Well, the news from Tuscon was stunning. It's as if people have no idea of the consequences of their actions. There is a lot of hate out there on the internet, and for certain types of people it emboldens them in such a horrible way. My husband and daughter were watching football and I was reading when the announcers broke in with the news. I was eighteen when I heard over the radio in my college dormitory bathroom Walter Cronkite's voice. I heard about RFK and MLK on the radio as well. Now we see images immediately. But the confusion and speculation is the same. People don't agree to disagree any more, they want to eliminate the opposition. We had better watch out or we will be our own worst enemy. In fact, I'm afraid we already are. We provide this hateful environment, and ready access to guns, and glamorization of vicious acts. If our only goal on TV and elsewhere is fame, then bad behavior will get that as easily as good.
Fear multiplies. A person fears the unknown, commits an act that ripples that fear, and calming down and attempting to find sane solutions to these acts becomes even more of a struggle. The rhetoric will heat up further. I hope people will meditate, pray, take political steps to reign in this violent, gun crazy culture we are inhabiting. Stop calling cowardly acts brave, and brave acts stupid. We ought to be able to have public discussion about important topics. We need to be civil. We need to respect each others right to be heard. But if speech in incitement to violence, then it's time to speak out against it and name it what it is. It is fear lashing out, anger taking over reason, and hate replacing love.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Old Age Day by Day January 8, 2010
I saw in the New York Times yesterday that the fundamentalist Muslims are targeting the Sufis, who are the majority population, in northern Pakistan. They bomb their mosques and gathering places. They don't like the dancing, the joy and emotion these esoteric branches of religion display. I'm crazy about Sufi music and admire their devotion and attempts to understand via non-linear and logical methods. But I think it is the joy that is the crime in Taliban eyes. How can a way of thinking based on power and subjugation begin to understand an inner power that is available in equal measure to all?
If we look inside ourselves, we may find what others are looking forward outside themselves, in the bodies of very fallible and perhaps misguided human beings. If we learn to trust ourselves, isn't that the greatest threat to those who want us to trust them to lead us? I hope there is a way to stop this violence and the bloodshed of innocent people wanting only to live their lives and their beliefs in their own way. But history is not reassuring. Tibet is haunting me, and now, when I think of the Sufis, I pray that they do not lose their land and their security. Might makes wrong, so often, and gentle, peace loving people are not defended. I hope this doesn't happen in Pakistan, but I have no idea for a solution. The state is clearly not strong enough to protect its people.
If we look inside ourselves, we may find what others are looking forward outside themselves, in the bodies of very fallible and perhaps misguided human beings. If we learn to trust ourselves, isn't that the greatest threat to those who want us to trust them to lead us? I hope there is a way to stop this violence and the bloodshed of innocent people wanting only to live their lives and their beliefs in their own way. But history is not reassuring. Tibet is haunting me, and now, when I think of the Sufis, I pray that they do not lose their land and their security. Might makes wrong, so often, and gentle, peace loving people are not defended. I hope this doesn't happen in Pakistan, but I have no idea for a solution. The state is clearly not strong enough to protect its people.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Old Age Day by Day January 7, 2010
Another beautiful, crisp, cold day. My teeth were chattering yesterday, as I let myself get too cold without enough outerwear. Even the dogs don't want to stay outside - the whisk out and right back in. Usually, they run around while I'm writing in my studio out back, but lately they huddle in the studio with me - except - they like to push the door open, and that is what caused the teeth spanish dance. Today, one was locked in with me and the other outside on the path, looking confused. They do not understand humans have no fur coats, well, at least this one doesn't.
In fact, when my mother died, my Dad offered me her white mink coat (knee length), a mink stole, and a raincoat lined with mink. I asked him to store them for me, and as he died ten months later, I had to figure out what to do with them. Keeping them and wearing them was not an option - they gave me the creeps. Eventually, I sent one to a beloved aunt in the midwest, one to her daughter, my favorite cousin, and gave the glamorous white mink to a friend of my parents who had helped them a lot. All three were thrilled - no scruples in that generation, and for two of them the fierce cold of their state made them seem downright practical. Now my aunt is dead, so maybe my cousin has her mother's coat as well, though knowing her, she's given both to her daughters, and the friend has died and undoubtedly the while mink has passed on to one of her two daughters or been sold. If it were me, I'd have buried them with a funeral.
