Ghosted girl shadow

“Do you really love me?” a woman asks. “Will you choose me over your ego and comfort? Will you fight a bloody battle for me?”

“What are you talking about,” the man replies. “You’re not that important. Your heart is not important… Bigger things going on — don’t you know there’s a war, a calamity, — bigger things than your petty nonsense?? Just smile, don’t worry about it.”

And this is how disasters are created — or worsened; lack of love. It’s a woman’s nature to give without sparing — but first she has to receive. Denied the love she desperately needs, a Fair Lady withers or becomes a nasty bitch; either way, she is no longer capable of being life-giver and supporter. When a man holds out on her to preserve his fig leaf of fake identity, to have it all easy, to seem but not really BE the Man — this is the shortcut to death.

Before mentioned dialogue is typical, unspoken words implied if direct confrontation doesn’t happen… A woman is told she’s no big deal — compared to global events; her expectations of TLC are unrealistic; her longing for romance is nothing. But for her this is the whole world.

(A disclaimer: my heart goes out for everyone affected by Covid-19…….. I sure did not mean to minimize the danger and grief it brought. Let this pandemic be the catalyst for concentrating on what we LOVE. In the end, this is what we’ll preserve.)

As Wilhelm Reich found out, and it cost him, the root of most mental health problems is personal unhappiness; for the less squeamish — wholeness and well-being are directly tied in with the sexual energy. This is the life-giving orgone energy he had discovered, if manifested in its pure natural way. The center of love.

(Bio)-Psychology goes way beyond ‘clinical cases.’ Sigmund Freud came to the conclusion that people who seek positions of power have serious mental problems… not to judge but to take pity. Those are the ones who decide for others, especially in times of trouble.

My art is all about personal matters. Repercussions of private affairs to other areas of life are not to question, but they are beyond my project; I only touched upon them in connection to the global tragedy.

So here we go… The symbology is dramatic and not all unhappiness is that spectacular. Yet some wounds and scars are invisible and they hurt, too. It’s all obvious with blatant jerks who are openly abusive (behind closed doors anyway). But what about ‘nice guys’? This is murky.

I find the same theme in Wilhelm Reich’s books and, surprisingly, in ‘Wild at Heart’ by John Eldredge. This is a Christian book but regardless of your beliefs the author totally nails it when it comes to a man’s withdrawal, physical or emotional, and holding out on the woman he is with. (I prefer to remain neutral when it comes to the question of faith, and be a scientist instead: look at the facts, like it or not.)

I will heed W. Reich’s recommendation here, which he received from S.Freud; it’s about public speaking but applies to written communication, I think. It is — let go of that paper that you read from and speak from memory. It’s more alive and natural. Therefore I will not use direct quotes from the book(s) but rather impressions etched in my psyche.

J. Eldredge talks about abandonment as a great problem for a woman. Sure, she may be getting a lot of male attention but what kind of? Men, and especially ‘nice guys’, have conveniently forgotten that she needs the man with the heart fierce enough to fight for her… all the time. And boy, does she need this.

Instead, a man just uses her and withdraws the full scope of his affection: he wants to get all the benefits of her beauty without all the woes of the battle to fight for her. He wants a cheap bargain; he had reduced her value to the one of an item on a store shelf, and become a consumer instead of lover. And, as Reich points out, with this kind of ‘fast-food’ approach to something as sacred as sex (yes, it is sacred) he is unable to enjoy it himself. The reason? He wouldn’t give in to the experience, to her… He wants to consume but is afraid of being consumed. He wants everything for nothing. But, in the meantime, a woman has to hear a lot of B.S. that she shouldn’t feel this way (neglected, wronged, used), that she is blowing things out of proportion, is insatiable — and, by golly, he is right here, what else does she want??

Yes, he is here but not really. He turns away from her, because she is ‘too much’ and ‘not enough’ at the same time. He is not shielding her with his love — and she is the target of many sorts of bullshit, not just his. Feminists might get mad at me, but I am yet to see a woman who had made it to the top of the tops without male support/family inheritance, all by herself — and did not have to sacrifice her most precious part — her tender feminine soul. Her essence. She may have to be Lieutenant Ripley or Jane the Soldier — but only because males wimped out, refused to sacrifice themselves. Cowardice is another word for that comfy male self-preservation. A woman’s enjoyment of reached goals bought at the price of fighting like a real dude is quite comparable to that of a man collecting and bragging his trophies.

Where is her Hero? He has lost his own essence; he will talk up a storm about politics and feel cool without actually doing things to make a difference; then he’ll go watch porn that makes him feel like a man — again, without making an effort and risking. Same thing, sweet deal either way. He chose false safety; in doing so he had lost her.

