Because I Am A Girl

14 year old Malala Yousafzai, an activist blogger for peace and the education of girls in Pakistan, was shot in the head for her work yesterday by the Pakistan Taliban. Since she was eleven, this brave girl has spoken out in the midst of one of the most oppressive regimes in the world for women. She was awarded Pakistan's first national peace prize. And then was shot in the head.  I pray she will live. And may it be Somewhere Else.

I take the words Because I Am a Girl from the organization by that name that promotes the well being of girls throughout the world. I got my information from CNN. 


Because I am a girl,
I am prey when I am little.

Because I am a girl,
you can rape me in my teens,
then call me damaged goods.
You can even kill me for being raped.

Because I am a girl,
I am considered by some
to be a useless mouth to feed,
though I labor for you
from dawn till dark.

Because I am a girl
I can be denied an education.

Because I am a girl,
you can make me marry an old man.

I can be shot
for speaking out about peace
and the education of girls.
I am called an abomination
for promoting Western values.
I must be silenced.

But

Because I am a girl,
I bring forth life,
and I love and nurture that life
against all odds.
I will go hungry to feed my children.
I will do anything
to help them live,
at the cost of my own life.
I love my daughters and my sons,
even though my sons may grow up 
to further oppress me.

If you feed me,
educate me,
and value me,
I can change life
in this village
for the women and children.
I can make this world a better place
Because I Am a Girl.

Dog Days of Late Summer

Our weather is rather spectacular these days, and it is going on for weeks and weeks. In fact, it is so warm and dry that some major rivers, needed for the salmon spawn, have dried up. It is hard not to enjoy the sunshine, though, knowing the gray skies will close in at some point and will not lift till April.

We took the dogs for a swim this aft, to their delight. 

Jasmine is super-competitive. Stick or kong thrown, she will drown her brother, in her quest to claim it. If Lukey (occasionally) gets it first, she glides up to him like a crocodile, 

shoves her snout along the stick right up against his muzzle, and they get

stuck, until Lukey gives up.

Then they come ashore, and 

wait again, till Lukey gives up :) He is the sweet-natured guy on the left.

My Jasmine is the obsessive-compulsive crocodile.

Young Blakey prefers to chase his own, smaller stick.

Lori's attempts to get certain dogs to stay still long enough for a photo.

It's exactly like taking photos of small squirmy children -

it's a crap-shoot. (Almost literally,

come to think of it!)

Moment of reverie.....the blue water.....

the blue, blue hills.

Noey, our elder-dog, playing it cool.

Communing With Trees in the Taiga

google image Siberian taiga

At Real Toads, for her Transforming Friday prompt,  Hannah has issued one of her intriguing challenges, to explore a landscape foreign to us, this time the taiga. I immediately thought of a series of books I own, one of which is titled The Ringing Cedars of Russia, about trees in the Siberian taiga who have been storing up energies for many hundreds of years and, after a time, begin to ring. The author, Vladimir Megre,  was told of this by a Russian elder, went to investigate, met an amazing young woman named Anastasia in the forest, who was utterly in tune with nature, and his life was forever changed. He wrote a series of books through the 1990's on all he learned from her about living in harmony with nature, and about communicating with it.

These books caught on, and are transforming the culture of Russia. Now eco-villages abound all across Russia. Take a trip with me to the Siberian taiga, to listen to  the ringing cedars of Russia.

I travel through time and space

to a Paradise-like glade

in the Siberian taiga.

She meets me there,

on the edge of the forest,

beckons me to follow.

All is silence.

Putting her finger to her lips,

she motions me to stand still

before the ancient trees,

and listen.

photo Sherry Blue Sky

At first I cannot hear it,

but then my ears attune:

there is a ringing.

I arch my brows, she nods.

It is coming from the trees.

"These ancient beings

are filled with cosmic energy

from many hundreds of years,"

she tells me.

"They are trying to teach us

how to live with

all life on earth,

how to attune our energies,

how to align ourselves

with the natural world,

learn from it,

speak to it."

www.siberianhuskies.com

As I watch and learn,

I see wild animals -

wolves and foxes,

bear and mountain lion-  

all in her domain

approach her humbly,

without fear,

seemingly tamed.

Moscowtopnews.com

"The trees, the animals,

--all of Mother Earth--

is inviting us

to step into a world

of Love,

where all beings

live in harmony

with the earth."

