A friend came to town from India. We had a talk last night which reminded me of something I'd forgotten, yet remember now as if the event happened yesterday.
When I opened for Buffy Saint Marie nearly two years ago, I had the wind at my back. On my game vocally and creatively, the opportunity was offered by a venue with which I'd had quite a few past dealings. There was a little game of "I'll scratch yours" going on between the talent buyer and myself for a number of years and I saw the low pay he offered for this opening set as part of that deal. In fact, this $50 payment, which I gave to my guitarist, had nothing to do with why I wanted the gig. I wanted the gig for the access to Buffy.
This talent buyer knew I'd toured nationally and internationally. He also knew I had a rider which outlined common perks given to a touring musician, like meals and beverages, and he knew my rider included 100% of sales for my products being my own. I had been given no contract for this particular gig, trusting the parameters of respect as a professional to be extended to me even though I was the supporting act for this evening. Well, I was caught off-guard, to say the least.
I suppose recalling each grievance would be interesting for some, but I'm not inclined to this. I am inclined to say though that the lack of respect and dishonor to my professionalism was enough to cause me great discontent. So much so that I believe it may have been the last straw in determining my choice to change career direction as it relates to music. I know, for certain, I will never work for that organization again for less than twice what I usually get paid.
My friend from India reminded me how many in the audience sitting around her said they preferred my set to Buffy's. This is fun to hear, but not important to me. What is important is that 15 people came from my mailing list, paying $40.00 per ticket (plus online service charges), to watch me open for Buffy. I didn't help Buffy that night - her fee was guaranteed; but I helped that talent buyer and the disrespectful organization he works for "diss" another local professional singer/songwriter. This was a turning point in my feelings about the nature of the music industry and those who see people and their art as commodities - elements of commerce.
It's something I just can't stomach anymore.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Sunday, December 30, 2012
This Morning 12/29/12 Don't Rape
The death of the 23-year old student raped and brutally assaulted by six men on a moving bus in Delhi, India has shocked, grieved, and angered a nation of women and men enraged by the lack of "official" response to the overall issue of rape. In a country that reports a rape every 54 minutes, according to the State of the World Population Report, it is estimated that in actuality, 70% of rapes go unreported there. The devastating story of this one young woman's life and the circumstances of the attack and her eventual death have pushed the issue of violence against women in India into a necessary international dialogue of how it is societies can not only protect our women, but also expeditiously investigate and prosecute rapists.
The easier legal problem can be helped with the cooperation of victims (immediate reporting) and law enforcement (effective response times and education of response teams) so that policing can be fact-based and not belief-based. Further policy can be implemented so that criminal prosecution is broad-based in its definition of rape. Monetary rewards (and dowry issues in India) need to be removed from the equation so that motivation for false charges is minimized. Name-and-shame proposals, similar to Megan's law, can be somewhat preventive.
The higher order, more far-reaching, and most difficult aspect of this issue is protecting our women. I'm not talking about physical protection; I'm talking about how to change the attitude that has made it acceptable for rape to exist. In order to even talk about this subject, there has to be a discussion of the societal status of women.
We refer to women as a social grouping, a demographic, a constituency, and a special interest group as if they don't account for over 1/2 of the world's population. As such, women are the majority. In most governing bodies of the developed world, the majority rules where policy and legislation are concerned. Despite that women, by their majority, don't elect women as representatives, the fact that women are the most represented "constituency" of the population ought to impel priority of women's needs.
It is at the most basic level of societal influence - the laws by which a society is governed - which forms our ideas and ideals of how a functional society works. If the laws governing the protection of a segment of society are flaccid, then the citizens are given to assume the value of that segment as minimized. Women have been cast into a minimized value segment of society across cultures for at least a thousand years. In the context of industrialized societies, 300 years of agrarianism drove the stake between the value of women and the value of men. The importance of the family unit began to suffer at that point.
Women talk about rape. It is the subject by which we define whether we've been lucky in life or not. Depending on your resident country, you can be either very lucky or very unlucky. The following graphic is a very small sampling printed on the India Tribune website.
The easier legal problem can be helped with the cooperation of victims (immediate reporting) and law enforcement (effective response times and education of response teams) so that policing can be fact-based and not belief-based. Further policy can be implemented so that criminal prosecution is broad-based in its definition of rape. Monetary rewards (and dowry issues in India) need to be removed from the equation so that motivation for false charges is minimized. Name-and-shame proposals, similar to Megan's law, can be somewhat preventive.
The higher order, more far-reaching, and most difficult aspect of this issue is protecting our women. I'm not talking about physical protection; I'm talking about how to change the attitude that has made it acceptable for rape to exist. In order to even talk about this subject, there has to be a discussion of the societal status of women.
We refer to women as a social grouping, a demographic, a constituency, and a special interest group as if they don't account for over 1/2 of the world's population. As such, women are the majority. In most governing bodies of the developed world, the majority rules where policy and legislation are concerned. Despite that women, by their majority, don't elect women as representatives, the fact that women are the most represented "constituency" of the population ought to impel priority of women's needs.
It is at the most basic level of societal influence - the laws by which a society is governed - which forms our ideas and ideals of how a functional society works. If the laws governing the protection of a segment of society are flaccid, then the citizens are given to assume the value of that segment as minimized. Women have been cast into a minimized value segment of society across cultures for at least a thousand years. In the context of industrialized societies, 300 years of agrarianism drove the stake between the value of women and the value of men. The importance of the family unit began to suffer at that point.
Women talk about rape. It is the subject by which we define whether we've been lucky in life or not. Depending on your resident country, you can be either very lucky or very unlucky. The following graphic is a very small sampling printed on the India Tribune website.
Teaching our societies to not accept rape, just as we don't accept anarchy, involves education of our children and re-education of adults and our media. Showing or implying rape in any context must encourage ending the heinous act, not glorifying it as a right of passage like the American entertainment media seems to propagate.
We must stop teaching our women "don't get raped" and begin teaching our men "don't rape!"
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
This Morning 12/27/12 The Best Part
I have grown to understand why it is better to be silent sometimes, even if you know the answer. The process of discovery is as important a part of the journey as finding the answer.
It isn't always easy to watch someone (especially a son or daughter) wade through the mucky trenches of life's difficult lessons. To offer someone the answer to a situation they are struggling to resolve can rob them of important integration scars honestly earned by the digging and scratching and fighting for one's own truth.
The beauty - the best part - is watching the lights go on after the struggle has ceased and acceptance is palpable. Sometimes it is painful and sometimes it is joyful, but either way, the light going on - the illumination of one's truth - is a powerful, significant and necessary part of the living.
It isn't always easy to watch someone (especially a son or daughter) wade through the mucky trenches of life's difficult lessons. To offer someone the answer to a situation they are struggling to resolve can rob them of important integration scars honestly earned by the digging and scratching and fighting for one's own truth.
The beauty - the best part - is watching the lights go on after the struggle has ceased and acceptance is palpable. Sometimes it is painful and sometimes it is joyful, but either way, the light going on - the illumination of one's truth - is a powerful, significant and necessary part of the living.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
This Morning 12/25/12 The Ethereal Choir
The day is calling for creativity and this morning that means something other than words and computer screens! Today is the holiday and while presently alone in this house, gratefully, it will not last more than a little while. The instruments surrounding this living room - banjo, mandolin, piano, guitar, dulcimer, drums, flutes - ethereally form a choir of beckoning voices which will not be silent until they are heard audibly.
Monday, December 24, 2012
This Morning 12/24/12 Hobbit Overkill Under Scores
Some stories are greater than the sum of their parts. Some parts stand alone from the greater story. The former is true of the first part of the trilogy,"The Hobbit," playing in theaters across the country. Parts two and three are now in post-production.
Directed by Peter Jackson of "Lord of the Rings" trilogy fame, the same sprawling New Zealand landscapes, symbolism (large winged birds, swords, weird creatures), and even the same Wizard (Ian McKellen) keep us hooked in the story line even though the path to the ending seems a bit amorphous. The characters have a shocked look about them at times and, dare I say, they seem a bit bored or embarrassed at the entire endeavor. It's almost as if the cast (and maybe Jackson, who can't resist the paycheck) is wondering why they are beating this thing to death. But, there it is.
We really have seen more than enough of this type of story in the last ten years to last a lifetime. Between Harry Potter and this, I'm getting a bit annoyed at spending money for the same old themes and screen look. In fact, I would be happy if Hollywood would stop making these epic films, parts ad nauseum.
Yet another example previewed on the theater screen while waiting for the feature - a new Star Trek film is due to release in 2013. Its subtitle is "Into Darkness." Please, can someone turn this entire series "into the darkness" and just hit fast forward until it flies out of human imagination's reach!
While I skeptically (and almost resentfully!) look forward to parts two and three of the Hobbit trilogy, I will prepare myself to see each part as a just that - a fragment of the entire story which when pieced together, as Tolkien intended, will stand much taller, one on top of the others.
Directed by Peter Jackson of "Lord of the Rings" trilogy fame, the same sprawling New Zealand landscapes, symbolism (large winged birds, swords, weird creatures), and even the same Wizard (Ian McKellen) keep us hooked in the story line even though the path to the ending seems a bit amorphous. The characters have a shocked look about them at times and, dare I say, they seem a bit bored or embarrassed at the entire endeavor. It's almost as if the cast (and maybe Jackson, who can't resist the paycheck) is wondering why they are beating this thing to death. But, there it is.
We really have seen more than enough of this type of story in the last ten years to last a lifetime. Between Harry Potter and this, I'm getting a bit annoyed at spending money for the same old themes and screen look. In fact, I would be happy if Hollywood would stop making these epic films, parts ad nauseum.
Yet another example previewed on the theater screen while waiting for the feature - a new Star Trek film is due to release in 2013. Its subtitle is "Into Darkness." Please, can someone turn this entire series "into the darkness" and just hit fast forward until it flies out of human imagination's reach!
While I skeptically (and almost resentfully!) look forward to parts two and three of the Hobbit trilogy, I will prepare myself to see each part as a just that - a fragment of the entire story which when pieced together, as Tolkien intended, will stand much taller, one on top of the others.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
This Morning 12/22/12 Holiday Ho-Hum
It's not the best time of the year for me. First, it's cold. Second, Christian religious traditions aren't very interesting to me. Third, I deplore commercialism. Christmas is a three strikes event. I admit there is a tiny bit of nostalgia which springs more from habit than anything. If I lived where the weather is warm, I would not even notice the Christmas thing.
The problem with my "holiday ho-hum" is the expectation accompanying the holiday stuff. Gift-giving is still being practiced in my family, but fortunately the X-mas tree in my house is a thing of the past. I think my kids got the idea when one year, instead of spending $25 to buy one, I painted a tree on a sheet and hung it on the wall. (I've always encouraged creativity!) Thank goodness greeting cards have given way to email! That saves a ton of time and energy. I admit I am engaging in one tradition of sorts. I wrote a letter this year - one of those "year in review" types. It's great fun to write a synopsis of the year. Deciding what is important, what is not. Dissecting how and what I want to say, and what I would rather keep private.
This past year has been all about successfully embracing change. My identity has shifted majorly from independent artiste to adult student in public health, my employment situation has shifted twice, I graduated from one institution of higher learning and enrolled in another, my hair is highlighted with long strands of unpigmented silvery white, I've lived alone for the first time in over two decades, and I'm clearly not willing to settle for a love relationship just to have one! It's been a good year in many ways.
The holiday ho-hum is always brightened, nonetheless, by the music not shared at any other time of the year. This, to me, is the holiday's greatest gift. No matter how nontraditional I can be, there are few things that give me as much joy as singing Christmas Carols with my sister, my daughter, my mother or other friends who are good singers! That, in fact, is where the ho-hum takes a hike!
Last night, at a friend's annual holiday party, I sang carols with a few dear people to me - a "hunka" sister (adopted in heart and spirit), and an old musician friend who has a wonderful baritone voice. Our spontaneous in-the-kitchen festive sing-a-long was the highlight of my evening.
More singing will glisten the next few nights until the lights go out on this holiday and we put away the songs for another year. Ho - Hum, I guess I'll just have to hum my way through the ho-ho-ho!
The problem with my "holiday ho-hum" is the expectation accompanying the holiday stuff. Gift-giving is still being practiced in my family, but fortunately the X-mas tree in my house is a thing of the past. I think my kids got the idea when one year, instead of spending $25 to buy one, I painted a tree on a sheet and hung it on the wall. (I've always encouraged creativity!) Thank goodness greeting cards have given way to email! That saves a ton of time and energy. I admit I am engaging in one tradition of sorts. I wrote a letter this year - one of those "year in review" types. It's great fun to write a synopsis of the year. Deciding what is important, what is not. Dissecting how and what I want to say, and what I would rather keep private.
This past year has been all about successfully embracing change. My identity has shifted majorly from independent artiste to adult student in public health, my employment situation has shifted twice, I graduated from one institution of higher learning and enrolled in another, my hair is highlighted with long strands of unpigmented silvery white, I've lived alone for the first time in over two decades, and I'm clearly not willing to settle for a love relationship just to have one! It's been a good year in many ways.
