Wednesday, June 30, 2010

6/30/2010

A week since I wrote anything. My "frankness" and judgements have created so much pain that I just shut down as far a s writing. Even J in New York was inspired to start in on what a lazy slut I am and my entire life a failure and my relationship with Steve a joke and guess what? Steve managed to direct all future comment from her directly to the trash. He did it somewhere inside the program but thank god-I still hurt from her hatefulness.

Any way I am sick of all the hatefulness everywhere especially coming from me-there has to a better way. The "frankness" I was loving the "telling it as it is" but the damage done and for what? The world is not helped by my frankness and in fact a friend is denied the comfort and support of my friendship due to my "frankness". Well this morning while reading the Religion section in Huffington Post I came across the founder of WAWA-a ballistic Christian on fire with the mercy of Christ/God/Allah/Buddha and on and on. I went to the site and through reading just one of her essays my heart was lit up with hope for a better way of being in the world and a way of living that brings modesty to my thoughts, something I have never really known,and meekness and kindness to my words and actions. I said the only true prayer I have said in years and years-feeling the sureness of my realization of the Christ within-the Feminine Face of God. The essential kindness and gentleness of my nature peeked out from where she has been hiding under the "brutal honesty" and knee-jerk reactions to pain and suffering. I am wanting a new way of living and not one of "being saved" or any fundamentalist stuff but a way of life pbased on faith: faith that knows all is unfolding as it should even if I don't see it and I go about the work I know is mine-spreading love and mercy bringing love and light through me to my abilities to carry such power-I am only human.
I may be back later today-we have quite a bit to do.

Friday, June 25, 2010

6/25/2010

Still feeling like I have been shocked by writing here and so I no longer desire to come here. this from the disaster with B and then there was screaming from an ex-friend. the entire week made me dizzy can't really believe how upside down the week was.

Last night Sue G called but I was already falling asleep and she was worried about B and I of course did not feel like saying "well, B and I no longer speak"so I was withdrawn and probably evasive.

Josie is moving out here soon. She is worried about living in a one bedroom apartment-I can see that with Saturn in Libra in her fourth house. Saturn is not there yet still in the last degrees of Virgo.

Personal and subjective: oh well!! it isn't as if the "world" is waiting in anticipation of my latest edition and I am not Jane Austin writing stories to entertain my family and friends. I write because I learned to keep journal in my 20's and writing on the computer is easier and I get more slack from family if I am at the computer than if I am writing by hand in a physical journal.

Okay here goes: this morning I saw the cover of a Bon Appetit with a photo of a dish of fat fettuccine noodles and that set something off in my brain/body. I craved the sin in eating huge servings of this kind of food. Something started draining in my gut something smooth and spicy started running and I was so hungry and I remembered when that smooth/spicy goop never ran in me because I ate only the foods that keep me from experiencing that run of goop-I ate basically protein and vegetables both cooked and raw vegetables and I ate whole fruit when I could afford it. I often made protein drinks although they never really made me happy-the mixture was too rich for my system. I did drink some fruit juice which I got away with due to my youth I think. I do remember that when I was overpowered by the munchies I would eat peanut butter on bread or with apples and that was my candy and I loved it but it didn't leave me drunk and in disarray the way real candy and pie and cake would-I simply eschewed that type of white sugar/white flour concoctions I simply eschewed them.

The change was put into effect when I started working in the Social Services office where I would earn my living for over 30 years.

I remember walking through the office and looking at the unkempt, hugely obese women and thinking " I would never let that happen to me." I weighed between 115 and 120 pounds. Tragically for me I became one of those women- I was part of the troupe who got those checks out and made sure that eligibility was proven and then later learned to document referrals for work and medical exams and ;referrals for medical care and issues of work clothes,etc. Yep!! there I was working at the PFC class all my life there. Really couldn't ever promote to higher levels, not suited for group overseer always wanted to give the max to everyone who was eligible on paper, was unsuited to gossiping which is so important if one wants to "promote" anywhere. Gossip like some have come out about is so important because It unifies the teller with the hearers and secondly it tells something about those "talked about". I could not do this 1) because I had so much I felt guilty about and 2)I had trained to live on a Jungian level something that demanded security of confided information. I was shocked by the stories I would hear and I am sure I seemed like a set blanket. Well at any rate therer were many reasons that I was not popular and I didn't know how to study for tests so that I never got good at them until the end of my years there.

