In times of old, The Furies protected Mother Right. If a mother (or any woman) was harmed, The Furies swooped down and took their vengeance. They were one of the last vestiges of a world that existed before the patriarchy. When we feel righteous anger, it is The Furies who are calling out to us to make what is wrong right again.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Tenemos 

'lectricity went out a couple of days ago. A fault shifted. Kind of like an earthquake, my friends. It was so cold we went to the Skamania Lodge and sat in front of their huge fireplace (they didn't have electricity either.)

fireplace

I tell you what: when civilization falls, I ain't gonna do well. I don't like being cold. Anyway, the outage fried our router so DSL didn't work and dial-up was too slow, so I was off the 'puter. Aren't I spoiled? But someone just came from our server and put in a new router. I can now get internet anywhere in our house with my laptop. I'm in wireless heaven.

Been going to Portland about four times a week. I think I already regaled you with my healing exploits. What I'm attempting now is to create (or recognize) sacred space in and around my bodacious body. In and amongst all the other bodacious bodies. Tenemos.

Last Monday we went to Portland and I attended a QiGong session. Then I went to the acupuncturist. Someone at the QiGong session had mentioned a labyrinth walk that evening, so after I was stuck with needles, we drove to the Trinity Episcopal Church, went inside, and walked the labyrinth. Well, I walked it. Mario didn't feel like it. We've walked labyrinths all over the West, including two in San Francisco, one in Santa Fe, and one on the Oregon coast that the waves washed away (we made that one). Anyway, as I was walking it I had this urge to laugh and dance. Everyone around me was walking solemnly, which was fine, but I thought that what was missing from so many religious and spiritual gatherings was dance. Joi! So I danced around the labyrinth. Subtly, mind you. Mario saw and delighted in it. He is such an enabler of my joy. For me, the labyrinth represents the Goddess and the pagan amidst fundamental religions. (So par-tay on, girl!)

Hope you all had a good holiday. Mario and I ate too much. Afterward we went to Linda's house and played Password. Haven't played that since I was a kid. Mario's birthday was Sunday. We walked the falls trail (see below), and then went to our friends' house for dinner. Barbara is a physical therapist and Paul is a beekeeper. He used to work for the Forest Service. I am fascinated with his beekeeping, so I'm always asking him strange questions about it.

"OK, Paul. I read this book called the Shaman of the Bee or something. I'm interested in shamanism and bees, so I thought this would be good. I read up to the part where during his initiation the author shapechanged into a bee and flew to the Queen and suddenly knew what his destiny was: to have sex with the Queen Bee. Ever heard of such a thing?" i.e. Is this SOP for beekeepers?

Paul has known me long enough, I suppose, that he barely blinked at this question. "No, I don't know about that, but I've heard of a custom down South where they cover the hives in black when the beekeeper dies. It's called 'telling the bees.'"

Nice.

After dinner we played cards and Sorry. Barbara has the best laugh of anyone I know on the planet.

barbpaul

Funny thing: just before we left their house to go home, we were talking about winter in the gorge and how the electricity goes out too often and we freeze our butts off but Paul and Barbara don't because they have wood heat, although sometimes they drive to the Lodge during a blackout and sit in front of the huge fireplace anyway. Then we went home. Within minutes the electricity went out. So as you heard above, we drove to the lodge. Later we went to the library, which had electricity, and read Sue Kidd Monk's The Secret Life of Bees.

Finally, after 11:00 p.m. the electricity came back on, and we went home. The next morning, Mario did my hydrotherapy (hot towels on my front for 5 minutes, cold towels for 10; turn over, repeat). Then we drove into Portland, and I had craniosacral therapy (which was recommended by my team). We first sat on a couch, and she brought over a skull and took it apart and showed me all the spaces and places. It all looked so tiny and fragile. Beautiful. Then we got to work. It's difficult to explain, but it felt as though stress and trauma were packing their bags and leaving my body. Afterward I went for acupuncture. Home again. Dinner. Then over to the library for bibliotherapy: the discussion group for The Secret Life of Bees. A day of therapy.

Which reminds me of Mario's birthday and our walk in the woods. Ahhhh, wilderness. I worship the ground we walk upon. Winter had definitely come to Falling Creek. The gates close on December 1, so this would be our last time here this year. (I took lots of photographs, but I've never really taken pics in the winter, so I didn't realize what all that white does. Many of them didn't turn out.) Only one other car was in the parking lot. We looked at the tracks on the snowy trail and determined that the group ahead of us was composed of (is that the right word?) one child, one tall man, maybe a tall woman or someone trying to keep up with the tall man, and possibly a baby in a backpack. (I noticed a car seat in the SUV.)

We walked up and up the cold and snowy trail, finding no one. Snow covered the bear grass like a truly bad case of dandruff on a green Moe. (Stooge Moe.)

snow bear grass

Another set of male tracks cut across the path at one point but disappeared. Probably a hunter. Near the first falls we finally met the family coming down the trail. EXACTLY as we had surmised: except I thought the child was a girl, and it was a boy. Or he was a boy, I should say. I said, "Oh, we've been tracking you, and we guessed three of you with a baby." The man smiled; the woman looked at us in horror. I supposed I shouldn't have said we were "tracking" them. Sounded too much like we were stalking them. The woman hurried them away.