The holiday ho-hum is always brightened, nonetheless, by the music not shared at any other time of the year. This, to me, is the holiday's greatest gift. No matter how nontraditional I can be, there are few things that give me as much joy as singing Christmas Carols with my sister, my daughter, my mother or other friends who are good singers! That, in fact, is where the ho-hum takes a hike!
Last night, at a friend's annual holiday party, I sang carols with a few dear people to me - a "hunka" sister (adopted in heart and spirit), and an old musician friend who has a wonderful baritone voice. Our spontaneous in-the-kitchen festive sing-a-long was the highlight of my evening.
More singing will glisten the next few nights until the lights go out on this holiday and we put away the songs for another year. Ho - Hum, I guess I'll just have to hum my way through the ho-ho-ho!
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
This Morning 12/19/12 Which Side?
The Solstice on 21 December is coming and people are gathering either for the renewal or for the rapture. Which side are you on?
The fading of the darkening light will give way to gravity turning and pulling earth's Northern Hemisphere toward the Sun, pushing the Southern Hemisphere away.
Which side are you on?
Heavy hearts will remember times past and either cry in sorrow or laugh in joy?
Which side are you on?
The choice of how we interpret each moment is either ours or our predecessor's.
Which side are you on?
The fading of the darkening light will give way to gravity turning and pulling earth's Northern Hemisphere toward the Sun, pushing the Southern Hemisphere away.
Which side are you on?
Heavy hearts will remember times past and either cry in sorrow or laugh in joy?
Which side are you on?
The choice of how we interpret each moment is either ours or our predecessor's.
Which side are you on?
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
This Morning 12/18/12 Abandonment
In the wake of all these arguments
What is it like to be 22?
I don't remember anything
Only that I wrote
The journals I scribbled
Everyday
Urgently documenting
Every thought
Feeling
Judgment
Excruciating realization
Was I really that important to myself?
Abandonment
Triggers
Distortion
Of reality
Of thought
Of emotion
Of interpretation
Of compassion
Of connection
Of hope
Trigger...
That which
When pulled
Can kill
Or maim
Or cripple
Even the threat of
The trigger
The abandonment
Distorts
I think I remember
Now
What is it like to be 22?
I don't remember anything
Only that I wrote
The journals I scribbled
Everyday
Urgently documenting
Every thought
Feeling
Judgment
Excruciating realization
Was I really that important to myself?
Abandonment
Triggers
Distortion
Of reality
Of thought
Of emotion
Of interpretation
Of compassion
Of connection
Of hope
Trigger...
That which
When pulled
Can kill
Or maim
Or cripple
Even the threat of
The trigger
The abandonment
Distorts
I think I remember
Now
Sunday, December 16, 2012
This Morning (2) 12/16/12 The Children and the Boy
The Children have been massacred in Newtown CT. Twenty first graders shot and killed at point blank range, 3-7 times each, in one classroom. Six teachers, all women, shot and killed. A 20-year old boy, once a chid with dreams, then shot and killed himself to flee the reality. Before this boy massacred the Children and teachers, he shot and killed his own mother. He used his mother's own gun to kill.
There is no explanation or sense of "reason" that could ever explain this carnage. But we try. I will try. Probably though, I will fail miserably and miss the mark completely. That's okay though. At least I will try.
The boy's parents divorced a few years ago. The boy's father has a new family. The boy had a mother who drank at a bar (according to reports of the bartender) three times a week. The boy was socially awkward. The boy's only brother lived two hours away. The boy was alone. The mother had guns in the house and loved guns. The boy shot guns with his mother. The boy was brought up around this and accepted guns as part of life. Guns kill. The boy was angry about something. The boy was lonely. The boy felt abandoned. The boy had a "split" inside himself. The boy couldn't take it anymore. The boy felt powerless. The boy felt desperate. The boy wanted out. The boy couldn't control himself or his thoughts. Or his actions.
The Children are sacred.
The Children are sacred.
The Children are sacred.
The Children are sacred.
The Children were Children.
The teachers sacrificed themselves in protection of The Children.
The teachers did the very best they could do.
And all we can do is watch and cry and try to explain.
There is no explanation or sense of "reason" that could ever explain this carnage. But we try. I will try. Probably though, I will fail miserably and miss the mark completely. That's okay though. At least I will try.
The boy's parents divorced a few years ago. The boy's father has a new family. The boy had a mother who drank at a bar (according to reports of the bartender) three times a week. The boy was socially awkward. The boy's only brother lived two hours away. The boy was alone. The mother had guns in the house and loved guns. The boy shot guns with his mother. The boy was brought up around this and accepted guns as part of life. Guns kill. The boy was angry about something. The boy was lonely. The boy felt abandoned. The boy had a "split" inside himself. The boy couldn't take it anymore. The boy felt powerless. The boy felt desperate. The boy wanted out. The boy couldn't control himself or his thoughts. Or his actions.
The Children are sacred.
The Children are sacred.
The Children are sacred.
The Children are sacred.
The Children were Children.
The teachers sacrificed themselves in protection of The Children.
The teachers did the very best they could do.
And all we can do is watch and cry and try to explain.
This Morning 12/16/12 Facing the Back Here
For several months, it has been nearly impossible to find the time or energy to write every morning, as is my commitment. Job transitions, identity issues related to returning to college, family crises, and the burden of coursework worth 16 credits has engulfed every cell of my being. However, now, I have passed into a time of rest. The semester has ended with respectable grades, my new job is going well, and the family issues seem to be leaning toward clarity. Now, I'm back!
Facing the back here simply means that I can now again, every morning, begin the day writing. The commitment to my life from which this writing "place" began has been secured. And yet, I still need to work on some writing. I also need to play piano and sing! Can someone please slow down the years so I can get all these things accomplished!?!
Facing the back here simply means that I can now again, every morning, begin the day writing. The commitment to my life from which this writing "place" began has been secured. And yet, I still need to work on some writing. I also need to play piano and sing! Can someone please slow down the years so I can get all these things accomplished!?!
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
This Morning 12 - 12- 12 The Sacred Triune
I came across this very close to 12:12AM on the day of sacred triune: 12-12-12. That is today.
I don't believe in hocus-pocus or woo woo or any of that, as a rule. I believe in what the sacred Earth has revealed to me through her majestic beauty and the relatives who share it. Sometimes these things have been of another nature of reality than what is commonly perceived. I am blessed to recognize my lack of understanding doesn't trump the existence of what I experience.
Upon that, I share this, and wish you all that is sacred, today and always.
The Cathar's Creed of 1244
(Remembered; for its time has come)
It has no membership, save those who know they belong.
It has no rivals because it is non competitive.
It has no ambition - it seeks only to serve.
It knows no boundaries, for nationalisms are unloving.
It is not of itself because it seeks to enrich all groups and religions.
It acknowledges all great teachers of all the ages who have shown the truth of love.
Those who participate, practice the truth of love in all their being.
There is no walk of life or nationality that is a barrier.
Those who are, know.
It seeks not to teach, but to be, and by being, enriched.
It recognizes that the way we are may be the way of those around us because we are
that way.
It recognizes the whole planet as a being of which we are a part.
It recognizes that the time has come for the supreme transmutation, the ultimate
alchemical act of conscious change of the ego in to a voluntary return to the whole.
It does not proclaim itself with a loud voice, but in the subtle realms of loving.
It salutes all those in the past who have blazoned the path, but have paid the price.
It admits no hierarchy or structure, for no one is greater than another.
Its members shall know each other by their deeds and being, and by their eyes and
by no other outward sign, save the fraternal embrace.
Each one will dedicate their life to the silent loving of their neighbour and environment,
and the planet, will carry out their task, however exalted or humble.
It recognizes the supremacy of the great idea, which may only be accomplished if
the human race practices the supremacy of love.
It has no reward to offer, either here or in the hereafter, save that of the ineffable
joy of being and loving.
Each shall seek to advance the cause of understanding, doing good by stealth and
teaching only by example.
They shall heal their neighbour, their community, our planet and living beings in
whatever form they take.
They shall know no fear and feel no shame and their witness shall prevail over all
odds.
It has no secret, no Arcanum (mystery), no initiation, save that of true understanding
of the power of love and that, if we want it to be so, the world will change, but
only if we change.
All who belong, belong; they belong to the Church of Love.
I don't believe in hocus-pocus or woo woo or any of that, as a rule. I believe in what the sacred Earth has revealed to me through her majestic beauty and the relatives who share it. Sometimes these things have been of another nature of reality than what is commonly perceived. I am blessed to recognize my lack of understanding doesn't trump the existence of what I experience.
Upon that, I share this, and wish you all that is sacred, today and always.
The Cathar's Creed of 1244
(Remembered; for its time has come)
It has no membership, save those who know they belong.
It has no rivals because it is non competitive.
It has no ambition - it seeks only to serve.
It knows no boundaries, for nationalisms are unloving.
It is not of itself because it seeks to enrich all groups and religions.
It acknowledges all great teachers of all the ages who have shown the truth of love.
Those who participate, practice the truth of love in all their being.
There is no walk of life or nationality that is a barrier.
Those who are, know.
It seeks not to teach, but to be, and by being, enriched.
It recognizes that the way we are may be the way of those around us because we are
that way.
It recognizes the whole planet as a being of which we are a part.
It recognizes that the time has come for the supreme transmutation, the ultimate
alchemical act of conscious change of the ego in to a voluntary return to the whole.
It does not proclaim itself with a loud voice, but in the subtle realms of loving.
It salutes all those in the past who have blazoned the path, but have paid the price.
It admits no hierarchy or structure, for no one is greater than another.
Its members shall know each other by their deeds and being, and by their eyes and
by no other outward sign, save the fraternal embrace.
Each one will dedicate their life to the silent loving of their neighbour and environment,
and the planet, will carry out their task, however exalted or humble.
It recognizes the supremacy of the great idea, which may only be accomplished if
the human race practices the supremacy of love.
It has no reward to offer, either here or in the hereafter, save that of the ineffable
joy of being and loving.
Each shall seek to advance the cause of understanding, doing good by stealth and
teaching only by example.
They shall heal their neighbour, their community, our planet and living beings in
whatever form they take.
They shall know no fear and feel no shame and their witness shall prevail over all
odds.
It has no secret, no Arcanum (mystery), no initiation, save that of true understanding
of the power of love and that, if we want it to be so, the world will change, but
only if we change.
All who belong, belong; they belong to the Church of Love.
Monday, November 26, 2012
This Morning 11/26/12 Basic Good Advice
How do you overcome trauma?
Answering a question like this could take years. It also could take a few seconds. This depends on who you are asking. If variables are x'd out of the equation - what kind of trauma?, how long ago?, what has been attempted to overcome it so far? - bare bones answers can actually present viable, helpful options.
Absent subjective details, the application of basic good advice can provide not only a springboard for recovery from trauma, but also a road map for continued maintenance of memories and feelings.
Good advice is something you can apply to many areas of your life. Good advice has roots in experience and wisdom. Good advice can be used indefinitely and still yield positive results repeatedly. This is the primary reason why elders exist. Without them, basic good advice would be a lost resource!
Here is some basic good advice from a few sources:
From Kurt Vonnegut:
"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'"
From a bumper sticker:
"Don't believe everything you think."
From Robert Frost:
"In three words I can summarize all I've learned about life: It goes on!"
From Julia Child:
"Moderation....in everything."
From Peter Seeger:
"'Do so' is more important than 'say so.'"
From Willa Cather:
"There are some things you can learn best in calm, and some in storm."
From Grampa Harry:
"Think twice, speak once."
From Maya Angelou:
"Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayers."
From Ralph Waldo Emerson:
"Finish each day and be done with it."
From Anonymous:
"Do what makes you happy and be loving."
Answering a question like this could take years. It also could take a few seconds. This depends on who you are asking. If variables are x'd out of the equation - what kind of trauma?, how long ago?, what has been attempted to overcome it so far? - bare bones answers can actually present viable, helpful options.
Absent subjective details, the application of basic good advice can provide not only a springboard for recovery from trauma, but also a road map for continued maintenance of memories and feelings.
Good advice is something you can apply to many areas of your life. Good advice has roots in experience and wisdom. Good advice can be used indefinitely and still yield positive results repeatedly. This is the primary reason why elders exist. Without them, basic good advice would be a lost resource!
Here is some basic good advice from a few sources:
From Kurt Vonnegut:
"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'"
From a bumper sticker:
"Don't believe everything you think."
From Robert Frost:
"In three words I can summarize all I've learned about life: It goes on!"
From Julia Child:
"Moderation....in everything."
From Peter Seeger:
"'Do so' is more important than 'say so.'"
From Willa Cather:
"There are some things you can learn best in calm, and some in storm."
From Grampa Harry:
"Think twice, speak once."
From Maya Angelou:
"Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayers."
From Ralph Waldo Emerson:
"Finish each day and be done with it."
From Anonymous:
"Do what makes you happy and be loving."