Well that was really a detour what I want to discuss is the food and how to eat now to release weight and live with energy and a positive outlook. Being trapped in the office with those I didn't like nor identify with caused me to get hungry deeply hungry from the chemicals created in my body by unhappiness. I simply couldn't get my normal food to work for me ( ooh!! I just remember Vicki (can no longer recall her name but she went far in the County) looking with disdain when I offered her some of my lunch: deviled eggs, raw green beans,apples and peanut butter. Perfectly wonderful lunch but Vicki barely covered her shock. Stream of consciousness here: well I started in not too long a time to eat out at restaurants that had previously been so rare that I never restricted myself from eating my fill but now eating out weekly this became an issue AND then I also started eating the cakes and ice cream and doughnuts and cookies and chips and almost daily cheap Chinese/cheap Mexican lunches and I was trapped with people I did not like and with rules I disdained and I was set up to end up depressed and 100 pounds overweight and diabetic.

This week I have "decided" that this is the third round of a three round life. Jungian to the core I recognize youth,householder and then aged as the three parts of the life. This is the beginning of my third. I want to write and I want to recover from the health damages of working for 30+ years in an office (ooh! does not play well with others). I want to figure out how to end the tendency to run and hide when confronted.

I can't believe that I am already well into the 60's really unbelievable and the years of sloppy living have taken a toll to slip once again into
Anyway back to this feeling of goop starting to flow that I was conscious of this morning with an empty stomach looking at a Gourmet cover with fettuccine and feeling the insides of a binge on pasta.

I remember my consciousness of binging one Saturday when somehow I ended up alone in the house at Harwood St-everyone was out and there I was and I panicked i never knew what cause the panic but I remembered along ago method of feeding panic and I cooked some macaroni and ate it with ketchup and then I went and threw it up by sticking my fingers down my throat. I was stunned to have this low bottom behavior return and I was so ashamed and so frightened because I had protected myself from this or so I thought. I am not sure what this is about now but I want to go back to the goop and how it circles my insides like a monster serpent and when it starts to move I am totally smothered and choked. The point is to recognize this and to find the ways to keep this serpent asleep which is the best I can do. I have never been able to kill the serpent or to drive it out just keep it sleeping-maybe that is the point of telling the story of when the serpent just took over when I thought that I was beyond all that.

12 Steps for me I think OA should have been my original 12 Steps but I just couldn't stomach it and I still am not so sure. I know that there is so much unlived life floating around those rooms and I have been horrified by the things revealed to me from before and maybe I miss the lovely Julie.

At any rate it is the free floating serpent that has ruined my life and now how to get him back in the cave until a Holy One comes along to rid me of the possession. I am not exaggerating here-I have identified the evil roaming freely through my body leading me to make all manner of irrational and destructive choices.

I know that I can begin by cleaning up my diet. That will get the serpent sleepy but requires vigilance on my part. I don't know if I can bear OA again-seems to me that there is never hope of finding someone like myself who is willing to help and to listen. One of my former OA sponserees works at the Safeway where Steve and I shop and she said that I was the best the best because I listened and responded to her not anything else. SXhe no longer goes and is now thin so I imagine she got to where she wanted to be. We talk cats now-she has six and Steve and I have five.

