Bailing on the Wisdom Course & preview of SinterKlaus

Sunday Sunday

I am publishing this now but I will come back to this post to put in missing info later on.

During my conversations with the Wild Side dykes last night I connected with Katie Weille PhD about her research into BDSM. She wrote her PhD thesis in Psychology on upgrading psychologists conversations around BDSM. Basically why it should not be pathologized. Tania gave me a copy of her Thesis summary and connected us by phone so that I could meet with her at bagels and Beans at 9am.

I get up at 8am to get ready and inadvertently wake Jim who decided to go with me. Before Katie gets there Marg from Denmark, who i shared a tsaxi with Sat am, stops to chat on her way to the Wisdom course. We talk and several other Wisdom people go by offering greetings and smiles. I am starting to feel like a jerk about not going. I know I am completely out of integrity and I don't care. I am belligerent and defiant and about 3 I think. I tell Marg to tell the staff i am not coming and I am now free to spend the afternoon as a tourist. I want to see SinterKlaus.

We meet Katie but realize that no food place is open before 10:00am. End up back at the houseboat for toast, tangerines, tea and a dynamic intelligent conversation about paganism, polyamory and BDSM and the cross over between Sci-Fi geek and gaming communities in those sub cultures. Katie's research is really interesting and I am hoping to get a complete copy of it. A few of the chapter titles are:

After our fabulous conversation with Katie, Jim and I hed up to the Leidseplein for tourist-like activities like eating freshly made donuts ( boojeries???) and buying souvenirs.

We decide after going to a few stores including Art Unlimited postcards where I buy more than 30 postcards ( I have 74 people to send postcards to!). We are waiting for the SinterKlaus arrival and paraded at 2:30pm

We decide now is the time for our CoffeeHouse experience. We find a mellow uncrowded place called World Chillage and go in. I get a hash and tobacco cigarette and Jim gets plain marijuana. we both get small cokes in a bottle with a straw. There is a very detailed very colorful very hallucinogen-friendly mural on the wall. I get very high very quickly and need to do breathing and grounding exercises. now I remember why i don't do this. I decide to focus on the mural. I become very conscious of all my sensory input.
Click on the picture for more>

From Amsterdam

Teri is stoned...
I need chapstick, my back hurts, my eyes are tired. I feel "fuzzy". The colors on the mural seem super saturated. My eyes keep moving to another part of the incredibly detailed scenes-within -scenes wall length mural. I become aware of my squirrel brain looking for reasons why i can't relax. It takes me about 15 minutes to realize that I have a pretty high level of stress running in my body most of the time. I have come to this realization after reviewing every reason my brain runs at me for why I cannot relax and enjoy what is happening.

I think about where we have to be next?: nowhere actually. I think about, Äre my relationships with X ,Y, and Z safe?, Do I need to do any relationship maintenance?"the answer is No, Äll is Well". I think do I have any bodily needs to address? No. I think about PTSD and how I talk to my clients about unaddressed physical trauma keeping them hyper alert. I remember I am my own client and my own counselor. I start to breath and ground and do energy work again. The mural is helping me. I say to Jimbo "We are on vacation right?" and I can be as relaxed as I want for as long as i want right?"" he answers affirmatively. I am surprised to witness my own search for reasons to be stressed. SinterKlaus is coming at 2:30pm and it is now only 1:00pm. There is nothing to do and nowhere to go and i finally relax. Wow, it feels really really good.


Sinter Klaus
Now this is only a preview of "SinterKlaus; because this is where I am going to tell you what Jim and I experienced in the parade. The next post ( #6) will be some background on who SinterKlaus is, his mythology and some details of his story. I wanted to go to see SinterKlaus at first because it was in my Lonely Planet guide as a public event that occurs on the 3rd weekend of November. I then saw picture on posters and in store windows of SinterKlaus looking like a pope and these bizarre caricatures of black people in weird historical Dutch outfits. The outfits are (of usually only two) brightly contrasting colors: purple/yellow, or red/green . The hats are puffy round and then gathered around the head like a grandmother hat in fairy tale depictions of Little red Riding hood. The hats have feathers. The drawings are mostly cartoon like. I am immediately somewhat alarmed because this positioning of a white religious authority with cartoon distortions of black people could appear to be racist. The caricatures remind me of the Cartoon mascot of a native American that is the logo for the Cleveland Indians baseball team. This logo has disturbed me since I was 18 years old and is the source of an ongoing debate between my mother and I. Mom loves the Indians baseball team. She is very loyal.

So I have identified a political issue or two behind the lovely mixture of Christian Saint and pagan traditions that SinterKlaus is. I ask a lot of people about SinterKlaus. I talk to the Wild Side lesbians, I talk to Katie the sexologist, Jim and I talk to the owners of the Art Unlimited postcard store. Now Jim engages the help of a local family in unlocking the keys to who and why the Zwart Piets exist.