Friday, November 23, 2012
This Morning 11/23/12 Sugar Blue and the Crash
The Thanksgiving holiday is a day of gratitude and appreciation for our "blessings," but also a selfish opportunity to stuff ourselves silly with unnecessary indulgences! Most people who plan to eat dinner around mid-afternoon usually have breakfast and skip lunch knowing the 2:00 hour will bring a plethora of palette-packing traditional fare and libations with stomach room enough throughout the 5:00 hour for 2nd's and 3rd's if they keep up a steady, but slow-paced rhythm of soup, turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and cranberries. My research indicates the average Thanksgiving meal contains between 3,000 and 5,000 calories! That's ONE MEAL!
Then, comes dessert. This is the part of the meal where the word "stuffing" really applies! Pumpkin pie, pecan pie, apple pie, cheescake - all are common, delectable offerings. The sugar count for each slice sits at 21g, 31g, 15g, and 17g respectively and the calories on average: 316, 503, 222, and 257. This doesn't include whipped cream, which is negligible in comparison!
So when the Crash comes after the tryptophan in the turkey kicks in and the blood sugar level drops 30 stories a half hour after dessert, don't be worried. All will stabilize in a day or two.
I recommend some cinnamon tea or oatmeal with cinnamon to help the glucose levels stabilize and also, a good, long walk the day after. Get some fresh air and enjoy some movement! Your body will thank you and it will help clear your head of any unnecessary mental gyrations that accompany a day of too much grateful indulgence!
Then, comes dessert. This is the part of the meal where the word "stuffing" really applies! Pumpkin pie, pecan pie, apple pie, cheescake - all are common, delectable offerings. The sugar count for each slice sits at 21g, 31g, 15g, and 17g respectively and the calories on average: 316, 503, 222, and 257. This doesn't include whipped cream, which is negligible in comparison!
So when the Crash comes after the tryptophan in the turkey kicks in and the blood sugar level drops 30 stories a half hour after dessert, don't be worried. All will stabilize in a day or two.
I recommend some cinnamon tea or oatmeal with cinnamon to help the glucose levels stabilize and also, a good, long walk the day after. Get some fresh air and enjoy some movement! Your body will thank you and it will help clear your head of any unnecessary mental gyrations that accompany a day of too much grateful indulgence!
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
This Morning 11/22/12 Friends
Open hearts need no words...
exposure is such a beautiful thing!
(sentiment written to a friend when words can't be found, and aren't necessary)
This Morning 11/21/12 Ones and Twos
Today's date is all one's and two's - the digital language. I begin another beginning today as I take on a new position at a holistic health school. I feel little nervous, but the good kind of nervous! It's kind of like I'm writing a new program for my life - or at least the next couple of years. Auspiciously, the one's and two's in today's date remind me that I write the "program."
Buck up!
Buck up!
Monday, November 19, 2012
This Morning 11/19/12 What Day is Today?
It's good to wake up and realize it's only the nineteenth day of the November. I count the calendar as a major tool of stress reduction.
When it gets into the the third week of any given month, the cortisol begins to discharge more often into my bloodstream. Cortisol is good for regulating glucose levels and blood pressure, and monitoring immune function. However, when emotions are high and our fight-or-flight mechanism is being activated too often, these conditions kick up cortisol production which impairs cognitive function, raises blood pressure and ultimately lowers immune response and the ability to fight off disease.
According to a 2007 APA (American Psychological Association) survey, 20% of the people surveyed are experiencing high stress fifteen days of the month. In other studies by the NIOSH (National Institue for Occupational Safety and Health), a full 40-50% of study participants reported high stress work conditions. Although I could find no secondary data to support it, I would bet that the first and last weeks of any given month are most common times for high stress symptoms. With rent, mortgages, and other bills commonly due during these weeks, the dreaded juggling of finances kicks in, and stress kicks up.
These are normal trends in the U.S. We in the workforce expect to be stressed at our jobs and in our lives. Conditions in other developed countries are not quite the same though. With our European counterparts getting up to six weeks off per year from work - paid! - and generous allowances for illness and maternity leave, the U.S. is operating at standards more on par with the Industrial Age than the Digital Age. While these trends are considered normal here, they are not acceptable.
Taking personal control of stress is, at this point, the best solution. Whatever that means for you is something that must be addressed. Whether getting more sleep, turning off the TV, journaling, exercise, meditation, or taking short walks between "duties" at work and home, the only way to manage stress is to face it straight on and put it in its place!
As for me, I am doing homework today and putting my calendar in order so that I can schedule some de-stressing activities!
When it gets into the the third week of any given month, the cortisol begins to discharge more often into my bloodstream. Cortisol is good for regulating glucose levels and blood pressure, and monitoring immune function. However, when emotions are high and our fight-or-flight mechanism is being activated too often, these conditions kick up cortisol production which impairs cognitive function, raises blood pressure and ultimately lowers immune response and the ability to fight off disease.
According to a 2007 APA (American Psychological Association) survey, 20% of the people surveyed are experiencing high stress fifteen days of the month. In other studies by the NIOSH (National Institue for Occupational Safety and Health), a full 40-50% of study participants reported high stress work conditions. Although I could find no secondary data to support it, I would bet that the first and last weeks of any given month are most common times for high stress symptoms. With rent, mortgages, and other bills commonly due during these weeks, the dreaded juggling of finances kicks in, and stress kicks up.
These are normal trends in the U.S. We in the workforce expect to be stressed at our jobs and in our lives. Conditions in other developed countries are not quite the same though. With our European counterparts getting up to six weeks off per year from work - paid! - and generous allowances for illness and maternity leave, the U.S. is operating at standards more on par with the Industrial Age than the Digital Age. While these trends are considered normal here, they are not acceptable.
Taking personal control of stress is, at this point, the best solution. Whatever that means for you is something that must be addressed. Whether getting more sleep, turning off the TV, journaling, exercise, meditation, or taking short walks between "duties" at work and home, the only way to manage stress is to face it straight on and put it in its place!
As for me, I am doing homework today and putting my calendar in order so that I can schedule some de-stressing activities!
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
This Morning 11/14/12 Eyes Barely Open
What is this insatiable drive to move forward? This constant knocking or ticking or more appropriately, this song that won't stop singing.
Once in a while
Breath comes easily
And goes easily
No crowding of molecules
As if a bottleneck of traffic
Rushes down the windpipe
(horns blowing)
No gulping and choking
As if it were the last car
Gasping and sputtering
(running out of gas)
Racing toward the lungs
(all that space)
Diving toward the heart
(keep the ticker going)
No, sometimes the pace
Calms
The wheels
Crawl
The air
Softens
The eyes
See
Open
No.
Not now
Now
Rushing wind
Keeps these
Eyes
Barely open
This song just won't stop
Singing
Sunday, November 11, 2012
This Morning 11/12/12 Margaret Mead: The Invention of War
The rationalization for war,
according to Margaret Mead in her 1940 article, Warfare is only an invention – not a biological necessity, is an invention of mankind and, specifically, of cultures
who have created applied value to the meaning of war. In the United States, war heroes are
romanticized in movies and books, toys mimicking weapons are given to children,
and prestige and “manliness” become instantly acquired traits once one conscripts
into military service.
We can understand
Mead’s arguments by allowing for her anthropological, thereby
constructivist, approach. Countering
claims that humankind is biologically aggressive or socially inclined to war,
Mead cites indigenous cultures such as the Eskimos (Inuit) and Pueblos (Hopi)
as having clearly cultivated more congruent institutional alternatives that
define conflict resolution outside of warlike contexts. Mead challenges us to change “the idea of war as a
solution to conflict;” instead adopting a new, more congruent “invention” based
on institutions and feelings of this period.
The gross injustice and status quo understanding of war as an acceptable solution to conflict between international actors disallows for evolutionary development naturally occurring as an outgrowth of the zero sum game witnessed repeatedly in killing fields. The Cold War cemented multilateral international efforts at avoiding conflict (the stakes were too high with nuclear warheads pointed simultaneously at Washington and Moscow), but since 1991, despite contrived diplomatic posturing in service of states' appearances, the option of war is too often exercised.
It is time to remove this dated and primarily dysfunctional construct and design a way to humanely reconstruct our thinking. "War is not good for children and other living things" was the slogan for the 1967 Mother's Day campaign spawned by the anti-Vietnam War grassroots group, Another Mother for Peace. A modern-day equivalent can be found in Mead's missive: "War is just a tired invention. Let's try something smarter!"
Friday, November 9, 2012
This Morning 11/9/12 Changing Pressure
Pressure to change is big for me. Sitting in a bastion of options and dissatisfaction spells "Go for it!" I'm not one of those "hang in there" people like the poster from the 80's with the orange kitty dangling by one arm. I should clarify though.
I will hang in there when the endgame is worth the wait, the pressure, and the difficulties inherent in situations like scholastic achievement, learning an instrument, fitness pursuits, and reading a book. But give me a job dealing with rude people, and the endgame loses its sheen. I can rarely do anything long term just for the money.
Relationships are similarly...and sadly...in this category. I can rarely do anything long term just for the love. And if love gets lost in the process, or takes a hike for awhile, forget it! I'm out of there!
There is one huge caveat though.
Communication. I don't like guessing or reading into people's moods or responses. Clarity - of self and with others - is my lightening rod to interrelationships. Without it, contempt takes over. Relationships are ruined once contempt enters the picture. They can be put back together, but to do so involves great change and healing of old wounds within the relationship.
Lately, there is tremendous pressure to change. Even the winds agree.
I will hang in there when the endgame is worth the wait, the pressure, and the difficulties inherent in situations like scholastic achievement, learning an instrument, fitness pursuits, and reading a book. But give me a job dealing with rude people, and the endgame loses its sheen. I can rarely do anything long term just for the money.
Relationships are similarly...and sadly...in this category. I can rarely do anything long term just for the love. And if love gets lost in the process, or takes a hike for awhile, forget it! I'm out of there!
There is one huge caveat though.
Communication. I don't like guessing or reading into people's moods or responses. Clarity - of self and with others - is my lightening rod to interrelationships. Without it, contempt takes over. Relationships are ruined once contempt enters the picture. They can be put back together, but to do so involves great change and healing of old wounds within the relationship.
Lately, there is tremendous pressure to change. Even the winds agree.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
This Morning 11/6/12 Rich White Guy Loses to Skinny Bi-Racial Dude
Obama won his re-election bid for POTUS.
He won the "battleground" states of PA, OH, VA, FL, CO, NH and WI, with close percentage points in VA, OH and FL, but the margins elsewhere were decidedly an Obama majority.
So, what does it mean?
Beside the opportunity to institute Healthcare reform in the U.S., which has been the most important overall campaign goal of this administration, the ending of the U.S. military occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan will be welcomed changes in Obama's second term. Redirecting all that military funding into domestic social programs would mean helping more of the 99% to empower themselves and getting the economy back into a positive slope.
As for the title of this piece - Rich White Guy Loses to Skinny Bi-Racial Dude - it is a wink and nod to a recent article I've read. Martha Finnemore, author of The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs About the Use of Force, references the changing face of social norms regarding humanitarianism, human rights and sovereignty issues as shaping the public's normative contexts concerning rights and duties. Overall, she argues, a change in the attitudes about these issues will tend to extend into behaviors of State's (meaning country's) political and State's population's behaviors. Hence...
The re-election of Barack Obama, a half-white, half-African man raised by his low-middle class grandparents instead of electing a rich white capitalist businessman speaks volumes about what is now important to the American electorate. We cannot talk about the problem of wealth disparity in this country and elect a man who has never walked into a grocery store to buy his own food!
Symbolically, the minority black youth defeating the distant white conservative is a metaphor for the ushering of new ideas and norms of identification by the U.S. populace. We are now more willing to allow the construct of "difference" to be representative of our ideals. This change in perception is meaningful. The black-skinned man, once a symbol of something less-than human, not worthy of human rights, or perceived with fear and associated with gangs, has been given the confidence again to represent our country more coherently than the white guy. It is what we are more comfortable with. This victory is somehow more purposeful than the original election of Barack Obama four years ago.
Further enforcing this paradigm shift is the subject of gay marriage, on the ballots of four states, which appears to be passing into law in several. As well, an openly gay woman has been chosen for the U.S. Senate in Wisconsin. These are examples of historical norms fading into extinction.
These shifting norms, evidenced in this election, can give us real hope that Finnemore's theories about social liberalism are having an effect that tastes much sweeter than anything a rich guy's money can buy.
He won the "battleground" states of PA, OH, VA, FL, CO, NH and WI, with close percentage points in VA, OH and FL, but the margins elsewhere were decidedly an Obama majority.
So, what does it mean?
Beside the opportunity to institute Healthcare reform in the U.S., which has been the most important overall campaign goal of this administration, the ending of the U.S. military occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan will be welcomed changes in Obama's second term. Redirecting all that military funding into domestic social programs would mean helping more of the 99% to empower themselves and getting the economy back into a positive slope.
As for the title of this piece - Rich White Guy Loses to Skinny Bi-Racial Dude - it is a wink and nod to a recent article I've read. Martha Finnemore, author of The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs About the Use of Force, references the changing face of social norms regarding humanitarianism, human rights and sovereignty issues as shaping the public's normative contexts concerning rights and duties. Overall, she argues, a change in the attitudes about these issues will tend to extend into behaviors of State's (meaning country's) political and State's population's behaviors. Hence...
