Reconnecting to the Divine Feminine..

Wicca teaches that the Goddess created the universe and everything and everyone in it. In her wisdom, She created a duality which balances masculine and feminine energy. But in practice, is it always an equal balance? I don't think so, given societal norms and mores that tend to discount or dismiss feminine energy in favor of masculine energy. Because of that, feminine energy is thought to be weak; masculine energy is viewed as strong. However, nothing could be further from the truth. And now everything is so out of control.

And by everything, I mean men, as well as all the women who support the oppression of other women. I read an article in which former President Jimmy Carter expressed his belief that Republican men are abusing women by not embracing Equal Pay laws. He's the perfect example of how to be Christian and still think women are worth fighting for. I know others like him exist..we're just not hearing from them enough. Maybe President Carter's comments will prompt others to speak out on behalf of women's issues. Pope Francis expresses progressive thinking about women, but still won't allow female priests. Baby steps, I suppose.

War hawks in Congress, particularly the Senate, should really connect to the divine feminine energy that they've so effectively hidden from view. President Obama understands this concept, standing in stark contrast to Mr. Putin and his aggressive action in Ukraine. Some in Congress clearly disagree with President Obama's approach, instead blaming him for not being "manly" like Putin. Their definition of manly expresses the imbalance in which the world now lives. 

Even the military isn't exempt from this imbalance. They brazenly continue to insist that they can investigate sexual assault, by officers no less, and then justify it all when the guy gets his charges and/or sentence reduced..assuming he's convicted in the first place. They want it both ways which fails on every level to respect the victim. They're just like a spoiled child who has had too much candy. The rush (of arrogance in this case) is too great, and they can't see anything clearly. Anyone who has had kids understands this. And whether we're talking about Congress or the military, or anything else for that matter, the good ol' boy's club mentality needs to go..now.

Last May, I attended a lecture given by His Holiness, The Dalai Lama. His message: We are One. He stressed the importance of balance and equality, particularly in the case of women. His Holiness discussed the problem with out of control male egos and told mothers to train their sons to value compassion. Radical ideas? No. They reflect the truth that lies within. We cannot go on as we have. We need a kinder world. We have forgotten that we are one and that everyone matters. Mr. Putin needs to take his troops home. Congress needs to embrace our President and then get to work fixing this country. Compassion needs to rule the day. 

Women are the bedrock of the family. We give life and wipe tears and bring balance. We should never need to fear the men in our lives, nor should we need to fear men in authority. And yet, that's where we now find ourselves. All that we've worked for as feminists is in jeopardy. We cannot let this happen.

My Sisters..we need to raise feminine energy to bring back harmony and balance to the Earth. Create your sacred space. Extend blessings of love and remembrance. Extend blessings of awakening and vision. We must be vigilant for there is much work to do. Our children deserve a world far better than the one we now have. They deserve to feel safe and loved. Clearly..it's up to us.

~ Blessed Be!

Another day..another hearing..

I got back home this morning from my walk in time for the end of the love fest for Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. I guess it lasted for hours and maybe I should be thankful that I missed most of it. SSDD..same shit, different day. Tea Party/GOP members of the committee went down the yellow brick road with their Kansas references. Sec. Sebelius is the former governor of Kansas, hence the comments. But they weren't in praise of anything. I saw committee members interrupt her, while claiming that she wouldn't answer their questions. I heard nothing but contempt from these people, and it was disgusting.

I would ask the committee if the conservative members really wanted any answers at all today. And when are we going to have a hearing that grills the Tea Party/GOP in the same manner on the effects of the shutdown, and the endless obstruction they've engaged in while President Obama has been in office? Jesus..he won. Get over it.

The American people know who the troublemakers are. And if the guys don't know, women do. Women know who the culprits are. We know which members of Congress are hurting our children, our families, our financial security, our basic safety, and our constitutional protections. We know which lawmakers are more concerned with controlling women's bodies and which lawmakers follow the law and respect our privacy. We know who wants to suppress our vote. We know who kisses the collective asses of the 1% and who couldn't give a damn about the rest of us.

