Virago Views

There is Nothing Normal about Me...and here is Why.

2011-10-31T10:15:00.000-05:00

Dateline Christmas 1985. I am newly fifteen. My Quinceneara year in which I will soon complete my last year of high school. I am home from the missionary boarding school where my parents placed me into the care of other adults. They are busy with other children and their Kingdom work, you see, and I am considered enough of an adult to be safe away from home.

I read the inscription of the stocking stuffer (a bookmark): "Kathy. Pure One. 'Blessed are the pure in heart ....' Matthew 5:8 A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches ... Proverbs 22:4."

I hardly need the reminder; I can quote my naming sermon by heart at this age. The accompanying book is inscribed as well.

"To Cathy,

Keep this book close at hand and re-read it as you travel God's path for your life. Love, Mom & Dad"

The script conveys my Mother's distinctive lefty cursive. My father's regular sermon about my name perfumes the entire package. Well, Dad, thanks for naming me so well and so often and so early. His lessons in life to me began often with "Be ye peculiar unto Me..." and would then wander into a lesson on words and sticks and stones and martyrdom. What was the book, you wonder?

The University of Hard Knocks

by Pastor Leroy Brownlow was wasted on me, I fear. I took the BOCES program and lived those Hard Knocks. Sorry, Mom, I never did finishing reading that particular map for my life. I am pretty sure, however, that somewhere in the Universe exists Someone ready to give me that Honorary Degree for taking your homespun education and breaking a completely new path for myself through this world.

/another Child of G-d
Catherine McHenry Hutchinson
Arroyo City, TX

the Culture Wars .. Redux

2010-08-04T19:14:00.005-05:00

Once upon a time in a city by a Lake, a girl attended school where she learned to think for herself, to establish a system of belief called a worldview, and to communicate with others of differing beliefs by constructing conversations and not arguments. She also learned the power of hate: hatred of Other. Other clothes. Other national heritage. Other sexual affections. Now that girl (me) is a grown woman edging towards middle age and imagine her surprise to discover that back in that city by the Lake, the same conversation about hate and fear of one's neighbor is still raging on. Sigh.

Fortunately, Dr. Dwight McBride (of University of Illinois at Chicago fame) saw fit to defend me--a complete stranger--and to do so quite publicly in the local paper of that city by the Lake. Thank you, Dr. McBride. So then, with his permission, I have seen fit to republish it here, in its entirety. Now I do hope that enough has finally been said so that we will each go out and embrace our odd, unusual neighbors ... however Other they may be.

"My Take: It's About Civil Rights"
Source=The Holland Sentinel

Holland, MI — One of the first things I learned as an English major at Princeton was always to consider the source of any information or “research” you read. So the first thing I noted about the full-page ad in the July 23 issue of the Holland Sentinel querying “Is Homosexuality a Civil Rights Issue?” was its sponsorship by the Family Research Council (FRC) and Request Foods.

For those who may not know, the FRC is a neo-conservative lobbying organization; its purpose is “defending faith, family and freedom.” FRC’s co-sponsor, Request Foods, is a Holland based company whose president and CEO, Jack DeWitt, is also a known advocate of conservative causes.

Where I come from—the marketplace of ideas we know as academia—bona fide and vetted researchers seek truth wherever it may lead them, rather than conducting and citing “research” that is designed to “defend” a particular political agenda as is the case with the FRC. Now I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have my information and “research” from more unbiased sources than a political lobbying organization and a food distributor.

The full-page ad is the apparent response to a request currently before the Holland City Board to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. They would have us believe that this is an example of “pro-homosexual activists” asking Holland to provide “special protections” to gays and lesbians. But don’t be fooled. Civil rights laws don’t grant “special” protections so much as they ensure equal protection against discrimination under the law. And if our laws should do anything, should they not provide all citizens equal protection against discrimination?

People tried to make the same case in this country not so many years ago against blacks serving in the military and against interracial marriages. Both of these groups of citizens were legally discriminated against until our laws were changed to protect their civil rights (in their case the right to serve their country and the right to marry the person they loved). Today, we see such antiquated legislation for the discrimination it safeguarded. Sometime hence, history will look back on our time in which our nation’s commitment to democracy for all its citizens was once again tested and will judge on which side of that debate we stood.

Despite what FRC and Request Foods would have us believe, none of this is about behaviors, sexual or otherwise. It is about being free to love and to fall in love without fear that whom I love will cause my civil rights as a citizen of my city, state or country to be denied me. This is not about gay and straight, the political right or left, or even whether you “believe in homosexuality.” It is about my right to live my life with the fullest access to the same life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness that my fellow citizens enjoy. No more. No less. Just equal.

