Personal Transformations

3/29/08~

Sunrise with Jason

 I'm waiting for the sunrise

 this is what I do

 I wonder what it'll look like

is it going to be bright and beautiful

or a little dull

Some of them are so radiant

like nothing I've ever seen

colors bursting all over heaven's sky

I wait so I can share it with you

Hope wherever you are

a sunrise fills your day

with magical surprise's     

Sometime's it may not look like it'll be anything at all

until it slowly comes out

Fills the sky with all its' glory

For us to see        

here it is for you~

April 2, 2008~ Happy Birthday Oma...You're in my heart and love you.. when the sun rose above the horizon peeking over the mountain top in celebration of the life you've experienced thus far and the life yet to be lived~ :) With love, me

April 7, 2008~ I'll share a few poems by my son Jason Paul~ :) 1st Grade

You

By Jason

You are sweet

and

beautiful;

loving, too.

May you please walk me to school?

Mask

By Jason

You look

like

a monster.

You have

red

eyes.

You look

like an alien too.

You are scary.

4/7/08

Angels 

by me

I dreamed of Angel's
dancing about.
No worries,
full of bright
and
radiant colors.
Everywhere, I looked;
With every breath I took.
I was in awe
of what i saw.
Please,
don't wake me
now.

4/22/08 Happy Earth day~ love our planet...

 ~ The wind tickled my ear as it whisped by leaving me breathless...

Remember to leave the lights on so I can see.. I do believe in miracles..

People throw me curves, including myself sometimes.. I speak the truth by letting people know where I'm at and who I am.. This is my responsibility to all..People have so many different views, values, thoughts that aren't the same, I respect people, study people, however, have no idea sometimes why things work out the way that they do. Then, out of nowhere I find the answer that I sought..Still, more to discover... 

~ "Nothing is worth more than this day" Goethe

I'm not too proud to say I need you..I need the people in my life to feed my spirit, to nourish it to grow strong and thrive in my life to live..Not just be..I hope that I inspire people to their greater good and not take from them in a way that would cause harm.  If I do, to see it clearly and learn..Namaste~

  Sweet distraction is what I need for the years go by I feel the same~

 I was just thinking of how I've been wanting to write a book and my family has been saying it to me here and there.  Last year I wrote around 10 pages of what turned out to be a healing tool and with that experience I thought if something is meant to be, it will.. I've been writing my affirmations that help me most days to look at the day in a positive way.  Stress is at a high level in this world and there are many distractions, noise and things that used to really divert my attention. (sometimes still does and probably will always to some degree). :) I know that I have my shortcomings, however, I look to the light always to guide me to the next step.  Forgive my shortcomings~ I'm excited and need to get working on a paper due on Mother's Day.. In case I won't have a chance to be on here in a little while, Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's, to our Mother Earth and Nature..Many Blessings and joy to you~

Thank you for teaching our children today for the next generation's to come.  Thank you for all you do each day to love, nurture and protect the innocent ones.' You're all Angel's to me......love and peace~

Years go by,                                                                             

You still go through my mind .                                      

Walk through my dreams,                                             

trample my heart                                                                

with your ways                                                                       

without knowing how much                                           

pain you have caused me.                                               

In my life one day,                                                                

out as fast as

you came in.

Thinking you knew

what you wanted

the truth is

what is,

You lay down

with a lie

As I.

Love is true

becasue it doesn't

leave in this way.

In fact,

it lingers

doesn't leave

until it's ready to.

Or maybe, love always

remains to let us know

that it was here..

My beating heart

is what I have.

As long as it stays strong,

I'll move onward.

With love as my guide,

Through sorrow and pain

Or whatever it may be.

thump thump thump.

Dancing in a field of flowers

the sun shining down

brightening the day.

The smell of fresh flowers fills the air

and I feel alive.

I sing a song

to you

my dear.

For you teach me

with your wisdom

to live my life and

not be afraid

of what is to be.

To soar through the sky

and show the world what

I'm made of.

Thank you

my love~

Pain stops me in my tracks

and moves me on my path.

