Friday, December 18, 2009

love

Exuma gives this message,"tell the people to stop worrying, tell the people to love".

i need to grok that myself. certainly it can be seen as the "divine thing" game - a shell game for sure - but still it says "your prayers are answered". ok so after I have finished writing this my prayers will be answered - that's my scenario.

dorothee said to me of me.
"you want to tell".
And indeed i do, and in fact - am.
yes I am telling this story now here .

Each moment has its own characterisation - this moment is the tortured clam - you know when you just cant get it open and it is inside.
------------------------------------------
I am the interface between innerspace and outer space. they are equally extensive .
==============================
This is the beloved delusionary moment. It's a bit scary right now. I am asking for permission to go on breathing. all is permitted. stop worrying! love!
=============================
why would we say life sucks unless we werent living it to the full in all its complexities , anxieties, pain and gifts.
living it to the full? knowing that we have been here before, that human kind is always telling this story , that there is always a quisling this time joe liebermann, it is always difficult and beautiful.
and out of pain a terrible beauty is born ( to quote yeats) my terrible beauty is still this work in progress and tonight is a painful one although i love to write my thoughts - i am not sharing them all with you. ( who? me? what? terrible beauty? i use those words in conjunction with Me?? who do i think i am?)

cognitive dissonance is fffing uncomfortable. in this case to have two belief systems which are contradictory. Dorothee told me, just because i do not see it the way you do , does not mean your point is invalid.
In this case the argument is with myself - it pretty durn difficult but i am encouraged by Nils the Bohr and the truth of opposites - of a great truth the opposite is also true.
intelligence and consciousness exists as a separate entity than ego and it doesnt.

It is wonderful to know that intelligence has lived before, and lives in me ( strains of lion king in my mind , exultation {it} "lives in me"), this thought carried to a logical conclusion makes death seem unimportant
the very inability of this thought to be thought without a brain is another thing
but the thought can be thought without me, but i will not be able to think it without me, that is i elizabeth will not be able to think any thought if my brain is dead.
but when i take a long term perspective i dont really care, but then i face death or its less pleasant alternatives and begin to ask very hard to be permitted to keep on living.

"a hanging in the morning really focuses the mind"

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

2 Poems


Poem for My Adopted Country.

To the people of Obama, as the Black Caucasian.

We are White like Obama is White - we are of the white race, we have white blood in us.
I am Maori like Hone Heke - the land of our birth is Maoriland - Ao Tea Roa - New Zealand.
I am American like Elvis, the King - I adopted America.

I am Inclusive like Liberty herself, who belongs to all without exclusion.

{100% black - you are African, or like me, an adoptive american}
{born in America - you are American like Sacajawea - the spirit of this land nourished your birth).


For Wiki

Uncovering the Inner Child ©

This art form teaches us
Whether we are exocarnalic
( youth, fleshy on the outside)
or
endocarnalic
( young in mind - still learning - while the body ages :
fools and sages.)


Sunday, December 13, 2009

he told me i was the glue

his words have consoled me and helped me on my own journey. despite my frequent whining in fact because of it , i feel this inclination to express appreciation for my husband.

relationships are reciprocal. i get the life i create, not always what i thought i wanted but what i need.

celebration . we both hung out with our own separate circles today. my love flows virtuously and generously if sometimes kinda mixed up. :)

The story of ten ton tilly

hello my name is ten ton tilly. i went biking in the park and we came to a bridge that said 27 ton max.
" Hey hey",
i yelled meanly to thirty ton milly, my sister.
" yuh caan't go."
"huh",
she replied,
" watch this. "
She rode onto the bridge, continuing ,
"You know those diapers that say 'holds up to 15lb' ........ well ive heard it said they dont hold that much, (yuk,yuk =l.o.l.)
'cept everysingle time i needed 'em to they came thru for me. Oi've always known me fat is favored. ".
---------------------------------------------------------------------
what is it about fat that worries us. ? it suggests a certain sluggishness of the brain but that is not necessarily a true suggestion.
Poem for my zaftig sisters:

the gentle roll of my hips is dolphins playing
my body is a chaise longue made of clouds;
in the opposition of bone and flesh, i epitomise endomorphic softness,
polar to prickly bony angular ectomorphic you.

Median mesomorphs can see and say " i am soft And sharp ,wiggly And straight, prickly And gooey( alan watts ) , paramoecium And amoeba."

we all have a role. tho as ten ton tilly i pine to be mesomorphic and so i vomit up my consciousness of fat; whether it is my fat or, anorexically, that of my other hated and despised endomorphic sisters that bothers me.

