Hugs (abrazos) to All; Sisterhood and Friendship Awards

On September 2007, The International Day of Peace, my daughter, Amber and a group of high school teens (spearheaded by Rafa in the photo) organized a free hugs campaign in the Old City (Old San Juan, Puerto Rico). They carried signs and smiles and offered hugs to people arriving to Puerto Rico from cruise ships, tourists and bemused, muddled and confused locals. As the activity caught on, people began to understand the gesture of goodwill and many began to accept "Free Hugs." (An article featuring the story was written by Libni Sanjurjo Melendez in Primera Hora on Sabado 22 de Septiembre de 2007; Jovenes conmemoran el Dia Internacional de la Paz Regalan abrazos en Viejo San Juan, Panorama 22) The teens were questioned by police and after much discussion and delay were allowed to continue.

I am so proud of these teens and my daughter for understanding love and showing the way to sometimes hesitant adults. Everyone needs a hug!

I applaud all people who recognize the power of affection and appreciation!

Hug a Tree!
Hug a Puppy ! Hug a Friend!

Hug a Blogger!

The Hug (Tess Gallagher)
A woman is reading a poem on the street
and another woman stops to listen. We stop too,
with our arms around each other. The poem
is being read and listened to out here
in the open. Behind us
no one is entering or leaving the houses.

Suddenly a hug comes over me and I'm
giving it to you like a variable star shooting light
off to make itself comfortable, then
subsiding. I finish but keep on holding
you . A man walks up to us and we know he hasn't
come out of nowhere, but if he could he
would have. He looks homeless because of how
he needs. "Can I have one of those?" he asks you,
and I feel you nod. I'm surprised,
surprised you don't tell him how
it is-that I'm yours, only...
~~~

In the spirit of sharing peace, I give you Abundant Hugs

~~~

Linda Socha from Psyche Connections has honored Oasis with the affirming Sisterhood Award for giving her "laughter, learning, and perspective." Please go visit her blog and enjoy her peppy and touching posts. Open hearted Natalie of Musings of the Deep has also shared this Sisterhood Award with me and to top that off, she also shared the Friendship Award with me! Such a community of warm and intelligent friends in this blog world.





I would like to share the Sisterhood Award with these bloggers who share love, laughter and insight...

1. Butternut Squash Goddess of the Confluence

2. The Muse at Muse Swings

3. Sheila the artists who writes From Forensic to Fine Art

4. Carol of The Writer's Porch

5. Dianne of Intutive Painting

and those bloggers with abundant hearts must have the Friendship Award...

1. Reya Mellicker of The Gold Puppy

2. Pat of Mille Fiori Favorite

3. Just a Plane Ride Away

4. Linda of Vulture Peak Muse

5. Rudee the Knitting Nurse

If I missed you, please accept a long hug of apology and take the award you deserve!

You are a living story. Become aware of the stories you tell about yourself and your world. Participate consciously in the writing of the next chapter of your life.

Deepak Chopra and David Simon (The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga)
~~~

Also, Thank you Bill Austin the Best Blog of the Day Award! (March 5, 2009). If you would like to nominate a friend's blog or your own, click on the Sharing Blog Love link on the Oasis sidebar under the award.



~~~

On Accepting Your Sisterhood or Friendship Award...

Here's how award process works:

1. Put the logo on your blog or post.
2. Nominate at least 5 blogs.
3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link this post to the person from whom you received your award.

Watch the video that made it all happen!

Airing Dirty Laundry

Oasis Feature: Re-post Self-disclosure and Honesty

How do you react when someone "over" shares?

Though I no longer live in the country, I think this post invites relevant introspection about our sharing boundaries.(click to read original post with comments)

 

Yes, it's true, I have lots of it! Seriously...at least three bags in the bedroom. See, it's been raining on the weekends and I wash all of my dirty clothes outside in the sun. Why? Yes, I have had modern conveniences but whenever they break, I take a break from the 21st century. Washing clothes outside reminds me of women washing by the river; I feel connected to the past and linked to an unbroken chain of peasant womanhood. Of course, women still wash clothes outside by a water source in many countries. (And, yes, it seems to be gender specific.) I look at this washing as my karma yoga, for all of you (sparse!) yogi bloggers out there. I kind of imagine myself out in another country, say India, next to the spiritually renown and polluted Ganges or in Peru, next to the Parana infested mystical water of the Amazon. Or on a Caribbean island, Antigua say, where author Jamaica Kincaid describes her childhood as she was growing up in the 1950's and I see her mother's pile of bleaching stones. I also see myself: There I am washing, and lifting the wet clothes. I swat them at the stones, breaking the clinging mud from its hold on the once lovely soft fabric. Rinse in the cool flowing water. I carefully spread the white clothes on the pile of bleaching rocks and allow the sun to bear down into the fabric until it is white again. If you do feel inspired to wash clothes outside and do your bit to save the planet, you should keep the weather report close at hand! Still, I'm not talking about that kind of dirty laundry.

