I got kicked out of the Robert Crumb Appreciation Society on FaceBook.

I know, on my last post I wisely said to stop trying to change the world out there, because it doesn’t work, and besides there are as many truths as there are humans on the planet.

And as a master of our version of reality, we need to respect everyone else’s version.  No matter how f**king lame it is.

First of all, I don’t remember joining the Robert Crumb FB group, because it’s private.  But apparently I had, and it came up on my feed today, with a Crumb image of a busty woman making a fist of victory and it said ‘Women for Trump 2020.’

As I scrolled down the comments, there were reactions of surprise that there would be so much of this use of the Crumb imagery by conservatives.

At that point I couldn’t help myself.  I knew I should have walked away.  Maybe I was just bored.  But I commented that, “Crumb’s art is excellent, but he was not the counter-culture, anti-establishment person his admirers thought he was.  His art was sexist, misogynistic, and racist, all attributes of the establishment, mainstream Patriarchal culture.  Not a judgement, just an observation.”

I got one ‘like,’ and a few antagonistic, and even vulgar responses. Their defense of Crumb was that he is a Trump hater himself. So that absolved him of any misogyny.

Then I tempered my next comment, saying,”Maybe it’s not about Crumb’s intent at all.  Maybe it’s about, when we view these images, ones where women are demeaned, objectified, raped and practically mutilated, how does it make the viewer feel? Because it’s just art.  And art is subjective. Do we feel repulsed by the images?  Or do they make us giggle?  Maybe that’s the real point.  Because that response is telling.  And, it’s in all of us.  I don’t think anyone is totally free from embodying some sexism and misogyny.  A disdain for the feminine.  It’s deeply engrained in us, both men and women, in our culture.  A rejection of the feminine.  Women as much as men suffer from the imbalance. So yes, maybe Robert Crumb is serving us in his own way, by exposing his inner shadows and helping us to see our own.  It’s all good.”

I thought that comment would get me out of the woods.

But the next morning there were several comments, according to my notifications, and when I tried to go in and read them, I wasn’t allowed.  They locked me out.

The Crumb comic of ‘the boys club, no girls allowed’ comes to mind.

But the point is, and part of me is a bit embarrassed to admit it, what happened to me is absolutely all my doing.  I pushed against something, and it pushed me back.

And, it’s all good.  I learned something about myself, and really that is what it’s all about anyway.  I learned that I still get my buttons pushed around issues related to being a woman.

And we can argue that well, yes, of course, we live in a patriarchal world, and it’s everywhere.  It’s subtle and it’s glaring.  I mean, even the thousands of people who admire and worship Robert Crumb’s art don’t see it.  It’s so insidious that it’s often invisible.  Thus acceptable.

But when I went in there and rattled their cage, they growled at me. They weren’t ready to see it in themselves.  And, really, that’s ok.  It’s none of my f**king business.

And, maybe there’s still something in me that’s angry at the feminine, and I am projecting out onto them.  After all, it’s kind of hard to admit that I still harbor some internalized misogyny

But it also made me aware that it’s time to let it go.  To release the old story of who I was. All those many lifetimes were all just experiences I gave myself.  And I was on both sides, I was the victim, and the perpetrator both.

And it’s all distilled by my soul, by my Merlin, into wisdom that I will take with me when I leave this place.

And who knows, I may have ignited a light in someone in that FB group, to feel into their own shadow.  To sense their rejection of their own feminine.

It’s a good starting point for them.

And, when you think about it, self-love, allowing the love from our soul to our human self, involves accepting our shadow, and honoring it.

Because the shadow, the darkness, is also our divinity.