Blog no more

I am discontinuing this blog. Maybe one day I'll get around to writing again.

Rescued

Yesterday was a BAD day, horrible for reasons I am not going to get into right now. I managed to get by but nothing was going to make me laugh, that's for sure. Then, Kaya returned home from her Dad's and proved me wrong.

Kaya and I were brushing our teeth before bed. Our bathroom is next to the cat boxes. Our roommate Sheila has a dog named Ozzie who, from time to time, gets into the litter boxes (ew!). As Kaya and I were getting ready to brush our teeth, she said to me "We should label the cat boxes with Raz & Sassy's names so that way Ozzie will stay out." I laughed and asked if she thought the animals could read. She replied, "Yes, they read!!" to which I responded with more laughter. At this point, Kaya exasperatedly states, "Cats and dogs can read. Animals can read!" I see how serious she is and respond with, "You're right. Animals can read - we're animals and we can read. I must admit tho that I haven't seen cats and dogs reading books." This was it. I had pushed her over the edge. She placed her hands on her hips, rolled her eyes, and said, "Of COURSE they don't read books - they don't have opposable thumbs! They read LABELS!"

Giving Thanks

I want to write and acknowledge how damn fortunate and lucky I am. Back in 2000, I was working for Eagle Electric. One of the jobs that I spent a whole lot of time on was a custom multi-million dollar home on the Lynnhaven River in VB. I came into the job as it was transitioning from roughing in to trimming out. I worked on the job until it was done. As a result, I got to see the family move in with all of their opulent art and furniture in place. The house itself was a work of art and gorgeous but all of the things weren't captivating to me. The land captivated me. There was something to the energy of the place that I could never shake. The job ended for me in early spring 2001 yet I continued to dream of that house and that land for years to follow. At least two to three times a year, for the last ten years, I would dream that I was back at the house and a part of that land.
Imagine my surprise last June when a friend of mine invited me to help a friend of hers with a landscaping job at the same house. I shared my story about the house with her and accepted the offer to earn some money. This was only about a month after my husband had left the children and me. I was freaking out over what I was going to do to make ends meet. I was beyond grateful to get out there and earn extra money. The homeowner recognized me when I arrived to work. He and I talked about where life had taken me in the years that followed. I explained how I went from doing electrical work to earning a biochemistry degree from Virginia Tech to working in the eye and tissue donation industry to being a stay home homeschooling mom. I also explained to him that my future was uncertain as my husband had just left and I wasn't sure what I was going to do in the months to come. I worked out there a few times in June and then was invited back to work in July. This time the homeowner asked if I could work for him directly. After two months of a lot of stuff that I am not going to get into here, I began working about 16 hours a week for this family.
My mother made a tongue in cheek comment at the time that maybe they'd adopt me. In many respects, that's exactly what they did. They have 10 acres of manicured gardens - WAY too much for me to maintain by myself in 16 hours. It is enough to keep two people busy for at least 40 hours a week nine months out of the year. The homeowner's recently told me this: "We like you and we like what you do. If we're helping you accomplish your parenting goals by minimally employing you here, then we are happy to keep you working". I honestly don't know how I would have made it through the last six months if this family hadn't given me the work. One thing is certain: we would have had to go back to a more mainstream way of life. I more than likely would have had to put the kids back into public school. I cannot even begin to express how grateful I have been for this opportunity.

One little section of the land...

FaceBook: Cause & Solution to All of Our Problems

I have a burning desire to erase all of my content off of my facebook page and deactivate my account. For serious. Just be done with it. I like life. I like living life in REAL life. I feel like I could accomplish so much more if it were gone.

On the other hand...
I have so many people that I keep in touch with via facebook. FB becomes this pseudo connection for me with others, especially when I feel isolated during the winter. It's also how I keep on top of what's going on in a variety of movements and know when I need to help spread the word on pending issues.

