Monthly Archives: May 2020

It’s not protest. It’s rebellion.

Posted on by
10

IMG_9325This is what it is: “the action or process of resisting authority, control, or convention.”

In 1773 it took a bunch of angry white boys (many of them dressed as Native Americans) destroying shipments of goods and burning down a city to begin the process toward ending tyranny and oppression. It was called The Boston Tea Party and was the precursor to a certain revolution and the beginning of a new country. Somehow “we” forgot that and decided tyranny and oppression were okay for some people – we “forgot” it for 200+ years, in fact.

A phoenix can’t rise without ashes.

I know what it means to protest in order to express an objection to what someone has said or done.

I do a lot of protesting. I protested against the use of animals in labs. I protest to honor the animals that die so people can wear their fur. I protest against factory farms. I protest in favor of being a vegan.

I protest against puppy mills, animal abuse, the killing of wolves and coyotes–I protested to save my lagoon against being raped and pillaged by a rich developer–I protest for my right to choose what to do with my own body–yeah, I know what it means to protest.

I speak up –and out– A LOT.

But I’m really sick of white people thinking that the lives people of color are less valuable. At this point, if I was any other color than what I am, I would be BEYOND angry.

Angry for the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor. And before that, let’s not forget Trayvon Martin, etc, etc. etc.

THIS is a rebellion.

It’s an old story that needs a new ending.

I lived in Detroit during the riots in the late sixties. I remember my mom and dad talking about the National Guard and how disgusted they were that conversations and circumstances had so egregiously broken down that there was no way to convey change OTHER than riot and rebellion. Chitchat hadn’t worked. Racism is pervasive. All Trump did was bring it out in the open. It’s always been there. Ugly and malevolent, a symptom of a deeper malady in our society.

(That’s when we moved to Cali, which caused me to lose interest in becoming a doctor and much more focused on my tan and beautiful surfer boys, but that’s another story.)

I have a friend who graduated from high school in Louisiana in the nineties and she told me her prom was SEGREGATED. I could not believe this type of behavior still exists. It’s a different world down there, down south. According to her, not much has changed since the days of slavery and lynchings. That’s why she left, she said.

My mom lived down south too. She hated it. As the daughter of a rabbi (my grandfather), she experienced her own share of racism and anti-Semitism, and was vilified not only for having black friends, but for standing up for and with them when they were refused service. She told me she actually saw signage that said “For Whites Only”. Her stories of that disgusting inequality stuck with me; maybe why I’m such a rebel.

I also used to live in La Mesa, where the crowds were hit with rubber bullets and pepper spray. I thought about joining the rebellion, but didn’t. That doesn’t mean I won’t the next time.

We have an obligation to join the rebellions and stop police and the government from targeting and killing people of color. We have an obligation to show up and speak up, and when possible, record the atrocities. 

Justice.

Like Michelle Obama said, “…it’s up to all of us–Black, white, everyone—no matter how well-meaning we think we might be, to do the honest, uncomfortable work of rooting it out.”

Here’s the whole statement from Michelle Obama:

“Like so many of you, I’m pained by these recent tragedies. And I’m exhausted by a heartbreak that never seems to stop. Right now it’s George, Breonna, and Ahmaud. Before that it was Eric, Sandra, and Michael. It just goes on, and on, and on. Race and racism is a reality that so many of us grow up learning to just deal with. But if we ever hope to move past it, it can’t just be on people of color to deal with it. It’s up to all of us—Black, white, everyone—no matter how well-meaning we think we might be, to do the honest, uncomfortable work of rooting it out. It starts with self-examination and listening to those whose lives are different from our own. It ends with justice, compassion, and empathy that manifests in our lives and on our streets. I pray we all have the strength for that journey, just as I pray for the souls and the families of those who were taken from us.”

Targeting people just because of the color of their skin is immoral. Sometimes there’s no other way to effect moral change than with a NONpeaceful response when no one seems to listen to the words.

Power to the people.

 

 

Holding Space

Quote

Posted on by
7

IMHO, this is one of the best descriptions of what it means to hold space.

There will be times when you have to release and trust the awakening process. It may not be an easy thing to do, especially when a connection exists. Let others know you are there, offer support when asked and hold space for them in a kind, loving manner. The rest is up to them and The Universe.
Holding Space    The Creator Writings, one of my fave blogs.

I had heard the term but couldn’t wrap my brain around it, and as a slightly OCD Taurus who likes answers to questions and details and timeframes to be specific in order to feel safe, holding space is a confusing and nebulous and ephemeral concept, but I’ve been determined to understand because it resonates deeply with me. I’m relentless when it comes to understandING.

It’s a way of not doing anything when I’m all about doING and fixING and solvING. (All of those ‘ing” words that we’re trained to edit OUT of our writings.)

To hold space is to do nothING but BE.

BeING.

That very beINGness of taking a breath and stayING silent and havING faith and trust that everything is happenING as it should–well, that’s nearly impossible for me.

But here I am. I am. So hum.

 

“The Sparrow” by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Posted on by
3

I love this little bird. It really seems like he likes to follow me around so I started to follow him and snap pics everywhere he hopped.  A special little friend for sure.

The Sparrow

A little bird, with plumage brown,
Beside my window flutters down,
A moment chirps its little strain,
Ten taps upon my window–pane,
And chirps again, and hops along,
To call my notice to its song;
But I work on, nor heed its lay,
Till, in neglect, it flies away.
So birds of peace and hope and love
Come fluttering earthward from above,
To settle on life’s window–sills,
And ease our load of earthly ills;
But we, in traffic’s rush and din
Too deep engaged to let them in,
With deadened heart and sense plod on,
Nor know our loss till they are gone.
Paul Laurence Dunbar – 1872-1906

IMG_6632IMG_6628IMG_6631IMG_6630IMG_6629IMG_6625IMG_6623IMG_6621IMG_6620IMG_6618

Remembering Maya Angelou

Posted on by
Reply

We lost her six years ago today, May 28, 2014.
I honor her wisdom, character, and resilient soul.

