times of need.

I have the privilege to pretend that none of these things matters in todays world, because I’m privileged to not have it happening to me or mine.  If you seriously think that you don’t benefit from your privilege, regardless of the types of oppression you may also have endured, then you are more privileged than you can even understand.

Own Your Privilege and Work Against It

Wake up, boys and girls, and smell the privilege.  Just because you’re so immersed in it that you can’t see, hear, or feel your privilege, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.  Stop hating people for pointing out your privilege and understand why they’re pointing it out to start with.  Understand the systemic oppression in our society, and work to end oppression now!

Posted in Activism, Political, Recommended Links | Comments (3)

Posted on Monday, 5th January 2009 by Maritzia

OK, maybe I’m overstating the issue a bit.  Not every fat person hates every doctor.  But there’s a reason fat people tend to avoid going to the doctor.  The Rotund had a very good post back in November, On Disrespecting Doctors that I highly recommend.  Please read the comments as well, since you’ll find many examples of how fat people are treated by doctors (you can see my two cents there as well).  Rampant weight bias in the health care field has been very well documented.  If you want to learn more about it, you can check out this course that was designed specifically to combat weight bias.

For many overweight people, going to the doctor is just a nightmare.  For many years, I never left a doctor’s office without tears in my eyes, usually tears of anger and frustration.  I would go in with specific medical issues, and all I would get were lectures on my weight.  No one seemed interested in the fact that I was sick, much less in figuring out why.  Every problem was blamed on my weight.

And if you tried to explain to them that you didn’t eat as much as they thought or that you exercised regularly, you were usually accused of being a liar.  It took me 25 years to get a diagnosis of fibromyalgia, and I still have to fight to get the thyroid dose I need in spite of the fact that I have flagrant symptoms of hypothyroidism.

So, if doctors don’t like how we talk about them?  Honey, they’re lucky we’re not saying a lot worse.  After the way so many of us have been treated over the years (or mistreated as the case may be) it’s no wonder that we have more adverse outcomes for serious illness than thin people.  Traditionally, it’s been blamed on the fact that we’re fat. 

But take a look at this article.  It seems that if you adjust the dose of chemotherapy for ovarian cancer based on a woman’s weight, the outcome differences between fat and thin women disappear.  It seems that if you figure out that fat women have more blood, so therefore need a higher dose of medication to match the same density in the bloodstream as thin women, that they actually get better at the same rate!

It seems to me that this should be self-evident.  And yet when I’ve tried to talk to my doctor about trying higher doses of some meds because…well…I’m fat, I’ve been stonewalled and pretty much told I don’t know what I’m talking about.  And yet they’ll give a higher dose to men because men are bigger!

Now before someone jumps down my throat, I know there’s more difference between treating men and women besides size/weight.  But do your research.  That’s the main reason for different dosing between the genders for years as most medical research used male subjects (that’s a topic for another day).

So, my point is this.  Fat people have been treated shabbily by the medical profession for years.  We’ve been considered lazy, non-compliant, nasty, and gross (those are actual words used to describe fat people in one of the aforementioned studies on weight bias).  So if we consider doctors to be arrogant assholes, I guess we have our reasons.

Posted in Fat Acceptance | Comments (2)

Posted on Thursday, 1st January 2009 by Maritzia

I’m sitting here, on the cusp of the new year, and it’s time to look back at the year we leave behind.  In many ways, it was quite a hard year.  We finished Mark’s immigration, we got married, we dealt with Amber’s paralysis and Jordan’s aging.  I was laid off for the 2nd time in two years, and spent almost 3 months unemployed.  And while I enjoy the job I have, it isn’t ideal in pay and location.  So it’s been a year of struggles.

But it’s also been a year of great happiness.  We found the most lovely woman to officiate at our wedding, and the whole ceremony was such a wonderful expression of who we are and what our relationship is about.  We had our family all around us (including our pets), and it was a lovely time to renew our love for and commitment to each other.  It was everything we dreamed it could be.

At this time last year, I did a tarot reading for the year.  It’s interesting to look back now at the cards I drew and how they’ve played out during the year.

The Card for the Year: The Star

The star is a positive card for what was, over all, a positive year.  Always, when things seemed darkest, hope shined through and in the end everything worked out.  When I was laid off, I found another job.  When the money wasn’t enough, I got a raise.  When Amber hurt her back, our vet was wonderful and encouraging, and we discovered that even if she hadn’t gotten better, we more than have it in us to care for a special needs pet.  Amber was blessed with an almost total recovery, but at least we aren’t afraid if it happens again.  We know what to do and how to do it, and we know we can handle whatever comes.

