It's a great day for America--hooray for President Obama!

November 6--such a day it was. My candidate for president won and I couldn't be happier. One dark spot or blemish is Florida, my home state. I worry that what was once a forward-looking place has become a drudge filled with trickery and misdeeds in the world of politics. I was there when George Bush slid into office, and remember the sickened feeling in my belly; its one of the reasons I finally left the place of my birth and have been reluctant to return.  There is no excuse of any kind for our voting conditions to be anything but as honest, professional and mechanically up-to-date as possible.  This is not the America of the thirties, folks--it's 2012!

 I voted early this year, enjoying the camaraderie of my fellow Americans in the basement of our old courthouse. The line was long, but it was busy and felt almost like a party. In a way it was a party--a joyous occasion in which we had the opportunity to have our say.  Several children were there with their parents, eagerly asking questions about the process, while some voters were quiet and pensive. Some chatted all the way to the voting box, but once in, their voices still in concentration.  I had the feeling I was in a nest of Republicans, but I didn't care--we were there to exercise our rights as citizens. I believe the best man won, but many others were downcast this morning.   I feel for them because I know they believe their path to be the right one. I don't know that mine is right, but I believe it is best.

I would have supported Romney had he won, but I'm glad he didn't.  No matter what he said or did, or perhaps because of what he said and did...I couldn't identify with him. There was a strong feeling that he was just a party animal, and some things he said didn't seem as though they belonged in his mouth. I couldn't understand why the man who got healthcare reform passed in Massachusetts refused it for the rest of us...and why some folks couldn't see that corporations like his are so far removed from ordinary people (and no, corporations are not a person--they are composed of many, many people who usually have no idea what they own, and are directed by those who do) that we are faceless beings--the masses of humanity. How else could the atrocities of the big-business Bush administration have occurred?

The next four years won't be a picnic I'm sure. We need a saint with wisdom and a big stick to meld the drastic differences of opinion that exist among us. I don't know that President Obama is a saint, but I believe in him and support him all the way. He's started too many good things to stop them mid-stream. Join me now, and let's move forward to make our America the place of unity and good will.

Ideas, Influence and Choices

A couple of years ago, I noticed a phenomenon at our local library: three dogwood trees stood near a lamp post in varying shades of leaf color--this after most had long-since lost their leaves.

It was November when I walked out of the building shivering in the late afternoon chill. For some reason, I had failed to notice those three trees but this time, I saw a flash of white. What?  Sure enough, the dogwood tree nearest the lamp post had new green leaves and white blossoms clustered near red berries! When asked, the librarian told me staff believed the new LED light bulbs in the lamp posts were responsible for the phenomenon.

Last year, those three trees conformed to the others in the area--did they change the light bulbs?, but I cannot forget the year that one tree bloomed out of season.  Sometimes we do that--something will happen that causes us to respond uncharacteristically, causing a blind reaction. It's my I hope that we are aware of the influences around us and take great care before allowing such change without thought.

As with chemical and industrial discoveries, so has the realm of the mind been uncovered. That leaves us incredibly vulnerable. Perhaps it's time to cut the TV/Movie/Internet/Tablet/Phone habit and begin to think on our own again.  What are your triggers? What do you do, what do I do, that influences my ability to make choices for myself? Think about it.

We are living a story: Obama/Biden, Romney/Ryan

I've been thinking a lot about the election lately...how can I not when I'm confronted with it on all sides. This is the time of year I almost completely withdraw to print media, refusing to allow all my senses to be manipulated, but election time also provokes me to thought outside my usual boundaries.  In that light, I was listening to commentators on NPR today and realized we are again riding a swinging pendulum. When President Obama ran, he was the first 'black' man to run; Romney is the first Mormon to run for president. How we do love labels, but this goes beyond mere labeling--Americans are searching for something and using elections as a tool to find whatever it is but there seems to be an element of hysteria this time around.