So when FRC and Request Foods claim that their “research” shows that it’s okay for the city of Holland—or anyone else for that matter—to allow discrimination against our fellow citizens to go unchecked, I think it is time for all Americans who believe fervently in freedom, democracy, and the most treasured of the articles of faith (to do unto others as you’d have them do unto you) to take a stand for the principles upon which our nation is founded. It is time for us to say no to false rhetoric that misleads, to say no to hate that blinds us to the rights of our fellow citizens, and to say no to fear that keeps us from loving our neighbors whoever they may be.

Dr. Dwight A. McBride is a resident of Saugatuck and is Dean of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Copyright 2010 The Holland Sentinel. Some rights reserved

Existentialists don’t do well in adversity.

2010-08-01T22:38:00.004-05:00

So I am trawling the web tonight and Mr. Primo (a Chicago-based investment banker) lays this little gem on us:

"It was a very frightening period for me, but what I’ve learned is that one must have faith, faith in something larger than yourself, or you truly will be sunk. Whether that faith is faith in the common good of man, whether it’s in universal rhythm or karma, or whether it be simply in God, there has to be something larger than you.

Existentialists don’t do well in adversity. So it was the faith that I had in myself, faith that I had in others around me, the faith that I knew that I was not defined by this company, or what I did. But if the company fails, if it failed, no one died. Life moves on." Source = NYTimes.com

He is discussing the miserable failure of his first business. Rather than inspire us with his clever story of returning to the battle for more money, he assures us that we must have "faith" to succeed in business. Um, really? Now, this isn't my first day at the rodeo of G-d, the American dollar and our First Ammendment rights to freely gather in the public sphere and barter our very lives away; however, his claim that Existentialists are lousy at handling adversity had me chuckling. Reeeeally? I think he means some sort of fundamentalist atheists. Because the last time I checked, Existentialism has a certain broad appeal precisely FOR its ability to contextualize human life when the unthinkable happens.

Now I, for the record, would like to publicly thank Dr. Kelly James Clark for spending a good portion of January, 1990 drilling that into my thick little skull. Since enjoying his course "Death and the Meaning of Life" I have firmly adopted an Existentialist stance about the world and my life within it. Join us, Mr. Primo. Come embrace a world where some things just "are" and any attempts to change those things are not only futile but, if repeated, those attempts can result in a sort of insanity. Embrace chaos, because it is the only constant. And finally, be responsible, Mr. Primo, for your choices. You opened a business in 1998 which failed two years later. The 'markets' did not crush you. (One cannot ascribe sentience and will to an organized system of finance.) You offered a set of financial products which not enough people bought. Consequently, your business failed. Capisce?

But then, perhaps along with that passport and those language skills you recommend, you could read a good philosopher and learn to differentiate between a worldview and a good yarn in a business column. Just my thought.

Thanks for listening folks.

Borders, CheckPoints and Green Zones

2010-07-24T17:23:00.004-05:00

DMZ: Demilitarized Zone. (DOD, NATO) A defined area in which the stationing or concentrating of military forces, or the retention or establishment of military installations of any description, is prohibited.

Green Zone:
(a) The intersection between a green and a crossing airway, at which it is the responsibility of traffic on the crossing route to ensure vertical separation. See also green airway.

(b) That cool movie with Matt Damon.

(c) Pronoun - Location - : The Green Zone is the area immediately around the Republican Palace in Central Baghdad where security is very tight and all occupants are screened for entry. This is the only place in the city where Westerners, (i.e. UK and the USA), can walk about the town unarmed and in relative safety from assassination, kidnapping, and car bombs. This location has been the single most common usage of the term "Green Zone" since 2003. Before that, (and #2 today), it's common application referred to certain areas of International Airports. Although the official designation has been "International Zone" since June 2004, neither the media, internet, nor the occupants call it by anything other than "Green Zone". (Thank you, www.urbandictionary.com)

When these terms apply to sovereign nations with whom we are at war, we get it. That's the area of the city/country/jungle hut village where we (read the forces of Democracy, Freedom and the Republican Way) are establishing Law and Order. Ok, fine. But what are the elements of a Green Zone? No active military campaigns. Some sign of safety and the ability to conduct business and other social interactions in some version of a public square. Ideally a school exists and some healthcare is provided, but, hey, not required.