Well I didn't get to where I want to be and I am ill with diabetes and irregular heart beat all of which will improve if I get my food under control, my eating under control. I admit now that eating in a certain way such as eating a lot of processed foods causes a physical reaction that becomes a spiritual reaction and then an emotional reaction and if I maintain that process long enough and by this I don't men a just watching the foods I eat but also being aware of when I feel hurt or threatened which can set the serpent moving as well.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

06/23/2010

Good God!! Can not remember the last time I went through a few days like the last few days beginning 6/18/2010 around 4:30 when B. unfortunately was invited by MOI to read my morning post that included a withering report of my observation of her son. Well she has ignored Steve's call and then my own so I imagine that we are edited from her story. Then A. is going away to residential facility to complete his schooliong and this required hours of laundry and spending money to get him clothed properly,etc. The landlord said that he is very unhappy to hear that his rent money is going to cover my daughter's obligations. Oh Shit!! I love my landlord and have finally driven him to anger-this cannot go on.

Exhausted and also relieved to feel some of the constraining connections falling away and also time to move out. J has not called so that friendship my be over as well-I know that she and B share much more than j and I do now-J has always been disgruntled over my relationship with S but I see that now-I do spend most of my time with S. Not because I have to but because he is my best friend, my favorite confidant. Also, J's meanness has grown hard to tolerate since J and S do not get along.

Okay enough of us: I believe and have I think from the time the "news" caught up that we are witnessing the end of life as we have known it- the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico is the beginning of the end.-wear me out utterly.

Not able to write at this point.

Monday, June 21, 2010

06/21/2010 Summer Solstice

So Happy Summer one and all: probably not the happiest summer ever but one full of the change this beautiful planet needs. Spent a bit reading The Huffington Post which is sort of my daily "rag". "Liberal" and I love it don't always agree with the opinions and often don't agree the opinions from readers but Zi love it for lingering as I did in youth with the Chronicle over cigarettes and coffee latte.

An absolutely disastrous weekend with friends some of which I have written about and others that I haven't touched for fear of life here deteriorating into a demented slug fest with someone from my youth. She screams invective across the country and shocking as the accusations are they are recriminations regarding my shadow long ago analyzed but her cruelty brings out the child in me,I am reduced to slugging it out with my "sister" just as I would have with my flesh sister when we were children.

I noticed somewhere back that I seem to be shedding friends and relationships. This month I have also noticed that new friends are entering my life bringing new levels of relationship based on the woman I am now in my 60's-I no longer need to go over and over the conversation from my 20's and incidentally I love what I want to talk about here in my 60's and for this time of the world with this monster T-Square Saturn in Libra,Jupiter and Uranus in Aries and all of these planets squared by Pluto in Capricorn where it was during the time that our country was born.

J coming for a visit and wants to do some psychic work with me that involves body work. I have located a company that rents massage tables and now I am thinking that I should rent a room somewhere close in Berkeley. The reason for this is that I can just imagine attempting to relax here in this tiny apartment with our five cats and J's allergies,etc.. So..... I am thinking of options.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

06/19/2010

Okay the morning is here and I have been up for hours knowing that B left early to go see A in jail. Steve left a message but I am sure that she won't get it until later. I was thinking of what i could do to balance psychically what I did with my words yesterday but as I start to write this the energy has just drained out. I brought up his chart-a beautiful chart with once again Chiron bringing the chart into a completly different focus. Right off I noticed that his Saturn sits on my Mercury ruler of my chart-my strong and dignified Mercury completely smothered in this situation and he has Leo rising with Mars at 16 vLeo and Mercury at 22 Leo square my Jupiter-real communication issues here very serious. My depth of social responce simplyt appalled by his Leo broadcasting which for him is totally appropriate but to me is simply manipulative and in this case endangering but what does a man have if he can't speak out against oppressive forces.
I am at least looking at A as a man and not simply a defendant charged with and not innocent of serious charges. somehow this will shift the balance in heaven and I trust in this in ways that I would rarely verbalize except with Steve to whom I can say anything which incidentally is why I have always loved Scorpios-I can never blow away a Scorpio and they will always try to follow me and see what I see.
I was going to write more but Steve and I just took a lovely walk through our beautiful neighborhood populated by Berkeley refugees-people driven out of Berkeley by the high housing costs-with the wonderful gardens and birds and butterflies and cats and dogs that one would expect to find in such a neighborhood. At any rate I am tired now and done writing for a bit but at least I have moved A from defendant to human being in my mind. That is a beginning.

