Since my last post I got a job in corrections. Yes. prison. I had given up ever getting a job as a therapist. I would go to interviews and get tag teamed by five or six and not called back. I went to one local interview and had been forgotten. There was no one to interview me at the time appointed. I had decided to give up, let my hard earned license lapse and my husband and daughter talked me out of it. I woke up early one morning in tears and despair. I looked up to the powers that be, and said; "I am willing."
I had carefully avoided D.O.C. Since living in the town and hearing the stories of how it is run I didn't think it a good idea given my temperament. I put in some applications in the literally last place I wanted to work. I got an interview by going around a contract company. The interview I got was of course tag teamed. Six people from two facilities who were more interested in joking and cutting up with eachother than interviewing me. I was not impressed. I soon realized that my views of corrections were correct. The group thought I was there to do contract work. I told them point blank; "No. I am looking for full time. What kind of damage could I do as a contract worker." Contract got three days of training and no academy training. I told them "you need someone experienced who can hit the ground running."
I was given a tour by a man who I knew I would never have been able to work under. I later found out that was true as well.
I walked away relieved and disappointed but not to much.
A couple of weeks later I get a call from one of the women sitting at the table. The one who said nothing the entire time and was the only one of the group who didn't joke with the others.
She wanted me to interview with someone else at another facility.
I went expecting more of the same tag team silliness I always get. It was the woman and another older lady who looked grim and burnt out. I talked with the young woman fairly affably. I talked about my background, the lousy interview from the previous week. The older woman hardly said anything and I thought "well, she didn't like me for sure." She did follow me out and still said nothing. I wondered what is she looking at.
A week later I got a call telling me that I was offered a job at the toughest prison in the state. The level five security was recently brought into the news and sued by the ACLU for segregation methods that were thrown out in the 1890's. A man who had been in segregation for twenty years was released and proceeded to shoot and kill our state director of prisons.
This is a place that normal people would not want to work in.
But it is the only job offer I have received in ten years of looking. I literally went into shock. I couldn't feel my hands.
I have been working now for two years. First at CSP and now Territorial, the oldest prison in the state and prior to 1896 it was the Federal prison for the country. My experience has been incredible. I talk to men who are the most benighted lost souls on the planet. They range from those who are so damaged they should never be around other human beings again to shining lights of wisdom and hope.
Working in prison has given me a strange hope for humanity and shown me in stark outlines how people make choices. Stripped of everything except themselves they wrestle with demons the rest of us can't imagine. They rotor rooter their souls and psyche's till they are raw. The hatred and love come into stark contrast. Dante would recognize it in an instant.
Twenty years ago I said in a large gathering of integrative breath work participants of three hundred I wanted to be among the Virgil's, to help guide others through hell and it has come true. There was a breath work where I drew a Japanese gate. I didn't know it was what it was till I was told. Today I walk in front of a Japanese gate built by the offenders as part of the garden in the compound. The first time I saw it I was floored. I feel at home in Territorial. I do not know why. Or perhaps I do.
The older woman who interviewed me has been the toughest most giving boss I have ever had. She indeed didn't like me, but she was desperate for a therapist and I had an LPC. She didn't know what she had gotten. I am a cat of a different coat. Since then I have learned to smooth my ruffled fur and she had learned to pull her claws in. She had done this for 27 years and is indeed burnt out as she would admit. She tells me she is proud of me but it took her a while to look past her jaundiced view of clinicians. I didn't think I would last or be a fit but it turns out I am. I am even able to introduce integrative breath work mini journeys.
In recent days I realized that I have adjusted to the job. I have put down a lot of the things that give me the spiritual support I need. I miss breath work and it seems Eupsychia and J. Small have dropped off the map this year. I suspect that Small has retired without handing the baton off to anyone. This is a shame.
I found one person in Broomfield who does it but I am reluctant to go for some reason. The reluctance is due to her training I think.
I am also in need of recharging due to this election. An election shoved down our throats. I fear for our species and what is left of the other species on our planet. I am disturbed by the resurgence of hatred spewed by a billionaire playboy. I am disturbed that the first woman with any chance of being president is a blue dog hawk and bankers love her. I am upset at the system that booted Sanders to the curb out of pure hubris. I have felt a dull grief since it all began. I voted green and will not take the brunt of ire for doing so as 46% of the eligible voters stayed at home. It is those who abdicated their right who are at fault. We have no democracy because so many don't participate out of pure laziness and no other reason.
I have spent the last 18 months trying to make us recession proof as much as possible. Our youngest is in her freshman year and although she has most of her tuition covered by scholarships and a loan we still need four thousand a semester to get her through. I will not and cannot let her go forward without her education or with student loans. We are very proud of her. I was given no support of any kind not even emotional support to go to school so I am determined to make sure she gets that from me. It has been an interesting and challenging two years.
I have a good husband and two daughters I am very proud of. I live in a sweet little house in a place where we are safe from disaster for the most part. Life is good. I won't let anyone in politics fuck that up again.
The House
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Friday, November 28, 2014
OCCUPY LIVES
It has been more than three years since OWS and I am seeing the influence everywhere in the news.
Monday, November 4, 2013
a house is not just a building.....
