sabatoge governing

http://mobile.nationaljournal.com/columns/washington-inside-out/the-unprecedented-and-contemptible-attempts-to-sabotage-obamacare-20130724

Thank God for great leaders!

John Lewis in 1996, speaking on DOMA. You cannot tell people

they cannot fall in love. 

Ginsberg on skim milk.

Edie Windsor, speaking on NPR:

"The fact is, marriage is this magic thing. I mean forget all the financial stuff — marriage … symbolizes commitment and love like nothing else in the world. And it’s known all over the world. I mean, wherever you go, if you’re married, that means something to people, and it meant a difference in feeling the next day. And I’ve asked everybody since who gets married after long-term relationships, ‘Did it feel different the next day?’ and the answer is always ‘Yes, absolutely.’"

Wendy Davis, on 13-hr filibuster. I hope she runs for governor.

Opposed to gay marriage? Here are some talking points

12 Reasons Why Gay Marriage Should Be Illegal

1. Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control.
   
2. Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people can’t legally get married because the world needs more children.
3. Obviously, gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
4. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage is allowed, since Britney Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.
5. Heterosexual marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are property, blacks can’t marry whites, and divorce is illegal.
6. Gay marriage should be decided by people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of the minorities.
7. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.
8. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
9. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
10. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why single parents are forbidden to raise children.
11. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven’t adapted to things like cars or longer life-spans.
12. Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a “separate but equal” institution is always constitutional. Separate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as separate marriages for gays and lesbians will.

This is floating around quite a lot. I couldn't say it better myself. I think it originated from an LGBT group at U of Florida.

Being straight: A choice

I'm going through old journals. At a meditation retreat several years ago, we had a discussion topic on death and dying. Basically, an opportunity to reflect on our lives in the most dramatic sense, and to become more familiar with the idea that we may, in fact, not make it off this rock alive.

On the next page is a quick summary of thoughts, a continuation of that discussion, as it related to sexual identity. Eventually these sorts of thoughts manifested into a process (futile though it was) of giving up my sexuality in an attempt to 'go with men'. So to speak.

The few people I've tried to explain this to seem not to understand it. Now, I even have a hard time understanding it. It had to do with misguided Buddhist principles, lending self-destruction; my romanticized perspective of family; my denial of the importance of sexuality. I'm not sure what got me onto the premise that being gay equated to dying without a family. I guess I was just immature, uneducated. I truly think that I hadn't *really* been exposed to same sex couples with kids; that I wasn't yet able to process having my own family.  Ironically, while I was under-aware of the prospect of living a fulfilling life as a gay woman, I was intimately aware, even more so that I am now, of the consequences of being gay in terms of my 'traditional' family.  It was the start of the rockiest part of my journey as a gay person, and I will probably never be done sifting through it.

It is great therapy to read that written so long ago. These few lines help me to forgive. It - choice - was codified. I may have been misguided in some ways, but it is apparent that I weighed consequences and made a choice. Despite what it was on an intellectual level, perhaps on an emotional level, I realized better than I do now, the consequences... Some may argue that it is self-defeating to dwell on this; so be it. It may also be the key to forgiveness.

Perhaps it takes more strength to overcome darkness and bitterness; to truly forgive... than it did to get through that rockiest part. This next part takes kindness... meditation... at times the most difficult things in the universe.

---------------
"On death and dying" - where/when/what will you feel:

# 1: I'd like to die in my sleep, I guess... without pain would be good...

# 2: I want to be old... I want to know that I'm going to die, I want the experience... I'd like to die tearlessly, knowing that I've lived an honest, a truthful life... I want to be around my friends and family, my loved ones, and go out peacefully.

 # 3: The whole idea of going out on the mountain, alone, I think when it comes time I would want that... Like you said, tearless would be good - what is there to fear? What use is it? Easy to say now...

# 4: I want to know that I'm going to die, so I can think about what I've done with my life, think of all the good things I've done, hopefully be able to say that I'm content, that I've done what I wanted to do... I don't want to  get into my next life and think, 'damn I shouldn't have done this and this and that... come on, you could've done better.' Oh and it'd be cool if there was a cult or something started over my body.

