well well well

look what the wind blew in
one little bird on a big black tree
singin his sweet night song to me

sitting in the dark I can hear him call
or click and roll his tongue

and i wonder

now what have i done
i chuckle and whisper my response to the shadows
and he sits and waits like he's not sure he's satisfied with my answers

the moons just a sliver...a slice of light in the dark
i sit outside and pick noises apart
i can hear him moving
along the branch
watching me
waiting
will my answers pass?
because if he's not satisfied....oh will he wait
rather than take them back too early and be handed his ass on a plate.   laughs.

i pretend not to notice....lighting my smoke
i lean back on the step and then my head back
stare up at the sky and find a few stars
and after a minute
...i hear him again caw

it's almost a growl at me!
i swear that it is
but i laugh just the same
because it's just his old game
he checks on me
takes notes
and reports back to a shade of odin

i'll sit here and wait
what choice do i have
evolving and growing
trying not to gauge which way the wind is blowing
to just let it flow around me like a river
sweep me up and around and away where it wishes
i try to let go....just hang on for the ride
strands curl in the wind and i watch them like smoke
quite some grey in there now...i think with a grin
and suddenly  in there somewhere
i wonder

am i really what i think i am

so few are, i imagine,
and blink
but i shake my head and close my eyes to the night
and my heart sighs long and i know that i'm right
 the signs are there
and have been for so long
i don't remember a time i couldn't decipher the night song
or the sound of a raven...or a big ass black crow
or other kindred to ravens.....
at least one kind anyway

a little more dangerous
a little more dark
their cunning and loyalty pumps through their heart
and so smart...
people over look that you know....  they think with their fear
but if you know what to look for you can see it in there
their fierceness...that strength...will have you stopping in tracks for a glimpse of that spirit
that subtle undercurrent of attack
but you see it in eyes
you see it in their stare
that they are a kind you know from somewhere
and they recognize it in you...you can see that too
tho no words will ever do

i wonder if everyone can see it...just there...the light hits their eyes and your paralyzed somewhere
or ...how in a particular photo it truly feels...
that if you moved ...
their eyes might move for real

and in person?
hmm
forget it
your toast
don't try
they'll lock down and have you squirming under that watchful eye
a curious kindred, this particular breed
never tamed
but there in any time of need
no matter how wild
no matter how daunting
across veils and worlds
how much time is too far?
 the kind that will find you wherever you are


but now I've gone and gotten off track

or have i

the crow just left....


let's see how long it takes him to get back


*wicked laughter and the light fades purple blue and gone*



***smiles and laughs to myself knowing most people on the planet will have absolutely no clue what this means and that's alright.  that's exactly how art should be, no?  and anyone that needs to know it's meaning...already does***

 

Civility or civil war? What are we about for real?

‎"slavery can only exist in the context of a police state, 

and the enforcement of that police state was the explicit job of the militias" - 

so as I read this I wondered - 
is it the government trying to enslave us with their ideals of what gun ownership should look like in present times? 

Or is it those people who consider themselves part of the 'militia', just because they have a gun; not because they were appointed to the militia referred to in the second amendment.....and so that they can own their own personal arsenal- are they really the ones keeping us enslaved by the subtle threat of civil war if any talk of changing anything to do with guns happens? 

Because I'm sort of sick of that threat. 

We are supposed to be a democracy. If the majority of the people decide this is what we want, then no one has the right to threaten the peace and stability of the nation by going against the majority and making up their own rules...like certain Sheriff's that I've read are refusing to follow the new laws. 

Isn't that defying your oath to serve "we the people?" 
And are the gun people that threaten civil war only 'we the people' when we agree with you? 
Because that's certainly one sided. 

We are a funny democracy. We are almost so constantly split down the middle that we should just split up the US into two parts and everyone go about their business. ha. 

Btw, trying to make sure the kind of weapons that can wipe out numerous people in one fell swoop doesn't mean the 'gov't is coming to take your guns away'. This is going to be a long process of figuring out what works for the whole nation. However, It does mean it needs to be much much harder to get a gun. And there need to be better rules for those than own them...because we all know there are plenty of unstable people that already own guns. 