May 19

June 1, 2008~ I love this time of year.. Yesterday, I listened to the thunder and rain coming down.  In this moment as I'm typing I can hear the bird's chirping outside.. :)  I love  life.. I was watching my children play this morning and they're such wonderful soul's. I feel very proud to be their mother and precious moments that life gives me I feel joy!  I'm learning patience through nature, family, and friendship's.. I have such an amazing family and friends, friends that are their for me not for anything other than sharing our existence together here on earth.  I'm grateful for today~ love and peace to everyone and hope this day brings you much happiness..

June 17, 2008

Today I'll write of a young boy that I had the honor to know who has passed onto the other side.

Dear Evan,

Your eyes shine bright inside my spirit

I'll remember you always

The time I had the opportunity to get to know you

was a blessing.

15 is too young to die and I'll never understand why you had to go.

When you helped me plant the flowers in my garden when Jason was one,

You were so full of life with a world of curiosity,

Your eyes smiled and danced and this is how I'll see you when I think

of you.

I wish you were still here in this physical life and I know you are with all those

that love and miss you~

May your jounrey be filled with peace, serenity and all that your spirit lives for..

Love you Evan.....I will miss you..

June 20, 2008~

I take a deep breath
The last few days a huge loss
feeling love of a family I watched cry with one another
feeling what friendship means
Experiencing unity
Can't bring back yesterday
Nor change anything from the past
Living in the moment
Allowing Spirit to guide my moves
Each day not knowing what to expect
Or who may be lost
Hoping for the best
Sending love to all
Especially those who feel alone
Wrapping them in the warmth of nurturement
Feeding the Soul
Living a dream
Maybe several
If a stumble should arise
Getting back up and never giving up
Especially hope that lives in today
For a better tomorrow
Creating the reality one may want to live
Really believing, hoping and working toward
attaining a goal
No one is forgotten really
Energy, conscious thinking the very essence of ones' being
Humanity and Spirit
Learning, loving, living, breathing, stumbling
But mostly having a sense of humor~

July 20, 2008~ As I mentioned on my home page, I have my book available on kindle, "Facing the Sun."  It was fun creating a little book with some of my photography, affirmations and poems.  Enjoying this summer with my kids and family so far.  I'm not sure if this page is opening for people as it is for me so I'll continue to write or put up things that I feel may inspire another.  Just finished up my human service ethics class with a B and Power and Privilege is a very interesting course that I'm posting a few papers that I felt strongly about, one on inequality and race and the other gender and inequality.  Many blessings..:)

Exclusion by race in law: “The being different syndrome that humanity seems to accept throughout history to present”

One may ponder how throughout history people have been treated unequally and unfairly due to being different than the one who sets the laws for a specific geographic location. One example of this is how the United States dealt with the Native Americans and other races during America’s founding. “If the term ‘White,’ as used in the Constitution, was not understood in its generic sense as including the Caucasian race, and necessarily excluding all others, where was the necessity of providing for the admission of Indians to the privilege of voting, by special legislation” (Bender, p. 144).

“We are of the opinion that the words “White,” “Negro,” “Mulatto,” “Indian,” and “Black person,” wherever they occur in our Constitution and laws, must be taken in their generic sense, and that, even admitting the Indian of this Continent is not of the Mongolian type, that the words “Black person,” in the 14th section must be taken as contradistinguished from White, and necessarily excludes all races other than Caucasian” (B & B, p. 144). These statements are ridiculous in my view and unjust in any sense of the word. People being labeled based on looking different in the “Constitution” makes one wonder what the men who wrote the Constitution were thinking and perhaps reflect the contradictions and compromises that were required at that time.

