The Total Femme

“Magical thinking’ is a phrase that gets bandied about a lot. If you’re a magical thinker, you’re shit out of luck because you’re not grounded in reality, you’re probably shirking responsibilities, you’re not adulting, and you’re without doubt some kind of waste of space who’s leeching off people – grown ups, that is – who understand what it means to step up and do what has to be done. Loser!

My lovey readers, you may have deduced that The Total Femme, moi, has at one time or another been the recipient of the above designation. Ayup. And yes, I am human and have flaws, including at times wishing to shy away from what are commonly thought to be adult responsibilities. Sometimes I’ve even really fucked up! But, for what I suspect are various misogynistic, classist, homophobic and more reasons, I get hit with that phrase here and again and dag, does it hurt!

It’s painful to be dismissed for not fitting into the status quo, and don’t we all know it, my beautiful and varied queer femme out-of-steppers?

On the other hand, to whom do so many cheerleaders in the SQ-uad turn when the world feels drab and without rainbows? Where do they look for cracks in the shellac?

When I first heard the term “Indian giver” as a child, I was astonished at its aptness. That is because I believed for years it referred to white people’s perfidy in their dealings with Native Americans, breaking treaties and worse. I was well into adulthood when I finally realized the phrase’s true racist origins.

Tex doesn’t like it when I repeat back her malaprops, feeling tender and like I’m mocking her. Most recently, she said with great conviction, “We can take care of that shit yesterday!” I repeated it not to make fun of her, but because of my delight in the power of language to take us places we hadn’t thought of going. That’s one of the reasons I love teaching English as a foreign language. Some of my favorites:

OH MY GAH!!

WHAT A GO!

You know, I am just a people’s pleaser.

and one that’s been firmly ensconced in our family’s repertoire for years for it’s sheer, raw power:

WHAT IS IT GOING ON?

Back to magical thinking. Rather than assuming this is negative, what if being a magical thinker actually activates creativity? Given an “impossible” situation, the adult thing to do might be to give up and move on, whereas a magical thinker might find opportunity, beauty, refreshment. Rather than shutting down, a little magical thinking might open things up and bring in a breath of fresh air. Maybe I need to twirl, curtsy, and sing out a great big, “Why thank you!” the next time someone wields that phrase at me.

Oh, sweet tagliatelle*, bigoli, fettuccine, cavatapi, and oh so adorable, wee, and dear stelle! My queer femme sisters in all your pastaliciousness, what character trait do you – and so often others – give yourself a hard time about? Whatever it is, however long it’s lodged in your craw and given you megrim, look again, my struggling, halfway underwater, hard working darlings. What is the rest of the story there?

How are you actually shining and twinkling and throwing your sparkle generously into the world?

Because you are! No matter what that noisy SQ-uad is inanely chanting and shaking their stupid pom-poms about.

You have the power of language, the queer power of takeback-turn-upside-down-revel-in-reuse-bring-it-new.

Shining, twinkling, throwing your sparkle, and your glorious FUCK YOU just where it’s needed.

*with a tip o’ the cursor to Crip Dyke over at Pervert Justice

Every Monday, I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.

At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”) And…as I go through life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.

This is a blog all about building, exploring, and honoring queer femme community. However you do that, wherever you do that, whoever you do that with, I want to know about it and sing your praises!

Today’s featured femme is Constance, a femme of many talents, including fearlessness. One Women’s Week in Provincetown a bunch of us queer femmes wanted to get together and talk amongst ourselves. We also wanted to have a butch/femme mixer. It was so much fun! One of my favorite memories is of Constance effortlessly stopping likely couples on the street and asking, “Do you identify as butch/femme?” If it was a yes, they got an invite! If it was a no, oh well. Next!

I’m so happy to feature Constance today, with one of her beautiful, grounding reminders of all we hold and all that holds us.

Deep gratitude to Constance for her fearless commitment to the health of all bodies, the upholding of the joy and wonder of the natural world, and the healing power of art and movement.

One-Minute Practice: Be Centered Like a Tree

Dearest femmes, What is your favorite kind of tree? Being from California, I love oaks and eucalyptus. Spending time in the desert, I love palms. When I’m in Provincetown, I love the beech forest. Such beautiful diversity, and also, some perfect commonalities.

For this practice, which is different from the tree pose in yoga, choose any tree you love and picture it in your mind’s eye. 
 
What are it’s roots like? Down into the earth they go, searching for water. How deep they go, or how much they spread, may be different, but they are all going into the ground and looking for water. Imagine your own feet, releasing through the surface of your floor into the earth below you. Spreading out, going deep for the flow. Your legs can follow your feet by undoing any upward holding, and instead releasing down through your feet into the earth below.
 