The re-election of Barack Obama, a half-white, half-African man raised by his low-middle class grandparents instead of electing a rich white capitalist businessman speaks volumes about what is now important to the American electorate. We cannot talk about the problem of wealth disparity in this country and elect a man who has never walked into a grocery store to buy his own food!
Symbolically, the minority black youth defeating the distant white conservative is a metaphor for the ushering of new ideas and norms of identification by the U.S. populace. We are now more willing to allow the construct of "difference" to be representative of our ideals. This change in perception is meaningful. The black-skinned man, once a symbol of something less-than human, not worthy of human rights, or perceived with fear and associated with gangs, has been given the confidence again to represent our country more coherently than the white guy. It is what we are more comfortable with. This victory is somehow more purposeful than the original election of Barack Obama four years ago.
Further enforcing this paradigm shift is the subject of gay marriage, on the ballots of four states, which appears to be passing into law in several. As well, an openly gay woman has been chosen for the U.S. Senate in Wisconsin. These are examples of historical norms fading into extinction.
These shifting norms, evidenced in this election, can give us real hope that Finnemore's theories about social liberalism are having an effect that tastes much sweeter than anything a rich guy's money can buy.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
This Morning 11/4/12 The Smiling Disparity Gods
My own bed was a sanctuary last night as I finally returned from four days of the gypsy's life sleeping over at friend's houses, eating out of a shopping bag of food kept in my car, and buying morning coffee at the local cafe. The electric power returned to C--- and my road is back on the grid burning its share of coal, or nuclear fuel, or one of the many other destructive, idiotic ways this part of town generates power to feed millions of homes with Franklin, Volta, and Faraday's crowning jewel. Someday, I will have solar panels and a windmill!
While I was a refugee of the storm's destruction I stayed in the guest rooms of friends empowered with the gift of either a generator or - as the real estate agents say - location, location, location! The generator is a manifestation of self-sufficiency and experience. Is location a manifestation of luck or neighborhood? I'm not sure, but either way, at both places, I sat in the smile of the disparity gods. In other words, my friends are wealthy, and I benefited from that.
Disparity is disproportion, divergence and difference in material worth. The word is often used as general terminology to reference the wealth extremes which plague the world's populations. Disparity is the reason for the Occupy Wall Street movement. Mostly, it is considered a bad thing. Disparity smiled on me these last few days though.
My friends have guest rooms (code for a room which used to be kid's room) nicer than some hotels I've been to. Actually, nicer than most hotels I have been to! Decorative pillows and not a spot of dust on the floor. Perfectly arranged vanities and tissue boxes within reach of the bed. Walls painted neutral colors with matching window dressings and bedspreads. Even the bathroom had a fresh candle, heat lamp and a large bathtub into which I plunged in silence and repose.
Yes, the disparity gods smiled on me and, for once, I could not feel angry at two people living in a house with more than enough rooms for four families on the Indian reservations of South Dakota.
In fact, it is the only time when the disparity gods smile; when those more fortunate help those less so.
While I was a refugee of the storm's destruction I stayed in the guest rooms of friends empowered with the gift of either a generator or - as the real estate agents say - location, location, location! The generator is a manifestation of self-sufficiency and experience. Is location a manifestation of luck or neighborhood? I'm not sure, but either way, at both places, I sat in the smile of the disparity gods. In other words, my friends are wealthy, and I benefited from that.
Disparity is disproportion, divergence and difference in material worth. The word is often used as general terminology to reference the wealth extremes which plague the world's populations. Disparity is the reason for the Occupy Wall Street movement. Mostly, it is considered a bad thing. Disparity smiled on me these last few days though.
My friends have guest rooms (code for a room which used to be kid's room) nicer than some hotels I've been to. Actually, nicer than most hotels I have been to! Decorative pillows and not a spot of dust on the floor. Perfectly arranged vanities and tissue boxes within reach of the bed. Walls painted neutral colors with matching window dressings and bedspreads. Even the bathroom had a fresh candle, heat lamp and a large bathtub into which I plunged in silence and repose.
Yes, the disparity gods smiled on me and, for once, I could not feel angry at two people living in a house with more than enough rooms for four families on the Indian reservations of South Dakota.
In fact, it is the only time when the disparity gods smile; when those more fortunate help those less so.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
This Morning 11/1/12 Storm First, Then Right the Wrongs
A metaphor is in order. The intense, predicted and devastating storm, Hurricane Sandy, has ripped open the infrastructure of the most powerful city in the world - New York. The entire transportation system is closed down; bridges and tunnels, subways and buses closed to operations, the trading floor on Wall Street unoccupied for two days, flooding and fire having ruined homes, streets, parks and businesses. Just now, three days after the eye of the storm cried and carried buckets of ocean water across the eastern seaboard and then propelled inland pushing over trees and robbing the power grid of energy to eight million customers, the wheels of progress are turning to right the "wrongs" that have become the new normal.
Storms disrupt our lives and our sense of reality. They disorient us about what to expect and how to prepare. They blow us around. Sometimes, we need to hang on. Sometimes we have to call for help. Sometimes we have to run away and abandon the life we've known. Sometimes a storm rips our lives apart, and after that ripping, we reconstruct our lives fully, partially, or not at all. Sometimes, metaphorically or physically, we die.
The storm as metaphor for life's many unexpected, yet predictable, situations holds strong. There is only so much force our internal infrastructure can withstand before we find ourselves swept over or away. The righting of "wrongs" involves engaging various systems from psychological support to legal means.
Yesterday, the legal system sealed a contract to protect a woman from a predator. To extend a PFA (protection from abuse) order disallows contact between two parties where a physical assault or crime has been committed. Outwardly, the support and infrastructure of this system made possible a return to the legal conditions under which safety is defined for this woman. Inside, within her own emotional and psychological world, the storm is still pounding away at the green grass and oak trees which provide her solace and the skyscrapers upon which she stands to see her future.
At what point those storms completely move away is yet unknown, but just as New York is rebuilding and rebounding, she will have to replace her sidewalk brick by brick, repair the windows in her skyscraper and find another tree under which to feel safe.
Storms disrupt our lives and our sense of reality. They disorient us about what to expect and how to prepare. They blow us around. Sometimes, we need to hang on. Sometimes we have to call for help. Sometimes we have to run away and abandon the life we've known. Sometimes a storm rips our lives apart, and after that ripping, we reconstruct our lives fully, partially, or not at all. Sometimes, metaphorically or physically, we die.
The storm as metaphor for life's many unexpected, yet predictable, situations holds strong. There is only so much force our internal infrastructure can withstand before we find ourselves swept over or away. The righting of "wrongs" involves engaging various systems from psychological support to legal means.
Yesterday, the legal system sealed a contract to protect a woman from a predator. To extend a PFA (protection from abuse) order disallows contact between two parties where a physical assault or crime has been committed. Outwardly, the support and infrastructure of this system made possible a return to the legal conditions under which safety is defined for this woman. Inside, within her own emotional and psychological world, the storm is still pounding away at the green grass and oak trees which provide her solace and the skyscrapers upon which she stands to see her future.
At what point those storms completely move away is yet unknown, but just as New York is rebuilding and rebounding, she will have to replace her sidewalk brick by brick, repair the windows in her skyscraper and find another tree under which to feel safe.
Friday, October 26, 2012
This Morning 10/25/12 Educating Boys: Violence, Sex and Women
Boys (young and old) need an education - about how to treat women!
Depictions of women as sex objects in music, videos, television and print advertisements ramp up a dangerous and misogynistic worldview by glorifying violence, sex, and women as literal bed fellows. This message is training a population of assaulting and inappropriate heterosexual partners for our women. Most disturbing is the way it is training our women, especially our young millennial-aged women to view themselves.
They think violence is sex. They expect violence in sexual encounters. They don't know the difference between violence and sex. And they are being raped without even knowing it is rape!
This rampant epidemiology is evidenced on college campuses where the American Association of College Women reports that 95% of rapes and sexual assaults are unreported. That means only 5% ARE reported to police. This is a silent epidemic.
The misunderstandings about sexuality and violence are culturally seated in an expectation of women as passive and permissive to their male counterparts.
Second wave feminism from the early 1960's-1979 gave women great strides in the marriage, workplace and reproductive rights arenas socio-politically. It wasn't until 1972 that unmarried couples had the RIGHT to use birth control. We got Roe v. Wade passed, fought for workplace rights and initiated Title IX legislating gender rights in education. But what has happened since then?
It seems the 80's and 90's and now, the 2000's are giving women less ground personally to stand on. Images of women as sex objects has become more and more prevalent as the internet has taken over our daily lives.
Are developing nations allowing the momentum of respect and equality for women to slip as globalism makes apparent the treatment of women in repressive nations, the use of rape as a weapon of war, and the poverty rampant in undeveloped countries where women are the cornerstone of the home and hearth in failing family systems?
In a society where "freedom" is understood as the right to say and do whatever you want as long as you can get away with it carries a large burden of proof regarding the effects of media-endorsed and culturally-accepted misogyny. The standards of respect for women need to be consciously and conspicuously raised in order to offset what has become accepted as normal behavior.
A revolution of respect is in order.
Depictions of women as sex objects in music, videos, television and print advertisements ramp up a dangerous and misogynistic worldview by glorifying violence, sex, and women as literal bed fellows. This message is training a population of assaulting and inappropriate heterosexual partners for our women. Most disturbing is the way it is training our women, especially our young millennial-aged women to view themselves.
They think violence is sex. They expect violence in sexual encounters. They don't know the difference between violence and sex. And they are being raped without even knowing it is rape!
This rampant epidemiology is evidenced on college campuses where the American Association of College Women reports that 95% of rapes and sexual assaults are unreported. That means only 5% ARE reported to police. This is a silent epidemic.
The misunderstandings about sexuality and violence are culturally seated in an expectation of women as passive and permissive to their male counterparts.
Second wave feminism from the early 1960's-1979 gave women great strides in the marriage, workplace and reproductive rights arenas socio-politically. It wasn't until 1972 that unmarried couples had the RIGHT to use birth control. We got Roe v. Wade passed, fought for workplace rights and initiated Title IX legislating gender rights in education. But what has happened since then?
It seems the 80's and 90's and now, the 2000's are giving women less ground personally to stand on. Images of women as sex objects has become more and more prevalent as the internet has taken over our daily lives.
Are developing nations allowing the momentum of respect and equality for women to slip as globalism makes apparent the treatment of women in repressive nations, the use of rape as a weapon of war, and the poverty rampant in undeveloped countries where women are the cornerstone of the home and hearth in failing family systems?
In a society where "freedom" is understood as the right to say and do whatever you want as long as you can get away with it carries a large burden of proof regarding the effects of media-endorsed and culturally-accepted misogyny. The standards of respect for women need to be consciously and conspicuously raised in order to offset what has become accepted as normal behavior.
A revolution of respect is in order.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
This Morning 10/24/12 Rape: The Politics of Less-ness
Rape is personal. But recently, several male Republican politicians seem to be proclaiming rape and its resulting outcomes as either the fault of the woman or something religiously ordained. Somehow, conspicuously missing in these rants is the responsibility of the male (99% of rapes are committed by males*) in these preposterous declarations designed to depersonalize rape and demean women while simultaneously making it a politically-based, moral issue.
These politicians are right on one count: it is a moral issue! But that is not what this post is about.
Stepping further into the murky waters from whence such garbage spews are the resulting suggestions that the government has no financial culpability in helping raped women terminate a pregnancy resulting from such violence. Considering the Congress, both the House and Senate, is comprised of 17% women and 83% men, I am not surprised by the prevalence of this vitriolic thinking.
It is vitriol. Women are generally seen as less smart, less capable, less worthy of remuneration, less strong, less important, less motivated, less productive, less convincing, etc. etc. And yet, we are the keepers of the ability to birth, the bearers of every sacred life which carries forward the human race. And yet, our men (in general) and our societies (as a rule) treat us with disdain and disrespect.
We women are physically smaller and weaker in brute strength; this is true. There are evolutionary and specific biological reasons why that is necessary, but the sociological, psychological, economic and political realities of our ontology have nothing to do with less-ness.
To rape is to inflict and impose the politics of less-ness. It is a personal affront and an egregious assault upon a woman's mind, soul, body and the will to live, and there is no place for it in life, nor political discourse.
Governments: stop the vitriol and take care of your women now!
*www.oneinfourusa.org/statistics.php
These politicians are right on one count: it is a moral issue! But that is not what this post is about.
Stepping further into the murky waters from whence such garbage spews are the resulting suggestions that the government has no financial culpability in helping raped women terminate a pregnancy resulting from such violence. Considering the Congress, both the House and Senate, is comprised of 17% women and 83% men, I am not surprised by the prevalence of this vitriolic thinking.
It is vitriol. Women are generally seen as less smart, less capable, less worthy of remuneration, less strong, less important, less motivated, less productive, less convincing, etc. etc. And yet, we are the keepers of the ability to birth, the bearers of every sacred life which carries forward the human race. And yet, our men (in general) and our societies (as a rule) treat us with disdain and disrespect.
