Sunday, June 17, 2007

in honor


Today is father's day and not a day on which I typically do much reveling. My father has never been in my life and my children's father lives 500 miles away from me, and them. And yet I want to shout out that if you are out there doing a good job, being a good man and a good father, thank you.

Furthermore, if you are a good human being, doing your part to lessen suffering on the planet and to do right by others, thank you, whether you are man or woman or otherwise, parent or not.

So today I share with you some inspiration that came from my beloved and brilliant little sister who was asked to perform a mother's day sermon a few weeks back at a UU church. She humbly sent her writings for that day to me only after I begged the privilege to read her words. She felt she could have done better. I feel we all could do better, but that she is doing a fucking remarkable job. Thanks, Mimi. You inspire and honor me beyond description.

Her words:

I was asked to speak today about the origin of Mother’s Day and I just about died. I feel like I know how Christian Ministers must feel on Easter or Christmas, preaching the sermon on the mount. Or how a relief pitcher must feel getting a call from the Bull Pen during a championship game. It’s a big day with big shoes to fill. A day when many of my heroes have stepped up to the plate. So I’m honored and a little terrified, but I’m channeling one of them: Julia Ward Howe, an ordinary woman, a poet, an activist and a mother, devastated by the carnage of the Civil War, who stepped up to the podium in 1870 to proclaim the first mothers day, it gives me goosebumps that can only mean that I’m in the right place.

“Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts,
whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by
irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking
with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be
taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach
them of charity, mercy and patience.

We women of one country will be too tender of those of another
country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From
the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance
of justice."

Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons
of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a
great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women,
to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the
means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each
bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a
general congress of women without limit of nationality may be
appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at
the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the
alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement
of international questions, the great and general interests of
peace.

With these words, a great American holiday was born. One whose origin and meaning is as obscured by the magical erasing, manipulating powers of capitalism as Christmas. Yet a stern, disapproving reproach from a mother, especially a public one, as we all know, has a special power to plant itself firmly in the conscience and ring in our ears constantly and at the most inconvenient times.

I’m not a mother, so I don’t know the seeming alchemy that makes this work. I’ve often found myself in awe of how the moms in my life in a single statement can mix one part disappointment, one part anger, one part unconditional affection and one part absolute allergic reaction to excuses to let me know when I’ve screwed up and I can do a better job. I think of my sister, who as a single mom at one point working, going to college and homeschooling her two sons at the same time, has elevated domestic cooperation to an art form, a science. Her house is like a high-functioning direct democracy. I remember one incident when my nephew was 9 or 10, and she was frantically cleaning or making dinner and asked him to please find something upstairs. When he spent 30 seconds half-looking for it then moseyed back down empty handed she said something like, “Attention children: the excuse ‘I’m not good at finding things’ will no longer be accepted in this house. Please go look again.” Now anytime I am slacking my way through half-doing a task someone has asked me to do, justifying myself with the old, “This kind of task just isn’t my forte”, I see the look on her face when she looked at him. It’s that look that says “I know very well that you are capable of more.”

It is precisely that art of gentle persuasion, that x-ray vision into our souls to draw out our deep reserves of motivation and sense of purpose that I believe have preserved the true spirit of this day. In spite of Hallmark, in spite of 1-800-FLOWERS attempts to revise and re-sell us an apolitical version of Mother’s Day that assures big money for their companies (whose CEO’s, you can probably bet, are not turning profits over to mom for her troubles.)

The true spirit of this day has been followed by other fearless leaders like Cindy Sheehan (founder of Camp Casey outside Bush’s Crawford Ranch) and other mothers of soldiers killed in Iraq, who along with the Granny Peace Brigade and Code Pink, Women for Peace, are right now engaged in a 5-day camp out at the White House demanding a withdrawal from Iraq and an end to the bloodshed on both sides. Standing with them are veterans and their families, active duty service members, students and many other heroes.

