Tuesday, July 29, 2008

My Summer Vacation

Helllllooooo, Spinners! (Although I guess technically this isn't Furious Spinner any longer. Still, I think of us all spinning along.)

In any case, I'm back, a few days early. I hope your summer has been going well.

Me? Well, I've been having a time.

As I've mentioned before in other posts, I think the most important thing in life is relationships: our relationships to each other and to our world. I've been attempting to have me some of them there relationships these last six weeks. I'm a little shaky at it, I admit it. It's so much easier to write a book.

For six weeks, I walked in the woods a lot, hung out with the Standing People, the Fleurs, and the Invisibles. I talked to the Wind and the Clouds. Whispered love songs to the Stars and the River. Cried a lot. Ate. Didn't write at all. Except for a poem or two. I was awakened in the middle of the night to this poem wandering around in my brain. I wrote it down and then I went back to sleep. It went something like this:

Love breaks us open
And pieces us back together
Like a contractor for the soul
Putting a window
Where once a brick wall stood.
Now flowers bloom amongst the ruins
And faeries admire our scars
Like patrons at an art gallery.
They know we are rooted in compost
Even as we comb stardust from our dreams.
Open the window, they tell us.
Let everything out.
Let everything in.

I went to workshops. Sat by the River. Went to a healing circle. Started a healers circle.

I was so grateful to have the time to grieve. To do nothing some days. To run around too much some days.

Every time I came back to the computer, it broke down, as though some part of the Universe was saying, "No, no, no. This isn't life. Go, go, play outside with life."

So I did. And I didn't worry about not having a computer or money to buy a new one. And then the kind computer man said, "We will give you a new computer." And so it happened. And still, I left the computer alone, even as it sat new amongst the ruins, a tempting white thing, like a beautiful piece of marble waiting for Michelangelo.

No Michel me.

I stayed away.

One Saturday, the day after the full moon, Mario and I drove out to Stonehenge and watched a group of actors recite faery poems and love poems by Yeats, and then they enacted two short plays by Yeats. Mario and I sat inside the circle of stones with strangers and friends as the day faded and then darkened into night. Stars above. A moon fat and gold from wildfire smoke rose into the sky. Bowls of flames wavered atop the stones, creating shadows that acted like theater walls, making us cozy in the darkness together. We sat next to a Methodist minister and talked about peace and sustainability during the intermissions.

stonehenge&yeats2

stonehenge&yeats

It was a wonderful night.

I just wrote much more, but I deleted it. I'm still unsure of how I'll proceed. What I will write about here.

I got a copy of Ruby's Imagine. It's a beautiful little book. I hope she does well out in the world.

There is more. Much more. But I just wanted to say hello. Tell you I'm back. Ask how you are. How are you all?

More words later.

May You All Spin in Beauty, Babies!


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Saturday, July 26, 2008

Poem du Jour a la Swanwick et Mario

Go here for more.


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Sunday, July 20, 2008

Inching My Way Back...

I worry that Mario works too hard. So I bug him about it. Today I said, "Remember, honey, you're a human being not a human doing." (Grinning.)

"Yes, but I still want to do stuff," he said.

"Do you think at the end of our lives we're going to remember what we did?" I paused. Then I said, "No, we're going to remember what we ate."

Mario laughed and laughed. "Didn't see that one coming."


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Friday, July 11, 2008

Blinders Off, Please

What she says.


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Wednesday, July 9, 2008

The Day the Constitution Died...Again

The Senate voted to pass the FISA bill. As far as I can tell, this means that the Bush adminstration, the phone companies, and all the other probable criminals will most likely never be investigated and, drum roll please, the government can continue to spy on us without our knowledge.

It is time for a devolution, darlins. Or sumthin. Remember, these politicans aren't going to lead us anywhere except into the abyss. Obama promised he would be a leader, he promised a new better government. I believe he proved today that he is a politician and not a leader by voting for this. We knew Clinton was a politician, but Obama promised he would be different. Hah! I heard the Obama campaign said they weren't worried about his vote on the FISA bill. They said it wasn't like the left was going to vote for McCain. I thought. how could they be that cynical and ignorant. No, people on the left are not going to vote for McCain, but many people on the left will stay home! And this would mean McCain would become prez. By the way, Clinton voted against the FISA bill.

The ACLU says, "The FISA Amendments Act nearly eviscerates oversight of government surveillance by allowing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to review only general procedures for spying rather than individual warrants. The FISC will not be told any specifics about who will actually be wiretapped, thereby undercutting any meaningful role for the court and violating the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

"The bill further trivializes court review by authorizing the government to continue a surveillance program even after the government’s general spying procedures are found insufficient or unconstitutional by the FISC. The government has the authority to wiretap through the entire appeals process, and then keep and use whatever information was gathered in the meantime. A provision touted as a major “concession” by proponents of the bill calls for investigations by the inspectors general of four agencies overseeing spying activities. But members of Congress who do not sit on the Judiciary or Intelligence committees will not be guaranteed access to the agencies’ reports.

"The bill essentially grants absolute retroactive immunity to telecommunication companies that facilitated the president’s warrantless wiretapping program over the last seven years by ensuring the dismissal of court cases pending against those companies. The test for the companies’ right to immunity is not whether the government certifications they acted on were actually legal – only whether they were issued. Because it is public knowledge that certifications were issued, all of the pending cases will be summarily dismissed. This means Americans may never learn the truth about what the companies and the government did with our private communications."

Once again, I'm doing what I know to do. I've called my senators to thank them for doing the right thing. And I'm going to contact the Obama campaign and let them know what I think. Mario and I have also decided we're not donating any more money to the Obama campaign, at least for now. We were giving a little bit each month, just as we would have given a little bit to Clinton (or Edwards, etc.). But no more.

(Yes, I'm still on a break. My computer is dead again. Again. Again. Again. Enjoying the break although I miss blogging.)


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Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Cat Man Do


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Monday, July 7, 2008

We're All Kin


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Universal Language: Dance



Thanks, Joanna.


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Tuesday, July 1, 2008

The Girl Who Silenced the U.N.



Be the change.


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All work copyright © Kim Antieau 2008-.