All men are created equal but according to the Constitution some are created “more equal” than others. Races other than Caucasian were given less weight than any other’s in the eyes of those who wrote the Constitution. “When contemporary Americans cite “The Constitution,” they invoke a concept that is vastly different from what the framers barely began to construct centuries ago” (B & B, p. 135). The question is who are the “we” in “we the people” (B & B, p.135)? Knowing today that in 1787 a select group of people were the ones who were kept in mind, not “all” people. “When the Founding Fathers used this phrase in 1787, they did not have in mind the majority of American’s citizens. “We the People” included, in the words of the framers, “the whole number of free persons” (B & B, p. 136). What about all of the people who were kept as slaves? They were not included, or the people who had less money and privilege than the men that wrote the Constitution. After a few hundred years it’s still evident the disadvantage that some have from what other’s get in the area of power and privilege.

From a personal experience my friend  received a lesser charge than another because he had the best defense attorney money could buy. Things have changed to fit the expectations of society throughout the years. “What is striking is the role legal principles have played throughout history in determining the condition of Negroes. They were enslaved by law, emancipated by law, disenfranchised and segregated by law; and finally, they have begun to win equality by law. Along the way, new constitutional principles have emerged to meet the challenges of a changing society. The progress has been dramatic, and it will continue” (B & B, p. 137). We have yet to see someone other than a white male President in the US. Hopefully, in my generation we’ll have the opportunity to see people of diversity and minorities have equal opportunity.

Knowing today that the men who wrote the Constitution who had slaves, and kept people from having equal opportunity they would not accept what the Constitution states today one may ponder. Thankfully, amendments are made to help those of us to gain more power and privilege still not equal however, more and more we’ll all be treated more equal so that the we in “we the people” may mean “all” people. As with the Europeans and the Indian title, “The title by conquest is acquired and maintained by force.” Also, “the conquered shall not be wantonly oppressed and that their condition shall remain as eligible as is compatible with the objects of the conquest” (B & B, p. 167). Power and force, the one with the most muscle overpowers and takes over another by means of making one powerless is an unequal measure, therefore, leaving the scale tipped to inequality.

Case after case inequality has occurred and as time goes by more is learned and amendments made, however, exclusion by race will keep happening until its recognized, talked about, and changed one person at a time, one community at a time, one Country at a time and one law at a time. Too many people have died over power, the need for power and knowledge is strength and truth may lead to justice.

Works Cited
Leslie Bender and Dann Braveman Power, Privilege and Law. A Civil Rights Reader

How is gender used as a way of fostering power and privilege? This is a question many of us ponder each day in our life? I found this to be interesting in looking at the difference between male and female, “John Money and his colleagues provided one of the earliest distinctions between sex and gender in pointing out that gender identity, one’s sense of oneself as male or female, is not bound to biological sex” (B & B, p. 233). Being that culture and environment plays a big role in making the distinction between both genders. “Confusion of the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ reflects conflicting and muddled views about the causes of sex-linked phenomena” (B & B, p.233). “A belief that biology is irrelevant may, indeed, hold women to a male standard of behavior. For example, many organizational policies ignore the fact that a woman’s career-building years coincide with her child-bearing years” (B & B, p. 234). It’s hard to justify or compare the two when it’s not an equal balance and biologically speaking we are made up of different strengths and weaknesses.

For men the privilege from the examples I used would be that they may earn more money and have more financial security over their lifetime or they may not need to take off of work when their having children for many more women stay home with them. A privilege for women would be that they can take some time off of work to be with their children or the opposite if they didn’t want to but had to for financial security. Men can take paternity leave now also. Many more men hold more power than women when it comes to employment, genetic traits that make them more physically strong than many women.

A question arises, what about intersex group of individual’s? Where do they fall in the category of fostering power and privilege? “At the heart of the need to identify ‘true sex’ is the belief that one’s sex ‘hides the most secret parts of the individual: the structures of his fantasies, the roots of his ego, the forms of his relationship to reality’ Hence, ‘proper’ identification of the intersexed child’s biological nature is necessary not only for the purposes of sex classification but also because one’s psychological essence resides in sex” (B & B, p.235). With this said, intersexed individual’s have the stigma as being “doomed” from the beginning with psychological misfit labeling. The need to identify who we are based on our sex and how to be in society is the mask people wear to get by and fit in.

