May the stories of the old ones, the ancient ones, the land and the trees, the plants and the earth be whispered to you.
May you warm your toes by the hearth side as the land starts to speak in the cold and old icy voice of winter, the voice that appears when we pass the mid winter mark; the voice that talks in stories of growth, of becoming, of new slates and brand new mossy gateways.
May you be comforted by the fire that can be lit inside your body, by the light you hold inside, the light of love, forgiveness and passion.
Rest well dear one, warm your bones and listen in the silence, in the cold, for the rustling of truth telling that comes from the earth and the air, the rustling of the newness that springs from the compost of the old.
There are multiple lines all moving forward simultaneously – one of them is the legislative line with your state legislators – they represent you.
You have a grievance… with the licensing board’s failure to act to discipline incompetent and unethical malpractice by forensic psychologists.
This is child abuse. The courts and mental health professionals need greater guidance from the legislative branch regarding their obligations to protect children from child abuse. That means amending the child abuse reporting laws to more clearly define all forms of child abuse – including Child Psychological Abuse, DSM-5 V995.51 – and the obligations to protect the child.
Previous legislation was introduced in Florida to do this. There are forces that don’t want change… then there was the Trump era that sucked all the oxygen from the political room – then there was Covid that sucked all the oxygen from the political room.
We are starting to get our oxygen back within state legislatures and their interest in the injustice and child abuse occurring in the family courts.
The state licensing boards will be increasingly exposed for their cover-up of the unethical malpractice in forensic psychology. Parents only have two options when the licensing boards don’t protect the consumer and instead protect the ignorant, incompetent, and unethical forensic psychologist from accountability for their unethical malpractice.
1) Malpractice lawsuits filed in the courts.
2) Complaints to state representatives for legislative review of licensing boards and the corruption and exploitation within forensic psychology and the family courts.
A parent is in contact with their state legislator’s office regarding their matter. An aide was assigned. The parent, the aide, and I met in my doxy.me/drchildress office for background.
There was no opportunity to intervene on the individual matter, but the representative’s office requested more information about any prior legislation that has been helpful. That’s the way of things – we fight for each other – we move things forward step-by-step, no step is lost when we move together.
I sent this parent the following resources to provide to their state representative’s office:
The Florida proposed changes to the child abuse reporting laws that provide greater clarity to the courts and mental health professionals regarding child psychological abuse (DSM-5 V995.51) would be extremely helpful. The courts and mental health professionals need greater guidance and clarity from the legislative branch regarding the obligations surrounding child abuse.
In addition. Kentucky passed a rebuttable presumption of equal shared parenting legislation in 2018, and these laws too for a rebuttable presumption of equal shared parenting are also very helpful to calming court-involved custody conflicts.
When you reevaluate the pattern of narcissists in your life, you may have noticed a distinct feeling of invisibility as you were shoved to the side as a background character in your own life time and time again. Think of it this way: attention-seeking narcissists or otherwise toxic people work very hard to maintain the spotlight. In order to do so, they have to cast what feels akin to an invisibility spell over those they know will be “too visible” seen and noticed by others. They know your traits and assets make you someone who is a “main character” – someone who authentically brings attention to them without even trying because of their empathy, natural charisma and intelligence. If you have this pattern in your life, it’s time to recognize the ways in which you have been “hidden” from others by the narcissists in your life so people couldn’t see you accurately. Whether it was through smear campaigns or simply hogging the stage, realize that you do deserve to be visible and to be the main character of your life story without others downplaying who you are. Not in a narcissistic way but in a healthy self-loving way. You too deserve attention, acknowledgment and care. 💖🤗 #narcissisticabuse #toxicpeople #toxicrelationships #shahidaarabi #emotionalabuse #selfcare #healing
“She walks the earth freely, yet her feet never touch the ground. Many hands will reach for her, but she cannot be anchored. She belongs to no one, to nothing, to nowhere. When you meet her, you will recognize her for what she is–a free spirit, a wandering star. She will fit in your arms like she was made to be there. And she will show you what it means to hold something you can never hold on to.”
Lang Leav
A term I have loved since I first read those wonderful words of Yeats, of the “white breast of the dim sea, and of its disheveled, wandering stars”. While astrologically used to describe the motion of the planets, “wandering stars” arrived within me as something deeper, a metaphor for my own being. Just as the planets themselves are in motion encircling the sun; so are we, bright children of the stars, endlessly dancing yet fixed in our own celestial journeying.
