The tulgey wood

intolerable random ramblings of a vain wannabe

2012-02-08T20:36:00.001-06:00

I would like to say I'm a wonderfully tolerant person, but I can't.

If that were the case I could write about intolerance from the lofty perch of one who could cast the first stone. This not being the case I will write about intolerance from my down in the gutter looking at the stars position. Naturally (ironically?) I am most intolerant of intolerance, but aren't we all? If the world would just see things my way it would be a much happier place, right? I think I am probably not the first to think this, also I think that world full of people who spend too much time on their hair, are severely directionally challenged and find anything to do with accounting horrifying would be a scary place indeed.

So let's leave my intolerance for intolerance behind, and get to what drove me to write this today. People who are able and allowed to indulge in unreasonable fears and behaviours. That sounds just a little bitchy, so let me 'splain. I have a friend who won't drive on an expressway. No big deal, except instead of taking alternate routes, this person has other people do all the driving for them. Another doesn't want to grow up, wants to stay home with their mom and never have adult responsibilities. Wouldn't that be nice? I know a few who didn't learn to drive, also fine if you live in the city and rely on public transportation. None of them do, they all expect to be driven by family and friends. Why does this make me nuts? I suspect it's because I have never been allowed to indulge in such behaviours. If I wanted to get somewhere I got myself there, I have been living completely on my own since I was 17years old, no summers at home, only brief holiday visits. I would have loved having someone take care of me, so perhaps I resent those who have managed to get others to take care of them?

Why do I want people to 'suck it up' and 'get over it', to 'grow up and wear their big girl panties'? Have the hardships in my life made me just a bit nastier? Maybe. Or maybe I was born with an innate dislike of complacency in ideas and in actions, of luxuries in thought. So am I more enlightened, or am I hopelessly locked in the cycle of Samsara, attached to my own ego and desires? More of the latter I think, my own jealousy and my infantile ego having a grand time with my psyche. My own angst rooted in my longing to have someone who wanted to take care of me. My mother had her own problems, having an unplanned child with a man who would turn out to be a less than ideal partner being one of them. Growing up with a mother who did not love her was another. In the end I think she loves as best she can, but she only knows the external appearances of love and not the agony and the ecstasy of the actual emotion. My marriage died in a large part because of my trying to mold my husband into someone he was not. He is not nurturing person, now that we have moved past most of the hurt and the resentment I can see the ways he tried to care for me, and I can also see how incapable I was at receiving it. It takes a while, but it is possible to teach a child that they are unlovable. It takes much longer to show someone that they deserve love. So I sit here today longing for someone to say "let me take care of you", and knowing that I would turn them down flat if they did.

I am jealous of wealth. I think partially because I have never known a time in my life where money wasn't a struggle, or a source of fear. I have lied to my children about why the water isn't working, or why there is no electricity. I humbled myself asking for more time to pay bills, turned down or been excluded from events with my wealthier friends. My real problem is, I think, is believing that having money immunizes you from the constant struggles of everyday living. My issue with complacency rears it's head again, I've struggled dammit, and so should you! In my head I know money does not bring happiness, and can bring the opposite. In my heart I'm still the little girl looking in at the happy family that she is not a part of.

I think I would be happy if only I had more money, if only I could get divorced, if only I had a cleaning lady (actually I think this particular 'if only' I would really enjoy...), if only I could get a divorce (why don't I? I need the health care benefits), if only I lived in my dream house by the ocean, if only I had a studio.... etc ad nauseam. But the trick to being happy is not looking for outside things to make me happy, the way to be happy is to be happy with what I am doing, right now. Happiness, it's an inside job. The less I seek externally and the more I focus internally the happier I will become. My ego has a conniption fit at the very thought of this.

Back to my intolerance. Would I really be happy if one day the world actually aligned itself with my desires? If people actually behaved the way I wanted them to? Maybe for a week, and then I'm pretty sure I would invent new ways to be dissatisfied.

Astrologically speaking, being a Leo and a Dragon doesn't help. I have come into this life with an innate desire to be indulged and adored. My life thus far has been a series of exercises in getting over these notions. Raising three teenagers can quickly get you over the notion that you are adored (oh how fondly I remember the days when they were little and I was perfect...). Living in a forever limbo relationship with my estranged, soon to be ex, separated (you pick) spouse and having a mother who can turn from pleasantly superficial to excruciating cruel in a heartbeat has kept me from wallowing in wanton daydreams of the good life.
I do indulge myself, and am mostly over the guilt, (yes I do dye my hair, my vanity does not include grey hair), but feel awkward and guilty when someone tries to indulge me, and sometimes I'm darn right nasty about it ..... "thank you, I'll get it myself..." I can open my own damn doors, but secretly I want you to open them for me, poor guy can't win.
So where do I end up tolerance wise? Most days I'm pretty good; somedays I'm practically Zen like, and the occasional day I'm miserable and looking for something outside myself to blame. I generally get over that pretty quickly, so, I guess, I'm human. Just like everyone else.

what? no lasagna?

2012-01-22T19:51:00.001-06:00

My son has a chronic illness, two actually. This summer and into the fall one became progressively worse. It affected every aspect of his life, school, friends, family and increasing aspects of mine and my daughters lives. I'd like to add that by this summer I'd already spent 3years with different professionals, put my son through hours (and hours) of testing, became an unpaid professional advocate of all things Graham.

After many attempts by various professionals and unsuccessful outpatient treatments it was decided to hospitalize Graham to gain control of his condition. He was in hospital for 34days. I drove the 50 minute drive there and back twice a week. I spent a lot of time in the car. Our whole family spent a weekend at the hospital and in a hotel for a family education weekend to prepare all of us for what our new home life would be like.

Graham's condition runs in both families, mine especially. It killed my father, nearly killed my brother and I live with it daily. Genetically speaking having three kids was a bit like spinning the roulette wheel, I could look back now and think I was irresponsible knowing the odds were at least one would inherit this disease. At the time I didn't think about it, and even with the knowledge I have now I would still want each of my kids, just the way they are.

People knew my son was in hospital, that I was going back and forth twice a week, that his father was out of the country for half of the admission. Early on I had someone invite me out for tea just to confirm that he was actually in hospital. That cup of tea was the last I heard from that 'friend'. She had her gossip and didn't need me for anything else. We've had pitying looks, forced smiles and people purposely not looking. I've seen the fear/relief that is wasn't their child/family who was suffering. That fear kept many people distant. My daughters were particularly courageous, and faced this head on. We did have some actual friends who showed genuine concern, one even showed up with cookies and just listened, that gesture still brings tears to my eyes when I think about it.

My daughters became more self sufficient, and more than once had to step up into a parent like role. My ability to do my job decreased, and forget any social life. Yet during all these months no one ever showed up at our door with the standard pan of lasagna. We didn't receive any cards, Graham only received cards and notes from us, one friend and my brother (my mother reluctantly sent a formally worded typed letter, after I asked several times).

In one way it was a relief not to be in charge of Graham's care, but that came with guilt, and the knowledge it was only a temporary reprieve.

Graham came home mid December, horribly behind in school and 10days before final exams. He had 16 hours a week of outpatient treatment (add 4hours of driving time to that) he had to attend. His time was school, homework, treatment, sleep with room for nothing else. Catherine and Lizz were on their own 4 nights a week. Still no lasagna, no casseroles, baked goods or cards. I asked for help, and a few very kind people came to help with the driving a couple of times a week, help I truly appreciated.

Now, if Graham had cancer, or been in a terrible car accident people would have been lining up to help, our freezer would have been full of food, and I would have been able to openly grieve for the healthy son I had lost. There would have been gifts, prayers, cards, phone calls and support for my family.

Graham doesn't have cancer, and he has not been in an accident. My son is an addict, and there are no cards, balloons or special stuffed animals for addicts. Despite the fact that addiction is recognized by the American Medical Association as a Disease. Despite the fact that Insurance companies and medical doctors all treat it as a DISEASE, addiction disorders carry a shame and stigma that they don't deserve.

Six years ago when I got sober I did it in secret because I couldn't deal with the overwhelming shame, failure and judgement. I had watched my father die from this disease and was watching my brother slowly kill himself. Still some friends found out, one of them refused to let me drive her child to my daughter's birthday party. For the next few years I was 'watched'. The only place I found compassion was with a group of my peers. People who had been through hell, and were supportive and compassionate because of it.

So now I watch people judge my son and I want to scream. I want to shake them until their prejudices fall out of them. I want to point to the number of people who have died, not from a moral failing, but from a deadly disease, but it's no use. People are afraid, and it's easier to to believe that if you breastfed, if you never spanked your child, if you read them the right books, had them in the right activities that your child would be safe (did all of those, thought that myself). That if you only applied a little will power that this sort of thing wouldn't happen. It's easier to be afraid and blame, to see addicts and alcoholics as 'other' people, people that lack will power, people that are weak, dirty, dangerous and not worthy of compassion.

I can't talk about how afraid I am, how powerless to fix my son I am, so I smile, I nod and keep my chin up, and I write, I write pages and pages, and the occasional blog.

Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking | The Creativity Post

2012-01-07T19:16:00.000-06:00

Creativity is paradoxical.

To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge
must see unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder
must work hard but spend time doing nothing as information incubates
must create many ideas yet most of them are useless
must look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different
must desire success but embrace failure
must be persistent but not stubborn
and must listen to experts but know how to disregard them....

Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking | The Creativity Post: "You do not see things as they are; you see them as you are."

'via Blog this'

Indispensable, Desirable, Lovely Frills

2011-09-19T13:30:00.001-05:00

My next step is to categorize things from "My Ideal Day" under one of three headings: Indispensable, Desirable or Frills. So, here goes...

INDISPENSABLE

art
writing
good coffee and chocolate
quiet mornings and evenings
kids, dogs, cats
meditation
physical activity
creative, dynamic colleagues
ethically, environmentally, socially relevant work
housekeeper/organizer/assistant
clean, comfortable, organized home
studio space
continuing education
ethical food
located near water

DESIRABLE

latest and greatest computer and camera equipment
more spacious home
separate studio space
photography/writing road trips
TWO family vacations
gallery space
generous monetary compensation

FRILLS

art student
art shows
ocean front home
coffee shop
horses

Exercise 9: My Ideal Day

2011-09-19T12:38:00.000-05:00

My Ideal Day....

I wake early and quietly in my big luxurious bed. My lover is either up and gone, or still sleeping (he does not snore or hog the bed sheets). The cats ignore me and the dog gets up and stretches and comes over to have his ears scratched. He and I head outside where we can hear the waves and early morning birds. If the light is particularly good I take my camera and take photographs for about an hour, otherwise I head off to my daybreak movement and mediation class. I return home and check on the horses, being in their presence quiets and awes me.

When I come back into the house the kids are up and getting themselves fed and out the door to school. Even with 4-5 people moving about the morning is fairly quiet. I sit down to my own big breakfast, during which I might check my email, letters or read a little. Our housekeeper/personal assistant has made their usual excellent cappuccino and while we drink our coffee (with a small piece of very dark chocolate) we go over the day ahead and review our weekly and long term tasks and goals. After setting my priorities for the day I head to work about 8-830am. I work in a large space with a very dynamic creative artist group, where we collaborate, teach, learn and produce with each other. We are well paid and do intense, demanding, but ultimately inspiring work. Our work is ethically, socially and environmentally responsible. The organic coffee house and cafe next door displays local artwork and usually supplies us with delicious and healthy lunches. Sometime we lunch together as a group and brainstorm a project, other times lunch is eaten while we work. Work usually ends around 2 or 3pm, at which point I head home for an afternoon horse ride or walk on the beach with the dog. Afternoons are spent in my personal studio where I am completely free creatively. I have had several successful art shows and made enough money that I can create what I want and explore where I want. My studio is spacious, light filled and organized, but with enough creative clutter that it doesn't seem sterile. A few days a week I have an art student or two work with me. I've also been know to take an art class or go on a photography adventure during my studio time depending what interests me at the time. My studio has the latest and greatest computer and camera equipment. I work in numerous mediums including digital. I have a spot in a local gallery (and the coffee house) that displays my work and I have an online shop I sell from as well.

The kids come and go depending on their schedules. About 4 evenings a week I do a Martial Arts class with some or all of them. We're also involved in the local theatre. Dinner is sometimes casual with everyone feeding themselves as they go in and out with various activities, and sometimes its a big family dinner. We take turns cooking and cleaning, and usually once a week our housekeeper (who we could not do without) makes something wonderful, they, of course, join us at meals. Anybody is welcome to stay for dinner and often we have a few friends over to eat with us. The food in our home is local, organic and if it's meat, humanly raised and slaughtered.

Evenings at home are generally quiet, with people reading, writing, walking the dog along the beach, or settling the horses in for the night. Sometimes, usually weekends, we may watch a video together on our enormous comfy couch. Several times a month we volunteer at a local shelter or organic farm. I travel a couple of times during the year for my photography and writing. We have two family vacations each year that we all attend and look forward to. We have been known to bring the odd extra person along with us.

My bedside table is pilled with books and I generally read for an hour or so before going to sleep in that great big luxurious bed, if we have the windows open, we can listen to the waves as we go to sleep.

Wishcraft - My Ideal Environment

2011-09-03T15:53:00.002-05:00

In What Imaginary Environment would you and your best self emerge?

Right, in a house by the ocean with Viggo...? Now I am suppose to imagine my perfect home, this is rather torturous, or at the very least a tease, but here goes.

I have a home near the ocean where I can hear the waves and sit on my back deck drinking coffee and watch them breaking on the beach. I have a housekeeper, and personal assistant (and personal trainer) to handle the everyday household tasks that overwhelm me (read: all of them, save making coffee). My home has very big windows with relaxed and comfortable furniture. It is not the place you take your shoes off before entering.

I would have a boss/team that required my very best and critiqued my work honestly and effectively. There would be high expectations of me. My day would start and end quietly. I have a dog, a cat or two and horses. My home has a library, an office and a STUDIO! (how cool is THAT?) I have a kick ass computer and wonderful photographic equipment. I collaborate with motivated and fabulously creative people. We work individually and together, producing excellence that we are well paid for, and very proud of. I am both a student and teacher.

I am involved in local theatre, co-own (with an incredibly business and accounting savvy individual) a coffee shop/bookstore that displayed local art and occasionally local talent. I take one month a year and travel through the world with my camera, art and journaling supplies. I have a lover who has a fulfilling life in a profession he adores. When we are together it's fabulous, but we both need time for ourselves. My kids come and go and feel nurtured and supported. They are achieving their heart's desires. When we are together we have wonderful family dinners that sometimes include extra friends and neighbours. Everyone is treated like family in my home.

My community is multicultural, loving and supportive. I contribute to it in meaningful ways. Together we work toward a common good not just for our part of the world, but for our planet.

In this environment I am challenged to be my very best. I am accountable to those I work and live with and have the logistical support to keep me focused. My living and work space is organized and clean, leaving me time to be my creative best. Creating huge canvases is a great thrill for me. I have the time and space to explore completely each creative inspiration and I trust in the process.

Part Two - My Cheering Section

2011-08-22T15:37:00.000-05:00

This is the optional second part to my previous post. I create my ideal family to be my private cheering section. I realize the irony of my photo selection. As a child I watched the Brady Bunch everyday after school, and not unlike many other kids I'm sure, I wished my family was like that idealized family. Only now with perspective and history can we see that the Brady Bunch was as flawed as the rest of us. It doesn't stop the desire for that ideal family, and here I will create mine, not very Brady, but to me, pretty damn awesome.

My Ideal Family and what - I think - they would say about me.

Stephanie Robertson - gorgeous, gifted and generous from her core, with just a bit of naughtiness to make her even more wonderful.

