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THINKER, TEACHER, MENTOR.
POET, SONGWRITER, PERFORMER.
STORY-TELLER.
INTERVIEWER & INTERVIEWEE.
BLOGGER.
STARTING FROM THE BEGINNING
I've always had a care-about-the-world side, a creative side, and a thinker side.
In Grade One, I chose to give every week to the Red Cross. 10 cents. A lot for my family, newly arrived in Canada. My father earned 45 cents an hour, then 75 cents. But there was no argument. Helping feed the hungry children in the world - my parents were all for that. They had both been hungry a lot, for years.
(I felt so betrayed when, years later, I learned that over 97% of the money went to Red Cross administration - almost nothing went to hungry children.)
I cared not only about what was happening in the world, but why things happened, and what could be done.
I remember a big piece of thinking I did when I was 7 or 8. Too long a story for here.
I also loved the amazing stories I was learning to read
- so many stories to imagine myself into. I soon also cared about the stories and poems I was writing. I still have my grade school notebooks. In Grade 7, I wrote a play and, with my sister and 3 kids from my street, put it on. My mother made the costumes. In Grade 9, I wrote a film script. I'm sure it's still around somewhere.
FAST FORWARD
In adulthood, the thinking side eventually brought me to a triple-disciplinary PhD, tenured college teaching, plus much idea writing and many videos - like about the ever increasing taboo on thinking.
As for my creative side, in my 20's I wrote a lot - but somehow things didn't come together. Then, years later, my PhD freshly finished, I started waking up with the beginnings of "word pieces" in my head. 19 the first month. I kept expecting the flow to stop. It hasn't. While the flow has ebbed at times, it's always come back. I've written hundreds of poems, many songs, and a few stories, including a preteen novel.
Starting in 2006, I began to put many of the pieces online. My first site peaked, for several years, at about 60,000 page views a month.
But for both the idea side of me and the creative side, there's a deep hunger for more - for a community, for a tribe of people who appreciate what I'm offering, who care to listen and feel and think and sometimes also speak, who come for the fun, the stimulation, the validation, the nourishment, the pleasure. In 1999, I thought of such a place, Zee's Cafe Cafe. The hard thing for me: how to get it into the world. Things are being readied now.
FULL FLOURISHING
IN ALL AREAS OF OUR LIVES
One thing I've thought a lot, for decades, is how we can best flourish. I've explored just about every facet of the personal development movement from psychoanalysis to tapping to New Age positivity. Something vital was always missing. Sometimes I found aspects that worked against flourishing.
So now I've created Full Flourishing.
It's my model of what's needed for full personal development. It includes, for instance, not just feelings and beliefs but thinking and perceiving, not just relationships and abundance but civic responsibility.
I have 2 small masterminds. One has a focus on personal flourishing, the other on on civic flourishing.
FULL FLOURISHING IN
THINKING, CREATIVITY, ONGOING CHANGES
My whole life, actually, is about flourishing as fully as possible, and encouraging others on their own journey into ongoing, ever increasing flourishing - which has led to so many changes, often unexpected changes, in my life.
In my twenties, creativity was most important. Then, thinking came to the forefront. Then, once again, I came to a creative outpouring, with ongoing idea development. At this point, stronger than ever, is the desire for a tribe.
What could the tribe expect?
Lots of creative stuff. I'll come to that.
But first, thinking. Two of my core beliefs are that thinking is an amazing pleasure, and that we think or the West sinks.
As for me, I'm all for The Cogni Sutra, the celebration of good thinking:
Some people love making great dinners. I love ideas:
Not only do I love thinking, I love so many kinds of creativity. For almost 30 years now, most of the flow has been poetry and spoken word.
That's been far from all.
SURPRISE!
A PRETEEN NOVEL,
A KIDS' VIDEO -
AND WHO KNOWS WHAT'S NEXT?
Over and over, I've come to what I could call "self-surprises." I originally thought the equality of women and men was just too obvious to pay attention to, then became caught up in the movement for women's rights.
In my twenties I expected a lifelong focus on creativity, then became caught up in massive thinking and research work, on the impact of rights movements on those who became involved, and on the role of fear as a vital glue holding together our society.
A dog I loved was hit by a car. The next morning I woke up with the opening words for what became a preteen novel, Caro's Quest.
Another time, a friend explained what he believed was a bit of complex Islamic ideology, al Walaa wal Baraa. That's not complex, I replied, I could explain that to a 5-year-old. Within two weeks, I had created a kids' video, for ages 8 and up. In 9 fun minutes, it simply and easily and truthfully explains Islam, including al Walaa wal Baraa.
The video was a surprise success. It quickly had close to 200,000 views, and was translated into 8 languages, including Hindi.
SURPRISE!
SHIFTS IN FOCUS
I've always cared about human rights, such as equality for girls and boys, women and men. But it wasn't a focus until I was approaching 30. Then it became a passion. I taught a lot of Women's Studies courses.
About a decade later my interest shifted to seeing how the dynamics around all the rights movements are related.
One thing I recognized early on was that the rights movements - which I see as essential - also bring many people, especially those with major unresolved traumas, to a built-in human vulnerability: the rage stage. This is a stage that, as I have seen over and over, is massively exploited by those fueling the anger, hatred, shaming and blaming in movements like Black Lives Matter.
Worst of all, we're not warned about the likelihood of people coming to this stage. It isn't part of general awareness.
There are seat belt laws and helmet laws to diminish the risks from some physical dangers. We're not provided with mental seat belts and helmets to lessen the likelihood and extent of the rage stage.
This silence makes it much more dangerous.