Maybe I should just get rid of this profile and create one with the sole purpose of staying in touch with other activists ( especially my network here in VA). Hmmm... decisions, decisions.

WordPress: should I?

I've noticed that most blogs I read and follow are published through WordPress, which has me wondering... am I missing something? Is it a better tool than Blogger? What advantages exist that I am unaware of? It appears to me that Blogger is very user friendly whereas I can't seem to even find the option to develop a blog template on my WordPress account. So, to my friends who use WordPress over Blogger: what is it that you like about it? Please educate me =)

Killer Coke House

My home has become a collective house in the last two weeks. This part of our journey began back in September. The separation papers were finally signed and I knew I needed a roommate to be able to make the rent without going back to work full time. My good friend Susan suggested her friend Sheila. It was a match & Sheila moved in. A few months later, my friend (& kids' babysitter) needed a place. Sheila, the kids and I agreed that Becca could move into the sun room and she joined us the last week of January. We had our first house meal/meeting a week ago yesterday.
Us adults share the same world view. We believe in mutual aid, sharing our resources, and sharing in the household chores. We have lots of political posters and pamphlets around our house. One poster hanging is this one:

We also believe in allowing the kids to have a voice in the process. The five of us were bantering back and forth over what our house name should be during dinner the other night. We asked the kids for their input. Kaya energetically exclaimed, "I think we should call us the Killer Coke house!" We all busted out laughing and decided NOT to opt for that name - can't imagine how long before the DEA would come knocking ;-) In the meantime, the brain storming continues...

How To Be Alone

I figure after that wretched post this morning, I should follow up with something on a more positive note. Great, inspirational video =)

Sexting or Disrespect ?

I have a male acquaintance who I've been getting to know since October. We connect really well on a mental level. I find him attractive. So what's the issue? We don't share the same core values. He is a fervent capitalist. I'm not. He sees women as objects to fulfill his sexual desires. I see people for who they are - people. We talked about this last week. I have shared with him in the last few months my philosophy on clean love and honest seduction. He read the links then completely dismissed me. I brought it up again during our discussion. He dismissed me again. I told him that, although I love our conversations and find him attractive, I am not interested in taking our relationship any further. I can't connect on a physical level with someone who I don't feel respects my beliefs nor respect me for who I am. I didn't really get a response from him before he had to leave.

Now, this morning I received the following picture from him via text message:


NOTE: I removed the picture. This gives you an idea though...
This picture text came to me with no worded message. This is the first time he's contacted me since our conversation. I felt so disrespected when I opened this. This text message just validates my reasons for not getting involved with him. I know I'll laugh in a day or so, but for now I'm off to clean away my exasperation.

Transparency...

...feels good to me. What can I say? I find comfort in truth and clarity. Unfortunately, I am carrying a heavy weight that I have been asked not to share with others. I am filled with doubt and mistrust towards this person since they disclosed their situation to me (and promptly swore me to secrecy). I am not sure how to proceed and don't feel like I can really process it with anyone. I'm feeling rather overwhelmed and resentful at the moment. I don't feel certain in my next steps and I don't enjoy this feeling of impending darkness that seems to be lurking over me now.

Light & Dark

I was laying in bed with my daughter while she fell asleep tonight. I decided to dig into my old poetry more. I found two to share, one light and the other dark.
Here ya go....

Sage

old, magnificent
historic scents
through wintry blasts
or thunderous storms
still you have stood
so complex yet so simple
carrying the wisdom of generations

When the sun warms your rough texture
seeping into the cracks
engulfing the green
swelling your essence with life and warmth
a gaze in your direction
is all one needs
to feel at peace
energy of the ancients
radiate from your core
enigma abounds
what has blessed us with your beauty?


Dark

its presence blinds me
I protectively cover my face with my arms
squinting my eyes
I realize
the light is warm...

gentle...

calling my name
Slowly
lowering my arms
I bow my head
taking in the warmth

Engulfing
covering my body like a cocoon
I place my foot forward...
gently...
carefully...
treading where I never before dared to wander
I feel safe.