Ruth is beautiful, stunningly so ( I don't have to make that one up, she said that to me this summer). Her eyes reflect years of journeying and the wisdom gained from it. She is soft and welcoming. I love it when she sings.

David Whyte - wise, insightful, and one damn sexy Irish poet.

Ruth looks deeply into life. She does not turn away when what she sees is frightening. She knows this is the path to find the gold coins, to find her gold coins. She has an openness and authenticity when she speaks.

Diane Gelder - my wished for mother, strong and soft, generous and kind, and funny.

Ruth is simply a beautiful person. She's very funny and kind. She's interesting to talk to. She is compassionate and a fierce defender and advocate for those who need her. She is incredibly creative.

Maggie Huscroft - my wonderful, wonderful beautiful friend, who I miss terribly

Maggie would sit with me and we would paint and listen to opera. then we might have some excellent food and a naughty laugh or two.

Rumi - I got to pick, right. no where did it say the person had to be currently alive... and if you don't know why I picked Rumi, go read his words...

Ruth will take the time to examine things deeply. Even when it is difficult, she reflects deeply about her thoughts and her actions.

Well, there they are - I would naturally have many, many more friends and relations, and we would have fabulous family get-togethers, but that would take pages and pages. I might just write them one day, it would be a wonderful reminder of the outstanding people I have had to privileged to know.

Wishcraft - Assets & "Objectivity"

2011-08-22T15:08:00.001-05:00

EXERCISE 6: Seeing Yourself as Others See You
Accurate, perceptive praise is a rarity in our society.

This one was difficult. Here are my instructions - "Pick somebody you love and trust—a good friend, or your mate, lover, or child. Sit down with a pen and a piece of paper (no erasing!) and ask him or her to spend about three minutes telling you precisely what’s good about you. And you write it down, word for word. This is going to be your positive tape, so get it right."

I choose a good friend who knows all about my faults, and still insists on seeing my good side. What follows is not in real sentences because it was more a stream of consciousness from her. Here goes (and for the record I sat through this without any self deprecating remarks, you have no idea how difficult that was!)

I have amazing gifts, the way I see life and the difficulties it presents with humour, with wisdom. I have a quirkiness I inject, a hopefulness I project
David Whyte + Rumi + Life's Absurdities = ME
I understand life's paradoxes with humour and wisdom combined
I bring this approach to my relationships, to my parenting, and to my extended family.
this makes me a very good parent, one who wants to connect with my children as they really are
I seek authenticity in relationships
I bring who I am to my relationships
I are who I are, I am authentic
I have worked hard to overcome difficulties, brought an order to my life. to do this takes a certain a Will, this is uncommon
I have insights and apply them to everyday living
it takes courage and self awareness not to avoid issues, I have this
I have an authentic fearlessness I express through poetry, art, photographs
I am gifted creatively
what I put out into the world takes a larger trust in the universe - I have this trust
I am generous and kind in community and with my children
I am caring with people
I use all the above skills when working with difficult people
I am hard working, creative and passionate
just because I am these things does not mean I do not have to struggle

Got to love that last one. I sat through all of this and just wrote. My smirking mouth and occasionally slightly rolled eyes did not completely comply with "sit quietly, listen and write, do not argue or interrupt."

Wishcraft - Personal Style in Action

2011-08-17T10:28:00.002-05:00

I've taken a break from this, but I'm back now. The next exercise is to write down 20 things I like to do (I stopped myself at 25) and then to look at each item and state how long it's been since you've done it, do you do it alone or with someone, is it planned or spontaneous, fast or slow, mind/body/and or spirit, is it free?, is it job related, and finally does it involve physical risk. I think it's safe to stay writing html code is NOT on my list, and that's why there is not a nice table listed below. I will say that on the table I wrote up by hand I seem to most enjoy things planned, slow things I do alone that involve my mind, don't cost too much and almost none had anything to do with my job! that said I do like to do many things with friends, and can be spontaneous (that kind of surprised me, that I wasn't more spontaneous). Hapkido, and perhaps horseback riding were the only things that involved any risk - so much for my jaunty, devil may care outward appearance, which again surprised me, but when I thought about it really didn't.

so here is my list of things I like to do (note, I did figure out how to put in a numbered list

ride horses
paint - wall, canvases, objects, bodies...
photograph - not a big surprise there
edit and create photos
draw (getting a theme here I think)
read (action packed so far)
dance (ha! one that is fast, with people and often spontaneous!)
watch movies
poetry, read, write, listen to....
observe nature
play with my dog - he's just so happy with whatever you do, how can you not love playing with someone who adores you and runs around like a total moron..
hanging with my family (those who do not cause me grief, they get their own list) fortunately I love hanging with my kids and my aunt's family
helping people - this is planned with things like the shelter and spontaneous when a friend in trouble calls me. it lets me give back some of the compassion others gave me
sing - really, maybe I'll actually stop belly aching and work on my voice and join the choir... maybe
get a massage - aaaahhh, if I were a better person I'd say I like to give a massage as much as get one, but I'm not, I'm an unabashed hedonist when it comes to foot rubbing and any sort of massage, LOVE IT
music, music, music - I can't imagine life without it, although I don't generally have it playing constantly, I LOVE sitting quietly while someone plays piano or guitar
driving fast with music - ah ha! somewhat risky behaviour, but I generally reserve this for the highway and when there is no one around, but boy do I love it, and I SING ;-)
sit by a lake or ocean - this quiets my soul, my mind and let's me just be
putter around - not glamorous, but to have a day where I putter here and there around the house recharges me, I'll be a great retiree, should I ever get the funds to do so - this also includes in the garden, but still with a slow puttering kind of pace
activities with friends - I sometimes have to give myself a push out the door, but when I do I almost always have a great time, I have to keep reminding myself of this. otherwise I will become some creepy old recluse with too many cats when I am older
talking to my kids - damn, I have raised some interesting people! I also taught them to think for themselves, I occasionally wonder at the wisdom of this....
hug people - just because, when I'm happy, when I'm sad, when I'm just chillin' as Graham would say
Hapkido - god only knows why, but I am absolutely DRIVEN, I go 3,4 or 5 times a week, and get knocked down over and over and over, I feel clumsy, but I just keep going - and the bruises, I look like I've been beaten - oh, wait....
yoga - which officially I LOVE and am great at, but I haven't been in soooo long, not sure why....
rearrange things - this goes well with a putter around day. I like to change my space, in little ways, and occasionally big ways

so, there you have it. I'm not as daring as I thought I was, part of me wants to say I'm lazy, but I don't think that's the case, I think these 25 things allow me to think about myself, the world and how I want to be in it.

oh! how could I forget

26. verbal banter - I get this from my family, and some friends. one man I fell in love with over his words, and then it turned out he was tall, handsome and rich, but it was not meant to be, alas.... I miss his words more than anything
27. Roller Coasters!!!! weeeeeee! and one with personal risk, other people, FAST, but still mostly planned... (and very scary movies, which I count as very similar to roller coasters)

Wishcraft - Stylesearch

2011-07-31T20:47:00.000-05:00

I am RED. I am passionate, fiery and glorious.

I shout, I sing, I am noticed.

And so starts my 'Stylesearch'. You are to pick a colour and then write as if you were that colour. Not sure what the big loud red says about me... should I be nervous??

EXERCISE 5: The Private Eye Game

"Play detective. Snoop around your own house or room as if you were a private eye trying to find out who lived here just from the style revealed in the house. After all, in a way you are learning about a stranger. You are following the tracks and examining the fingerprints of a unique individual you do not know who happens to be you."

Here we go, my house:

The house is busy, cluttered but not dirty. It has the feel of being lived in. There are bookshelves in every room, and art all over the walls and on shelves. There are bright colours, bunches of flowers and bits of whimsy everywhere. The couches are comfortable and invite you to relax on them. Family pictures are all over the family and living rooms. There is a big dog bed in the living room and the family room. The office looks like barely contained chaos, with sketches, photos, and drawings on all surfaces and walls. By the desk on the wall are post-it notes saying "I love you mummy". Encouraging quotes are around the computer monitor. The stairway has framed children's art along its wall. The seem to have been there a while. Two of the upstairs bedrooms burst with the spirit of their occupant, one is being reinvented and the master bedroom needs a good clean out and some colour but is otherwise comfortable looking. The are colourful art and objects displayed, effort has been made, but it needs more attention to shine. The garden leading into the house is verdant, causal and friendly. Several wind chimes tinkle in the breeze. The containers overflow with many types of ivy. Overall its on the small size and packed with more than it can hold, but its also friendly, inviting and interesting.

Next: Seeing Yourself as Others See You...

Wishcraft - The Environment that Creates Winners

2011-07-29T21:24:00.000-05:00

From the Book:

In your family, when you were growing up:

1. Were you treated as though you had a unique kind of genius that was loved and respected?
let me see now.... no.

2. Were you told that you could do and be anything you wanted—and that you’d be loved and admired no matter what it was?

right...

"If you were a little girl, you probably weren’t told you were selfish unless you tried to do something you wanted to do that wasn't for anybody but you. And then—especially if you got so wrapped up in it that you forgot to be nice to your baby brother or set the table—it was made swiftly clear that you lacked the quality that makes for lovable people and you’d better shape up.

Women are raised for love. That is, we have been raised to give it in order to get it. Our upbringing trained us to nurture other people. We’re supposed to be good to our children so that they can grow up and realize themselves. We’re supposed to back up our husbands so that they feel free to go out and realize themselves. In other words, the flowers are to grow, and guess what that makes us? Fertilizer—to put it politely. That’s how most of us were taught we would get love—not by being flowers ourselves. If we dared to flower—to be active and self-absorbed and good at things—nobody would feed our roots, and we would die. At least, that’s how it felt."

3. Were you given real help and encouragement in finding out what you wanted to do—and how to do it?

This is where I stop answering the questions - it comes out as no. no. and wait...no.

EXERCISE 3: What You Might Have Been

Now imagine that that gifted child—you—had grown up in a family in which you were:

• treated as though you had a unique kind of genius that was loved and respected . . .

• told that you could do and be anything you wanted—and that you’d be loved and admired no matter what it was . . .

• given real help and encouragement in finding out what you wanted to do and how to do it . . .

• encouraged to explore all your own talents and interests, even if they changed from day to day . . .

• allowed to complain when the going got rough, and given sympathy instead of being told to quit . . .

• bailed out when you got in over your head—without reproach . . .

• surrounded by winners who were pleased when you won.

What do you think you would be doing now? What would you already have done? What kind of person would you be?

Here it goes.

I would be a famous artist and writer. I would use my skills/gifts/talents to help others realize their own talents. I would have horses and dogs and cats, and maybe a bird. I would travel and continue to learn from exceptional people. I would share what I learned to help others improve themselves. My home would have many large windows and I would be able to walk to the water's edge when I needed to quiet myself. I would be explosively creative. I would have a business manager and someone to help organize my home. My laundry would wash itself and hang itself up neatly arranged by colour in my very organized closet. Fresh fruit would be available for me to snack on anytime. I would sing and dance joyfully. I would be a creative and spiritual guide for others. I would love unconditionally. I would paint on HUGE canvases. I would feed people who were hungry. I would preform in local theatre productions. My home would be full of colour, and of art, and occasionally people. Mostly it would be a restful place. I would have sheer bed-curtains around my large pillow filled bed. I would have a front porch to sit on and a screened in back deck. My lover would have a wonderfully active life and we would get together regularly, but would each have our own homes.

Wishcraft - Care and Feeding of Human Genius

2011-07-29T16:40:00.007-05:00

AKA - WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

Should not answer that right now, ah, what the hell -

I am an overworked, way, way WAY under-appreciated comic and artistic genius?

I'm a Canadian living in big, loud U.S of A?

I'm a mother of three teenagers who all have decided while I'm not horrifying, I'm certainly not the sharpest crayon in the box, and I am here on earth to transport, feed, clothe and basically serve their very important and obviously 'cool' needs.

Here it is, my official introduction - (clears throat)

My name is Ruth Ann Elliott, formerly Ruth Ann Day, which, in my opinion is seriously lacking in pizzazz of any sort, and has an embarrassingly short number of syllables. When the opportunity came - with marriage - to double said syllables I jumped at the opportunity. (aside: Mortensen has 3 syllables as well). I've been married just over 20years, separated for at least 5, lacking in marital harmony for about 10... okay, enough said. I have 3 teenage children, two of which are taller, and all more cool than I could ever hope to be. I am in the process of starting a divorce, something I have been starting for a good 4-5 years. I've made myself nearly mad several times 'trying to do the best thing'.

I have always shared my space with numerous pets - gerbils to dogs, rats and cats, and several outside friends who seem to think I should feed them (generally they are correct in this assumption). Currently I am down to 2 cats and an enormous rescued greyhound (I 'rescued' the cats as well, really, I should not be allowed out of my house). I'd get a goat if I could, and dream of having horses...

In Canada (where I'm from and still have citizenship) I was a RN, and I was good at it. Somewhere in too many new addresses, 3 babies, and a change in country of residence I let my registration lapse. It seems exceptionally difficult now to get it back. I work part time helping care for an elderly woman, who is... let's say not always as kind as I would like.

I am an artist. I write poetry, take photos, paint, sketch, sculpt and doodle manically. I am learning to feed that part of myself that creates.

I'm not quite as tall, or as slim as I would like to be. I have finally given up and let my hair do it's own thing meaning my head is covered in a tangle of unruly curls. I do colour it, I'm not ready to be grey yet.

Back to the book....

"Those “rare” and “special” qualities we think distinguishes geniuses from all the rest of us? You had them. I had them. Where did they go? As long as you were too young to listen to reason or to be trained to do anything “useful,” you had a marvelous freedom to be who you were. By the time you were 5 or 6, if not even sooner, the precious right to make choices based on your own wishes began to be taken away. As soon as you were old enough to control yourself and sit still in school, the honeymoon was over.... All the people we call “geniuses” are men and women who somehow escaped having to put that curious, wondering child in themselves to sleep. Instead, they devoted their lives to equipping that child with the tools and skills it needed to do its playing on an adult level."

EXERCISE 2: Your Original Self

Question: "What especially attracted and fascinated you when you were a child?"

I loved animals, nature, texture and colour. I loved to touch things, my mother's make up (that didn't end so well, my mother obviously had not seen the fuzzy happy commercial, and therefore did not know she was to react with joy and and wonder, instead of... how she actually reacted). I would get into everything, I was wild, the hero of every story. I wanted to sing and dance and ride horses without saddles while singing and dancing. I was full of wonder.

Question: "What sense did you live most through?"

Sight and Touch - I'm so visual it's nearly a handicap.

Question: "What did you love to daydream about"

I would dream I could talk to animals, sometime I could fly. I'd dream about becoming famous and adored by thousands. I'd dream of being rescued, or of being the hero where I saved everyone and then people thought wow, there's an awesome person, let's hang out with her.

next post: The Ideal Environment...

Wishcraft - Introduction

2011-07-29T15:57:00.006-05:00

Okay, I'm going to learn how to get what I REALLY want...

I am skeptical (but I think she accounts for that sort of attitude). Barbara, let's see what you've got...

"Winning to me means getting what you want. Not what your father and mother wanted for you, not what you think you can realistically get in this world, but what you want—your wish, your fantasy, your dream. You’re a winner when you have a life you love, so that you wake up every morning excited about the day ahead and delighted to be doing what you're doing,

even if you’re sometimes a little nervous and scared."

Oh the tangents I could start here about my childhood...

The first half of the book is about wishing, and here's the big question?

What do I want??

