Give Peace A Chance

What would John Lennon who wrote Give Peace A Chance think of the news of today?  I'm pretty sure he would be sickened and heartbroken.  John Brennan, the counterterrorism advisor said yesterday on ABC'sThis Week, that civilian deaths were inevitable. He said "unfortunately in war there are casualties, including among the civilian population." He said "sometimes you have to take life to save lives."  I'm sure the 19 hijackers of 9/11 had a similar conversation with their leaders.  But for the grace of god any single one of us reading this today could have been born in Afghanistan and lost our child in the war on terror, just like families who lost their loved ones on 9/11.

Terror is a tactic used by extremists of all religions  and ideologies to scare people into sharing their point of view.  Bombing innocent children in foreign countries basically does the same thing.  I was one of those people who thought the only good thing about George Bush being elected was that he would seek revenge on the terrorists who started this war.  But 10 years later what is the purpose of all this?  The Navy Seals killed Osama Bin Laden and did not kill any civilians in that altercation and we should be proud of the Navy Seals who ran that mission.  That could have very well been done any time in the previous administration had they really wanted to stop terrorism.  Perhaps if we had enlisted the aid of some of the men tortured by the US during those years we would have been able to catch and kill many more terrorists then we did and kill a lot less civilians.

My point in bringing this topic up is how can we find peace in a time of great upheaval and fear? Simply the way all of us do it.  We pray to our god, or whatever we believe in and we realize that anything that gives us peace is a good thing for all of us.  We meditate, we communicate, we share music, literature, the arts and ideas.  That is the way to bring peace to countries also.  If we thought about the overwhelming percentage of peaceful people in these countries instead of the small number of extremists who would do us harm we would be much better off, but it seems we just cannot live with the idea that people have different beliefs and our world leaders cannot seem to grasp that innocent civilians are innocent civilians.

Go talk to your neighbor today and offer him peace especially if you don't like him.  See if that works better then ignoring him or getting pissed off .  I assure you it will.  As I know from experience it is far easier to try and get along then it is to be afraid for everybody involved.  Blessings to all.  Peace.

Art and Music

This beautiful piece was made by Martha Starke who is a member of Valley Artisans Market.  It illustrates the beautiful combination of music and art.  You can find Martha's work online at
http://www.etsy.com/shop/pulpart?page=2.

Art, music and the written word have the ability to transform our lives and add beauty to our everyday lives.  It is through art and music that we find our collective souls.  We rest our weary minds and find the beauty of everyday things.  Music, art and literature give us the ability to escape for the moment to a beautiful place where we can focus on just that moment in time.  It also reminds us of the past and brings beautiful memories to the forefront.  I cannot listen to Elvis Presley without remembering playing gin rummy with my mother and brother.  We used to do that just about every night and it is a treasured memory.

Today in schools all over the United States art and music programs are being cut.  What will happen to our society if we lose our ability to create?  The past influences the present and the future. We must learn from music and art of the past and add our own unique qualities for the future.  Not every child is cut out to be an executive or an athlete.  There are children all over the world with the potential to become the next Mozart or Van Gogh, they should be given the opportunity to learn from the masters and become a master themselves.  Every child should be able to find their own special uniqueness when learning and making art and music.

Art and music have the ability to connect people from other cultures and the past to each other, to show us all that everything is connected.  I can connect with the beauty of Vermeer and the music of the Black Keys.  The internet is a wonderful way to connect with art and the artists that create these masterpieces but the internet is not enough.  We need to be inspired and learn from those who came before us.  We need to experience the music and art first hand to really appreciate it.  I don't know how I would have reached today had my mother not been so interested in the arts and allowed me to find my own art and music and literature.  I did not necessarily learn the classics but eventually I experienced them from a more adult point of view.

I hope the next time a school board meets and decides what programs to cut you and all your fellow human beings will say please don't cut the arts.  They are much too important to  our civilization and our collective souls.

Please go out today and buy a piece of art or a cd or a book.  Artists have to make a living too, just like executives and athletes.  Blessings!

Beyond the Yellow Brick Road

This post is the companion piece to Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.  The hand embroidery is available at my Etsy shop.

Well, I don't know what is worse.  Decluttering your life or decluttering your mind.  Both serve a purpose and sometimes one of them leads to the other.  In the process of choosing belongings to keep or give away I found some old morning pages(kind of like a diary).  Several books of them.  And in reading them I understand why people think I am an embellisher of more then embroidery.   Every single one of them says the same thing.  I will change my life for the better, bring myself some peace, empower myself and yet here I am however many years later still procrastinating(as of yesterday).  Kind of like playing the same broken record year after year and expecting it not to be broken.

