Piggybacking On My Last Post

“When you C things correctly, you become Creative rather than reaCtive." I had a situation last week that challenged my utilization of this. I met a friend in Marin for a hike. As we hadn’t seen each other for a while, we quickly hugged and then proceeded to walk. Midway through the hike, she started blowing her nose profusely and said she had a “little” cold. Then, she started coughing intermittently. Returning 5 days prior from a 30-day European trip, she likely was a candidate for Covid. As I was not quite centered internally from getting caught up in HOA matters, I didn’t think to ask her when we texted the night before if she took a Covid test after arriving home.

I briskly walked 6 feet apart from her vacillating between fear I was going to get it and anger at her upfront non-disclosure of being sick. When we got back to the parking lot, still distancing myself, I took off my sunglasses, looked her in the eyes, sternly told her she met the criteria for Covid, and I needed her to get a valid test immediately because I was scheduled to be with my son in the afternoon and next day. She promised she would. I then left to go to a nearby grocery store. Surprisingly, she followed me to the store and went into it completely unmasked! 3 hours later she texted saying she just got home and screwed up because her home test had expired. 3 hours later, God knows how many more people she affected and infected! With an hour left to go before seeing my son, I commanded her to go to an urgent care center and get a rapid test. She did and 40 minutes later she sends a text saying, “Ok…so yes, I did test positive! I’m so so sorry!” I became even more livid because I had to forfeit coveted time with my son, cancel special weekend plans, and isolate while anxiously wondering if I was going to become sick within 2 to 5 days.

Admittedly, I did react and went into an utter tailspin for 2 days over her dishonesty, betrayal, and the whole situation which definitely included greatly chastising myself for not being more careful. She’s unvaccinated and I found out doesn’t wear masks, including on airplanes. She has a right to choose vaccination or not. Symptomatic, she does not have a right to infect other people with this potentially life-altering disease. Her deliberate choice to be Covid-ignorant, careless, and mindless over the effect on me and others is unacceptable.

Especially in these Covid times, what kind of a person, knowingly sick, meets with a friend, and then saunters into a popular grocery store without a mask, exposing essential workers and other customers? Perhaps one that is reckless and self-centered.

I did come full circle and realize that I “C” things correctly now and gained clarity in her personality type which is not in alignment with mine. I decided to become “Creative” and wrote her a well-thought-out candid letter expressing my thoughts and speaking out on my behalf and others. Now I’m posting this.

Clearly an Oops for me in inviting her to hike so soon after she returned and not insisting on a negative-Covid confirmation and compound Oops for her! I’m now in the sticky process of forgiveness - myself and her, but I shall not forget! Luckily, I did not get sick, but I did miss precious time with my son.

Conversations With God, Book 1

In this book by Neale Donald Walsch is the line: “When you see things correctly, you become creative rather than reactive.” In highlighting this to me, my son further interpreted, “One key to remember, when saying this line, the best impact comes when it is said like: When you C things correctly, you become Creative rather than reaCtive."

Quite appropriate as an artist in approaching the current hijacking of our rights/country by militant judges with unlimited discretionary power and a minority of unenlightened, misguided people hell-bent on maintaining and promoting the oppressive systems of patriarchy, sexism, bigotry, racism, elitism, and injustice. This must stop! To that end, the painting, writing, and dancing advance.

The focus of this work is Judge Unlimited Discretionary Power - highlighting it and attempting to expunge the onerous effects. I created this from first-hand experience in the rigged divorce proceedings.

The Fight For Freedom Continues

Dance and spoken word/poetry. The line that stands out to me is “You articulate the distance between fighting and loving.” Articulate as a verb means “express fluently and coherently.” Distance as a noun means “the amount of space between two things or people.” I definitely have spent a bulk of this lifetime learning and practicing articulating the distance between the two.

https://www.kqed.org/arts/13880766/if-cities-could-dance-dear-dancer?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_campaign=20200530%20Arts&mc_key=003i000000UNfgLAAT

National Archives - 19th Amendment To The U.S. Constitution: Women's Right To vote (1920)

Citation: Joint Resolution of Congress proposing a constitutional amendment extending the right of suffrage to women, approved June 4, 1919.; Ratified Amendments, 1795-1992; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.

Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote.

The 19th amendment legally guarantees American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle—victory took decades of agitation and protest. Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change of the Constitution. Few early supporters lived to see final victory in 1920.

There were supporters that did not live to see the Supreme Court 7-2 decision in 1973 in favor of Jane Roe too, “holding that women in the United States had a fundamental right to choose whether to have abortions without excessive government restriction and striking down Texas’s abortion ban as unconstitutional.” What a travesty that we’ve regressed almost 50 years with the repeal of Roe v. Wade. Now, we have to galvanize and retrace the steps that so many women took to gain our freedoms. It is agonizing on so many levels to be forced to start again! Well, Just is, so we’ve got to deal with it and move forward with vision and determination. Time to finalize that ERA too!

Independence

Actually, today I celebrate my independence and all the travails in leaving systems of dominance and control, involving birth family and a marriage, and letting people go who do not support my well-being. I am independent, self-reliant, and engaged in exploring my fullest potential as a spiritual being having a human experience. I have to believe each step I have taken and will take for my freedom, to evolve and transcend limitations, beliefs or otherwise, helps mankind advance.

July 4th, 2022

I don’t feel like celebrating Independence Day this year. Overall, is the state of America still celebratory with remnants of an intended democratic system of government? I don’t think so. What a quandary with an attempted coup by the former president, a Congress and Supreme Court so extreme, out of whack, and at odds with the majority, social inequities, the termination of women’s liberties, the promotion and proliferation of guns, the pro-pollution adherence, etc. The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and We The People of the United States, In Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, are in deep doo-doo!

Catholicism

“The Faith, practice, and church order of the Roman Catholic Church; adherence to the forms of Christian doctrine and practice which are generally regarded as Catholic.” Candidly, I grew up with a tad of disdain for this church. For starters, my father, his siblings, and parents were Spanish Basque. When they immigrated to this country, even though they were Catholic, they did not attend weekly mass. When my father’s mother died, the local priest refused to conduct the burial rites and “bless” her because of this. After that, my father decried the church, insisting that religion gave people a false sense of security and a false sense of righteousness. To add to that, my next-door neighbors were a household where the father would yell at and hit his children 6 days a week except Sunday when he went to church and was a holy man. Ultimately, I am a freedom lover, I do not want to be told what to do or what to think by anyone, and I question authority.

Isn’t this church an enormous business and system of patriarchy and oppression with a grip on the Supreme Court? In my view, it seems to be based on accumulating as many followers as possible for power, wealth, dominance and control. Instilling in people deep-seated fear, advocating abdicating authority over one’s body using no birth control and/or abortion, insisting to commune and be in favor with God that going to church is mandatory, insisting priests can only be male, allowing rampant pedophilia and perpetration against innocent children and adolescents, etc., etc., etc., equal an unhealthy system of dominion. The God this “Christian” system professes to adhere is mean, punitive, and horrifying; completely diametric to the loving, inclusive, empowering Beloved, Divine, God I know and subscribe to.

Supreme Court

Anita Hill courageously warned us of Clarence Thomas and his sexual harassment. She was pummeled, and he prevailed.. Christine Blasey Ford courageously warned us of Brett Kavanaugh and his sexual harassment. She got death threats, and he prevailed. We knew Amy Barrett was anti-choice. Now, we are reaping the consequences of their grave dysfunction, assault on women, far-right militant and Catholic ideology, and abuse of power; in steadfast alliance with 2 others of similar ilk. What’s that true quote from wise Maya Angelou? “When someone shows you who they are believe them the first time.” And, I quite believe RBG is rolling over in her grave and perhaps questioning her “own good judgment”. As much as I held her in such high esteem, I now think it would have been best for her to relinquish her seat soon after Obama had lunch with her and “hinted” at it. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/us/politics/rbg-retirement-obama.html

Dictionary.com

The words of the day starting on 6/25 so far have been Opprobrious, Choice, Dissent, Draconian, Autonomy, Liberation (the act or fact of gaining equal rights or full social or economic opportunities for a particular group.) It seems statements of defiance are being made.