A few minutes later we got to the falls. Oh, lovely, lovely, lovely. We found some snow art left by la familia.

found art

I love this place. This is my sacred place. Every place is sacred. My body. Your body. This place. This water. Hydrotherapy. The sound and feel of the water washes over my body and soul. I carry this place in my heart all year round. Can you tell? Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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top

As we left, as we said good-bye, Mario stopped and pressed his hand into the snow and drew a spiral on the impression with a stick. You can see it in the shadow of his hand.

making art

I made a print next to his. Later down the trail, we did it again. More snow art.

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more spiral hands

By Pika Village (the talos area where we haven't seen a pika in a few years now, unfortunately), we made more spiral hands. (Zooming in and zooming out.)

spiral hands

pika village hands

We took off our shoes and did spiral feet. Mario's is the Bigfoot.

big foot

The forest was so beautiful today. Exquisite. Restful. Sighing. A canopy of breath descended all around us, floating up all around us. Ahhhhhh

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I love, I love, I love...

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I look at these photos now and have forgotten what else I had to say. All I can think and feel is how much I love this place...how much I just love.

That seems a good place to end this ramble. On love.

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May You Love in Beauty!


Photographs a team effort by Mario Milosevic & Kim Antieau.
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/29/2005 09:03:00 PM
1 comments

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

The X-Spot 

Or the X-Files. Apparently a big X appeared on Cheney's head during a speech he was giving—at least on CNN it did. It was a technical glitch (despite the cry from right-wingers who said it was all part of the vast left-wing conspiracy). But it is funny nonetheless. I ALMOST wish I'd been watching. Would have made my day.
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/22/2005 10:54:00 PM
2 comments

Cheap Oil & Oily Characters 

Did you hear that Chavez has cut prices of Venezuela's CITGO oil for low-income residents of Massachusetts? I love it!

They're even covering this on mainstream media. CNN says, "Citgo Petroleum Corp., a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, will supply oil at 40 percent below market prices. It will be distributed by two nonprofit organizations, Citizens Energy Corp. and the Massachusetts Energy Consumers Alliance. The agreement gives President Hugo Chavez's government standing as a provider of heating assistance to poor U.S. residents at a time when U.S. oil companies have been reluctant to do so and Congress has failed to expand aid in response to rising oil prices."

Chavez just makes me chuckle.

A friend of the Bush administration and Tom DeLay has plead guilty of conspiring to bribe a member of Congress. Etc. Ahhh, the party of Lincoln is still making us proud, isn't it? Actually I wish he hadn't pleaded guilty. I wish they'd given him immunity so that he would rat out the whole bunch.

By the way, did you see Bob Woodward on Larry King Live last night. We watched it to see what he had to say for himself. Someone in the administration outed Valeria Plame to him before Scooter Libby outed her to Judith Miller. (Frankly, I don't think it matters if the person did it before or after—it's not the timing that's important but the deed itself.) Woodward said he never told his editor or anyone else because he could tell the guy wasn't part of a huge conspiracy or anything. I was dumbfounded. Oh, so he could just tell so he was above the law—or above journalistic ethics?

I said to Mario, "Wow, he's as bad as the Bush administration, as bad as all of these people who are in Washington. They're in power so they believe they are above us all. Why bother with the law or ethics or doing the right thing when you are the power?" Woodward kept talking about his great access to the administration so he could judge for himself whether the person who outed Plame to him was being nefarious. What's been happening lately (Novak, Miller, Woodward) demonstrates why journalists should not be stars. Woodward gave up his credibility for access, to my way of thinking. I was frankly shocked. Although I've thought he's a bit of a stuffed shirt and he might have gotten some things wrong about Bush, I always thought (because of his coverage of Watergate) that he was a good journalist. I'm certainly rethinking that now. (OK, OK, I've been rethinking it since he's started writing those books about the Bushies.) For one thing, while he had this information about Plame he went on talk shows saying that Plamegate was nothing like Watergate and that Fitzgerald was overreaching. Geez Louise. Go back to journalism school, man.
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/22/2005 09:18:00 PM
0 comments

More Proof Bush Lied 

Ten days after 9/11 Bush received a classified briefing from the U.S. Intelligence community that no evidence existed of a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. Of course WE all knew that and now we know HE knew it too.

By the by, the Congress did not get receive this classified briefing.

It's what we've been saying all along. Bush wanted to go to Iraq to show up his daddy or finish his daddy's work or to get the oil or all of the above.

Stick a fork in it, this administration is done.
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/22/2005 09:07:00 PM
0 comments

No Gloating Here 

Hehehehe...No, really. I don't want to gloat. (Yes, I do.) I haven't written a lot about what's been going on with the Emperor With No Clothes and his tailors because y'all know what's going on. It's even in the mainstream media. I keep hearing that song in my head, "London Bridge is falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down." Not sure why. The stench of this administration has gotten so bad that even those Americans who have been purposefully holding their noses and trying to ignore it all cannot. And now finally, finally, finally, those who are dissenting are beginning to be heard. Of course, these dissenters are considered mainstream so they cannot be shouted down so easily. (I'm thinking, "Where have all you people been?" But better late than never.)

I'm sure you heard about Rep. Murtha, a Hawkish Dem., who said we need to get out of Dodge (i.e. Iraq) as soon as possible. Then some idiot Rep. from Ohio decided to call Murtha a coward. Idiot. I wonder if the people of Ohio who had a choice between Schmidt and Iraqi war veteran Paul Hackett are rethinking their votes.

