Photo: Mysi
Anyone who has been through tragedy—any tragedy, however one defines it—will understand how an hour, a minute, a day can seem like an instant or an eternity.
In those moments we are lifted so far out of ourselves that time ceases to have meaning. Even in retrospect, those moments take on the outside-of-time quality that they first possessed.
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Election day: probably the most heated and least balanced day on the calendar. Thank god it only comes once every four years. Look, I don’t care who you vote for (okay, that is patently untrue; I actually care very deeply for whom you vote, but I’ll keep my mouth shut) just as long as you vote. But here’s a secret: I’m not even sure this whole free election/voting thing actually makes any difference whatsoever.
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I feel as though I’ve been remiss in my postings. I keep up with my little photo hobby, but I know this space is meant for more than that.
I think part of the problem has been this deep sadness that I’ve been experiencing. This isn’t a sadness for myself or my personal life, which is going rather beautifully, but a deep sadness for what has been, I fear, irrevocably lost. Between the drought which has plagued much of the country and reading about the ‘sponge effect’ (in which the drought is perpetuated by the atmosphere sucking moisture from ground and trees which will only get worse as temperatures increase), I’ve had little energy left to attack the issue in writing.
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I’m directly copying and pasting this from Mary Jane’s Farm (click here for a much nicer layout of this article). Global class-action lawsuit, anyone? Maybe we should start with buying only organic cotton…
Did you know? 250,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide as a direct result of genetically engineered cotton.
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The compliment of opposing colors (photo: Fountain_Head*).
The other day, I decided to unsubcribe from the email notices of a handful of petition sites (such as CREDO Action). This was not exactly easy for me… I like to be a part of the progressive opposition; I like knowing about issues which may not reach me through my limited exposure to daily news. But what finally did it for me? The use of language.
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I’ve been dealing with enormous amounts of anger lately. Being a yoga instructor, I have plenty in my bag of tricks and, normally, when I feel this way, I dive into asana, the physical practice of yoga. Well, enter Monday. Apparently I was so driven in my practice that I made the very stupid mistake of moving into a series of backbends before I was sufficiently warmed up. Long story short, I’ve done some painful damage to my lumbar spine. Anyway, who cares? That’s not the point. The point is that my go-to resource has been taken away. I am immobilized. Somehow I’m guessing there’s a lesson here.
But you know what? I’m sick of lessons. So, instead of meditating on my anger, I’m just going to release it (lucky you–you can quit reading at any point, as I’m sure you realize). I’m exceedingly pissed off for any number of reasons. I’ll just list a few here.
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So, this morning, I happened to have the dubious pleasure of seeing the headlines on a USA Today. Something about how cutting defense spending will harm the economy. Well, obviously, we should just start another war and our economic outlook will get all rosy again. Obviously.
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I love elephants. For more about elephant and wildlife conservation, you can visit the good people at The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. Or, if you can, watch this (I couldn’t finish it, but I definitely shared it).
So, we’re probably all at least vaguely familiar with the strange, and dangerous, cosmetic habits of our ancestors: arsenic in face powder, copper or lead to color the eyes, not to mention lead-based face masks used by the Greeks to ‘improve’ skin condition. Yikes, right?
Not surprisingly, these cosmetics led to madness, infertility, scarring of the skin, illness and, eventually, death. According to journalist Diane Mapes, “Some beauty products of yesteryear contained high concentrations of lead, mercury, arsenic, even radiation, thanks to ignorance, indifference and narcissism.”
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photo: Mike Licht
So, I don’t know if you guys know about Daily Om, but I regularly get their mailings and often find them uncannily appropriate to whatever is going on that day. Enter North Carolina and the amendment to their constitution banning gay marriage. Needless to say, I was outraged by this very public display of injustice and discrimination and I was well-armed with a clever barrage of anti-North Carolina statuses for my Facebook page.
Then, I got this in my inbox: “When we respect the beliefs and values of those individuals whose personal philosophies differ from our own, we do our part to create a widespread culture of tolerance. We ensure that others will follow our example and afford us similar acceptance, even if there is little hope of our ever seeing eye to eye…This liberal approach to interpersonal interactions can [demonstrate] that you do not support discrimination.” Yup. Oops {quickly deletes witty and cutting remark geared towards NC on Facebook status bar}.
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