I wish that I lived in a Green Zone. In my neighborhood, domestic military operations provided by DHS (supported by other Military branches like regular Army and regular Navy) operate 24/7. The language of commerce is not likely to be English. Buying pan dulce y cafe is no big deal, but I hesitate to head to a bank to check my balance without my passport. Even acquiring my Texas drivers license required my passport. When a local police officer asks me to pull over, I wonder .. does he work for me or the Otro government. More than likely, both.

So then, all you non-border state residents .. I want to ask you something. At what point can we expect you to support smart change (like immigration reform, reduction of foreign monetary aid to Mexico, and decreasing your purchases of stuff made in Pakistan so that NAFTA works to our benefit not WalMart's)? Because that wall you had us build in 2004? It isn't helping. In fact, it may have made matters worse, since you hired crews of non-USA based construction firms to build it. I know a few US owned firms that could really use that business right now. Furthermore, it does not increase my personal security one iota. And I live here, so I should tell ya and you oughtta know ... your Border is currently a heavily contested zone. Forces you cannot possibly control and seemingly have trouble understanding have disrupted your efforts towards security and stability. And those Other forces are winning.

Me? I am adopting the aviation version. It is my responsibilty, as the pilot of crossing traffic, to navigate effectively and avoid a mid-air crash when I come home to my little end of the Arroyo. And when you come to my home, I will invite you in with the same words I use when inviting my other mijos... declare yourself when you drive up. Shout, "Friend!" or "Foe." I would hate to shoot you by accident.

I'm Not Dead

2010-07-03T16:21:00.003-05:00

It's the fifth day of ice on a new tatoo ...

Yes: I have been writing. No: I have not been publishing. Some of you are very good readers and some of you are lousy. Either way, I needed all of you out of my head for awhile. Now I am back. I have added rooms in my head for you, including pillows and Mezcal and all sorts of other fun devices. And, I invited a partner Virago to this space.

Play nice. Enjoy. And start tuning in a bit more frequently.

My thanks to Alicia Moore, the writer/singer and copyright holder of the lead in. She's brilliant. And I purchase her music often. So should you.

attention all Scorpios

2008-07-26T11:21:00.003-05:00

You've had just about all the fun you can stand with being diligent and dutiful. You're tired of being the person everyone looks to for meticulousness, precision and, oddly enough, flexibility. It's officially time for you to forget about everything except that which gives you unadulterated joy. Go do it.

{Thanks, WSG!}

Practical Philosophy: Inspiritus

2008-07-18T04:16:00.003-05:00

How much do you love your cage? You know what I mean. That life you built so carefully is composed of compromises you made methodically (or instantly) over time and that cage has rewarded you with some sort of security. I know. I have one. For me, I cannot even remember when it was that I bought into the notion that a small amount of social comfort was worth the surrender of my voice. Yes, my Voice. Strangers spend hours craning their necks and bending down and asking me to "repeat that?" I whisper now. I mumble. The words I am shouting and enunciating in my mind emerge from my mouth in a vague vocalization. I still think 'out loud' but I rarely let anyone else hear. Because I love my quiet little life, free of conflict with stupid people. (Not you, of course.)

I do wonder, though ... if it is possible to wander this life in quiet, free of conflict, and still effect change. We are all committed to the Argument, aren't we? We need the fight in order to gain the compromise and therefore feel accomplished. I wonder if we could just begin with a few promises, skip the fight and move right on to milk, cookies and nap time.

Yeah, I know. It's 4 am and I am dreaming.

Si Se Puede

2008-07-05T01:09:00.005-05:00

In AD 1999 I was living in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, minding my family and earning my paycheque. A short year later, after our 9 Wise Souls adjuticated a fractured national election, I listened to the President Elect thank his Hispanic Tejan supporters in Spanish. AD 2004, I heard that same man declare Mission Accomplished as he stepped onto the deck from a jet I bought and still maintain.

For the last decade I have held the hands of my fellow citizens as they moved from shock to awe to cowed silence. I, for one, am done with all of the above. I will no longer be silent. I am not awed and very little shocks me. Our country, a once fine example of a modern Republic, reminds me far too much of the Athenian oligarchies. We seem to prefer ruling families and regimes to enjoying healthy rank and file dissension. We ask ourselves "Who will protect us?" when the very people we hire to secure our borders and our freedom walk among us in our malls and churches and cafes.

My grandfather spoke very little to his sons about the wars we hired him to prosecute. He preferred to fill his young granddaughter with quiet, gin-soaked ruminations about the costs of freedom. Not too many years before he died, we enjoyed the fall of the Berlin wall together and watched our President echo our sentiments: Yes, Mr. Gorbachev .. take down this wall.

