A NATURAL RESPONSE TO OPPRESSION

What occurs when a people lose their land, their cultural identities, their self-esteem? What happens when a people are no longer able to live freely, celebrate their beliefs, their triumphs, and weep together as one? When their culture is a diverse and fascinating part of their life one moment and then like a fire, extinguished by all visible accounts?

Despair, disbelief, discouragement and apathy set in.  Whether approaching as quietly as a snake slithering through tall rushes, or coming in as a thick bank of dismal gray fog, or cascading down in torrents of icy sleet, despair sets in.

It has happened to many people, over and over, documented throughout history.  These take the usual routes. Men who had invigorating work fending for and feeding their families are now left to sit and gnaw on the sinewy bone of worthlessness. Women, who once held their heads high, must sweep the poverty laden dust with broken shoulders and suppressed grief. Children, once playing and laughing, as they learned the ways of their elders, are now silent, their deep eyes full of bewilderment as they stare with hollowed eyes and bulging, hungry bellies at the adults who once laughed, cuddled, fed and comforted them.

Alcohol slips in, to numb the pain, to dispel grief, to give even if only momentarily, the reminiscing of better times. Drugs appear, to bring oblivion to those whom alcohol can no longer comfort. Both of these bring anger, and anger raises its violent head in fury. Fists fly and domestic violence, once a rarity, becomes the norm.

This happened to the Wind River Shoshone, crowded into poverty conditions on a reservation; despair, discouragement, alcohol, and anger became a routine. A routine that had to be broken.

The Wind River Shoshones migrated from the Great Basin area toWyoming. There they were one of the first of the Northern Plains people to obtain horses and as warriors and nomadic buffalo hunters from two distinct heritages they carved a life and impressive history for themselves. These activities were highly valued and gave the men dominance as they provided for their homes and families. It was an identity that empowered their self-worth and dignity.

And then oppression came,

There never seems to be a lack of groups of people to be persecuted,  Native Americans, Africans forced into slavery, Christians dying at the hands of the Romans, Jews dying  at the hands of Christians,  Irish immigrants, Russian immigrants,  now Mexican immigrants entering America. Women and children being property  with no rights,  Salem witch trials,  Rwanda and other mass ethnic genocide, Interracial marriages, marriage across religious lines, it goes on and on.  People always seem to forget that their people were once on the receiving end of such persecution;   those whose families were previously targeted and oppressed often become the oppressors.

Any new change or idea is often seen as a danger, a threat to society:  the concept that the earth isn’t the center of the universe,  the theory of evolution,  the idea that women can think for themselves,  medical advances, global warming,  the mere idea that it is okay for someone to be different from oneself,  all these have gotten defensive responses which are based on fear of losing one’s own sense of how the universe works.  Yet time and again, it has been shown that change is not the end of the world and that adaptation is possible.  Even if one doesn’t fully accept what one doesn’t understand, they can still adapt to it.

Native Americans, Africans, Immigrants, Women, People of different religious backgrounds,  have all shown that adaptation is hard; a trial often difficult to endure. They have demonstrated the tenacity of the human soul and the spirit of survival and through the reclamation of their culture they have broken the devastating affects that despair had wrought.

And now it is our turn, despite the anger, the bigotry,  the oppression.  There has always been homosexuals, even in nature many species have homosexual traits.   It is our turn to stand up and claim our place.  There is too much hatefulness.   Prejudices are human made.  All that was ever said was love one another for loves sake.   It is an often used political tool to use and prey on the fears and anxieties of a larger group to target a smaller group that is visibly different and without power in order to divert attention from the true sources of oppression and to maintain a hold on power.

It was our usual Saturday routine,  I headed to your house expecting to see your intense brown eyes and sleep styled black hair as your peered from your upstairs window, always feigning sleepy surprise.  I didn’t see you this morning.

I knocked on your door and waited as your mother answered the door, her eyes red rimmed and her cheeks streaked with tears.  She was still talking as I walked away,  my mind blocking out her voice.

In school that week, I talked to no-one. I angrily brushed away hands offered in commiseration.  I watched angrily as the bus you used to hop off of left at the end of each relentless day.

