All stretched out at Yoga

I really needed to get to yoga this week. I suffered migraines the two weeks previously but still managed to do some at home with Geri Halliwell! lol

We did some new postures with Sheila and got really stretched out. My back has been really sore between my shoulder blades so it was great to feel that working itself out. They were all sitting up postures and stretching forwards, holding your toes and breathing into the movement.

My back felt tense at first but by the end of the session I felt completely rung out with all the spinal twists we were doing.. I just wish it was every week and didn't stop for the school holidays.. why is that? We're not at school lol!

Yoga is great for dealing with stress and anxiety. I well recommend it - even if you are the only guy doing it! :)


"When you feel too old to do a thing - do it."

Ballerina Steve at Kids United!

Had another fun time at Kids United! Ran a program for them to make cards on the computer :) Rebecca made Jessica a birthday card!

Roisin and Lauren were very giddy and started messing with my hair being "the best hairdressers in the world!" which basically meant making Steve's hair as BIG a mess as possible!!! lol :D

My hair is pretty long now as I'm not cutting it until I see David again. It's about 38cm long at the moment - so it's up to my chest now.

So anyway, Roisin piled it up on top of my head and both of them were killing themselves laughing saying I looked like a Ballerina! :D

Aren't kids great?! lol :)


"If you want to be original, be yourself -- no two people are alike."

Candle making, guitar and world music

I have a prevading sense of peace that I am bathing in today. Got to make the most of it whilst it lasts! It does feel really nice. :)

Candles
Got a chisel out of the garage and chipped off large protruding pieces from the vanilla candle I have. I melted them down in a pan over a low heat. After extracting bits of matches etc I poured the wax into some plastic containers and made some wicks out of string. I fully soaked them in the wax and cut them to a straight vertical height before sinking them into the wax and keeping them upright with some freezer bag clips!


The wax set quite quickly and I even did a larger footprint one with a cast I made of my toes about 4 years ago!

I've distributed them around the house and they smell great!


Guitar
Sat down with the guitar. I've changed the room around slightly so my keyboard is in front of the window and played almost exquisitely lol! My playing is improving every time I pick it up and the pieces are coming on wonderfully.

Radio 3
My listening tastes are pretty eclectic to say the least. From the heaviest rock and grunge, to classical, spoken word and comedy! Radio 3 has been great today, giving us a Shakespeare rendition -- that remind us that human relations still have the same old ups and downs; a documentary on ancient Islamic and Arabic manuscripts in Timbuktu; and world music.

Sweet..


"The art of living is to want less and experience more."

Seeing David and The Meaning of Cunio -- a dream

The Dream of David
This morning I had some very vivid dreams. I dreamt of David being here smiling, happy and joyous to be back in my loving presence. All his hair had been shaved off but as he stayed it began to grow, blond and full of light.

The Meaning of Cunio
I found myself looking at a page in a book. There were pictures of stars in different aspects of eclipse. I noticed that the auras spelt out our name, Cunio and when I looked at the title it said Cunio meaning 'The centre of the star'. This is how it looked:

The dream has made me feel very peaceful, almost like a validation of who I actually am rather than a reflection of all the lies that are told to keep me and my son apart... The reality being; light, passion, peace, honesty, truth and bravery.


"If you think you can, you can."

Guitar, Sign and The Rampant Lion

Good day at work followed by an excellent guitar session! Tom's found a drummer and should be forming a band real soon. I've finished reading The Secrets of Singing book and am going back to the beginning now to do the exercises with the tips I've already picked up. Just a few slight changes really help! :)

Guitar
Should be progressing onto Grade 3 pieces soon - wow! Just got to keep up the practice and get a new metronome as the I think the springs gone on the one I've got!

Sign
Made good progress this evening, made a couple of new friends and signed what I did over the weekend - saw the new Harry Potter movie (I cried at the bit where he can't get his mum and dad back) which was pretty good, cleaned the house (partly) and read a lot! The lesson always goes really fast.

The Rampant Lion
Met up with Viv at the pub to see some bands but by the time we got there it was pretty much all over. Went into town and froze looking for somewhere half decent that was actually open! Ended up having pizza and going to Big Hands where we chatted about dads and being adopted and life. It was a lovely evening. :)


"To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind."

