I had driven up to Philomath to see my first grade teacher and neighbor Mrs. Tompkins before she passed away. She was in a deep sleep while I was there so I left without a goodbye or Thank You. I remembered her quite fondly as a teacher and unfortunately there aren’t many like her. I stayed the night at a friends house in Eddyville where I grew up and while we were sitting on her porch we shared memories of her over coffee, fresh air, surrounded by beautiful trees. I noticed a Woolly Bear…then another and another. The lawn was filled with hundreds of Woolly Bears searching for places to hibernate during the winter. Of course I had my trusty camera and started taking photographs. The phone rang and my friend ran inside to answer it. When she came back she had a grief stricken look on her face. Mrs. Tompkins son James had called with news his mother had passed away.
Being an avid reader of all positive religious teachings I have no fear of death I tend to believe in heavens and reincarnations. Hell only exists on earth and created by those whose hearts have invented a satan to whom they give power over God. Mrs. Tompkins was not the type to preach or succumb to hysteria she was kind to everyone and quick to offer a helping hand if needed. She shared what she grew in her garden as well as what was in her cupboards….and more importantly she shared the goodness in her heart. She did these things not in a sanctimonious way or to draw attention to herself. She did these things because it was part of her nature….she actually lived what others get paid to preach about. She lived a life of grace.
Mrs. Tompkins passed in the best possible way a mother can pass surrounded by her children in the time leading up to her final breaths.
I discover where giant butterflies burrow and dream.
Startle them.
They rise in unison, become the sky
by imagining rainbows.
They are shimmering power in the wet light in this valley they call
Do Woolly Bear Caterpillars Forecast Winter Weather?
According to legend, the wider that middle brown section is (i.e., the more brown segments there are), the milder the coming winter will be. Conversely, a narrow brown band is said to predict a harsh winter. But is it true?
Between 1948 and 1956, Dr. Curran’s average brown-segment counts ranged from 5.3 to 5.6 out of the 13-segment total, meaning that the brown band took up more than a third of the woolly bear’s body. As those relatively high numbers suggested, the corresponding winters were milder than average.
But Curran was under no scientific illusion: He knew that his data samples were small. Although the experiments popularized and, to some people, legitimized folklore, they were simply an excuse for having fun. Curran, his wife, and their group of friends escaped the city to see the foliage each fall, calling themselves The Original Society of the Friends of the Woolly Bear.
Thirty years after the last meeting of Curran’s society, the woolly bear brown-segment counts and winter forecasts were resurrected by the nature museum at Bear Mountain State Park. The annual counts have continued, more or less tongue in cheek, since then.
For the past 10 years, Banner Elk, North Carolina, has held an annual “Woolly Worm Festival” each October, highlighted by a caterpillar race. Retired mayor Charles Von Canon inspects the champion woolly bear and announces his winter forecast.
Most scientists discount the folklore of woolly bear predictions as just that, folklore. Says Ferguson from his office in Washington, “I’ve never taken the notion very seriously. You’d have to look at an awful lot of caterpillars in one place over a great many years in order to say there’s something to it.”
Mike Peters, an entomologist at the University of Massachusetts, doesn’t disagree, but he says there could, in fact, be a link between winter severity and the brown band of a woolly bear caterpillar. “There’s evidence,” he says, “that the number of brown hairs has to do with the age of the caterpillar—in other words, how late it got going in the spring. The [band] does say something about a heavy winter or an early spring. The only thing is . . . it’s telling you about the previous year.”
That is my Dad and brother standing in front of the powerlines that were sprayed with Agent Orange
I recently made a comment about growing up in Oregon where they were used Agent Orange. Never mind the mercury…kerosene…loved the smell of gas and oil…cleaning supplies, I worked in visual for many years…very toxic job…and with painting….a whole different toxic scene hard to imagine that beautiful blue is soooo toxic.
I decided to look up Agent Orange Oregon YOUTUBE and behold here is a video of 25,000 55 gallon barrel drums that were stored at Alkali Lake and are being punctured by a bulldozer!!! Not where I grew up but close to some relatives…
Amazed I am still alive!! Ordinary Sparrow sent me this poem
(Lizzy this is a poem by Dr. E. that came to mind when you made the comments about the spraying and environmental toxins. . . )
WE ARE THE ATOMIC CHILDREN AND WE ARE STILL DANCING
It began before we went to school…
we asked for live ponies, but
received inflatable whales made
of polypropylene instead.
But it was okay.
We waited and waited for April
so we could dance
can-can tournaments in the rain.
We wore eerie iridescent swim suits
glowing like uranium. Our swimsuits
were always too big and showed
everything,
or they were always too small and showed
everything. But it was okay. We were happy
drowned bird-girls with balding feathers.
We played with all those bright colored toys,
So cheap in price, so rich in lead, those
lead toy soldiers marched all over our
bed clothes and we slept on the sheeted
and pillowed battle field, night after night.
And our mothers were so beautiful…
and the tobacco people ran ads
showing happy pregnant women smoking
and saying this was very good,
and fathers brought love cartons of the stuff
as special treats so mother-with-child
would never run out of her ciggies.
In October we hid under leaves and stalks
just beginning to rot,
and shushed each other there.
The silence made the wrinkles
on our feet itch. The wet of the leaves
washed the hyaline insect spray
right into our skin.
It was such a time of dancing.
We danced our feet on x-ray machines
in shoe shops. What sport
to see our own growing bones
in those shadowy boxes.
Hours we spent x-raying our feet for fun.
In January, in snow forts,
our forefingers held endless ammunition.
The winter wheat had power
to heal any wound it was laid upon.
We ate the snow that fell from the sky
seeded and seeded with field chemicals.
