When I was a child growing up on Sam Fife’s cult compound in Alaska, we did not have electricity or plumbing. As a result, we used the bathroom in chamber pots and outhouses. We also did not have toilet paper. Our toilet paper was often a Sears magazine with anything that wasn’t “proper” for us to see torn out of it.
We would rip out a couple of pages, sitting bare butted on top of a wooden hole, softening the glossy paper with our hands so that we could wipe as gently as possible.
I also had a severe fear that a demon would rise from the pile of human manure and snatch me down into the outhouse hole.
It was here, that I would find the toy sections of the magazine, and I would see what all the of the kids outside of the compound were getting to play with. These toys were considered evil commodities for they fed the wants and desires of the flesh; to want to play and enjoy doing it. For all “play” and attention should be only on God and what he wanted for our lives.
Yet, they left those pages in the magazine for us children to have to use as toilet paper after stealing a few seconds to dream of what could be.
So I used these pages to clean my body, dropping them to float down into a mound of lime covered feces, urine and other, already melting pages.
Your face crinkles as you read this.
“Gross“, you say.
Yes. The smell covers you, rancid and fuming, even with the lime to help counter it.
When we finally got toilet paper around 1981, it was rationed. Families were given toilet paper rolls based on how many people were in their family. Then the toilet paper roll itself was rationed.
“One square for number one and two squares for number two.”
The rule of thumb in regards to the use of toilet paper.
We live in this society who doesn’t understand what’s it’s like to be without even the smallest of things like toilet paper and baby wipes, diapers and showers, toilets that flush and electricity; even the freedom to be exactly who we want to be if we so choose.
Toilet meditations often reveal a lot.
I’m grateful as fuck for toilet paper and toilets that flush. Not because of third world countries who don’t have them, but because I lived a third world childhood in a first world country that was and still is so focused on third world issues that the citizens of America never pay attention to the horror children endure here in their own camp.
and for the most part, they still aren’t.
I’m done dealing with humans who claim co-consciousness and oneness or follow religions that claim to be based out of love yet are the same people supporting things like hitting children. They call it discipline. I call it abuse that damages the spinal column.
Oh, that’s just science. What do they know… unless you’re dying. Then you care about science.
Yes, I’m talking directly to you.
How can anyone be love in any way while at the same time finding a reason to support hitting, neglecting or harming the most innocent and defenseless humans on the planet?
This oxymoron of take and shut down are like gnats.
I realized today in a big way, how much humans are stuck in duality; how they think they know all, and yet, if they silenced themselves to listen, if they read the voices of us survivors who have written out our experiences, they would understand how deeply they must open their minds in order to truly bring this planet to a place of peace.
They’d understand why people like me, are grateful for toilet paper, why we fight against mind control and shorten our allowance arena.
Until you’ve lived with nothing. Until you’ve carried the scars of a shattered sacrum from too many childhood spankings, memories of outhouses and dumping chamber pots into potty dump holes, working through aching bones, untreated split skin and bruises, you can’t know. You lived a life of electricity, television and secular luxuries like getting to go to grocery stores.
Until you’ve had that all stripped from you and lived wiping yourself with magazine pages holding treasures you can never have, oh, dears, you cannot know. You can only accept and ask yourself why you can’t open your mind to care.
Be grateful for toilet paper.
venniekocsis.com 
i spent 15 days in a Cuban detention center because my mother had “hoarded” toilet paper and soap.
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Wow! You are originally from Cuba? Tell me more, if you’re up to it.
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My life story as a child. Of course you may ask anything you want. I was born in 1946, in Havana, Cuba. I’m an only child, born after my parents had been married for 18 years. Wanted, not an accident. I grew up in a very out of the norm household, for 1946-I believe that it would be considered out of the norm, even now. My mother, Matilde, my father Antonio, and my godfather Sixto all lived together in the same household before I was born. As far as I can remember my godfather, a single, middle-aged man and I were roommates. Antonio was an engineer who owned, and ran a shop that repaired large machinery such ar ship engines, sugar refining and electricity generating equipment. My mother was the treasurer of the business. My godfather was an executive in a large hardware, and office supply company. My mother ran the household and companies very assertively. (I toyed with several words and decided on that one.) A family friend once said she ran in 2 gears–to command and to be obeyed. 😁 The workday ritual was the following: the men left for work. My mother went to her office across the street. She and my godfather took a nap daily in my parents room. Dad stayed at work for lunch. My maternal grandmothe, whom I never met, was a small town healer and midwife. Two of my mother’s sisters, and 2 nieces were practicing mediums, although they were never invited to the seances, or consulted by my mother. They were rarely invited to family gatherings. My mother hired magical practitioners. In hindsight I see that, as with all she did, they were to work for her ends. Spiritual enlightenment was not part of the plan. If the spirits spoke out of turn, according to her point of view, they were fired, never to be seen again. One day a medium who had done protection work for me, came to the house. I was called into the room where the session was being held. Spirit, speaking through the medium, said to me “yow need to come to visit me more often, you need to learn more.” I never saw that medium again. Now she’s my spirit guide, Cecilia, who is in charge of healing. Five year old: my mother couldn’t boil water without burning the pan. The family had a cook. One day I was a little ill, and the cook came to do a healing and blessing for me. She said a prayer, blessing/cleansing me with basil. As she was doing so I saw this presence