The Red Bomb

Imagine you are a young girl, about 11 years old out one sunny carefree summer’s day riding your bicycle. Imagine that you and your family just moved to a housing complex available to the families of military personell and your Dad is in the Navy, so this housing complex with it’s look alike buildings and it’s neatly paved streets all laid out in a neat grid-like pattern is near an Air Force base. Imagine you hear a sound like thunder approaching with a strange added whistling noise. You look up to see where the clouds are for the oncoming storm because last time you noticed the sky was bright blue, absent of clouds. What you see instead of clouds is a low flying black jet, approaching with a speed so fast it leaves you breathless and as you hold your breath and notice that it is flying so low that it almost touches the trees and you can see markings painted on the slanted back wings and as it gets closer to you and the noise becomes deafening, you see what you have imagined a bomb looks like, painted bright red in contrast to the black of the plane. Your mind goes into overdrive! You are wondering through your paralyzing fear “Is that a bomb? And am I going to die right here right now?” You feel the hot tears streaming down your face and you think, “But why? Why is this flying monster with the red bomb going to kill me?” Just as quickly as the “bomber” approached and shook your reality to bits, its gone. Disappearing into a bright blue sky with no clouds. Leaving you shaking, and gripping onto the handle bars of your bicycle unable to put one foot in front of the other to run to the imagined safety of your home, where you know your Mother is cooking in the kitchen and your brothers are glued to the tv, watching cartoons on this peaceful, Saturday, Summer’s day unaware of what you have just experienced. What’s there now in your mind and heart is a fear and an insecurity that you will never be able to erase from your memory. You are only 11 years old and you were not hurt, you were not blown to bits by a bomb drop and you have no answers to your questions of why. Why do we wage war, why do we think we are safer with these killing machines flying in our skies? That young girl was me and I never felt safer at all in this country of ours from that moment on. I realized at only 11 years old for the first time that my government had the means then to wipe even me off the face of the earth. I never feared another country coming in to destroy Americans any more than I began to fear my own government!

The insecure feelings of being in that position, vulnerable to a plane or a drone targeting you is tremendous. I am filled with empathy for the people that our Predator Drones target and bomb. I am filled with horror and fear for the people and the children especially of Palestine who were just almost wiped out by the bombing of the Israeli government. Not to mention the many who have endured this in our wars past.

Also just as horrific are the mass killings we are experiencing in this country and maybe will continue to experience if we don’t do something about the ease with which to purchase weapons that kill. People who say guns don’t kill, have little idea of what they are saying in my humble opinion. If that pilot in that jet airplane had pulled a switch and had dropped a bomb on my head he would have been killing me WITH a bomb. People kill people WITH guns in their hands! They kill people WITH knives and axes and other lethal weapons.

I think now is the time to start “beating our swords into plowshares” It’s a statement that conjures up pictures of great peace and a lack of aggression. Instead of being afraid and being of the mind set that you have to protect ourselves from some imagined or real enemy, we need to start more pooling of the energy of loving each other, accepting each other, helping each other and stop the fighting over who’s right it is to bear arms and who’s right it isn’t!

I don’t’ want my Grandchildren or anyone’s children for that matter to have to live in a world where at any moment they can be vaporized just because they might be standing out in the street in their neighborhood riding a bike, or sitting in a classroom with their friends, or walking down to the village market, thinking all is right with the world and then all of a sudden in the blink of an eye, have to realize that it’s not.

Beloved

You are my beloved,
My enchantment and inspiration.
Your love can quiet my worried heart
And fill it's lonely void.
You are my beloved,
You are the one adored.

Perspective

Truth or lie, isn’t it all a matter of perspective? What you believed to be the truth last year, or sometime in your past can change in the present time, can’t it? If you felt you were in a loving relationship in the past, but it’s changed into something else now, that doesn’t mean it was false, it just means things changed for you, and that your perspective of the relationship and the love became something else.

I don’t think we should lose site of the very real feelings of love that we once felt when we were in that place. Just because something might happen to separate two people who were at one time loving and giving to each other, doesn’t mean we can’t still recall those wonderful feelings. It’s the “feelings” that we are here to experience and remember! Things come and go, people come into our lives and leave or step away. But what about the feelings? They still are with us for as long as we can recall them. That’s what’s important in this continuum of experiences we like to call life.

Goddess of Winter

Here she comes at last! Cailleach Bheur, just blew in on the blustery, cold wind this evening. As the earth is so splendidly dying, she flies about, whipping up the dead leaves with her gnarly broom, sending them spinning into dry raspy whirlpools that tease the cats. She vows to bring in the Winter storms as she shrieks and moans whenever the bare tree limbs catch her dreaded hair! ~SmG~

