Crisps on a Bun

 

When Mother had nowhere to live

the council found her a place with a widower

and his two sons to clean the house

and cook meals

but she and her two daughters

ate supper in the bedroom we shared

—cold meat and crisps on a bun

together because the man who let us live there

assumed housekeeping also meant sex

so we had to stay in the bedroom

to sleep and eat our meals

while the boys showed their resentment

with insults as we rushed

from bedroom to back door. 

I remember hurrying 

out of the house

quickly with fear

and guilt for leaving

Mother alone in there.

Wouldn’t it be nice

if people earned sex

from respect and caring?

Wouldn’t it be good

if our society understood

that sex is about love

instead of power?

Wouldn’t life be easier

if we learned to honour our feelings

negotiated with them first

before we built factories and railways?

A Ploughshare Prayer by Spencer Lajoye

 

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***edit/addition: hey, loves! I’m so glad this has resonated with you. For those asking if you can show the video/play the song somewhere: yep! Just credit me. No compensation, but consider joining me on Patreon if you're an individual. If you're a church, donate to your anti-racist org of choice.

And my pronouns are they/them ***

Dear blessed creator, dear mother, dear savior

Dear father, dear brother, dear holy other

Dear sibling, dear baby, dear patiently waiting

Dear sad and confused, dear stuck and abused

Dear end-of-your-rope, dear worn out and broke,

Dear go-it-alone, dear running from home

Dear righteously angry, forsaken by family

Dear jaded and quiet, dear tough and defiant

I pray that I’m heard

And I pray that this works

I pray if a prayer has been used as a sword

against you and your heart, against you and your word

I pray that this prayer is a plowshare, of sorts

that it might break you open, it might help you grow

I pray that your body gets all that it needs

and if you don’t want healing, I just pray for peace

I pray that your burden gets lighter each day

I pray the mean voice in your head goes away

I pray that you honor the grief as it comes

I pray you can feel all the life in your lungs

I pray that if you go all day being brave

that you can go home, go to bed feeling safe

I pray you’re forgiven, I pray you forgive

I pray you set boundaries and openly live

I pray that you feel you are worth never leaving

I pray that you know I will always believe you

I pray that you’re heard

and I pray that this works

Amen on behalf of the last and the least

On behalf of the anxious, depressed, and unseen

Amen for the workers, the hungry, the houseless

Amen for the lonely and recently spouseless

Amen for the queers and their closeted peers

Amen for the bullied who hold in their tears

Amen for the mothers of little Black sons

Amen for the kids who grow up scared of guns

Amen for the addicts, the ashamed and hungover

Amen for the calloused, the wisened, the sober

Amen for the ones who want life to be over

Amen for the leaders who lose their composure

Amen for the parents who just lost their baby

Amen for the chronically ill and disabled

Amen for the children down at the border

Amen for the victims of our law and order

I pray that you’re heard

and I pray that this works

I pray if a prayer has been used as a sword

against you and your heart, against you and your word

I pray that this prayer is a plowshare, of sorts

Life After Death

 Life After Death

There is a place where

you have no agency

no voice

where your tears

fall from sky

your anger clashes

between dark clouds

lightning the truth

you cannot form in your mouth.

A time when your name

will be held in prison

the history others will tell

leaving out what they don’t wish

to know or don’t want others

to know.

Your art and music

will be played from others’

points of view

their prejudices

selecting the words they choose

to prove themselves right.

See?

And you will blossom

as a lilac flower

mute, fragile

whispering in the morning

love loves life

loves the children of your grandchildren

the eggs of your chickens

the stories of owls and jays

as long as earth remains fecund 

you shall live here

in memory

your cells decomposed

into nutrients you cannot name.

You have lost your voice

and must let nature take it

from here.

Carry the Flame with Leah Hokanson

Leah Hokanson is the Music Director at First Unitarian Congregation of Nanaimo and creator of several albums including Be Lived, and Diamond Chants. She has written several popular songs for the Unitarian church - melodic, soothing and profound in their simplicity.