The Republsicans are misstepping everywhere and it makes me want to dance. So I do. They've been doing so many stupid things but it's almost 5 a.m., and I'm going to try and go back to sleep instead of searching out their misdeeds. I'll leave you with this link to a piece about Cheney and some doublespeak. He says he never said that those who dissented were disgusting and reprehensible, but luckily, nowadays, we’ve got PROOF, VP "Darth Vadar" Cheney.

I hope this is coherent.

I'm outta here.

Zzzzzzzz....
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/22/2005 04:12:00 AM
0 comments

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Paper Clips 

Have you heard of the Paper Clip Holocaust project? I just watched a documentary about it on HBO. A school in Tennessee decided to do a project about tolerance, and they studied the Holocaust. (I was a bit confused because it sounded like they hadn't studied it before. When I was in school we studied the Holocaust. I can't tell you how many times I saw those horrific movies about the death camps when I was a child. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it...) Anyway, as they were learning about the Holocaust one of the students said, "How many is six million?" So they decided to figure out a way to demonstrate that. The students discovered that during the war Norwegians wore paper clips as a protest to Hitler. (A Norwegian invented the paper clip.) So the students decided to collect paper clips as part of their Holocaust project. They sent out letters to all kinds of people and they began getting paper clips back. At the same time, they and the community were learning about tolerance—in a community which was nearly all white and all Christian.

They ended up getting a rail car from Germany, one which had transported people to the death camps, and they brought it to their school and made it into a memorial. The car holds 11 million paper clips to represent the Jews, gays, lesbians, and others who were killed by the Nazis.

As I watched the movie, I thought, once again, about the power of one person to change the lives of others. Because the principal of this school decided her students needed to learn about tolerance, the entire community was transformed. This is in a small Appalacian town, mind you.

Quite inspiring.
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/19/2005 11:03:00 AM
0 comments

Friday, November 18, 2005

Woman Who Slept With the Moon 

Tuesday I met with the Integrated Medicine team again, and they gave me their recommendations. Wait two months while I get healthier, then surgery. Afterward Mario and I stopped at Food Front. A dog in the parking lot was howling as we got out of the car. Sounded just like a wolf. I howled along with it. People stopped in the street and looked our way. The dog stopped howling. I kept on. Mario laughed.

Did you notice the Full Moon Tuesday night? I opened the shades and moonlight became my blanket. Cool and light. Every night since I've done the same. Opened the shades and invited the Moon onto our bed.

Wednesday I drove into Portland alone for acupuncture. Afterward I was so exhausted and sick I wasn't sure I could drive home. Called Mario and cried. I'm strong and capable one moment and lost and sick the next. He encouraged me to go into Tao of Tea and eat something. So I did. Dal and rice, salad, Goddess of Mercy tea. It was too much, but it helped. I drove home feeling much better.

Had trouble sleeping. Opened up the shades. The Moon slipped in. Where have you been? Where have I been?

Thursday I went to see the surgeon in Vancouver. I liked her very much. She talked with me a long time. She explained the procedure and how it was so much safer than when they lopped off a part of Bill's Mom's brain. She has been a patient many times, she said, so she understood how reluctant I was. I felt much better about the whole process. We then drove to Portland, despite the bad air alert. I had two other appointments in town. We went to the Tao of Tea on Belmont. I had dal and rice, Mario had chana chaval. Then I went to acupuncture.

Afterward we went to the Naturopathic College so I could do some hydrotherapy which the Integrated Medicine team had recommended. I wouldn't fill out the paperwork; I was too exhausted. I thought I was going in for something simple, and suddenly I felt like I was at another doctor's office. They took my blood pressure (it had dropped even further), temperature, etc. Then someone came and told us to be quiet. Apparently we were disturbing a nearby patient! No one had told us we needed to be silent. They eventually moved us to another room. Then the hydrotherapy began. Hot towels, then cold towels. I had a bit of trouble breathing. When it was done, my blood pressure had gone up. She said that wasn't unusual or worrisome. OK.

In the last month I’ve seen four different M.D.s on five different occasions in four different offices. I’ve also seen two N.D.s, two acupuncturists (at least once a week), two medical students, a trauma therapist (once a week), a chiropractic intern, and various technicians. I had blood tests, two CAT scans, an MRI, and five physical exams (mostly of my head). Geez Louise. Despite all of this—or maybe because of all of this–I feel quite hopeful. As though I’m on an expedition. Or a pilgrimage. Searching for health. Or the soul and body of health. Something.

Last night I opened the shades again. I could not see the Moon, but her light lay on the end of our bed like a discarded robe. I rested my face against the light. I dreamed I opened up a drawer and found a couple of tiny toy pumpkins—not a kid’s toy, more like tiny pumpkin boxes. One was an orange pumpkin; the other was like the lumina pumpkins (white), except it was a bit grayish-green, like a tiny Cinderella coach without the wheels. I picked that one out for myself.

Today no doctors, no nothing. I made some phone calls, sent some letters, then lay on the couch. Everything vibrates. My ears are ringing so badly I want to scream. I'm hoping all that will get better after surgery.