Seriously... Viggo Mortensen on horseback aside, what the hell do I actually want from my life. I've had a lifetime of putting off, making do and doing the right thing. Somewhere in there I lost what I wanted. Of course I could give glib answers all day (see Viggo on a horse reference) and make sure they are unattainable because then I don't have to really be disappointed when Viggo doesn't show up on horseback to sweep me away and spend our days in a beautiful studio by the ocean with a few horses, and a very quaint town just a few minutes away...

So here I go on my journey of self exploration

wishful creating

2011-07-29T15:20:00.001-05:00

Here I am getting back to blogging. I have a 'smart phone' and have managed to make a mobile site for my blog and for my photos www.magpieartistry.com . Etsy http://www.etsy.com/shop/MagpieArtistry?ref=pr_shop is around there someplace as well.

Recently I put up post on facebook www.facebook.com/pages/Magpie-Artistry/249106215100103 asking the Universe - God(dess) - Flying Spaghetti Monster - To Whom it may Concern, for some life guidance. One of the things that came back was a book called 'Wishcraft', which handily is available for FREE as a pdf which I then sent to my Kindle (the technology is going to kill me, or grow me some more brain cells). My process through the exercises has been interesting, and since I'm fairly certain only a handful of people read my blog I've decided to record my progress out loud, on the web, for the world (should the world look) to see.

This blog is me testing the handy email I made to go with my newly mobile blog. What will we think of next?

ps this may seriously cut into my Angry Bird's time, this may be a good thing.

My annual rant...

2011-02-05T17:56:00.000-06:00

Dear Cupid

a letter with footnotes....

Dear Cupid (1)

I wanted to personally(2) thank you for all the joy(3) you have brought into my life(4)
thus far. My high school years were especially full(5) of your special touch with
an arrow(6). As I grew and matured(7) I came to realize the unique role(8) that you would play in my life(9). Every step I took you were there(10). I have certainly been blessed(11) by your love(12). It is at this wonderful(13) time of the year that I really feel closest to you(14). So for all(15) you have done(16) I want to express my gratitude(17) properly(18). With a kiss(19).

Yours with Love(20)
R

(1) You cruel naked jerk
(2) and I mean up close and personal
(3) and by joy I mean years and years of personal anguish
(4) if you could call it that
(5) full of scatological moments
(6) were you aiming for my forehead?!
(7) tried desperately to out run you – you grotty little louse
(8) of my personal tormentor
(9) of pain and turmoil
(10) shooting arrows in my back
(11) I didn’t know beelzebub did blessings
(12) love of inflicting acute mental and physical pain
(13) commercially forced sentimental pink drivel
(14) hard to miss you with this sharp arrow in my throat – you foul bastard!
(15) Every last agonizing…
(16) each and every arrow through my head, my back…
(17) I got my own cross-bow
(18) so I would watch your spiteful nude butt
(19) would you like to know where?
(20) I would Love to snap your little "bow" in half

To eat, and what to eat

2011-01-30T21:48:00.003-06:00

With profound apologies to Shakespeare.

To eat, and what to eat: that is question

Whether 'tis nobler in the cart to suffer

The cost and charges of outrageous prices,

Or to take savings with a bunch of imports,

And by purchasing eat them? To buy: to save;

Non local; and by saving to say we add

Our dependence and the thousand natural shocks

Cheap food is heir to, 'tis a consumption

Devoutly to be shunned. To buy, to chew;

To eat: perchance digest: ay, there's the rub;

For in that cart of foods what fruit may come

When we have shuffled out this grocery store,

Must give us pause: there’s the respect

That makes calamity of such low prices;

For who could bear the costs from wages over time,

The oppressor’s wrong, the proud one’s taunting,

The pangs of despised poultry, the pig’s dismay,

The insolence of aisles and the insults

That the coupons make of thoughtful shoppers

When he himself might his ethics face

And bear his heart with burdens hear

The grunt and sweat under a weary life,

The undiscover’d country from whose bourn

The ill paid worker labours, puzzles the mind

And makes us rather eat the cheap ills we have

Than find the organics that we know not of

Thus Conscience could still make cowards of us all

Okay, so that’s going to be a little tricky to follow up.

The enormous food selection offered to us makes us more fortunate than most of the world. Ours is not a dilemma of obtaining food, ours is a dilemma of choice.

Ay, there’s the rub.

Grocery shopping is prochoice. I have not only an abundance of places to shop, but also an abundance of choices within these places, and that can be a tad overwhelming.

So do I buy ….

• Organic

• made with 70% Organic ingredients

• Locally grown

• Kosher

• Dolphin friendly

• Cruelty Free

• Hormone Free

• Cage Free

• Free Range

• Fair Trade

the list goes on. ..

I can pay $1.99 for a gallon of milk or $6 for a gallon of organic milk; 99cents for eggs or $4 for cage free, organic, laid in nests by self-actualized vegetarian chickens’ eggs.

Then there’s Paul Newman’s versus Organic pasta sauce, Amy’s soup versus Campbell’s, organic vs local vs on sale fruits & vegetables.

And really, do I honestly know how the chickens who laid my eggs were treated? Does organic trump free range? Laid in nests over hormone free? Or should I just assume the most expensive one is the best choice?

Okay, I like my eggs free range, my milk hormone free, my coffee and chocolate strong – and also shade grown, fairly traded, and picked by people who are not exploited. And that’s barely breakfast. I also feed three teenagers who, I suspect, may actually be paying attention to the food choices in our kitchen as they plow through them like locus. And since I am independently wealthy I can make all my food choices Ethical Choices – oh, wait…

Even if I were wealthy, what makes a food choice ethical? Is it nobler to buy locally grown tomatoes, or organic from California? How much pesticide is on those grapes from Chile? Just what does free range mean? What does that pig go through before he is the extra crispy bacon on your plate? What do KFC chickens go through before they’re finger lickin’ good? Which fast food restaurant is buying its tomatoes from poorly treated workers? Are we still boycotting Nestle products because of its shameless promotion for infant formula to new mothers? Is anyone else overwhelmed?

When Charlotte asked me to speak today she told me she was not looking for “why I was a vegetarian” also known as “To meat or not to meat” – which is handy, because I’m not. I was, and have a daughter who still is. I like to say my family swings both ways. We use veggie grounds for tacos, pasta sauce, sloppy joe’s and a family favourite, spaghetti pie. When I make a meal with meat I spend the big bucks and get organic. If I eat out (because I have so much money left over after the $4 eggs and $6 jugs of milk) I try to choose places that use ethically treated meat.

Am I perfect? Not even close, but I try. I believe talk is cheap (just like this little freebie we’re having now), and that money talks. I believe the choices we make about where we shop, what we buy and where we eat will determine how food is produced. If everyone decided tomorrow that they would not eat bacon unless it was from pigs that were raised and slaughtered humanely, manufacturers would pay attention and adjust accordingly. If this summer people only purchased locally grown food, the locally grown section in grocery stores would grow.

Is there an easy answer to eating ethically? I don’t think so. Ethical choices aren’t usually the easy, inexpensive or convenient ones. But they are choices.

The Lives of the Heart

2009-12-27T10:52:00.002-06:00

by Jane Hirshfield

The lives of the heart
Are ligneous, muscular, chemical
Wear birch-colored feathers,
green tunnels of horse-reed.
Wear calculated spirals, Fibonaccian spheres.
Are edible, are glassy, are clay, blue schist.
Can be burned as tallow, as coal,
can be skinned for garnets, for shoes.
Cast shadows or light;
shuffle, snort, cry out in passion.
Are salt, are bitter,
tear sweet grass with their teeth.
Step silently into blue needle-fall at dawn.
Thrash in the net until hit.
Rise up as cities, as serpentined magma, as maples,
hiss lava-red into the sea.
Leave the strange kiss of their bodies
in Burgess shale. Can be found, can be lost,
can be carried, broken, sung.
Lie dormant until they are opened by ice,
by drought. Go blind in the service of lace.
Are starving, are sated, indifferent, curious, mad.
Are stamped out in plastic, in tin.
Are stubborn, are careful, are slipshod,
are strung on the blue backs of flies
on the black backs of cows.
Wander the vacant whale roads, the white thickets
heavy with slaughter.
Wander the fragrant carpets of alpine flowers.
Not one is not held in the arms of the rest, to blossom.
Not one is not given to ecstasy’s lions.
Not one does not grieve.
Each of them opens and closes, closes and opens
the heavy gate – violent, serene, consenting, suffering it all.

what I'm reading

2008-06-16T18:40:00.006-05:00

I seem to be reading books about god, or women in difficult times. Watched Sense and Sensibility last night with the girls - and sighed when Willoughby rides in on his horse, and cried when Edward announces he's not the one who's married. Perhaps I'm looking for inspiration or conciliation in their circumstances.

I loved this. An Persian girl in the 17th century is left without a dowry and must find her own way after her father dies.

I'm reading this now - I'm surprised I actually put it down long enough to write this! It takes you through the worst parental nightmare and works toward redemption, or at least it seems to be....

this book is fascinating. fantasy, which I don't normally fancy, but the concept of being hyper-empathic in a very troubled world is very interesting

always, I read poetry, this is the one on mybedside table, but there are about 30 more on my bookshelf

the family we make... always of interest

would we invent the devil? I'll let you know

I Believe

2008-03-27T06:55:00.012-05:00

I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract

Explain the change, the difference between
What you want and what you need, there's the key,
Your adventure for today, what do you do
Between the horns of the day?

(chorus)

I believe my shirt is wearing thin
And change is what I believe in

When I was young and give and take
And foolish said my fool awake
When I was young and fever fell
My spirit, I will not tell
You're on your honor, on your honor
Trust in your calling, make sure your calling's true
Think of others, the others think of you
Silly rule golden words make, practice, practice makes perfect,
Perfect is a fault, and fault lines change

REM – I Believe

Sorry, couldn’t help that. From the moment I knew I had to write an “I believe” statement, this song has been dancing through my incredibly distractible brain. It does, in a melodious manner, describe many things I do believe. I believe in “Silly golden words”, in change, in “time as an abstract” and in the difference between “what you want and what you need”. Committing my many fragmented thoughts into a coherent statement has been challenging – akin to writing the dreams of clouds. Clouds transform themselves constantly, and my beliefs adjust, swirl and modify themselves weekly, daily, and moment to moment. I firmly believe in change, growth and transformation of myself, and the world around me. Change, evolution and wonder are constants for me, and are the sifting bedrock that I am anchored to.

I love quotes. On my ipod I engraved one of my favourites, “I am not young enough to know everything” – by Oscar Wilde. I knew so much more when I was younger. I was certain about many, many things, things that now I consider fleeting.

I believe in questioning, and this is one thing I would like to do till I die. I always want to be open to new ways of thinking. I want always to accept that my thinking will change. In the Buddhist sense, I don’t plan on reaching ‘enlightenment’ any time soon, and I am very happy with that. Descartes said “Except for our own thoughts, there is absolutely nothing in our power”. I believe I determine my own boundaries, my sky, and my limitations. I believe in the transformative power of thought, prayer and meditation. I work on “letting go” of attachments to things and patterns of thought. Sometimes I am successful, sometimes not so much, but it is the process that I think is important, the journey so to speak. Attachment to the outcome is limiting. To continue to grow, I need to remain open.

I believe things happen for a reason. What the reason is, usually is beyond my cognitive development, but I find comfort in the thought of a benevolent universe. I believe the universe to be inherently good. People, as well, are inherently good. I do not believe in evil, at least not in the traditional sense, whether I believe in it at all is something I like to ponder.

I believe I have a responsibility to better myself spiritually, and in all other levels that I am able. This responsibility continues past me and to the world and its inhabitants. I believe I am a caretaker, no more important than the trees, or less important than the sky, not better or worse than any other person. The Dalai Lama said “Kindness is my Religion”, I keep coming back to this when I examine my motivations and actions. Always, I am responsible for my own thoughts and actions, and believe everything I do should be a reflection of my internal values. From not spraying my lawn to only purchasing humanely raised meat, from actively seeking to improve other people’s lives to respecting the divinity of all living creatures. I think my thoughts and actions can be powerful, I believe in karma on an immediate and on a cosmic level. I believe we are born with a karmic footprint that is ours to work from. My thoughts and actions will affect me ultimately, and I have the power to choose what they will be. I believe to live my life without examination would be hypocritical. I try not to apply the values and standards I set for myself to others, and am sporadically successful. Gandhi said, “Be the change the wish to see in the world”, I aspire to be this.

I believe the human race is not as important as we have been lead to believe. I think evolution may eventually empty the planet of my species. Change is constant, adapt, or be left behind. In many ways I am embarrassed about the actions of humanity to life on this planet. I believe the planet is stronger than any of us and will carry on with or without us, and that choice is ours to make. I do not believe nature is something to be dominated and mastered, or managed even.

I believe in learning. That everything is a learning opportunity and everyone a potential teacher. There have been many historically significant teachers like Jesus and Gandhi I can learn from, but ultimately I learn more if I regard everyone as a source of enlightenment. I think there has been enough spiritual commonality between faith traditions to point to some universal truths. Versions of the Golden Rule are found in many faiths. Kindness to one another seems to be basic. Celebration of, and the holiness of life seems universal, although not always universally practiced. Music and poetry are, to me, incredibly spiritual and touch me on a level that nothing else can. Not necessarily spiritual work, but many varied types and genres, from Beethoven to Nirvana, Pablo Neruda to David Whyte to Frantz Wright and on and on and on…. I find words and music give me tremendous insight and inspiration into myself, others, and the world.

I believe suffering has been my best teacher. I am stubborn, and historically it has taken a remarkable amount of pain to motivate me to change. I work to make this less so. If my life had been with out struggles I think I would be a very different person, the type of person I would have been is an interesting speculation to be sure.

I believe heaven and hell are both within us, and it is our thinking that determines where we land. I believe in god. Not as a paternalistic judgmental figure, but as universal energy that exists in everything, as something outside of and greater than me and also something inherent to me. I believe our separateness is an illusion and that all living things are connected on one level. I pray and mediate daily, without petition. I ask my higher self for guidance, acceptance and courage in prayer, and I mediate to listen and to still my chaotic mind, if only for a moment. My self discipline is not the best, and I continue to work on this. Whether we created the gods or they us, is an interesting speculation, one that I have no definitive answer for.

I believe in tolerance. My beliefs are my own, as other’s beliefs are their own. I struggle with my own intolerance, arrogance and bigotry. I believe outer world harmony can be achieved through inner, personal harmony, and not without. If there is not internal harmony, then any outward appearance of it is farcical. I believe harmony is obtainable, and that tolerance of others is key to it.

I do not know what happens to us after we die, and consider it a rather moot point. I try to define my life by the way I live it, and to live only in the moment I am in. I may learn from the past, and occasionally do, and set goals for the future, but I can only live in each moment. I am intermittently successful at this. I am comfortable with not knowing what will happen to me when I die, I think leading a purposeful life is more important and is its own reward.

Finally, I believe life is for living, preferably with a good dose of humour and love.

Cat Juggling

2007-09-14T17:44:00.000-05:00

There's this scene in one of the Indiana Jones movies - the one with Sean Connery in it - which is why I watched it, (that and I have secret love of large insects, rats and snakes) - where Indiana is going after the Holy Grail.

He of course is only doing it to save dear old dad (aka Sean Connery, and I mean who WOULDN'T want to save him?). He comes to this cliff which naturally drops straight down about a million feet & is completely un-climbable, and at a completely un-jumpable distance (this is including whip rides) across this bottomless pit is another doorway in a similarly unfriendly cliff face. Here, our hero consults daddy's "Grail Journal" and reads something about "a leap of faith" and there is a drawing of a knight stepping off into nothing. Making a face normally observed in the average Frenchman, he steps out into apparently nothing.

