Inspiration for free

I am heartened and excited that someone relatively unknown but highly intelligent, strong, dynamic and with integrity has decided to come out of the shadows of the progressive sector of society, go into the blinding spotlight of politics, and run for President.

Now if only we had a group of people who would start something like what the Times of India did (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgHyjMgPi2Q ) and encourage brilliant, honest, and progressive people to come out and dare to run for high positions in government, then we wouldn’t have to say that every election is always a vote for the lesser evil.

Please read Nick’s email below to the end.  It’s long, but it’s worth your while.

This is the time. Enough is enough.

Stop complaining, encourage someone like Nick to run for public office.
Stop complaining, volunteer to help put good people in public office.
Stop complaining, run for office!

Spirits,
Geejay Arriola

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Dear Friends,

At the CCP arts forum held at the National Arts Center in Makiling, Laguna, which some of us Mindanao artists attended, we saw this great video entitled TOCAR y LUCHAR

The movie is about how the musician-conductor Jose Abreu set up what he calls EL SISTEMA or THE SYSTEM, which allowed for 250,000 poor youth from across Venezuela to learn and play classical music, and how they are all TRANSFORMED BY MUSIC.

The result is astounding.

The Venezuela El Sistema experience reminds us about the power of art to transform entire communities and change people’s attitudes and behaviors.  We have all been trapped in the box, looking merely to politics and economics for the answers to all our problems.  We forget that everything has to do with our belief systems–how we think and believe, and how we act upon what we think and believe.  And the most powerful, if not the only way that can transform our thoughts and belief systems, is to awaken our right brain—where art and creativity reside.

Below are two links to EL SISTEMA at www.ted.com.

“TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.  The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).”

I suggest you DOWNLOAD (zipped mp4) instead of viewing it online as it takes a while to stream.  Look for DOWNLOAD THIS TALK at the bottom of the video window, then click on Video to Desktop (Zipped mp4).  After downloading, unzip it and view it freely using windows media player, real player or divx player.

The founder of El Sistema, José Antonio Abreu, talks about El Sistema http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jose_abreu_on_kids_transformed_by_music.html :

“Music has to be recognized as an … agent of social development in the highest sense, because it transmits the highest values — solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion. And it has the ability to unite an entire community and to express sublime feelings.”

José Antonio Abreu

Meanwhile, this link leads you to Gustavo Dudamel–probably the youngest conductor in the whole world–leading the Teresa Carreno Youth Orchestra in Caracas, Valenzuela.  Gustavo was a student of Jose Abreu who moved on to conduct the best orchestras around the world, including his own country’s youth orchestras–the Teresa Carreno Youth Orchestra and Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra.  He is currently the conductor of Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/astonishing_performance_by_a_venezuelan_youth_orchestra_1.html

Tocar y Luchar may be bought at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000UHAGNO/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new.

Hope you enjoy the videos and will be inspired. (Have you noticed that videos about art put smiles on our faces and give us hope?  (examples: Arnel Pineda, Charice Pempengco, the Sound of Music at the Belgium Central Station, the dancing at the Cebu City Prison, and well, American Idol!)

Oh and by the way, while you’re at www.ted.com, you might want to go through other inspiring videos and learn from the world’s best thinkers and reformers.

-unknown author

A man carrying his cat was walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead. He remembered dying, and that the kitty in his arms had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them. After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble.

At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight. When he was standing before it, he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother of pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the cat walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side.

When he was close enough, he called out, “Excuse me, where are we?”

“This is Heaven, sir,” the man answered.

“Wow! Would you happen to have some water?” the man asked.

“Of course, sir. Come right in, and I’ll have some ice water brought right up.” The man gestured, and the gate began to open.

“Can my friend,” gesturing toward his kitty, “come in, too?” the traveler asked.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t accept pets.”

The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his cat. After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road which led through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence. As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.

“Excuse me!” he called to the reader. “Do you have any water?”

“Yeah, sure, there’s a pump over there”. The man pointed to a place that couldn’t be seen from outside the gate. “Come on in.”

“How about my friend here?” the traveler gestured to the cat.

“There should be a bowl by the pump.”

They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it. The traveler filled the bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the kitty. When they were full, he carried the cat back toward the man who was standing by the tree waiting for them.

“What do you call this place?” the traveler asked.

“This is Heaven,” was the answer.

“Well, that’s confusing,” the traveler said. “The man down the road said that was Heaven, too.”

“Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That’s Hell.”

“Doesn’t it make you mad for them to use your name like that?”