I bet everyone I know knows someone who's a little edgy or aggressive and owns a gun..or have at some point. I'm not saying noone should have a gun....nor do I think that's what the government wants. 

IMO the conspiracy theorists out there that have attacked the people of Newtown should be ashamed...
and everyone should just calm the hell down so we can have productive conversations about this rather than being so ready to battle with your own countrymen. 

*gets off soapbox*

The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery

Sandy Hook Sweethearts and why getting a gun is out of control

article from a mother whose child needs help "i am adam lanza's mother'
I live in America and come from a family that was in the military and hunted and always had a gun in the house.  My father used it to intimidate us sometimes when he'd been drinking.  I was taught very young how to shoot, it was a tradition when we camped.  Granted, it taught me the power of a gun and how to use one...but I hate them.

Now I keep hearing people say if civilians are packing, these things wouldn't happen...but responsible civilians don't carry around firearms on a daily basis for no reason. Are we suggesting that is what we should do now?

Everyone carry and it will stop people from trying to get away with things like this latest massacre? We are not in control enough of our emotions in general for that to be a safe bet. I think we'd have a bunch of trigger nervous self imposed vigilantes and it could go very very badly, rather than everyone feeling more secure.

I think everyone would be paranoid about who was carrying and who was stable and the energy would build to a really explosive point and that we'd feel safer knowing that it's damn near impossible to get a gun, and to keep one you have to go through insanely detailed examinations to be sure you were mentally acceptable and morally responsible to carry one. An investigation into your whole life. If you've got nothing nasty, vindictive, dangerous, or unstable to hide...then sure....you can have a gun. A reasonable one....relative to the use you need it for, not armed for your own personal arsenal. ok. getting off the soapbox now. Just so affected by this, when I was about 10, (I'm 41 now) my first boyfriend's brother accidentally shot himself in the head with his father's gun. He was a police officer and had gotten the new gun as a Christmas present. The babysitter was late....(my brother and sister and I were out of town at our Grandma's house) and the boys got out the gun to play cops and robbers with. Apparently Jeff..the 8 yr old...was pretending the cops were going to get him and turned the gun on himself not knowing it was loaded and able to shoot. His older brother ran to my parents house and got my them, who ran up there and saw the awful results and tried to give him CPR, but it was too late. They moved just after that.

I remember small things like going to the house after they'd left and standing on a rock to look in the window and try to remember Jeff and see if I could see anything relative to his death...morbid maybe, but I was a child. We'd hung out with these kids daily..all day. I remember my parents showing up to my Grandma's house in the middle of the night upset, and the next morning my brother said something about being glad Jeff hadn't joined us in something the week before..and my father replied that Jeff wouldn't be joining us at all anymore, and then told us what happened. I remember the buzzing in my ears as he told us, and the confusion and the feeling of quiet and emptiness on what used to be a vibrant street full of kids playing. I know it took me years for me to act 'normal' about the kids wanting to be like their friends and pretend to shoot the bad guys...as long as they never pretend shot at themselves or anyone real...I could live with it. And then came the video games that were like blasting people into small bits of gore, and all the kids want to do it and pretend to be these great warriors with massive amounts of weapons to wipe out as many people as they can. I'm still not ok with it. When my son's PS3 died last year, secretly I rejoiced (sorry honey) because it was obvious that his agression went up when he played but he didn't see anything wrong with it. I'm not a prude by any means...and I know life is hard. Very, very well. But something in me says...enough with the crazy access to guns for anyone...enough with people with no morals making it easy to get guns on the internet...enough with us not really caring if games to kill are mass marketed for profit regardless of the loss to our spirits and humanity. ok now I'm really getting off the soapbox. I don't know if you bothered to read all of this but if you did....I love you for it. xxxxx

be well wanderers and gypsies
and tiny little people who are now afraid if someone will storm their school
and all the teachers that have to endure 'lockdown training'
and all the sweet sweet babies that left this plane that day
and all the brave heroic teachers that tried to save them
the ones that gave their lives...and the ones that saved lives and made it through to the other side to now have to face the horror and put on brave faces of support for the kids that were there and this devasated community

my deepest, most genuine, most heartfelt love to you all

raven

it's the media, and you, not the DJ's or the hoax aka get the hell off the snark bandwagon

don't you people realize
there has been many a prank played like this one
really it was harmless, and funny - before someone got hurt.

