Remembering Nonna

photo:May, 2009

Today is 3 weeks to the day of my Nonna’s passing. It’s extremely difficult to sit with such a loss. My sadness is overwhelming.

I've passed 6,000!

Some positive news is that my petition-s to have animal rights included in Canada’s Constitution(I have re-posted it 17 times! ) has finally amassed 6,000 signatures! (6,024 to be exact). Here are 2 of the 17 links. The first is the newest, the second is one of the first.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/rights-for-all-animals/

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/put-animal-rights-into-the-constitution/

I have 4,000 more to go to reach my goal before I will send all the signatures via snail mail to our P.M, whether it’s Harpie or not.

Bye Nonna

photo: New Year's Eve,December 31st, 2009
My Nonna is no longer. At 4:33 pm, Saturday, February 5th, Nonna passed away, at home, surrounded by family and friends. Sadly, my sister and I missed her passing by a minute!

She is missed so much. The emptiness we all feel is like a heavy weight; a collective heart break. It still doesn't seem real that our Nonna, who seemed indomitable, who was always there for us, a firm and sturdy anchor, left this world so painfully, but bravely.

She had slipped into a coma a day before, and only resurfaced to briefly smile at everyone waiting around her bed as she left the world.
Now, it's Saturday the 12th and it's snowing again, just like it was last Saturday. I can't believe a week has passed already and Nonna isn't here.

Riposo in pace, Nonna.

Immaclate What?!

( Lest we forget my petition, if you've not signed, please do:the top one's the newest posting and the bottom the first.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/rights-for-all-animals/
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/put-animal-rights-into-the-constitution/

I was thinking about the whole immaculate conception thing this morning...a weird concept in so many ways.

Immaculate generally meaning very clean. The Merriam-Webster free online dictionary defines the word in the following ways:
adjective

1.free from spot or stain; spotlessly clean: immaculate linen.

2.free from moral blemish or impurity; pure; undefiled.

3.free from fault or flaw; free from errors: an immaculate text.

4.Biology . having no spots or colored marks; unicolor.

So, Mary, ( Jesus's Mom), says the Catholic church, didn't have sex with Joseph. God Forbid, and I mean that, literally. The catholic church was and still is comprised of all men. Therefore, why would a bunch of angry men, who have formed a religion, based on,well , essentially, myths and fables that denigrate women, want to say that Mary and her husband enjoyed each other, physically?

Why would Mary want to "stain" her pure soul, as it were? The real truth, is what, she was sleeping with God? Though, it makes so much more sense to pretend that maybe there was something funny in the water, that only Mary caught..and the next thing you know, she's having God's baby. It could happen.

Millions of Catholics walk around trying to convince themselves of this shit, that Mary the dear sweet mother of Jesus, just happened to find herself with child, and not any child, but the Christ --the light of god. What was going through Joseph's mind? I bet he was thinking, " I'm away for two days, visiting my mother, she needed some matzo ball soup, I get back, and bam, Mary's pregnant..again, and everybody says it's not mine, it's God's...son? How do they even know the gender, is what I'd like to know? WTF is going on?!"


In definition #2, above, we see the word- undefiled. Defile is another way to say rape. Once again the boy's at the catholic church continue to connect sex with pain and shame. Maybe all the catholic bible writers had some really shit coming of age experiences, and I bet a few were trying to deal with their Oedipal complexes, hence Mary's lilly white virginity. In definition #3, we see immaculate as meaning free of errors. Interesting? Sex, then, is seen a mistake.

Well, maybe it's not all sex that the catholic church and all its minions finds offensive. Perhaps it's just heterosexual sex that's so offensive, and hence sex just for the sake of sex is a "sin", because with heterosex comes the possibility of messy shit like blood and omg babies!
Why don't catholics just tell themselves that Mary and the damn Easter bunny were having a fling,( Spring fling?) it would make as much sense!

However, many apocryphal texts say that Mary and Joseph had other kids, not just Jesus, and those kids are regarded as Joesph's legit kids, none of this offspring of god stuff for them.

It's so fucked you have to laugh.

Anyway, good for the catholics for sticking to their guns and maintaining their sexist, misogynist, anti-Semitic, hate- filled ways in the face of all sorts of adversity. I think their motto is " fuck reality, and down with modernity!"

here's a cool link for info on Inanna, the Sumerian Goddess
http://paganpages.org/content/tag/inanna/

Reality is Hard

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/rights-for-all-animals/
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/put-animal-rights-into-the-constitution/
Here are my petitions, the top one is the "newest" which is kicking ass..in a lot less time than the one below. The one blow is the original posting, and is finally doing well.