“A Woman in harmony with her spirit
is like a river flowing.
She goes where she will without pretense and arrives at her destination
prepared to be herself
and only herself ”

― Maya Angelou

fullsizeoutput_dd0

Elaine Bayley Illustrations

 

Some Enchanted Evening

Posted on by
2

Since Saturn, Venus, and Jupiter are all in retrograde, it’s time for a little magic with Chanel and sparkles. All dressed up for an enchanted evening at Casa de Enchanted Seashells.

And night after night,
As strange as it seems
The sound of her laughter
Will sing in your dreams.
This is THE song for me from South Pacific. Whose version do you like best?

 

Perry Como

 

 

Frank Sinatra

 

Paul Robeson, of course…

 

…and Willie Nelson! I met him a few years ago. He was so kind and I got a hug, can’t believe I was brazen to ask for one, lol.

 

An evolution of blue

Posted on by
7

Since I’m pretty much a (willing) prisoner here at Casa de Enchanted Seashells just like we’re all enduring stay-at-home orders,  I decided to create a positive mindset and find the beauty inside and outside these four walls and my infinite garden.

Today, the sky is blueblueblue with occasional puffy clouds so I thought I’d focus on blue.

Cerulean, ultramarine, the shade of a Ceylon sapphire.More like a periwinkle blue, but still BLUE.

The blue of agapanthus, also known as Lily of the Nile, from bud to flower.

fullsizeoutput_dc3fullsizeoutput_dc2fullsizeoutput_dc6fullsizeoutput_dc5fullsizeoutput_dc4

 

 

 

The Stolen Child

Posted on by
7

I was going to write a funny post about how my son is occasionally as childish as his sometimes feral four-year-old but then I saw this poem and thought I’d instead elevate my intellect with Yeats.

“Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
with a faery, hand in hand,
for the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand…”
W.B. Yeats

Here’s the entire poem:

The Stolen Child
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we’ve hid our faery vats,

Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he’s going,
The solemn-eyed:
He’ll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than he can understand.  —W.B. Yeats

Art curated from Pinterest

Infinite distance

Posted on by
3

 

Image may contain: 1 person
“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.” Rainer Maria Rilke

Painting by Warwick Goble

From https://www.facebook.com/ravenous.butterflies/

After the caterpillar

Posted on by
3

May2020butterfly1The view from my kitchen window in the early morning light.

A perfectly symmetrical Monarch sunning herself on grape leaves.

Saturday.

 

(Taken with my Canon Rebel T3i)

Happy Birthday to MEEEEE!

Posted on by
3

Today blog is my not-so-humble brag about the original Angel Boy. I am so very proud of him.

I talk an awful lot about the second boy who stole my heart, AB 2.0, my curly haired free spirit/sprite, but there is still the one who owns MOST of my heart, his daddy…

fullsizeoutput_db0…WHO WROTE A BOOK THAT GOT PUBLISHED!!!

Here’s the deets:

Title: THE GEOLOGICAL UNCONSCIOUS
GERMAN LITERATURE AND THE MINERAL IMAGINARY

https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823288113/the-geological-unconscious/

From the author…

“Already in the nineteenth century, German-language writers were contending with the challenge of imagining and accounting for a planet whose volatility bore little resemblance to the images of the Earth then in circulation. The Geological Unconscious traces the withdrawal of the lithosphere as a reliable setting, unobtrusive backdrop, and stable point of reference for literature written well before the current climate breakdown.”

“Through a series of careful readings of romantic, realist, and modernist works by Tieck, Goethe, Stifter, Benjamin, and Brecht, Groves elaborates a geological unconscious—unthought and sometimes actively repressed geological knowledge—in European literature and environmental thought. This inhuman horizon of reading and interpretation offers a new literary history of the Anthropocene in a period before it was named.”

“These close readings show the entanglement of the human and the lithic in periods well before the geological turn of contemporary cultural studies. In those depictions of human-mineral encounters, the minerality of the human and the minerality of the imagination become apparent. In registering libidinal investments in the lithosphere that extend beyond Carboniferous deposits and beyond any carbon imaginary, The Geological Unconscious points toward alternative relations with, and less destructive mobilizations of, the geologic.”

It might take me as long to read it as it took him to write it ‘cos it’s definitely going to stretch all of my working brain cells which are more used to reading chicklit by Jennifer Weiner or Sophie Kinsella, but it’s IMPORTANT to read things that are outside our comfort zone. WAY OUT.

This is the kind of book you need to read with a dictionary and Thesaurus very close by.

Sample page 121:

IMG_9262

Editorial Reviews:

“An impressive and accomplished study that delves deep into the layers of German mineralogical imagination from Goethe to Benjamin. Stones may not be able to speak, but they have found their spokesman. A pleasure to read.” (Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, University of British Columbia)

“The Geological Unconscious offers subtle close readings of several canonical texts that receive provocative illumination from ecocriticism. The book’s focus on the instability of ground is insightfully paired with a consideration of how already in the nineteenth century literary style and narrative register geological time and planetary wounding.” (Catriona MacLeod, University of Chicago)

The author, Dr. Jason Groves, is Assistant Professor of Germanics at the University of Washington. He is cotranslator of Werner Hamacher’s Minima Philologica.