Used my Sign Language already!

Another lovely day.

Used my sign language today already, amalgamating signs I'd learnt with common sense and learning new ones from the friendly deaf guy I was helping out!

He'd gone to our old premises as the old address is on older leaflets of course. I drove down, met him, found out his story and brought him back to the new office. Super Steve! lol


"Great men of action do not plan beforehand all the details of their future course of action."

Sign language, pool and 5th avenue!

Had a good day today... I think it's starting off with a fruit juice with my cereal every morning that's doing it :)

Sign Language
Went along to enrol on a course for sign language - it's 7 weeks in so I've got some catching up to do! They thought I'd done it before though because I could understand some of what the guy was saying but there again the signs mostly make sense lol! Made some new friends too and know my colours!

It was a really nice evening class - I'd recommend it to anyone - now I can communicate in very noisy nightclubs, over vast distances and even between cars -- so long as the other person knows it that is!

Pool with Michelle
Went to The Crown to play pool with Michelle. It was great meeting up and of course I thrashed her completely - hahahah! Hehe, only kidding honey! Had a really good and chilled night. Michelle was looking as slim and tall and lovely as ever! Still it didn't help her pool hehehe ;D

5th Avenue
Got text from Viv - a friend I met at a Buddhist meeting in town and went to 5th Ave. It was soooo cold out!! Freezing! Got in and had a good dance to all the old Manchester favourites and new indie rock! Great night. :)


"To be perfect is to change often."

I'm too excited about my environment friendly cleaning products!

Got my parcel today of environmentally friendly cleaning products!

Now I can Clean with the Power of Parsley! lol

Seriously though. It's good stuff! When you are used to seeing skull and crossbones on the back of nearly every cleaning solution you put your hands on, it's refreshing to finally get hold of something that ain't gonna kill yer as you spray it!

Orange, parsley, vanilla, lemon... mmm fresh home!

I got my supply of Ecos products from http://www.naturalcollection.com/ - a magazine sent as part of my membership of Friends of the Earth.


"We never know the love of parents until we become parents ourselves."

Bonfire Night and the Fire Nymph!

Had a fantastic bonfire night as Louise and James invited me over for tea! :) James had done a wonderful organic meal with wonderfully cooked parsnips and carrots!!! Yum!

We chilled out with our bellies full, looking at the photos from Louise's birthday party ! My god my legs looked good as Elle Driver lol!

Got the Metro to Heaton Park and hit the Whirlitzers! Bllllurrrggg! They were so fast and furious it was insane! Louise loved it though!

The fireworks were ok but you could tell it was free to get in lol!

My friend Gillian Manniex took pictures of the bonfire she went to and the results were amazing! This photo is as it was taken! Can you see the face, the hair, the body, the wings? Amazing, I present the Fire Nymph!

Later on I went into town and was stopped by a shoeless girl who was in the middle of nowhere! I gave her a lift to The Arch in Hulme where she knew people and sacrificed my best flip flops for her comfort! Made sure she was ok before going to Tiger Lounge and dancing the night away. I had way too much energy.. got back and slept a deep sleep. :)


"Fortune comes to those who smile."

Domestic Violence Is Not A Gender Issue by Erin Pizzey

http://www.fathersforlife.org/pizzey/DV_is_not_a_gender_issue.htm

This is an article by Erin Pizzey someone who could see that domestic violence was not a gender issue right from the start. It galls me to think that just after I had been born in 1970 Erin had tried to put into place that which I call so desperately for now. A place to help our sons and grandsons, daughters and granddaughters should they be victims of DV. A place where they could come together to heal and learn to trust again. At present only the RSPCA offer such a service. Now if only they could branch out to humans...

I cannot believe how much of what I have postulated and come to fear is here confirmed as fact.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS NOT A GENDER ISSUE

By Erin Pizzey

Received by email from the author 5 October 2005...

HISTORY

In 1971 I opened the first refuge in the world for victims of domestic violence. I was running a small community project in Chiswick, a London suburb, when a woman came in and showed me her bruises. I took her home that night, and from then on women with their children poured through the door. My little community centre became the first refuge in the world for all victims of domestic violence.