The house kept needing repair. I was as if a spirit in the place kept creating excuses for the two of them to be thrown together. At first it only happened once in a while, a leaky gas line, a faucet, painting to be done, a cracked window. Then in a quick succession a host of maladies; squirrels in the attic, blown fuses, a dead 50 year old water heater, a toilet leak.
Each time something went wrong they had to discuss it and more details about eachother were revealed. The conversations getting longer and more intimate. They didn't know the house was causing them to fall in love. The house needed love in it, so; like a child playing matchmaker it forced them inside its small walls by bringing attention to itself. A house without love will chase off those who won't or can't. Remain cold, let bugs in, leak, throw up noxious gases from the pipes. It won't respond to repair if there is no love. Quick fixes failing like quick sex.
Some houses are haunted by fear and pain, tiny whisper like yelling, odors, deep sobbing on the edge of hearing. This house was haunted by love and committment, solid footsteps, endearments, tears of joy and laughter. It had an air of longing and a need to care.
He grew up there and somehow, living in a household with two people who loved for more than fifty years sharing it with children not their own. Such love may seem luck or providence not single mindedness and generosity of spirit.
She had never felt so comfortable in a house, especially a rental. To be in a safe loving full home seem a dream unattainable.
The house knew better. It didn't belong to anyone in the normal sense. Houses never do. Loaning itself to the occupants for a few months or decades. Living ageless slowly measured. After 80 years it had settled into being a sacred space to contain emotion and meld with each new occupant drawing in more love. It had already lived twice as much as both of them put together. Known more of forever than either would. It knew how to be warm and blend in with the natural of every bush, ivey and tiny wildlife. It had a charming decay of brick and wood as it returned to the earth. The house wasn't just a shelter to use, but a benevolent witness to life. Slowly energized, infused by the hearts of those who trusted its protection. Taking on a permanemt nature to attract more of the same.
One house continually filled with infidelity, abuse, screaming and neglect will attract more of the same dramas. Another will always seem to have gaggles of kids, friends around all the time, with lush overgrown gardens. Some never have more than a lonely occupant, dead yards and lonely solitary animals. Some abodes haunted by loss and the walls are ringing with grief long after living family members are moved on, love and laughter filling others.
The White House, governor's mansions, the shed where Thoreau wrote, where Woody Guthrie was born. Graceland. The local mansion everyone knows about. That first place away from Mom's place. Home away from home. Home sweet home. A house is not a home.....The place you dread to go to, are homesick for. The houses lost to fire, flood and economic disasters. Why did they tear down that lovely little place on the corner? God's house got to full and they needed more parking lot?
People settle into homes along with the foundations. We liken our lives to well built homes. Built like a brick out house. Like talking to the walls. Lights on, nobody home. The door is always open. Bats in the attic. References to body and psychi.
People without love get older faster. Feel the cold more, smile less. They too, can become full of cobwebs, dampness, shades drawn without air.
The house was a lesson in love for those who sensed it.It withstood tempest and the moods of mother nature. Consistent in its shelter, calmness and without judgment. A place to breathe freely, speak freely dance naked from bath to bed. A keeper of epic dreams, tiny thoughts and infinity of dinners, lunches, breakfasts and late night tea. A resevoir of private moments to be treasured in its secret ear.
It was amazing how a quick chat on how to get the house repaired would escalate into the lack of committment in modern relationship. How little things like toilet seats being left up or using his razor become the distraction for the real problems of lack of respect and intimacy.
She wasn't the type men dreamed of, not his type. He was so insular no wonder he was alone, unable to find the key to a self made prison. There wasn't anything exotic about her, no great beauty. Plain and small, verging on mousy with a face that didn't invoke thoughts of ruby lips and passion.
He was tall with a mix of chiseled aryan good looks and country softness. Blond hair, blue eyes with thin lips that belayed a hidden sensuality. Beat up and scarred inside and out. The house knew every hidden thought and deed from childhood.
Forced to bump into eachother, murmuring quick nervous excuse me's around a friendly discussion over coffee as he collected the rent. Should they brave the taboo of landlord-tenant? Go to a movie, drink a beer and share one electric melted kiss. Avoid eachother if they can till the house cracked somewhere or leaked. Then maybe he would overcome nameless fear and she her pride. Maybe even find themselves devouring eachothers mouths in frustration, touching feet all night because this could be the last body to be warm with in the night. Him inside her wrapping tight around him as the house settled around them both.
When they thought they were alone holding on to hope. They were watched by the soul of the house. Their hearts light gathered to itself to attract the next people it would take in and need.
Each time something went wrong they had to discuss it and more details about eachother were revealed. The conversations getting longer and more intimate. They didn't know the house was causing them to fall in love. The house needed love in it, so; like a child playing matchmaker it forced them inside its small walls by bringing attention to itself. A house without love will chase off those who won't or can't. Remain cold, let bugs in, leak, throw up noxious gases from the pipes. It won't respond to repair if there is no love. Quick fixes failing like quick sex.
Some houses are haunted by fear and pain, tiny whisper like yelling, odors, deep sobbing on the edge of hearing. This house was haunted by love and committment, solid footsteps, endearments, tears of joy and laughter. It had an air of longing and a need to care.