Suddenly
something is snapping at my back
at the backs of my ankles...
at the back of my mind

I turn
looking behind me
my safety is shattered
Darkness is surrounding me
bitter cold brushing my skin
phallic monsters begin to chase me
voices
Oh please save me from this hell
Will you cry when I die?
No.
Don't tell anybody....
Yes, I'll be there
Sorry I didn't show
Don't call me, Don't write me
NO! I don't want to!!

I stop running.

I remember

that is all behind me
I turn
It is calling me...
the light...
the safety...
the security...
Its presence blinds me no longer

Empower the Children

I've had a lot of feelings come up in the last week surrounding my children and how they are treated by various people in our lives. It has reminded me of this poem that I wrote in 1998. It's intensely personal yet I feel like I need to share it.

hello?
Hell-O?!
doesn't ANYBODY hear me?
you know, I may be short but I'm still here!
Remember me - the child you brought into the world?
why is it that nobody hears my voice?
"Children are meant to be seen, not heard."
I'm no less human because I am a child.

I think about things....
I wonder...
What if this is all a dream and I'm not even human - I'm a part of a different species.
I hope...
that my mom will leave Frank or that my Dad will come and rescue me.
I love...
my sister (protector) , my dog.
I fear...
crying myself to sleep, imagining living with Frank if my mother died.

See?
I have feelings too.
Please!
Just take the time to get to me know me,
the child.
Help give me a voice.

Believe in me,
Believe in the children.
Give us plenty of love,
Hug us,
Praise us
ask us about our feelings
This is all we need.
"Empower the children,
Empower the future"

Written for ALL children who are meant to be seen AND heard.

Don't Burst My Bubble

My friend gave me the following mantra to repeat to myself when I feel like I am being sucked into other people's negativity:

I am surrounded by a barrier of positive energy, through which only positive energy may enter. If I am confronted by negative energy, it will NOT affect me. It will pass through and exit in a positive way.

This lunar cycle has been nothing but one huge challenge to this mantra. It feels like hell has been building since the new moon: an ugly altercation with someone I consider to be a close friend, childhood fears/insecurities coming to the surface, and the ever constant struggle of dealing with my ex's ups and downs. I can hear my grandma in my head, "That which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger". I feel like I should be a demi goddess by this point. This thought leads me to this quote, "Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures." I am sucking it up and doing my best not to whine. I am remembering to count to 90 before responding to a charged remark in my direction while taking many deep breaths in the interim. With that said, I am not backing down on my positions. I am FINALLY in a space where it is safe to be who I really am. People will either accept me or they won't. I will no longer live my life according to other people's expectations. This doesn't mean I will stop making collective decisions based on the greater good. It just means that I am no longer willing to allow myself to be used and sucked dry. I often liken this feeling to the following:

See where the guy is helping that child put on his mask? He couldn't do that if he hadn't put his mask on first. In relation to myself, I can't help anyone else if I don't take care of myself. I have to meet my own needs. I cannot expect other people to do it for me.

With all of this said, sitting here on the eve of the winter solstice and new year, I feel in my bones that this year is going to be huge - not just for myself, but for everyone. Huge changes are coming our way and how we deal with those changes will deeply depend on our acceptance and mindfulness of whatever comes to the surface. I think this sums my feelings up nicely:

Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience.
It isn't more complicated that that.
It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is,
without either clinging to it or rejecting it.
Sylvia Boorstein

Year in Review

I've decided I'm going to do a year in review with songs.... Hope you enjoy it.

January -


February


March


April


May


June


July


August


September


October


November


December

Writing

I need to be doing more of it. The last 6+ months have been so personally heavy that I have utterly neglected this blog. I feel the blog calling me. It's saying, "Sara - get back to me! Share your feelings again!" I will heed its call. Expect a certain outburst of posts in the near future.