Saturday found me following our usual routine.  I knocked on your door, then I remembered, and walked quickly away before your mother could answer.

Later at the mall, I turned to ask you something, expecting to hear your deep laughter, but again, I caught myself.

For you are not here

I bought lunch, then realized I had ordered your favorite and tears burned my eyes.

That night, I called your name in my sleep and I awoke with a start.

How do I go on when there is so much I need to tell you?

There are so many things I need to ask.

Why did you go?

Why didn’t you call me?

Or did you, and I didn’t listen?

While I took you for granted, a permanent fixture in my life, my best friend,

You wrote  a note apologizing for being gay and then

YOU went into your bedroom and took your life.

Not even saying goodbye.

Did you know you were loved?  Did you know your parents loved you?  Did you know I loved you?

Maybe not as well as I should have

but as well as I knew how…

The city lights deceive one into believing there is life: fast paced, exciting, with mingling crowds, no loneliness, a warmth of close knit togetherness.

In reality the city lights blind one from seeing:  constant motion, high stress, harsh competition, a biting hunger for silence,  lonely nights, hectic days.

The city lights lure dreamers, climbers of passion,  sun scrubbed farm youth yearning for glitter,  little girls yearning to prove they are grown,  ambitious youth answering the call of fortune and fame.

At first the city is overwhelming, exhilarating, bewitchingly beautiful.   Ominous buildings creating a ravine between them where a mighty river of yellow taxis devour the litter strewn streets. A lone cherry tree struggles to stand proud in a field of concrete.  Thousands of people rushing like a flurry of sparrows,  every imaginable language singing through the air.  Panhandlers and millionaires sharing life side by with every average person from every walk of life.  Dramatic graffiti of our youth, defying the stagnant colors of an overcrowded world with bright splashes of life.  Multi-million dollar buildings whose beauty can not compete with the beauty of a vacant lot, where children scratch together a kickball game on the broken brick and weed strewn dirt.

In a city, a person can feel the hardship of the poor and the loneliness of the wealthy.  The city can be both loved and hated.  A person must be able to hold on to their humanity, compassion, their sense of connection,  and their inner strengths.

IF NOT

Then  the city slowly drowns out the homespun laughter, and the compassion for others.  The light in their eyes becomes dull as the daily grind pushes their dreams to the side to make time for making rent.

In a city people seldom know their neighbors.

In a city people  seldom know themselves.

 

Reblogged from ironplowciel:

When the earth is reined in/fenced in/ forced to bend to the arrogant will of mankind, it will retaliate.  It will fight back and the people’s conceit and blatant disregard for nature will be thrown into their faces as they are crushed beneath mountains, swallowed deep into the earth’s fiery center. As we manipulate the ground, changing earth’s contours,  reshaping the land to fit human desires, sending rockets, missiles deep into the earth to explode, mining and drilling, causing stress on the tectonic plates,  we should not be surprised when large jagged sections of the wounded earth open wide, bucking and roiling, and there should be no question why the ocean rushes into cities and valleys.

Read more… 197 more words

When the earth is reined in/fenced in/ forced to bend to the arrogant will of mankind, it will retaliate.  It will fight back and the people’s conceit and blatant disregard for nature will be thrown into their faces as they are crushed beneath mountains, swallowed deep into the earth’s fiery center. As we manipulate the ground, changing earth’s contours,  reshaping the land to fit human desires, sending rockets, missiles deep into the earth to explode, mining and drilling, causing stress on the tectonic plates,  we should not be surprised when large jagged sections of the wounded earth open wide, bucking and roiling, and there should be no question why the ocean rushes into cities and valleys.

Where will the people be?  How far will guns, wealth and greed get them? As mankind asserts in boastful voice of their superiority over all living things, as mankind kills itself through genocidal wars and prejudices,  at the moment the earth is relatively silent.  But as we continue to poison our waterways, burn fossil fuels, strip forests bare,  pollute land and water with plastic, styrofoam, and massive landfills, we are continuing  to abuse, exploit, and damage the earth. And we are marking the time off that the earth can serve us comfortably, in the same manner a convict on death row draws x’s on his cell wall, for when the end will come.

