Remember the Dead

Today is Halloween and tomorrow is the Day of the Dead. It was believed that at this time of the year the veil between worlds was thin and that the dead could walk amongst the living. In Hoodoo there is the belief that the dead are always amongst us, influence the living, and that to understand life one must commune with the dead. Many cultures have elements of ancestor worship or ways in which the dead play an important part in the lives of the living.

I think in a way the dead are always with us. We are where we are in so many aspects because of our ancestors. One day, if we are lucky, we will be the ancestors. Humanity stretches backward in a long chain of generations and connects to the very elements of the cosmos. I think it is wise to remember the dead, acknowledge the impact of their lives on our own, and listen for the whisper of their spirits.

This evening I raise a glass of cider to Great Grandpa Miller who taught me to be fearless, curious, outrageous, and carry on.

This evening I raise a glass of cider to Great Grandma Miller who taught me to love and even though my greatest pain has come from loving at least I have known I could love and what love was.

This evening I raise a glass of cider to Grandma Hansen whose brilliant common sense and keen intellect forced me to think and examine.

This evening I raise a glass of cider to all my ancestors who came before and whose achievements have made life better for those who live now.

I am going to set cookies and cider out for any roaming spirits so that they can partake of the sweetness of life.

A New Movement for This Age: The Age of Empowerment

Movements in literature and the arts come about when the cultural, political, and philosophical thoughts of a time period are given expression through arts and writing by experimenting and thoughtful creators. I have been watching a series about the Impressionists. Before they looked at the light and took the art of painting out of doors, a standard beauty was expressed in all paintings.

The Salon which was the official art exhibition first of the Academie des Beaux Arts and later the Societe des Artistes Francais was the most influential art exhibition in the world of that time period. Manet whose philosophies of representing the common people and painting them with honesty was rejected from being able to exhibit paintings time after time. In 1863 so many paintings were rejected that the Emperor demanded a new show to exhibit those that had been rejected. Manet displayed his The Luncheon on the Grass sparked a huge controversy because it depicted a female nude and a scantily clad female figure bathing with two fully dressed dandies. And then came Olympia. In 1865 Olympia was displayed at the Salon. It was condemned as immoral and vulgar. It had to be guarded because members of the viewing public attempted to slash it with umbrellas. Olympia showed a courtesan staring out from the canvas. Her maid brings her a bouquet of flowers from a patron and a black cat sits at the foot of her chaise lounge. She wears nothing more than a black choker ribbon.

Manet was the spark who inspired Monet, Renoir, and Cezanne. He suffered greatly for his genius and was publicly rejected for years. He survived on his inheritance.

The Impressionists suffered for their ideas and their genius was not immediately recognized. For years Monet and Renoir could only sell paintings to a few loyal patrons. Cezanne lived in poverty and was eviscerated in print by his old friend the novelist Emile Zola.

I was thinking this afternoon about literary movements. The novel did not always exist. Romanticism came about as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and was a revolt against the tenets of the Age of Enlightenment. We could be said to be in a post modernist period, but I think it is time to move beyond this. Post modernism says that all realities are just social constructs. It maintains that realities are plural and relative, and dependent on who the interested parties are and what their interests or motivations consist of. It proposes the belief that there is no absolute truth and the way in which different people perceive the world is subjective.

Post modernism has both elevated and negated individual experience.

I propose starting a new philosophical movement for our time. An Age of Empowerment. Heroes, rather than being special chosen ones like Harry Potter, would be those people who are ordinary and choose to act. It could be a heroic deed and a fight against injustice or it could be that they decide to simply not remain quiet any longer. They give expression to their concerns and conditions. Maybe as a result, rather than being told that that is just their viewpoint, they find commonality within their viewpoint with the viewpoints of others. We are united in our differences. Perhaps the beautiful and the courageous are not those folks who have authority or are exceptional but rather are the 99 percent who are beautiful in the everyday expression of their commonness. Rather than glorifying those with power, let's validate the concerns of the everyman. Let's give voice to the idea that the individuals who are thinking and passionate beings make up the 99 percent, that they can have influence over their future because the microcosm makes up the macrocosm, and that hope lies in the path of empowerment for the everyman. The 1 percent will not solve the problems of global warming and climate change. The 1 percent will not ensure the safety and plenitude of food or clean water for the burgeoning population of the planet. The 1 percent will not consider or make a plan for the age beyond peak oil. The 1 percent will not pursue world peace. Hope lies in the 99 percent and solutions will come from the plenitude of voices but those voices must be seen as having strength and the right to be heard. Let's have ordinary heroines displayed with honesty who choose to act and stare in the face of our seemingly insurmountable problems.

Why Do You Read Fantasy Fiction?

I was up this morning at 4 am reading research about public internet access in developing countries. I am very interested in how more public access to the internet could be provided to the rural areas and particularly to those who are the poorest individuals in developing countries. When I dream, I dream big. This stuff seems to my mind problems to be solved. Not insurmountable. A thorough examination of such issues as a lack of infrastructure, political instability, illiteracy, etc. seems to me to be a way to devise a plan and boldly act. Nothing of great measure is done without risk and those things that are most meaningful are done for others.

