DeeEl's Mo Chroí Scríofa

Jazz Says It All

Last night I watched the Kennedy Center Honors program on CBS.  All five honorees were well deserving and well honored.  I found myself laughing and crying as they revisited the past achievements and even a couple bombs of the ones being honored.  There was so much history in that balcony as well as on the stage as I watched in awe and amazement with every detail and every utterance.  One thing struck me as they were honoring Dave Brubeck for his work in jazz, everyone was affected by this presentation.  Yes, it seemed that The Boss received more accolades and folks standing and swaying to his music as it was performed at the end.  Then there were those whose faces lit up with the wonderful tunes once performed by Grace Bumbry.  Rousing laughter nearly took the roof off the building when Robert De Niro and Mel Brooks were honored.  However, Dave Brubek’s music moved me more than I thought possible.

I have loved jazz for a long time.  Jazz and blues are very closely related so I am a fan of each.  Seems everyone knows my favorite is Louis Armstrong.  It is often said that jazz is the black man’s music and white men have tried to take it for their own.  I have also heard it called African Music.  I honestly do not believe any of this.  Jazz is the music of peace.  It transcends race, gender and age to bring everyone together for a meeting of the heart, mind and soul.  President and Mrs. Obama were seated in the balcony with the honorees.  Secret Service were there as well.  The agents assigned to protect the president are to be alert and always focused on what is around them.  I usually think of Royal guards who aren’t allow to move at all while they are standing guard when I think of the Secret Service agents.  While the cameras were capturing the faces of those in attendance during the performances I watched.  During Dave Brubeck’s presentation I noted the faces and posture of those the cameras caught.  When they were focused on the First Couple I noticed the Agent seated behind them.  His eyes were focused and watching everything around them, but his head was moving to the beat of the music.

Wide shots throughout caught everyone with heads bopping, feet tapping and fingers drumming to the fine jazz music being played.  Black, white, Hispanic, male, female, actor, musician, president.  It didn’t matter who they were, they felt the heartbeat of the music that is jazz.  If it moves your body, even your toe to tap, then it has reached your soul.  And that is JAZZ.

There Is NO Excuse for Abuse

There are so many things that the mass majority of people in my life do not know about me.  There are many people who think they know me, really know me.  I am not, nor have I ever been one to wear my heart on my sleeve.  A lot of those I have allowed to get close to me know this.  Very few of those in that group know the why behind it.  Yes, there is a very thick wall around my heart.  There has to be.  It has been the only way I have been able to survive the past 44 years.  There is one thing that those closest to  me, be they my inner-most circle or even a level or two outward, know and that is the one issue that I am the most vocal about, my main soapbox, if you will ~ ABUSE!!!  Abuse of any kind is down right intolerable in any society.  Child abuse, spousal abuse, animal abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, elder abuse, and the list goes on.  there are so many names these days given to abuse, but in the end it is all the same.

I grew up with abuse.  I saw my father beat my mother when he was drunk.  My father nearly killed me three times, when he was drunk.  My aunt’s husband abused her till, finally she left him and they divorced (I had very eerie feelings whenever he was around).  I was also emotionally and physically abused by my mother and step-father (who also sexually abused me).  I have seen friends in relationships with people who had abusive and controlling tendencies.  I am not a violent person, however, there was one time in  my life that I looked in my friends eyes and said “If he ever lays another hand on you or one of those babies, I will kill him”.  This is someone I had known from childhood.  She knew I meant it.  She cut me out of her life instead of him.  The last I heard she followed suit and cut off everyone else.

Working in an emergency shelter for children, we once had a caseworker bring a toddler in after the child was released from the hospital where she was taken after being found severely beaten by her father.  She still had raccoon eyes.  The caseworker refused to give us even the father’s name as we (the director, two other workers at the shelter and I) were gathering bats and anything else we could find to go and beat the father.  The worker said he would have to have the first shot.  We cried knowing what the possibility was for this child to be returned to her father and just the sight of what he had already done sickened us.

Recently in the local news, a man was arrested and is going to stand charges after dragging a terrier-mix dog behind his truck.  The man says he didn’t know, however the witnesses that attempted to stop him say otherwise.  The dog is now doing fine but lost a lot of skin and fur on her paws and belly as well as had her nails worn all the way down.

Being graphic is not my intent here.  The human race is immune to the face of abuse.  We pay money to watch brutality.  Vulgar and abusive language is part of our every day lives to the point that most people don’t even realize they are saying it or hearing it.  So what do we do about it?