My question is this: must we vote on someone's personal issues? Aren't there bigger things out there than someone's color, religion, preference for alcohol or non, abortion or no--these things are huge triggers than can move a voter's finger in a heartbeat, but how about poverty; hunger and pain in a country held in a corporate death-grip?  We are so vulnerable to those triggers that we will overlook the warts on our noses once the trigger is pressed. Maleable, self-centered, fear-filled minds are not given to rational thought.

The story goes like this: we elect a president who is different and we are absolutely positive will solve all our social and international problems. Turns out the problem takes longer than anticipated and is extremely complex, so let's push that pendulum as far as possible the other direction to see what happens--get someone else who will reverse everything, take four years to do it and figure out it didn't work. Somewhere, we may decide to literally think for ourselves and make rational decisions without our strings being pulled.

Follow Me

I just signed up for the Following gadget which you'll see near my photo on the right.  It's my hope that you will join me so that we can have a conversation about all the interesting things in our world and beyond.

 Having just completed Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed, this topic is on my mind. I write stories, tell them, too, but folks can rummage around in the brain matter and come up with some pretty incredible material.  Of late, I've been writing darker stories. I don't know if has anything to do with the last four years of recession or not, but I do know I've been influenced by this period of time, much like rings on a tree.  We cannot live untouched by what happens around us.

By the way, since the world loves stories, check out the Jonesborough Storytellers Guild website.  We are also on Facebook.

Rich Man, Poor Man--a folktale for today

So what is America's story today?  We are now a country of dark contrast that sounds more and more feudal: an unrestricted and petted upper class, and a pacified lower class consisting of former middle class members with fond memories of a better past.  We somehow find it difficult to require our wealthy elite to share the wealth, still thinking our lottery ticket will come through some day.

A recent rumor resonnated with me, since I've been feeling this way for some time:  tax the rich, drop health insurance for all public officials; discontinue pensions for elected officials, and stop paying the student loans of politicians, their families and friends.  Those in high position would be restricted from taking employment for 5 years after leaving office in fields related to their recent employment by the government. Nice, yes?

I'm thinking of a story about a rich man and his poor neighbor. There are loads of these folktales all over the world since disparity is an age-old problem. In this version that I tell, the two lived side by side and shared all that they had until famine struck.  The rich man fired his shepherd who just happened to be the neighbor in question, caused a great wall to be built around his property and brought his family and herds into the compound to ride it out in safety.

Finding no work, the poor shepherd and his wife prepared their last meal, but they had no salt for the little pone of bread they would eat.

"Go next door and beg a pinch of salt." said the wife, so the man went but the door was closed to him.  Starving and hurt by rejection, he sat down and leaned against the wall.  Smells wafted from the window over his head and he realized it was food cooking. He sat there until the family's meal was done and went home for his wife.  They came back and sat together under the window while the rich man sat at table, and savored the smells of real food.

The next day, the shepherd was looking for work at the market and saw his former friend. He told him what had happened but the rich man was angry. "You stole from me!" and hauled him to court.

The judge, who just happened to be appointed to office by the rich man, adjudged the poor man guilty of theft and fined him one donkey.

A donkey! He who could not afford a pinch of salt had to find a donkey and give it to the rich man. Desperate, he headed home to his wife, passing the village storyteller, who was leading a donkey, on the way.  "Why are you so downcast?" she said.

He told her the awful story and she gave him the donkey and some food.  She told him to care for the animal, and take it to court the next day. He had to be silent and do exactly what she required of him.

He and his wife loved the little donkey and dreaded parting with, but he took it to court and prepared to give it up, or whatever the storyteller asked him to do.

She approached the judge and told him their version of the story. The rich man looked uncomfortable and refused to look at the shepherd.

Strike that donkey with your staff," she told the shepherd.  He never struck his animals--he couldn't hurt the little animal, but he had promised, so he hit the donkey. The donkey was so surprised it brayed and jumped and bucked and it took all he could do to get it to calm down.