Friday, June 18, 2010

06/18/2010

So....I was tired today although in a better place than yesterday but I erred today in a way that I would undo if only I could.

My dear friend,B,was here writing in her blogger.com that Steve and I have set up for her until we can get our spare E-machine updated and she can get on the internet. Well at any rate we were laughing and I had read her piece and we were laughing about her description of the Judge and one can imagine how a mother would have described him. At any rate she wanted to read my post of the morning and I forgot utterly the paragraph regarding A. and my perception of him and his predicament. I utterly forgot and she was kidding me about my description of the Judge and the attorneys when she drew a deep breath and said "why did you call A a creep?" and I "remembered" then. And then she said why did you say he hurt that girl when you know that she said nothing happened? I Gemini nut that I am said "well,B. you know that she has been through extensive therapy now and the story is different, she obviously didn't have the self-esteem to say what had happened to her. You must know this ,B.? Well no mother knows this when her son who has manipulated her for years and years is fighting for his life.

My friend jumped up in tears and said "I have to go" which is so understandable given her level of exhaustion,fear and anxiety. I am praying that we can find a way over this. Immediately it so very important that A's public support not go down-Steve and I must be there to keep up appearances (can we believe that I clymela would worry about appearances?)for the Judge's sake.

But the real issue for me is that I have hurt someone I love and who I would never have hurt. She so does not deserve to have this in her mind at this point. She needs all the support and security life offers and I have just mucked in that. I know that at sometime we would need to have "this conversation" but not now and not in this way. My words were harsh and blunt and so honestly my opinion that I would never have shared this with anyone but Steve and of course the entire English speaking world via the internet but really only Steve and sometimes Joyce.

06/18/2010

Yesterday I was wiped out by what is going on in the court for b's son who has been in jail for over six years now the first five years without charges and then he was offered two felonies and parole but after he accepted this the offer was withdrawn with a new DA. His court appointed attorney fought this and won and then on a weekend the case was moved using the Arbuckle waiver, unknown to all of us on the defense side. even though the Arbuckle waiver can only be used with the defendants informed consent. I know for a fact that the prosecutors and even the judge are very nervous about this because the judge in Oakland is a sadistic little creep who loves to "hang" the poor defendants who come before him.
At any rate yesterday was a nightmare. The court appointed attorney has changed the one he had supposedly has retired (and goodbye you disgusting Officer of the Court) She was terrified when the Arbuckle waiver was mentioned by the DA (teehee liar hateful woman) because neither a the defendant, nor his mother,etc knew about this. the new attorney seems to have a serious health problem, he is white haired and thin as a stick and he trembles in a strange way-perhaps Parkinsons's(?)-he presented court decisions that supposedly supported the importance of keeping the plea deal and they were a joke.B and S and I could have done better just using out native intelligence and the judge thanked him for his intelligent attention to detail and wished that his defendant could have been there but the defendant was sent away because he was so upset that he burst out regarding the use of the Arbuckle waiver.
Let me say here that there is no way A is innocent. also he is mentally ill and has to be medicated all the time to keep him from going totally bi-polar. He is an absolute creep, handsome and manipulative not someone who invites loving responses and he hurt this woman in that he scared her to death and this was a case of severe domestic abuse-he didn't beat her or burn her not that sort of terror but he took her and forced her to go with him and locked her in the trunk of his car. So i am not saying that this man should not be in jail but he has been in jail for years now and with the correct meds and the fact that he does not have access to steroids he is just a simple asshole, a nasty bi-polar.
Okay that said what has knocked me out is the level of hate and incompetence in the courts and the plain old malfeasance where with the Judges nod of agreement the "Court" simply proceeds to shred the law and forget civil rights-the very sound of the words causes the Judge and the DA's table and the Court reporters, the Court clerks to all giggle and roll their eyes. this is something I would expect in a small county seat in Oklahoma but not in a huge urban court. In my experience there is no real defense, the entire power of "the people"and the "Defense " for the poor and of course the brown is a joke-it seems obvious to me that if the court appointed attorneys go against the judge they will not get any referrals in the future.