The Changing Of The Guard

Last night's Presidential debate focused a spotlight on how very much alike our two main parties actually are. With Mitt Romney agreeing on so many points with the President, he was basically telling us that he would not make any changes in the way we conduct business with the rest of the world, and yet he would of course spend more money on our military. A military that already has a budget bigger than China, Russia, France, the UK and Japan combined! Both men strongly support our use of drone attacks on other countries supposedly to keep America safe, completely disregarding any talks about how many innocent lives are lost to this sadistic program. Although the debate was supposed to be on foreign policy, both candidates seemed bent on bringing almost every question back to the domestic issues. I got the feeling neither candidate wants the citizens of the US focusing too much on foreign affairs. Both men believe that it's the so called "honorable" position of the United States of America to police the rest of the world, to assist in toppling governments and regimes that we don't like or who are not friendly toward our interests!
We have other choices in this changing of the guard, but we have not been allowed access to these. Main stream media has very cleverly kept the majority of the population in this country in a very controlled blackout of the information that would help us to see that we are being manipulated. Only by doing the work individually of looking and digging through other news sources can we pull ourselves up out of the quagmire of the propaganda that we are being fed by the media.
There is still, however, the issue of the way our two party system has such a strong hold on the way our government runs. Yes, we have others who are running for the office of the President of the United States, but our system is designed, unfortunately, to make it virtually impossible for any of the other parties to gain a foothold. Here, I have had to look to the advise of someone's ideas that I respect very much and that is Noam Chomsky who said recently, “The Republican organization today is extremely dangerous, not just to this country, but to the world. It’s worth expending some effort to prevent their rise to power, without sowing illusions about the Democratic alternatives.” Bingo!
As Daniel Ellsberg wrote so eloquently in an article I just posted yesterday, "The reelection of Barack Obama, in itself, is not going to bring serious progressive change, end militarism and empire, or restore the Constitution and the rule of law. That’s for us and the rest of the people to bring about after this election and in the rest of our lives -- through organizing, building movements and agitating." Ellsberg's advise to the voters in the swing states who might be thinking that they cannot vote for either Romney or Obama, is important advise. In other words, in the states that are critical to the election, a vote for a third party is a vote for Romney. After many months of considering what to do myself, I came to the conclusion that it's more important than ever right now to keep our country from falling into the hands of these extreme right wing neo-cons, that Romney has embraced.
The two men running for the highest office in our land are only different in the way they will lead. Romney has time and time again outright lied, changed his approach to the important issues and has offended many leaders in the countries he has visited during his campaign. Many claim that Romney has been misunderstood because of media propaganda. I don't think he is misunderstood at all. I understand him to be a man who has throughout his life always had his own way, I understand he thinks it is his destiny to become the President. I understand he sides with those who believe women should stay silent and submissive. I understand he is out of touch with those who who basically should be running this country, and that is the people!!!
I have no illusions that voting for Obama for a second term will bring us the much needed changes that we all hope for. The economy is in shambles and the actions taken by our government toward countries that should be left to make their own choices bring us frightfully closer to another unwanted war. But keeping this President in office, I think is a very crucial first step toward that change. Voting this time is about voting against, more than its about voting for. Blaming one man for the problems we face is not realistic when you realize that the men and women who make up the rest of the government are the ones who in the end are responsible.
We have a Republican majority run Congress and this is the issue before us right now. This Congress who stated four years ago that their main purpose, their main job was going to be to make sure that Obama was a one term President! So after four years of this kind of focus, we see basically that our representitives were not concerned with fixing the mess this counry has been in. No, they were concerned with personality. They were concerned with their own self interests. They forgot the American people to fight one man.
Now the American people have a decision to either tell this Congress with our votes that we won't tolerate another four years of this kind of lunacy.
We are all given the privilege to cast our votes however we see fit. I hope we all vote very thoughtfully and without prejudice.

The Rock

The Rock just couldn't remember how many centuries he had been in this same spot in the river. His surface was creviced and scared by the relentless rushing of the water as she molded and shaped and dug away at his edges until he was as smooth as glass in some spots. He had seen so many seasons come and go, had captured so many falling leaves, only to have them swept away by the wind and rain, some being carried on downstream as the river swelled and overflowed her boundaries after a heavy rainfall. Often the decaying debris from the trees that shaded him, collected in the deep, pools that had formed over time on his aged and wizened face. Soft moss crept across the landscape and held tiny beads of splashed up water, glistening in the sun like diamonds.
I could feel the pulsing of the river and the rock beneath my hands as I sat with upturned face to the sun and wondered how the Rock had contented himself to remain in the same spot he had for all this time. It must be wonderful Rock, for you to be so privileged to hear the song of this river every day, and night, the gurgling and the splashing and the leaping for joy that seems to be reaching my ears as I sit here in this solitude. "Are you serious?" Spoke the Rock. "Think you could have endured for centuries her never ending chattering? Oh for the chance for just one moment to be able to hear nothing at all!" "Then why do you stay," I inquired of this wise old Rock. "My roots run deep here and I've seen so many glorious days and splendid star filled nights. Many seasons have come and gone, the deer and the fox come to bend over my edge to drink from the river. Sometimes when the summers bring in the droughts, her voice is reduced to a mere whisper and when I am witness to that much dismay in her soul I rejoice when once again the rains fill her up and she is able to shout at me once more"

The love we two have made
Is the light, inside of me
That just keeps getting brighter.