“No. I can see how you might think so, but we’re just happy that they screen out the folks who’ll leave their best friends behind.”

-from a forwarded email, author unknown

John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”

He replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or … you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood.”

“Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or…I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it.

“Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or… I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.”

“Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested.

“Yes, it is,” he said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live your life.”

I reflected on what he said. Soon thereafter, I left the tower industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back.

I saw him about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins…Wanna see my scars?”

I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.

“The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter,” he replied. “Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or…I could choose to die. I chose to live.”

“Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?” I asked.

He continued, “The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read ‘he’s a dead man’. I knew I needed to take action.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said John. “She asked if I was allergic to anything. ‘Yes, I replied.’ The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Gravity’.”

Over their laughter, I told them, “I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”

He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude… I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything.

By Sandra Mizumoto Posey, Ph.D.

Change happens slowly, but when it finally hits, the years of individual strides and steps culminate in a burst of change. Trouble is, change doesn’t always take effect in the ways we’d hoped.

When the “goddess movement” was birthed out of feminism in the early seventies by groups of women passionate about both political and personal growth, it started with small circles of women determined to use magic as a tool for change. Leading figures during this decade included such notables as Zsuzanna Budapest, Shekinah Mountainwater, and Starhawk. The Wiccan religion, which was first birthed by Gerald Gardner in the mid-twentieth century, had grown into a viable alternative religion in both Europe and America. As one of the first modern Western religions to worship a goddess as well as a god, it was a logical starting point from which feminists could build their new faith. Wicca formed the skeletal structure of the new women’s religion, including seasonal rites and the use of magic, but was altered in ways that made it truly different. Some continued to include male god imagery, but a significant variant not only focused solely on the goddess but made it a women’s mystery religion where only women attended the rites, only women were taught magic, and seasonal rites became inseparable from the cycles of a women’s body as she moved from pre-menstrual maidenhood through her post-menopausal crone years. This sect came to be known by several monikers, such as Dianic Wicca, Dianic Witchcraft, and simply “goddess religion.”

One of the primary sacred narratives of Dianic Witchcraft was built upon the idea that in civilizations past women held higher status than contemporary society and was only lessened when matriarchy gave way to patriarchy. Built upon archeological finds of female statuary interpreted to be goddesses, the idea was birthed first by scholars but only became the foundation of new religious movements when the idea had gained a foothold in feminist circles. Many of the scholars (such as Marija Gimbutas & J.J. Bachofen) who presented these ideas do not find currency any longer with most academics. This development has parallels with the larger Wiccan movement, whose own sacred narrative includes the idea that it has a direct linear connection with pre-Christian European witch-cults (as proposed by Margaret Murray), an idea which contemporary academics have long considered unfounded. However, whether or not the idea of matriarchy is in fact a viable and factual history is beside the point. The role these ideas play among contemporary Dianics and Wiccans is as sacred history, a potent symbolic web upon which ideas for a new worldview and societal change can blossom and grow. Key factors of this different society for both groups include empowerment for women and a more symbiotic relationship with nature.

Witches of either sect understand that there is magic that happens when symbols become manifest as reality in the form of tangible objects. First it is only within the realm of the groups that birthed them - jewelry and adornments with representations of goddesses and magical symbols, bumper stickers, books on nature religions, etc. - until the symbols, if not always the idea behind them, seep into a wider cultural milieu. Items such as those mentioned above move from esoteric mail order catalogs and small metaphysical shops into the women’s studies or occult sections of larger bookstores (in the case of books) or museum gift shops (in the case of deity statuary or jewelry). Spell candles now find their way into gift shops of every sort. Still, even these things are perceived by the larger public as fringe items - possibly even with satanic implications (in the case of pentacles, for example). A lack of interest may even result in their falling below their radar at all. Then, arriving with a force that makes it seem almost sudden, despite the slow trickle over several decades, goddess symbolism is everywhere. “Good Witches” have become stock characters in TV dramas from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to Aaron Spelling’s “Charmed.”

In high end beauty catalogs and stores we find Charmed World’s spell-casting kits that come with items such as “Wash that man out of your hair” shampoo and conditioner, Eau de Fortune money-drawing fragrance designed to release your inner tycoon!” and “Temptress” bubble bath in hot pink containers. The contact page of their website bears this caveat:

CharmedWorld is not affiliated with any organized religion. Rather, it is our belief that there is magic within all of us. We hope that our whimsical products empower people to be proactive in their lives and, at the same time, have some fun. We would also like to stress that our products cannot be used to bring harm to any one, nor to make any one act against their will. Have fun! And, most of all, have a “charmed” life!