Now it's time to sleep again. I'll try to think of the roar in my ears as the roar of the ocean. Will that make it easier to tolerate? I wonder where the Moon is tonight? Does She long for me, for us, the way we long for her?

May You Sleep in Beauty!
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/18/2005 11:04:00 PM
0 comments

Peace Goddess Patricia 

Fellow writer and blogger Patricia Lay-Dorsey is in Lebanon. She is an activist who happens to be disabled with MS. In December of 2001, Patricia learned that "Rabih Haddad, a respected and active member of Ann Arbor's Muslim community for two and a half years was arrested by three INS agents on December 14. He is being 'detained indefinitely' at an undiscosed location with no bail. He has been charged with no wrongdoing." He and his family had lived in the United States for years. When Patricia learned of his detention, she began writing letters and encouraged her friends to do the same.

It took nearly two years, but eventually the work Patricia, her friends, and others did got him released from detention—unfortunately, the United States also deported him. Now Patricia (with her motorized scooter) is in Lebanon visiting and staying with Rabih Haddad and his family. (Hats off to them for continuing to be so kind in the face of the injustice done to them.) She is spreading the word in Lebanon that many Americans were (and are) against the war. She is amazing. As Patricia said in one of her posts (when she was homebound with a sprained ankle), "Being an activist doesn't always require you to be out on the streets. Sometimes a keyboard works just as well."

Blessed be!
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/18/2005 10:48:00 AM
0 comments

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Breath 

I went for my second consultation with my Integrative Medicine team. They gave me a plan, Stan, to get healthy for my surgery. I'm excited to get started on it all. Mario said I should keep a healing journal, documenting it all. We'll see.

In any case, I said to Mario, "Hmmm. They want me to do regular breathing exercises. Does hyperventilating count?"
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/16/2005 09:08:00 PM
0 comments

Luck Be a Lady 

As I read this article I told myself once again to straighten up and fly right and be courageous and quit whining and stop being afraid. I am so lucky to have been born here, so lucky to have born into a middle-class family. I am so fortunate. So many women in so many places on our planet live in horror and misery. Helene Cooper writes about what the women of Liberia have just done. They've elected a woman president. They were tired of war. So they elected Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Cooper says prominent women haven't always made her proud, so to speak, but she is hopeful Johnson-Sirleaf will.

She writes, "Ever since the voting results started coming in a few days ago, showing what the Liberian women had done, I've been unable to get one image from Bukavu out of my mind. It is of an old woman, in her 30's. It was almost twilight when I saw her, walking up the hill out of the city as I drove in.

She carried so many logs that her chest almost seemed to touch the ground, so stooped was her back. Still, she trudged on, up the hill toward her home. Her husband was walking just in front of her. He carried nothing. Nothing in his hand, nothing on his shoulder, nothing on his back. He kept looking back at her, telling her to hurry up.

I want to go back to Bukavu to find that woman, and to tell her what just happened in Liberia. I want to tell her this: Your time will come, too."

Blessed be.
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/16/2005 07:59:00 PM
0 comments

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

"Storm Poet" on Newstands Now! 

The January issue of Asimov's is now available at newstands and bookstores. In it, you can find my short story "Storm Poet" which has already garnered a good review. This story was inspired by my grandfather and his stepfather. My grandfather bailed his stepdad out of jail at least once. His stepfather ran a Blind Pig in Wayne, Michigan, where he gave liquor to inmates from a nearby mental institution in exchange for the lumber they stole from a nearby construction site.

Yep. That's for real. I've even got the newspaper articles about it.
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/15/2005 12:00:00 AM
2 comments

Monday, November 14, 2005

Sweet Spot 

falls1

Went for my MRI on Sunday. The technician opened up a kind of tiny safe in the little dressing room where I could leave my purse and any valuables. I shoved my purse inside. I didn't have a stitch of metal on me. She made certain Mario didn't have any either, besides the zipper on his jeans. Then she told me they were going to inject me with dye for some reason I didn't understand. I said no one had told me that, and I had so many allergies. Why did they need dye? She went and talked to the radiologist, and they decided to try it without. She gave Mario and me each a set of orange earplugs.

Soon I was prone with my head headed for the enclosed space. I didn't really look around very much because I was a bit freaked out at that point. She put something on each side of my head to keep it still and then dropped a white cloth over my eyes. At first this was unsettling, but then it felt nice. Calming. She squeezed my hand to ask me if I was OK and I held onto her fingers and started to cry. Weird, weird, weird. She asked me if I wanted Mario to touch my legs, and I said yes. Then she left the room and told me through speakers near my head that I would hear a series of clicks and then the MRI would start. The first scan would take about a minute. I could feel Mario's hands on my right leg. Then I heard the clicks. And the MRI started. Sounded a bit like a computerized jack hammer. "Dotdotdotdotdotdot." Then it would stop. Click, click, click. More scans. These took about three minutes each.

I had my mala in my hands, and I could feel the wood between my fingers. I began chanting to myself a form of a "boast" by the ancient Irish poet Amergin, only I made it my own—since I couldn't remember exactly how it went (from Tom Cowan's book Yearning for the Wind).

I am the wind across the sea.
I am the roar of the ocean waves.
I am the hawk on the cliff.
I am the raven above the fields.
I am the stag of seven battles.
I am a tree in the forest.
I am the bear on the trail.
I am the salmon in the river.
I am the cougar searching for prey.
I am the sharp edge of a sword.
I am a hill of poetry.
I am a shapeshifting god.