Laws have changed over the years to where the legal system now recognizes and brings charges against those who decades ago would have been lauded for their repulsive behavior.  There are still those who claim that an abused child is just receiving discipline from their parent(s); or a spouse who is abused, belittled and dominated has no right to file charges as it is within the sanctum of marriage and therefore no laws are broken.  To clarify at this point, I use the term spouse in a generic manner.  This is male and female and extends to significant others not just husband and wife.  Yes, men can also be abused by a spouse.  There are women who find satisfaction in being dominant and controlling in a relationship, but these cases are usually thrown out as no one wants to believe that a man can be abused.

My study in psychology is limited, but I chose that field to help others like me.  I was an adolescent counselor working mostly in juvenile justice for many years.  I was able to relate to a lot of the kids I worked with who were from abusive and neglected backgrounds.  I think they felt this and I believe I helped at least a few of them.  I don’t pretend to know what causes individuals to be abusive.  I have read case studies and seen movies made about real life cases.  Some believe it to be an imbalance of chemicals in the brain.  Others aver it to be victims of abuse becoming abusers themselves.  Watch any crime drama on television and see this depicted over and over again.    There are those who also give credence to the stress the abuser is going through at the time of the abuse.

It is so easy to use these excuses, but all that does is further allow the abuse to continue.  I can go out on a rampage and hurt, maim or kill a lot of people.  Then when I get to court, I plead innocent as I didn’t know what I was doing because I was abused as a child.  I don’t see the justification in this, but it is done every day.   Perhaps I do not know what was going through the mind of my abusers when they abused me.  I don’t know what goes through the mind of any abuser.  What I do know is that there is NO excuse for hurting another living soul, man or beast.   Saying things that are hurtful about a certain group, especially if there is someone within earshot that is in that particular group, is mean and abusive.  The words are said as a joke, but where is the funny side when someone gets hurt?

Before you raise your hand to hurt, raise your words to praise.  Before using hurtful words, think and say something good.  Hurting someone is not a sign that you love them, it is a sign that you need help.  If you know someone or suspect someone is being hurt, don’t tell that person they probably already know it.  Tell someone who can do something about it.  When my gym teacher saw bruises on me, a note was sent home.  I was beat even more.  Telling the abuser or the victim will not stop the pain.  My bruises have gone away and the physical scars have faded, but the emotional scars are still there buried with  my heart behind the fortress that was built up to protect it from those who said they loved me by hurting me.

My Heart

My Heart

I sit here
all alone
within the sanctum
I call my soul
It is here,
among the memories,
I sit…
I watch…
I ponder on.
To the painful thoughts
I bid farewell
the nightmares
they vanish
as misty, moonlit dew.
Scars, which seem
centuries old,
blur and fade
into the seams
of the fortress strong.

Subsumed by darkness
trying to find
memories past,
thoughts fleeting through;
pleasant,
sweet,
pretty, genteel
Did they ever exist?
Have I known them at all?
Searching the boundaries
seeking the words
receiving a hollow knell.

The acropolis is strong, READ MORE

We ARE At War!!!

A year ago I came to learn of a song.  It isn’t a new song by any means.  The song “War Is Over” was written by John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, in 1971.  With the US in the midst of the Vietnam War, John Lennon was very vocal in his anti-war beliefs.  At a time of war it is usually construed that Anti-war is the same as Pro-peace.  Pro-peace is so much, much more than just being against war and violence.  Some say that true peace can only come from Yeshua.  Others believe good Karma and meditation are the path to real peace.  All of this is good and so many other things as well.

I came to know this Lennon song after losing my hearing.  I knew I liked the music but didn’t know what the words were saying.  I did know it was played in the course of a Christmas segment of some sort.  I had a conversation with a friend who loves music and is a wonderful DJ in Second Life™.  I told him some of the words and finally he said it sounded like I was talking about John Lennon’s Happy Xmas.  I promptly went to Google and found myself listening to the song streaming on YouTube with the lyrics showing on the screen.  I listened and read for about 3 hours.  Yes, the same song for three short hours.  I cried so hard as my heart listened to the words as I read them.

War Is Over speaks of reaching out to others; other races, cultures, ages.  As humans we pride ourselves in 20/20 vision.  Perhaps if the entire world population were blind and deaf we would stand a better chance for peace.  We learn to disapprove and even hate those who are different from us.  We are so intent on revising and editing each other to chisel out a world-wide society that is identical to us.  We are alike.  Every human-being all over the world.  We all have bones and blood beneath the skin and hair that holds us together.  We all have hearts that beat and pump the blood through our veins.  We breath air into our lungs.