In previous years on this day you had movie stars like Susan Sarandon speaking at the Million Mom March for gun control. In the spirit of Ana Jarvis, who first conceived Mother’s Day to call attention to sanitation conditions for poor Appalachians, Coretta Scott King led a Mother's Day march in support of poor mothers and their children as part of the Poor People's Campaign in 1968. Under the banner of "Mother Power," she exhorted "black women, white women, brown women, and red women-all the women of this nation"-to take up this ..campaign of conscience." In the 1970s the National Organization of Women employed Mother's Day to stage rallies for the Equal Rights Amendment, to promote access to child-care, and to hold their own "Give-Equality-for-Mother's Day" banquets. In the 1980s the Women's Party for Survival, founded by Helen Caldicott, held Mothers for Peace Day demonstrations. Others used Mother's Day to highlight their boycott of multinational corporations selling infant formulas to third World mothers.

Like good sons and daughters, many have responded to the grieving and outrage that gave birth to the Mother’s Day proclamation and absorbed the lesson, as we would a harsh reminder from mom to clean up after ourselves, wear our seatbelts, or share our snacks. The proclamation has taken root in America’s conscience and refuses to go away.

There was a man at a benefit for Iraq Veterans against the War in a crowded Irish bar in Manhattan where I saw Cindy Sheehan speak. It was standing room only, drinks were two for one, and as you can imagine it became quickly a very rambunctious event. Though the crowd was supportive, there was a lot of shouted interjections and what you could only call heckling. Cindy handled it all with amazing grace. Anyway this man interrupted her speech to say, “you’re a true patriot Cindy!” Without missing a beat she fired back, “actually I prefer the term matriot.” A little taken aback, the man simply shouted back, “I stand corrected!”

As Cindy implied, the patriotic or matriotic work of pro-actively striving for peace and feminism have always been intertwined. For it is in the name of women that war is waged. How many grieving 9-11 mothers and wives’ tears were exploited on camera to fuel the drive to war, first with Afghanistan and then Iraq? How many times did the Bush camp champion the cause of women restricted from work and mobility by the Taliban, only to leave thousands of them homeless, in need of food and water, many with small children in tow after the bombings?

Women are more likely to be displaced as a result of war, more likely to be the sole providers of children and the elderly and more likely to die of disease caused by lack of sanitation wars create. Women and children make up 80% of war refugees worldwide.

Yet, it’s easy to get used to this kind of grandstanding in your name as a woman. Easy to get used to paternalistic, trivializing prescriptions for your needs. You get used to people constantly making assumptions about what is too heavy for you to carry, too complicated for you to operate, simple machines like door locks and bicycle gears and audio visual equipment, used to getting unsolicited advice about where and when you should or shouldn’t go alone. If you stood up for yourself constantly, you’d be living a war eternally with your surroundings. You’d be written off as pushy, un-feminine, a neuter, a non-entity. If by some miracle your feelings in a given matter are taken into consideration, let’s say you take the podium like Julia Ward Howe, and you manage to overcome all of your internalized suspicions that what they say of you is true, that you’re not strong, that you should stick to what you were designed for, wifing and birthing and rearing and attending to others. And you stand up, and you let the words come through you from all the generations past, all your mothers and aunts and sisters and grandmothers who never had the occasion or the agency or the poise to speak them, and they come down torrentially, and they move others to act. They inspire and instruct and help others to grow. Well, the sad reality is that history will come for your very words, for your statement, for your story, like a thief in the night to hijack and annihilate. The sad truth is that even the websites you can surf onto that are maintained by Harvard, Cornell and even juliawardhowe.org, barely mention her proclamation, this major moment in American History. This day that theologians have called an “opening to women in the Protestant calendar.” A day when singing "Faith of Our Mothers" instead of "Faith of Our Fathers" in Christian churches and honoring the Virgin Mary as Mother of Jesus has become the norm. A day that activists have claimed as an occasion to challenge militarism by locking themselves to fences at air force bases and nuclear facilities for more than 100 years. A day that has made millions for everyone from corporations to the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker.

Who will remember your story? Who will tell it?