don't lie..how many of you laughed or thought ohh busted, or made a smartass comment? and i wonder how many of those same people that thought it was innocent and funny before she took her life, and helped it go around the globe, then sent hate mail to the DJ's.....

they didn't mean anything by it you know.
how dare you all speak to them as if they should now die - seriously??
will you be satisfied when you have BULLIED THEM the same way you BULLIED Jacintha until they have taken their lives? will the mouth of the beast then be silenced or will you then berate yourselves..or the media...who will be the next target. and eye for an eye until the whole world is blind eh?

who could know that just getting past someone's guard would fly around the globe like this? a hoax that, in times past, would have possibly resulted in a few laughs that didn't get much further than Australia and possibly the UK for a bit...the US may have even picked up on it for a moment. But now, it flies around the entire world faster than the speed of light...and the flashing lights of smart ass comments for a tired, but kind and efficient, nurse's mistake filled the sky like a million stars -
each one piercing her skin anew until she couldn't take it anymore. so so sad. but the DJ's didn't want that. they couldn't forsee she was in that place....

you could see in pictures of her she was tired already...i could see it
who knows if she was already battling depression or struggling...or just tired from giving so much of herself to others for so long. and making a simple mistake like this could just as easily have turned into blushing and laughing at yourself and ohhh i'm so sorry, and the royals aren't angry with you and your not in trouble at work so it blows over and is no big deal

instead we have a woman who was totally drowning in the tidal wave of the worlds opinion of her mistake and it was too much

it was YOU...you see? you and the media...not the simple hoax, and not the misguided DJ's who truly didn't think they'd get through on the phone or that she would actually do something so shocking as take her own life and destroy so many other lives in the process over a joke. and don't go on about it being a bad joke...it was funny until someone got hurt, like all jokes.

and now the beast turns its jaws on the DJ's....who i've read are shattered by this. of course they are...they are in it for the laughs. not for destroying people. they certainly didn't think anything like this would happen....or that she would literally be BULLIED TO DEATH by the media and the world

so now it turns on them and they feel the weight of the heat and the anger and the super snark of the media and the world as they cry together with their families and friends and each other, for the nurse and knowing now what she went through...devastated that such an innocent prank could turn out like this.

and do we show them any compassion?

can we not look into their faces and see their pain as well and hug them and tell them we know you didn't mean anything like this to happen....and we are so sorry that something relatively innocent turned out so badly. can we not surround them with love as they learn from this terrible lesson the same way that we should surround Jacintha's family with love as they also deal with the fallout from this terrible mistake?

surely the media and the public should take a look at themselves and how everyone thinks nothing of letting their comments fly...but it's not just one comment anymore people. it becomes hundreds, and then thousands, and then hundreds of thousands and more in no time at all. and you bury people until they can't breathe

are you going to be satisfied when you've destroyed two more people?

i read that now the hospital is calling the hoax 'appalling' and i laughed.
the hoax itself wasn't appalling...has anyone looked up the definition of that word? the treatment of the nurse afterwards was appalling...and the way people are treating the DJ's now is appalling. But the hoax was just people playing an innocent prank..nothing was told that hurt anyone at all..and their accents were terrible. It was funny. It's just too bad that the sweet nurse got caught in the middle of the tsunami of media interest and public backlash and in my opinion it's appalling that the hospital didn't recognize sooner that she was having trouble with it and give her the kind of support she needed. Seems to me she was left alone to deal with most of the fallout and faded fast. Why was this not seen? why did no one at the hospital have a clue? because they were dealing with the media and had forgotten about the one crucial element to the entire story...Jacintha.

don't blame the DJ's because you forgot to take care of her or notice she was in trouble. and don't blame the DJ's for the media jumping on this and broadcasting it all over the world...and don't blame the DJ's for all of the thousands of smart ass comments that were posted about Jacintha before she killed herself.

