Fighters Get Scared Too

My mother shared a most insightful passage she wrote on a brief mental respite at her work table, amidst a tsunami of files and papers where she is regularly found toiling over a paper, article, appeal,  or judgment for her clients or the human rights movement. She has spent the past 30+ years of her life working for and attending to the business of educating, supporting, and winning equal rights battles and lobbying for law reform for women, children, and all, in various organizations and international courts. 

Her sacrifices for the struggles of others are countless, and frankly the workload is mind boggling. Her efforts take her all over the world hearing stories and cases of unimaginable atrocities which she simply cannot abide, and so she barrels forth beyond any reasonable expectation and often with little reward or at personal cost, with a tireless dedication and optimism that floors me.  I could never hope to step into the shoes of such a woman, but I was touched to be let into a vulnerable outpouring of her heart in this impromptu passage that has thankfully been legally released for my blog (haha!):

My Struggle

They praise my work for the rights of women and children - in fact for the enjoyment of human rights by all.  But do they know?

Do they know the fears?

Do they know the doubts?

Do they know the nervousness?

Do they know the exhaustion? 

Do they know the passion and the energy it takes to overcome these things, and which push me on to do, to speak, to write, to present, to lobby, to participate?

Do they know the prayers I say for strength, for inspiration, for knowledge, for understanding, for patience, for consistency?

Do they know?

Do they even care to know?

Does it matter if they know, if it's what I must do to fulfill my life,  when I chose my struggle as the soul transporter of my purpose?

Margarette May Macaulay, July 11, 2010

SUPPORT POST: ArtsLawRoundUp

So usually I'm waxing on about feelings, creativity, shows, or some sort of community project. 

Now it's time for the business of art people, and no better way to get yourself prepared than to arm yourself with knowledge, specifically legal facts and rights pertaining to your work.  I'm talkin' copyright issues, contracts, licensing, advertising, creative commons, rights to credit, patents, etc, etc, et al.  

My dear friend Justin Lynch, attorney-at-law AND pianist AND dancer (yes, you read that right) started a blog that addresses all these issues factually, patiently, humoursly, and thoroughly (and always with additional sources) which will leave you less frightened and better armed for protecting your work.  

Leap off this page, check it, and Subscribe!  Where else are you gonna get legal advice from a lawyer who is also an artist?!

 

If...Just for Comfort

Simply aiming for comfort has come to be seen as shooting low, or settling for less - especially in careers, and certainly in relationships.  Since we know I choose constant change and upheaval in the former, I mean heretofore to focus on the latter.  

At present (for this may change), I propose that just because someone impresses you doesn't mean they will be the next love of your life.  And if it looks like this miracle may not be the case, do you walk?  'Yes' some of you may say, but this is what defines the youthful heart I think, which is easily impressed by the magnetic qualities of the object of desire and equating this to that of undeniable love.  
When you 'grow up', and have enough affairs in life however, you learn that a person can be endlessly interesting yet never grips your heart, while a most ordinary soul can enchant you for life.  

Mutual admiration of the hot chemical kind  offers experiences or delights  with exciting fitful tales, but at a certain age, is this height of elation a necessary experience, let alone an automatic inclusion in our personal narratives? Evolutionary biology and psychology show that the timing of our most heated affairs and loves are aligned perfectly with our most fertile, hormonal, energetic years - when we are blind enough to create or believe the singularly aimed love-hype of 'forever after', and, also  whilst we are fit enough for the turmoil all that preposterous or near pathological energy often leaves in its wake.   

We are all taught either directly or indirectly from a young age that we should look for the impossible in a mate; find a  soul that 'completes' us, challenges and delights us, loves us endlessly, unconditionally, AND should be resident in a preternaturally attractive body which should remain that way...for eternity; any thing less being a most unsettling compromise. And no matter how you may have started out: in a bewilderingly beautiful and adrenalized love affair, or, a befouling catastophic event  - you still, in youth, believe this, wish, hope, and look for this tall tale whether you care to admit it or not. 

Then a bit more life happens. And it becomes distastefully apparent that alas, eternity in life (pardon the paradox, but it's what the fairy tales sell, right?), let alone with another, is not meant for some of us mere mortals.   And with one disappointing reality check (aka highway-of-love-heart-wreck) after another, we eventually rewrite the fantasy, the very tale that perhaps set the blind spots in place for all those collisions.

We retreat, we heal, we spend time with ourselves, we create some quiet, and then...we don't look; rather we hold exclusively open auditions (I know, oxymoron again) for someone to share the quiet with.  We become satisfied with the idea of someone filling a less complex role than 'soul mate' or 'self-completer'; we find we can only open up to  someone who is clear, calm, direct, and free of the indefatigable grand arias of yada-forever-bull-cah-cah; you know, someone who can just keep it real.  And if we find them, we herald them publicly as a wholesome catch summed up simply as "there's just no drama."  

I scream on my behalf on this one.  Heaven knows, the gods have ensured throughout my life and so therefore know, my great fortune in love, or at least, in affairs.  I have swept, and been swept off my feet by dashing novas in ways meant only for the movies to be sure, and much to the envy of those who've heard or witnessed my inordinately epic (and sometimes ridiculous) romances.  But - but, at this point the only thing I look for in my new tailor-made fantasies can be satisfied by far less frills, pomp, and unsustainable circumstance. Of course I still want fun adventures, but I also want to relax while having them.  I just want to be...sigh...comfortable.

If... 

If I were but a leaf
    falling from the burdened weight of your weary limbs,
I would waft my way
    through the spaces of your turbulent sways
Leaving drops of my chlorophyll spies
    to fill your horizon with shades of new life.

But here I stick to my heavy branch
    Too weary to detach
My stems uncertain, heaving doubtful sighs;
   eyes blinded by colourless promises in cloudless skies,

Hope floats beyond the shifting spaces,        

    hiding plainly from our weeping lies.

PS. Nothing to do with the topic at hand but, 

here's a great relaxation technique...rock balancing.  

seriously - try it.  

:)

Warm Light and Love

Vanity and fear are based

on a false idea of self that cannot be nurtured or maintained.

It only consumes the essence of the soul,

beating the heart into stone cold submission of blinding parasites.

Staying true keeps the heart open, calm, graciously clear-sighted, and warm;

this happens only through service and love.

foto by SeBiArt - Hellshire Heights, JA

thanks to my friends for keeping me warm...

originally posted on Facebook, August 2010