Currently, I am going through my bookshelves and pruning books off my shelf to offer on paperbackswap.com. I seem to have an insatiable need to read and have new materials in front of me. I have promised myself that in ten minutes I will stop procrastinating and begin studying for the mathematics section of the GRE.

Maybe because the morning was filled with big thoughts and the next few hours will be filled with rigorous thought, I need to think fun thoughts because I have been thinking about fantasy novels. I really like reading fantasy at times. Not because it is lofty and intellectual-- although it can be, but more because it is just fun. In one of the Dresden novels by Jim Butcher a group of purple monkeys who throw flaming poo form together and become a Monkeytron. In Kim Harrison's novels the pizza parlors are owned by vampires because humanity was almost wiped out by a virus generated from genetically modified tomatoes. I love these off the wall bits that make me smile. Sometimes fantasy novels can consider and make real that wonderful place between reality and the non-real without becoming sentimental or too filled with wishful thinking. Charles deLint sometimes does a beautiful job of going into that in-between place and making it real. Robert Holdstock is another author who springs to mind who has this same ability. Mythago Wood and The Bone Forest are beautifully written books that hit the psyche very deeply and remain in memory long after they have been put down.

I will be asking people over the next few days why they read fantasy and what their favorite fantasy novels are and why these are favorites.

Why do you read fantasy novels?

Poetry: Dylan Thomas' "Especially When the October Wind"

Dylan Thomas' poetry is often evocative and contains elements of personal fantasy and surrealism. His use of language is innovative and daring and draws the reader in. A bit of poetry to evoke the feel of an October morning when the wind is rushing, dampness fills the air, and the melancholy end of the brightness of summer and all that is light can be felt.

Especially When the October Wind

Especially when the October wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
By the sea's side, hearing the noise of birds,
Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks,
My busy heart who shudders as she talks
Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words.

Shut, too, in a tower of words, I mark
On the horizon walking like the trees
The wordy shapes of women, and the rows
Of the star-gestured children in the park.
Some let me make you of the vowelled beeches,
Some of the oaken voices, from the roots
Of many a thorny shire tell you notes,
Some let me make you of the water's speeches.

Behind a pot of ferns the wagging clock
Tells me the hour's word, the neural meaning
Flies on the shafted disk, declaims the morning
And tells the windy weather in the cock.
Some let me make you of the meadow's signs;
The signal grass that tells me all I know
Breaks with the wormy winter through the eye.
Some let me tell you of the raven's sins.

Especially when the October wind
(Some let me make you of autumnal spells,
The spider-tongued, and the loud hill of Wales)
With fists of turnips punishes the land,
Some let me make you of the heartless words.
The heart is drained that, spelling in the scurry
Of chemic blood, warned of the coming fury.
By the sea's side hear the dark-vowelled birds.

Occupy Wall Street: American Revolution

I cannot be in New York today to take part in the solidarity march. The best I can do is post about the march and the movement that is spreading to more American cities. I cannot be in New York to march because I am one of the lucky ones-- I have a job. I also am lucky because I have a job in the field that I trained for. I am not an architect with a masters degree working at Lowe's or an IT specialist hoping to land a mail order job with a delicatessen. We live in such times that the talents and skills of people are so undervalued. I also am lucky because I am able now and again to get extra jobs so that I can make ends meet. I still cannot pay for my medically necessary and routine blood work that is not covered by my health insurance provider who last May had their profits go up by 52% because fewer people were using health care services (if you want to read a news article about Cigna's soaring profits: http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2011/05/05/cigna-1q-profit-soars-52-lower-medical-costs-2011-eps-view-raised/), but at least I have a job. The school system that I work in was able to prevent any teacher layoffs from happening this year because of community support and we are very lucky in this community. Unlike thousands of school systems across the country. I am not one of the 9.1% in this country who are unemployed. Also keep in mind that folks who no longer qualify for benefits or are not looking for work any longer are not included in this figure so the real number of unemployed may be higher. The unemployment rate for September 2011 remained unchanged from the rate calculated in August.

Occupy Wall Street is a movement to protest corporate greed. The movement is about occupying Wall Street as a symbolic gesture of the majority's discontent with the current economic and political climate in the United States. It is hope of a better world to come. A hope that in the United States we can turn things around to make things more equitable. It is a desire to prevent the fraction of a percent of the population who are the ultra-wealthy who keep on getting wealthy and who have corporate power and money to set the political agenda and silence the majority, from creating a United States where healthcare is too expensive for a large percentage of the population, where obtaining a college education means taking out student loans that create a kind of indentured servitude, where people are so in debt and afraid of losing their jobs that they will give up all hope for a decent standard of living just to maintain, and where are tax structure and tax dollars subsidize the wealthy.

Please spread the word about Occupy Wall Street. Here is the link to their website: https://occupywallst.org/ Protests are happening in other cities such as San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago. Please support this movement by taking to the streets, donating food to the protesters, etc. We are supposedly a democracy, let's make our voices heard and send the message to the politicians that we are not so demoralized that we cannot take part in politics. Our politicians should feel beholden to the majority not to those who gave them campaign contributions.