That was you.

think about jumping on the snark bandwagon next time someone makes a mistake...you never know when it could be your mistake that is broadcast around the world for everyone to comment on.

and think about jumping on the snark bandwagon right NOW with the DJ's. look at their faces...look into their eyes. they are crushed by this.

leave it be. enough.

It's not the size of the skyscraper that counts....

http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/15/12753063-can-us-economy-tolerate-a-tax-increase-in-2013?

A couple of days ago I read an article that read "Can the US economy tolerate a tax increase in 2013?"
I almost passed it, because during this time of year there's so much politicrap out there your brain might spontaneously combust if you take in more than your R.D.A. of politics; like the constant IV drip sort of streaming we are seeing from the media currently and will until the contest is over, and actually..months after......
hm.
 ok it never stops.

 but my brain thought...you know, I wonder what the amount of tax we are actually talking about is. Not projections, not speculation, but in reality. I wonder if it's equivalent to everyone pitching in $100 (or $20 or $5) more this year....or something like $2 a day. Of course we don't get it explained in such relative terms to us usually, so we try to decipher the information we are given,usually unsuccessfully, about what a 'tax raise' would actually mean.
In fact, people hear the word tax raise and often go up in arms before even hearing another word. Imagine a public servant on the steps of a building about to address a mob of angry misinformed people below; "tax raise..."
"arrrrggghhhhhhhh *slaughter* mayhem* destruction" as a bloodied man tries to squeak out "..s are unacceptable... on... any.. terms" and then he'd die and everyone would look around at each other like ...hmm...damn.

 So! I wondered...as I often do...what would it mean?

Would it mean they would have to give up the equivalent of less than 1 quarter or a jar of fancy nail polish?
Or one less coffee or high end scotch a day or one les glass a week of that uber expensive pinot gris? Perhaps one less pair of shoes?
Would they really feel that deprived or would they just make up the money somewhere else?
Literally...can anyone tell me? Would it mean one less hair extension or fake breast? Or one less hair plug or golf game a year. Hm. There's no way it could cost even that much...

Yes...I'm sure they are not even asking as much help from you as one golf game at your favorite course. and ok, even if it is...I'm sure I could make it relative to something equally materialistic and not truly important or something they would actually not even miss, PLUS it would help OUR country....and the rest of us can't really help.

(and by the way, this kind of stuff: http://marketday.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/18/12793197-big-bonuses-seen-leading-to-current-wall-street-scandals?lite
is the kind of stuff that makes it hard for us 'regular people' to not roll our eyes when you talk about protecting big business.)

We'd love to help though. I swear we would. I bet a bunch of us dream about how we'd help if we could and I'm sure, if any of us ever have the opportunity to live with great hoards of money, many of us will remember how easy it is to make a huge change with a little money if people do it together, with intention of a particular goal.

 Anyway...back to the point. (yes, there is one)

I read the following quote in this article I mentioned at some point.

 “We're not talking about giving tax cuts to anyone. All we're asking is don't raise taxes on all Americans, and especially don't raise taxes on the people who create the business."

 and the first thought I had was OH you mean all those big businesses that are OUTSOURCING ALL OF THEIR JOBS? you mean the ones that have thousands of people employed in other countries where they can pay them meager pay and reap the profits? ohhhh right. let's protect those guys.

wait...no. let's SPANK those guys with a big. fat. tax. for not creating jobs IN AMERICA. Also, I say you are not allowed to call yourself 'an american company' if you are producing, shipping, creating jobs and paying for real estate to do all of this IN ANOTHER COUNTRY. No. Bad corp. That's just BS. From now on the people that should get the most benefits are the ones that do the most HERE. They create from the US of A....creating jobs from all sorts of angles, just by keeping it here.