Yes please carry the flame of peace and love - this is where we find, like the little birds in trees, our immortality.

The Pandemic Speaks

"You should know that I haunted the streets of Athens with measles. I watched Pericles die. I destabilized Rome and the Song dynasty. I humbled the Pharaohs, and killed peasants in the 14th century like hail on wheat. I wept with satisfaction during the siege of Tenochtitlan as my smallpox outdid itself. I dogged Napolean’s shivering armies with typhus. I violated England’s working classes with the blue death, cholera. I killed essential workers on the Panama Canal with yellow fever. I visited the trenches of the First World War with influenza. You’ve carried on with your great and complex ambitions, and I have laid them low. Need I go on with tales of Ebola, HIV and SARS?

I am an eternal force of history, and, let’s be honest, you are not. Memento mori." The Tyee, Andrew Nikiforuk.

George Yancy on Love and White Supremacy

 

"We don’t talk much about the urgency of love these days, especially within the public sphere. Much of our discourse these days is about revenge, name calling, hate, and divisiveness. I have yet to hear it from our presidential hopefuls, or our political pundits. I don’t mean the Hollywood type of love, but the scary kind, the kind that risks not being reciprocated, the kind that refuses to flee in the face of danger. To make it a bit easier for you, I’ve decided to model, as best as I can, what I’m asking of you. Let me demonstrate the vulnerability that I wish you to show. As a child of Socrates, James Baldwin and Audre Lorde, let me speak the truth, refuse to err on the side of caution."  George Yancy

Warriors for the human spirit

You don't have to judge others if they have not asked you to. You don't have to even if they have. You don't have to respond to gossip about people who are not present.  You don't have to read the social media posts your friends have posted.

You don't have to respond to comments on your appearance, your opinion or any other personal matter, unless it leads to caring and emotional support. If a comment is helpful to you a thank you is enough. 

You are not obliged to tell anyone what caused you to be upset unless you are part of a supportive team. 

We are not here to be entertainment for others. We are not a soap opera.

We are not units of measurable egos. We are not obliged to buy anything we don't want. You are not obliged to buy things you don't need to support the economy. You are obliged to weigh your purchases with how they support the community and environment. 

We are obliged to remember we are part of the earth and the family of sentient beings.

Your super power is being a witness to all that makes your life more beautiful, hopeful and sustainable. 

The difference between masculine and feminine is how each one functions in society and how each one is honoured and valued.

The difference between black people and white people is how each is treated, honoured and valued,  by the society they live in.

The difference between people of first nations and settlers is the values that influenced and sustained them.

None of these is cast in bronze. Values are not bought. 

Every century we struggle to  find the truth, to nurture it, and to keep it. If truth is purchased by power it becomes a lie.

We are learning how to find the real power in us to survive and nurture generations to come. 

Dylan Thomas reciting his villanelle 'Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Ni...

Manufacturing Consent

 A post from Fred Geurin on Noam Chomsky, one of the most important intellectuals in life today, has drawn up the list of 10 media manipulation strategies. Originally posted by Sara Perini.

1-The strategy of distraction

2-Creating problems and then offering the solutions.

3-The Strategy of Graduation.

4-The Strategy of Deferring.

5-Reach to the public like children.

6-Using emotional aspect much more than reflection.

7-Keeping the public in ignorance and mediocrity.

8-Stimulating the public to be complacent with mediocrity.

9-Strengthening self-guilt.

10-Knowing individuals better than they know themselves.

This means that, in most cases, the system exercises greater control and greater power over individuals, greater than that which the same individual exercises over himself.

§

from George Yancy, Truthout PUBLISHED May 7, 2021

"There has been “nothing comparable in American history” to the huge outpouring of protest unleashed by the murder of George Floyd, says world-renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky. Even at the very peak of Martin Luther King Jr.’s popularity, the mass protests that King led and inspired “didn’t come anywhere close” to the massive racial justice protests that have erupted over this past year, Chomsky adds."

This we should remember.

