Sunday, July 16, 2017
Friday, July 14, 2017
Museum of Capitalism/Threefold Social Order
A Museum of Capitalism, which would, perhaps, be more appropriately named the Museum of Anti-Capitalism, just opened in Oakland. Even though just about everyone I know sees capitalist oligarchy as the root cause of our dying planet and greed-driven culture that allows so many to be homeless and seeks to deny health care to millions, I have been unable to interest anyone in going to the museum. I googled the museum and read a few reviews. My favorite review points out that industries tend to fade away after someone opens a museum to honor them, citing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Newseum. Here's hoping this new museum is the beginning of the end of Capitalism, eh?
I am fascinated that so many of my very left leaning friends have no interest in a museum dedicated to showing the flaws of capitalism. Of course, there are many real life illustrations of capitalisms failure: homeless camps in our cities, hungry humans, children denied decent educations, the prison industrial complex that uses slave labor for private profit, the military industrial complex that thrives on war (you know, war that kills humans so some may profit). . . . If we are going to pull out of the vortex of capitalism, we have to grasp how it fails to serve human need.
Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy (and Waldorf Schools, biodynamic farming and, among so many others, the Threefold Social Order) indicated that humans are threefold beings (thinking/feeling/willing) and human culture is threefold: social/artistic/economic. He indicated that for a health threefold social order, each of the three realms must exist in perfect equipoise. This means that the economic realm exists solely to support the social and artistic realms. Social: roads, schools, water, fire trucks; Artistic: creativity, spirit, invention; and Economic. If we had a healthy economic arm of human culture, we would have an economic realm in perfect equipoise with human and the planet's needs.
How did we get to where we are today, with so much inequity and luntaics devoted to ideologies like Ayn Rand's who want to take away basic human needs so the very rich elite can be richer, to a culture of perfect equipoise? Well, we have to understand how we are off and then course correct. Far easier said than done, I know.
An economic realm of human culture that exists solely to serve human and nature's needs. This is very appealing to me, even though I see we are far off course. I aspire to dwell in a Threefold, Healthy, Social Order.
Thursday, July 13, 2017
she bruises too easily
I have always bruised easily. I might get a large, dark, purplish bruise just by lightly brushing up against a door. My long-ago ex, who was physically abusive (and far, far more emotionally abusive), actually used to angrily complain about how much I bruised when he hit me. He had the idea that he had perfected the art of the 'rubber punch', which, he said, was hitting in just the right way so it did not leave a bruise.
We can't believe he did not know when he was physically attacking me because he adapted to my easy bruising by taking care to not hit me below the knees (I wore dresses more back then) or pulling out my hair and even dragging me around by my hair. Such hairpulling, for those who don't know, is very painful. It hurts like heck while being dragged, all one's body weight tugged along by a fistful of one hair.
The fistful of hair tears off in smallsh clusters of hair roots, leaving small, bloody wounds. For days afterwards, it is painful to brush one's hair, painful to shampoo. And brush hair tends to tear off the healing effort by one's scalp, prolonging the pain.
I never told my ex about the after effects of his hair pulling. I believe he would have done it even more if he knew about the added suffering it lead to.
Once he dragged me from the entrance into our home from the garage, through the foyer, up three stairs to our living room before he dropped my hair, my head, my body, on the living room floor.
Once, driving from Nebraska to Illinois to visit my dad in Chicago, he headed north on I-80 to go to Ames, IA where an aunt and uncle of his lived, the uncle a doctor. We drove north maybe thirty minutes when he remembered the softball sized, purple and black, bruise on one of my arms. It was summer so my arms were mostly bare. He said, angry with me, "Dammit, we can't go see them. My uncle will see your bruise and think I hit you."
I silently thought "You did hit me."
And then he launched into his oft-repeated rant about how it was my fault that he bruised me, because I bruised so easily.
When I was growing up, schools received public health services such as eye exams for all students, even at private schools like my Catholic schools. Children even received some vaccinations at school. In high school one year, we all got a shot related to tuberculosis. A week after the shot, the nurse came back to look at everyone's arm. Something about how the arm responded to the shot revealed useful data to the nurse.
When I returned for my tuberculosis test follow up, with the skin around where I had gotten the injection surrounded by a four inch diameter, dark, purple bruise, the nurse said "You need some Vitamin K." I asked her "how do I get Vitamin K?" and she answered "Alfalfa is a great source of alfalfa. I thought then, and now, that her answer was somewhat flip. No one sold alfalfa in the grocery stores of the late sixties, not in Chicago. Microgreens, varieties of greens, organic greens had not yet arrived.