He grew up there and somehow, living in a household with two people who loved for more than fifty years sharing it with children not their own. Such love may seem luck or providence not single mindedness and generosity of spirit.
She had never felt so comfortable in a house, especially a rental. To be in a safe loving full home seem a dream unattainable.
The house knew better. It didn't belong to anyone in the normal sense. Houses never do. Loaning itself to the occupants for a few months or decades. Living ageless slowly measured. After 80 years it had settled into being a sacred space to contain emotion and meld with each new occupant drawing in more love. It had already lived twice as much as both of them put together. Known more of forever than either would. It knew how to be warm and blend in with the natural of every bush, ivey and tiny wildlife. It had a charming decay of brick and wood as it returned to the earth. The house wasn't just a shelter to use, but a benevolent witness to life. Slowly energized, infused by the hearts of those who trusted its protection. Taking on a permanemt nature to attract more of the same.
One house continually filled with infidelity, abuse, screaming and neglect will attract more of the same dramas. Another will always seem to have gaggles of kids, friends around all the time, with lush overgrown gardens. Some never have more than a lonely occupant, dead yards and lonely solitary animals. Some abodes haunted by loss and the walls are ringing with grief long after living family members are moved on, love and laughter filling others.
The White House, governor's mansions, the shed where Thoreau wrote, where Woody Guthrie was born. Graceland. The local mansion everyone knows about. That first place away from Mom's place. Home away from home. Home sweet home. A house is not a home.....The place you dread to go to, are homesick for. The houses lost to fire, flood and economic disasters. Why did they tear down that lovely little place on the corner? God's house got to full and they needed more parking lot?
People settle into homes along with the foundations. We liken our lives to well built homes. Built like a brick out house. Like talking to the walls. Lights on, nobody home. The door is always open. Bats in the attic. References to body and psychi.
People without love get older faster. Feel the cold more, smile less. They too, can become full of cobwebs, dampness, shades drawn without air.
The house was a lesson in love for those who sensed it.It withstood tempest and the moods of mother nature. Consistent in its shelter, calmness and without judgment. A place to breathe freely, speak freely dance naked from bath to bed. A keeper of epic dreams, tiny thoughts and infinity of dinners, lunches, breakfasts and late night tea. A resevoir of private moments to be treasured in its secret ear.
It was amazing how a quick chat on how to get the house repaired would escalate into the lack of committment in modern relationship. How little things like toilet seats being left up or using his razor become the distraction for the real problems of lack of respect and intimacy.
She wasn't the type men dreamed of, not his type. He was so insular no wonder he was alone, unable to find the key to a self made prison. There wasn't anything exotic about her, no great beauty. Plain and small, verging on mousy with a face that didn't invoke thoughts of ruby lips and passion.
He was tall with a mix of chiseled aryan good looks and country softness. Blond hair, blue eyes with thin lips that belayed a hidden sensuality. Beat up and scarred inside and out. The house knew every hidden thought and deed from childhood.
Forced to bump into eachother, murmuring quick nervous excuse me's around a friendly discussion over coffee as he collected the rent. Should they brave the taboo of landlord-tenant? Go to a movie, drink a beer and share one electric melted kiss. Avoid eachother if they can till the house cracked somewhere or leaked. Then maybe he would overcome nameless fear and she her pride. Maybe even find themselves devouring eachothers mouths in frustration, touching feet all night because this could be the last body to be warm with in the night. Him inside her wrapping tight around him as the house settled around them both.
When they thought they were alone holding on to hope. They were watched by the soul of the house. Their hearts light gathered to itself to attract the next people it would take in and need.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Poets Position Paper
I was in the process of digging through all the piles of files I have, as the wannabe writer I collect papers full of ideas, thought, cryptic scribbling's. If I were inclined I would drag them around in shopping bags and in my pockets as we all have often seen here and there, but these piles of papers and files are to precious to me. I would probably go berserk if I lost one of my paper thoughts.
I have such a persons purple file of poems. I dear fellow, bi-polar after a nervous breakdown. Mr. D. was driven over that brilliant white hot edge of mental illness by the Penn Square banking blow-out. Few in the state of Oklahoma were un-touched by that lead up to the savings and loan robbery.
Mr. D. came from a well known legal family, well respected, but like so many of the high society of many places, Mr. D was a shameful blot. He crumbled under the weight of the loss of everything including his wife and two sons to the greed of bankers. Apparently his legal family couldn't or wouldn't help him and into that "dark night" he went, alone.
Mr. D. had a creative response to the inequity of the world, once he realized his being "touched" by greed and power, driven to madness was not his fault and that healing could come in time, but how never to be "forced to bow" to the hyper-masculinity called commerce?
Poetry. I found Mr. D.'s poems, the ones he gave me to record for his sons. He liked my voice and knew my extensive work in theatre and oral interpretation. I was flattered. I had read many and discussed at length his work of clarity that can only come from the fracturing of the mind as it pulls itself together.