So, anyway, Patagonia does an excellent job of keeping me warm, without killing any tiny creatures, and if I can just keep the door closed, and fight off the instincts of the dogs to have an escape route, I probably won't have my teeth doubling as castanets.
In fact, when my mother died, my Dad offered me her white mink coat (knee length), a mink stole, and a raincoat lined with mink. I asked him to store them for me, and as he died ten months later, I had to figure out what to do with them. Keeping them and wearing them was not an option - they gave me the creeps. Eventually, I sent one to a beloved aunt in the midwest, one to her daughter, my favorite cousin, and gave the glamorous white mink to a friend of my parents who had helped them a lot. All three were thrilled - no scruples in that generation, and for two of them the fierce cold of their state made them seem downright practical. Now my aunt is dead, so maybe my cousin has her mother's coat as well, though knowing her, she's given both to her daughters, and the friend has died and undoubtedly the while mink has passed on to one of her two daughters or been sold. If it were me, I'd have buried them with a funeral.
So, anyway, Patagonia does an excellent job of keeping me warm, without killing any tiny creatures, and if I can just keep the door closed, and fight off the instincts of the dogs to have an escape route, I probably won't have my teeth doubling as castanets.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Old Age Day by Day January 6, 2010
I had to have a blood test this morning, and a urinalysis, and I had trouble peeing enough, as I'd forgotten to drink water this morning. So I was drinking water and waiting while a mom and little boy came in for his bloodwork. He was around a year, and determined not to cooperate. It took a great deal of struggling by two nurses with the mom also gripping, to finally overcome his kicking, squirming and crying. We were all about in tears, and I said at one point, I wished I could take the test for him. But the blood got drawn, and everyone laughed with relief, and as the mom was leaving with the boy strapped in his stroller, I said, "I hope he has amnesia" and she laughed and replied, "I hope I do, too". The resilience of people and their ability to put the bad moment behind them amazes me.
We can know what is necessary and go to it, then put it in perspective later, maybe making a little story, exaggerating, connecting with others through our understanding that this is what life brings, surprises, coping, support of strangers. So right now, I feel proud of being human, of what we're capable of and what we do, every day, unseen, in the ordinary course of our lives.
We can know what is necessary and go to it, then put it in perspective later, maybe making a little story, exaggerating, connecting with others through our understanding that this is what life brings, surprises, coping, support of strangers. So right now, I feel proud of being human, of what we're capable of and what we do, every day, unseen, in the ordinary course of our lives.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Old Age Day by Day January 5, 2010
I'm reading a gripping book by Rebecca Stott, a mystery, about a researcher at Cambridge who is writing a book about Newton and his connections to alchemy. I love this kind of read, where I learn about something historical, but painlessly. Actually, I'm pretty good at reading history anyway, and just finished a book about the killing of Crazy Horse. I've read other books on this subject, but this one looks at the situation surrounding Crazy Horse, and gives us a sense of tragedy and misunderstanding that has characterized white/Indian relations to this day. Maybe now the anger is directed at Indian casinos, whereas in the past it was how lazy Indians were, but the lack of accurate information and reporting is pretty much the same. Either we are noble savages or bums. Most of us are mixed blood, and struggle with the traditional Indian view that pure bloods and mixed bloods are different. We don't belong - or we do - and either way is a troubled path. Crazy Horse was perhaps mixed blood himself, no one knows for sure, but he was light skinned and reddish haired. Like African Americans, it was easier to label them one thing, not the complicated heritage that was the truth.
Many an Indian was killed because whites couldn't tell the difference between the peaceful Cherokee and the Comanche. And legions were forced to renounce their language, culture and religion. Tibet today is something Americans ought to understand, if they knew their own history in this country.
Anyway, knowledge maybe is not power, but despite complicating our ways of seeing, it leads to respectful caution when approaching others. We all have a long line of ancestors behind us, and histories that defy platitudes and snap judgments.