I'm talking about the kind of secrets that people are not suppose to say unless there is a significant degree of real intimacy in the relationship. I was trying to come up with a list of socially taboo subjects...

• physical and mental disabilities


• same-sex gender preferences


• terminated pregnancies


• a murder in the family


• financial problems


• unmarried parents


• bodily functions


• criminal record

I know these are not all of the potentially "forbidden" subjects, but I think the above list is enough. Notice when someone begins to reveal something personal from the above list there can be a kind of moral physical retraction and the accompanying emotional feeling, 'Oh no, over-share! Make-it-stop. We want to know secrets and we don't want to know secrets. Why else would we avidly read about celebrities infidelities, and other domestic and personal indiscretions? Why would office gossip be so popular? Maybe we just don't want direct contact with those who tell their own secrets? What makes something wrong to share? How did we make these rules?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've been thinking about this disclosure issue because some of you know that my mother was murdered. Whenever, I share this fact, it's a risk. Some people just want to run from this sort of bare fact. I've noticed the same concern addressed in other confessional modes. Consider, the Twelve-step Program which is designed to help people confront the desire to deny and soften the truth by beginning every testimonial with, "Hello, I'm (insert name here) and I'm an (insert condition here)." Why would people judge you when you tell them the biographical detail of your life? I've read many autobiographies and several of the classics which are titled, Confessions. (Rousseau, Leo Tolstoy and St. Augustine.) I've noticed that what was private has changed over time.(The three "Confessions are from the more recent past and go back to the 1600's) Also, I have worked for a number of years in counselor type positions (military, prison, and college). From these various experiences, I can assure you of what you must already know, people are not really so different. Everyone has secrets. My own dear grandmother would not talk about her missing father. I don't know if he was really 'killed in the war.' Were her parents really married? Did she feel shame? I would like to know. I'm sure you also have some family secrets you would like to know. Many of our questions remain unanswered, either they are buried in silence or buried underground. We just have to accept the fact that we will never know. It's a secret.

We assert or reveal who we are or what our values are through 

personal sharing.

In our time, I think we should pave the way of connecting by honestly (and without pressure)sharing our own life experience. And if someone shares with us through our everyday interaction or through the blogosphere, I think we should say (or at least think) in a nod to the sixties:
 
Let it all hang out!
Right on, baby!

You tell it like it is!

We should let those brave people who risk self-disclosure know that what they have shared has been honorably received. We should embrace them in an accepting atmosphere. I say this because recently, I've read some confessions in blogland and the commenter(s) seem to be frightened away. Sigh. I wonder why? I think our lack of response is interpreted as society's voice echoing the familiar warning:

Don't go airing your dirty laundry out in public.

Here's a quirky little video, I thought you might enjoy. Also, it makes me think of my mom's positive vision. I see her on her motorcycle. (Like other trail blazing women of her day, she was a proud trophy carrying member of the Motor Maids, Inc.) This is for you, "Mama Sue."



More about my clean laundry:
If you would like to know more about my mother's story, click on the highlighted links. Also, there is a documentary film that is being made by Brian Alexander about the life and death of my mother and her partner, Christine, just click here.

 photo credit

What a Wonderful World

Gratitude

****

****

****

***

I see friends shaking hands and saying "how do you do"

they're really saying

"I love you"

***************************************************************************



Louis Armstrong, the master himself, in a classic performance


Followed by the elegant performance of Rod Stewart

Do you remember the movie, An Affair to Remember? In a nutshell, it's about a great love that is interrupted by a tragic accident. Even if you haven't seen it, you probably remember it referenced in the movie, Sleepless in Seattle, which is also a movie that begins with a loss. Lately, I've been asking myself, why do we have to wait for something painful to happen before we remember how wonderful it is to be alive and to appreciate the people who give us so much?





***********************************************************


You know what your problem is?

You want to be in love but you want to be in love in the movies.

Sleepless in Seattle

***
A story with a happy ending...

Years ago my family, my husband, children and three kittens, were moving across the United States. The children were with my husband in a moving truck traveling ahead of me when I was in a near fatal car accident. It occurred in the desert about 9:30pm near Needles, California. A drunk driver who was going about 90 miles an hour crashed into the back of my little Geo Metro, and sent my car into a seemingly never-ending roll . When it finally stopped in the middle of a sandy unpopulated desert, my car could not be seen from the road. I want to say right now that I appreciate the stranger named Richard, who reported the accident on his CB radio and who pulled his truck over, walked a good distance across the dark desert landscape to my upside down car, and stayed and talked with me until the emergency help arrived. A stranger waited with me, a stranger stayed next to a car that might have caught fire and blown up. I so appreciate that heroic person. I could never find him to tell him how much gratitude I felt for his human compassion. I appreciate my three sisters who drove and flew from all over the United States to be with me in the Las Vegas hospital. I give thanks for my husband's best friend who also flew to Las Vegas to see if he could help. I'm grateful my husband and children were safe and not in the car with me. Thinking about this incident reminds me that I too, dear blogger friends, appreciate your friendship where real people can connect and communicate with each other across the real world.