Our dear mothers made snow cones
for us with red dye food coloring,
and the youngest Hérnandez girl
fell through the pond, and was no more.
It began to be not alright.
After five years in school we saw, too late,
the road before us.
Our hearts demanded all
our attention. We built into the mountain,
we dug grieving caves.
We were in the cemeteries more often
than in the wedding halls.
The cells of the stomach turned
against the grandfather. The cells
of the breasts made wildfire
in the three aunts; the jitters
came to uncle and two farmers to the west,
falling down came to the farmer to the east,
a child not formed came to the cousin,
the loss of breath visited the dairy man,
and there were many mysterious
deaths of infants.
We set up camp, but never slept.
The animals began
to speak in foreign tongues.
We were still children. We hid
under our desks to practice for the bomb.
We were pulled on snow sleds behind
our beloved fathers’ big slope-backed cars
with lead spewing into our faces
from the mufflers’ smoke.
Some people still insist the spiders fell with the rain
while others believe the spiders grew from the damp soil like weeds
with eight thin roots.
The elders knew the spiders
carried stories in their stomachs.
We tucked our pants into our boots when we walked through fields
of fallow stories.
An Indian girl opened the closet door and a story fell into her hair.
We lived in the shadow of a story trapped in the ceiling lamp.
The husk of a story museumed on the windowsill.
Before sleep, we shook our blankets and stories fell to the floor.
A story floated in a glass of water left on the kitchen table.
We opened doors slowly and listened for stories.
The stories rose on hind legs and offered their red bellies to the most
beautiful Indians.
Stories in our cereal boxes.
Stories in our firewood.
Stories in the pocket of our coats.
We captured stories and offered them to the ants, who carried the
stories back to their queen.
A dozen stories per acre.
We poisoned the stories and gathered their remains with broom and
pan.
The spiders disappeared suddenly
after that summer lightning storm…..
I can hear the sound of Mr. Alexi’s lawyer typing up a cease and desist order….. You can read the rest on Amazon. It’s the second poem in his book.
And what a poem! Seriously I don’t know what it is about that poem the spiders coming down with the rain and bringing stories in their stomachs… You could read that poem to me on my death bed and everything would be alright!!! It is so imaginative and I almost fell out of my chair the first time I read it there was such joy and delight in my heart!
I took a poetry class about 25 years ago and while I got an A, I can’t write worth a damn and it pretty much ruined me for poetry until I read THE SUMMER OF BLACK WIDOWS on Amazon. The poetry class was filled with people that would slice, dice, twist and other wise disembowel a poem until it was dead and stripped of any magic…..and don’t get me started on FUCKING IAMBIC PENTAMETER!!! Once I spot it a poem is dead to me.
I love black widows! My mom used to own the black widow motel that is where I fell in love with them. She lives in the Nevada desert and she had this old Jeep Cherokee sitting in her driveway for years, at night they would all come out. There must have been 20 nests and those were just the ones you could see! My brother hated them and would deliberately walk 20 feet around it imagining that they would grab him and drag him under. Me?? I was naming them. My poor mother made the mistake of killing one of them in front of me…I yelled and accused her of black widow murder. I wish I had taken a picture of them!
I didn’t buy it used either so no guilt there!!!
The cover art is great too!
Also here is Sherman Alexie’s website he has a link to some of his newer poems and he also posts stuff that he is currently reading. That is how I got into all of these great Indian writers. He has good taste in books.
My brother is a writer. On one of his favorite hikes, he took me to THE PALISADES in the GEARHART MOUNTAIN WILDERNESS of Eastern Oregon. He was so moved that he wrote a poem about this extraordinary place.
THE PALISADES
The Palisade castles standing alone
And silent the trail I climb to see .
The Palisade castles stone upon stone
THE PALISADES
From the heart of the earth, the lava thrown
I stand at the gates of the mountain free.
The Palisade castles standing alone.
CLOSEUP OF ONE OF THE "CASTLES"
The sun on the face of the castles shone,
Pine needles strewn by the Sugar Pine tree,
The Palisade castles, stone upon stone.
MORE CASTLES
Heaved from the earth in a violent groan
And torn from the bed of a lava sea
The Palisade castles standing alone.
CASTLES HEATHED FROM THE EARTH
Struck by the cry of the wind intoned,
At one with the breath of eternity.
The Palisade castles stone upon stone.
THE CASTLES FROM ABOVE
Escaped from the eyes of a god unknown,
I see with the eyes of a soul set free
The Palisade castles standing alone,
The Palisade castles Stone upon stone.
STONE UPON STONE
The Palisades are the result of an eruption by a shield volcano(click here) that erupted millions of years ago. The formations are composed of Basalt and Andesite that have eroded into the “castle” formations.
RAIN CLOUDS ABOVE THE PALISADES
More photos of the Palisades and Gearhart Wilderness trail.
THE PALISADES
I THINK THIS MUST BE THE SPIRIT OF THE PALISADES
GEARHART WILDERNESS TRAILHEAD this is how you get to The Palisades
MY NEPHEW AND COCO ON THE GEARHART WILDERNESS TRAIL
Simon J. Oritz arranged this book so that on the left page was an observation, thought or fact and on the right hand side was a poem.
Excerpts from the left pages:
The people were at peace. This was expressed two months before by Black Kettle, one of the principal elders of the Cheyennes,in Denver to Governor John Evans and Colonel John W. Chivington, head of the Colorado Volunteers. “I want you to give all these chiefs of the soldiers here to understand that we are for peace, and that we have made peace, that we may not be mistaken for enemies.” The reverend Colonel Chivington and his Volunteers and Fort Lyon troops, numbering more than 700 heavily armed men, slaughtered 105 women and children and 28 men.
