The Christmas that almost wasn’t…

We were standing on the edge of the horizon, funny, but from up here, we looked over the horizon and down. It didn’t need to be that way, we could choose a different perspective, but some of our Earth habits remained. Looking down, we noticed a growing shimmering, a cloud rising and expanding, trying to obscure the view, luckily, we have never needed our eyes to see. That’s not to say we did not use them anyway.

Beneath the cloud, there was a pulsating orb of darkness. Not evil, sadness. The sadness was creeping in all directions, filling the space around it, and beneath and within was a family.

A mother wrung her hands as she looked out the window, practicing her smile. It’s not that she didn’t know how to smile, it had just been a very long time since she could do so without having to perform. We knew this woman, she had been flagged as a child as one that could keep the light. We watched her, it was all we were allowed to do, her forgotten contract was to march through the darkness. We loved her so very much when she looked at the moon and smiled and thanked her, calling her Mamma Moon, when she sang beneath the stars, off key, but singing nevertheless, the same songs over and over again. She would play in the forest, inventing games, not recalling that the games were real. She was lovely to behold, she gave forth a pure light, energy, that could not be dimmed.

The years went on.

You see, part of her contract was to remain true to her heart, despite what might be delivered along the way. We watched her light, it would dim at times, but never dip so low that we were afraid. We needed her light, she was a pinpoint across a map finely drawn long ago.

She was tempted, sorely over the years, to turn her back on those that had closed the doors only to knock again, asking for help. She had bleak moments, we always knew but it became more poingant depending upon what song she sang. When she asked in her songs to be heard, when she sang of the promise, we always knew she was still on track.

One day, the songs ended.

Some of us recalled, from prior lives, that everyone can change. They can paint and stop painting. They can write and stop writing. The only thing they can’t do is love and stop loving because love is never ending. They can only be mistaken with the word.

Christmas neared, the woman’s favorite time of year. She was not very hung up on either the history of Christmas or the present day madness, she loved the love, she loved the very joy of people wanting to do something for one another. Then, it seemed, her threads broke, the ones she had knotted and repaired and reinforced, snapped. She was on the edge of losing her love of Christmas.

We spoke among ourselves, we knew the rules. We could not show her or give her a glimpse of what is. It was horribly frustrating because even a mere glimpse would restore her light upon remembrance. We volleyed back and forth, giving reasons for and against, but we knew, God asked us, please, don’t go against this promise, the promise I gave her, that only she could summon forth the time to remember. If we interfere now, she will not know, if she could have remembered through love.

On Pinky and Rubicon

Can you choose your color today, or must others still do that for you? Can anyone of us with mixed heritage be predominantly called by just one name? What does that say about the heritage you choose (or is chosen for you), and the heritage not chosen? It appears to me that regardless of your standing in society, regardless of your accomplishments or natural talents, you must choose a color – or one will be chosen for you.

I wonder at that. In some ways, our nation has come a long way since Patricia ‘Pinky’ Johnson, in its day a very controversial film about a young black woman who passes for white.
“Pinky” was a slang term for light-skinned black Americans. We trust the term as used here is not offensive to anyone today as we are using same only as historical reference.

Lena Horne wanted to play the title role in this movie. Ms. Horne, among the most accomplished actresses and singers of all time, (awarded 2 Stars on the Hollywood Walk; Recording and Motion Pictures), was considered “light enough” to photograph “white” in the films of that time. However, that time was 1949 and 20th Century-Fox felt the movie would not show in most theaters (and for sure none in the South) since love scenes with a white actor were essential to the story. As a historical reference here as well, a “love scene” in the movies back then was an embrace or a kiss lasting more than a second (or about what you see Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed do in “It’s a Wonderful Life”). This was also the main reason she lost out on playing “Julie”, a role depicted for a “mulatto” woman in MGM’s 1951 remake of Show Boat.
In her autobiography, Ms Horne said she photographed so light that MGM was afraid people would mistake her for a white woman, so they had Max Factor (yes, the makeup legend himself) create a make-up line for her to “appear” as a black woman on screen with black men. For the films where the cast was white, MGM shot her scenes so they could be cut out when the films were shown in the South. Hey now, you don’t have to like every aspect of our history, but to ignore or deny any part of our history is simply foolish and only serves to condemn us all to repeat its mistakes in one fashion or another (e.g., Gay Rights).