in the room. Not threatening. I asked Enedina, the healer, who that was. She said it is your spirit protector. That is how I met my protector, Isadora. She is still here. I was hooked. Maria, my mother’s youngest sister, was the only sibling who was a regular at the house. My surrogate mom. One day she told me that we were going to visit a medium~and we did. Age 12. The medium sat me down, did divination and told me: “Your spirit gifts need to be developed.” And we started the process. (Age is problematic for folks who’re born toward the end of the year. I use the age I will be in November when the year begins.) In retrospect it was a turning point in my life. Rebirth begins. The lessons were 3 fold: memorize prayers, and other things (she was illiterate writing was not used.); learn to use intuition, feel energy; do for others~give messages, heal, do magic. I was taught something that I will repeat for as long as needed to memorize; I was given ” jobs” to do like feel the energy of one person a day, and if possible tell them what I felt for confirmation; participate on healing and magic rituals. Spirit said I was ready for the first initiation. Since it required both some money, and a night away from home, my mother had to be asked. The answer was no. Moreover I was to stop the formal learning process. But what I had learned was not forgotten. I kept doing what I had been taught. Faithfully. A new cook, Maria, also a medium. Quite often during vacation in the quiet of the afternoon, we would sit at the kitchen table and concentrate, call and feel the spirits. Pray for healing for others. Instruction by doing. Castro comes to power in 1959, and my family started thinking about leaving the country. It was agreed that we all either leave together or stay together. One day in 1960 I am told my mother and I will be leaving for Miami. At the airport we are not allowed to leave because our passports had expired. As we await renewal, the Bay of Pigs invasion happens and all male members of my family, including me, ended in a detention center for hoarding soap and TP. A story told to me by my aunt: While in detention my mother consulted her magicians. Maria, the cook, suggested they visit her mentor. We finally got out. The woman told my mother that “I had to be given to the spirits, as they had given me life, twice. My birth and my survival in a car accident, after a near-death experience. I was told for the first time part of the story of my birth: my mother had several miscarriages. She went to a magical practitioner to insure my birth. He did the work. The spirits were claiming me because of their involvement in my birth. According to my aunt, my mother didn’t want me initiated. Tried to make a deal with the practitione, who refused to budge. I was initiated. It was decided that I, alone, was to leave Cuba, to live with some friends in Mexico, because according to my family’s spiritual advisors Castro would fall soon, and we would be a happy family again. I insisted that it would not happen. My moer’s reaction was “the reason I didn’t want you to be initiated. You are prideful boy, disrespectful.” My parents died in Cuba, expecting Castro’s imminent fall. I was 14 turning 15 in November 1961. I had never walked alone to the corner to get on the school bus. Had never spent a night alone without at least a member of the family. I was put on a plane, one suitcase, and the rest of my life began. In shock. Magic saved my life! You will see as I continue my story.
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mage, you have had one deep journey after another. What an incredible story. I kiss your sweet forehead out of respect for your survival and loss. I am glad to know you and have you in my life, antonio. 💞
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That is one of the most incredible life stories I have ever heard.
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I also appreciate toilet paper and flushing toilets. We squatted over holes in the ground until we got our toilet when I was nine. We used water instead of toilet paper but the natives used their left hands, growing their left fingernails long to scrape away the feces. You’re never supposed to offer your left hand to anyone where I’m from. That’s an easy way to get hepatitus. I contracted it when I was five years old.
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I am so happy I wrote this post. It has allowed me to know the struggles of others, to get to see deeper into your lives. Thank you for the vulnerability. There’s so much we take for granted when we’ve never seen the other side, yanno? I appreciate the SHIT out of toilet paper! (Pun intended) LOL!
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Me Too! I grew up for years using an outhouse. And a lot of times,we didn’t have TP, so i used magazines or whatever book i could. I have used leaves also. For some years we lived as pioneers, doing all the work by hand,no power,no plumbing. In a stressful situation with an emotionally and physically abusive step father who HATED me, and used to give me hard physical labor punishment such as digging a new outhouse hole right from scratch with a pick and shovel,after i walked up a 2km mountain after school and did all my chores first. As well as many other things. We were very secluded. My mother was a negligent,abusive drunk. I have had several near death experiences,several sexual abuses,forced to be a Jehovah’s Witness,many more different types of traumas all throughout my life and too many other things to list here.I just wanted to comment Vinny, that i think i can understand how you feel. I think we feel the same way about a lot of things. I also,really do not fit into society. I have many struggles in my life and probably always will. I am intuitive,i believe i posses some of the Claire’s. I am empathic also,as well as other things,but i am not sure,my talents have not been trained or even realized. I don’t really know much about this stuff and have no support or family. I listen to what my body tells me though,and it is never wrong. I hope your journey is going well vinny, take care. And ps…………..Good writing! I love to read and watch things that rock my soul.
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Wow – I am so sorry for everything you’ve been through and appreciate you connecting with me. You know, I find the most in common with Jehovahs Witnesses. A lot of the same practices. No celebrating self in any ways. I’m an Empath as well.
Our “struggles” may just be us having a hard time fitting into a primitive society. That’s how I feel at times. Difficult to relate to the shallowness of most people.
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