At least Secretary Sebelius is trying to do something positive for the country. Yes, there have been glitches. And all of that should have been fixed before its launch. All the GOP/Tea Pary have done is obstruct and lie. They would do the country a favor by simply staying home and not ruining things anymore. We're moving in a positive direction on health care that we haven't seen in a long time. I would have preferred single payer, but I know that's coming. It will be the next step in the evolution of this process. The GOP/Tea Party need to stop obstructing and be part of the forward momentum.

The Sisterhood is alive and well and we're tired of all this crap. And..we will vote..and you might not like the result. If you don't live in a state with it's own exchange, and you have to go to healthcare.gov, hang in there. This will eventually be a memory and you'll have health insurance. 

And to my Sisters out there..you know what you have to do. At the end of the day, it always comes down to us anyway. We clean up messes and dry tears. And Goddess help anyone who gets in our way.
 

Stop comparing the Affordable Care Act to sexual assault.

Bill O'Reilly compared Obamacare to a vicious motorcycle gang coming after your daughter. The brothers Koch sponsored an anti-Obamacare ad that depicts an over-sized Uncle Sam with a speculum in hand, ready to do untold things to the college girl on the table. GOP governors are signing transvaginal ultrasound bills into law, because after all..freedom. They're also trying to circumvent a woman's constitutional right to have an abortion if she chooses. 

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?????

As a survivor of sexual assault, I take issue with these derelicts who equate anything that isn't sexual assault with anything that is. I'll be 56 in a few days. I live with what my father did every day of my life. It has controlled everything about me. In many ways it ruined my chance of ever having a normal life. But then, I don't know what normal looks like anyway. Now that he's dead, you'd think I could move on. But it doesn't work that way. These days, I take it a day at a time, sometimes a minute at a time. Because life goes on and you have to deal with all of it.

We need to be so careful when we compare one thing to another. Pennsylvania's Governor just compared gay marriage to incest. Trust me when I say that it's not. This idiot needs to be thrown out of office. Would he like me to explain the difference? Would he like details? Because if an incest survivor knows the difference between that and two gay people getting married and the Governor of Pennsylvania doesn't, then he shouldn't be allowed to govern anyone.

Go visit that Sandusky guy in jail. That's what a predator looks like. It's not the Affordable Care Act. The only predators there are the ones who are lying about it. You have to ask yourself, why? Why would anyone want people to suffer without health insurance? What's in it for them? Is it money? Is it power and control? Honestly, I don't care what it is. I just want it to stop. Life is tough enough. When lawmakers in Congress lie about our new health care law, all they do is hurt the very people who need it the most. This should be a criminal act. They should be arrested, prosecuted, and then thrown in prison. You don't lie to the American people about anything, but certainly not about a law that can actually enhance and protect their lives.

And for the love of all that is holy, stop stressing out survivors with this crap. We have enough to deal with. And there's a whole bunch of us out here. And guess what else.. We're consumers and voters. We can stop buying all kinds of things, stop watching all kinds of channels, begin voting for better legislators.

Yes. We. Can.

As the shutdown looms..

My husband is a disabled Vietnam veteran who receives benefits from the Veteran's Administration each month. This is what happens when something goes wrong while in service to our country. We promise to take care of our veterans. They take care of us and, in turn, we take care of them. 

Unless you're a Tea Party Republican. Those people don't care about anyone. It's almost as if they're living in an alternate universe that's bleeding into ours. They don't make any sense and clearly do not understand what governing is. These mentally challenged individuals believe that they can control spending by not raising the debt limit. Trying to reason with them only falls on deaf ears. It's a fairly simple concept, really. I'm sure they all have credit cards. If they don't pay off the balance each month, they have to pay, say it with me now, interest or finance charges on the remaining balance. Or, say you finance a car you want to buy. You'll pay a certain amount of interest on that loan. Same thing happens when you buy a home. It all adds to the debt you owe. That's what the debt ceiling thing is. Voting each time to agree to simply pay the bills we've already agreed to incur is stupid and pointless. We owe the money. And although I know that old school Republicans exist, they're either too intimidated by these people, or they just don't care anymore to stop them. And now the Tea Party Republicans want to bail on our fiscal responsibilities. How can they hold office if they don't understand this? If this were a business, they'd be fired.