Indeed, our nation has come a long way since the first showing of “Pinky”. The last US census showed that an increasing number of Americans identify themselves as “multiracial and mixed-race” when asked to identify their heritage and an increasing number is expected to choose so in the 2010 census. Nevertheless, customs and society norms, like any addiction, are difficult habits to break. The parents of our President are both white and black, yet the world, as does President Obama, describes himself only as a black man or an American of African decent. We are not attempting to diminish any of the reasons for this choice, but attempting to understand how a focus on “color” continues in 2009. For example, one of the readers of SurfaceEarth, C.Grego, recently commented that he was surprised to hear that CNN does not consider him a white man (he is Portuguese).

“I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept. I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked.” Ms. Horne.

I believe we are long past that daydream now, and I hope Ms. Horne agrees. In regards to race, we have crossed the Rubicon. Sure, we can all turn around, look back and focus at the soiled and bloodied foot prints leading to the river, but cross it we have. It’s time to move on, and I wonder at that.

by Grego

It’s the law: For Afghanistan’s “women”, the word NO is NEVER an option.

Without much of a fuss made by the media, if even reported at all, last month Afghanistan’s new Shiite Personal Status Law was put into effect. The law grants Shiite men the legal right to starve their wives if their sexual demands are not met. These sexual demands are not defined or limited by the law. The law also requires Shiite women to obtain permission from their husbands to even leave their home. Parental custody is solely the father’s or, in his absence, the paternal grandfather. Incredibly, the law also allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying “blood money” to a girl who was injured when he raped her. That payment, of course, is offered to the father, paternal grandfather or the brothers of the raped girl.

It is worth noting that a Shiite “woman” is any girl old enough for marriage. Therefor if you are a 9 year old girl (a 3rd or 4th grader in the US) and live in Afghanistan this law, including the rape provision, applies to you. [Photo credit: Ahmad Masood/Reuters]

A great deal of progress in respect to the rights of women in Afghanistan was widely reported after the US lead invasion that resulted in response to the Taliban’s attacks on September 11, 2001. The sacrifices made, and continued to be made, by our service men/women are difficult for anyone to even see, let alone physically endure. However, the media softens this horror for many by filling their broadcasts with heart warming images of little girls being allowed to attend school for the first time.

Today you will not find one little girl in any of the dozens of schools built by our forces and contractors. The monthly combat deaths and injuries resulting from the expanding war are the highest since the start, yet the scant media coverage and reporting is no comparison to the media coverage even 6 months ago … and for the little girls all across Afghanistan, the word NO is (again) NEVER an option.

-Surface Earth columnist: CB

Racist remarks by adult club members bring tears to children

The Creative Steps Day Care, a Philadelphia-area day care center, said Thursday, that members of a private swim club the organization had paid to attend, made racist comments about the center’s children to the point of bringing some of the young children to tears. Not to be outdone by its racist members, the swim club then quickly canceled the swimming privileges of all the children – from the day care center!

The Creative Steps Day Care children, ages kindergarten through seventh grade, went to The Valley Swim Club in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, on June 29. During their first visit, some children said they heard club members asking why African-American children were there. One of the young boys told the Philadelphia Inquirer that a woman at the club said she feared the children “might do something” to her child. Days later, the day care center’s $1,950 check was returned by the swim club without explanation. Club President John Duesler tells Philadelphia television station WTXF that several club members complained because the children “fundamentally changed the atmosphere” at the pool.

Most reading this story are probably too young to remember the treatment of Sammy Davis Jr. by the casino where he and the rest of the famous “Rat Pack” group were performing. When a group of Texan “high-rollers” saw Mr Davis in the casino’s pool, they demanded the pool be completely drained and then refilled so they could “enjoy a proper swim”. Yes, we are being kind as I’m sure we all can imagine that different words were used by them, but you get the idea and the casino quickly complied. The other members of the “Rat Pack”, led by Frank Sinatra, refused to perform unless the casino apologized directly to Mr Davis, which they did and the incident never occurred again.

