happy new year 2012

this morning i woke up, rolled over, and my incredibly sweet, loving 2 year old immediately smiled and said, "happy birthday, mama" while holding my face gently between her hands. *sigh*

yesterday morning we went down to lake nockamixon (where we spent the weekend) and the water was as still as glass and the air was warm and zora said "the sky is in the water" and then suddenly we noticed the rainbow.

while hiking i kept hearing the geese and every time i saw their V formation they stopped me in their tracks - there is just something about the clarity of vision, direction that moves me. and the deer running through the forest in front of us...

last night there were bright stars and a bright moon and a raging campfire. and a homemade birthday chocolate cheesecake and champagne.

i am so, so lucky and i have gratitude for all this and for you, friends.

How the Light Comes

How the Light Comes:
A Blessing for Christmas Day

I cannot tell you
how the light comes.

What I know
is that it is more ancient
than imagining.

That it travels
across an astounding expanse
to reach us.

That it loves
searching out
what is hidden
what is lost
what is forgotten
or in peril
or in pain.

That it has a fondness
for the body
for finding its way
toward flesh
for tracing the edges
of form
for shining forth
through the eye,
the hand,
the heart.

I cannot tell you
how the light comes,
but that it does.
That it will.
That it works its way
into the deepest dark
that enfolds you,
though it may seem
long ages in coming
or arrive in a shape
you did not foresee.

And so
may we this day
turn ourselves toward it.
May we lift our faces
to let it find us.
May we bend our bodies
to follow the arc it makes.
May we open
and open more
and open still

to the blessed light
that comes.

© Jan L. Richardson. janrichardson.com

halloween bumblebee

christmas cuteness

Merry Christmas!

What is hope? It is the presentiment that imagination is more real and reality less real than it looks. It is the hunch that the overwhelming brutality of facts that oppress and repress is not the last word. It is the suspicion that Reality is much more complex than realism wants us to believe; that the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual, and that in a miraculous and unexpected way life is preparing the creative event which will open the way to freedom and resurrection ...

Tomorrow's Child, by Rubem Alves

st. valentine's day

tomorrow is st. valentine's day.
most people i know either love or hate the holiday.
so i decided to do a little research about the origins of the holiday to try to figure out what i think about it. what i found was that there is not even close to a consensus on who st. valentine was or how the holiday came into existence. so, rather than writing a really convoluted post, i decided i'll just share a reading about love that is meaningful to me with you instead. (for those of you who are interested, here are some pages on st. valentine's day from american catholic, wikipedia , and history.com.)

If our common vocation is to be lovers, perhaps we can be more conscious of what justice is in our own lives and in the world; conscious of our own passion with and for each other. True Love is a most revolutionary act. It is exactly the opposite of romantic love. To really love is to topple unjust structures, bringing down the prinicipalities and powers of domination and control at all levels of social relation. To say I love you is to say that you are not mine, but rather your own. To love is to advocate your rights, your space, your self, and to struggle with you, rather than against you, in our learning to claim our power in the world. To love you is to create love with you, whether in the exchange of glances heavy with existence, in the "passing of the peace" we mean, in our common work or play, in our struggle for social justice, or in the ecstasy and tenderness of intimate embrace that we believe is just and right for us -- and for others in the world.
From __Our Passion for Justice__ by Carter Heyward

ps the image of the heart is from mars. seriously.

Happy New Year!

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese - harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver

I have a lot on my mind as we begin this new year, and look forward to sharing some of those thoughts with you over the course of the coming months. But today I am too tired from bringing in the new year to the fabulous sounds of James Hunter to write much. So I figured I'd share with you two pieces of writing that have been important to me. One is the Mary Oliver poem above. If you haven't checked out Mary Oliver, you should! She is an amazing poet.

Here's the other one I wanted to share -- it's by Arundhati Roy, an Indian writer and activist. She's most well known in the States for her book The God of Small Things.

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire but to lay seige to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubborness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
Arundhati Roy

Many wishes for a kick-ass New Year filled with the love of family and friends, peace in this often violent world, laughter and joy, the will to keep up the struggle, and hope that another world is indeed possible. Much love, Susanna

the 411 on santa claus

who is this santa claus character who invades our culture every year at this time?

our modern day santa claus is derived from saint nicholas, bishop of myra in the fourth century.
st. nicholas was known for saving his people from famine and sparing the lives of those falsely accused. he was said to have given away his inheritance to those in need. st. nicholas is knows as the patron of many different groups of people --children, mariners, bankers, pawn-brokers, scholars, orphans, laborers, travelers, merchants, judges, paupers, marriageable maidens, students, children, sailors, victims of judicial mistakes, captives, perfumers, and even thieves and murderers. sounds like a good guy, right?

st. nicholas inspired the mythical figure of sinterklaas, the subject of a major celebration in the
netherlands, belgium and germany. the dutch brought this tradition to the settlers of new amsterdam (later renamed new york), who misprounced "sinterklaas" and that's how we got our american "santa claus".

unfortunately, sinterklaas is not as likeable a guy as st. nicholas seemed to be. sinterklaas has a servant (or sometimes multiple servants) called "zwarte piet," or black pete. one explanation is that during the middle ages, zwarte piet was a name for the devil. having triumphed over evil, it was said that on st. nicholas' eve, the devil was shackled and made sinterklaas's slave. sinterklaas is said to have come from spain and his helper eventually became seen as a dark-skinned Moor. wikipedia tells us: "Until the second half of the 20th century, [sinterklaas's] helper was not too bright, in line with the old colonial traditions." so we've got a devil turned into a black slave and/or a stupid black-skinned helper who the legend goes will stuff bad children into a bag and bring them to spain. racism anyone?

in the modern day celebration in Netherlands, white people dress up in black face, wear afro wigs, and wear bright red lipstick and march around throwing candy to children. some of these "zwarte piet" act dumb and speak garbled Dutch. there is a thriving market for zwarte piet products, many incredibly offensive in their depiction of black people. (see picture in this post and more to come in the comments.)

i think it's good to know where the traditions we are celebrating come from. i hope that if we are going to continue to celebrate the myth of santa claus (and feed the myth to our children),
we can find a way to celebrate the *original* inspiration for santa claus, st. nicholas -- who gave away his wealth to the poor, defended the rights of those falsely accused, and generally threw his lot with those most despised by society.

for more info on sinterklaas and the debate about zwarte piet, see this christian science monitor article, or this wikipedia entry.

t-day

more reasons to love fall: thanksgiving which brings with it delicious food cooked with love, fabulously cute turkey pinatas, and gathering of friends and family.