(of course there is an "invisible-until-he-steps-glass-bridge", and our hero walks across it)

What does this have to do with cat juggling? Well nothing really, unless your brain functions along the same stalled neuronic system as mine, but I'll have a go explaining. My life right now, is ... uncertain? ... topsy-turvy? ... insane? ... best described with this image: dancing atop a run-away ferris wheel, juggling flaming cats while the lot of us head towards a steep sea cliff which (of course) ends in jagged rocks (at least the water will put the cats out).

So why Indiana Jones? Well there is this bit of writing that I will ruin now by misphrasing it completely because I am too lazy to get off my duff and look it up.

"When you reach the end of all light and step into the complete darkness, surely you will find solid ground, or grow wings and fly" - by .

Okay nice empowering quote, yes? solid ground or wings, sounds great. NOW I will bring back Indiana Jones on that invisible bridge. So he takes the big "leap of faith" with that first step, but is he done? Noooo, he has to keep walking across a bloody invisible bridge (with NO RAILINGS! aarrgghh, give me snakes, murder, rodents of unusual size, but NOT stairways or bridges with out proper railings...), step after step - each another "leap of faith". That's the thing, once you take that "leap" , don't think you're done, oh no, you have to keep walking (or flying -hopefully not into walls, or walking in the dark on "solid ground" -hopefully finding no more cliffs) .

And that's my life right now, one damn "leap" after another, just when I think I can see the bridge, or have figured out flying or stopped smacking into walls in the dark, I have to do it again! So, one day, soon I hope, the ferris wheel, cats and I are going over that cliff - wish us luck...

my summer

2007-08-05T18:15:00.000-05:00

Well looking at the date of my last post, it's been awhile. I posted that one 10 days before I was in an automobile accident that has pretty much occupied me this summer.

Where to start?

Well I was driving my minister's (yes, my minister's) van home from Indianapolis where she was taking a flight from for 3 weeks of vacation. I had taken her down the afternoon before and we had both stayed over at her friend's. I had a good sleep, some lovely green tea with my breakfast, and we said our goodbyes. It was about 9:15am on a bright sunny, lovely day. Roads were clear and dry. I had both hands on the wheel, was not talking on my phone or even listening to the radio or my ipod, going the speed limit. The GPS said drive straight for the next 90 or so miles. It was a rather uneventful driving moment really. I needed gas, and thought I might look for a Starbucks too. I was dressed nicely because I was on my way to a funeral. My friend had died in a roll over car accident and I had timed my departure time to get me to the visitation and service in plenty of time.

I found out later that 2 cars ahead of me was a police detective who witnessed everything and arrived fairly quickly at the scene afterwards. Right ''the scene'' - how did I go from pondering coffee and my friend's funeral to "the scene". Again, it's rather uninteresting. I had steered off to the right shoulder, this quite surprised me and here's where I did something stupid - I overcompensated (worried about EL's van perhaps) and then went back, hit some lovely loose stones (this the detective told me later) I was confused why I kept skidding. The stones and the ditched dropped off, and unfortunately so did I. I remember being aware the van had started flipping over, and I remember telling myself the best way to minimize injury was to relax my body - so I went limp and was this 'rag doll' flipping over and over. At some point I blacked out, perhaps the air bag knocked me out (my very purple face seemed to indicate as much) and I'm fairly certain my left arm is what broke the driver's side window. The next thing I was aware of was a woman screaming from the shoulder on the other side of the highway (4 lanes plus median, she must have had some voice) for me to "GET OUT!" of the van (later I was told it rolled about 4x and caught fire - so I can understand why she would be screaming at me). I was still in my seat (yes, seatbelts do save lives - bruise the hell out of you, and do some fantastic muscle twisting - but mine kept me alive) looking around the upside down windowless van with the deflated air bags in front of me. My head was fairly close to the roof, so there wasn't a fall when I unbuckled myself (the fire went out on it's own - good thing I was low on gas). I crawled out through the passenger's window through much debris, rocks and glass. Once outside some unsuspecting fool at handed me my cell phone (which had been on the passenger's seat and flying loose during the flipping and still works fine).

Shock is a marvelous thing. I took my phone, (being somewhat annoyed at the blood that kept pouring onto it) and made 3 phone calls. Two messages and one very coherent conversation (I was told later, I was so calm and so coherent sounding in the messages that people didn't think the accident was anything major or that I was hurt - I have a very very vague memory of this).

Then I did what every rational accident victim does - I tried to tidy up. (it was quite a mess you see) I had bled on the detective's shoe, so I crawled over to the roll of paper towels, tore two off and while apologizing profusely about his shoe, handed them to him. He, kept saying he thought I should lie down - kind man.

I will write more soon - this is the largest bit of writing I've done since the accident and I'm a little overwhelmed. I promise to add the rest of the "Exciting Adventure" soon.....

(I am alive, and healing, don't worry about that.)

Thanks Gary

2007-06-07T00:46:00.000-05:00

thanks Gary, for reminding me of things that are important.

another powerful poem "Moment of Silence"

Monkey Business

2007-06-05T19:12:00.000-05:00

Well it's happened - I'm published.... go figure.

Church of the Flying Spagetti Monster

2007-04-14T20:34:00.000-05:00

The new gospel...

Strangely Familar....

2007-04-11T23:40:00.000-05:00

CUBISTS LAUNCH UNNAVIGABLE WEB SITE
Conceptual Realism Dominates Site No One Will Be Able to Use Anyway

MADRID, SPAIN (SatireWire.com) — The International Society of Cubists officially launched its Web site today, a brilliant rejection of natural form and perspective that metaphysically establishes the implication of movement, analytically redefines spatial relationships, and is an absolute bitch to navigate.

"What the hell is this? I can't tell how to get anywhere," one of the site's first visitors told the Cubist Society's Webmaster-Curator, Paulo Cassat. "Is this art, or is this a Web site?"

"Thank you," Cassat responded.

Click image for full view

According to Society President Francisco Bernioz, the group launched the site to bring attention to Cubism, which was founded in the early 20th Century by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The Society also hopes to establish a scholarship fund for young cubist painters and sculptors. However, at a public showing of the site here in Spain's capital, most initial visitors were clearly uncomfortable with the design, especially the artists the site intends to help.

"This site is going to turn people off," complained one young sculptor. "I mean, how do I get from the home page to, say, the fundraising form?"

"You must be willing to abandon your pre-conceived notions of traditional Web design," replied Bernioz, "and disregard its nefarious standards of foreshortening, modeling, and chiaroscuro (the distribution of light and shade)."

"Uh-huh. But how do I find the link?" the young man persisted.

"You must embrace the idea that the link exists," said Bernioz, "for once that idea is established, form itself can be forgotten."

"You don't know where it is, do you?"

"Not specifically, no," Bernioz conceded. "It's there somewhere. I think on a nonsequential parallel plane right behind the polygonal search box."

The site — digital graphics, text, and HTML on browser — has fared no better with art critics, who immediately accused the cubists of stealing the absurd navigation and layout from MSNBC.com.

Editor's Note: Due to popular inquiry, we are forced to make the following statement: there is no cubist Web site. It is a fictional site review by a real person. For real site reviews by a fictional person, please see Mr. Clickwell.

mostly evil

2007-04-02T23:33:00.000-05:00

Please see Author's Note at bottom. Thank you.

ANGERED BY SNUBBING, LIBYA, CHINA
SYRIA FORM AXIS OF JUST AS EVIL
Cuba, Sudan, Serbia Form Axis of Somewhat Evil; Other Nations Start Own Clubs

Beijing (SatireWire.com) — Bitter after being snubbed for membership in the "Axis of Evil," Libya, China, and Syria today announced they had formed the "Axis of Just as Evil," which they said would be way eviler than that stupid Iran-Iraq-North Korea axis President Bush warned of his State of the Union address.
Membership closed

Axis of Evil members, however, immediately dismissed the new axis as having, for starters, a really dumb name. "Right. They are Just as Evil... in their dreams!" declared North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. "Everybody knows we're the best evils... best at being evil... we're the best."

Diplomats from Syria denied they were jealous over being excluded, although they conceded they did ask if they could join the Axis of Evil.

"They told us it was full," said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"An Axis can't have more than three countries," explained Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. "This is not my rule, it's tradition. In World War II you had Germany, Italy, and Japan in the evil Axis. So you can only have three. And a secret handshake. Ours is wicked cool."

THE AXIS PANDEMIC

International reaction to Bush's Axis of Evil declaration was swift, as within minutes, France surrendered.

Elsewhere, peer-conscious nations rushed to gain triumvirate status in what became a game of geopolitical chairs. Cuba, Sudan, and Serbia said they had formed the Axis of Somewhat Evil, forcing Somalia to join with Uganda and Myanmar in the Axis of Occasionally Evil, while Bulgaria, Indonesia and Russia established the Axis of Not So Much Evil Really As Just Generally Disagreeable.

With the criteria suddenly expanded and all the desirable clubs filling up, Sierra Leone, El Salvador, and Rwanda applied to be called the Axis of Countries That Aren't the Worst But Certainly Won't Be Asked to Host the Olympics; Canada, Mexico, and Australia formed the Axis of Nations That Are Actually Quite Nice But Secretly Have Nasty Thoughts About America, while Spain, Scotland, and New Zealand established the Axis of Countries That Sometimes Ask Sheep to Wear Lipstick.

"That's not a threat, really, just something we like to do," said Scottish Executive First Minister Jack McConnell.

While wondering if the other nations of the world weren't perhaps making fun of him, a cautious Bush granted approval for most axes, although he rejected the establishment of the Axis of Countries Whose Names End in "Guay," accusing one of its members of filing a false application. Officials from Paraguay, Uruguay, and Chadguay denied the charges.

Israel, meanwhile, insisted it didn't want to join any Axis, but privately, world leaders said that's only because no one asked them.

Copyright © 2002, SatireWire.

Author's note: Strangely enow, this SatireWire story lately has been zipping around the 'Net attributed to John Cleese. That's flattering and funny and all, but now I'm getting so many emails asking who "really" wrote it that it will make my life easier to nip it here. I apologize for any disappoinment, but the story was written by Andrew Marlatt. It first appeared on SatireWire on Feb. 1, 2002, and was subsequently published in several major newspapers, including this version still available at The Washington Post. So that's the deal. All the best -- Andrew.

Say it's Possible - Terra Naomi

2007-03-29T10:56:00.000-05:00

Canadian World Domination

2007-03-27T13:33:00.000-05:00

Under The Tyranny of The Generals!

MAP OF THE RE-ZONED UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Just think how much fun it would be ....
being Dominated by a Canadian....

first the USA

Under Canadian World Domination we find states to be illogical and prefer provinces. The following zones have been renamed to suit Canuck aims.

ZONE I: Laporte Memorial Park (territory) "LMP"

ZONE II: Land Du Beaver (territory) "LDB"

ZONE III: Molson (province)

ZONE IV: Acadia (province)

ZONE V: Kraftland (province)

ZONE VI: Degrassi Jr. Wasteland (province) "DJW"

ZONE VII: Dief The Chief (province) "DTC"

HORTON BAY: This is our man-made reservoir -- we have flooded several former American states to make this majestic watery area. There was no purpose, just cruelty.

ZONE VIII: Littlest-Hobo-Land (province)

ZONE IX: Bombardier (province)

ZONE X: The Hip (province)

ZONE XI: The Trudeau Compound -- this is our man-made penal colony.

Some have suggested that the United States of America be flooded with nuclear radiation and used for soil experimentation instead of wasting time with colonization attempts. The pro-nuke regiment of Canadian World Domination has made a good case, read their reasoned arguments.

then the world....

of course there will always be those who just will not understand....

just too be sure...

thought for today

2007-03-27T09:53:00.000-05:00

I teach that the multitudinousness of objects have no reality in themselves but are only seen of the mind and, therefore, are of the nature of maya and a dream. ...It is true that in one sense they are seen and discriminated by the senses as individualized objects; but in another sense, because of the absence of any characteristic marks of self-nature, they are not seen but are only imagined. In one sense they are graspable, but in another sense, they are not graspable.

-Buddha

Never get too friendly with a poet......

2007-03-18T21:25:00.000-05:00

From Ear to Quaternity
(a Ruthless and Toothless Production)

by Leanne Handson
(fabulous poet - and not just because she wrote this)
author of "Odd Verse Effects"

Bow down before the Amazing Callooh
Mistress of misery, goddess of gore
Lady of leg humping fantasies blue
Driving us mad with foot flat on the floor

If you’re disturbed (perhaps sick to the core)
Bow down before the Amazing Callooh
Read and prepare to be struck down with awe
(Some say it feels like a dose of the flu)

If you’ve a parrot to spare (maybe two)
Drop by the Bulldog for cheeses galore
Bow down before the Amazing Callooh
Pay your respects to the nut we adore

Nearly the end now, there’s just one verse more
Then you can go back to peanuts and brew
Make sure you’ve done what I got you here for:
Bow down before the Amazing Callooh

Never, get too friendly with a poet....

vive de Montréal!

2007-03-16T09:00:00.000-05:00

vive de Montréal!
c'est tres beau..... (et tres froid)

I Don't Want Health Care If Just Anyone Can Have It

2007-03-13T15:09:00.000-05:00

By Jocelyn Chao

March 7, 2007

As a concerned citizen, I must voice my adamant disapproval of the "universal health care" proposals we've been hearing so much about. I don't have any gripes with expanding and improving health coverage, per se. It's the "universal" part that irks me. Providing health care for all would completely undermine the whole idea of health care. If every last one of the 40 million uninsured bozos in this country is going to get access to the vast, virtually unnavigable system of medical care we chosen few now enjoy, then I no longer even want it.

When hospital administrators see me flash my Blue Cross card, it means something. It tells the world, "Hey, look at me: I pay increasingly high monthly premiums, submit to annual exams, and claim any health-related expenditures over seven percent of my yearly income on my taxes, and you can't." But when this bill passes, they'll be handing out insurance cards willy-nilly, and nobody will be able to tell the difference between someone who's had health coverage for 20 years and someone whose boss was compelled by law to provide it to all full-time employees.

Then again, maybe they'll offer some sort of special Platinum Plus medical card. But I can't count on that.

Health care is all about exclusivity, pure and simple. It's for a group of like-minded people bonded by the dream of only having to contribute a portion of their weekly wages to ensure unfettered access to a number of licensed health care professionals. If we change all that, health care will be about as elite as a public restroom, open to any yokel who waltzes into an emergency room and can legally establish California residency.

Mark my words, this will completely destroy the allure of filling out all the necessary-but-time-consuming paperwork, choosing one primary care physician attached to one specific plan, and becoming eligible for prescription medications at a reduced rate.

The only reason this is even being considered is because a majority of voters want it. Well, of course they do—they don't have it! But you don't see 33rd Degree Freemasons letting any old average citizen into their inner sanctum just because he's curious. And you won't catch me sharing my God-given right to affordable lifesaving medical procedures with every bum who's got a jones for another hepatitis vaccination. It's undignified.

After all, how do I know I've made it in this world if I'm not able to enjoy something others can't?

Lack of access to health care is the seventh leading cause of death in the country, and that says something. It doesn't get much more elite than being part of a club other people are literally dying to get into. So what incentive would there be if everyone were guaranteed equal health care, regardless of income, age, or employment status? Who would be left to proudly tell their grandchildren about the glory days of PPOs? That is a future I'd rather not imagine, thank you very much.

So why the constant desire to guarantee basic yearly screenings and vital operations for all, thus creating some kind of ridiculous, unrealistic safety net? How will people fully appreciate the excellence of the American health care system without the constant threat of it being yanked away at any moment?

