A Belgian teenager supposedly fell asleep while getting her face tattooed and woke up to 56 Rihanna-style stars on her face. Now, she’s suing the tattoo artist. The original account claimed she “was happy with the work when she left the tattoo shop, but changed her mind when her father saw the stars.” The next version of the story, in the next publication, said that she “is only peeved because her boyfriend dumped her after seeing the monstrosity.” Who knows what this story will end up being by this time next year. Don’t believe what you read.
Sex Myths Men Believe – A Happy Marriage Means You Won’t Be Tempted. The conservative fundamentalist, evangelical Christians really want you to believe that, just as they want you to believe that teaching abstinence alone will avoid teenage pregnancy. Both these ideas are like going against gravity. They go against our natural instincts. We will have “temptations” arise, much of it simply a passing thought with no emotional desire attached to it, and there is nothing wrong in that. As responsible, sentient beings, we learn there are consequences to our actions, and we teach ourselves to make informed choices.
It’s folly to think you can place a young squirrel in a room full of peanuts and expect him to not go crazy sniffing and nibbling each one. The obvious remedy is understanding that is his natural instinct, and so devise a plan to make it safe for him while allowing him to go about the natural proclivity the Universe intended for him. Society puts so many rules out based on misperceptions. God love them, they are just trying to protect against what they personally have no knowledge of, to keep everyone safe because that is what they have been taught to do, like their parents before them, right or wrong.
Wayne Dyer was talking last night on PBS about rules. He reminds us that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. Everything our pioneering forefathers, the patriots of this nation of ours: Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton did in the forming of our United States was illegal. Just a little perspective.
Of course, I’m not saying run around doing things society considers illegal and immoral, but I am saying there are always solutions to be found that run along with the grain of our inherent nature, not against it. I take note when self proclaimed Christians do something against God’s nature, in the name of God. For instance when Jesus asked that a religion not be made of him after he was gone and well, I guess all those variations of religions and Bibles and truths that did just that didn’t believe that part. Again, they put their own personal spin on it. Selective editing. Editorial suppression. Telling the story as you want others to believe it. Despite the truth of the matter.
There are always solutions to be found that run along with the grain of our inherent nature. There are always ways to act while taking total responsibility for your actions and getting informed before making choices. Things like maybe getting a stencil of a tattoo before getting the actual tattoo. A few times in my life I’ve considered getting a tattoo and in the 80’s I had a henna tattoo of the omkar (the OM symbol) above my left thumb for about a year. It was small, about the size of a quarter, and it was a good spiritual reminder symbol to me. I considered having it permanently tattooed there. This was before the big Baliwood and henna craze began. At that time, only a few yogi friends I knew had similar tattoos.
And I was glad I delayed. A few years later, Madonna came out with an album cover showing her hands tattooed in sacred Indian symbols, thus beginning the current craze. So I was glad I delayed. Although it would have been good ego work to forever after explain that was not why I had mine done *smile* and to learn it didn’t matter either way.
I just sent the July Horizons Magazine off to the printer and now plan to sleep all day. First, I’m going to have a tulip glass of sparkling grape juice and pretend it’s champagne and take my celebration out into the garden. About this time, the small woodland creatures will be waddling down the trails back to their daytime burrows and hiding places. I have such a nice, thick oak canopy over my woods that it stays darker in there later in the mornings. I might see an armadillo or an opossum, I’ll surely see a raccoon or two and squirrels and birds. I usually only see the bats at sundown in the west woods, but here in the east garden I can hear the birds waking up in the oaks and palms. I can see the owl up in the tall pine. Some noisy, bumbling something is heading this way, but it’s likely an armadillo. They are so blind and deaf. I’ve had them walk right over my feet, and against my leg. I hear the slithery critters out here, too. When I sleep outside, I always make sure to be a little up off the ground to stay out of everyone’s way. That’s our rule: inside is mine, outside is theirs. It only makes sense. I wouldn’t want to go against the grain of nature.