The text above and at various places on their website suggest Wiccan influence without being explicitly stated. These pink potions are still in the broomcloset with regard to their inspiration. Wiccan influence can be seen in the “harm none” ethic voiced above as well and in the text of one of the spells: “I beseech thee, dear Goddess, let it be true. So be it!”

Despite their assertion that products cannot be used to “make anyone act against their will” their descriptions for their spell kits belie their stated ethics. The Tie the Knot magical spell, for example, bears this description:

Would your man rather have a root canal than discuss your “future”? Do weddings make him comatose? Does he cringe everytime you pass a jewelry store? Help him lose those ball-and-chain blues, cast this spell to get to the “I do’s.”

Less explicitly witchy and even more mainstream is Jacqua Girls “Goddess Gathering Kit.” According to their website, Jacqua Girls products has “distribution to more than 2,000 prestige gift shops, specialty and department stores in the United States, England, Canada, Germany, Scandinavia, France, New Zealand, Japan and Hong Kong.” Package details state:

• Juturna Aromatherapy Spray
• Isis Jasmine Incense
• Kali Herbal Foot soak
• Gaia Clay Mud Mask
• Aphrodite Jojoba Lotion
• Wish Boxes
• Hestia candle
• Bindis
• Henna Tattoos
• Invitations

Get all your goddess girlfriends together for a night of rituals, and beauty to bring out the best in your life. Includes for 4 people: Women have been gathering for thousands of years to share in story-telling, ritual, beauty, and bonding. In this fast-paced world we seldom take the time to gather in this ancient way. This kit was created to encourage you to gather with your friends for a meaningful and memorable time and discover your true goddess potential. So may it be!

Here again a Wiccan influence can be detected in the phrase “So may it be” and the names of popular goddesses, but otherwise the kit makes no mention of spirituality. Instead, the intent is to “discover your true goddess potential.” As goddess imagery seeps further and further into popular culture, the word goddess begins to shed its religious implications and seems to connote beauty with a liberal dash of female bonding thrown in. Here, we make wishes, not magick. Dark and powerful Kali is relegated to soothing tired feet.

The Go Goddess game also doesn’t make any mention of magic or religion (though they do refer obliquely to spirituality and include “chakra-colored candles”), but does borrow a phrase from Dianic Witchcraft, paraphrased prominently on their website: “What does a goddess look like? Look in the mirror. You are a goddess.” Below this, the creators state that the Go Goddess game is:

. . .an enriching catalyst to realize our dreams, recreate our lives and fulfill our unique potential.By bringing women together to share life’s experiences, Go Goddess! is a great way to connect with friends, make new ones, and realize the goddess that’s blossoming within each of us. There are no right or wrong answers, and no judgments. Go Goddess! is a concept for living, a spiritual oasis that bathes you in positive, supportive energies, and inspires you to be the best you can be - to be the best mate, mother, sister, daughter, lover and friend. That’s what we all want, isn’t it?

Unlike the Jacqua Girls kit, the Go Goddess game leans more heavily toward female bonding and empowerment than beauty. This is pop psychology with a Goddess twist rather than either religion or cosmetics, but it seems clear that our beloved goddess is destined to attain pop culture saturation as a synonym for beauty - hairless beauty.

The most audacious use of goddess imagery is without a doubt the Gillette Venus Razor for women. The television commercial for this product pans over dozens of svelte women in white bathing suits kicking their smooth hairless legs to the pop tune lyric “I’m your Venus.” The close-up of the razor itself reveals a handle shaped to look like a woman’s body with her arms raised above her, much like the Nile river goddess. The slogan for this product, “Reveal the Goddess in You” (which is, by the way, trademarked) suggests that the word goddess, here, refers to a woman finally free of all that unwanted body hair.

As much as we want to believe in symbols as archetypes that shape our consciousness as a species, symbols evolve and meanings change. The fact of the matter is that once the meaning has changed, it loses some of its power even for those who embrace it. The use of the swastika by the Nazis has never regained its luster. An extreme example, to be sure, but the goals of feminist witches have never been modest. They seek to change the world for the better, but unfortunately much of the world does not want to change with them.

Document Copyright © 2001 Spiritualitea.com & Sandra Mizumoto Posey, Ph.D., author of Cafe Nation: Coffee Folklore, Magick, & Divination (Santa Monica Press, 2000). This article may be reproduced as long as no changes, additions or deletions are made to the text. All the information in this paragraph must be included on the document whenever it is distributed or reproduced.

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Geejay Arriola