If middle-class children are given government-subsidized medical coverage from the beginning, they won't have anything to look forward to when they get older. Though my offspring will never have to worry about desperately trying to scrape together the money for a hospital visit, it doesn't mean we should do away with the millions of other uninsured Americans who show them how privileged they are to have it in the first place.

That's just a simple matter of respect.

I urge all citizens of good sense to reject any universal health care plan that gets put forward. It's time to stand up for what's right, and protect our most respectable institutions. If we don't do it now, what will they tell us next—that everyone deserves a free public education and "the right" to a fair trial?

2007-03-12T14:18:00.000-05:00

Sometimes the holidays can be sooo difficult!!!

Area Pagan Dreading Big Family Vernal Equinox Celebration

MEDFORD, OR-"There's always some new Church of the Sacred Pentacle Virgin or a cute single witch who they just have to set me up with," lamented 27-year-old Jeff Birch.

we've come for you liver

2007-03-04T18:15:00.000-06:00

MAN: Hello. Uhh, can we have your liver?

MR. BROWN:: My what?
MAN:: Your liver. It's a large, ehh, glandular organ in your abdomen.
ERIC:: [sniff]
MAN:: You know, it's, uh,-- it's reddish-brown. It's sort of, uhh,--
MR. BROWN:: Yeah,-- y-- y-- yeah, I know what it is, but... I'm using it, eh.
ERIC:: Come on, sir.
MR. BROWN:: Hey! Hey! Stop!
ERIC:: Don't muck us about.
MR. BROWN:: Stop! Hey! Hey! Stop it. Hey!
MAN:: Hallo.
MR. BROWN:: Ge-- get off.
MAN:: What's this, then? Mmh.
MR. BROWN:: A liver donor's card.
MAN:: Need we say more?
ERIC:: No!
MR. BROWN:: Listen! I can't give it to you now. It says, 'in the event of death'. Uh. Oh! Ah. Ah. Eh.
MAN:: No one who has ever had their liver taken out by us has survived.
MR. BROWN:: Agh.
ERIC:: Just lie there, sir. It won't take a minute.

so HAVE you signed your liver donor card??

I've just had a lovely time with so many varied and clever medical personal and equipment, just to be told "your liver's pooped out"..... ah modern science! I'm delevoping a healthy paranoia of phlebotomists and large machines that say, not just ping, but utter a cacophony of bangs, whirs, and bangs.

Ah well, hang on for chapter two this week....

Peace

2007-02-27T09:24:00.000-06:00

Afrikaans (South Africa) – VREDE * Albanian – PAKE * Arabic – SALAAM * Armenian – HASHDOOTYUN * Bengali – SHANTI * Bulgarian – MIR * Catalan – PAU * Chinese - HE PING * Czech – MIR * Cree – PATUKAYNUMIN * Danish – FRED * Dari Persian (Afghanistan) – SULH * Dutch – VREDE * English - PEACE * Inuit (Greenland) – ERKIGSINEK * Fijiian – BULA * Finnish – RAUHA * French – PAIX * German – FRIEDEN * Greek – IRINI * Hawaiian – ALOHA * Hebrew – SHALOM * Hindi – SHANTI * Hungarian – BÉKE * Icelandic – FRIÐUR * Indonesian – DAMAI * Irish – SÍOCHÁIN * Italian – PACE * Japanese – HEIWA * Kinyarwandu (Rwanda) – AMAHORO * Korean – PHYONGHWA * Lao – SANTIPHAP * Luganda (Uganda) – EMIREMBE * Malay – KEAMANAN * Maltese – PACI * Maori (New Zealand) – RONGO * Nepali – SHANTI * Norwegian – FRED * Persian (Iran) – SULH * Pilipino (Philippines) – KATAHIMIKAN * Pintupi (Australia) – YATANPA * Polish – POKÓJ * Rundi (Burundi) – AMAHORO * Russian – MIR * Sanskrit – SHANTI * Serbo-Croatian – MIR * Shona (Zimbabwe) – RUNYARARO * Spanish – PAZ * Swahili (Kenya, Tanzania) – AMANI * Swedish – FRED * Tamil (Sri Lanka, India, Singapore) – SAMADANAM * Thai – SANTIPHAP * Tibetan – SIDI * Turkish – BARIS * Urdu (Pakistan) – AMAN * Vietnamese - HÒA BÌNH * Welsh - HEDDWICH *Zulu (South Africa) - UKUTHULA

2007-02-24T13:52:00.001-06:00

You may find yourself in meditation, seeking meaning in the world. Turning within is the best place to start any search, because it is where all of our answers lie. When we go within, we find we have every possible tool at our disposal. We have a connection to the universal energy that runs the cosmos and every molecule in existence; intuition that guides us from that highest of sources; a heart that knows what truly moves us; and a mind that holds our every experience in its memory. When we use all of these together today, we know who we are and what path to follow.

Connecting our source reminds us that the universe has limitless unformed energy and that we can shape it to fit our desires. We assign meaning to our lives because we are largely responsible for its creation. Every choice we've made in our lives has led us to where we are right now. And we can make new choices in every moment to lead us to our goals and dreams. When we spend time connecting to what makes us who we are as well as to our limitless potential, we can move confidently forward in the world. Though we may meet obstacles and face challenges, we know that we are equipped with the tools that will allow us to work with whatever the universe sends our way. Today you can choose to work from your center to live your most meaningful life.

2007-02-16T08:43:00.000-06:00

SaveDarfur.org has a post called "Educate Others" that's worth checking out...

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world have responded to the suffering in Darfur by standing up and demanding that their governments take action to end the crisis. However, many individuals still have not heard about the genocide in Darfur. To build the political will necessary to end the genocide it is imperative that more people learn about the security and humanitarian crisis in Darfur and find out how they can help end the genocide. We have created materials to help you teach others about the ongoing genocide in Darfur. These resources include background information on the conflict in Darfur, a PowerPoint presentation, and recommendations for engaging your audience in advocacy activity on behalf of the people of Darfur.

SaveDarfur.org has a post called "Fatima Haroun Responds to State of the Union Address"

I left my home in Philadelphia full of hope Tuesday morning. I carried this hope, and that of my fellow Darfurians, with me to Washington to hear President Bush’s State of the Union address. Congressman Steve Israel from New York invited me to this special occasion. Talking with him during the day, I learned that he also wanted President Bush to use his platform on Tuesday night to lay out a plan to end the genocide that has ravaged my homeland for four years.

President Bush did mention Darfur in his speech, saying that the US will "continue to awaken the conscience of the world to save the people of Darfur.” As I sat in the Capitol gallery, I appreciated his words but at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of disappointment. I did not see how those words could be more than the promises that Darfurians have heard from the international community over the last four years.

Darfurians have heard the outcry of the American people and the world community who have taken on the responsibility of speaking out for those that are unable to speak for themselves. What they are still waiting for, though, is a tangible solution for the world’s greatest ongoing humanitarian crisis. President Bush and the United States Congress declared the situation in Darfur a genocide over two years ago, and I am still hopeful that they will work together to offer a solution to the crisis before his tenure is complete.

The situation in Darfur is currently at a turning point. On the ground the violence has escalated in recent months and even spilled over the border into Chad and Central African Republic. What we as Darfurians are asking is that President Bush and the international community push for the implementation of an effective international peacekeeping force, already authorized by U.N. Security Council resolution 1706, to protect our friends and family who remain unprotected.

I remain confident that the international community will come to the aid of those still struggling to survive in Darfur, but I don’t know how much longer hope can sustain them.

What you can do

UUSC: Drumbeat for Darfur:
Acting to End Genocide Now
UNICEF - Crisis in Darfur
Wristbands etc
Eyewitness account

or you can do nothing.

MY LOVE

2007-02-15T10:41:00.000-06:00

I love this man....!!!

Non-Persons

2007-02-11T23:48:00.000-06:00

Please watch this all the way through.

This is her web site - I am humbled.

Withinsight: Close Guantanamo Bay

2007-02-09T16:50:00.000-06:00

sometimes I think the world is on upside down, and it's hopeless, and then I read about people who DO things to make it right, and I am encouraged....

“The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

from Withinsight: Close Guantanamo Bay

thanks Gary....

Man of My Dreams.....

2007-01-19T12:01:00.000-06:00

my perfect match, and I made him myself! make yours here

messages

2007-01-15T16:26:00.000-06:00

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~ by Marianne Williamson

Home? for the Holidays

2007-01-12T23:06:00.000-06:00

I just finished watching "Over the Hedge" with my kids - if you haven't seen it, you should, funny, wacky, with a nice environmental message slipped in, and Canadians dominated the cast (that's one thing we Canadians do - look for that sort of thing, and then go on and on about it, that and the weather). How do I know this, well of course we must watch all the special features at the end, one being all about the cast - are you ready? William Shatner, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, & Avril Lavigne - Bruce Willis? baahhh! (btw - the squirrel, that would be my son)

So what does a kid's movie have to with going "home"? Well there's the rub. Just where is home for me now? I am Canadian (can recite the Joe Canadian thing etc), very proudly so, still say 'zed' use Celsius and metric down here in Chicagoland, but really I have no place in Canada to call home anymore. When I was driving across the border for the first time in almost two years this holiday season, I was elated, I was HOME. I was dans mon pays (in my country), but I have no homebase. We moved so much as kids, and later I did on my own - let me see now (in order....)

Winnipeg - born
PEI
Hamilton
Nashville (less than a year, when my dad was teaching at Vanderbilt) - kindergarten
Grimsby (with my grandparents briefly)
Hamilton (couple of apartments) grades 2 - 6?
Dundas (a house!) grades 6 - 10 (2months of grade 10)
Thunder Bay (2 townhouses) grades 10 - 13
London (3 apartments) unversity
Toronto (4 apartments) unversity- work- got married
Mississauga - had baby
Yarker (oh gawd... outside of Kingston) had 2 babies
Cornwall - 4years, my personal record at any one address, and my last Canadian address.

just which place would I call home?

I've been here 3 1/2 years, and on my return journey with the kids this time, I kept thinking I just wanted to get home, and then doubling back on that thought. I have a social security #, an IL driver's license, and can legally work in the US now. I was suppose to get an RCMP check done while in Canada, but got so hopelessly lost in Kitchener (of all places) that after a hour I gave up. (the trip home could be 3 blogs, but don't hold your breath) The Canadian criminal check (I'm clean) is the last thing I needed for my Green Card here, so I can start my nursing IL registration, and get my divorce going, so I can start over in this country. Wasn't the time for it I guess.

So where is my home? Not at my mother's (at least not for more than 48hrs every 2years!), no one city holds me emotionally(except maybe Toronto), but Canada does hold my family, almost all of which I got to see in my trip. Most taking huge chunks of their time to drive out to where we were, just for one evening. My children were beyond thrilled, and I still am so touched I can hardly express it. (actually my oldest daughter was completely entranced with my cousin's boyfriend, she has just recently stopped going on about him....). In that way I felt so proud even to be a small part of such a marvelous extended family.

Still I am now a guest in my own country. I have made a family for myself and children here, and they are wonderful as well. We were surrounded at Solstice, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day - and missed a brilliant annual family party New Years Eve - me with the chicken head, very classy event.... (but I was with my brother and his family). I have warm loving adults who are not 'substitute aunts and uncles' but safe adults other than me for my children to seek council from, and houses to go to when needed, and their children come also come here.

Still I feel adrift. I would like to stake out one place, and say "this is mine" this is my spot on this planet, where I will make my mark. Perhaps that's what 2007 will be about for me, or perhaps it will be another year of learning patience and tolerance - time will tell.

In the end, home will be where my children and I end up, and wherever that is, we will make it our own.

on Christmas day

2006-12-25T11:38:00.000-06:00

Erma Bombeck once wrote a piece about Christmas, about looking back with fondness on the homemade gifts of cotton balls and toothpicks with glue.

This year I received a felt stuffed angel with only slightly tilted wings, one that I had spent much of my own time "helping" to sew (along with other family homemade presents). She is beautiful. I also received a homemade heart with the words "I Love You" sew into it, a set of my OWN sharpie markers (gasp!), and a new note book to write it, (I've filled another). The last two items were purchased with money saved and budgeted between three other family members, money clutched in Christmas lines carrying small baskets of gifts while I was to stand "away". The gifts then hidden in rooms and carefully wrapped in secret and carried down and placed under our tree.

They are more precious to me than anything else I could ever receive.

Below are my "homemade" gifts to my children, they seemed to like them, although right now they are watching Monty Python's Flying Circus (what WAS I thinking!) and have completely forgotten them.... :-)

a letter about Catherine

Catherine, sometimes
seems to be more spirit than she is flesh,
or, perhaps
she has more felicity than
the instrument that is her body
will contain.
for it may appear
she is akin to sunshine,
refusing to be restrained,
streaming out and through
all afforded spaces
brilliantly expanding
reflecting over
everything within her grasp.

resonating from just under
her brave skin is
joy, exuberance, dance and laughter
together, and all at once.

she swallows the earth
in a fierce embrace, and
steps boldly out into its
darkness,
and, its brightness
arms open
mouth spilling laughter
to mingle and weave
within the world’s voice.

she is liquid speed and
profound stillness
side by side.
kaleidoscopically dancing
to music she composes
with handfuls of willow leaves and
brightly woven yarn
tossed into the air.

I hear her between the
soft rasping of a page turned,
and the persistent rasp of
pencils across paper.

she is my teacher,
my guide,
my joy,
my daughter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

a letter about Graham

he cannot step lightly.

Graham’s heartbeats and footsteps thunder.

the world, left without choice, expands

in the presence of absolute life,

resting, only when he does.

his eyes regard you with utter openness,

his soul, laid bare upon his pale and bandaged skin.

is free to look upon,

to touch, to embrace, and sometimes, even kiss;

if you can bare its raw beauty.

for he has not yet learned how to guard it,

to shield it from this worlds blows, or joys.

his sorrows wrap themselves around the moon

and the oceans feel their pull.

in ecstasy, he his flings brightness to the stars,

and they twinkle back their gratitude;

on earth branches arch from leaves’ laughter

a mere home may not contain such elation.

his heart, he sometimes carries

cupped, in his still small hands;

these are the times I glimpse the man,

he will become.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

a letter about Elizabeth

she carries

my heart, in a bucket of sand, she

uses to make sandcastles,

collects water from the ocean

with seashells for its walls.

she regards me with eyes

older, more profound than

her oceans;

questions the universe,

in the voice of a child,

tapes letters to God

to her window.

Elizabeth walks barefoot, climbs

trees on an earth

she has tread long before;

senses its pulse, breathes its skies,

and later, paints them in

watercolours.

she dances, (barefoot) and giggles,

with raindrops and snowflakes,

cradles earthworms and spiders

as precious treasures, before

returning them home;

and helps me bury small birds

in our yard.

she carries my heart

in a fierce little body,

born with more wisdom,

more compassion,

more love,

than I may comprehend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and so there they are. presently engrossed in the Flying Circus, and I must have more coffee. no snappy graphics with this one, its Christmas and I shouldn't be near this box anyway.

Happy Christmas all.

PMS survival guide (not that I would know anything about this)

2006-12-18T19:49:00.000-06:00

be afraid....
very afraid....

Dear Santa .....

2006-12-08T23:03:00.000-06:00

Dear Santa,

I've been a good mom all year. I've fed, cleaned and cuddled my children on
demand, visited the doctor's office more than my doctor, sold sixty-two
cases of candy bars to raise money to plant a shade tree on the school
playground. I was hoping you could spread my list out over several
Christmases, since I had to write this letter with my son's red crayon, on
the back of a receipt in the laundry room between cycles, and who knows when
I'll find anymore free time in the next 18 years.

Here are my Christmas wishes:

I'd like a pair of legs that don't ache (in any color, except purple, which
I already have) and arms that don't hurt or flap in the breeze; but are
strong enough to pull my screaming child out of the candy aisle in the
grocery store.

