getting started

It seems like all my life I've had a need to be public about my inner life, but found no viable venue to do so. In my mid-twenties, a filmmaker friend said with surprise, "...it seems you have no vehicle!" Despite all the artistic things I've attempted, that has been true. So now the Universe cooperates by setting up the unimaginable: a place one can write privately and (potentially) be heard all over the world. For a very physical person, this holds some inherent frustration. Self-expression for me necessarily entails moving my hands and body in response to the movement of my emotions. But any readers here will have to imagine that part. 

I probably should say at the outset that this journal will have to do, naturally, with the pervasive themes of my life: social/political concerns, humanitarian interests, spirituality, relationships, "psychology" and creative expression. Minor themes will be living "ecologically" and in the country, relationships with grown children, astrology, life after death. I will probably keep certain details of my life off the page here simply to allow me to be LESS private - more public with thoughts and feelings - than I might be able to otherwise, since I live in a small community. 

I feel that I am going through a transition in my life. And by this I mean I feel that a change is coming, much as I might sniff the air and predict that rain is in the offing. Actually this change has already begun. After half a century of being preoccupied with my creative efforts, my life in the country, my inner life, my spiritual growth and my relationships, with the death of my husband and the beginning of the war in Iraq I suddenly found myself propelled OUT of my comfortable innersphere and onto the streets where I vigiled for peace and did everything I could to change the administration in power in the U.S. - downloading information off the internet and off of political lists I belonged to, creating flyers, spearheading a local group, organizing fundraisers, tabling and leafleting in the streets, talking to strangers, and sending a good piece of my income to Democratic campaigns around the country. [As an aside, while my personal views would probably place me in the Green category, my sense was that the Democratic party was our only real chance to change things.] I had never been so active, politically, in my life. Although I've always been a high energy person, that energy was spent building a house, raising several children and many animals, cultivating land previously covered with forest and brush, getting my graduate degree, pursuing a career, and learning a number of music and craft skills, as well as cooking from scratch, learning to work with PVC, manage a solar-powered home electrical system, and other skills of subsistance living. ETCETERA. All personal and family activities; few extra-personal. Of course I marched against the Vietnam war, in those years, and probably supported other progressive issues at a minimal level, but politically I would say I "went to sleep" for most of the years since Vietnam. I was aware our government was engaged in some shady operations in Central America, but until I started reading everything I could lay my hands on (after having to send a bunch of tax money in just as the Iraq invasion occurred and feeling that I had to do something!!! or I couldn't live with myself) I had no idea how bad things were. But I won't go too far into those discoveries except to say that I feel I absolutely can't just "go back to sleep," now that I AM aware. So part of this new journey, now that the elections are (perhaps) over, is discovering just where I am going to put my energies. What calls to me? Where can I be effective? Someone I read advises that you find something local and put all your energy into it. Although the wisdom of this is obvious, it is our country's actions internationally that upset me the most. My thoughts and feelings go out to all those women in the world struggling to raise children in impoverished countries, a struggle that is hard enough anyway, without also dealing with bombs, landmines, and other effects of war (lately two started by this country with - in my opinion - no justification.) And then there is the effect that our tentacles, the WTO and IMF, the big corporations and so forth have on 3rd world countries and the poor people living in them! So - what I am moved to is something which affects these issues, in some way. So - I am a sponsor through Women for Women International, and hope to develop a local group. I hear there is an Amnesty Int'l group in a nearby community. I'd like to be involved in the local Fair Trade efforts. Perhaps those will be adequate venues for my passionate concerns. But in my crazier (more desperate) moments, I want to go where things are difficult for people and find a way to help, directly. 

So this is my journey or my struggle at the moment: I am 69 years old. I have a comfortable and humanitarian career which makes me enough money to live decently and give away money to various NGOs. I have quite a few challenges just continuing to work in town - in the next county, even - and to live in my forest abode, with its many faculties which break down or need upkeep and require my energy. I have some selfishness which makes me think "well, that's enough..." I'll just work and hang out here and enjoy reading and my fire and the birds and my dogs.   But then, there's this craving......

I had something come into my head/heart about a year ago which said, "Go to Africa and take care of AIDS babies." Well, there's an insane idea, but something that fills this nurturing person's heart. A few months later, I went to a conference for my spiritual group and found a little note on a bulletin board saying that a woman would be talking about her involvement in Africa, and it turned out she had an AIDS orphanage. I was so turned on, but said to her, "Am I nuts to be thinking about going there at my age?" I told her something of my background working with children and women and she said, "They would LOVE to have you there!" YIKES. I went out to my car and called my oldest daughter and mentioned this to her. She said, "I didn't know you wanted to go to Africa to an AIDS orphanage..." I said, "Oh sure you did; I've talked about it before." "No you haven't," she said, "Or I would have told you the church I work for has an AIDS orphanage in Africa!" Within a week we were signed up to go on their next trip. (Did I mention I'm afraid of flying?) Since then I've been reading a lot about Africa. First a woman's Peace Corps story in Cote d'Ivorie (that land currently being torn by war.) This story is the dream of my life; everything she does just feels like ME - what I would do in those circumstances. I found myself crying deeply as I read the book - both from wanting to do just what she was doing, and from knowing that even if I were to find a similar situation, the chances of it being just like that were pretty minimal. Then I read a book by a man who spent two years in the Peace Corps in Togo. A similar story, though a different experience, but his book additionally talked about conditions in the cities (pollution, corruption) and I noticed a slight withdrawal in my feelings. Now I am reading a book about some scientific travelers in the Congo.........and with the weird food and diseases and bees that suck your eye-liquid and pygmies being used essentially as slaves, and all the other testosterone-flavored and disgusting details (tho some wonderful descriptions of birds)........ Well now I'm not so sure about this proposed trip to Africa, though we're going to an easier climate and in pretty safe circumstances. 

So this is where I live right now. ...still reading, set to go if my passport comes through. Wondering if this is an avenue for me; wondering what else might be in store. Reflections welcome. Miracles