Okay enough of this for today. There will be more but I am tired also I received some real helpful advice from Josie on certain psychic exercises to get our side to use on the judge: imagine a mirror held up to him so that he can see the truth of his actions and his sadistic tendencies and then to request that the truth of him be broadcast ten times as large as they were. Requesting nothing but the truth here. My heart says "okay but my truth would not appear so beautiful in public either" but my soul says TRUE BUT YOU ARE NOT PUBLICLY TRYING TO HURT OTHERS WHO TRULY NEED HELP!! AND WHEN YOU DID HAVE A PUBLIC RESPONSIBILITY YOU WORKED TO HELP OTHERS TO GET FOOD, SHELTER AND CLOTHES AND CHILDCARE AND EMPLOYMENT" AND THAT DEAR SISTER IS THE DIFFERENCE."

nameste NAMESTE NAMESTE NAMESTE NAMESTE NAMESTE NAMESTE

Talking with Josie reminding me that B and A and all the folk involved in the court functions have their own path set by their own souls. She really encouraged the writing so that I get all the spiritual shock out of my system. There are reasons that I have always chosen to steer clear of public activity and even in my government social service position I managed to steer clear and NEVER advanced beyond senior worker level-couldn't bear the times when I witnessed some career destroying actions because an individual was on the wrong side of the times or even simply personality conflicts with someone who had early political power in the office or I saw one client treated to the best we had because they were they right type and other clients just as needy were not let in on the treasure because they didn't speak right or didn't have the correct ethnic background.etc/
so here is why I will step up my spiritual practices so that I am not totally drained and I will work to see that the judge's true sadistic motivations are revealed.

Closing now many minutes writing this morning but I MUST DO A SHOUT OUT to Credence Clearwater singing "Fortunate Son". Steve and I singing and stomping out the rhythym dancing and singing. am sure that Robert came over from heaven and helped sing out loud " it ain't me it ain't me; oh no I ain't no Senators son, it ain't me it ain't me I ain't no fortunate son. Oh yeah!! it ain't us. We do pay the taxes I don't care what the Republicans cry about it us the ones who are not a fortunate son we carry everything.

I feel so full of love today. The anger and frustration and despair of yesterday is out and light and power are in. I will do all I can to help my friend and that is why I go through this court thing so she won't be alone AND this is not my karma and A and the Judge have their story to play out and I pray now and always that the Holy Spirit is there with all of us revealing the truth.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

06/17/2010

What a heavy and painful day expected. Listening to the House of Representatives hearing with BP executives.
I love John Dingle of Michigan: he looks old as a rock to these eyes that have been trained to see in age the face lifts, the botox, etc that seemingly the majority of those in the "public eye" utilize to hide the truth of aging but his mind is clear and sharp and tough and I love him.
The Republicans are beyond belief. One Republican called the 20 billion settlement for the beginning of the claims "a shakedown". Amazing and sickening. Then there are the rest of the Republicans are trying to tie this around Obama's neck. I read somewhere that Obama will need at least two years to root out the Cheney people in all the levels of government. I support this.
Then-we found out yesterday that her son's court date is shifted from Friday to today. We had lined up Rev. Green for whom Steve works as editor in his Dept of Rehab work. The rev has family members who have had the misfortune of going up against this judge.
I want to write about this experience of the legal system: what I have observed is citizens working for the Court feeling so proud that they are on the "right side". I have listened to stories of defendents, named out loud when "Court" is not session, and shocking ill-will towards defendants, and I have witnessed judges and DA's and Court appointed attorneys working together to arrive at their desired outcome.
This is over for today-must get ready for court.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