I'd also like a waist, since I lost mine somewhere in the seventh month of
my last pregnancy.

If you're hauling big ticket items this year I'd like fingerprint resistant
windows and a radio that only plays adult music; a television that doesn't
broadcast any programs containing talking animals; and a refrigerator with a
secret compartment behind the crisper where I can hide to talk on the phone.

On the practical side, I could use a talking doll that says, "Yes, Mommy" to
boost my parental confidence, along with two kids who don't fight and three
pairs of jeans that will zip all the way up without the use of power tools.

I could also use a recording of Tibetan monks chanting "Don't eat in the
living room" and "Take your hands off your brother," because my voice seems
to be just out of my children's hearing range and can only be heard by the
dog.

If it's too late to find any of these products, I'd settle for enough time
to brush my teeth and comb my hair in the same morning, or the luxury of
eating food warmer than room temperature without it being served in a
Styrofoam container.

If you don't mind, I could also use a few Christmas miracles to brighten
the holiday season. Would it be too much trouble to declare ketchup a
vegetable? It will clear my conscience immensely. It would be helpful if you
could coerce my children to help around the house without demanding payment
as if they were the bosses of an organized crime family.

Well, Santa, the buzzer on the dryer is ringing and my son saw my feet under
the laundry room door. I think he wants his crayon back.
Have a safe trip and remember to leave your wet boots by the door and come
in and dry off so you don't catch cold.

Help yourself to cookies on the table but don't eat too many or leave crumbs
on the carpet.

Yours Always, MOM...!

P.S. One more thing...you can cancel all my requests if you can keep my
children young enough to believe in Santa.

only in Canada....

2006-12-06T12:56:00.000-06:00

what would you give for a little piece of mind....?

Hu's on first?

2006-12-01T14:09:00.000-06:00

Hu's on first?

The PSBI - planning your future....

2006-11-26T23:42:00.000-06:00

the actual truth....

I had no idea this was how things worked here in america....

YES! YES! YES!

2006-11-22T19:06:00.000-06:00

Who is Your Future Husband?

Colin Firth is Your Future Husband
Take this quiz!

Poor Tragic Me......

2006-11-22T18:09:00.000-06:00

or THIS....

Which Classic Female Literary Character Are you?

You're Anna Karenina of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy!
Take this quiz!

Quizilla

the earth and me

2006-11-20T15:44:00.000-06:00

There is a quote on our refrigerator that from a distance seems to read “Change the World”. Only when you come closer can you read the entire quote –

be the

change

you wish

to see in the

world ….

-gandhi

My children – sometimes, I think – may grow weary of my soapbox speeches, of my going through the garbage pulling out items, demanding “who put this recyclable in the garbage?!” holding high the hapless yogurt cup, the macaroni & cheese box, the un-rinsed soup can, as they stick their faces deeper into their assorted books, avoiding all eye contact. -But be careful what you wish for- because now the van we drive, or my purse - when we walk often has a collection of recyclable items mucking about inside them that we are forever taking home to put out with our recycling, because the kids will NOT throw it in a garbage can. Each week our house “wins” for the biggest recycling heap – 4 containers usually, sometimes with extra Trader Joe’s bags as well.

So why? Why bother? Why drive my children crazy – other than the obvious? – it would be easier just to leave things as they are, NOT stir the pot, NOT make my children worry and care for our planet and its inhabitants. Why have I chosen the more difficult path, and taken my children down it with me? - If you would like a very entertaining answer – ask one of my children directly.

Why?

I do it because of them, in spite of them, for them, and for myself. I did it before they were gleams in my eye, I do it when no one is looking, and I will do it when they have grown up and I am on my own.

As a child, I could never grasp the idea of the father figure, of the all knowing God. What I did grasp was the trees, their branches, their leaves to peek out of. I grasped the dirt, I grasped handfuls dandy lions and hid them in secret places, amazed when their tight yellow faces popped into white lacy finger tips. I touched the creek’s cold water, reached for escaping fish, grasped grouchy crayfish and soon send them scuttling back to their rocky homes. I spent hours watching birds and animals – I still do these things - and retain my childhood awe and wonder at nature’s innate wisdom and perfection. My garage contains many ‘bulk sacks’ of dog, cat, rat & gerbil food plus sacs of different types of bird seeds, piles of suet cakes, and peanuts and corn for chipmunks & squirrels. I choose to surround myself in life.

I wrote this on a weekend spiritual retreat I went on last spring. It’s called river

river

Has there always been such green
all and each
so richly saturated
with this chromatic life,
these leaves, spirits within living stories,
twisting over
and around
and in between
each and one another
in their lilting seduction of
wind and sun?

did they do this yesterday?
did they flicker in this coquettish glee
inside my footfalls
sun tickling tenderly
each surface - so thoughtfully webbed-
while in their turn they reached
to lick the honeyed beams
along this muddied path
to water’s edge.
I walk to sense the flowing strength
flirting within twinkling beams
and to caress,
between reflective ripples,
smooth slippery stones
filled with energy.

will there always be
such life?

Will there always be such life?

This I cannot not answer, for it is a question that is beyond my comprehension.

I know my understanding of life depends on the soil upon which I stand the sky into which I gaze, and on the energy and unbelievable beauty of life on this planet. All are a precious gift freely given by earth and sky together, not only for us, but for all creation. For me, the spark of the divine is in blades of grass, in spring time robins, in heavy purple gray storm clouds and in the eyes of animals and of people.

Mary Oliver has a marvelous poem that says this for me it’s called The Summer Day

The Summer Day

Who made the world?

Who made the swan,

and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, --and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, -- what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me,-- what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do -- with your one wild and precious life?

As the poet Rumi says “There are a thousand ways we can kneel and kiss the earth”

THIS is Beauty?

2006-11-14T23:50:00.000-06:00

Forgive me, but is this what is considered beautiful today? These poor women have permanently damaged their skeletons, their internal organs, not to mention what this does to their minds. Why does the world put up with such nonsense? I must weight at least 60 pounds more than the heaviest of these women, and I'm considered 'normal'. I apologize for the babbling of this post, but the men I posted previously make more sense than these shadows of women.

why some women choose to remain single . . .

2006-10-24T08:08:00.000-05:00

alright I know it seems harsh, but I believe there to be a seed of truth in this - especially in our world of anonymous and misleading internet communications. Personally I think I've communicated with several of these guys.... you never know, I could be one of them typing this right now....

Silliness

2006-10-20T17:53:00.000-05:00

FIRST NAME? Ruth / Ann / also answers to Bruce (don't ask)

WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? with the above combination? are you kidding?

WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY? Likely during a movie

DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? yup, not too bad for south paw scribbling

IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? then I wouldn't be me, I would be another person - really I have no idea, I hope so

DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL? several, some for poetry, some for writing, some for whatever

DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? never heard of it.

DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? and most of my own teeth

WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? absolutely, wanna go now?

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? oatmeal

DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? yes, and tie them up again when I put them on - oh the anal retentiveness of it all

DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? I'm raising 3 kids - wadda you think?

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? can't eat it - quite fond of lemon sorbet

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? eyes - eyes - eyes - and usually their hair and hands

WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOU? my multiple felonies

ANY BROTHERS OR SISTERS? 1 brother

DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? no. they can do what makes them happy.

WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? jeans and blue socks

THE LAST THING YOU ATE? spelt bread with natural peanut butter and pomeagranate white tea

WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? 'devil's dance' performed by gil shaham

IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOUR WOULD YOU BE? the broken bits of leftover colours at the bottom of the box

FAVOURITE SMELLS? lavender, food cooking, clean sheets

WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? my friend Kelley

DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? absolutely - but I snagged it from him

FAVORITE DRINK? Tea - several types - depending on the time of day

FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH? soccer - HELLO - gorgeous men in shorts, sweating and running around, what's not to like?

HAIR COLOR? which one?

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD? sushi, raw tuna done perfectly, thai food, dark chocolate - and someone lovely to eat it with.

SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? yes, but it takes a lot to scare me these days

LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? ummm, I watched Kenneth's Hamlet for the umteeth time about 3 weeks agao

WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? heather brown turtle neck

SUMMER OR WINTER? spring and autumn

HUGS OR KISSES? I could go for a hug about now - kisses, maybe later.

MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? likely no one.

LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? ditto

WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING? one with the kids, and Mary Oliver & Pablo Neruda's poetry collections, oh yeah and sections of the Poisonwood Bible for a presentation I'm giving

WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? a silly smiley moon thingy

WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST ON TV LAST NIGHT? don't watch TV

FAVORITE SOUNDS? sound of water, absolutely grounds me. that and music.

ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? can't make me answer this one

DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? yes.

WHEN WERE YOU BORN? on a hot and steamy night

WHERE WERE YOU BORN? in a delivery room on a hot and steamy night

Okay Lance.....

2006-10-20T16:57:00.000-05:00

First I would like to say this is almost an impossible quiz for me to answer with single books - but I will try....

Second this is only a snapshot of me presently, if I answered this tomorrow, or next week, my answers could be completely different

1. One book that changed your life (hardest question first).The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

2. One book you’ve read more than once. Good Omens by Terry Prachett & Neil Gaiman (and it's signed by both authors)

3. One book that you’d want on a desert island. A Complete Collection of Pablo Neruda's Poetry (but I'd find a way to sneak in several more....)

4. One book that made you laugh. The Giggler Treatment - Roddy Doyle (my kids and I still howl over this one)

5. One book that made you cry. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe - Fanny Flagg

6. One book that you wish you had written. anything by Barbara Kingsolver

7. One book you wish had never been written. Little Alters Everywhere (sequel to The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood) - ruined the first book for me - but I more wish I hadn't read it, rather than it not have been written.

8. One book you are reading at the moment. Thief and the Beanstalk - to the kids, embarrassingly nothing for myself right now, other than poetry books and my own writing.

9. One book that you’ve been meaning to read. Until I Find You - John Irving (do NOT tell my mother I have not read this yet)

10. Tag five others that you’d like to do this meme. - oh I'm no good at tagging, if you read this and want to go ahead....

In conclusion I would like to say the one book rule sucks!

tim horton's

2006-10-17T00:18:00.000-05:00

tim horton's
Originally uploaded by Callooh.

ahhh home.....

I do miss Tim's coffee.

Canadian Idiot

2006-10-13T18:47:00.000-05:00


A music video for Weird Al's new song, "Canadian Idiot" - not that I would know a THING aboot Canadian Idiots....

Hedgehog in the Fog-Yuriy Norshteyn

2006-09-27T16:12:00.000-05:00

"This is a story about a little hedgehog (voice of Mariya Vinogradova) and his friend bear cub (voice of Vyacheslav Nevinniy). They would meet every evening to drink tea, count the stars and have conversations. One day, as usual, the hedgehog decided to bring raspberry marmelade. As he went to the bear to count the stars, he was already thinking what to talk about. While passing through the woods on the way to his friend, the hedgehog finds a horse standing in a fog. He is curious as to whether the horse would suffocate if it lay down in the fog. Being an explorer, the hedgehog decides to explore the fog."

I only wish I could understand the language, but the story is lovely even if you cannot.

Adblock

silence

2006-09-11T10:24:00.000-05:00

Moment of Silence

A Gandhian commemoration of September 11

While most U.S. citizens are fixated on the fifth anniversary of the terror attacks, advocates for peace are reminding us that it is also the 100th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent campaign against South Africa's racial oppression laws.

Find out more about the alternative Gandhian approach.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Five years of struggle

As Americans reflect on the five years since the terror attacks on the United States, it is important to remember the victories and losses in the struggle to protect our civil liberties.

See an analysis by the American Civil Liberties Union.

~~~~~~~~

Nationwide call for Freedom from Fear

Human rights activists are using the occasion of the fifth anniversary to urge policymakers to re-evaluate our country's post-9/11 choices and invest in building the foundations for a strong and lasting peace with justice.

Learn more about this advocacy initiative and take action.

~~~~~~~~~~~

UUSC blog (source of most of this info)