Many an Indian was killed because whites couldn't tell the difference between the peaceful Cherokee and the Comanche. And legions were forced to renounce their language, culture and religion. Tibet today is something Americans ought to understand, if they knew their own history in this country.
Anyway, knowledge maybe is not power, but despite complicating our ways of seeing, it leads to respectful caution when approaching others. We all have a long line of ancestors behind us, and histories that defy platitudes and snap judgments.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Old Age Day by Day January 4, 2010
In the realm of noticing little things (that are not little, but nevertheless easy to dismiss), I looked through my Christmas cards last night, taking out the photos to keep, and the letters, and realized I had several beautiful art works among the cards. There is a lovely photo of a Buddha, no doubt taken by my friend, a copy of a watercolor by another friend, an Indian painting/postcard, and a reproduction of a woodcut by another friend's grandmother. So I've set them aside, and will find frames for them this morning. Saved treasures that did not register with me during the hurly burly of the holidays. What a treat!
Yesterday we got the decorations packed and put away, lugged the heaviest tree we've ever had down to the street, exhausted ourselves going to the basement with plastic bins filled with what felt like bricks, and then swept and vacuumed and dusted (well, we didn't dust, that would have been contrary to our natures) and flopped down and called it good. We had made a winter wonderland and we unmade it, like the Chinooks that used to sweep through Colorado and whirl the snow away.
Today my husband went off to work, I'm for the grocery store and to buy a new pot for a plant that broke on the porch during a windstorm, and life returns to normal. Routine is good and bad, or rather neutral. If I sink into it, then something is lost. If I resist it, something is false. It is what it is.
Yesterday we got the decorations packed and put away, lugged the heaviest tree we've ever had down to the street, exhausted ourselves going to the basement with plastic bins filled with what felt like bricks, and then swept and vacuumed and dusted (well, we didn't dust, that would have been contrary to our natures) and flopped down and called it good. We had made a winter wonderland and we unmade it, like the Chinooks that used to sweep through Colorado and whirl the snow away.
Today my husband went off to work, I'm for the grocery store and to buy a new pot for a plant that broke on the porch during a windstorm, and life returns to normal. Routine is good and bad, or rather neutral. If I sink into it, then something is lost. If I resist it, something is false. It is what it is.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Old Age Day by Day January 3, 2010
Hope everyone had as nice a holiday as we did. Family and friends, good food and relaxed outings. It was a special treat to have my friend here the week after Christmas, and we talked, walked, saw movies, took day trips and had a quiet, lovely new year's eve and day. Half my kids were traveling to see family and the other half were here, and yet, it felt as if we were all together sharing the events, even our relatives in Ireland. I am content. No regrets, no second guessing, just clean fun - which for me now means enjoying the moments as they come and not clinging when they go.
I made no resolutions. My practice is my resolution, and I work on that every day the same way. What is different each year now is the joyfulness I feel at being alive. I feel my blessings, I feel my dead ones gathered around me, I feel the energy of those who will live after me. I can see my husband feels it more, too. And some of my friends. It's shared awareness of the fleetingness of life, and the opportunities that still abound every single day. A chance to be more sensitive to someone, to see their circumstances and attempt to give them some ease, a moment when we can treat a stranger as a complete, complex person instead of an obstacle, the noticing of the changes in nature around us, an act of kindness and our gratitude for it.
So, today we take down the Christmas decorations, without regret, and carefully, mindful of our backs and knees and age. We put our babies to bed gently, until they awake again next year, or in a next life.
I made no resolutions. My practice is my resolution, and I work on that every day the same way. What is different each year now is the joyfulness I feel at being alive. I feel my blessings, I feel my dead ones gathered around me, I feel the energy of those who will live after me. I can see my husband feels it more, too. And some of my friends. It's shared awareness of the fleetingness of life, and the opportunities that still abound every single day. A chance to be more sensitive to someone, to see their circumstances and attempt to give them some ease, a moment when we can treat a stranger as a complete, complex person instead of an obstacle, the noticing of the changes in nature around us, an act of kindness and our gratitude for it.
So, today we take down the Christmas decorations, without regret, and carefully, mindful of our backs and knees and age. We put our babies to bed gently, until they awake again next year, or in a next life.
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