I'm not really  the same person who wrote all those morning pages or should I call them mourning pages.  I'm different in every single way except one.  I always expect a savior to come and save me from myself.  Someone to come and help me decide which things I love enough to keep.  Someone who will not make me take responsibility for all the stupid choices I made.  Someone who will save me from the heartache of leaving one life behind and starting another.  Someone who will be my mother.  I think what it all comes down to is I lost the most important person in my life and could never replace her.   My mother was the one person who just loved me no matter what and she wasn't just your run of the mill mother, she was everything to me and my brother.  Our protector, our friend, our companion, everything.  It was a wonderful feeling to know that you have that one person who no matter what you did loved you anyway.  But perhaps she protected and loved us too much, as her loss shaped every single moment of my life after that.

I was a cruise ship with no captain, floating around the ocean hitting icebergs, running low on fuel and finally sinking in a grand old public forum.  I guess it was just easier to find replacements then to just grow up and accept responsibility for myself.  And now that I am taking responsiblity for myself I realize what misery and grief can do to a grownup never mind a kid.  That's what I am a big kid. 

I started things and never finished them, I had big dreams but never went after them, I allowed other people to run and control my life.  I just never took responsibility for anything except my son.  Thank god for him or I would be dead for sure by now.  I thought I came to terms with her loss back on her death anniversary, but I was just putting off the inevitable realization that I have been chasing my tail since her death, not staying stagnant but not moving on either.  I guess it is easier to be miserable and nothing then it is to rise above your lot in life and be something.  On the bright side I decided I want to be something now.  I want to be an independent strong woman who lives her life the way she always wanted to on purpose. 

So while I'm moving forward on the clutter release, I'm releasing the responsibility for my mother to be my one guiding light and I'm going to follow my heart, my intuition and my dreams and  when I'm done I will have the life I am worthy of instead of depending on what others think of my worth.  My mother thought I was quite worthy. 

A little deep and I know it's probably not what you want to read, but I've made a decision to be authentic and just say what is going on in my heart and mind and take responsibilty for my life.  I have come quite far, I am a working artist, I have my own shop on Etsy, I write my own blog and I will march proudly to the next part of my life.  If you would like to comment privately you can email me at das813@hotmail.com or leave a comment.  And once again if you wonder how I can bear my soul like this day after day I think God doesn't give you these experiences for no reason.  Everything in our lives has a purpose and everyone who hides these feelings has to dig down and find the courage to share them.  We are not alone.

The Path

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to get to the bottom of my life.  I am on a soul searching mission to make sense of where I started, to where I am now and just what exactly I want to take with me on my journey.  The path to the more authentic me.

I've never ridden a motorcycle and frankly I never really rode a bike.  I fell over my handlebars didn't want to get back on and never did. My mother was very protective and I think she liked it as much as I did that I never got on a bike again until I moved up here and rode a bike up and down the block a few times just so I could say I did it.

I grew up in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey.  One main street, not much to do but a lovely little town just like any of them you will see all over the country.  Ironically, I grew up a half a block away from what was at one time a toxic waste dump and the second biggest superfund site in the country(I kid you not) but was a functioning paint factory spewing poisonous air into my neighborhood.  It was the 60's before anyone really knew the danger of all those toxins.  The vehicle I remember most from my childhood was a Dodge Charger in this unbelievably beautiful rust color.  I probably remember it most for being the car that 4 adults and 3 kids(including my teenage cousin Sal, god bless him don't know how he even fit in there)went down to Florida in. The first time I drove it I scraped up against a weird colored car in a shopping mall parking lot and my dad had to write a check because I left.  Not really very good thing to do.

When I was 16 I worked in Burger King and hung out with some kids from the parking lot.  We used to go dirt riding in the swamps.  Those memories stay with me even now as on one of our jaunts, we were sitting in the back of this fellows truck and the doors were tied together with a rope and sure enougn racing through the swamps of New Jersey the rope broke, the door opened and I fell on my butt or as my boss at the time said my personality.  Sexist pig.  I probably broke something but will never know and am lucky to be alive and lucky my friends didn't leave me there to save themselves.

I had a lovely pale blue Volkswagon hatchback which was my first car.  That car drove me around from bar to bar dancing and having a grand old time.  The highlights for that car are twofold.  Once I was in a bar with a railroad track directly behind it and my car got stuck on the railroad track sounds funny now but wasn't so funny then.  A towtruck came and got the car.  Then I was on a jaunt with some friends on my way back from the Jersey Shore and the back seat went on fire.  Literally started smoking.  That wasn't so much fun either, but an interesting tale. And a towtruck came and got the car.

I drove a Vega that smelled awful, a ford fairmount which was the ugliest car I ever owned and that smelled like burning rubber all the time.  A toyota tercel, a dodge shadow, a honda accord, a crv and now I am reliving my childhood with a Silver Fit which is the closest resemblence to my favorite baby blue Volkswagon Hatchback.  I love my car, it drives me to all the wonderful places I like to go and is so wonderfully reliable.

So now that I have taken the vehicles and put them on the path, my blog should get more interesting day by day.  I am determined to find and sort out what I will take and what I will leave behind.  In this tale of the day I will leave behind the toxic dump and the car literally going up in smoke on the parkway.  I can laugh at most of it and whatever mode of transportation it was, it got me where I am today.  Blessings.