As I see it, to be small, to be poor, to be a woman, a single mother, a prisoner, an invisible, is to be erasable, even when your contribution is monumental. To truly revere mothers in our society, we must listen to them. We must learn to hear better and ask questions to discover their true stories, their struggles, and stand beside them. Sometimes that means buying flowers, or making breakfast in bed. Sometimes it means digging into the trenches beside them to fight for child care, job training, a higher minimum wage, parental leave. Watching kids or making sacrifices. Sometimes it means doing our own dishes, as I learned from my mom who begged us not to have parties in her honor, because she’d end up cleaning them up, or examining the assumptions and privileges we walk around with in this world. For basic rights to safety, mobility, autonomy, the freedom of choice, are not doled out equally. It means looking at a world at war and seeing that the costs are not shared fairly, and who is calling the shots, who is at the table, how did they get there? What assumptions and unearned entitlements got them there? It means going to the violent neighborhoods in our own hearts to wrestle openly with these questions.

If you are looking for a place to start, or to continue, I have 3 categories of suggestions. Stand with mothers to stop the occupation of Iraq and protect the children fighting on all sides of the conflict. Help to hold our leaders accountable. Hold them to their word, for example Nancy Pulosi recently stated, “When people ask me what are the three most important issues today in congress, I always say the same thing, ‘our children, our children, our children. Their health, their education, their economic security, their families, their environment… and of course, a world at peace in which they can thrive.’” Let’s hold her to that.

Support the growing GI movement in opposition to the war. Lt. Ehren Watada and Sgt. Ricky Clousing are two officers who have refused deployment to Iraq, and need the support of Americans that oppose the war on moral or legal grounds.

Lastly, of course, call your mother. And all the mothers in your life. Ask her what a true Mother’s Day would look like to her, if she had the power and the glory. Don’t assume she wants flowers. Most of them are picked by children, paid a pittance, and who are exposed to toxic chemicals while they work. Anyway, maybe she wants a membership to War Resisters League, or a copy of the War Resisters League 2007 calendar. Maybe she wants a ride to the CodePink rally. Maybe she just wants to sit and talk, to tell you her story, to complain, the gift of space to exist as an intelligent, complex being who, at any age, is still growing, still expanding, still full of surprises.

Whomever you are, parent, teacher, mother, father, street sweeper, arise. Whether your baptism be of water or of tears, whether your war is half a world away or right on your doorstep. Whether it is militarism or poverty or indignity, the dehumanizing forces of sexism, racism homophobia or violence that has come for you or your child in the night, it is time to forsake the plow and the anvil, leave all that is left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. A day of reckoning with a deep sickness that has pervaded our culture for too long. A day to refuse to pass on our own bad habits to the younger generation and set an example for them. To create new meanings of honor, without bloodshed; love without violence, possession, dominance, unfair and paternal usurping of self-determination.

If you need help, it is there. There are organizations of like minded people. There are study groups to struggle with our own internalized superiority and inferiority complexes. There are marches and workshops and books and mentors. There are your neighbors, like me, looking around every day for those with passion to match our own for justice, equality, true freedom for all. Looking to be inspired, to find relief and solidarity. And of course, there are the stories. Let’s not let the good ones get lost.

“Not only is another world possible, but on a quiet day, you can hear her breathing.” --Arundhati Roy


Mimi is also an amazing musician, and more can be found about her music at mimilavalley.com.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

schism


"I know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them fall away."

Whether we like it or not it is nearly irrefutable that we humans belong together in community, in tribes, in family groups. We are social creatures and once upon a time, it is likely that we got along, at least as well as other animals do, which is to say that while we might have gotten nasty to defend our food supply or our children or mate if called to do so, we didn't argue over the petty shit. There was no petty shit.

"Mildewed and smoldering. Fundamental differing.
Pure intention juxtaposed will set two lovers souls in motion
Disintegrating as it goes, testing our communication."

So now we have these big brains and these big fucking ideals, and life is one big existential crisis compounded by imminent social and environmental collapse. Without such pressure we have a hard time figuring out how to express ourselves to each other. Now we get set off by each other even when our goals and desires are in accordance with each other. Our work is in learning how to recognize that perspective is everything, we are each entirely the sum of our experiences, and then to talk, write, sign, look at each other in more effective ways so that we can quit bickering and work towards integration.

"The light that fueled our fire then has burned a hole between us so
We cannot see to reach an end, crippling our communication."

