My title is a quote from Buhdy yesterday in response to this comment from undercovercalico:

Female sexuality and the right to express it freely in any manifestation/identity is still really one of the corner stone threats to authoritarianism.

One of my favorite genres of books is autobiographies of everyday women from around the world. I’ve read tons of them and I remember at one point I recognized the theme that seemed to always emerge, whether it was burka’s in the Middle East, foot-binding in China, genital mutilation in parts of Africa, or chastity belts in Europe. The message was not only that women needed to be controlled, but more specifically, their sexuality needed to be controlled.

Many before me have come to this same conclusion. But the question still remains, why is it that women’s freely expressed sexuality is such a threat? What might change in this world if women were allowed individual choice about who to have sex with and when?

This is going to be a short essay because my purpose in writing it is to send you on your way to a web site that I think will touch your soul. Its a photographic exhibit, but its so much more than that.

The photographer is Gregory Colbert and here’s how he describes his work:

In exploring the shared language and poetic sensibilities of all animals, I am working towards rediscovering the common ground that once existed when people lived in harmony with animals. The images depict a world that is without beginning or end, here or there, past or present.

The exhibit can be viewed at ashes and snow. I suggest you take a look and follow the “Enhanced Experience” (if your computer will allow it) to the “Explore” option. Your soul will thank you.

I got out my crystal ball this morning to take a look into the future.

I’m particularly interested today in how things will look after January 2009. I really didn’t need the crystal ball to figure out where we’ll be if John McCain is elected…pretty much same old slide into oblivion. Nothing new there, move along.

What really interests me is to think about how things will look if we have a Democratic president (right now signs look good for Obama, but who knows?) and a Democratic Congress. For some in the blogosphere, this would spell n-i-r-v-a-n-a. But I think most of us here are pretty sure that will not be the case. The analogy for me is that we might have accomplished triage, but the patient still needs major surgery. Given the stage of the wounds both we in this country and the world are experiencing now, triage is necessary but insufficient for healing.  

I hear alot of talk on blogs that centers on trying to figure out how to change people. Its not so much psychobabble as it is trying to figure out how we can get people to open their eyes and see things differently. But its also about trying to figure out how we can get people to make the kind of changes in their lives that will save the planet, reduce consumption, vote for the right person, protest unjust wars and policies, etc.

Today I’m going back to square one and asking whether or not this is possible…do people really change? Those of you who know a bit about my story might find that a strange question coming from me. I was raised mostly in East Texas in a family/community that is extremely right-wing fundamentalist christian. And up until I started openly asking questions in my 20’s, I bought it all. So if I’m any example, of course people can change…and alot!

But the question for me is not so much did I change, but did I find what was there in the first place. This might seem like a distinction without a difference to some, but I think its extremely important when we think about how we approach the goal of trying to increase the ranks of people who are willing to stand up and fight for the causes we espouse.

A blog friend of mine recently told me about a video that I think many here at Docudharma might find interesting. The speaker is Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist who teaches at the Indiana University School of Medicine. After years of studying the brain and its chemistry, she had a stoke, and learned some amazing things from the experience. She recently gave a speech titled “Stroke of Insight” at a TED conference where it is summarized like this:

This is a powerful story of recovery and awareness — of how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.

(The speech is about 18 minutes. But its well worth the time)

Its Easter today and spring  came this week – or so says the calendar. I’m not a Christian, so I’m not celebrating Easter. But I do love the messages associated with this time of year… renewal, rebirth, light from darkness.

This last week has felt confusing to me as we observed the fifth anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq followed almost immediately by the advent of spring. It felt like the darkest of nights was pressed too close for comfort against the possibilities of a new day. Emotionally I haven’t been able to move that fast. And just to underscore the point, we’ve gotten 5-6 inches of snow where I live in the last two days and it is snowing again this morning as I write. Indeed old man winter is fighting to give way to the coming of spring.

I know that all of my well-informed Dharmaniac friends have already watched and read about Obama’s speech today on race. But just in case, here’s a link to the transcript of A More Perfect Union and the youtube recording:

I’d like to highlight some parts of the speech that I thought were important and hear from any of you who care to comment about what you thought. I’m not interested in the politics of this speech and its impact on the election. Nor am I interested in hearing Obama “denounce” Reverend Wright enough to satisfy the US exceptionalists. What I’m interested in is his definition of the problem of race in this country and the potential remedies to which he points.  

Sometimes I wonder if four people who have so little in common in how they have lived their lives can all be said to be of the same species. And yet, that is what we have here. Four examples of human beings. My question is this…how does that happen? Perhaps for some of you, this is not an important question. But to me, it might be the biggest of them all. I obviously want to understand how someone becomes like Archbishop Tutu as opposed to Dick Cheney because I want more Tutus and less Cheneys. If we can begin to understand how that happens, maybe we can start to fix things, at least for the future.

Of course, some would call it fate or the will of God. I don’t buy that. The other way of looking at it involves the nature vs nurture debate. As is our normal habit, we tend to see these things as polarities, ie, its either genetics or environment. If it’s all genetics, we’re back to fate and the whole question is a moot point. But if environment plays a role, then we have something to work with.

To return to harmony…we must realign our gestures into those of dancers. We must become beings who do not wish to control life, but only to listen to its music, and dance it.

from The Great Cosmic Mother by Monica Sjoo and Barbara Mor

We cover music, poetry, literature and other arts all the time here. I thought it was time for some dancing. I’m absolutely addicted to the tv show “So You Think You Can Dance.” Here’s Jamie and Hok dancing “The Hummingbird and the Flower”

From The Culture of Make Believe by Derrick Jensen:

In the United States about forty-two thousand people die per year because of auto collisions, nearly as many as the total number of Americans killed in Vietnam. Everybody knows someone who has died or been seriously injured in a car crash, yet cars have insinuated themselves into our social life – and our psyches – so thoroughly that we somehow accept these deaths as inevitable, or not shocking, as opposed to perceiving them for what they are: a direct and predictable result of choosing to base our economic and social systems on this particular piece of technology.

His words hit me on two levels. First of all, he makes a good point about our acceptance of the loss of life as a price we are willing to pay for the freedom to drive wherever we want whenever we want (not to mention all of the other costs like dependence of foreign oil and all of the money and blood that has been wasted in that pursuit).

But on another level, this kind of thinking gets under my skin. How many others ways have we been conditioned to accept the idea of death and destruction in ways that we haven’t even been thinking about?

Years ago I worked as a Family Therapist in a shelter for runaway youth. For some reason, I’ve been thinking lately about one of the last families I worked with in that position. The lessons they taught me have stuck with me for years now. And perhaps I’d like to give voice to the amazing courage I saw on display.

The story starts with 14 year old Amy running away from home. She spent a few days at the shelter and then I met with Amy, her adoptive mother Jackie and her adoptive younger sister Jessica. Jackie had adopted both of these girls after major physical and sexual abuse in their young lives. She had also adopted an older boy who had sexually molested Jessica in her home and been removed. I never met him.

In the first meeting I was a little concerned at how harsh Jackie was with the two girls. There was a group of my colleagues who observed the session behind a one-way mirror who criticized me afterwards for not intervening on behalf of the girls. But something in me told me to leave it be…so I did.

I went on to work with Jackie, Amy and Jessica over a period of a few months. And Jackie became a hero of mine. I was awed by her commitment to these girls no matter what. She loved and cared for them with a fierceness that only a very strong woman could do.