Today we build walls and form impossible nets of advanced missiles with nearly worldwide reach and still we declare ourselves "unsafe"; we shrink in fear from strangers we used to welcome. We create bureaucracies of secret missions accountable to no one in the name of assuaging that fear and we certify billions of dollars in cash for a country we apparently wish to own. When will our collective fear end?

I know only this:

When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. (Audre Lorde)

So then, I dare you. I dare you, my dear compatriots, be powerful. Change your government. Open your door to your neighbor. Be the leader you think you need.

On becoming a demi-goddess

2008-06-22T23:43:00.001-05:00

Come here.
Pour yourself a glass.
Join me. Smooth your fingers along me.
Tell me what you see.
Worship me with your eyes.

How do you demonstrate your Passions, your Beliefs?

2008-06-15T16:23:00.002-05:00

“Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.” D. L. Lawrence

My new friend, Lou Falk, challenged me at lunch last week with this little gem "What do you propose?" Since he teaches communication for a living, I suppose he had every right to challenge me at my own lunch table, where we were pleasantly discussing philosophy over southwest egg rolls. That said, the question persists .. When we believe many ideas passionately, only rarely do we act upon even one idea. Where is the connexion between a thought and a result? How do we create an action in support of an ideal for which we have no evidence? What pressure must exist, which options must disappear before the the unthinkable becomes the doable?

When the Center Does Not Hold

2008-06-01T08:39:00.002-05:00

Some time ago the word 'Justice' left my daily vocabulary. (Might have had something to do with actually walking the halls of places like the Russell building where Justice was meant to be codified into law and yet, rarely was She actually blind.) This week I listened to tax-paying business owners, many not citizens, join others to create change in this, our country. And then I listened to more citizens of my size and shape and age tell me something truly horrifying ... "We do not vote." My training taught me to appreciate the foundations of disenfranchisement. But the spirit I had when Justice was in my daily routine apparently never left and was merely dormant. Because my response, both then and now, was "Whyever not? We vote to bring change. We vote to create hope against all evidence to the contrary. Vote. Vote with me. Vote early and often."

Border District 303

2008-04-18T15:38:00.001-05:00

"Hazardous weather forecast"

TONIGHT: NORTHEAST WINDS 15 KNOTS DIMINISHING TO 5 TO 10 KNOTS AFTER MIDNIGHT. A MODERATE CHOP ON THE BAY BECOMING A LIGHT CHOP ON THE BAY AFTER MIDNIGHT.

When you live within 50 miles of an ocean coast, you check the weather a bit more often than, say, in Ashland, OR. The NOAA website rewards your caution by referring to the forecast in your area as Hazardous--all the time--because you are asking NOAA to make a threat assessment for you. They must work from a scale of 0 (No Hazard) to 10 (Evacuate: proceed quickly inland and don't stop until you run out of fuel or visibility.) Once you get used to this scale, there is a sort of comfort to it. But, I wonder, within that comfort do we also surrender the idea of a non-Hazardous world? Does accepting this safety subsume and dilute our concepts of bliss?

Arthur C. Clarke: Memoriam

2008-03-25T15:05:00.004-05:00

Operating from a list of 103 projects he has under way -- novels scheduled for publication in June, July and October, television programs, options on several of his novels for movies and a classified speech for senior naval officers of the Pacific -- he has given up nearly all other activities, including diving. On his back porch, though, he does use a 14-inch reflecting telescope.
And he keeps looking. "The big thing I'm on now," Mr. Clarke said, "is the book that will make me famous."

source=For Arthur Clarke, Sri Lanka Is a Link to Space, NYTimes, Published: April 7, 1993

The man was 76 years old when he gave that interview and he was still pursuing that elusive 'big one' all writers crave. Years ago, when I first read the classic toast "May the best of your past become the worst of your future" in a novel by Chaim Potok, I resolved to continuously strive, always resetting the bar to new expectations, new challenges, new excitements in my life and my writing. However, I did expect to reach a point of resting upon my laurels if, say, I wrote a novel which became a movie directed by the likes of Stanley Kubrick and thereby entered the cultural lexicon and forever changed the world.

Wherever you are now, Sir Clarke, I hope the sarongs are comfy and all the ladies admire you and that you finally feel famous.

amusing

2008-03-18T19:11:00.003-05:00

I miss the good old days, don't you? When Reagan was a character actor and gifting vice to your friends and families was encouraged as a classy way to celebrate the Birth of Christ.

Fabulous.