A U.S. flag resented by President Lincoln in 1863 to Black Kettle in Washington, D.C. flew from a pole above the elder’s lodge on that gray dawn. The people had been assure they would be protected by the flag…
Repression works like shadow, clouding memory and sometimes even to blind, and when it is on a national scale, it is just not good.
Buffalo were dark rich clouds moving upon the rolling hills and plains of America. And then the flashing steel came upon bone and flesh.
Conquest reached Nevada: a warrior chief was assassinated by the cavalry, cut into stewing pieces, fed to other chiefs, and a Treaty was signed.
That’ll show ‘em. Ask the Paiutes.
Is that true??
Who stole the hearts and minds of the humble hard-working folk until
they too became moralistic and self-righteous: senators, bishops,
presidents, missionaries, corporation presidents?
Here are excerpts from the poems on the right side pages. I am only a little over the halfway point…its too much to digest in a short period of time.
As far as our Native cultural philosophy was concerned, we were a part of human culture and society no matter what anyone said or thought. But there was a problem with that when the human culture and society the human culture we were part of was the United States. Because ti was the same United States that was guilty of mass destruction and oppression as a result of the the “civilizing” and “winning” of the West. And it was the same United States that was guilty of countless instances of thievery and genocidal killing, including the massacre of Cheyennes and Arapahoes at Sand Creek in 1864.
We were a major and vital part of U.S. history, but were we a part of the history of something atrocious like that? Obviously, it’s tough to be faced with something like that. Most people prefer not to face it and deal with it. In fact, U.S. society really doesn’t face it or deal with it. Instead, the United States insulates itself within an amnesia that doesn’t acknowledge that kind of history. The victors (discoverers, settlers, real estate developers, government leaders, etc.) can afford that, it seems, as long as they maintain control and feel that they don’t have to face the truth…
At this point in history, Indians are still not accepted as full participants in and members of world human cultural society. If they choose to, they can accept that severly restricted role, but then they will have to tolerate that role’s social, political, and cultural limitations. Or they can be who they are, absolutely and completely
I bought two Joy Harjo books off of the internet. The other one is SHE HAD SOME HORSES but my brother picked it up when he was here and stole it from me. STOP!!! THIEF!! Actually he will read it much faster than I will and since Joy Harjo is a girl….her writing will be less significant to him than a man’s…easier to dismiss. That should properly get his attention!
SCAN OF COVER
The book is filled with beautiful monotonous at first glance landscapes but if you have ever been to the desert you know that there is magic in them thar hills. A magic in the desolation so poweful you either become enlightened or numb….you either worship the expanse as it rips you open or you shut the door in an attempt to hide. It’s not for sissies! I personally prefer the forests but a visit to the desert has a magical effect on the soul.
This land is a poem of ochre and burnt sand I could never write,
unless paper were the sacrament of sky, and ink the broken line
of wild horses staggering the horizon several miles away. Even
then, does anything written ever matter to the earth, wind, and
sky?
And then there is this:
This earth has dreamed me to stand on the rise of this highway,
to admire who she has become.
and this:
I can hear the sizzle of newborn stars, and know anything of
meaning, of the fierce magic emerging here. I am witness to flexible eternity,
the evolving past, and I know we will live forever,
as dust or breath in the face of stars, in the shifting pattern of
Just joking my brother had to write a paper on one of the characters in PARADISE LOST for his survey of English literature class. I personally have never read PARADISE LOST but the essay is interesting none -the -less. My brother still has christian baggage from his childhood…as most atheists do!!!
Stephen Tool
ENG204 Character Analysis
Verne Underwood
People In Hell Want Ice Water
Most of us have grown up with the idea of Satan as arch-fiend, responsible for every perceived evil in the world. It is at Satan’s hands that the innocent Jesus of Nazareth is tempted in the wilderness, betrayed by Judas, and ultimately suffered a death reserved for the most despicable of criminals. Every despot, dictator, and tyrant has been relegated to the ranks of this malefactor’s army of evildoers. He is evil incarnate, a symbol and instigator of man’s most despicable inclinations and tendencies…Yet, we are fascinated by him. A cursory glance at the audience of any televangelist’s rantings against the Evil One will shows many of the audience positively shuddering with ill-concealed delight. Just what is it about Satan?
Milton has set himself a stern enough task. He has assured us he will justify the ways of God to man. This is a Herculean labor in itself. Even the most casual observer of life has to wonder about the abundance of evil in a world presumably controlled by an omnipotent, beneficent deity that apparently lets Satan and his cohorts wreak havoc on humanity at will. Much like the author of Job, Milton takes no great pains to hide this fact. And like the author of Job, Milton unveils an aspect of God that deeply disturbs: God not only passively allows Satan to torment humanity, He condones it. God’s passivity is done under the guise of free will. In exchange for a lifetime of being Satan’s personal voodoo dolls, we are offered the glorious opportunity of loving and yea, even worshiping the mighty Yahweh that allows this to happen to us. The careful reader of this text will note that God never takes action unless He or His personal kingdom are being threatened. God is painted as a laissez-faire administrator of divine justice. Satan is fully aware of this and it not only incenses him, it inspires him to “greater” deeds. This is one of Satan’s attractive attributes. He is a doer and unlike God, Satan expounds an extraordinary amount of effort into his works. He has goals and he works hard to achieve them. Everybody loves a self-made man. Satan is also a seeker of knowledge while God is insistent upon keeping Adam and Eve in the dark. He does not want them seeking knowledge on their own. It is no wonder Jesus begs us to act like sheep, this way it is easier to pull the wool over our eyes! In contrast: The Biblical Yahweh is portrayed walking and talking with Adam and Eve in the garden. At the point in Milton’s text where God realizes he needs to forewarn Adam and Eve of Satan’s impending visit, He is too uncaring and unmoved to warn them himself. He sends his lackey Raphael to do it for him! Satan leads a “life” of passion and conviction. God is just…there.