Wayside Cup - Team Radnecks

As many of you are already aware, I have been working REALLY hard for The Wayside Center for Popular Education. If you don't know what Wayside is about yet, check out their website here: www.waysidecenter.org. In the meantime, here's an excerpt from their "About Us" section:
"Inspired by the Highlander Center in Tennessee, we envision a vibrant center where activists, organizers and other justice-loving folks can come together for education, training, socializing, rest, renewal, healing, fun and whatever else it takes to grow and be nurtured into a movement powerful enough to create the world we want to live in."

Food Not Bombs Norfolk has entered a team to participate in the first annual Wayside Cup Event. This is a grassroots fundraiser to help Wayside fund their projects and workshops such as "....permaculture workshops, anti-racism training, organizational retreats for long-range planning, interpreting for social justice workshops, skill-shares, cultural events...grow our own food and experiment with, learn about and eventually model ways that we can live more sustainably." I am writing to you today in hopes that you may be able to donate $5 to $10 in our team's name. All donations made in "Team Radnecks" name will help put us closer to bringing home the trophy and bring Wayside closer to achieving their goals. If this is something you can support, please go here: http://www.waysidecenter.org/donate.php

Thanks everyone!!!
=)

Pakistan

The content of this poem might change. This is just what I came up with so far.

How many times
Have we seen this scene
Replayed over and over again in time
Children crying
Men punching and climbing like ants scurrying to the pie
Women bawling hands up to the sky while
Scarce bags of rice are flung at sheer
desparation by the naked emperor's army while we
Sit back
Admiring the emperor's sleek and shimmering new robe
Or
More aptly
Lightly carressing the iphone in our hands, pacified on technology's tit
Flipping from CNN to ...lost to lose the image in a blink
while never pondering
"why?"

Clean Love

This is an excerpt from a book I am reading. It deeply resonated with me so I thought I would share.

Can you imagine love without jealousy, without possessiveness- love cleaned of all its clinginess and desperation? Let's try. We can take some thoughts from Buddhism: What would it be like to love without attachment? Or to open our hearts to someone with no expectation beyond another heart opening in return? Loving just for the joy of it, regardless of what we might get back?
Imagine seeing the beauty and virtues of a beloved and letting go of how their strengths might meet our needs or how their beauty might make us look better.
Imagine seeing another in a clean light of love, without enumerating the ways in which that person does and does not match up to the fantasy we carry around of our perfect mate or dream lover.
Imagine meeting another person in the freedom and innocence of childhood and playing together, without plotting how to make this person give us the kind of love we wish we could have gotten in our actual childhood.
But...but...but. What if you open your heart to someone and you don't like what happens next? Suppose that person gets drunk? Or treats your open affection with scorn? What if this person doesn't fulfill your dreams? What if this one turns out just like the last one? Suppose all those things do happen. What have you lost? A little time, a brief fantasy. Let it go, learn from it, and go find someone more worthy of your love.
Love doesn't much take to being stuffed into forms, which is what everybody's fantasies and imaginings are: custom-built plans for a constructed individual they've created to solve all their problems. Your authors have dream lovers too. But people are not made of clay or stone, and it won't work well to approach them with a chisel. Look what happened to Pygmalion.
How many times have you rejected the possibility of love because it didn't look the way you expected it to? Perhaps some characteristic was missing you were sure you must have, some other trait was present that you never dreamed of accepting. What happens when you throw away your expectations and open your eyes to the fabulous love that is shining right in front of you, hilding out its hand?
Clean love: love without expectations.
Wishing your love clean doesn't require advanced spirituality or weekly psychoanalysis. You'll probably never let go of every single attachment - at least we've never managed it. But maybe you can let go just for an instant: your history, worries, frets, and yearnings will still be there to come back to you when you need them. Just for now, take a look at the nifty person who is standing right in front of you.