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I chanted this over and over. Each time I chanted I felt as though I was present in the room getting the MRI, but I was also the wind, a wave, a hawk, a tree. It was beautiful and moving in a way I cannot fully explain or understand. All of it—even the MRI. As though I had walked into myself. So that's where you've been.

It lasted about thirty minutes. About twice as long as I had anticipated, but it wasn't difficult. On Saturday I had practiced by putting my head in a box and being still and prone for fifteen minutes. Mario came home from work to find me on the floor of my study, my head in the box where normally my dictionary and a few other goodies went, beneath the peace lily.

After the MRI, the woman told me we didn't need the dye. My brain and my polyps were very differentiated. I was glad for that. When they did Bill's mother's sinus surgery, they lopped off a bit of her brain, putting her in a vegetative state.

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I thanked the woman for being kind, and then Mario and I drove up to OHSU to try and drop off the CD of the MRI and CAT scans. Strange but true. I had asked them to burn CDs so I could give them to the doctor (the new one). I wanted her to be able to see them before we met again on Tuesday. It was still an impressive and frightening place but not so alien as it had been last week. I even went into the hospital and asked the receptionist what she thought I should do with the CDs. She said that my doctor was supposed to be in the hospital so she would text-message her. We waited in the lobby. I thought how strange this all was. It appeared as though my fears about these places was going away, or at least getting better.

The doctor never appeared (turned out she wasn't there), so we left and went to Tao of Tea. This time I tried White Rain tea. It was beautifully presented: on a square glass plate, little clay pot, two tiny blue dishes—one for the cup, one for extra tea leaves. I had a yam with lime and salt as well as my usual dal and rice.

It was all very fine.

mushrooms

Night. I was unable to fall to sleep right away and I lay in bed for about two hours going into and out of in that hypnogogic state one falls into just before sleep. I had all these thoughts and feelings about healing. Many of them too personal and new and old to share. Some numinous so words cannot describe them—at least not adequately. In one sequence I saw me drawing out Linda's pain and putting it in a basket. A particular basket. How often I want to put my hands on people, draw away the pain. Pain out, love in. Love, love, love. As I tried to sleep, I put my fingers on my husband's skin, as I often do in the night. And the day. Breath in, breath out. Love in, love out. I finally fell to sleep and dreamed and dreamed and dreamed.

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In the morning we went to Falling Creek for the first time in weeks. (I put the basket from my waking dream in the car.) It was so great to be on the trail. Water everywhere. The place throbbed with water. The sound came from all directions. After three weeks of rain, the creek was overflowing. The First Falls and the waterfalls by the Pika Apartments had returned. The major falls, Falling Creek falls were almost at Spring volume. As though a water being stands at the rocks, her arms outstretched. I walked down to get closer to the falls, was mesmerized and surrounded by the movement, the sounds, the mist.

I stayed a long time.

falls

Then we drove to Linda's house. I took the basket into the house, and Mario took the dogs for a walk. Linda and I did some healing work together. I put my hands on her and whispered. Sometimes life seems about filling up with love. True love. Pure love. Loving love. Billions of cells filling with love.

She said, "Funny love."

"Absolutely," I said. "It has to be funny. There's a bear dancing over by the door."

"I was just thinking about a dancing bear the other day," she said, "and it made me laugh."

"See," I said. And I wrapped my arms around her.

And bears danced, coyotes howled, and humans giggled.

Later Mario took a photograph of us together. She leaned against me and did not want to let go, snuggling into that part of my body—everyone's body—that is pure love. The spot where I rest my head on Mario's body and say it is my favorite place in the world. Love you.
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May You Dream and Love in Beauty!

Photos outdoors from Falling Creek, taken by Mario or Kim. Linda & Kim in Linda's house, taken by Mario. All photographs taken today.
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/14/2005 07:17:00 PM
1 comments

Friday, November 11, 2005

Just a Crazy Old Coot... 

...if coots were crazy em-effers, which Bill Un'Reliable is. Man. I listened to the audio clip at this link and just sat there stunned. He really, really hates us. I was thinking about hate as I watched a piece about President Kennedy's assassination, and I thought I would really, really hate for anything to happen to Bush. That's the difference between liberals and fundamentalists. I think they have a right to their opinion; they think people should die who disagree with them. They think people who disagree with them should be blown up by terrorists—which is EXACTLY what Bill Un'Reliable says on the clip. (He was pissed off because San Francisco passed a ballot measure asking school officials not to allow military recruiters on campus.)

I wish them all long lives—but I do hope the Universe visits upon them...a change of heart.

Blessed be.
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/11/2005 09:58:00 PM
0 comments

Eleven Eleven 

It's good on this day especially to hear from those who have gone to war. In an interview with Alternet, returning soldier Zechariah talks about his experiences in Iraq. The comments after the article are illuminating, too—some for their display of ignorance, some for their compassion.

And sad but true, veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistann are showing up in homeless shelters. The casualty figures for U.S. wounded are staggering. The official number is 15,000. Other estimates run it up as high as almost 50,000.

