Thankful

When we count our many blessings; it isn't hard to see
that life's most valued treasures are the treasures that are free.
For it isn't what we own or buy that signifies our wealth.
It's the special gifts that have no price; our family, friends and health.
~~ Author Unknown ~~

Thank you to all who have and continue to bless me with their friendship, love and laughter. I am truly blessed and feel loved more than words can capture. Thank you for being you and for giving me the opportunity to welcome you into my heart and visa versa. My heart runith over ... xoxo

Obama and the Palin Effect

Deepak Chopra <www.intentblog.com/author.php - September 04, 2008

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin's pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.

She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses . In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of 'the other.' For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don't want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.) I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin's message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision.

Look at what she stands for:
--Small town values -- a denial of America's global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.
--Ignorance of world affairs -- a repudiation of the need to repair America's image abroad.
--Family values -- a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don't need to be heeded.
--Rigid stands on guns and abortion -- a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.
--Patriotism -- the usual fallback in a failed war.
--'Reform' -- an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn't fit your ideology.

Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from 'us' pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of 'I'm all right, Jack,' and 'Why change? Everything's OK as it is.' The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness.

Obama's call for higher ideals in politics can't be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow -- we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.

Palin comments by Eve Ensler

Too good not to share ... thanks TJ :) xoxo

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist, best known for 'The Vagina Monologues', wrote the following about Sarah Palin:

DRILL, DRILL, DRILL

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares.

I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks.

I have a particular thing for Polar Bears.

Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one.

Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice.

Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women.

I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them.

It is hard to write about Sarah Palin.

This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical.

The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country choose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover.

But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, this is not a joke.

In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution.

I take this as a metaphor.

In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves.

She does not believe in global warming.

The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers,
are all part of God's plan.

She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list.

The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered.

The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered.

The oil is here to be taken and plundered.

Iraq is here to be taken and plundered.

As she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.'

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion.

She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control.

I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking.

From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently.

She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference.

This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States.

She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns.

She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle.

She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip.

She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God.

That is of course her right, her private right.

But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters.

I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands.

This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet.

It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans.

It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack.

It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction.

It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing.

It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected,
then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, 'Drill Drill Drill.'

I think of teeth when I think of drills.

I think of rape.

I think of destruction.

I think of domination.

I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent.

I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling?

More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Eve Ensler
September 5, 2008

Love and appreciate all the women in your life

Whatever you give a woman, she's going to multiply.
If you give her sperm, she'll give you a baby.
If you give her a house, she'll give you a home.
If you give her groceries, she'll give you a meal.
If you give her a smile ... she'll give you her heart.
She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her.
So - if you give her crap, you will receive more shit than any one human being can handle.

Love and appreciate all the women in your life.

Thanks for sharing this with me Ailleagan :) xoxo

The true meaning of girl power

Time passes.
Life happens.
Distance separates.
Children grow up.
Jobs come and go.
Love waxes and wanes.
Men don't do what they're supposed to do.
Hearts break.

Parents die.
Colleagues forget favors.
Careers end.

BUT.........
Sisters are there, no matter how much time and how many miles are between you. A girl friend is never farther away than needing her can reach.

When you have to walk that lonesome valley and you have to walk it by yourself, the women in your life will be on the valley's rim, cheering you on, praying for you, pulling for you, intervening on your behalf, and waiting with open arms at the valley's end. Sometimes, they will even break the rules and walk beside you ... or come in and carry you out.

Girlfriends, daughters, granddaughters, daughters-in-law, sisters, sisters-in-law, Mothers, Grandmothers, aunts, nieces, cousins, and extended family, all bless our life! The world wouldn't be the same without women, and neither would I. When we began this adventure called womanhood, we had no idea of the incredible joys or sorrows that lay ahead. Nor did we know how much we would need each other. Every day, we need each other still.

The Time Has Come to Say Farewell

The lovely, talented and ever so fabulous Ailleagan has decided to step down as moderator of the Temptress's Boobiedom Spankatorium tribe, so I've decided the time has come to close the tribe for good. She was the generous person to surprise me with the tribe in the beginning and it doesn't feel the same having me be moderator ... to be honest it always felt odd/silly having a tribe just for lil ol' me ... so the time has come to say farewell.

Thank you Ailleagan for being so wonderful and surprising me with such a fabulous gift. Thank you everyone who has joined the tribe and made the conversations and banter so much fun to enjoy. I wish you all my very best and please keep in touch.

Smiles, hugs, blessings and laughter, Temptress

The Brain - Two Hemisphere's Story

Being the daughter of someone who had numerous strokes which eventually took my father’s life and now being a person on the path to become a nurse, I found this video to be amazing. It is moving, profound and beautiful ... and yes brought me to tears.

It's only 18 minutes long so please take a break in your busy day to watch it.

Dr. Taylor recounts the details of her stroke and the amazing insights she gained. Her fascinating lecture includes a detailed explanation of the differences between the left and right sides of the brain, complete with an incredibly cool prop — a real human brain.

As a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist, Jill Bolte Taylor has always known more about brains than most people. But when a brain hemorrhage triggered her own stroke, she suddenly had a front-row seat on the deterioration of the brain.

well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0...stroke/

All my best to each of you … love, hugs, smiles & blessings

34 'tis around the corner

All sorts of wonderful music to enjoy this year, but here is a little bit of the upcoming birthday fun:

Thur 4/17: Gravity Plan @ 930pm @ 4th Street Tavern in San Rafael
Fri 4/18: Jon Korty & Friends @ 9pm @ Peri's in Fairfax
Sat 4/19: Vinyl @ 830pm @ Rancho Nicasio

bulletins.myspace.com/index.cfm

10 years today

10 years ago today my father passed. I feel thankful for the time we shared together and that I never took a moment for granted and always let him know how much I loved & admired him. He lived each day with such strength and passion. He was passionate about helping others. He loved to create comfort and nourishment through food – the motto in our home was food is love and he truly expressed this. He had voracity for learning. He was always reading and learning and trying to better his mind and expand his horizons. He had strength of character like the strongest of mountains.

A long time ago I learned that death is not the end to what we know and love, that even with loss there can be blessings. Life is precious in so many ways. Rumi wrote: "Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity. The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death. Tomorrow, when resurrection comes, the heart that is not in love will fail the test."

Love is the one factor that can resist the ravages of time. Love can withstand the strongest of storms. Love can endure the pain of loss and death. Each person expresses love in their own unique way: some with affection and constant reassuring (like my mother), some with firmness, inspiring for you to reach higher levels of yourself (like my father). However you express love - just do it … express it. Don't let a day pass without letting those you love know it. Tomorrow will come, no matter what task or errand you did or did not complete, but how much richer tomorrow will be if you know you started it with love.

A friend sent me this link today to put a smile on my face (video.stumbleupon.com/#p=ithct48cqw). Important, yet simple reminders to focus on what really counts in life. Life and love are the greatest gifts one can ever receive ... cherish them deeply ... live and love fully. xoxo

Holy shite

Next week is going to be insane (in a good way) ... so if you're along for the ride, drink your water, take your vitamins and get some rest beforehand 'cause youze aint gettin' a break during all the fun!!! :)

xoxo