Recovering the Desire to Fly

2007-07-07T08:12:00.000-05:00

The fear of flying mellows into a sort of manufactured contentment. There was a moment in time when I met my future chin up, voice clear and proud, with a gaze I directed through the details to a horizon I wanted. My mood is even and generally pleasant and I am buffeted less and less by the voices of those well-meaning humans around me. Progress from 2005, definitely. However, my restlessness has not returned and I am come to quietly suspect that a quality of eagerness is missing. While healing I learned to revel in the ordinary, sidestepping the extraordinary elements which my life used to be infused with. My desires have become discreet and finite.

This is how people surrender to the ordinary.

on Traveling sans jet

2007-06-02T10:10:00.000-05:00

There are trips one takes through terrain and onto pathways where it is possible to glide into an interior space as on a canal. No map will contain this space for you. There are no descriptors, no marks, no trail--even of your own making. You find this terrain when seeking nothing and yet, you can manifest heaven in this gap. Using touch and breath (yours, another's) to explore .. finding blind crevices .. until an entire universe opens before you, glistening with possibility.

And when you return, you never speak of it.

Virginia Water

2007-05-26T17:34:00.000-05:00

Sitrep: Latitude & Longitude: N51:23:59 W00:33:46: Lat: 51.400000000 Long: -0.563000000

Step one: drive home.
Step two: after securing flight, reposition vehicle into long-term car park.
Step three: enjoy Airbus 330 across pond.
Step four: wait for Irish driver to locate you (Niles Standard Time is a bit different than GMT).
Step five: arrive at English cottage to warm embrace of children and Bengal kittens.

Enjoy espresso, shower and head to Knightsbridge for brunch and shopping.

Wandering home.

2007-05-14T06:22:00.000-05:00

Going home involves a person, hardly ever one place. Some places comfort me, but they are mere touchstones, places of beauty and peace and memory in which I pause to rest before resuming travel. At the end of this month I get to go home to a place I have never been. Yoshie and Maer and Bethann await me and in their embraces, and our shared stories, is my home (one of them, at any rate.)

Heaven was sold to my child-mind in this fashion: after a life of sacrifice and service to a Lord-King the reward would be a mansion containing many rooms alongside streets of gold where one might wear a crown sporting gems I would earn through that life of sacrifice. My heaven is here, now. It is contained in rooms around the world, embodied in the faces and fingerstips of those I love.

Somewhere in my future is a warm body capable of wrapping me as I sleep and of waking me in that way only lovers do.

Updike on Aesthetic Natures

2007-04-28T12:52:00.000-05:00

..but Kathryn ignores the provocation, and Hope has to continue, explaining, clarifying what would have always been better left mysterious.

Who was this young woman, Hope wonders, to come pushing (she must be Jewish) into her life, reading it back to her from her studious sheets of printout?

excerpted, Seek My Face copyrighted 2002 by John Updike.

When I am seventy-six, will I even answer the door and the call or like Djuna Barnes, will I simply sit down and write another book?

Catherine's CV

2007-04-26T06:35:00.005-05:00

See Catherine for a full CV.

Today~Dream Sheet

2007-04-25T07:10:00.000-05:00

I want a life where my work for money is interesting. I want to know what it is to live as an ex-patriot. I want friends who can laugh and argue and drink and eat in at least 3 languages. I want to sleep with someone smarter than me so that I can revel in their mind as well as their body.

And I want peace.

That's all.

On Belonging

2007-04-10T16:55:00.000-05:00

for Anita

I actively refuse offers of Membership.

I locate myself partly by interacting with other humans, but largely, refuse membership in the various "Us" clubs. I embrace geneomai, the continuous beginning. I believe that where humans are concerned, the only constant is change. So then, I locate my position in this world as a spider does, within a web of connexions which I spin and are spun by others around me. Those who appeal to me connect into that web. Troublesome souls I disconnect from. I place anchors to both trees and ground and I anticipate growth cycles when a particular strand reverberates with impending change.

I believe that linear thinking about truth is bankrupt. In the study of analytic theory a truism is told to inspire dialectic models of thinking: the third is not given. I propose that the third is obtainable it is the fifth which is not given. The third we generate and can give ourselves, with no assistance from another. The fifth seems to require some interaction with time, distance and other universal elements which, for now, we humans grasp only poorly. If we are starstuff, then we ought at least acknowledge the subtle lies which a linear conception of time generate within our current understandings of truth.

... the latest...

2007-04-03T06:26:00.001-05:00

I am ready for the next evolution.

Audit over.

Gender as Liquidus~Solidus

2007-03-10T11:56:00.000-06:00

I leave the arguments of how Men should be and how Women should act to the sociologists and theologians. They enjoy that debate and are welcome to exhaust themselves while developing prescriptive orthotic "new" methods of shaping human action and intent.