I went to the store earlier with a little list and left with nothing. I felt so sad. A poor man walked in. It's a cold day, he had on just a tattered sweater no coat. He had a little pull trolley, that was closed, in the hopeful anticipation of groceries to fill it with. He asked the young, clean attendant if they had any bread. She curtly told him they didn't and he could come back tomorrow. I wanted to cry. He was missing teeth. The store was a pharmacy. I thought it was odd he'd come there, but realized it's probably closest for him. I had planned on buying chocolate, if it had been on sale. It wasn't, and I felt guilty for having chocolate on my list and getting to choose to buy or not.

I put down my toothpaste, I was going to buy and left. As I walked outside, I watched the old man, walk slowly across the street, pulling his closed trolley, dejectedly behind him. I watched the brilliant pink and gold of the setting sunthe old man, hopeful that he might see the Philippino store which probably sold bread. I felt paralyzed to help.

And then there was a dog, howling, I've just called Toronto Animal Services. I think she's been kept outside all fucking day without any shelter. James, the- all -too nonchalant- man I spoke to said they would either send someone tonight or tomorrow. I will follow it up tomorrow and see what was going on.

Sometimes I feel like leaving my house, just walking outside, is the most difficult thing in the world; if you're sensitive. You get instantly bombarded by painful realities. It's not an option, though, to never join society again, because then what of all the beings who need our help?

Photos from the solstice

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/rights-for-all-animals/
This petition link has passed 700 signatures, which is fantastic, but it still needs more. The more signatures it gets, the closer to my goal of 10,000 signatures I am, and the closer we all are to changing our consciousness and getting animal rights and protections encoded in Canada's constitution. This is the latest posting. To date I have posted this petition 17 times now, 15 times at the above site and twice at GoPetition.com. All in all, I have over 5,000 signatures combined from all the petition postings. To be exact, I have 5, 573 signatures, I'm more than half way there!

-----
Here are some images from last night's freeze-a-thon aka The Kensington Market Winter Solstice thang. It was supposed to go from 6:30-9, but at 8pm the parade just dissipated and done. I wasn't upset, I was just frozen. First Nations' art and music were out in full force. What I loved the most was the First Nations' musicians were just young guys, and one woman! They were humble as humble, wearing jeans, caps and maintaining their traditions, which is so wonderful to see-- that young people are interested in their culture. I love hearing the singing when the men do their drumming circle, the singing; the loud wailing along with the heavy, steady drum, just pierces my heart.
So, check out my photos , and some of the full moon, too.




a raven
A big owl.
A Norval Morriseau tableau on a roof.


How beautiful is that? I can only imagine the amount of time it took to make those people, whose legs and arms moved.

So beautiful!
The moon!

Total Lunar Eclipse

Happy Solstice to you!

The Winter Solstice marks the official a) end of Autumn/ beginning of Winter,
b) longest night of the year/shortest day (least amount of daylight),

and...it will also be a Full Lunar Eclipse, the first in 372 years, or so says National Geographic.

If you're over in my neck of the woods , the eclipse will really get going tomorrow at 2 am. Why do we use that expression, "neck of the woods", why not, belly of the woods, or perhaps head..why not? Where did the expression even come from? We could start saying "..if you're ever in my head of the forest..." English is so arbitrary.

Well, have a great solstice. Shed any baggage you're toting around, cuz that's what full moon's are great at..helping you shed..and having such a big deal one so close to the end of the year s pretty significant. This Moon is in gemini, btw.

My angel card from Findhorn's website is creativity.Check it out my whole " I and I will see you through", in spades!
Findhorn is an intentional community in the north of Scotland. An amazing place. Eileen is one of the founders of the place.

Eileen Caddy's Daily Guidance: Guidance for 21 December

Learn to live beyond yourself and your own strength and ability, so that those people around you can see with their own eyes that it is I working in and through you. In this way, those souls who have no faith and belief will come to know Me, not by many words, but by a life direct and demonstrated. Unless you live in this way, you are not acknowledging that I AM your guide and companion and that you have dedicated your life completely to Me and to My service. You have to take your feet off the bottom and swim out into the deep unknown in absolute faith and confidence, knowing that no harm will befall you because I AM with you. You will never know whether it all is so unless you are willing to do something about it. Cease playing safe and let Me show you what can happen when you let go and allow Me to take over and use you as I will.

Courage and risk-taking are 2 qualities of very creative and successful people and organizations.

Courage; from French coeur, heart. the last line of the " daily guidance" says it all,"Cease playing safe and let Me show you what can happen when you let go and allow Me to take over and use you as I will." In other words, leap with your heart and let the Universe catch you. It's scary stuff, trusting completely, but if we don't, we stay stuck in "safety", never having taken chances.

Happy Leaping, and wishing!