The Month Cards

1. January was the King of Wands – He’s about inspiration and ideas, motivation to move forward, find your passion, and take charge.  This was the height of the time I was working in foster care, and both Mark and I hoped we would be able to move into the work full time.  Working with at-risk youth is such demanding, but can be such rewarding, work.
2. February was the Princess of Hearts (aka Page of Cups) – Ahhh…the cups…the suit of emotions.  And the Page is the very emotional one.  And it was an emotional month.  I was accused at work of doing something underhanded (which I didn’t do), and it was made clear to me that we would not be allowed to continue in foster care.  My heart was truly broken.  I was sad and angry and hurt.
3. March was the Ten of Pentacles – The Tens are completion cards, the ultimate, transcendant completion, and the pentacles are an earth sign dealing with physical and financial matters.  While our finances went down this month without the foster care work, this is when I was inspired to start my most recent blog, Administrative Arts, which I believe is going to be my most successful one.  It hasn’t brought financial security yet, but it is definitely progressing well, and I’m excited for the future with it.
4. April was the Tenof Wands – The Ten of Wands is about struggle, ultimate struggle with that which consumes you.  This was a really hard month.  Finances became really bad, I was struggling with both work and the blog, still feeling angry and sad and hurt about work issues.  Yes, a really bad month.
5. May was the Four of Swords – A time of relief after strife.  And May was that.  I started letting go some of my anger and pain from work.  And Mark’s immigration was moving forward, so we started planning the wedding.  It was a good month.  A peaceful month.  It was some down time that I desperately needed.
6. June was Nine of Hearts (aka Nine of Cups) – Like the tens, the nines are completion cards.  With the cups emphasis on emotion and relationships, this is a great card.  Wishes will come true, relationships will reach a pinnacle.  This month we received Mark’s fiancee visa, and we could finally start concrete plans for the wedding.  This really was a great month.
7. July was The Hanged Man – A time of suspension and sacrifice, of making choices.  We were married on the 5th, and on the 6th, Amber hurt her back and was paralyzed.  Time pretty much stood still for us while we took care of her.  Worries about work, immigration, and money were put aside.  We just took care of Amber.  In return, though, we received great insight that we can do whatever is necessary to take care of our babies.  No challenge was too much where they are concerned.  And the puppies learned that as well.  They know they’ll be taken care of no matter what.
8. August was the Four of Hearts (aka Four of Cups) – HAHAHAHA….stagnant relationships….that’s funny.  As Amber improved, I was getting very dissatisfied with my job.  I was looking constantly for something else.  Fate took a hand, though, and I got laid off.  So much for stagnation.
9. September was the Ten of Swords – Yes, an untimely, violent end.  Hitting rock bottom.  I was laid off with no warning, lost my health insurance, was getting no replies to my many resumes.  Yes, things did indeed look quite black this month.  At the same time, though, it really wasn’t that bad, because I was away from that awful job.  In some ways, it was a relief.  I felt like the world was opening up before me.
10. October was The Hermit – A time of introspection as well as searching.  It describes October well.  I was spending a great deal of time thinking about not just employment, but what I really wanted to achieve.  Did I want to keep doing the same things I’ve always done or branch out into something new.  This month was about finding opportunities, which I eventually did.  I started my new job this month.
11. November was the Ace of Hearts (aka Ace of Cups) – A new beginning with love, joy, and compassion exultant.  Yes, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States of America.  We have had much exultation and excitement and hope.  Almost two months later, and I’m still filled with hope and excitement, despite some setbacks (can you say Rick Warren?).
12. December was The Devil – A card of temptation and excess.  The Devil is a card of warning.  Don’t fall back into habitual negative behaviors.  If you want to reach the pinnacles, you must move forward, embrace new ways, shed inhibitions as well as excesses (for inhibitions can be as excessive as any addiction when taken to an extreme).  This month I let go of the idea of material security.  I’ve always been a very habitual person who craved normality and security.  I would stay in a job I abhorred rather than move to find something less secure but more satisfying.  This month was about letting go of those things that chained me down and moving forward with the goals of what I really wanted in life.

All in all, 2008 was a difficult but very satisfying year.  I hope 2009 is a happy and prosperous year for us all.  Blessings, everyone.

Posted in Personal, Personal growth, Tarot, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Posted on Monday, 29th December 2008 by Maritzia

Today’s Card: Page of Wands

This is a propitious card for me to draw today.  The Wands suit is about your passion, career, and/or creative endeavors.  The Page, of course, is a messenger.  And today I’ve been working on a new creative pursuit.  It’s an idea I had a while back, but yesterday I just really got inspired to start forward with it.  I’ll announce it here as soon as I get it off the ground.

This card is a good indicator for success for this endeavor.

Goddess Card: Lakshmi

Lashmi is a Hindu Goddess who brings abundance to those who call for her help.  These two cards together seem to be telling me to stop worrying and let good come to me.  My endeavors will pay off in the end.

Remember, you can still get a free 3-card tarot reading.  Just send me an e-mail or leave a comment here.