We women are physically smaller and weaker in brute strength; this is true. There are evolutionary and specific biological reasons why that is necessary, but the sociological, psychological, economic and political realities of our ontology have nothing to do with less-ness.
To rape is to inflict and impose the politics of less-ness. It is a personal affront and an egregious assault upon a woman's mind, soul, body and the will to live, and there is no place for it in life, nor political discourse.
Governments: stop the vitriol and take care of your women now!
*www.oneinfourusa.org/statistics.php
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
This Morning 10/23/12 Creativity
My friend, Wendy Ellsworth, wrote a book called Beading - The Creative Spirit: Finding Your Sacred Center Through the Art of Beadwork. She illuminates her personal journey of discovery and her sense of place in the world through the dynamic spiritual connection which evolved within the process of her beading.
Beading is not just an art for Ms. Ellsworth; it is a path with no destination, but simply, a journey for the sake of the journey.
Specifically, Ms. Ellsworth has given us "Ten Tools of Creative Expression" which serve to direct the cause of this particular creative endeavor, and more importantly, can be applied to other art forms, and to life, in general. They are:
1. Love
2. Compassion
3. Trust
4. Self-Confidence
5. Courage
6. Imagination
7. Play
8. Joy
9. Intention
10. Wildness
Ms. Ellsworth expounds on each "tool" in specific ways. For example, under the Compassion heading, she writes, "...we can learn to use these qualities of compassion...beading is a present moment activity we can use to become more aware of our thoughts...replace[ing] negative thoughts with more positive ones." Under the Trust heading, she writes, "Ironically, trusting the power of the creative process - even if we do not think of ourselves as "creative" - will increase the possibility of being creative...trusting that the universe will...guide you is a major life lesson, and a valuable tool of expression." This book is full of those kinds of connections between art and life. However, while it is written for the artist still finding her voice, it is no less valuable as a reinforcer of the important tenets of responsibility within the process of art-making encountered by artists who need reminding of why they continue to follow the muse.
Go to ellsworthstudios.com to learn more about this artist and her talented life partner, artist, David Ellsworth, or order Beading - The Creative Spirit: Finding Your Sacred Center Through the Art of Beadwork directly from Amazon as a book or download for the Kindle.
Beading is not just an art for Ms. Ellsworth; it is a path with no destination, but simply, a journey for the sake of the journey.
Specifically, Ms. Ellsworth has given us "Ten Tools of Creative Expression" which serve to direct the cause of this particular creative endeavor, and more importantly, can be applied to other art forms, and to life, in general. They are:
1. Love
2. Compassion
3. Trust
4. Self-Confidence
5. Courage
6. Imagination
7. Play
8. Joy
9. Intention
10. Wildness
Ms. Ellsworth expounds on each "tool" in specific ways. For example, under the Compassion heading, she writes, "...we can learn to use these qualities of compassion...beading is a present moment activity we can use to become more aware of our thoughts...replace[ing] negative thoughts with more positive ones." Under the Trust heading, she writes, "Ironically, trusting the power of the creative process - even if we do not think of ourselves as "creative" - will increase the possibility of being creative...trusting that the universe will...guide you is a major life lesson, and a valuable tool of expression." This book is full of those kinds of connections between art and life. However, while it is written for the artist still finding her voice, it is no less valuable as a reinforcer of the important tenets of responsibility within the process of art-making encountered by artists who need reminding of why they continue to follow the muse.
Go to ellsworthstudios.com to learn more about this artist and her talented life partner, artist, David Ellsworth, or order Beading - The Creative Spirit: Finding Your Sacred Center Through the Art of Beadwork directly from Amazon as a book or download for the Kindle.
Monday, October 22, 2012
This Morning 10/22/12 Beginnings
Today I begin again. My first class toward a Bachelors degree in Public Health is tonight. As exciting as new beginnings are, they also can impart a fear response.
Unknown surroundings, people, expectations, and dynamics are all fodder for a fear response. It is the survival instinct kicking in. It is completely natural to feel fear in such circumstances. The emotional brain center perceives loss of control and sends messages via neural transmitters to the endocrine system to release epinephrine (adrenalin) and norepinephrine, which activate body changes that heighten sensitivity to threats and create an almost super-human capacity for response. There are degrees of activation and sitting in a new class doesn't warrant the same response as a physical altercation, but the body doesn't necessarily know that.
To put oneself (and myself) at ease with these new situations, meditation can help slow down the hyper- response within. "Within" applies to the physical self as well as the emotional and mental self. Our thoughts trigger our emotional response, which activates the physical response. Even five minutes of slow breathing, eyes closed, with repetition of a mantra can make all the difference in how a new situation is perceived.
Definitely a good idea today!
Unknown surroundings, people, expectations, and dynamics are all fodder for a fear response. It is the survival instinct kicking in. It is completely natural to feel fear in such circumstances. The emotional brain center perceives loss of control and sends messages via neural transmitters to the endocrine system to release epinephrine (adrenalin) and norepinephrine, which activate body changes that heighten sensitivity to threats and create an almost super-human capacity for response. There are degrees of activation and sitting in a new class doesn't warrant the same response as a physical altercation, but the body doesn't necessarily know that.
To put oneself (and myself) at ease with these new situations, meditation can help slow down the hyper- response within. "Within" applies to the physical self as well as the emotional and mental self. Our thoughts trigger our emotional response, which activates the physical response. Even five minutes of slow breathing, eyes closed, with repetition of a mantra can make all the difference in how a new situation is perceived.
Definitely a good idea today!
Friday, October 19, 2012
This Morning 10/19/12 Good Grief
I'm borrowing the title - Good Grief - from the famous Charlie Brown character, and more recently, from an episode of Private Practice. (I don't have a TV, but watch shows I like on Hulu.com, which I think is one of the most useful websites going!)
Charlie Brown himself seems very dated, but his famous exclamatory - "Good Grief!" - has timeless value.
"Good grief" is, first, a very effectively benign but satisfyingly sarcastic response. It expresses disapproval and exasperation without the offense of something like, "what an idiot!" It basically depersonalizes the behavior from the person doing it. It's a nice way to imply very impolite thoughts! I approve of "good grief" and recommend it as a way to lighten up the anger mechanism. People use "other than vulgar" language all the time to express themselves. Why not "good grief?" It has a triple entendre, as well.
Good grief, as a noun expression (person, place, or thing), combines two very unlikely words - good and grief. These are antonyms. Yet, the sum of their parts infers something potentially positive within a generally negative experience. That is the way Charlie Brown used the words, and Charlie's inventor, Charles Schultz, meant them. There can always be found something useful within the most difficult experiences.
The concept of good grief is its third application. I am grieving right now. Grieving the loss of some relationships, some long-held beliefs, and my role in life for 30 years. It's necessary grief. Not to be avoided or cut short, or denied. The good part of it is my commitment to continue staying clear by writing, by singing, and by praying. There is no way to go forward through grief except by committing to the forward motion. Otherwise, it would sweep us under the rug.
Charlie Brown, for all his low-energy, downtrodden sulkiness, always expected that things would be better. He never gave up. He put the good back in grief!
Charlie Brown himself seems very dated, but his famous exclamatory - "Good Grief!" - has timeless value.
"Good grief" is, first, a very effectively benign but satisfyingly sarcastic response. It expresses disapproval and exasperation without the offense of something like, "what an idiot!" It basically depersonalizes the behavior from the person doing it. It's a nice way to imply very impolite thoughts! I approve of "good grief" and recommend it as a way to lighten up the anger mechanism. People use "other than vulgar" language all the time to express themselves. Why not "good grief?" It has a triple entendre, as well.
Good grief, as a noun expression (person, place, or thing), combines two very unlikely words - good and grief. These are antonyms. Yet, the sum of their parts infers something potentially positive within a generally negative experience. That is the way Charlie Brown used the words, and Charlie's inventor, Charles Schultz, meant them. There can always be found something useful within the most difficult experiences.
The concept of good grief is its third application. I am grieving right now. Grieving the loss of some relationships, some long-held beliefs, and my role in life for 30 years. It's necessary grief. Not to be avoided or cut short, or denied. The good part of it is my commitment to continue staying clear by writing, by singing, and by praying. There is no way to go forward through grief except by committing to the forward motion. Otherwise, it would sweep us under the rug.
Charlie Brown, for all his low-energy, downtrodden sulkiness, always expected that things would be better. He never gave up. He put the good back in grief!
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
This Morning 10/17/12 In Consideration of Zombies
If there were ever a right time to
consider the relevant questions presented in Daniel Drezner’s condensed and
cogent book, Theories of International
Politics and Zombies, the time is now.
With hundreds of references spanning the scholarly (Kenneth Waltz’s Man, the State and War) to the
ridiculous (Max Brooks’ The Zombie
Survival Guide), Drezner explores varied theories in international
relations by positing the potential responses of each were humankind attacked
by an army of Zombies.
Drezner’s
light-hearted treatment of this scenario lends itself to consideration of
myriad philosophical as well as political options such an invasion would
entreat. For example, upon deliberation
of a liberalist response to a Zombie incursion, would the trend toward
institutionalism inherent in liberalist agenda spawn Zombie Rights Watch or
other pro-Zombie organizations in the efforts to adhere to its ideology? Would a neo-conservative reaction along the
lines of “aggressive and militarized response” tend to deter a globally-based coalition
necessary in this scenario since the Zombies are not culturally exclusionary? Drezner’s metaphor is sweeping.
Issues
of cooperation between cultures and containment of global threats are relevant
as humans are collectively faced with bio-terrorism, climate change, media
manipulation, economic meltdowns, the extensive reach of religious fanaticism,
and many “unknown unknowns” inferred by Drezner’s tome. Exploring what-if scenarios can inform remedies
laying groundwork for empirical data, but Drezner doesn’t always hit the
mark. Invoking the organizational
bureaucracy’s ability to use network technology to foster rapid response
communication in times of impending peril, Drezner forgets that dependable
information is only technically obtainable when networks are 100% secure; an
unlikely situation in a state of emergency.
Through
his media references, Drezner illustrates how arts and humanities explore
questions of species survival, fear, denial, and immortality. Utilizing international relations theory to
address the same issues appears trivial at first glance, but the end result
provides fodder to reconsider not only one’s personal place in a world of
international Zombies, but whether becoming friends with the Zombie across the
street isn’t a good idea after all.
Friday, October 12, 2012
This Morning 10/12/12 One of My Own
Avoiding the dreaded dissection of frogs in junior high school science class was one of my first coup d'etats in the educational system. The first was winning a smile contest in fifth grade despite my excessive overbite. It was truly a lesson in turning a perceived liability into an asset. But, back to dissection...
College Anatomy and Physiology affords no such evasions of requirements. Last night, dreaded dissection became a reality for this duck-the-gross-stuff-at-all-costs kind of woman. After singing every song I could think of about cats - The Cat Came Back, El Gato, What's New Pussycat, The Siamese Cat Song - and making dancing motions with her feet (yes, she was female), we finished the skinning process and bagged her for next week's procedures. Then, I broke down.
The next two hours were spent either on the phone talking it out or just in shock. I had done something I had been avoiding my entire life. I became a vegetarian at 19 years of age because of the inhumane and unhealthy way animals were treated and processed for mass food production. Now, here I was skinning a cat who had been euthanized by the SPCA because it was either stray or feral. She was thin. All the other cats on the other lab tables were fat. They had been taken care of, loved by someone in their lives. Our cat lived close to her truest instincts, undomesticated, living a life of freedom and survival.
How ironic. Our cat was a nonconformist. Part of the horror of the experience for me is knowing she is one of my own kind.
College Anatomy and Physiology affords no such evasions of requirements. Last night, dreaded dissection became a reality for this duck-the-gross-stuff-at-all-costs kind of woman. After singing every song I could think of about cats - The Cat Came Back, El Gato, What's New Pussycat, The Siamese Cat Song - and making dancing motions with her feet (yes, she was female), we finished the skinning process and bagged her for next week's procedures. Then, I broke down.
The next two hours were spent either on the phone talking it out or just in shock. I had done something I had been avoiding my entire life. I became a vegetarian at 19 years of age because of the inhumane and unhealthy way animals were treated and processed for mass food production. Now, here I was skinning a cat who had been euthanized by the SPCA because it was either stray or feral. She was thin. All the other cats on the other lab tables were fat. They had been taken care of, loved by someone in their lives. Our cat lived close to her truest instincts, undomesticated, living a life of freedom and survival.
How ironic. Our cat was a nonconformist. Part of the horror of the experience for me is knowing she is one of my own kind.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
This Morning 10/10/12 The Bird Man
My friend, T---, is a bit of a mystic. Not the self-proclaimed kind, but the type that doesn't know it, yet revels in the reality of the mystery.
His mom died yesterday and today, he found a hawk in the middle of the road. He thought it was dead, but it wasn't. He picked it up, cradled it like a baby and took it home to a large birdcage he keeps upstairs. Don't ask why he has a large birdcage hanging around his house. Its sentimental, I think.
So he calls me and texts me all excited about this large hawk that lets him pet it and is watching him like....you guessed it...a hawk, as he walks around the cage. This is T---'s spirit animal (he calls it). He thinks it's his mom come to be with him for another day.
