Zen Activism

There is a part of me that seems to be holding onto a great amount of regret or guilt about my becoming less active in the Peace Movement.

There is a part of me that wants to experience a normal, calm, happy life.

There is a part of me in which the fight or flight response is always active. Years of living like this created what I think of as burned out circuitry that is partially responsible for my chronic depression.

I stepped back from activism and writing last autumn after the election in order to give myself some time and space to figure out what to do in the next phase of my life. Health concerns then entered the picture.

Deciding to focus on becoming healthy and just being happy is one of the most selfish decisions I've ever made. I confess I feel some sense of guilt about "abandoning" the peace movement. I will deal with this and come to a place where I feel satisfied with what I have been able to do and what I may be able to do in the future when I am healthy and have a renewed vigor and sense of purpose. And I still have the virtual world in which I can promote the message of peace.

Being on the front lines of the peace movement is stressful. I've had so much stress in my life that the addition of constant awareness of the world's pain, physical threats, traveling and being away from home pushed me over the limit of my tolerances.

As a mother I consider the examples that are set by my choices. I wanted to teach my daughter to be politically active and to believe that individual actions make a difference. I wanted to show my daughter that even though my mother was not always the best mother in the world that I chose to be the best daughter I could be at the end of my mother's life when I moved into her home in another state and cared for her as she left this life. And now I hope I am showing my daughter that I do what is necessary to take care of myself even if it means totally changing my way of life in order to become healthy.

One of these days I will be able to do these things for myself, but for now it is okay that I do them for her.












SRI medication has helped me live a somewhat normal life this past decade. Unfortunately this past decade is also the one in which my personal belief system required me to act, protest, and write whenever I could to help build the grassroots efforts to restore our country to some semblance of a democracy.

some of these
So how does one weigh the actions that are so different? I have taken steps toward creating a virtual meeting company, I am working on a book about living well and being positively focused as a healing strategy. I enjoy a part time position that allows me to play with computers in a calm and healthful environment. I am sometimes at less than my best and have pain associated with my liver disease. We are just now finishing what has turned out to be a 10 year progressive remodeling of our home.

Repurposing This Blog: Build Peace

Over the last six months I have given a tremendous amount of thought to starting a new blog that better reflects my current take on "life, the universe and everything" than my build peace blog.   Everytime I would find the perfect domain name for a new venture  and begin to build a new whirling mass of me-ness in cyberspace I'd find that I missed this blog into which I had put so much energy for so many years.   Please allow me to be a bit self-reflective here and a bit self-reflexive too as I deconstruct my thought processes about writing and blogging about inner peace, world peace, paths to peace, tools of peace, tools for peace, and... well you get the idea. 


I have to admit I heaved a huge sigh of relief the evening of the election, Tuesday November 4th, when I gathered with a couple thousand other Tucsonans to watch the returns come in at the University Marriott.  I will never forget standing next to a long retired colleague of my husband who came to the U of A after being booted from the California University system during the highly political days of the free speach civil rights era turbulence of the early 1960s and who helped establish ACLU to this Old West enclave.  As McCain was conceeding defeat I happened to see this man's face as complete and utter joy washed over it.  


At that time I decided that I was going to take a couple days off for R & R.  I ended up taking off six months.   Long story, short version:  I had continuing pain after a bout with the stomach flu and ended up finding out I have Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  After my esteemed scientifically-gifted genius research professor husband (he might read this, lol) looked at the literature, we think that the combination of anti-depressants I've been on for many years could have contributed to the development of this condition as well as my being significantly overweight.   It could relate to the invasive and often toxic medical tests and treatments I underwent as a child.  I never had hepatitis nor am I an alcoholic.

I don't do well with being ill.   It makes me depressed.  I have been working on, and off -- a lot of off, some on -- on a book about my childhood experience on the receiving end of my mother's instability that I have come to realize falls into the range of behavior that has been termed Munchause Syndrome by Proxy.  At least partially due to being "sickly" and kept out of school and shuttled from doctor to doctor when I was little so that it was not uncommon for me to miss up to 100 school days a year during my primary education. 

My journals during the teen years are painful to read but allowed me as a middle-aged adult to see that my isolation during my childhood coupled with being thrust into the socially topsy-turvy, psychedelic and sexually liberated world of the 1970s as a totally naive, socially incompetent, pathologically shy human being were the primary factors that contributed to multiple rapes, exploitation, and emotionally abusive relationships, and less than wise choices that pretty much characterized my teens and young adult life.  