Posted in Tarot | Comments (0)

Posted on Monday, 29th December 2008 by Maritzia

Last week I talked about my belief that we each have a path to follow in life.  This week, I’d like to explore the idea of how we discern what is true.  To start talking about finding truth, though, I must first give a bit of background information about my own belief systems.

During my life, my belief systems have evolved quite a bit.  I don’t like to say my beliefs have changed.  It’s more that, as I have grown older, as I have experienced more of life, I have gained a greater understanding of what I believe to be truth.

I was raised Southern Baptist, but as I became a teenager, I questioned more and more the tenets of that religion.  While it worked for many people I knew, for me there were too many questions, and I was left with a constant feeling of first restlessness, and later anger.  For me, there was too much rigidity, too many admonitions not to ask questions.  Of course, being the inquisitive person I was, being told not to ask questions just made me more frustrated and more angry.  I knew there was something more, but at that point in my life, I didn’t even know how to reach out and look for it.  Let’s face it, I lived in the middle of the bible belt and the internet didn’t even exist yet.

In the ’80s, during college, I became interested in Catholicism.  In so many ways, it was the very opposite of the teachings of my childhood.  They didn’t hold with the very strict interpretation of the bible that Southern Baptists tend to hold.  Questioning and spiritual exploration seemed to be not only tolerated, but encouraged.  This was the Post Vatican II American Church.  Spiritual exploration, differing forms of prayer, differing ideas of theology were rampant.  It called to the intellectual side of my soul!

And then there was the ritual.  While many Catholics my age were actually looking for the more emotional experiences of the type of church of my childhood, I was seeking the more traditional rituals of the Church.  Before then, I had never really experienced formal ritual (although I’ll argue that in their way, the evangelical churches are as ritualized as the Catholic).  It was in ritual that I found the real homecoming for my soul. Here is where I found that something that I had wanted but couldn’t name.  Ritual is where my soul found freedom and energy.

I remained Catholic for over 20 years, even as my belief systems continued to evolve, becoming more Pagan as time passed.  I must admit that even today, after several years as an unrepentant Pagan, I still have a penchant for the Mass and the other rituals of the Catholic Church.  They are what nurtured my soul for many years.

Over time, however, the Catholic Church started pulling back.  The Pre-Vatican II rigidity started creeping back into the American church.  Truthfully, it had already started at the time I joined the Church, but it was a while before I started seeing it.  I was comfortable for many years knowing that some of my core beliefs were not exactly in agreement with the Church hierarchy.  But as time passed, I became less and less comfortable with the direction the Church was taking, and the election of Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope was the last straw for me.  As much as I loved parts of the Church (and still do), I could no longer call myself Catholic.

By this time I was already quite pagan in many of my beliefs, so it didn’t take much of a push to pull me over the edge to claiming my Pagan beliefs, and in the last few years I have embraced my identity as a witch and reveled in the opportunity to expand my concept of the divine.

Now that I’ve covered the “what” of my religious past, in my next post in this series, I’ll talk in more detail about they
whys and hows of the evolution of my beliefs.  I hope you’ll stick around and share some of your own religious background.

Posted in Religion/Spirituality | Comments (1)

Posted on Friday, 26th December 2008 by Maritzia

photo credit: dno1967

I’ve written several times on this blog about Fat Acceptance.  Really, though, what I should be talking about is body acceptance.  We talk about FA simply because the privileged position here is that of thinness.  But that is only because society’s current definition of beauty is linked so strongly to being thin.

When we talk about the whole issue of beauty, what we are really talking about is sexual attractiveness.  Why is one person considered to be sexually attractive while another person is not.  I know there are those of you out there who will argue that sexual attraction is innate and genetic.  It’s driven by the need to produce stronger offspring with a greater chance of survival.  I’m afraid I would have to disagree with this stance.

While this may be the case in animals, humans have evolved long past a simply biological view of sexual attractiveness.  The reason I say this is because our definition of beauty changes over time.  In the early 20th century, women were preferred to be rather plump (200 pounds was nothing then), preferred faces were generally longer with a longer jawline.  Over time, however, we saw a preference for thinness develop.  Jaw lines shrank as a preference for shorter jaw lines occurred (hence the need for so many of us to have our wisdom teeth removed).  Preference for hair colors change as fashions change.  Let’s face it, what we humans consider sexually attractive has a great deal to do with what our society currently tells us should be attractive.

And if that’s the case, why can’t we change what society has to say?  Why can’t we, as a society, tell our children that sexual attraction doesn’t have to be wrapped up in the physical body?  Why can’t we see all bodies as having equal ability to be sexually attractive.  I mean, I know some people out there are sexually attracted to fat people.  Some people are sexually attracted to power, some to humor.  And that’s great.  We’re all different people and have different ideas of what is attractive.  Why can’t we celebrate that ideal?  That everyone can be seen as sexually attractive instead of trying to force people into an almost unattainable mold (which truly is unattainable for the vast majority of people).  Why don’t we see a variety of body sizes and shapes in fashion magazines, a variety of faces and shapes and colors.  Why don’t we as consumers demand that from the magazines that we buy?