I don’t believe for a moment that Milton tried to paint a pretty picture of Satan to show us how easily we are ensnared by his wiles. The disgusting and entirely-too-vividly rendered scene Milton creates regarding the birth of sin and death, tell us much of the filthy perversion of Milton’s mind, and in fact, help negate the unseemly characteristics Satan may possess. Satan is truly the most interesting and engaging character. Satan’s underlings are dolts for the most part. The heavenly host? Mere automatons. Adam and Eve are totally clueless, and Jesus and God the father are co-reigning Kings of the Dullards!
There is something entirely Quixotic about Satan. In a sense, he seems oblivious to his inevitable defeats at the hands of the heavenly host but he keeps trying…and succeeding to an extent. He may have lost the battle but Satan fractures heaven single-handedly and causes God to lose a third of his angels. The creation of earth, Adam and Eve, and the cosmos is a direct reaction to Satan’s rebellion. The fall of Adam and Eve? Guess who? Satan wins enough battles to keep us engaged and secretly rooting for him. The closest analogy I can think of is the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote. Who has not wished the Roadrunner would suffer a good neck-wringing at the hands of the hapless hound?
I don’t know that Milton intended this but one could easily regard Satan as the first real human. Unlike the rest of Yahweh’s angels, Satan appears to have free will and an understanding of the events surrounding him. He is ambitious and passionate. He is aware of his power and personal beauty. He is an original thinker and unswayed by the blustery pronouncements of Yahweh. In the manner of Adam and Eve he is cast from his own paradise but he will not bow down or ask for forgiveness. He can’t. In his own way he refuses to be a hypocrite!
One may wonder at Satan’s consuming passion in wreaking havoc on God’s works. Why not make a heaven of hell and forget about God? Why torment himself with Adam and Eve, the earth, etc.? He is possessed by an all-consuming desire for revenge. Scratch beneath the surface and you find an emotionally scarred human and this is Satan’s most appealing feature and the easiest to empathize with. Satan is an outcast suffering from rejection, isolation, and despair. Who among us cannot look back to our past and recall a similar incident from our own lives? The wrong thing said, the foolish thing done. The sudden isolation from one’s peers. The wavering between yearning for inclusion in the group or the courage to go your own way. Milton, The Lady of Christ’s Church: “They thought themselves gallant men and I thought them fools.” This statement has the ring of more than a little bitterness. For a time, Milton had his revenge as one of the leading writers of a theocracy that virtually morally handcuffed an entire generation. But this too passed and once again Milton found himself on the outside, his theocracy and paradise on earth brought to nought. Unsaved and unprotected by the God it purported to represent.
Milton had a marvelous propensity for interpreting the Christian religion as he saw fit and forcing it to serve his own needs, his pamphlet on divorce being one of several striking examples. It is my opinion that Milton’s rendering of Satan is an unconscious self- portrait and more. In Milton’s blindness he sees more clearly than even he himself knows: For when we gaze into the mirror of Paradise Lost we see ourselves as we truly are: Human, all too human.*
but life interfered and I am home this weekend although I am going hiking along the Rogue Gorge on Saturday!
THE UPPER ROGUE GORGE
Work(I need the money!) and conference calls took precedence plus it was raining and its not like I only go the Redwoods once a year I go all the time it was a good decision because I had time to clean my house…well as clean as it can be with me living in it!!
I didn’t think I would have time to post anything of substance so I e-mailed Monica Charles and asked her if I could use some of her work and of course she gave me her permission but I had left already….But now that I am here I am taking the liberty of posting one of her poems that I read awhile ago. It starts off “She had some wild cats” which I believe is a response to a poem by Joy Harjo called SHE HAD SOME HORSES. I don’t own any of Joy Harjo’s work but I need to she is one of those poets that every other Native American poet has outstanding things to say about. It makes me wonder… I certainly am no scholar but it seems that there is a lot of support among Indian writers and not the backstabbing jealousies among other literary groups.
She had some wild cats, Bits of black fluff abandoned as the white preacher fled poverty’s flood that engulfed his flock in alcohol and drugs
She had some wild cats who shared her cold spaghetti cheeks blushed with sauce They licked each others face and rolled full-bellied in the sweet cut grass
She had some wild cats Who ran away when Dad died They lived hard in the woods Fasting and walking for a year They came home lean silent and healed
She had some wild cats Who went away to boarding school And slept through the night They loved to read books And feel the weight of words rolling from her fingers As she mixed them on a page
She had some wild cats Who loved with the passion Of the wild west wind who brings rains that flood And flings down trees that refuse to bend
She had some wild cats That bathed in icy rivers They painted their faces and sang the sun into the sky Defying white laws of gravity
She had some wild cats Cats that lived in cartoons And chased technicolor mice tiptoeing past the dog Day after silly day
She had some wild cats who learned to hate themselves For their beautiful brown skin And flew their car into a tree Into the fabled tunnel of white light
She had some wildcats who survived the crash And took their first sober steps Since their cousin gave them beer At their ninth birthday party
She had some wildcats Who learned to love themselves Bought a second hand computer And wrote poetry plays and stories To begin the healing
Posted by Monica
Now I am one of those curious white people and refrain from asking a million questions but seriously after reading that poem I would love to play TWENTY QUESTIONS with Monica. Of course I have a feeling the stories behind this poem could be turned into a set of encyclopedias on Monica Charles at the least an autobiography.