UUSC blog.

~~~~

"We make bad ghosts"

2006-09-06T22:00:00.000-05:00

Since I have been immersed in poetry (and photography, but that's another blog) lately, writing and reading, I thought I would drag the rest of you through some of my world. I have, however, kept this blog on a theme, unfortunately one that just doesn't seem to go away.

Being a miliant free verse poet (I can - if I want to - write in form, sonnets even cinquains mostly - oh will she start speaking english!) I will not subject you to anything too old fashioned, or "deep".

Back to Babylon

by Viggo Mortensen

Accept and forget difference or desire that separates and leaves us longing or repelled. Why briefly return to play in broken places, to mock the ground, to collect infant shards, coins, fossils, or the familiar empty canisters and casings that glint from poisoned roots in the blackened dust? We make bad ghosts, and are last to know or believe we too will fade, just as our acrid smoke and those strange flakes of skin and strands of hair will, into largely undocumented extinction. Lie down, lie down; sleep is the best thing for being awake. Do as we've always been told and done, no backward glances or second thoughts, leaving sad markers buried in the sand. Sleep now, dream of children with their heads still on, of grandmothers unburdening clotheslines at twilight, of full kettles slow-ticking over twig embers. Ignore boneless, nameless victims that venture out on bitter gravel to claim remains while we rest.

Pay at the window for re-heated, prejudiced incantations. Take them home and enjoy with wide-screen, half-digested, replayed previews of solemn national celebration. Then sleep, by all means; we'll need all the energy we can muster for compiling this generation's abridged anthology of official war stories, highlights of heedless slaughter, to burnish our long and proud imperial tradition. At some point, by virtue of accidentally seeing and listening, we may find ourselves participating in our own rendering. Few of our prey will be left alive enough to water the sun with their modest, time-rubbed repetitions, to rephrase their particular, unifying laws. Our version of events has already made its money back in foreign distribution and pre-sales; all victory deadlines must be met.

It can get so quiet, with or without the dead watching our constant deployments. From our tilted promontory we may see one last woman scuffle away across cracked parchment of dry wash beneath us, muttering to herself—or is she singing at us?—as she rounds the sheared granite face and disappears into a grove of spindly, trembling tamarisk shadows lining the main road. We'll soon hear little other than our breathing, as shale cools and bats rise to feed, taking over from sated swallows. Night anywhere is home, darkness a cue for turning inward, quiet an invitation to review our expensive successes before morning extraction from the twin rivers of our common cradle.

This poem was inspired by a book of photographs of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One of the photos was of the white shadow, or silhouette, on a wall of a victim of one of the bombings.

Shadow on a Wall
by Seymour Joseph

On a bright morning in August
I was thinking of fish when the sun exploded.
Takeo told me the market had fresh mackerel
and I was rushing to buy some.
But when I turned the corner it happened,
The thought of mackerel baked on coals
in my mind,
A mouth of white heat swallowed me.

But you can see me still on the wall
near the corner
Where I turned toward the market —
My shadow, left like a ransom note saying,
"I took Toshiro Fujima today,
this moment, right here,
melted his flesh in a single stroke."

My shadow stays behind to mark the place
Like an eaten fish you know by the bones
on the plate.
It's me as I walked on an August morning
With the thought of fresh fish and the touch
of a breeze from the river.
There at the end of all things,
when time was stopped,
I am recorded on a wall.

and this last one I actually have on a Poetry Slam CD set (yes I even listen to it in the car - there is no end to the nerdiness) it is written by a man who is against war, but has served. He is a brillant poet.

A Lesson from the Corps

by Marvin Bell

When you find the body, it has cauliflower ears.
It stinks of dead worms, the blood crumbles
between your fingers.
When you find the body, the sleeves of the combat
fatigues are in shreds.
Its face is puce, its torso black and blue, its
guts purple, but the teeth still gleam, and
the bones will shine up when cleaned.
Your saliva congeals, you taste dried paste.
Later, you may feel shame for noticing the colors
or hating the smell.
You were schooled to do this.
To yank the dog tag off with a snap.
You were trained not to answer back to the
silence.
There is a hiss as you compel the metal tag
between the teeth.

This day may become a whiteout, a glare, a deficit
in memory.
A place too barren even for a shriek.
A picture that didn’t develop, just a clear
negative.
For nothing recorded the thump of the bullet as it
hit, nor the webbing wet inside his helmet
liner, nor the echoing within the helmet
itself.
But you may think you remember the shudder you
didn’t see when he died.
You may imagine the last word, the mouth before
the lingering stare.
The machinery of his broken chest may appear in
dreams.
You may see the eyes, and hear the last expulsion
of air.
He is the vault now for your questions to God.
Only the dead can tell you the distance from here
to there.

Personally I haven't written much antiwar poetry - I'm just not so good at big political statements, in or out of poems, that's why I'm always hiding behind other's words, because they usually say what I feel, but so much better than I could say it.

So kudos to those brillant bloggers, and equally brillant poets. Keep it up.

going off the deep end

2006-08-31T23:41:00.000-05:00

deep end
Originally uploaded by Ruth Elliott.

any last words?

this is a test. (this is only a test ... blah blah blah .... had this been a real blog you might have been entertained, educated, or mildly interested by now)

I am sending this from my flickr site - ooohhh the wonderment of the internet and my magic typewriter!!!

This diving board is looking out from CT to (into?) the Atlantic Ocean (the kids told me the water was cold, I stayed warm and dry with my handy cameras).

This blog attempt is so crazy - it just may work!

I have just taken in the 250 or so other photos I took, so brace yerselves. . . .

*addendum - for more pics from my mystical and conjuring scanner, see my Imagery blog...

they're gone, and I'm baaak

2006-08-23T10:48:00.000-05:00

Okay, so the "vacation" took a little longer than planned. Well the vacation went as long as planned, then real life took some adjusting to.

It was quite the time. I have bitten the big apple (and have the pictures to prove it), I have dipped my toes in the Atlantic Ocean (ditto on the pictures), I met one of my closest online friends from England, and subsequently learned that "thanks for posting a picture of my fanny on the internet" does NOT mean the same thing in England as it does here. This I learned after I posted a comment on her flickr site where she had posted pictures of our get together. I have "Performed Poetry" to an "audience" and received "applause". I discovered my "virtual" poet friends to be more warm, wonderful and human than I could have imagined.

and, I got older by one year. I am now the ultimate answer if you can figure that out.

I was loved and nurtured, and cared for in a way I never remember being cared for. I got a message that ripped out my heart, and later a phone call roughly put it back. I caught a bat inside my friend's house 12:30 while doing tarot reading on my birthday during a full moon, and set free the beautiful creature to her open night. To top it off I flew back the day of the shampoo explosives scare, sigh - they took my water bottles! and they searched my luggage on the way down, but they always search my luggage, must be the bright eyed, daft looking Canadian thing. . . .

So where are these pictures? what have you been doing since? Well the pictures have to be scanned - I use old clunkers, and the digital I borrowed I still have to get the pictures put on disc, so you will have to wait. Each of these sentences could be a blog - the musicians I talked to in Central Park, my afternoon of losing myself staring at the ocean, the adjustable beds in the hotel room..... , the night of the bat, my book - yes there will be a book, and my homecoming - but that's a different story. Lance, for you, I do have a lovely lefty blog almost done and will post as soon as I can. Lance and Glenda, thanks for your notes, wow, to be thought of, I am honoured.
Home life was a little harder to get used to. Nothing for my birthday (and Leos like a small fuss at least ), even my brother seemingly missed it. Things not so easy. But the kids are back in school and I have spent my time studying tax, immigration, and divorce law - and today will be cashing out part of the only money that is really my own, my retirement savings - so I can make a start on my own.

I will write more soon - with pictures I promise - something that includes the bright pepto-bismo pink hummer I saw last night, or perhaps that should be a poem...

I have missed you all.

Canadian Border Security

2006-07-28T14:36:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't been keeping up with everyone, and I'm leaving shortly for Long Island for the first week of August - but I promise to get caught up on my return.
I just couldn't resist this one before I left!

Source: Manitoba Herald, Canada

The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration. The actions of President Bush are prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, and agree with Bill O'Reilly. Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal-rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night.

"I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield,whose acreage borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry. "He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left. Didn't even get a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?"

In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. So he tried installing speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh across the fields. "Not real effective," he said. "The liberals still got through, and Rush annoyed the cows so much they wouldn't give milk."

Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons, drive them across the border and leave them to fend for themselves.

"A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged conditions," a border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a drop of drinking water. "They did have a nice little NapaValley cabernet, though."

When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about the Bush administration establishing re-education camps in which liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer and watch NASCAR races.

In recent days, liberals have turned to sometimes ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have taken to posing as senior citizens on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior-citizen passengers on Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney hits to prove they were alive in the '50s.

"If they can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we get suspicious about their age," an official said.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies. "I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many art-history majors does one country need?"

In an effort to ease tensions between the United States and Canada Vice President Dick Cheney met with the Canadian ambassador and pledged that the administration would take steps to reassure liberals, a source close to Cheney said. We're going to have some Peter, Paul & and Mary concerts. And we might put some endangered species on postage stamps. The President is determined to reach out," he said.

absolutely not feeling serious . . .

2006-07-15T21:52:00.000-05:00

Your Famous Last Words Will Be:

"I dunno, press the button and find out."

What Will Your Famous Last Words Be?

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 20% Conservative, 80% Liberal

Social Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

I must admit, for this last one, some of the questions had me a little confused - still figuring out American social security and a few other things....

and what can I say, life has been way too serious lately....

a day in the life of

2006-07-11T13:33:00.000-05:00

There are many bird feeders, and bird baths in my yard. I love the birds that come all year to eat and chat and nest.
One of my favourite things to watch is the robins in the bird bath dancing their "happy dance". I've always loved robins, their return signals the arrival of spring, the growing light, the emergence of life. I love the way one or two will slyly follow me when I water, eyeing the spot where hose water meets earth, slipping into it (when I'm 'not' looking), playing in the splashing and then hunting for lunch and with sucess the quick stick legged rush away. This I find especially joyful. There are many reasons I won't spray my lawn, but the robins are a big one.

I happen to be the neighbourhood repository for all injured wild life (and the collector and burier of all found dead wildlife) - you know every neighbourhood has to have one of "those" moms -so, not only is my back yard full of life from chipmunks to cardinals, squirrels to goldfinchs (all expecting to be fed!), I also know where all the bodies are.

Yesterday my son come running home with 'that' look on his face and said I needed to "come right away". So much for the potluck curry I was making. He lead me to the bottom of tree where a baby robin was curled up. Alive, but injured and alone. My son and his friend had already named him (her? it was too early to tell) 'Chirpy'. Chirpy sat there mouth open, one good eye open looking at me. No robins came by to 'scare me off". We reguarded each other awhile, while my son ran off and dug for worms, and . . . I caved - I always cave. There are outdoor cats in the neighourhood, No one was getting upset about me leaning over him. How could I leave him there? I decided. I scooped up Chirpy to take to my favourite pet store, that had taken care of an orphaned robin before. Now if you want fun and adventure try holding a baby robin while driving (we tried having my son hold Chirpy, but he -Chirpy- had an impressive tantrum). Add to this listening to my 11yr old son talk non-stop, and giving 'very-helpful' advice and recounting the story over and over (and over) again.

At the store the "guy who takes care of orphaned birds" was away, so 15minutes later I found myself leaving the store with a borrowed cage, baby bird food (you do NOT want to know), eye droppers and instructions to feed every 2 hours. Really it wasn't much different than trying to get baby food into a 4month old baby.

In the morning, despite my best efforts, Chirpy was curled up at the bottom of the cage, dead.

Self-Pity

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.
D H Lawrence (1885-1930)

Of course, this doesn't help me from feeling sorry for the little bird whose tiny body was added to the many under walking stones and plants in my garden.

I don't always have the best success rate.

liar
I took a chipmunk,
from my
cat today

and held it’s
tiny soul -
within my hands;
until his
panicked gasping

stopped, watched til
quiet breathing settled into
calm - and
sleep began

we sat upon -
my porch listening
to birdsongs,
till breathing ceased -

and
then I sat alone.
watching finches,
doves and,
cardinals.

after I had buried
his tiny soul;
and come inside
my daughter asked me
how he was -
and, I pointed to the
chipmunk in the feeder.

because, some days

I am a liar.

Posting for Peace

2006-07-04T09:29:00.000-05:00

"What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee: Have at thee, coward!"
(Tybalt, Romeo and Juliet I, i, lines 68-69).

And so starts my thoughts on peace, which are many and varied. I type this wearing a light blue wrist band that says "Cultivate Peace The Hunger Site" complete with little peace symbols. I ordered it when I ordered my, very nearly 9year old's, new lunch bag, which is the same colour, and says the same Cultivate Peace on top. It wasn't expensive and I order during their shipping sales (2 cents shipping). Also with my order, 50 cups of food were donated just for shopping for something I needed anyway. My daughter is thrilled with it and it will send a beautiful message everyday.

Perhaps I should join my disjointed thoughts of my first two paragraphs. I have always been fascinated by these lines of Tybalt's, and sadly they seem, in many ways, to mirror today's feelings toward peace. Is it that no one today has the language? No, it's fairly straight forward. I believe it's the honesty of Tybalt's statement that I like. He is a complex character (as Shakespeare's villains often are) but he states things plainly enough.

"What, drawn, and talk of peace!"

It is a paradox. How can we talk of peace with our swords drawn?

With our guns, our tanks, our missiles "drawn"
our nuclear warheads "drawn"
With our soldiers "drawn" in pain and dying
With children, families, communities dying

Why even call them soldiers, I will call them what they are -our sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, our fellow humans "drawn". And on what? Or better yet, on who? Sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, our fellow humans.

"and talk of peace"

Hate the word, for this is no talk of peace. It cannot be. You cannot speak of peace with guns, you cannot speak of peace while killing, you cannot speak of peace while innocence is murdered. All who die are innocents, and all who live have innocence murdered. There is no peace in Hell, the one made here, the one that actually exsists, the one we reside over, the one that is our very own proud creation.

So why my daughter's lunchbag? For the same reason I don't drive when I can walk, I don't shop at Walmart (I shop at independent businesses when I can), OR McDonald's, the same reason I buy organic and am vegetarian, buy my clothes at the Goodwill or Cosignment shops. Alone, I can no more stop this war than stand on a railway track and stop a freight train, but with every choice I make, every action I take, and every word I say I make ripples, and they DO have an effect.

My older children (13 & 11) recently had a nasty fight - their consequence? Essays on non-violence. My oldest who is not Christian I gave the extra task of using Jesus' teachings to illustrate her point. (we go to a Unitarian Universalist Church, so they learn about everyone from Buddha to Gandhi) I keep all her essays (can you tell I do this alot?), but this one I really like, and have put some of its highlights here:

"Always treat others as you would like them to treat you. This is the Golden Rule. This proverb did not come from straight from Jesus, but Jesus used it many times in his life .... in a nutshell is: What you hate, don't do to anyone else (note: "What you find hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man. That is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary" - Judaism) Also Jesus taught to many that "the non-violent" response to hating another requires an amazing amount of personal strength of insight and willpower - that it is no surprise that it is so seldom practiced. That's why violence all over the world is so much more persuasive. Also that is why countries like us and Iraq don't get along because we are using violence to hurt them - they don't live like that (note: non-violently) so they are hurting us back, and that's probably why we have war. We have been arguing with many different countries over our past and I don't think if Jesus was alive now his teaching of the Golden Rule wouldn't have approved of our wars that we have had in the past and are having now because we are not loving are enemies as we should love ourselves.
One of Jesus' other teachings was if you love those who love you and favour those who favour you then it's not teaching anyone anything. What he did teach was anima, referring to the doctrine that you should never harm any living being or thing. This also inspired Gandhi to talk to people about "soul force" and that "non-violence should be and always be the law of all our nations and species"
Moral: return hate to love and don't use violence. . . .an eye for an eye really does make the whole world blind"

This is what I get for talking all that Hippie stuff at them.

Just for interest "The Golden Rule" is not Christianity's alone...

"No one of you is a believer
until he desires for his brother
that which he desires
for himself." ~Islam

"Hurt not others
in ways that you yourself
would find hurtful." ~Buddhism

"Blessed is he
who preferreth his brother
before himself" ~ Baha'i Faith

I do believe and take what she has said seriously, it is too easy to vilify Bush and Cheney, Exxon Mobile and so many other and to hate them. In the end however, hate only brings more hate. Loving your enemies should start right here - at home - if we are going to be able to honestly practice it throughout the world. I don't condone anything that's been done, but I don't believe hate (intolerance, cruelity - the list goes on) is the answer to anything in Iraq or anywhere else in the world, most of all right here, in our own thoughts and words. Thoughts and words have tremendous power. Hating the President will not end the war. Passive, peaceful resistance just may.

Be the change you wish to see in the world- Gandhi

I choose to be that change - the best I can - daily, with the way I live, my thoughts, words I say, and the actions I take. I believe (strongly) in peaceful social action, and - as best I can - push out hate with love.
It is a day by day process, and not an easy one.

Hey, there's that John Lennon song...

"You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one ..."

you never know.

Moment of Silence

2006-07-03T17:31:00.000-05:00

Moment of Silence

Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
In honour of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last September 11th.

I would also like to ask you To offer up a moment of silence For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned, disappeared,
tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes,
For the victims in both Afghanistan and the US

And if I could just add one more thing...

A full day of silence
For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the hands of US-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation. Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people, mostly children, who have died of malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year US embargo against the country.