That is the challenge that I give to all of you reading this (yes, all 5 of you).  Think about the magazines that you read.  Do they feature a diverse population in their models, both in race, features, and body type?  Do they feature diet recommendations in every issue (and usually emblazoned in headlines on the front page?  If they don’t meet your definition of beauty, what are you going to do about it?  Do all of us a favor, especially your children.  Contact those magazines that you read, and ask them to make a difference in our world.  Ask them to use variety in their models.  Ask them to not constantly run stories about dieting.  Ask them to stop fueling eating disorders.  Ask them to care.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Posted on Thursday, 25th December 2008 by Maritzia

I was reading a book this morning, and one of the heroines was asked, “Would you be as happy without him?”  The question made me stop and think about my own path, and how I came to be where I am, and that being on this path, while hard, has brought to me a level of happiness I never thought possible.

I’ve talked before about my belief that we are led in our lives along a specific path.  Not that you can’t be happy and content off of that path, but that we are most happy, most fulfilled when we follow the intended path for our lives.

It’s a theme that you’ll find in many religions.  Whether you believe that you are led by your all-knowing creator, you believe that you chose your path in the time between lives, or you believe you are led by a benign deity, the idea of having a path in life that we follow is a common one.  It’s one that I think I have always instinctively believed in.

And following my path over the years has led me to believe even more strongly in this idea.  For many years I had a strong calling to religious life (becoming a nun or sister).  The calling was strong and real and I pursued it for almost 20 years.  I didn’t know why this calling was so strong, especially since it seemed there were obstacles everywhere I went.  But the calling was strong enough that I could not deny it and still live happily in my life.  Any time I moved away from the calling, I was–not unhappy, really–dissatisfied I guess is a good word for how I felt.

Eventually, of course, it was my pursuit of religious life that led me to my husband, Mark.  Everything in my pursuit of religious life led me neatly down the path to him.  And I’ve never been happier in my life.  As I said, it hasn’t been an easy life, but it’s been happy and fulfilling.  There are still challenges, and I still have a path to walk and discern, but so far, it’s a path I trust is right for me.

Spiritual discernment has always been a particular fascination of mine, and so I will be spending some time on it for the next couple of weeks.  There’s something about this season, a season of hope in darkness, of trust in the future, that makes me especially introspective.  I hope you’ll tune in for the discussion, because even more than looking at my own life discernment, I love hearing about the path of others and how they discern truth in their lives.

Posted in Religion/Spirituality | Comments (2)

Posted on Friday, 19th December 2008 by Maritzia

Like many Pagans in this country, I was formerly Christian (specifically Catholic).  And like many of us reformed Christians, I struggle with letting go of my cherished holiday traditions and substituting those more appropriate to my belief systems.

Many of my happiest memories from my childhood surround Christmas.  For me, though, most of those memories are non-religious ones, as my childhood was quite lacking in religious attendance.  Because of that, I find I can blend many of my favorite family traditions into my life as a Pagan.

The hardest thing for me, though, are Christmas carols.  I love music and I love to sing, and many Christmas songs are so nostalgic for me.  While some of my favorite songs are secular, I must confess that most are not.  And while a few of the religious songs can have alternate meanings that fit in with my Pagan beliefs, many just don’t.   I’m slowly adding some Yule and Solstice songs to my repertoire, but this time of year, you’ll still find many of the old Christian favorites playing on WinAmp. 

So, what are my favorite Christmas songs?  

1. Oh Holy Night – hard as hell to sing, but it’s music is so emotional.  It is definitely my all time favorite, and can bring tears to my eyes when sung really well.
2. Silent Night – how can you not love Silent Night?
3. I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas – I know…it’s a silly song, but I enjoy singing it so much!  If you’ve never heard it, google it and give it a listen.
4. The First Noel – another very evocative tune.  It’s probably my favorite one to sing.
5. Adeste Fidelis – I actually prefer the Latin version of Oh Come All Ye Faithful.  That’s the Catholic coming out.
6. Grandma Got Runover By a Reindeer – *blushes* I admit it…I love this song.
7. Blue Christmas – But only sung by Elvis.  No other will do.
8. Go Tell It On The Mountain – probably my 2nd favorite to sing.  Best if sung by a black gospel choir…seriously, if you’re going to sing it like an uptight Episcopalian, don’t bother.
9. I’ll Be Home for Christmas – because my Daddy loved it.  He was 20 years in the army and missed his home so badly the whole time.  It was his favorite Christmas song.
10. Jingle Bell Rock – I do love to have a rockin’ good time!

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