Waiting on the Hierophant to Talk

not scream
throw smoke bombs
divert and dance away.
just talk.

meanwhile the time ticks away

tickticktick

the tears keep streaming

.:drip:. .:drip:. .:drip:.

What's a woman to do?

Keep getting gray while waiting for the day that the transformation takes place?

-OR-

Stop waiting for the hierophant to meet my own needs

Nine years gone already

pieces of me blowing

bit by bit

grit by grit

until only my old bones are left.

The hierophant will no longer keep me from myself. Time is up. I will take my power back.

Love is just a four letter word...

I found this really cool old video of Joan Baez playing this song with Earl Scruggs.

Here are the lyrics:

Seems like only yesterday
I left my mind behind
Down in the Gypsy Café
With a friend of a friend of mine
She sat with a baby heavy on her knee
Yet spoke of life most free from slavery
With eyes that showed no trace of misery
A phrase in connection first with she I heard
That love is just a four-letter word

Outside a rambling store-front window
Cats meowed 'til the break of day
Me, I kept my mouth shut,
To you I had no words to say
My experience was limited and underfed
You were talking while I hid
To the one who was the father of your kid
You probably didn't think I did, but I heard
You say that love is just a four-letter word

I said goodbye unnoticed
Pushed towards things in my own games
Drifting in and out of lifetimes
Unmentionable by name
After searching for my double, looking for
Complete evaporation to the core
Though I tried and failed at finding any door
I must have thought that there was nothing more absurd
Than that love is just a four-letter word

Though I never knew just what you meant
When you were speaking to your man
I could only think in terms of me
And now I understand
After waking enough times to think I see
The Holy Kiss that's supposed to last eternity
Blow up in smoke, its destiny
Falls on strangers, travels free
Yes, I know now, traps are only set by me
And I do not really need to be assured
That love is just a four-letter word

Strange it is to be beside you, many years the tables turned
You'd probably not believe me if told you all I've learned
And it is very very weird, indeed
To hear words like "forever" plead
so ships run through my mind I cannot cheat
it's like looking in a teacher's face complete
I can say nothing to you but repeat what I heard
That love is just a four-letter word.

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

I logged on with the intention of writing about popular education & the Wayside Center. Instead, I find myself wanting to write about something rather personal. In a way, it is connected to Wayside since Wayside also intends to be a place for personal healing as well as popular education. I think that's what got me on this train of thought to begin with.

Many of my friends are aware of the trauma i endured as a child. I was physically, mentally and sexually abused by my mother's ex husband from 4 until I was 12.5. My mother left him the summer before I turned 13 because I finally point blank told her what he had been doing to me. I will always be so grateful for the fact that my mother believed me and left. I have heard too many survivor's tell the sad tale of their mother's accusing them of lying, blaming them & abandoning them further. Thankfully, that was not my situation.

Thus began my journey of healing, learning to re-wire my brain for love rather than fear, relearning how to connect with others in a healthy, wholesome way. Here I am, 19 years later, still continuing down this healing road. I have often thought of this process as an upward spiral. It is never ending, yet the emotions needing attention ebb & flow. Each time I ascend the spiral, I end up better for it despite the pain & hurt that has to be tended to a long the way. I currently find myself with a whole lot of issues resurfacing, which can sometimes lead to me feeling really frustrated and tired. If I am feeling particularly immature about it all, I throw my hands in the air and say "When will this EVER be OVER??". It is painful and tiresome to continue to grow, push myself beyond the bounds of comfort. In reality though, I wouldn't have it any other way. This cycle of pain & growth is what keeps me evolving, keeps me striving to be a better person to myself and a better parent to my children.

I will leave you all with a poem, the title of this blog, written by Portia Nelson. It has often brought me comfort when I am in a self-deprecating mood in regards to some misstep I have taken or succumbing to old self destructive patterns. I hope that someone out there may find some solace in it as well.

I

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost ... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.

II

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place
but, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
my eyes are open
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V

I walk down another street.