I say he's grieving, but the ironic and mystical nature of the entire experience is a bit exciting.
Tonight I go over and see the hawk and T---. It's amazing - before long, I'm singing songs to the hawk and picking up the guitar and the bird is watching me like....you guessed it....a hawk. Eye to eye. Winking at me every few seconds. It's all mystical in the upstairs room where the hawk is. I reach in and touch it and our eyes are on each other's eyes. I'm singing and somehow, this feels normal.
This is T---'s life. Mystical. Completely normal to him, but utterly mystical.
He tells me a story of finding a pigeon when he was 15 in the icing water of the creek. He grabs it and wraps it in his wool hat, takes it home and for the next week, nurses it back to health. Everyday for months on end after he finally lets the bird free, it would greet him, land on his shoulder and stay there as he walked to the bus stop to go to school. When he returned from school, the bird was there and again, greeted him as he got off the bus. How can you believe this stuff? But then again, it's T---, so you know it's true. The pigeon eventually was found dead in the road, run over by a truck. It didn't meet him anymore, but it's a typical story of T---'s.
I can't be around normal people anymore. Maybe I never could. But life just doesn't seem like it's living if it isn't in some kind of mystical motion. I try to deny the mystery sometimes. It's a lot more work when you have to live that way - this way - in the mystery. The mystical mystery world of acknowledging something beyond what our brains discern. To live in the mystical is to live in the sensory world beyond the brain's interpretation and proceed into the soul zone.
So what feeds the soul zone?
Trusting the mystery. It's just that simple.
His mom died yesterday and today, he found a hawk in the middle of the road. He thought it was dead, but it wasn't. He picked it up, cradled it like a baby and took it home to a large birdcage he keeps upstairs. Don't ask why he has a large birdcage hanging around his house. Its sentimental, I think.
So he calls me and texts me all excited about this large hawk that lets him pet it and is watching him like....you guessed it...a hawk, as he walks around the cage. This is T---'s spirit animal (he calls it). He thinks it's his mom come to be with him for another day.
I say he's grieving, but the ironic and mystical nature of the entire experience is a bit exciting.
Tonight I go over and see the hawk and T---. It's amazing - before long, I'm singing songs to the hawk and picking up the guitar and the bird is watching me like....you guessed it....a hawk. Eye to eye. Winking at me every few seconds. It's all mystical in the upstairs room where the hawk is. I reach in and touch it and our eyes are on each other's eyes. I'm singing and somehow, this feels normal.
This is T---'s life. Mystical. Completely normal to him, but utterly mystical.
He tells me a story of finding a pigeon when he was 15 in the icing water of the creek. He grabs it and wraps it in his wool hat, takes it home and for the next week, nurses it back to health. Everyday for months on end after he finally lets the bird free, it would greet him, land on his shoulder and stay there as he walked to the bus stop to go to school. When he returned from school, the bird was there and again, greeted him as he got off the bus. How can you believe this stuff? But then again, it's T---, so you know it's true. The pigeon eventually was found dead in the road, run over by a truck. It didn't meet him anymore, but it's a typical story of T---'s.
I can't be around normal people anymore. Maybe I never could. But life just doesn't seem like it's living if it isn't in some kind of mystical motion. I try to deny the mystery sometimes. It's a lot more work when you have to live that way - this way - in the mystery. The mystical mystery world of acknowledging something beyond what our brains discern. To live in the mystical is to live in the sensory world beyond the brain's interpretation and proceed into the soul zone.
So what feeds the soul zone?
Trusting the mystery. It's just that simple.
This Morning 10/9/12 200
Today is the 200th post. My daily routine has changed and writing each and every morning has changed. There is no less need or desire, just priority.
What It Is
When K passed
She left the strong scent of
Potpourri and damp floorboards
Behind
She held on so long
It seemed
But two weeks of morphine
Pushes
The bedroom door sits closed
Place of anger, fear, departure
Purgatory for the living
Resistor
Potted plants shocked by her absence
New caretakers know nothing after all
Her song and theirs was one harmonious
Solo
What is known or not
The whys and what ifs
Serve the mind, but never the
Heart
Ask the chubby, low rider
Four legged who worried with her
Ask the grandchildren and the soil turned by
Hands
Never idling, but instead
Crocheting another hat
To give away, to keep me
Warm
What dreams we dream
For ourselves
Never imagining the end as it
Is
copyright 2012 SajaMaka Publishing
What It Is
When K passed
She left the strong scent of
Potpourri and damp floorboards
Behind
She held on so long
It seemed
But two weeks of morphine
Pushes
The bedroom door sits closed
Place of anger, fear, departure
Purgatory for the living
Resistor
Potted plants shocked by her absence
New caretakers know nothing after all
Her song and theirs was one harmonious
Solo
What is known or not
The whys and what ifs
Serve the mind, but never the
Heart
Ask the chubby, low rider
Four legged who worried with her
Ask the grandchildren and the soil turned by
Hands
Never idling, but instead
Crocheting another hat
To give away, to keep me
Warm
What dreams we dream
For ourselves
Never imagining the end as it
Is
copyright 2012 SajaMaka Publishing
Sunday, October 7, 2012
This Morning 10/7/12 Part III: OSQ and WW
This new plan required the Spoiled Queen to do something she was unaccustomed to: the Spoiled Queen had to, for the first time in decades, actually listen. (continuing to part 3)
To listen requires two very important attributes - patience and interest. The Spoiled Queen gave her full attention to the Poetic Gardener as he pointed out Podophylum, Artemisia vulgaris, Symphytum, Taraxicum officianale, and many other plants along their walks. The Poetic Gardener recited their uses and important healing properties and the Spoiled Queen repeated those to herself as they walked. She never interrupted him.
After 16 Saturdays of new plants and old plants and a full season winding into the next, the Poetic Gardener saw something he had never seen before. At the very moment he recognized the plant which he remembered from his own childhood walks with his mother, the White Witch appeared next to the plant.
Glancing back at the Spoiled Queen, he noticed she hadn't yet seen the White Witch and as he walked nearer to the plant, the White Witch spoke with words to the Poetic Gardener for the first time. She simply said, "Here, Gardener. This is what she needs." At that, she disappeared.
The Spoiled Queen recognized the plant now and its beautiful violet-edged flower drew her to it. As if enchanted, she asked the Poetic Gardener what it was. He responded carefully, "This is the medicine." As she fell to her knees and pulled a knife from her hidden sheath, the Spoiled Queen quickly lopped off some of her hair and put it next to the waiting medicine. As if by design, all of the servants had turned away at the moment she dropped, hearing a noise in the distance. None witnessed her on her knees except the Poetic Gardener. As the servants turned back around, the Spoiled Queen was on her feet again and the Poetic Gardener had gathered the medicine.
They began their long walk toward home; the healing had already begun.
To listen requires two very important attributes - patience and interest. The Spoiled Queen gave her full attention to the Poetic Gardener as he pointed out Podophylum, Artemisia vulgaris, Symphytum, Taraxicum officianale, and many other plants along their walks. The Poetic Gardener recited their uses and important healing properties and the Spoiled Queen repeated those to herself as they walked. She never interrupted him.
After 16 Saturdays of new plants and old plants and a full season winding into the next, the Poetic Gardener saw something he had never seen before. At the very moment he recognized the plant which he remembered from his own childhood walks with his mother, the White Witch appeared next to the plant.
Glancing back at the Spoiled Queen, he noticed she hadn't yet seen the White Witch and as he walked nearer to the plant, the White Witch spoke with words to the Poetic Gardener for the first time. She simply said, "Here, Gardener. This is what she needs." At that, she disappeared.
The Spoiled Queen recognized the plant now and its beautiful violet-edged flower drew her to it. As if enchanted, she asked the Poetic Gardener what it was. He responded carefully, "This is the medicine." As she fell to her knees and pulled a knife from her hidden sheath, the Spoiled Queen quickly lopped off some of her hair and put it next to the waiting medicine. As if by design, all of the servants had turned away at the moment she dropped, hearing a noise in the distance. None witnessed her on her knees except the Poetic Gardener. As the servants turned back around, the Spoiled Queen was on her feet again and the Poetic Gardener had gathered the medicine.
They began their long walk toward home; the healing had already begun.
Friday, September 28, 2012
This Morning 9/28/12 Part II: OSQ and WW
(I have been busy all week and not writing everyday! Here is the next installment of the story "Of Spoiled Queens and White Witches." ~sp)
The Poetic Gardener possessed the calming nature of a Zen master while enjoying great physical strength and agility. Years of practicing ancient Tai Chi exercises incorporating slow deliberate movements with a meditative mindset had taught the Poetic Gardener awareness of both the seen and unseen worlds. This was part of the reason he was such an effective gardener; he sensed the needs of the plants. He also knew that the White Witch seen by the Spoiled Queen was not a physical form at all, but a spirit from the unseen. What the Spoiled Queen had experienced in the garden was the ability to see into the Spirit World, although she did not realize this herself. The Poetic Gardener knew he now had a responsibility to somehow help the Spoiled Queen understand and integrate this experience in her life. More than this, the Poetic Gardener knew why he must do this.
The Spoiled Queen recovered from her panic after a few days. The Lucky King had noticed something odd about her manner, but she told him nothing about seeing the White Witch, nor did she ever intend to. However, the Spoiled Queen was spending more time on the South side of the palace where she could watch the Poetic Gardener and easily glance out toward the edge of wood. She also found herself sitting in her favorite chair more often and even dozing there into dream-filled, restful slumbers.
A recurring dream frequently began to occur.
The Spoiled Queen is a happy Child in her great-grandmother's care. They walk along the bank of a small creek choosing plants as medicine which the Child must learn to prepare for herself. The purpose of the medicine is to remove bad thoughts which cause sadness and confusion. When they find the medicine, the great-grandmother instructs the Child to offer a lock of her hair to the plant as an exchange for the medicine it contains. When the Child looks up, her great-grandmother is gone, but in her place, a women figure dressed in White is smiling at her and the Child takes her hand.
The dream always made the Spoiled Queen feel good. Uncharacteristically, she began to make a plan.
In all of his days as Lucky King, the King had never known the Spoiled Queen to make plans. Her most immediate needs and desires were always prioritized. However, the Spoiled Queen elicited the help of her husband to secure walks beside the closest ponds, lakes, and rivers within 50 km for each Saturday henceforth. Upon these walks, the Poetic Gardener was to accompany her, along with her usual cadre of necessary servants, to instruct her in all recognizable plants and their specific folkloric uses.
This new plan required the Spoiled Queen to do something she was unaccustomed to: the Spoiled Queen had to, for the first time in decades, actually listen.
The Poetic Gardener possessed the calming nature of a Zen master while enjoying great physical strength and agility. Years of practicing ancient Tai Chi exercises incorporating slow deliberate movements with a meditative mindset had taught the Poetic Gardener awareness of both the seen and unseen worlds. This was part of the reason he was such an effective gardener; he sensed the needs of the plants. He also knew that the White Witch seen by the Spoiled Queen was not a physical form at all, but a spirit from the unseen. What the Spoiled Queen had experienced in the garden was the ability to see into the Spirit World, although she did not realize this herself. The Poetic Gardener knew he now had a responsibility to somehow help the Spoiled Queen understand and integrate this experience in her life. More than this, the Poetic Gardener knew why he must do this.
The Spoiled Queen recovered from her panic after a few days. The Lucky King had noticed something odd about her manner, but she told him nothing about seeing the White Witch, nor did she ever intend to. However, the Spoiled Queen was spending more time on the South side of the palace where she could watch the Poetic Gardener and easily glance out toward the edge of wood. She also found herself sitting in her favorite chair more often and even dozing there into dream-filled, restful slumbers.
A recurring dream frequently began to occur.
The Spoiled Queen is a happy Child in her great-grandmother's care. They walk along the bank of a small creek choosing plants as medicine which the Child must learn to prepare for herself. The purpose of the medicine is to remove bad thoughts which cause sadness and confusion. When they find the medicine, the great-grandmother instructs the Child to offer a lock of her hair to the plant as an exchange for the medicine it contains. When the Child looks up, her great-grandmother is gone, but in her place, a women figure dressed in White is smiling at her and the Child takes her hand.
The dream always made the Spoiled Queen feel good. Uncharacteristically, she began to make a plan.
In all of his days as Lucky King, the King had never known the Spoiled Queen to make plans. Her most immediate needs and desires were always prioritized. However, the Spoiled Queen elicited the help of her husband to secure walks beside the closest ponds, lakes, and rivers within 50 km for each Saturday henceforth. Upon these walks, the Poetic Gardener was to accompany her, along with her usual cadre of necessary servants, to instruct her in all recognizable plants and their specific folkloric uses.
This new plan required the Spoiled Queen to do something she was unaccustomed to: the Spoiled Queen had to, for the first time in decades, actually listen.
Friday, September 21, 2012
This Morning 9/20/12 Part One: Of Spoiled Queens and White Witches
There once was a Spoiled Queen who ordered people around as if they were worthless. If she didn't get her way, or someone failed to exactly follow her orders, the
Spoiled Queen would subject them to her wrath and they would be sentenced to eggshell walking for the entire day. Insidiously, the queen would spill rancor and shame upon individuals, often for the smallest infraction.