A woman bleeds without choosing — it’s her nature. Each drop counts her precious time she’s wasting on morons who won’t value her enough. Men were given a little bit of leverage to choose whether to ‘bleed’ for those whom they supposedly love — and guess what, they blew it. A woman’s heart bleeds with loneliness, unmet needs, unrequited love — even in a committed relationship. It’s interesting that in the past ‘heart’ word was used in relation to the whole limbic system (basic part of the brain, hard to control consciously, which is connected to survival and sex drive).

That’s why all those stains on the gown: wounds inflicted by males but indirectly. Being left alone to bleed to death. Not literally even though that happens, too — but emotional death. The soul loss. Love starvation. Un-fulfillment.

A woman is at her best when she is most secure, and a man — when he is most challenged. Some role reversal has happened, don’t you think? But that doesn’t change the basics. When a man wants easy victories he is shooting himself in the foot, eventually. But the first, most brutal and devastating blow is directed towards a woman — and crushes her, because that valiant Knight has dodged it, not willing to stain his shiny armor; he might even be hiding behind her back and giving her lip service about being brave and strong. What a bunch of baloney.

There comes a moment when a woman had had it; she’s been waiting and hoping, she’s been picking up the slack after him. She’s been reaching out, pleading, working on self-improvement, etc. But nothing ever wins his love — all of it. She is done.

This is when things get weird. A damsel IS in distress and has been all the time but the man wants all the praise without doing the rescuing… leaving her in eternal cliffhanger. She has to rescue herself — at a price. Doing the work you were forced to do but not meant for always comes at a cost. What will she do? Oh, us girls are so inventive… >:) Left with meagre means but with high pressure put on us — what do you expect?

This little pantomime is my Shadow Work, and I had a lot of fun with it… perhaps it’s good that I chose such a humorous outlet for my pent-up energy. Because, you guessed it, all the things mentioned above did happen to me, both a scientist and a guinea pig… “A little bit of everything, all wrapped into one.” (The Wallflowers) And, if she has to be everything and gets only scraps, then no wonder she becomes a Bitch — “I’m your hell, I’m your dream… nothing in between.”

Technically, this video happened by chance — I was posing for screenshots, and was going to delete the motion picture. No way to get images directly from the new iPhone so I used the old one; no self-timer there for the pictures. As I said, girls have to be inventive. Then the mini-drama took place on its own, more than I expected but still less than satisfactory, IMO. I totally loathe minimalism, spontaneity and simplicity in art production; I wish I knew how to make this vid more sophisticated but the means are beyond my reach :( I would cut out a lot and use some special effects to compensate for what’s missing… Adobe Premiere Pro had yielded some results with the slide show in the past, but with a whole little movie this is not even a learning curve — it’s a wall. Absolutely zero results — like, nil, don’t even bother. Online help was of no help so far. Very frustrating and disappointing. ‘Start dictation’? I tried it, thinking of actually speaking something like I’ve just written over the movie — but nope again. ‘Download the app’, dammit. Here in the mountains it takes forever to open any page… when it does open but part of the time it doesn’t. It’s the ‘cheesy tuna’ scenario — why the hell you name your product like this and then say “Add tuna”, and all I get is some cheap macaroni?

I don’t know how you folks feel but this current pandemic has reinforced no-guarantee-for-tomorrow mood. I’m trying to use it in a positive way and no longer postpone the projects, which were stalled due to — again, lack of means for production. Hoping and waiting, and scrambling for things to improve in the future doesn’t work. I have accumulated some raw dance footage, which may be turned into something decent with more money and less struggle. (LOL) But I have absolutely no idea what, how and wtf. Especially now. Maybe I’ll have some genius revelation about how to work Adobe Premiere Pro but for now it feels like a waste of time to keep trying; I don’t have time and never did, really. To add to frustration, all my technology runs on solar power, which is very limited — good luck when it’s over. I really can’t keep screwing around with user un-friendly program and watch the battery draining.

Perhaps all those accounts are undermining one’s image as a professional, because things are supposed to run smoothly. If you struggle — you suck. That brings to mind ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ — a wonderful book by Arthur Golden. There, he shows that a geisha cannot exist without a very rigid and conservative social structure that she has to fit in. Otherwise it doesn’t matter how pretty and smart she is — customs are customs, play by the rules of perish. On the other hand (not in that book), there is a Ronin phenomena — a samurai without master. Am I trying to be one that is female, in artistic sense? Scientists and philosophers emphasize the importance of psychological androgyny when creative work is involved; of course it puts folks like me outside society’s safe margins…

I can’t change the way men are — but I can simply choose love… and refuse to accept anything less. I can withdraw into art, keeping in mind that even with most primitive tools amazing things may still be created. No time to waste on hate or debilitating self-criticism: I’m doing my best. It still falls short of my own standards but at least this is something.

Best to U. Choose love.

(c) Nica Breeze & Grumpy Elf Production. 2020.