When we learn to love who we are we are no longer bothered by the subject. Introducing ourself as who we are, we step forward and say this moment is mine.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Debbi's

This image, painted on silk ( c 4'6" x 3'8"), was commissioned for Debbi. I made a composite image using photos of works she owns which are in the space where this piece is to hang.

ForbIDden Eden: for E - ID; for Eid?

E id - End point identifier - a term in delay-tolerant networking.
Eid - muslim - festival, feast
forbidden eden - having non consensensual thoughts.

I network or knit meaning into my thoughts which include a reality not yet present.

I enjoy this although it is painful. I feel both alone and well accompanied.

eg by timothy mcsweeney -" as voice,voice as noose, noose as form, form as decoy, decoy as crutch, crutch as truth, truth as voice, voice as noose, "etc


- my story about talking to a reality not yet present ( thoughts = a conversation in my head) : my "voice" weaves a noose of non sense

I love the shape of the story i tell myself : the noose of nonsense takes life -form - materialises in my imagination i.e. how i see reality

this story - form is a decoy a distraction from hard cold reality - getting stuff done, real life money job communication

this distraction from reality becomes a crutch, an escape

this escape becomes my reality - the story i tell myself - in the words of the surrealist, Elizabeth Id, " i choose my own reality" - the crutch has become my truth

i tell you my truth:

I network or knit meaning into my thoughts which include a reality not yet present.

I enjoy this although it is painful. I feel both alone and well accompanied.

I feel alone when failing to communicate with those who choose to "let the mystery be" ( Iris dement sings those words so well), I feel well accompanied when i read or speak to others with whom i appear to have thoughts in common.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

my letter to the editor . november 09

American Spirit - 2 Recent Events

Dear sir,

Two somewhat related news events prompt me to write you - the Fort Hood massacre and the use of the steel from the twin towers to make a memorial.
Unfortunately for the Muslim community, the first act has added much more to the average American perspective on Muslims than the daily acts of Muslims who do their best to live up to their five tenets of faith. After this horror, my friend Linda helped out a Muslim group distributing food to the homeless, to experience who Muslims really are. Similarly to Christianity, caring for the poor is one of the five pillars of Islam whose aim is: “the establishment of a just social order which would totally reflect the guidance of God.” ( ref: website Beautiful Islam.)


Feeling compelled to discuss these news events, I spoke to strangers. I fell in step with a couple taking an evening stroll in the park, and asked them if they’d mind - what did they think of making a memorial out of the steel of the twin towers. They suggested I ask the relatives of those who died. The man began to enthuse about the idea of a peace memorial like the Washington wall, or a construction where the relatives could have each a space to make a memorial, e.g. a glass topped box with photo and mementoes, or a photographic image like in the old cemeteries. It was a beautiful idea,

When I told them about the USS New York,the Navy's newest amphibious assault ship, built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center., he said, shocked,
“That’s disrespectful!”

I suggested another perspective I have heard: “It will show ‘em we wont put up with terrorism”.

“Whoa!” said his wife, “That’s the mindset of the people in power these days..... Why doesnt the United Nations work ? There’s an attitude of non-cooperation. They need to get together and listen to each other and make a compromise or we’ll never have peace..... Too much testosterone there! ... It’s not a male/ female thing ... it’s an attitude.”

I want the world to know my America where people of all creeds and all colors get along. Where tolerance is a virtue and cooperation a given.
Just as most of our media demonizes Muslims, their media can find ample opportunities to demonize us. The deranged Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and the thousands of others who read only about death and destruction created by American bombs develop an interpretation of our actions as hateful and requiring retribution. Much of our foreign policy fertilizes the soil in which terrorism is bred. Much of our media fosters hatred and ignorance. One blogger in the stream of positive reactions to the USS New York dubbed it the Avenging Angel.


I am reminded of Mark Twain’s story of the wise man who comes into a church service where the people are praying for victory in war. The grey beard reminds them that they are in fact praying for destruction of the hopes and dreams of families like themselves, death to other sons and brothers, the spoiling of the wealth of a nation.

We must take action for peace. War is money. Far from turning our swords into ploughshares, symbolically the USS New York turns our wounds into a goad to perpetuate the cycle of revenge. What shall we do? Prepare for another round or talk to our neighbors so we may strengthen our common sense of decency and create the possibility of peace. I am a Quaker. I believe "There is no way to peace. Peace is the way." " You can bomb the world to pieces but you cant bomb it into peace". People of all faiths and people of common sense - we must make ourselves heard.



elizabeth e mitchell