Somehow, they've even managed to incorporate the idea of freedom, into the equation. Unfortunately all they've really accomplished in my estimation is reducing freedom to an unrecognizable slogan or buzzword. And yet, they seem to be the biggest control freaks around. They want to force women to have vaginal ultrasounds before having an abortion, a constitutionally protected medical procedure. They know they can't win elections so much anymore because of how insane they are so they re-draw the districting lines or find other ways to suppress the vote. It's always in areas that typically vote for Democrats, so I guess they think if they stack the vote in their favor, they'll be back in control.

But let's look at what they do when Republicans (Tea Party or not) are in control. They lied us into two wars. They ended the Assault Weapons Ban. They crashed the economy. They enact laws typically on the state level that endanger workers' rights and women's rights. They seem to favor only protecting corporations instead of protecting people. They don't believe in climate change and they don't care if the earth is polluted out of existence. They pay homage to the 1% because that's who fills their election coffers. And then there's the racism. That filters into everything. It's part of why they voted to reduce the SNAP program by almost 40 billion. And don't even get me started on immigration reform or the whole, corporations are people my friend crap. This is compassionate conservatism at its finest.

And now they want to shut down the government unless we defund the Affordable Care Act. Never mind that the ACA is covering kids until they're 26. Never mind that pre-existing conditions will be covered. Never mind that it's going to save people money. Never mind that millions will have health insurance for maybe the first time ever. Never mind the facts, because as we all have seen, the GOP doesn't ever let facts get in the way of decision-making. Instead, they make stuff up out of whole cloth and expect the rest of us to buy it hook, line and sinker. Well, we're a whole lot smarter than that.

The country is in a mess. Crazy people always come out of the woodwork when these things happen. Many of them were elected to Congress. If we don't get them out of office, our country will never get back on track. The American people deserve better than these lunatics. We cannot stay home in 2014. We have to stand up and tell these morons that we deserve better than what they've given us. Vote.

How About a Solution that Preserves Humanity This Time..

Evidently someone somewhere decided that there were some things that we as a people just wouldn't tolerate. Using chemical weapons on people is one of those things - that it's a bridge too far. But here's my problem with designating one weapon as intolerable and another not so much. They all kill. They all destroy. As a mother, if my child dies due to violence of some kind, I really don't want to debate whether or not we're going to get outraged over it because of what weapon was used. The only thing that matters at that point is that my child is dead.

I mean, I get why some folks in this country make that distinction. After all, in this country the average person can own an assault weapon normally reserved for the military or law enforcement thanks to our insane Congress and the Bush Administration. When the Assault Weapons Ban was ended, the free for all began and now the notion of gun control is anathema to many. I guess it's just way too cool to own really big guns. Just do a search on You Tube and you'll see all kinds of videos of folks enjoying their machine guns. And before everyone gets all crazy, I learned to shoot when I was a child, and I own guns. But although I've either owned guns or been around them all of my life, I just don't see the need to own anything automatic or semi-automatic. And I have no problem with the existence of our 2nd amendment. I think some people are confused about its interpretation, but that's okay. It's part of what makes living in this country interesting. We don't always agree. And we used to have spirited debate. Now we have name calling.

This civil war in Syria has been going on for a while now. I've heard that 100,000 people have died as a result. And now approximately 1400 people have died because of chemical weapons, over 400 of which were children. And everyone became outraged. As they should. But where was the outrage as 100,000 were killed? Why didn't the world stand up and intervene during all this time? Apparently two million Syrians are now refugees in neighboring countries. The humanitarian crisis this creates is devastating. I read that over half of the refugees are children. Where is our outrage for that?

I'm also tired of the whole "we can't be the world's policeman" meme. Sometimes we have to be the adult in the room. And sometimes that adult is a policeman. Deal with it. Having this so-called democracy has taught us a thing or two. And even though we probably shouldn't force democracy down other countries' throats, they really would do well to become one. It's not perfect, as we see on a daily basis, but it's better than what's happening in Syria. 

And then there's the whole "we're guilty of the same thing" meme. Yes. We've been idiots too. That shouldn't stop us from trying to help people. Maybe we atone by doing the right thing.

But here's the thing. Surely there's something else to do here besides bombing the crap out of them. We already know too well how that tends to work out. You know...that whole human shield thing and all. Plus, doesn't that count as an act of war? We can call it a surgical strike, or a limited engagement, and get all freaked out at the thought of boots on the ground, but we all know what's going to happen here. Of course there will be boots on the ground. And it's not about regime change. Really? Of course we want regime change. You can't leave the idiot in power to do the same thing again. Because we all know that he will. 

