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...and they lived happily ever after. Smith & Lady: poets, artists, photographers & adventurers.
Our relationship was forged to the soundtrack of Yoko Ono's magic,
frenetic, love-laden song, "Walking On Thin Ice." ( play song )
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Archive for the ‘Being’ Category
Friday, November 4th, 2011
WHAT IS THE THIS OF THIS?
Where is the keening of my senses?
Where is the keening of my ears?
How and When and Where of it?
What and Who of it?
What is It?
Is It?
The answer’s asking, asking again
rapping on knuckled doors
Doors exist
What do they hold in and out
How do they let us in if
they are sometimes shut?
The nature of a door is sometimes shut
The nature of a door is sometimes open
An umbrella is an umbrella
A tent is a tent
A sky is the sky we all share save for
peculiarities of geography
that change the frame
But the air’s still there
The air they breathe
is the air we breathe
The bathwater they piss in
is all of our bathwater
The they they are is we
We are the they
The they are we
Us + Them = We
I + You = Me
Lady
Tags: air, doors, object, pronouns, senses, subject, tent, umbrella
Posted in Being, Letters to the Universe, Poetry, spirituality | 1 Comment »
Sunday, September 18th, 2011
Universal Declaration of Human Rights – foto by Smith
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted December 10, 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations.
(I’m going to have to come up with a sneaky snappy title for the blog or else no one will even stop by.)
~ ~ ~
These 30 articles (which I’ve posted below) written by fair, thoughtful, moral humans 63 years ago enumerating the universal rights of every single person on earth seem intuitive, logical and self-evident.
Unfortunately I cannot think of a single government or corporation who honor them in spirit or deed.
These words are also serious and numerous without any laugh tracks or applause signs or mind-candy graphics, which means most who need these protections will not read them because they shy from the educative since it is boring.
Too many of us look up the class money chain and salivate with envy while looking down the money class chain with contempt and disgust.
We forget we’re all human, all portions of the great all . . . whatever affects a single human or animal or any portion of the planet affects everything we have and are as well as the very ground upon which we live and the ecosystem from which we seek substance and shelter.
Seems to me we’re all pissing upstream and then complaining about the taste and color of the water we drink downstream.
In the long run, doing right is better for the planet, better for each of us, and actually cheaper over the long haul.
Plus if there is an after-life called Heaven and Hell, most of us are seriously Hell-fluxed for the greedy thoughtless selfish ways we’ve lived, thought and taught because far too many of us accept this current “is” over possible “could” and moral “should”. After all, the “would” IS up to us.
~ ~ ~
ARTICLE 1.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
ARTICLE 2.
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
ARTICLE 3.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
ARTICLE 4.
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
ARTICLE 5.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
ARTICLE 6.
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
ARTICLE 7.
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
ARTICLE 8.
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
ARTICLE 9.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
ARTICLE 10.
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
ARTICLE 11.
(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
ARTICLE 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
ARTICLE 13.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
ARTICLE 14.
(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
ARTICLE 15.
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
ARTICLE 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
ARTICLE 17.
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
ARTICLE 18.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
ARTICLE 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
ARTICLE 20.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
ARTICLE 21.
(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
ARTICLE 22.
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
ARTICLE 23.
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
ARTICLE 24.
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
ARTICLE 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
ARTICLE 26.
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
ARTICLE 27.
(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
ARTICLE 28.
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
ARTICLE 29.
(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
ARTICLE 30.