6/16/2010

Happy Birthday, Roalnd.
Hate these days of limited,very limited resources. Steve goes on to graduate school this August and there will be more income then but getting through summer is grim although I understand that I am slowly redeveloping a career as astrologer and tarot reader thanks to Josie showing up in my life again and relying on me for astrology and tarot. I rely on her for psychic readings and will definitely refer people to her who ask me for someone who can be trusted. She is goood very good and makes a very good living with her own office,etc. I am so excited that she will be living out here and I will see her at the end of the month when she is here visiting her darling. I love the romance that they were married before and will be remarried now.
The kittens are tearing up the house. Jeez!! the little guys can't go outside because we live right on a major artery through town and next to a huge preschool with elaborate grounds and they are known to be ours and the gardeners and my neighbor do not appreciate them using the gardens for cat boxes.
Making hot and sour soup. Mine is so good that I am always disappointed when served this soup in cheap Chinese places and the soup is made from dry mixes. the soup is really very cheap to make. The only real expense is the mushrooms because I am afraid of buying imported mushrooms and so I but domestic dry orqanic mushrooms either Shitake or Miatake (spg?) both of which are very fragrant. I sometimes buy clouds ears or tree ears if I can find a good source. What I really wish that I could do is hunt fresh bamboo shoots like Muey reports that her mother and aunts do. They go up into the Berkeley Hills to find their bamboo but I don't know what to look for although I have seen some peeled and raw bamboo shoots in some markets.Muey said that when the family went to Hawaii she had to go with her mother and aunts to hunt the rarest bamboo shoots that grow only in Hawaii. The shoots are world famous in the Asian world that I only know from the edges through my lovely Muey born in 1975 in a refugee camp in Thailand. Who would have thought we would come to be close friends. God I remember how some in my office hated those refugees following the fall of Saigon-I always felt that we owed them and what a wonderful investment in her family.

Well I guess I should have made a few paragraphs there but really everything goes into me making hot and sour soup today. Off now to cut the tofu into strips and to then thicken the soup with corn starch and to flavor it with sesame oil-yummm!

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

6/15/2010

Last entry was about Murdoch's corporation being about half owned by one of the Saudi princes. I was certainly dancing around some icky racism or rather simple bigotry when what I really needed to see is that Murdoch is not nearly as popular as his publicity would have us believe-he has sold his soul. Wonder how his red-neck white followers here in the US, the ones who listen to FOX all the time will feel when this becomes common news. Perhaps nothing!! Just as long as FOX keeps on supporting their belief that "colored folk" are taking over and high taxes are the problem in this country.

I was just flabbergasted by the news of where Murdoch went to get money. Wonder what the story is would love to know.

Listening to Chris Matthews rag out on an administration spokesperson, Carole Browner, I think. I guess no one wants to admit that we cannot do anything and that the Gulf is already dead. The gossip is that the destruction goes far beneath the ocean floor and in truth cannot be stopped. As an astrologer this is Neptune and Chiron together-oil and the wound that cannot be healed. Chiron gave up his life due to the wound caused by the poison he taught the others to make. He was wounded accidently in the struggle of battle and knew that he was doomed. Well we are doomed ourselves now in the Gulf of Mexico.

Steve hates the term "addiction to oil" but I agree with it: I told him today that we are unconscious of the addiction but there it is. We not only use it for travel but for lotions and soaps and clothes and on and on. Plus "we" pay much more for the bosses of the petroleum companies than we do for safety measures. Fact is we don't know what we are doing to the earth as we deplete the petroleum reserves. this digging miles under the crust to go after oil scares me and not just about this current disaster but on some atavistic level: we should not drain "Our MOther's Blood" the way that we are doing. I don't know why I believe this but I do as I just said.

Arvin just called to say that he has adopted a two month old kitten. I warned him that his mother is not pet friendly and then discussed some practical issues such as coming over here for cat gravel and changing the box daily and dealing with the kittens fear and anxiety over being seperated from "his" family. I also just called back and left a message saying that if his mother is REALLY against the kitten to bring the kitten here and we will just add it to the group. Of course I also told him that part of growing up is not bringing new life into a situation before everyone is ready. I worry about Arvin and his mom getting into a knock down dragout over the kitten. Arvin needs love and craves love and could get a little nuts here especially is his mother uses her ugly voice/face to communicate.