We believe a regime change is long overdue at The Valley Swim Club. The PA Health Department should also insist that its pool be drained and refilled as a precaution against further contamination by whatever sickness its current members may have brought to that community.

-Surface Earth columnist: CB

Update: Swim Club President denies charges

Shelley helping the kids, the innocents, in India

Many of you may have read Shelley Seale’s article, posted a few days ago here, The Weight of Silence….

Now maybe you may take a moment and watch her video on these utterly beautiful innocent souls, and if you do, maybe you will pass it on and on, and stop at her site and buy her book.

It starts now.

Shelly & her kids

Life Created By The Hands of Man vs. GOD. Is there a difference?

I have been giving this question some thought since my daughter shared with me an article from LiveScience.com entitled “Life As We Know It Nearly Created in Lab”.

The hand of man has willfully, purposefully, altered the genome of crops and animals for thousands of years to suit its purposes. In our recent life time, we have witnessed artificial intelligence, our mechanical devices wondering barren fields of other worlds, two even leaving our vast solar system entirely, and the artificial cloning of mammals. We can freeze human embryos for decades, and thereby my son and my great-grandson can be delivered by the same unrelated woman at the same time. Let’s pause for a moment to appreciate just how bizarre and “unnatural” that really is.

If we create new life forms in much the same way as God has; as this article implies, with random molecules, forming random proteins and enzymes, further on to RNA and DNA – all subjects of which I, with a post-graduate degree, have only a rudimentary understanding of. Then is there a difference between life created by man and that created by God?

Such a life, so created by the hands of man, could then evolve in response to outside forces such as a hungry neighbor, climate change resulting from the natural rhythm of the earth’s rotation or an ill-timed collision by some stray piece space born rock, thus encouraging an adaptation (i.e., its evolution) in the same randomness experienced by all life that is now and ever was on this planet. Of course unlike God, the luxury of patience has not been engineered in our nature. We could not wait 4.5 Billion years to see what unfurls from our own creation. I imagine then we would encourage the process of adaptation as quickly as possible, thus allowing us to witness evolution first hand as only God has.

Now once such a life, a life created and evolved by the hand of man, becomes self-aware, would it have a soul – if there is such a thing?

We have engineered ways to artificially split human eggs to produce twins or more. No one I know would suggest that these twins share one soul or that one or the other is lacking a soul. Isn’t an identical twin essential a “naturally occurring” clone? I say “naturally” only because we have not yet found the catalyst within our DNA that make some people predisposed to producing twins (or maybe we have).

Cultures throughout history and the world over have expressed God in a human form, only far more superior and capable in every way imaginable to them at the time. Perhaps man has known all along that such a vision is indeed its own destiny.

by Grego

America’s Children or America’s Parents?

I’m trying to understand the hot news today, both involving three kids, 12, 11 and 10.

The first is two young girls who allegedly decided to kidnap their neighbor’s child. This time CNN is apparently looking inward to America and our depraved society. (This remark stems from a comment on my post: We Do This To Ourselves: India: Mistreating the Elderly and the Young in the name of custom. The comment did get me thinking more about media coverage, but like I said in my reply comment, that would require a host of other posts and I will leave that to other capable bloggers out in virtual earth).

CNN reports: Girl, 11, allegedly driving 100 mph with .02 blood alcohol, says, on way to pick up sister from a concert

I have to admit, when I saw a flash of this on the television this morning, I assumed it was a boy. As I read the article, I kick myself for making any gender assumption. Part of the article reads:

ORANGE BEACH, Alabama (AP) — Police who chased a car for miles along a highway at speeds up to 100 mph said the driver was drunk, hardly a rarity in this resort town. But there was more: When they looked inside the flipped vehicle with guns drawn, they found an 11-year-old girl at the wheel.

“You go up there thinking it’s a felon you’re dealing with,” assistant police Chief Greg Duck said.

The girl, who was slightly injured in the crash, is now charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, speeding, reckless endangerment and leaving the scene of an accident. Duck said she sideswiped another vehicle during the roughly 8-mile chase.

I just don’t get it. I’m not sitting here ready to blame the parents or anyone else. How do I know if the parents or guardian went to sleep at a normal hour and the kid pretended to be asleep, etc.? I just don’t know. I know we don’t hide the keys to the car in our house. The point is, what makes a child get behind the wheel of a car and proceed to incite an 8 mile chase?