One of the great things about traveling with Jimbo

From Amsterdam

is that he will start talking to people next to us and ask them questions and 10 minutes later they are our friends and we have gotten a free lesson on Dutch culture of geography or politics. We stood next to this lovely heterosexual family with 2 children . The man was Dutch, the woman was from Mexico. Her sister and brother in law were there too. Her sister had just moved from Mexico but she has been here for 4 years. There are two boys one is about 4 and the other is maybe almost 2. Lovely. The little one is on his Dad's shoulders most of the time. The 4 year old is morphing various posies on the metal crowd control barrier the Police have set up in front of us. We are waiting for SinterKlaus and the Zwarte Piets. We wait for almost an hour before the parade begins. The parade goes on and on. When Jim and i sit down at a restaurant afterwards it is 4:45pm. During the waiting, we play with the kids and get the family history and Jim gets us a full blown education on SinterKlaus and the political implications of having white people wear black face and gold Imperial hoop earrings. Now what do I mean by Imperial earrings? I mean earrings just like those worn by people who were forced into slavery. I mean real historical Africans who were stolen from their homelands and shipped like possessions to the colonies of Imperialist countries where they were tortured and terrorized into being captive free labor for their oppressors.

Now that we are clear about the ambiguity and confusion the Zwarte Piets present back to the Parade. We are waiting, my knee hurts and so does my back. We are on uneven cobblestone streets pressed up against children and parents and other curious clueless tourist and we are all excited , we have that "what is about to happen?"anticipation. Jim and I start noticing, discussing and then taking pictures of children who are dressed as either SinterKlaus or Zwarte Piets. The children have costumes like those I described above and the ones playing Piets either have ashes rubbed on their faces or have a completely darkened face. We find this fascinating.

Above the Leidseplein Square where we are standing is a castle like building with a balcony. Suddenly in what seems to me to be an ear splitting volume, a man in red vest and white shirt is yelling into a mic about Are we ready for SinterKlaus. of course it is in Dutch but his questions and tome are unmistakable. have you been good or bad? Will the Piet's be giving you cookies or stuffing you into a sack? Good questions like that. He introduces the parade and keeps talking, introducing the parade sections as they come and go.
The parade has hundreds, no exaggeration here, hundreds, of Zwarte Piets, all either on Roller skates, on parade floats or marching in marching bands. The first hour of them do not have sacks with treats in them. There is a very well executed parade band which has a great s-curve spiral dance type marching formation. They stop in front of us to do thier dance piece. There outfits are half white and half black ( is this a reference to the Winter Equinox?). They are very good. All the other musicians ate Piets. There are a few and I mean less than 10 cars or non float vehicles in the parade. I do not understand the floats, one has a mammoth puppet on it that is ridden and driven by a Piet. One has a cannon that "works by shooting out candies". Why a cannon? Why a mammoth?

The second layer of Piets have sacks full of these little hard spice cookies. They have a special name I will look it up. It begins with a P__________.

The Piets now roller skate towards the children who are even more ferverently clinging to the metal crowd barriers. The kids are holding out hands, bags, and hats to get treats. Everyone is yelling Zwarte Piet, they start a refrain of Peit"s that make them sound like chirping birds waiting for worms. Next to us the mother from Mexico is doping her best to make sure everyone is having fun. She pushes my hand out to get the cookies. She grabs the flags when they come by and gives one to me. She is singing out and calling to the Peits and gosh darn is her kid getting a lot of cookies. She grabs the arms of the Piets and pulls them towards her for a few moments to flirt with and harass them . The initial moments of surprise or alarm the "Piet's have when they realize she is not letting go of their hands is entertaining. many of the Piet's although captured by the woman, flirt with Jim who is their height and hovering over myself and the other woman taking pictures. This is really a lot of fun.

The Zwarte Piets are all white people in black face makeup. It is startling that almost every one of them have intensely blue eyes. All of this Piet stuff goes on and on. I start to whine and say Where is SinterKlaus. The Piet's start to lead us in songs that every one else seem to know. They all sing along loudly and reward us with more cookies. Finally, Finally, I can see a guy in red on a white horse coming around the corner. There he is and he is beautiful. Long white beard and hair pope, I mean Saint hat, a golden crook and a speck less gorgeous white horse.
The parade is over and we rush off to find a place to pee and sit down. We end up in a Thai restaurant that is so so food wise and very very slow service wise, which was fine with us. When we leave we split up and I come to the houseboat to write postcards, ( better get on that, I did 26 and have 48 to go) and type this blog draft. Jim just got dressed and left for a night out in the Red District, Full report on that tomorrow.
Thanks for your interest in this blog and if you are reading it, why not post a comment so I can have feedback about the content and style of my writing.

I will come back to this post to put in missing info later on but for now, I got to get some sleep!