I saw a quote on a blog by someone who said something like you have to fight a war in order to have peace and those people who wanted to pull the troops out of Iraq were not about peace. It just made me furious. War is the first and last resort of those without brains or imagination. You avoid war not by being a coward but by standing up and figuring out a better way to do things. I think the people who fight in wars are often amazing people, but they are doing the bidding of politicians: mostly men who have never been to war. Soldiers don't want to fight "unjust" wars, yet all wars are unjust essentially. In a fair world, in a world which was not dominated by war, EVERYONE would refuse to go to war. WAR IS NEVER EVER THE ONLY OPTION. I remember years ago asking a peace activist what his answer for Hitler would have been. "You never let someone like him get into power," he said. "Yes, but he was in power. Then what do you do?" I asked. I don't remember his answer because we kept talking—he wanted me to get out of my mind rut that there was only ONE answer. As Jeanette Rankin so eloquently stated, "You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/11/2005 07:19:00 PM
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Detainees Have No Rights 

Showing once again that they are on the wrong side of nearly every ethical debate, the Senate voted to strip "detainees" of the legal rights the Supreme Court said they had, i.e., the ability to challenge their detention in court. Five Dems voted for this, too, including Ron Wyden of Oregon! For all his talk against torture, McCain voted for it as well. According to the ACLU, this amendment essentially strips the detainees of any rights they were assured from McCain's anti-torture amendment which was recently passed by a 90-9 majority.

Do you get it? The political world is a very strange one.
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/11/2005 02:20:00 PM
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You Just Weren't Listening 

"They lied to us about the war!" I keep hearing that over and over, and it's really getting on my nerves. "You weren't listening," I say. Or you weren't paying attention. You can't claim ignorance because you stood there with your hands over your ears going, "Blah, blah, blah, I can't hear you!" And what did everyone think was going to happen if we kept up our dependence upon oil? I'm vaguely surprised The Emperor and his tailors haven't tried to takeover the entire Middle East.

Read Jim Kunstler's piece "They Lied to Us." He's got an interesting take about why we're at war with Iraq. He writes, in part, "If the American public could stand the truth, we would stop calling it the Iraq War and rename it the War to Save Suburbia....When the American people, Democrat and Republican both, decided to build a drive-in utopia based on incessant easy motoring and massive oil dependency, who lied to them? When tens of millions of Americans bought McHouses thirty-four miles away from their jobs in Boston, Atlanta, Minneapolis, and Dallas, who lied to them? When American public officials adopted the madness of single-use zoning and turned the terrain of this land into a tragic crapscape of strip malls on six-lane highways, who lied to them? When American school officials decided to consolidate all the kids in gigantic centralized facilities serviced by fleets of yellow buses that ran an average of 150,000 miles per year per school, who lied to them? When Americans trashed their public transit and railroad system, who lied to them? When Americans let WalMart gut Main Street, who lied to them?"

Thanks for the article, Karen.
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/11/2005 01:34:00 PM
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Stupid Design 

I'm sure you heard that eight incumbent school board members who wanted Stupid Design taught in the schools as science were ousted by pro-science candidates. Good for Dover! As I've said before I've got some problems with some elements of evolution but it's not because I believe the world was created in seven days. Most scientific theories have got some problems. This kind of crap just makes the U.S. look stupid. They can teach Stupid Design in comparative religion or in a mythology class with all the other creation myths but not in science class.

And speaking of stupid, Kansas Board of Education has now approved Stupid Design for their science curriculum. Now tell me why Dorothy wanted to get back home to Kansas?

It's cold and rainy here, and I've been sicker than a dog for a day, but Mario is home, so we'll try to have some fun. You too.

May You Design Intelligently in Beauty!
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/11/2005 01:13:00 PM
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Thursday, November 10, 2005

Tender is the Day 

Tuesday:
Got an anxiety attack at the second CAT scan. Wasn't even nervous. Five minutes into it, I had to screw my courage to the sticking place (yeah, well, Lady Macbeth does have her time and place) and just keep still. There's no reason to be claustrophobic in a CAT scan because you're not enclosed. I started wondering what the hell I was going to do during the MRI—where I will be enclosed. But onward.

Drove to Pill Hill. Imagine a castle built on rock high above the village. Then imagine you think the medical industrial complex has gotten way out of control and you're driving into it this giant medical industrial complex and you're imagining patients lost in overlooked corners of these old looking buildings; across the steep street, construction workers build onto the castle, as though the owners of this place have embodied Mrs. Winchester who kept building onto her house to appease the spirits of all the people who died because of her family's Winchesters. I told myself to change how I was imagining the place. Come on, Kim. Get a hold of yourself.

Inside the office, like any other office, I had to fill out this long questionnaire. Remember every illness. Recall all that was wrong with my family. By the end of it, I wanted to run screaming from the building. Disease, disease, disease. Me stepping into the medicine assembly line has been like stepping out of paradise (albeit it a sickly paradise) into Dante's Inferno. I put my feet on the floor and breathed deeply, trying to ground. I could do this, I could do this—but I was sure it was going to be a major disappointment.

Then the doctor came out into the waiting room and called my name. I stood up and shook her hand. She was small, like me, only more slight. Warm. Personable. I said, "Man, that form is terrible. So depressing."