What is the trunk of your favorite tree like? Thick and solid, or long and moving in the breeze? All tree trunks have a three-dimensional roundness with fluid inside. All trees sway, even if only a little. We, too, have three dimensional torsos around a long spine that has fluid inside. As bi-peds, not four-leggeds, we are meant to sway and be very mobile. We are not meant to be held “up straight,” like a pole, or be set into place like building blocks. Can you sense your whole torso being allowed to move easily while staying long and spacious in your spine? It can be delightful to let yourself sway around on top of your rooting feet, or if sitting, on top of your sit bones.
 
Oak trees have such a beautiful broad canopy, and we might not even see the top. But we know they are flowing up toward the sun. All tree-tops look for the sun, and we can imagine our heads floating delicately up toward the sky and connecting with the light up there.
 
And the branches, O the branches! Let your arms float upward as you visualize your favorite tree. Play with how it’s branches move in a gentle breeze. Allow your shoulder blades, collar bones and ribs to move with your arms, while including the sway of your torso/trunk.
 
When you let your arms come down, continue to allow mobility for your shoulder area and ribs. The weight of your arm branches can be light and lively. There is no need to hold your shoulders anywhere—they balance easily on top of your ribs, which are moving gently on top of your lungs and diaphragm with breath. Notice how allowing ease and lightness, like tree tops, encourages full easy breath. 

Notice how as we release down into the earth, and flow up toward the sky, with our three-dimensional torso, we are tuning into our connection with our own body and the bodies of our favorite trees.

No matter what happens in the world, being centered like a tree is always accessible.

Every Friday, I showcase a queer femme goddess. I want to feature you or someone you love! Write to me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com and let me shine a spotlight on your beautiful, unique, femme story! If you’ve written a femme story or poem or song, oh, please let me post it!

At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”) And…as I go life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.

Write to Biden. FREE LEONARD PELTIER!

Every year at the National Day of Mourning in Plymouth, Mass., Leonard Peltier’s annual letter is read out. It is written from his jail cell.

May next year be the year that it comes to us from the house his friends and relatives have prepared for him in North Dakota. May this be the year that he is finally released from prison.

freeleonardpeltiernow.org, you get one pingy-dingy! Thank you for your dedicated and heart-directed work on behalf of this revered elder. Let this be the year!

https://www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org/

From Leonard:

February 6th 2024©

My life was taken 48 years ago, at 11:00 am. The sweater that my adoptive

mother Ethel and her daughter Donna placed on my shoulders as I was

taken in the bitter cold of Canada was a kindness that I still remember.

I could not foresee that 48 years later I would be entombed in a

lockdown nightmare. I live in lockdown, for no reason other than that

they can get away with it.

If I had been tried with the others, I would be a free man. They were

rightly found not guilty by reason of self-defense. We were under attack.

We were facing the extermination of our people.

Justice never came for those they killed. I was chosen to be the sacrifice

to cover up the crimes committed on that reservation. I am not here

because I committed a crime. I am here because I stood in the way of

their greed and corruption.

James Reynolds, the State Attorney who supervised my prosecution, has

admitted that they could not prove I committed any crime. He stated,

“We were not able to prove that Mr. Peltier himself committed any

offense on the Pine Ridge Reservation.”

Time has become so twisted with these lockdowns that night blurs into

day, a miasma of time that has no sense to it. All hours are the small

hours of the night. Life itself is suspended. We wait for a brief glimpse

of what life looks like. We exist in cold, filthy cells, and we wait. The

voices of those murdered on Pine Ridge Reservation are a constant echo

in my mind.

Time has become a weapon they use to try and annihilate the essence of

who I am. They have done their best to break me. They started by

holding me in a lightless cell block in Canada, telling me that I was

awaiting my execution, to try and force a confession.

But no one can break the spirit of a Sundancer.

I have fought for my freedom every single day of these past 48 years.

You, my people, my supporters, my family in a very real way, lift my

spirit and enable me to hold fast to the beliefs they want me to

denounce. You get me through these hours that last for days or years.

Keep fighting. Fight the parasitical influence of colonialism. Fight the

lies, the greed, the corruption of the oppressor. Fight for the survival of

our people.

The greed and corruption of the colonizers is infectious. My own

Committee, which has stood behind me and been a training ground for

activists for over four decades, was lost to the parasite of greed and

corruption the colonizers infected us with.

The very greed and corruption that imprisons me will be the undoing of

those who take too much. Power arises from truth, from the willingness

to give voice to that truth, from lifting the voices of your brothers and

sisters when they speak their truth. Truth is power. That is why they try

to silence us, you know. You also know they are losing their ability to

silence us.

Take care, my relations. Ask the Creator to set your path before you. Live

in ceremony. When I choose my actions, I watch carefully to make sure

those actions come from spirit, not ego. Sometimes the greatest enemy

we will face comes from within. At times I want to lose myself to rage.

The rage of being unlawfully imprisoned, the rage that drifts through

the air here, a haze you can almost see, that arises from men caged in

conditions that would be illegal for dogs.

