N-word

Hi Maggie,

I moved and stacked wood for about an hour today. I feel it in my thighs, in my abs.  I forget to go outside sometimes. I forget that I need to go outside - psychologically and emotionally almost as much as physically.  While I was outside, I was completely surrounded by raucous sounds that seemed to be coming from everywhere.  Finally, I looked up and there was an immense V of Canadian geese moving south.  Somehow they knew there was a really cold front coming tonight, and they are moving. I know because of the Weather Underground.  I wonder how they know.  S#5 told me that the cherries are blossoming near DC.  I read that an air mass moved across us, and up over the Arctic.  The air mass is 50 degrees higher than the normal temperature. Some scientists predicted that would melt the polar caps.   We have crazy flooding in the midwest, snow storms in the southwest.  This week I read that the Earth was hit by a solar flare. If it had been one magnitude higher, we all- all of us, on the whole planet, we all would have lost electricity.

Then I started reading a Native American prophecy. It said this change is going to be remorseless, but cleansing.

So all we can do is relax, hold on and love everyone and everything as hard as we possibly can. 

I watched a video that also shook me.  There was a photojournalist documenting the work of a group of activists working to educate everyone about fracking.  This big white guy, probably in his mid-30s, wanted to go make fun of the hippy-dippies.  Then he saw this photojournalist, who was not only black, but had dreadies.  He began to tell the photographer that he was the root of our problems, his taking things from us.  He called him names and made monkey sounds at him.  The photojournalist very calmly continued filming the young white man.  Because no one was standing up to him, he just kept going on. And on. And on...

The video has been posted, and the white man, who was identified, lost his job.  He was forced to apologize to the photojournalist. 

I was shocked by the depth of the white man's fear and ignorance.

I'm not sure if losing his job was the best solution, although if I were an employer, I certainly would not want an employee this rude and mean and ignorant. But losing his job - I think the white guy will feel even more put down by the scary people who look different than him.  It may make his mental illness go deeper. This was a chance to maybe transform thinking...

We all need to take AVP!

One seriously strong thought came to me, though.  Nigger is not about the color of skin. (I am so afraid to write and say that word.  I'd rather FUCK!  Mom did well!)  Nigger is about mental illness. Anyone who uses this word is displaying a serious symptom of a mental illness, and they need treatment.

Unless, of course, it is someone disempowering the word by making it their own.

Back to my quiet Sunday afternoon, with no one in my house...ahhhhhhhh...the dogs are asleep...ahhhh...and so are the cats. We're hunkered down, waiting for the bad weather to arive!

Hope you are nestled in, too.

Love and hugs from Clare