So it hurts. We hurt. We hurt from broken families and broken homes and broken cultures. It hurts when others say and do things we do not understand, and our pain blinds us to try to see where they are coming from, just as it hurts to say something that is then not understood by others, and our pain blinds us to try to see where they have been coming from. We do not function well in our pain and we have a hard time getting to the place where perhaps we need to explain further or apologize or make progress or forgive. If we do not? Breakdown.

"I know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them tumble down
No fault, none to blame - it doesn't mean I don't desire to
Point the finger, blame the other, watch the temple topple over."

Goddammit, look here! I know there is a better way! I know we don't have to destroy each other and the earth! I know if you just do it this way we can make it!

No way! We are doomed, we're fucked, we don't have a chance in hell. Give up, fuck you all, I am doing whatever I want!

"To bring the pieces back together, rediscover communication."

Interesting. Hmmm, ok. I'll try to....Listen. Speak with consideration, deliberation, care. Think. Be patient. Accept other's faults, their baggage, the places they've been, their sun sign and moon sign and rising sign. Apologize. Keep humor intact. Be compassionate. Metered. Diplomatic. Creative, constructive, effective. Cooperative. Lose insecurities and quit fantasizing that it's all about me. Listen with my mind wide open. Speak with my tongue not barbed.

"The poetry that comes from the squaring off between,
And the circling is worth it.
Finding beauty in the dissonance."

Maybe there is something to be learned from with whom I do not agree. Maybe there is a magic, a lesson in our discord, like a chord thumped loudly on the strings of our souls. Beauty in dissonance? The light in the dark, remember? The dark that is a light? Let the paradox arise!

"There was a time that the pieces fit, but I watched them fall away.
Mildewed and smoldering, strangled by our coveting."

Ecosystem, biosystem, social systems that sustain. Once and future world views that work only when there is no desperate grabbing for power, wealth, resources, fame.

"I've done the math enough to know the dangers of our second guessing,
Doomed to crumble unless we grow, and strengthen our communication. "

Well, this sure seems to keep coming up again and again. The crumbling is around our ears, in our eyes, our air, water, food, homes, relationships, families. Needing each other as advocates, this lifetime not fulfilled. Sure extinction is a real possibility, but it isn't here yet, isn't a choice as much as a possible outcome, but until then what? I am here with you, all of you.

"Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion
Between supposed lovers...
Between supposed brothers..."

Silence = Death. Ever heard that before? You are my supposed lovers, my supposed brothers. I refuse to be silent. I beg of you to use your voices, as well, and use them well...

"I know the pieces fit!
I know the pieces fit!
I know the pieces fit!
I know the pieces fit!
I know the pieces fit!
I know the pieces fit!
I know the pieces fit!
I know the pieces fit!"


("schism" by TOOL, by whom I am gratefully humbled.)

Monday, June 04, 2007

a trancer's prayer for her knees




Dearest Goddess of dancing all night,
of transformative, psychedelic, powerful, life changing events,
Goddess of long walks up the mountain and gorgeous strong legs,
have mercy upon me.

I may not have always held my body as I should have,
may have stood with knees locked in a defiant stance
in a stony challenge to the world to go ahead and try to knock me down if you can,
(and you can't)
but now I am ready to yield
soften
bend at the knees
relax
if you would please
grant me respite from the mounting pain
in these knees
which have carried me thus far
and for which I am ever so grateful.
You see, Goddess, I still need these knees
for many more vigorous mountain hikes and
reverent trance dancing for hours and sometimes days on end.



Sweet loving Goddess of gardens and scratch cooked meals,
Goddess of the sacred hearth that must be tended,
I beg of you offer me relief
from the aches and cramps of my feet, calves and crackling joints
that need to kneel in the dirt with veggies and flowers and
hover low over morning fires heating my children's home and
stand long hours in the kitchen
perpetually and lovingly
preparing the days' meals.
I will sit when I can, stretch and
wear supportive shoes on the hard tile floors,
will soak my feet and wrap my knees in hot castor oil healing packs,
but I beg for your compassion;
let me carry out my duties, work and play
without pain.



Diana, Goddess of the hunt and the hounds,
each day I invoke you as I exercise my pack of rescued beasts,
hike devotedly on my two legs so they may each stretch their four.
Please bestow upon me limber joints and far-reaching endurance,
relaxed smooth muscle tissue and
the ability to lope capably alongside my lupine companions.