White men are killing themselves in droves in this country. I know why, which I will go into at another time...but Mr. D. fought it, expressed it, the madness in the method called manhood. Patriarchy chewed my friend up and spit him out, and like some heroic sci-fi character pulled himself from the ooze and wrote and wrote and wrote; in between cigarettes and coffee.
by W.H.Durbin
Some Man
I stand erect
Amidst the Universe
In all else
It is I...immense
I step
planets set axes
My eyes fix
stars find bearing
In all else
It is I....immense
Before there even was.....
My first breath blew.
In Praise of the Mechanic and the Poet
The touch of a Poet's hand is soft.
Leaving the calloused hand twist the rusty bolt.
A poet's joy - to touch only lightly this stubborn rod,
then extol in stanza its sure fix.
Yet, our world is cold and hard - Its great
Steely Bolts demand and cry out for a crucial turning
_ and finds a poet's timid hand wanting
and inept.
So I sing praise for the hardened hands -
strong in the world - That deny the screwed
and set way of some Eye or Stove Bolt.
I sing praise of knuckles - - cut and red
and so cold so wrench any man's will.
There is not a more courageous unyielding than here.
This I know - for those were the hands of
my wife's good father.
And too, the hands of this poet before he bolted
from their cause - to take up the turn
of the phrase and the twist of a meaning -
in cause of his gentler yet more
binding pen.
A Poem of No Consequence
How we treat the powerless - those with
never redress nor remedy
That is the only measure of our humanity
When, in their abjection there can be no objection
When our allowance is absolute and they not of
any manner of retribute.
When we may do as we will - what is it we will do?
Only you and he - and the insane man's torment
will be unknown at its completion, to only reposit in
your conscience and his heart -
what is it we will do?
Strike the homeless man in solitude but cast
him favors when civil eyes are upon us?
When the Moron is outside of this whole world,
his desperate tendrils severed from any future
reprisals - How is it we would do him?
that is the true measure of our humanity!
For the one - hanging out upon the ledge,
if only one will first call him to his death, then
all may join in and demand his oblivion!
With the water's tension broken, - insanity
ripples through this hydrophobic crowd.
when we may do as we will - what is it we will do?
I was in awe of Bill's strength, his humor and sharp wit born of the shards of a fragmented, glass like mind. Still am in awe as I read his poems and wish I could read more. He must have inspired me to write, we shared the love of poetry like no other friend I have had before or since. And I found my words, a lost paper nestled among his .
by Diane Clare
Love comes to life
When vision opens her eyes to see
possibility flower
From constraints seed of
potential denied.
Love comes to life
When desire, feeling the pain
of fear's contractions
Bears down on courage
and gives birth to passion.
Love comes to life
When dreams, having known only
sleepless nights pacing
dark corridors of despair
Begin to dance in the decadence
of peaceful slumber
Love comes to life
When inspiration wakes devotion
in the dewy sweetness of dawn
and work becomes prayer
Love comes to life
When sacred marries profane
Ordinary no longer exists.
I have such a persons purple file of poems. I dear fellow, bi-polar after a nervous breakdown. Mr. D. was driven over that brilliant white hot edge of mental illness by the Penn Square banking blow-out. Few in the state of Oklahoma were un-touched by that lead up to the savings and loan robbery.
Mr. D. came from a well known legal family, well respected, but like so many of the high society of many places, Mr. D was a shameful blot. He crumbled under the weight of the loss of everything including his wife and two sons to the greed of bankers. Apparently his legal family couldn't or wouldn't help him and into that "dark night" he went, alone.
Mr. D. had a creative response to the inequity of the world, once he realized his being "touched" by greed and power, driven to madness was not his fault and that healing could come in time, but how never to be "forced to bow" to the hyper-masculinity called commerce?
Poetry. I found Mr. D.'s poems, the ones he gave me to record for his sons. He liked my voice and knew my extensive work in theatre and oral interpretation. I was flattered. I had read many and discussed at length his work of clarity that can only come from the fracturing of the mind as it pulls itself together.
White men are killing themselves in droves in this country. I know why, which I will go into at another time...but Mr. D. fought it, expressed it, the madness in the method called manhood. Patriarchy chewed my friend up and spit him out, and like some heroic sci-fi character pulled himself from the ooze and wrote and wrote and wrote; in between cigarettes and coffee.
by W.H.Durbin
Some Man
I stand erect
Amidst the Universe
In all else
It is I...immense
I step
planets set axes
My eyes fix
stars find bearing
In all else
It is I....immense
Before there even was.....
My first breath blew.
In Praise of the Mechanic and the Poet
The touch of a Poet's hand is soft.
Leaving the calloused hand twist the rusty bolt.
A poet's joy - to touch only lightly this stubborn rod,
then extol in stanza its sure fix.
Yet, our world is cold and hard - Its great
Steely Bolts demand and cry out for a crucial turning
_ and finds a poet's timid hand wanting
and inept.
So I sing praise for the hardened hands -
strong in the world - That deny the screwed
and set way of some Eye or Stove Bolt.
I sing praise of knuckles - - cut and red
and so cold so wrench any man's will.
There is not a more courageous unyielding than here.
This I know - for those were the hands of
my wife's good father.
And too, the hands of this poet before he bolted
from their cause - to take up the turn
of the phrase and the twist of a meaning -
in cause of his gentler yet more
binding pen.
