hunting for plants

Hunting to identify plants is the way in which I plan to defy the statistic that Americans will not spend more than 5 minutes on a problem before giving up.
Introducing, the  Podocarpus Macrophyllus--welcome to my moleskin list of plants to remember!

what is change that simply turns the table

How can I change
if I don't feel
How can I feel
and not change
what change?
what is change that simply turns the table,
change that renames the enemy
but does not stop the war
when I have done evil
must evil be done to me
in order to satisfy the gods of justice
the gods of vindication
the gods of deliverance
and when the gods of justice are satisfied
by my suffering
will they not yet again return hungry
for the justice for evil done to me?
when I hate you hating me
and you hate me hating you
what solution is there
but ceasefire
can we not agree
can we not be unified
by the hatred
of hatred
or are we cycling forever
in homage to our gods
our love of hatred
our love of war
our love of rightness

The Opposite of a Kiss

A proper kiss is a breeze that will stir the leaves resting on the forest floor of my heart
that have long since been raked into a pile, soaked by rain waters, 
layered and withered, slowly becoming a part of the ground on which they rest. A proper kiss will barrel through the pile of leaves like a child, scattering the dry skeletal fingers of the trees from which they fell, giving them new life as colorful flying things in the wind, only resting when at long last the child falls exhilarated and peaceful into their soft piles again.

Purposeful silence. The silence that resounds between two people with everything not said between them. The silence that fills with everything that could be said, inflated by imagination, sharpened by self indulgence and a desperate desire to say the thing that will end all argument, but gagged by the fear of discovery of the truth, and somehow the fear of injury.

For in silence, there is power without vulnerability. This is the opposite of a kiss.

Innocence and bubble bursting

We all start as innocents. Some of us grow up faster than others. Some of our parents can maintain our world-shield for longer than others, but everyone's bubble is burst eventually. The bubble bursting moment is that moment when a person experiences something so jarring to the narrative of his or her life that from that point on the color of the world is different. To see the world for the first time outside the tint of the bubble of expectations of what happens in life, what happens to me, is to lose my innocence. I wise person might say that this is the point when we can finally begin to know the world and embark on the road to wisdom. It's the moment that we recognize the brevity and preciousness of life and have the opportunity to start realizing our power and potential. The pain of the loss of our innocence is the birthing pain that propels us into the meaningfulness of real experience which can lead to better understanding.of ourselves and others. I would say, the opposite of wisdom is the attempt to live as if still inside the bubble, or worse, create another one. A lie bubble. A lie bubble that lets the one inside believe that they can still grow and grow wiser without honestly confronting the pain of reality. But there is only one real innocence. Like a child in the womb, we are not made to return there once it is our time to be born. Once you know the outside, you know it and you are a part of it.
     
Here are some examples of attempting to live inside a lie bubble or, just imagine your 18-year-old self talking:
     
     "I am not in a relationship because no one is good enough."

     "I am the only person who knows whats best for my child."

     "The reason why my relationship is falling apart is because we don't have a ________(house,car, baby...)"

     "Its important that I have everything settled before I do what I really want to do."

     "When I have (or when my child has) _______(relationship, job, car, etc...) I will be happy and find fulfillment."

   
  Here are some examples of living outside the bubble:

   "I am not in a relationship because I am not ready to be in a relationship."

   "Other people (teachers, friends, family) make important contributions to my child's formation and education."

    "The reason why my relationship is falling apart is because we don't communicate clearly and/or manage our expectations for each other."

   "Now is the only time to do what I really want to do."

   "I have many resources for emotional strength and my sense of fulfillment is not contingent on any one person or thing."



 

writing prompt #1 What Five Things Did You Love The Most When You Were Six Years Old?

My childhood was full of happiness, fairytales, wishes, dreams. By number three, I forgot that I was only supposed to write 5 things that I loved and continued to 6. I might have to do a "Part 2" at some point.


1. I loved how my parents packed my lunch for school. Mom would write little notes or draw pictures or stars, smiley faces, and hearts XOXO on my ziplock bags. Looking back now, I think about how different my lunch usually looked compared to my classmates' lunches: wheat bread on my sandwich, fruit juice, and a cloth napkin.

2. I loved jean mini skirts and my frilly white dress with candy stripes on the sleeves and skirts. When I wore the white dress I felt like I was the mot beautiful thing in the world. I remember wearing it while dancing around in our garage, bouncing off and on my dad's home-made workout bench.

