Today

Today...

Ressentiment.

some of the thoughts of the moment

Queer asylum seekers
Women and Islam
Is anyone ever silent?
Is silence always disempowerment?
Who gets to speak?

I am welling up with tears.

All the American artists of colour traveling to Australia riding on the wealth of a global hegemon built by slavery and genocide
and I get to gasp in awe.

The stone temples of Angkor in Cambodia
which inspire pilgrims and tourists thirty for the sacred
were commissioned by monarchs
that worked their slaves to skin and bones and death
to build their religious empire...

Now every liberal multiculturalist wants to say that they have been.

I have been, brought to my knees

I am welling up with tears.

The world is a strange place filled with strange travellers
who come from here and there and that
who master thoughts and concerns I could never even imagine
and I am one of them for You and You and You
and I am one of You for Them and Them and Them.

Studying Chinese Medicine

Studying Chinese medicine is kind of like studying poetry, more than like studying medicine...

And, like studying poetry, it can be extremely medicinal.

Middle Class Organisers in Low-Income Communities

"Often the paid organizers in low-income communities come from professional middle-class backgrounds. I worked as a community organizer for many years, and the class dynamics can be tricky. Nearly everything I know about poverty and urban politics, I learned from members of groups I staffed. I loved the relationships I built with people on their stoops and around their kitchen tables.

Seeing people move from less to more powerful was exhilarating. Here's one story. I was trying to persuade tenants at an apartment complex to come to a City Council hearing. Knocking on doors, I asked one woman, Donna, to come, she said no, I pleaded. Finally she said she would attend but she absolutely wouldn't say a word, because she was terrified of public speaking. She sat at the hearing listening to testimony, until a tenant leader mentioned the lack of sidewalks between their apartment complex and the shopping area. At that point Donna leapt up, saying, "Ooh! I have something to say about that road!" She took the mic and told a hair-raising story about how a car came within an inch of hitting her child while she was pushing a stroller and trying to get 3 kids down to the bus stop. The City Council voted on the spot to appropriate money for a sidewalk — something that wasn't even on their docket of proposals. Last time I visited that city, I walked that sidewalk, grinning the whole way.

And of the five tenant groups I organized, three now own and run their own apartment complexes as permanently affordable housing, so I feel I made a real difference.

But it's a tricky relationship with many pitfalls, the relationship of middle-class organizer to working-class community.

I've encountered groups that were basically fronts for one staff person, usually a leftist white man. The low-income members were basically his mouthpieces. All their speeches were written by him, using their legitimacy as low-income people to spread his ideas. In the power balance between the staff's expertise and the members' knowledge of the community, those groups were way off balance.

Grassroots members get crucial information funneled through the organizer, information they need to make decisions. The staff can convey their biases either consciously or unconsciously in how the information is presented. I remember presenting choices to tenant groups about models of tenant buy-outs — decisions that would make all the difference in the future of their homes — and trying not to let my own opinions show. If I had concrete information about why one option would be better for them, that seemed fair to share, but if it was just my own preference, I tried not to betray it. No doubt I didn't always succeed, as my doubts and enthusiasm crept into my tone of voice"

- Betsy Leondar-Wright,
Program Director, Class Action

5 of Pentacles

Kidney Yang deficient?
Po-cu

There is shelter, still, close by.

Just because you are cold, or worn down,
does not mean you are not still resilient.

Just organised my desk

Turned out,
I don't need more things per se...
I need more tools to organise the things I already have...

Like goes with like.

So today, I got stationery holders, mini table drawers, lightweight stackable shelving, etc.

My life feels better already.

Class Matters

An excellent website I'm starting to read...:
Class Matters --> http://www.classmatters.org/

Could you embrace that?

Could you Embrace That

by Thomas Aquinas

"I said to God, ‘Let me love you.’
And he replied, ‘Which part?’
‘All of you, all of you.’ I said.
‘Dear’ God spoke, ‘You are as a mouse wanting to impregnate
a tiger who is not even in heat. It is a feat way
beyond your courage and strength.
You would run from me
if I removed my
mask.’
I said to God again,
‘Beloved I need to love you – every aspect, every pore.’
And this time God said,
‘There is a hideous blemish on my body,
though it is such an infinitesimal part of my Being-
could you kiss that if it were revealed?’
‘I will try, Lord, I will try.’
And then God said,
‘That blemish is all the hatred and
cruelty in this
world.’

a blessing

"May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts.

May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, hunger, and war, so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done, to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor."

- a four-fold benedictine blessing - sr. ruth marlene fox, osb - 1985

Every day, I do something to redeem myself.

Everyday is an expulsion of my sins, my evil, my illness, my disease
Everyday, I come out as a new shiny butterfly
still slimy from its cocoon

The world is full of amazing little creatures.
Insects, arachnids, worms,
Snails, slugs and leeches
I am alive to the small,
I am from the small, of the small.

Grateful for this life.

.

because.

False.

I am a False Revolutionist,
A False Prophet.
Don't listen to me.
Every word I utter is a lie.

I cannot deny who I truly am, which is my utter Fallacious character.
I am an insult to injury,
I am salt in wounds,
I am the Arrogant God who Fell,
I am the Hell that awaits my mortal self.

I am ok.
I am ok.
I am a baby, a teardrop, a pearl.
A puddle, a poodle, a prince or a girl.

I am a football fan, I am her super hot, aggressively heterosexual, beer guzzling, bushy-bearded boyfriend.
I am his open heart and his tenderness,
I am asleep, once more.