The Spoiled Queen was unhappy inside. Her life had been predetermined before she was 17 years old. She was the daughter of a wealthy monarch and although she had her own dreams, she was the only heir to her father's riches and the course of her life demanded she inherit her position as queen.
For this, she was angry and she projected that anger widely. All men, to her, became mere images of her father. The Spoiled Queen took on her role after the death of her father. Of course, at this time she was called the spoiled princess for she was young and unmarried. She struggled at first, feeling quite intimidated by her new position and all the men at her disposal. After a few years of practice, though, ordering around people became second nature.
When the Spoiled Queen finally did take a husband, he was exactly like the man responsible for her unhappiness. A good man, the unlucky jester became a Lucky King. But like all lucky kings, he became responsible for his Spoiled Queen, and that became a bit of a challenge.
As an unlucky jester, the Lucky King had spent all his time trying to get people to laugh and enjoy themselves. Unfortunately, this meant he was being laughed at all the time. All that being laughed at eventually got him down. By the time he made it to becoming a Lucky King, his felt pretty unhappy inside. The combination of a dejected/unhappy Lucky King and an unhappy/angry Spoiled Queen made for a very unhappy/dejected/angry/spoiled, but lucky marriage!
Luck is relative, but in this case, the luck came in the form of a White Witch.
One day, while the Spoiled Queen was out in her blossoming garden ordering around the Poetic Gardener, she noticed a figure at the edge of the woods. Lifting her magnifying lens with which she was inspecting the flowers, she peered through at the figure and gasped with fright. This was a unique event - the Spoiled Queen gasping in fright - and the Poetic Gardener stopped what he was doing and looked the way of the wood.
Immediately, he smiled. He had seen the White Witch many times before in her wanderings. Once the White Witch had appeared at the edge of the garden where he was working, so the Poetic Gardener began to sing a rhyming verse to the flowers in her honor. He knew she had only good intentions and he never told anyone of her appearances.
Well, the Spoiled Queen panicked and ran inside the huge doorway to the East Wing of the palace. She sat in her favorite chair staring up at the tremendous portrait looking down at her. Her great-grandmother was a regal woman in the portrait, but modestly so. The kindness in her eyes was her most remarkable feature and whenever the Spoiled Queen looked up at the portrait, her feelings of unhappiness and anger melted into a calming balm of repose.
Just then, the Poetic Gardener, knowing the magnitude of what he had just witnessed, dared to enter the doorway where the Spoiled Queen sat. Feeling too exhausted to admonish him, she simply said, "This shall remain between us, Gardener." He saw she was about her senses again and simply slipped back out through the doorway from which he had entered.
The Spoiled Queen was unhappy inside. Her life had been predetermined before she was 17 years old. She was the daughter of a wealthy monarch and although she had her own dreams, she was the only heir to her father's riches and the course of her life demanded she inherit her position as queen.
For this, she was angry and she projected that anger widely. All men, to her, became mere images of her father. The Spoiled Queen took on her role after the death of her father. Of course, at this time she was called the spoiled princess for she was young and unmarried. She struggled at first, feeling quite intimidated by her new position and all the men at her disposal. After a few years of practice, though, ordering around people became second nature.
When the Spoiled Queen finally did take a husband, he was exactly like the man responsible for her unhappiness. A good man, the unlucky jester became a Lucky King. But like all lucky kings, he became responsible for his Spoiled Queen, and that became a bit of a challenge.
As an unlucky jester, the Lucky King had spent all his time trying to get people to laugh and enjoy themselves. Unfortunately, this meant he was being laughed at all the time. All that being laughed at eventually got him down. By the time he made it to becoming a Lucky King, his felt pretty unhappy inside. The combination of a dejected/unhappy Lucky King and an unhappy/angry Spoiled Queen made for a very unhappy/dejected/angry/spoiled, but lucky marriage!
Luck is relative, but in this case, the luck came in the form of a White Witch.
One day, while the Spoiled Queen was out in her blossoming garden ordering around the Poetic Gardener, she noticed a figure at the edge of the woods. Lifting her magnifying lens with which she was inspecting the flowers, she peered through at the figure and gasped with fright. This was a unique event - the Spoiled Queen gasping in fright - and the Poetic Gardener stopped what he was doing and looked the way of the wood.
Immediately, he smiled. He had seen the White Witch many times before in her wanderings. Once the White Witch had appeared at the edge of the garden where he was working, so the Poetic Gardener began to sing a rhyming verse to the flowers in her honor. He knew she had only good intentions and he never told anyone of her appearances.
Well, the Spoiled Queen panicked and ran inside the huge doorway to the East Wing of the palace. She sat in her favorite chair staring up at the tremendous portrait looking down at her. Her great-grandmother was a regal woman in the portrait, but modestly so. The kindness in her eyes was her most remarkable feature and whenever the Spoiled Queen looked up at the portrait, her feelings of unhappiness and anger melted into a calming balm of repose.
Just then, the Poetic Gardener, knowing the magnitude of what he had just witnessed, dared to enter the doorway where the Spoiled Queen sat. Feeling too exhausted to admonish him, she simply said, "This shall remain between us, Gardener." He saw she was about her senses again and simply slipped back out through the doorway from which he had entered.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
This Morning 9/19/12 Nostalgia
Last night I attended a concert of Kathy Mattea and her crackerjack band. The music was arranged well and the majority of songs had substance. She reminded me of myself a bit. Her voice is not one of these absolutely sonorous angel-like sounds you can't forget nor is it all that distinct. Mattea is just solid as a rock at what she does. She knows her boundaries and she goes right up to them with confidence and enthusiasm.
The nostalgia for me was being right off stage and watching the workings of concertizing, knowing all the potential problems (she broke a guitar string) and absolute spontaneous joy (she sang an acoustic version of the Beatle's "I Will" as a request) that comes with performing. It's something I miss when I let myself remember it.
For an hour and 40 minutes straight the band barely broke a sweat and afterward, they and she were generous with their time for the fans.
As easy as it looks, it actually takes a lot of hard work, discipline and constant reviewing to pull off a successful concert. The singer must be in good shape, look good, and perform well. The band must be "on" and present in a way that communicates with and supports the central performer. Most importantly, people not only have to be moved by the experience but the performer must also be moved. THAT is a successful performance.
Mattea pulled it off exquisitely.
The nostalgia for me was being right off stage and watching the workings of concertizing, knowing all the potential problems (she broke a guitar string) and absolute spontaneous joy (she sang an acoustic version of the Beatle's "I Will" as a request) that comes with performing. It's something I miss when I let myself remember it.
For an hour and 40 minutes straight the band barely broke a sweat and afterward, they and she were generous with their time for the fans.
As easy as it looks, it actually takes a lot of hard work, discipline and constant reviewing to pull off a successful concert. The singer must be in good shape, look good, and perform well. The band must be "on" and present in a way that communicates with and supports the central performer. Most importantly, people not only have to be moved by the experience but the performer must also be moved. THAT is a successful performance.
Mattea pulled it off exquisitely.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
This Morning 9/18/12 We Can't Hear Kant
The political theories of Immanuel Kant, 18th century Prussian philosopher, espouses the conditions of Perpetual Peace as attainable between nations under the condition that Republics make agreement with one another to this end. Kant, convinced of the potential application of these agreements as absolute, also doubted whether man, under the strain of human attributes of fear and avarice, could uphold such a state of nations.
Kant based his construct of Perpetual Peace under the umbrella of Republics as maintaining separate "halls" for the legislature and the executing of law; a rather aristocratic/monarchical view at the time. The democratic principles, at the time of Kant, carried a more literal interpretation and the voice of the people, en masse, was, to Kant, a threat to the actualization of peaceful purposes. He did not "read" democracy as a Utopian form of government, but rather as majority rule that threatened individual liberty.
Kant understood and championed international organization (agreements) as being key to Perpetual Peace, while also recognizing that non-republics would vie for supplemental power against republics and therefore, require acts of engagement of war. This was, for Kant, acceptable, but he compromises his truth.
Today, we are missing something important about Kant. Kant recognizes the philosophical engine humming inside all humans as pivoting on the borderline between wanting peace and wanting security. Security is seen as a condition of "power" whereas peace is seen as "passivity."
Perhaps if we exchange the application of these definitions whereby Security is Passive and Peace is Power, our approach to international politics can also change and we can truly hear what Kant meant.
Kant based his construct of Perpetual Peace under the umbrella of Republics as maintaining separate "halls" for the legislature and the executing of law; a rather aristocratic/monarchical view at the time. The democratic principles, at the time of Kant, carried a more literal interpretation and the voice of the people, en masse, was, to Kant, a threat to the actualization of peaceful purposes. He did not "read" democracy as a Utopian form of government, but rather as majority rule that threatened individual liberty.
Kant understood and championed international organization (agreements) as being key to Perpetual Peace, while also recognizing that non-republics would vie for supplemental power against republics and therefore, require acts of engagement of war. This was, for Kant, acceptable, but he compromises his truth.
Today, we are missing something important about Kant. Kant recognizes the philosophical engine humming inside all humans as pivoting on the borderline between wanting peace and wanting security. Security is seen as a condition of "power" whereas peace is seen as "passivity."
Perhaps if we exchange the application of these definitions whereby Security is Passive and Peace is Power, our approach to international politics can also change and we can truly hear what Kant meant.
Monday, September 17, 2012
This Morning 9/17/12 God Beyond Religion
The American Public Media radio broadcast, On Being with Krista Tippett, is an hour-long conversation featuring intelligent, spiritually-insightful people and their perspectives about important life questions from spirituality to science, God to atoms. Tippett has a Masters in Divinity from Yale and a full wealth of experience as a writer for the New York Times, correspondent for the BBC, special assistant to the Ambassador of West Germany, as well as having been a Fulbright Scholar in international politics.
This Sunday, the broadcast featured Lord Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain. Sacks made a statement: "God is bigger than religion." The context of his statement was in promoting acceptance and tolerance of different spiritual traditions and faiths. Current events seems to point us toward the desperate need for a refresher course in this simple concept.
Recent attacks on U.S. embassies and consulates and the resulting murder of four Americans is fueled by the hostility of an extremist faction of individual Muslims who believe an anti-Mohammed film posted on YouTube by a citizen of the U.S. signifies a direct attack on the religion of Islam by the U.S. This misunderstanding of politics as well as the use of violence against innocent people as repudiation for one person's viewpoint is evidence of a general atmosphere of religious persecution. The extremists are imposing their religious standards ("if you depict Mohammed, you will be punished") upon innocent people who had nothing to do with the original film that sparked their anger and retaliation. Their actions were an echo of the same act (the film) they felt persecuted by: dogmatism and narrow-mindedness.
To depict God as a product of religion carries the same insularity. God/Creator has no absolute form except through the stories our religions create. This does not mean God/Creator does not exist outside of religion; it simply means God/Creator exists beyond religion.
This is the exact point the Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was making. You cannot box God; not in a world with over 6800 different spoken languages.
This Sunday, the broadcast featured Lord Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain. Sacks made a statement: "God is bigger than religion." The context of his statement was in promoting acceptance and tolerance of different spiritual traditions and faiths. Current events seems to point us toward the desperate need for a refresher course in this simple concept.
Recent attacks on U.S. embassies and consulates and the resulting murder of four Americans is fueled by the hostility of an extremist faction of individual Muslims who believe an anti-Mohammed film posted on YouTube by a citizen of the U.S. signifies a direct attack on the religion of Islam by the U.S. This misunderstanding of politics as well as the use of violence against innocent people as repudiation for one person's viewpoint is evidence of a general atmosphere of religious persecution. The extremists are imposing their religious standards ("if you depict Mohammed, you will be punished") upon innocent people who had nothing to do with the original film that sparked their anger and retaliation. Their actions were an echo of the same act (the film) they felt persecuted by: dogmatism and narrow-mindedness.
To depict God as a product of religion carries the same insularity. God/Creator has no absolute form except through the stories our religions create. This does not mean God/Creator does not exist outside of religion; it simply means God/Creator exists beyond religion.
This is the exact point the Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was making. You cannot box God; not in a world with over 6800 different spoken languages.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
This Morning 9/16/12 To Balance the Flow
I have been focused on school and work these last few mornings, not prioritizing writing here. I'm writing papers, opinions and critiques as part of my classes. Some I have posted here, which is fair game!
This morning I painted for the first time in months. After my Fast in June, I sketched the painting on a canvas and it has been sitting for months, waiting on the easel in my sunny mudroom by the front door. This morning, I could not walk by or glance past or bear the screams of "Paint me!" that I've been hearing lately each time I pass through.
Today is my study day, my homework day, my day of rest, and my day to decide where to balance the flow of necessary obligations and instinctual desires. The desires won this morning!
But somehow I know that the act of painting - allowing my brain to express its more instinctive, intuitive and abstract center - will inform and enhance my ability to study and form ideas into words. Concrete thinking is a necessary aspect of the subjects I am studying now. But just as listening to Mozart unfolds the brain's capacity for understanding concepts and improving reading, balancing the flow of intellectual and intuitive pursuits enhances my efforts in both spheres.