Where we differ is in our appearances, our beliefs, the way we think.  Yes, some of the ideas we hold are in error (i.e.: thinking ourselves better than everyone else), but not all of them.  It should be out differences that bring us closer together and give us the opportunity to learn from each other.  Perhaps I don’t like to eat pig, does this make those who do evil for doing so?  My skin is pale and I have green eyes.  Does this mean that a person with olive complexion and dark eyes can’t be a good person or my friend?

There is a war that we are all involved in.  It doesn’t matter our age, race, religion, sex or sexual orientation.  WE ARE ALL AT WAR.  The war is for peace.  I will post later regarding fighting.  But when we say we are a peaceful people, we should live it.  Thanks to the wonderful world of Second Life™, I have made friends with people all over the world.  They are of different races, cultures, religions and even sexual orientations.  We met on a different plain and got to know each other and accept each other as human-beings without adding prejudice and bias.  On this last day of  Chanukah, I hope those who celebrate it each received a set of blinders.  I hope those who keep Xmas will also receive some and then for Kwanzaa the same.  Put on your blinders and use ear plugs to fight this war.  Use your heart to get to know other people who are not like you in the way you think and believe.  No one says you have to change your ways and believe as they do.  Education, understanding and acceptance will be our weapons.

Listen and watch John Lennon and do so with your heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvNRHrKyaX4

The Cost To Be Holy

It’s that time of year again.  The two months of the year that people around the world try to be as ‘holy’ as possible.  Yes, that’s right; the holiday season is upon us, again.  For at least the last two months retailers have been advertising how they can help you have the best holiday ever.  Claims of making your holiday cheaper or giving you more for your holiday pummel through our radios and televisions giving us pause to ponder where to go and what to do.

As a little girl, I remember watching the seasonal animated movie How The Grinch Stole Christmas.  This heart warming tale endeared me to the thought of what holidays should be about.  Even after the mean ogre came in and stole the presents, decorations and food, the Who’s were still able to come together with a song in their hearts and embrace the one thing that truly matters ~ each other.  It was this that moved Grinch to return everything and join the festivities.

Being a fan of Jimmy Stewart, I am well acquainted with his movie It’s A Wonderful Life.  Here a man who, believing he has just lost everything because he lost a large sum of money, wants to end his life.  In comes an angel to help hom realize that what matters most isn’t the material possessions and money we accumulate, it is actually friends and loved ones we hold dear.

years ago the holiday season began (in the US) with Thanksgiving Day.  The Thanksgiving Day parade ushered in Santa Clause and the start of the Christmas season.  The day after (aka Black Friday) would be the first day you could purchase specific Christmas items.  These days, Santa Clause comes to town during Columbus Day parades in October after retailers begin selling Christmas lights during the summer.

There is always a frenzy each year to sell more, to buy more.  Then by mid January the frenzy turns into an uproar beginning with complaints of how much was spent for the holidays.  The gifts, the food, the charitable donations; everything adds up to spending way too much.  o, why do it?  Every year I hear people say that you can’t have Christmas without ‘stuff’.  I did some checking.

There are three main winter holidays ~ Chanuka, Christmas and Kwanzaa.  Chanukah has been celebrated for a few thousand years and is to celebrate the miracle of the oil lasting eight days when there was only enough for one day during the restoration of the Temple.  Gift giving did not enter this festival till modern times as the Jewish children were jealous of the presents the other children received for Christmas.

Christmas came about a lot later and was added into the celebration of winter solstice and yule.  This is when gifts were given to the gods to pay homage for the season.  Christians incorporated their ‘religious’ ideas into the celebration to be able to maintain honoring this holiday.  Over-indulgence came with the package.

Kwanzaa is the newest member of the winter holidays only being created in 1966.  this holiday was designed for gift giving.  However, the intent was for the person to make or create a specific gift for its recipient.

I am not knocking any of these holidays.  however, if the true intent or meaning of a special day is lost or forgotten or it brings about so much stress and strife, why continue?  From my studies of these holidays, including yule/winter solstice, I find no place where followers are encouraged to over-indulge, spend too much, neglect to pay bills and go further into debt.

Another aspect of this holy time that bothers me is charitable contributions.   I am not against giving to charities or helping those less fortunate.  What bothers me is that people seem to only feel the need to be charitable two months out of the year.  I also add that it is the last two months of the year.  this, in my opinion, is so they can claim it on the income taxes in April.  Needy people are needy 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days a year.

It is not my desire to keep folks from celebrating.  Nor do I want to sway you to celebrate certain holidays.  I firmly believe that ALL people should be remembered ALL year long and not just for two months.  If you are only going to remember someone at one time during the year and pay no regard for them the rest of the time, what kind of message does that send about you and your sincerity?  Holiness should not put you into debt and generosity should be your theme every day of the year.