Wally World

I don't surf the Web as my news source but sometimes you run across a story that sparks something and makes you want to shout. Take for example the 100 year-old Walmart greeter who questioned a 37 year-old female shopper on a water bottle purchase and was pushed, causing her to injure her head in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The customer is always right has gone too far; it encourages customers to believe they can bully into getting their own way. I've spoken my views on violence and can't understand where people get their motivation. One thing rings true; the younger generation is angry and they have not been taught to respect their elders.

What's at the core is a belief is that elders are not valuable, and should not work. With a focus on the youth culture, most elders are patronized, mistreated. They are not honored, and we have no modern rituals to bless their role.

Elders incarnate wisdom, which they happily share, in the form of stories. This wisdom can be our saving grace. Elders are helpful in providing perspective on the long-term consequences of any decision. No longer having the strength and energy for battle, they are able to see what is really important. Serving as peacemakers, they put forth solutions in which individual self-interest is better served through cooperation, promoting the best for all concerned.

This centenarian works five days a week, is self-supporting and needs her income. She plans on putting the incident behind her and return to work. Kudos for her courage. And I applaud Walmart for hiring her ten years ago.

Growing up one of my father's nicknames for me was “the Judge.” I'm going to take on that role for the sake of this post; I know nothing of the assailant; but if I were hearing this case; this is what I would enforce on the perpetrator: Jail time on assault and battery charges to learn to treat people differently. Community service in a nursing care facility to remind her that she too will age. And, last, a fine, attacking another over a purchase clearly indicates she doesn't know the value of money, a hit in the wallet will remind her of it's purpose. 

Here Comes...

Yellow Rose of Texas

As a vegetarian, in an act of compassion I did not want animals to suffer, so I embraced the vegan lifestyle. I enjoyed feeling light after a meal and honestly never took to meat. Despite all the legumes and beans I ingested I didn't get enough protein and consequently there were adverse effects.

Had I delved a little deeper I would not have bought leather goods. But somehow that didn't register as cruelty, yet it is.

As a former vegetarian, and now, I have never owned a vinyl handbag (with the exception of one or two that my mother bought me as a very young child), and I refuse to buy anything but genuine leather for my feet. I love the smell of leather and I insist on quality, preferring it over quantity.

My first adolescent handbag was not leather, it was made from wood, in the shape of a box given to me by my father as a Christmas present. Whimsical, it had colorful flowers made from bright jewels, hand painted stems and a handle. I was surprised by its uniqueness and knew I owned something that I would not see elsewhere. A true piece of Art, he purchased it at Neiman Marcus, he had fabulous taste and only bought the best. Returning to school after winter break, I knew I had to create an ensemble that would showcase “my purse” so I choose to wear light colors– my beige culottes with a baby blue angora sweater accessorized by my new pendant watch. The girls (even those who didn't talk to me), marveled at my purse, fascinated by the beauty and glitz of my treasure. As I swung it around, I'd say, “But wait, there's more”, I'd open it and give a peek inside; a built-in-mirror! 

 

Last night while perusing Ebay trying to find a replacement of the Guernica tile –my only purchase from Barcelona that Steven broke, I came across Enid Collins. Originally from Texas, she was the creator of the wooden purse. Astonished by her exquisite designs, that were so eclectic back then but would also work with today's fashions, especially in summer, which indicates that good things never go out of style.

Black Thursday

The definition of materialism is a preoccupation on the material world, rather than intellectual or spiritual concepts.

When I first moved to Europe, I was inconvenienced that retail stores would close during the week at 6 p.m. A year before my arrival, a law had gone into effect that made Thursdays a day in which retail establishments remained open until 8 p.m. Weekend hours were Saturdays from 9-1, and Sundays were closed, since it was a day of rest.

Adjusting to this new schedule I began to see things in a new light; people that worked in retail were treated with respect, not worked as slaves. With everything closed at the same time, it meant people could have leisure time together. Rather than seeing a family going to the mall on Sundays, I saw family outings at the park on bikes, including a grandmother pedaling her cruiser, or families hiking, or at the public swimming pools, physical activities at no cost took precedence. But then again, Europeans choose community over convenience and clearly do things differently from us. Yet their lives seemed in many ways richer and fuller. I know mine was. Additionally, many of the museums were free on Sundays which allowed an opportunity to learn about art and develop the mind and soul.