Writing helped save my life time and again when the blank page or screen was the only tool through which I could communicate - even if that communication was basically just me talking to myself.   I became fairly good at this apparently, and the winning of a state-wide writing competition in High School allowed me to win scholarships that made it possible for me to attend college.   Writing continued to be my main communication channel with the world as I wrote essays, exams, reports and post-graduate research reports and theses. 

Then the internet evolved into the web and I reached out through words and found that while I was a social mutant (and mutations can be a very good thing that allow the process of evolution to happen) I was also thinking things and making observations that other people found interesting and sometimes even amusing when I wrote about them.  I was blogging long before a thing called a web log existed.  

Then CODEPINK and I found each other.   This blog, Build Peace, has been the most consistent and meaningful body of my writing to date.   It allowed me to enter the BlogHer community of women's online voices. 

A few days ago I was talking to a Second Life friend about my dilemma of attempting  to shift my peace activism and writing from a broader and more tempered perspective than I had in Build Peace.  She said, "Repurpose the blog."  Initially I thought, "Ugh,  corporate speak. Yuck.  Ptooey."  But then, trying to live the  peace and be the peace I write about, I decided that I can continue writing/blogging about info that helps me build my own peace and share that with others that is the only way peace in our world will ever be built - person to person, one word at a time.... and with my bias showing I will further state that a sustainable peace must be built by women talking to each other and creating the world we want for our children.  

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Words like emergence, energy work, calmness, spiritual, belief, attraction and the like will be far more common here than in the past.  I will talk about my struggle to lose weight, the challenge of shifting to an empty nest at home, and about healing.  Politics will undoubtedly creep in... I've been political since I was about 10, but I will try to mediate my outrage and use  words like Fascist and F**k far less often and perhaps not at all from this time forward.  Maybe I can even get the Huffington Post to end their ban on links to my site in their comments.   Purportedly this is because of profanity.   We'll see.  

Anyway, consider this blog repurposed.  The appearance will change dramatically.  The content may too.    Peace to you all.

I'm thankful for the brave women of the peace movement.

Ann Wright, Jodie Evans, and Medea Benjamin are in Iran on a citizens diplomacy mission. I just finished reading a blog entry from Jodie. Thank heavens for citizens like them. They are such a disparate group: retired military, green party and fair trade activist, and political and eco campaigner and activist. I have met and talked to and protested with and shared floor space and food with Ann and Medea more often than with Jody, so I know a have stronger impressions of Ann and Medea than Jodie, but I know each of the three is dedicated to working for peace in the way every CODEPINK activist knows peace must be created -- through person to person contact and understanding.

These women have blazed some amazing trails. I never thought I would travel around as an activist, but for me trekking to D.C. to be a main street lobbyist has become "normal." The paths these women opened up were just too tempting for me and thousands of other U.S. women to resist following.

With diplomacy once again an officially sanctioned mode of interaction, who knows what sort of wonderful connections could be forged or furthered by women who read Jodie's blog entry about her travels and are inspired to undertake their own diplomatic missions.

We rarely know what impact we may have on people -- but we can know that if we work for good in all our interactions that well, we should have positive impact. Enough of those little nudges can move a planet.

So read Jodie's recounting of the things these three women are up to, and then be thankful for all we have and then go out and change the world.

Virtual Worlds, Social Media, & Social Justice

I'm coming up for air in physical life and immersing myself in virtual life after the U.S. election.  I've been a CODEPINK Women for Peace activist for over five years.  This election does not signal the end of CODEPINK work; we're not politically motivated, we are peacefully motivated.  

Military forces are still making war, not promoting peace, so our work isn't done.  I am however breathing deeply and relaxing a good bit now that an intelligent, diplomatically inclined man (sigh)  is headed for the White House.  This gives me the freedom to branch out a bit in my efforts to work for peace and justice.  

On December 10th people from all over the world will join together to celebrate and further advance the goals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was adopted and proclaimed by
General Assembly resolution 217 A (III)  on 10 December 1948.  I'm working with people from the U.S., U.K, Sweden, Italy and a host of other countries on a celebration that will last almost a week in the common countryside that is the virtual world of Second Life.  I won't try to explain virtual worlds beyond saying what was once a game platform where people moved online characters that represented them in a game around a 3D graphic representaton of a world.  My online representation, my avatar, is named Ana (Ana and Nancy have the same root meaning so that let's the very nerdy me identify with my avatar more deeply than a silly name might have allowed)....  Anyway Ana has been an entity in the virtual world of Second Life for two and a half years. In that time she/I has started a virtual chapter of CODEPINK Women for Peace and developed real relationships with people around the world who are also working for peace and justice.

