women

this is OUR LAND…

It is time to fight for our land, our lives, our children, our future. 

FB
speaking to the media

Cited from fb

“Canada invades. Invades on behalf of industry. Invades during ceremony. Canada tears us from our land. Tears us from our families, from our homes. Takes our drums away. Takes our women away. Jails us for protecting the land, for being in ceremony, for honouring our ancestors. 

Unist’ot’en Women Arrested in ceremony

On February 10, RCMP invaded unceded Unist’ot’en territory, arresting and forcibly removing Freda Huson (Chief Howilhkat), Brenda Michell (Chief Geltiy), Dr. Karla Tait, and four Indigenous land defenders from our yintah. They were arrested in the middle of a ceremony to honour the ancestors. Police tore down the red dresses that were hung to hold the spirits of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two spirit people. They extinguished our sacred fire. 

We have had enough. Enough dialogue, discussion, negotiation at the barrel of a gun. Canada comes to colonize. Reconciliation is dead.

It is time to fight for our land, our lives, our children, our future. 
Revolution lives.”

Different Dimensions

What is it? Something sought by everyone? Suddenly it splits me in two.

portraiture6of40-postureI feel free to walk anywhere, at least for now. I stride over the distant past.

Sometime ago, in a silence stronger than soy beans popping in the pan.

Hope? Waiting for footsteps? Perhaps to become a Heian court lady

surrounded by a screen of illusions waiting for some prince?

Or is it the prayer of a wife in war-time, anxious for her man in the field?

Don’t say it rises like a spinning wheel without hitting all the rungs.

Is it resolution? The blazing blue fame of mothers secretly resisting their patriarchs?

But I can’t get by on that alone. Why not simply break out?

I only have to get the rhythm down to fly through the day to day.

Like a pilot, astronaut I too am in a capsule, though.

~Atsumi Ikuko*

*cited:

Women Poets of Japan

K Rexroth & Ikuko  Atsumi

This ain’t right!

The church of my childhood and of my mother, her mother, and my grandmother’s mother taught me that the body, the family, and the church were sacred and thus any choice I made in my life was to be drawn upon that guiding principle.

My choice to participate in this past election came after hearing how Trump used social media to shame women…and now to hear that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir will be performing at Trump’s inauguration brings my soul into a deeper disbelief that began on the darkest of dark nights…election night.

So…I have given my voice to “this isn’t right.” I may have to find some kind of resolution for the next four years, but I will not accept the church’s celebration of human negation and shame.  If your beliefs are similar to mine, please sign the petition at change.org.

https://www.change.org/p/the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-mormon-tabernacle-choir-should-not-perform-at-trump-inauguration?recruiter=20691342&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

Thank you.  My daughter, granddaughter, and soon to be great granddaughter also thank you for validating the right of all human beings to be respected and honored.

into my heart…

I was alone on a sunny shore

by the forest’s pale blue lake,

in the sky floated a single cloud

and on the water a single isle.

The ripe sweetness of summer dripped

in beads from every tree

and straight into my open heart

a tiny drop ran down.

                                      ~Edith Sodergran*

the red flower

*cited

Women in Praise of the Sacred

Ed: Jane Hirshfield

weekly photo challenge: work of art

OLD FORM

Did Chuang Chou dream

he was a butterfly,

Or the butterfly

that it was Chuang Chou?

In one body’s

metamorphoses,

All is present,

infinite virtue!

betweennessblog

You surely know

Fairlyland’s oceans

Were made again

a limpid brooklet,

Down at Green Gate

the melon gardener

Once used to be

Marquis of Tung-ling?

Wealth and honour

were always like this:

You strive and strive,

but what do you seek?

                            ~Li Po*

Visit Dailypost at WordPress.com to view additional images

submitted for this week’s photo challenge: Work of Art.

 

cited:

*Li Po and Tu Fu

Trans:Arthur Cooper