A Poem of No Consequence
How we treat the powerless - those with
never redress nor remedy
That is the only measure of our humanity
When, in their abjection there can be no objection
When our allowance is absolute and they not of
any manner of retribute.
When we may do as we will - what is it we will do?
Only you and he - and the insane man's torment
will be unknown at its completion, to only reposit in
your conscience and his heart -
what is it we will do?
Strike the homeless man in solitude but cast
him favors when civil eyes are upon us?
When the Moron is outside of this whole world,
his desperate tendrils severed from any future
reprisals - How is it we would do him?
that is the true measure of our humanity!
For the one - hanging out upon the ledge,
if only one will first call him to his death, then
all may join in and demand his oblivion!
With the water's tension broken, - insanity
ripples through this hydrophobic crowd.
when we may do as we will - what is it we will do?
I was in awe of Bill's strength, his humor and sharp wit born of the shards of a fragmented, glass like mind. Still am in awe as I read his poems and wish I could read more. He must have inspired me to write, we shared the love of poetry like no other friend I have had before or since. And I found my words, a lost paper nestled among his .
by Diane Clare
Love comes to life
When vision opens her eyes to see
possibility flower
From constraints seed of
potential denied.
Love comes to life
When desire, feeling the pain
of fear's contractions
Bears down on courage
and gives birth to passion.
Love comes to life
When dreams, having known only
sleepless nights pacing
dark corridors of despair
Begin to dance in the decadence
of peaceful slumber
Love comes to life
When inspiration wakes devotion
in the dewy sweetness of dawn
and work becomes prayer
Love comes to life
When sacred marries profane
Ordinary no longer exists.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Born Brave
Born Brave?
young girls
to old women
Silenced
Ignored
Afraid?
Angry like no man has ever seen or felt.
Old women
carry it on their hips
Festers in joints
spews out gray hair
festoons from their eyes
Born Brave?
against disappearing in front of the world
not seeing each other
Cheshire cats all mouth, eyes, hands
crippled into uselessness
Anger covers old women like bruises
Bullets from old women's mouths fly
would there were no war
If only
saggy sexless old women were no threat
Born Brave? to be an old woman
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Occupy the Mind
I don't know why anyone worries about what is written on the internet for all the world to see, when no one actually sees this stuff. Unless of course I were to try to "hawk" it perhaps, sell it, post it on every site I go to? WTF for? My Mom would say; "you wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you realized how seldom they do."
I have never been good at selling myself it seems, which is to say make myself valuable. I am a poor consumer and a worse seller. I am to post one more about Occupy and its ability to empower others, and perhaps for that matter all protest movements, grass roots and activism does. It is pain staking, time consuming and gives little remuneration unless you are rich with a foundation or something you can head. This last weekend Michael Brune, the Pres. of the Sierra Club tied himself to the fence of the White House along with 47 others to protest the keystone pipeline, and help bring climate into the forefront. The first time anyone officially with the Sierra Club has been part of a protest in its 150 years. Now, tell me Occupy had nothing to do with that? Sierra Club is now something I get join, not the kaffee Klatch it was for so long. We know that many of the civil rights, environmental and gay liberation movements acquired their inspiration from people before them. Most of my inspiration is from literature, movies and books. Usually not real flesh and blood people. Even the "real" live folks on television who do amazing things aren't quite real. Pictures and voices on the screen I have become more familiar with than the people in this town. Amy Goodman, Keith Olberman, Gabby Giffords and Chris Hayes. Some who spoke truth to power, some who survived the violent results of the misguided and confused by the powers that be, some who carry a legacy of activism. Pictures of bodies of now faceless people dying for freedom from tyranny still to this day long after I had dreamed such things would not be necessary.
Occupy is alive and out there, working doing being. Every once in a while someone on the television will refer to it as something that made them think, act and question. They compare actions being taken to Occupy and then I find from twitter they were in the thick of it. I get invites to actions every month from Occupy Denver. Occupy the SEC is on UP with Chris Hayes at least once a month. I know it has empowered many to finally come out of their left leaning closets. To speak out for peace, fairness and dignity. I wear my occupy button around and have found a few feel free to say something quietly in support of the ideals even though they can't with their co-workers or families. It reminds me of the folks who would come into my little pagan celtic store and admit to being naturalists, wicca or simply free thinkers and always say how they couldn't share it with virtually anyone else. Perhaps I was able to do a little good by being someone they felt safe with and not an outcast for just two minutes. I watched The Soloist last night and toward the end a doctor tells the newsman that being someone's friend changes their brain chemistry. That reached me. I have tried to be a friend to others, but I don't feel anyone has been my friend, cared enough to know me well, encourage me, be present for me, realy learn something together. For the most part no one has had my best interest at heart.
In this culture it seems one is only friends if they can get something out of you with as little effort as possible. This culture of me, myself and I that not only runs business which runs govt. but churches as well, crept into the New Age movement as well to its detriment.
It seems to me Occupy carries forward the notions of the transcendentalists of the 19th century which became the roots of the movments that followed by labor, women, freedman, American Indian cultures.
"Apathy, complacency, passitivity, moral cowardice..these were the social results of the expedient materialism against which the Transcendentalists unfurled the banner of moral law" Civil Disobedience edited by Sherman Paul.