3. I loved the game "Oh Chicken." This is a game my sister and I made up that involved repeatedly standing on one arm of the couch and falling backwards intoning, "oooooooooohhhhh" while falling and  "CHICKEN!" when our backs made contact with the couch cushions. My sister and I played our game until we grew too tall to fall so trustingly onto our couch without the fear of hitting the backs of our heads on the other arm.

4. I loved Bond Crosby. He sat across from me in Mrs. Swank's 1st grade class. He had a military crew cut and played pencil hockey with me . I remember constantly trying to reconcile that his name wasn't "Bill Cosby," or "James Bond."

5. I loved when my friend Elizabeth's mom would make the car dance. Miss Betsy would pick us up from gymnastics, or brownies, or school and on the way home would drive maniacally down our neighborhood streets, one hand gripped on the steering wheel, moving it as if she were wiping it down, the other waiving convincingly in the air. The car jerked left-right-left-right to the beats Ace of Base's "The Sign,"  or Gloria Estefan's "Conga." Elizabeth and I shrieked and laughed and demanded that she admit that it was her, not the car that was dancing, which Mrs Betsy of course denied and simply switched driving hands to waive the other frantically out the drivers' side window.

6. I loved singing and, therefore, the Little Mermaid. I loved that my mom made me a Little Mermaid Costume for Halloween. It was a little purple bandeau, and a long, straight, green skirt with a little stuffed fin at the end. It was a dream came true, despite being made to wear a white turtle neck underneath my purple bandeau because it was cold. How dare my parents ruin the illusion of me being an actual mermaid! I've since given myself hypothermia for the sake of a costume looking cool. I had good parents with better sense than I had.

empathy and teaching

     I recently read a quote that declared empathy "an act of imagination," and a necessary skill to produce great creative writing; imagining oneself as another person in a given scenario. I would also add that empathy, and therefore imagination, is key to being a great teacher. If a teacher can imagine him or herself as that child or teenager they are trying to reach, I think it is much easier to connect and to figure out the words and methods that will reach that particular student. Imagine yourself as a 10 year old who is smart, hyper active, lives in a fairy land, and imagines herself as the center of the universe. Imagine yourself as a 13year old terrified of the ultimate disgrace: being uncool in middle school. Imagine yourself as an 18 year old who is responsible beyond her years, with the ability to shoot daggers out of her eyes, with absolutely no qualms about making a fuss about getting her way. In someways, we've all been each of these kids at one point or another.
If I can see myself in every student, I can reach every student.

Read, Swim, Garden: Invitation to comment on a couple of ideas

These are some ideas I've been thinking about, but have yet to take the time to flesh out in any readable form.

What would change in New Orleans if every citizen could read, swim, and grow a garden?

How would teaching people how to garden change a community? What steps could be taken to begin this process?

How would cultivating a healthy, integrated relationship with water change the lives of people in New Orleans and the city as a whole? Where should we start making changes?

A book I'm writing in my head:
How Orleans parish could thrive out from under the thumb of corporate America.

I had to write these ideas down so that I can come back to them later. They are part of my effort to be a part of what could potentially be a cultural change that is unique to New Orleans a (literally) steaming hot bed of new ideas and opportunities waiting to be had.

Intelligent, optimistic members of the community, unite!!

High School Commencement speeches

I attended a graduation ceremony this evening for Archbishop Chappell High School, an all-girls Catholic school in Metairie. It was everything that one would expect a private school graduation to be: the graduates walking in and out to the brother school band playing Pomp an Circumstance, opening prayers, the shining expectant faces of the girls who already know they will be the recipients of a number of academic awards, the eye rolls of the slackers who secretly wish in a way that they, too, were receiving accolades, the awkwardness, the unbalanced walking in heels as if for the first time across the stage and with great uncertainty up and down stairs, and of course speeches. Speeches meant to send of this fresh set of scholars into the realm of the real, of auspicious beginnings.