Because from the beginning I was aware that domestic violence was not a gender issue, I opened a refuge for men in North London. It closed for lack of support and funding. I was aware that of the first hundred women who came into the refuge, sixty-two were as violent or, in some cases, more violent than the men they left behind. I wrote up my findings in A Comparative Study of Battered Women and Violence-Prone Women, as yet unpublished. I believe that violence in interpersonal relationships is a learned pattern of behaviour that is acquired in early childhood.

Some children who are exposed to violence at the hands of their primary carers, usually their mothers and fathers, internalise the abusive behaviour and thereafter use violence and abuse as a strategy for survival.

In the refuge, I found I was facing two different problems: Some women were indeed ‘Innocent victims of their partner’s violence:’ they needed refuge, comfort and legal advice, but very quickly, even if they did return to the violent partner on a few occasions, they walked away from the abuse and went on to create a new non violent life style.

Other women were ‘victims of their own violence,’ the majority of them had experienced violence and abuse from childhood. They had a history of violent relationships and often had criminal records. They needed not only legal advice and refuge but also counselling to help them to come to terms with their own abusive backgrounds so that they did not continue to return to violent and abusive relationships or replace the violent partner almost immediately with another one, thus condemning their children to years of abuse.

Women who are not violent themselves find it extremely difficult to share accommodation with women who are not only abusive but also violent to their own children. Very quickly as other refuges opened and screened out the violent women and their children, I opted to take in those violence-prone women and created a huge therapeutic community that sought to help victims who were violent themselves.

I had a reciprocal arrangement with those refuges to take women who had no need for our therapeutic community. We had several important projects, but the most valuable were our second-stage houses where women could move in groups of five mothers plus their children and share with each other until such time as they were re-housed. The group support and friendship in the houses helped very vulnerable women and children find their feet.

Because they were housed within the same general area, the second-stage house was always there to offer support, and the central crisis centre had an ever-open door. Should a woman find herself in difficulty or in another violent relationship, she was always welcome to ‘come home to the mother house at Chiswick.’

MY ARGUMENT WITH THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT

1969 saw the first meetings of the feminist collectives in England. At the same time I was opening my refuge the feminist movement was looking for funding and a just cause. The feminists redefined the Marxist goalposts and declared that it was MEN (the patriarchs), not Capitalism, that held power advantages over women and minority groups (the proletariat), and that all men were now the enemy. Family life was a dangerous place for women and children because men used physical and emotional violence to maintain their power advantage, and women only ever reacted violently in self- defence.

Harriet Harman, Anne Coote and Patricia Hewitt expressed their belief, in a Social Policy Paper called The Family Way: 'It cannot therefore be assumed that men are bound to be an asset to family life, or that the presence of fathers in families is necessarily a means to social harmony and cohesion'. These sentiments encouraged the radical feminist movement to claim that ‘all men and boys were potential rapists and batterers’.

Anna Coote and Beatrix Campbell, in their book ‘Sweet Freedom', believed that ‘they (feminists) saw domestic violence as an expression of the power that men wielded over women, in a society where female dependence was built into the structure of everyday life.’ From their own extensive experience of working in refuges they concluded that wife-battering was not the practice of a deviant few, but something which could emerge in the ‘normal’ course of marital relations, and to limit any refuge or advice to women and children. Men are not allowed to work in or visit refuges and no men are allowed to sit on any of the Committees of the refuges affiliated to the National Federation of Women’s Aid. Those refuges that do not comply with the Federation’s avowed feminist ideology are refused affiliation. Many of their refuges bar boys over the ages of twelve.

In the mid 1990’s for the first time the British Crime Survey and the Home Office recorded male victims of domestic violence. Slowly it became apparent that academic studies across the world were beginning to refute the findings of the feminist agencies that had such a strangle hold over the refuge movement worldwide. Slowly I was beginning to be asked to talk to various Domestic Violence forums and men’s groups, to talk about the fact that domestic violence was not and never has been a gender issue. A gigantic hoax has been perpetrated and unsubstantiated statistics have been produced to feed a damaging and disastrous political ideology which was now a billion-dollar word-wide industry that discriminated against many innocent men and fathers.