I saw Le Miserable the musical, and although I had read it and watched the previous versions the concepts of compassionate morals vs. duty as morality struck home more today than at any time in my life.
"But what remedy did an individual have when government was not coordiate with justice, when it made on the unwilling partner in its evils?" I would re-write Thoreau's Civil Disobedience and replace corporations with the word government. We benignly buy our toilet paper, plastic chairs and phones from the behemoth Wal Mart trying to survive on cheap while people lose decent livelihoods here and abroad are virtual slaves. We become complicit.
"In the WEEK Thoreau acknowledged that where evil was concerned he could not follow the passivity advocated in the Hindu scriptures; ....Thoreau preferred to courageously assault evil rather than to starve it out. Not the Brahmin who "never thought to be a brother of mankind", but Christ, he said, was "the prince of Reformers and Radicals." Christ who said "resist not evil; but overcome evil with good."
Conservative Christians do not understand the liberalness of Christs teachings. At lease twice I have heard of severe fundamentalist preachers having epiphany's of love and come to this understanding and then lose their very large and powerful followings for not preaching fear and shame.
It isn't so much government or corporations as it is the hungry people who run them. Hungry for power, attention and to feed their starving immature egos. They too, the "evil" ones spoken of by the Thoreau (being a PK he used the language he grew up with) are only trying to survive and do some sort of good and get gratification. They feed a hole in their souls that will never be filled. (What level of Dante's Inferno was that?)
Revolution and change never happen the way we think they will, from the people we thought they would, and always takes longer than it should. We are not living in times of good vs. evil. we are living in the culmination of the struggle between two utopian visions. One of a monied, powered, educated (in their minds) elite that run the world better over the "great unwashed masses" who never quite understand how things really are or could be. The other where there are only communities that share everything, husband the resources, no one gets to much or too little. No rich, no heirarchy, community with committment and trust. Even the most malevolent rulers think they are doing good for the "people", even the most benign utopian societys fall apart in power trips. Both visions fall prey to eat or be eaten, control of the vision whether it applies or not to the people or circumstances at hand.
Everyone always has grand ideas about how things should be carried out yet very few recognize that key moment when they can actually step up and do whatever is presented them in the moment. Those rare moments when we can be willing, overcome fear and say or actually do something to find a third way, the middle path. I sometimes feel humanity is tearing the proverbial baby to pieces in our fight over what is best for all. All our fighting over ideology will be moot if we don't pull our collective heads out of our asses and recognize the calamity of environment that is occuring. Whether it is natural cycles or human driven, climate change is here and we are not prepared at all. I believe that we will not in time, as history shows disasters, bloodshed, and chaos come first before change and then the change for good must be fought over and over and protected from without and from within. Dreams of a utopia where women have all the babies they want, men can conquer nature and make lots of riches, where all of us live in harmony in community, with birth control and organic everything will not happen. Not now. We will be too busy trying to survive and that includes the filthy rich. Money and power won't help. Impart skills upon your children to read the weather, grow and make things that are usefull, teach them to get along with others. The young people know this instinctively. I see them working in community, trying to help eachother, seeing the mistakes of their elders. Occupy gave me such hope for the future if we have one, they are creating the re-evolution. I did what I could. Truth and being willing to find out all the facts, question motives, don't blame yourself for believing lies, and assume someone lies mostly out of shame and guilt. Alex de touqueville said; "History is a race between chaos and education" I can only control what I know by being willing to be wrong and learn better. The only thing I can say for myself is I am vindicated in my views by the fact of so many are waking up to the greed that is killing us and our planet. People thought I was crazy and now I am not alone in that divine madness.
My sense of drive, the nagging in the back of my soul that says: "Do Something!" must be my sensing the change that is coming. My need to be relevant, purposefull, helpfull, a gatekeeper, change agent, or usefull, of value is very much human nature. My nature. I can only do a small part, so tiny to be insignificant alone, but Occupy has allowed me to speak my truth without fear of being ostricized, that would happen anyway. Occupy lifts my spirit and love for my fellow human being when it was all but gone. The pain I feel for humanity tells me my love of people still lives as well in spite of my isolation and fatigue.
My friends and I would dissect the issues of the day and I would call it "saving the world over coffee". Our little kaffee klatch would spend hours trying to figure things out, ferrett out the truth (without the internet) and hope we could put our words into action. Make a difference. I wrote a poem that sort of speaks to this:
Are you the voice in someone elses head?