Last week, I wrote about my need to sing. I wrote that cutting off my singing in my life is equivalent to not breathing. "Singing is how I breathe," I wrote. I drew a correlation between my lack of singing and my inability to walk and how this is the second time in my life when I stopped walking during a time of not singing. So, now, I am singing more at home and in general. And I am walking now, as well, unassisted by crutches or canes.
Balancing the Flow. It's something to be continually reminding ourselves to do.
This morning I painted for the first time in months. After my Fast in June, I sketched the painting on a canvas and it has been sitting for months, waiting on the easel in my sunny mudroom by the front door. This morning, I could not walk by or glance past or bear the screams of "Paint me!" that I've been hearing lately each time I pass through.
Today is my study day, my homework day, my day of rest, and my day to decide where to balance the flow of necessary obligations and instinctual desires. The desires won this morning!
But somehow I know that the act of painting - allowing my brain to express its more instinctive, intuitive and abstract center - will inform and enhance my ability to study and form ideas into words. Concrete thinking is a necessary aspect of the subjects I am studying now. But just as listening to Mozart unfolds the brain's capacity for understanding concepts and improving reading, balancing the flow of intellectual and intuitive pursuits enhances my efforts in both spheres.
Last week, I wrote about my need to sing. I wrote that cutting off my singing in my life is equivalent to not breathing. "Singing is how I breathe," I wrote. I drew a correlation between my lack of singing and my inability to walk and how this is the second time in my life when I stopped walking during a time of not singing. So, now, I am singing more at home and in general. And I am walking now, as well, unassisted by crutches or canes.
Balancing the Flow. It's something to be continually reminding ourselves to do.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
This Morning 9/13/12 Religious Violence, States, and Anarchy on the Internet
In the last few days U.S. consulates and embassies in Egypt, Libya and Yemen have been attacked, and murders committed, by angry Islamist extremists over a 14-minute movie on YouTube depicting the prophet Mohammed as a salacious individual. The film is junk - bad acting, bad script, something you'd expect a junior-high kid to do - but it was created and posted on the internet by an American, therefore, all Americans have come under fire.
Where is the sense in this? How can you make all people responsible for the actions of one? This is bigoted enmity!
Freedom of speech has a high cost.
The absolute despicable nature of such a film, intended to denigrate a legitimate religion and its symbol has no place in world theological discourse. Nevertheless, it does have a right to exist according to the laws of the United States. Of course, it is meant as an affront to Muslims and as entertainment for Muslim-haters, but for the price of human lives, families, and the welfare of any American, it is simply irresponsible vitriol despite its legality.
There is no international governing body for this kind of situation. There is no One-World government. There are nation States coexisting under an international anarchic structure - no internationally accepted hierarchical body of governance. Unfortunately, the Internet also exists, without the safety net of borders, within this sphere. Therefore the laws of one State become commingled with another's because it is a World Wide Web.
We assume the spread of Democracy (Liberalism) as being the best political system. We assume Free Speech a right because it is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. However, not every culture shares these values because either they have never known them or they have grown accustomed to another way. They, also, have the right to exist as States in their political forms as long as they do not impose upon another State's right to their political form.
People are reactive by nature. Some people have filters which delay or allay their reactions. Some are just looking for an opportunity to react.
The killings and attacks this week were instigated by reactive extremist individuals in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen imposing their violent responses upon another State.
The U.S. is sending two battleships to the Mediterranean Sea to station off the coast of Libya. This overreaction and show of force will not change extremists' reactive natures nor will it quell the sense of righteousness felt on the part of pro-First Amendment defenders or opponents of anti-religious Free Speech. In fact, it will just increase Obama's public approval ratings in time for the election as U.S. hegemony is advanced, once again, on the backs individuals - just as it has always been.
As Plato once said: "It is only the dead who have seen the end of war."
Where is the sense in this? How can you make all people responsible for the actions of one? This is bigoted enmity!
Freedom of speech has a high cost.
The absolute despicable nature of such a film, intended to denigrate a legitimate religion and its symbol has no place in world theological discourse. Nevertheless, it does have a right to exist according to the laws of the United States. Of course, it is meant as an affront to Muslims and as entertainment for Muslim-haters, but for the price of human lives, families, and the welfare of any American, it is simply irresponsible vitriol despite its legality.
There is no international governing body for this kind of situation. There is no One-World government. There are nation States coexisting under an international anarchic structure - no internationally accepted hierarchical body of governance. Unfortunately, the Internet also exists, without the safety net of borders, within this sphere. Therefore the laws of one State become commingled with another's because it is a World Wide Web.
We assume the spread of Democracy (Liberalism) as being the best political system. We assume Free Speech a right because it is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. However, not every culture shares these values because either they have never known them or they have grown accustomed to another way. They, also, have the right to exist as States in their political forms as long as they do not impose upon another State's right to their political form.
People are reactive by nature. Some people have filters which delay or allay their reactions. Some are just looking for an opportunity to react.
The killings and attacks this week were instigated by reactive extremist individuals in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen imposing their violent responses upon another State.
The U.S. is sending two battleships to the Mediterranean Sea to station off the coast of Libya. This overreaction and show of force will not change extremists' reactive natures nor will it quell the sense of righteousness felt on the part of pro-First Amendment defenders or opponents of anti-religious Free Speech. In fact, it will just increase Obama's public approval ratings in time for the election as U.S. hegemony is advanced, once again, on the backs individuals - just as it has always been.
As Plato once said: "It is only the dead who have seen the end of war."
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
This Morning 9/11/12 9-11
On this day, eleven years ago, I was picking vegetables at a local organic farm and the news came of the planes hitting the World Trade Center. I smelled the fear and its stench was sickening and destructive. I understood the implications and sequestered myself for twenty minutes to a remote location on the farm.
There, I prayed for understanding and patience, for love and light to surround the nation and the People.
Perhaps it worked. Perhaps not. But it helped me personally.
There are many people who live in this fear constantly in war-ravaged countries. I don't think I could help myself very well if I were one of those people.
I've grown accustomed to my security. The Bush Doctrine be damned! But I have grown accustomed to it.
There, I prayed for understanding and patience, for love and light to surround the nation and the People.
Perhaps it worked. Perhaps not. But it helped me personally.
There are many people who live in this fear constantly in war-ravaged countries. I don't think I could help myself very well if I were one of those people.
I've grown accustomed to my security. The Bush Doctrine be damned! But I have grown accustomed to it.
Monday, September 10, 2012
This Morning 9/10/12 Militarism via Feminism
Here is a second draft of a 1100-word paper I'm writing entitled, What We Serve: Looking at Militarism via Global Feminism. (copyright 2012 Saja Maka Publishing)
INTRODUCTION
The
shortage of women in political and military arenas is evidenced in world
government chambers, written theoretical discourse, and battlefields. Until the third wave of Feminism,
sometimes called the “lost wave,” began in the 1990’s, women were necessarily
making great strides as a movement, claiming the personal as political and
spearheading groundbreaking workplace, health and marriage legislation in the
1970’s. This aspect of social Feminism
has now taken a back seat, though, to a more self-saturated vision that takes
ownership of femaleness for the sake of individualization. However diluted the appearance of
Feminism has become, the practical nature of this newer third wave orientation
brings to light an actualized vision of women as committed and consistent
makers of a broader, globalized feminist model.
WOMEN AND WAR
In
Carol Cohn and Sara Ruddick’s paper, “A Feminist Ethical Perspective on Weapons
of Mass Destruction,” they outline a detailed tradition of “antiwar feminism.” While
they explore issues of economic and Imperialistic concerns relating to women,
this model has a specific trajectory of disarmament, and is aligned most
prestigiously with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the
oldest women’s world peace organization and an international non-governmental
organization with consultative status to several U.N. councils.
Decidedly
in opposition to “war making as a practice,” Cohn and Ruddick are careful to
point out that while war and peace are not “women’s issues” per se, and some
feminists fight for their right to participate in war, most feminists “do not
divorce feminism from national, ethnic, religious, class or other identities
and politics…” (Cohn/Ruddick). In
fact, the social construct of war as a purely masculine norm exploits the
emphasis on gender specificity that works for, but mostly against, women. Cohn and Ruddick neither masculinize
nor feminize war, but rather demonize it for it’s own sake as an exercise by
questioning why “military necessity should… be prioritized over…human
necessities.”
While
clearly working from an Idealist platform, there is nothing soft about Cohn and
Ruddick’s approach to the reality of war and antiwar feminism. Addressing deterrence theory, they ask,
“Isn’t is too risky to assume there are “rational actors” on all sides of this
equation?” The issue of WMD
(weapons of mass destruction) proliferation with its “techno-strategic,“ abstract
video game-like relationship to killing directs the mind toward the explosive
nature of such a weapon, but doesn’t consider the aftermath of its destruction,
nor the possibility that one might become the casualty of such a weapon, not
the perpetrator of its carnage.
Cohn and Ruddick refuse to see war myopically. They “take into consideration the political social,
economic, psychological, and moral consequences.” Cohn and Ruddick argue that women’s lives are
physically, socially and economically shattered in times of war. Whether by direct contact by combatants
as in cases of rape or by the culture of acceptability of militarization and
violence that contributes to a future deficient in resources (food, shelter,
healthcare, jobs), families in war-ravaged and war-ravaging countries are
usually headed by women and they suffer the most. The nature of war, in its hyped-up “Go Team” fatigues,
ready to conquer the enemy, rarely asks the right questions, presented here by
Cohn and Ruddick as matter-of-fact considerations of how war effects a valuable
facet of our population - women.
Their
conclusion of how avoid “war making” sits somewhere in the “negotiation of
treaties” corner, with a strong commitment to non-aggression; an unrealistic,
but worthy moral and quite pragmatic, humane approach to militarism,
considering the costs of having it otherwise.
BREAKING THE ROLE OF VICTIM
J.
Ann Tickner’s “Man, the State, and War:
Gendered Perspectives on National Security” takes on Hobbes, Morganthau
and the media in relation to their socialized constructions of women embodying
primary wartime roles of servitude, banality and victimhood. Tickner scathingly writes, “While men
have been associated with defending the state and advancing its international
interests as soldiers and diplomats, women have typically been engaged in the
“ordering” and “comforting” roles…” (Tickner). Ticker asserts that this devaluing of women and their
general exclusion from the canon of historical political discourse or
decision-making serves to promote the stereotype of women as “victims, rarely
as agents” in times of war.
Tickner
cites the contribution of the Cult of Domesticity to this “victim” construct. A
post-Industrial, 19th’ Century, middle class ideological social
mechanism popularized through books, magazines and behaviors, it assigned and
defined women exclusively by the following attributes: piety, purity, submissiveness, and
domesticity. This view
of women enhanced the Victorian and Imperialistic viewpoint of men as
protectors of women, thereby justifying men’s continued military exploits and their
view of women’s intellectual ineptitude.
Tickner,
dissimilar to Cohn and Ruddick, declares patriarchal presumptions as one of the
root causes of war. Citing
writings by Hobbes and Morganthau, the masculine hegemonic factor pushes open
the door toward a continuing gender gap.
If women are to be acknowledged for their true contribution and place in
society, thereby potentially occupying the seats where decisions are squarely
made regarding war and peace, they must vote their way into the discussion by
creating a movement that shifts the view of women’s role in society “from
sacrifice to responsibility” (Tickner).
In
a weak, supporting point, Tickner characterizes the presence of Sakakawea
(proper Mandan spelling) on the Lewis and Clark expedition as “security” for
the explorers by virtue of the fact that her femaleness dissuaded tribal
attacks by Indigenous nations along their trail. Tickner, through her summary of this point, does little to
create a view of women as necessary agents, equal to men, or essential to the
expedition itself. In fact, she
negates that point by depicting Sakakawea as the “token” woman on the trail
whom the “other Indians” didn’t want to harm. This slip by Tickner constitutes a cultural bias couched as
feminist primacy.
GLOBALIZED FEMINIST NETWORKS
Contrasting
both the intellectualizing of peace by Cohn and Ruddick, and the defensive
posturing of Tickner, Valentine Moghadam’s “Female Labor, Regional Crisis and
Feminist Responses,” tackles the issue of feminine subversion by supporting the
establishment of worldwide networks of “working women and organizing
women.” The formation of
globalized feminist networks constitutes the proliferation of women’s movements
at a local level, around the globe, signaling particular empowerment trends
across cultural and labor borders.
Moghadam’s
primary explanation of the advantages of economic and political globalization
opening labor pathways for women draws attention, simultaneously, to the
reality of demeaning and underpaid conditions contributing to women’s high
unemployment rates and the feminization of poverty.
CONCLUSION
Discourse
regarding the roles of women and feminist networks in a third wave globalized
world sheds light on the still-existing problem of exclusion of the feminist
perspective from patriarchal frameworks fueling military contexts. Women can only advance a feminist
agenda by continuing to dialogue across Third World/First World borders, living
rooms, and board rooms, inspiring and building powerful, viable, and reasonable
engagement of gender-wise actions.
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