I think one of the problems with the capitalist mainstream is this: no matter what you create to respond or resist it they will buy it. Eve Ensler More Quotes by Eve Ensler More Quotes From Eve Ensler I believe in fierce love, pushing the edge, calling the robbers, the corporates, the elites, the pillagers and insanely wealthy to task, going whatever distance we need to go now to protect our earth and each other. Eve Ensler distance tasks believe I am so grateful to be alive. It's ridiculous to be alive. Eve Ensler ridiculous grateful alive Denial is really death. People think that when you're connected with other people it's more painful. The opposite is true. When you're connected to the river you have despair, but you also have joy, and there's a flow in the river. Eve Ensler opposites rivers thinking Then there was sex, which, for me, was such a need. When I was younger, I had a need to have sex with everyone. I don't know where that was coming from, but there was such a need to connect physically - obviously, for me to connect physically to myself. There were times, like I say in the book, where you lay on top of me, when you push me down, when you're inside me. Eve Ensler book sex needs Anorexia was my attempt to have control over my body and manipulate my body and starve my body and shape my body. It was not a very good relationship. It was the sort of relationship my father had to my body. It was a tyrannical, "you'll do what I tell you" relationship. Eve Ensler anorexia good-relationship father Why aren't we looking at the causes of breast cancer? Why aren't we spending our energy on looking at what we're doing to the earth? On the pollutants we're putting into the earth? And the pesticides we're putting into the earth? What we're releasing into the air? Instead, we just cut off more organs! That's where metaphor comes into it - not even metaphor as much as reality. Eve Ensler cancer cutting reality I'd stop calling it "chemotherapy." I'd call it "transformational juice." Infusion suites would become "transformational suites" or "journey rooms." Eve Ensler juice journey calling I really believe that is helping people. I've been talking to oncologists about how we can re-frame and re-think the chemo process, so it becomes a much more spiritual, psychological journey. Where people really could burn away what needs to be burned away. It's happening anyway. Why not frame it in a psychological way where it can serve as a transformation? Eve Ensler journey spiritual believe People didn't feel so much shame around it and that they didn't feel so much humiliation around it. And the other thing that people have given me a lot of feedback about - something I'm very excited about - is all the stuff around chemo as an "empathetic warrior." Eve Ensler warrior stuff people But my body was telling its story. I have read a lot of stuff about cancer. I needed this book. I wish I'd had this book when I had cancer. I wanted someone to be talking to me about "fart floors." I wanted somebody telling me what it was like to have a colostomy bag. I felt so alone. And if you're a person who's been traumatized by past abuse, it's so potentially re-traumatizing. You slip right into "oh my god, this is the only person this has happened to before" mentality: "I'm especially bad and I have especially bad cancer..." Eve Ensler cancer book past My relationship to the desecration of the earth was very theoretical and intellectual until I got sick. I could never watch anything about polar bears dying or the death of bees. There were certain things I knew I couldn't go near because they were too devastating. But I don't think until I got cancer did I get it in my body, what was happening to the earth. I finally went: "Oh! Earth! Organism!" Eve Ensler cancer sick thinking I think it was a realization of this cancer, an understanding of the broader implications of what cancer is. The greed, the ravaging of lands and seas for profit, the taking of things that don't belong to us; what we've done to the environment in this fast-paced, careless hunger. I think all of that was happening in my body. Eve Ensler cancer sea thinking With the Gulf spill, I absolutely merged in the time when I had that infection. I couldn't get out of the Gulf spill. There were so many similarities: the drains and the siphoning and the tubes. And also in the way the earth was hurt, the ocean was bleeding. Remember the video cams of the oil gushing? I couldn't stop watching that. Eve Ensler oil ocean hurt Some days I would get so exhausted, nauseous, in pain - just from going back through things. It's almost as if I had the experience and then the meta-experience. Eve Ensler exhausted pain ifs I can only describe it as: the whole experience was imprinted on my body. And when I started to write it, it just came from such a very, In The Body of the Worldvery physical... it just came from my body. I don't know how to explain it better than that. I guess my head was transmitting it. It was a very, very physical experience writing this book. Eve Ensler body writing book I feel sometimes with boys that the tyranny of patriarchy has had a much more devastating blow on boys than it has on anyone. Because they have literally been forced to disassociate from their hearts. Eve Ensler blow heart boys What I'm really interested in is freedom. Eve Ensler I live with that contradiction daily. It is a constant struggle. I struggle very deeply. I don't think I've said this to anyone, but I've wondered if I just want to give up this world and live in the Congo and just be there. But I don't think that's what they need from me. Eve Ensler giving-up struggle thinking Freedom, that's the kind of power I'm interested in. When we help each other get free, then it's not about anybody being on top or anybody being on the bottom. It's about being together, in a community. Eve Ensler community together helping Success itself doesn't give you happiness. It's what you do with your success that gives you happiness. Eve Ensler giving