Ramblings thoughts grand pronouncements
constant
diatribes of negative cheering
fading in and out in bits and pieces
We believe no one can hear our thoughts
they are being heard
driving us all mad
our own thoughts lost to us
because of the shouting in yours
I have never been good at selling myself it seems, which is to say make myself valuable. I am a poor consumer and a worse seller. I am to post one more about Occupy and its ability to empower others, and perhaps for that matter all protest movements, grass roots and activism does. It is pain staking, time consuming and gives little remuneration unless you are rich with a foundation or something you can head. This last weekend Michael Brune, the Pres. of the Sierra Club tied himself to the fence of the White House along with 47 others to protest the keystone pipeline, and help bring climate into the forefront. The first time anyone officially with the Sierra Club has been part of a protest in its 150 years. Now, tell me Occupy had nothing to do with that? Sierra Club is now something I get join, not the kaffee Klatch it was for so long. We know that many of the civil rights, environmental and gay liberation movements acquired their inspiration from people before them. Most of my inspiration is from literature, movies and books. Usually not real flesh and blood people. Even the "real" live folks on television who do amazing things aren't quite real. Pictures and voices on the screen I have become more familiar with than the people in this town. Amy Goodman, Keith Olberman, Gabby Giffords and Chris Hayes. Some who spoke truth to power, some who survived the violent results of the misguided and confused by the powers that be, some who carry a legacy of activism. Pictures of bodies of now faceless people dying for freedom from tyranny still to this day long after I had dreamed such things would not be necessary.
Occupy is alive and out there, working doing being. Every once in a while someone on the television will refer to it as something that made them think, act and question. They compare actions being taken to Occupy and then I find from twitter they were in the thick of it. I get invites to actions every month from Occupy Denver. Occupy the SEC is on UP with Chris Hayes at least once a month. I know it has empowered many to finally come out of their left leaning closets. To speak out for peace, fairness and dignity. I wear my occupy button around and have found a few feel free to say something quietly in support of the ideals even though they can't with their co-workers or families. It reminds me of the folks who would come into my little pagan celtic store and admit to being naturalists, wicca or simply free thinkers and always say how they couldn't share it with virtually anyone else. Perhaps I was able to do a little good by being someone they felt safe with and not an outcast for just two minutes. I watched The Soloist last night and toward the end a doctor tells the newsman that being someone's friend changes their brain chemistry. That reached me. I have tried to be a friend to others, but I don't feel anyone has been my friend, cared enough to know me well, encourage me, be present for me, realy learn something together. For the most part no one has had my best interest at heart.
In this culture it seems one is only friends if they can get something out of you with as little effort as possible. This culture of me, myself and I that not only runs business which runs govt. but churches as well, crept into the New Age movement as well to its detriment.
It seems to me Occupy carries forward the notions of the transcendentalists of the 19th century which became the roots of the movments that followed by labor, women, freedman, American Indian cultures.
"Apathy, complacency, passitivity, moral cowardice..these were the social results of the expedient materialism against which the Transcendentalists unfurled the banner of moral law" Civil Disobedience edited by Sherman Paul.
I saw Le Miserable the musical, and although I had read it and watched the previous versions the concepts of compassionate morals vs. duty as morality struck home more today than at any time in my life.
"But what remedy did an individual have when government was not coordiate with justice, when it made on the unwilling partner in its evils?" I would re-write Thoreau's Civil Disobedience and replace corporations with the word government. We benignly buy our toilet paper, plastic chairs and phones from the behemoth Wal Mart trying to survive on cheap while people lose decent livelihoods here and abroad are virtual slaves. We become complicit.
"In the WEEK Thoreau acknowledged that where evil was concerned he could not follow the passivity advocated in the Hindu scriptures; ....Thoreau preferred to courageously assault evil rather than to starve it out. Not the Brahmin who "never thought to be a brother of mankind", but Christ, he said, was "the prince of Reformers and Radicals." Christ who said "resist not evil; but overcome evil with good."
Conservative Christians do not understand the liberalness of Christs teachings. At lease twice I have heard of severe fundamentalist preachers having epiphany's of love and come to this understanding and then lose their very large and powerful followings for not preaching fear and shame.
It isn't so much government or corporations as it is the hungry people who run them. Hungry for power, attention and to feed their starving immature egos. They too, the "evil" ones spoken of by the Thoreau (being a PK he used the language he grew up with) are only trying to survive and do some sort of good and get gratification. They feed a hole in their souls that will never be filled. (What level of Dante's Inferno was that?)
Revolution and change never happen the way we think they will, from the people we thought they would, and always takes longer than it should. We are not living in times of good vs. evil. we are living in the culmination of the struggle between two utopian visions. One of a monied, powered, educated (in their minds) elite that run the world better over the "great unwashed masses" who never quite understand how things really are or could be. The other where there are only communities that share everything, husband the resources, no one gets to much or too little. No rich, no heirarchy, community with committment and trust. Even the most malevolent rulers think they are doing good for the "people", even the most benign utopian societys fall apart in power trips. Both visions fall prey to eat or be eaten, control of the vision whether it applies or not to the people or circumstances at hand.