Grandmother Goddess, I tell you,
someday I may need to rock more babies on my hips
and walk them soothingly long into the night and
Goddess of revolution and rock and roll,
I at times still find myself in tough black boots
(with supportive insoles, of course)
thrashing my way through the pit or
marching the streets of DC in protest of the abounding madness.
Holy, holy Goddess,
sometimes I seek only to kneel,
bow my head to the sacred ground,
give thanks and pray.
May I do so without the sharp stab of ligaments
stretching beyond their once liberal elasticity.



Goddesses, of you all I implore:
I need a thousand more miles
upright on these tired soles,
I need a million more stomps of bare feet into earth,
I need ease and yogic grace in my deep squats
as I hunker near the ground face to face
holding hands with women nearing birth and
listening to children share profound insights,
I need to feed the hungry on strong legs,
stand unwaveringly against injustice in the world
and leap in celebration when we should triumph.
I need to
walk
run
dance
stomp
hike
cook
march
bend
crouch
pray
attend
dig
plant
harvest
heal
and
jump for joy
for many, many long years to come.
For this boon, Goddess, I offer myself unto you.
I shall serve relentlessly
(though frankly you know I'll do it whether I ache or not)
but I would feel so honored to do so
in that blessed state of grace-
free from chronic pain.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

a blog reborn



Oh my sweet and beloved blog, I have not abandoned you! I actually think of you far more often than is reasonable. I mean, if I am going to write, I should write. If I am not, I should not spend my time feeling guilty that I have not. That said, I believe I have returned.

This spring thus far has been...revolutionary. Certainly, I am prone to bouts of personal revolution, in fact, I seem to not function well without them. But somewhere between new years eve's self-inflicted, psychological turmoil (which I have yet to post about, but will; the tale is party written and deserves to come to light) and the first blooms of the equinox everything settled like a silky layer of silt at the ocean floor; the blackness is occasionally rustled by the tides but mostly rests compliantly below where I can dig my toes into its soft murkiness when I choose.

What has spring wrought upon me? With delicate hammers of silver and copper my life has been molded and fired, the materials of my days sometimes easing seamlessly into new forms and other times requiring a little extra banging into place.

I have new housemates, three to be exact, that actually comprise an entirely new family structure for me with great potential for the future. Three lovely ladies now complete my household, and we two mommies, two sons and two daughters have become the progressive evolution of the old Brady Bunch theme. And trust me, two cooperative parents under one roof is far superior to one struggling alone. We are having a blast!

There has been a shift in my codependency and in a primary love relationship. I am demonstrating a high proficiency in my lessons around living my life for my self and allowing others to do the same and keeping healthy boundaries. It feels fantastic.

A powerful catalyst swooped into town and once again brought up some questions for me that I continue to address. What level of priority do I place upon my need for the profundity I experience through trance, festivals and travel versus the sanctity I desire at home and with family and in relationships? How do I continue to strive for balance amongst them? Where must they intersect, and at what points is it acceptable for them to diverge? And who should I love and how and what love will compliment me most in all arenas of my being? These are all big questions for me, as both realms are of immense import to me. This is an ongoing process.

And then there is the pain. The physical http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifpain which seems to have, for some reason, become my constant companion. I seek the whys and hows and what to do for relief. I have been looking at the physiological and psychological reasons for these ongoing struggles and feel confusion. Should my goal be to find the answer that ends the pain or to make peace with it and accept its place in my life? I do not want to hurt, especially when I feel so fucking gloriously about being alive. But then, I count my blessings; at least I feel gloriously about being alive. At least my children are well. At least my home is safe. At least I continue to have these periods of personal transmutation and revelation. And yet I grow weary of the hurt.

And there has been music, so much music I am blessed to feel. Band of Horses, The Arcade Fire, Goa Gil and more. Next stop TOOL!

Alas, I am alive, dear readers, fully. I am activated. I seek answers but understand that I may spend the rest of my days looking for them. But for the opportunity to quest, I give thanks. Welcome back to my process and thank you very much for sharing.