Me-I am interested in What Is. There are fewer rules with real consequences: Exhibit A Men rear children from the moment of birth now and have even purchased the means of gestation. I salute them! One more wanted child that is and one less some woman is forced to bear. Exhibit B Lesbians sleep with fags because neither found someone that night more compelling from the pool of their affectional preference. Why? Because they are clan to one another and that tenuous bond of safety is preferable to the entrancing and beautiful unknown on the dance floor.

In the absence of heroes we do strange things and I wonder if the Void we claim to fill is a convenient fiction, as true as your uncle's fishing stories.

Renaissance education

2007-03-09T06:45:00.000-06:00

It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self--never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardor of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dim-sighted.

George Eliot

King of Jordan urges U.S. to pursue peace in Mideast

2007-03-07T18:07:00.000-06:00

King of Jordan urges U.S. to pursue peace in Mideast

Source: International Herald Tribune www.iht.com

By BRIAN KNOWLTON
Wednesday, March 7, 2007

WASHINGTON: King Abdullah II of Jordan, in a rare appearance before a joint meeting of Congress, made an impassioned plea today for the United States to lead in an active pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian peace, saying that without it none of Middle East's other problems would be solved.
He implored the lawmakers to exert American "leadership in a peace process that delivers results not next year, not in five years, but this year."
The king pleaded as well for greater concern for the Palestinian people — a theme often heard in Europe but rarely in the halls of Congress. It met with a relatively tepid response, paling next to the applause for his broader calls for regional peace.
"Sixty years of Palestinian dispossession, 40 years under occupation, a stop-and-go peace process — all this has left a bitter legacy of disappointment and despair on all sides," he said.
Palestinians grievances, the 45-year-old monarch said, were the "core issue" underlying violence throughout the region.
"The wellspring of regional division — the source of resentment and frustration far beyond — is the denial of justice and peace in Palestine," Abdullah said.
His plea for the United States to play a "central role" for peace in the Middle East came as the Bush administration, stung by setbacks from Iraq to Lebanon, has taken a broader diplomatic approach to the region, including a decision to meet on Saturday in Baghdad with Iranian, Syrian and other regional representatives to discuss security in Iraq.
The king, considered one of the closest regional allies of the Bus administration, has expressed deep distress over the regional unrest; he has personally attempted to mediate the infighting between Hamas and Fatah, the two main Palestinian factions.
If matters continue to degrade, he has warned, the region could see be the scene of three civil wars: in Iraq, in Lebanon and among the Palestinians.
"Palestinians and Israelis are not the only victims" of their conflict, he said. "We saw the violence ricochet into destruction in Lebanon last summer. And people around the world have been the victims of terrorists and extremists who use the grievance of this conflict to legitimize and encourage acts of violence."
"We must work together to restore peace, hope and opportunity to the Palestinian people, and in so doing we will begin a process of bringing peace" to the region, he said.
Many outside of Washington view a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as essential to easing Middle Eastern tensions. But critics say the Bush administration has been slow to act, preoccupied by Iraq and Afghanistan and willing to give the Israeli government considerable leeway — as it did during Israel's war last summer with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
Abdullah alluded to Washington's actions, saying that Palestinians "ask whether the West really means what it says about equality and respect and universal justice."
Palestinians form a majority of the Jordanian population, many having come as refugees after the 1948 or 1967 Arab-Israeli wars.
"Thirteen years ago," Abdullah said, "my father was here to talk about his hopes for peace."
He added: "The next time a Jordanian, a Palestinian or an Israeli comes before you, let it be to say thank you for helping peace become a reality. "
"Help fulfill the aspirations of Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace today."
For that, he received a standing ovation.

Excerpt: "le trois sauvages" ~ poetry for a winter storm

2007-03-05T16:37:00.000-06:00

V
To communicate with Mars, converse with spirits,
To report the behaviour of the sea monster,
Describe the horoscope, haruspicate or scry,
Observe disease in signatures, evoke Biography from the wrinkles of the palm
And tragedy from fingers; release omensBy sortilege, or tea leaves, riddle the inevitable
With playing cards, fiddle with pentagrams
Or barbituric acids, or dissect
The recurrent image into pre-conscious terrors—
To explore the womb, or tomb, or dreams; all these are usual
Pastimes and drugs, and features of the press:
And always will be, some of them especially
When there is distress of nations and perplexity
Whether on the shores of Asia, or in the Edgware Road.

Men's curiosity searches past and future
And clings to that dimension. But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint— No occupation either, but something given
And taken, in a lifetime's death in love,
Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.