Everyone always has grand ideas about how things should be carried out yet very few recognize that key moment when they can actually step up and do whatever is presented them in the moment. Those rare moments when we can be willing, overcome fear and say or actually do something to find a third way, the middle path. I sometimes feel humanity is tearing the proverbial baby to pieces in our fight over what is best for all. All our fighting over ideology will be moot if we don't pull our collective heads out of our asses and recognize the calamity of environment that is occuring. Whether it is natural cycles or human driven, climate change is here and we are not prepared at all. I believe that we will not in time, as history shows disasters, bloodshed, and chaos come first before change and then the change for good must be fought over and over and protected from without and from within. Dreams of a utopia where women have all the babies they want, men can conquer nature and make lots of riches, where all of us live in harmony in community, with birth control and organic everything will not happen. Not now. We will be too busy trying to survive and that includes the filthy rich. Money and power won't help. Impart skills upon your children to read the weather, grow and make things that are usefull, teach them to get along with others. The young people know this instinctively. I see them working in community, trying to help eachother, seeing the mistakes of their elders. Occupy gave me such hope for the future if we have one, they are creating the re-evolution. I did what I could. Truth and being willing to find out all the facts, question motives, don't blame yourself for believing lies, and assume someone lies mostly out of shame and guilt. Alex de touqueville said; "History is a race between chaos and education" I can only control what I know by being willing to be wrong and learn better. The only thing I can say for myself is I am vindicated in my views by the fact of so many are waking up to the greed that is killing us and our planet. People thought I was crazy and now I am not alone in that divine madness.
My sense of drive, the nagging in the back of my soul that says: "Do Something!" must be my sensing the change that is coming. My need to be relevant, purposefull, helpfull, a gatekeeper, change agent, or usefull, of value is very much human nature. My nature. I can only do a small part, so tiny to be insignificant alone, but Occupy has allowed me to speak my truth without fear of being ostricized, that would happen anyway. Occupy lifts my spirit and love for my fellow human being when it was all but gone. The pain I feel for humanity tells me my love of people still lives as well in spite of my isolation and fatigue.
My friends and I would dissect the issues of the day and I would call it "saving the world over coffee". Our little kaffee klatch would spend hours trying to figure things out, ferrett out the truth (without the internet) and hope we could put our words into action. Make a difference. I wrote a poem that sort of speaks to this:
Are you the voice in someone elses head?
Ramblings thoughts grand pronouncements
constant
diatribes of negative cheering
fading in and out in bits and pieces
We believe no one can hear our thoughts
they are being heard
driving us all mad
our own thoughts lost to us
because of the shouting in yours
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Occupy whatever
That is another thing that depresses me. Since I was fourteen I have known we are heating the planet up and nothing has been done. I remember fantasizing about floating cars, wind power and perhaps power from the sun. I also dreamed of peace and what we have is a nightmare of imperialism and war unending. I see already, before we are out of the quagmire's of Iraq and Afghanistan there are articles talking about "tensions" in the pacific. My goddess! The religious ideologues married to greed and wealth, the left dragging its feet pretending to be the eternal victim. My daughter told me not to be afraid of people, and I said I am not afraid, I am sick and tired. Mostly tired.
I have done nothing to make the world a better place. I thought I would. I am arguing whether I should try to keep up a license in mental health after ten years of not finding work in my field. I don't see the purpose in it. No one even reads my blog. For me its like a note in a bottle floating, worthless along with all the bits of plastic.
Occupy made me feel hopeful, but now that it is marginalized and pushed to the side I am feeling cut off, and it went into the closet before I could get a chance to really be a part. The Occupy Wall Street film is at Sundance this week. I can't go. I helped fund it. Park City is to far and I am to poor. I hope I get to see it eventually from Netflix or on Link t.v.
Occupy Sandy has done more for the survivors of Hurricane Sandy than any group and has only been mentioned once on the national news. Strike Debt is marching on, buying up debts for penny's on the dollar and forgiving the debtors. While I sit in a state of house arrest, debtors prison with a mortgage that was padded so heavily with crap I will die before I pay it off. A lien from Jefferson Capital on a bogus bloated credit card debt. Hiding from fucking collection agents who yell bang and are slime for perpetuating the vampire squid who robbed and pillaged us all and continue to do so. Obama has lain with dogs and the fleas of green backed bankers clings to his administration with the help of the far right bought and paid for lackeys in the tea party republican caucus.
I see no reason to try to work toward any goals, write a book, or keep my license, not even any reason to exercise. Why when all I have heard all my life is that I am a liberal slacker, welfare queen, evil humanist, old lady sucking off society because I feel so beat down by it all. How much do they think people can take? I raised kids, went to school, paid my bills, tried to be a good citizen, not a drunk, druggie or slut. A good person, trying to be a better person.
Occasionally I get ideas, poetry, art or simply to dance. Acting was important to me for so long. I watch the movies and know I should have gone to Hollywood. I could have found a niche to fill. Clever and talented, willing and a good listener. I told my friend Mark Holt, go for god sake school will wait. I told another young red headed man the same at a party and he did and I see him in movies and television all the time. I couldn't go. I had a little girl. Felt I had to take a more conservative route even if my mom complained I needed to do something that would make money. By the time I realised theatre was a dead end for me, mostly because of politics and poverty, I got my masters and I still haven't made a decent living. I am worth more dead than alive in social security to my family.
I will only get around 700 a month when I am old because women get cheated so horribly in wages and value. If I live so long. I will have to live with a daughter or in my truck or a trailer in the woods. I could be like one of those men I see with grizzled beards, weighted down by an old back pack, wrapped in blankets walking from nowhere to nowhere. Only I will have long white hair and a grizzled face and hands. Always slightly dirty. I can't see any future for me at 55. In three years my youngest will be gone to her life hopefully attaining her dreams better than I did and I will be left in this house day after day looking at the few things I made and have wondering...wandering...waning...wan...wanting....waiting
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