"Yes, it still based on the disease model of medicine," she said, or something like that. She wasn't defensive at all. She led me into a small room where four other people already sat. I shook everyone's hand. A Naturopath, an Acupuncturist, a medical student, a Chiropractic intern. The doctor got Mario a chair. Then they began to ask me questions. They seemed to listen, to look at me. I'm sure I babbled and went off track. I couldn't remember a lot of things—often happens when I go to the doctor. (I hear that's quite common.) We talked for an hour. An hour! No one was threatening me. No one was in a hurry. No one appeared to have an agenda, besides listening to me.

Then we went into an big examining room. First they all washed their hands. I laughed because it looked like they were rubbing their hands in expectant glee. The sweet intern took my blood pressure. I was certain it would be high because at the other doctor's it was high. But it had gone down 30 points!

They continued to ask questions as they listened to my heart and lungs, looked in my ears. At one point, two of them were kneeling on the floor on either side of me taking my pulses. I felt as though I was contained (in a positive way), tended to. I thought of that ancient relief of the Graces (Muses, Fates, Handmaidens) lifting the goddess (woman) out of her bath. That was what what I felt like. In fact, this ancient art piece summarizes how the entire experience felt for me.
throne

At the end, I thanked them for their healing. We had spent two hours together. As we left Pill Hill, I still shuddered at the strangeness, but I had found the sacred space within. I felt better than I had in weeks. Next week, I'll go see them again.

Wednesday:
On my own. After an appointment in town, I went to the Tao of Tea. Felt contained again. In a positive way. Not smothered. Contained and protected in my own space. I ate dal and rice, sipped Zen tea, wrote in my journal, and took photographs.

light

contained

tea & journal

pageone

page2magic

garden

tea
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/10/2005 12:16:00 PM
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Wednesday, November 09, 2005

They're Pointing 

So the Emperor Has No Clothes but people are beginning to notice, and they've started to point. Even mainstream media is beginning to report what is really happening in Iraq. (For instance, the U.S. used white phosphorus or something awful in Falluja, as I reported here a year ago. So you can feel superior that you knew what was happening even if no one else was paying any attention.) People seem to be waking up to what's happening to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. I've been writing about this story since November 2003. I'm just so amazed when people seem suprised at what's going on. The only excuse can be that they weren't paying attention, don't you think? When I see all these politicians say they never knew the intelligence was being cooked to go to war, I think, "But I knew and I'm just a regular person. And all the other millions of people protesting against the war knew. So where were you, Mr. and Ms. Politico?" I'll tell you where they were: pandering to the fringes. Pandering to the rapture people, the intelligent design fruitcakes, and Karl Rove.

Anyway, it's all falling down. I hope. The Emperor and his teeny little peeny are exposed, along with his fashionistas.

Judith Miller was sacked. Or she left on her own accord. (Let's all have a little laugh over that.) I'll repeat here what I've said before. I think some of the reporting on her has been gossipy and catty. (Huffington Post for one.) I don't care who she sleeps with or how shrill her voice may or may not be or how pushy she may or may not be. I just think she helped take us to war; she was a stenographer to power. That is her crime. In her "farewell letter" she still doesn't take any responsibility for what she did. She just praises herself. (And from a writerly POV, she, uses, way, too, many, damn, commas,. Just saying...)

And just in: THEY'VE CALLED OFF DRILLING IN THE ARCTIC! Far-fucking-out.

Mario voted for the first time as a U.S. citizen yesterday. Congrats, Mar. Now you're part of the problem...so fix it, will ya?
mario voting
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/09/2005 10:05:00 PM
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Saturday, November 05, 2005

Giving the Finger 

Or taking one. The mayor of Las Vegas recently suggested slicing off thumbs of graffiti vandals. Or artists. Whichever is your particular take on graffiti. (I don't think tagging another piece of art is artistic, seems like vandalism to me, but what do I know. I have seen some very cool graffiti art in other places.) In any case, I was reading the Guardian and saw this headline: Mayor: Sever Thumbs of Graffiti Artists. I figured when I clicked on it it would take me to some Middle-Eastern country. (Sorry, but those are the only countries I know off where they cut off body parts as punishment.) Imagine my surprise to find out it was the Las Vegas mayor!

What a country.

I have to admit I got a chuckle out of it. Not because I think he's right. Just because he's so silly. Like graffiti is our biggest worry.
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/05/2005 06:45:00 PM
1 comments

Snow 

We got snow up here in River City. Top of the gorge cliffs. Wow. Seems kind of early. I'm still back in summer. I'll try to get pic later.

Hasta la vista, baby.
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/05/2005 12:03:00 PM
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Tea 

Last night I dreamed I gently pulled a yellow iris from itself and a white iris from itself, and I entwined them. I also dreamed I lost my red car, and a girl I named Lilac didn't like her name.

I went to the doctor this morning, and he told me my sinuses were the worst he'd ever seen. He sent me off to another doctor who is more suited for the complicated surgery. Another CAT scan next week. I almost threw-up as he told me how bad it was.

Afterward, we drove to the Tao of Tea on Belmont. We ate dal and rice while I decompressed. (Is that the correct word?) The dal was a bit hot for my taste, but I always like being at any of the teahouses—even though I rarely order any teas. They're quiet. The Tao of Tea. Semi-dark. Healing.