You were with me when we were together,
I was with you when we were together
We were together when we were with one another.
This much is true.

defeated, I am still here

even after surrender,
I survive as a diminished version of a former self,

I can now be ready to receive You more fully

I really love my work in the world.

So be it. I do!

It's hard, sometimes, but it's a real privilege to be able to work where I want to live.

should I, shouldn't I?

hard questions.

crystals break

freedom comes from ordinary moments suffused with awareness of their ephemerality
life is but a dream, i was told
i row, row, rowed a boat down gently down a sullen stream.

All possibilities are exhausted,
Thy will be done!

breath in, breath out... all hearts will be ablaze
at the sight of Him.
He. My Father, Lord and Savior.
My Mistress, Lady, Landlord
My Guard, my Protector, my Ejaculator
My Phallus, my Philistine introspections
my arms are spread out wide palms up
ready to Receive.

Buddha sat under a tree
while it dried and drizzled all around him, season to season
til he Awoke,
and then he walked and rested for the rest of his life.

***

"I want to make a Difference!"
"My simply being here already makes a Difference"
"I am the Difference I want to see in the World!"
"I hate being an Other."

***

Australia:
One day, it was brighter than the land could understand,
so it brought drought and this was what it was about.

I am Australian

Second Wave me: "Hello. Hello."

sometimes I will make myself understood even
by the thinnest of strings
sometimes I will be the thinnest string
in a well-strung violin

In bowing, I will sound the highest note,
and no one would get anything done!

because I could

...
...
...
...

Don't smoke the medicine, son.
It hits you too quickly, rather than
wafting in slowly from within you, in incremental ripples
beginning from my liver all the way to the tips of my hairs and the bottom of my toes.

This is strong stuff.

All this medicine.

Self-help books, manuals of this and that, bric-a-brac
Golliwogs displayed proudly in rural Australian fairs
Oriental still Eastern still Asian til

"Where are you from"
a familiar ringtone, leading to
"let me eat you out from your most private places"
then, frankly
"how often must this occur?"

a dream of something better, a live once lived, could have lived, mostly already lived,
also many state experiences of being fully lived, yet always:
the dream
of something better

the will to growth, development
sprouting from seedling under sun into
marigold or mushroom

sometimes, words will continue to haunt my every conscious moment, carving out,
as they do,
myriad differentiations out of indivisible eternity.

"Don't smoke this herb..."
Son
a religion founded on a special Sun
a religion founded on a special Son
a religion founded on a wand, magic, sex, rage

***

...
...
One day, I will be understood
as the Narcissist that I truly am
that sincerely, no one can ever fully understand me
not even me
and therefore, I am made eternally unknowable
except through all my arrogant traces

***

not exactly Narcissist,
also muse, someone else's Other
who becomes part of the self that I have become obsessed by
all others, indeed, filling in my sense of who "I" am, indubitably and even necessarily,
and I am left as no longer the small sense of my forgettable selfhood that is this lonely lifetime
but in the rewarding larger sum of all life together, weaved into
how I step my next steps.


a lofty goal?
a foolish dream?
an ever unfolding reality?

Nonsense. No one needs to know the new apartment.
I can speak truthfully and will be understood by even stony things.

I have nothing.

Sometimes, it's ok to feel tired.

Sometimes, it's ok to rest.

Marijuana and Liver Yang

"Regardless of your constitution, because marijuana is primarily a Yin drug, ‘advance and act’ will eventually be replaced by ‘retreat and wait’ in both a short- and long-term context. In the short term, as the marijuana begins to take effect, it can make the user feel temporarily motivated and vigorous but after a period of time, even Yang types end up sitting around doing nothing. They are not in a Liver Yin excess state, as they are not experiencing emotional torment, but it is no longer an exciting or active state either. It is somewhere in between. It is waiting without anticipation. In the long term, this lethargy and passivity previews the kind of state that marijuana use can create on a more permanent basis. Most people, for example, are familiar with the stereotypical image of the ageing hippie or heavy dope smoker who can’t ever get their act together and do anything. This is not a personality type as many people think, it is often a behaviour arising from imbalances caused by excessive marijuana use. Unfortunately, the majority of long-term marijuana users will eventually fall into this category. It is such a slow and insidious process though, that they won’t see it happening. They will just change slowly over time until they eventually forget how active, engaging and energetic they once were.

People with a predominantly Yang constitution and a disciplined and focused lifestyle — which assists in the cultivation of Liver Yang — can regularly use marijuana and remain active and creative for years, maybe even decades. However, even for them, marijuana will slowly deplete Liver Yang and subsequently affect their ability to act upon their ideas. Everyone has a mental picture of who they are, of who they want to be and what they want to do in life. In TCM this is directly connected with the Liver. If you repeatedly take a substance that has a direct impact on the functioning of the Liver, as marijuana does, it can create an imbalance between your visions or ideas, and the impetus to act upon them. The idea becomes bigger and the action becomes smaller so you become more occupied with thinking and talking than doing. This is particularly frustrating for creative or talented people as they still have their creativity but have lost their ability to act. Once this happens, the magnifying nature of the drug, rather than increasing awareness of growth or expansion, increases awareness of being stagnant physically and emotionally. In this state, evidence of achievement in other people can make the drug-user acutely aware of their own deficiencies and they can become emotionally reactive."

- Jost Sauer, a German-Australian, based in Brisbane, from his book "Higher and Higher"