Yes.

This is

the only truth

that makes sense,

and I am learning it

from a tree

and a forest sprite.

In listening to

the song of

this old tree,

I have stepped through the veil

of transformation,

and my vision is

 forever changed.

The tree

sang its song of love to me,

and I must answer.

With hope.

With healing.

With joy.

With love.

anastasiasgarden.com

In researching further for this poem, I came across this house, which I SO TOTALLY want to live in. When I lived in Tofino, some of my friends actually did live in trees, or in dwellings such as this, or in yurts high above the forest looking out to sea. Tofino then became Whistlerized and they were evicted by district council. But they lived in heaven for those years.

I read that there are now 150  Anastasia communities, with 100 residents in each of them, spread across Russia. There is also an Anastasia community  forming on 100 acres in the Shasta Valley in Oregon. They are looking for pioneers. My idea of heaven - intentional communities of aware humans, living in harmony with Mother Earth, and joyously.  

I also discovered, while reading,  that "Trees are like bioelectric condensers of cosmic energy." (Anastasiasgarden.com) And the cedars in the Siberian taiga, when they are 500 plus years old, begin to ring to ask us to use their stored up energy for the benefit of the earth. If their call is not answered in three years, they begin to burn up from within, a process that takes 27 years.

Amazing stuff. This world has so much in it we aren't aware of. We have so much to learn - and fast.

Life, According to SARK

Ellie's prompt at Poets United's Wonder Wednesday is right up my alley: SARK, the juicy succulent wild woman. I came across her books, all rainbow colors, outrageous fonts and exhortations to Live Large, back in the 90's. Havent read her since then, and I see there is a Planet Sark online I have yet to explore.  But I remember the spirit of her work very well, so today, while I was cleaning, ideas were popping like Redenbacher popcorn. Dive in! This was Totally Fun to do!

 Live juicy.

 Live succulently,

like the big old warm body

that you are.

The smorgasbord of  Life awaits:

Dive in!

Feast your eyeballs

on the beauty 

of rivers and mountains and sky. 

Let the music of the spheres

play timpani

on your bones.

Live large -

order a two-scoop cone.

Every time!

Live Wild, like the river.

Live plentiful of spirit

like nature herself,

who gives and gives

and never counts the cost.

Awaken with anticipation

at the dawning of

this brand new day.

Look with amazement

at the morning sky,

all its beauty

just for you!

Belt out the song

that is yours alone to sing.

Bask in the warm, tabby-colored sunshine

of noon.

Make this the best today possible.

Be generous

with its delights.

Scatter  sky-diamond stars

across the landscape

of your evening,

and, before sleep,

visualize

the wonders of tomorrow.

Let the invisible hairs 

along your spine

bristle

as you gallop along the shore,

or tiptoe, silent as a newt,

into the forest.

Perch under the

dripping wet branches.

Get in touch with

Your Inner Mushroom.

Listen to your wolf-sister's howl,

under the full 

harvest moon.

Ask her to teach you

how to

Live Wild.

The Orphans of Addis Ababa

google image

“Allah, Allah,”

comes the morning chant

from the Grand Mosque

and, in their huddled blankets 

stir the orphans

of Addis Ababa.

The dispossessed of the earth

make their cooking fires

as the sun comes up

across the shanty rooftops.

Donkey hoofbeats clop

along the pathway.

Rooster cries

pierce the air,

as children stir,

their hungry eyes

remembering

those they love

who are

no longer

there.

What will this continent

of orphans

eat today?

As we go about

our placid, well-fed

weekday,

our second cups of coffee,

our comfortable knowledge

that we will eat later 

this same day,

little Mintesinot,

prince of the street,

leaves the marked off

square of earth

where he was lying,

where he has lain in blankets

the four years

since he was born,

where his mother died

and his father now lies

dying.

With tears,

he is moving

to a two room shack

where  60 other orphans

are being cared for

by a tired but indomitable

Grandmother,

who keeps on

keeping on

because someone has to

feed the children,

so she is

trying.

Little Mintesinot,

young  prince of the roadway,

has become the 13 millionth

AIDS orphan,

a number so large

the mind shuts down,

unable to process

what this means:

one small child

13 million times,

alone and hungry

with no parents

and no dreams.

“Allah, Allah,”

the chant continues,

prayers rising

on the wafting smoke

into the atmosphere.