Like I said I am curious and to Monica’s horror I am the type of person that would probably think it was cool if someone dug up my Grandmother and stuck her in a museum!! I can’t say for sure because as far as I know I have no relatives in a museum. My saving grace is that I believe in respecting others beliefs…..with the exception of the mutilation of female genitalia!
But getting back to the poetry I proceeded to look up Joy Harjo’s poem.
SHE HAD SOME HORSES
byJoy Harjo
She had some horses.She had horses who were bodies of sand.
She had horses who were maps drawn of blood.
She had horses who were skins of ocean water.
She had horses who were the blue air of sky.
She had horses who were fur and teeth.
She had horses who were clay and would break.
She had horses who were splintered red cliff.
She had some horses.
She had horses with long, pointed breasts.
She had horses with full, brown thighs.
She had horses who laughed too much.
She had horses who threw rocks at glass houses.
She had horses who licked razor blades.
She had some horses.
She had horses who danced in their mothers’ arms.
She had horses who thought they were the sun and their bodies shone and burned like stars.
She had horses who waltzed nightly on the moon.
She had horses who were much too shy, and kept quiet in stalls of their own making.
She had some horses.
She had horses who liked Creek Stomp Dance songs.
She had horses who cried in their beer.
She had horses who spit at male queens who made them afraid of themselves.
She had horses who said they weren’t afraid.
She had horses who lied.
She had horses who told the truth, who were stripped bare of their tongues.
She had some horses.
She had horses who called themselves, “horse.”
She had horses who called themselves, “spirit.” and kept their voices secret and to themselves.
She had horses who had no names.
She had horses who had books of names.
She had some horses.
She had horses who whispered in the dark, who were afraid to speak.
She had horses who screamed out of fear of the silence, who carried knives to protect themselves from ghosts.
She had horses who waited for destruction.
She had horses who waited for resurrection.
She had some horses.
This is not the end you can read the rest of her wonderful poem here.
Joy Harjo has a wonderful website that you can link to here.
I could be wrong because I can’t find it now but I swear that I ran across a blog on her site called ORDINARY SPARROW which I immediately bookmarked because it is so beautifully done….the pictures the posts. I even put it on my blogroll I don’t look at it often enough but did the other morning and it made me cry. Here is a link to the post that brought me to tears river reflection…third eye. Now usually when I meet people who say that they are spiritual beings I am respectful but am thinking that they are full of shit. Seeing with Satan’s third eye maybe!!! But not quite trusting my own judgment of people…not that I should be judging people….except that I do it all the time everyday…and if God gives you a gift….(just joking!!!) That is exactly how my mind works and no wonder I am exhausted after being awake for a few hours!!!!
For some reason I believe every word of this person and what the fuck Amma is sending them messages??? For those of you who don’t know who AMMA is she is the incarnation of love and people call her the hugging saint. This woman heals lepers by licking their sores!! I won’t have sex with someone who has herpes and this woman is licking leprosy sores!!!!
I think my path to enlightenment is different than most it consists of long periods of saint like behavior with even longer interludes of anger and rage but overall I get it. I may not choose to live it everyday and it is a choice. In many ways even at my worst there are moral crimes I would never commit because I really do get how destructive they are. There are things that once you get them they are not an issue anymore. I got the possession of material objects and vanity thing down. I constantly recognize my own ego and while I may lapse I have the ability to see most of the time where I am wrong. My ego is not so strong that I am unable to see my bad behavior….even though it may take a few days!!! I don’t let it slide or make bad excuses. I was watching the Soul Series Oprah did with Eckart Tolle and someone told him about a miracle they had received, and Tolle said something to the effect that sometimes receiving outright miracles is not a good thing. I think because it comes with little effort and you will expect the same results….I could have all of this wrong as I am relying on my memory.
As a recipient of “easy” miracles….I agree and disagree. I see is point because in the back of my mind I know how easy it is to receive a miracle but at the same time I KNOW how hard it is to have the constant belief. All that is required to receive a miracle is to believe. I mean for even an instant you have to believe without a doubt….and doubt is like the plague once it infects you once it spreads like wildfire. If for a moment you feel unworthy, unloved, or just plain fucked up your connection with God dissolves….not because God has left or doesn’t love you but because you have shut the door. This isn’t something to beat yourself up over….sometimes shutting the door results in miracles down the road that you may not recognize yet. Living in the world has a way of teaching you lessons whether you ask for them or not!!
I envy the way some people live in Peace and who practice everyday and who knows that may be me one day but my quest for enlightenment sort of resembles my quest for a clean house….too much clutter!!! One of my biggest challenges in life right now is my weight. I have had times in my life when I have been skinny (not by Victoria Beckham standards) and it doesn’t matter how skinny you are….someone will always make you feel fat. I don’t really care about my weight in the sense that it is where I get my self esteem from….I care about my weight because my feet hurt after being on hard surfaces for any length of time. I just don’t feel good!!!
Like I have said I am not a naturally skinny person but losing weight has never been an issue for me until the last five years as I keep gaining and gaining…it started when I moved in with my Mother for a year…I will say no more on that.
Granted age is a huge factor when I was young I could eat a pound of MnM’S and a pound of Doritos every day and not gain weight the way I do now!
I have very few pictures of me since I didn’t own a camera for many years and when I did get one I am the one taking pictures!