Because no matter the darkness, we are wild light. It can be hard to remember that, sometimes we dim, or spend so much time looking around at the darkness that we forget our own light.
I want you to stop for this moment, and remember that light. If you need some reconnection. Close your eyes and focus on the great light of G-d just above your head. Envision that light pouring down through your crown chakra, infusing your body with its heavenly radiance. Let it flow through you filling every space, down through your feet and into the earth. Breathe into it, and with every inhale, allow your glow to become ever brighter.
(Remember.)
We are all the children of stars, infused with celestial and spiritual light, abiding in a magic that has no textual equivalent. This is why I art. To describe the souls progression, longing and intent as it exists beyond my ability to articulate it. To remind me of who and what I really am.
(And hopefully to remind you too.)
And so with this work, I will not attempt to overdefine it. It is a story of sisters intertwined, of ancient longing, of cosmic purpose that exists though few may understand it. Just as one woman carries a veil of stars, and the other the moon, their intent is only revealed to the careful study of the viewer’s eye. It longs to tell it’s story to those who have the eyes to hear it
To those that know, here on this earth, that they too are forever the wandering stars, dancing not despite the darkness, but because of it.
It is how we shine the brightest.
❤️
(Now available as a premium poster, 11X17 for just $15. Click thru to Etsy to purchase: https://etsy.me/32A89Wg )
Someone recently told me that emotions are chemical levels in your brain and your body is constantly trying to maintain equilibrium. So if one emotion sky rockets, that chemical becomes flagged and signals the tear duct to open as an exit to release that emotion packaged neatly within a tear. It’s why we feel more stable after crying, as if whatever emotion we were feeling had been released and we were refreshed. This is also why tears from different emotions look different under an electron microscope. They’re literally made up of different things. According to Joseph Stromberg of the Smithsonian’s College of Arts and Sciences, happy tears are structurally different than sad tears than angry tears than overwhelmed tears etc. Different types of tears have distinct molecules. Emotional tears have protein-based hormones including the neurotransmitter leucine enkephalin, which is a natural painkiller that is released when we are stressed.
To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be.
The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into. We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out, to become speedily found when they are lost.
But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be. It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honour what emerges along the way. Sometimes it will be an even more luminescent flame. Sometimes it will be a flicker that temporarily floods the room with a perfect and necessary darkness.
My grandmother once gave me a tip: In difficult times, move forward in small steps. Do what you have to do, but little by little. Don’t think about the future or what may happen tomorrow.
Wash the dishes. Remove the dust. Write a letter. Make a soup.
You see?
Advance step by step. Take a step and stop. Rest a little. Praise yourself. Take another step. And then another.
You won’t notice, but your steps will grow more and more. And the time will come when you can think about the future without crying.
My grandmother once gave me a tip: In difficult times, move forward in small steps. Do what you have to do, but little by little. Don’t think about the future or what may happen tomorrow.
Wash the dishes. Remove the dust. Write a letter. Make a soup.
You see?
Advance step by step. Take a step and stop. Rest a little. Praise yourself. Take another step. And then another.
You won’t notice, but your steps will grow more and more. And the time will come when you can think about the future without crying.
“The drugging of the American public is one of those strange, well-known, but under-discussed issues that are never quite fully represented in the conversation about where our culture is and where it’s heading.
As of 2016, one in six American adults were taking psychiatric medications, a staggering number that is accompanied by the fact that the mental health industry in America is worth well over $200 billion a year.
We’ve been led to believe that our doctors are the end-all-be-all authority on what’s good for our health and that their advice is backed up by rigorous and undeniable scientific proof. What we’re not told, however, is that scientific research today is highly suspect and often outright corrupted by the pharmaceutical industry.
Furthermore, we really don’t yet understand the full range of consequences involved in taking prescription psychiatric medications instead of pursuing other, natural possibilities.
Medical researcher Craig Wagner has compiled eight years of study of psychiatric medications and their effects, and he has distilled his findings into three easy-to-grasp infographics that will shatter your perceptions about the efficacy and safety of these medications.
We really don’t have a truthful understanding of this issue, but these graphics will help put it into perspective.”
— Alex Pietrowski, Staff Writer for The Waking Times
GreatCosmicMothersUnite 