For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.
These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
...

For most of us, this is the aim
Never here to be realised;
...
We, content at the last
If our temporal reversion nourish (Not too far from the yew-tree)
The life of significant soil.

~ T.S. Eliot

King. Warrier. Magician. Lover

2007-03-04T15:47:00.000-06:00

I read once that the essential elements of a man were as follows: King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. At the time I figured that I did not require a King (and had zero desire to be Queen), could make War along with the best and well, who believes in magick anymore?

Who are you, Sassenach, to have danced into my life so easily? What is a mind like yours doing hiding beneath the detritus of modern life? Have I been so long in the company of women that I missed the emergence of men like you? You are audacious and courteous in the same moment. How is that possible?

4 Mar 2007~

Epitafios

2007-02-19T11:42:00.001-06:00

Epitafios

At the end, for me, it was like this.

I am a falcon who enjoys her leather bonds. When my falconer changed mine to metal I could no longer take flight. Not really. Not in my own wild ways. Who knew that this lack would nearly kill me? One day I simply slipped them.

The scar is small now. Nearly gone.

I Quit.

2006-10-01T21:06:00.002-05:00

Here in the States the national psyche is preoccupied with sex. Puritans founded the USA, after all. We claim to want a world of simple, straight-forward, God-fearing copulating and then spend hours gawking at our neighbors wondering what positions they prefer and how weird and sinful their thoughts might be. I'm usually the one they invite for dinner. ["Honey, ask that girl you know if she'll come to the barbecue. The Jefferson's will never believe that she's a Lesbian!"]

Frankly, I am bored with being identified as a Lesbian. I now refuse to answer questions about my marital status. No one really wants to know if I have a lover. What they want to know is would I consider taking them as a lover. Or, they want to know if I'll be competing for the attention of their lover. The whole conversation is ridiculous.

Who decided that people should be broken up into little subgroups of subgroups of sexual behaviour, anyway? Generations of humans have been kissing in all sorts of directions and ways since we figured out how to write. Now we create labels for behaviour as a method of social control. The implication behind these labels (some of which are now polite to speak at a dinner party, apparently) is not acceptance, but denial.

For every Lipstick Lesbian who gets to run for Town council there is a gang of Glam girls at the club who have to remember to wipe the glitter off the toes of their boots before walking into the local grocery store because it is definitely *not* ok to display the leftovers to the straight people. We accept the Town Council-Elect Lesbian so that we don't have to accept the Glam gal and we completely ignore the biker who leaves his wife on Friday nights to flirt with boys down at the corner. Instead of a sexual revolution, we have created a national ballot of Recognized Sexual Libertines. I assure you, it is a short list.

I used to believe that the more vocal I was about whom I loved and who I chose to kiss, the more everyone would just get used to Queer girls and I could get on with the real matters of my life. All I have managed to do is titillate the heterosexual people and bore myself silly. (I also refuse to give another "How I Came to Know that I was Gay" speech.) So then, this is my new manifesto: I quit.

Signed,the Ex-Lesbian/Queer Activist.

2006-09-14T08:50:00.000-05:00

I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger than reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that ... anything I cannot transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality does not impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me I escape. ... No more walls." ~Anais Nin

pix

2006-08-20T10:58:00.000-05:00

lakefront musings on war

2006-08-20T10:49:00.000-05:00

When the nation you belong to persists in prosecuting a war of neverending proportions, should its citizens ask "at what cost?" and demand accountability? George Soros challenged the US Administration in the Wall Street Journal this week with versions of this question. Does it take money, age and standing to feel free enough to disagree with an elected official? Because the folks who speak to me, privately and in quiet whispers, speak in spite of a fear that tomorrow Someone will come and arrest them for this, our conversation. Apparently, Mr. Soros either has prepared for such a detainment, or, perhaps, he simply agrees with the notion that a government is only as "good" as the quality of its critics. When does speaking become 'illegal' and frankly, who decides?

Virago's Version: Suspect Christianity: the Art of Embracing Chaos

2006-08-13T11:42:00.000-05:00

Sophistry is not philosophy, but sophists can be philosophers. Modern folk addicted to a panoptic ordering of their lives find it easy to publish viewpoints as Truth and expect Followers. If enough sophists gathered, would their publishings be chaotic babble? Would we hear remnants of a philosophy, lifeworn but still functional? Or, would we hear some universal truth? How many viewpoints does it take to sum into one usable, functional shred of true?

Finding God in "The Incredibles"

2006-08-02T21:28:00.000-05:00

How is it that we determine what is True? So often a situation presents us with choice and we act or not based upon some sort of internal compass. Some thinkers call that instinct. Others call it morality. I wish to examine the entire notion of Orderly Living.