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
Lady confronts Capitalism – foto by Smith
Posted in Being, Philosophy, Politics | 3 Comments »
Saturday, August 6th, 2011
WE HAVE TENTACLES
we have tentacles
extending into the immediate
not only the capsule of skin
tentacles that mix
and throb and meander with
the immediate
innumerable tentacles
innummerable tentacles
permeate into our skins,
our cells
ultimately and immediately
every tentacle
is connected
to every other
tentacle
the thickness of it
is that it is clustered
skin is abstraction
for a bundle of will
a bundle that seems to bump
itself around
eyes, legs, hands, mouth
allow the bundle to move
through the greater mass
it is sticky, the bundle,
pulling itself through this
mother mass
this is what we perceive of
as separation
separation
clumped together again
with gravity…
I pray
and it casts a net of will
tentacles
into this greater mass
of information
I pray
for immediate perception of
connectedness
everything is so simultaneously logical
and illogical, simultaneously banal
and miraculous
the banal part
is mostly the grind of ambition
of getting through the day well
and the miraculous
is the empirical stuff
that I observe “around” me
signs and sounds
it would seem
it should be the opposite
that the mind inside this shell
should be where novelty resides
and everyday sights and sounds
should be not so novel
but I look at our breathing
tail-swagging cat, and hear
the river of traffic outside,
and I know it is an orchestra
and a ballet
and the permeating song
of crickets outside
the lush August sonic carpet
it is thick, This
the carpet of sound
is thick and humid
it is fabric cumming
into my perception
that by handling with mindfulness
I either tune in to
or it tunes in to me…
I focus my ears, my eyes,
my attention and it is a machine
that becomes keener
the volume and quality
pulls itself together
by my tightening attention
Lady
Tags: abstraction, banility, gravity, information, interconnectedness, mindfulness, miracles, novelty, perception, prayer, senses, separation, signs, skin, tentacles, will
Posted in Being, Lady, Letters to the Universe, Philosophy, Poetry, Relationships, spirituality | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011
Sculpt in and feel the shape of will shaping or touching the shape of the future. Using imagination like a flashlight, like a rope, like a sketch, like a lasso, like a definition…
SCULPT IN
Sculpt in and feel the shape
Know the shape of a situation
Know the shape of your will
like a lasso shaping a horse
like a lasso shaping a rider
like a lasso shaping the horse running down a range
like a range coming back into your eyes and
defining your imagination
like the future that is in 4D coming back
and defining your imagination
Imagine that your imagination
is defined by the shape of the future
and know this.
Know that your imagination
has feelers, has feelers
creeping around a curve
that the curve wraps around your head
that your head wraps around your adjacent step
and if you had access to the rewind button
you could go in reverse as well
You could go in reverse by remembering
Your moment’s brain remembers
and defines the past
Your moment’s brain’s imagination
defines the future
The future defines
your moment’s brain’s imagination
Now is a thick thing
Now has the highway
Now has a lasso on your ears
Now has a lasso on the way you are sitting
Now has a lasso on the stationary sofa
Now has a lasso on the thick moving through thick
Imagine you are a rider on your horse
or if you are in a car
the car could be your horse
know that you *are* the car
that contains the human
that you *are* the horse
that carries the human
and that the Earth’s lasso
is sticky and throbbing
that the Earth’s lasso
and gravity and movement is shape
moving through and on and in itself
Lady
Tags: definition, earth, future, horse, lasso, past, shape, will
Posted in Being, Letters to the Universe, Philosophy, Poetry, spirituality | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
I attended a moveon.org meeting last weekend about the “American Dream” movement they are building. Although associated with Democrats, I think this movement also encompasses progressive ideals. Everyone in the room was concerned about sustainability, the environment, peace, universal health care, good work, etc. Several people were very discouraged with some of the things President Obama has done, so there was a lot of conscientiousness and self-examination in the room.
Here’s some bit of news about the Gang of Six in the Senate: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/20-4
They are trying to raise taxes on us and cut taxes on the rich, and cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But we aren’t going to let them.
For young people reading this, these things might seem like things that don’t immediately matter or that it is useless, but they do, and there is hope that we can change things. I’ve seen the standard of living deteriorate and expectations deteriorate significantly over the past ten years. It is not unreasonable to see this turn around and become healthier. We have the resources and talent to turn things around. I had the pleasure of seeing a Democrat in Wisconsin get reelected last night after having made phone calls to do this; I’ve seen us raise over a million signatures for putting Ohio’s anti-collective bargaining SB-5 bill on the ballot so we can overturn it when we only needed to raise 230,000… I have been involved in these campaigns and it does help and it does matter.
One of the action items of last week’s meeting moveon.org is to find five friends who will also participate in the movement to a small or large extent. As we are in such a time of flux, I think this is an important opportunity for people to engage and thus am providing this information with the thought that you’ll consider this and participate if you can. You can sign up for some information here: http://ourfuture.org/blog (newsletter signup on the right column of the screen.)
I understand that we live in a fast-paced society, but I think in this time of flux it is especially important to help ensure programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
I think also we’d seen a kind of deterioration in community life over the past twenty years, and now people are rebuilding community with local food movements, poetry, music… and activism is another way to rebuild and heal and socialize. I think that many have felt apathetic, estranged and horrified by the insanity of some of the stuff going on in the political realm. A way through this is to step into it and be part of healing via activism.