How can we remember to appreciate? Maybe movies and books are not only for fantasy. Perhaps they remind us that we are alive in the world...and isn't that wonderful? My wish for all of my blogger friends and everyone everywhere is that we can remember to love.


May we all know what is important, when it is important. May we value life and each other without having to nearly lose them.



What a Wonderful World

Matisyahu: Fusion to Uplift

Why do Rastafarians avoid the use of the subject pronoun "me"? Being sensitive to language, they use "I" in all cases because "me" implies a receiver, which means there is a sender. See? But if you believe that there is no separation between yourself and Jah (God) as well as all humanity, then you express this "I and I unification with Jah" by being careful about the words you select. It's a way to remember.

***
I'm fascinated about how religions mix and incorporate varying aspects of culture into their spiritual expression. And no where is that more apparent than in the Caribbean where aspects of religion can be traced to African, European and the local First People (Indian) population- in Puerto Rico, the original population was Tanio . What is Catholic or Protestant here is not what I knew these to be in the United States. Culture and religion are frameworks for understanding but we can be flexible with these frames if our true purpose is to understand and accept each other. Once we know that 'there are many paths and one goal' which is conscious unification with insert the most comfortable term here: Love, God, Jah, Jehovah, Alla, Rama, Consciousness, Higher Being, Higher Self.... Within this accepting space, we can all say with Bob Marley, "One Love," and feel no conflict. I think that we all must include each other as members of the 'one earth community' so that we can learn to negotiate and put religious fanaticism aside. If we accepted that we are all connected through whatever belief system that feels culturally/religiously right; then we know that we have to work with others who have made different decisions-including the decision of non-belief.

I'm troubled about the situation between the Muslims in Pakistan and the Hindus in India. I'm troubled about the threats and disapproval that most Muslims are experiencing. I'm troubled about the unrest in the Middle East. I want all of us to learn a new way of communicating with each other. If we are to survive as a people, we have to find a way to understand that we are all connected. We must care about each other; it's a question of our survival. The root of our problem is lack of acceptance and intolerance of differences in our belief systems, resulting in insurmountable barriers to trust and negotiation.

****

A Memory; Separation and Pure Categories


I can clearly see a facial expression in my mind. A disapproving but reserved critic of Caribbean literature and culture was expressing her distaste for Matisyahu because he was ripping off the Rastafarians. She also felt that Bob Marley had become a sellout in the middle and later years of his musical career. She particularly held firm in her belief that his son, Ziggy Marley, was not an authentic Rastafarian. She completely missed the charm of Ziggy's performance when he was singing his father's songs. She didn't value that he was attempting to create something special, to extend his father's tradition into another audience. Maybe it didn't entirely work in a musical sense but it was about more than that- he was finding his way.


Ziggy Marley

****

Why must we try to keep everyone in their assigned category? Why don't we just get used to the idea that sometimes we are going to be uncomfortable when we can't place others. Not everyone is easily understood. What most people need is encouragement to find their own way, their own true path to spiritual and/or life satisfaction.

And now dear bloggers, it is time for our Fusion musical program

(Are you still with me?):


Close My Eyes Ethiopian Jews



Matisyahu on David Letterman (I'm afraid Dave was unmoved.)



Bob Marley One Love



Ziggy Marley Tomorrow People (Cute!)


And if that one didn't 'catch you' scroll down and fortify yourself by listening to John Lennon's "Imagine," in the Imagining Peaceful Action (2009) posting.
Ziggy photo on flickr

Note: Posting a Comment and Password Confusion

I am so sorry that some of you are having trouble posting a comment. I think you need to sign in at the dashboard before you can leave a comment. If that does not work, sometimes I have had to go back and recreate the same account in order to post a comment. It is actually faster than trying to get the computer to accept a password. If you try this strategy make sure that you click on edit, then copy your comment before you leave the comment page. Once you have recreated the gmail account with exactly the same information as the first account creation, you will be able to post a comment without providing a password. Also, remember that your user name on the comment page is your email address and not your display name.

Thank you for your efforts to share with the Oasis Writing Link readers and with me. I send you a million rays of positive vibrations for the stress and frustration that you have undergone in the effort to connect with us.

Om namaha Shivaya ...Om

Reflections

After reading Julia and Julia, which is a novel about a woman who creates a cooking project with an accompanying blog in order to revitalize her life, I have decided to start a blog. I have always loved the feeling of inspiration that comes from starting a new project and I hope that this new beginning brings with it vibrancy and energy. I enjoy yoga and writing, and I welcome discussions on these topics.

I hope that if you, too, would like to find an oasis of communication that supports peace and goodwill that you would respond here at Oasis Writing Link (OWL). I see this as an online communication journal with the goal of uplifting while accepting all that life has to offer. AUM