It's not about me.
I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of imagination. ~John Keats
"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." - Arundhati Roy
My interests are people, all people, real people, and first and foremost, the people I love. I am very blessed and I cherish each precious one of the many beloved people I am so lucky to call friends and have in my life. I strive to live up to such gifts as these ones.
I am in love with this experience. With life. I find it fascinating that we have the capacity to reflect on existence, the capacity to become conscious of consciousness itself, and overflow with love in that recognition.
I love my work. I have been blessed in my life with right livelihood. I have been a homebirth midwife for many, many years. I teach childbirth classes and love working with people at this precious time in their lives (it is such an honor!) and am very proud of the program I have developed over the years. I am also a Lactation Consultant. I LOVE what I do and know my services make a difference and contribute in the best way. I feel very honored about this.
I also own a business where I put on events, talks, workshops and the like. We have featured a variety of authors, poets and teachers, such as David Whyte, John O'Donohue, Andrew Harvey, Cosi Fabian and Stuart Wells. I have a background in Public Relations, Publicity and Atrist Management.
Interests? I have many.
I love life and laughter and good conversation and good friends. I prefer one on one time with people where I can focus solely on them. I sometimes feel over-stimulated in groups. I love wit and cleverness and irony. I love irreverence. I love inquiry. I am infinitely curious. I love the experience of thought. I love language. I also love the sweet territory of silence. (Martin Keogh)
Stephan Choiniere (Photo by Lois Greenfield)
I'm passionate about the arts, and modern dance especially. I am passionate about good poetry, spoken word, the oral tradition, music, politics, social justice, civil rights, natural childbirth, patient advocacy, good healthy debate, public discourse, anti-racism, ending corporate personhood and I feel we have to put issues about protecting the environment above all others right now. I believe in ending the failing war on drugs. It is the legal pursuit of an unenforceable prohibition that has created great absurdity and expense and created more crime and problems than it ever hoped to solve.
I LOVE good conversation and I LOVE the dynamics of human relations. I am an unrepentant feminist and a relentless liberal.
I believe in a free press and we do not have that now in the US today. I believe in media justice and feel we need to rise up and act about media policy and regulation to ensure we have an informed public. The fact that we do not have real journalists and a free press in this country is part of the reason we have such poor voter turn out, and such apathy about how votes are and are not counted in this country. Studies have proven the more you get your information from television news, the less accurate information you have, (with Fox News watchers having the most inaccurate and false information). I support organizations like FAIR and MEDIA MTTERS who are trying to make a difference.
I love to learn. I love education. I have an extremely curious, inquisitive mind. I believe in lifelong learning. I believe in education for its own sake. I hold multiple post graduate degrees because I have been drawn to the study of many things: Psychology, Women's Studies, African American Studies, Medical Anthropology, Human Sexuality, Theology, Gerontology and Marriage, Family, & Child Counseling (which is the Psychotherapy licensing degree in California). Now I am fascinated with all they are learning about the brain every day. I would love to be in a PhD program studying Neuropsychology. But then I've always loved Political Science and always wanted to get a law degree as well. If we only lived long enough and education was more affordable..... My mind needs a lot of stimulation and I love to learn and be in good conversation, even with people I disagree with. In fact, I find I learn a lot that way.
My father was an activist very involved in the civil rights movement. I became passionately involved at a very young age in this struggle and have been a political activist ever since. (half a century, but who's counting?) For me, the personal is political and the political is personal .... So if you're fighting for freedom, you can sign me up!
ERACISM For white skinned persons like myself, for me the first step means first understanding our White Privilege. Privilege is unmerited benefits that a group of people get based on false stereotypes about their race and/or color. Thinking about the things we take for granted, that persons of color cannot. That is one of the starting points to Eracism. Only a starting point, but please let's all start getting that work done and stop the hate and erase racism and classism.
This amazing world we live in is filled with both beauty and terror. This world has some nasty things goin on that are mean, unjust and dangerous.
It's an indulgence to sit in a room and discuss your beliefs as if they were a juicy piece of gossip. ~Lillian Hellman
The Environment? Media Issues? The War? Ending Poverty? Racism? Global Warming? The list is long. What do you feel passionately about? We must not sit back and know there are these problems and do nothing. We all need to Stand Up! Do Something !
TAKE ACTION
What can you do? What will be your part?
You.
..... and Wile E. Coyote
..... and Instant Psychic Knot Unravelers
The only people for me are the mad ones. The ones who are mad to love, mad to talk, mad to be saved; the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars. ----Jack Kerouac
We need Community.
We are interdependent, especially now. We need to join together in unity, in peace, in Respect, in humility, in forgiveness, in action, in joy, in grief, in outrage, in solidarity,
but alas, clearly, in community.
Oh, yeah,
and also
we need these guys gone.
Music was my first language. Still is. I love music. Most especially Live Music, which I go out of my way to be around. I don't live for music, I live because of music. Reggae is a favorite as it goes straight in to my heart and my spirit. This is Spirit Music no doubt. I deeply feel the sentiments behind it as well and it moves me deeply. Brazilian Jazz was my first love and I am seduced by it every time still.
Going to the Monterey Jazz Festival every year, with seats right up front (yay!), is a spiritual Mecca of mine. Love blues, R & B, Nu Jazz & classic rock - my full taste in music is ridiculously diverse and varied. Good is good. I knows it when I hears it.
I enjoy good movies, which would be movies with great acting, movies that say something, movies that are well written, brilliantly directed and that touch me, surprise me, provoke me or change me. Any suggestions?? I love films that critique our culture, in all its flawed and complex beauty; and films that look inside ourselves to help reveal or understand our humanity.
No matter what the movie is, my favorite person to discuss any film with ~ hands down ~ is my dear friend, Gary Camp.
Timm Chambliss of Graphic Art Forms Timm Chambliss of Graphic Art Forms
Keith Olberman - Have you heard him lately? We have our current day Edward R. Murrow in him. Check him out on MSNBC. Finally, a mainstream media person speaking truth to power, challenging Bush head on!
The Wire is the best thing on TV. What else? Jon Stewart's Daily Show. Huff, Grey's AT, 24, Weeds and I loved the West Wing when it was on. I actually watch these things on DVDs or iTunes downloads.
I LOVE good poetry, and prefer it spoken aloud by heart. Neruda. Lorca, Machado, Lawrence, Anais Nin, Mary Oliver, for starters. I really love Rilke, Ntozake Shange, and Nikki Giovanni. Books: Anything by Audre Lorde, Arundhati Roy, or Toni Morrison, (I think Morrison will be looked back on as our modern day Shakespeare), Democracy Matters by Cornell West, The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy, Lonesome Dove by Larry Mc Murtry, Wicked by Maguire, I like Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I confess to loving Jane Eyre by Charlene Bronte. ...
All the people who stand up against injustice and stand up for what is right and speak truth to power. All the activists that keep the issues out there in the forefront. Mothers. Fathers. Mothers who have to raise their children on their own and are doing a stellar job of it. Men who come into families where there are children not theirs by birth and take up the role of their father and show up for those children. All the activists and foot soldiers, all around the world doing their part, wherever and however they can, to fight for truth, peace and justice. All the artists whose creations surround us with beauty and inspiration along the way, reminding us to feel fully and joyfully all the tastes of our aliveness, as we dance out this life.