If I allow that rage to take me, I may never come back. That is not who I

am. I know who I am. That is why I am still here – I will not lie, I will

not grovel, I will not beg. I will not denounce my beliefs. I will not

betray myself.

I know you are out there, my relations, my friends, my supporters. You

know the meaning of Mitakuye Oyasin. You give me the courage to stay

strong and face these eternal twilight hours of lockdown. I know you are

fighting for me, fighting with me, fighting for an end to the oppression

and tyranny that take so many of us, in so many ways.

I have heard of a new cry going out. NOT ONE MORE YEAR. It has been

said that I am a common man who stood up to an uncommon enemy.

People think of me as a symbol. I suppose I am, but I am a man. A man

who wants to go home to his family.

Let this be the year that common sense prevails. Let this be the year that

“liberty and justice for all” are not words that ring hollow. Let this be the

year that America learns to live up to its own principles.

We will prevail. Our children will know who they are and know they are

cherished. All of them, not just a privileged few, while the rest go

hungry and lose their connection to Mother Earth. That connection is

everything. Never, ever forget who you are. Mother Earth births us. She

fires the blood that runs through our veins. She takes us back to her

womb when our journey ends.

We will prevail. I can see a world that is not powered by lies,

manipulation, greed. This will not happen by magic. We must come

together, my brothers and sisters in solidarity, and let our truth

illuminate the dark recesses of society.

It is time.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.

Doksha,

Leonard Peltier

I’m a typewriter whompin’, card catalogue lovin’ white girl from back in the day, and I yearn for a time before the covers of trade paperbacks were all squidgy, so you can imagine that I don’t actually understand what a pingback is. I do know that it can in some way be part of spreading the love, and since that’s what I’m all about at The Total Femme… every Wednesday, I pay homage to the laughter, love, and inspiration to be had elsewhere online. Is there someplace online that you particularly adore? Send it my way and I’ll slap it into the Pingy-Dingy lineup! thetotalfemme@gmail.com

I mean, of course they are, but for one thing only: chewing your food.

Not for biting off that bit of thread.

Not for nibbling at your cuticle.

Not for pulling off a recalcitrant pen top.

Not for tearing open a potato chip bag.

Heed me, sweet darlings, I am, and always will be, the diligent granddaughter of a dentist and I know of wherefor I speak!

You want to keep your teeth your whole life, so be wise in their use, and don’t put them in danger.

Seth has come back into our lives. Our beloved boy, now 28, has been sober for over 5 months and it is kicking his ass. He’s going to meetings, doing service, has a new job, is trying to get out of debt. And he calls us once a week, because that’s what you do. You call your parents and say, “I love you.”

On a recent call, he complained that back when he was drinking full time, he had completely gotten rid of all his debt, but now that he’s pursuing sobriety, he’s having a harder time with that.

“What does your sponsor say?” I asked.

“He says, ‘Suck it up.’”

I burst out laughing and reminded him of how his grandfather, my dad, was always told as a child to “Rub dirt in it!” when he complained. A fine midwestern tool, unless, of course, you use it in the wrong way, which would be to continue to wound yourself with it instead of find humor, encouragement, and forgiveness through the ability to realize that being human can really be a pain in the ass sometimes, but it’s worth it to continue to strive for health and well-being and community and love.

Lately, in the midst of chaos personal and global, on the heels of my mother’s death in August, trying to process, as Beth Pickens says, The Thing That Happened To Us, reeling with the stress of continued health challenges, Tex and I have been trying hard not to lose our shit.

What’s easy, is to complain. What’s easy is to put our anger into feeling pissed off about everything and blaming people near and far. Tex, for example, is ripshit about gas-powered leaf blowers in our neighborhood. I’m ripshit about the desulatory and fucked up medical “system” that’s fucked me around for almost a year. Our neighbors don’t do things right. The whole world is full of assholes. It’s so easy to use the tool of anger to start a whole pattern of blame and despair, isn’t it?

Negatory!

That’s what we’ve started to say when the extremely strong desire to talk trash takes hold. Saying, “Negatory!” interrupts our tendency to fall into despair. It helps remind us that there’s a whole other way of using anger and upset – not denying them, but moving through and with into more sustainable, creative, love-producing actions and moods.

Oh, mes tres cheries, mes adorables, mes seours et mes amies! How the wind is blowing, how the birds are migrating, how the planet turns and turns! We are fragile, fleeting, desperate, bleeding, shaky on our pins and warm in our hearts. How are you using your tools, my queer femme family? Sharpen the blades, shape the clay, dust off your keyboard, your paintbrush, your contact list, your dance moves, your wild and wacky sense of humor, your 12-step, your only-you-only-yours gorgeousness and strength and here we go.

Here we go together.

Every Monday, I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.

At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”) And…as I go through life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.