# 5: I want to go off into the mountains, be alone, none of this boo-hoo-hoo! That's all I'm gonna say...

 # 6: Um... how I know to die... honestly, I'd like to die doing something risky. Maybe rock-climbing or maybe something stupid, it doesn't matter, I just do it, knowing theres a lot of risk involved... Climbing alone, or, without ropes, something like that... maybe have a ton of marijuana...

 # 7: I don't want a lot of pain.
(So you and he could smoke marijuana together, someone says)
No I don't want pain and I don't want to be sad. I'd like to die when I'm healthy, and I'd like for people to eat a big meal... celebrate and not be sad. 

 # 4: Yeah I'd like to have people remember me. I'd like to have achieved something that lives on it the world... forgot to add that...

Next page:

Towards the end, what will be most precious? This is my group, my family, and will be for many years. I have the choice of preserving whatever lifestyle I have, knowing that they will know little of it... or I could let go of that and genuinely live with them. In the latter, in all likelihood, my ideals, my personal goals and desires, could not be fulfilled. At least for the time that I am with them. The choice comes down to isolating myself  or living with them. At least a part of them. With the consequence that my goals probably become meaningless or altogether lost...

Same Love

Same Love - Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis. As uplifting as it is beautiful. I am their biggest new fan.

Elis Regina

Folhas Seca

  

 Águas de Março

 

The sport of chicken throwing

Mindful

With wide eyes, ancient Sumerians would wait
hardly a breath or thought
waiting, waiting, surely sometimes for hours
until, suddenly, a shift
Silence settles
without moving, the room begins to look different
-- new colors emerge
now embodying a place divine
the arrival of the gods

Its not so different from what we do
Sit, let small matters and chatter pass through

Out under the oak tree,
where I grew up:

Faded swing and moss and fire ring
Finally mind has quieted somewhat
I just wait...breathe...

Mindful of sounds,
-- before, minute as they were, just noise
Now channeled: cows, cars, rustling leaves,
wind around my ears

Colors organize into broad, parallel lines
flat grey of sky dominates periphery
rusted dormancy of pasture
new silver of the barbed wire fence

The calm begins to supersede the grip of mundane
the quiet seems unnatural

As always, a remembrance:
See that I am seeing

Status quo, inert, linear,
yielding now:
landscapes alive with color, motion

Green grass, mean, spread out beneath the tree
-- pervading,
virtually inescapable

This green reminder of ever-present biology
of earthly beginnings
clashing with the fabric of my limbs...

Senses – 5 teeny specks of perception
an astronomically grand scheme

Perception – a speck, a blip,
on the energy spectrum

Hegel
Object inextricably dependent on subject
subject dependent on object
co-dependency of mind and matter

Further illuminated:
Mind and matter,
shimmering through Indra’s net
interdependent
all minds, all matter

All things connected
throughout the universe each glimmering jewel
struggling always to break away
unique
beautiful
unusual – tragic – alive
…common – ironic – broken
Mindfulness resists natures’ shackles
We are not built for it
Resisting for only so long
then returns
to damp, earthy quarters of green grass

Ode to Weather

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

John Ruskin
 

For the love of life

In timeless dimension
Energy springs  up from earth

 Pulling matter  

Like fountain from a well

Energy building upon itself
Organizing into form
Massive trunk supporting limbs
Energy tweaking, redirecting, redefining, until climax
When finally, stabilized, it persists

On the pulse of morning

On the pulse of morning
- Maya Angelou

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon,
The dinosaur, who left dried tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.
The Rock cries out to us today, you may stand upon me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song. It says,
Come, rest here by my side.
Each of you, a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,
Clad in peace, and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the rock were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.
The River sang and sings on.
There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African, the Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheik,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.
They hear the first and last of every Tree
Speak to humankind today. Come to me, here beside the River.
Plant yourself beside the River.
Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name, you,
Pawnee, Apache, Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet,
Left me to the employment of
Other seekers -- desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede, the German, the Eskimo, the Scot,
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought,
Sold, stolen, arriving on the nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am that Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.
I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours -- your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
This day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands,
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For a new beginning.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out and upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here, on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, and into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope --
Good morning.

She and I

I've been pulled in by the negativity of... strangers; the words... "engagement"... "marriage" have become more bitter than sweet. But the meaning remains.  These are not rings, but ring-symbols.  It is not engagement, but a symbol of commitment. Not marriage, but a symbol.  For not just she and I, but for everyone.  It needs no validation, no public celebration, no officiator of its sanctity. It is simply our love; our sacred consent; our commitment. My prayer is that I -- we -- and every pair of those like us -- stay strong and do not falter in knowing this truth.