Right-wing troubles? Chris Mathews says so. I don't know because I don't know any of these folks and in fact I loathe the right-wing which I grew up in but my family was always Democrat and that right there prevented me from ever hearing too much of this and in my day the right-wingers were in a different environment-some of the TV talkers have pointed out that Eisenhower would be considered left-wing these days.

I watch too much TV but then I at least hear some of the points of discussion. Also, TV is so controlled these days so are the newspapers and magazines. Thank god for KPFA which is why I send money to Pacifica and will as long as it stands. Even with the decided left-wing slant I get more real news there than anywhere else. I am amazed at how often I will hear something "new" but I know for a fact that the "news" happened two days before. And there is just no news from the rest of the world except for those poor countries we are stomping on.

Friday, June 4, 2010

06/04/2010

I learned something that has left mew breathless: Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is owned in half owner status by Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud. I think that I even read this before but today the "news" just knocked me over. How much of the value imparted in the "news" of News Corp comes from a conservative, right-wing fundamentalist Islamic cosmology! Good God!! this is so out rageous!! What sort of horror is Murdoch? He has compromised himself for money certainly-I am sure that Murdoch is utterly godless. I feel like the socialite who referred to throwing up in her mouth a little bit: I mean this philosophy is utterly devoid of soul and wiggling and poetry.
I mean how could any Westerner allow anyone from Faundamentalist Islam come into a position of authority with one's treasure? Faundamentalist Islam is the opposite of Democracy.

06/04/2010

I am moving from Clymela's Place back to singing Sparrow In The Morning: I prefer to be known as Singing Sparrow.

I was reading the long and wonderful NYT Sunday article on David Simon and Tremé and The Wire and the writer was discussing the theme of The Wire: the societies left behind by the new economy. I was lit up by my sorrow reading those words knowing that I and my family are part of this. I immediately thought well we just have to turn to prayer for inspiration and suddenly I imagined urban gardening and home ec classes and sewing classes and I imagined the young poor here just as I always have.

When I went to the garden party at the public garden in North Berkeley there was precious little public there. Most everyone there is from the highest social levels with multiple degrees, multiple languages, backgrounds for the most part of extreme privilege and the instinct to sort out people by class and background. I was looked up and down but got by because of my friendship with Dave and AnnMarie and of course because I have always known that Berkeley is my home town and have been impervious to the haughty ways of the privileged-I belong and know that I belong.

Still- we of the lower classes (said tongue in cheek) need to work to save our children and our futures. This is where my idea of urban gardening and classes that teach nutrition and skills like sewing, car upkeep and repair, household maintenance, and all the skills that make life beautiful.

I am thinking that beautiful women and men are needed for this: young people are not going to feel inspired by "old white women" such as myself. That is not to put myself down I am as young as the Beingness from which I grow but I face the facts of life I have found myself in. The young people I seek to inspire are full of glossy pictures of thin young women richer than King Midas, they listen to songs of young artists who are also at the moment so wealthy that our young ones can only dream of such material wealth and believe me this is what they want. Yes we will need wealthy and beautiful young people to inspire our young ones to love the work of gardens and the grease of car upkeep.

HMMM!! off to my dear Josie for help in figuring out how to set about this. Steve is well on the way to working with those left behind because of learning problems when they were young and no one had the patience to work with them or even those who had the patience simply didn't have the time. So here comes Steve to their aid now. Last summer he worked with one guy until he was able to pass the reading test for the professional truck driver which is no joke. He could drive the big trucks but the written test had him fearing that he could never earn a living but after a season of work he passed that test.

Steve admitted to the Master's program at SF State for teaching. Hallelujah!! He so deserved this.

Haven't wanted to talk too much about our daily meals but I will go back to this because I have some really good recipes that are nutritional and very cheap and a way of life that is sustainable. That's what I am talking about.