Lady
Tags: American Dream, Budget, Congress, Democrats, Medicaid, Medicare, moveon.org, President Obama, republicans, social security
Posted in america, Being, dreams, Environment, ethics, Events, Family, health, Healthcare, Letters to the Universe, news, Philosophy, Relationships, spirituality, Travel Notes, writing | 1 Comment »
Sunday, May 29th, 2011
Grandma and have a picnic breakfast a couple times a week. This week we went to a lakeside park…
We walked up to the lake but they wouldn’t let us in.
“We are in jail,” I told Grandma. “We’re landlocked.”
-
Grandma and I have this love of dressing up like ragdolls, with striped shirts, the color pink, patterns. Quite often when I pick her up, we’re wearing something eerily similar.
Her father named her after Lenin. He had two families, our family, and a secret family. He gave all his money to the communists. Grandma had to go begging to him for money. All this responsibility for a little girl.
Sometimes I call her “my little baby Grandma.”
At various times, Grandma and her brothers were in an orphanage. Her mother had periods of insanity (brought on by syphilis given to her from Grandma’s father.) Sometimes Grandma ran away from the orphanage, back home to her mother.
At one point, Grandma was living with her mother, and her brothers were still in the orphanage. She went two streets down and found a brother playing in a school playground. She grabbed his hand and took him home.
“You see this skirt?” she said. “I wore this skirt for you. I thought you’d like it.”
Lady K in 48 years? Maybe. I’d be glad to look like Grandma.
“Do you remember how I used to dress?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. You wore black or blue polyester pants and you had a couple shirts you wore regularly. You dressed this way most of my life. Then, one day, Grandpa took you shopping, and told you to buy pink for a change. You started wearing all these colorful clothes.”
Lady
Tags: grandma, lake, land, orphanages, orphans
Posted in Being, Family, Lady, ladymemoir, Photography, Relationships, Stories | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 25th, 2011
(Explanation of picture: I was thinking today that sometimes we are individuals in a community of others but we can bust through to another shell in which we find in the old otherness a home. Other thoughts about the shell and attributes in layers, too, the yin yanginess of it all vs the whole egg cocoon monad thing. And more. And on anon. Monkeys with typewriters from Shakespearean Gods.)
Feeling mania coming on. I’ve mostly averted it during Smith’s operation and recovery with liberal doses of Gabapentin and the occasional Prince Valium, less coffee, moderate running, etc. The doses of emotional medical joyrides and the forging forward bursting green mother load of spring and its resultant creativity are challenging waters for this raft. Alternately joyous with an hope that I don’t go overboard from into more uncontrollable deluges, which make me feel nauseated with myself.
“I don’t understand why I can’t feel calm naturally, without a pill,” I tell Smith.
“That’s what meditation’s supposed to do,” he says. “That’s what Yoga’s supposed to do. But sometimes it takes years of practice.”
“So meditation is sedation?”
“No, it’s calmness without sedation. It’s the ride without the ticket.”
Lady
Tags: coffee, gabapentin, mania, meditation, valium, yoga
Posted in Being, Bipolar Disorder, spirituality | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011
Dear God-It-Ess-Universe,
Of immediate concern in the vicinity is the flooding that’s happening in the U.S.
And of course, the tornadoes.
I am writing to let you know that I am concerned. I do not wish suffering for people. But of course I choose biosphere over people, if that choice has to be made in that way.
Perhaps extreme weather events are the only way we’re going to change, and perhaps people in the U.S. in particular need to be awakened to extreme weather events and their cause.
I think the best thing we can do is stop driving cars unless necessary, stop eating meat, unplug everything we can, and live within the rhythm of sun, moon and birdsong.
It’s reputed that meat, the desire for meat, is the cause of much suffering on this planet, both to our biosphere and to massive amounts of people and animals.
It takes so much more water, fertilizer, land space, vegetable matter to raise a pound of beef than, say, an equivalent amount, calorie-wise, of asparagus.
Forests are being clearcut in the Amazon to grow things to feed cows and to grow biofuel so that people can have luxurious lifestyles. The Amazon is the greatest area of lung on this planet. Please help us cease this clear-cutting by making wiser choices as ethical people and by creating better, more ethical opportunities for the people doing the clear-cutting as a vocation.
I am making incremental changes in my lifestyle to try to consume less, eat more locally, eat less meat, etc. Three weeks ago I bought four bags of magic beans. Two weeks ago I cooked two different things in the oven at the same time to save on energy consumption. The week before I learned how to make a healthy, inexpensive and tasty variant of hummus. This past week I’ve started to make my own bread.