We went downtown Portland to see the movie The Squid and the Whale. The wind began blowing, the rain came down in a grand gully washer. As we ran inside the movie theater, people were talking about it looking like a hurricane. The movie: all the critics gave it an A or thereabouts. Fine acting. But I don't understand boys, I guess. These boys were doing a lot of creepy things, ostensibly because their intellectual parents were divorcing. And why is it now in so many movies that the directors feel the need to show people masturbating? And most of the time the people are children. Which means some child actor is pretending to masturbate. That’s gotta mess you up. Doing that in front of a crowd of strangers. A crowd period.

It was still pouring down pissing down really pouring down pissing down rain when the movie was over. We ran about six blocks to the car. As we passed the library, I looked down and noticed the sidewalk had so much water on it that it was reflecting the ginkgo trees very clearly, as though it were a pond—as if another world were reachable below our feet. We sat in the car shivering for a while, and then we drove to the Tao of Tea on Hoyt. I ordered dal and rice again. I also ordered Goddess of Mercy tea, because I liked the name. Our waitress brought my tea on a small tray which was a a couple of inches deep and about six inches wide by about ten inches long. On this small tray was a tiny black teapot, a teapot-shaped glass decanter, a tiny tiny little cup with a tiny taller cup next to it, along with a porcelain tea holder filled with tightly rolled tea leaves. Our tea server poured hot water over the tiny black teapot.

"This is to wake up the pot," she said. She stopped pouring and took off the lid. "It is awake." She dumped out water that had seeped into it in the wooden grates on my tray. Then she poured the tea leaves into the pot. She poured hot water over the leaves. "This is to wake up the leaves." She filled the pot and put the lid back on. "We let it steep for about forty-five seconds."

Which we did. Then she poured the tea from the pot into the decanter. Steam rose from the tea, steaming up the clear glass container. She poured the tea into the tiny taller aroma cup. Then she put the tiny tea cup on top of that. She turned them over and lifted the taller one off. The tea filled the cup perfectly. She asked me to rub the aroma cup between my hands and then smell the cup. I pretended I could smell. It was very nice. Sweet. Healing. Restful. I drank tea from the tiny cup. Felt civilized in a good way. Serene. Away from doctors and surgeons and fear.

It was yellow dal over the rice this time, and it was very good. We talked to someone there about the tea ceremony. Gung-fu. Chinese. Less formalized than the Japanese tea ceremony. They serve oolong teas this way.

Then we drove to another movie theater to see Jarhead. More masturbating scenes. *sigh* I have always said that war movies—even those that are supposed to be anti-war—are just two hours of recruiting material. When Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks kept doing those war movies (Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers) saying they wanted to remind the world of how terrible war was, I said, this is just getting the boys revved up to join up. War porn, I've heard it called. I've seen two movies which I think might actually deter boys from going to war: Johnny Got His Gun and The Day After. Jarhead was interesting—not exactly war porn but not a true antiwar movie either. It does show an uncomfortable relationship between sexual urges and war. What is it? Some men really want to have sex with each other but they can't admit it, so they go to war to be together? It's very odd. I came away from this movie very perplexed about the behavior of men. Some men. Unsatisfying.

Checked the phone messages at home. Doc wants me to get an MRI. Mario reassured me this was a good thing. The more views the better before surgery.

Went to Powell's afterward. Stalling. Once I'm home, the process of wondering how much I fucked up my health and my life continues. One step in front of the other. I love being surrounded by all the books. It’s like being surrounded by hope. There’s got to be an answer in some corner of this place on some page in some book.

Now it's way past my bedtime. I'm longing for tea. Or the tea shop. To be treated with dignity. To allow for a moment that all is well.

Time for bed.
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/05/2005 12:28:00 AM
3 comments

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Check out Conditional Reality 

If you haven't been going to Mario's blog Conditional Reality lately you're really missing some great posts. He is doing a series now called "A Bestiary of Imaginary Species edited by Nenad Dragicevic." I usually don't really get imaginary bestiaries, but this one I get and enjoy. On one post I especially liked, I made a comment of 101 words—since his posts are always 100 words. Before the bestiary posts, he did a quirky and moving series about robots.
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/03/2005 11:15:00 AM
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Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Give 'em Hell, Harry! 

Harry Reid and friends closed down the Senate today, I'm sure you've heard. About time the Dems grew a spine or two. Although to be fair they have been trying for years to get the Repulsicans to investigate the reasons for going to war. Real life is that they have no power to do anything until the American people say enough is enough. Frist complaining about being "slapped in the face" is so funny. What a cry baby. Usually the accusation of being "rude" is enough for the Dems to step back. I hope it doesn't work this time. Taking this country to war is worse than rude, it's criminal. Remember that, Dems.

What can I say about the Supreme Court nominee? Nothing good. ANYONE on the planet who believes a woman has to get permission from ANYONE about what she does with her OWN body does not belong on the Supreme Court. Period. Yes, a conservative prez has a right to appoint a conservative judge, but he does not have a right to put in a right-wing conservative who will absolutely change the course of the court.

The saddest thing I heard today was Rummy talking about the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay who are on a hunger strike. He said they were on a diet. OK, Rummy, I've been on diets and starving oneself ain't no diet. And still, the United States refuses to let the U.N. talk with the prisoners. And remember, Cheney wants to exempt the CIA from the anti-torture bill, even though all experts say torture does not get good intelligence—besides it being immoral.
Posted by: Kim Antieau / 11/01/2005 08:53:00 PM
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