There's something inherently wrong with American businesses open and consumers shopping on Thanksgiving day. It's sick, and a moral degradation. It robs us of the fundamental issue of the holiday- gratitude and repose.  The Pilgrims who were fleeing persecution and created Thanksgiving day have been dishonored by advertisers and greedy retailers whose message is consumption over appreciation as the road to fulfillment.

Seize the Day

To commemorate my passage into adulthood, I celebrated my twenty-first birthday with friends by coming to Las Vegas to experience what all the hoopla was about. On Friday night there were neon lights and nightclubs. Saturday there was a trip to the Stratosphere for a view of the city, shopping, then dinner and a show. By Sunday morning, over breakfast the smell of mildew carpet mixed with cigarettes and the noise was driving me crazy, I heard keno numbers being called out, and I couldn’t wait to get back on the bus and go home. I had no interest in returning.


Decades later, Steven and I are driven here by a realtor and I don't see anyone outside. My husband Steven says, “you won't like the architecture” referring to the tract style homes. Knowing I could turn an ordinary house into a palace of beauty, I said I'd give it five years.


I never thought I would live in Las Vegas. I find casinos repulsive. They look like morgues for the half dead. I don’t like the light or the décor, or the pallor of the people, the look of absolute desperation and the lifeblood just draining out of them as they sit at these machines.


Next month, I will have fulfilled my promise. Hallelujah! I can hear the choir sing! As creative types, Steven and I have been two fish out of water. The good that has come from this adventure remains; it's kept me writing and working. And although it sounds schmaltzy there hasn't been a student that I've not tried to reach in some way. It's easy to fall in love with their enthusiasm and take an interest in them. They, along with the administrative support at CSN that I've received have been my salvation.  And when the time comes, I will leave this desert having found comraderie.


I love teaching; my heart is in it. I enjoy the immediacy of it and I have the opportunity to be a listener, a facilitator, a connector to people. And to me, the art of dissolving boundaries is what living is all about.

For the People, By the People

Abraham Lincoln was an idealist. Fast forward a hundred years later, and idealists gave voice to our government as to how things should be run, ethically and morally. However, the last few decades it's as if the masses lost their initiative and fighting spirits faded which paved the way for the nation to be in a financial crisis stemming from involvement in fighting two wars, thanks to George Bush. In the shadow of war, corporations got greedy. Our nation controlled by a system of credit was and is in the hands of a few, where we are no longer a Government of free opinion, conviction or vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men. The truth is, when too much money got into the hands of only a few, it's as if we created a monarchy obliterating the middle class.


One man who has the courage to speak his mind and organizes others, and fights against the injustice behind corporate greed is Bruce Marks, a former union activist and currently the CEO of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA). 

NACA aims to be a reformer of the banking and lending industry. There activities include enacting local and state legislation and regulations to address sub-prime and predatory lending. Ascending to Capitol Hill amidst a hearing watch the video of a fighter who questions if the nations foreclosures are done in accordance with the law, as he presses for the committee to hear from homeowners. A fight has to ensue and go on! Without it, it raises even a more frightening outcome- what will happen to a country filled with people deprived of their property and their children homeless in a country conquered by banks and corporations?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAqur27v_i0

Window on the River of Time

Teddy Roosevelt said that all Americans should try to see it. He visited it to hunt and enjoy the scenery. He also declared: “We have gotten past the stage, my fellow citizens, when we are to be pardoned if we treat any part of our country as something to be skinned.” He was referring to the steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona known as the Grand Canyon.


When I visited it, we managed to park, and walked to the rim, the scale of the sight off the edge was so great it was hard to muster a response. It was so vast, and so familiar from pictures, it might just as well have been a picture. What impressed me most was the Babel of languages audible among the visitors pouring off the tour buses. It sounded like Times Square on a Saturday night, with every continent represented in the hubbub.


Although the canyon is a desert, it was spring and it was an oasis – a place of peace, sequestered from the rest of the world.