I THINK THAT DRESS IS A 6
I look like Elvira…..those are my sister’s feet and I was rubbing them while she was in the hospital resting after delivering her first child. I think I had been drinking in a bar while she was delivering…that shit scares me..that’s why I don’t have any children….I just borrow them for a few hours and give them back!!! No matter how skinny I am I have a double chin!!! I was fucking miserable when I was this thin…it was a lot of work and my boyfriends would still criticize my weight. Now I’m like….FUCK YOU! On a funnier note I don’t have a picture but I got very skinny by not eating at one point in my life and this guy came up to me and said “I’ll fuck you if you lose 10 pounds.” People are horrified that I think that is funny….but you would have had to know the pig guy. He was someone that I would have not let around my pristine vagina for a billion dollars. Seriously a billion dollars I would walk away from. I do have a sense of humor and it was funny and I still laugh when I think about it!
ME IN UTAH AT PROBABLY A SIZE 10 OR 12
This is the trip that had me awakening to nature. I had come to terms with myself and was very happy with my weight and size. It wasn’t hard to maintain at all. Living back East men still thought I was a big fat cow but I really didn’t care.
Me now at size 16/18
Actually this picture is from a couple years ago but things have not changed. I lose 15 I gain 15…..into infinity. Until yesterday when I bought a scale I didn’t know how much I weighed……
216.3!!!!
Aside from my feet hurting when I am standing on tile or concrete (I did by a pair of Crocs last week and I love them!) when I go to buy shirts…maybe because I hike and am somewhat active….the armpits drop to my waist. Like my arms are as big as my legs!!!
And fuck that nonsense about the fat tax….that is just a bunch of nonsense!!! I say to that lets have a genetic tax. Cause I have superior Portuguese genes and have never been in a hospital. Occasionally I will have an allergy attack but not since I have moved to back to the West coast. My grandmother lived to 92 and she was a fat round Portuguese but walked until her final weeks without any help and could get into my Dad’s big Dodge Ram Diesel. She walked better than skinny old people at 60!!! My grandfather was one of those bad alcoholics who apparently would resort to drinking rubbing alcohol and aftershave out of desperation but he only succumbed to stomach cancer in his 70′s. He smoked a few packs of unfiltered Pall Malls too boot! My mother smokes about two or three packs of cigarettes a day and in her sixties the doctors are still amazed that her lungs are so clear when they x-ray them.
I know this guy who is rail thin and he used to get upset with me because my cholesterol was lower while his was in the 300′s and he was on medication!!! I thought that was funny because on the way to my cholesterol test I was eating peanutbutter balls!!! The Doctor shook his head and said well it its too high we’ll take it again but you’ll have to fast…it was below 150 and the nurse was really pissed. I run into pissed off healthcare workers all the time….I have low blood pressure too!
Its all about the genes and in reality I think it would be ridiculous to tax women because they have the breast cancer gene…
Seriously though this is all about self-hatred. America’s weight issues are not going to be solved by taxing people what’s next a low IQ tax???a big nose tax??? tits too small tax??? Apparently people that engage in anal sex have increased rates of anal cancer…should we start taxing people for their sex lives???
I have been wandering again getting back to my weight…I will be writing a post on it every week good or bad.
I didn’t think I would have time to post but I have a conference call this morning so I am sticking around…
Last month when I went to Cedarville, CA they had a great new and used book store. The man who owns it also has a publishing company and the bookstore itself is friendly with a wood burning stove and some chairs you can bring in a cup of coffee and read or have a good discussion. Where I live the bookstore owners are way too stuffy and serious so I shop mostly on Amazon. I did buy a bunch of books in Corvallis at the Book Bin.
FLOATING ISLAND BOOKSTORE
SYMBOL HANGING OUTSIDE THE BOOKSTORE
I asked the owner about this symbol hanging outside and he told me it came to him while he was hiking in Mt. Shasta. He later showed it to someone who told him it was a Hopi symbol…for what I don’t know or remember.
The owner of this fine establishment
So anyway I saw this book and had to buy it
IS THAT NOT THE GREATEST COVER????EVER????
The book says that Momaday painted the cover but it says nothing about the paintings inside soI am assuming that he did them all. It is quite a beautiful book and Momaday is a wonderful writer. The book starts out with URSET the aging bear conversing with YAHWEH about berries and matters of life.
Here is an excerpt from a poem he wrote in Russia called
NOTES ON A HUNTING SCENE
….the bear had crept on the edge of the taiga, rearing now and then to
sniff the wind. When the end came, it slumped slowly down and made
its bed. It died at a moment between the final rattle of its breath and the
awful silence that followed. The moment cannot be fixed exactly in the
range of time.
The woman drank from a bottle and laughed again.
In the village pain was preserved in the way that embers are kept alive.
Life did not persist without pain. Somewhere it is written.
The bear lay lifeless on the sledge. Sooner or later the singer would
come, and everything would have its place in the relief of ritual.
I haven’t posted a poem in a while. I discovered Anna Akhmatova not long out of high school. I am having the laziest day I have had in awhile and unable to do to much due to too much of a hike yesterday ( haven’t been this out of shape in years). Anyway it is Sunday and I thought this poem was appropriate…
It was translated by D.M.Thomas there are other translations but this is the one I own.
LOT’S WIFE
And the just man trailed God’s messenger,
His huge, light shape devoured the black hill.
But uneasiness shadowed his wife and spoke to her:
“It’s not too late, you can look back still
At the red towers of Sodom, the place that bore you,
A few notes before I begin. I braved the land mines at alt.native and once again left because I was very confused. I e-mailed Monica and asked her for a list of who is who and how they are involved in the Anna Mae case. It was most helpful.