30 years ago, I did masses of research into the stages, but found it impossible to interest a publisher, then gave up.
However, I taught college students about the stages year after year, and had the students go out and do interviews. Fascinating!
Then, one day I came to another important shift in attention. I had never paid much attention to religion. Then millions of Muslims marched against some cartoons. Embassies were burned. People were murdered.
2006. The messages that blared out at me were, first, that Muslims had every right to be offended, and second, that Islam was a religion of peace.
I accepted that Islam was a religion of peace until I found out it wasn't. I never accepted that one had a right not to be offended.
I became as interested in, and involved with, what was going on with Islam, as I had been passionately concerned about male-female equality 15 years earlier.
I soon learned that it wasn't easy to get the truth out. Most people could not take in any information about Islam that was not positive. I documented over 10 deflection responses - blocks. That led to
my writing The Big BUT System, a guide to understanding how people manage to refuse to understand anything less than positive about Islam.
I also came to learn that the media did not treat the truth about Islam as it had treated feminism, anti-racism and gay rights. With feminism, anti-racism and gay rights, the media reported massively the truth about injustices against members of these groups. Now it didn't care about truth.
It took me a long time to accept that, even when there was overwhelming evidence of, for instance, almost exclusively Muslim "grooming" gangs in the UK, targeting poor indigenous girls, this was not going to be covered.
By the way, the estimate is that about one million poor girls in the UK were "groomed" - so this cannot be dismissed as some strange rare occurrence.
Truth was irrelevant. Instead what counted was "the narrative." For years I thought it was just about Islam. Then I came to see it was about climate. On and on. The same moves.
Fast forward to the current situation with the world-famous virus, the lockdown, the mandates, the massive attempts to enforce a QR code and create a worldwide dictatorship under the guise of protection during pandemic times.
I see that the widespread non-seeing about Islam is much like the current widespread non-seeing about what is going on.
Maybe what has gone on with Islam was a test run for what has been rolled out with the plandemic - mass formation/hypnosis/psychosis. The intensity of the brainwashing is even higher, and the fear-mongering is now blatant.
Anyway, my sense is that the indoctrination about Islam in the West is very close to the indoctrination around the plandemic.
All very important stuff. But far from everything.
And that brings me to the need for all of our aspects to flourish. My love poems have been pulling at me.
ALMOST LAST,
DEFINITELY NOT LEAST
Before I end this intro to Who Is This Person Called Elsa, just one more aspect of myself. I've long loved doing interviews. Such amazing glimpses into people's lives. I did huge interviews (up to 12 hours per person) as part of my doctoral research into the impact of rights movements on those who got involved. I learned ever so much. I still remember many of the people, though most of the time I never saw them after the interviews.
When I became interested in what was going on with Islam, a special interest became the people who were not taken in by the popular indoctrination, who were instead doing their best to reach people with what they had found out. Bill Warner, the first person I interviewed, told me I'd be meeting some of the most caring and intelligent people around. He was right.
I've recently interviewed a few people involved in getting out scientific truths that go against the official dogma (the so-called "narrative"). Once again, such caring and intelligent and dedicated people.
Above, from left to right:
Narain Kataria, almost 90 when I had the honor of interviewing him
and learning so much about the horrific displacement of millions of Hindus in the partition of India, including over a million Hindus murdered. He and his family were among those displaced.
Tommy Robinson, dedicated to getting justice for the "groomed" girls which has meant near death for him when he was imprisoned among violent Muslim offenders. I was so lucky to interview him when I did - 2 days before yet another arrest on trumped up charges. This interview, with its timing, got half a million views.
Pamela Geller, who went from everyday citizen to warrior for freedom on 9/11, and has never stopped. Courage, tenacity, persistence, intelligence.
She tweeted out about the interview - and suddenly I had another thousand subscribers. I was and am so grateful.
Bill Warner, the first person I interviewed for my site, World Truth Summit. Soft-spoken. Not meek and mild. Truth, justice, persistence.
And John O'Sullivan.
While there were no charges against members of overwhelmingly Muslim rape gangs, he was falsely accused by a student, and his reputation was trampled. He went on to co-found Principia Scientific, to bring out the truth about scientific matters. Dedication, intelligence, persistence.
For each of these people, and all the others I have interviewed, I am grateful.
I might call all these people courageous - except that what I have usually seen is not courage but commitment to action, commitment to doing and going on, despite the many obstacles, the denigration, the difficulties. It's about our society, about our human rights. Maybe it is better to call these people less fearful than average, rather than courageous. Passion, commitment, intelligence, caring - those are qualities I've seen over and over.
SPEAKER, PERFORMER, INTERVIEWEE
REACHER, TEACHER
WRITER, VIDEO-MAKER
I love listening to people. Who are they? How did they get to be where they are?
I also love sharing what I call "my gifts to the world." My insights, inspirations, findings, poems, songs, stories. My eureka moments. My quiet moments. My writings, videos, interviews.
And now I am about to launch Zee's Cafe Cafe, for a tribe of like-minded people.
My experience is that the information and insights of others have tremendously enriched and enlarged my life.
In fact,
my sense is that I have never learned as much as during the past 2 years. I am grateful for the amazing people eager to share what they know, and for the people - like Reiner Fuellmich, Viviane Fischer and Jerm - dedicated to searching out and interviewing these people.
My hope is that my thinking, my ideas, likewise add to your life.
As for creative works, from poems to songs, from comedy pieces to stories,
my experience as reader and listener has been, from childhood on, that stories, poems, songs, images, bring me more alive.
My hope is that my creative works, like my ideas, add to your life, stimulate you, nourish you, bring you more alive.
WELCOME
Elsa
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