As if that didn’t stump me enough, I had to see two other children, a girl aged 12 and one aged 10, who allegedly kidnapped their next door neighbor, a toddler boy. Again, the news came compliments of CNN.

I on some level have a need to understand how two kids came up with the idea and carried through on the idea to kidnap the little boy. On the other hand, I am just so grateful to see no one was hurt.

What’s going on? Sometime ago, we posted about the crowd that beat up the passenger in Texas, even though the driver who accidentally hit a young girl, stopped his vehicle to get out and check. The crowd beat up the passenger?

Maybe I don’t need to look any further than what happens with the adults in our country to understand why the kids’ seemingly outlandish behavior barely causes anyone to gasp any longer.

There are a lot of theories out there, calls to prayer, calls to enlightenment, I have got to be frank with you, I wish to heck one of these New Age techniques could work on this world instantaneously.

We do this to ourselves: India: mistreating the elderly and the young in the name of custom?

I am a proponent of collective consciousness thinking. I believe that we are all webbed together and our blinders prevent us from seeing or knowing this on a day to day basis.

I can rarely find an instant, where one action has not somehow affected another. There are simple examples:

I leave work in a rush, angry over some detail. I am striving to get errands done and arrive home timely. I am in traffic and become angry watching cars ahead of me race through the yield sign and shove their way into the traffic, further delaying my journey because of a lack of courtesy. Miles down the road, I sense a car patiently waiting could use a break, needs some considerate motorist to let them into the traffic so they don’t remain in place for the next hour. Do I notice, do I see, do I allow this person in or do I carry over my anger from my earlier frustrations? Do I in turn now punish this motorist for the ones earlier who almost ran people off the road without care? Do I stop and realize, at times, I may have inadvertantly been the one not slowing at the yield sign, perhaps not out of a lack of deliberate inconsideration, but because I was so in my own world, my own perspective, I simply thought it was “my turn”?

Now, this is just a loose description, the point being is that when you become aware, it is hard to divorce any moment, any action, any word from another.

Today, there are two striking news articles that made me again think: We do this to ourselves. The first is the treatment of “elderly” Hindu woman, the second the treatment of female brides and the price of dowrys.

I saw a picture of a young woman standing in traffic. BBC news entitled its piece: Indian Woman Strips in Dowry Row

This young woman, standing with just underclothes on in traffic and what appears to be a baseball bat in her hand. The picture sounds like a scream to me, I feel that I can hear her soul screaming.

The second article that I keep thinking of was posted on CNN, entitled: Shunned from society, widows flock to city to die:

“VRINDAVAN, India (CNN) — Ostracized by society, India’s widows flock to the holy city of Vrindavan waiting to die. They are found on side streets, hunched over with walking canes, their heads shaved and their pain etched by hundreds of deep wrinkles in their faces.

 

 

 

A widow makes her way in Vrindavan, India, where an estimated 15,000 widows live on the streets.

 

1 of 3

more photos »

These Hindu widows, the poorest of the poor, are shunned from society when their husbands die, not for religious reasons, but because of tradition — and because they’re seen as a financial drain on their families.

They cannot remarry. They must not wear jewelry. They are forced to shave their heads and typically wear white. Even their shadows are considered bad luck.

Hindus have long believed that death in Vrindavan will free them from the cycle of life and death. For widows, they hope death will save them from being condemned to such a life again. Watch how some widows are rebelling »

“Does it feel good?” says 70-year-old Rada Rani Biswas. “Now I have to loiter just for a bite to eat.”

Biswas speaks with a strong voice, but her spirit is broken. When her husband of 50 years died, she was instantly ostracized by all those she thought loved her, including her son.

“My son tells me: ‘You have grown old. Now who is going to feed you? Go away,’ ” she says, her eyes filling with tears. “What do I do? My pain had no limit.”

As she speaks, she squats in front of one of Vrindavan’s temples, her life reduced to begging for scraps of food.

There are an estimated 40 million widows in India, the least fortunate of them shunned and stripped of the life they lived when they were married.

It’s believed that 15,000 widows live on the streets of Vrindavan, a city of about 55,000 in northern India.