So, why does our time still have these differences and why isn’t equality more equal? Where a man’s place is or a woman’s place is based on pre-existing ways that our ancestors lived and one may wonder why we use categories to base our life on according to what sex we are.

Asking the gender and inequality question as Catherine MacKinnon states, on “Difference and Dominance,” “These two questions underlie applications of the equality principle to issues of gender, but they are seldom explicitly asked. I think it speaks to the way gender has structured thought and perception that mainstream legal and moral theory tacitly gives the same answer to them both: these are questions of sameness and difference” (B & B, p. 241). Women are going to have to continue speaking up and fight for what rightfully is ours by birth, however, still not receiving equality in this present day and age. Also, the more that we speak up the better results we receive through legal means, “the law of sex discrimination.”

In my personal view I don’t believe woman should try to be like men or vice versa. By being in our natural state and giving of ourselves by what we want to do in life, the world and this country would be in much better shape. Taking away competitiveness between the sexes and accepting people for who they are just as they are. But because our society is where it’s at now, women have had to work with, “I can do what you can,” or men doing the same. Because of this rationale, “It has gotten women some access to employment and education, the public pursuits, including academic, professional, and blue-collar work; the military; and more than nominal access to athletics” (B & B, p. 243). Wherever the majority people in society are thinking and how the greatest amount of people are living seems to be the deciding factor in how thoughts are produced when it comes to power, privilege and gender.

In the Bradwell v. Illinois case in 1872, which really isn’t all that long ago, men felt a woman’s place was in the home and roles were filled mainly by men, “In the nature of things it is not every citizen of every age, sex, and condition that is qualified for every calling and position” (B & B, p. 265). Where I speak of muscle and power that men used to dominate women they used excuses to keep women from being able to as this example take the state bar, she was denied admission. “This fairly belongs to the police power of the State; and, in my opinion, in view of the peculiar characteristics, destiny, and mission of woman, it is within the province of the legislature to ordain what offices, positions, and callings shall be filled and discharged by men, and shall receive the benefit of those energies and responsibilities, and that decision and firmness which are presumed to predominate in the sterner sex” (B & B, p. 266). Extreme ignorance on the part of men in that time and women had to really fight to get what is rightfully theirs in that time and still today where equality is supposed to be. Making women the property of men, breaking down their spirit and keeping them from being able to do what men were doing or basically saying that women are “property.”

Less privilege to be women throughout time and civilization’s because again they are not as physically strong as men. More power and privilege went to the men right at birth, opposed to women and their places in the home taking care of the men and children. Then, being degraded where men felt the need to put them down and keep them down. Not being able to take the State bar, or bartend, or whatever job a woman felt like doing was taken from them by men and it was accepted until woman’s rights and the changes began to be made.

 Maybe the question should be looking at the strengths and similarities instead of the “differences” we have between male and female. Then, encourage and teach our children to be who they are so they can feel proud to be whomever they are and not fear a certain role or stereotype to fill from the time they begin to understand.

Works Cited
Leslie Bender and Dann Braveman Power, Privilege and Law. A Civil Rights Reader

8/17/08

Power and Privilege

Strategies for Change

     “If knowledge is power, then what power can be gained from our developing knowledge about the ways in which law both produces and reproduces patterns of power and privilege”(B & B, p.548).   Strategies for change must begin in my view individually at home first.  Each one of us possess the capability passion within ourselves to be empathic when it comes to poverty, disability, race, gender differences and equality by putting ourselves in situations of challenge.  We may have experienced one or more of power and privilege, differences, similarities, or some experience that may have enriched our view of people.  How I look at power and privilege has been a life-long process and change is constant.  The ingredients are there to help people live a more equal life.   In our own homes we may see what it is to be different than another; I try to look at what it is to be similar and what quality each has to be nurtured to thrive best in this world we live in together.