The Key to the Mental Illness of Our Politics

Ayn Rand, on her hero, wrote that he “has learned long ago, with his first consciousness, two things which dominate his entire attitude toward life: his own superiority and the utter worthlessness of the world. He knows what he wants and what he thinks. He needs no other reasons, standards or considerations. His complete selfishness is as natural to him as breathing.” 

The Rand family were devastated by the beginning of communism which used a concern for all as their reason yet focused from the ego of strong leaders. When Rand arrived in America she struggled to fit into a misogynistic world which didn't recognize her abilities.

The current situation in America comes out of trauma. The brutality of WWII on top of colonial violence. White Supremacy is the religion of a society that has lost its way. It seeks to punish and beat up, rape and demean the earth by destroying as much natural life as possible.

This is a kind way of saying we have all gone mad, grabbing as much of our broken toys as we can because we have been sent away from ourselves.

The rich and famous strongmen on our planet have learned how to complete the rape by making it illegal to love and nurture.

The military and police force are training men to dissociate from their feelings and their pain.

You Are A Planet

 You Are A Planet

on this planet

you might not remember

how you got here

or why

You have a map of nerves

under your skin

memories of pain

floods of disappointment

storms of anger

managing aches, desires

and crises

You rain with purpose

shine with knowledge

have a climate about you

Someone is looking 

for you

just you

Read out gently

offer yourself to planets

orbiting around or with you

this day

hold out your arms

and say

I am here!

Janet Vickers

please share

 

PASS IT ALONG - Transatlantic Session

Bob Bossin, folksinger of many years and much fame,  gathered friends from all over the world to contribute to this song. May wisdom overcome the hijacking of this planet for mining and logging. May we understand how important old growth forests are for our survival. And may we understand how climate change is affecting human culture along with all the other species.

Living On Virulent Empathy

 Living is a familiar word. 'On' as in living on planet earth, its plants, its air. 'Virulent' can mean 'poison', 'toxic' or 'a virulent strain of influenza'. 'Empathy' the ability to understand the feelings of another. According to Google dictionary.

Living on virulent empathy is more than feeling or expressing empathy. It is making the connection between people so we do not forget who we are.

We people of this planet have been educated and trained to fit into a system. Democratic socialism, neoliberal capitalism, patriarchy, misogyny, racism, all have their effects on how we feel about ourselves and each other. All vie for dominion over this earth through ways of influence, teaching, advertising and the use of fear.

We are subjected to patterns so that we feel we have the means to protect ourselves from suffering. Particularly the suffering of homelessness, starvation, violent attacks, war and fascism. Of course this is not working absolutely but then it's not intended to be a society where all good things work and all bad things are stopped.

We are under the influence of different interests, we have different interests so part of our daily patterns include persuasion. Having a system of beliefs which we attempt to persuade others they are the right beliefs for most if not all.

There is power (money) over our ideas even if we don't admit to it, or see it. Neoliberal capitalism tells us there is the invisible hand of the market, but it doesn't tell us the influence and pressure that goes into maintaining this as a system. It doesn't ask how investing in weapons and secret coups to influence governments elsewhere are good. It doesn't question the misery of lives lived at the bottom of the pecking order. 

Power is not intelligent. Sentient beings have intelligence and have survived war, starvation, disease and extreme weather for thousands of years by using their power consciously and asking how can we survive?

We have created religions, philosophies, political parties and global interests to juggle and weigh the various means of being in this world. We have stocked our waking days with thoughts and arguments on what is best and what is worst - a hierarchy of errors.

I have noticed my own belief change throughout the years. What should I achieve? What should I be and what should I not be?

Lately as I have watched intelligent beings and their institutions crumble I have come to believe that empathy for the feelings and health of others engages me in a way that is not harmful. I don't seek to be dominant or perfect or controlling. I seek to be part of this earthly family, connected, equal and always learning.

I would like to see media and institutions focus on a livable planet as a future goal rather than the various camps cleverly persuading each other to be more like them. If empathy became a virus spreading wherever we gather I think we might listen to and communicate with one another.