During each speech, I could not help but feel the faint sensation of nausea, and the desire to stand up in protest: Stop this celebration of mediocrity! Stop selling lies! Cease the semantics and cliched well-wishes! Granted, there were some good quotes selected, but even so I found myself inserting my own commencement speech:

The Valedictorian implores her classmates, "Never doubt yourself..." blah blah blah fulfill your dreams blah blah blah God will provide.... I say to the class of 2014 PLEASE! DOUBT YOURSELVES. Think that you may be wrong. Think that the way you see things may not be the only way, or even the right way.  Think that you don't have it all together. Think that other people are much smarter than you, much more talented than you. Think that everything you hold to be true could be turned upside down, sideways, and inside out. Doubt that you understand things. Doubt that your interpretation of what you hear and read and see corresponds with reality. Doubt that other people care about you knowing the truth. Doubt that you are smart. Doubt that you have faith. Doubt the meaning and reason behind your every action. Doubt that anything is about you. (Nothing is ever about you.)

And then once you have doubted, once you have broken down everything, rebuild.
Rebuild with the Real.

The world is full of people who think they are God's gift to humanity, that They are the chosen few. I saw, they are a chosen few who spend too much energy thinking about who they were chosen and how special they are. Stop dwelling on being chosen and work. If you can learn to live in a way that allows for more humility and less narcissism, the world will be better. Remember: The finch in the bush is the center of its own universe.

The valedictorian said to her class, "a little work can go a long way towards success." But let me clarify, my dear class of 2014 who has never really worked. Work harder than you have for anything else, but don't work for money. Work for relationships. Work to see things and people more clearly. Work to understand the world more fully. Work to create. Work to smile. Work to appreciate things. Work for balance. Work for meaning.

Mean things. TURN OFF THE POP STATION and Listen to music that tells a story. Listen to a radio play. Listen to a book. Listen to nothing. TURN OFF The REAL HOUSEWIVES and watch Stephen Hawking's mini series How the Universe Works.

Mean things.

No professor will stand over you to make sure you read,  So, read for pleasure, read for inspiration, and read to know that you were not the first person to think of something important. Read to know things. Read so that you have something to say that means something.

Finally, the one virtue that I could wish upon any graduate, or any person for that matter is courage. It takes ultimate courage to stand and face yourself. It takes courage to take responsibility for mistakes and failure and selfish or disordered motivation. See your own story so that you might get a glimpse of someone else's story. Never overestimate your vision of the truth. You may see just a pinhole of what IS, and yet you can accomplish infinite goodness if you would only know what you see and see what you know.

We are a speck on a speck on a speck, but we are also an expanding universe Capable of greatness in the tiniest most insignificant of moments. Infinity works in both directions.

I leave you, class of 2014, with Ralph Waldo Emerson's definition of success.

To laugh

                                                                      often and much,

to win respect of intelligent people

and the affection of children;

to earn the appreciation of honest critics

and endure the betrayal of false friends;

to appreciate beauty;

to find the best in others;

to leave the world a bit better

whether by a healthy child,

a garden patch, or a

redeemed social condition;

to know even one life

has breathed easier

because you have lived.This is to have succeeded.

Developmental psychology: the adolescent brain

Had a thought while reading up on the developmental process of the adolescent/teen brain. According to the text, due to the faster development of the amygdala coinciding with a slower development of the frontal cortex, teens paradoxically overestimate the riskiness of life AND underestimate the application of that risk to their own lives. So, In other words, while teens may hold a perspective that the world is more dangerous than it is, they also believe themselves immune, which would account for higher instances of risky (stupid) decisions and behavior among teens, some of which are fatal.  Binge drinking, girls walking home alone at 3 am, drunk driving, indulging in cocktail of recreational drugs the night before an exam...

ok, so this we know...

Second bit of information:
According to one study looking at how adults and teens were able to interpret emotions via facial expressions, results showed that teens are more likely to misinterpret the emotional facial expression in another than adults.

So--the highly emotional, moody, dramatic, angsty teen, the one who feels everything is less able to identify emotions in other people.
This would account, I suppose for the fact that teens rarely know what they themselves are feeling well enough to articulate it to their parents, teachers or even friends.

Would this less developed ability to interpret emotional expression fully have something to do also with teens tendency to indulge in behaviors that resulted in short term happiness, even at great risk whether emotional or physical? ---I'm happy and therefore I will continue to feel this happiness as if it will never end...imagine first love and first heartbreak. They would intellectually know that it hurts to go through a break up, but they haven't experienced a great pain before so they wouldn't be able to interpret it properly as a risk. Thus--diving in head first.

 Is the later maturation of the frontal cortext, which results in adults' superior judgement of emotional expression, possibly influenced by the results of said risky behavior in the years before? (i.e. environment affecting biological development) Can our brain actually become hard wired to make judgements that best protect us from experiencing certain pain or trauma again?

These are questions I have...