When the earth can no longer sustain us and tires of man’s pathetic violence, it will bring forth from it’s center a thunderous roar and devour what mankind has created.  What then will be left but but crumbling concrete and gutted cities?  The earth will slowly mend when it has rid itself of the most destructive parasite, humankind.  There will be naught left of the  ”Superior Ones” except a few jagged scars and no one will be around to wonder why.

The snow  continues to amaze me.  One day the land is brittle and brown.  Dry patches of straw colored grass cling to the hard packed earth.  Everything is stark in winters cold and harsh colors of browns, grays, and beiges.  I pile hay into the wheel barrow and trudge across the wind swept paddock to feed the horses.  They are clumped together, backs turned to lessen the wind, white steam coming in bursts from their velvety muzzles, small bits of ice clinging to thier whiskers.  They whicker halfheartedly as I place the hay in front of them.  The pony immediately lies down in it’s warmth and the two mares stamp their hooves and lay back their ears.  The sorrel pony lunges to her feet at the impending threat, but she isn’t frightened, she lays her ears back and begins to munch the hay while standing in the pile.  The mares know this routine, and begin to eat from around her.  That day  I finish my chores and turn the heat lamps on for the smaller creatures and go to bed. 

In the morning the world is white.  Not an off white, but a brillant, glaring white.  The cedars are draped in lace, the meadow is thick with a fresh white blanket.  The fence posts have tophats of white.  The air is warmer somehow, and still.  Everything feels utterly still.  As if the new blanket of snow has brought about the slumber that the land so desperately craved.

I turn completely around as I gaze at the snow laden world.  It is amazing.  All of the untidiness of the farm looks elegant draped in white.  The wooden bench, buckets, wheelbarrow, all lined delicately with a white frosted border. Everything looks pristine, somehow random items throughout the farm look planned, set in just the right spots as to enhance the snowfall. 

The snow is fresh and bright, I am loathe to mar it with my footprints.  But the sable rough collies have no such worry.  They race about in the snow, rolling in the drifts, their barking louder, somehow more joyous.  They scatter the chickens,  all clustered on a small, dry patch beneath a maple, clucking worriedly to one another about the strangely wet world, that was so dry just yesterday.  Gold and gray Flemish Giant rabbits race to greet me, leaping high throught the snowdrifts, leaving wonderfully designed footprints behind them.

The horses and calves raise their heads, blowing great billows of steam, and whicker greetings.  The Quarter horse kicks up her heels and races about the paddock.  Even the pony looks more invigorated.

I add my footprints to the freshly fallen canvas.

The snow continues to amaze me.

 

     Drive down any long, winding freeway through any state in America, taking in the beauty of tall cedars, towering conifers, or mountains straining to greet the sky, or lakes pristine and sparkling, or drop into deserts of sand sculpture and stark, haunting beauty. Pull into any of the many scenic rest stops and relax awhile before proceeding down the roadway. Drive past small towns tucked into mountain coves or set, picture perfect, alongside ocean shores. Drive past small cities, or a giant metropolis. Take any exit you choose and drop into any town or city, small or large. Cruise through bustling business districts and watch people in their suits carrying briefcases, coffee and cell phones.  Then turn down the quiet residential streets. See homes painted bright, peaceful colors, notice the many flowers overflowing across pristine walkways. Watch people mowing lawns, walking their dogs. Watch children swinging in any of the many parks. Or biking and skating along tree lined sidewalks. Drink in the beauty of America.

   But as you go about your pleasant day, do not, do not scratch the surface.

For beneath the surface of America’s beautifully sculpted facade lies a reality that defies the very core of america and the land of the free.

    If you scratch the surface you may notice as you fly along the potholed, patchworked freeways, the stark bare mountains stripped by clear cutting. You might notice the large gouges ripped deep into the mountains. Or you might notice heavy smog painting away the once azure sky. Or perhaps you will notice the pollution creating a murky scum across the surface of a dying lake.  Or maybe notice the strip mining that is destroying this country’s Native culture as it rips apart sacred desert land in the name of technological progress.

    If you scratch the surface you may be forced to notice the  faded, desperate poverty of small towns cowering against scarred mountains. Or see cities decorated with the graffiti of desperation and hate. You may need to pull into a forlorn rest stop to catch your breath, watching with unease as unfamiliar vehicles pull in alongside you.