     From when I was a child until present how people classify economic status has always been evident.  Why is it that when we meet people in our day to day lives, one says, “Hi Bill and what do you do for a living?  Community is something that I view in a hopeful way to help one another nurture to grow.  When one is down, how can another live happily?  To me, it’s disturbing and I don’t understand how someone can look the other way.  It’s the times when a mother may be shopping in a supermarket and tells her child, “Don’t talk with the hired help.”  Communication in a healthy way is the way to begin the process of change in equality making power and privilege disappear.  We are all equal and made of the same elements so to speak, so why would one think they are more entitled, thus, a poor hungry baby doesn’t have proper care to get by and die?  Living in a humble way is a great way to begin.  Some things I do to help are:  being aware, communicating and speaking up, and for, those that don’t have it “equal,” being courteous and respectful in a consistent manner demonstrating kindness in front of children who are looking, hearing and repeating what we do and say as parents. 

     Once the foundation is laid out in our home place, it spreads to communities and more and more people would help end the differences that one may think less of.  Social programs help employ necessary professionals from referral services, food, clothing, housing, all the necessary essential’s to get one physically in shape to nurture their talents to give back.  A flow of energy rather than being cut off.  If someone needs medical assistance, there should be the services available to help them the best way possible. 

     Education is the step in helping our children grow, learn and gain a sense of what is to be as an adult, and I think there should be classes in schools’ that discuss poverty, living with disabilities and gender/sexual differences, also how to be respectful of each other.  I know there are few that discuss sexual education, health and such, however, I mean a class that would talk about the similarities in people and how each of us can help the other.  “We believe that one of the most important ways to bring about change is through education and conscious-raising.  Just as we continually learn to think differently as we learn from others, so each of us can share what we have learned with others in our lives” (B & B, p. 548).

     Habits I live by are how I live, an example, I hold the door for someone who is behind me or pick up something a person may have dropped, or maybe give someone else a parking spot instead of getting upset over it.  I know that I like when I’m treated kindly as I’m sure most of us do is safe to say.

     I also support local small business, and try to avoid shopping in places that are supporting “big business Corporations.”  Big Corporation’s have a way of keeping people down, paying minimum wage, feeding the power and privilege stereo-type that have lower economic level income individual’s placed in poverty.  The rich get richer, poor poorer.  By supporting the mom and pop shops it may open up opportunities and better services to the general public with long healthy affects on an individual and family basis by the means of better manufacturing of food and other products.  Big Corporation’s want to employ people and have a wide distribution of goods than, they should offer more incentives for their employees.  Rewards for education and courses for advancement would be an example how they could look out for their employees in a better way than they are presently and better health care. 

     I’ll end with a favorite saying that would really make a positive difference to end inequality and help balance justice for all people if one would live by, “When the power of love overcomes; the love of power the world will know peace.”

Works Cited

Leslie Bender and Dann Braveman Power, Privilege and Law. A Civil Rights Reader

9/15/08~The choice to act with love in all I do and say is something that I'm focused on today. 

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9/20/08 the last three days I captured the sunrise~

 

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 9/22/08 Welcoming Fall~and sunrise for yesterday...

 The little bird was okay after he flew into the window.. I held it and fed him some food, then he flew to the tree and looked over. 

9/30/08  a sunrise from last week..

Nov

Hummingbird

Your wings move so quicky

Apppearing before me

like magic

Sweet little bird

you fill me

with childish wonder

as you glance

through the window

fluttering your wings

as if you're not

moving at all

in thin air

you fly so

 December 20, 2008

Journey

Nothing is ever what it appears to be on the surface
I dig deeper
I love greater

When I'm with no other than my own company
Bundled tightly in my warm clothes
The crisp cool air fills my lungs
I am one
connected to all

Nothing I have heard is that important
This moment is where I am
The smell of the fresh air
I feel life with every step I take
through the snow
Each step I take is new
Fresh
No other footprint
Only my own

I feel love for my spirit
My life
I often feel with my heart
Which can open me up to vulnerability
Sometimes, I wish I could just think
With only my head
And leave my heart out of it
Ah, but then I wouldn't be myself

I take another step
Stop and listen around me
I am thankful~
All is what it should be
Until time and the Universe
Makes its way through...