To experience the canyon, you have to leave the rim. The frustration aroused by the bigness, the grandness, on a rim-only visit becomes a liberation once you drop down. The modern world falls away. It’s a trip out of the human realm, deep into the geology of the earth. Layer upon layer of the earth's crust is revealed, stratum by stratum: the Toroweap limestone, the Coconino sandstone, the Red-wall limestone, the Tonto Group; the Vishnu schist deep down, close to two billion years old, nearly half the total age of the planet – the stuff that is under our very feet as we go about our lives is laid bare here. And in the silence and stillness, in the solitude of the canyon, it’s all the more impressive.


I have always found geology astonishing, beyond human comprehension pointing directly to our Creator. Standing before geological history makes me ask these questions silently- were these hundreds of square miles of limestone hundreds of feet deep truly formed by trillions of marine creatures dying? Could a river really carve out a gash this deep? How could the Colorado River in a single day before the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam, carry away 380,000 tonnes or more of silt?


It was such a vast landscape it seemed it might go on in pinnacles and gulfs for hundreds of miles. With endless new levels, new shears, shelves and tables to descend, then all of a sudden, there was the bridge again. I could see its individual railings, and as we approached, through a tunnel hewn straight through the rock, the thick, deep air beside the rushing river was like a balm. Whether it was the late afternoon light, the fatigue, or the relief of getting down, I found myself wallowing in a wonderful endorphin bath. The world went glassy. The canyon cliffs and trapezoids and pinnacles of rock all became resonant. I watched myself walk, as if the real me were a deep witness to my life, rather than the one who apparently lives it.


Once you’ve been down into it, you understand, at least a little and are humbled by its beauty, both haunting and magnificent.

Shakespeare Sonnet 73... "Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang”

After my visit to Stonehenge which included a lunch stop in Salisbury and shopping in Bath, where rows of buildings are made out of sandstone and nothing is painted except for doors, I headed toward my next destination. My flu bug going into full swing, I slept on the tour bus. A month prior, in keeping with English themes, I had devoured reading Holy Blood, Holy Grail, in one sitting until the wee hours, engulfed by the conspiracy theory with my taste for the occult and anything that concerns the unexplainable. With a fascination toward myths and legends I was on my way to Glastonbury, a city which has been a New Age community, rich in history.


A notable landmark is Glastonbury Tor, a Celtic word that means hill. It's where King Arthur and Lady Guinevere coffins were discovered, and may be a possible location for the Holy Grail, since Joseph of Arimathea is said to have arrived in Glastonbury, stuck his staff into the ground, and when it flowered miraculously it became Glastonbury Tor. Also, the presence of an astrological landscape zodiac around the town has been carved along the hedgerows and trackways along with a collection of ley lines. It's an enchanting place with amazing streets lined with alternative shops filled with crystals, gems stones, mineral baths, funky clothes, cafes with homemade food, books, paintings, and hand crafted products. I saw ads for healers, meditation, yoga, drumming classes, and festivals of just about everything imaginable.


After I arrived having spent a day in bed nursing myself back to equilibrium, I couldn't get myths and mystery out of my head and went for a walk to Glastonbury Abbey to visually take in the ruins. On the grounds I saw a tree that contained the Holy Thorn, pronounced dead earlier in the year and cut months after my fortuitous visit.

Lady of the Lake

After reading Mists of Avalon in 1991, I was enthralled with all things Arthurian, since author Marion Zimmer Bradley captured a layered story relating the legends from the perspective of the female characters. I was delighted that it was almost a 900 page read, since I was rooting for Morgaine, the main character and priestess to save her matriarchal culture in a fight against patriarchal Christianity. It was highly original and such a convincing Saga that it influenced me to buy myself an Edwardian ring, and to return to England with a special itinerary. Later that year, while visiting I got a stomach flu which dampened the visit, but I trudged on determined to experience as much as possible.

With a fever and chills I boarded an early morning tour bus (a testament to my determination) to southern England, to the plains of Salisbury and had my sights on Wiltshire, to see Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument and one of the spiritual wonders of the world. Built at the same time the pyramids in Egypt were under construction, Stonehenge contains a giant circle of thirty stones, some weighing as much as 45 tons, with five inner horseshoe stones, an incredible feat of engineering that were most likely built for some ceremonial use. Several yards directly in front of it is the Heel Stone. Why it was built and how it was used has puzzled Archaeologists and remains one of the unsolved mysteries of the ancient world.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qldJvDUO1b4