    You can still take any exit you choose and drop into any town or city, small or large. Cruise through the business districts, taking note of the homeless and hungry, who are mingling amid the stressed out business people, as they try to balance an overload of work, while gulping stale, overpriced coffee and accepting with resignation that they are forever tied to a cell phone like a dog chained with no chance of escape.

   Turn down the residential streets. See the fading paint on houses that once held dreams before the lay-offs of large factories and mills. Notice weary people mowing patches of lawn choked with dandelions and thistle. Dogs, being walked, heads down, tails tucked in, as weary as their owners. Watch children swinging under the watchful gaze of nervous parents in one of the many patrolled parks. Or biking and skating along broken concrete sidewalks, nervously avoiding the drug dealer as he leans against a stolen car.  

   If you scratch beneath the beauty o fAmerica, you may be forced to see the oppression, the squalor, the rape of a once bountiful country. If you scratch beneath the beauty of America, you may discover the truth, you may see the downtrodden, the lost, the lonely. You may even see the invisible children.

         

                             

What can be more mysterious than discovering life? How does one finally learn how to not only live, but to laugh and enjoy being a part of a large whole?

 As one takes in their first view of the ocean, the pounding waves and rugged cliffs, the mystery of what is the ocean imbeds itself in one’s mind. Then the exploration of discovering tides, sea anemones, whales, the continental shelf. Taking the time to explore everything that the ocean encompasses. It becomes not just the beautiful experience of having seen the ocean, it becomes a journey of discovering all there is to know about the ocean.

  Or to take a street child who has never known stability and placing them in a stable home. What goes on in houses? How do these people stay in homes and keep everything going? There is the beauty of realizing, of finally discovering, that they are safe. Although they are entering the unknown, there comes the moment when they really realize what being part of a family is. When the joy of a hug or a smile creates change.

  It is an amazing moment to find out that living is an art. Learning how to blend so many lives together in society. To see that every action and every word is interwoven into a tapestry of community and family. To watch the tiniest pebble that is tossed into a serene lake creating ripples and changing the very essence of  a still body of water. To watch a person stop and help someone pick up their fallen groceries or to join together as a community to fill sandbags and fight as one against the downpour of nature’s storms.

  Each moment that changes perception, thought processes and opens  doors becomes art. Through actions, spoken or written, through paintings and sculptures that are scenes of the soul, when what is created brings change, art has taken place.

  And in all of this, mystery has a hand. “What if’s” become ponderable. What if I fed one person other than myself today? What if I handed someone a blanket? What if I helped someone learn to read or write? Every “what if” can create the ripples in the serene lake, causing momentum towards something greater.

  When one sculpts, paints, or creates any form of visual or audio art, there is the mystery. There is the build-up of emotions and the discovery of possibilities. Taking a media and bringing it to life is a drive and a need for the artist. There is the discovery and amazement as what takes shape through the unknown becomes a reality.           

  The emotion that propels artists to discover what and how the media they are working with can be influenced is a mystery that pushes them to a plane that is higher than simple reality. There is an intricate exploration that pushes them to continue discovering what can be created and brought into existence.

  In science the need to question and analyze the unknown, and even to question what seems to be fact is what fuels discovery. There is an art to asking scientific questions and developing hypotheses which can be tested through further exploration. The mystery of what might be opens doors into the unknown, challenging concepts, triumphing over obstacles, and at times amending and revising beliefs. The unknown and the “what if’s” of the mysterious fuel the process of change. In lower Paleolithic times Homo habilis wondered what would happen if they manipulated a rock to aid in their chores, an intrigue which brought forth tool usage. They are credited with the first chopper tools. In upper Paleolithic times Homo sapiens began to view the world on a broader scale. They discovered ways to mix the most rudimentary of paints, and are credited with depicting images of hunts and animals, as can be witnessed in the caves of Lascaux inFrance.

  Each period of civilization has had art and science at the forefront. Even if it is of the simplest design or discovery, it has brought change.