Before I begin this poem,

Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,
Where homeland security made them aliens in their own country.
Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of concrete, steel, earth and skin
And the survivors went on as if alive.
A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam - a people, not a war - for those who know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their relatives' bones buried in it, their babies born of it.
A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of a secret war .... ssssshhhhh.... Say nothing ... we don't want them to learn that they are dead.
Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia,
Whose names, like the corpses they once represented, have piled up and slipped off our tongues.

Before I begin this poem.

An hour of silence for El Salvador ...
An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ...
Two days of silence for the Guatemaltecos ...
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.
45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas
25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could poke into the sky.
There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains.
And for those who were strung and swung from the heights of sycamore trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west...

100 years of silence...

For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples from this half of right here,
Whose land and lives were stolen,
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears.
Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the refrigerator of our consciousness ...

So you want a moment of silence?
And we are all left speechless
Our tongues snatched from our mouths
Our eyes stapled shut
A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest
The drums disintegrating into dust.

Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won't be.
Not like it always has been.

Because this is not a 9/11 poem.
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem
This is a 1492 poem.

This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written.
And if this is a 9/11 poem, then:
This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971.
This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa, 1977.
This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New York, 1971.

This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.

This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes
This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told
The 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks
The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored.
This is a poem for interrupting this program.

And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children
Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.

If you want a moment of silence
Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights,
Delete the instant messages,
Derail the trains, the light rail transit.

If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window of Taco Bell,
And pay the workers for wages lost.
Tear down the liquor stores,
The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the Penthouses and the Playboys.

If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it
On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July
During Dayton's 13 hour sale
Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful
brown people have gathered.

You want a moment of silence
Then take it NOW,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence.
Take it.
But take it all... Don't cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime.
But we,
Tonight we will keep right on singing...
For our dead.

by EMMANUEL ORTIZ, 11 Sep 2002

you can also hear this poem in mp3 format by clicking here
*there is more on the audio version than here in the written one. it is equally beautiful.

my first time

2006-06-30T20:09:00.000-05:00

Well after the emotional upheavals of late, I decided to try something I had always secretly wanted to do. . .

Have you ever had one of those things you always wanted to try, but for a million reasons found excuses not to?

Naturally I had thought about it in university, but I hung with a different kind of crowd, the partying beer guzzling kind of crowd, so I never managed it. Then, as the years passed I knew so many women who swore by it, and I became, well, more and more curious.

Finally last night my friend Sarah introduced me to Pam. She was kind, strong, confident and caring. Perhaps it was the way her blue eyes looked directly into mine, or maybe it was her smile, whatever it was, I trusted her immediately. I handed myself over to her completely. It was everything and nothing like I expected. Pam couldn't believe this was 'my first time', I "seemed such a natural." Natural? Ha! I had tried on about three different outfits, looking for that 'just right' blend of casual, comfortable, but that showed that I wanted to be there.

I'll never forget the positions, things I thought my body could never do, all the time with Pam's encouraging, supportive voice. I felt as if I could do anything! By the end, with the soft music playing, I lay there completely content, every inch of my body stretched, tested, and now relaxed, the slight scent of aromatic oil hanging in the darkened room.

Then it was over,
time to roll up the yoga mats,
drink our water and go home.
Sigh.

but you can bet I'll be back, I think I may have found a new addiction....

Namaste

falling asleep

2006-06-26T14:03:00.000-05:00

night

It will be the raw beauty
I will recall

when fear comes for me
with his deep open and
soulless mouth
forever screaming
out his blackness

I am so small and
I am afraid

afraid of the seductive edges
of his mouth
his embracing kiss
his captivating darkness

tonight
his chill infuses me - as
I compose my goodbye
gripping my own soul
with ruined hands

it's his night now,
sprinkled with the same stars
illuminated by the same moon

I knew before

when I trusted
in raw beauty

I cannot hear
my own words
to write this
I have only his cold embrace

still, tonight I will
write these aching lines
crawl through them
rubbing jagged truth under
my cold skin
within my eyes
into my still heart

this letting go is so long
and this living
so short

This poem started off as one thing, then changed itself into another.
It was about a person, who was a crutch, a turning point (an important one), for my life, but as I worked on it, it became a truth about me. It is the last thing I have written , and lately, I don't have the desire to 'pick up my pen' again.

I've been on another journey of sorts, one of self healing and discovery and it seems to be taking much of my time. For the last four days I've had to fight to keep myself from sleeping all day. All this emotional work apparently can make you physically exhausted as well. Doesn't seem fair, I'm eating alot sorts of "good-for-me" things, and have cut out all the "bad-for-me" things - and I feel like I've been hit by I truck.

I used to paint, but haven't been able to for a year now - this is (most of) the last (completed) illustration I did for a children's book. Then I just stopped painting. The reasons were complicated and very simple. The author and I are gearing up again, but all the pressure is on me, and then leads straight to my fears - one being that I will be seen for the imposter I am.

I recently set some "very-healthy-and-realistic-limits" on a very important relationship to me (my new skill, limit-setting) and now feel like I've lost a best friend, a lover (that I never had - but thought I did, my own silly fantasy). I suppose I'm grieving, I know I'm hiding and trying to come to terms with it, but this self knowledge does not seem too helpful today.

There's a quote that goes well with this whole "Leap of Faith" that I'm taking by leaving my old ways and growing into new ones, the author is unknown, but it's from a Unitarian Universalist Sermon I once heard

"When we come to the edge of all the light we have
And we step into the darkness, the unknown
We will find something solid we can stand upon
Or I believe that we will surely learn to fly."

I'm on the edge,
but I think I may be falling.

So, perhaps I have made sleep my drug of choice - I don't drink, eat meat, dairy, wheat, corn or refined sugar - not many indulgences left... (I do however eat small amounts of dark chocolate). When I started this journey a friend said I would feel "better" - "better pain", "better loss", "better everything" - well I can vouch for that now.

"So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange
a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl,
year after year,
running over the same old ground. What have we found?
The same old fears,
wish you were here. "
~Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here

Anyhow, time for my nap....

Dumb as Georgia Peach Pit

2006-06-21T13:22:00.000-05:00

Tokay

To be fair this post is stolen (with permission) from Endorendil at This too shall pass
He does a brillant job of discussing the Ten Commandments, so I won't even try - just wish I could think of an appropriate building to have them posted in . . .

I do have to say Damn! I think we're gonna be so better off without "The Education Dept" and "Social Security", just drains on society really, breeding the weak.

Of all the donothingers - this guy's my favourite

"um"

daddy knows best

2006-06-18T19:50:00.000-05:00

Well here it is again, Father's Day, and it appears I may have survived yet another with only minor wounds. Other than Valentine's Day, Father's Day is my least favourite holiday. Maybe it's all the forced sentimentality around both holidays, or maybe (more accurately) it is my own personal bias.

You have to admit, they really ram it down our throats. Beside me sits a newsletter from my favourite Independent book store with a nice big section "Perfect for Father's Day". You can't blame them, really - marketing opportunity - and lots of people have really great dads they would like to buy books for like "The Wisdom of Our Fathers". Lots of people have (or had) dads that did great stuff with them, and will be spending today with them, or calling them at least.

My own dad wasn't such a bad guy, I actually learned a lot from him, much of it since he's been dead and I've become a parent myself. He died 16 years ago of alcoholism. He didn't want to die. I think had he lived and stopped drinking we would have seen one hell of a guy. I know he would have liked the idea of being a grandfather. My mom left him when I was in grade 1 because of his drinking. I missed him, but life with just mom was cool. Then she got remarried to a man who emotionally, verbally, and occasionally physically abused my brother and me. Father's day got tricky 'bout then.

You may now be thinking I'm not that June Cleaver type character I play on TV.

At least now we live in different countries and I can get away with 2 phone calls a year (let's not forget the one on his birthday). He and my mother invited my husband and the kids up to visit this summer (we are separated, but still living together - I'm more like some soap opera really - No! No! that's not it either) - I am too offensive. My phone call this year was the first time I'd spoken to him since he stormed out of my home at Thanksgiving (I had told him he may not insult my 10year old son). Whole family stopped speaking to me actually, bit of a vacation really.

He used this year's call as an opportunity to "lecture" me on my errors, defects, etc and told me he and my mother had been betting on whether or not I'd call (I'd been given 50/50 odds) I didn't ask which way my mom was wagering. Lovely conversation really, will have to do it again end of August, looking forward to it already.

My children's father had been out late the night before and spent most of today hungover - either sleeping or grumpy. It's been special, I think is the best way to sum it up.

Or perhaps Judith Viorst say it better in her book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day"

"Today was a difficult day, tomorrow will be better"

Let's hope.

You Go Girl, and take those Garbage Bag Pom Poms with you...!

2006-06-16T20:13:00.000-05:00

Anarchist Cheerleader Elected

Lake Worth City Commissioner Cara Jennings refocuses her radicalism after surprise win

By Andrew Stelzer

As a Lake Worth city commissioner, Cara Jennings says, "I'm wearing much more boring clothes than I did as a radical cheerleader."

In 1996, Cara Jennings, then 19, and her sister Aimee started the Radical Cheerleaders in their hometown of Lake Worth, Fla., a town of 35,000 north of Ft. Lauderdale. Their fishnet-stocking, punked-out leather outfits and shredded garbage bag pom-poms caught on, as did their obscenity-laced chants against the neo-liberal agenda, the WTO (World Trade Organization) and various other political causes. As the worldwide protest movement rose in the late ’90s, the radical cheerleaders became fixtures at anti-globalization rallies, and cheerleading troupes have sprung up around the world. . .

For the rest of the article click Here

thanks to Perceval Press for this.

DON'T do it

2006-06-11T07:10:00.000-05:00

Do NOT Click HERE

stupid things I did this weekend

2006-06-04T23:58:00.000-05:00

Things accomplished this weekend -

1 field trip to the Brookfield Zoo with 120 9year olds (Friday, not strictly the weekend, but I'm counting it just because)
2 birthday parties (pizza, 9year olds, cake - really do you NEED details?)
4 soccer games (1 win, 1 amazing goal, 3 kids having fun - 5 1/2hrs driving, folding and unfolding chairs and yelling "go team")
1 soccer party (13 13year olds, pizza, cake - need I say more?)
1 graduation party (teens, cake, soda cans - need I say more?)
1 20 year wedding anniversary re-vowing (perfect fun for the trying to divorce couple to attend)
1 grumbly spouse (NOT saying more)
0 jobs
1 maybe business partner
1 huge emotional upheaval (lets just forget this one - other than it was a sober one)
1 3hour mediative gathering (outside, also know as a "buffet tartar pour les beaucop mosquitos")
1 getting elected to something-er-other (that will likely get me in much trouble - it involves getting larges groups of people involved in social action - oh man will I make a mess of this one!)
6 hours sleep (total)
1 pierced navel . . . . well almost
1 movie - Friends With Money (excellent, excellent, excellent)
1 selfish book purchase (The Mermaid Chair - aparently excellent, excellent, excellent)

Okay, I am SO ready for the week to start..... oh yeah

3 full days of school left . . .

to hell with 'em

2006-06-02T14:25:00.000-05:00

random thoughts on men, pets and my mother

banging your head against the wall
will burn 150 calories an hour
but is not an effective diet strategy

eating a box of meringue cookies is not
an effective coping or diet strategy
(even though they are "fat-free")

banging your head against folded fluffy
white towels while your husband tells you
on the phone at least HIS first priority
is the children burns 0 calories an hour
and is not an effective coping mechanism

there are no effective coping mechanisms
for conversations with my mother after
she helpfully tells me I am too easy
on my kids and she's worried about
"how they will turn out"

my mother emails my soon to be ex-husband,
to let him know she still loves him

divorce lawyers are expensive

I know way too little about men
and way too much about rats

rats can't vomit (see above).

however men CAN vomit -
and were put on this earth to crush my heart into
a small pile of pulp

I don't vomit often,
which is handy because I don't get access to the privy
for more than 1 minute at a time.

my children and pets, however,
vomit, poop, pee, expel snot,
fling all forms of excrement on
a rotating schedule that would impress
The Marines – mostly on articles of
freshly laundered clothing that
I am presently wearing.

this is something I can depend on.

men in their 20's & 40's cannot be depended on.
(holding judgment on 30's & 50's)
this may be unwise since

my judgment with men is not to be depended on.

however, my judgment with flying excrement
is becoming excellent.

there is an obvious conclusion to this,
however, I have no idea what it could be.

2006-05-29T14:18:00.000-05:00

"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding."

~ Albert Einstein

I'm recycling a story here, but its one I like, and it's something I keep in mind when the world seems too much -

This is a story one of my children's teachers had on her door - there was a man walking along a beach tossing back into the ocean, starfish that had been washed ashore and would otherwise die.
Another man approched him and said "why do you bother, you cannot not possibly make a difference here, there are thousands of starfish, and there is only you."
The first man replied - "I made a difference to that one."

I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again." ~ Stephan Grellet

Its a beauiful day - I'm going to go fill my birdfeeders . . .

death in the arts

2006-05-24T09:36:00.000-05:00

Stanley Kunitz

Stanley Kunitz was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1905. He attended Harvard College, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1926 and a master's degree in 1927. He served in the Army in World War II, after a request for conscientious objector status was denied. Following the war, he began teaching, first at Bennington College in Vermont, and later at universities including Columbia, Yale, Princeton, Rutgers, and the University of Washington.

About his own work, Kunitz has said: "The poem comes in the form of a blessing—'like rapture breaking on the mind,' as I tried to phrase it in my youth. Through the years I have found this gift of poetry to be life-sustaining, life-enhancing, and absolutely unpredictable. Does one live, therefore, for the sake of poetry? No, the reverse is true: poetry is for the sake of the life."

Kunitz was deeply committed to fostering community among artists, and was a founder of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Poets House in New York City. Together with his wife, the painter Elise Asher, he split his time between New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

He died at the age of 100 on May 14, 2006.

The Long Boat

When his boat snapped loose
from its mooring, under
the screaking of the gulls,
he tried at first to wave
to his dear ones on shore,
but in the rolling fog
they had already lost their faces.
Too tired even to choose
between jumping and calling,
somehow he felt absolved and free
of his burdens, those mottoes
stamped on his name-tag:
conscience, ambition, and all
that caring.
He was content to lie down
with the family ghosts
in the slop of his cradle,
buffeted by the storm,
endlessly drifting.
Peace! Peace!
To be rocked by the Infinite!
As if it didn't matter
which way was home;
as if he didn't know
he loved the earth so much
he wanted to stay forever.

So why am I writting about a dead poet today, its not one of the 'big' issues? I guess because today it seemed symbolic of the death of the arts. Things like music, art, literature, and yes poetry, are seen as the frivous extras in life - certainly in education. I am fortunate to live where my children can attend 'excellent' schools in the country, yet by the time the come to middle school, Art becomes an extra, Music you can take at the loss of "real" class time and the 'important' subjects are stressed.

Yet its been shown over and over that early music education improves a child's ability to understand mathematics, art study as well. This also follows the brain developement of a child. When a child starts school its the right brain that is developing - it needs to be feed a love of music, shown art, have stories read to it to nurture and feed its developement. The right brain is about larger concents, imagination - it is not about letter memorization, math fact regurgitation and reading ability. Those are the domain of the left brain which doesn't start developing till your average child is 9years old or in grade 4. So what does this mean about the typical child's education? We do it backwards. Instead of forcing letter recognition, math facts and so on down their throats at earier and earier ages we should be showing them spacial math in music, in the compostion of a painting, teach them to love words by reading to them good stories - feed that right brain. Later when the left brain is developing and these foundations have been laid is the ideal time to teach symbols, facts and memorization.

But in our competitive society putting off math facts for art and music, letter recognition for literature and poetry would be considered insane. There is no way to prove your child is better, no state test to evaluate progress - and sadly this will always be so.

My youngest will be 9 in July and has struggled with reading and math - and is even in the 'special help' program in her school. I've always been very active my children's education, but I must say I never really did any of the 'phonic games' that came home - I just kept reading to her (we have about 600 children's/youth books in the house and I unhooked the TV). She is now reading at an "appropriate" grade level and is writting her own "books" (jam-packed with spelling errors, but I can read them). I never worried too much. Just as a never paid any attention when the kingergarten teacher worried about handwritting and 'not colouring inside the lines'. I put the pictures in frames on the walls and bought more art supplies that let them draw their own lines.

Am I raising artists and writers? Maybe, maybe not. One of the highest entrance success to medical school undergrad programs is a degree in music.

On Mother's Day my youngest wouldn't show me the "prescribed art gift" she had made in art. She was furious with it - she had been told there was only one way to do it and that was it. Drawing inbetween the lines again. We are scrapping it (although I think its very beautiful) and she is going to show me what she wanted to paint.

One of a my kids favourite poetry books is one of mine from childhood and Alligator Pie is still our favourite. Its by Canadian Children's Poet, Dennis Lee...

Alligator Pie

Alligator pie, alligator pie,
If I don't get some I think I'm gonna die.
Give away the green grass, give away the sky,
But don't give away my alligator pie.

Alligator stew, alligator stew,
If I don't get some I don't know what I'll do.
Give away my furry hat, give away my shoe,
But don't give away my alligator stew.

Alligator soup, alligator soup,
If I don't get some I think I'm gonna droop.
Give away my hockey stick, give away my hoop,
But don't give away my alligator soup.

feel free to add your own verses. . . . .