I've linked avatar hands in solidarity with hundreds of other folks in support of Burmese Monks standing up to tyrrany and protesting for democracy,  protested Newt Gingrich's first major Second Life appearance that was streamed into the virtual world from where he was speaking in Atlanta, joined with lots of avatars from around the world protesting the G8 summit, and dropped virtual banners off virtual Washington monuments, as well as providing information about things CODEPINK was doing in the physical world.  You can see pics of some of these actions in Ana's Flickr pics.
Many folks say this is just "play" protest, but it is just as real as protesters you may drive by on the street and think for a second or two (or hopefully more) about the cause they in which they are proclaiming support.   The ultimate aim of any protestation is influence through the dispersal or broadcast of information to an audience that does not already possess that information.
The structure of the celebration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights draws on Second Life's popular usage as a "place" to share and enjoy live music.  People in their homes or studios around the globe have their avatars "play" at virtual clubs and cafes in the virtual world and people from everywhere have their avatars show up to listen to the music and dance.   It can be difficult to picture until you have done it, but the experience is very real for the participants.   The HRF (Human Rights Festival) in SL (Second Life) is gathering together some of the most sought after performers in Second Life who will play at various locations around "the grid" which is just another name for any virtual world or all virtual worlds.  (Yes, Second Life is but one of many virtual worlds in a rapidly developing interconnected grid of grids.)  People (avatars) who follow those particular performers or want to take a date to a concert or cafe or club will show up at the various places where the music is being played.  Non-activists will be exposed to the Human Rights Exhibits that are also in those locations.   Mission accomplished.  

Anyway I wanted to share my happiness that I can now more fully dedicate myself to exploring how to use the grid for the betterment of humankind now that I don't feel I have to dedicate most of my energies to counteracting the influence of the Bush-Cheney administration.  
I'm very excited about the development of the virtual world as meeting space as it allows a much greater potential for global friendship and interaction than has previously been possible as well as a host of other benefits such as the saving of fuel when complex meetings that require more presence and personal commitment than a simple cnference call or video conference.   Promoting virtual meetings is such a great area for women entrepreneurs, too.  And then there is the whole "differently abled people are not differently abled in virtual worlds - unless they want to be" thing, and how these virtual platforms will liberate the eldery, mobility challenged individuals to walk hand in hand on beaches with old and new loves.  

I'm so psyched up about all this, there are so many opportunities to explore and create!  

post script:  I will cross post this to a couple of my blogs as well as an entry on Blogher.  I apologize for any duplication to which you may be exposed due to this cross posting.  

Act NOW or kiss your freedom good-bye

The Bush Coup is happening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XgkeTanCGI
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20975.htm

The coup occurred on October 1, 2008. An armed insurrection has taken place.

Press your District Attorneys NOW to arrest the Bush Administration.

Here Come The Fascists

RFK, Jr. leads a call for awareness of the vile and violent bigoted philosophies that informs Palin's small town conservatism.

Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies."

I read that she tried to get one of my favorite authors, Madelaine L'Engle, books banned from her town's library. Here's the story,

"Sarah Palin never asked anyone to ban a book as Mayor. As Mayor -- of a Wal-Mart and a snowmobile trail -- she was only interested in censorship in general.

As the New York Times reported this weekend, she only pushed to ban books by name when she was on the city council.

I hope that clears up everything.

Why was it so important for Brian Rogers to slip in the words "as Mayor" a week ago, before anyone had heard about Sarah Palin's city council campaign to protect Alaska from Daddy's Roommate?"

I no longer have any tolerance for hair splitting truth tellers who are micro-meters from lies in order to further their goals through deception. Vile, lying, neo-con, fundamentalists who would impose their narrow, violent, sexist, biogoted world view on us all. Eff em. This is war. I'm declaring war on fundamentalism -- all fundamentalism descended from the intolerance of Abraham's world view -- Christian, Islamic, or Judaic.

(P.S. if such attitudes of "I'm doing well so God must favor me " informed by just this kind of thinking hadn't been allowed to prosper under deregulated skies, the 2nd Great Depression wouldn't be gaining steam as we speak. Squelch the facsistic tendencies of the police state that can flip into power seemingly in an instant in such times. Poll watchers/election observers arrested. Peaceful protesters exercising their rights of free speech and journalists attempting to cover their stories are intimidated, brutalized, and jailed. What are we waiting for, a "Krystal Nacht?" -- I write this as Alan Greenspans wife, Andrea Mitchell, interviews Carly Fiorino, a fired HP Exec who walked away with a severance balloon of somewhere around 40 million dollars, about the mess our country is in. Now that is journalsim.... AAEEeee and ARGH!")

Palin is sooo retro!