If you are really interested in learning more about this case go to alt.native and read the comments to my saga and other posts. There are some really good comments. Aside from the obvious…Monica Charles. There is a man named Dave who has written a book about the murder but it has not been published for legal reasons…I’m a bit embarrassed that Dave is reading anything I write because he is also the author of several books, most notable is POW WOW HIGHWAY(I ordered a copy for 2.52 on Amazon. Which I will feel guilty about now!) which was turned into a movie. He has also written an epic poem CREATION’S MYTH ( I cannot find anywhere) which has been compared to PARADISE LOST by John Milton. More books I need to read!!!
Thank you thavanag for pointing out my obvious error J.Edgar not Herbert. And Monica you were exactly right I was pissed off and do know the difference. If you all knew how many times I went over my posts and still miss obvious mistakes…Scholar I do not pretend to be!
Here are links to comments from alt.native concerning Anna Mae Part 1part 2 and part 3.
Now for Anna Mae’s continuing saga…
Dr. W.O. Brown,….the pathologist…was unrepentant (about his inability to find the bullet in Anna Mae’s head).
“A litle bullet isn’t hard to overlook,” he said. “It certainly isn’t the first time a bullet was overlooked.” And, Why all the interest in this case? It seems awfully routine, you know. So they found an Indian body-so a body was found.” And, “I suppose the Indians will never let that woman die. AIM’s trying to stir up all the trouble they can. It’s a matter of record that Indians use every little incident that they can to create a situation over. They distort facts and use it to their advantage to further their cause. But I’ve tried to remain neutral. . I don’t think I ‘m prejudiced.”
…he had missed it only because the hospital’s X-ray machine had been broken. But he soon reversed course:
The machine was fine.
…he had merely chosen not to use it because X-rays were “too time-consuming,” “too awkward,” and “at times unsuccessful.” And anyway, since “it’s fairly common for Indians like these to die of an overdose,”…
(…Aquash’s blood was free of drugs or alcohol.)
…he had cut short his exam because the body was”stinky” and decomposed”
But from his verdict he did not swerve. It was the frost that had taken Anna Mae Aquash, not the bullet. The bullet, he said, may have pierced the brain casing, but not the brain proper. If it had entered the casing, it might have started a chain of events that incapacitated Aquash and left her at the mercy of the cold, but the shot did not kill her.
So basically this guy missed….
the stained sheet under her head…
her gunpowdered and bloodied hair…
the hole through several layers of bone….
(includingthe brain, through which the bullet had in fact passedand which Brown had removed and examined before dumping it in Aquash’s chest with the other dissected organs). I don’t get this part is Hendricks saying that Brown did find the bullet or is Brown claiming that he did see it but was lying???
And finally the bullet itself.
Among other “errors” in the autopsy, he claimed to have dissected and measured Aquash’s stomach, one of her kidneys, and her adrenal glands, but Dr. Peterson found all of these organs were attached, unopened, and with the metrics quite different from Brown’s.
….Dr Brown reported that Aquash had not been raped and had been dead no more than 10 days, Peterson concluded that rape could not be ruled out and Aquash could hav been killed weeks, even months, before she was found.
To be continued with SPECIAL AGENT ZIGROSSI CONFUSED AGAIN!
My first real job was in the kitchen at the Hilton in Reno, Nevada. It was my first time off the goat farm in Eddyhell, Oregon. I was eager to do a good job since it was so hard to even get an entry level job as the recession of the 1980s was in full swing. I had to beg for a job EVERYDAY for about 2 weeks before they would hire me.
I remember being stunned that the hard boiled eggs came in big white five gallon containers containing preservatives. Sort of shocking when you grow up on a farm. I saw homeless drunks passed out on the street I would leave them money because I thought they would need to eat when they woke up.
One day while I was in one of the pantries I was unpacking a carton with many white boxes. I opened one and it was filled with those pretty toothpicks with the colored cellophane on top. I just stared at it awhile in shock…..
I had NO idea they were mass produced….
I THOUGHT THE WAITRESS AT THE SIZZLER LOVINGLY GLUED THAT COLORED CELLOPHANE TO MY TOOTHPICK AND PUT IT IN MY BLT TO MAKE MY DAY BETTER!
Seriously! Still upsets me in a funny sort of way.
Two weeks ago I started a blog,about a week later I put up a link to a Wickipedia page about Anna Mae Aquash. I didn’t put any thought into it just sort of like looking it up a word in a dictionary. I didn’t care in the sense that it happened long ago.
Monica Charles posted it on a discussion group for Indians. Monica was very passionate and I felt what she was feeling… not all the Indian stuff, but as a woman in a battle. My impression of her was that she was a young woman in her mid twenties who was probably going to get worn down from a battle that she could not control and would lose eventually.
I e-mailed her not sure if I was going to incur her wrath because I wanted her to approve of a post that I had linked to her website THE DAUGHTER OF TSE WHIT ZEN. And she responded with such kindness and encouragement I was taken aback. There are many people that I like instantly and many people I hate instantly and I liked Monica Charles.
So there I was giving this young woman advice and support. She in turn was providing me with links and books to read encouraging me to keep writing… I had some relatives staying with me for a few days. So I wasn’t doing my usual curiosity that killed the cat thing. After they left I sat at my computer and Googled Monica Charles. Good lord. This woman who I thought was a young girl had been demonstrating since I was probably five….
She was at,
Wounded Knee II
The occupation of the BIA
She writes poetry:
WOUNDED KNEE 1973 #5
We walked out past government sentries
Victorious and frightened in one breath
Flares popped bloomed and fell but never found us
An armoured personnel carrier loomed
A mammoth dragon tracking us through bad dreams
We collapsed in the hardened fluffs of snow
Hundred year old frozen ghost dancers
Two young white men jumped down, lit cigarettes
City eyes blind to Indians in the night
Their cigarettes glowed like serpent eyes
The snow crunched as they drove to their next post
We rolled and exhaled and stretched our stiff joints
We walked all night to…
Recently she was involved in a fight for the rights of Indians to hunt whales. You can read about that hair raising tale here
Currently she is a warrior fighting for the truth to come out about Anna Mae Aquash’s murder and cover up by the FBI. Here is the SUPPORT LETTER FOR JOHN GRAHAM FROM MONICA CHARLES that she sent to OUR FREEDOM blog.