  Children are the greatest holders of the beauty that encompasses true art and science. Their curiosity and their lack of fear, if nurtured, allows them to explore and discover every blade of grass, the sound of crickets, the feel of wet mud as it is used to paint on the driveway and to question and explore the world. From the moment one is born, they are surrounded by art and science. Every angle and line that they see is interpreted and filed away for future use. Every step at the beginning is a mystery. “Where will it lead to?” “What will happen when I get there?” “Where else can I go?”

  Art and science are integral parts of one another. They are an expression of curiosity and of the mysteries of what can be. What could happen if the drive to venture deeper into the unknown is great enough to be explored?

       Everything that exists and may exist in the future is an art form and a science. The unknown and the “what if’s” of the mysterious fuel the process of change. Each period of civilization has had art and science at the forefront. Even if it is of the simplest design or discovery, it has brought change.

The mysterious brings out the emotion of an inner burning curiosity which opens doors into new ways to see the world in which we live.  There is a drive which does not stop when one is consumed with the unknown. Everything becomes more meaningful and with greater possibilities those who are curious seek the mysterious to find new paths to forge and new ways to express, describe, and benefit themselves and others.

The greatest mystery is of learning how to use the knowledge and curiosity that one acquires. Of knowing that knowledge is unstoppable, cannot be taken away and is a tool greater than any other. It becomes the tool in which one can mold themselves like a piece of clay, creating who they wish to be and how they wish to be seen by others. Knowledge is a tool that enables someone to think logically and to find workable solutions to life’s problems and challenges. And it grows! It never stops growing as long as it is fed and as long as one is curious enough to continue questioning everything that this universe has to offer.

Life could happen and it does. One can live but one cannot be fully alive without the drive of the unknown, the risks and trials of failure, and the need to discover and grow.

Spent the morning making a temporary chute to send the Angus cows off to meet the bull of their dreams.  Big, burly cattle driver put his rig in my ditch.  Finally pulled out and went to load the cows. He couldn’t believe how tamely my girls went into his trailer.  I couldn’t believe it either, but I wasn’t about to let him know that.  After he left, I caught the insane mare that has been creating havoc and trying to prove she is alpha out in the field.  I spent 3 sweat driven hours, reshowing her ground manners and demanding some basic behavior from her.  She was stunned that I actually expected her to remember that she was completely trained and had once upon a time been a sweet horse.

Then it was time to batton down the hatches, rehang heat lamps for the new batch of chicks and for the flemish rabbits.  The snow is light and steady, just brushing the ground  like powdered sugar. but the wind is brittle, stinging as it whips itself against any exposed skin. My partner is so worried that the animals are cold, despite all of my efforts to give them heat, straw, and shelter,  yet I remind her, of the condition of the laundry room when the lambs had control of it last February.  And the condition of the kitchen when the pygmy goat abided there.  Or the bathroom after litters of rabbits and clutches of chicks spent their beginning weeks in our once lovely jacuzzi tub.   “Animals belong Outside!” I growl as I tuck a small bunny under my coat.  She laughs and opens her coat pocket to reveal two chicks snuggled deep.

I completely understand the need to keep marriage between a man and a woman.  After all, straight people hold the sanctity of marriage and of their vows so very seriously.  There are no cheating spouses, no heartbroken partners, no one left at home waiting for their wayward, legally bound loved one to return from a night of carousing.  There is no divorce, after all, straight people honor their vows,  they never get married, divorced, married again, divorced, etc. etc., they don’t use their children as a pawn to get back at one another, they never blend step children, half siblings, jointly shuffled back and forth children, they really just stay home and honor those important vows.  No one, male or female, is left alone to raise the children either.

There are no drug problems, abuse issues, or neglect issues. It is all a fairy tale lane when a marriage has been sanctified by the state (which never involves itself in religious matters) or by a church.  Where of course, we all know, abuse never occurs in churches.

There are no abusive spouses, no victimized spouses, no terrorized children.

Straight people have done so well with marriage. Just look at the statistics. No prison records, no police records, just honorable citizens raising their children in Mayberry.  And of course, no straight, legally married, church going man and woman have ever, ever raised a gay child!

Besides, don’t we live in a country where only one religion is recognized and the state is governed by that specific religion?

hmmm