Why must we humans constantly strive to "Do what is right"? Apollo's Dictum, etched in ancient stone across the lintels of buildings dedicated to His worship, was "Know Thy Self." I wonder often, in my moments of angry reflection, what happened in modern life to that pursuit, that journey of settling into one's Self? Have we all become so tired of recycled Freud and uninspired Jung that answering the question "Who am I today?" is meaningless, or worse, unhelpful?

Political commentaries often speak of the narcissism of today's culture. Particularly in America, I hear people claim to cure a particular social ill by asking a random grouping of humans to focus on the needs of strangers. These voices urge me to take a particular action which places an itemized list of needs above the desires I seek to fulfill. The ultimate compliment these voices pay a dead person in a eulogy runs something along the lines of "She gave of her self, endlessly." I say, there goes another Suspect form of Christianity. If it is true that the Christian G-d climbed up on a cross and died for the sins of humanity, paying a version of blood debt so old that it predates that G-d by several centuries, then why should any one human be required to emulate that sacrifice? After all, that Christian canon claims all human blood debt has been paid for all of human time.

If it is true that humans ought to seek some version of Correct Action in the name of their spiritual practice, then so be it--for those humans in particular. But for those humans, who, like me, care to live in this moment, acting and living later with the consequences of those actions (intended and otherwise) what if the constant search for Correct Action is merely a grand and eternally fruitless quest? What if Order and Chaos are one idea with two descriptions?

Some biologists speak of a Natural Order to the known universe. Most, however, will describe a set of data and then place it within a context of cyclical change which is neither good nor bad, simply statistically normative. A geologist I met while in Tucson, AZ claimed to me that Philosophy was merely an Artistic Idea that had yet to harden into Science. That geologist claimed to believe in the existence of G-d from an experiential model. In all other areas of his thinking life, he relied upon modern scientific notions of Truth. For defining his spiritual thoughts, however, he relied upon the personal euphoria he felt as he skied the Rockies. Perhaps if he were an expert in human anatomy, he might determine that his prooftext (feeling the presence of G-d at a point in time when his brain was flooded with dopamine) could be explained both with art-words (rapture) and science-words (euphoria) and still lack a universally recognized definition for G-d.

Virago's Version

2006-06-29T17:30:00.000-05:00

This vacuum you speak of ... why do you place it in the context of choices? Is it that the power of the void pulls at you from different directions of that crossroads? Whenever I've felt the aches of soul-longings, it usually begins a cycle of deep, multi-level and permanent change. I notice that for a time people and events change rapidly around me as I sort of rearrange the details of who I am and how I am in the world. I'm famous for quitting my life, you see. What isn't published in that story of "Catherine the Wanderer: continuing tales of the Prodigal" are the consequences of leaving one life for another: joy. bliss. a further settling into my self. a refining of my abilities to act in this broken world.

More soon... my neck aches from too much work and not enough play. /nm

just saying hi

2006-06-26T19:26:00.000-05:00

i made it on here. i'm just sitting in the aftereffects of my acupuncture listening to the rain and traffic outside my screen door. my last ciggarette was the day after i left your place, but i think if i did still smoke now would be perfect time to go outside and truely enjoy the experience. i feel a bit lost today. my workout was good, and my friends are around to make me feel loved and welcome. but some unknown force is out there leaving a hole in my would be soul that feels a deep desire to be filled in permanently. i don't know what caused it, but today it feels deeper than ever. don't worry about me, im not depressed. just at a crossroads where neither track seems all that appealing and turning around isn't an option.

Kevin
(i've been called Kevin 3 times today, so that must be a sign, i will go by this name for now)

Today. Is. Bright.

2006-06-25T11:25:00.000-05:00

Noelle: im hung. too much fun. not enough sleep. and ... 48 hours later im hung? wtf.

Blue Scorpions spin through my head as I contemplate the coin of Hate-Love. Don't you find that when someone asks or dares you to hate them they are actually crying out for some form of affection? of love? What if that english word "hate" is really a locked-down desire for .... you?

Hmm. i need more wine. /n.m.

Muses

2005-06-03T13:48:00.001-05:00

I met a man whose eyes reflect a universe of Cerulean. They say the Aegean looks like that when the summer sun stills her waves.

(They lie.)

His fat feet, capable of flight, use only nanowebs of gravity to pull me in. His back, downy with curls ... subtle curls one must touch to see. His skin vibrates an entire spectrum of colour. His smallest finger capable of steadying even me.