When I had my deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary emboli in 2006, I thought of that high school tuberculosis test. Something about how my blood clots is not standard. And I recalled my long ago husband remonstrating me for 'bruising too easily' when he hit me.
I see my clotting issue as a damned near perfect metaphor for my emotional vulnerability. I bruise emotionally even more easily and deeply than I bruise physically.
I do bruise too easily. These days, I often feel like a large gaping wound. I keen for my daughter who shuns me. I keen for all the suffering the loss of her has caused me and all that it has cost me in life. I keen for myself, for all that I have given.
I feel vulnerable all the time. I am in emotional pain all the time. I list through life, wounded and alone. I am too raw to form supportive friendships. My loneliness can feel as vast as an endless, clear starry night, and it's not a good feeling.
We can't believe he did not know when he was physically attacking me because he adapted to my easy bruising by taking care to not hit me below the knees (I wore dresses more back then) or pulling out my hair and even dragging me around by my hair. Such hairpulling, for those who don't know, is very painful. It hurts like heck while being dragged, all one's body weight tugged along by a fistful of one hair.
The fistful of hair tears off in smallsh clusters of hair roots, leaving small, bloody wounds. For days afterwards, it is painful to brush one's hair, painful to shampoo. And brush hair tends to tear off the healing effort by one's scalp, prolonging the pain.
I never told my ex about the after effects of his hair pulling. I believe he would have done it even more if he knew about the added suffering it lead to.
Once he dragged me from the entrance into our home from the garage, through the foyer, up three stairs to our living room before he dropped my hair, my head, my body, on the living room floor.
Once, driving from Nebraska to Illinois to visit my dad in Chicago, he headed north on I-80 to go to Ames, IA where an aunt and uncle of his lived, the uncle a doctor. We drove north maybe thirty minutes when he remembered the softball sized, purple and black, bruise on one of my arms. It was summer so my arms were mostly bare. He said, angry with me, "Dammit, we can't go see them. My uncle will see your bruise and think I hit you."
I silently thought "You did hit me."
And then he launched into his oft-repeated rant about how it was my fault that he bruised me, because I bruised so easily.
When I was growing up, schools received public health services such as eye exams for all students, even at private schools like my Catholic schools. Children even received some vaccinations at school. In high school one year, we all got a shot related to tuberculosis. A week after the shot, the nurse came back to look at everyone's arm. Something about how the arm responded to the shot revealed useful data to the nurse.
When I returned for my tuberculosis test follow up, with the skin around where I had gotten the injection surrounded by a four inch diameter, dark, purple bruise, the nurse said "You need some Vitamin K." I asked her "how do I get Vitamin K?" and she answered "Alfalfa is a great source of alfalfa. I thought then, and now, that her answer was somewhat flip. No one sold alfalfa in the grocery stores of the late sixties, not in Chicago. Microgreens, varieties of greens, organic greens had not yet arrived.
When I had my deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary emboli in 2006, I thought of that high school tuberculosis test. Something about how my blood clots is not standard. And I recalled my long ago husband remonstrating me for 'bruising too easily' when he hit me.
I see my clotting issue as a damned near perfect metaphor for my emotional vulnerability. I bruise emotionally even more easily and deeply than I bruise physically.
I do bruise too easily. These days, I often feel like a large gaping wound. I keen for my daughter who shuns me. I keen for all the suffering the loss of her has caused me and all that it has cost me in life. I keen for myself, for all that I have given.
I feel vulnerable all the time. I am in emotional pain all the time. I list through life, wounded and alone. I am too raw to form supportive friendships. My loneliness can feel as vast as an endless, clear starry night, and it's not a good feeling.
Sunday, July 09, 2017
fireflies
I miss fireflies.
One of the many great reasons to be back in the Midwest is to see fireflies in the summer night.
And crickets. I miss the sound of crickets. One has to get out of the city to hear crickets. A reason to go camping.
I miss camping, too. Plenty of camping worlds in N. California but I haven't been camping in decades.
One of the many great reasons to be back in the Midwest is to see fireflies in the summer night.
And crickets. I miss the sound of crickets. One has to get out of the city to hear crickets. A reason to go camping.
I miss camping, too. Plenty of camping worlds in N. California but I haven't been camping in decades.