"Now," said the storyteller, "you have payment for the smell of your food. Take it and leave this man be."

Speechless, the judge and the rich man had little recourse. Besides, the rich man saw the folly of his ways and felt foolish.  The storyteller told the man to care for the donkey and keep it with him always and so he did. The rich man caused the walls to be torn away from his home and rehired the shepherd to watch his flocks and herds.  Best of all, they both shared what they had with one another and others and all was well.

Learn from the wise among us and share that which is given.

Photo by Becky Campbell

The 2012 Campaign: Big Money, Deep Pockets, and scare tactics

I've been paying close attention to the political posturing of our candidates of late and must confess that I am concerned.  I am a Democrat and my admiration for President Barak Obama knows no bounds, but I confess to thinking something is really wrong with our way of campaigning.  The Supreme Court's decision to allow superpacs to exist and contribute to campaigns is little different from corporations, except these corporations and individual donors join together to create staggering amounts of money in virtual anonymity.  Such power is almost unthinkable, and on top of it, we have a Republican candidate who is so wealthy that these guys jump right into his pockets and make themselves at home.  Now, even though President Obama has been backed into using Superpac money, the Republicans still outspend him

. And we wonder where our money goes when it evaporates...it's not gone, that money was lured to those big pockets like a magnetized vacuum cleaner--suctioned to the top.

I find myself even more concerned when voting districts are re-cast to ensure success for certain parties. I am worried about folks not getting a chance to vote--those most needy who would benefit from voting for a broad-based platform the Democrats put forth. What's a vote worth? I'm not sure anymore, but I keep doing it.  Earlier this year I went to the polls in my town to vote.  "But there's nobody for you to vote for," they said.  I answered, "Oh, yes, there is," and went over to the booth and pressed the button for the Democratic Primary--President Obama.  Don't let anybody else make up your mind for you--vote.

It bothers me too, that a voting public, we can be bought and paid for, and so easily swayed by advertising.  It seems the candidate with the most bucks to spend on it wins. Whatever happened to listening to candidates and making up our own minds, then following through at the polls?  For instance, how many times I have we heard Romney contradict himself? I've lost count. We simply cannot let someone else make up our minds for us.  I will not answer a political call, I do not watch television, and I'm darned careful what I read.  If I can't hear it from the candidate's mouth, and read what that person has written, I'm not interested.

Grimm's Fair Tales in concert

Last night I told The Glass Coffin, a Grimm's Fairy Tale, at Rocky Mount Museum outside of Johnson City, TN.  There were six of us, all from the Jonesborough Storyteller's Guild, and all telling scary stories collected by the brothers Grimm 200 years ago. Our notions of what it meant to tell a tale of that sort varied, but all were true to the nature of the stories as translated from the original transcripts.

  While the subject matter was emotionally difficult, I found the telling of it easy--there is a clear path to follow in the story's setup: a defined beginning, middle and end. When a story is well-constructed like that, all a teller need do is prepare by learning it well, and then allowing the story to become what it wants to be at the moment of performance. In this instance, I was slated last on the program. I knew we had kept a room filled with adults interested, (and even some brave children over age 12), but it was my job to wrap it up and send them home with a good memory of the night.I think I did that, but more than anything, I hope that story settled into their collective psyche's as it did mine.

You see, The Glass Coffin involves a young woman literally preserved in a glass case, buried deep in a cavern under the earth's surface. She was violated--emotionally and probably physically, by a dark stranger in her own home. She refused to submit to his demands, and paid dearly with the loss of all she knew, and loved.  Her brother turned to a stag, her castle and village shrank to a miniature--also under glass. There are strange inscriptions etched on cave walls, the life forces of her people captured in glass bottles, and she, the young woman, wrapped in her own hair for cover, and a lucky young tailor who just happens to be in the right place at the right time. Check it out--it's a thought-provoking story that may change your way of thinking about fairy tales.