Since cancer, I feel like I have dreams rather than ambitions, visions rather than plans. Eve Ensler More Quotes by Eve Ensler More Quotes From Eve Ensler I think culture is where things change in us deeply. But right now, I think that people are very traumatised. They are very scared. Having grown up in a house with a perpetrator who was violent every day and terrorising every day, I feel like that this country is suddenly very much like the house and the family I grew up in. Every day we are glued to our phones, glued to our television; "What is this psychopath going to do next? How will he embarrass us? Who will he bully or hurt or humiliate today? It's so easy to get locked into a syndrome where the perpetrator is ruling your life. Eve Ensler hurtcountrythinking Dancing in public spaces and moving your body freely in a public space is reclaiming what was taken from you when you were violated. The energy of that - you can't capture it, you can't own it. Capitalists can't buy it.It can't be sold. It can't be monetized. And that's why I think it's so powerful. Eve Ensler powerfultakenmoving Rock-and-roll was an example of change in the body of the culture. I think it's really what helped bring the anti-war movement to its peak and moved people into the streets to seize the day - the movement was the embodiment of what was happening in the music. This is what taught me that it was possible to bring art and activism together. Without that piece, that energetic embodiment piece, the rest is just intellectual construct. Eve Ensler warartthinking Look, you do everything in stages, right? I don't think everything happens at once. There are so many layers we are constantly chipping away at, down and down and down, closer and closer to what would be the body. I think what happened with cancer, was that I woke up out of nine hours of surgery and I was body. I was just body. Eve Ensler cancerwould-bethinking There were momentary visitations. I was a visitor, not an inhabitant. I think I say that at the beginning of the book: "I have made visits to the earth in my body, but it's always been as a visitor." Eve Ensler bodybookthinking I came out of the nine-hour surgery and I had tubes in every direction, and those nurses at the Mayo Clinic, I could cry for four days at the kindness of those nurses. The care, the detail of the care, the attention that just never wavered, never complained. The love. Eve Ensler ninenursekindness The people who are on the front lines every day in hospitals, nurses, the people who are running clinics, the people who are taking care of your children, those are the people who are the lovers of the world, are the good of the world. Eve Ensler nurserunningchildren The love is all around us. I made a life of love. Eve Ensler madelove-is What happens when someone throws you against a wall or tells you you're a jackass or puts you down or calls you bad names? It goes into your body. We hold it in our body. If we don't have a way to let that go and release that, it becomes sickness eventually. Eve Ensler wallbodynames I really do think how we frame things determines so much of our experience, and I've been talking to a lot of oncologists, like, why don't we call them transformation suites and give people transformation juice and have guides that support people when they're going through chemo so you could actually burn away what needs to be burned away, as opposed to this dread, terror, horror, which is a very different experience. Eve Ensler different-experiencestalkingthinking Each time I had five hours of the poison going into me, I just pictured everything that needed to be burned away. I pictured wars, I pictured the things my father had done to me, I pictured brutality, and when it was over, I am light. Eve Ensler lightwarfather I got to a nine-hour surgery, I lost lots of body parts and rearranged, I got really months of infection that I lost 30 pounds. But the idea of pumping poison into my bloodstream just - I couldn't, I couldn't. Eve Ensler bodypoisonideas I believe in irony. And if V-Day has taught me anything, it's that if you go out with artistic, outrageous irony and humor, people are drawn to it. Eve Ensler taughtbelievepeople I think what all of us have in common is that we've been taught and trained and programmed to focus on fixing and mutilating ourselves. That's a core reason why women do not have power in the world. Eve Ensler focusworldthinking I think that's part of the whole denial and suicidal mechanism [ of the human's race] right "Oh my God, the house is on fire." You sleep through the smoke. Eve Ensler suicidalsleepthinking I think to be cut off from your heart is the greatest tyranny in the world. Eve Ensler cuttingheartthinking We have no idea how many women were raped in wars - because no one ever asked. So sometimes when people say statistics have escalated, I wonder if, that is true or are we just hearing about things now that we didn't hear about before. Eve Ensler warpeopleideas I think the world is always improving and always not improving. I think that both are simultaneously happening all the time. I don't think it's one motion unfortunately - I wish we could say it's better, better, better - but I think it's better, bad, better, bad - you know? Eve Ensler wishworldthinking Terence McKenna says, "The culture is not your friend." I am not sure we can change this culture. But I think we can rise above it and create a new world. That's why I so deeply believe in alternative spaces. That's why I believe in the power of art and activism. Eve Ensler believeartthinking What I have found is that even when you try to transform existing structures they are so powerful they often overwhelm, seduce, and control you. Eve Ensler structurepowerfultrying