“Widows don’t have many social rights within the family,” says Ranjana Kumari with the Center for Social Research, a group that works to empower women.

The situation is much more extreme within India’s rural community. “There, it is much more tradition-bound; in urban areas, there are more chances and possibilities to live a normal life.”

But the majority of India’s 1.1 billion population is rural. “The government recognizes the problem,” Kumari says. “It can do a lot, but it’s not doing enough.”

 

Don’t miss

• Guild of Service
• Widows’ Rights International
• Impact your world

One woman, a widow herself, is working for change. Dr. Mohini Giri has formed an organization called the Guild of Service, which helps destitute women and children.

Giri’s mother was widowed when Giri was 9 years old, and she saw what a struggle it was. Then, Giri lost her husband when she was 50, enduring the social humiliation that comes with being a widow. At times, she was asked not to attend weddings because her presence was considered bad luck.

“Generally all widows are ostracized,” she says. “An educated woman may have money and independence, but even that is snatched away when she becomes a widow. We live in a patriarchal society. Men say that culturally as a widow you cannot do anything: You cannot grow your hair, you should not look beautiful.”

She adds, “It’s the mind-set of society we need to change — not the women.”

Seven years ago, Giri’s organization set up a refuge called Amar Bari, or “My Home,” in Vrindavan. It has become a refuge for about 120 of India’s widows. Giri’s organization is set to open a second home, one that will house another 500 widows.

But as she says, “Mine is but a drop in the bucket.”

At Amar Bari, most widows reject traditional white outfits and grow out their hair. Along the open air corridors that link the house’s courtyard are green wooden doors, leading to dark tiny rooms, home for each widow. See the widows of Vrindavan »

Bent over by osteoporosis, 85-year-old Promita Das meticulously and slowly sweeps the floor just outside her door and then carefully cleans her dishes.

“I came here when I couldn’t work anymore. I used to clean houses,” she says. “Nobody looked after me, nobody loved me. I survived on my own.”

She married at 12 and was widowed at 15. Seventy years later, she finds herself at Amar Bari. “I used to live in front of a temple, but then I came here,” she says….”.

On one end of the spectrum of life, there is mistreatment for not bringing enough into the marriage and the family. On the other end, there is banishment for not having enough left to give after already have given it to everyone else.

I have posted before about the eternal question: why? And yes, as I read these and other stories, my first impulse is to still ask why, but I no longer am convinced that figuring out the “why” will fix these problems. Whose “why” would I begin with? Through whose eyes would I look through first and with whose eyes would I end in trying to figure out the origin?

Other Sources/Viewpoints:

Shubho introduces another view & different statistics:  Atmaav Blogspot

Uprising Radio: Review of Deepa Mehta’s film: Water

India Together: Land Titles & Widows

Widows Rights Organization

WomensENews: 2004 article

America: Debate on caring for elderly patients: family or professionals?

Collision of Truth

Suppose, you recognized that in the moments when you first awake from sleep, you have no name?

Suppose you recognized that in those few spare moments in the day there was no list, no bills, no anger, no complaints, no one outside of the limitless mind that you awoke to?

Limitless of course implying that you woke to some collective whole. As if whole could be separated from collective.

Switch………….

I recently read something…what a laugh as I am always reading…but I read something, I believe it was on The Spiritual Oracle…and I was questioning something, suprise, repeating number sightings I think, and someone replied that they had learned to accept what is and was…hmmm.

I think I get it now.

I have this odd occurrence daily, birds sweep and hover in front of my car, my windshield, it used to freak me out and I would duck…recently I shrug it off, knowing it means something, but also knowing I do not know the language of birds and I just better let it go. Now I am talking as if I have really mastered sitting back and nothing could be further from the truth, but I swear, I haven’t ducked so much in the last few days.

What helped me was thinking of children. Children don’t to our knowledge recognize the written language and it takes most years of integration to get them to conform and see it “our” way. Yet, a part of them recognizes the power of the written word, the mystical aspect, the magic, and will hold a book, a piece of paper, a dollar bill…and “pretend” to read. I recently saw this and thought: that is me on a spiritual search, I pretend to know the language.

Monteray: The Book: Chapter One

Monteray, Chapter One has been moved to a new page, entitled:  Monteray, The Book.