And how will we pay for it? The sequester is already making life difficult for the most vulnerable and the not so vulnerable. But we can go to war again? How? How can the government say to the American people that they have to wait a while longer for things to get better here? We all agree that chemical weapons are a bad thing that deserves a response. But so did everything else this idiot has done. And that's the point. We either value life or we don't. We can't decide that as long as mass deaths are caused by certain weapons, then we don't need to do anything. Not if we value life. Ideally, we should all rise up when injustice happens. But we don't. We look the other way all the time. It's not, as Congressman Grayson says, our problem.

Well, I disagree with the good Congressman. This is humanity's problem. And last time I looked, we're part of said humanity. However, it would be nice if, for once, we could come up with a response that doesn't involve killing more people. Because I think its preservation is far better than its destruction. 

At the Portland VA yesterday...

So my husband had a root canal scheduled yesterday at the Portland VA Hospital. He's a disabled VietNam vet and the VA takes care of him. I know all the problems that exist with the Veteran's Administration, particularly now, but in my husband's case, his care has been pretty good. We left before we were supposed to one time, and the eye doctor he was seeing actually called us while we were driving down I5 (we were taking our youngest son at OSU out to lunch). Although we really felt foolish, we didn't go back that day. But the doctor was concerned, so he called. I thought that was really nice of him. Now there's an eye clinic in Bend so we don't have to drive all the way to Portland for that. We only do it for the dentist. But that wasn't always the case. In the beginning, he had to go there for everything. Then, the VA decided that they would pay private doctors over in our area to treat disabled vets. That worked okay, but the payment was less than doctors typically charged and not all would take a vet as a patient. Then a miracle happened! The VA opened a clinic in Bend.

Awesome! Except it doesn't have dental yet. But we're hopeful. And recently, they moved to a larger space which is really nice. The staff is really great and I know Jerry appreciates everything they do for him there.

So back to the Portland VA Hospital. It has become such a welcoming place. I have to say that years ago, like in the 80's, I didn't have that feeling. I think it was last year or so that we walked in the front door and were greeted by some delightful nursing students who asked if Jerry had had his flu shot yet. He said no, and they took him over to the flu shot table and he got his flu shot. Everyone in the lobby was in such a great mood. People were visiting with one another, smiling and laughing. It was wonderful there that day.

But then, other than parking, we usually have a positive experience at the VA hospital. The food in the hospital cafeteria is basically okay, because after all it is cafeteria food. The hospital staff treat everyone with respect and dignity. The dental folks are awesome. The eye doctors he has seen there are also great. 

But I do know "nightmare" and "VA" go hand in hand. It took years for us to have medical insurance for me and the boys - not because it wasn't available, but because no one at the time could figure out which section we belonged in. Finally a very nice woman in Salem took care of everything and we finally had insurance. But we didn't when my youngest was born and since both boys were C-sections, we had to pay out of pocket for him. We sold the truck to pay off the last $400 we owed on our beloved child. Of course, had we had insurance then, we'd probably still have that damn truck. It was an International. I hated it. So there's that. 

The VA has a backlog that is ridiculous and destructive. And shameful (thank you, Bush administration). It's taking far too long to get benefits established and care given. Every time I hear about a veteran not getting the care that he or she deserves and needs, I know that it's happening because our government has made that choice. I've seen the VA work the way it's supposed to work. These people work hard and care about the veterans they serve. Given the opportunity, they would gladly meet and/or exceed the needs of our veterans. But they can't do it without funding.

Our government has some interesting priorities. They take us into war on a lie. They don't give our troops the equipment or body armor that they need to stay safe. In a cavalier fashion, they take away our civil rights in order that our "freedom" is preserved. That's hilarious. And then they don't take proper care of our veterans when they return home. And this time, we didn't even have a draft. These people defended our country without being forced to do so. Our first priority should be their care. They risked everything. Everything. 

And to our government: please don't go to war again. You clearly don't understand your responsibility for those who do your bidding. And I'll just bet that when you finally do, we'll never go to war again. And pull your collective heads out of your collective asses and fix the backlog. Don't leave these people hanging while you try to repeal Obamacare one more time. Or whatever it is you idiots do to not earn your paychecks.