  And my second thought brought me to a new perspective on business...
So I wanted to say Mr Kyl...
I would like you to consider how potentially insulting this is to the average small businessman in America; but more than that...why. Why it is insulting? I want you to care..don't just say "oh everyone gets insulted at one thing or another" and shrug and blow it off. LISTEN TO THE WHY>

See, it sounds like you are saying the many many jobs that little business create don't count...they are small and not financially viable or effective...so they obviously aren't considered in your big picture of who needs to pay more and who is creating jobs.

But actually, those little guys? They are the guys keeping us alive.

They are the ones that, if they didn't exist, whole towns just vanish....ghost towns...remnants of previously successful places that just couldn't keep going when the bigger, better funded place moved in downtown and skewed all the prices. Granted, there are gigantic offices full of hundreds of thousands of people, I know.

But Mr Kyl, there is so much more to America than the kind of bustling city businesses you are talking about. It's not just about the size of the skyscraper, Mr. Kyl. In reality, most of America lives in smaller towns or cities....or we live out in the country or forest or wider open spaces.

So for us...the big business guy really doesn't do anything but cause a problem. For us, it is they who should not be given such great importance to, as they really do nothing but shut things down...but they are spoken of by people such as yourself as if they are the very lifeblood of America. They build factories overseas and outsource jobs to other countries. They are not creating jobs HERE.

If you support only the big businesses; the kind that the Obama administration is asking to pitch in more to keep things moving; and the kind you are talking about protecting, you lose the little guys that are the real cogs in the wheel. I've seen it happen, when Wal-Mart came to town and nearly 60% of all small businesses in the town had to close their doors..charming booksellers, toy stores, clothing stores, a staple of the community drug store that had been there for decades...all gone now.
How did that big business help this town with jobs?

And more importantly than that -
How do you think those people felt about closing their own successful businesses to consider putting on a polyester wal mart uniform and listen to people protect 'big business'?

Now, I figure, if businesses, or Very Wealthy People, truly want to help; then what does it matter if the help is done by paying more taxes so more little guys get to stay in business? (which also helps the economy and jobs and morale of the country)
Or do they just get to proclaim "they make the most jobs, regardless of what they are or what they pay, so they get to do what they want" with voting power like individuals, while we watch them get richer and bigger while more little guys, and their investments and finances time and employees and growth, vanish.

Soon you have an empty building to fill and a new potential foreclosure happening. Way to go guys.

America needs the type of people that see past supporting only wealthy, large, business creators to give the little guy a shot a staying alive...the kind of places America was built on and actually keep our economy moving in small towns, rural areas, and even mid size towns and cities...

These are the little business that truly stimulate local economy and employment, not just corporate giants that have big box stores or enough cash to open up a line of stores anywhere they choose. These are the little guys.

Take a walk in an older part of your town.
One that has charm and a large variety of stores in a small community area.
Have you even been to a real butcher? Or a bread maker? Or a doll hospital or a shoemaker or a small artists gallery? We have some of these in Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs and if a big corporation came in to swallow up those little shops you can bet WE the PEOPLE would fight to send them on their way and leave us be.

Think about whatever small shop it is you visit (or if you don't, one you did when you were a child or heard about or used to drive by every day and wonder about) and love the atmosphere of...is it a tea house? a candy shop? a book store? a small dessert shop? Not so big...only 3 or 4 employees...but if those pastries and donuts didn't exist you weren't sure you'd be able to face the rest of the Mondays in your life. All of these places might mean 100 jobs or so...but what would the town be without them?

These are the ones you are essentially shutting down and discrediting with statements like these. These are the guys that keep America moving....the middle to lower classs now....struggling to stay alive and keep our heads above water...wanting to grow...

wanting to be able to have some influence with the giant corporations that could be helping everyone but seem to only be interested in keeping themselves afloat and growing.

A monopoly, of course.......ah to be so wealthy. And imagine how boring our country would be with only the big guys...shipping everything overseas and telling us to be happy about it and keep buying from them because they are 'American'

So...save the little businesses...tell the big guys to help the little guys.

Be leaders and mentors - not corporate commandants with no vision of diversity or how we can all grow together.

Big Ass Corporations, do what's right. and people like Mr. Kyl?

THINK.

be well wanderers

jen