I’m buying cage-free eggs from local farmers. The vendor at the West Side Market showed us pictures of the chickens. They are beautiful. They laze about in tall beautiful expanses of green grass. The egg yolks are bright, rich yellow, and I swear they taste extra fine.
I am soon getting half a share of produce from Geauga Family Farms. Pick up points are not limited to Geauga. There are points in Cuyahoga and Lake County as well.
I have doubled up duty on car rides. The two days I commute to work, I also do something special with Grandma. And I’m doubling and tripling up other car trips as well. I’ve started to consider only going to entertainment and poetry events in my local community as much as possible. My near goal is to commute with friends to get to events that are further out to minimize our impact on the environment and pocketbook. I aim to do everything I can do, within reason, yes, yet stretching my idea of reason to something that can effect change and help me live in a more joyful and reverent manner.
So what I’m asking you is to ease up on the floods and tornadoes, Universe. Have some faith in us and help us keep the faith by making immediate changes where we can perceive possibility for change.
Other prayers of note:
I pray for moderation, yet I pray to be possessed when I should be possessed.
I pray that I am ethical, calm, joyous, productive, and the same for Smith.
I pray that a certain family member starts writing a poem every day.
I pray that I finish my commitments so that I can feel more free to follow through on commitments to myself.
Thank you for the many, many blessings and miracles I receive daily from you-me-It-Universe.
Some private thoughts, hopes, thanks, prayers as well…
Love, Awomen and Amen,
Lady
LADY’S HUMMUS RECIPE
1# chickpeas, soaked overnight, rinsed, boiled in lightly salted water 1-2 hours until soft.
2 heads of garlic, roasted at 350 degree Fahrenheit 1/2 hour.
1/4 – 1/2 cup of your favorite vegetable oil (olive oil is a hoax perpetrated on the masses)
1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Squeeze roasted garlic out of its skin and mash in large bowl with fork, then blender. Squeeze cooked chickpeas between fingers as much as possible and put in the bowl as well. Add the other ingredients. Mix as much as desired (I like little chickpea bits left in mine.)
Tags: Amazon, biosphere, floods, global warming, prayer, tornadoes, vegetarianism
Posted in Being, Conversations, dreams, ethics, Events, Family, Food, On Writing, Philosophy, Recipes, spirituality | No Comments »
Monday, May 23rd, 2011
My morning ritual: I get up, the cat wades between my legs as I sit on the toilet, I urinate, I feed her, I drink water, I make coffee, I do three minutes of Yoga, I check Facebook, and I write a morning letter to the Universe. This is my time in the morning. My time to be ideal, to think, to visualize, to ask the Universe for favors, to promise favors to the Universe, and to start the day off in a constructive way.
With the devastation of such a large mass of our pollinating bees over the past couple years, one of the most important things to address in a letter to the Universe–from this corner of the Universe, at least–is the health of the bees.
Saw some bees buzzing angrily around a telephone pole this week. Thought perhaps they are angry about cellphones (reputed to be a cause of bee death) and are attacking anything associated with phones. Or maybe they’re just angry about our infrastructure/priorities in general. I’d be, were I a bee.
Bees are such important insects. Pollinating insects have tremendous implications for the existence of animals who eat fruit, such as humans. They are critical BEEDS, crucial to ensuring a healthy ecosystem for so many other species.
I think visualization has a role in constructing a better reality. Here are some hastily drawn visualizations. I wish I could dedicate myself well to all causes:
A WAY THINGS CAN WORK:
Vision: One million more generations of great health for humans -> pollinating insects -> endless loop.
ANOTHER WAY THINGS CAN WORK:
Goals: Happiness for Many & Happiness for the Individual.
Process: Think -> Prioritize -> Do -> Refine -> Endless Loop.
Visualization is important, and action is a way to follow through. I think I am not renewing my cellphone contract when it expires, and turning it off and just checking voicemail a couple times a day for now, and that I will return to a land line. The cell phone is too expensive, anyways. Am also thinking about returning to a wired network for our computers as I don’t know how all this wirelessness affects the insects or our health as well.
We’d do well to learn from bees. We can refine and humanize concepts of collaborative efforts. Collaboration does not need to be for tribe or nation over other tribe or nation. Collaboration can lend itself to a world civilization, a world society, a world organism that is not fighting itself, but finds itself on the mend.
Lady
Tags: bees, biosphere, engineering, gaia, happiness, solutions, universe
Posted in Being, dreams, Environment, ethics, Family, Philosophy, Relationships, spirituality, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
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