THAT IS WHAT YOU CALL A FUCKING HISTORY
Unbelievable! I actually started crying because she has to be such a brave person and I felt like an idiot… So I e-mailed her again to ask if she was the SAME Monica Charles I had been reading about and to express horror at my stupidity.That’s me. Monica wrote back once again with an encouraging e-mail.
I was raised in a Republican household and held those views most of my life, except that I was more compassionate. The death penalty didn’t make sense to me, I believed in support from government for women with children…Basically I was a RINO (Republican in name only).
The company I used to work for employed a lot of illegal immigrants and then they would treat them like shit. This had been going on for sometime but I didn’t know about it because I do not speak a word of Spanish. There was a young lady who was half El Salvadorian and half Peruvian that I worked with. One day I made a comment that some of the Hispanics were not too friendly. She told me it was because they knew I was some sort of Hispanic and they thought that I viewed myself as too good to speak my language. My mother is Portuguese and I do not speak a single word. I wish I did.
Being the seasoned employee and having learned to fight for my rights I was always helping people because I had to learn the hard way. If you came to me I could tell you what your rights were and who to call in the company to get what you deserved.They would fuck everyone over.The inhumane resource officer would lie about EVERYTHING. I was a thorn in their side but they couldn’t really touch me because they had made too many mistakes and I documented everything. But the Blacks and Hispanics were another story they would go out of their way to discriminate. Deny their days off, not pay for their holidays, only pay them for part of their day. So I spent about a year collecting pay stubs I had friends in the office who would copy me stuff and alert me of illegal things the company was doing. I looked at these crimes and considered them to be the same as a robbery or shoplifting. I REALLY TRULY BELIEVED MY GOVERNMENT…. THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES would care. I decided that we needed a Union and called the AFLCIO they were nice and gave me the number to the UFCW I swear I called them EVERYDAY 26 days in a row and left messages. They would not return my calls. So I went to their office in Maryland and they said Do you have an appointment? No! But I have been calling you for 26 days in a row and you won’t answer my calls. There was a discussion and I just sat down on the floor and cried. Finally they found someone to come and talk to me. Basically they told me I was fucked because I worked in Virginia which is a right to work state. BUT I AM AN AMERICAN AND THIS SIMPLY CANNOT BE HAPPENING!!! WE HAVE LAWS!!!!
During all of this I had filed a complaint at the Department of Labor in DC…now the nice people at the AFLCIO who I knew quite well by then tried to tell me that labor laws were not being inforced. I refused to believe them….Well I swear months later when I finally got my appointment with the Department of Labor evidence in hand they started off by yelling(no exaggerating) at me saying that my complaint was not valid. I showed the fucking bitch where it said that if I knew of persons being discriminated against I could file a complaint. Too bad they need to all file separate complaints. I walked to the AFLCIO and cried on their couch while they consoled me.
That fight lasted about a year. I lost. I was devastated to learn that what I had believed about my country was completely false. I’m fucking pissed off about my government and what it has become. What we have allowed it to become. I hope it gets better with Obama in office. I campaigned for him. I write my Senators and Representatives. But remember that song by the Who? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.… We’ll see.
But getting back to Monica Charles. I am in such awe of her strength. I cannot put my year of hell into a perspective that could compare the two. Monica Charles has been fighting for the rights of her people in a way I cannot begin to imagine….SINCE 1972 AT LEAST!! As fucked up as my childhood was I had the luxury of being so naive to think that the waitresses put cellophane on my toothpicks….to make my day better. I had the luxury of blissful ignorance that my government had the welfare of its people in its best interest.
I don’t imagine that Monica Charles was ever able to afford the luxury of being naive.
I don’t imagine that there was ever a time that Monica Charles was unaware of the government’s nefarious ways.
After at least 37 years fighting for the most basic rights of her people she still has the time, energy and grace to encourage and inform others.
THANK YOU MONICA CHARLES, I TRULY WISH YOU SUCCESS IN ALL YOU DO!!!!
My first few months in Minnesota, I listened to a Public Radio performer pimping a perfidious, nasal patter of prairie companionship, and I can’t help but wonder what hairless planet he’s nattering from. Okay, on the surface, it’s safe here. Life is ordered. No stone-heart urban thugs a’dancing, No fearsome city noise to start the ears a’bleeding. But something about the place gives my bones the heebie-jeebies. Left to the sun and rain, this land of quaint squares of dark soil sprouts a bright uniform green from road to road that murders anything natural. gone are the tall grass prairies, vanished are the native trees, and corralled are the once-featherd Indians. Evil corn and its masters have murdered this land
hmmmm I guess he’s not a fan of Monsanto…Or Archers Daniels Midland if you read on to the next poem called…
THE DEATH SCENT OF THE CORN PLANT!!!!(i added those exclamations)
I was visiting the National Grasslands between Klamath Falls, Oregon and Weed, California, I recall an elderly gentleman bemoaning the fact that there are so little grass lands left, that once the plains were covered with them…grasses so high you could barely see over them. Mile after mile. So I tried looking up some stuff about the grasses in Minnesota and I can tell you Government websites are fucking boring…no wonder we are so ill informed!…they could put our national secrets on boring government documents and I swear no one would read them because they are BORING. But then again I think I might be what they are talking about when they are referring to the dumbing down of America!
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