It's a rough life

My children, 5 minutes after we got back from our walk.

For the love of blueprints

Emergence = biota = life

Reducable to one single, beautiful truth:

Code copied, message sent, matter reproduced

Earth springing into form 

Elements organized 

Forever referencing that first blueprint to harvest and sow

The self-replicant mother of all

In the beginning, identical in each passing line

To become a factory as brilliant as the sun

Lastest creation

Okay, so maybe I just wrapped it and put it on a chain... so what?  It took me forever to find a copper-rutilated piece this pretty.

Etsy page

Cry Baby Cover

Get ready to be floored... song starts around 1:45.

Engagement

Within 12 hours of becoming engaged to my partner, I found myself defending the legitimacy and sanctity of our relationship to, none other than, myself. More accurately, it was a response to others, but we're going to have to name it for what it is, since it was only in my head. It is the exactly the kind of thing that you wish you could have prepared yourself for, but only after you're too late. The kind of guilt that I know I shouldn't really accept...there was nothing to substantiate that anything but good would come from our engagement... because little else really seemed to matter... because I was filled with too much good, excitement, love, to think about much else.

While Amelie spent the day sharing her side of the news, I waited until the evening to send texts and emails - yes, texts and emails - with photos of us and the ring, to my nuclear family, and my brother-in-law. I tried not to worry about responses because I expected  them to be lackluster. By the time I was falling asleep, I was incredibly anxious, because I heard from everyone but my dad. Lo and behold, I needed my dad's blessing. If even he couldn't have managed some kind of blessing, if he called to ask dumb questions, I would have been okay. I'm practically a trained soldier in handling negativity related to this issue. I still can't explain why I cared, why I care.

My family has accepted us so far, but as I now know, only on the condition that our relationship could be ignored. And the guilt enters again, because I should be stronger than that. Now I know that I wasn't prepared for it. Soldiers need preparation and training to be strong. It affected me enough that our engagement feels bitter-sweet. I am still recovering from the bitterness. I am still recovering from that sneaky feeling of illegitimacy, as if we were children having just built our cardboard dream house."But dad, I love her and she loves me and we have to be married!"

The most powerful argument that I can muster is a description of the way that I feel about her and our commitment to one other. Unabashed, uncensored. 

Definition of commitment

Commitment

In light of our rocky periods...
The trust which we place in one another's hands
that I am good for
that you are good for...
that we each are worth
waiting out rough waters.

Commitment is born from certainty:
that we belong together
we deserve one another
That despite one hurdles and challenges here and there,
What is there, really... that could keep us from being together?

You, the beautiful soul I have come to love and adore,
I could not do without.

You are my other, the last piece of my jigsaw puzzle,
my eye's finest apple,
the zip to my zing in the mac to my cheese.

Making a certainty of our odd coupling with a ring-symbol -
Washes away the anxiety-relief mixture of before and leaves me with just...
relief.

Our union is as sacred as what any orthodoxy may try to deny.
Until death do us part...
I hope to spend my life with you
growing, embracing love, seeking meaning
I can't imagine life sweeter...
life, at all, really, without you.

Zydeco

Learning zydeco dancing has been on my to-do list for a long time. Big plans for tonight.

Feet set into the ground

Feet set into the ground

Sun having faded somewhere over the hills

Cool grey winds, encircling and shapeless, spiraling higher into Zero of the atmosphere
Night shades drawing. Cerulean blue – blue – black-blue – black
Celestial spheres turn – turning, turning, like silent records, time after decade after century, after time

Deep fading blue of sky now dancing with blue evening lake
Water
Earth, sky
Other element residing deep in hearth of the mind
spark shrouded by mystery, unknown to any man

Occasional black flittering of distant bird
Some universe…
reflecting into taut-muscled organ of sight -
from white and green eye,
flowing into water,
to combustion, heating of soft wood, splitting of stone

Some universe
Everything from high rolling sky to deep grooves of thumb
corporeal, external, melded by subtle flame
into value and form:
life given breath

vast expanse of air
shoreless waters
mud, stone, clay
external brought within

slender flame stretching through man’s form
—consciousness