Hopefully

they will

find their way

straight to

Allah’s

ear.

 [I stumbled across this poem, farther back on my site, inspired by the book There Is No Me Without You by Melissa Far Greene, which I read some time last year. The author writes about Haregewoin Teferra’s valiant efforts to care for the orphans brought to her small compound. Reading about life reduced to the simplest, most basic scale reminds me not only to be grateful, but to find  ways to do even a small fraction of what she does on a daily basis, to make the world a better place than we find it.

Decided to post it again - I have forgotten about so many poems back in the archives :) ]

Waking Up

[*image from love-theearth.blogspot.com]

The vast and massive 
corporal body
called Humanity,
having mastered,
in its brief sojourn,
devastation of the environment,
displacement of millions of its citizens
through war and oppressive regimes,
fear and famine,
having dotted the planet with 
potential nuclear disasters,
with war raging across the globe
waged by "ignorant armies
that clash by night" *,
that great beast
is stirring.

It is dozing fitfully, restlessly,
bothered by bad dreams
of tsunamis, earthquakes,
melting icecaps, tornadoes,
financial collapse,
escalating bloodshed and carnage.
It dreams of the earth
tilting on its axis
and flinging off 
its human cancer
to start anew.

The beast's nose is twitching,
eyes rolling under
shuttered eyelids.
In its left ear,
the ego lures it
ahead into further chaos,
born of greed and lust for power.
In the right ear,
its soul whispers: 
"there is a better way".

It is batting at the left ear,
annoyed and exhausted 
at its message
of further destruction.
It is turning with relief to
the voice of the soul
which tells it:
"there can be peace
and harmony,
and all can be fed."

The great beast of humankind
is beginning to understand.
With the rising tides swirling 
around its feet,
and the planet heating up,
finally,
    --finally!--
it is ready to make
the Great Shift
of global consciousness.

At last,
it is ready to
Awaken.

* from Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

Well, let us hope we can make this shift pretty darned fast!!!!!! 
The Beast is stirring!!!!
Happy Tuesday, kids.

7 Billion Amazing Stories in This World

image from google

At dVerse Poets Pub, Brian told us about a book he loves titled 6 Billion Others, a book of peoples' faces, with a few lines about their amazing stories. Now there is an updated version titled 7 Billion Others. Brian says "I love people". I love people too, and this is a topic that has always fascinated me: how every single person has the most amazing story. If we tried to write peoples'  stories as fiction, editors would scoff and say they weren't believable. Because real life is often - even usually -  more astounding than anything a fiction writer could think up. I know my life certainly has been!

He asked us to tell the story of someone we have seen or observed....I thought of this elderly couple, now dead, whose house I used to clean in their final months. When she told me this story, it knocked me OUT!



She sat in her chair by the window all day.
Her husband lay in his bed.
The house smelled of decay, 
dryness, dust, and mothballs.
It smelled of the years
they had lived in that house,
where life had once been so lively,
but where silence now 
oppressively ruled
the empty hours.

The drapes stayed closed
all day.
She listened to the ticking
of the clock,
that moved her through the hours
left to her: breakfast,
lunch, dinner, bedtime.
Day after day,
no one ever came.

But one day, out of the blue,
when she was remembering,
she told her cleaning woman
a little bit about wartime in Italy.

"We had nothing to eat.
The boys were teenagers, 
thin and famished.
I would work all day,
hard work,
in exchange for
two slices of bread.
And, if we had two slices of bread,
we cut small squares for each of us, 
and left most of it for the boys.
They were always hungry.

My sister's husband
had been captured by the enemy.
He had disappeared 
and she didn't know
if he was alive or dead.
While he was gone,
she had a daughter
he did not know about,
for he was disappeared
before she knew
a child was coming.

One day the phone rang
and it was finally him,
        -alive!-
calling from the prison camp,
where he had just been liberated.
She heard his voice on the phone
and her first words, 
in a flood of tears, were:
'Vincenzio, you have a daughter!
She is five years old! We have a daughter!'
She had waited five long years 
to be able to tell him
that he had a child.

When the war ended,
we all moved to Canada.
We had had enough of pain, 
of terror, of bombs, of hunger.

Here, we found peace.
We made a life.
We raised our children.

But I will never forget
that phone call, 
after five long years,
and my sister saying,
'Vincenzio,
we have a daughter!'"