THE PRESENT

I have recently been sent Donald Dutton’s paper "The gender paradigm in domestic violence research and theory: Part 1—The conflict of theory and data ", published in Aggression and violent behaviour, volume 10, Issue 6. In this paper Don Dutton reviews a comprehensive list of literature on the subject of domestic violence.

Because I believe that interpersonal violence is a learned pattern of behaviour in early childhood, I find the arguments of whether men attack women first or women attack men irrelevant. Both sexes are harmed when exposed to violence, and either sex can become a victim or a perpetrator.

Much of the violence can be consensual in other words both partners are violent each believing that the other is the perpetrator. Dutton says that ‘studies suggest that this singe-sex approach is not empirically supported, because both partner’s behaviours contribute to the risk of clinically significant partner abuse, and both parties should be treated.’

In his conclusion Dutton says:’ At some point, one has to ask whether feminists are more interested in diminishing violence within a population or promoting a political ideology. If they are interested in diminishing violence, it should be diminished for all members of a population and by the most effective and utilitarian means possible. This would mean an intervention/treatment approach…’ This was the approach that was practised at the Chiswick refuge where thirty years ago I recognised that for some children, born into violence and sometimes sexual abusive families, unless a therapeutic approach is adopted, many of these children would grow up to repeat the patterns of their parents.

The tragedy for me is that I had a vision whereby people who were infected by dysfunctional and violent parenting could find a place that would give them a chance to learn how to live in peace and harmony. This dream was destroyed, along with all my evidence and projects. The feminist movement resolutely refuted any argument that women should be allowed to take responsibility for their choice of relationships. The image of women as victims, as helpless childish dependents upon brutal men world-wide has damaged relationships between the sexes. The idea that the family is a danger to women and children has destroyed much of our traditional concepts of marriage. The feminisation of the family and Western society has caused men to become outcasts and a source of ridicule in their children’s eyes.

W.H. Auden in his poem, ‘ Another Time,’ wrote:

“I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done,
Do evil in return.”

By Erin Pizzey

"We better serve ourselves by serving others best."

Court Order for David! :)

Thankfully things have worked out for David! The Court is making an order that allows him to see my mum and dad, David's paternal grandma and grandad whenever he likes. As a starting point it was informally suggested by Alice's solicitor, and agreed by our Barrister, that this should be every other weekend.

He can see me as and when he chooses and I have drafted a letter with my Barrister that I will be sending to him in due course.

Many thanks to everyone who has supported us! There are too many of you to mention! :D

The contact was not deleted. David can see all his family. No more worrying! :)

Because the order is non-prescriptive it also takes the pressure off me. I feel 17 again! No more waiting for phone calls that don't come or contacts to be denied. This really is an order for David and for me and really for his mum too.

I feel like I've been in a dark cell, shackled to the wall. Suddenly, without notice, someone has come in, taken the shackles off and left without saying a word leaving the door open too. It is a really odd feeling because I am sort of very cautiously exploring that cell, almost too scared to believe it's real. It's a bit like that bit in The Man Who Fell to Earth where David Bowie finds the door open to his isolation rooms. He shuts it again somewhat confused, then checks it again and again before collecting himself, gathering his things and scurring out to a new beginning!

Thanks
Thank you everyone for sticking by me. For all the counsellors who helped me deal with the post, present and then future traumatic stress. To all the men, women and children at Fathers-4-Justice who gave both me and David faith and hope that the future would be brighter. To David for taking the opportunity to see his grandparents and staying strong. To Michelle for helping me through the most difficult, tearful months of my life without my son or any contact with him whatsoever. To Rachel, Gemma and Janet who were prepared to swear witness statements and stand up in court should they be needed. To everyone who provided glowing testimonies with regard to my wonderful relationship with David. To all those who have supported David since February who I do not know. To my mum and dad who love David so very much they would do anything for him. To the Judge who rightly recognised the strong and loving bond between me and David. To the Barrister Mr Zentar and the trainee solicitor Fiona, for being so kind and helpful and helping determine a better way forward.

Thank you one and all. You are wonderful beings of light, love and Truth.

The only people I cannot thank are Cafcass who recommended that contact be deleted, thereby letting David down, me down and his mother down. Thankfully this was not heeded.

May we raise our spirits to a bright future where our children always come first and where, when we become adults, we are presumed worthy to be parents of our children also.


"Love makes the heart gentle."